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 9 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,509 2,266 3,685
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.48% 7.75% 8.37%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.55% 25.27% 27.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,481 1,313 1,995
10th Percentile £263 £250 £205
25th Percentile £386 £394 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year - -0.10% -5.57%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £465 £500
% change year-on-year +4.41% -7.10% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 176 380
10th Percentile £16.50 £19.07 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.60 £28.48 £22.19
Median hourly rate £50.00 £53.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +32.50% -11.11%
75th Percentile £83.00 £71.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £53.75 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year +12.44% +19.51% -11.11%

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 15,157 8,966 13,509
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.11% 30.68% 30.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,065 5,718 8,372
10th Percentile £343 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,105 490 1,025
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.75
25th Percentile £20.75 £24.04 £17.72
Median hourly rate £39.50 £45.00 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -12.22% +12.73% -23.96%
75th Percentile £69.25 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.15 £81.05 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.72 £48.82 £40.00
% change year-on-year -18.64% +22.04% -19.22%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 -7 2,194 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -6 1,317 £485 +4.41% 2,012
London -12 955 £513 -6.82% 866
Work from Home -4 693 £500 -4.76% 927
South East -3 356 £500 - 660
North of England -6 333 £417 -12.21% 472
Midlands -25 198 £500 +49.25% 318
North West -4 180 £400 -15.79% 244
South West -1 153 £650 +21.95% 220
West Midlands -27 143 £500 +66.67% 181
East of England -8 138 £500 - 213
Yorkshire -18 136 £488 -6.02% 164
Scotland -3 97 £500 +14.29% 94
East Midlands -16 54 £525 +47.47% 136
Wales -14 40 £291 +2.17% 61
Northern Ireland -7 18 £388 +24.00% 17
North East -17 18 £407 -4.24% 71

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
1 181 (7.21%) Confluence
2 119 (4.74%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (2.11%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.72%) Apache
7 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Drupal
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.080%) Appian
12 2 (0.080%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.080%) IIS
12 2 (0.080%) nginx
12 2 (0.080%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 315 (12.55%) Microsoft Office
2 239 (9.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 206 (8.21%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.63%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
7 11 (0.44%) Trello
8 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.28%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.12%) InVision
12 2 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.080%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.080%) Navisworks
12 2 (0.080%) Revit
13 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.040%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 75 (2.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.84%) Primavera
4 18 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.44%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
8 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
12 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 535 (21.32%) Azure
2 292 (11.64%) AWS
3 216 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
4 202 (8.05%) Power Platform
5 113 (4.50%) Entra ID
6 111 (4.42%) GCP
7 108 (4.30%) SaaS
8 102 (4.07%) Azure DevOps
9 71 (2.83%) GitHub
10 51 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
11 42 (1.67%) Power Automate
12 39 (1.55%) Snowflake
13 33 (1.32%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.28%) Google Workspace
14 32 (1.28%) PaaS
15 31 (1.24%) IaaS
15 31 (1.24%) PowerApps
16 30 (1.20%) Serverless
17 28 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
18 25 (1.00%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 124 (4.94%) Firewall
2 64 (2.55%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.47%) WAN
4 61 (2.43%) LAN
5 58 (2.31%) DNS
6 48 (1.91%) Network Security
7 40 (1.59%) VPN
8 31 (1.24%) BGP
9 29 (1.16%) Wireless
10 26 (1.04%) Ethernet
10 26 (1.04%) HTTP
11 25 (1.00%) OSPF
11 25 (1.00%) Skype
12 20 (0.80%) DHCP
13 18 (0.72%) Internet
13 18 (0.72%) VLAN
14 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
15 16 (0.64%) SAN
16 15 (0.60%) VXLAN
17 14 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (6.54%) Power BI
2 104 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 76 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.07%) Relational Database
6 50 (1.99%) Big Data
7 41 (1.63%) NoSQL
7 41 (1.63%) Tableau
8 38 (1.51%) MySQL
9 36 (1.43%) Metadata
10 29 (1.16%) Data Lake
10 29 (1.16%) Hadoop
11 20 (0.80%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
17 10 (0.40%) GIS
17 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 289 (11.52%) JIRA
2 113 (4.50%) Git
3 55 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.59%) GitLab
5 31 (1.24%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.08%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.96%) Selenium
8 18 (0.72%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) Postman
10 13 (0.52%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.32%) JUnit
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
16 6 (0.24%) REST Assured
16 6 (0.24%) TeamCity
General
1 1,193 (47.55%) Social Skills
2 770 (30.69%) Finance
3 563 (22.44%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (9.61%) Banking
5 215 (8.57%) Public Sector
6 124 (4.94%) Presentation Skills
7 117 (4.66%) Organisational Skills
8 94 (3.75%) Marketing
9 88 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
10 87 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (3.23%) Manufacturing
12 75 (2.99%) Legal
13 74 (2.95%) Aerospace
14 66 (2.63%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.31%) Military
16 50 (1.99%) Front Office
17 48 (1.91%) Retail
18 46 (1.83%) Electronics
19 45 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
