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

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,443 2,382 2,965
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.33% 7.74%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.50% 23.43% 26.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,276 1,324 1,698
10th Percentile £204 £260 £263
25th Percentile £356 £378 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% -1.60% -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £619
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £480
% change year-on-year +5.56% -6.15% -4.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 270 200 240
10th Percentile £16.46 £17.77 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.60 £25.47
Median hourly rate £38.49 £41.25 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -21.43% +9.95%
75th Percentile £73.69 £58.69 £69.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.77 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £38.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -0.65% -32.87% +24.19%

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 16,845 10,168 11,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.41% 31.28% 29.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,289 6,291 7,134
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £628 £622 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,265 820 723
10th Percentile £17.40 £17.98 £15.18
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £48.18
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -47.80% -12.40%
75th Percentile £72.50 £50.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £86.70 £72.50 £76.84
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +88.87% -49.70% -

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 2,232 £500 - 9,930
UK excluding London -17 1,301 £475 +5.56% 5,233
London -19 979 £525 -4.55% 5,877
Work from Home -18 653 £500 +4.17% 3,388
South East +7 461 £521 +12.70% 1,415
North of England -16 325 £474 +8.97% 957
North West -13 200 £466 +2.14% 560
Midlands -32 172 £475 +5.56% 625
East of England -12 132 £300 -33.33% 717
West Midlands -36 127 £463 -2.63% 360
South West -20 121 £400 -11.11% 738
Yorkshire -4 110 £500 +21.21% 261
Scotland -52 66 £475 +5.56% 527
East Midlands -27 44 £475 +9.57% 264
North East -40 15 £450 +39.53% 153
Northern Ireland -13 14 £238 -58.24% 221
Wales -32 14 £530 +73.50% 130
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
1 151 (6.18%) SharePoint
2 107 (4.38%) Confluence
3 55 (2.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.78%) Apache
7 15 (0.61%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) Camunda
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
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%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 249 (10.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 242 (9.91%) Microsoft Office
3 131 (5.36%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.25%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.74%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.70%) 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 46 (1.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.65%) Primavera
4 12 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.29%) HFM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.12%) Actimize
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 565 (23.13%) Azure
2 318 (13.02%) AWS
3 232 (9.50%) Power Platform
4 222 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
5 142 (5.81%) GCP
6 140 (5.73%) Entra ID
7 121 (4.95%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.32%) SaaS
9 71 (2.91%) GitHub
10 58 (2.37%) Dynamics 365
11 56 (2.29%) Serverless
12 51 (2.09%) Power Automate
13 50 (2.05%) PowerApps
14 46 (1.88%) Snowflake
15 41 (1.68%) Figma
15 41 (1.68%) OneDrive
16 39 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
18 27 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.11%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.67%) Firewall
2 85 (3.48%) DNS
3 66 (2.70%) TCP/IP
4 63 (2.58%) Network Security
5 62 (2.54%) VPN
6 47 (1.92%) DHCP
7 36 (1.47%) WAN
8 35 (1.43%) LAN
9 29 (1.19%) Wireless
10 20 (0.82%) 3GPP
10 20 (0.82%) BGP
10 20 (0.82%) SSL
10 20 (0.82%) VLAN
11 18 (0.74%) 5G
11 18 (0.74%) Internet
11 18 (0.74%) SSH
11 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.70%) HTTP
13 16 (0.65%) MPLS
13 16 (0.65%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 180 (7.37%) Power BI
2 112 (4.58%) SQL Server
3 53 (2.17%) Relational Database
4 51 (2.09%) Metadata
4 51 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
5 44 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.47%) Tableau
7 30 (1.23%) MySQL
7 30 (1.23%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.15%) Big Data
9 25 (1.02%) Oracle Database
9 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 22 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
11 21 (0.86%) MongoDB
12 18 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (0.74%) Data Mining
13 17 (0.70%) Amazon RDS
14 16 (0.65%) Data Lake
15 14 (0.57%) Power Query
16 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 182 (7.45%) JIRA
2 137 (5.61%) Git
3 61 (2.50%) Jenkins
4 51 (2.09%) GitLab
5 22 (0.90%) Selenium
6 21 (0.86%) JUnit
7 20 (0.82%) Rational DOORS
8 19 (0.78%) SonarQube
9 18 (0.74%) REST Assured
10 17 (0.70%) Maven
10 17 (0.70%) Visual Studio
11 15 (0.61%) Gradle
11 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
12 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
13 12 (0.49%) MLflow
14 11 (0.45%) Mockito
14 11 (0.45%) Postman
14 11 (0.45%) Subversion
15 9 (0.37%) SpecFlow
15 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 1,089 (44.58%) Social Skills
2 725 (29.68%) Finance
3 574 (23.50%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (8.06%) Public Sector
5 195 (7.98%) Banking
6 158 (6.47%) Organisational Skills
7 107 (4.38%) Manufacturing
8 105 (4.30%) Aerospace
9 99 (4.05%) Marketing
10 93 (3.81%) Legal
10 93 (3.81%) Telecoms
11 90 (3.68%) Influencing Skills
12 88 (3.60%) Presentation Skills
13 79 (3.23%) Documentation Skills
14 64 (2.62%) Retail
15 57 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 50 (2.05%) Law
17 48 (1.96%) Pharmaceutical
18 44 (1.80%) Investment Banking
19 43 (1.76%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 343 (14.04%) Analyst
