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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 26 19
Rank change year-on-year -18 -7 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,570 2,356 2,966
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.65% 7.08% 7.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.51% 22.22% 26.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,309 1,300 1,685
10th Percentile £205 £268 £225
25th Percentile £368 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £613
90th Percentile £701 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £476 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.42% -2.11% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 322 204 180
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £23.97 £24.50 £25.99
Median hourly rate £40.09 £33.50 £43.94
Median % change year-on-year +19.67% -23.76% -8.99%
75th Percentile £65.00 £54.21 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.18 £86.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £33.50 £52.19
% change year-on-year +14.18% -35.81% +4.38%

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 17,713 10,602 11,042
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.02% 31.87% 29.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,690 6,649 6,691
10th Percentile £351 £285 £310
25th Percentile £447 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £631
90th Percentile £713 £706 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.75% -3.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,522 901 570
10th Percentile £16.50 £17.55 £18.13
25th Percentile £24.73 £18.87 £25.26
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.49%
75th Percentile £72.25 £40.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £89.08 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -3.65%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -15 2,328 £510 +1.39% 6,202
UK excluding London -14 1,375 £476 +2.42% 3,273
London -18 1,013 £528 -4.00% 3,271
Work from Home -19 688 £511 +2.25% 2,587
South East +10 485 £525 +15.07% 938
North of England -10 350 £475 +3.83% 593
North West -6 221 £475 +3.83% 337
Midlands -35 178 £450 -5.26% 408
East of England -13 137 £425 -15.00% 457
West Midlands -34 131 £450 -10.00% 267
South West -27 126 £415 -22.72% 363
Yorkshire -23 111 £500 +11.11% 175
Scotland -46 75 £463 +2.78% 275
East Midlands -14 46 £388 -13.50% 141
North East -27 18 £460 +2.22% 85
Northern Ireland -13 13 £252 -55.69% 183
Wales -30 13 £530 +66.62% 111
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 3

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
1 154 (5.99%) SharePoint
2 129 (5.02%) Confluence
3 59 (2.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.13%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.86%) Apache
5 22 (0.86%) CMS
6 20 (0.78%) IIS
7 19 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.62%) SharePoint Server
9 14 (0.54%) Camunda
10 10 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.31%) SAS
12 6 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.19%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) Appian
14 4 (0.16%) nginx
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 247 (9.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 229 (8.91%) Microsoft Office
3 111 (4.32%) Microsoft Project
4 107 (4.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.37%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.66%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
7 16 (0.62%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.54%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.51%) Simulink
9 13 (0.51%) Windchill
10 8 (0.31%) AutoCAD
10 8 (0.31%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.31%) Revit
10 8 (0.31%) Sketch
11 7 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
12 6 (0.23%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 30 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.51%) Primavera
4 11 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.31%) Magento
5 8 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 7 (0.27%) HFM
6 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 6 (0.23%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.19%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.19%) Workfront
9 4 (0.16%) Dynamics NAV
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.16%) Unit4 Business World
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 580 (22.57%) Azure
2 308 (11.98%) AWS
3 221 (8.60%) Power Platform
4 216 (8.40%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (5.95%) GCP
