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 8 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -1 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,506 2,824 3,622
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.91% 7.91% 7.96%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.67% 26.78% 26.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,464 1,574 2,195
10th Percentile £282 £230 £225
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.37%
75th Percentile £638 £637 £638
90th Percentile £750 £765 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 159 222
10th Percentile £15.25 £20.09 £17.53
25th Percentile £22.50 £26.71 £26.78
Median hourly rate £33.50 £41.91 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.07% -16.18% +14.94%
75th Percentile £51.62 £70.25 £68.63
90th Percentile £86.65 £85.00 £83.06
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £42.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -20.24% -16.00% +19.70%

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 12,126 10,544 13,419
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.42% 29.53% 29.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,881 6,411 8,455
10th Percentile £306 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,015 505 755
10th Percentile £17.06 £18.94 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.23 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.82% -19.05% +16.67%
75th Percentile £45.46 £66.00 £67.66
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.90
% change year-on-year -45.54% -11.01% +15.32%

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 2025.

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 8 December 2025. 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 -1 2,158 £518 -1.42% 6,087
UK excluding London -2 1,247 £475 - 5,684
London -3 1,035 £530 -3.64% 1,105
Work from Home 0 722 £500 - 5,660
North of England -9 299 £450 -10.27% 1,213
South East -2 282 £475 -2.06% 1,726
Midlands -13 209 £491 +3.37% 931
South West +7 164 £613 +6.52% 622
North West -4 164 £425 -19.05% 630
West Midlands -14 162 £500 - 500
East of England -9 130 £505 +18.82% 856
Yorkshire -9 126 £475 -4.04% 480
Scotland -2 112 £450 +4.65% 243
Wales -1 48 £226 -43.50% 144
East Midlands -12 47 £448 +18.21% 383
Northern Ireland -6 31 £475 - 83
North East -10 10 £298 -40.31% 111

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
1 188 (7.50%) Confluence
2 124 (4.95%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.48%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.92%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) nginx
7 15 (0.60%) CMS
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.52%) IIS
9 12 (0.48%) Apache
10 8 (0.32%) SAS
11 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
12 5 (0.20%) Luigi
13 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.12%) Alfresco
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 305 (12.17%) Microsoft Office
2 238 (9.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 195 (7.78%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (4.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 74 (2.95%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.64%) Simulink
8 14 (0.56%) Trello
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 7 (0.28%) Sketch
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 3 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
14 3 (0.12%) InDesign
14 3 (0.12%) Maya
14 3 (0.12%) Navisworks
14 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 63 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.88%) Primavera
4 15 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
4 15 (0.60%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
7 10 (0.40%) Dynamics GP
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
8 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.24%) Endur
10 6 (0.24%) Maximo
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 489 (19.51%) Azure
2 322 (12.85%) AWS
3 197 (7.86%) Microsoft 365
4 187 (7.46%) Power Platform
5 161 (6.42%) GCP
6 98 (3.91%) GitHub
7 92 (3.67%) SaaS
8 84 (3.35%) Entra ID
9 77 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
10 73 (2.91%) Serverless
11 51 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
