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 25 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 25 17
Rank change year-on-year -14 -8 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,384 2,222 3,526
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.92% 7.72% 8.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.57% 24.85% 27.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,342 1,295 1,913
10th Percentile £238 £235 £225
25th Percentile £380 £369 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £627 £625
90th Percentile £738 £764 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £486
% change year-on-year +5.56% -7.36% +0.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 217 165 416
10th Percentile £17.69 £17.62 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.18 £22.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £54.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% +35.00% -18.84%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.50 £50.00 £41.00
% change year-on-year +13.00% +21.95% -16.31%

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 15,311 8,941 12,746
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.05% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,161 5,647 7,945
10th Percentile £350 £275 £307
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -1.32% -3.64%
75th Percentile £623 £619 £645
90th Percentile £720 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £504 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +0.75% -5.30% +0.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,106 506 1,073
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.87 £13.69
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.26 £17.88
Median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £70.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.93 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.33
% change year-on-year +46.15% -19.40% -22.18%

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 25 May 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 25 May 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 25 May 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 -10 2,132 £500 - 3,150
UK excluding London -6 1,302 £475 +5.56% 2,085
London -19 893 £515 -6.36% 1,376
Work from Home -14 646 £500 - 1,366
South East -2 382 £500 +5.26% 632
North of England -14 317 £443 -2.69% 485
Midlands -19 211 £525 +47.47% 275
North West -11 163 £402 -14.83% 264
West Midlands -25 148 £498 +42.14% 180
Yorkshire -19 139 £463 +11.71% 163
East of England -3 138 £450 -10.00% 231
South West -14 132 £505 +6.32% 295
Scotland -12 88 £500 +11.48% 104
East Midlands -10 61 £531 +49.16% 95
Wales -22 27 £375 +22.76% 42
North East -28 15 £450 +130.77% 67
Northern Ireland -9 13 £369 -13.24% 68

