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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,491 2,352 2,984
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.54% 7.16% 7.93%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.30% 22.71% 27.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,282 1,280 1,684
10th Percentile £204 £263 £237
25th Percentile £359 £389 £387
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.17% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £613
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +6.56% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 213 193
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £25.01 £25.75 £25.99
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.48 £52.19
Median % change year-on-year +14.56% -33.93% +8.10%
75th Percentile £67.44 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £81.00 £78.34
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +15.58% -41.59% +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 17,415 10,358 10,991
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.73% 31.54% 29.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,583 6,484 6,674
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £445 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £710 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,404 870 609
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.87 £17.98
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £25.26
Median hourly rate £45.35 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +80.32% -48.67% -8.69%
75th Percentile £72.25 £42.81 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.57
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -49.70% -3.65%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -16 2,267 £510 +2.00% 10,088
UK excluding London -17 1,350 £480 +6.56% 5,860
London -21 976 £525 -4.55% 4,900
Work from Home -20 657 £511 +6.51% 3,620
South East +5 463 £525 +16.67% 1,561
North of England -6 342 £475 +6.26% 1,153
North West -8 212 £479 +4.70% 648
Midlands -31 185 £456 -1.35% 786
East of England -13 137 £425 -15.00% 744
West Midlands -29 137 £450 -5.26% 489
South West -26 127 £400 -20.00% 666
Yorkshire -6 114 £489 +16.43% 338
Scotland -46 71 £500 +11.11% 524
East Midlands -17 47 £475 +6.26% 297
North East -32 16 £460 +2.22% 172
Northern Ireland -12 14 £250 -57.45% 307
Wales -32 13 £530 +73.50% 191
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 4

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
1 163 (6.54%) SharePoint
2 113 (4.54%) Confluence
3 63 (2.53%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (1.00%) Apache Spark
5 21 (0.84%) IIS
6 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
7 18 (0.72%) Apache
8 14 (0.56%) Camunda
8 14 (0.56%) CMS
8 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
9 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 8 (0.32%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.12%) nginx
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 246 (9.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 236 (9.47%) Microsoft Office
3 117 (4.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 115 (4.62%) Microsoft Project
5 54 (2.17%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 11 (0.44%) Windchill
10 10 (0.40%) Navisworks
10 10 (0.40%) Revit
10 10 (0.40%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
13 6 (0.24%) AutoCAD
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
15 4 (0.16%) Trello
Business Applications
1 36 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 562 (22.56%) Azure
2 309 (12.40%) AWS
3 228 (9.15%) Power Platform
4 226 (9.07%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (6.14%) GCP
6 142 (5.70%) Entra ID
7 128 (5.14%) Azure DevOps
8 78 (3.13%) SaaS
9 71 (2.85%) GitHub
10 63 (2.53%) Dynamics 365
11 61 (2.45%) Power Automate
12 60 (2.41%) Serverless
13 54 (2.17%) PowerApps
14 49 (1.97%) Microsoft Copilot
15 48 (1.93%) OneDrive
16 40 (1.61%) Snowflake
17 38 (1.53%) Figma
18 29 (1.16%) AWS Lambda
18 29 (1.16%) IaaS
19 28 (1.12%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.13%) Firewall
2 83 (3.33%) DNS
3 65 (2.61%) Network Security
4 62 (2.49%) TCP/IP
5 57 (2.29%) VPN
6 45 (1.81%) DHCP
7 33 (1.32%) LAN
7 33 (1.32%) WAN
8 27 (1.08%) Wireless
9 23 (0.92%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.84%) 5G
11 20 (0.80%) Internet
11 20 (0.80%) VLAN
12 19 (0.76%) SSH
12 19 (0.76%) SSL
13 18 (0.72%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (0.64%) BGP
15 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.60%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (6.66%) Power BI
2 114 (4.58%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.41%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.13%) Metadata
5 51 (2.05%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
7 37 (1.49%) MySQL
8 32 (1.28%) Tableau
9 31 (1.24%) NoSQL
10 27 (1.08%) MongoDB
11 26 (1.04%) Big Data
11 26 (1.04%) Elasticsearch
12 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
14 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
15 17 (0.68%) Data Lake
16 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
16 16 (0.64%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 171 (6.86%) JIRA
2 145 (5.82%) Git
3 65 (2.61%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.09%) GitLab
5 25 (1.00%) JUnit
6 23 (0.92%) Maven
6 23 (0.92%) Selenium
7 22 (0.88%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.84%) Gradle
9 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.72%) Cucumber
10 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
11 16 (0.64%) Mockito
11 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.48%) Postman
13 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.32%) MLflow
15 8 (0.32%) Subversion
General
1 1,126 (45.20%) Social Skills
2 737 (29.59%) Finance
3 586 (23.52%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (8.51%) Public Sector
5 202 (8.11%) Banking
6 169 (6.78%) Organisational Skills
7 135 (5.42%) Manufacturing
8 121 (4.86%) Aerospace
9 120 (4.82%) Influencing Skills
10 101 (4.05%) Marketing
11 92 (3.69%) Telecoms
12 89 (3.57%) Presentation Skills
13 85 (3.41%) Legal
14 84 (3.37%) Documentation Skills
15 66 (2.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 61 (2.45%) Retail
17 57 (2.29%) Pharmaceutical
18 50 (2.01%) Law
19 48 (1.93%) Military
