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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,569 2,374 3,769
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.06% 7.90% 8.44%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.87% 26.08% 27.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,494 1,335 2,092
10th Percentile £287 £225 £208
25th Percentile £400 £399 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £508
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +0.99% -5.14%
75th Percentile £631 £645 £638
90th Percentile £738 £783 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 166 374
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.50 £29.25 £21.07
Median hourly rate £41.94 £45.59 £37.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.01% +23.22% -17.78%
75th Percentile £77.50 £71.19 £58.44
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £45.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -4.44% +20.00% -16.67%

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 14,375 9,103 13,607
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.92% 30.28% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,474 5,667 8,392
10th Percentile £331 £285 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £734
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 467 1,037
10th Percentile £16.17 £19.46 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.59 £24.35 £18.32
Median hourly rate £27.50 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.29% +6.25% -20.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £82.25 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -49.70% +25.00% -13.04%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 -4 2,242 £500 -4.76% 2,480
UK excluding London -7 1,348 £493 +3.68% 1,958
London -11 979 £513 -6.82% 871
Work from Home -5 703 £500 -4.76% 1,018
North of England -6 351 £447 -10.60% 461
South East -6 338 £480 -4.00% 642
Midlands -22 211 £500 +37.93% 310
North West -1 181 £400 -20.00% 244
South West +5 174 £663 +20.45% 224
West Midlands -21 154 £500 +21.21% 185
Yorkshire -14 153 £525 +3.70% 161
East of England -10 135 £525 +7.91% 219
Scotland -3 105 £525 +20.00% 98
East Midlands -13 56 £525 +47.47% 124
Wales -10 46 £254 -11.97% 55
North East -8 18 £364 -27.20% 63
Northern Ireland -13 16 £388 -8.82% 12

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
1 211 (8.21%) Confluence
2 118 (4.59%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 55 (2.14%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 7 (0.27%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.19%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.16%) IIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 308 (11.99%) Microsoft Office
2 234 (9.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 198 (7.71%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (4.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 77 (3.00%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Simulink
8 15 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 8 (0.31%) Sketch
11 6 (0.23%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.078%) InDesign
14 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
15 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
15 1 (0.039%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 64 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.97%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 5 (0.19%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) SAP WM
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
11 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 545 (21.21%) Azure
2 308 (11.99%) AWS
3 209 (8.14%) Microsoft 365
4 199 (7.75%) Power Platform
5 148 (5.76%) GCP
6 112 (4.36%) SaaS
7 110 (4.28%) Entra ID
8 97 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (3.39%) GitHub
10 53 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
10 53 (2.06%) Serverless
11 43 (1.67%) Cloud Computing
12 40 (1.56%) Snowflake
13 39 (1.52%) Power Automate
14 33 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.25%) IaaS
15 32 (1.25%) PaaS
16 30 (1.17%) OCI
17 29 (1.13%) PowerApps
18 28 (1.09%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.48%) Firewall
2 62 (2.41%) DNS
3 61 (2.37%) TCP/IP
