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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,452 2,237 3,496
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.99% 7.68% 8.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.79% 24.72% 27.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,370 1,289 1,902
10th Percentile £225 £235 £225
25th Percentile £380 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £601 £635 £625
90th Percentile £726 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +3.50% -7.69% +0.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 175 418
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.62 £14.19
25th Percentile £27.94 £27.67 £21.90
Median hourly rate £52.50 £51.80 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.36% +29.49% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.38 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.36 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £45.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +22.22% +11.59% -18.17%

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 15,527 9,048 12,854
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.61% 31.08% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,303 5,682 8,007
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £619 £645
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,132 527 1,097
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.84 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.86 £18.13
Median hourly rate £48.05 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.85% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £62.00
90th Percentile £85.23 £78.38 £75.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.18 £40.94
% change year-on-year +47.61% -21.40% -22.02%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 2,195 £500 -1.96% 1,627
UK excluding London -8 1,341 £466 +3.50% 1,439
London -16 925 £515 -6.36% 472
Work from Home -16 654 £500 -2.72% 588
South East -2 385 £500 +5.26% 515
North of England -12 335 £444 -2.58% 332
Midlands -21 218 £505 +41.06% 206
North West -5 180 £416 -10.68% 159
West Midlands -26 155 £481 +20.25% 126
East of England -5 141 £450 -10.00% 155
Yorkshire -15 140 £475 +8.94% 119
South West -17 134 £500 +4.28% 183
Scotland -14 92 £500 +11.11% 43
East Midlands -13 61 £537 +50.84% 80
Wales -22 28 £450 +47.31% 38
North East -26 15 £450 +130.77% 61
Northern Ireland -7 14 £350 +12.00% 12

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
1 144 (5.87%) Confluence
2 131 (5.34%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.08%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.31%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.98%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.24%) Camunda
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.24%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.082%) Drupal
14 2 (0.082%) nginx
14 2 (0.082%) WebSphere
Applications
1 282 (11.50%) Microsoft Office
2 230 (9.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 156 (6.36%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.65%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.61%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.53%) Simulink
8 13 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.37%) Sketch
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
10 8 (0.33%) Trello
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.20%) Chatbot
12 5 (0.20%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.12%) Final Cut Pro
14 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 66 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.61%) Primavera
3 12 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.16%) HFM
9 4 (0.16%) Magento
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 531 (21.66%) Azure
2 316 (12.89%) AWS
3 204 (8.32%) Microsoft 365
4 190 (7.75%) Power Platform
5 123 (5.02%) Entra ID
6 105 (4.28%) GCP
7 86 (3.51%) SaaS
8 83 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (2.49%) GitHub
10 42 (1.71%) Figma
11 39 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.39%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.31%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.26%) PaaS
15 30 (1.22%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.22%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.14%) IaaS
16 28 (1.14%) Serverless
17 27 (1.10%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.69%) Firewall
2 72 (2.94%) DNS
2 72 (2.94%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.45%) Network Security
4 55 (2.24%) WAN
5 51 (2.08%) LAN
6 37 (1.51%) VPN
7 26 (1.06%) BGP
7 26 (1.06%) DHCP
7 26 (1.06%) Wireless
8 23 (0.94%) Ethernet
8 23 (0.94%) OSPF
9 18 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
10 17 (0.69%) SAN
10 17 (0.69%) Skype
11 14 (0.57%) HTTP
11 14 (0.57%) SSL
11 14 (0.57%) VXLAN
12 12 (0.49%) SSH
12 12 (0.49%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.36%) Power BI
2 111 (4.53%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.88%) Big Data
7 41 (1.67%) Metadata
7 41 (1.67%) Tableau
8 36 (1.47%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.14%) Hadoop
10 27 (1.10%) MySQL
11 25 (1.02%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.86%) Data Lake
13 18 (0.73%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.73%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.45%) GIS
16 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 244 (9.95%) JIRA
2 113 (4.61%) Git
3 46 (1.88%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.71%) GitLab
5 31 (1.26%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.77%) MLflow
8 17 (0.69%) Selenium
9 14 (0.57%) Gradle
10 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.53%) JUnit
10 13 (0.53%) Postman
11 11 (0.45%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 8 (0.33%) Metasploit
General
1 1,130 (46.08%) Social Skills
2 752 (30.67%) Finance
3 487 (19.86%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (8.65%) Banking
5 203 (8.28%) Public Sector
6 137 (5.59%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.02%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.00%) Marketing
9 84 (3.43%) Legal
10 81 (3.30%) Aerospace
10 81 (3.30%) Documentation Skills
