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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,402 2,209 3,497
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.92% 7.68% 8.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.58% 24.68% 27.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,335 1,270 1,899
10th Percentile £218 £235 £225
25th Percentile £380 £364 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £726 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +2.78% -7.69% +0.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 173 418
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.56 £14.19
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.94 £21.90
Median hourly rate £52.50 £51.80 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.36% +29.49% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £45.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +22.22% +11.59% -19.00%

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 15,413 8,949 12,884
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.55% 31.10% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,220 5,610 8,017
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £619 £644
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.30% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,135 529 1,104
10th Percentile £16.88 £17.59 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £18.13
Median hourly rate £48.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.23% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.68 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.05 £41.27
% change year-on-year +48.21% -22.33% -21.40%

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 3 June 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 3 June 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 3 June 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 2,147 £500 - 3,680
UK excluding London -8 1,310 £463 +2.78% 2,356
London -17 908 £515 -6.36% 1,658
Work from Home -13 647 £500 -2.72% 2,033
South East -3 383 £500 +5.26% 719
North of England -14 330 £446 -2.89% 538
Midlands -20 208 £503 +40.36% 295
North West -5 180 £416 -10.68% 286
West Midlands -30 148 £475 +15.15% 189
East of England -5 138 £450 -10.00% 270
Yorkshire -11 135 £475 +6.26% 179
South West -19 124 £493 +3.68% 305
Scotland -14 91 £500 +11.11% 126
East Midlands -17 58 £537 +50.84% 106
Wales -24 27 £450 +47.31% 53
North East -32 15 £450 +130.77% 81
Northern Ireland -7 14 £350 +12.00% 102

