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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,463 2,468 3,055
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.61% 7.50% 7.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.71% 24.03% 26.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,309 1,399 1,777
10th Percentile £206 £250 £259
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £719 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £499
% change year-on-year +5.44% -9.82% +1.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 211 271
10th Percentile £17.10 £17.50 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.58 £25.45 £25.43
Median hourly rate £44.50 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.71% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £63.88 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.75 £40.73 £57.35
% change year-on-year +7.41% -28.98% +19.16%

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 16,739 10,272 11,674
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.34% 31.20% 29.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,202 6,341 7,402
10th Percentile £350 £290 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £716 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,264 805 852
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.87 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.78% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.53 £53.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £73.75 £77.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -7.77%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 -14 2,251 £500 - 4,887
UK excluding London -14 1,350 £475 +5.44% 2,768
London -22 957 £525 -4.55% 2,481
Work from Home -22 646 £500 - 1,542
South East +1 477 £500 +5.26% 838
North of England -15 329 £465 +3.33% 560
North West -11 189 £453 -4.63% 297
Midlands -36 177 £450 +0.67% 384
East of England -8 141 £413 -8.33% 421
West Midlands -40 134 £450 - 217
Yorkshire -10 125 £500 +20.12% 164
South West -20 124 £415 +10.67% 317
Scotland -42 71 £493 +9.44% 174
East Midlands -23 41 £475 +32.68% 167
Wales -25 17 £530 +71.67% 79
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -52.00% 55
North East -46 15 £450 +130.77% 107
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
1 145 (5.89%) SharePoint
2 114 (4.63%) Confluence
3 63 (2.56%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.18%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 12 (0.49%) CMS
9 10 (0.41%) 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 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 265 (10.76%) Microsoft Office
2 241 (9.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 142 (5.77%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (4.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.52%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
9 11 (0.45%) 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
12 5 (0.20%) Windchill
13 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 56 (2.27%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 17 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
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%) Aladdin
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%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 554 (22.49%) Azure
2 318 (12.91%) AWS
3 222 (9.01%) Power Platform
4 218 (8.85%) Microsoft 365
5 147 (5.97%) Entra ID
6 128 (5.20%) GCP
7 103 (4.18%) Azure DevOps
8 83 (3.37%) SaaS
9 65 (2.64%) GitHub
10 51 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
11 48 (1.95%) PowerApps
12 47 (1.91%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.91%) Snowflake
13 45 (1.83%) Serverless
14 43 (1.75%) Figma
15 40 (1.62%) OneDrive
16 39 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.14%) IaaS
18 26 (1.06%) GitHub Actions
18 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.71%) Firewall
2 81 (3.29%) DNS
3 80 (3.25%) TCP/IP
4 67 (2.72%) Network Security
5 61 (2.48%) VPN
6 41 (1.66%) DHCP
6 41 (1.66%) WAN
7 39 (1.58%) LAN
8 29 (1.18%) Wireless
9 21 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.77%) HTTP
11 19 (0.77%) SSL
11 19 (0.77%) VLAN
12 17 (0.69%) Internet
13 16 (0.65%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSH
14 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
14 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 177 (7.19%) Power BI
2 103 (4.18%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.19%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
5 48 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 40 (1.62%) Metadata
7 33 (1.34%) Tableau
8 32 (1.30%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.14%) Big Data
10 24 (0.97%) MongoDB
10 24 (0.97%) MySQL
10 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.89%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.69%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.61%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.57%) Power Query
16 12 (0.49%) GIS
Development Applications
1 186 (7.55%) JIRA
2 130 (5.28%) Git
3 56 (2.27%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.91%) GitLab
5 36 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.61%) MLflow
9 13 (0.53%) JUnit
10 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.45%) Postman
11 11 (0.45%) Subversion
12 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.41%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.32%) Gradle
14 8 (0.32%) Maven
14 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,096 (44.50%) Social Skills
2 716 (29.07%) Finance
3 574 (23.30%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (8.08%) Public Sector
5 178 (7.23%) Banking
6 160 (6.50%) Organisational Skills
7 109 (4.43%) Aerospace
8 105 (4.26%) Presentation Skills
9 100 (4.06%) Legal
10 96 (3.90%) Marketing
11 91 (3.69%) Manufacturing
12 87 (3.53%) Influencing Skills
13 85 (3.45%) Telecoms
14 73 (2.96%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.56%) Retail
