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

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,490 2,404 3,539
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.77% 7.53% 8.21%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.21% 24.47% 27.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,343 1,369 1,943
10th Percentile £204 £250 £218
25th Percentile £363 £370 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +0.67% -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 191 396
10th Percentile £16.50 £20.00 £15.93
25th Percentile £26.13 £26.32 £22.50
Median hourly rate £44.50 £46.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.78% +15.63% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.31 £64.76 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £73.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £40.46 £42.50
% change year-on-year +16.16% -4.80% -11.83%

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 16,366 9,826 12,879
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 30.76% 29.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,937 6,100 7,990
10th Percentile £350 £277 £310
25th Percentile £426 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £704 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £512 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.38% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,181 674 1,097
10th Percentile £17.40 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.00 £20.04 £20.12
Median hourly rate £52.00 £27.50 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +89.09% -32.83% -25.56%
75th Percentile £72.54 £58.75 £64.25
90th Percentile £85.25 £75.00 £75.10
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 8 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 8 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 8 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 2,232 £500 - 2,860
UK excluding London -12 1,366 £453 +0.67% 1,983
London -19 951 £515 -6.36% 1,188
Work from Home -16 666 £500 -2.91% 2,300
South East -4 434 £500 +3.90% 621
North of England -12 330 £450 -0.11% 434
Midlands -24 201 £503 +31.80% 297
North West -11 185 £447 -1.97% 230
West Midlands -31 150 £494 +17.85% 151
East of England -5 148 £450 -10.00% 233
Yorkshire -7 130 £500 +11.86% 145
South West -24 121 £435 -8.42% 227
Scotland -26 90 £475 +5.56% 97
East Midlands -11 49 £550 +54.49% 145
Wales -24 30 £450 +47.31% 43
Northern Ireland -10 16 £254 -40.24% 75
North East -41 15 £450 +130.77% 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
1 140 (5.62%) SharePoint
2 135 (5.42%) Confluence
3 61 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.97%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.00%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 12 (0.48%) CMS
9 9 (0.36%) 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%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 283 (11.37%) Microsoft Office
2 227 (9.12%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (5.62%) Microsoft Project
4 133 (5.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (2.89%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.56%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
9 9 (0.36%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
11 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.28%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 67 (2.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.60%) 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%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) Magento
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%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) HFM
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%) SimCorp Dimension
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 574 (23.05%) Azure
2 325 (13.05%) AWS
3 215 (8.63%) Power Platform
4 213 (8.55%) Microsoft 365
5 141 (5.66%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.10%) GCP
7 107 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.25%) SaaS
9 69 (2.77%) GitHub
10 45 (1.81%) Figma
11 43 (1.73%) Snowflake
12 42 (1.69%) Serverless
13 40 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
14 36 (1.45%) PowerApps
15 35 (1.41%) Power Automate
16 33 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
17 32 (1.29%) OneDrive
18 31 (1.24%) PaaS
19 27 (1.08%) IaaS
20 26 (1.04%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.46%) Firewall
2 80 (3.21%) TCP/IP
3 79 (3.17%) DNS
4 69 (2.77%) Network Security
5 54 (2.17%) WAN
6 52 (2.09%) VPN
7 49 (1.97%) LAN
8 34 (1.37%) DHCP
9 28 (1.12%) BGP
10 25 (1.00%) Wireless
11 24 (0.96%) OSPF
12 22 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.80%) Ethernet
14 19 (0.76%) SSL
15 16 (0.64%) VLAN
16 15 (0.60%) Internet
17 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
18 13 (0.52%) HTTP
18 13 (0.52%) SAN
18 13 (0.52%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (7.31%) Power BI
2 116 (4.66%) SQL Server
3 67 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.05%) Relational Database
6 50 (2.01%) Big Data
7 47 (1.89%) Metadata
8 39 (1.57%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.53%) Tableau
10 33 (1.33%) MySQL
11 29 (1.16%) MongoDB
12 26 (1.04%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.92%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.80%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
17 13 (0.52%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 219 (8.80%) JIRA
2 128 (5.14%) Git
3 53 (2.13%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.73%) GitLab
5 32 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.84%) MLflow
7 18 (0.72%) Selenium
8 17 (0.68%) 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%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.36%) Subversion
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) Maven
15 6 (0.24%) Zephyr
General
1 1,112 (44.66%) Social Skills
2 742 (29.80%) Finance
3 530 (21.29%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (8.35%) Public Sector
5 187 (7.51%) Banking
6 151 (6.06%) Organisational Skills
