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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,477 2,445 3,111
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 7.45% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.89% 24.04% 26.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,322 1,389 1,807
10th Percentile £206 £250 £238
25th Percentile £363 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +3.50% -10.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 282 210 287
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.50 £18.13
25th Percentile £27.91 £25.75 £25.36
Median hourly rate £47.00 £43.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.30% -14.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £82.88 £64.88 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.64 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year +16.16% -29.45% +14.70%

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 16,639 10,172 11,869
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.34% 31.02% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,121 6,306 7,536
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,239 775 893
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.31
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +106.76% -41.51% -23.21%
75th Percentile £73.75 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.03 £75.00 £77.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -19.87%

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 31 July 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 31 July 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 31 July 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 -14 2,258 £500 - 3,420
UK excluding London -11 1,367 £466 +3.50% 2,065
London -21 953 £525 -4.55% 1,686
Work from Home -22 653 £500 - 1,106
South East +3 481 £500 +5.26% 674
North of England -10 332 £450 -0.66% 454
North West -11 191 £449 -5.42% 231
Midlands -29 184 £463 +8.82% 295
West Midlands -35 144 £466 +3.44% 158
East of England -7 143 £450 - 278
Yorkshire -16 125 £500 +19.05% 144
South West -22 120 £415 -7.78% 249
Scotland -38 73 £475 +5.56% 84
East Midlands -25 38 £475 +32.68% 137
Wales -29 21 £490 +52.37% 56
North East -46 16 £450 +130.77% 85
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -46.95% 36

