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 28 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 27 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,480 2,647 3,519
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.71% 7.89% 8.09%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.89% 26.40% 27.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,456 1,480 2,132
10th Percentile £289 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -4.59%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 162 227
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.01 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £27.00 £25.75
Median hourly rate £35.00 £41.46 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -15.57% -10.23% +6.77%
75th Percentile £58.25 £70.25 £68.32
90th Percentile £89.63 £85.00 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.75 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -13.13% -20.00% +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 12,469 10,028 13,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.75% 29.89% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,139 6,136 8,225
10th Percentile £313 £301 £300
25th Percentile £416 £417 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £631 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £505 £540
% change year-on-year -0.99% -6.48% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 999 485 744
10th Percentile £16.30 £18.50 £16.26
25th Percentile £19.23 £23.60 £26.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £51.90
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -22.92% +15.32%
75th Percentile £52.54 £67.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.15 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £51.44
% change year-on-year -40.82% -17.38% +18.26%

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025. 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 -2 2,153 £505 -3.81% 6,583
UK excluding London -4 1,248 £475 - 5,405
London -4 1,003 £527 -4.18% 1,773
Work from Home +2 713 £500 - 3,135
North of England -4 311 £447 -10.60% 1,259
South East 0 287 £475 -5.00% 1,587
Midlands -15 218 £492 +12.46% 875
North West -4 168 £402 -19.60% 657
South West +6 164 £649 +19.85% 589
West Midlands -14 161 £500 - 454
Yorkshire -6 133 £475 - 490
East of England -11 121 £500 +14.29% 737
Scotland +1 109 £469 +9.01% 259
East Midlands -9 57 £450 +26.40% 382
Wales -2 42 £226 -9.60% 136
Northern Ireland -10 25 £425 -10.53% 81
North East -10 11 £331 -33.76% 117

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
1 191 (7.70%) Confluence
2 117 (4.72%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.41%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.69%) nginx
7 14 (0.56%) IIS
7 14 (0.56%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.52%) Apache
8 13 (0.52%) CMS
9 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.28%) SAS
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.16%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.16%) Luigi
11 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
Applications
1 298 (12.02%) Microsoft Office
2 245 (9.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 186 (7.50%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (3.02%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.65%) Simulink
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
9 12 (0.48%) Trello
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 9 (0.36%) Sketch
13 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
14 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 4 (0.16%) InVision
15 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
16 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
16 2 (0.081%) InDesign
16 2 (0.081%) Navisworks
16 2 (0.081%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 64 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.73%) Primavera
4 17 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.60%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.48%) Oracle General Ledger
7 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
8 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
13 5 (0.20%) SAP HR
13 5 (0.20%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 497 (20.04%) Azure
2 323 (13.02%) AWS
3 204 (8.23%) Microsoft 365
4 187 (7.54%) Power Platform
5 155 (6.25%) GCP
6 102 (4.11%) GitHub
7 91 (3.67%) SaaS
8 84 (3.39%) Entra ID
9 80 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
10 73 (2.94%) Serverless
