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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,447 2,429 3,020
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.42% 7.78%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.61% 23.70% 26.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,287 1,365 1,741
10th Percentile £204 £260 £263
25th Percentile £361 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 276 213 255
10th Percentile £16.86 £17.56 £18.05
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.43
Median hourly rate £38.72 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £79.65 £62.25 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £76.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -6.70% -27.64% +18.97%

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 16,745 10,249 11,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.22% 31.33% 29.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,209 6,338 7,308
10th Percentile £350 £290 £313
25th Percentile £437 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £622 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £518 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,263 826 776
10th Percentile £17.44 £17.97 £14.49
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.23 £21.37
Median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +94.08% -44.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.50 £67.14
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £77.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +89.03% -48.21% -6.42%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 -17 2,244 £500 - 6,459
UK excluding London -16 1,315 £475 +5.56% 3,647
London -21 974 £525 -4.55% 3,589
Work from Home -19 649 £500 - 2,267
South East +7 472 £514 +8.16% 862
North of England -17 324 £470 +5.20% 713
North West -15 192 £453 -2.37% 407
Midlands -30 179 £475 +5.56% 449
West Midlands -34 133 £481 +6.89% 249
East of England -12 130 £350 -26.32% 539
South West -24 121 £408 -9.44% 610
Yorkshire -1 118 £500 +27.23% 205
Scotland -53 64 £475 +5.56% 340
East Midlands -26 44 £475 +22.11% 199
Northern Ireland -14 15 £252 -55.69% 134
Wales -30 14 £530 +73.50% 91
North East -44 14 £450 +130.77% 118
Channel Islands - 1 - - 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
1 150 (6.13%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.33%) Confluence
3 57 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.78%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 11 (0.45%) CMS
9 10 (0.41%) Camunda
10 9 (0.37%) SAS
11 7 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.25%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 249 (10.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 240 (9.81%) Microsoft Office
3 134 (5.48%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.37%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 9 (0.37%) Windchill
12 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
12 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
12 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 8 (0.33%) Simulink
12 8 (0.33%) Sketch
13 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.25%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.16%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 48 (1.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.74%) Primavera
3 16 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.33%) Magento
7 7 (0.29%) HFM
7 7 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 552 (22.56%) Azure
2 317 (12.95%) AWS
3 221 (9.03%) Microsoft 365
4 220 (8.99%) Power Platform
5 143 (5.84%) Entra ID
6 137 (5.60%) GCP
7 108 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.31%) SaaS
9 64 (2.62%) GitHub
10 54 (2.21%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (2.04%) Serverless
12 46 (1.88%) PowerApps
13 45 (1.84%) Power Automate
14 44 (1.80%) Snowflake
15 41 (1.68%) Figma
16 39 (1.59%) OneDrive
17 35 (1.43%) Microsoft Copilot
18 27 (1.10%) IaaS
19 26 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
19 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.62%) Firewall
2 86 (3.51%) DNS
3 67 (2.74%) Network Security
4 65 (2.66%) TCP/IP
5 62 (2.53%) VPN
6 45 (1.84%) DHCP
7 37 (1.51%) WAN
8 35 (1.43%) LAN
9 27 (1.10%) Wireless
10 21 (0.86%) BGP
11 19 (0.78%) Internet
12 18 (0.74%) 3GPP
12 18 (0.74%) HTTP
12 18 (0.74%) SSH
12 18 (0.74%) VLAN
12 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (0.65%) 5G
13 16 (0.65%) MPLS
13 16 (0.65%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 174 (7.11%) Power BI
2 104 (4.25%) SQL Server
3 55 (2.25%) Relational Database
4 51 (2.08%) PostgreSQL
5 47 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 45 (1.84%) Metadata
7 35 (1.43%) Tableau
8 32 (1.31%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.10%) Big Data
10 25 (1.02%) Oracle Database
11 24 (0.98%) MySQL
12 22 (0.90%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
16 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
17 14 (0.57%) Data Lake
18 12 (0.49%) GIS
18 12 (0.49%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 183 (7.48%) JIRA
2 132 (5.39%) Git
3 59 (2.41%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.92%) GitLab
5 34 (1.39%) Rational DOORS
6 24 (0.98%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 16 (0.65%) JUnit
9 15 (0.61%) REST Assured
9 15 (0.61%) SonarQube
10 12 (0.49%) Maven
10 12 (0.49%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.45%) MLflow
11 11 (0.45%) Postman
11 11 (0.45%) Subversion
12 10 (0.41%) Gradle
13 9 (0.37%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,077 (44.01%) Social Skills
2 726 (29.67%) Finance
3 579 (23.66%) Analytical Skills
4 193 (7.89%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.85%) Banking
6 154 (6.29%) Organisational Skills
7 113 (4.62%) Aerospace
8 98 (4.00%) Manufacturing
9 96 (3.92%) Legal
10 94 (3.84%) Marketing
11 91 (3.72%) Influencing Skills
11 91 (3.72%) Telecoms
12 87 (3.56%) Presentation Skills
13 74 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
14 64 (2.62%) Retail
15 53 (2.17%) Law
16 50 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 49 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
