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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,382 2,276 3,516
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.95% 7.80% 8.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.64% 25.17% 27.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,359 1,315 1,902
10th Percentile £238 £236 £215
25th Percentile £375 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £629 £630
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 212 182 412
10th Percentile £17.31 £16.83 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.53 £22.33
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £68.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.61 £47.81 £41.50
% change year-on-year +26.79% +15.19% -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 15,227 9,041 12,797
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.00% 30.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,134 5,692 7,977
10th Percentile £350 £281 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £532
Median % change year-on-year - -1.32% -3.27%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £646
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 1,070 515 1,058
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.07 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.57 £17.73
Median hourly rate £47.80 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.45% -6.25% -27.25%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.03 £80.00 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £36.65 £40.30
% change year-on-year +29.62% -9.07% -19.40%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -10 2,125 £500 -2.44% 2,759
UK excluding London -4 1,289 £475 +5.56% 2,023
London -16 899 £513 -6.82% 1,091
Work from Home -13 649 £500 - 1,145
South East -5 374 £500 +2.04% 649
North of England -11 315 £425 -8.75% 433
Midlands -21 208 £513 +43.96% 270
North West -9 161 £402 -14.29% 228
West Midlands -23 145 £492 +35.72% 170
East of England -4 138 £450 -10.00% 249
Yorkshire -16 138 £450 +4.53% 153
South West -17 131 £540 +13.58% 273
Scotland -16 88 £500 +11.11% 108
East Midlands -13 61 £531 +49.16% 100
Wales -21 28 £373 +21.94% 45
North East -27 16 £450 -5.26% 59
Northern Ireland -12 13 £369 -13.24% 48

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
1 155 (6.51%) Confluence
2 123 (5.16%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.14%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.92%) Apache
7 8 (0.34%) IIS
8 7 (0.29%) CMS
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.17%) SAS
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Appian
12 3 (0.13%) Camunda
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.084%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.084%) nginx
13 2 (0.084%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 289 (12.13%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 172 (7.22%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.73%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.50%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
8 11 (0.46%) Photoshop
8 11 (0.46%) Simulink
9 8 (0.34%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.34%) Revit
9 8 (0.34%) Trello
10 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
12 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.13%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.084%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 68 (2.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.63%) Primavera
4 12 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.34%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.34%) 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%) Magento
11 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 508 (21.33%) Azure
2 289 (12.13%) AWS
3 203 (8.52%) Microsoft 365
4 187 (7.85%) Power Platform
5 109 (4.58%) Entra ID
6 95 (3.99%) GCP
7 92 (3.86%) SaaS
8 85 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.31%) GitHub
10 42 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
11 35 (1.47%) Figma
12 33 (1.39%) Google Workspace
13 32 (1.34%) PaaS
14 30 (1.26%) Snowflake
15 29 (1.22%) IaaS
15 29 (1.22%) Power Automate
16 27 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
17 26 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
18 25 (1.05%) Serverless
19 24 (1.01%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.45%) Firewall
2 69 (2.90%) TCP/IP
3 63 (2.64%) DNS
4 56 (2.35%) WAN
5 53 (2.23%) LAN
6 51 (2.14%) Network Security
7 34 (1.43%) VPN
8 28 (1.18%) BGP
9 27 (1.13%) Wireless
10 25 (1.05%) OSPF
11 23 (0.97%) Ethernet
12 21 (0.88%) DHCP
13 19 (0.80%) Skype
14 17 (0.71%) SAN
15 16 (0.67%) HTTP
15 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
16 12 (0.50%) IPsec
16 12 (0.50%) SSL
16 12 (0.50%) VLAN
16 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.55%) Power BI
2 101 (4.24%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
4 59 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
5 49 (2.06%) Big Data
6 48 (2.02%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.68%) Metadata
8 39 (1.64%) Tableau
9 37 (1.55%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.22%) MySQL
11 28 (1.18%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.97%) MongoDB
13 22 (0.92%) Data Lake
14 18 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (0.63%) Oracle Database
17 13 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
18 12 (0.50%) Power Query
19 10 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 256 (10.75%) JIRA
2 108 (4.53%) Git
3 45 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.64%) GitLab
5 31 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.80%) MLflow
8 18 (0.76%) Selenium
9 14 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.55%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.46%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.42%) JUnit
13 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.38%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
14 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.29%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,111 (46.64%) Social Skills
2 732 (30.73%) Finance
3 501 (21.03%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.77%) Banking
5 199 (8.35%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.46%) Organisational Skills
7 124 (5.21%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.11%) Marketing
9 84 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.23%) Legal
11 71 (2.98%) Aerospace
11 71 (2.98%) Influencing Skills
12 70 (2.94%) Manufacturing
13 65 (2.73%) Telecoms
14 51 (2.14%) Law
15 49 (2.06%) Retail
