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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,547 2,346 3,772
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.03% 7.88% 8.43%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.80% 26.02% 27.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,481 1,334 2,088
10th Percentile £286 £225 £208
25th Percentile £400 £399 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £508
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +0.99% -5.36%
75th Percentile £631 £645 £638
90th Percentile £738 £784 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 166 376
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.75 £29.25 £20.98
Median hourly rate £42.50 £45.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.78% +24.90% -18.89%
75th Percentile £77.50 £71.19 £57.81
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.50 £45.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -3.33% +20.00% -16.67%

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 14,307 9,016 13,641
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.88% 30.30% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,433 5,667 8,412
10th Percentile £331 £285 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £732
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.15% -2.67% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,053 466 1,038
10th Percentile £16.17 £19.34 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £24.27 £18.32
Median hourly rate £28.00 £42.75 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.50% +6.88% -20.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £82.90 £82.25 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -48.46% +25.00% -14.78%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 2,221 £500 -4.76% 3,135
UK excluding London -7 1,333 £492 +3.58% 2,597
London -13 972 £513 -6.82% 750
Work from Home -4 695 £500 -4.76% 1,304
North of England -5 344 £445 -10.95% 571
South East -4 337 £480 -4.00% 836
Midlands -19 207 £500 +37.93% 392
North West -1 177 £400 -20.00% 290
South West 0 171 £681 +23.86% 328
Yorkshire -9 150 £516 +1.98% 214
West Midlands -19 150 £500 +21.21% 214
East of England -10 134 £525 +7.91% 325
Scotland -1 105 £525 +20.00% 112
East Midlands -15 56 £525 +47.47% 174
Wales -9 45 £282 -2.20% 80
North East -10 18 £364 -27.20% 74
Northern Ireland -13 16 £388 -8.82% 28

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 (8.24%) Confluence
2 115 (4.52%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 55 (2.16%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.71%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.20%) SAS
9 5 (0.20%) Skype for Business
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%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 305 (11.97%) Microsoft Office
2 231 (9.07%) Microsoft Excel
3 197 (7.73%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (4.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (2.94%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.71%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.63%) Simulink
8 15 (0.59%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 8 (0.31%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.079%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.079%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.079%) InDesign
14 2 (0.079%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.079%) PTC Creo
15 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
15 1 (0.039%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 64 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.94%) Primavera
4 20 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 541 (21.24%) Azure
2 303 (11.90%) AWS
3 207 (8.13%) Microsoft 365
4 198 (7.77%) Power Platform
5 144 (5.65%) GCP
6 111 (4.36%) SaaS
7 110 (4.32%) Entra ID
8 97 (3.81%) Azure DevOps
9 86 (3.38%) GitHub
10 53 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (1.96%) Serverless
12 43 (1.69%) Cloud Computing
13 39 (1.53%) Power Automate
13 39 (1.53%) Snowflake
14 32 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
14 32 (1.26%) IaaS
14 32 (1.26%) PaaS
15 30 (1.18%) OCI
