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

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 22 21
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,492 2,871 3,607
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.90% 7.84% 7.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.70% 26.71% 26.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,427 1,594 2,196
10th Percentile £274 £225 £225
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £635 £638
90th Percentile £750 £765 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 157 220
10th Percentile £15.31 £19.93 £17.73
25th Percentile £23.00 £26.42 £26.97
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.33 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.92% -19.35% +13.64%
75th Percentile £52.16 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.85 £82.06 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% -20.00% +14.94%

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 12,038 10,748 13,416
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.35% 29.36% 29.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,771 6,455 8,492
10th Percentile £305 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £518 £538
% change year-on-year -3.38% -3.72% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,018 531 765
10th Percentile £17.53 £18.97 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £53.67
Median % change year-on-year -41.35% -20.10% +19.26%
75th Percentile £45.46 £67.01 £68.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £52.50
% change year-on-year -46.16% -11.02% +16.67%

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 November 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 November 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 November 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 2,133 £517 -0.65% 3,466
UK excluding London -3 1,242 £475 - 2,927
London -5 1,026 £536 -0.37% 1,103
Work from Home 0 730 £500 - 4,348
North of England -8 301 £450 -14.29% 482
South East -3 273 £475 -5.00% 1,193
Midlands -10 211 £475 -4.62% 385
North West -5 171 £425 -20.04% 269
West Midlands -12 162 £500 - 239
South West +4 155 £600 - 311
East of England -8 132 £505 +18.82% 382
Yorkshire -15 121 £488 -4.36% 150
Scotland -2 118 £450 +5.88% 156
East Midlands -9 49 £448 +12.00% 140
Wales -1 46 £226 -43.50% 74
Northern Ireland -5 33 £370 -22.11% 36
North East -14 10 £298 -40.31% 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
1 179 (7.18%) Confluence
2 126 (5.06%) SharePoint
3 70 (2.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (1.77%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) nginx
7 15 (0.60%) CMS
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.52%) IIS
9 12 (0.48%) Apache
10 8 (0.32%) SAS
11 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
12 6 (0.24%) Moodle
13 5 (0.20%) Luigi
14 4 (0.16%) Alfresco
14 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
14 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
14 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.12%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 302 (12.12%) Microsoft Office
2 236 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 174 (6.98%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (4.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (2.89%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 15 (0.60%) Simulink
8 14 (0.56%) Trello
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 6 (0.24%) Sketch
14 4 (0.16%) Adobe Captivate
14 4 (0.16%) InDesign
14 4 (0.16%) Maya
14 4 (0.16%) Navisworks
14 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
14 4 (0.16%) Revit
15 3 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
Business Applications
1 67 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.84%) Primavera
4 15 (0.60%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
7 10 (0.40%) Dynamics GP
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
8 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.24%) Endur
11 6 (0.24%) Maximo
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
12 5 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
12 5 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.20%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 488 (19.58%) Azure