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
1 145 (5.85%) SharePoint
2 120 (4.84%) Confluence
3 63 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.33%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.85%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) Camunda
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 274 (11.06%) Microsoft Office
2 237 (9.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 141 (5.69%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (5.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.54%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) Trello
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 61 (2.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 13 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
9 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 570 (23.01%) Azure
2 324 (13.08%) AWS
3 228 (9.20%) Power Platform
4 216 (8.72%) Microsoft 365
5 151 (6.10%) Entra ID
6 138 (5.57%) GCP
7 103 (4.16%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (3.23%) SaaS
9 69 (2.79%) GitHub
10 46 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
10 46 (1.86%) Snowflake
11 45 (1.82%) Figma
11 45 (1.82%) Power Automate
11 45 (1.82%) PowerApps
12 44 (1.78%) Serverless
13 39 (1.57%) Microsoft Copilot
13 39 (1.57%) OneDrive
14 29 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
15 28 (1.13%) IaaS
16 26 (1.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.68%) Firewall
2 75 (3.03%) DNS
3 74 (2.99%) TCP/IP
4 67 (2.70%) Network Security
5 60 (2.42%) VPN
6 42 (1.70%) WAN
7 39 (1.57%) DHCP
7 39 (1.57%) LAN
8 27 (1.09%) Wireless
9 21 (0.85%) BGP
10 20 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.77%) SSL
11 19 (0.77%) VLAN
12 17 (0.69%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSH
14 15 (0.61%) HTTP
15 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.57%) Internet
16 13 (0.52%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (7.35%) Power BI
2 112 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 52 (2.10%) Relational Database
5 50 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.70%) Metadata
7 40 (1.61%) Tableau
8 35 (1.41%) Big Data
9 33 (1.33%) NoSQL
10 26 (1.05%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.01%) MySQL
12 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 19 (0.77%) Data Lake
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.69%) Hadoop
16 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
17 15 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
17 15 (0.61%) Data Mining
18 14 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 196 (7.91%) JIRA
2 125 (5.05%) Git
3 56 (2.26%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.61%) GitLab
5 35 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (0.69%) MLflow
6 17 (0.69%) Selenium
7 16 (0.65%) Visual Studio
8 14 (0.57%) JUnit
9 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
9 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Gradle
10 11 (0.44%) Postman
10 11 (0.44%) Subversion
10 11 (0.44%) TeamCity
11 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.36%) Maven
12 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,083 (43.72%) Social Skills
2 723 (29.19%) Finance
3 557 (22.49%) Analytical Skills
4 204 (8.24%) Public Sector
5 183 (7.39%) Banking
6 160 (6.46%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.36%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.00%) Aerospace
9 97 (3.92%) Legal
9 97 (3.92%) Marketing
10 93 (3.75%) Manufacturing
11 86 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
12 76 (3.07%) Telecoms
13 75 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
14 61 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 61 (2.46%) Retail
15 53 (2.14%) Law
16 48 (1.94%) Pharmaceutical
17 37 (1.49%) Front Office
18 34 (1.37%) Military
Job Titles
1 342 (13.81%) Analyst
2 285 (11.51%) Senior
3 189 (7.63%) Lead
4 185 (7.47%) Architect
5 178 (7.19%) Developer
6 153 (6.18%) Business Analyst
6 153 (6.18%) Project Manager
7 73 (2.95%) Senior Manager
8 70 (2.83%) Consultant
9 61 (2.46%) Designer
10 59 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
11 57 (2.30%) IT Support
12 54 (2.18%) IT Manager
12 54 (2.18%) Support Engineer
13 52 (2.10%) Product Manager
14 51 (2.06%) IT Analyst
14 51 (2.06%) Software Engineer
15 48 (1.94%) Senior Analyst
16 47 (1.90%) Administrator
17 45 (1.82%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.04%) REST
2 97 (3.92%) .NET
3 68 (2.75%) React
4 49 (1.98%) Kafka
5 43 (1.74%) RESTful
6 42 (1.70%) OAuth
7 40 (1.61%) HTML
8 34 (1.37%) Middleware
9 33 (1.33%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.33%) CSS
9 33 (1.33%) SAML
9 33 (1.33%) Spring
10 32 (1.29%) AngularJS
10 32 (1.29%) Web Services
11 31 (1.25%) OAuth2
11 31 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
12 30 (1.21%) Spring Boot
13 29 (1.17%) JSON
13 29 (1.17%) LDAP
14 28 (1.13%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 207 (8.36%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.10%) Onboarding
3 149 (6.02%) Product Ownership
4 115 (4.64%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.87%) Data Structures
7 68 (2.75%) Algorithms
8 65 (2.62%) Data Centre
9 54 (2.18%) Virtual Team
10 51 (2.06%) Operational Technology
10 51 (2.06%) Security Posture
11 45 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
12 42 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
13 41 (1.66%) Life Science
14 38 (1.53%) AI Agents
14 38 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
15 35 (1.41%) PMI
16 33 (1.33%) Robotics
17 32 (1.29%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 300 (12.11%) Windows
2 176 (7.11%) Linux
3 75 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.46%) Unix
5 51 (2.06%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.17%) Android
9 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
15 3 (0.12%) Rocky
15 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 841 (33.95%) Computer Science
2 670 (27.05%) Agile
3 649 (26.20%) Problem-Solving
4 433 (17.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 413 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 395 (15.95%) AI
7 323 (13.04%) DevOps
8 318 (12.84%) Project Management
9 308 (12.43%) Analytics
10 295 (11.91%) CI/CD
11 276 (11.14%) ITIL
12 259 (10.46%) Decision-Making
13 256 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 248 (10.01%) Cybersecurity
15 219 (8.84%) Change Management
16 213 (8.60%) Software Engineering
17 212 (8.56%) PRINCE2
18 209 (8.44%) Roadmaps
19 201 (8.11%) Scrum
20 199 (8.03%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 431 (17.40%) Python
2 352 (14.21%) SQL
3 169 (6.82%) Java
4 154 (6.22%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.28%) C#
6 93 (3.75%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.02%) Bash
8 46 (1.86%) C++
9 41 (1.66%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.17%) R
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.01%) Bicep
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 22 (0.89%) C
14 22 (0.89%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 489 (19.74%) Computer Science Degree
2 446 (18.01%) Security Cleared
3 293 (11.83%) SC Cleared
4 231 (9.33%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.09%) PMP
7 119 (4.80%) CISSP
8 111 (4.48%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
10 75 (3.03%) Azure Certification
10 75 (3.03%) DV Cleared
11 67 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 58 (2.34%) CISM
13 57 (2.30%) PhD
14 42 (1.70%) AWS Certification
14 42 (1.70%) CCNA
15 40 (1.61%) CCNP
16 38 (1.53%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 36 (1.45%) CISA
18 32 (1.29%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.33%) Data Quality
2 124 (5.01%) QA
3 118 (4.76%) NIST
4 111 (4.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.16%) PMO
6 74 (2.99%) GDPR
7 53 (2.14%) SLA
8 51 (2.06%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.01%) GRC
12 21 (0.85%) NCSC
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) COBIT
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) IFRS
16 11 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
18 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 198 (7.99%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.93%) Docker
3 50 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.97%) Firmware
6 16 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 136 (5.49%) Kubernetes
2 95 (3.84%) Terraform
3 78 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.46%) Ansible
5 39 (1.57%) SCCM
6 31 (1.25%) Grafana
7 28 (1.13%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.24%) Argo
15 6 (0.24%) SCOM
16 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 622 (25.11%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.70%) Oracle
3 140 (5.65%) SAP
4 137 (5.53%) ServiceNow
5 92 (3.71%) Google
6 69 (2.79%) Cisco
7 65 (2.62%) VMware
8 62 (2.50%) Databricks
9 58 (2.34%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.22%) Adobe
11 49 (1.98%) IBM
12 34 (1.37%) CyberArk
12 34 (1.37%) Splunk
13 31 (1.25%) Citrix
14 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
15 22 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.85%) Ariba
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 19 (0.77%) HP