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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,486 2,433 3,143
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.70% 7.43% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.99% 24.08% 26.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,327 1,377 1,819
10th Percentile £206 £250 £234
25th Percentile £363 £371 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £452 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +0.33% -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 208 291
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.71 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.50
Median hourly rate £44.50 £42.75 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.09% -14.50% -5.99%
75th Percentile £82.37 £64.64 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.11 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year +11.22% -29.45% +14.70%

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 16,581 10,104 11,990
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 30.85% 29.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,078 6,264 7,609
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,220 765 912
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.88%
75th Percentile £73.75 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.02 £75.00 £76.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.79%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 2,254 £500 - 2,907
UK excluding London -12 1,374 £452 +0.33% 1,824
London -20 949 £525 -4.55% 1,400
Work from Home -20 655 £500 - 1,007
South East -1 473 £500 +4.99% 622
North of England -14 333 £450 - 386
North West -9 188 £447 -5.89% 191
Midlands -29 185 £463 +3.47% 262
East of England -6 148 £450 - 235
West Midlands -35 143 £450 - 144
Yorkshire -7 127 £450 +6.51% 124
South West -21 120 £415 -7.78% 216
Scotland -36 79 £475 +5.56% 72
East Midlands -25 40 £478 +33.52% 118
Wales -28 23 £490 +57.05% 50
North East -42 18 £450 +130.77% 75
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -46.95% 34

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 (5.91%) SharePoint
2 124 (4.99%) Confluence
3 65 (2.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 39 (1.57%) Apache Spark
5 31 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.93%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 273 (10.98%) Microsoft Office
2 234 (9.41%) Microsoft Excel
3 147 (5.91%) Microsoft Project
4 130 (5.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.57%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
8 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
9 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
9 8 (0.32%) Simulink
9 8 (0.32%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
10 6 (0.24%) Trello
10 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
11 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
12 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.68%) Primavera
3 13 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
6 7 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.12%) NEC Housing
10 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 576 (23.17%) Azure
2 327 (13.15%) AWS
3 232 (9.33%) Power Platform
4 214 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
5 155 (6.23%) Entra ID
6 140 (5.63%) GCP
7 103 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
8 84 (3.38%) SaaS
9 65 (2.61%) GitHub
10 47 (1.89%) Dynamics 365
11 45 (1.81%) Figma
11 45 (1.81%) Snowflake
12 44 (1.77%) PowerApps
12 44 (1.77%) Serverless
13 43 (1.73%) Power Automate
14 40 (1.61%) OneDrive
15 37 (1.49%) Microsoft Copilot
16 29 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.13%) IaaS
17 28 (1.13%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.59%) Firewall
2 76 (3.06%) TCP/IP
3 74 (2.98%) DNS
4 64 (2.57%) Network Security
5 58 (2.33%) VPN
6 45 (1.81%) WAN
7 42 (1.69%) LAN
8 36 (1.45%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) BGP
11 22 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.80%) SSL
13 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
13 19 (0.76%) OSPF
13 19 (0.76%) VLAN
14 16 (0.64%) SSH
15 15 (0.60%) HTTP
16 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
16 14 (0.56%) Internet
16 14 (0.56%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (7.52%) Power BI
2 115 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
5 53 (2.13%) Relational Database
6 44 (1.77%) Metadata
7 41 (1.65%) Big Data
8 39 (1.57%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 27 (1.09%) MongoDB
10 27 (1.09%) MySQL
11 24 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 21 (0.84%) Data Lake
13 20 (0.80%) Oracle Database
14 19 (0.76%) Hadoop
15 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.60%) GIS
17 14 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 206 (8.29%) JIRA
2 126 (5.07%) Git
3 55 (2.21%) Jenkins
4 39 (1.57%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.76%) MLflow
7 17 (0.68%) Selenium
8 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.48%) Postman
10 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,085 (43.64%) Social Skills
2 720 (28.96%) Finance
3 542 (21.80%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 190 (7.64%) Banking
6 161 (6.48%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.34%) Presentation Skills
8 101 (4.06%) Legal
8 101 (4.06%) Marketing
9 94 (3.78%) Aerospace
10 91 (3.66%) Manufacturing
11 87 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
12 83 (3.34%) Documentation Skills
13 76 (3.06%) Telecoms
14 60 (2.41%) Retail
15 59 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 54 (2.17%) Law
17 43 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
18 37 (1.49%) Front Office
19 36 (1.45%) Military
Job Titles
1 343 (13.80%) Analyst
2 284 (11.42%) Senior
3 193 (7.76%) Architect
