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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -14 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,462 2,356 3,568
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.78% 7.53% 8.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.27% 24.47% 27.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,337 1,348 1,929
10th Percentile £205 £248 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.48%
75th Percentile £600 £632 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £488
% change year-on-year - -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 189 400
10th Percentile £16.65 £19.56 £15.85
25th Percentile £26.19 £26.32 £22.33
Median hourly rate £45.00 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.28 £65.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.35 £74.10
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.25 £40.23 £41.50
% change year-on-year +22.42% -3.06% -14.04%

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 16,122 9,629 12,970
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.29% 30.79% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,754 5,982 8,029
10th Percentile £350 £278 £311
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.43% -0.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £527
% change year-on-year +2.00% -5.03% +0.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,177 647 1,108
10th Percentile £17.36 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.19 £20.19 £20.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £27.94 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +82.53% -31.75% -26.70%
75th Percentile £72.54 £59.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +97.47% -41.12% -20.54%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -11 2,206 £500 - 3,192
UK excluding London -11 1,341 £450 - 2,059
London -19 946 £515 -6.36% 1,463
Work from Home -16 664 £500 -4.76% 1,230
South East -3 421 £500 +3.09% 653
North of England -14 328 £448 -0.39% 451
Midlands -25 198 £503 +31.80% 304
North West -11 184 £447 -1.97% 249
West Midlands -28 149 £492 +17.49% 166
East of England -5 144 £450 -10.00% 237
Yorkshire -12 130 £500 +17.65% 138
South West -20 120 £425 -10.53% 256
Scotland -19 90 £475 +5.56% 102
East Midlands -12 47 £550 +54.49% 138
Wales -24 29 £450 +47.31% 41
Northern Ireland -9 15 £254 -40.24% 60
North East -42 14 £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
1 135 (5.48%) SharePoint
2 133 (5.40%) Confluence
3 60 (2.44%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 34 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.93%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.45%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) 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
14 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.081%) nginx
14 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
14 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 282 (11.45%) Microsoft Office
2 228 (9.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (5.56%) Microsoft Project
4 136 (5.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (2.88%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
8 9 (0.37%) Simulink
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 7 (0.28%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
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 63 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.61%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
6 6 (0.24%) Magento
6 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
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 EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
9 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
9 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 573 (23.27%) Azure
2 329 (13.36%) AWS
3 213 (8.65%) Power Platform
4 207 (8.41%) Microsoft 365
5 139 (5.65%) Entra ID
6 125 (5.08%) GCP
7 104 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.29%) SaaS
9 66 (2.68%) GitHub
10 45 (1.83%) Figma
11 43 (1.75%) Snowflake
12 41 (1.67%) Serverless
13 39 (1.58%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.42%) PowerApps
15 34 (1.38%) Power Automate
16 31 (1.26%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (1.26%) PaaS
17 30 (1.22%) OneDrive
18 27 (1.10%) IaaS
19 25 (1.02%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.55%) Firewall
2 80 (3.25%) DNS
3 79 (3.21%) TCP/IP
4 69 (2.80%) Network Security
5 53 (2.15%) WAN
6 51 (2.07%) VPN
7 48 (1.95%) LAN
8 35 (1.42%) DHCP
9 28 (1.14%) BGP
9 28 (1.14%) Wireless
10 24 (0.97%) OSPF
11 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.81%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.77%) SSL
14 15 (0.61%) Internet
14 15 (0.61%) VLAN
15 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.57%) HTTP
15 14 (0.57%) SAN
16 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 181 (7.35%) Power BI
2 115 (4.67%) SQL Server
3 66 (2.68%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.03%) Relational Database
6 49 (1.99%) Big Data
7 46 (1.87%) Metadata
8 39 (1.58%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.54%) Tableau
10 33 (1.34%) MySQL
11 29 (1.18%) MongoDB
12 27 (1.10%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
17 15 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
18 13 (0.53%) GIS
18 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 218 (8.85%) JIRA
2 125 (5.08%) Git
3 52 (2.11%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.75%) GitLab
5 31 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) MLflow
7 19 (0.77%) Visual Studio
8 17 (0.69%) Selenium
9 15 (0.61%) Postman
10 13 (0.53%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.49%) JUnit
12 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Gradle
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) Subversion
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) Maven
15 6 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 1,097 (44.56%) Social Skills
2 740 (30.06%) Finance
3 519 (21.08%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 189 (7.68%) Banking
6 146 (5.93%) Organisational Skills
7 116 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
8 110 (4.47%) Marketing
9 92 (3.74%) Legal
10 90 (3.66%) Aerospace
11 85 (3.45%) Manufacturing
12 83 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
13 80 (3.25%) Influencing Skills
14 72 (2.92%) Telecoms