4 60 (2.34%) WAN
5 59 (2.30%) LAN
6 50 (1.95%) Network Security
7 41 (1.60%) VPN
8 31 (1.21%) Ethernet
9 29 (1.13%) HTTP
9 29 (1.13%) Skype
10 28 (1.09%) Wireless
11 27 (1.05%) BGP
12 26 (1.01%) Internet
13 23 (0.90%) DHCP
13 23 (0.90%) OSPF
13 23 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
14 20 (0.78%) VLAN
15 19 (0.74%) Unified Communications
16 18 (0.70%) SSL
17 15 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.07%) Power BI
2 101 (3.93%) PostgreSQL
3 99 (3.85%) SQL Server
4 63 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 62 (2.41%) NoSQL
6 49 (1.91%) Relational Database
7 48 (1.87%) Big Data
7 48 (1.87%) Tableau
8 43 (1.67%) MySQL
9 31 (1.21%) Data Lake
9 31 (1.21%) Metadata
10 28 (1.09%) Hadoop
11 25 (0.97%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.62%) GIS
13 16 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 13 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
15 12 (0.47%) BigQuery
15 12 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
15 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 300 (11.68%) JIRA
2 125 (4.87%) Git
3 76 (2.96%) Jenkins
4 60 (2.34%) GitLab
5 27 (1.05%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.82%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.82%) Selenium
7 17 (0.66%) Postman
8 14 (0.54%) Liquibase
9 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
9 13 (0.51%) MLflow
10 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Gradle
13 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.27%) JMeter
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,267 (49.32%) Social Skills
2 803 (31.26%) Finance
3 581 (22.62%) Analytical Skills
4 256 (9.96%) Banking
5 225 (8.76%) Public Sector
6 119 (4.63%) Presentation Skills
7 111 (4.32%) Organisational Skills
8 99 (3.85%) Marketing
9 95 (3.70%) Manufacturing
10 90 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
11 84 (3.27%) Documentation Skills
12 73 (2.84%) Legal
13 62 (2.41%) Aerospace
14 60 (2.34%) Military
15 56 (2.18%) Telecoms
16 54 (2.10%) Financial Institution
17 47 (1.83%) Electronics
17 47 (1.83%) Front Office
18 46 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 46 (1.79%) Retail
Job Titles
1 362 (14.09%) Analyst
2 255 (9.93%) Senior
3 215 (8.37%) Lead
4 205 (7.98%) Architect
5 204 (7.94%) Developer
6 180 (7.01%) Project Manager
7 168 (6.54%) Business Analyst
8 103 (4.01%) Consultant
9 77 (3.00%) Software Engineer
10 72 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
11 64 (2.49%) Technical Support
12 61 (2.37%) Security Engineer
13 56 (2.18%) Delivery Manager
14 53 (2.06%) Senior Analyst
15 51 (1.99%) IT Support
16 49 (1.91%) Data Scientist
17 47 (1.83%) Designer
18 39 (1.52%) Data Engineer
19 38 (1.48%) Technical Analyst
20 36 (1.40%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (4.55%) REST
2 75 (2.92%) .NET
3 68 (2.65%) RESTful
4 64 (2.49%) React
5 63 (2.45%) HTML
6 52 (2.02%) CSS
7 51 (1.99%) Middleware
8 47 (1.83%) Kafka
9 41 (1.60%) Elastic Stack
10 40 (1.56%) SOAP
11 39 (1.52%) JSON
11 39 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
11 39 (1.52%) XML
12 38 (1.48%) PyTorch
12 38 (1.48%) TensorFlow
13 36 (1.40%) OAuth
14 33 (1.28%) Spring
15 30 (1.17%) Spring Boot
16 29 (1.13%) Node.js
16 29 (1.13%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 215 (8.37%) Management Information System
2 159 (6.19%) Product Ownership
3 115 (4.48%) Cloud Native
4 114 (4.44%) Onboarding
5 87 (3.39%) Algorithms
6 80 (3.11%) Virtual Team
7 70 (2.72%) Distributed Systems
8 69 (2.69%) Self-Motivation
9 67 (2.61%) Data Centre
10 60 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
11 55 (2.14%) Analytical Mindset
12 54 (2.10%) Data Structures
12 54 (2.10%) PMI
13 47 (1.83%) Security Posture
14 45 (1.75%) Derivative
15 39 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
16 36 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
17 34 (1.32%) NHS
17 34 (1.32%) Public Cloud
18 32 (1.25%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 297 (11.56%) Windows
2 195 (7.59%) Linux
3 80 (3.11%) Unix
4 73 (2.84%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.22%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.13%) Android
7 23 (0.90%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.62%) Apple iOS
