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 24 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,503 2,373 3,002
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.20% 7.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.41% 22.86% 26.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,295 1,298 1,692
10th Percentile £204 £262 £250
25th Percentile £356 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £615
90th Percentile £724 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.17% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 292 207 203
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £25.96 £25.45 £26.20
Median hourly rate £39.50 £38.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.60% -26.67% +5.00%
75th Percentile £68.94 £56.00 £71.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £78.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £34.75 £57.35
% change year-on-year +11.42% -39.41% +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 17,366 10,381 11,122
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.49% 29.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,555 6,488 6,788
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £443 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £529 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £638
90th Percentile £715 £711 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,391 857 628
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.87 £17.59
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.99
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -7.41%
75th Percentile £72.54 £43.25 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.50 £70.06 £75.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% -

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 24 September 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 24 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 24 September 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 -16 2,279 £510 +2.00% 11,166
UK excluding London -16 1,351 £478 +6.17% 6,039
London -20 982 £525 -4.55% 5,938
Work from Home -22 654 £505 +4.66% 3,843
South East +4 465 £525 +16.67% 1,664
North of England -10 339 £475 +6.26% 1,148
North West -7 212 £475 +3.83% 634
Midlands -32 184 £450 -3.23% 806
East of England -12 139 £400 -15.79% 779
West Midlands -28 137 £450 -5.26% 495
South West -21 128 £400 -15.79% 693
Yorkshire -1 112 £500 +19.05% 350
Scotland -52 71 £500 +11.11% 529
East Midlands -23 46 £475 +6.26% 311
North East -41 15 £460 +32.09% 172
Northern Ireland -13 14 £250 -57.45% 318
Wales -32 13 £530 +73.50% 182
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 4

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
1 163 (6.51%) SharePoint
2 107 (4.27%) Confluence
3 63 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.04%) Apache Spark
5 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (0.80%) IIS
6 19 (0.76%) Apache
7 14 (0.56%) Camunda
7 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
8 12 (0.48%) CMS
9 8 (0.32%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 8 (0.32%) SAS
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 246 (9.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 239 (9.55%) Microsoft Office
3 120 (4.79%) Microsoft Project
4 117 (4.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (2.08%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 10 (0.40%) Navisworks
9 10 (0.40%) Windchill
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 8 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
12 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) AutoCAD
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 39 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.61%) Azure
2 318 (12.70%) AWS
3 232 (9.27%) Power Platform
4 227 (9.07%) Microsoft 365
5 156 (6.23%) GCP
6 141 (5.63%) Entra ID
7 125 (4.99%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (3.16%) SaaS
9 70 (2.80%) GitHub
10 64 (2.56%) Dynamics 365
11 61 (2.44%) Power Automate
11 61 (2.44%) Serverless
12 54 (2.16%) PowerApps
13 49 (1.96%) Microsoft Copilot
14 47 (1.88%) OneDrive
15 40 (1.60%) Snowflake
16 38 (1.52%) Figma
17 30 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
18 28 (1.12%) IaaS
19 27 (1.08%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.23%) Firewall
2 83 (3.32%) DNS
3 67 (2.68%) Network Security
4 63 (2.52%) TCP/IP
5 59 (2.36%) VPN
6 46 (1.84%) DHCP
7 34 (1.36%) LAN
7 34 (1.36%) WAN
8 30 (1.20%) Wireless
9 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
10 22 (0.88%) Internet
11 21 (0.84%) 5G
12 19 (0.76%) SSH
12 19 (0.76%) SSL
12 19 (0.76%) VLAN
13 18 (0.72%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.68%) BGP
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (0.64%) HTTP
15 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (6.75%) Power BI
2 113 (4.51%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.28%) Relational Database
5 56 (2.24%) Metadata
6 45 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
7 37 (1.48%) MySQL
8 33 (1.32%) Tableau
9 32 (1.28%) NoSQL
10 27 (1.08%) MongoDB
11 26 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
12 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
13 24 (0.96%) Big Data
14 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 19 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
15 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
16 18 (0.72%) Data Mining
17 17 (0.68%) Data Lake
18 16 (0.64%) GIS
19 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 175 (6.99%) JIRA
2 144 (5.75%) Git
3 65 (2.60%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.08%) GitLab
5 25 (1.00%) JUnit
6 23 (0.92%) Maven
6 23 (0.92%) Selenium
7 22 (0.88%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.84%) Gradle
9 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.72%) Cucumber
11 17 (0.68%) REST Assured
12 15 (0.60%) Mockito
12 15 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
13 12 (0.48%) Postman
14 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.36%) Subversion
15 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
16 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
16 8 (0.32%) Rational DOORS
General
1 1,131 (45.19%) Social Skills
2 741 (29.60%) Finance
3 582 (23.25%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.23%) Public Sector
5 202 (8.07%) Banking
6 167 (6.67%) Organisational Skills
7 129 (5.15%) Manufacturing
8 121 (4.83%) Aerospace
9 117 (4.67%) Influencing Skills
