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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -8 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,474 2,303 3,662
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.27% 7.85% 8.46%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.22% 25.57% 27.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,458 1,321 1,954
10th Percentile £250 £244 £212
25th Percentile £380 £379 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.48% -3.33%
75th Percentile £624 £638 £629
90th Percentile £743 £765 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 220 185 401
10th Percentile £17.92 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.18 £22.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% +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 £57.25 £47.05 £40.25
% change year-on-year +21.67% +16.90% -10.56%

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 15,250 9,008 13,279
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.46% 30.69% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,140 5,698 8,172
10th Percentile £350 £290 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £507 £530
% change year-on-year -1.43% -4.30% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,113 514 1,068
10th Percentile £16.81 £18.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.00 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.59% +6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.07 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £46.90 £45.01 £40.28
% change year-on-year +4.20% +11.75% -19.35%

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 28 April 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 28 April 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 28 April 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 -7 2,183 £500 -4.31% 3,093
UK excluding London -8 1,339 £475 +5.56% 2,414
London -14 923 £505 -8.18% 1,099
Work from Home -9 675 £500 - 1,053
South East -5 373 £500 - 699
North of England -6 336 £415 -9.05% 723
Midlands -25 209 £500 +66.67% 359
North West 0 183 £400 -13.51% 479
West Midlands -26 148 £500 +66.67% 207
South West -10 144 £650 +27.45% 245
East of England -6 138 £475 -5.00% 242
Yorkshire -22 136 £473 +9.76% 182
Scotland -10 97 £500 +11.11% 93
East Midlands -20 59 £525 +55.33% 151
Wales -15 37 £291 -4.68% 68
North East -24 17 £364 -21.30% 70
Northern Ireland -5 15 £425 +36.00% 46

