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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,392 2,292 3,577
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.99% 7.80% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.70% 25.18% 27.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,371 1,329 1,903
10th Percentile £238 £240 £218
25th Percentile £375 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £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 211 181 412
10th Percentile £18.00 £17.50 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.11 £27.94 £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 £67.50 £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 15,237 9,103 12,859
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.77% 30.98% 30.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,137 5,746 7,978
10th Percentile £350 £281 £306
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £622 £620 £646
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.10% +1.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,076 514 1,058
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.28 £21.26 £17.73
Median hourly rate £50.00 £37.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +34.23% -6.88% -25.93%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.61 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £37.07 £40.30
% change year-on-year +28.24% -8.01% -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 18 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 18 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 18 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 2,130 £500 -2.44% 2,753
UK excluding London -7 1,301 £475 +5.56% 2,033
London -17 895 £505 -8.18% 1,021
Work from Home -13 655 £500 - 1,712
South East -2 375 £500 +2.04% 676
North of England -11 315 £424 -8.30% 452
Midlands -22 211 £505 +43.06% 286
North West -11 161 £402 -13.79% 227
West Midlands -26 148 £498 +42.14% 179
East of England -4 139 £450 -10.00% 241
Yorkshire -17 138 £450 +4.53% 168
South West -13 135 £550 +15.79% 271
Scotland -12 90 £500 +11.11% 93
East Midlands -13 61 £531 +49.16% 107
Wales -21 28 £373 +21.94% 51
North East -24 16 £450 -5.26% 65
Northern Ireland -8 14 £369 -13.24% 17

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
1 159 (6.65%) Confluence
2 125 (5.23%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.09%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.96%) Apache
7 8 (0.33%) CMS
8 6 (0.25%) IIS
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.25%) SAS
9 5 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.13%) Moodle
10 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
11 2 (0.084%) Drupal
11 2 (0.084%) Ethereum
11 2 (0.084%) nginx
11 2 (0.084%) WebSphere
11 2 (0.084%) WinCC
Applications
1 296 (12.37%) Microsoft Office
2 233 (9.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 176 (7.36%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.76%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 12 (0.50%) Adobe Illustrator
7 12 (0.50%) Photoshop
8 11 (0.46%) Adobe After Effects
8 11 (0.46%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
9 8 (0.33%) Trello
10 6 (0.25%) 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%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 69 (2.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.67%) Primavera
4 13 (0.54%) 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%) 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%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 504 (21.07%) Azure
2 292 (12.21%) AWS
3 206 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
4 188 (7.86%) Power Platform
5 109 (4.56%) Entra ID
6 94 (3.93%) GCP
7 93 (3.89%) SaaS
8 87 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.30%) GitHub
10 44 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
11 34 (1.42%) Figma
12 33 (1.38%) Google Workspace
13 32 (1.34%) PaaS
13 32 (1.34%) Power Automate
14 31 (1.30%) Snowflake
15 30 (1.25%) IaaS
16 27 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
17 26 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.09%) PowerApps
17 26 (1.09%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.47%) Firewall
2 68 (2.84%) TCP/IP
3 61 (2.55%) DNS
4 56 (2.34%) WAN
5 53 (2.22%) LAN
6 50 (2.09%) Network Security
7 35 (1.46%) VPN
8 28 (1.17%) BGP
9 27 (1.13%) Wireless
10 25 (1.05%) OSPF
11 23 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.84%) Skype
13 19 (0.79%) DHCP
14 17 (0.71%) HTTP
15 16 (0.67%) SAN
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
1 156 (6.52%) Power BI
2 100 (4.18%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
5 48 (2.01%) Big Data
5 48 (2.01%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.67%) Metadata
7 39 (1.63%) Tableau
8 35 (1.46%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
9 28 (1.17%) MySQL
10 23 (0.96%) MongoDB
11 22 (0.92%) Data Lake
12 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 15 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
14 13 (0.54%) Oracle Database
15 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
15 12 (0.50%) Power Query
15 12 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
16 10 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 261 (10.91%) JIRA
2 107 (4.47%) Git
3 43 (1.80%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.63%) GitLab
5 31 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 14 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
12 11 (0.46%) Cucumber
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%) JUnit
14 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.29%) Maven
General
1 1,117 (46.70%) Social Skills
2 729 (30.48%) Finance
3 509 (21.28%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (8.78%) Banking
5 201 (8.40%) Public Sector
6 133 (5.56%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.10%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.14%) Marketing
9 88 (3.68%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.22%) Legal
11 72 (3.01%) Aerospace
12 71 (2.97%) Influencing Skills
12 71 (2.97%) Manufacturing
