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

6 months to
9 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 22 17
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,421 2,282 3,649
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.07% 7.82% 8.46%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.84% 25.30% 27.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,412 1,308 1,939
10th Percentile £250 £242 £213
25th Percentile £376 £378 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year - -0.50% -4.29%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £633
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 205 177 409
10th Percentile £17.54 £17.50 £14.04
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.39 £22.50
Median hourly rate £56.50 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.61% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.50 £46.30 £41.50
% change year-on-year +39.31% +11.57% -7.78%

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 15,288 9,021 13,089
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.03% 30.93% 30.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,172 5,683 8,089
10th Percentile £349 £288 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £623 £650
90th Percentile £725 £701 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,088 513 1,071
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.85
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.50 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.54 £39.32 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.91% -1.70% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.62 £61.55
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.74 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +18.75% -2.30% -18.12%

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 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 9 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 9 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 -9 2,147 £500 -2.91% 2,684
UK excluding London -7 1,309 £475 +5.56% 1,988
London -17 906 £502 -8.82% 990
Work from Home -10 662 £500 - 1,070
South East -4 367 £496 -0.20% 707
North of England -11 319 £417 -8.45% 434
Midlands -21 212 £500 +61.29% 311
North West -9 167 £400 -14.12% 230
West Midlands -24 148 £500 +66.67% 197
South West -11 140 £575 +18.80% 238
East of England -8 139 £450 -10.00% 204
Yorkshire -13 138 £474 +14.43% 146
Scotland -9 96 £500 +11.11% 78
East Midlands -11 62 £525 +47.47% 113
Wales -20 29 £358 +17.03% 45
Northern Ireland -7 14 £425 - 18
North East -26 14 £450 - 65

