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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,505 2,476 3,052
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 7.53% 7.84%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.88% 24.15% 26.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,332 1,402 1,772
10th Percentile £207 £251 £256
25th Percentile £364 £379 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +0.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 210 273
10th Percentile £17.15 £17.50 £18.35
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.36
Median hourly rate £42.50 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year - -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.20 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.04 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £41.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +1.73% -28.51% +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 16,838 10,251 11,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.41% 31.16% 29.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,264 6,335 7,402
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,256 785 855
10th Percentile £17.73 £17.87 £14.65
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.75 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +105.77% -41.51% -22.00%
75th Percentile £73.53 £54.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £77.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £46.18
% change year-on-year +98.81% -45.54% -11.52%

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 8 August 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 8 August 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 8 August 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 -13 2,289 £500 - 4,821
UK excluding London -12 1,378 £475 +5.56% 2,766
London -21 970 £525 -4.55% 2,453
Work from Home -21 658 £500 - 1,585
South East +3 486 £500 +5.26% 820
North of England -11 338 £459 +2.00% 549
North West -13 195 £450 -5.26% 289
Midlands -33 181 £463 +3.47% 385
East of England -8 144 £425 -5.56% 418
West Midlands -33 138 £466 +3.44% 218
Yorkshire -7 127 £500 +20.12% 161
South West -21 125 £415 -7.78% 308
Scotland -36 73 £493 +9.44% 175
East Midlands -21 41 £475 +32.68% 167
Wales -28 17 £530 +71.67% 79
North East -46 16 £450 +130.77% 106
Northern Ireland -11 15 £252 -46.95% 95
Channel Islands - 1 - -

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
1 147 (5.87%) SharePoint
2 119 (4.75%) Confluence
3 63 (2.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.24%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.80%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 12 (0.48%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Service Bus
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.080%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 273 (10.90%) Microsoft Office
2 246 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 145 (5.79%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.55%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 5 (0.20%) Trello
13 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 60 (2.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.76%) Primavera
3 17 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 567 (22.63%) Azure
2 324 (12.93%) AWS
3 225 (8.98%) Power Platform
4 221 (8.82%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (6.11%) Entra ID
6 133 (5.31%) GCP
7 106 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.31%) SaaS
9 72 (2.87%) GitHub
10 51 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
11 48 (1.92%) PowerApps
12 47 (1.88%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.88%) Snowflake
13 45 (1.80%) Figma
13 45 (1.80%) Serverless
14 40 (1.60%) OneDrive
15 39 (1.56%) Microsoft Copilot
16 29 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.12%) IaaS
18 26 (1.04%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 120 (4.79%) Firewall
2 81 (3.23%) DNS
3 80 (3.19%) TCP/IP
4 70 (2.79%) Network Security
5 63 (2.51%) VPN
6 43 (1.72%) WAN
7 41 (1.64%) DHCP
8 40 (1.60%) LAN
9 29 (1.16%) Wireless
10 22 (0.88%) BGP
11 21 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.76%) HTTP
12 19 (0.76%) SSL
12 19 (0.76%) VLAN
13 18 (0.72%) SSH
14 17 (0.68%) Internet
14 17 (0.68%) OSPF
15 15 (0.60%) MPLS
16 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.11%) Power BI
2 108 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 57 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.16%) Relational Database
5 48 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.64%) Metadata
7 34 (1.36%) NoSQL
7 34 (1.36%) Tableau
8 30 (1.20%) Big Data
9 26 (1.04%) MongoDB
10 25 (1.00%) MySQL
11 24 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 22 (0.88%) Oracle Database
13 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.68%) Data Lake
13 17 (0.68%) Data Mining
14 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
15 14 (0.56%) Power Query
16 12 (0.48%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 195 (7.78%) JIRA
2 130 (5.19%) Git
3 58 (2.32%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.88%) GitLab
5 35 (1.40%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.80%) Selenium
7 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.60%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.44%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,108 (44.23%) Social Skills
2 736 (29.38%) Finance
3 576 (22.99%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (8.14%) Public Sector
5 182 (7.27%) Banking
6 165 (6.59%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.31%) Aerospace
8 106 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
9 100 (3.99%) Legal
10 97 (3.87%) Marketing
11 93 (3.71%) Manufacturing
