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

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,508 2,428 3,541
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.78% 7.52% 8.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.22% 24.46% 27.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,346 1,385 1,958
10th Percentile £204 £250 £217
25th Percentile £361 £371 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 193 399
10th Percentile £16.40 £18.24 £15.97
25th Percentile £26.13 £26.32 £22.88
Median hourly rate £43.00 £46.25 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -7.03% +14.91% -19.50%
75th Percentile £82.25 £64.52 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.46 £45.59
% change year-on-year +11.22% -11.25% -5.42%

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 16,480 9,928 12,965
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.40% 30.74% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,007 6,162 8,061
10th Percentile £350 £278 £310
25th Percentile £429 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,198 695 1,107
10th Percentile £17.69 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.19 £20.00 £20.12
Median hourly rate £50.00 £27.38 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +82.65% -33.13% -25.56%
75th Percentile £72.54 £58.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.00
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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -13 2,249 £500 - 3,256
UK excluding London -9 1,378 £450 - 2,175
London -20 957 £515 -6.36% 1,554
Work from Home -16 671 £500 -2.82% 1,069
South East -1 437 £500 +3.90% 623
North of England -13 333 £449 -0.17% 423
Midlands -24 204 £500 +26.98% 265
North West -7 187 £447 -1.97% 233
West Midlands -30 151 £494 +16.12% 138
East of England -6 150 £450 -10.00% 230
Yorkshire -9 130 £500 +11.86% 126
South West -26 121 £435 -8.42% 468
Scotland -22 92 £475 +5.56% 93
East Midlands -10 51 £550 +54.49% 126
Wales -24 29 £450 +47.31% 35
Northern Ireland -10 16 £254 -40.24% 79
North East -35 16 £450 +130.77% 69

