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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,417 2,243 3,585
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.84% 7.64% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.42% 24.62% 27.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,329 1,279 1,944
10th Percentile £213 £235 £225
25th Percentile £375 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £763 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £456 £450 £490
% change year-on-year +1.33% -8.16% -0.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 239 182 418
10th Percentile £17.18 £17.83 £14.25
25th Percentile £27.31 £26.59 £21.76
Median hourly rate £51.44 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.88% +25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.84 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £44.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +17.98% +10.35% -19.00%

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 15,671 9,112 13,045
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.41% 31.02% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,398 5,673 8,090
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £618 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £501 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +0.10% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,159 565 1,118
10th Percentile £17.08 £17.69 £13.87
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.25 £18.32
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.93% -23.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.75 £64.52 £62.64
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.38 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £30.00 £41.27
% change year-on-year +58.33% -27.30% -21.40%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 -12 2,155 £500 -0.99% 2,354
UK excluding London -8 1,312 £456 +1.33% 1,897
London -16 927 £513 -6.82% 773
Work from Home -17 654 £500 -4.76% 1,053
South East 0 396 £500 +5.26% 615
North of England -13 326 £447 -3.35% 441
Midlands -24 200 £513 +43.16% 254
North West -11 175 £418 -10.87% 240
West Midlands -26 144 £481 +16.61% 142
East of England -3 137 £450 -10.00% 218
Yorkshire -8 136 £500 +11.86% 155
South West -21 117 £469 -1.26% 234
Scotland -19 96 £500 +11.11% 93
East Midlands -17 54 £545 +55.71% 112
Wales -20 27 £450 +44.23% 48
Northern Ireland -3 17 £254 -18.72% 49
North East -31 15 £450 +130.77% 58

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
1 131 (5.42%) Confluence
2 130 (5.38%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.07%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.87%) Apache
7 10 (0.41%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
9 7 (0.29%) SAS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.083%) nginx
13 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
Applications
1 266 (11.01%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (9.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (5.67%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.52%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.66%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 9 (0.37%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 7 (0.29%) Trello
13 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
13 6 (0.25%) Sketch
14 5 (0.21%) Final Cut Pro
14 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
15 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 67 (2.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.58%) Primavera
3 13 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.17%) HFM
10 4 (0.17%) Magento
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 536 (22.18%) Azure
2 313 (12.95%) AWS
3 203 (8.40%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.82%) Power Platform
5 128 (5.30%) Entra ID
6 110 (4.55%) GCP
7 91 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
8 88 (3.64%) SaaS
9 64 (2.65%) GitHub
10 43 (1.78%) Figma
11 41 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.49%) Snowflake
13 34 (1.41%) PaaS
13 34 (1.41%) Power Automate
14 33 (1.37%) PowerApps
14 33 (1.37%) Serverless
15 31 (1.28%) OneDrive
16 30 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
16 30 (1.24%) Google Workspace
16 30 (1.24%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.63%) Firewall
2 78 (3.23%) TCP/IP
3 77 (3.19%) DNS
4 60 (2.48%) Network Security
5 53 (2.19%) WAN
6 49 (2.03%) LAN
7 40 (1.65%) VPN
8 32 (1.32%) DHCP
9 26 (1.08%) BGP
10 25 (1.03%) Wireless
11 23 (0.95%) Ethernet
11 23 (0.95%) OSPF
12 20 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
13 17 (0.70%) SSL
14 15 (0.62%) SAN
14 15 (0.62%) Skype
15 14 (0.58%) HTTP
15 14 (0.58%) VLAN
16 13 (0.54%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.54%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (6.58%) Power BI
2 110 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.03%) Big Data
5 49 (2.03%) Relational Database
6 39 (1.61%) Metadata
6 39 (1.61%) Tableau
7 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
9 27 (1.12%) MySQL
10 24 (0.99%) MongoDB
11 19 (0.79%) Data Lake
12 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
12 18 (0.74%) Oracle Database
12 18 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 14 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
14 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
15 11 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
15 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 217 (8.98%) JIRA
2 111 (4.59%) Git
3 49 (2.03%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.70%) GitLab
5 31 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.87%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.74%) Selenium
9 15 (0.62%) Cucumber
9 15 (0.62%) Postman
10 14 (0.58%) Gradle
11 13 (0.54%) JUnit
11 13 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.41%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Burp Suite
General
1 1,112 (46.01%) Social Skills
2 741 (30.66%) Finance
3 488 (20.19%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.56%) Public Sector
5 203 (8.40%) Banking
6 136 (5.63%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.01%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.30%) Marketing
9 91 (3.76%) Legal
10 87 (3.60%) Aerospace
11 83 (3.43%) Documentation Skills
12 80 (3.31%) Manufacturing