12 43 (1.72%) Power Automate
13 36 (1.44%) Amazon S3
14 35 (1.40%) Cloud Computing
15 34 (1.36%) PowerApps
16 32 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
17 31 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
17 31 (1.24%) Snowflake
18 27 (1.08%) Azure Sentinel
19 25 (1.00%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.23%) Firewall
2 74 (2.95%) DNS
3 49 (1.96%) VPN
4 43 (1.72%) Network Security
5 39 (1.56%) DHCP
6 38 (1.52%) HTTP
7 37 (1.48%) LAN
8 35 (1.40%) WAN
9 34 (1.36%) TCP/IP
10 32 (1.28%) Wireless
11 30 (1.20%) Skype
12 28 (1.12%) Internet
13 25 (1.00%) SSH
13 25 (1.00%) VoIP
14 24 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
15 19 (0.76%) Unified Communications
16 18 (0.72%) Cisco IOS
17 17 (0.68%) BGP
18 15 (0.60%) Ethernet
19 14 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (5.71%) Power BI
2 100 (3.99%) PostgreSQL
3 81 (3.23%) SQL Server
4 69 (2.75%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.43%) Tableau
6 60 (2.39%) Relational Database
7 55 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
8 34 (1.36%) MySQL
9 33 (1.32%) Big Data
10 28 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
11 26 (1.04%) Data Lake
11 26 (1.04%) Metadata
12 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.56%) Oracle Database
15 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
15 13 (0.52%) Hadoop
15 13 (0.52%) RDBMS
15 13 (0.52%) Redis
16 12 (0.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 298 (11.89%) JIRA
2 130 (5.19%) Git
3 106 (4.23%) Jenkins
4 75 (2.99%) GitLab
5 29 (1.16%) Liquibase
6 26 (1.04%) Postman
7 23 (0.92%) Selenium
8 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
12 9 (0.36%) SpecFlow
13 8 (0.32%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.28%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.28%) JMeter
14 7 (0.28%) MLflow
14 7 (0.28%) Subversion
15 6 (0.24%) Appium
General
1 1,297 (51.76%) Social Skills
2 809 (32.28%) Finance
3 617 (24.62%) Analytical Skills
4 278 (11.09%) Banking
5 180 (7.18%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.83%) Manufacturing
7 104 (4.15%) Organisational Skills
7 104 (4.15%) Presentation Skills
8 93 (3.71%) Marketing
9 91 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
10 86 (3.43%) Legal
11 75 (2.99%) Telecoms
12 71 (2.83%) Military
13 68 (2.71%) Financial Institution
14 63 (2.51%) Front Office
15 61 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
16 60 (2.39%) Investment Banking
16 60 (2.39%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (1.92%) Aerospace
18 39 (1.56%) Law
Job Titles
1 374 (14.92%) Analyst
2 243 (9.70%) Senior
3 237 (9.46%) Developer
4 189 (7.54%) Architect
5 178 (7.10%) Lead
6 172 (6.86%) Project Manager
7 161 (6.42%) Business Analyst
8 110 (4.39%) Consultant
9 81 (3.23%) Software Engineer
10 68 (2.71%) IT Support
11 64 (2.55%) Support Analyst
12 56 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
13 51 (2.04%) Technical Support
14 49 (1.96%) IT Manager
14 49 (1.96%) Security Engineer
15 47 (1.88%) Data Scientist
16 44 (1.76%) Senior Developer
16 44 (1.76%) Support Engineer
17 39 (1.56%) Data Analyst
17 39 (1.56%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 133 (5.31%) REST
2 90 (3.59%) RESTful
3 78 (3.11%) .NET
4 75 (2.99%) HTML
5 56 (2.23%) CSS
6 55 (2.19%) XML
7 50 (2.00%) JSON
7 50 (2.00%) SOAP
8 47 (1.88%) Kafka
8 47 (1.88%) Middleware
9 44 (1.76%) Elastic Stack
10 42 (1.68%) React
11 40 (1.60%) OAuth
12 39 (1.56%) TensorFlow
13 38 (1.52%) Web Services
14 34 (1.36%) PyTorch
14 34 (1.36%) Spring
15 33 (1.32%) AngularJS
16 31 (1.24%) Node.js
17 30 (1.20%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.06%) Management Information System
2 122 (4.87%) Product Ownership
3 105 (4.19%) Cloud Native
4 88 (3.51%) Algorithms
5 79 (3.15%) Onboarding
6 65 (2.59%) Data Protection Act
7 64 (2.55%) Analytical Mindset
8 61 (2.43%) Virtual Team
9 58 (2.31%) Distributed Systems
10 57 (2.27%) Data Centre
11 53 (2.11%) Derivative
12 51 (2.04%) Public Cloud
13 49 (1.96%) Self-Motivation
14 44 (1.76%) Life Science
15 41 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
16 40 (1.60%) Security Posture
17 39 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
18 38 (1.52%) Mobile App
19 37 (1.48%) PMI
20 36 (1.44%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 275 (10.97%) Windows