2 277 (11.34%) Senior
3 193 (7.90%) Developer
3 193 (7.90%) Lead
4 165 (6.75%) Architect
5 162 (6.63%) Business Analyst
6 125 (5.12%) Project Manager
7 74 (3.03%) Consultant
8 71 (2.91%) IT Support
8 71 (2.91%) Support Engineer
9 67 (2.74%) Senior Manager
10 57 (2.33%) Solutions Architect
11 54 (2.21%) Designer
12 53 (2.17%) IT Analyst
13 50 (2.05%) IT Manager
14 45 (1.84%) Administrator
14 45 (1.84%) Data Analyst
15 43 (1.76%) Senior Analyst
15 43 (1.76%) Software Engineer
16 42 (1.72%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.38%) REST
2 106 (4.34%) Terraform
3 102 (4.18%) .NET
4 66 (2.70%) React
5 65 (2.66%) HTML
6 61 (2.50%) Kafka
7 53 (2.17%) CSS
8 50 (2.05%) RESTful
9 46 (1.88%) OAuth
10 43 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
11 39 (1.60%) Middleware
12 37 (1.51%) Web Services
12 37 (1.51%) XML
13 36 (1.47%) OAuth2
14 35 (1.43%) Spring Boot
15 33 (1.35%) .NET Framework
15 33 (1.35%) SAML
15 33 (1.35%) Spring
16 31 (1.27%) JSON
16 31 (1.27%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 213 (8.72%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.85%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.91%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.34%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.97%) Cloud Native
6 73 (2.99%) Data Structures
7 66 (2.70%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.50%) Data Centre
9 51 (2.09%) Operational Technology
10 47 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
11 46 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
11 46 (1.88%) Security Posture
12 42 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
13 41 (1.68%) Life Science
13 41 (1.68%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.64%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.43%) Hybrid Cloud
16 34 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (1.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 30 (1.23%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 298 (12.20%) Windows
2 180 (7.37%) Linux
3 80 (3.27%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.46%) Unix
5 48 (1.96%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.35%) Mac OS
7 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 30 (1.23%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.25%) VMS
11 6 (0.25%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 828 (33.89%) Computer Science
2 660 (27.02%) Agile
3 645 (26.40%) Problem-Solving
4 478 (19.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 434 (17.77%) Continuous Improvement
6 380 (15.55%) AI
7 348 (14.24%) DevOps
8 317 (12.98%) CI/CD
9 312 (12.77%) Analytics
10 310 (12.69%) Project Management
11 276 (11.30%) ITIL
12 249 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 244 (9.99%) Decision-Making
14 225 (9.21%) Cybersecurity
15 223 (9.13%) Change Management
16 222 (9.09%) Software Engineering
17 220 (9.01%) Scrum
18 213 (8.72%) Roadmaps
19 204 (8.35%) Project Delivery
20 202 (8.27%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 419 (17.15%) Python
2 363 (14.86%) SQL
3 177 (7.25%) PowerShell
4 168 (6.88%) Java
5 120 (4.91%) C#
6 119 (4.87%) JavaScript
7 60 (2.46%) Bash
8 47 (1.92%) C++
9 45 (1.84%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.23%) Bicep
11 29 (1.19%) T-SQL
12 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
13 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
14 24 (0.98%) C
15 23 (0.94%) R
16 15 (0.61%) Scala
17 14 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.49%) X++
19 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 506 (20.71%) Computer Science Degree
2 453 (18.54%) Security Cleared
3 315 (12.89%) SC Cleared
4 208 (8.51%) Master's Degree
5 133 (5.44%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.08%) Microsoft Certification
7 115 (4.71%) PMP
8 107 (4.38%) CISSP
9 88 (3.60%) Azure Certification
10 81 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
11 76 (3.11%) DV Cleared
12 69 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
13 53 (2.17%) PhD
14 51 (2.09%) CISM
15 44 (1.80%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.76%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.68%) CCNA
18 39 (1.60%) CCNP
19 37 (1.51%) ISTQB
20 34 (1.39%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (5.73%) Data Quality
2 137 (5.61%) QA
3 98 (4.01%) NIST
4 97 (3.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 85 (3.48%) PMO
6 69 (2.82%) GDPR
7 50 (2.05%) Accessibility
8 46 (1.88%) SLA
9 26 (1.06%) GRC
9 26 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 18 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
10 18 (0.74%) NCSC
11 17 (0.70%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.57%) IFRS
13 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.45%) COBIT
13 11 (0.45%) P3O
14 9 (0.37%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.33%) GxP
15 8 (0.33%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 195 (7.98%) Active Directory
2 123 (5.03%) Docker
3 55 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.11%) Firmware
5 26 (1.06%) Hyper-V
6 21 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.20%) vSphere
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%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (5.28%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.50%) Ansible
4 36 (1.47%) SCCM
5 30 (1.23%) Grafana
6 28 (1.15%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.74%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.57%) Puppet
9 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
9 13 (0.53%) SCOM
10 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
10 8 (0.33%) WSUS
11 7 (0.29%) Control-M
12 6 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.25%) Argo
12 6 (0.25%) CASB
12 6 (0.25%) Cisco Prime
12 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
12 6 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 637 (26.07%) Microsoft
2 176 (7.20%) Oracle
3 142 (5.81%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.53%) SAP
5 94 (3.85%) Google
6 72 (2.95%) VMware
7 70 (2.87%) Cisco
8 68 (2.78%) Salesforce
9 64 (2.62%) Adobe
10 58 (2.37%) Databricks
11 49 (2.01%) IBM
12 43 (1.76%) Splunk
13 30 (1.23%) Red Hat
14 29 (1.19%) CyberArk
15 26 (1.06%) Citrix
16 22 (0.90%) Apple
16 22 (0.90%) Palo Alto
17 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba
18 20 (0.82%) OpenAI