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 18 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -9 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,473 2,307 3,655
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.36% 7.84% 8.36%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.33% 25.46% 27.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,456 1,331 1,970
10th Percentile £258 £250 £210
25th Percentile £381 £380 £391
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £635
90th Percentile £745 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 186 385
10th Percentile £17.23 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.76 £28.43 £22.33
Median hourly rate £51.54 £53.75 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year -4.11% +38.00% -13.44%
75th Percentile £83.38 £68.69 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.50 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year +18.19% +19.51% -11.11%

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 15,141 9,062 13,410
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.83% 30.79% 30.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,079 5,764 8,290
10th Percentile £344 £290 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £712 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,090 504 1,043
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.66 £17.72
Median hourly rate £45.46 £42.75 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year +6.34% +7.09% -23.96%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.31 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.03 £80.89 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.81% +15.75% -18.37%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 18 April 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 -8 2,174 £500 -3.75% 3,284
UK excluding London -7 1,309 £475 +5.56% 2,421
London -13 942 £506 -8.05% 1,134
Work from Home -9 671 £500 - 902
South East -6 361 £500 - 774
North of England -8 326 £417 -8.35% 628
Midlands -25 207 £500 +61.29% 361
North West -8 179 £400 -13.51% 397
West Midlands -26 149 £494 +64.50% 209
South West -5 144 £650 +23.81% 241
East of England -6 140 £495 -2.85% 318
Yorkshire -19 130 £474 +9.03% 175
Scotland -3 96 £500 +11.11% 91
East Midlands -16 57 £525 +47.47% 151
Wales -14 36 £282 -7.56% 45
North East -15 18 £407 -4.24% 63
Northern Ireland -6 16 £406 +30.00% 13

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
1 175 (7.08%) Confluence
2 118 (4.77%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 52 (2.10%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) Drupal
13 2 (0.081%) nginx
13 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.081%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 314 (12.70%) Microsoft Office
2 240 (9.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 197 (7.97%) Microsoft Project
4 144 (5.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.67%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
8 10 (0.40%) Trello
9 7 (0.28%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.12%) InVision
12 3 (0.12%) Navisworks
12 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.12%) Revit
13 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.081%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 74 (2.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.77%) Primavera
4 17 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) NetSuite
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 525 (21.23%) Azure
2 289 (11.69%) AWS
3 213 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
4 198 (8.01%) Power Platform
5 112 (4.53%) GCP
6 109 (4.41%) Entra ID
7 108 (4.37%) SaaS
8 96 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.59%) GitHub
10 45 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
11 38 (1.54%) Power Automate
11 38 (1.54%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
12 33 (1.33%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.25%) PaaS
14 30 (1.21%) PowerApps
15 29 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.17%) IaaS
16 28 (1.13%) Serverless
17 26 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 123 (4.97%) Firewall
2 64 (2.59%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.51%) WAN
4 61 (2.47%) DNS
4 61 (2.47%) LAN
5 51 (2.06%) Network Security
6 41 (1.66%) VPN
7 31 (1.25%) BGP
8 29 (1.17%) Wireless
9 26 (1.05%) Ethernet
9 26 (1.05%) Skype
10 25 (1.01%) HTTP
10 25 (1.01%) OSPF
11 21 (0.85%) DHCP
12 18 (0.73%) VLAN
13 17 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
14 16 (0.65%) SAN
15 15 (0.61%) Internet
15 15 (0.61%) VXLAN
16 13 (0.53%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (6.71%) Power BI
2 104 (4.21%) SQL Server
3 71 (2.87%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.06%) Relational Database
6 50 (2.02%) Big Data
7 41 (1.66%) Tableau
8 39 (1.58%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.50%) Metadata
10 34 (1.37%) MySQL
11 29 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 26 (1.05%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.85%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
18 11 (0.44%) Star Schema
19 10 (0.40%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 281 (11.36%) JIRA
2 117 (4.73%) Git
3 51 (2.06%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.66%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.77%) Selenium
8 18 (0.73%) MLflow
9 14 (0.57%) Burp Suite
10 13 (0.53%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.36%) JUnit
14 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.32%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.24%) REST Assured
General
1 1,171 (47.35%) Social Skills
2 754 (30.49%) Finance
3 548 (22.16%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (9.26%) Banking
5 210 (8.49%) Public Sector
6 125 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
7 121 (4.89%) Organisational Skills
8 98 (3.96%) Marketing
9 89 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
10 85 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
11 79 (3.19%) Manufacturing
12 74 (2.99%) Legal
13 72 (2.91%) Aerospace
14 65 (2.63%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.35%) Military
16 48 (1.94%) Retail
17 47 (1.90%) Law
18 46 (1.86%) Front Office
19 45 (1.82%) Electronics
20 41 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 334 (13.51%) Analyst
2 239 (9.66%) Senior
3 209 (8.45%) Architect
4 203 (8.21%) Lead
5 187 (7.56%) Developer
5 187 (7.56%) Project Manager