16 29 (1.14%) PowerApps
17 28 (1.10%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.52%) Firewall
2 60 (2.36%) TCP/IP
3 59 (2.32%) DNS
3 59 (2.32%) WAN
4 58 (2.28%) LAN
5 50 (1.96%) Network Security
6 40 (1.57%) VPN
7 31 (1.22%) Ethernet
8 29 (1.14%) HTTP
9 28 (1.10%) Wireless
10 27 (1.06%) BGP
10 27 (1.06%) Skype
11 25 (0.98%) Internet
12 23 (0.90%) OSPF
13 21 (0.82%) DHCP
13 21 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
14 20 (0.79%) VLAN
15 18 (0.71%) SSL
16 17 (0.67%) Unified Communications
17 15 (0.59%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.12%) Power BI
2 101 (3.97%) PostgreSQL
3 99 (3.89%) SQL Server
4 62 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
5 60 (2.36%) NoSQL
6 49 (1.92%) Relational Database
7 48 (1.88%) Big Data
7 48 (1.88%) Tableau
8 43 (1.69%) MySQL
9 31 (1.22%) Data Lake
9 31 (1.22%) Metadata
10 28 (1.10%) Hadoop
11 25 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.59%) GIS
15 12 (0.47%) BigQuery
15 12 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
15 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.47%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 298 (11.70%) JIRA
2 125 (4.91%) Git
3 74 (2.91%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.28%) GitLab
5 27 (1.06%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.86%) Rational DOORS
7 21 (0.82%) Selenium
8 17 (0.67%) Postman
9 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.51%) MLflow
10 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.47%) 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 1,255 (49.27%) Social Skills
2 796 (31.25%) Finance
3 577 (22.65%) Analytical Skills
4 253 (9.93%) Banking
5 224 (8.79%) Public Sector
6 117 (4.59%) Presentation Skills
7 109 (4.28%) Organisational Skills
8 97 (3.81%) Marketing
9 93 (3.65%) Manufacturing
10 89 (3.49%) Influencing Skills
11 84 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
12 74 (2.91%) Legal
13 63 (2.47%) Aerospace
14 60 (2.36%) Military
15 56 (2.20%) Telecoms
16 52 (2.04%) Financial Institution
17 47 (1.85%) Electronics
17 47 (1.85%) Front Office
18 46 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 46 (1.81%) Retail
Job Titles
1 360 (14.13%) Analyst
2 252 (9.89%) Senior
3 213 (8.36%) Lead
4 204 (8.01%) Architect
5 203 (7.97%) Developer
6 178 (6.99%) Project Manager
7 167 (6.56%) Business Analyst
8 99 (3.89%) Consultant
9 74 (2.91%) Software Engineer
10 72 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
11 63 (2.47%) Technical Support
12 61 (2.39%) Security Engineer
13 57 (2.24%) Delivery Manager
14 53 (2.08%) Senior Analyst
15 48 (1.88%) Data Scientist
15 48 (1.88%) IT Support
16 47 (1.85%) Designer
17 38 (1.49%) Technical Analyst
18 37 (1.45%) Data Engineer
18 37 (1.45%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (4.48%) REST
2 75 (2.94%) .NET
3 66 (2.59%) RESTful
4 64 (2.51%) React
5 63 (2.47%) HTML
6 52 (2.04%) CSS
7 50 (1.96%) Middleware
8 47 (1.85%) Kafka
9 39 (1.53%) Elastic Stack
9 39 (1.53%) JSON
9 39 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
9 39 (1.53%) SOAP
9 39 (1.53%) XML
10 38 (1.49%) PyTorch
10 38 (1.49%) TensorFlow
11 36 (1.41%) OAuth
12 33 (1.30%) Spring
13 30 (1.18%) Spring Boot
14 29 (1.14%) Node.js
14 29 (1.14%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 213 (8.36%) Management Information System
2 157 (6.16%) Product Ownership
3 114 (4.48%) Onboarding
4 113 (4.44%) Cloud Native
5 86 (3.38%) Algorithms
6 80 (3.14%) Virtual Team
7 69 (2.71%) Self-Motivation
8 68 (2.67%) Distributed Systems
9 67 (2.63%) Data Centre
10 60 (2.36%) Data Protection Act
11 55 (2.16%) Analytical Mindset
12 54 (2.12%) Data Structures
12 54 (2.12%) PMI
13 46 (1.81%) Security Posture
14 45 (1.77%) Derivative
15 38 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
16 35 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
17 34 (1.33%) NHS
18 32 (1.26%) Equities
18 32 (1.26%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.54%) Windows
2 193 (7.58%) Linux
3 80 (3.14%) Unix
4 72 (2.83%) Windows Server
5 56 (2.20%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.14%) Android
