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 16 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,406 2,263 3,594
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.79% 7.64% 8.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.30% 24.69% 27.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,324 1,294 1,934
10th Percentile £213 £235 £225
25th Percentile £370 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £636 £615
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -2.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 185 418
10th Percentile £17.05 £17.93 £14.43
25th Percentile £26.78 £26.32 £21.90
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.75%
75th Percentile £82.31 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.23 £72.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £44.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +15.91% +9.11% -16.35%

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 15,729 9,167 13,029
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.94% 29.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,454 5,680 8,052
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £412 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £614 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,160 590 1,118
10th Percentile £17.12 £17.86 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.68 £21.00 £18.57
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.69%
75th Percentile £72.50 £63.19 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.22 £75.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £28.18 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.70% -32.10% -21.59%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -11 2,145 £500 -0.99% 3,326
UK excluding London -10 1,311 £465 +3.33% 2,246
London -18 920 £503 -8.64% 1,454
Work from Home -17 651 £500 -4.76% 1,195
South East -1 396 £500 +5.26% 711
North of England -10 327 £447 -3.35% 481
Midlands -23 197 £523 +46.36% 292
North West -7 178 £418 -10.87% 274
West Midlands -28 143 £487 +17.94% 167
East of England -6 136 £450 -10.00% 271
Yorkshire -7 134 £500 +11.86% 151
South West -23 117 £469 -1.26% 287
Scotland -13 97 £500 +11.11% 115
East Midlands -16 52 £545 +55.71% 125
Wales -22 28 £490 +60.40% 48
Northern Ireland -5 17 £254 -40.24% 96
North East -36 15 £450 +130.77% 67

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
1 129 (5.36%) Confluence
2 127 (5.28%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.66%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.87%) Apache
7 11 (0.46%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.33%) SAS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Appian
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.083%) nginx
13 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
Applications
1 268 (11.14%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (9.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 139 (5.78%) Microsoft Project
4 134 (5.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.66%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.67%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Sketch
13 5 (0.21%) Final Cut Pro
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 64 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.67%) Primavera
3 14 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.17%) HFM
9 4 (0.17%) Magento
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 529 (21.99%) Azure
2 310 (12.88%) AWS
3 202 (8.40%) Microsoft 365
4 194 (8.06%) Power Platform
5 130 (5.40%) Entra ID
6 113 (4.70%) GCP
7 92 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
8 86 (3.57%) SaaS
9 64 (2.66%) GitHub
10 41 (1.70%) Figma
11 40 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
12 37 (1.54%) Snowflake
13 36 (1.50%) Serverless
14 34 (1.41%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.37%) PowerApps
16 31 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
16 31 (1.29%) OneDrive
16 31 (1.29%) PaaS
17 30 (1.25%) Google Workspace
18 27 (1.12%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.53%) Firewall
2 78 (3.24%) DNS
2 78 (3.24%) TCP/IP
3 61 (2.54%) Network Security
4 49 (2.04%) WAN
5 46 (1.91%) LAN
6 39 (1.62%) VPN
7 32 (1.33%) DHCP
8 24 (1.00%) BGP
8 24 (1.00%) Wireless
9 21 (0.87%) OSPF
10 20 (0.83%) Ethernet
10 20 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 15 (0.62%) HTTP
11 15 (0.62%) SAN
11 15 (0.62%) SSL
12 14 (0.58%) Skype
12 14 (0.58%) SSH
13 13 (0.54%) 3GPP
13 13 (0.54%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (6.82%) Power BI
2 109 (4.53%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.04%) Big Data
6 48 (2.00%) Relational Database
7 41 (1.70%) Metadata
8 40 (1.66%) Tableau
9 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
11 27 (1.12%) MySQL
12 24 (1.00%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.87%) Data Lake
14 20 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
15 18 (0.75%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
17 14 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
18 11 (0.46%) GIS
18 11 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 215 (8.94%) JIRA
2 113 (4.70%) Git
3 47 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.70%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.83%) MLflow
6 20 (0.83%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.67%) Selenium
8 14 (0.58%) Postman
9 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.50%) Gradle
10 12 (0.50%) JUnit
10 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
11 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
12 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,100 (45.72%) Social Skills
2 743 (30.88%) Finance
3 493 (20.49%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.60%) Public Sector
5 197 (8.19%) Banking
6 136 (5.65%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
8 107 (4.45%) Marketing
9 94 (3.91%) Legal
10 88 (3.66%) Aerospace
11 83 (3.45%) Documentation Skills
12 78 (3.24%) Manufacturing
13 73 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
14 68 (2.83%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.20%) Retail
16 51 (2.12%) Law