6 141 (5.49%) Azure DevOps
7 140 (5.45%) Entra ID
8 77 (3.00%) GitHub
9 76 (2.96%) SaaS
10 62 (2.41%) Dynamics 365
11 61 (2.37%) Power Automate
11 61 (2.37%) Serverless
12 53 (2.06%) PowerApps
13 51 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
13 51 (1.98%) OneDrive
14 40 (1.56%) Snowflake
15 37 (1.44%) Figma
16 32 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
17 31 (1.21%) Amazon S3
17 31 (1.21%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.05%) Firewall
2 80 (3.11%) DNS
3 67 (2.61%) TCP/IP
4 62 (2.41%) Network Security
5 59 (2.30%) VPN
6 43 (1.67%) DHCP
7 31 (1.21%) WAN
8 30 (1.17%) LAN
9 28 (1.09%) Wireless
10 24 (0.93%) VLAN
11 22 (0.86%) 3GPP
12 21 (0.82%) 5G
13 20 (0.78%) SSL
14 19 (0.74%) Internet
14 19 (0.74%) SSH
15 17 (0.66%) BGP
15 17 (0.66%) Radio Access Network
15 17 (0.66%) Wireshark
16 15 (0.58%) OSPF
16 15 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.11%) Power BI
2 111 (4.32%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.33%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.30%) Metadata
5 51 (1.98%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
7 39 (1.52%) MySQL
8 34 (1.32%) NoSQL
9 31 (1.21%) Tableau
10 30 (1.17%) Big Data
11 29 (1.13%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.05%) Elasticsearch
13 24 (0.93%) Oracle Database
14 22 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 20 (0.78%) Data Lake
16 19 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
17 18 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
18 17 (0.66%) GIS
19 16 (0.62%) Data Mining
20 11 (0.43%) Redis
Development Applications
1 181 (7.04%) JIRA
2 149 (5.80%) Git
3 68 (2.65%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.14%) GitLab
5 30 (1.17%) Gradle
6 28 (1.09%) JUnit
7 25 (0.97%) Maven
8 24 (0.93%) SonarQube
9 23 (0.89%) Selenium
10 20 (0.78%) Cucumber
11 19 (0.74%) Visual Studio
12 18 (0.70%) Mockito
12 18 (0.70%) REST Assured
13 17 (0.66%) Postman
14 16 (0.62%) Sonatype Nexus
15 11 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
15 11 (0.43%) SpecFlow
16 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
16 9 (0.35%) CircleCI
General
1 1,147 (44.63%) Social Skills
2 744 (28.95%) Finance
3 598 (23.27%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (8.37%) Banking
5 212 (8.25%) Public Sector
6 166 (6.46%) Organisational Skills
7 160 (6.23%) Manufacturing
8 138 (5.37%) Aerospace
9 130 (5.06%) Influencing Skills
10 106 (4.12%) Marketing
11 92 (3.58%) Telecoms
12 89 (3.46%) Legal
13 88 (3.42%) Presentation Skills
14 82 (3.19%) Documentation Skills
15 70 (2.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 66 (2.57%) Pharmaceutical
17 64 (2.49%) Retail
18 49 (1.91%) Law
19 47 (1.83%) Electronics
19 47 (1.83%) Military
Job Titles
1 345 (13.42%) Analyst
2 297 (11.56%) Senior
3 210 (8.17%) Developer
4 200 (7.78%) Lead
5 178 (6.93%) Business Analyst
6 159 (6.19%) Architect
7 111 (4.32%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.15%) Consultant
9 68 (2.65%) IT Support
9 68 (2.65%) Support Engineer
10 63 (2.45%) Senior Manager
11 57 (2.22%) Administrator
12 52 (2.02%) IT Manager
12 52 (2.02%) Solutions Architect
13 50 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
14 48 (1.87%) Security Engineer
14 48 (1.87%) Software Engineer
15 47 (1.83%) Data Analyst
16 45 (1.75%) Product Manager
17 43 (1.67%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 125 (4.86%) REST
2 120 (4.67%) Terraform
3 104 (4.05%) .NET
4 74 (2.88%) HTML
5 72 (2.80%) React
6 69 (2.68%) Kafka
7 67 (2.61%) CSS
8 64 (2.49%) RESTful
9 53 (2.06%) OAuth
10 51 (1.98%) XML
11 50 (1.95%) Web Services
12 46 (1.79%) Middleware
13 45 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
14 44 (1.71%) SOAP
15 43 (1.67%) Spring Boot
16 40 (1.56%) OAuth2
16 40 (1.56%) Spring
17 39 (1.52%) JSON
17 39 (1.52%) SAML
18 36 (1.40%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 243 (9.46%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.25%) Onboarding
3 133 (5.18%) Product Ownership
4 116 (4.51%) Self-Motivation
5 108 (4.20%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.57%) Enterprise Software
7 65 (2.53%) Algorithms
7 65 (2.53%) Operational Technology
8 60 (2.33%) Data Centre
9 58 (2.26%) Data Structures
10 57 (2.22%) Life Science
11 51 (1.98%) Security Posture
12 49 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
13 47 (1.83%) AI Agents
14 46 (1.79%) Virtual Team
15 44 (1.71%) SCADA
16 40 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
17 37 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
