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 12 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,570 2,307 3,753
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.02% 7.84% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.78% 25.84% 27.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,500 1,321 2,074
10th Percentile £285 £225 £209
25th Percentile £400 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £507
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +0.54% -5.63%
75th Percentile £626 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £788 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.21% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 165 372
10th Percentile £15.51 £20.68 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.19 £29.00 £20.98
Median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +1.02% +24.84% -19.90%
75th Percentile £80.00 £71.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £43.75 £36.05
% change year-on-year +3.91% +21.38% -19.90%

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 14,452 8,928 13,610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.85% 30.34% 30.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,498 5,622 8,401
10th Percentile £331 £285 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.73% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £615 £626 £650
90th Percentile £723 £725 £736
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £512 £525
% change year-on-year -2.39% -2.43% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,081 465 1,034
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.66 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.72 £24.18 £18.15
Median hourly rate £28.50 £42.50 £39.44
Median % change year-on-year -32.94% +7.77% -21.13%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £62.47
90th Percentile £83.75 £81.80 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -16.67%

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 12 March 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 12 March 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 12 March 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 -4 2,238 £500 -4.76% 2,648
UK excluding London -6 1,346 £490 +3.21% 2,078
London -13 977 £513 -6.82% 950
Work from Home -3 704 £500 -4.76% 1,014
South East -3 353 £488 -2.50% 673
North of England -7 346 £438 -12.50% 504
Midlands -19 209 £500 +40.45% 325
North West -2 180 £400 -19.76% 266
South West +4 163 £688 +25.00% 231
West Midlands -23 152 £498 +26.59% 195
Yorkshire -14 150 £504 +0.75% 178
East of England -8 133 £500 +2.77% 223
Scotland -3 107 £525 +19.66% 106
East Midlands -16 56 £525 +47.47% 130
Wales -10 45 £282 -2.20% 62
North East -14 17 £364 -27.20% 65
Northern Ireland -14 16 £388 -8.82% 17

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
1 210 (8.17%) Confluence
2 115 (4.47%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 57 (2.22%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.19%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.16%) IIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 4 (0.16%) Skype for Business
10 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 309 (12.02%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 201 (7.82%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (4.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (2.80%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
8 15 (0.58%) Simulink
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 8 (0.31%) Sketch
11 6 (0.23%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.078%) InDesign
14 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
15 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
15 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 68 (2.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
2 26 (1.01%) Primavera
3 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
4 11 (0.43%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 551 (21.44%) Azure
2 308 (11.98%) AWS
3 208 (8.09%) Microsoft 365
4 201 (7.82%) Power Platform
5 148 (5.76%) GCP
6 114 (4.44%) Entra ID
7 112 (4.36%) SaaS
8 100 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
9 88 (3.42%) GitHub
10 53 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.91%) Serverless