20 42 (1.69%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 330 (13.25%) Analyst
2 288 (11.56%) Senior
3 210 (8.43%) Developer
4 193 (7.75%) Lead
5 162 (6.50%) Business Analyst
6 161 (6.46%) Architect
7 114 (4.58%) Project Manager
8 78 (3.13%) Consultant
9 70 (2.81%) Support Engineer
10 69 (2.77%) IT Support
11 63 (2.53%) Senior Manager
12 55 (2.21%) IT Manager
13 53 (2.13%) Solutions Architect
14 52 (2.09%) Administrator
15 50 (2.01%) Security Engineer
16 48 (1.93%) IT Analyst
17 47 (1.89%) Designer
18 46 (1.85%) Software Engineer
19 44 (1.77%) Delivery Manager
20 42 (1.69%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 114 (4.58%) REST
2 111 (4.46%) Terraform
3 104 (4.18%) .NET
4 75 (3.01%) React
5 72 (2.89%) HTML
6 64 (2.57%) Kafka
7 63 (2.53%) CSS
8 59 (2.37%) RESTful
9 51 (2.05%) OAuth
10 49 (1.97%) XML
11 46 (1.85%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.81%) Middleware
13 43 (1.73%) Web Services
14 40 (1.61%) OAuth2
14 40 (1.61%) SOAP
15 39 (1.57%) Spring Boot
16 38 (1.53%) SAML
17 37 (1.49%) JSON
18 36 (1.45%) OpenID
19 34 (1.36%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 234 (9.39%) Management Information System
2 137 (5.50%) Onboarding
3 121 (4.86%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.09%) Cloud Native
6 63 (2.53%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.37%) Algorithms
7 59 (2.37%) Data Structures
8 57 (2.29%) Operational Technology
9 52 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
9 52 (2.09%) Security Posture
10 50 (2.01%) Life Science
11 46 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
12 45 (1.81%) AI Agents
13 42 (1.69%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
16 35 (1.41%) SCADA
17 30 (1.20%) PMI
18 29 (1.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 299 (12.00%) Windows
2 183 (7.35%) Linux
3 86 (3.45%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.77%) Unix
5 46 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 32 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Android
10 9 (0.36%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) zOS
13 5 (0.20%) Solaris
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.16%) AIX
15 3 (0.12%) MVS
15 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
16 2 (0.080%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 802 (32.20%) Computer Science
2 685 (27.50%) Agile
3 665 (26.70%) Problem-Solving
4 549 (22.04%) Stakeholder Management
5 440 (17.66%) Continuous Improvement
6 395 (15.86%) AI
7 363 (14.57%) DevOps
8 329 (13.21%) CI/CD
9 315 (12.65%) Analytics
10 314 (12.61%) Project Management
11 281 (11.28%) ITIL
12 266 (10.68%) Decision-Making
13 256 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 247 (9.92%) Scrum
15 244 (9.80%) Roadmaps
16 239 (9.59%) Change Management
17 230 (9.23%) Software Engineering
18 228 (9.15%) Cybersecurity
19 217 (8.71%) PRINCE2
20 215 (8.63%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 402 (16.14%) Python
2 363 (14.57%) SQL
3 178 (7.15%) PowerShell
4 162 (6.50%) Java
5 131 (5.26%) JavaScript
6 124 (4.98%) C#
7 64 (2.57%) Bash
8 47 (1.89%) TypeScript
9 38 (1.53%) C++
10 31 (1.24%) Bicep
11 29 (1.16%) Shell Script
11 29 (1.16%) T-SQL
12 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.92%) R
14 20 (0.80%) C
15 17 (0.68%) Scala
16 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.48%) X++
17 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 490 (19.67%) Computer Science Degree
2 483 (19.39%) Security Cleared
3 359 (14.41%) SC Cleared
4 210 (8.43%) Master's Degree
5 152 (6.10%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.34%) PMP
7 120 (4.82%) Microsoft Certification
8 106 (4.26%) CISSP
9 93 (3.73%) Azure Certification
10 89 (3.57%) DV Cleared
11 86 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
12 79 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.41%) PhD
14 54 (2.17%) CISM
15 50 (2.01%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 46 (1.85%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.61%) ISTQB
18 37 (1.49%) DBS Check
19 35 (1.41%) CCNA
19 35 (1.41%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 149 (5.98%) QA
2 147 (5.90%) Data Quality
3 92 (3.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 88 (3.53%) NIST
5 81 (3.25%) GDPR
5 81 (3.25%) PMO
6 49 (1.97%) Accessibility
7 40 (1.61%) SLA
8 31 (1.24%) GRC
9 20 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 19 (0.76%) NCSC
11 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.68%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.64%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) ISO 31000
14 13 (0.52%) P3O
15 12 (0.48%) IEC 61508
16 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.40%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 191 (7.67%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.86%) Docker
3 59 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 27 (1.08%) Firmware
6 22 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) vSphere
8 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
10 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
10 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
11 6 (0.24%) RACF
12 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
12 5 (0.20%) NFS
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
14 3 (0.12%) ACF2
14 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
14 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
14 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.14%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.01%) Microsoft Intune
3 55 (2.21%) Ansible
4 34 (1.36%) SCCM
5 25 (1.00%) Grafana
6 24 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 11 (0.44%) Functional Safety
12 10 (0.40%) CASB
13 7 (0.28%) Control-M
13 7 (0.28%) Nessus
13 7 (0.28%) WSUS
14 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.24%) Argo
15 5 (0.20%) HP ALM
15 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 626 (25.13%) Microsoft
2 185 (7.43%) Oracle
3 136 (5.46%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.42%) SAP
5 108 (4.34%) Google
6 74 (2.97%) VMware
7 72 (2.89%) Cisco
8 68 (2.73%) Salesforce
9 65 (2.61%) Adobe
10 55 (2.21%) Databricks
11 46 (1.85%) IBM
12 44 (1.77%) Splunk
13 30 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 28 (1.12%) OpenAI
15 27 (1.08%) CyberArk
16 22 (0.88%) Apple
16 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.84%) Citrix
18 19 (0.76%) Ariba