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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -14 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,390 2,241 3,512
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.95% 7.78% 8.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.63% 25.14% 27.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,352 1,304 1,903
10th Percentile £238 £235 £222
25th Percentile £380 £375 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £628 £626
90th Percentile £738 £764 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.69% +1.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 173 409
10th Percentile £18.31 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.94 £22.50
Median hourly rate £54.75 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.39% +35.00% -13.51%
75th Percentile £84.00 £68.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.31 £50.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year +18.61% +20.48% -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 15,288 8,915 12,744
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.64% 30.94% 30.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,149 5,624 7,936
10th Percentile £350 £278 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.90% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,091 502 1,058
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.06 £17.80
Median hourly rate £48.05 £36.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.55% -9.38% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £79.87 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £35.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +35.71% -14.51% -18.12%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 2,136 £500 -2.44% 2,721
UK excluding London -6 1,301 £475 +5.56% 2,037
London -17 897 £514 -6.59% 1,051
Work from Home -15 648 £500 - 1,061
South East 0 378 £500 +3.90% 642
North of England -13 319 £443 -4.83% 446
Midlands -23 210 £525 +47.47% 269
North West -7 162 £402 -14.83% 231
West Midlands -21 147 £498 +42.14% 172
Yorkshire -15 142 £463 +8.82% 159
East of England -5 136 £450 -10.00% 242
South West -13 135 £540 +13.58% 271
Scotland -14 88 £500 +11.11% 104
East Midlands -10 61 £531 +49.16% 97
Wales -21 28 £373 +21.94% 41
North East -33 15 £450 -5.26% 66
Northern Ireland -10 13 £369 -13.24% 72

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
1 154 (6.44%) Confluence
2 124 (5.19%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.13%) Apache Spark
5 29 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.92%) Apache
7 8 (0.33%) IIS
8 7 (0.29%) CMS
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.25%) SAS
10 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Appian
11 3 (0.13%) Camunda
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.084%) Drupal
12 2 (0.084%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.084%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 287 (12.01%) Microsoft Office
2 229 (9.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 171 (7.15%) Microsoft Project
4 138 (5.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.64%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Adobe After Effects
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.50%) Adobe Illustrator
7 12 (0.50%) Photoshop
8 10 (0.42%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
9 8 (0.33%) Trello
10 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.13%) UserZoom
13 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.084%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 64 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.71%) 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 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
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%) Dynamics GP
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) Magento
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 510 (21.34%) Azure
2 291 (12.18%) AWS
3 203 (8.49%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (7.87%) Power Platform
5 117 (4.90%) Entra ID
6 94 (3.93%) GCP
7 88 (3.68%) SaaS
8 85 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.47%) GitHub
10 40 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
11 37 (1.55%) Figma
12 33 (1.38%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.34%) Google Workspace
14 30 (1.26%) PaaS
15 29 (1.21%) Power Automate
16 28 (1.17%) IaaS
17 27 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
17 27 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
17 27 (1.13%) Serverless
18 25 (1.05%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.52%) Firewall
2 70 (2.93%) TCP/IP
3 65 (2.72%) DNS
4 57 (2.38%) WAN
5 55 (2.30%) Network Security
6 53 (2.22%) LAN
7 35 (1.46%) VPN
8 28 (1.17%) BGP
9 27 (1.13%) Wireless
10 25 (1.05%) OSPF
11 23 (0.96%) DHCP
12 22 (0.92%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.79%) Skype
14 17 (0.71%) SAN
15 16 (0.67%) HTTP
15 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.54%) SSL
17 12 (0.50%) IPsec
17 12 (0.50%) VLAN
17 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (6.49%) Power BI
2 103 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
5 49 (2.05%) Big Data
6 47 (1.97%) Relational Database
7 40 (1.67%) Metadata
7 40 (1.67%) Tableau
8 36 (1.51%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
9 28 (1.17%) MySQL
10 24 (1.00%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.92%) Data Lake
12 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 17 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.67%) Oracle Database
15 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.50%) Power Query
17 11 (0.46%) GIS
Development Applications
1 255 (10.67%) JIRA
2 111 (4.64%) Git
3 47 (1.97%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.67%) GitLab
5 31 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 14 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.54%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
11 12 (0.50%) JUnit
12 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
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 1,103 (46.15%) Social Skills
2 734 (30.71%) Finance
3 496 (20.75%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.74%) Banking
5 199 (8.33%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.44%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.15%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (4.06%) Marketing
9 84 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
10 79 (3.31%) Legal
11 72 (3.01%) Aerospace