17 47 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 37 (1.54%) Pharmaceutical
19 36 (1.50%) Front Office
20 33 (1.37%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 362 (15.05%) Analyst
2 271 (11.26%) Senior
3 192 (7.98%) Architect
4 182 (7.56%) Lead
5 164 (6.82%) Developer
6 160 (6.65%) Project Manager
7 159 (6.61%) Business Analyst
8 75 (3.12%) Solutions Architect
9 69 (2.87%) Consultant
10 68 (2.83%) Designer
11 66 (2.74%) Senior Analyst
12 58 (2.41%) Senior Manager
13 56 (2.33%) Software Engineer
14 55 (2.29%) Technical Support
15 53 (2.20%) Security Engineer
16 52 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
17 49 (2.04%) Administrator
17 49 (2.04%) Product Manager
18 47 (1.95%) IT Manager
19 45 (1.87%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.20%) REST
2 88 (3.66%) .NET
3 65 (2.70%) React
4 51 (2.12%) Kafka
5 49 (2.04%) Middleware
6 46 (1.91%) HTML
6 46 (1.91%) Oracle Fusion
7 39 (1.62%) RESTful
8 36 (1.50%) .NET Framework
9 35 (1.45%) CSS
10 34 (1.41%) OAuth
11 31 (1.29%) XML
12 30 (1.25%) Spring Boot
13 29 (1.21%) JSON
13 29 (1.21%) Web Services
14 28 (1.16%) Spring
15 27 (1.12%) AngularJS
16 26 (1.08%) Pandas
16 26 (1.08%) SOAP
17 23 (0.96%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 193 (8.02%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.03%) Onboarding
3 140 (5.82%) Product Ownership
4 103 (4.28%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.70%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.99%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.58%) Data Structures
8 61 (2.54%) Virtual Team
9 60 (2.49%) Algorithms
10 51 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
11 49 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
12 45 (1.87%) PMI
13 42 (1.75%) Operational Technology
14 40 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.66%) Security Posture
15 37 (1.54%) Robotics
16 33 (1.37%) Life Science
17 30 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
17 30 (1.25%) Derivative
18 29 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 310 (12.88%) Windows
2 189 (7.86%) Linux
3 76 (3.16%) Windows Server
4 73 (3.03%) Unix
5 55 (2.29%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.25%) Android
8 28 (1.16%) Apple iOS
9 27 (1.12%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
15 4 (0.17%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 810 (33.67%) Computer Science
2 654 (27.18%) Agile
3 635 (26.39%) Problem-Solving
4 383 (15.92%) Stakeholder Management
5 367 (15.25%) Continuous Improvement
6 359 (14.92%) AI
7 323 (13.42%) DevOps
8 290 (12.05%) Project Management
9 283 (11.76%) CI/CD
10 277 (11.51%) Analytics
11 257 (10.68%) Decision-Making
12 251 (10.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
14 231 (9.60%) Migration
15 227 (9.43%) Change Management
16 215 (8.94%) ITIL
17 214 (8.89%) Roadmaps
18 199 (8.27%) Software Engineering
19 186 (7.73%) Risk Management
20 185 (7.69%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 394 (16.38%) Python
2 363 (15.09%) SQL
3 170 (7.07%) Java
4 123 (5.11%) PowerShell
5 97 (4.03%) C#
6 91 (3.78%) JavaScript
7 53 (2.20%) C++
8 42 (1.75%) Bash
9 31 (1.29%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.12%) R
11 23 (0.96%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.96%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.71%) C
13 16 (0.67%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.58%) Rust
15 13 (0.54%) Go
15 13 (0.54%) Perl
16 12 (0.50%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.42%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 494 (20.53%) Computer Science Degree
2 430 (17.87%) Security Cleared
3 292 (12.14%) SC Cleared
4 253 (10.52%) Master's Degree
5 145 (6.03%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.15%) PMP
7 122 (5.07%) CISSP
8 86 (3.57%) Microsoft Certification
9 78 (3.24%) Cisco Certification
10 70 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
11 67 (2.78%) CISM
12 62 (2.58%) DV Cleared
13 54 (2.24%) Azure Certification
14 44 (1.83%) PhD
15 40 (1.66%) CCNP
16 38 (1.58%) CBAP
17 37 (1.54%) TOGAF Certification
18 36 (1.50%) CCNA
19 35 (1.45%) AWS Certification
19 35 (1.45%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.49%) QA
2 118 (4.90%) NIST
3 115 (4.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 113 (4.70%) Data Quality
5 104 (4.32%) PMO
6 101 (4.20%) GDPR
7 49 (2.04%) SLA
8 48 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 40 (1.66%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 28 (1.16%) GRC
12 18 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.75%) NCSC
13 16 (0.67%) IFRS
14 14 (0.58%) COBIT
15 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.54%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 174 (7.23%) Active Directory
2 138 (5.74%) Docker
3 40 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.29%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 10 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.17%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.17%) XenApp
10 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 147 (6.11%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.28%) Terraform
3 76 (3.16%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.62%) Ansible
5 38 (1.58%) Grafana
6 36 (1.50%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.50%) SCCM
7 22 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 16 (0.67%) Puppet
9 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
10 14 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.46%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
13 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.33%) Kibana
13 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 6 (0.25%) Kiali
15 5 (0.21%) Nmap
Vendors
1 550 (22.86%) Microsoft
2 171 (7.11%) Oracle
3 141 (5.86%) SAP
4 110 (4.57%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.91%) Google
6 68 (2.83%) Cisco
7 58 (2.41%) Databricks
8 53 (2.20%) Splunk
9 48 (2.00%) Salesforce
10 47 (1.95%) VMware
11 46 (1.91%) Citrix
12 44 (1.83%) Adobe
13 39 (1.62%) IBM
14 32 (1.33%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.12%) CheckPoint
16 26 (1.08%) CyberArk
17 24 (1.00%) Red Hat
18 21 (0.87%) Ariba
18 21 (0.87%) Informatica
19 20 (0.83%) Siemens