12 89 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
13 85 (3.39%) Telecoms
14 79 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
15 64 (2.55%) Retail
16 62 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.16%) Law
18 50 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.56%) Front Office
20 38 (1.52%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 340 (13.57%) Analyst
2 285 (11.38%) Senior
3 188 (7.50%) Lead
4 177 (7.07%) Architect
4 177 (7.07%) Developer
5 156 (6.23%) Business Analyst
6 147 (5.87%) Project Manager
7 75 (2.99%) Consultant
8 73 (2.91%) Senior Manager
9 62 (2.48%) IT Support
10 61 (2.44%) Designer
11 59 (2.36%) Support Engineer
12 58 (2.32%) Solutions Architect
13 54 (2.16%) IT Manager
13 54 (2.16%) Product Manager
14 52 (2.08%) IT Analyst
15 50 (2.00%) Software Engineer
16 48 (1.92%) Administrator
17 47 (1.88%) Senior Analyst
18 46 (1.84%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.23%) REST
2 99 (3.95%) .NET
3 63 (2.51%) React
4 47 (1.88%) Kafka
4 47 (1.88%) RESTful
5 45 (1.80%) HTML
5 45 (1.80%) OAuth
6 38 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (1.44%) CSS
8 35 (1.40%) Middleware
9 34 (1.36%) SAML
10 33 (1.32%) .NET Framework
10 33 (1.32%) OAuth2
10 33 (1.32%) Web Services
11 30 (1.20%) JSON
12 29 (1.16%) AngularJS
12 29 (1.16%) LDAP
12 29 (1.16%) OpenID
13 28 (1.12%) XML
14 27 (1.08%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.22%) Management Information System
2 152 (6.07%) Onboarding
3 151 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 113 (4.51%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.71%) Cloud Native
6 74 (2.95%) Data Structures
7 69 (2.75%) Algorithms
8 66 (2.63%) Data Centre
9 55 (2.20%) Security Posture
10 54 (2.16%) Virtual Team
11 51 (2.04%) Operational Technology
12 46 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
13 43 (1.72%) Distributed Systems
14 42 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (1.64%) Life Science
16 37 (1.48%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.36%) PMI
17 34 (1.36%) SCADA
18 33 (1.32%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 303 (12.10%) Windows
2 182 (7.27%) Linux
3 76 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.44%) Unix
5 53 (2.12%) Windows 10
6 37 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.16%) Android
8 29 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 13 (0.52%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 846 (33.77%) Computer Science
2 673 (26.87%) Agile
3 655 (26.15%) Problem-Solving
4 454 (18.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 427 (17.05%) Continuous Improvement
6 393 (15.69%) AI
7 330 (13.17%) DevOps
8 319 (12.73%) Project Management
9 307 (12.26%) Analytics
10 299 (11.94%) CI/CD
11 284 (11.34%) ITIL
12 265 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 260 (10.38%) Decision-Making
14 256 (10.22%) Cybersecurity
15 225 (8.98%) Change Management
16 218 (8.70%) Software Engineering
17 217 (8.66%) PRINCE2
18 211 (8.42%) Roadmaps
19 209 (8.34%) Project Delivery
20 204 (8.14%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 434 (17.33%) Python
2 352 (14.05%) SQL
3 163 (6.51%) PowerShell
4 162 (6.47%) Java
5 110 (4.39%) C#
6 96 (3.83%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.24%) Bash
8 47 (1.88%) C++
9 41 (1.64%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.08%) R
11 26 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.00%) Bicep
13 24 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.96%) T-SQL
14 22 (0.88%) C
15 14 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Scala
17 11 (0.44%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 499 (19.92%) Computer Science Degree
2 453 (18.08%) Security Cleared
3 297 (11.86%) SC Cleared
4 218 (8.70%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.03%) PMP
7 124 (4.95%) CISSP
8 117 (4.67%) Microsoft Certification
9 88 (3.51%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.07%) Azure Certification
11 75 (2.99%) DV Cleared
12 66 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.44%) CISM
14 52 (2.08%) PhD
15 44 (1.76%) CCNA
16 42 (1.68%) CCNP
17 41 (1.64%) AWS Certification
18 40 (1.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 37 (1.48%) CISA
20 31 (1.24%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.19%) Data Quality
2 129 (5.15%) QA
3 120 (4.79%) NIST
4 113 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (4.07%) PMO
6 75 (2.99%) GDPR
7 52 (2.08%) SLA
8 51 (2.04%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.08%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.00%) GRC
12 23 (0.92%) NCSC
13 17 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.52%) COBIT
14 13 (0.52%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
18 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 200 (7.98%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.79%) Docker
3 52 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.00%) Firmware
4 25 (1.00%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.87%) Terraform
3 81 (3.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.59%) Ansible
5 39 (1.56%) SCCM
6 29 (1.16%) Grafana
7 26 (1.04%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.28%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) CASB
Vendors
1 641 (25.59%) Microsoft
2 167 (6.67%) Oracle
3 140 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 138 (5.51%) SAP
5 90 (3.59%) Google
6 72 (2.87%) Cisco
7 68 (2.71%) VMware
8 65 (2.59%) Databricks
9 59 (2.36%) Salesforce
10 56 (2.24%) Adobe
11 48 (1.92%) IBM
12 37 (1.48%) Splunk
13 34 (1.36%) CyberArk
14 31 (1.24%) Citrix
15 30 (1.20%) Palo Alto
16 29 (1.16%) Red Hat
17 23 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
18 22 (0.88%) Siemens
19 21 (0.84%) Apple
19 21 (0.84%) Ariba