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 1 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,491 2,445 3,092
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 7.43% 7.84%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.90% 24.01% 26.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,326 1,388 1,796
10th Percentile £209 £250 £245
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +3.67% -10.00% +2.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 284 212 285
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.53 £18.05
25th Percentile £27.74 £25.75 £25.09
Median hourly rate £45.25 £42.75 £52.19
Median % change year-on-year +5.85% -18.09% +4.38%
75th Percentile £82.63 £64.64 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.37 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.25 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year +11.84% -29.45% +14.70%

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 16,721 10,182 11,745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.36% 30.96% 29.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,173 6,306 7,464
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,247 778 878
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +102.78% -41.51% -22.22%
75th Percentile £73.23 £55.43 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £77.14
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -44.11% -14.29%

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 1 August 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 1 August 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 1 August 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 -14 2,272 £500 - 4,111
UK excluding London -11 1,375 £467 +3.67% 2,462
London -21 959 £525 -4.55% 2,066
Work from Home -21 659 £500 - 1,797
South East +5 483 £500 +5.26% 744
North of England -10 332 £450 - 538
North West -11 192 £449 -5.42% 279
Midlands -31 185 £463 +8.82% 327
East of England -6 145 £450 - 326
West Midlands -34 144 £466 +3.44% 172
Yorkshire -6 124 £500 +19.05% 162
South West -22 123 £415 -7.78% 280
Scotland -43 73 £475 +5.56% 114
East Midlands -24 39 £475 +32.68% 155
Wales -25 21 £490 +52.37% 116
North East -42 16 £450 +130.77% 103
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -46.95% 78