12 45 (1.75%) Cloud Computing
13 40 (1.56%) Snowflake
14 39 (1.52%) Power Automate
15 32 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.25%) IaaS
15 32 (1.25%) PaaS
16 29 (1.13%) OCI
16 29 (1.13%) PowerApps
17 28 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 118 (4.59%) Firewall
2 61 (2.37%) TCP/IP
2 61 (2.37%) WAN
3 60 (2.33%) DNS
4 59 (2.30%) LAN
5 50 (1.95%) Network Security
6 41 (1.60%) VPN
7 31 (1.21%) Ethernet
8 29 (1.13%) HTTP
8 29 (1.13%) Wireless
9 28 (1.09%) BGP
10 26 (1.01%) Skype
11 25 (0.97%) Internet
12 23 (0.89%) OSPF
12 23 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (0.82%) DHCP
14 20 (0.78%) VLAN
15 18 (0.70%) SSL
16 17 (0.66%) Unified Communications
17 15 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (6.15%) Power BI
2 100 (3.89%) PostgreSQL
3 97 (3.77%) SQL Server
4 62 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
4 62 (2.41%) NoSQL
5 52 (2.02%) Big Data
6 48 (1.87%) Tableau
7 47 (1.83%) Relational Database
8 42 (1.63%) MySQL
9 33 (1.28%) Metadata
10 32 (1.25%) Data Lake
11 30 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 25 (0.97%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.58%) GIS
16 12 (0.47%) BigQuery
16 12 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
16 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
17 11 (0.43%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 299 (11.63%) JIRA
2 130 (5.06%) Git
3 74 (2.88%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.22%) GitLab
5 27 (1.05%) Rational DOORS
5 27 (1.05%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.82%) Selenium
7 16 (0.62%) Postman
8 14 (0.54%) MLflow
9 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.43%) Liquibase
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Gradle
13 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.27%) JMeter
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,259 (48.99%) Social Skills
2 798 (31.05%) Finance
3 581 (22.61%) Analytical Skills
4 251 (9.77%) Banking
5 225 (8.75%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
7 107 (4.16%) Organisational Skills
8 94 (3.66%) Marketing
9 90 (3.50%) Manufacturing
10 89 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
11 88 (3.42%) Documentation Skills
12 77 (3.00%) Legal
13 66 (2.57%) Aerospace
14 61 (2.37%) Military
15 60 (2.33%) Telecoms
16 52 (2.02%) Financial Institution
17 49 (1.91%) Front Office
17 49 (1.91%) Retail
18 47 (1.83%) Electronics
18 47 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 362 (14.09%) Analyst
2 250 (9.73%) Senior
3 216 (8.40%) Lead
4 208 (8.09%) Architect
5 205 (7.98%) Developer
6 183 (7.12%) Project Manager
7 166 (6.46%) Business Analyst
8 100 (3.89%) Consultant
9 73 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
10 68 (2.65%) Software Engineer
11 62 (2.41%) Delivery Manager
11 62 (2.41%) Technical Support
12 61 (2.37%) Security Engineer
13 55 (2.14%) Senior Analyst
14 49 (1.91%) Data Scientist
15 48 (1.87%) Designer
15 48 (1.87%) IT Support
16 44 (1.71%) Product Manager
17 39 (1.52%) Technical Analyst
18 38 (1.48%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.36%) REST
2 75 (2.92%) .NET
3 65 (2.53%) RESTful
4 64 (2.49%) React
5 63 (2.45%) HTML
6 52 (2.02%) CSS
7 51 (1.98%) Middleware
8 47 (1.83%) Kafka
9 41 (1.60%) PyTorch
9 41 (1.60%) TensorFlow
10 40 (1.56%) Elastic Stack
11 39 (1.52%) JSON
11 39 (1.52%) SOAP
11 39 (1.52%) XML
12 37 (1.44%) Oracle Fusion
13 36 (1.40%) OAuth
14 35 (1.36%) Spring
15 30 (1.17%) Pandas
15 30 (1.17%) Spring Boot
16 28 (1.09%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 213 (8.29%) Management Information System
2 163 (6.34%) Product Ownership
3 117 (4.55%) Onboarding
4 114 (4.44%) Cloud Native
5 91 (3.54%) Algorithms
6 82 (3.19%) Virtual Team
7 69 (2.68%) Data Centre
7 69 (2.68%) Distributed Systems
8 66 (2.57%) Self-Motivation
9 63 (2.45%) Data Structures
10 57 (2.22%) PMI
11 56 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
12 53 (2.06%) Analytical Mindset
13 47 (1.83%) Derivative
14 43 (1.67%) Security Posture
15 39 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
16 35 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
17 34 (1.32%) NHS
18 32 (1.25%) Life Science
18 32 (1.25%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 299 (11.63%) Windows
2 192 (7.47%) Linux