11 55 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
12 44 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 36 (1.45%) Cloud Computing
14 34 (1.37%) Amazon S3
14 34 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.29%) Amazon ECS
15 32 (1.29%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.29%) Snowflake
16 29 (1.17%) OCI
17 25 (1.01%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.68%) Firewall
2 74 (2.98%) DNS
3 53 (2.14%) VPN
4 45 (1.81%) Network Security
5 44 (1.77%) LAN
6 41 (1.65%) TCP/IP
7 39 (1.57%) HTTP
7 39 (1.57%) WAN
8 32 (1.29%) DHCP
9 31 (1.25%) Skype
10 29 (1.17%) Internet
10 29 (1.17%) Wireless
11 26 (1.05%) SSH
12 21 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.81%) Unified Communications
13 20 (0.81%) VoIP
14 19 (0.77%) BGP
15 18 (0.73%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.65%) OSPF
17 15 (0.60%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (5.85%) Power BI
2 96 (3.87%) PostgreSQL
3 90 (3.63%) SQL Server
4 65 (2.62%) NoSQL
5 60 (2.42%) Relational Database
6 58 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
7 54 (2.18%) Tableau
8 35 (1.41%) MySQL
9 30 (1.21%) Big Data
10 29 (1.17%) Data Lake
11 26 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (1.01%) Metadata
13 20 (0.81%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.65%) Oracle Database
16 13 (0.52%) RDBMS
17 12 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
17 12 (0.48%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.48%) Elasticsearch
17 12 (0.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 295 (11.90%) JIRA
2 127 (5.12%) Git
3 102 (4.11%) Jenkins
4 76 (3.06%) GitLab
5 29 (1.17%) Liquibase
6 24 (0.97%) Selenium
7 23 (0.93%) Postman
7 23 (0.93%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.52%) Cypress.io
9 12 (0.48%) Bitbucket
9 12 (0.48%) JUnit
10 11 (0.44%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Artifactory
11 10 (0.40%) Burp Suite
12 8 (0.32%) CircleCI
12 8 (0.32%) Metasploit
13 7 (0.28%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) SonarQube
14 6 (0.24%) Appium
General
1 1,285 (51.81%) Social Skills
2 785 (31.65%) Finance
3 590 (23.79%) Analytical Skills
4 282 (11.37%) Banking
5 191 (7.70%) Public Sector
6 117 (4.72%) Manufacturing
7 103 (4.15%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (3.99%) Organisational Skills
9 89 (3.59%) Marketing
10 85 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
10 85 (3.43%) Legal
11 69 (2.78%) Financial Institution
12 68 (2.74%) Military
13 67 (2.70%) Documentation Skills
14 62 (2.50%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.26%) Pharmaceutical
16 55 (2.22%) Investment Banking
17 54 (2.18%) Front Office
18 47 (1.90%) Aerospace
19 40 (1.61%) Law
Job Titles
1 367 (14.80%) Analyst
2 246 (9.92%) Senior
3 230 (9.27%) Developer
4 192 (7.74%) Architect
5 185 (7.46%) Lead
6 167 (6.73%) Project Manager
7 165 (6.65%) Business Analyst
8 102 (4.11%) Consultant
9 84 (3.39%) Software Engineer
10 62 (2.50%) IT Support
11 59 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
12 56 (2.26%) Support Analyst
13 53 (2.14%) Technical Support
14 49 (1.98%) Security Engineer
15 43 (1.73%) Senior Developer
16 42 (1.69%) Data Scientist
16 42 (1.69%) Senior Software Engineer
17 41 (1.65%) Support Engineer
18 40 (1.61%) IT Manager
19 39 (1.57%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (5.60%) REST
2 93 (3.75%) RESTful
3 77 (3.10%) .NET
4 76 (3.06%) HTML
5 60 (2.42%) XML
6 58 (2.34%) CSS
7 55 (2.22%) Middleware
8 53 (2.14%) JSON
9 49 (1.98%) Elastic Stack
10 48 (1.94%) Kafka
10 48 (1.94%) React
10 48 (1.94%) SOAP
11 41 (1.65%) OAuth
12 36 (1.45%) TensorFlow
13 33 (1.33%) AngularJS
14 32 (1.29%) PyTorch
14 32 (1.29%) Spring
15 31 (1.25%) Web Services
16 30 (1.21%) Node.js
17 29 (1.17%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.19%) Management Information System
2 120 (4.84%) Product Ownership
3 108 (4.35%) Cloud Native
4 82 (3.31%) Algorithms
5 73 (2.94%) Onboarding
6 67 (2.70%) Distributed Systems
7 65 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
8 61 (2.46%) Data Centre
9 58 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
10 55 (2.22%) Virtual Team
11 51 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
12 50 (2.02%) Public Cloud
13 46 (1.85%) Derivative
13 46 (1.85%) PMI
14 45 (1.81%) Life Science
15 42 (1.69%) Security Posture
16 41 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
17 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
18 38 (1.53%) Mobile App
