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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 25 17
Rank change year-on-year -13 -8 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,439 2,220 3,514
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.99% 7.75% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.80% 24.95% 27.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,363 1,286 1,906
10th Percentile £225 £235 £225
25th Percentile £376 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £611 £626 £626
90th Percentile £737 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £466 £450 £478
% change year-on-year +3.50% -5.76% -1.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 171 415
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.50 £14.13
25th Percentile £28.00 £26.86 £22.29
Median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% +33.75% -18.37%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.81 £41.25
% change year-on-year +15.05% +15.89% -14.29%

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 15,438 8,898 12,812
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.61% 31.06% 29.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,233 5,612 8,001
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £533
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -2.25% -3.09%
75th Percentile £620 £615 £645
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.32% +1.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,136 509 1,073
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.87 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.46 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.63
% change year-on-year +46.15% -20.01% -21.10%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -10 2,182 £500 -0.99% 3,153
UK excluding London -7 1,331 £466 +3.50% 2,047
London -17 921 £515 -6.36% 1,421
Work from Home -15 651 £500 - 1,178
South East -1 384 £500 +5.26% 644
North of England -13 326 £433 -5.05% 466
Midlands -20 217 £500 +39.66% 268
North West -3 174 £410 -12.58% 253
West Midlands -25 154 £478 +23.35% 172
East of England -5 140 £450 -10.00% 227
South West -11 137 £515 +8.42% 285
Yorkshire -16 137 £450 +7.27% 151
Scotland -16 92 £500 +11.11% 100
East Midlands -10 61 £531 +49.16% 96
Wales -23 27 £413 +35.03% 41
North East -30 15 £450 +130.77% 70
Northern Ireland -9 14 £350 -17.65% 63

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
1 148 (6.07%) Confluence
2 129 (5.29%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.09%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.98%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.21%) SAS
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.082%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.082%) Drupal
14 2 (0.082%) WebSphere
Applications
1 286 (11.73%) Microsoft Office
2 232 (9.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 160 (6.56%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.62%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 12 (0.49%) Simulink
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 66 (2.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.62%) Primavera
3 12 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.16%) Magento
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 524 (21.48%) Azure
2 308 (12.63%) AWS
3 201 (8.24%) Microsoft 365
4 192 (7.87%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.00%) Entra ID
6 98 (4.02%) GCP
7 86 (3.53%) SaaS
8 84 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
9 60 (2.46%) GitHub
10 42 (1.72%) Figma
11 39 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.35%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.31%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.27%) PaaS
15 30 (1.23%) PowerApps
16 29 (1.19%) Power Automate
17 28 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.15%) IaaS
18 27 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
18 27 (1.11%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.47%) Firewall
2 71 (2.91%) TCP/IP
3 69 (2.83%) DNS
4 56 (2.30%) Network Security
5 55 (2.26%) WAN
6 51 (2.09%) LAN
7 35 (1.44%) VPN
8 25 (1.03%) BGP
9 24 (0.98%) DHCP
9 24 (0.98%) Wireless
10 23 (0.94%) Ethernet
11 22 (0.90%) OSPF
12 17 (0.70%) SAN
12 17 (0.70%) Skype
13 16 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
14 14 (0.57%) HTTP
14 14 (0.57%) VXLAN
15 13 (0.53%) SSL
16 12 (0.49%) VLAN
17 11 (0.45%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.44%) Power BI
2 111 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.01%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.89%) Big Data
7 41 (1.68%) Metadata
8 40 (1.64%) Tableau
9 37 (1.52%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
10 28 (1.15%) MySQL
11 25 (1.03%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.86%) Data Lake
13 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.74%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
16 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 247 (10.13%) JIRA
2 114 (4.67%) Git
3 46 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.68%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.82%) MLflow
8 18 (0.74%) Selenium
9 14 (0.57%) Gradle
9 14 (0.57%) Postman
10 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.53%) JUnit
11 11 (0.45%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 8 (0.33%) Metasploit
General
1 1,124 (46.08%) Social Skills
2 748 (30.67%) Finance
3 489 (20.05%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.65%) Banking
5 200 (8.20%) Public Sector
6 139 (5.70%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.04%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (3.98%) Marketing
9 81 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
9 81 (3.32%) Legal
10 79 (3.24%) Aerospace
11 76 (3.12%) Manufacturing
12 72 (2.95%) Influencing Skills
13 65 (2.67%) Telecoms
14 52 (2.13%) Law
15 50 (2.05%) Retail
16 42 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 41 (1.68%) Front Office