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
1 146 (5.86%) SharePoint
2 121 (4.86%) Confluence
3 63 (2.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 34 (1.36%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.84%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 275 (11.04%) Microsoft Office
2 239 (9.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 141 (5.66%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (5.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.53%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) Trello
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 62 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.72%) Primavera
3 14 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
9 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 576 (23.12%) Azure
2 326 (13.09%) AWS
3 231 (9.27%) Power Platform
4 216 (8.67%) Microsoft 365
5 151 (6.06%) Entra ID
6 140 (5.62%) GCP
7 105 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.25%) SaaS
9 69 (2.77%) GitHub
10 48 (1.93%) Dynamics 365
11 47 (1.89%) Power Automate
11 47 (1.89%) PowerApps
11 47 (1.89%) Snowflake
12 45 (1.81%) Figma
12 45 (1.81%) Serverless
13 40 (1.61%) OneDrive
14 39 (1.57%) Microsoft Copilot
15 29 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.12%) IaaS
17 26 (1.04%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.70%) Firewall
2 75 (3.01%) DNS
3 74 (2.97%) TCP/IP
4 67 (2.69%) Network Security
5 61 (2.45%) VPN
6 42 (1.69%) WAN
7 39 (1.57%) DHCP
7 39 (1.57%) LAN
8 27 (1.08%) Wireless
9 21 (0.84%) BGP
10 20 (0.80%) SSL
10 20 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.76%) VLAN
12 17 (0.68%) OSPF
13 16 (0.64%) SSH
14 15 (0.60%) HTTP
15 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.56%) Internet
16 13 (0.52%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (7.43%) Power BI
2 113 (4.54%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.13%) Relational Database
5 51 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (1.73%) Metadata
7 40 (1.61%) Tableau
8 36 (1.45%) Big Data
9 33 (1.32%) NoSQL
10 27 (1.08%) MySQL
11 26 (1.04%) MongoDB
12 24 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (0.88%) Oracle Database
14 19 (0.76%) Data Lake
15 18 (0.72%) Hadoop
16 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
17 16 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
18 15 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
19 14 (0.56%) GIS
Development Applications
1 198 (7.95%) JIRA
2 125 (5.02%) Git
3 56 (2.25%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.61%) GitLab
5 35 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.68%) MLflow
6 17 (0.68%) Selenium
7 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.56%) JUnit
9 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
9 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Gradle
10 11 (0.44%) Postman
10 11 (0.44%) Subversion
10 11 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.36%) Maven
12 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,091 (43.80%) Social Skills
2 726 (29.14%) Finance
3 560 (22.48%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 184 (7.39%) Banking
6 160 (6.42%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.34%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.05%) Aerospace
9 99 (3.97%) Legal
10 98 (3.93%) Marketing
11 94 (3.77%) Manufacturing
12 86 (3.45%) Influencing Skills
13 76 (3.05%) Telecoms
14 75 (3.01%) Documentation Skills
15 61 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 61 (2.45%) Retail
16 53 (2.13%) Law
17 48 (1.93%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.49%) Front Office
19 35 (1.41%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 342 (13.73%) Analyst
2 286 (11.48%) Senior
3 192 (7.71%) Lead
4 185 (7.43%) Architect
5 179 (7.19%) Developer
6 153 (6.14%) Business Analyst
6 153 (6.14%) Project Manager
7 73 (2.93%) Senior Manager
8 70 (2.81%) Consultant
9 61 (2.45%) Designer
10 59 (2.37%) IT Support
10 59 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
11 56 (2.25%) Support Engineer
12 54 (2.17%) IT Manager
13 52 (2.09%) Product Manager
13 52 (2.09%) Software Engineer
14 51 (2.05%) IT Analyst
15 48 (1.93%) Senior Analyst
16 47 (1.89%) Administrator
17 46 (1.85%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.01%) REST
2 98 (3.93%) .NET
3 68 (2.73%) React
4 49 (1.97%) Kafka
5 43 (1.73%) RESTful
6 42 (1.69%) OAuth
7 41 (1.65%) HTML
8 35 (1.41%) Middleware
9 33 (1.32%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.32%) CSS
9 33 (1.32%) SAML
9 33 (1.32%) Spring
10 32 (1.28%) AngularJS
10 32 (1.28%) Web Services
11 31 (1.24%) OAuth2
11 31 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
12 30 (1.20%) Spring Boot
13 29 (1.16%) JSON
13 29 (1.16%) LDAP
14 28 (1.12%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.35%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.06%) Onboarding
3 150 (6.02%) Product Ownership
4 115 (4.62%) Self-Motivation
5 98 (3.93%) Cloud Native
6 73 (2.93%) Data Structures
7 70 (2.81%) Algorithms
8 65 (2.61%) Data Centre
9 54 (2.17%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.09%) Operational Technology
10 52 (2.09%) Security Posture
11 45 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
12 43 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
13 41 (1.65%) Life Science
14 38 (1.53%) AI Agents
14 38 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
15 35 (1.41%) PMI
16 33 (1.32%) Robotics
17 32 (1.28%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 302 (12.12%) Windows
2 177 (7.11%) Linux
3 77 (3.09%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.45%) Unix
5 51 (2.05%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.24%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.16%) Android
9 27 (1.08%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.12%) Debian
15 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.12%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 846 (33.96%) Computer Science
2 674 (27.06%) Agile
3 653 (26.21%) Problem-Solving
4 437 (17.54%) Stakeholder Management
5 414 (16.62%) Continuous Improvement
6 398 (15.98%) AI
7 326 (13.09%) DevOps
8 321 (12.89%) Project Management
9 312 (12.53%) Analytics
10 297 (11.92%) CI/CD
11 279 (11.20%) ITIL
12 261 (10.48%) Decision-Making
13 257 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 250 (10.04%) Cybersecurity
15 221 (8.87%) Change Management
16 216 (8.67%) Software Engineering
17 212 (8.51%) PRINCE2
18 209 (8.39%) Roadmaps
19 203 (8.15%) Scrum
20 199 (7.99%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 435 (17.46%) Python
2 357 (14.33%) SQL
3 171 (6.86%) Java
4 157 (6.30%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.30%) C#
6 96 (3.85%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.01%) Bash
8 46 (1.85%) C++
9 41 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.20%) R
11 26 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.00%) Bicep
13 24 (0.96%) T-SQL
14 22 (0.88%) C
14 22 (0.88%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 10 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 492 (19.75%) Computer Science Degree
2 449 (18.02%) Security Cleared
3 296 (11.88%) SC Cleared
4 234 (9.39%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.78%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.06%) PMP
7 120 (4.82%) CISSP
8 114 (4.58%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.09%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.01%) DV Cleared
12 68 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
13 59 (2.37%) CISM
14 57 (2.29%) PhD
15 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
15 43 (1.73%) CCNA
16 40 (1.61%) CCNP
17 38 (1.53%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 36 (1.45%) CISA
19 32 (1.28%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.34%) Data Quality
2 124 (4.98%) QA
3 119 (4.78%) NIST
4 112 (4.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.13%) PMO
6 75 (3.01%) GDPR
7 53 (2.13%) SLA
8 51 (2.05%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.08%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.00%) GRC
12 22 (0.88%) NCSC
13 17 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) COBIT
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) IFRS
16 11 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
18 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 198 (7.95%) Active Directory
2 123 (4.94%) Docker
3 52 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.00%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.96%) Firmware
6 17 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 137 (5.50%) Kubernetes
2 96 (3.85%) Terraform
3 78 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.45%) Ansible
5 39 (1.57%) SCCM
6 31 (1.24%) Grafana
7 28 (1.12%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.60%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.28%) SCOM
15 6 (0.24%) Argo
16 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 628 (25.21%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.66%) Oracle
3 142 (5.70%) SAP
4 140 (5.62%) ServiceNow
5 93 (3.73%) Google
6 70 (2.81%) Cisco
7 67 (2.69%) VMware
8 65 (2.61%) Databricks
9 58 (2.33%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.21%) Adobe
11 49 (1.97%) IBM
12 34 (1.36%) CyberArk
12 34 (1.36%) Splunk
13 32 (1.28%) Citrix
14 29 (1.16%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.12%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.88%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.84%) Ariba
17 21 (0.84%) Siemens
18 19 (0.76%) HP