7 113 (4.54%) Presentation Skills
8 111 (4.46%) Marketing
9 95 (3.82%) Legal
10 90 (3.61%) Aerospace
11 87 (3.49%) Manufacturing
12 83 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
13 80 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
14 72 (2.89%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.33%) Retail
16 53 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 53 (2.13%) Law
17 41 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
18 39 (1.57%) Front Office
19 32 (1.29%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 350 (14.06%) Analyst
2 277 (11.12%) Senior
3 203 (8.15%) Architect
4 184 (7.39%) Lead
5 176 (7.07%) Developer
6 160 (6.43%) Project Manager
7 154 (6.18%) Business Analyst
8 74 (2.97%) Consultant
9 72 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
10 68 (2.73%) Senior Manager
11 66 (2.65%) Designer
12 58 (2.33%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.21%) IT Manager
14 54 (2.17%) Software Engineer
15 53 (2.13%) IT Support
16 51 (2.05%) Senior Analyst
17 50 (2.01%) Administrator
17 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
18 49 (1.97%) Support Engineer
19 48 (1.93%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.10%) .NET
2 100 (4.02%) REST
3 68 (2.73%) React
4 51 (2.05%) Kafka
5 45 (1.81%) RESTful
6 41 (1.65%) HTML
7 40 (1.61%) Middleware
8 37 (1.49%) .NET Framework
8 37 (1.49%) OAuth
9 34 (1.37%) Spring
10 33 (1.33%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
11 32 (1.29%) Web Services
12 31 (1.24%) CSS
13 30 (1.20%) XML
14 28 (1.12%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.12%) JSON
14 28 (1.12%) SAML
15 27 (1.08%) LDAP
15 27 (1.08%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 202 (8.11%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.06%) Onboarding
3 143 (5.74%) Product Ownership
4 106 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
5 101 (4.06%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.73%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.57%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.49%) Data Structures
9 58 (2.33%) Virtual Team
10 50 (2.01%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.93%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
13 39 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
13 39 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
13 39 (1.57%) Life Science
14 34 (1.37%) Robotics
15 33 (1.33%) PMI
16 31 (1.24%) AI Agents
16 31 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.49%) Windows
2 178 (7.15%) Linux
3 73 (2.93%) Windows Server
4 72 (2.89%) Unix
5 55 (2.21%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.24%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.12%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) Solaris
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 4 (0.16%) Rocky
17 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 835 (33.53%) Computer Science
2 686 (27.55%) Agile
3 664 (26.67%) Problem-Solving
4 414 (16.63%) Stakeholder Management
5 400 (16.06%) AI
6 384 (15.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 339 (13.61%) DevOps
8 308 (12.37%) Analytics
9 304 (12.21%) CI/CD
10 301 (12.09%) Project Management
11 278 (11.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 267 (10.72%) Decision-Making
13 260 (10.44%) ITIL
14 249 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
15 224 (9.00%) Change Management
16 220 (8.84%) Roadmaps
17 211 (8.47%) Software Engineering
18 210 (8.43%) Migration
19 191 (7.67%) Project Delivery
19 191 (7.67%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 430 (17.27%) Python
2 382 (15.34%) SQL
3 179 (7.19%) Java
4 131 (5.26%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.26%) C#
6 92 (3.69%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.97%) C++
8 42 (1.69%) Bash
9 36 (1.45%) 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%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 505 (20.28%) Computer Science Degree
2 438 (17.59%) Security Cleared
3 293 (11.77%) SC Cleared
4 264 (10.60%) Master's Degree
5 137 (5.50%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.26%) CISSP
7 121 (4.86%) PMP
8 97 (3.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 86 (3.45%) Cisco Certification
10 69 (2.77%) Azure Certification
11 66 (2.65%) CISM
11 66 (2.65%) DV Cleared
12 61 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
13 51 (2.05%) PhD
14 43 (1.73%) CCNP
15 42 (1.69%) AWS Certification
15 42 (1.69%) CCNA
16 36 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
17 35 (1.41%) CISA
18 31 (1.24%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 126 (5.06%) Data Quality
1 126 (5.06%) QA
2 118 (4.74%) NIST
3 113 (4.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.22%) PMO
5 93 (3.73%) GDPR
6 51 (2.05%) SLA
7 49 (1.97%) Accessibility
8 35 (1.41%) PCI DSS
9 31 (1.24%) GRC
10 29 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.88%) NCSC
12 18 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.60%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.48%) COBIT
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.36%) P3O
System Software
1 191 (7.67%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.50%) Docker
3 44 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.00%) 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%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 150 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 90 (3.61%) Terraform
3 76 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.45%) Ansible
5 35 (1.41%) Grafana
6 34 (1.37%) SCCM
7 32 (1.29%) 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
1 593 (23.82%) Microsoft
2 171 (6.87%) Oracle
3 147 (5.90%) SAP
4 130 (5.22%) ServiceNow
5 105 (4.22%) Google
6 72 (2.89%) Cisco
7 67 (2.69%) Databricks
8 54 (2.17%) VMware
9 53 (2.13%) Adobe
10 52 (2.09%) Salesforce
11 45 (1.81%) IBM
12 42 (1.69%) Splunk
13 37 (1.49%) Citrix
14 35 (1.41%) Palo Alto
15 30 (1.20%) CyberArk
16 25 (1.00%) CheckPoint
17 24 (0.96%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.84%) Ariba
18 21 (0.84%) Siemens
19 20 (0.80%) HP