Degree Contract Job Trends

Academic Degree
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 4 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,400 2,207 3,480
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.90% 7.66% 8.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.55% 24.62% 27.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,329 1,269 1,886
10th Percentile £218 £235 £225
25th Percentile £375 £363 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £725 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +2.78% -7.69% +0.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 174 417
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.59 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.00 £22.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.68% +30.37% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £45.01 £40.66
% change year-on-year +22.20% +10.69% -18.32%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

Degree falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 15,439 8,965 12,823
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.55% 31.10% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,238 5,610 7,971
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £619 £644
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.30% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,130 536 1,100
10th Percentile £16.98 £17.71 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.04 £18.18
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.85% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.87 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £76.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.05 £41.27
% change year-on-year +48.21% -22.33% -21.40%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Degree job vacancy trend in the UK

Degree
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 4 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Degree

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 4 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Degree within the UK over the 6 months to 4 June 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -10 2,140 £500 - 3,637
UK excluding London -8 1,307 £463 +2.78% 2,347
London -17 908 £515 -6.36% 1,636
Work from Home -14 649 £500 -2.72% 1,872
South East 0 379 £500 +5.26% 734
North of England -15 329 £447 -3.35% 500
Midlands -22 208 £503 +40.36% 301
North West -5 181 £417 -11.09% 267
West Midlands -29 148 £475 +15.15% 187
East of England -6 138 £450 -10.00% 272
Yorkshire -15 133 £475 +6.26% 166
South West -20 123 £485 +0.21% 312
Scotland -20 92 £500 +11.11% 119
East Midlands -16 58 £537 +50.84% 114
Wales -23 27 £450 +45.75% 57
Northern Ireland -3 16 £254 -18.72% 106
North East -30 15 £450 +130.77% 74

Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 133 (5.54%) Confluence
2 128 (5.33%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.13%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (1.00%) Apache
7 11 (0.46%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.25%) SAS
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.083%) nginx
13 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
Applications
1 265 (11.04%) Microsoft Office
2 222 (9.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 138 (5.75%) Microsoft Project
4 131 (5.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.63%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.42%) Simulink
10 9 (0.38%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 7 (0.29%) Trello
13 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
14 4 (0.17%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.58%) Primavera
4 11 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.17%) HFM
10 4 (0.17%) Magento
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.17%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 527 (21.96%) Azure
2 311 (12.96%) AWS
3 201 (8.38%) Microsoft 365
4 186 (7.75%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.08%) Entra ID
6 106 (4.42%) GCP
7 85 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.50%) SaaS
9 62 (2.58%) GitHub
10 44 (1.83%) Figma
11 38 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.42%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.33%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.29%) PaaS
15 29 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.21%) Power Automate
15 29 (1.21%) Serverless
16 28 (1.17%) OneDrive
16 28 (1.17%) PowerApps
17 27 (1.13%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.58%) Firewall
2 74 (3.08%) TCP/IP
3 72 (3.00%) DNS
4 61 (2.54%) Network Security
5 55 (2.29%) WAN
6 51 (2.13%) LAN
7 39 (1.63%) VPN
8 27 (1.13%) BGP
8 27 (1.13%) DHCP
9 24 (1.00%) OSPF
9 24 (1.00%) Wireless
10 23 (0.96%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.71%) SAN
12 17 (0.71%) Skype
13 15 (0.63%) SSL
14 14 (0.58%) HTTP
14 14 (0.58%) VLAN
14 14 (0.58%) VXLAN
15 12 (0.50%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (6.38%) Power BI
2 108 (4.50%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.08%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.92%) Big Data
7 39 (1.63%) Metadata
8 38 (1.58%) Tableau
9 36 (1.50%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
11 27 (1.13%) MySQL
12 25 (1.04%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.88%) Data Lake
14 19 (0.79%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
16 16 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
19 11 (0.46%) GIS
19 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 219 (9.13%) JIRA
2 114 (4.75%) Git
3 48 (2.00%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.79%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.79%) MLflow
6 19 (0.79%) Selenium
6 19 (0.79%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.58%) Cucumber
7 14 (0.58%) Gradle
7 14 (0.58%) Postman
8 13 (0.54%) JUnit
9 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.46%) TeamCity
11 10 (0.42%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.42%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.29%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,108 (46.17%) Social Skills
2 746 (31.08%) Finance
3 482 (20.08%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.79%) Banking
5 198 (8.25%) Public Sector
6 136 (5.67%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.04%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.13%) Marketing
9 85 (3.54%) Legal
10 84 (3.50%) Aerospace
11 80 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
12 77 (3.21%) Manufacturing
13 70 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
14 66 (2.75%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.25%) Law
16 51 (2.13%) Retail
17 46 (1.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.67%) Front Office
19 39 (1.63%) Investment Banking
20 38 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 352 (14.67%) Analyst
2 273 (11.38%) Senior
3 193 (8.04%) Architect
4 183 (7.63%) Lead
5 169 (7.04%) Developer
6 161 (6.71%) Project Manager
7 155 (6.46%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.79%) Senior Analyst
10 66 (2.75%) Designer
11 65 (2.71%) Consultant
12 60 (2.50%) Software Engineer
13 57 (2.38%) Technical Support
14 54 (2.25%) Security Engineer
15 53 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
15 53 (2.21%) Senior Manager
16 47 (1.96%) Product Manager
17 46 (1.92%) Administrator
17 46 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
18 44 (1.83%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.42%) REST
2 86 (3.58%) .NET
3 66 (2.75%) React
4 53 (2.21%) Kafka
5 52 (2.17%) Middleware
6 49 (2.04%) HTML
7 48 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
8 44 (1.83%) RESTful
9 40 (1.67%) CSS
10 35 (1.46%) .NET Framework
10 35 (1.46%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.33%) XML
12 30 (1.25%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.25%) Spring
13 29 (1.21%) OAuth
13 29 (1.21%) SOAP
14 28 (1.17%) Web Services
15 27 (1.13%) JSON
15 27 (1.13%) Pandas
15 27 (1.13%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 182 (7.58%) Management Information System
2 140 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.54%) Onboarding
4 96 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
5 92 (3.83%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.83%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.67%) Virtual Team
8 60 (2.50%) Algorithms
8 60 (2.50%) Data Structures
9 54 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
10 50 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
11 46 (1.92%) PMI
12 42 (1.75%) Operational Technology
13 40 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
14 38 (1.58%) Robotics
14 38 (1.58%) Security Posture
15 35 (1.46%) Life Science
16 32 (1.33%) Derivative
17 31 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
18 30 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 307 (12.79%) Windows
2 188 (7.83%) Linux
3 73 (3.04%) Unix
4 70 (2.92%) Windows Server
5 61 (2.54%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.29%) Android
8 28 (1.17%) Mac OS
9 26 (1.08%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.33%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) AIX
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 7 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Solaris
13 4 (0.17%) VMS
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 831 (34.63%) Computer Science
2 645 (26.88%) Agile
3 630 (26.25%) Problem-Solving
4 366 (15.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 358 (14.92%) Continuous Improvement
6 347 (14.46%) AI
7 322 (13.42%) DevOps
8 291 (12.13%) Project Management
9 289 (12.04%) CI/CD
10 259 (10.79%) Analytics
11 253 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 252 (10.50%) Decision-Making
13 238 (9.92%) Cybersecurity
14 230 (9.58%) Migration
15 228 (9.50%) Change Management
16 212 (8.83%) Software Engineering
17 210 (8.75%) Roadmaps
18 206 (8.58%) ITIL
19 188 (7.83%) Risk Management
20 184 (7.67%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 392 (16.33%) Python
2 367 (15.29%) SQL
3 184 (7.67%) Java
4 118 (4.92%) PowerShell
5 96 (4.00%) C#
6 93 (3.88%) JavaScript
7 61 (2.54%) C++
8 41 (1.71%) Bash
9 33 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.08%) R
11 23 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.92%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.75%) C
14 16 (0.67%) Rust
15 15 (0.63%) Perl
15 15 (0.63%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.58%) Go
16 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 9 (0.38%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 513 (21.38%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (17.71%) Security Cleared
3 284 (11.83%) SC Cleared
4 262 (10.92%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.75%) PMI Certification
6 119 (4.96%) CISSP
7 118 (4.92%) PMP
8 83 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (3.29%) Microsoft Certification
10 67 (2.79%) CISM
11 66 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
12 62 (2.58%) DV Cleared
13 57 (2.38%) Azure Certification
14 46 (1.92%) CCNP
14 46 (1.92%) PhD
15 38 (1.58%) TOGAF Certification
16 37 (1.54%) CCNA
17 36 (1.50%) CBAP
18 34 (1.42%) AWS Certification
18 34 (1.42%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (5.92%) QA
2 110 (4.58%) NIST
3 109 (4.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 108 (4.50%) Data Quality
5 103 (4.29%) PMO
6 102 (4.25%) GDPR
7 52 (2.17%) Accessibility
8 49 (2.04%) SLA
9 41 (1.71%) PCI DSS
10 30 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.08%) GRC
12 19 (0.79%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.67%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.46%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 159 (6.63%) Active Directory
2 138 (5.75%) Docker
3 38 (1.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.96%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.25%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) NFS
10 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.083%) HDFS
11 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 153 (6.38%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.46%) Terraform
3 73 (3.04%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.46%) Ansible
5 40 (1.67%) Grafana
6 36 (1.50%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.50%) SCCM
7 20 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.54%) Puppet
10 12 (0.50%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.38%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.38%) Kiali
11 9 (0.38%) Kibana
11 9 (0.38%) WSUS
12 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.33%) Nessus
12 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.25%) Nmap
Vendors
1 543 (22.63%) Microsoft
2 176 (7.33%) Oracle
3 141 (5.88%) SAP
4 102 (4.25%) ServiceNow
5 89 (3.71%) Google
6 77 (3.21%) Cisco
7 61 (2.54%) Databricks
8 57 (2.38%) Splunk
9 45 (1.88%) Adobe
9 45 (1.88%) Citrix
9 45 (1.88%) Salesforce
9 45 (1.88%) VMware
10 39 (1.63%) IBM
11 34 (1.42%) Palo Alto
12 32 (1.33%) CheckPoint
13 25 (1.04%) Red Hat
14 21 (0.88%) Aruba
14 21 (0.88%) Fortinet
14 21 (0.88%) Informatica
14 21 (0.88%) Siemens