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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,485 2,396 3,540
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.77% 7.53% 8.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.24% 24.45% 27.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,344 1,367 1,943
10th Percentile £204 £250 £218
25th Percentile £363 £365 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £634 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £454 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +0.89% -5.26% -2.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 191 396
10th Percentile £16.50 £20.00 £15.93
25th Percentile £26.00 £26.32 £22.50
Median hourly rate £43.00 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.03% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.25 £64.76 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £73.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.50 £40.46 £42.50
% change year-on-year +12.46% -4.80% -11.70%

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 16,303 9,801 12,902
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 30.80% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,883 6,087 8,007
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £428 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,183 667 1,099
10th Percentile £17.26 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.36 £20.24 £20.12
Median hourly rate £50.49 £27.50 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +83.58% -32.83% -25.56%
75th Percentile £72.54 £58.88 £64.63
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -18.75%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 2,227 £500 - 2,933
UK excluding London -9 1,359 £454 +0.89% 2,177
London -19 952 £515 -6.36% 1,185
Work from Home -17 663 £500 -3.29% 1,403
South East 0 429 £500 +3.90% 680
North of England -13 330 £450 -0.11% 444
Midlands -22 200 £503 +31.80% 308
North West -7 185 £447 -1.87% 236
West Midlands -30 149 £494 +17.85% 158
East of England -6 148 £450 -10.00% 256
Yorkshire -10 130 £500 +11.86% 144
South West -23 121 £435 -8.42% 252
Scotland -27 90 £475 +5.56% 135
East Midlands -12 49 £550 +54.49% 150
Wales -26 29 £450 +47.31% 61
Northern Ireland -10 16 £254 -40.24% 88
North East -41 15 £450 +130.77% 69

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
1 140 (5.63%) SharePoint
2 134 (5.39%) Confluence
3 61 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.93%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.93%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 12 (0.48%) CMS
9 9 (0.36%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.080%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.080%) Oracle Service Bus
14 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 280 (11.27%) Microsoft Office
2 227 (9.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (5.63%) Microsoft Project
4 131 (5.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (2.90%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.56%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
8 9 (0.36%) Simulink
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
10 7 (0.28%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 5 (0.20%) Trello
12 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 67 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.60%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
4 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.24%) Magento
6 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
6 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
6 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
7 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 4 (0.16%) HFM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 573 (23.06%) Azure
2 324 (13.04%) AWS
3 215 (8.65%) Power Platform
4 213 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
5 141 (5.67%) Entra ID
6 126 (5.07%) GCP
7 106 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.30%) SaaS
9 69 (2.78%) GitHub
10 45 (1.81%) Figma
11 43 (1.73%) Snowflake
12 42 (1.69%) Serverless
13 40 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
14 36 (1.45%) PowerApps
15 35 (1.41%) Power Automate
16 33 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
17 32 (1.29%) OneDrive
18 31 (1.25%) PaaS
19 27 (1.09%) IaaS
20 26 (1.05%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.47%) Firewall
2 80 (3.22%) TCP/IP
3 79 (3.18%) DNS
4 69 (2.78%) Network Security
5 54 (2.17%) WAN
6 52 (2.09%) VPN
7 49 (1.97%) LAN
8 34 (1.37%) DHCP
9 28 (1.13%) BGP
10 25 (1.01%) Wireless
11 24 (0.97%) OSPF
12 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.80%) Ethernet
14 19 (0.76%) SSL
15 16 (0.64%) VLAN
16 15 (0.60%) Internet
17 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
18 13 (0.52%) HTTP
18 13 (0.52%) MPLS
18 13 (0.52%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (7.32%) Power BI
2 117 (4.71%) SQL Server
3 67 (2.70%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.05%) Relational Database
6 49 (1.97%) Big Data
7 47 (1.89%) Metadata
8 39 (1.57%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.53%) Tableau
10 33 (1.33%) MySQL
11 29 (1.17%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.09%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.80%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
17 15 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
18 13 (0.52%) GIS
18 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 218 (8.77%) JIRA
2 128 (5.15%) Git
3 53 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.73%) GitLab
5 32 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) MLflow
7 18 (0.72%) Selenium
7 18 (0.72%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.60%) Postman
9 13 (0.52%) JUnit
9 13 (0.52%) REST Assured
10 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.40%) Gradle
11 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.36%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.36%) Subversion
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) Maven
14 6 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 1,110 (44.67%) Social Skills
2 745 (29.98%) Finance
3 528 (21.25%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (8.37%) Public Sector
5 189 (7.61%) Banking
6 151 (6.08%) Organisational Skills
7 114 (4.59%) Presentation Skills
8 110 (4.43%) Marketing
9 95 (3.82%) Legal
10 90 (3.62%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.50%) Manufacturing
