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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,472 2,346 2,970
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.54% 7.23% 7.79%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.43% 23.04% 26.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,278 1,283 1,679
10th Percentile £204 £260 £249
25th Percentile £353 £381 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £609 £625 £613
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.89% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 201 214
10th Percentile £16.46 £20.00 £20.12
25th Percentile £25.92 £25.75 £26.56
Median hourly rate £38.25 £38.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.65% -30.00% +13.92%
75th Percentile £68.63 £56.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £77.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £35.25 £57.35
% change year-on-year +8.51% -38.54% +19.13%

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 17,136 10,182 11,183
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.49% 31.37% 29.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,436 6,330 6,905
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £621 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £726
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,323 820 663
10th Percentile £17.17 £17.98 £17.00
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -8.73%
75th Percentile £72.25 £44.25 £67.91
90th Percentile £87.43 £71.00 £75.37
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% -

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 15 September 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 15 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 15 September 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 -15 2,248 £510 +2.00% 12,958
UK excluding London -17 1,327 £481 +6.89% 6,565
London -19 977 £525 -4.55% 7,495
Work from Home -23 651 £500 +2.67% 4,392
South East +6 456 £525 +13.51% 1,844
North of England -19 330 £475 +5.91% 1,193
North West -6 207 £475 +3.83% 681
Midlands -32 179 £450 - 825
East of England -13 137 £350 -28.21% 920
West Midlands -38 132 £450 -5.26% 508
South West -27 127 £400 -15.79% 757
Yorkshire -4 107 £513 +22.02% 347
Scotland -49 71 £500 +11.11% 665
East Midlands -18 46 £463 +6.69% 317
North East -35 16 £455 +1.11% 187
Northern Ireland -10 15 £250 -57.45% 283
Wales -29 14 £530 +73.50% 184
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 3