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
1 136 (5.66%) Confluence
2 129 (5.37%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.12%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (1.00%) Apache
7 10 (0.42%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.25%) SAS
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.083%) nginx
13 2 (0.083%) WinCC
Applications
1 269 (11.20%) Microsoft Office
2 223 (9.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 141 (5.87%) Microsoft Project
4 132 (5.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.42%) Simulink
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
15 3 (0.12%) Final Cut Pro
16 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 66 (2.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.62%) Primavera
3 11 (0.46%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.42%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.17%) HFM
9 4 (0.17%) Magento
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.17%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 530 (22.06%) Azure
2 313 (13.03%) AWS
3 200 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
4 187 (7.79%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.08%) Entra ID
6 106 (4.41%) GCP
7 84 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
7 84 (3.50%) SaaS
8 61 (2.54%) GitHub
9 42 (1.75%) Figma
10 39 (1.62%) Dynamics 365
11 34 (1.42%) Snowflake
12 32 (1.33%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.29%) PaaS
14 29 (1.21%) Power Automate
14 29 (1.21%) Serverless
15 28 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
15 28 (1.17%) OneDrive
15 28 (1.17%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.12%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.58%) Firewall
2 74 (3.08%) TCP/IP
3 72 (3.00%) DNS
4 61 (2.54%) Network Security
5 54 (2.25%) WAN
6 50 (2.08%) LAN
7 37 (1.54%) VPN
8 27 (1.12%) DHCP
9 26 (1.08%) BGP
10 25 (1.04%) Wireless
11 23 (0.96%) Ethernet
11 23 (0.96%) OSPF
12 18 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.71%) SAN
13 17 (0.71%) Skype
14 14 (0.58%) HTTP
14 14 (0.58%) VXLAN
15 13 (0.54%) SSL
16 12 (0.50%) 3GPP
16 12 (0.50%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (6.41%) Power BI
2 108 (4.50%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.04%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.92%) Big Data
7 40 (1.67%) Metadata
8 38 (1.58%) Tableau
9 36 (1.50%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
11 27 (1.12%) MySQL
12 25 (1.04%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.87%) Data Lake
14 18 (0.75%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
16 16 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
19 11 (0.46%) GIS
19 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 225 (9.37%) JIRA
2 113 (4.70%) Git
3 46 (1.92%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.79%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.83%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 17 (0.71%) Selenium
9 14 (0.58%) Gradle
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.54%) JUnit
10 13 (0.54%) Postman
11 11 (0.46%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.42%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.42%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.33%) Burp Suite
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Metasploit
General
1 1,106 (46.04%) Social Skills
2 744 (30.97%) Finance
3 478 (19.90%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (8.66%) Banking
5 198 (8.24%) Public Sector
6 137 (5.70%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.08%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.08%) Marketing
9 83 (3.46%) Legal
10 82 (3.41%) Aerospace
11 81 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
12 76 (3.16%) Manufacturing
13 70 (2.91%) Influencing Skills
14 67 (2.79%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.25%) Law
16 50 (2.08%) Retail
17 47 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.67%) Front Office
19 39 (1.62%) Investment Banking
20 38 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 350 (14.57%) Analyst
2 271 (11.28%) Senior
3 195 (8.12%) Architect
4 183 (7.62%) Lead
5 169 (7.04%) Developer
6 162 (6.74%) Project Manager
7 155 (6.45%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.79%) Senior Analyst
10 65 (2.71%) Consultant
11 64 (2.66%) Designer
12 60 (2.50%) Software Engineer
13 57 (2.37%) Technical Support
14 54 (2.25%) Security Engineer
15 53 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
15 53 (2.21%) Senior Manager
16 47 (1.96%) Administrator
16 47 (1.96%) Product Manager
17 46 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
18 45 (1.87%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.41%) REST
2 86 (3.58%) .NET
3 66 (2.75%) React
4 53 (2.21%) Kafka
4 53 (2.21%) Middleware
5 51 (2.12%) HTML
6 49 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
7 44 (1.83%) RESTful
8 41 (1.71%) CSS
9 35 (1.46%) .NET Framework
9 35 (1.46%) Spring Boot
10 32 (1.33%) XML
11 30 (1.25%) AngularJS
11 30 (1.25%) Spring
12 29 (1.21%) OAuth
13 28 (1.17%) Pandas
13 28 (1.17%) PyTorch
13 28 (1.17%) SOAP
14 27 (1.12%) JSON
14 27 (1.12%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 182 (7.58%) Management Information System
2 142 (5.91%) Product Ownership
3 134 (5.58%) Onboarding
4 94 (3.91%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.87%) Cloud Native
6 69 (2.87%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.66%) Virtual Team
8 61 (2.54%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.50%) Algorithms
10 54 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
11 52 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.92%) PMI
13 42 (1.75%) Operational Technology
14 40 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
15 39 (1.62%) Security Posture
16 38 (1.58%) Robotics
17 35 (1.46%) Life Science
18 32 (1.33%) Derivative
19 31 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
20 30 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 308 (12.82%) Windows
2 186 (7.74%) Linux
3 71 (2.96%) Unix
4 70 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 60 (2.50%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.29%) Android
8 28 (1.17%) Mac OS
9 26 (1.08%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.33%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) AIX
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 7 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Solaris
13 4 (0.17%) VMS
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 831 (34.60%) Computer Science
2 648 (26.98%) Agile
3 627 (26.10%) Problem-Solving
4 368 (15.32%) Stakeholder Management
5 357 (14.86%) Continuous Improvement
6 349 (14.53%) AI
7 322 (13.41%) DevOps
8 295 (12.28%) Project Management
9 289 (12.03%) CI/CD
10 259 (10.78%) Analytics
11 255 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 252 (10.49%) Decision-Making
13 237 (9.87%) Cybersecurity
14 231 (9.62%) Change Management
14 231 (9.62%) Migration
15 211 (8.78%) Roadmaps
15 211 (8.78%) Software Engineering
16 205 (8.53%) ITIL
17 186 (7.74%) Risk Management
18 184 (7.66%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 390 (16.24%) Python
2 366 (15.24%) SQL
3 185 (7.70%) Java
4 118 (4.91%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.96%) C#
6 92 (3.83%) JavaScript
7 62 (2.58%) C++
8 41 (1.71%) Bash
9 32 (1.33%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.08%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
11 22 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.71%) C
13 16 (0.67%) Rust
13 16 (0.67%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.62%) Perl
15 14 (0.58%) Go
15 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.37%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 512 (21.32%) Computer Science Degree
2 428 (17.82%) Security Cleared
3 287 (11.95%) SC Cleared
4 265 (11.03%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.83%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.00%) PMP
7 119 (4.95%) CISSP
8 82 (3.41%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (3.29%) Microsoft Certification
10 67 (2.79%) CISM
11 66 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
12 61 (2.54%) DV Cleared
13 57 (2.37%) Azure Certification
14 47 (1.96%) PhD
15 45 (1.87%) CCNP
16 39 (1.62%) TOGAF Certification
17 38 (1.58%) CCNA
18 36 (1.50%) CBAP
19 35 (1.46%) AWS Certification
20 34 (1.42%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (5.91%) QA
2 111 (4.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 110 (4.58%) NIST
4 107 (4.45%) Data Quality
5 106 (4.41%) PMO
6 101 (4.20%) GDPR
7 51 (2.12%) Accessibility
8 49 (2.04%) SLA
9 42 (1.75%) PCI DSS
10 30 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.08%) GRC
12 20 (0.83%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.67%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.46%) SOC 2
19 10 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 158 (6.58%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.70%) Docker
3 38 (1.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.25%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.083%) HDFS
11 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 153 (6.37%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.46%) Terraform
3 72 (3.00%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.46%) Ansible
5 40 (1.67%) Grafana
6 36 (1.50%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.50%) SCCM
7 20 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
9 13 (0.54%) Puppet
10 12 (0.50%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.37%) Functional Safety
11 9 (0.37%) Kiali
11 9 (0.37%) Kibana
11 9 (0.37%) WSUS
12 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.33%) Nessus
12 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
13 7 (0.29%) Nmap
Vendors
1 543 (22.61%) Microsoft
2 177 (7.37%) Oracle
3 142 (5.91%) SAP
4 103 (4.29%) ServiceNow
5 90 (3.75%) Google
6 76 (3.16%) Cisco
7 62 (2.58%) Databricks
8 57 (2.37%) Splunk
9 46 (1.92%) Citrix
10 45 (1.87%) VMware
11 44 (1.83%) Salesforce
12 43 (1.79%) Adobe
13 39 (1.62%) IBM
14 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.37%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.04%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.92%) Aruba
17 22 (0.92%) Informatica
18 21 (0.87%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.87%) Siemens