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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,472 2,370 3,016
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.54% 7.19% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.38% 22.93% 26.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,274 1,290 1,704
10th Percentile £204 £260 £244
25th Percentile £353 £384 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £608 £625 £619
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 284 209 210
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.19 £25.15 £26.56
Median hourly rate £38.72 £38.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.57% -26.67% +6.84%
75th Percentile £68.75 £56.00 £71.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £79.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £34.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +12.23% -39.84% +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 17,194 10,338 11,265
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.60% 31.37% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,450 6,458 6,928
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £527 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.33% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £713 £711 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,354 838 653
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.87 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £48.72 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +93.72% -48.67% -9.26%
75th Percentile £72.54 £45.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.00 £76.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +89.03% -52.10% +1.17%

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 September 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 September 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 18 September 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 -16 2,250 £510 +2.00% 10,244
UK excluding London -16 1,330 £475 +5.56% 5,460
London -20 972 £525 -4.55% 5,592
Work from Home -19 651 £500 +1.63% 3,327
South East +9 459 £525 +13.51% 1,619
North of England -13 338 £475 +5.56% 990
North West -6 213 £475 +3.83% 538
Midlands -32 178 £450 -2.96% 710
East of England -14 135 £350 -30.00% 726
West Midlands -28 132 £450 -5.26% 425
South West -23 125 £400 -13.51% 634
Yorkshire -5 109 £500 +19.05% 284
Scotland -51 70 £500 +11.11% 481
East Midlands -22 45 £475 +13.10% 284
North East -43 16 £455 +30.65% 180
Northern Ireland -13 14 £250 -57.45% 232
Wales -33 13 £530 +71.67% 163
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 5

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
1 163 (6.59%) SharePoint
2 103 (4.17%) Confluence
3 61 (2.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.09%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 18 (0.73%) IIS
8 14 (0.57%) SharePoint Server
9 13 (0.53%) Camunda
9 13 (0.53%) CMS
10 9 (0.36%) SAS
11 7 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) Appian
14 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 247 (9.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 238 (9.63%) Microsoft Office
3 124 (5.02%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (4.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 52 (2.10%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.40%) Windchill
11 9 (0.36%) Navisworks
11 9 (0.36%) Revit
12 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.32%) Simulink
12 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 8 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) AutoCAD
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 40 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.53%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
10 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 4 (0.16%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 557 (22.53%) Azure
2 311 (12.58%) AWS
3 233 (9.43%) Power Platform
4 228 (9.22%) Microsoft 365
5 148 (5.99%) GCP
6 138 (5.58%) Entra ID
7 121 (4.89%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.28%) SaaS
9 69 (2.79%) GitHub
10 63 (2.55%) Dynamics 365
11 60 (2.43%) Power Automate
12 59 (2.39%) Serverless
13 54 (2.18%) PowerApps
14 48 (1.94%) Microsoft Copilot
15 46 (1.86%) OneDrive
16 40 (1.62%) Snowflake
17 38 (1.54%) Figma
18 29 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
19 28 (1.13%) IaaS
20 27 (1.09%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.45%) Firewall
2 85 (3.44%) DNS
3 67 (2.71%) Network Security
4 66 (2.67%) TCP/IP
5 61 (2.47%) VPN
6 46 (1.86%) DHCP
7 34 (1.38%) LAN
7 34 (1.38%) WAN
8 29 (1.17%) Wireless
9 23 (0.93%) 3GPP
9 23 (0.93%) Internet
10 21 (0.85%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
12 19 (0.77%) SSH
12 19 (0.77%) VLAN
13 18 (0.73%) BGP
13 18 (0.73%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
15 15 (0.61%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (6.92%) Power BI
2 115 (4.65%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.31%) Relational Database
5 54 (2.18%) Metadata
6 45 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.42%) MySQL
8 32 (1.29%) Tableau
9 31 (1.25%) NoSQL
10 26 (1.05%) Big Data
11 25 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
11 25 (1.01%) MongoDB
12 24 (0.97%) Oracle Database
12 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (0.73%) Data Mining
15 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
16 15 (0.61%) GIS
17 14 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 176 (7.12%) JIRA
2 138 (5.58%) Git
3 64 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.10%) GitLab
5 23 (0.93%) JUnit
5 23 (0.93%) Selenium
6 21 (0.85%) Maven
6 21 (0.85%) SonarQube
7 19 (0.77%) Gradle
8 17 (0.69%) REST Assured
8 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
9 16 (0.65%) Cucumber
10 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.53%) Mockito
12 12 (0.49%) Postman
13 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
13 10 (0.40%) Subversion
14 9 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
14 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,122 (45.39%) Social Skills
2 735 (29.73%) Finance
3 575 (23.26%) Analytical Skills
4 201 (8.13%) Public Sector
5 200 (8.09%) Banking
6 168 (6.80%) Organisational Skills
7 124 (5.02%) Manufacturing
8 116 (4.69%) Aerospace
