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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 17
Rank change year-on-year -15 -8 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,462 2,325 3,550
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.79% 7.56% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.32% 24.51% 27.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,346 1,325 1,912
10th Percentile £206 £243 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.10% - -5.30%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 263 189 408
10th Percentile £16.60 £20.00 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.13 £26.32 £22.46
Median hourly rate £44.50 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.78% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.31 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.35 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.50 £40.23 £42.25
% change year-on-year +20.56% -4.78% -12.49%

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 16,068 9,487 12,871
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.26% 30.85% 29.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,724 5,881 7,948
10th Percentile £350 £275 £311
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £713 £701 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +2.00% -5.21% +0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,171 641 1,116
10th Percentile £17.40 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.19 £20.15 £20.00
Median hourly rate £50.00 £28.00 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +78.57% -31.61% -26.47%
75th Percentile £72.52 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £26.28 £43.00
% change year-on-year +90.26% -38.88% -20.54%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 -12 2,203 £500 -0.60% 3,335
UK excluding London -10 1,350 £450 - 2,193
London -19 937 £515 -6.36% 1,526
Work from Home -16 666 £500 -4.76% 1,283
South East -2 422 £500 +4.71% 685
North of England -12 332 £449 -1.37% 453
Midlands -22 198 £500 +34.77% 330
North West -9 186 £447 -2.67% 242
West Midlands -26 146 £487 +17.94% 178
East of England -3 145 £450 -10.00% 249
Yorkshire -8 133 £500 +11.86% 146
South West -23 121 £435 -8.42% 247
Scotland -21 91 £475 +5.56% 112
East Midlands -10 50 £550 +54.49% 152
Wales -22 30 £450 +47.31% 102
Northern Ireland -10 15 £254 -40.24% 63
North East -36 13 £450 +130.77% 72

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 (5.52%) Confluence
2 133 (5.40%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.93%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 2 (0.081%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.081%) Drupal
14 2 (0.081%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.081%) nginx
14 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 280 (11.37%) Microsoft Office
2 227 (9.22%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.65%) Microsoft Project
4 136 (5.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 70 (2.84%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 13 (0.53%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
11 7 (0.28%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) Trello
13 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 63 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.65%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
5 7 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.20%) Magento
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) HFM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.99%) Azure
2 325 (13.20%) AWS
3 210 (8.53%) Power Platform
4 208 (8.45%) Microsoft 365
5 141 (5.73%) Entra ID
6 124 (5.04%) GCP
7 104 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.37%) SaaS
9 65 (2.64%) GitHub
10 44 (1.79%) Figma
11 43 (1.75%) Snowflake
12 40 (1.62%) Serverless
13 39 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.42%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.42%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.30%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (1.26%) OneDrive
16 31 (1.26%) PaaS
17 27 (1.10%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.67%) Firewall
2 80 (3.25%) DNS
3 79 (3.21%) TCP/IP
4 69 (2.80%) Network Security
5 54 (2.19%) WAN
6 52 (2.11%) VPN
7 49 (1.99%) LAN
8 35 (1.42%) DHCP
9 29 (1.18%) BGP
10 28 (1.14%) Wireless
11 25 (1.02%) OSPF
12 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.81%) Ethernet
14 19 (0.77%) SSL
15 15 (0.61%) Internet
15 15 (0.61%) VLAN
16 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
16 14 (0.57%) HTTP
16 14 (0.57%) SAN
17 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.23%) Power BI
2 116 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 66 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.03%) Relational Database
6 49 (1.99%) Big Data
7 44 (1.79%) Metadata
8 39 (1.58%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.58%) Tableau
9 33 (1.34%) MySQL
10 29 (1.18%) MongoDB
11 27 (1.10%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 22 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
16 14 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
17 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
18 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 221 (8.98%) JIRA
2 124 (5.04%) Git
3 51 (2.07%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.75%) GitLab
5 31 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) MLflow
7 19 (0.77%) Visual Studio
8 18 (0.73%) Selenium
9 15 (0.61%) Postman
10 13 (0.53%) JUnit
10 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.41%) Gradle
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.32%) Maven
14 8 (0.32%) Subversion
15 6 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 1,104 (44.84%) Social Skills
2 738 (29.98%) Finance
3 519 (21.08%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.41%) Public Sector
5 194 (7.88%) Banking
6 146 (5.93%) Organisational Skills
7 119 (4.83%) Presentation Skills
8 109 (4.43%) Marketing
9 92 (3.74%) Legal
10 89 (3.61%) Aerospace
11 85 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
12 84 (3.41%) Manufacturing
13 80 (3.25%) Influencing Skills
14 73 (2.97%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.36%) Retail
16 53 (2.15%) Law