15 59 (2.40%) Retail
16 52 (2.11%) Law
17 51 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.62%) Front Office
19 38 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
20 32 (1.30%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 354 (14.38%) Analyst
2 275 (11.17%) Senior
3 202 (8.20%) Architect
4 180 (7.31%) Lead
5 170 (6.90%) Developer
6 159 (6.46%) Project Manager
7 157 (6.38%) Business Analyst
8 73 (2.97%) Consultant
8 73 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
9 68 (2.76%) Senior Manager
10 67 (2.72%) Designer
11 58 (2.36%) Technical Support
12 57 (2.32%) Senior Analyst
13 54 (2.19%) Software Engineer
14 53 (2.15%) IT Manager
15 51 (2.07%) IT Support
16 50 (2.03%) Security Engineer
17 49 (1.99%) Administrator
17 49 (1.99%) Product Manager
18 47 (1.91%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.10%) .NET
2 99 (4.02%) REST
3 69 (2.80%) React
4 49 (1.99%) Kafka
5 44 (1.79%) RESTful
6 42 (1.71%) HTML
7 41 (1.67%) Middleware
8 38 (1.54%) .NET Framework
8 38 (1.54%) OAuth
9 33 (1.34%) Spring
10 32 (1.30%) CSS
10 32 (1.30%) Oracle Fusion
10 32 (1.30%) Spring Boot
10 32 (1.30%) Web Services
11 28 (1.14%) AngularJS
11 28 (1.14%) JSON
11 28 (1.14%) SAML
11 28 (1.14%) XML
12 27 (1.10%) LDAP
12 27 (1.10%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.20%) Management Information System
2 146 (5.93%) Onboarding
3 141 (5.73%) Product Ownership
4 103 (4.18%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (4.02%) Cloud Native
6 70 (2.84%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.56%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.52%) Algorithms
9 58 (2.36%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.03%) Security Posture
11 48 (1.95%) Operational Technology
12 46 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
13 39 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
14 37 (1.50%) Life Science
15 34 (1.38%) PMI
15 34 (1.38%) Robotics
16 31 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
17 29 (1.18%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.63%) Windows
2 178 (7.23%) Linux
3 74 (3.01%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.88%) Unix
5 55 (2.23%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.26%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 27 (1.10%) Android
10 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Solaris
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) Rocky
17 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 821 (33.35%) Computer Science
2 685 (27.82%) Agile
3 652 (26.48%) Problem-Solving
4 409 (16.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 392 (15.92%) AI
6 380 (15.43%) Continuous Improvement
7 340 (13.81%) DevOps
8 302 (12.27%) Analytics
9 298 (12.10%) CI/CD
10 297 (12.06%) Project Management
11 274 (11.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 267 (10.84%) Decision-Making
13 253 (10.28%) ITIL
14 250 (10.15%) Cybersecurity
15 224 (9.10%) Change Management
16 217 (8.81%) Roadmaps
17 213 (8.65%) Migration
18 207 (8.41%) Software Engineering
19 191 (7.76%) Project Delivery
20 189 (7.68%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 421 (17.10%) Python
2 381 (15.48%) SQL
3 171 (6.95%) Java
4 130 (5.28%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.26%) C#
6 92 (3.74%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.99%) C++
8 42 (1.71%) Bash
9 36 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.18%) R
11 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.02%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.65%) C
15 13 (0.53%) Bicep
15 13 (0.53%) Go
15 13 (0.53%) Perl
16 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.41%) Rust
Qualifications
1 497 (20.19%) Computer Science Degree
2 431 (17.51%) Security Cleared
3 290 (11.78%) SC Cleared
4 257 (10.44%) Master's Degree
5 136 (5.52%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.32%) CISSP
7 119 (4.83%) PMP
8 95 (3.86%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.49%) Cisco Certification
10 67 (2.72%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.68%) CISM
12 64 (2.60%) DV Cleared
13 62 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
14 49 (1.99%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNP
16 42 (1.71%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.71%) CCNA
17 36 (1.46%) TOGAF Certification
18 35 (1.42%) CISA
19 30 (1.22%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.28%) QA
2 127 (5.16%) Data Quality
3 119 (4.83%) NIST
4 115 (4.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.18%) PMO
6 94 (3.82%) GDPR
7 51 (2.07%) SLA
8 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.50%) PCI DSS
10 32 (1.30%) GRC
11 28 (1.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 19 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.61%) IFRS
15 14 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.53%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.49%) COBIT
17 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
19 8 (0.32%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 189 (7.68%) Active Directory
2 135 (5.48%) Docker
3 43 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 14 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
7 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.081%) KVM
Systems Management
1 147 (5.97%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.66%) Terraform
3 75 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.52%) Ansible
5 36 (1.46%) Grafana
6 34 (1.38%) SCCM
7 33 (1.34%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (0.57%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.53%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.41%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.37%) WSUS
15 8 (0.32%) Nessus
16 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
17 5 (0.20%) Kibana
17 5 (0.20%) SCOM
17 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 585 (23.76%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.74%) Oracle
3 140 (5.69%) SAP
4 126 (5.12%) ServiceNow
5 102 (4.14%) Google
6 72 (2.92%) Cisco
7 66 (2.68%) Databricks
8 53 (2.15%) Adobe
8 53 (2.15%) VMware
9 49 (1.99%) Salesforce
10 43 (1.75%) IBM
11 42 (1.71%) Splunk
12 38 (1.54%) Citrix
13 35 (1.42%) Palo Alto
14 30 (1.22%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.02%) CheckPoint
16 24 (0.97%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.85%) Siemens
18 20 (0.81%) Fortinet
18 20 (0.81%) HP