2 202 (8.06%) Linux
3 85 (3.39%) Unix
4 63 (2.51%) Windows Server
5 38 (1.52%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.20%) Mac OS
7 29 (1.16%) Android
8 25 (1.00%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Ubuntu
10 18 (0.72%) VMS
11 14 (0.56%) Windows Server 2016
12 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
13 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
14 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
17 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.080%) Solaris
18 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 948 (37.83%) Computer Science
2 814 (32.48%) Agile
3 769 (30.69%) Problem-Solving
4 406 (16.20%) Project Management
5 382 (15.24%) Stakeholder Management
6 357 (14.25%) DevOps
7 299 (11.93%) Change Management
8 290 (11.57%) ITIL
9 273 (10.89%) CI/CD
10 272 (10.85%) Continuous Improvement
11 263 (10.49%) Analytics
12 262 (10.45%) AI
13 257 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 250 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
15 231 (9.22%) Migration
16 229 (9.14%) Decision-Making
17 225 (8.98%) Project Delivery
18 223 (8.90%) Software Engineering
19 201 (8.02%) PRINCE2
20 195 (7.78%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 470 (18.75%) Python
2 355 (14.17%) SQL
3 184 (7.34%) Java
4 125 (4.99%) PowerShell
5 114 (4.55%) JavaScript
6 85 (3.39%) C#
7 76 (3.03%) C++
8 62 (2.47%) Go
9 53 (2.11%) Bash
10 51 (2.04%) TypeScript
11 39 (1.56%) R
12 23 (0.92%) Perl
13 21 (0.84%) MATLAB
14 19 (0.76%) C
14 19 (0.76%) PL/SQL
15 18 (0.72%) Ruby
15 18 (0.72%) T-SQL
16 17 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
17 16 (0.64%) Apex Code
18 15 (0.60%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 632 (25.22%) Computer Science Degree
2 383 (15.28%) Master's Degree
3 374 (14.92%) Security Cleared
4 300 (11.97%) SC Cleared
5 151 (6.03%) PMI Certification
6 138 (5.51%) PMP
7 117 (4.67%) CISSP
8 95 (3.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.19%) PhD
10 74 (2.95%) Azure Certification
11 70 (2.79%) CISM
12 65 (2.59%) AWS Certification
13 59 (2.35%) Cisco Certification
14 53 (2.11%) TOGAF Certification
15 48 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
15 48 (1.92%) HND
16 44 (1.76%) DV Cleared
17 37 (1.48%) HNC
18 36 (1.44%) CCNA
19 35 (1.40%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (5.79%) QA
2 126 (5.03%) GDPR
3 102 (4.07%) Data Quality
4 98 (3.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 79 (3.15%) NIST
6 75 (2.99%) PMO
7 43 (1.72%) Accessibility
8 37 (1.48%) SLA
9 31 (1.24%) PCI DSS
9 31 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.04%) GRC
11 21 (0.84%) HIPAA
12 19 (0.76%) NCSC
13 18 (0.72%) COBIT
14 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
14 15 (0.60%) NIST 800
14 15 (0.60%) P3O
14 15 (0.60%) WCAG
15 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 178 (7.10%) Docker
2 159 (6.34%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.00%) Firmware
5 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
8 9 (0.36%) XenApp
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.16%) NDS
12 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
14 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 153 (6.11%) Kubernetes
2 130 (5.19%) Terraform
3 86 (3.43%) Ansible
4 64 (2.55%) Grafana
5 54 (2.15%) Prometheus
6 50 (2.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 48 (1.92%) SCCM
8 30 (1.20%) OPNET
9 21 (0.84%) Puppet
10 14 (0.56%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
12 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
13 10 (0.40%) QRadar
14 9 (0.36%) Kibana
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
15 7 (0.28%) Nmap
Vendors
1 541 (21.59%) Microsoft
2 170 (6.78%) SAP
3 141 (5.63%) Oracle
4 138 (5.51%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.79%) Google
6 94 (3.75%) Splunk
7 77 (3.07%) Cisco
8 74 (2.95%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.15%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.15%) VMware
10 50 (2.00%) Remedy
11 43 (1.72%) Databricks
12 36 (1.44%) Citrix
12 36 (1.44%) IBM
13 30 (1.20%) Adobe
14 24 (0.96%) Workday
15 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
16 19 (0.76%) Red Hat
17 15 (0.60%) Informatica
17 15 (0.60%) MuleSoft