10 13 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.43%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
13 7 (0.27%) VMS
14 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.16%) AIX
16 3 (0.12%) CentOS
16 3 (0.12%) Debian
16 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 945 (36.78%) Computer Science
2 802 (31.22%) Agile
3 721 (28.07%) Problem-Solving
4 429 (16.70%) Stakeholder Management
5 381 (14.83%) DevOps
6 357 (13.90%) AI
7 335 (13.04%) Project Management
8 327 (12.73%) Continuous Improvement
9 308 (11.99%) CI/CD
10 289 (11.25%) Analytics
11 284 (11.05%) Change Management
12 283 (11.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 274 (10.67%) Cybersecurity
14 272 (10.59%) Decision-Making
15 260 (10.12%) Migration
16 256 (9.96%) ITIL
17 239 (9.30%) Risk Management
18 236 (9.19%) Project Delivery
19 234 (9.11%) Software Engineering
20 216 (8.41%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 452 (17.59%) Python
2 384 (14.95%) SQL
3 176 (6.85%) Java
4 130 (5.06%) PowerShell
5 108 (4.20%) JavaScript
6 84 (3.27%) C#
7 77 (3.00%) C++
8 56 (2.18%) TypeScript
9 48 (1.87%) Bash
10 44 (1.71%) Go
11 31 (1.21%) R
12 26 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.82%) Perl
13 21 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.66%) MATLAB
15 16 (0.62%) T-SQL
16 15 (0.58%) C
16 15 (0.58%) Rust
16 15 (0.58%) SystemVerilog
17 14 (0.54%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 603 (23.47%) Computer Science Degree
2 486 (18.92%) Security Cleared
3 401 (15.61%) Master's Degree
4 354 (13.78%) SC Cleared
5 150 (5.84%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.10%) CISSP
6 131 (5.10%) PMP
7 91 (3.54%) Microsoft Certification
8 86 (3.35%) CISM
9 78 (3.04%) PhD
10 73 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
10 73 (2.84%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (2.45%) Azure Certification
11 63 (2.45%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (2.22%) DV Cleared
13 40 (1.56%) CCNP
14 38 (1.48%) MBA
15 36 (1.40%) AWS Certification
16 33 (1.28%) CBAP
16 33 (1.28%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (6.54%) QA
2 135 (5.25%) GDPR
3 109 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (4.17%) PMO
5 94 (3.66%) Data Quality
6 91 (3.54%) NIST
7 50 (1.95%) PCI DSS
8 44 (1.71%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.52%) SLA
10 33 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 32 (1.25%) GRC
12 21 (0.82%) NCSC
13 20 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.70%) WCAG
15 17 (0.66%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.54%) Basel III
17 14 (0.54%) IFRS
18 13 (0.51%) DO-254
19 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 189 (7.36%) Docker
2 164 (6.38%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.82%) Firmware
5 19 (0.74%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.23%) vSphere
8 5 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.19%) XenApp
8 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 4 (0.16%) NDS
9 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 4 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) HDFS
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 189 (7.36%) Kubernetes
2 111 (4.32%) Terraform
3 75 (2.92%) Ansible
4 68 (2.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 49 (1.91%) Grafana
6 44 (1.71%) SCCM
7 41 (1.60%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 20 (0.78%) Puppet
10 17 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 15 (0.58%) Kibana
13 13 (0.51%) Nmap
14 11 (0.43%) SCOM
15 9 (0.35%) Kiali
16 8 (0.31%) Argo
16 8 (0.31%) WSUS
17 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
18 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
18 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 544 (21.18%) Microsoft
2 171 (6.66%) Oracle
3 161 (6.27%) SAP
4 114 (4.44%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.32%) Google
6 89 (3.46%) Splunk
7 83 (3.23%) Cisco
8 58 (2.26%) Databricks
9 56 (2.18%) Atlassian
10 54 (2.10%) Remedy
11 51 (1.99%) Salesforce
12 50 (1.95%) VMware
13 42 (1.63%) Citrix
14 41 (1.60%) IBM
15 39 (1.52%) Palo Alto
16 29 (1.13%) CheckPoint
17 27 (1.05%) Informatica
18 25 (0.97%) BiZZdesign
18 25 (0.97%) Red Hat
19 21 (0.82%) MuleSoft