2 325 (13.04%) AWS
3 196 (7.87%) Microsoft 365
4 184 (7.38%) Power Platform
5 162 (6.50%) GCP
6 103 (4.13%) GitHub
7 97 (3.89%) SaaS
8 85 (3.41%) Entra ID
9 76 (3.05%) Azure DevOps
10 72 (2.89%) Serverless
11 50 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
12 42 (1.69%) Power Automate
13 37 (1.48%) Amazon S3
14 35 (1.40%) Cloud Computing
15 33 (1.32%) PowerApps
16 32 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
17 31 (1.24%) Azure Sentinel
17 31 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
18 30 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
18 30 (1.20%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 107 (4.29%) Firewall
2 81 (3.25%) DNS
3 53 (2.13%) VPN
4 49 (1.97%) Network Security
5 43 (1.73%) DHCP
6 38 (1.52%) HTTP
6 38 (1.52%) LAN
7 37 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 37 (1.48%) WAN
8 34 (1.36%) Wireless
9 29 (1.16%) Internet
10 28 (1.12%) Skype
11 26 (1.04%) VoIP
12 25 (1.00%) SSH
13 24 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (0.92%) Unified Communications
15 22 (0.88%) BGP
15 22 (0.88%) Cisco IOS
16 16 (0.64%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.64%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (5.70%) Power BI
2 102 (4.09%) PostgreSQL
3 79 (3.17%) SQL Server
4 71 (2.85%) NoSQL
5 58 (2.33%) Relational Database
5 58 (2.33%) Tableau
6 57 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
7 35 (1.40%) Big Data
8 33 (1.32%) MySQL
9 31 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
10 29 (1.16%) Data Lake
11 24 (0.96%) Metadata
12 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (0.72%) Hadoop
14 16 (0.64%) Redis
15 14 (0.56%) Oracle Database
16 13 (0.52%) RDBMS
17 12 (0.48%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 277 (11.12%) JIRA
2 126 (5.06%) Git
3 106 (4.25%) Jenkins
4 79 (3.17%) GitLab
5 29 (1.16%) Liquibase
6 25 (1.00%) Postman
7 22 (0.88%) Selenium
8 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.40%) JUnit
12 9 (0.36%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.36%) SpecFlow
13 7 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 7 (0.28%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) MLflow
13 7 (0.28%) Subversion
14 6 (0.24%) Katalon Studio
General
1 1,300 (52.17%) Social Skills
2 804 (32.26%) Finance
3 619 (24.84%) Analytical Skills
4 273 (10.96%) Banking
5 175 (7.02%) Public Sector
6 125 (5.02%) Manufacturing
7 108 (4.33%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
9 97 (3.89%) Marketing
10 90 (3.61%) Influencing Skills
11 86 (3.45%) Legal
12 76 (3.05%) Telecoms
13 69 (2.77%) Financial Institution
14 63 (2.53%) Military
15 62 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
15 62 (2.49%) Front Office
16 60 (2.41%) Pharmaceutical
17 59 (2.37%) Investment Banking
18 54 (2.17%) Aerospace
19 41 (1.65%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 374 (15.01%) Analyst
2 247 (9.91%) Developer
3 244 (9.79%) Senior
4 186 (7.46%) Lead
5 176 (7.06%) Architect
6 160 (6.42%) Business Analyst
7 159 (6.38%) Project Manager
8 110 (4.41%) Consultant
9 81 (3.25%) Software Engineer
10 66 (2.65%) IT Support
11 64 (2.57%) Support Analyst
12 53 (2.13%) Security Engineer
12 53 (2.13%) Solutions Architect
13 48 (1.93%) Technical Support
14 47 (1.89%) IT Manager
14 47 (1.89%) Support Engineer
15 46 (1.85%) Data Scientist
15 46 (1.85%) Senior Developer
16 40 (1.61%) Data Analyst
17 39 (1.57%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 133 (5.34%) REST
2 91 (3.65%) RESTful
3 78 (3.13%) HTML
4 75 (3.01%) .NET
5 60 (2.41%) CSS
6 54 (2.17%) XML
7 51 (2.05%) Kafka
8 50 (2.01%) JSON
9 45 (1.81%) SOAP
10 43 (1.73%) Middleware
11 42 (1.69%) Elastic Stack
11 42 (1.69%) Web Services
12 41 (1.65%) OAuth
12 41 (1.65%) React
13 38 (1.52%) TensorFlow
14 35 (1.40%) Spring
15 34 (1.36%) Node.js
16 33 (1.32%) AngularJS
17 32 (1.28%) PyTorch
18 29 (1.16%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.23%) Management Information System
2 114 (4.57%) Product Ownership
3 97 (3.89%) Cloud Native
4 90 (3.61%) Algorithms
5 79 (3.17%) Onboarding
6 67 (2.69%) Data Protection Act
7 65 (2.61%) Virtual Team
8 59 (2.37%) Analytical Mindset
9 58 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
10 57 (2.29%) Data Centre
11 51 (2.05%) Derivative
11 51 (2.05%) Public Cloud