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
1 147 (6.17%) Confluence
2 126 (5.29%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.14%) Apache Spark
5 30 (1.26%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.96%) Apache
7 9 (0.38%) IIS
8 8 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.21%) SAS
12 4 (0.17%) Appian
12 4 (0.17%) Camunda
13 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.13%) Moodle
13 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.084%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.084%) Drupal
14 2 (0.084%) nginx
Applications
1 282 (11.83%) Microsoft Office
2 227 (9.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 165 (6.92%) Microsoft Project
4 138 (5.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.64%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.59%) Adobe After Effects
7 13 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
7 13 (0.55%) Photoshop
7 13 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.46%) Simulink
9 8 (0.34%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.34%) Revit
9 8 (0.34%) Trello
10 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
11 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
12 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.13%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.084%) Final Cut Pro
Business Applications
1 65 (2.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.63%) Primavera
4 12 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.34%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.34%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Dynamics GP
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) Magento
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 513 (21.52%) Azure
2 296 (12.42%) AWS
3 201 (8.43%) Microsoft 365
4 184 (7.72%) Power Platform
5 120 (5.03%) Entra ID
6 94 (3.94%) GCP
7 87 (3.65%) SaaS
8 83 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
9 59 (2.47%) GitHub
10 41 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
11 38 (1.59%) Figma
12 33 (1.38%) Snowflake
13 31 (1.30%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.30%) PaaS
14 30 (1.26%) Power Automate
15 28 (1.17%) IaaS
16 27 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.13%) Serverless
17 26 (1.09%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.53%) Firewall
2 71 (2.98%) TCP/IP
3 66 (2.77%) DNS
4 57 (2.39%) WAN
5 54 (2.27%) Network Security
6 53 (2.22%) LAN
7 35 (1.47%) VPN
8 28 (1.17%) BGP
9 27 (1.13%) Wireless
10 25 (1.05%) OSPF
11 24 (1.01%) DHCP
12 22 (0.92%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.76%) Skype
14 17 (0.71%) SAN
15 16 (0.67%) HTTP
15 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
16 13 (0.55%) SSL
17 12 (0.50%) IPsec
17 12 (0.50%) VLAN
17 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (6.33%) Power BI
2 106 (4.45%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
4 58 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
5 47 (1.97%) Big Data
5 47 (1.97%) Relational Database
6 40 (1.68%) Metadata
6 40 (1.68%) Tableau
7 36 (1.51%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
8 28 (1.17%) MySQL
9 24 (1.01%) MongoDB
10 21 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 18 (0.76%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 13 (0.55%) Snowflake Schema
14 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
14 12 (0.50%) Power Query
15 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 247 (10.36%) JIRA
2 111 (4.66%) Git
3 46 (1.93%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.64%) GitLab
5 31 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.96%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.80%) MLflow
8 17 (0.71%) Selenium
9 14 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.55%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
11 12 (0.50%) Cucumber
11 12 (0.50%) JUnit
12 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 10 (0.42%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.38%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
14 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.29%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,098 (46.06%) Social Skills
2 727 (30.49%) Finance
3 486 (20.39%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (8.72%) Banking
5 199 (8.35%) Public Sector
6 130 (5.45%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.12%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.11%) Marketing
9 83 (3.48%) Documentation Skills
10 80 (3.36%) Legal
11 72 (3.02%) Aerospace
11 72 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
12 71 (2.98%) Manufacturing
13 66 (2.77%) Telecoms
14 53 (2.22%) Law
15 50 (2.10%) Retail
16 42 (1.76%) Military
17 40 (1.68%) Front Office
17 40 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 38 (1.59%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 343 (14.39%) Analyst
2 265 (11.12%) Senior
3 196 (8.22%) Architect
4 184 (7.72%) Lead
5 171 (7.17%) Project Manager
6 168 (7.05%) Developer
7 156 (6.54%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
9 66 (2.77%) Consultant
10 65 (2.73%) Senior Analyst
11 60 (2.52%) Delivery Manager
11 60 (2.52%) Designer
12 58 (2.43%) Technical Support
13 54 (2.27%) Senior Manager
14 53 (2.22%) Software Engineer
15 51 (2.14%) Product Manager
16 48 (2.01%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.93%) Data Engineer
17 46 (1.93%) Data Scientist
18 44 (1.85%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (4.28%) REST
2 86 (3.61%) .NET
3 64 (2.68%) React
4 58 (2.43%) Middleware
5 52 (2.18%) HTML
6 50 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
7 48 (2.01%) Kafka
8 42 (1.76%) RESTful
9 41 (1.72%) CSS
10 35 (1.47%) Spring Boot
11 33 (1.38%) .NET Framework
11 33 (1.38%) XML
12 32 (1.34%) Spring
13 31 (1.30%) SOAP
14 30 (1.26%) PyTorch
15 29 (1.22%) Pandas
16 28 (1.17%) JSON
16 28 (1.17%) OAuth
17 27 (1.13%) AngularJS
18 26 (1.09%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 181 (7.59%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.33%) Product Ownership
3 130 (5.45%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.65%) Self-Motivation
5 84 (3.52%) Cloud Native
6 69 (2.89%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.73%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.60%) Algorithms
9 59 (2.47%) Data Structures
10 54 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
11 52 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.93%) PMI
13 40 (1.68%) Operational Technology
14 38 (1.59%) Robotics
15 37 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
17 33 (1.38%) Derivative
17 33 (1.38%) Security Posture
18 31 (1.30%) Life Science
19 30 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 295 (12.37%) Windows
2 180 (7.55%) Linux
3 74 (3.10%) Unix
4 72 (3.02%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.47%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.30%) Android
7 25 (1.05%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.96%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.38%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
12 8 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 824 (34.56%) Computer Science
2 668 (28.02%) Agile
3 625 (26.22%) Problem-Solving
4 369 (15.48%) Stakeholder Management
5 356 (14.93%) Continuous Improvement
6 341 (14.30%) AI
7 317 (13.30%) DevOps
8 312 (13.09%) Project Management
9 279 (11.70%) CI/CD
10 256 (10.74%) Analytics
11 255 (10.70%) Decision-Making
12 252 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
14 235 (9.86%) Migration
15 227 (9.52%) Change Management
16 206 (8.64%) ITIL
17 202 (8.47%) Roadmaps
18 201 (8.43%) Risk Management
19 197 (8.26%) Software Engineering
20 195 (8.18%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 379 (15.90%) Python
2 363 (15.23%) SQL
3 178 (7.47%) Java
4 111 (4.66%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.94%) C#
6 87 (3.65%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.77%) C++
8 37 (1.55%) Bash
9 34 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.22%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 20 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.80%) C
14 17 (0.71%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.63%) Perl
16 14 (0.59%) Go
16 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.59%) Rust
17 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 508 (21.31%) Computer Science Degree
2 445 (18.67%) Security Cleared
3 304 (12.75%) SC Cleared
4 269 (11.28%) Master's Degree
5 141 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.12%) PMP
7 112 (4.70%) CISSP
8 79 (3.31%) Cisco Certification
8 79 (3.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 67 (2.81%) CISM
10 63 (2.64%) BPSS Clearance
10 63 (2.64%) DV Cleared
11 50 (2.10%) TOGAF Certification
12 49 (2.06%) PhD
13 48 (2.01%) Azure Certification
14 44 (1.85%) CCNP
15 38 (1.59%) CCNA
16 36 (1.51%) MBA
17 35 (1.47%) CBAP
18 32 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 153 (6.42%) QA
2 114 (4.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 110 (4.61%) NIST
4 109 (4.57%) Data Quality
5 108 (4.53%) PMO
6 105 (4.40%) GDPR
7 49 (2.06%) SLA
8 47 (1.97%) Accessibility
9 43 (1.80%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.05%) GRC
12 20 (0.84%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.63%) IFRS
15 14 (0.59%) COBIT
16 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 10 (0.42%) WCAG
System Software
1 157 (6.59%) Active Directory
2 132 (5.54%) Docker
3 38 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.22%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.84%) Firmware
6 7 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (0.29%) vSphere
7 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
7 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
8 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.17%) XenApp
8 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.13%) KVM
9 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.084%) HDFS
10 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.042%) GPFS
11 1 (0.042%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 149 (6.25%) Kubernetes
2 76 (3.19%) Terraform
3 68 (2.85%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.56%) Ansible
5 39 (1.64%) Grafana
6 36 (1.51%) SCCM
7 33 (1.38%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.63%) Puppet
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) Nmap
12 11 (0.46%) OPNET
13 10 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.38%) Kiali
14 9 (0.38%) WSUS
15 8 (0.34%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.34%) Nessus
15 8 (0.34%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.25%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 544 (22.82%) Microsoft
2 172 (7.21%) Oracle
3 138 (5.79%) SAP
4 109 (4.57%) ServiceNow
5 78 (3.27%) Google
6 77 (3.23%) Cisco
7 64 (2.68%) Splunk
8 57 (2.39%) Databricks
9 46 (1.93%) VMware
10 44 (1.85%) Citrix
11 43 (1.80%) Salesforce
12 39 (1.64%) Adobe
12 39 (1.64%) IBM
13 35 (1.47%) Palo Alto
14 33 (1.38%) CheckPoint
15 29 (1.22%) Remedy
16 23 (0.96%) Aruba
16 23 (0.96%) Informatica
17 22 (0.92%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.88%) Siemens