7 23 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.63%) 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 7 (0.27%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 937 (36.79%) Computer Science
2 795 (31.21%) Agile
3 711 (27.92%) Problem-Solving
4 425 (16.69%) Stakeholder Management
5 379 (14.88%) DevOps
6 358 (14.06%) AI
7 332 (13.03%) Project Management
8 326 (12.80%) Continuous Improvement
9 305 (11.97%) CI/CD
10 286 (11.23%) Analytics
11 282 (11.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 281 (11.03%) Change Management
13 272 (10.68%) Cybersecurity
14 271 (10.64%) Decision-Making
15 257 (10.09%) Migration
16 254 (9.97%) ITIL
17 238 (9.34%) Risk Management
18 235 (9.23%) Project Delivery
19 231 (9.07%) Software Engineering
20 215 (8.44%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 447 (17.55%) Python
2 379 (14.88%) SQL
3 176 (6.91%) Java
4 129 (5.06%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.20%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.30%) C#
7 77 (3.02%) C++
8 55 (2.16%) TypeScript
9 48 (1.88%) Bash
10 42 (1.65%) Go
11 30 (1.18%) R
12 26 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.82%) Perl
13 21 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.67%) MATLAB
15 15 (0.59%) C
15 15 (0.59%) Rust
15 15 (0.59%) SystemVerilog
15 15 (0.59%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.55%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 596 (23.40%) Computer Science Degree
2 482 (18.92%) Security Cleared
3 393 (15.43%) Master's Degree
4 350 (13.74%) SC Cleared
5 149 (5.85%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.14%) CISSP
7 129 (5.06%) PMP
8 90 (3.53%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.38%) CISM
10 77 (3.02%) PhD
11 73 (2.87%) TOGAF Certification
12 72 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
13 63 (2.47%) Azure Certification
14 62 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
15 57 (2.24%) DV Cleared
16 39 (1.53%) CCNP
17 38 (1.49%) MBA
18 34 (1.33%) AWS Certification
19 33 (1.30%) CBAP
20 32 (1.26%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (6.60%) QA
2 134 (5.26%) GDPR
3 109 (4.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (4.20%) PMO
5 93 (3.65%) Data Quality
6 92 (3.61%) NIST
7 50 (1.96%) PCI DSS
8 44 (1.73%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.53%) SLA
10 33 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 31 (1.22%) GRC
12 21 (0.82%) NCSC
13 20 (0.79%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.71%) WCAG
15 17 (0.67%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.55%) Basel III
17 14 (0.55%) IFRS
18 13 (0.51%) DO-254
19 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 186 (7.30%) Docker
2 161 (6.32%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.79%) Firmware
5 19 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.24%) vSphere
8 5 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
8 5 (0.20%) 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%) HDFS
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.079%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 187 (7.34%) Kubernetes
2 108 (4.24%) Terraform
3 73 (2.87%) Ansible
4 66 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 47 (1.85%) Grafana
6 41 (1.61%) SCCM
7 39 (1.53%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.18%) OPNET
9 20 (0.79%) Puppet
10 17 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.59%) Kibana
13 13 (0.51%) Nmap
14 11 (0.43%) SCOM
15 9 (0.35%) Kiali
16 8 (0.31%) Argo
17 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
17 7 (0.27%) WSUS
18 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
18 6 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 540 (21.20%) Microsoft
2 170 (6.67%) Oracle
3 157 (6.16%) SAP
4 113 (4.44%) ServiceNow
5 110 (4.32%) Google
6 86 (3.38%) Splunk
7 82 (3.22%) Cisco
8 58 (2.28%) Databricks
9 56 (2.20%) Atlassian
10 54 (2.12%) Remedy
11 50 (1.96%) Salesforce
12 49 (1.92%) VMware
13 42 (1.65%) Citrix
13 42 (1.65%) IBM
14 39 (1.53%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.14%) CheckPoint
16 27 (1.06%) Informatica
17 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
17 25 (0.98%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.82%) MuleSoft