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 16 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -14 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,414 2,266 3,570
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.03% 7.78% 8.39%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.81% 25.13% 27.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,387 1,313 1,903
10th Percentile £238 £239 £225
25th Percentile £375 £375 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £630
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £474 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.28% -10.00% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 178 408
10th Percentile £18.03 £17.28 £14.04
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.53 £22.46
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.31 £47.05 £41.50
% change year-on-year +32.42% +13.38% -7.78%

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 15,265 9,016 12,830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.78% 30.95% 30.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,149 5,693 7,947
10th Percentile £350 £283 £305
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £621 £620 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,077 506 1,053
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.26 £17.72
Median hourly rate £50.00 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.35 £76.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £37.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +26.77% -7.01% -19.15%

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 16 May 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 16 May 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 16 May 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 -9 2,150 £500 -2.72% 2,768
UK excluding London -6 1,311 £474 +5.28% 2,058
London -17 904 £505 -8.18% 1,002
Work from Home -13 662 £500 -2.72% 1,675
South East -6 375 £500 +1.63% 693
North of England -9 320 £418 -8.98% 456
Midlands -23 213 £500 +49.25% 293
North West -7 164 £401 -13.90% 235
West Midlands -26 148 £495 +65.00% 185
Yorkshire -12 140 £450 +8.70% 157
East of England -9 139 £450 -10.00% 237
South West -17 138 £551 +16.05% 272
Scotland -15 90 £500 +11.11% 87
East Midlands -9 63 £525 +47.47% 108
Wales -20 28 £373 +21.94% 53
North East -25 16 £450 -5.26% 71
Northern Ireland -8 14 £369 -13.24% 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
1 164 (6.79%) Confluence
2 125 (5.18%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.11%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.95%) Apache
7 8 (0.33%) CMS
8 6 (0.25%) IIS
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.25%) SAS
9 5 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.12%) Moodle
10 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.083%) Drupal
11 2 (0.083%) nginx
11 2 (0.083%) Skype for Business
11 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.083%) WinCC
Applications
1 301 (12.47%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 181 (7.50%) Microsoft Project
4 140 (5.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.73%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
7 11 (0.46%) Photoshop
7 11 (0.46%) Simulink
8 10 (0.41%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.37%) Trello
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 6 (0.25%) Sketch
12 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
13 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
15 2 (0.083%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 71 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.66%) Primavera
4 13 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 507 (21.00%) Azure
2 294 (12.18%) AWS
3 207 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.83%) Power Platform
5 109 (4.52%) Entra ID
6 94 (3.89%) GCP
6 94 (3.89%) SaaS
7 87 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 59 (2.44%) GitHub
9 44 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
10 34 (1.41%) Figma
11 33 (1.37%) Google Workspace
12 32 (1.33%) PaaS
12 32 (1.33%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.33%) Snowflake
13 30 (1.24%) IaaS
14 28 (1.16%) Serverless
15 27 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
15 27 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.08%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.47%) Firewall
2 68 (2.82%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.57%) DNS
4 56 (2.32%) WAN
5 53 (2.20%) LAN
6 50 (2.07%) Network Security
7 35 (1.45%) VPN
8 28 (1.16%) BGP
9 27 (1.12%) Wireless
10 25 (1.04%) OSPF
11 23 (0.95%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.83%) DHCP
12 20 (0.83%) Skype
13 17 (0.70%) HTTP
13 17 (0.70%) SAN
14 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.54%) SSL
16 12 (0.50%) IPsec
16 12 (0.50%) VLAN
16 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.50%) Power BI
2 100 (4.14%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.07%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.03%) Big Data
7 40 (1.66%) Metadata
8 39 (1.62%) Tableau
9 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
10 30 (1.24%) MySQL
11 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.95%) Data Lake
12 23 (0.95%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
15 13 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.50%) Power Query
16 12 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
17 10 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 268 (11.10%) JIRA
2 109 (4.52%) Git
3 44 (1.82%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.70%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.91%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 14 (0.58%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.46%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.41%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
14 9 (0.37%) JUnit
14 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.29%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,127 (46.69%) Social Skills
2 739 (30.61%) Finance
3 519 (21.50%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (8.82%) Banking
5 204 (8.45%) Public Sector
6 133 (5.51%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.14%) Marketing