4 190 (7.64%) Lead
5 175 (7.04%) Developer
6 158 (6.36%) Project Manager
7 151 (6.07%) Business Analyst
8 71 (2.86%) Consultant
9 70 (2.82%) Senior Manager
10 63 (2.53%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.49%) Designer
12 57 (2.29%) IT Support
13 55 (2.21%) IT Manager
14 53 (2.13%) Software Engineer
14 53 (2.13%) Support Engineer
15 50 (2.01%) IT Analyst
15 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
16 49 (1.97%) Administrator
17 48 (1.93%) Senior Analyst
18 46 (1.85%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.14%) REST
2 98 (3.94%) .NET
3 68 (2.74%) React
4 50 (2.01%) Kafka
5 43 (1.73%) RESTful
6 42 (1.69%) OAuth
7 40 (1.61%) HTML
8 37 (1.49%) Middleware
9 34 (1.37%) Web Services
10 33 (1.33%) .NET Framework
10 33 (1.33%) CSS
10 33 (1.33%) SAML
10 33 (1.33%) Spring
11 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
11 31 (1.25%) JSON
11 31 (1.25%) OAuth2
12 30 (1.21%) LDAP
12 30 (1.21%) Oracle Fusion
12 30 (1.21%) Spring Boot
13 29 (1.17%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 207 (8.33%) Management Information System
2 155 (6.23%) Onboarding
3 148 (5.95%) Product Ownership
4 118 (4.75%) Self-Motivation
5 98 (3.94%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.86%) Data Structures
7 70 (2.82%) Algorithms
8 66 (2.65%) Data Centre
9 56 (2.25%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.09%) Security Posture
11 51 (2.05%) Operational Technology
12 45 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
13 44 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
13 44 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.65%) Life Science
15 40 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
16 37 (1.49%) AI Agents
17 35 (1.41%) PMI
18 33 (1.33%) Robotics
19 32 (1.29%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 305 (12.27%) Windows
2 176 (7.08%) Linux
3 75 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.53%) Unix
5 50 (2.01%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.17%) Android
9 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
13 3 (0.12%) Debian
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 842 (33.87%) Computer Science
2 680 (27.35%) Agile
3 653 (26.27%) Problem-Solving
4 429 (17.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 406 (16.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 396 (15.93%) AI
7 327 (13.15%) DevOps
8 312 (12.55%) Project Management
9 311 (12.51%) Analytics
10 299 (12.03%) CI/CD
11 272 (10.94%) ITIL
12 263 (10.58%) Decision-Making
13 257 (10.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 246 (9.90%) Cybersecurity
15 218 (8.77%) Change Management
16 215 (8.65%) Roadmaps
17 214 (8.61%) Software Engineering
18 208 (8.37%) PRINCE2
19 204 (8.21%) Project Delivery
20 203 (8.17%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 434 (17.46%) Python
2 356 (14.32%) SQL
3 171 (6.88%) Java
4 153 (6.15%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.26%) C#
6 93 (3.74%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.01%) Bash
8 47 (1.89%) C++
9 41 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.21%) R
11 25 (1.01%) Bicep
12 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 22 (0.88%) C
15 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.44%) X++
18 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 484 (19.47%) Computer Science Degree
2 453 (18.22%) Security Cleared
3 299 (12.03%) SC Cleared
4 246 (9.90%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.03%) PMP
7 118 (4.75%) CISSP
8 110 (4.42%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.38%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.14%) DV Cleared
11 76 (3.06%) Azure Certification
12 68 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.33%) CISM
14 56 (2.25%) PhD
15 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.69%) CCNA
17 39 (1.57%) CCNP
18 38 (1.53%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 37 (1.49%) CISA
20 33 (1.33%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.35%) Data Quality
2 125 (5.03%) QA
3 114 (4.59%) NIST
4 110 (4.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (4.10%) PMO
6 77 (3.10%) GDPR
7 51 (2.05%) Accessibility
7 51 (2.05%) SLA
8 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
10 26 (1.05%) GRC
11 21 (0.84%) NCSC
12 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
13 14 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.44%) IFRS
16 10 (0.40%) HIPAA
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) COBIT
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 198 (7.96%) Active Directory
2 124 (4.99%) Docker
3 48 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.97%) Firmware
4 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
7 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
7 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.24%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 139 (5.59%) Kubernetes
2 95 (3.82%) Terraform
3 79 (3.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.41%) Ansible
5 36 (1.45%) SCCM
6 31 (1.25%) Grafana
7 28 (1.13%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 11 (0.44%) Puppet
10 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 6 (0.24%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.24%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Argo
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 618 (24.86%) Microsoft
2 166 (6.68%) Oracle
3 148 (5.95%) SAP
4 133 (5.35%) ServiceNow
5 95 (3.82%) Google
6 69 (2.78%) Cisco
7 65 (2.61%) Databricks
8 63 (2.53%) VMware
9 58 (2.33%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.21%) Adobe
11 50 (2.01%) IBM
12 34 (1.37%) CyberArk
13 33 (1.33%) Splunk
14 32 (1.29%) Citrix
15 29 (1.17%) Palo Alto
16 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.84%) Ariba
17 21 (0.84%) BeyondTrust
17 21 (0.84%) Siemens
18 19 (0.76%) HP