19 36 (1.45%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 299 (12.06%) Windows
2 220 (8.87%) Linux
3 88 (3.55%) Unix
4 68 (2.74%) Windows Server
5 46 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 31 (1.25%) Android
8 23 (0.93%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.69%) VMS
11 16 (0.65%) Windows Server 2016
12 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
14 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
14 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.12%) CentOS
16 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
17 2 (0.081%) Kali Linux
17 2 (0.081%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 942 (37.98%) Computer Science
2 796 (32.10%) Agile
3 739 (29.80%) Problem-Solving
4 386 (15.56%) Stakeholder Management
5 379 (15.28%) Project Management
6 375 (15.12%) DevOps
7 293 (11.81%) Change Management
8 285 (11.49%) CI/CD
9 273 (11.01%) ITIL
10 271 (10.93%) Continuous Improvement
11 257 (10.36%) AI
11 257 (10.36%) Cybersecurity
12 256 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 251 (10.12%) Analytics
14 245 (9.88%) Migration
15 242 (9.76%) Decision-Making
16 233 (9.40%) Software Engineering
17 221 (8.91%) Project Delivery
18 206 (8.31%) Risk Management
19 195 (7.86%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 457 (18.43%) Python
2 363 (14.64%) SQL
3 180 (7.26%) Java
4 136 (5.48%) PowerShell
5 120 (4.84%) JavaScript
6 91 (3.67%) C#
7 79 (3.19%) C++
8 59 (2.38%) Go
8 59 (2.38%) TypeScript
9 56 (2.26%) Bash
10 32 (1.29%) R
11 25 (1.01%) Perl
12 21 (0.85%) C
13 20 (0.81%) MATLAB
13 20 (0.81%) PL/SQL
13 20 (0.81%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.69%) Kotlin
15 16 (0.65%) Ruby
16 15 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
16 15 (0.60%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 643 (25.93%) Computer Science Degree
2 406 (16.37%) Security Cleared
3 379 (15.28%) Master's Degree
4 318 (12.82%) SC Cleared
5 153 (6.17%) PMI Certification
6 137 (5.52%) PMP
7 119 (4.80%) CISSP
8 100 (4.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.19%) Azure Certification
10 72 (2.90%) PhD
11 71 (2.86%) CISM
12 65 (2.62%) AWS Certification
13 60 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
14 58 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
14 58 (2.34%) TOGAF Certification
15 54 (2.18%) DV Cleared
16 50 (2.02%) HND
17 38 (1.53%) CCNP
18 37 (1.49%) HNC
19 35 (1.41%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 159 (6.41%) QA
2 136 (5.48%) GDPR
3 102 (4.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 94 (3.79%) Data Quality
5 80 (3.23%) PMO
6 71 (2.86%) NIST
7 44 (1.77%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.45%) PCI DSS
9 35 (1.41%) SLA
10 33 (1.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.01%) GRC
12 18 (0.73%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.65%) NCSC
14 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
14 15 (0.60%) WCAG
15 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.52%) P3O
16 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
17 11 (0.44%) Basel III
17 11 (0.44%) COBIT
System Software
1 186 (7.50%) Docker
2 151 (6.09%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Firmware
5 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
8 8 (0.32%) XenApp
9 6 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (0.24%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.081%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 167 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 141 (5.69%) Terraform
3 89 (3.59%) Ansible
4 68 (2.74%) Grafana
5 58 (2.34%) Prometheus
6 51 (2.06%) Microsoft Intune
7 48 (1.94%) SCCM
8 30 (1.21%) OPNET
9 23 (0.93%) Puppet
10 14 (0.56%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Kibana
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
12 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 10 (0.40%) Nmap
13 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
13 10 (0.40%) QRadar
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 526 (21.21%) Microsoft
2 169 (6.81%) SAP
3 155 (6.25%) Oracle
4 122 (4.92%) ServiceNow
5 113 (4.56%) Splunk
6 101 (4.07%) Google
7 74 (2.98%) Cisco
8 67 (2.70%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.14%) Atlassian
10 52 (2.10%) VMware
11 49 (1.98%) Remedy
12 46 (1.85%) Databricks
13 41 (1.65%) Citrix
14 36 (1.45%) IBM
15 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
16 23 (0.93%) Adobe
17 22 (0.89%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.85%) MuleSoft
19 20 (0.81%) Workday
20 19 (0.77%) CheckPoint