12 83 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
13 80 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
14 72 (2.90%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.33%) Retail
16 53 (2.13%) Law
17 52 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 41 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
19 40 (1.61%) Front Office
20 33 (1.33%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 350 (14.08%) Analyst
2 276 (11.11%) Senior
3 203 (8.17%) Architect
4 184 (7.40%) Lead
5 177 (7.12%) Developer
6 159 (6.40%) Project Manager
7 153 (6.16%) Business Analyst
8 74 (2.98%) Consultant
9 73 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
10 68 (2.74%) Senior Manager
11 67 (2.70%) Designer
12 58 (2.33%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.21%) IT Manager
14 54 (2.17%) Software Engineer
15 53 (2.13%) IT Support
16 51 (2.05%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (2.01%) Administrator
17 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
18 49 (1.97%) Support Engineer
19 48 (1.93%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.14%) .NET
2 100 (4.02%) REST
3 68 (2.74%) React
4 49 (1.97%) Kafka
5 45 (1.81%) RESTful
6 42 (1.69%) HTML
7 41 (1.65%) Middleware
8 38 (1.53%) .NET Framework
9 37 (1.49%) OAuth
10 34 (1.37%) Spring
11 33 (1.33%) Spring Boot
12 32 (1.29%) CSS
12 32 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
12 32 (1.29%) Web Services
13 30 (1.21%) XML
14 28 (1.13%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.13%) JSON
14 28 (1.13%) SAML
15 27 (1.09%) LDAP
15 27 (1.09%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.13%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.08%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.71%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.31%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (3.98%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.74%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.58%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.49%) Data Structures
9 58 (2.33%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.01%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.93%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
13 39 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
13 39 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
13 39 (1.57%) Life Science
14 34 (1.37%) Robotics
15 33 (1.33%) PMI
16 31 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
17 29 (1.17%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 312 (12.56%) Windows
2 178 (7.16%) Linux
3 74 (2.98%) Windows Server
4 72 (2.90%) Unix
5 55 (2.21%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.25%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.13%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) Solaris
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) Rocky
17 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 831 (33.44%) Computer Science
2 685 (27.57%) Agile
3 660 (26.56%) Problem-Solving
4 413 (16.62%) Stakeholder Management
5 399 (16.06%) AI
6 382 (15.37%) Continuous Improvement
7 338 (13.60%) DevOps
8 309 (12.43%) Analytics
9 303 (12.19%) CI/CD
10 298 (11.99%) Project Management
11 278 (11.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 267 (10.74%) Decision-Making
13 258 (10.38%) ITIL
14 249 (10.02%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (8.97%) Change Management
16 218 (8.77%) Roadmaps
17 210 (8.45%) Migration
18 209 (8.41%) Software Engineering
19 192 (7.73%) Project Delivery
19 192 (7.73%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 427 (17.18%) Python
2 384 (15.45%) SQL
3 179 (7.20%) Java
4 131 (5.27%) PowerShell
5 107 (4.31%) C#
6 92 (3.70%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.97%) C++
8 42 (1.69%) Bash
9 36 (1.45%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.21%) R
11 27 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.01%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.68%) C
15 14 (0.56%) Bicep
16 13 (0.52%) Go
16 13 (0.52%) Perl
17 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
19 10 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 505 (20.32%) Computer Science Degree
2 435 (17.51%) Security Cleared
3 292 (11.75%) SC Cleared
4 263 (10.58%) Master's Degree
5 136 (5.47%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.27%) CISSP
7 120 (4.83%) PMP
8 97 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
10 69 (2.78%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.66%) CISM
11 66 (2.66%) DV Cleared
12 61 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
13 50 (2.01%) PhD
14 43 (1.73%) CCNP
15 42 (1.69%) AWS Certification
15 42 (1.69%) CCNA
16 36 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
17 35 (1.41%) CISA
18 30 (1.21%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (5.15%) QA
2 127 (5.11%) Data Quality
3 118 (4.75%) NIST
4 113 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 104 (4.19%) PMO
6 93 (3.74%) GDPR
7 51 (2.05%) SLA
8 49 (1.97%) Accessibility
9 35 (1.41%) PCI DSS
10 31 (1.25%) GRC
11 29 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.60%) IFRS
15 13 (0.52%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.48%) COBIT
16 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
18 9 (0.36%) P3O
System Software
1 191 (7.69%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.47%) Docker
3 44 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.80%) Firmware
6 14 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.080%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 149 (6.00%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.62%) Terraform
3 76 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.45%) Ansible
5 35 (1.41%) Grafana
6 34 (1.37%) SCCM
7 32 (1.29%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.52%) Puppet
12 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 8 (0.32%) Nessus
16 5 (0.20%) Kibana
16 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.20%) SCOM
16 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 590 (23.74%) Microsoft
2 172 (6.92%) Oracle
3 147 (5.92%) SAP
4 128 (5.15%) ServiceNow
5 103 (4.14%) Google
6 72 (2.90%) Cisco
7 66 (2.66%) Databricks
8 54 (2.17%) VMware
9 53 (2.13%) Adobe
10 51 (2.05%) Salesforce
11 45 (1.81%) IBM
12 42 (1.69%) Splunk
13 38 (1.53%) Citrix
14 35 (1.41%) Palo Alto
15 30 (1.21%) CyberArk
16 25 (1.01%) CheckPoint
17 24 (0.97%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.85%) Ariba
18 21 (0.85%) Siemens
19 20 (0.80%) HP