3 76 (2.96%) Unix
4 74 (2.88%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.22%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.09%) Android
7 24 (0.93%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 13 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.23%) VMS
15 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 958 (37.28%) Computer Science
2 805 (31.32%) Agile
3 708 (27.55%) Problem-Solving
4 426 (16.58%) Stakeholder Management
5 380 (14.79%) DevOps
6 362 (14.09%) AI
7 339 (13.19%) Project Management
8 337 (13.11%) Continuous Improvement
9 311 (12.10%) CI/CD
10 291 (11.32%) Analytics
11 283 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 279 (10.86%) Change Management
13 276 (10.74%) Cybersecurity
14 270 (10.51%) Decision-Making
15 260 (10.12%) Migration
16 258 (10.04%) ITIL
17 237 (9.22%) Project Delivery
18 234 (9.11%) Risk Management
19 232 (9.03%) Software Engineering
20 225 (8.75%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 449 (17.47%) Python
2 379 (14.75%) SQL
3 179 (6.96%) Java
4 129 (5.02%) PowerShell
5 104 (4.05%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.23%) C#
7 76 (2.96%) C++
8 55 (2.14%) TypeScript
9 47 (1.83%) Bash
10 41 (1.60%) Go
11 30 (1.17%) R
12 26 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.78%) Perl
15 16 (0.62%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.58%) Rust
16 15 (0.58%) SystemVerilog
16 15 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.54%) C
18 13 (0.51%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 606 (23.58%) Computer Science Degree
2 494 (19.22%) Security Cleared
3 390 (15.18%) Master's Degree
4 355 (13.81%) SC Cleared
5 153 (5.95%) PMI Certification
6 134 (5.21%) CISSP
7 129 (5.02%) PMP
8 91 (3.54%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.31%) CISM
10 76 (2.96%) PhD
11 73 (2.84%) TOGAF Certification
12 70 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
13 65 (2.53%) Azure Certification
14 64 (2.49%) Cisco Certification
15 58 (2.26%) DV Cleared
16 41 (1.60%) CCNP
17 39 (1.52%) MBA
18 37 (1.44%) AWS Certification
19 33 (1.28%) CBAP
20 32 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (6.46%) QA
2 138 (5.37%) GDPR
3 111 (4.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 109 (4.24%) PMO
5 96 (3.74%) NIST
6 94 (3.66%) Data Quality
7 50 (1.95%) PCI DSS
8 46 (1.79%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.56%) SLA
10 32 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (1.05%) GRC
12 21 (0.82%) NCSC
13 19 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.70%) WCAG
15 17 (0.66%) HIPAA
16 16 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.54%) Basel III
17 14 (0.54%) IFRS
18 13 (0.51%) DO-254
19 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 189 (7.35%) Docker
2 162 (6.30%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.78%) Firmware
5 18 (0.70%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.23%) vSphere
8 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.19%) XenApp
8 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) NDS
9 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.078%) HDFS
11 2 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 191 (7.43%) Kubernetes
2 108 (4.20%) Terraform
3 73 (2.84%) Ansible
4 67 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
5 50 (1.95%) Grafana
6 42 (1.63%) Prometheus
7 41 (1.60%) SCCM
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 19 (0.74%) Puppet
9 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.54%) Kibana
12 13 (0.51%) Nmap
13 11 (0.43%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
15 8 (0.31%) Argo
16 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.27%) WSUS
17 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
17 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 547 (21.28%) Microsoft
2 163 (6.34%) Oracle
3 161 (6.26%) SAP
4 115 (4.47%) ServiceNow
5 114 (4.44%) Google
6 85 (3.31%) Cisco
6 85 (3.31%) Splunk
7 62 (2.41%) Databricks
8 56 (2.18%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.10%) Remedy
10 49 (1.91%) Salesforce
11 48 (1.87%) VMware
12 47 (1.83%) IBM
13 42 (1.63%) Citrix
14 41 (1.60%) Palo Alto
15 30 (1.17%) CheckPoint
16 28 (1.09%) Informatica
17 25 (0.97%) BiZZdesign
17 25 (0.97%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.86%) Adobe