13 74 (3.06%) Influencing Skills
14 69 (2.85%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.23%) Law
16 52 (2.15%) Retail
17 47 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 37 (1.53%) Front Office
19 36 (1.49%) Investment Banking
19 36 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 357 (14.77%) Analyst
2 274 (11.34%) Senior
3 195 (8.07%) Architect
4 183 (7.57%) Lead
5 169 (6.99%) Developer
6 160 (6.62%) Project Manager
7 159 (6.58%) Business Analyst
8 74 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
9 68 (2.81%) Consultant
9 68 (2.81%) Designer
10 66 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
11 60 (2.48%) Software Engineer
12 57 (2.36%) Senior Manager
13 56 (2.32%) Technical Support
14 53 (2.19%) Delivery Manager
14 53 (2.19%) Security Engineer
15 49 (2.03%) Administrator
16 48 (1.99%) Product Manager
17 46 (1.90%) Data Scientist
17 46 (1.90%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.18%) REST
2 88 (3.64%) .NET
3 65 (2.69%) React
4 51 (2.11%) Kafka
5 49 (2.03%) Middleware
6 47 (1.94%) Oracle Fusion
7 46 (1.90%) HTML
8 38 (1.57%) RESTful
9 36 (1.49%) .NET Framework
9 36 (1.49%) CSS
10 34 (1.41%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.32%) OAuth
11 32 (1.32%) XML
12 30 (1.24%) Spring
13 29 (1.20%) Web Services
14 28 (1.16%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.16%) JSON
15 26 (1.08%) Pandas
15 26 (1.08%) PyTorch
15 26 (1.08%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 187 (7.74%) Management Information System
2 141 (5.83%) Onboarding
3 139 (5.75%) Product Ownership
4 102 (4.22%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.60%) Cloud Native
6 73 (3.02%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.61%) Virtual Team
8 61 (2.52%) Data Structures
9 59 (2.44%) Algorithms
10 51 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
10 51 (2.11%) Distributed Systems
11 46 (1.90%) PMI
12 42 (1.74%) Operational Technology
13 40 (1.65%) Security Posture
14 39 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
15 38 (1.57%) Robotics
16 35 (1.45%) Life Science
17 32 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
18 30 (1.24%) Derivative
18 30 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.87%) Windows
2 191 (7.90%) Linux
3 74 (3.06%) Unix
3 74 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 57 (2.36%) Windows 10
5 33 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 31 (1.28%) Android
7 29 (1.20%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.33%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.29%) AIX
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Solaris
13 4 (0.17%) VMS
13 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 823 (34.05%) Computer Science
2 651 (26.93%) Agile
3 630 (26.07%) Problem-Solving
4 379 (15.68%) Stakeholder Management
5 362 (14.98%) Continuous Improvement
6 354 (14.65%) AI
7 324 (13.41%) DevOps
8 290 (12.00%) Project Management
9 281 (11.63%) CI/CD
10 270 (11.17%) Analytics
11 255 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 254 (10.51%) Decision-Making
13 241 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
14 228 (9.43%) Migration
15 225 (9.31%) Change Management
16 210 (8.69%) ITIL
16 210 (8.69%) Roadmaps
17 206 (8.52%) Software Engineering
18 188 (7.78%) Risk Management
19 184 (7.61%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 395 (16.34%) Python
2 367 (15.18%) SQL
3 183 (7.57%) Java
4 122 (5.05%) PowerShell
5 100 (4.14%) C#
6 93 (3.85%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.36%) C++
8 41 (1.70%) Bash
9 33 (1.37%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.12%) R
11 23 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.91%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.70%) C
14 16 (0.66%) T-SQL
15 14 (0.58%) Go
15 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.58%) Perl
15 14 (0.58%) Rust
16 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 9 (0.37%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 502 (20.77%) Computer Science Degree
2 435 (18.00%) Security Cleared
3 295 (12.21%) SC Cleared
4 253 (10.47%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 121 (5.01%) CISSP
7 119 (4.92%) PMP
8 85 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
10 70 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
11 66 (2.73%) CISM
12 61 (2.52%) DV Cleared
13 55 (2.28%) Azure Certification
14 45 (1.86%) PhD
15 44 (1.82%) CCNP
16 39 (1.61%) CCNA
17 38 (1.57%) CBAP
17 38 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
18 34 (1.41%) AWS Certification
19 33 (1.37%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.67%) QA
2 117 (4.84%) NIST
3 114 (4.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 111 (4.59%) Data Quality
5 104 (4.30%) PMO
6 100 (4.14%) GDPR
7 49 (2.03%) SLA
8 48 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.65%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.08%) GRC
12 19 (0.79%) NCSC
13 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.66%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.46%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 171 (7.07%) Active Directory
2 135 (5.59%) Docker
3 40 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.28%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 146 (6.04%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.31%) Terraform
3 75 (3.10%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.52%) Ansible
5 39 (1.61%) Grafana
6 37 (1.53%) Prometheus
7 36 (1.49%) SCCM
8 22 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
11 14 (0.58%) Puppet
12 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
13 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.37%) Functional Safety
14 9 (0.37%) WSUS
15 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.33%) Kiali
15 8 (0.33%) Kibana
15 8 (0.33%) Nessus
16 6 (0.25%) Nmap
Vendors
1 549 (22.71%) Microsoft
2 175 (7.24%) Oracle
3 142 (5.88%) SAP
4 105 (4.34%) ServiceNow
5 90 (3.72%) Google
6 74 (3.06%) Cisco
7 60 (2.48%) Databricks
8 53 (2.19%) Splunk
9 48 (1.99%) Salesforce
10 47 (1.94%) VMware
11 45 (1.86%) Citrix
12 43 (1.78%) Adobe
13 39 (1.61%) IBM
14 36 (1.49%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.28%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.03%) CyberArk
17 23 (0.95%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.91%) Aruba
19 21 (0.87%) Informatica
19 21 (0.87%) Siemens