9 111 (4.49%) Influencing Skills
10 99 (4.00%) Marketing
11 91 (3.68%) Telecoms
12 89 (3.60%) Presentation Skills
13 87 (3.52%) Legal
14 77 (3.11%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 59 (2.39%) Retail
17 54 (2.18%) Pharmaceutical
18 52 (2.10%) Law
19 44 (1.78%) Military
20 42 (1.70%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 331 (13.39%) Analyst
2 286 (11.57%) Senior
3 202 (8.17%) Developer
4 197 (7.97%) Lead
5 165 (6.67%) Architect
6 156 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 117 (4.73%) Project Manager
8 76 (3.07%) Consultant
9 74 (2.99%) Support Engineer
10 71 (2.87%) IT Support
11 66 (2.67%) Senior Manager
12 55 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.14%) Administrator
13 53 (2.14%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.06%) IT Manager
15 49 (1.98%) Designer
16 46 (1.86%) Security Engineer
16 46 (1.86%) Software Engineer
17 45 (1.82%) Technical Support
18 42 (1.70%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (4.85%) REST
2 109 (4.41%) Terraform
3 102 (4.13%) .NET
4 73 (2.95%) React
5 71 (2.87%) HTML
6 64 (2.59%) Kafka
7 59 (2.39%) CSS
8 56 (2.27%) RESTful
9 50 (2.02%) OAuth
10 48 (1.94%) XML
11 46 (1.86%) Oracle Fusion
12 44 (1.78%) Web Services
13 41 (1.66%) Middleware
14 39 (1.58%) OAuth2
14 39 (1.58%) Spring Boot
15 38 (1.54%) SOAP
16 36 (1.46%) JSON
16 36 (1.46%) SAML
17 34 (1.38%) OpenID
17 34 (1.38%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 227 (9.18%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.78%) Onboarding
3 118 (4.77%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.25%) Self-Motivation
5 101 (4.09%) Cloud Native
6 60 (2.43%) Algorithms
6 60 (2.43%) Data Centre
7 58 (2.35%) Data Structures
8 54 (2.18%) Operational Technology
9 51 (2.06%) Security Posture
10 49 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
11 47 (1.90%) Life Science
12 46 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
13 43 (1.74%) AI Agents
13 43 (1.74%) Virtual Team
14 39 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
15 37 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
16 34 (1.38%) SCADA
17 31 (1.25%) Data Protection Act
18 29 (1.17%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 297 (12.01%) Windows
2 183 (7.40%) Linux
3 82 (3.32%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.59%) Unix
5 47 (1.90%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
6 33 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
8 24 (0.97%) Android
9 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.24%) VMS
10 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
11 5 (0.20%) zOS
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 802 (32.44%) Computer Science
2 664 (26.86%) Agile
3 653 (26.42%) Problem-Solving
4 513 (20.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.76%) Continuous Improvement
6 386 (15.61%) AI
7 354 (14.32%) DevOps
8 320 (12.94%) CI/CD
9 314 (12.70%) Project Management
10 310 (12.54%) Analytics
11 282 (11.41%) ITIL
12 262 (10.60%) Decision-Making
13 256 (10.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 239 (9.67%) Change Management
15 233 (9.43%) Roadmaps
16 231 (9.34%) Scrum
17 227 (9.18%) Cybersecurity
18 226 (9.14%) Software Engineering
19 207 (8.37%) Project Delivery
20 206 (8.33%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 412 (16.67%) Python
2 361 (14.60%) SQL
3 180 (7.28%) PowerShell
4 163 (6.59%) Java
5 128 (5.18%) JavaScript
6 122 (4.94%) C#
7 62 (2.51%) Bash
8 47 (1.90%) TypeScript
9 43 (1.74%) C++
10 30 (1.21%) Bicep
11 29 (1.17%) T-SQL
12 28 (1.13%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.97%) C
15 23 (0.93%) R
16 16 (0.65%) Scala
17 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
17 12 (0.49%) X++
18 11 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 10 (0.40%) Perl
Qualifications
1 493 (19.94%) Computer Science Degree
2 470 (19.01%) Security Cleared
3 345 (13.96%) SC Cleared
4 205 (8.29%) Master's Degree
5 142 (5.74%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.06%) Microsoft Certification
7 124 (5.02%) PMP
8 105 (4.25%) CISSP
9 93 (3.76%) Azure Certification
10 88 (3.56%) DV Cleared
11 85 (3.44%) Cisco Certification
12 74 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.35%) PhD
14 52 (2.10%) CISM
15 47 (1.90%) AWS Certification
15 47 (1.90%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 39 (1.58%) CCNA
16 39 (1.58%) ISTQB
17 38 (1.54%) CCNP
18 34 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (5.87%) Data Quality
1 145 (5.87%) QA
2 92 (3.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 91 (3.68%) NIST
4 86 (3.48%) PMO
5 75 (3.03%) GDPR
6 47 (1.90%) Accessibility
7 41 (1.66%) SLA
8 28 (1.13%) GRC
9 23 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.77%) NCSC
11 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.65%) IFRS
13 15 (0.61%) PCI DSS
14 13 (0.53%) P3O
15 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 10 (0.40%) COBIT
16 10 (0.40%) IEC 61508
16 10 (0.40%) ISO 31000
17 9 (0.36%) HIPAA
System Software
1 193 (7.81%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.85%) Docker
3 56 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.21%) Firmware
5 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 8 (0.32%) vSphere
9 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
10 5 (0.20%) RACF
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (5.10%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.51%) Ansible
4 35 (1.42%) SCCM
5 28 (1.13%) Grafana
6 26 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.57%) Puppet
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) SCOM
10 9 (0.36%) Functional Safety
11 8 (0.32%) CASB
11 8 (0.32%) WSUS
12 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
12 6 (0.24%) Control-M
12 6 (0.24%) HP ALM
12 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 634 (25.65%) Microsoft
2 181 (7.32%) Oracle
3 140 (5.66%) ServiceNow
4 136 (5.50%) SAP
5 98 (3.96%) Google
6 73 (2.95%) Cisco
7 72 (2.91%) VMware
8 66 (2.67%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.55%) Adobe
10 53 (2.14%) Databricks
11 46 (1.86%) Splunk
12 41 (1.66%) IBM
13 32 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 30 (1.21%) CyberArk
15 24 (0.97%) Citrix
15 24 (0.97%) OpenAI
16 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.81%) Apple
19 19 (0.77%) Ariba