16 62 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.19%) Law
18 49 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.58%) Front Office
20 38 (1.54%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 334 (13.56%) Analyst
2 280 (11.37%) Senior
3 187 (7.59%) Lead
4 176 (7.15%) Developer
5 169 (6.86%) Architect
6 154 (6.25%) Business Analyst
7 140 (5.68%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.96%) Consultant
9 72 (2.92%) Senior Manager
10 62 (2.52%) IT Support
11 60 (2.44%) Designer
12 59 (2.40%) Support Engineer
13 57 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
14 54 (2.19%) IT Manager
15 53 (2.15%) Product Manager
16 52 (2.11%) IT Analyst
17 49 (1.99%) Software Engineer
18 48 (1.95%) Administrator
19 46 (1.87%) Delivery Manager
19 46 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.30%) REST
2 97 (3.94%) .NET
3 59 (2.40%) React
4 48 (1.95%) Kafka
5 46 (1.87%) RESTful
6 45 (1.83%) HTML
6 45 (1.83%) OAuth
7 38 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
8 36 (1.46%) CSS
9 35 (1.42%) Middleware
10 34 (1.38%) SAML
11 33 (1.34%) OAuth2
11 33 (1.34%) Web Services
12 32 (1.30%) .NET Framework
13 30 (1.22%) JSON
14 29 (1.18%) OpenID
15 28 (1.14%) LDAP
15 28 (1.14%) XML
16 27 (1.10%) AngularJS
16 27 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 204 (8.28%) Management Information System
2 149 (6.05%) Product Ownership
3 143 (5.81%) Onboarding
4 111 (4.51%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.78%) Cloud Native
6 75 (3.05%) Data Structures
7 69 (2.80%) Algorithms
8 64 (2.60%) Data Centre
9 55 (2.23%) Security Posture
10 49 (1.99%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.95%) Virtual Team
12 46 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
13 44 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
14 42 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
15 40 (1.62%) Life Science
16 38 (1.54%) AI Agents
17 35 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
18 34 (1.38%) PMI
19 32 (1.30%) Robotics
19 32 (1.30%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 292 (11.86%) Windows
2 171 (6.94%) Linux
3 71 (2.88%) Windows Server
4 57 (2.31%) Unix
5 51 (2.07%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 28 (1.14%) Mac OS
8 27 (1.10%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 835 (33.90%) Computer Science
2 659 (26.76%) Agile
3 649 (26.35%) Problem-Solving
4 452 (18.35%) Stakeholder Management
5 424 (17.21%) Continuous Improvement
6 383 (15.55%) AI
7 328 (13.32%) DevOps
8 317 (12.87%) Project Management
9 299 (12.14%) Analytics
10 295 (11.98%) CI/CD
11 281 (11.41%) ITIL
12 262 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 256 (10.39%) Decision-Making
14 243 (9.87%) Cybersecurity
15 221 (8.97%) Change Management
16 216 (8.77%) Software Engineering
17 210 (8.53%) PRINCE2
18 206 (8.36%) Roadmaps
19 205 (8.32%) Project Delivery
20 200 (8.12%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 422 (17.13%) Python
2 345 (14.01%) SQL
3 161 (6.54%) Java
4 158 (6.41%) PowerShell
5 109 (4.43%) C#
6 94 (3.82%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.23%) Bash
8 48 (1.95%) C++
9 40 (1.62%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
10 26 (1.06%) R
11 25 (1.02%) Bicep
12 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 23 (0.93%) Shell Script
14 22 (0.89%) C
15 14 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
16 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.45%) X++
17 10 (0.41%) Scala
Qualifications
1 496 (20.14%) Computer Science Degree
2 447 (18.15%) Security Cleared
3 292 (11.86%) SC Cleared
4 215 (8.73%) Master's Degree
5 142 (5.77%) PMI Certification
6 122 (4.95%) PMP
7 121 (4.91%) CISSP
8 118 (4.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.49%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.17%) Azure Certification
11 74 (3.00%) DV Cleared
12 64 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.35%) CISM
14 50 (2.03%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNA
16 41 (1.66%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.62%) CCNP
17 40 (1.62%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 37 (1.50%) CISA
19 31 (1.26%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (5.24%) QA
2 127 (5.16%) Data Quality
3 113 (4.59%) NIST
4 108 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 101 (4.10%) PMO
6 74 (3.00%) GDPR
7 51 (2.07%) SLA
8 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.06%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.02%) GRC
12 23 (0.93%) NCSC
13 14 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.53%) COBIT
14 13 (0.53%) IFRS
15 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) P3O
17 9 (0.37%) ISO 31000
18 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 194 (7.88%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.87%) Docker
3 51 (2.07%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.02%) Firmware
5 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.20%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.94%) Terraform
3 79 (3.21%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.64%) Ansible
5 38 (1.54%) SCCM
6 29 (1.18%) Grafana
7 26 (1.06%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.53%) Puppet
11 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.28%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 630 (25.58%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.66%) Oracle
3 139 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 133 (5.40%) SAP
5 88 (3.57%) Google
6 68 (2.76%) Cisco
7 67 (2.72%) VMware
8 61 (2.48%) Databricks
8 61 (2.48%) Salesforce
9 56 (2.27%) Adobe
10 49 (1.99%) IBM
11 37 (1.50%) Splunk
12 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
13 29 (1.18%) Citrix
14 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.10%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.85%) Apple
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 20 (0.81%) Ariba
18 19 (0.77%) BeyondTrust