11 77 (3.14%) Manufacturing
12 73 (2.98%) Influencing Skills
13 65 (2.65%) Telecoms
14 55 (2.24%) Law
15 50 (2.04%) Retail
16 45 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 40 (1.63%) Front Office
18 39 (1.59%) Investment Banking
19 37 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 354 (14.44%) Analyst
2 275 (11.22%) Senior
3 199 (8.12%) Architect
4 188 (7.67%) Lead
5 171 (6.97%) Developer
5 171 (6.97%) Project Manager
6 158 (6.44%) Business Analyst
7 71 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
8 67 (2.73%) Consultant
8 67 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
9 64 (2.61%) Designer
10 62 (2.53%) Delivery Manager
11 60 (2.45%) Software Engineer
12 56 (2.28%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.24%) Security Engineer
13 55 (2.24%) Senior Manager
14 49 (2.00%) Product Manager
15 46 (1.88%) Administrator
15 46 (1.88%) IT Manager
15 46 (1.88%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 106 (4.32%) REST
2 86 (3.51%) .NET
3 67 (2.73%) React
4 56 (2.28%) Middleware
5 54 (2.20%) Oracle Fusion
6 52 (2.12%) HTML
6 52 (2.12%) Kafka
7 43 (1.75%) RESTful
8 42 (1.71%) CSS
9 35 (1.43%) Spring Boot
10 34 (1.39%) .NET Framework
11 32 (1.31%) XML
12 30 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.22%) SOAP
12 30 (1.22%) Spring
13 29 (1.18%) OAuth
14 28 (1.14%) Pandas
14 28 (1.14%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.14%) Web Services
15 27 (1.10%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 185 (7.54%) Management Information System
2 145 (5.91%) Product Ownership
3 134 (5.46%) Onboarding
4 96 (3.92%) Cloud Native
4 96 (3.92%) Self-Motivation
5 69 (2.81%) Data Centre
6 65 (2.65%) Virtual Team
7 62 (2.53%) Data Structures
8 61 (2.49%) Algorithms
9 55 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
10 52 (2.12%) Data Protection Act
11 47 (1.92%) PMI
12 42 (1.71%) Operational Technology
13 40 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
13 40 (1.63%) Security Posture
14 38 (1.55%) Robotics
15 35 (1.43%) Life Science
16 34 (1.39%) Derivative
17 33 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
18 30 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 308 (12.56%) Windows
2 190 (7.75%) Linux
3 74 (3.02%) Unix
4 72 (2.94%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.41%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Android
6 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 26 (1.06%) Apple iOS
7 26 (1.06%) Mac OS
8 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.29%) AIX
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 843 (34.38%) Computer Science
2 673 (27.45%) Agile
3 641 (26.14%) Problem-Solving
4 376 (15.33%) Stakeholder Management
5 366 (14.93%) Continuous Improvement
6 355 (14.48%) AI
7 326 (13.30%) DevOps
8 313 (12.77%) Project Management
9 291 (11.87%) CI/CD
10 276 (11.26%) Analytics
11 264 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 261 (10.64%) Decision-Making
13 242 (9.87%) Cybersecurity
14 237 (9.67%) Migration
15 235 (9.58%) Change Management
16 213 (8.69%) Roadmaps
16 213 (8.69%) Software Engineering
17 207 (8.44%) ITIL
18 200 (8.16%) Risk Management
19 198 (8.08%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 400 (16.31%) Python
2 372 (15.17%) SQL
3 187 (7.63%) Java
4 123 (5.02%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.87%) C#
6 93 (3.79%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.61%) C++
8 46 (1.88%) Bash
9 33 (1.35%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.18%) R
11 22 (0.90%) PL/SQL
12 21 (0.86%) Shell Script
13 20 (0.82%) C
14 16 (0.65%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.61%) Perl
15 15 (0.61%) Rust
16 14 (0.57%) Go
16 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
17 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.49%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 519 (21.17%) Computer Science Degree
2 443 (18.07%) Security Cleared
3 300 (12.23%) SC Cleared
4 272 (11.09%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.14%) PMP
7 122 (4.98%) CISSP
8 80 (3.26%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (3.22%) Microsoft Certification
10 69 (2.81%) CISM
11 66 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
12 63 (2.57%) DV Cleared
13 58 (2.37%) Azure Certification
14 49 (2.00%) PhD
15 45 (1.84%) CCNP
16 43 (1.75%) TOGAF Certification
17 36 (1.47%) CBAP
17 36 (1.47%) CCNA
18 35 (1.43%) AWS Certification
18 35 (1.43%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (5.91%) QA
2 113 (4.61%) Data Quality
3 111 (4.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 111 (4.53%) PMO
4 110 (4.49%) NIST
5 102 (4.16%) GDPR
6 51 (2.08%) Accessibility
6 51 (2.08%) SLA
7 42 (1.71%) PCI DSS
8 29 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 25 (1.02%) GRC
10 20 (0.82%) NCSC
11 17 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.65%) IFRS
13 14 (0.57%) COBIT
14 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.41%) WCAG
System Software
1 161 (6.57%) Active Directory
2 141 (5.75%) Docker
3 38 (1.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.18%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.24%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.24%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.082%) HDFS
12 2 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 158 (6.44%) Kubernetes
2 86 (3.51%) Terraform
3 72 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.53%) Ansible
5 40 (1.63%) Grafana
6 37 (1.51%) SCCM
7 35 (1.43%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.61%) Progress Chef
11 14 (0.57%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
12 11 (0.45%) Kibana
13 9 (0.37%) Functional Safety
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 8 (0.33%) Nmap
14 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 552 (22.51%) Microsoft
2 182 (7.42%) Oracle
3 141 (5.75%) SAP
4 105 (4.28%) ServiceNow
5 88 (3.59%) Google
6 76 (3.10%) Cisco
7 63 (2.57%) Splunk
8 61 (2.49%) Databricks
9 46 (1.88%) Citrix
10 45 (1.84%) Salesforce
10 45 (1.84%) VMware
11 43 (1.75%) Adobe
12 39 (1.59%) IBM
13 35 (1.43%) Palo Alto
14 33 (1.35%) CheckPoint
15 25 (1.02%) Red Hat
16 23 (0.94%) Informatica
17 22 (0.90%) Aruba
17 22 (0.90%) CyberArk
17 22 (0.90%) Remedy