10 99 (3.96%) Marketing
11 92 (3.68%) Presentation Skills
11 92 (3.68%) Telecoms
12 84 (3.36%) Legal
13 81 (3.24%) Documentation Skills
14 65 (2.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 61 (2.44%) Retail
16 54 (2.16%) Pharmaceutical
17 52 (2.08%) Law
18 46 (1.84%) Military
19 42 (1.68%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 332 (13.26%) Analyst
2 290 (11.59%) Senior
3 208 (8.31%) Developer
4 201 (8.03%) Lead
5 166 (6.63%) Architect
6 161 (6.43%) Business Analyst
7 116 (4.63%) Project Manager
8 76 (3.04%) Consultant
9 72 (2.88%) Support Engineer
10 71 (2.84%) IT Support
11 65 (2.60%) Senior Manager
12 55 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.12%) IT Manager
14 51 (2.04%) Administrator
14 51 (2.04%) IT Analyst
15 48 (1.92%) Designer
15 48 (1.92%) Security Engineer
16 47 (1.88%) Software Engineer
17 44 (1.76%) Delivery Manager
18 42 (1.68%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (4.71%) REST
2 111 (4.43%) Terraform
3 105 (4.19%) .NET
4 76 (3.04%) React
5 72 (2.88%) HTML
6 64 (2.56%) Kafka
7 61 (2.44%) CSS
7 61 (2.44%) RESTful
8 51 (2.04%) OAuth
9 49 (1.96%) XML
10 47 (1.88%) Web Services
11 46 (1.84%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.80%) Middleware
13 40 (1.60%) OAuth2
13 40 (1.60%) SOAP
13 40 (1.60%) Spring Boot
14 38 (1.52%) SAML
15 36 (1.44%) JSON
15 36 (1.44%) OpenID
16 35 (1.40%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 231 (9.23%) Management Information System
2 137 (5.47%) Onboarding
3 122 (4.87%) Product Ownership
4 104 (4.16%) Cloud Native
5 103 (4.12%) Self-Motivation
6 62 (2.48%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.44%) Algorithms
8 58 (2.32%) Data Structures
9 55 (2.20%) Operational Technology
10 52 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
11 51 (2.04%) Security Posture
12 48 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
13 47 (1.88%) Life Science
14 46 (1.84%) AI Agents
15 41 (1.64%) Virtual Team
16 40 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
17 37 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
18 35 (1.40%) SCADA
19 30 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
19 30 (1.20%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 301 (12.03%) Windows
2 184 (7.35%) Linux
3 84 (3.36%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.68%) Unix
5 48 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Mac OS
6 34 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.16%) Apple iOS
8 23 (0.92%) Android
9 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) zOS
12 5 (0.20%) Solaris
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 809 (32.32%) Computer Science
2 679 (27.13%) Agile
3 662 (26.45%) Problem-Solving
4 540 (21.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 444 (17.74%) Continuous Improvement
6 391 (15.62%) AI
7 366 (14.62%) DevOps
8 326 (13.02%) CI/CD
9 319 (12.74%) Project Management
10 312 (12.47%) Analytics
11 289 (11.55%) ITIL
12 267 (10.67%) Decision-Making
13 259 (10.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 245 (9.79%) Change Management
15 243 (9.71%) Roadmaps
16 242 (9.67%) Scrum
17 232 (9.27%) Cybersecurity
18 230 (9.19%) Software Engineering
19 216 (8.63%) PRINCE2
20 215 (8.59%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 414 (16.54%) Python
2 362 (14.46%) SQL
3 177 (7.07%) PowerShell
4 164 (6.55%) Java
5 130 (5.19%) JavaScript
6 126 (5.03%) C#
7 63 (2.52%) Bash
8 48 (1.92%) TypeScript
9 41 (1.64%) C++
10 30 (1.20%) Bicep
11 29 (1.16%) Shell Script
11 29 (1.16%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.96%) R
14 22 (0.88%) C
15 17 (0.68%) Scala
16 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.48%) X++
17 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.40%) Go
Qualifications
1 492 (19.66%) Computer Science Degree
2 479 (19.14%) Security Cleared
3 353 (14.10%) SC Cleared
4 211 (8.43%) Master's Degree
5 151 (6.03%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.31%) PMP
7 123 (4.91%) Microsoft Certification
8 108 (4.31%) CISSP
9 93 (3.72%) Azure Certification
10 89 (3.56%) DV Cleared
11 88 (3.52%) Cisco Certification
12 77 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
13 62 (2.48%) PhD
14 56 (2.24%) CISM
15 50 (2.00%) AWS Certification
16 49 (1.96%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 39 (1.56%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.52%) CCNA
18 38 (1.52%) CCNP
19 35 (1.40%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (5.95%) QA
2 147 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 95 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 93 (3.72%) NIST
5 84 (3.36%) PMO
6 79 (3.16%) GDPR
7 48 (1.92%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.68%) SLA
9 30 (1.20%) GRC
10 22 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 19 (0.76%) NCSC
12 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.68%) PCI DSS
14 16 (0.64%) IFRS
15 13 (0.52%) P3O
16 12 (0.48%) ISO 31000
17 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
17 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
17 11 (0.44%) IEC 61508
18 10 (0.40%) COBIT
System Software
1 195 (7.79%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.87%) Docker
3 59 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.20%) Firmware
5 27 (1.08%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) vSphere
8 9 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.24%) RACF
11 5 (0.20%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) ISA Server
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.12%) ACF2
13 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 129 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.44%) Ansible
4 33 (1.32%) SCCM
5 27 (1.08%) Grafana
6 25 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 10 (0.40%) Functional Safety
12 9 (0.36%) CASB
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.24%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) WSUS
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 631 (25.21%) Microsoft
2 182 (7.27%) Oracle
3 141 (5.63%) ServiceNow
4 138 (5.51%) SAP
5 103 (4.12%) Google
6 75 (3.00%) Cisco
6 75 (3.00%) VMware
7 66 (2.64%) Salesforce
8 62 (2.48%) Adobe
9 55 (2.20%) Databricks
10 46 (1.84%) Splunk
11 45 (1.80%) IBM
12 30 (1.20%) CyberArk
12 30 (1.20%) Red Hat
13 26 (1.04%) OpenAI
14 22 (0.88%) Citrix
14 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.84%) Apple
15 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
16 19 (0.76%) Ariba