13 66 (2.76%) Telecoms
14 52 (2.17%) Law
15 51 (2.13%) Military
16 48 (2.01%) Retail
17 41 (1.71%) Front Office
18 40 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 39 (1.63%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 350 (14.63%) Analyst
2 258 (10.79%) Senior
3 202 (8.44%) Architect
4 181 (7.57%) Lead
5 177 (7.40%) Project Manager
6 167 (6.98%) Developer
7 164 (6.86%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.93%) Senior Analyst
9 69 (2.88%) Consultant
10 66 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.59%) Delivery Manager
12 59 (2.47%) Designer
13 57 (2.38%) Technical Support
14 52 (2.17%) Software Engineer
15 50 (2.09%) Product Manager
16 48 (2.01%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.92%) Data Scientist
17 46 (1.92%) Senior Manager
18 45 (1.88%) Data Engineer
19 43 (1.80%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (4.10%) REST
2 81 (3.39%) .NET
3 64 (2.68%) React
4 58 (2.42%) Middleware
5 52 (2.17%) HTML
6 45 (1.88%) Kafka
7 43 (1.80%) Oracle Fusion
8 42 (1.76%) RESTful
9 40 (1.67%) CSS
10 35 (1.46%) SOAP
11 34 (1.42%) XML
12 33 (1.38%) Spring Boot
13 30 (1.25%) Pandas
13 30 (1.25%) PyTorch
13 30 (1.25%) Spring
14 28 (1.17%) .NET Framework
14 28 (1.17%) JSON
15 27 (1.13%) AngularJS
16 26 (1.09%) Web Services
17 24 (1.00%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 184 (7.69%) Management Information System
2 161 (6.73%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.56%) Onboarding
4 82 (3.43%) Cloud Native
5 79 (3.30%) Self-Motivation
6 66 (2.76%) Virtual Team
7 65 (2.72%) Data Centre
8 63 (2.63%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.55%) Algorithms
10 54 (2.26%) Data Protection Act
10 54 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
11 51 (2.13%) PMI
12 40 (1.67%) Operational Technology
13 38 (1.59%) Robotics
14 35 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
15 33 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
15 33 (1.38%) Derivative
16 32 (1.34%) Security Posture
17 31 (1.30%) Enterprise Software
18 29 (1.21%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 285 (11.91%) Windows
2 178 (7.44%) Linux
3 72 (3.01%) Unix
4 68 (2.84%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.38%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.34%) Android
7 25 (1.05%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 22 (0.92%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 822 (34.36%) Computer Science
2 687 (28.72%) Agile
3 632 (26.42%) Problem-Solving
4 375 (15.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 349 (14.59%) Continuous Improvement
6 334 (13.96%) AI
7 331 (13.84%) Project Management
8 318 (13.29%) DevOps
9 273 (11.41%) CI/CD
10 254 (10.62%) Analytics
10 254 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 253 (10.58%) Decision-Making
12 236 (9.87%) Migration
13 232 (9.70%) Change Management
14 228 (9.53%) Cybersecurity
15 219 (9.16%) ITIL
16 203 (8.49%) Risk Management
17 201 (8.40%) PRINCE2
17 201 (8.40%) Roadmaps
18 195 (8.15%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 379 (15.84%) Python
2 361 (15.09%) SQL
3 175 (7.32%) Java
4 107 (4.47%) PowerShell
5 93 (3.89%) C#
6 87 (3.64%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.76%) C++
8 39 (1.63%) Bash
9 34 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.30%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.75%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.71%) C
14 16 (0.67%) Perl
15 15 (0.63%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.59%) Go
16 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.59%) Rust
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 512 (21.40%) Computer Science Degree
2 450 (18.81%) Security Cleared
3 316 (13.21%) SC Cleared
4 279 (11.66%) Master's Degree
5 151 (6.31%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.43%) PMP
7 106 (4.43%) CISSP
8 76 (3.18%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.14%) Cisco Certification
10 63 (2.63%) CISM
11 62 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
12 59 (2.47%) TOGAF Certification
13 57 (2.38%) DV Cleared
14 48 (2.01%) PhD
15 47 (1.96%) Azure Certification
16 43 (1.80%) CCNP
17 38 (1.59%) MBA
18 36 (1.51%) CBAP
19 35 (1.46%) CCNA
20 30 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (6.65%) QA
2 114 (4.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 112 (4.68%) PMO
4 109 (4.56%) Data Quality
4 109 (4.56%) NIST
5 107 (4.47%) GDPR
6 50 (2.09%) SLA
7 46 (1.92%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.80%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.09%) GRC
11 20 (0.84%) NCSC
12 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.63%) IFRS
14 14 (0.59%) COBIT
15 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.42%) Basel III
System Software
1 150 (6.27%) Active Directory
2 133 (5.56%) Docker
3 36 (1.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.88%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.084%) HDFS
11 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.042%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.042%) Terminal Services
12 1 (0.042%) Veritas Volume Manager
Systems Management
1 144 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 73 (3.05%) Terraform
3 64 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.51%) Ansible
5 37 (1.55%) Grafana
6 35 (1.46%) SCCM
7 30 (1.25%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.88%) OPNET
9 19 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
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%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.38%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 544 (22.74%) Microsoft
2 160 (6.69%) Oracle
3 142 (5.94%) SAP
4 115 (4.81%) ServiceNow
5 80 (3.34%) Google
6 76 (3.18%) Cisco
7 63 (2.63%) Splunk
8 56 (2.34%) Databricks
9 46 (1.92%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.84%) VMware
11 43 (1.80%) Citrix
12 41 (1.71%) IBM
13 40 (1.67%) Adobe
14 39 (1.63%) Remedy
15 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.38%) CheckPoint
17 31 (1.30%) Atlassian
18 23 (0.96%) Aruba
18 23 (0.96%) Informatica
19 21 (0.88%) Siemens