16 48 (2.02%) Military
17 41 (1.72%) Front Office
18 40 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 38 (1.60%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 347 (14.57%) Analyst
2 263 (11.04%) Senior
3 199 (8.35%) Architect
4 182 (7.64%) Lead
5 174 (7.30%) Project Manager
6 169 (7.09%) Developer
7 161 (6.76%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.94%) Senior Analyst
9 67 (2.81%) Consultant
9 67 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
10 61 (2.56%) Delivery Manager
11 58 (2.43%) Designer
12 57 (2.39%) Technical Support
13 53 (2.23%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.10%) Product Manager
15 48 (2.02%) Security Engineer
15 48 (2.02%) Senior Manager
16 46 (1.93%) Data Scientist
17 45 (1.89%) Data Engineer
18 44 (1.85%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (4.03%) REST
2 82 (3.44%) .NET
3 63 (2.64%) React
4 58 (2.43%) Middleware
5 49 (2.06%) HTML
6 47 (1.97%) Kafka
7 45 (1.89%) Oracle Fusion
8 41 (1.72%) RESTful
9 38 (1.60%) CSS
10 34 (1.43%) Spring Boot
11 33 (1.39%) XML
12 32 (1.34%) SOAP
13 31 (1.30%) Pandas
13 31 (1.30%) Spring
14 30 (1.26%) .NET Framework
14 30 (1.26%) PyTorch
15 27 (1.13%) AngularJS
15 27 (1.13%) JSON
16 26 (1.09%) Web Services
17 24 (1.01%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 186 (7.81%) Management Information System
2 159 (6.68%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 84 (3.53%) Self-Motivation
5 83 (3.48%) Cloud Native
6 67 (2.81%) Data Centre
6 67 (2.81%) Virtual Team
7 63 (2.64%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.60%) Algorithms
9 54 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
10 52 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
11 47 (1.97%) PMI
12 38 (1.60%) Operational Technology
12 38 (1.60%) Robotics
13 36 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.43%) Derivative
15 32 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
15 32 (1.34%) Security Posture
16 31 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
16 31 (1.30%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 286 (12.01%) Windows
2 177 (7.43%) Linux
3 73 (3.06%) Unix
4 68 (2.85%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.39%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.34%) Android
7 25 (1.05%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.92%) Apple iOS
8 22 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
11 7 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.21%) AIX
12 5 (0.21%) VMS
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
14 3 (0.13%) Solaris
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 818 (34.34%) Computer Science
2 677 (28.42%) Agile
3 629 (26.41%) Problem-Solving
4 369 (15.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 352 (14.78%) Continuous Improvement
6 335 (14.06%) AI
7 323 (13.56%) Project Management
8 317 (13.31%) DevOps
9 276 (11.59%) CI/CD
10 256 (10.75%) Decision-Making
11 255 (10.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 253 (10.62%) Analytics
13 232 (9.74%) Migration
14 229 (9.61%) Change Management
15 228 (9.57%) Cybersecurity
16 214 (8.98%) ITIL
17 203 (8.52%) Risk Management
18 201 (8.44%) Roadmaps
19 198 (8.31%) PRINCE2
20 197 (8.27%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 378 (15.87%) Python
2 361 (15.16%) SQL
3 176 (7.39%) Java
4 108 (4.53%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.95%) C#
6 84 (3.53%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.81%) C++
8 37 (1.55%) Bash
9 33 (1.39%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.22%) R
11 23 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.76%) C
12 18 (0.76%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.67%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.63%) Perl
15 14 (0.59%) Go
15 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.59%) Rust
16 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 502 (21.07%) Computer Science Degree
2 441 (18.51%) Security Cleared
3 308 (12.93%) SC Cleared
4 275 (11.54%) Master's Degree
5 145 (6.09%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.25%) PMP
7 105 (4.41%) CISSP
8 77 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
9 75 (3.15%) Microsoft Certification
10 63 (2.64%) BPSS Clearance
11 62 (2.60%) CISM
12 57 (2.39%) DV Cleared
13 56 (2.35%) TOGAF Certification
14 49 (2.06%) PhD
15 48 (2.02%) Azure Certification
16 44 (1.85%) CCNP
17 37 (1.55%) MBA
18 36 (1.51%) CBAP
18 36 (1.51%) CCNA
19 30 (1.26%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 156 (6.55%) QA
2 114 (4.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 109 (4.58%) Data Quality
3 109 (4.58%) NIST
3 109 (4.58%) PMO
4 104 (4.37%) GDPR
5 50 (2.10%) SLA
6 46 (1.93%) Accessibility
7 43 (1.81%) PCI DSS
8 28 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 26 (1.09%) GRC
10 20 (0.84%) NCSC
11 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.67%) IFRS
13 14 (0.59%) COBIT
14 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 10 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 151 (6.34%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.71%) Docker
3 39 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.13%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.88%) Firmware
6 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.29%) vSphere
7 6 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
11 2 (0.084%) HDFS
11 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.084%) VMware Workstation
12 1 (0.042%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.042%) Squid
Systems Management
1 148 (6.21%) Kubernetes
2 72 (3.02%) Terraform
3 64 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.43%) Ansible
5 36 (1.51%) Grafana
6 35 (1.47%) SCCM
7 30 (1.26%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.76%) OPNET
10 15 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.59%) Puppet
12 12 (0.50%) Kibana
13 11 (0.46%) Nmap
14 9 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.38%) Kiali
14 9 (0.38%) WSUS
15 8 (0.34%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.34%) Nessus
15 8 (0.34%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 539 (22.63%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.88%) Oracle
3 140 (5.88%) SAP
4 111 (4.66%) ServiceNow
5 79 (3.32%) Google
6 78 (3.27%) Cisco
7 64 (2.69%) Splunk
8 56 (2.35%) Databricks
9 47 (1.97%) VMware
10 45 (1.89%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.81%) Citrix
12 40 (1.68%) IBM
13 38 (1.60%) Adobe
14 36 (1.51%) Remedy
15 35 (1.47%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.39%) CheckPoint
17 26 (1.09%) Atlassian
18 23 (0.97%) Aruba
18 23 (0.97%) Informatica
19 21 (0.88%) Siemens