18 39 (1.60%) Investment Banking
19 38 (1.56%) Military
Job Titles
1 350 (14.35%) Analyst
2 275 (11.28%) Senior
3 200 (8.20%) Architect
4 185 (7.59%) Lead
5 170 (6.97%) Project Manager
6 169 (6.93%) Developer
7 156 (6.40%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
9 68 (2.79%) Consultant
10 67 (2.75%) Senior Analyst
11 64 (2.62%) Designer
12 61 (2.50%) Delivery Manager
13 59 (2.42%) Software Engineer
14 58 (2.38%) Technical Support
15 56 (2.30%) Senior Manager
16 50 (2.05%) Security Engineer
17 49 (2.01%) Product Manager
18 46 (1.89%) Administrator
18 46 (1.89%) Data Engineer
19 45 (1.85%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.26%) REST
2 88 (3.61%) .NET
3 67 (2.75%) React
4 55 (2.26%) Middleware
5 54 (2.21%) Oracle Fusion
6 52 (2.13%) HTML
6 52 (2.13%) Kafka
7 43 (1.76%) RESTful
8 42 (1.72%) CSS
9 35 (1.44%) Spring Boot
10 34 (1.39%) .NET Framework
11 31 (1.27%) XML
12 30 (1.23%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.23%) SOAP
12 30 (1.23%) Spring
13 29 (1.19%) Pandas
13 29 (1.19%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.15%) OAuth
15 27 (1.11%) Web Services
16 26 (1.07%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 180 (7.38%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.19%) Product Ownership
3 133 (5.45%) Onboarding
4 95 (3.90%) Self-Motivation
5 91 (3.73%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.79%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.67%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.54%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.46%) Algorithms
10 54 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
11 52 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
12 47 (1.93%) PMI
13 41 (1.68%) Operational Technology
14 39 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
15 38 (1.56%) Robotics
16 35 (1.44%) Derivative
16 35 (1.44%) Life Science
16 35 (1.44%) Security Posture
17 33 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
18 30 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 303 (12.42%) Windows
2 188 (7.71%) Linux
3 75 (3.08%) Unix
4 73 (2.99%) Windows Server
5 60 (2.46%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.27%) Android
7 28 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 25 (1.03%) Mac OS
9 24 (0.98%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
12 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 836 (34.28%) Computer Science
2 679 (27.84%) Agile
3 638 (26.16%) Problem-Solving
4 373 (15.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 365 (14.97%) Continuous Improvement
6 350 (14.35%) AI
7 323 (13.24%) DevOps
8 313 (12.83%) Project Management
9 289 (11.85%) CI/CD
10 272 (11.15%) Analytics
11 263 (10.78%) Decision-Making
12 261 (10.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (9.76%) Cybersecurity
14 234 (9.59%) Migration
15 228 (9.35%) Change Management
16 212 (8.69%) Software Engineering
17 208 (8.53%) ITIL
18 206 (8.45%) Roadmaps
19 201 (8.24%) Risk Management
20 196 (8.04%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 390 (15.99%) Python
2 374 (15.33%) SQL
3 181 (7.42%) Java
4 119 (4.88%) PowerShell
5 98 (4.02%) C#
6 92 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 65 (2.67%) C++
8 41 (1.68%) Bash
9 35 (1.44%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.19%) R
11 21 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 21 (0.86%) Shell Script
12 19 (0.78%) C
13 16 (0.66%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.62%) Perl
14 15 (0.62%) Rust
15 14 (0.57%) Go
15 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
16 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 513 (21.03%) Computer Science Degree
2 445 (18.25%) Security Cleared
3 302 (12.38%) SC Cleared
4 273 (11.19%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.86%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.08%) PMP
7 117 (4.80%) CISSP
8 80 (3.28%) Cisco Certification
8 80 (3.28%) Microsoft Certification
9 68 (2.79%) CISM
10 65 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
11 63 (2.58%) DV Cleared
12 55 (2.26%) Azure Certification
13 51 (2.09%) PhD
14 47 (1.93%) TOGAF Certification
15 44 (1.80%) CCNP
16 37 (1.52%) CCNA
17 36 (1.48%) CBAP
18 35 (1.44%) MBA
19 33 (1.35%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (6.03%) QA
2 113 (4.63%) Data Quality
3 111 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 110 (4.51%) NIST
4 110 (4.51%) PMO
5 102 (4.18%) GDPR
6 51 (2.09%) Accessibility
6 51 (2.09%) SLA
7 42 (1.72%) PCI DSS
8 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 25 (1.03%) GRC
10 20 (0.82%) NCSC
11 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.66%) IFRS
13 14 (0.57%) COBIT
14 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 161 (6.60%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.62%) Docker
3 38 (1.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.19%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.25%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.082%) HDFS
12 2 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 152 (6.23%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.40%) Terraform
3 71 (2.91%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.50%) Ansible
5 40 (1.64%) Grafana
6 38 (1.56%) SCCM
7 34 (1.39%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 11 (0.45%) Kibana
11 11 (0.45%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 8 (0.33%) OPNET
14 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 551 (22.59%) Microsoft
2 180 (7.38%) Oracle
3 142 (5.82%) SAP
4 110 (4.51%) ServiceNow
5 83 (3.40%) Google
6 75 (3.08%) Cisco
7 62 (2.54%) Splunk
8 60 (2.46%) Databricks
9 46 (1.89%) VMware
10 45 (1.85%) Citrix
11 44 (1.80%) Salesforce
12 43 (1.76%) Adobe
13 38 (1.56%) IBM
14 35 (1.44%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.35%) CheckPoint
16 26 (1.07%) Remedy
17 23 (0.94%) Informatica
18 22 (0.90%) Aruba
18 22 (0.90%) CyberArk
19 21 (0.86%) Siemens