11 72 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
12 70 (2.93%) Manufacturing
13 65 (2.72%) Telecoms
14 53 (2.22%) Law
15 52 (2.18%) Retail
16 47 (1.97%) Military
17 40 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.63%) Front Office
19 38 (1.59%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 348 (14.56%) Analyst
2 266 (11.13%) Senior
3 200 (8.37%) Architect
4 185 (7.74%) Lead
5 175 (7.32%) Project Manager
6 170 (7.11%) Developer
7 160 (6.69%) Business Analyst
8 69 (2.89%) Senior Analyst
8 69 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.80%) Consultant
10 61 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
11 60 (2.51%) Designer
12 56 (2.34%) Technical Support
13 54 (2.26%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.09%) Product Manager
14 50 (2.09%) Senior Manager
15 48 (2.01%) Security Engineer
16 46 (1.92%) Data Scientist
17 45 (1.88%) Data Engineer
18 44 (1.84%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.18%) REST
2 84 (3.51%) .NET
3 64 (2.68%) React
4 58 (2.43%) Middleware
5 52 (2.18%) HTML
6 48 (2.01%) Kafka
7 47 (1.97%) Oracle Fusion
8 43 (1.80%) RESTful
9 41 (1.72%) CSS
10 35 (1.46%) Spring Boot
11 34 (1.42%) XML
12 32 (1.34%) Spring
13 31 (1.30%) .NET Framework
13 31 (1.30%) SOAP
14 30 (1.26%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.21%) Pandas
16 28 (1.17%) JSON
17 27 (1.13%) AngularJS
17 27 (1.13%) OAuth
18 26 (1.09%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 183 (7.66%) Management Information System
2 159 (6.65%) Product Ownership
3 130 (5.44%) Onboarding
4 85 (3.56%) Self-Motivation
5 84 (3.51%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.85%) Data Centre
7 66 (2.76%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.59%) Algorithms
9 61 (2.55%) Data Structures
10 54 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
11 53 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.92%) PMI
13 40 (1.67%) Operational Technology
14 38 (1.59%) Robotics
15 36 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
16 35 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
17 33 (1.38%) Derivative
18 32 (1.34%) Security Posture
19 31 (1.30%) Life Science
20 30 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 292 (12.22%) Windows
2 179 (7.49%) Linux
3 73 (3.05%) Unix
4 71 (2.97%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.47%) 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 9 (0.38%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.21%) AIX
13 5 (0.21%) VMS
14 4 (0.17%) Debian
14 4 (0.17%) Rocky
14 4 (0.17%) Solaris
15 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 827 (34.60%) Computer Science
2 680 (28.45%) Agile
3 624 (26.11%) Problem-Solving
4 373 (15.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 356 (14.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 339 (14.18%) AI
7 318 (13.31%) DevOps
7 318 (13.31%) Project Management
8 281 (11.76%) CI/CD
9 258 (10.79%) Analytics
9 258 (10.79%) Decision-Making
10 255 (10.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 240 (10.04%) Cybersecurity
11 240 (10.04%) Migration
12 228 (9.54%) Change Management
13 212 (8.87%) ITIL
14 202 (8.45%) Risk Management
14 202 (8.45%) Roadmaps
15 198 (8.28%) Software Engineering
16 197 (8.24%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 380 (15.90%) Python
2 363 (15.19%) SQL
3 180 (7.53%) Java
4 108 (4.52%) PowerShell
5 93 (3.89%) C#
6 87 (3.64%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.76%) C++
8 37 (1.55%) Bash
9 34 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.21%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 20 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.75%) C
14 16 (0.67%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.63%) Perl
15 15 (0.63%) Rust
16 14 (0.59%) Go
16 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.42%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 511 (21.38%) Computer Science Degree
2 448 (18.74%) Security Cleared
3 308 (12.89%) SC Cleared
4 272 (11.38%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.98%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.19%) PMP
7 111 (4.64%) CISSP
8 77 (3.22%) Cisco Certification
9 75 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
10 67 (2.80%) CISM
11 65 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
12 63 (2.64%) DV Cleared
13 55 (2.30%) TOGAF Certification
14 49 (2.05%) PhD
15 47 (1.97%) Azure Certification
16 44 (1.84%) CCNP
17 36 (1.51%) CCNA
17 36 (1.51%) MBA
18 35 (1.46%) CBAP
19 32 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (6.49%) QA
2 113 (4.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 111 (4.64%) Data Quality
4 109 (4.56%) NIST
4 109 (4.56%) PMO
5 105 (4.39%) GDPR
6 50 (2.09%) SLA
7 47 (1.97%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.80%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.05%) GRC
11 20 (0.84%) NCSC
12 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.71%) 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
1 156 (6.53%) Active Directory
2 133 (5.56%) Docker
3 38 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.84%) Firmware
6 7 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.29%) vSphere
7 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.17%) XenApp
8 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.13%) KVM
9 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.084%) HDFS
10 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.042%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.042%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 150 (6.28%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.14%) Terraform
3 66 (2.76%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.55%) Ansible
5 39 (1.63%) Grafana
6 36 (1.51%) SCCM
7 33 (1.38%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.67%) OPNET
10 15 (0.63%) Puppet
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) Nmap
13 9 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.38%) Kiali
13 9 (0.38%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
15 6 (0.25%) Control-M
Vendors
1 540 (22.59%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.95%) Oracle
3 136 (5.69%) SAP
4 113 (4.73%) ServiceNow
5 78 (3.26%) Cisco
5 78 (3.26%) Google
6 64 (2.68%) Splunk
7 58 (2.43%) Databricks
8 46 (1.92%) VMware
9 44 (1.84%) Salesforce
10 43 (1.80%) Citrix
11 40 (1.67%) IBM
12 39 (1.63%) Adobe
13 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
14 34 (1.42%) Remedy
15 33 (1.38%) CheckPoint
16 23 (0.96%) Aruba
16 23 (0.96%) Atlassian
16 23 (0.96%) Informatica
17 21 (0.88%) CyberArk