12 49 (1.97%) Self-Motivation
13 44 (1.77%) Life Science
14 42 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
15 41 (1.65%) Mobile App
16 39 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
16 39 (1.57%) PKI
17 38 (1.52%) Security Posture
18 36 (1.44%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 267 (10.71%) Windows
2 194 (7.78%) Linux
3 79 (3.17%) Unix
4 59 (2.37%) Windows Server
5 36 (1.44%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.20%) Mac OS
7 28 (1.12%) Android
8 25 (1.00%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.68%) VMS
11 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.080%) Mac OS X
16 2 (0.080%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 976 (39.17%) Computer Science
2 792 (31.78%) Agile
3 773 (31.02%) Problem-Solving
4 400 (16.05%) Project Management
5 380 (15.25%) Stakeholder Management
6 348 (13.96%) DevOps
7 299 (12.00%) Change Management
8 294 (11.80%) ITIL
9 263 (10.55%) CI/CD
10 259 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
11 257 (10.31%) Analytics
12 253 (10.15%) AI
13 250 (10.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 248 (9.95%) Cybersecurity
15 236 (9.47%) Migration
16 227 (9.11%) Project Delivery
17 223 (8.95%) Software Engineering
18 216 (8.67%) Decision-Making
19 188 (7.54%) Business Intelligence
20 185 (7.42%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 476 (19.10%) Python
2 354 (14.21%) SQL
3 194 (7.78%) Java
4 124 (4.98%) PowerShell
5 121 (4.86%) JavaScript
6 81 (3.25%) C#
7 76 (3.05%) C++
8 62 (2.49%) Go
9 49 (1.97%) TypeScript
10 48 (1.93%) Bash
11 38 (1.52%) R
12 22 (0.88%) MATLAB
12 22 (0.88%) Perl
13 21 (0.84%) Ruby
14 19 (0.76%) PL/SQL
15 18 (0.72%) C
16 17 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
16 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
17 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
18 15 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 647 (25.96%) Computer Science Degree
2 378 (15.17%) Master's Degree
3 357 (14.33%) Security Cleared
4 284 (11.40%) SC Cleared
5 146 (5.86%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.30%) PMP
7 115 (4.61%) CISSP
8 97 (3.89%) Microsoft Certification
9 81 (3.25%) PhD
10 72 (2.89%) Azure Certification
11 69 (2.77%) CISM
12 68 (2.73%) AWS Certification
12 68 (2.73%) Cisco Certification
13 51 (2.05%) HND
14 48 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
15 44 (1.77%) TOGAF Certification
16 42 (1.69%) CCNP
17 41 (1.65%) DV Cleared
18 38 (1.52%) CCNA
18 38 (1.52%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.78%) QA
2 128 (5.14%) GDPR
3 99 (3.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 97 (3.89%) Data Quality
5 86 (3.45%) NIST
6 68 (2.73%) PMO
7 45 (1.81%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.44%) SLA
9 30 (1.20%) PCI DSS
9 30 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.04%) GRC
11 24 (0.96%) HIPAA
12 20 (0.80%) NCSC
13 18 (0.72%) COBIT
14 16 (0.64%) NIST 800
15 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
15 15 (0.60%) P3O
16 14 (0.56%) WCAG
17 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
18 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 170 (6.82%) Docker
2 159 (6.38%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.12%) 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 9 (0.36%) XenApp
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.16%) NDS
12 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 148 (5.94%) Kubernetes
2 123 (4.94%) Terraform
3 86 (3.45%) Ansible
4 64 (2.57%) Grafana
5 55 (2.21%) Prometheus
6 49 (1.97%) Microsoft Intune
7 47 (1.89%) SCCM
8 22 (0.88%) OPNET
9 19 (0.76%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
12 11 (0.44%) QRadar
12 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
15 7 (0.28%) Kibana
16 6 (0.24%) vRealize
Vendors
1 545 (21.87%) Microsoft
2 172 (6.90%) SAP
3 133 (5.34%) Oracle
4 132 (5.30%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.77%) Google
6 90 (3.61%) Splunk
7 87 (3.49%) Cisco
8 72 (2.89%) Salesforce
9 56 (2.25%) VMware
10 50 (2.01%) Atlassian
11 41 (1.65%) Remedy
12 39 (1.57%) Databricks
12 39 (1.57%) IBM
13 34 (1.36%) Citrix
14 32 (1.28%) Adobe
15 26 (1.04%) Workday
16 24 (0.96%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.80%) Red Hat
18 16 (0.64%) Apple
19 15 (0.60%) SolarWinds