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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,392 2,212 3,526
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.93% 7.73% 8.27%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.58% 24.87% 27.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,347 1,287 1,912
10th Percentile £233 £235 £225
25th Percentile £380 £369 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £627 £625
90th Percentile £738 £769 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £486
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.36% +0.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 164 416
10th Percentile £18.00 £17.59 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.12 £22.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +35.00% -18.84%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £49.41 £41.00
% change year-on-year +11.32% +20.51% -15.57%

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 15,349 8,896 12,755
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.62% 31.10% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,182 5,617 7,949
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -1.42% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +0.10% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,115 503 1,075
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.87 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.25 £17.94
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.19 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.63
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.01% -22.06%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 May 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 -10 2,142 £500 - 3,116
UK excluding London -6 1,310 £475 +5.56% 2,030
London -18 896 £515 -6.36% 1,394
Work from Home -15 642 £500 - 1,178
South East -1 380 £500 +5.26% 632
North of England -15 319 £439 -3.62% 459
Midlands -20 215 £513 +43.96% 272
North West -3 167 £402 -14.29% 252
West Midlands -26 152 £492 +40.57% 173
East of England -4 140 £450 -10.00% 233
Yorkshire -18 137 £450 +7.27% 152
South West -14 134 £503 +5.79% 280
Scotland -15 89 £500 +11.48% 104
East Midlands -14 61 £531 +49.16% 99
Wales -22 26 £375 +22.76% 38
North East -25 15 £450 +130.77% 64
Northern Ireland -9 13 £369 -13.24% 61

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
1 148 (6.19%) Confluence
2 127 (5.31%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.13%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.96%) Apache
7 9 (0.38%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.21%) SAS
12 4 (0.17%) Appian
12 4 (0.17%) Camunda
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.084%) Drupal
14 2 (0.084%) WebSphere
14 2 (0.084%) WinCC
Applications
1 282 (11.79%) Microsoft Office
2 226 (9.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 165 (6.90%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.63%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.59%) Adobe After Effects
6 14 (0.59%) Adobe Illustrator
6 14 (0.59%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.46%) Simulink
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
9 8 (0.33%) Sketch
9 8 (0.33%) Trello
10 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
12 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.13%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.084%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 65 (2.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.63%) Primavera
4 12 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) Magento
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 3 (0.13%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 515 (21.53%) Azure
2 298 (12.46%) AWS
3 200 (8.36%) Microsoft 365
4 182 (7.61%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.10%) Entra ID
6 96 (4.01%) GCP
7 86 (3.60%) SaaS
8 82 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.47%) GitHub
10 40 (1.67%) Figma
11 39 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.38%) Snowflake
13 31 (1.30%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.30%) PaaS
14 29 (1.21%) Power Automate
15 28 (1.17%) IaaS
15 28 (1.17%) Serverless
16 27 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.13%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 106 (4.43%) Firewall
2 71 (2.97%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.76%) DNS
4 57 (2.38%) WAN
5 55 (2.30%) Network Security
6 53 (2.22%) LAN
7 35 (1.46%) VPN
8 28 (1.17%) BGP
9 25 (1.05%) OSPF
10 24 (1.00%) DHCP
10 24 (1.00%) Wireless
11 22 (0.92%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.75%) Skype
13 17 (0.71%) SAN
14 16 (0.67%) HTTP
14 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.54%) SSL
16 12 (0.50%) IPsec
16 12 (0.50%) VLAN
16 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (6.23%) Power BI
2 107 (4.47%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (2.01%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.92%) Big Data
7 42 (1.76%) Metadata
8 39 (1.63%) Tableau
9 36 (1.51%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
10 28 (1.17%) MySQL
11 24 (1.00%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.88%) Data Lake
13 18 (0.75%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 11 (0.46%) GIS
17 11 (0.46%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 246 (10.28%) JIRA
2 111 (4.64%) Git
3 45 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.67%) GitLab
5 31 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 17 (0.71%) Selenium
9 14 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.50%) JUnit
12 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.38%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.38%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Metasploit
14 8 (0.33%) SonarQube
15 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
General
1 1,098 (45.90%) Social Skills
2 731 (30.56%) Finance
3 484 (20.23%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.65%) Banking
5 198 (8.28%) Public Sector
6 131 (5.48%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (4.06%) Marketing
9 83 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
10 81 (3.39%) Legal
11 76 (3.18%) Aerospace
11 76 (3.18%) Manufacturing
12 72 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
13 66 (2.76%) Telecoms
14 52 (2.17%) Law
15 49 (2.05%) Retail