17 51 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 39 (1.58%) Front Office
19 38 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
20 32 (1.30%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 348 (14.13%) Analyst
2 274 (11.13%) Senior
3 202 (8.20%) Architect
4 181 (7.35%) Lead
5 171 (6.95%) Developer
6 161 (6.54%) Project Manager
7 153 (6.21%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.01%) Consultant
8 74 (3.01%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.72%) Designer
10 65 (2.64%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.32%) Senior Analyst
11 57 (2.32%) Technical Support
12 54 (2.19%) Software Engineer
13 51 (2.07%) IT Support
14 50 (2.03%) Security Engineer
15 49 (1.99%) Administrator
15 49 (1.99%) IT Manager
15 49 (1.99%) Product Manager
16 47 (1.91%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.10%) .NET
2 100 (4.06%) REST
3 70 (2.84%) React
4 50 (2.03%) Kafka
5 45 (1.83%) HTML
6 43 (1.75%) Middleware
6 43 (1.75%) RESTful
7 39 (1.58%) .NET Framework
8 38 (1.54%) OAuth
9 36 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
10 34 (1.38%) CSS
11 33 (1.34%) Spring
11 33 (1.34%) Spring Boot
12 32 (1.30%) Web Services
13 29 (1.18%) XML
14 28 (1.14%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.14%) JSON
14 28 (1.14%) SAML
15 27 (1.10%) LDAP
15 27 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 204 (8.29%) Management Information System
2 146 (5.93%) Onboarding
3 143 (5.81%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
5 98 (3.98%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.56%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.52%) Algorithms
9 59 (2.40%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.03%) Security Posture
11 48 (1.95%) Operational Technology
12 47 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
13 46 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
14 40 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
15 37 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
15 37 (1.50%) PMI
16 36 (1.46%) Life Science
17 35 (1.42%) Robotics
18 30 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
19 28 (1.14%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.63%) Windows
2 178 (7.23%) Linux
3 74 (3.01%) Windows Server
4 70 (2.84%) Unix
5 55 (2.23%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.26%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.14%) Android
10 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) Rocky
16 4 (0.16%) Solaris
17 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 819 (33.27%) Computer Science
2 689 (27.99%) Agile
3 653 (26.52%) Problem-Solving
4 400 (16.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 388 (15.76%) AI
6 382 (15.52%) Continuous Improvement
7 341 (13.85%) DevOps
8 300 (12.19%) Project Management
9 298 (12.10%) Analytics
10 296 (12.02%) CI/CD
11 272 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 264 (10.72%) Decision-Making
13 249 (10.11%) Cybersecurity
14 248 (10.07%) ITIL
15 222 (9.02%) Change Management
16 218 (8.85%) Roadmaps
17 215 (8.73%) Migration
18 207 (8.41%) Software Engineering
19 194 (7.88%) Project Delivery
20 189 (7.68%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 416 (16.90%) Python
2 377 (15.31%) SQL
3 171 (6.95%) Java
4 132 (5.36%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.35%) C#
6 93 (3.78%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.99%) C++
8 42 (1.71%) Bash
9 36 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.18%) R
11 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.65%) C
15 13 (0.53%) Go
15 13 (0.53%) Perl
16 12 (0.49%) Bicep
17 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Rust
Qualifications
1 496 (20.15%) Computer Science Degree
2 431 (17.51%) Security Cleared
3 290 (11.78%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.48%) Master's Degree
5 139 (5.65%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.28%) CISSP
7 121 (4.91%) PMP
8 95 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 87 (3.53%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (2.68%) Azure Certification
10 66 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
10 66 (2.68%) CISM
11 63 (2.56%) DV Cleared
12 48 (1.95%) PhD
13 44 (1.79%) CCNP
14 43 (1.75%) CCNA
15 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
16 36 (1.46%) TOGAF Certification
17 33 (1.34%) CISA
17 33 (1.34%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.40%) QA
2 124 (5.04%) Data Quality
3 120 (4.87%) NIST
4 116 (4.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.18%) PMO
6 95 (3.86%) GDPR
7 50 (2.03%) SLA
8 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.50%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.26%) GRC
11 28 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 19 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.57%) IFRS
16 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.49%) COBIT
17 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
19 8 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 188 (7.64%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.56%) Docker
3 43 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 14 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.081%) KVM
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 149 (6.05%) Kubernetes
2 89 (3.61%) Terraform
3 76 (3.09%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.52%) Ansible
5 36 (1.46%) Grafana
6 34 (1.38%) Prometheus
7 33 (1.34%) SCCM
8 22 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.53%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.37%) WSUS
15 8 (0.32%) Nessus
16 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
17 5 (0.20%) Kibana
17 5 (0.20%) SCOM
17 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 585 (23.76%) Microsoft
2 169 (6.86%) Oracle
3 140 (5.69%) SAP
4 124 (5.04%) ServiceNow
5 102 (4.14%) Google
6 73 (2.97%) Cisco
7 63 (2.56%) Databricks
8 53 (2.15%) VMware
9 51 (2.07%) Adobe
10 49 (1.99%) Salesforce
11 43 (1.75%) IBM
12 42 (1.71%) Splunk
13 40 (1.62%) Citrix
14 36 (1.46%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.18%) CyberArk
16 26 (1.06%) CheckPoint
17 24 (0.97%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.85%) Siemens
19 20 (0.81%) HP
19 20 (0.81%) Informatica