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
1 140 (5.58%) SharePoint
2 137 (5.46%) Confluence
3 61 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.40%) Apache Airflow
6 26 (1.04%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 12 (0.48%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 2 (0.080%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.080%) Oracle Service Bus
14 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 282 (11.24%) Microsoft Office
2 229 (9.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 141 (5.62%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (2.83%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
7 15 (0.60%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.56%) Photoshop
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Revit
12 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
12 7 (0.28%) Sketch
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Trello
15 3 (0.12%) CATIA
15 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.64%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) HFM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Fidessa
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 579 (23.09%) Azure
2 329 (13.12%) AWS
3 215 (8.57%) Power Platform
4 212 (8.45%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (5.66%) Entra ID
6 129 (5.14%) GCP
7 108 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (3.19%) SaaS
9 70 (2.79%) GitHub
10 46 (1.83%) Figma
11 43 (1.71%) Snowflake
12 42 (1.67%) Serverless
13 39 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
14 35 (1.40%) PowerApps
15 34 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (1.36%) Power Automate
16 32 (1.28%) OneDrive
17 31 (1.24%) PaaS
18 27 (1.08%) IaaS
18 27 (1.08%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.47%) Firewall
2 81 (3.23%) TCP/IP
3 79 (3.15%) DNS
4 69 (2.75%) Network Security
5 55 (2.19%) WAN
6 53 (2.11%) VPN
7 50 (1.99%) LAN
8 34 (1.36%) DHCP
9 28 (1.12%) BGP
10 26 (1.04%) Wireless
11 24 (0.96%) OSPF
12 22 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.80%) Ethernet
14 19 (0.76%) SSL
15 17 (0.68%) VLAN
16 15 (0.60%) Internet
17 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
18 13 (0.52%) HTTP
18 13 (0.52%) MPLS
18 13 (0.52%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (7.30%) Power BI
2 116 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 68 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.07%) Relational Database
6 50 (1.99%) Big Data
7 47 (1.87%) Metadata
8 39 (1.56%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.52%) Tableau
10 33 (1.32%) MySQL
11 30 (1.20%) MongoDB
12 26 (1.04%) Hadoop
13 24 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 23 (0.92%) Data Lake
15 20 (0.80%) Oracle Database
16 19 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
17 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
18 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
19 13 (0.52%) GIS
19 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 223 (8.89%) JIRA
2 130 (5.18%) Git
3 55 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.71%) GitLab
5 32 (1.28%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.84%) MLflow
7 18 (0.72%) Selenium
8 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.60%) Postman
10 13 (0.52%) JUnit
10 13 (0.52%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 10 (0.40%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) Maven
15 6 (0.24%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,115 (44.46%) Social Skills
2 748 (29.82%) Finance
3 538 (21.45%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 189 (7.54%) Banking
6 154 (6.14%) Organisational Skills
7 113 (4.51%) Presentation Skills
8 111 (4.43%) Marketing
9 96 (3.83%) Legal
10 91 (3.63%) Aerospace
11 89 (3.55%) Manufacturing
12 84 (3.35%) Documentation Skills
13 81 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
14 72 (2.87%) Telecoms
15 61 (2.43%) Retail
16 55 (2.19%) Law
17 54 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 42 (1.67%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.56%) Front Office
20 32 (1.28%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 353 (14.07%) Analyst
2 277 (11.04%) Senior
3 202 (8.05%) Architect
4 185 (7.38%) Lead
5 178 (7.10%) Developer
6 161 (6.42%) Project Manager
7 156 (6.22%) Business Analyst
8 74 (2.95%) Consultant
9 71 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
10 69 (2.75%) Senior Manager
11 67 (2.67%) Designer
12 58 (2.31%) Technical Support
13 56 (2.23%) Software Engineer
14 55 (2.19%) IT Manager
15 53 (2.11%) IT Support
16 51 (2.03%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (1.99%) Administrator
17 50 (1.99%) Product Manager
18 49 (1.95%) Support Engineer
19 47 (1.87%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.11%) .NET
2 102 (4.07%) REST
3 69 (2.75%) React
4 51 (2.03%) Kafka
5 46 (1.83%) RESTful
6 42 (1.67%) HTML
7 40 (1.59%) Middleware
8 38 (1.52%) OAuth
9 37 (1.48%) .NET Framework
10 35 (1.40%) Spring
11 33 (1.32%) Oracle Fusion
11 33 (1.32%) Spring Boot
12 32 (1.28%) CSS
12 32 (1.28%) Web Services
13 30 (1.20%) XML
14 29 (1.16%) AngularJS
15 28 (1.12%) JSON
15 28 (1.12%) PySpark
15 28 (1.12%) PyTorch
15 28 (1.12%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.09%) Management Information System
2 152 (6.06%) Onboarding
3 147 (5.86%) Product Ownership
4 111 (4.43%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.07%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.71%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.55%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.43%) Data Structures
9 59 (2.35%) Virtual Team
10 51 (2.03%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.91%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
13 44 (1.75%) Distributed Systems
14 41 (1.63%) Life Science
15 40 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
16 39 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
17 34 (1.36%) Robotics
18 33 (1.32%) PMI
19 32 (1.28%) AI Agents
19 32 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.40%) Windows
2 178 (7.10%) Linux
3 75 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 72 (2.87%) Unix
5 53 (2.11%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.12%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
12 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) Solaris
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
15 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 842 (33.57%) Computer Science
2 693 (27.63%) Agile
3 670 (26.71%) Problem-Solving
4 419 (16.71%) Stakeholder Management
5 402 (16.03%) AI
6 389 (15.51%) Continuous Improvement
7 343 (13.68%) DevOps
8 308 (12.28%) Analytics
9 305 (12.16%) CI/CD
10 304 (12.12%) Project Management
11 280 (11.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 265 (10.57%) Decision-Making
13 261 (10.41%) ITIL
14 251 (10.01%) Cybersecurity
15 222 (8.85%) Change Management
16 221 (8.81%) Roadmaps
17 217 (8.65%) Software Engineering
18 211 (8.41%) Migration
19 194 (7.74%) Project Delivery
20 193 (7.70%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 434 (17.30%) Python
2 384 (15.31%) SQL
3 180 (7.18%) Java
4 133 (5.30%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.23%) C#
6 92 (3.67%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.95%) C++
8 43 (1.71%) Bash
9 38 (1.52%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.20%) R
11 26 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.00%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.88%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.68%) C
15 14 (0.56%) Bicep
16 13 (0.52%) Go
16 13 (0.52%) Perl
17 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
18 10 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 510 (20.33%) Computer Science Degree
2 436 (17.38%) Security Cleared
3 292 (11.64%) SC Cleared
4 268 (10.69%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.50%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.22%) CISSP
7 122 (4.86%) PMP
8 98 (3.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
10 70 (2.79%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.63%) CISM
11 66 (2.63%) DV Cleared
12 61 (2.43%) BPSS Clearance
13 52 (2.07%) PhD
14 43 (1.71%) CCNP
15 42 (1.67%) AWS Certification
15 42 (1.67%) CCNA
16 36 (1.44%) TOGAF Certification
17 34 (1.36%) CISA
18 32 (1.28%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (5.06%) Data Quality
1 127 (5.06%) QA
2 118 (4.70%) NIST
3 112 (4.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.19%) PMO
5 92 (3.67%) GDPR
6 50 (1.99%) Accessibility
6 50 (1.99%) SLA
7 34 (1.36%) PCI DSS
8 31 (1.24%) GRC
9 28 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 22 (0.88%) NCSC
11 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
12 15 (0.60%) IFRS
13 13 (0.52%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.44%) COBIT
15 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
16 9 (0.36%) P3O
System Software
1 192 (7.66%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.46%) Docker
3 45 (1.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.96%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.80%) Firmware
6 14 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
13 2 (0.080%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 150 (5.98%) Kubernetes
2 92 (3.67%) Terraform
3 76 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.43%) Ansible
5 34 (1.36%) Grafana
6 33 (1.32%) SCCM
7 31 (1.24%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.52%) Puppet
12 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 8 (0.32%) Nessus
16 5 (0.20%) Kibana
16 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
16 5 (0.20%) SCOM
16 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 599 (23.88%) Microsoft
2 175 (6.98%) Oracle
3 148 (5.90%) SAP
4 130 (5.18%) ServiceNow
5 105 (4.19%) Google
6 73 (2.91%) Cisco
7 68 (2.71%) Databricks
8 56 (2.23%) VMware
9 55 (2.19%) Salesforce
10 54 (2.15%) Adobe
11 45 (1.79%) IBM
12 41 (1.63%) Splunk
13 36 (1.44%) Citrix
14 35 (1.40%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.24%) CyberArk
16 25 (1.00%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.00%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.84%) Ariba
17 21 (0.84%) Siemens
18 20 (0.80%) Informatica