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
1 166 (6.72%) SharePoint
2 101 (4.09%) Confluence
3 63 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.05%) Apache Spark
5 22 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.81%) Apache
7 18 (0.73%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) Camunda
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
8 13 (0.53%) SharePoint Server
9 9 (0.36%) SAS
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 245 (9.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 241 (9.75%) Microsoft Office
3 128 (5.18%) Microsoft Project
4 119 (4.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 53 (2.14%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.40%) Windchill
11 9 (0.36%) Revit
12 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.32%) Simulink
12 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 8 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 41 (1.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.53%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
6 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) Loan IQ
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 565 (22.86%) Azure
2 313 (12.66%) AWS
3 234 (9.47%) Microsoft 365
4 230 (9.30%) Power Platform
5 144 (5.83%) GCP
6 138 (5.58%) Entra ID
7 121 (4.89%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.40%) SaaS
9 70 (2.83%) GitHub
10 63 (2.55%) Dynamics 365
11 59 (2.39%) Serverless
12 57 (2.31%) Power Automate
13 54 (2.18%) PowerApps
14 47 (1.90%) Microsoft Copilot
14 47 (1.90%) OneDrive
15 39 (1.58%) Snowflake
16 38 (1.54%) Figma
17 29 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
18 28 (1.13%) IaaS
19 27 (1.09%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.45%) Firewall
2 84 (3.40%) DNS
3 67 (2.71%) Network Security
4 65 (2.63%) TCP/IP
5 61 (2.47%) VPN
6 46 (1.86%) DHCP
7 35 (1.42%) LAN
7 35 (1.42%) WAN
8 29 (1.17%) Wireless
9 23 (0.93%) 3GPP
10 22 (0.89%) Internet
11 20 (0.81%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
12 19 (0.77%) VLAN
13 18 (0.73%) BGP
13 18 (0.73%) SSH
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.69%) Wireshark
15 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (6.84%) Power BI
2 116 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
3 58 (2.35%) Relational Database
4 53 (2.14%) Metadata
5 42 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (1.38%) MySQL
6 34 (1.38%) Tableau
7 30 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 25 (1.01%) Big Data
8 25 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
8 25 (1.01%) MongoDB
9 24 (0.97%) Oracle Database
9 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
11 18 (0.73%) Data Mining
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 15 (0.61%) GIS
15 14 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 176 (7.12%) JIRA
2 141 (5.70%) Git
3 64 (2.59%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.10%) GitLab
5 23 (0.93%) JUnit
6 22 (0.89%) Maven
6 22 (0.89%) Selenium
7 21 (0.85%) SonarQube
8 19 (0.77%) Gradle
9 18 (0.73%) REST Assured
10 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
11 16 (0.65%) Cucumber
12 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
13 13 (0.53%) Mockito
14 12 (0.49%) Postman
15 11 (0.44%) Subversion
16 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
17 9 (0.36%) MLflow
17 9 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
17 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,117 (45.19%) Social Skills
2 737 (29.81%) Finance
3 568 (22.98%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 202 (8.17%) Banking
6 166 (6.72%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (4.89%) Manufacturing
8 108 (4.37%) Aerospace
9 103 (4.17%) Influencing Skills
10 98 (3.96%) Marketing
11 91 (3.68%) Telecoms
12 90 (3.64%) Presentation Skills
13 89 (3.60%) Legal
14 78 (3.16%) Documentation Skills
15 63 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 59 (2.39%) Retail
17 52 (2.10%) Law
18 51 (2.06%) Pharmaceutical
19 44 (1.78%) Military
20 40 (1.62%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 334 (13.51%) Analyst
2 291 (11.77%) Senior
3 205 (8.29%) Developer
4 199 (8.05%) Lead
5 167 (6.76%) Architect
6 156 (6.31%) Business Analyst
7 123 (4.98%) Project Manager
8 76 (3.07%) Consultant
9 75 (3.03%) Support Engineer
10 72 (2.91%) IT Support
11 68 (2.75%) Senior Manager
12 57 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.14%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.06%) IT Manager
15 50 (2.02%) Administrator
15 50 (2.02%) Designer
16 46 (1.86%) Software Engineer
17 45 (1.82%) Security Engineer
17 45 (1.82%) Technical Support
18 43 (1.74%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (4.65%) REST
2 108 (4.37%) Terraform
3 105 (4.25%) .NET
4 72 (2.91%) React
5 69 (2.79%) HTML
6 64 (2.59%) Kafka
7 57 (2.31%) CSS
8 54 (2.18%) RESTful
9 47 (1.90%) OAuth
9 47 (1.90%) XML
10 44 (1.78%) Oracle Fusion
11 42 (1.70%) Spring Boot
12 40 (1.62%) Web Services
13 37 (1.50%) Middleware
13 37 (1.50%) Spring
14 36 (1.46%) JSON
14 36 (1.46%) OAuth2
15 34 (1.38%) .NET Framework
15 34 (1.38%) SAML
16 33 (1.33%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 227 (9.18%) Management Information System
2 139 (5.62%) Onboarding
3 116 (4.69%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.29%) Self-Motivation
5 99 (4.00%) Cloud Native
6 61 (2.47%) Algorithms
6 61 (2.47%) Data Structures
7 58 (2.35%) Data Centre
8 53 (2.14%) Operational Technology
9 50 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
10 49 (1.98%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
11 46 (1.86%) Life Science
11 46 (1.86%) Virtual Team
12 41 (1.66%) AI Agents
13 39 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
14 37 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (1.33%) SCADA
16 32 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
17 30 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 298 (12.06%) Windows
2 183 (7.40%) Linux
3 82 (3.32%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.59%) Unix
5 47 (1.90%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 33 (1.33%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.01%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) zOS
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 803 (32.48%) Computer Science
2 665 (26.90%) Agile
3 660 (26.70%) Problem-Solving
4 502 (20.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 436 (17.64%) Continuous Improvement
6 389 (15.74%) AI
7 351 (14.20%) DevOps
8 317 (12.82%) CI/CD
9 314 (12.70%) Project Management
10 307 (12.42%) Analytics
11 283 (11.45%) ITIL
12 254 (10.28%) Decision-Making
13 252 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 232 (9.39%) Scrum
15 230 (9.30%) Change Management
16 226 (9.14%) Cybersecurity
17 225 (9.10%) Software Engineering
18 224 (9.06%) Roadmaps
19 207 (8.37%) PRINCE2
20 205 (8.29%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 409 (16.55%) Python
2 360 (14.56%) SQL
3 180 (7.28%) PowerShell
4 172 (6.96%) Java
5 130 (5.26%) JavaScript
6 124 (5.02%) C#
7 61 (2.47%) Bash
8 48 (1.94%) TypeScript
9 45 (1.82%) C++
10 30 (1.21%) Bicep
11 29 (1.17%) T-SQL
12 28 (1.13%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.97%) C
15 23 (0.93%) R
16 15 (0.61%) Scala
17 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.49%) X++
19 10 (0.40%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 495 (20.02%) Computer Science Degree
2 464 (18.77%) Security Cleared
3 338 (13.67%) SC Cleared
4 206 (8.33%) Master's Degree
5 137 (5.54%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.22%) Microsoft Certification
7 123 (4.98%) PMP
8 104 (4.21%) CISSP
9 91 (3.68%) Azure Certification
10 84 (3.40%) Cisco Certification
11 81 (3.28%) DV Cleared
12 73 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
13 56 (2.27%) PhD
14 52 (2.10%) CISM
15 46 (1.86%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 45 (1.82%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.58%) CCNA
17 39 (1.58%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.54%) CCNP
19 34 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (5.91%) QA
2 137 (5.54%) Data Quality
3 92 (3.72%) NIST
4 91 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 87 (3.52%) PMO
6 72 (2.91%) GDPR
7 48 (1.94%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.70%) SLA
9 27 (1.09%) GRC
10 24 (0.97%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 20 (0.81%) NCSC
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.69%) PCI DSS
14 14 (0.57%) IFRS
15 13 (0.53%) P3O
16 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
17 10 (0.40%) COBIT
17 10 (0.40%) ISO 31000
18 9 (0.36%) IEC 61508
19 8 (0.32%) Basel III
System Software
1 195 (7.89%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.94%) Docker
3 55 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.17%) Firmware
5 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
6 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.36%) Embedded Firmware
9 8 (0.32%) VMware NSX
10 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
11 6 (0.24%) vSphere
12 5 (0.20%) NFS
12 5 (0.20%) RACF
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.12%) ACF2
14 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
14 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.51%) Ansible
4 35 (1.42%) SCCM
5 27 (1.09%) Grafana
6 25 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.57%) Puppet
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) SCOM
10 8 (0.32%) CASB
10 8 (0.32%) Functional Safety
10 8 (0.32%) WSUS
11 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
12 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.24%) Argo
12 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
12 6 (0.24%) Control-M
12 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 641 (25.93%) Microsoft
2 182 (7.36%) Oracle
3 138 (5.58%) ServiceNow
4 136 (5.50%) SAP
5 95 (3.84%) Google
6 73 (2.95%) Cisco
7 72 (2.91%) VMware
8 66 (2.67%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.55%) Adobe
10 52 (2.10%) Databricks
11 44 (1.78%) Splunk
12 41 (1.66%) IBM
13 32 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 30 (1.21%) CyberArk
15 25 (1.01%) Citrix
16 22 (0.89%) OpenAI
16 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.81%) Apple
19 19 (0.77%) Ariba