18 42 (1.72%) Front Office
19 41 (1.68%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 338 (13.81%) Analyst
2 273 (11.16%) Senior
3 196 (8.01%) Lead
4 185 (7.56%) Developer
5 165 (6.74%) Architect
6 161 (6.58%) Business Analyst
7 127 (5.19%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.98%) Consultant
9 69 (2.82%) IT Support
10 68 (2.78%) Support Engineer
11 67 (2.74%) Senior Manager
12 58 (2.37%) Designer
13 56 (2.29%) Solutions Architect
14 54 (2.21%) Product Manager
15 53 (2.17%) IT Analyst
16 51 (2.08%) IT Manager
17 47 (1.92%) Delivery Manager
18 46 (1.88%) Administrator
19 43 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
19 43 (1.76%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.41%) REST
2 101 (4.13%) Terraform
3 100 (4.09%) .NET
4 64 (2.62%) React
5 57 (2.33%) Kafka
6 55 (2.25%) HTML
7 49 (2.00%) RESTful
8 46 (1.88%) OAuth
9 44 (1.80%) CSS
10 42 (1.72%) Oracle Fusion
11 38 (1.55%) Middleware
12 36 (1.47%) Web Services
13 35 (1.43%) OAuth2
14 34 (1.39%) .NET Framework
15 33 (1.35%) SAML
16 32 (1.31%) XML
17 31 (1.27%) OpenID
18 30 (1.23%) SOAP
18 30 (1.23%) Spring Boot
19 29 (1.19%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.26%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.84%) Product Ownership
3 140 (5.72%) Onboarding
4 106 (4.33%) Self-Motivation
5 91 (3.72%) Cloud Native
6 82 (3.35%) Data Structures
7 65 (2.66%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.57%) Data Centre
9 51 (2.08%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
10 47 (1.92%) Security Posture
11 46 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
12 43 (1.76%) Legacy Systems
13 41 (1.68%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.63%) Life Science
15 37 (1.51%) AI Agents
16 34 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
17 32 (1.31%) PMI
17 32 (1.31%) SCADA
18 31 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 291 (11.89%) Windows
2 179 (7.32%) Linux
3 70 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.41%) Unix
5 50 (2.04%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Mac OS
6 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.19%) Apple iOS
8 26 (1.06%) Android
9 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.25%) VMS
10 6 (0.25%) Windows 7
11 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.12%) AIX
13 3 (0.12%) CentOS
13 3 (0.12%) Debian
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 839 (34.29%) Computer Science
2 667 (27.26%) Agile
3 638 (26.07%) Problem-Solving
4 471 (19.25%) Stakeholder Management
5 445 (18.19%) Continuous Improvement
6 373 (15.24%) AI
7 331 (13.53%) DevOps
8 314 (12.83%) Project Management
9 302 (12.34%) CI/CD
10 298 (12.18%) Analytics
11 280 (11.44%) ITIL
12 263 (10.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 237 (9.69%) Decision-Making
14 229 (9.36%) Cybersecurity
15 224 (9.15%) Change Management
16 220 (8.99%) Software Engineering
17 215 (8.79%) Scrum
18 214 (8.75%) PRINCE2
19 210 (8.58%) Roadmaps
20 202 (8.26%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 418 (17.08%) Python
2 355 (14.51%) SQL
3 166 (6.78%) Java
4 163 (6.66%) PowerShell
5 113 (4.62%) C#
6 106 (4.33%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.33%) Bash
8 50 (2.04%) C++
9 45 (1.84%) TypeScript
10 28 (1.14%) Bicep
11 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 24 (0.98%) C
13 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
14 23 (0.94%) R
15 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.49%) X++
17 11 (0.45%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 498 (20.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 457 (18.68%) Security Cleared
3 300 (12.26%) SC Cleared
4 216 (8.83%) Master's Degree
5 136 (5.56%) PMI Certification
6 116 (4.74%) Microsoft Certification
6 116 (4.74%) PMP
7 107 (4.37%) CISSP
8 79 (3.23%) Cisco Certification
9 78 (3.19%) Azure Certification
10 75 (3.06%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.66%) BPSS Clearance
12 51 (2.08%) PhD
13 50 (2.04%) CISM
14 42 (1.72%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 41 (1.68%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.59%) CCNA
17 38 (1.55%) CCNP
18 34 (1.39%) ISTQB
19 33 (1.35%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (5.60%) Data Quality
1 137 (5.60%) QA
2 103 (4.21%) NIST
3 98 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 89 (3.64%) PMO
5 66 (2.70%) GDPR
6 49 (2.00%) Accessibility
6 49 (2.00%) SLA
7 26 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 23 (0.94%) GRC
9 22 (0.90%) NCSC
10 18 (0.74%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.53%) IFRS
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.45%) COBIT
14 11 (0.45%) P3O
15 9 (0.37%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.33%) GxP
16 8 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 196 (8.01%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.90%) Docker
3 52 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.02%) Firmware
5 23 (0.94%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.25%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 127 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.19%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.53%) Ansible
4 37 (1.51%) SCCM
5 31 (1.27%) Grafana
6 29 (1.19%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.69%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 8 (0.33%) WSUS
12 7 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 7 (0.29%) Argo
12 7 (0.29%) Control-M
12 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
12 7 (0.29%) SCOM
13 6 (0.25%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 624 (25.50%) Microsoft
2 177 (7.23%) Oracle
3 139 (5.68%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.48%) SAP
5 89 (3.64%) Google
6 71 (2.90%) Cisco
7 69 (2.82%) Salesforce
8 68 (2.78%) VMware
9 59 (2.41%) Adobe
9 59 (2.41%) Databricks
10 58 (2.37%) IBM
11 46 (1.88%) Splunk
12 31 (1.27%) CyberArk
13 27 (1.10%) Red Hat
14 26 (1.06%) Citrix
15 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.90%) Apple
17 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba
19 17 (0.69%) HP