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
1 171 (7.06%) Confluence
2 119 (4.92%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.07%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.87%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 6 (0.25%) IIS
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.25%) SAS
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) Moodle
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.083%) Drupal
12 2 (0.083%) nginx
12 2 (0.083%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.083%) WinCC
Applications
1 304 (12.56%) Microsoft Office
2 236 (9.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 191 (7.89%) Microsoft Project
4 142 (5.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.60%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.45%) Simulink
8 10 (0.41%) Trello
9 9 (0.37%) Adobe After Effects
9 9 (0.37%) Adobe Illustrator
9 9 (0.37%) Photoshop
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.25%) Sketch
12 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.083%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.083%) InVision
Business Applications
1 72 (2.97%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.70%) Primavera
4 14 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 504 (20.82%) Azure
2 289 (11.94%) AWS
3 204 (8.43%) Microsoft 365
4 194 (8.01%) Power Platform
5 108 (4.46%) Entra ID
6 98 (4.05%) SaaS
7 96 (3.97%) GCP
8 89 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.44%) GitHub
10 44 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
11 34 (1.40%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.36%) Google Workspace
12 33 (1.36%) PaaS
13 32 (1.32%) IaaS
13 32 (1.32%) Snowflake
14 31 (1.28%) Figma
15 28 (1.16%) Cloud Computing
15 28 (1.16%) Serverless
16 27 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.12%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.54%) Firewall
2 63 (2.60%) TCP/IP
3 57 (2.35%) DNS
4 56 (2.31%) WAN
5 53 (2.19%) LAN
6 49 (2.02%) Network Security
7 36 (1.49%) VPN
8 28 (1.16%) BGP
9 27 (1.12%) Wireless
10 25 (1.03%) Ethernet
10 25 (1.03%) OSPF
11 21 (0.87%) Skype
12 19 (0.78%) HTTP
13 17 (0.70%) DHCP
13 17 (0.70%) SAN
14 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.50%) IPsec
15 12 (0.50%) SSL
15 12 (0.50%) VLAN
15 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (6.65%) Power BI
2 100 (4.13%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.60%) PostgreSQL
4 60 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.15%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.02%) Big Data
7 40 (1.65%) Metadata
8 37 (1.53%) Tableau
9 34 (1.40%) NoSQL
10 32 (1.32%) MySQL
11 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.95%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.87%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.54%) Oracle Database
17 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 12 (0.50%) Power Query
17 12 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
18 10 (0.41%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 276 (11.40%) JIRA
2 114 (4.71%) Git
3 45 (1.86%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.82%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.83%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.78%) MLflow
8 18 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
9 12 (0.50%) Gradle
10 11 (0.45%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.41%) Postman
12 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.37%) JUnit
12 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.29%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.29%) Maven
14 6 (0.25%) SonarQube
General
1 1,127 (46.55%) Social Skills
2 739 (30.52%) Finance
3 521 (21.52%) Analytical Skills
4 216 (8.92%) Banking
5 206 (8.51%) Public Sector
6 129 (5.33%) Organisational Skills
7 126 (5.20%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.13%) Marketing
9 87 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
10 78 (3.22%) Legal
11 73 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
12 72 (2.97%) Aerospace
13 69 (2.85%) Telecoms
14 68 (2.81%) Manufacturing
15 59 (2.44%) Military
16 53 (2.19%) Law
17 47 (1.94%) Retail
18 41 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 41 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
19 38 (1.57%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 338 (13.96%) Analyst
2 249 (10.29%) Senior
3 216 (8.92%) Architect
4 191 (7.89%) Lead
5 184 (7.60%) Project Manager
6 173 (7.15%) Developer
7 159 (6.57%) Business Analyst
8 77 (3.18%) Consultant
9 67 (2.77%) Senior Analyst
9 67 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
10 63 (2.60%) Delivery Manager
11 58 (2.40%) Designer
11 58 (2.40%) Technical Support
12 49 (2.02%) Security Engineer
12 49 (2.02%) Software Engineer
13 48 (1.98%) Product Manager
14 46 (1.90%) Data Scientist
15 43 (1.78%) Data Engineer
15 43 (1.78%) Senior Manager
15 43 (1.78%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (4.01%) REST
2 80 (3.30%) .NET
3 59 (2.44%) React
4 57 (2.35%) Middleware
5 51 (2.11%) HTML
6 46 (1.90%) Kafka
6 46 (1.90%) RESTful
7 41 (1.69%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.61%) CSS
9 37 (1.53%) SOAP
9 37 (1.53%) XML
10 36 (1.49%) Spring Boot
11 33 (1.36%) PyTorch
11 33 (1.36%) Spring
12 30 (1.24%) JSON
12 30 (1.24%) Pandas
13 29 (1.20%) .NET Framework
14 27 (1.12%) OAuth
14 27 (1.12%) TensorFlow
15 25 (1.03%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 188 (7.77%) Management Information System
2 173 (7.15%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.49%) Onboarding
4 84 (3.47%) Cloud Native
5 75 (3.10%) Self-Motivation
6 67 (2.77%) Virtual Team
7 63 (2.60%) Data Centre
8 62 (2.56%) Algorithms
9 61 (2.52%) Data Structures
10 56 (2.31%) PMI
11 53 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
11 53 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
12 40 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
12 40 (1.65%) Operational Technology
13 38 (1.57%) Robotics
14 34 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
15 32 (1.32%) Security Posture
16 31 (1.28%) Derivative
16 31 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
17 30 (1.24%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 279 (11.52%) Windows
2 180 (7.43%) Linux
3 71 (2.93%) Windows Server
4 70 (2.89%) Unix
5 58 (2.40%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.32%) Android
7 23 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 22 (0.91%) Mac OS
9 16 (0.66%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) Debian
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 846 (34.94%) Computer Science
2 707 (29.20%) Agile
3 633 (26.15%) Problem-Solving
4 387 (15.99%) Stakeholder Management
5 351 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 339 (14.00%) AI
7 335 (13.84%) Project Management
8 321 (13.26%) DevOps
9 280 (11.57%) CI/CD
10 261 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 258 (10.66%) Analytics
12 253 (10.45%) Decision-Making
13 239 (9.87%) Migration
14 235 (9.71%) Change Management
15 234 (9.67%) Cybersecurity
16 219 (9.05%) ITIL
17 205 (8.47%) Project Delivery
17 205 (8.47%) Risk Management
18 204 (8.43%) PRINCE2
18 204 (8.43%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 381 (15.74%) Python
2 360 (14.87%) SQL
3 172 (7.10%) Java
4 110 (4.54%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.88%) C#
6 79 (3.26%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.77%) C++
8 41 (1.69%) Bash
9 36 (1.49%) TypeScript
10 33 (1.36%) R
11 23 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.74%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.66%) C
13 16 (0.66%) Perl
13 16 (0.66%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.62%) Go
15 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.58%) Rust
16 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 538 (22.22%) Computer Science Degree
2 469 (19.37%) Security Cleared
3 331 (13.67%) SC Cleared
4 287 (11.85%) Master's Degree
5 157 (6.48%) PMI Certification
6 134 (5.53%) PMP
7 108 (4.46%) CISSP
8 80 (3.30%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.10%) Cisco Certification
10 69 (2.85%) TOGAF Certification
11 65 (2.68%) CISM
12 62 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.40%) DV Cleared
14 48 (1.98%) Azure Certification
14 48 (1.98%) PhD
15 43 (1.78%) CCNP
16 39 (1.61%) MBA
17 35 (1.45%) CBAP
17 35 (1.45%) CCNA
18 30 (1.24%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (6.69%) QA
2 114 (4.71%) PMO
3 110 (4.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (4.42%) GDPR
4 107 (4.42%) NIST
5 105 (4.34%) Data Quality
6 51 (2.11%) SLA
7 44 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.73%) PCI DSS
9 28 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.03%) GRC
11 20 (0.83%) NCSC
12 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.58%) COBIT
13 14 (0.58%) IFRS
14 13 (0.54%) Basel III
15 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.45%) HIPAA
System Software
1 151 (6.24%) Active Directory
2 140 (5.78%) Docker
3 38 (1.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.16%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.95%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.21%) XenApp
8 5 (0.21%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.083%) HDFS
11 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.041%) GPFS
12 1 (0.041%) PowerHA
12 1 (0.041%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 149 (6.15%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.18%) Terraform
3 63 (2.60%) Ansible
4 59 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
5 39 (1.61%) Grafana
6 38 (1.57%) SCCM
7 30 (1.24%) OPNET
7 30 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 18 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.70%) Puppet
10 15 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.45%) Nmap
13 10 (0.41%) WSUS
14 9 (0.37%) Kiali
14 9 (0.37%) vCenter Server
15 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.33%) Nessus
16 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 545 (22.51%) Microsoft
2 161 (6.65%) Oracle
3 147 (6.07%) SAP
4 123 (5.08%) ServiceNow
5 82 (3.39%) Google
6 76 (3.14%) Cisco
7 65 (2.68%) Splunk
8 57 (2.35%) Databricks
9 49 (2.02%) Remedy
10 46 (1.90%) VMware
11 43 (1.78%) Citrix
11 43 (1.78%) Salesforce
12 41 (1.69%) Atlassian
12 41 (1.69%) IBM
13 36 (1.49%) Adobe
14 35 (1.45%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.36%) CheckPoint
16 23 (0.95%) Aruba
16 23 (0.95%) Informatica
17 21 (0.87%) CyberArk