18 33 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
19 31 (1.21%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 284 (11.05%) Windows
2 181 (7.04%) Linux
3 81 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.68%) Unix
5 41 (1.60%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.40%) macOS
7 35 (1.36%) Apple iOS
8 33 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 24 (0.93%) Android
10 10 (0.39%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.19%) Solaris
12 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.078%) CentOS
15 2 (0.078%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 826 (32.14%) Computer Science
2 705 (27.43%) Agile
3 699 (27.20%) Problem-Solving
4 595 (23.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 462 (17.98%) Continuous Improvement
6 409 (15.91%) AI
7 380 (14.79%) DevOps
8 353 (13.74%) CI/CD
9 324 (12.61%) Analytics
10 308 (11.98%) Project Management
11 278 (10.82%) Decision-Making
12 276 (10.74%) ITIL
13 262 (10.19%) Scrum
14 261 (10.16%) Roadmaps
15 255 (9.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 248 (9.65%) Software Engineering
17 239 (9.30%) Cybersecurity
18 236 (9.18%) Change Management
19 235 (9.14%) Validation
20 233 (9.07%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 399 (15.53%) Python
2 370 (14.40%) SQL
3 177 (6.89%) PowerShell
4 170 (6.61%) Java
5 130 (5.06%) JavaScript
6 120 (4.67%) C#
7 65 (2.53%) Bash
8 45 (1.75%) TypeScript
9 37 (1.44%) C++
10 33 (1.28%) Bicep
11 30 (1.17%) Shell Script
12 25 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 24 (0.93%) R
14 22 (0.86%) PL/SQL
15 20 (0.78%) C
15 20 (0.78%) Scala
16 15 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.58%) MATLAB
17 12 (0.47%) Apex Code
17 12 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 512 (19.92%) Computer Science Degree
2 506 (19.69%) Security Cleared
3 376 (14.63%) SC Cleared
4 217 (8.44%) Master's Degree
5 156 (6.07%) PMI Certification
6 136 (5.29%) PMP
7 120 (4.67%) Microsoft Certification
8 108 (4.20%) CISSP
9 102 (3.97%) Azure Certification
10 95 (3.70%) DV Cleared
11 94 (3.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 84 (3.27%) Cisco Certification
13 63 (2.45%) PhD
14 56 (2.18%) CISM
15 50 (1.95%) AWS Certification
16 45 (1.75%) DBS Check
17 43 (1.67%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 42 (1.63%) ISTQB
19 38 (1.48%) HNC
20 36 (1.40%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (6.30%) QA
2 156 (6.07%) Data Quality
3 88 (3.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.35%) GDPR
5 84 (3.27%) NIST
6 71 (2.76%) PMO
7 50 (1.95%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.48%) SLA
9 32 (1.25%) GRC
10 20 (0.78%) NCSC
11 19 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.70%) PCI DSS
12 18 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 17 (0.66%) IFRS
14 14 (0.54%) IEC 61508
15 12 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.47%) ISO 31000
16 11 (0.43%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.43%) ISO 9001
16 11 (0.43%) P3O
System Software
1 179 (6.96%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.71%) Docker
3 60 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 25 (0.97%) Firmware
6 21 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.31%) vSphere
9 7 (0.27%) BitLocker
9 7 (0.27%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.23%) Embedded Firmware
10 6 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
11 5 (0.19%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.19%) RACF
12 4 (0.16%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 140 (5.45%) Kubernetes
2 72 (2.80%) Microsoft Intune
3 58 (2.26%) Ansible
4 33 (1.28%) SCCM
5 27 (1.05%) Grafana
6 25 (0.97%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.70%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.62%) Functional Safety
9 12 (0.47%) Puppet
9 12 (0.47%) SCOM
10 10 (0.39%) CASB
10 10 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.35%) Control-M
12 7 (0.27%) WSUS
13 6 (0.23%) Argo
13 6 (0.23%) Nessus
14 5 (0.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 5 (0.19%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 625 (24.32%) Microsoft
2 183 (7.12%) Oracle
3 137 (5.33%) SAP
4 133 (5.18%) ServiceNow
5 115 (4.47%) Google
6 73 (2.84%) Salesforce
6 73 (2.84%) VMware
7 68 (2.65%) Cisco
8 65 (2.53%) Adobe
9 64 (2.49%) Databricks
10 47 (1.83%) Splunk
11 45 (1.75%) IBM
12 30 (1.17%) Red Hat
13 28 (1.09%) OpenAI
14 23 (0.89%) Palo Alto
15 22 (0.86%) Apple
15 22 (0.86%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.78%) Ariba
16 20 (0.78%) Citrix
17 18 (0.70%) EMC