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
1 170 (6.87%) Confluence
2 121 (4.89%) SharePoint
3 72 (2.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.06%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.81%) Apache
7 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) Drupal
13 2 (0.081%) nginx
13 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.081%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 317 (12.81%) Microsoft Office
2 243 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 197 (7.96%) Microsoft Project
4 143 (5.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.51%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
8 10 (0.40%) Trello
9 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
9 7 (0.28%) Revit
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.24%) Sketch
11 5 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.081%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.081%) InVision
Business Applications
1 75 (3.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.77%) Primavera
4 15 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 510 (20.61%) Azure
2 276 (11.16%) AWS
3 214 (8.65%) Microsoft 365
4 205 (8.29%) Power Platform
5 113 (4.57%) Entra ID
6 108 (4.37%) SaaS
7 100 (4.04%) GCP
8 93 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
9 63 (2.55%) GitHub
10 49 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
11 39 (1.58%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.37%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.29%) Google Workspace
14 30 (1.21%) PowerApps
15 29 (1.17%) PaaS
16 28 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
16 28 (1.13%) IaaS
16 28 (1.13%) Serverless
17 27 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
17 27 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.53%) Firewall
2 62 (2.51%) TCP/IP
3 58 (2.34%) DNS
4 56 (2.26%) WAN
5 54 (2.18%) LAN
6 50 (2.02%) Network Security
7 37 (1.50%) VPN
8 27 (1.09%) Skype
9 26 (1.05%) Wireless
10 25 (1.01%) BGP
10 25 (1.01%) Ethernet
11 23 (0.93%) HTTP
12 22 (0.89%) OSPF
13 18 (0.73%) DHCP
14 17 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.65%) SAN
16 13 (0.53%) Internet
17 12 (0.49%) Cisco IOS
17 12 (0.49%) SSL
17 12 (0.49%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (6.83%) Power BI
2 103 (4.16%) SQL Server
3 68 (2.75%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.10%) Relational Database
6 49 (1.98%) Big Data
7 42 (1.70%) Metadata
8 41 (1.66%) Tableau
9 36 (1.46%) NoSQL
10 34 (1.37%) MySQL
11 29 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 25 (1.01%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.85%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.49%) Power Query
16 12 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.44%) Oracle Database
17 11 (0.44%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 277 (11.20%) JIRA
2 116 (4.69%) Git
3 48 (1.94%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.66%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.89%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.81%) MLflow
7 20 (0.81%) Selenium
8 13 (0.53%) Postman
9 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
12 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
15 6 (0.24%) Artifactory
General
1 1,159 (46.85%) Social Skills
2 755 (30.52%) Finance
3 549 (22.19%) Analytical Skills
4 228 (9.22%) Banking
5 215 (8.69%) Public Sector
6 127 (5.13%) Organisational Skills
7 124 (5.01%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.08%) Marketing
9 89 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
10 84 (3.40%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.11%) Manufacturing
12 73 (2.95%) Aerospace
13 70 (2.83%) Legal
13 70 (2.83%) Telecoms
14 58 (2.34%) Military
15 49 (1.98%) Law
16 47 (1.90%) Retail
17 45 (1.82%) Electronics
18 42 (1.70%) Front Office
19 40 (1.62%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 338 (13.66%) Analyst
2 236 (9.54%) Senior
3 212 (8.57%) Architect
4 203 (8.21%) Lead
5 182 (7.36%) Developer
5 182 (7.36%) Project Manager
6 158 (6.39%) Business Analyst
7 86 (3.48%) Consultant
8 65 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
8 65 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
9 62 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
10 57 (2.30%) Technical Support
11 54 (2.18%) Designer
12 53 (2.14%) Data Scientist
12 53 (2.14%) Security Engineer
13 50 (2.02%) Software Engineer
14 44 (1.78%) Product Manager
15 43 (1.74%) Data Engineer
16 42 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
17 39 (1.58%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (3.92%) REST
2 82 (3.31%) .NET
3 56 (2.26%) React
4 55 (2.22%) Middleware
5 52 (2.10%) HTML
6 48 (1.94%) RESTful
7 44 (1.78%) Kafka
8 39 (1.58%) SOAP
9 38 (1.54%) XML
10 37 (1.50%) CSS
10 37 (1.50%) JSON
10 37 (1.50%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.46%) Spring Boot
12 34 (1.37%) OAuth
12 34 (1.37%) Pandas
12 34 (1.37%) PyTorch
13 33 (1.33%) Spring
14 30 (1.21%) TensorFlow
15 29 (1.17%) .NET Framework
16 26 (1.05%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.21%) Management Information System
2 171 (6.91%) Product Ownership
3 131 (5.30%) Onboarding
4 88 (3.56%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 71 (2.87%) Self-Motivation
7 68 (2.75%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.51%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.47%) PMI
10 59 (2.38%) Data Centre
11 55 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
12 51 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
13 42 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
14 36 (1.46%) Robotics
14 36 (1.46%) Security Posture
15 35 (1.41%) Operational Technology
16 34 (1.37%) Derivative
17 33 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
18 32 (1.29%) AI Agents
19 30 (1.21%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 279 (11.28%) Windows
2 174 (7.03%) Linux
3 74 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 62 (2.51%) Unix
5 58 (2.34%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.33%) Android
7 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.53%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.53%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.20%) AIX
13 5 (0.20%) Debian
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Rocky
14 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 885 (35.77%) Computer Science
2 738 (29.83%) Agile
3 654 (26.43%) Problem-Solving
4 392 (15.84%) Stakeholder Management
5 366 (14.79%) Continuous Improvement
6 356 (14.39%) AI
7 348 (14.07%) Project Management
8 338 (13.66%) DevOps
9 283 (11.44%) CI/CD
10 279 (11.28%) Analytics
11 273 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 256 (10.35%) Change Management
13 251 (10.15%) ITIL
14 249 (10.06%) Cybersecurity
15 247 (9.98%) Decision-Making
15 247 (9.98%) Migration
16 225 (9.09%) PRINCE2
17 222 (8.97%) Project Delivery
18 211 (8.53%) Roadmaps
19 210 (8.49%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 390 (15.76%) Python
2 361 (14.59%) SQL
3 168 (6.79%) Java
4 118 (4.77%) PowerShell
5 91 (3.68%) C#
6 82 (3.31%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.67%) C++
8 39 (1.58%) Bash
8 39 (1.58%) TypeScript
9 32 (1.29%) R
10 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
11 20 (0.81%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.69%) T-SQL
13 15 (0.61%) C
13 15 (0.61%) Go
14 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
14 14 (0.57%) Perl
14 14 (0.57%) Rust
15 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 556 (22.47%) Computer Science Degree
2 473 (19.12%) Security Cleared
3 335 (13.54%) SC Cleared
4 311 (12.57%) Master's Degree
5 158 (6.39%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.34%) PMP
7 104 (4.20%) CISSP
8 91 (3.68%) Microsoft Certification
9 68 (2.75%) TOGAF Certification
10 62 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
11 61 (2.47%) CISM
12 59 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
13 58 (2.34%) DV Cleared
14 53 (2.14%) PhD
15 52 (2.10%) Azure Certification
16 39 (1.58%) MBA
17 37 (1.50%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 36 (1.46%) CCNP
19 34 (1.37%) CBAP
20 32 (1.29%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 170 (6.87%) QA
2 114 (4.61%) PMO
3 108 (4.37%) GDPR
4 105 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.24%) NIST
5 104 (4.20%) Data Quality
6 51 (2.06%) SLA
7 44 (1.78%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.74%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.97%) GRC
11 20 (0.81%) NCSC
12 19 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.57%) COBIT
13 14 (0.57%) IFRS
14 13 (0.53%) Basel III
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.49%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.44%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 165 (6.67%) Active Directory
2 147 (5.94%) Docker
3 38 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.97%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.081%) HDFS
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) GPFS
13 1 (0.040%) IAG
13 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 151 (6.10%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.15%) Terraform
3 62 (2.51%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.43%) Ansible
5 39 (1.58%) Grafana
6 37 (1.50%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
8 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.69%) Puppet
9 17 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Kibana
11 11 (0.44%) Nmap
11 11 (0.44%) WSUS
12 9 (0.36%) Kiali
12 9 (0.36%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.32%) SCOM
14 7 (0.28%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 571 (23.08%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.43%) SAP
3 156 (6.31%) Oracle
4 126 (5.09%) ServiceNow
5 88 (3.56%) Google
6 76 (3.07%) Cisco
7 65 (2.63%) Splunk
8 58 (2.34%) Databricks
9 50 (2.02%) Remedy
10 46 (1.86%) Citrix
10 46 (1.86%) VMware
11 43 (1.74%) Atlassian
12 40 (1.62%) Salesforce
13 39 (1.58%) IBM
14 35 (1.41%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.33%) CheckPoint
16 30 (1.21%) Adobe
17 24 (0.97%) Informatica
18 23 (0.93%) Aruba
18 23 (0.93%) CyberArk