16 41 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 41 (1.71%) Military
17 40 (1.67%) Front Office
18 38 (1.59%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 343 (14.34%) Analyst
2 263 (10.99%) Senior
3 196 (8.19%) Architect
4 185 (7.73%) Lead
5 171 (7.15%) Project Manager
6 168 (7.02%) Developer
7 155 (6.48%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.80%) Consultant
10 65 (2.72%) Senior Analyst
11 62 (2.59%) Designer
12 60 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
13 58 (2.42%) Technical Support
14 54 (2.26%) Software Engineer
15 53 (2.22%) Senior Manager
16 48 (2.01%) Product Manager
16 48 (2.01%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.92%) Data Engineer
17 46 (1.92%) Data Scientist
18 45 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.31%) REST
2 86 (3.60%) .NET
3 65 (2.72%) React
4 56 (2.34%) Middleware
5 52 (2.17%) HTML
6 51 (2.13%) Oracle Fusion
7 49 (2.05%) Kafka
8 43 (1.80%) RESTful
9 41 (1.71%) CSS
10 34 (1.42%) .NET Framework
10 34 (1.42%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.34%) XML
12 31 (1.30%) Spring
13 30 (1.25%) PyTorch
13 30 (1.25%) SOAP
14 29 (1.21%) AngularJS
14 29 (1.21%) OAuth
14 29 (1.21%) Pandas
15 28 (1.17%) JSON
16 26 (1.09%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 178 (7.44%) Management Information System
2 152 (6.35%) Product Ownership
3 131 (5.48%) Onboarding
4 88 (3.68%) Self-Motivation
5 86 (3.60%) Cloud Native
6 69 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.72%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.59%) Algorithms
9 59 (2.47%) Data Structures
10 54 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
11 51 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.92%) PMI
13 40 (1.67%) Operational Technology
14 37 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.55%) Robotics
15 34 (1.42%) Analytical Mindset
15 34 (1.42%) Derivative
16 33 (1.38%) Life Science
17 31 (1.30%) Security Posture
18 30 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 295 (12.33%) Windows
2 183 (7.65%) Linux
3 73 (3.05%) Unix
3 73 (3.05%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.47%) Windows 10
5 31 (1.30%) Android
6 25 (1.05%) Mac OS
7 23 (0.96%) Apple iOS
7 23 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.21%) AIX
12 5 (0.21%) VMS
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Solaris
14 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 823 (34.41%) Computer Science
2 667 (27.88%) Agile
3 623 (26.05%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (15.51%) Stakeholder Management
5 362 (15.13%) Continuous Improvement
6 346 (14.46%) AI
7 313 (13.09%) DevOps
8 312 (13.04%) Project Management
9 281 (11.75%) CI/CD
10 259 (10.83%) Analytics
11 256 (10.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 253 (10.58%) Decision-Making
13 238 (9.95%) Cybersecurity
14 232 (9.70%) Migration
15 225 (9.41%) Change Management
16 206 (8.61%) ITIL
17 202 (8.44%) Risk Management
18 201 (8.40%) Roadmaps
19 199 (8.32%) Software Engineering
20 196 (8.19%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 382 (15.97%) Python
2 364 (15.22%) SQL
3 176 (7.36%) Java
4 113 (4.72%) PowerShell
5 96 (4.01%) C#
6 88 (3.68%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.76%) C++
8 37 (1.55%) Bash
9 34 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.21%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 21 (0.88%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.79%) C
14 17 (0.71%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.63%) Perl
15 15 (0.63%) Rust
16 14 (0.59%) Go
16 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 503 (21.03%) Computer Science Degree
2 443 (18.52%) Security Cleared
3 302 (12.63%) SC Cleared
4 267 (11.16%) Master's Degree
5 142 (5.94%) PMI Certification
6 123 (5.14%) PMP
7 114 (4.77%) CISSP
8 79 (3.30%) Cisco Certification
8 79 (3.30%) Microsoft Certification
9 68 (2.84%) CISM
10 64 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
10 64 (2.68%) DV Cleared
11 50 (2.09%) Azure Certification
12 49 (2.05%) PhD
12 49 (2.05%) TOGAF Certification
13 44 (1.84%) CCNP
14 38 (1.59%) CCNA
15 35 (1.46%) CBAP
15 35 (1.46%) MBA
16 33 (1.38%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.27%) QA
2 111 (4.64%) Data Quality
2 111 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 110 (4.60%) NIST
4 108 (4.52%) PMO
5 101 (4.22%) GDPR
6 50 (2.09%) SLA
7 49 (2.05%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.76%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.05%) GRC
11 20 (0.84%) NCSC
12 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.63%) IFRS
14 14 (0.59%) COBIT
15 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.46%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.46%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.46%) WCAG
System Software
1 158 (6.61%) Active Directory
2 132 (5.52%) Docker
3 38 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.88%) Firmware
6 7 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.29%) vSphere
7 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.17%) XenApp
8 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.13%) KVM
9 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.084%) HDFS
10 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.042%) GPFS
11 1 (0.042%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 149 (6.23%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.26%) Terraform
3 68 (2.84%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.55%) Ansible
5 40 (1.67%) Grafana
6 36 (1.51%) SCCM
7 34 (1.42%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.63%) Puppet
11 11 (0.46%) Kibana
12 10 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.42%) OPNET
13 9 (0.38%) Kiali
13 9 (0.38%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 8 (0.33%) Nmap
14 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
15 6 (0.25%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 546 (22.83%) Microsoft
2 174 (7.27%) Oracle
3 138 (5.77%) SAP
4 109 (4.56%) ServiceNow
5 79 (3.30%) Google
6 77 (3.22%) Cisco
7 63 (2.63%) Splunk
8 58 (2.42%) Databricks
9 46 (1.92%) VMware
10 44 (1.84%) Citrix
11 43 (1.80%) Salesforce
12 41 (1.71%) Adobe
13 38 (1.59%) IBM
14 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.38%) CheckPoint
16 28 (1.17%) Remedy
17 23 (0.96%) Aruba
17 23 (0.96%) Informatica
18 22 (0.92%) CyberArk
19 21 (0.88%) Siemens