20 44 (1.75%) Law
Job Titles
1 355 (14.15%) Analyst
2 249 (9.92%) Senior
3 209 (8.33%) Architect
4 204 (8.13%) Lead
5 194 (7.73%) Project Manager
6 190 (7.57%) Developer
7 162 (6.46%) Business Analyst
8 94 (3.75%) Consultant
9 70 (2.79%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
10 64 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
11 59 (2.35%) Technical Support
12 57 (2.27%) Security Engineer
13 52 (2.07%) Data Scientist
14 51 (2.03%) Software Engineer
15 48 (1.91%) Designer
16 45 (1.79%) IT Support
16 45 (1.79%) Product Manager
17 44 (1.75%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.63%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (3.99%) REST
2 76 (3.03%) .NET
3 54 (2.15%) HTML
4 52 (2.07%) Middleware
4 52 (2.07%) React
5 51 (2.03%) RESTful
6 45 (1.79%) Kafka
7 40 (1.59%) CSS
8 38 (1.51%) SOAP
8 38 (1.51%) XML
9 37 (1.47%) JSON
10 36 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
10 36 (1.43%) PyTorch
10 36 (1.43%) Spring Boot
11 35 (1.39%) Pandas
11 35 (1.39%) TensorFlow
12 33 (1.32%) Spring
13 29 (1.16%) OAuth
14 28 (1.12%) .NET Framework
14 28 (1.12%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 201 (8.01%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.62%) Product Ownership
3 126 (5.02%) Onboarding
4 89 (3.55%) Cloud Native
5 83 (3.31%) Virtual Team
6 81 (3.23%) Algorithms
7 69 (2.75%) Data Centre
7 69 (2.75%) Self-Motivation
8 62 (2.47%) Data Structures
9 59 (2.35%) PMI
10 55 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
10 55 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
12 41 (1.63%) Derivative
13 35 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
14 33 (1.32%) Security Posture
15 32 (1.28%) Operational Technology
15 32 (1.28%) Robotics
16 30 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
16 30 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 293 (11.68%) Windows
2 182 (7.25%) Linux
3 76 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.59%) Unix
5 59 (2.35%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Android
7 29 (1.16%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.60%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.56%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
13 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
16 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 910 (36.27%) Computer Science
2 767 (30.57%) Agile
3 670 (26.70%) Problem-Solving
4 408 (16.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 368 (14.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 359 (14.31%) Project Management
7 348 (13.87%) DevOps
8 347 (13.83%) AI
9 284 (11.32%) CI/CD
10 278 (11.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 274 (10.92%) Analytics
12 265 (10.56%) Cybersecurity
12 265 (10.56%) ITIL
13 264 (10.52%) Change Management
14 257 (10.24%) Decision-Making
15 249 (9.92%) Migration
16 235 (9.37%) Project Delivery
17 231 (9.21%) PRINCE2
18 214 (8.53%) Roadmaps
19 213 (8.49%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 405 (16.14%) Python
2 367 (14.63%) SQL
3 173 (6.90%) Java
4 124 (4.94%) PowerShell
5 88 (3.51%) JavaScript
6 87 (3.47%) C#
7 73 (2.91%) C++
8 42 (1.67%) Bash
9 39 (1.55%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.28%) R
11 24 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 20 (0.80%) Go
13 19 (0.76%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.68%) C
14 17 (0.68%) Perl
14 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.60%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.60%) Rust
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 561 (22.36%) Computer Science Degree
2 486 (19.37%) Security Cleared
3 348 (13.87%) SC Cleared
4 326 (12.99%) Master's Degree
5 156 (6.22%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.30%) PMP
7 118 (4.70%) CISSP
8 90 (3.59%) Microsoft Certification
9 67 (2.67%) CISM
10 65 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
11 63 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
12 61 (2.43%) DV Cleared
12 61 (2.43%) PhD
13 56 (2.23%) Azure Certification
14 42 (1.67%) CCNP
15 40 (1.59%) MBA
16 37 (1.47%) AWS Certification
17 33 (1.32%) CompTIA Security+
18 32 (1.28%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.58%) QA
2 118 (4.70%) GDPR
3 114 (4.54%) PMO
4 107 (4.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 98 (3.91%) Data Quality
5 98 (3.91%) NIST
6 48 (1.91%) PCI DSS
7 46 (1.83%) SLA
8 42 (1.67%) Accessibility
9 27 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.96%) GRC
11 19 (0.76%) NCSC
12 17 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.56%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) Basel III
15 12 (0.48%) COBIT
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS 17
15 12 (0.48%) WCAG
16 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
System Software
1 165 (6.58%) Active Directory
2 152 (6.06%) Docker
3 44 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.88%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.80%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) vSphere
8 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.20%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 2 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.080%) HDFS
12 2 (0.080%) NDS
12 2 (0.080%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.080%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.080%) Virtual Machines
13 1 (0.040%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 154 (6.14%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.39%) Terraform
3 69 (2.75%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.39%) Ansible
5 41 (1.63%) Grafana
6 37 (1.47%) SCCM
7 31 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.20%) OPNET
9 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 16 (0.64%) Puppet
11 13 (0.52%) Nmap
12 12 (0.48%) Kibana
13 11 (0.44%) SCOM
14 9 (0.36%) Kiali
15 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.32%) WSUS
16 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
17 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 562 (22.40%) Microsoft
2 160 (6.38%) SAP
3 157 (6.26%) Oracle
4 124 (4.94%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.75%) Google
6 83 (3.31%) Cisco
7 69 (2.75%) Splunk
8 55 (2.19%) Databricks
9 52 (2.07%) Remedy
9 52 (2.07%) VMware
10 47 (1.87%) Citrix
11 46 (1.83%) Atlassian
11 46 (1.83%) Salesforce
12 42 (1.67%) IBM
13 39 (1.55%) Palo Alto
14 32 (1.28%) CheckPoint
15 25 (1.00%) Adobe
16 24 (0.96%) Informatica
17 22 (0.88%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.84%) Aruba