6 154 (6.23%) Business Analyst
7 93 (3.76%) Consultant
8 67 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
9 65 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
10 63 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
11 54 (2.18%) Data Scientist
11 54 (2.18%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.14%) Designer
12 53 (2.14%) Security Engineer
13 51 (2.06%) Software Engineer
14 44 (1.78%) Product Manager
15 43 (1.74%) Data Engineer
15 43 (1.74%) IT Support
16 42 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.04%) REST
2 79 (3.19%) .NET
3 55 (2.22%) React
4 54 (2.18%) HTML
5 52 (2.10%) Middleware
6 48 (1.94%) RESTful
7 46 (1.86%) Kafka
8 38 (1.54%) CSS
8 38 (1.54%) JSON
8 38 (1.54%) SOAP
8 38 (1.54%) XML
9 36 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
9 36 (1.46%) PyTorch
9 36 (1.46%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.33%) Pandas
10 33 (1.33%) Spring
11 32 (1.29%) TensorFlow
12 29 (1.17%) .NET Framework
12 29 (1.17%) OAuth
13 25 (1.01%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 200 (8.09%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.71%) Product Ownership
3 126 (5.10%) Onboarding
4 90 (3.64%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.28%) Virtual Team
6 74 (2.99%) Algorithms
7 69 (2.79%) Data Centre
7 69 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
8 61 (2.47%) Data Structures
9 59 (2.39%) PMI
10 55 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
11 53 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
12 42 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
13 37 (1.50%) Derivative
14 34 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
14 34 (1.37%) Security Posture
15 33 (1.33%) Robotics
16 32 (1.29%) Operational Technology
17 29 (1.17%) AI Agents
17 29 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 289 (11.69%) Windows
2 184 (7.44%) Linux
3 78 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.59%) Unix
5 58 (2.35%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.29%) Android
7 30 (1.21%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.53%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.53%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
12 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
14 5 (0.20%) AIX
14 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 3 (0.12%) CentOS
16 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 894 (36.15%) Computer Science
2 745 (30.13%) Agile
3 658 (26.61%) Problem-Solving
4 391 (15.81%) Stakeholder Management
5 366 (14.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 354 (14.31%) Project Management
7 349 (14.11%) AI
8 341 (13.79%) DevOps
9 283 (11.44%) CI/CD
10 278 (11.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 270 (10.92%) Analytics
12 262 (10.59%) Change Management
13 257 (10.39%) ITIL
14 254 (10.27%) Cybersecurity
15 248 (10.03%) Decision-Making
15 248 (10.03%) Migration
16 228 (9.22%) Project Delivery
17 225 (9.10%) PRINCE2
18 212 (8.57%) Roadmaps
19 208 (8.41%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 397 (16.05%) Python
2 363 (14.68%) SQL
3 169 (6.83%) Java
4 121 (4.89%) PowerShell
5 87 (3.52%) C#
6 81 (3.28%) JavaScript
7 69 (2.79%) C++
8 45 (1.82%) Bash
9 39 (1.58%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.29%) R
11 27 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.77%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.69%) Go
13 17 (0.69%) Perl
13 17 (0.69%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.61%) C
15 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.57%) Rust
16 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 556 (22.48%) Computer Science Degree
2 470 (19.01%) Security Cleared
3 339 (13.71%) SC Cleared
4 315 (12.74%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.23%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.34%) PMP
7 111 (4.49%) CISSP
8 87 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 64 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
10 63 (2.55%) Cisco Certification
11 62 (2.51%) CISM
12 61 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.35%) DV Cleared
14 56 (2.26%) Azure Certification
14 56 (2.26%) PhD
15 42 (1.70%) CCNP
16 38 (1.54%) MBA
17 35 (1.42%) AWS Certification
18 34 (1.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 33 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (6.75%) QA
2 114 (4.61%) GDPR
2 114 (4.61%) PMO
3 102 (4.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 102 (4.12%) NIST
4 100 (4.04%) Data Quality
5 47 (1.90%) PCI DSS
5 47 (1.90%) SLA
6 42 (1.70%) Accessibility
7 26 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 23 (0.93%) GRC
9 19 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
10 18 (0.73%) NCSC
11 13 (0.53%) Basel III
11 13 (0.53%) COBIT
11 13 (0.53%) IFRS
12 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
12 12 (0.49%) SOC 2
13 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
13 11 (0.44%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 166 (6.71%) Active Directory
2 149 (6.03%) Docker
3 46 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.93%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.36%) vSphere
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.24%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.081%) HDFS
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 1 (0.040%) RACF
13 1 (0.040%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 151 (6.11%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.44%) Terraform
3 65 (2.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.51%) Ansible
5 40 (1.62%) Grafana
5 40 (1.62%) SCCM
6 30 (1.21%) OPNET
6 30 (1.21%) Prometheus
7 17 (0.69%) Puppet
8 16 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.53%) Nmap
11 11 (0.44%) Kibana
12 10 (0.40%) SCOM
12 10 (0.40%) WSUS
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
14 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.32%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.28%) Nessus
15 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 558 (22.56%) Microsoft
2 156 (6.31%) Oracle
3 154 (6.23%) SAP
4 129 (5.22%) ServiceNow
5 92 (3.72%) Google
6 84 (3.40%) Cisco
7 65 (2.63%) Splunk
8 56 (2.26%) Databricks
9 54 (2.18%) VMware
10 51 (2.06%) Remedy
11 49 (1.98%) Citrix
12 45 (1.82%) Atlassian
13 41 (1.66%) IBM
14 40 (1.62%) Salesforce
15 39 (1.58%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.33%) CheckPoint
17 27 (1.09%) Adobe
18 24 (0.97%) Informatica
19 23 (0.93%) CyberArk
20 21 (0.85%) Aruba