9 89 (3.69%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.19%) Legal
11 72 (2.98%) Aerospace
11 72 (2.98%) Influencing Skills
12 71 (2.94%) Manufacturing
13 68 (2.82%) Telecoms
14 55 (2.28%) Military
15 52 (2.15%) Law
16 48 (1.99%) Retail
17 41 (1.70%) Front Office
17 41 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
18 40 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 352 (14.58%) Analyst
2 257 (10.65%) Senior
3 207 (8.57%) Architect
4 182 (7.54%) Lead
5 179 (7.42%) Project Manager
6 171 (7.08%) Developer
7 166 (6.88%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.90%) Senior Analyst
9 69 (2.86%) Consultant
10 67 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.57%) Delivery Manager
12 58 (2.40%) Designer
13 57 (2.36%) Technical Support
14 52 (2.15%) Software Engineer
15 49 (2.03%) Product Manager
16 48 (1.99%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.91%) Data Scientist
17 46 (1.91%) Senior Manager
18 45 (1.86%) Data Engineer
19 43 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.10%) REST
2 81 (3.36%) .NET
3 64 (2.65%) React
4 58 (2.40%) Middleware
5 52 (2.15%) HTML
6 46 (1.91%) Kafka
7 44 (1.82%) RESTful
8 43 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
9 40 (1.66%) CSS
10 36 (1.49%) SOAP
11 35 (1.45%) Spring Boot
11 35 (1.45%) XML
12 32 (1.33%) PyTorch
12 32 (1.33%) Spring
13 30 (1.24%) Pandas
14 29 (1.20%) JSON
15 28 (1.16%) .NET Framework
16 27 (1.12%) AngularJS
17 26 (1.08%) TensorFlow
17 26 (1.08%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 187 (7.75%) Management Information System
2 165 (6.84%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.51%) Onboarding
4 83 (3.44%) Cloud Native
5 79 (3.27%) Self-Motivation
6 66 (2.73%) Data Centre
6 66 (2.73%) Virtual Team
7 63 (2.61%) Data Structures
8 61 (2.53%) Algorithms
9 55 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
10 54 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
11 51 (2.11%) PMI
12 40 (1.66%) Operational Technology
13 38 (1.57%) Robotics
14 36 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
15 34 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
16 33 (1.37%) Derivative
16 33 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
17 32 (1.33%) Security Posture
18 29 (1.20%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 287 (11.89%) Windows
2 178 (7.37%) Linux
3 72 (2.98%) Unix
4 70 (2.90%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.36%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.33%) Android
7 25 (1.04%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 22 (0.91%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 832 (34.47%) Computer Science
2 700 (29.00%) Agile
3 638 (26.43%) Problem-Solving
4 380 (15.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 354 (14.66%) Continuous Improvement
6 340 (14.08%) AI
7 335 (13.88%) Project Management
8 321 (13.30%) DevOps
9 278 (11.52%) CI/CD
10 259 (10.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 256 (10.60%) Analytics
12 253 (10.48%) Decision-Making
13 238 (9.86%) Migration
14 237 (9.82%) Change Management
15 229 (9.49%) Cybersecurity
16 225 (9.32%) ITIL
17 206 (8.53%) Risk Management
18 202 (8.37%) PRINCE2
19 201 (8.33%) Roadmaps
20 198 (8.20%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 382 (15.82%) Python
2 364 (15.08%) SQL
3 179 (7.42%) Java
4 109 (4.52%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.94%) C#
6 87 (3.60%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.82%) C++
8 39 (1.62%) Bash
9 35 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.28%) R
11 22 (0.91%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.75%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.70%) C
14 16 (0.66%) Perl
15 15 (0.62%) Go
15 15 (0.62%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.58%) Rust
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 520 (21.54%) Computer Science Degree
2 454 (18.81%) Security Cleared
3 319 (13.21%) SC Cleared
4 283 (11.72%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.38%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.51%) PMP
7 106 (4.39%) CISSP
8 77 (3.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.11%) Cisco Certification
10 63 (2.61%) CISM
10 63 (2.61%) TOGAF Certification
11 62 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
12 57 (2.36%) DV Cleared
13 48 (1.99%) PhD
14 47 (1.95%) Azure Certification
15 43 (1.78%) CCNP
16 38 (1.57%) MBA
17 36 (1.49%) CBAP
18 35 (1.45%) CCNA
19 30 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (6.67%) QA
2 114 (4.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 113 (4.68%) PMO
4 109 (4.52%) Data Quality
4 109 (4.52%) NIST
5 107 (4.43%) GDPR
6 50 (2.07%) SLA
7 46 (1.91%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.78%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.08%) GRC
11 20 (0.83%) NCSC
12 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.62%) IFRS
14 14 (0.58%) COBIT
15 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.50%) Basel III
15 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
System Software
1 151 (6.26%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.63%) Docker
3 37 (1.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.083%) HDFS
11 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.041%) NFS
12 1 (0.041%) RACF
12 1 (0.041%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 146 (6.05%) Kubernetes
2 74 (3.07%) Terraform
3 64 (2.65%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.53%) Ansible
5 37 (1.53%) Grafana
6 36 (1.49%) SCCM
7 30 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 25 (1.04%) OPNET
9 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) Nmap
13 9 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 547 (22.66%) Microsoft
2 162 (6.71%) Oracle
3 146 (6.05%) SAP
4 119 (4.93%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.36%) Google
6 76 (3.15%) Cisco
7 63 (2.61%) Splunk
8 57 (2.36%) Databricks
9 47 (1.95%) Salesforce
10 45 (1.86%) VMware
11 43 (1.78%) Citrix
11 43 (1.78%) Remedy
12 41 (1.70%) IBM
13 39 (1.62%) Adobe
14 35 (1.45%) Atlassian
14 35 (1.45%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.37%) CheckPoint
16 23 (0.95%) Aruba
16 23 (0.95%) Informatica
17 21 (0.87%) CyberArk