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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,462 2,451 3,647
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.53% 7.78% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.22% 26.11% 27.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,454 1,331 2,088
10th Percentile £275 £238 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.49% -6.82%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 150 293
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.11 £14.09
25th Percentile £21.25 £26.56 £22.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £40.00 £40.59
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% -1.45% +1.48%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £82.80 £85.00 £74.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £45.70
% change year-on-year -10.67% -17.93% +9.45%

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 12,810 9,386 13,162
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.00% 29.81% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,467 5,669 8,216
10th Percentile £315 £300 £300
25th Percentile £416 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.13% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £635 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £503 £538
% change year-on-year -0.50% -6.51% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 958 464 840
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.87 £14.24
25th Percentile £19.23 £24.18 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £48.70
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -17.86% +8.22%
75th Percentile £60.72 £66.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £76.03 £78.01 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.69 £49.00
% change year-on-year -41.09% -12.88% +8.89%

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 21 January 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 21 January 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 21 January 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 -2 2,150 £500 -4.76% 3,831
UK excluding London -4 1,225 £475 - 3,558
London -5 1,006 £525 -4.55% 780
Work from Home -2 712 £500 -2.44% 1,607
North of England -3 321 £449 -10.30% 627
South East 0 275 £475 -5.00% 1,210
Midlands -14 209 £503 +20.00% 479
North West +1 175 £400 -20.00% 290
South West +4 170 £650 +21.95% 445
West Midlands -16 150 £523 +12.97% 197
Yorkshire -9 136 £516 +3.25% 240
East of England -11 119 £528 +17.22% 531
Scotland -2 98 £475 +8.88% 155
East Midlands -9 59 £471 +32.30% 273
Wales 0 44 £232 -18.60% 160
Northern Ireland -12 17 £370 -22.11% 65
North East -16 11 £364 -27.20% 104

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
1 198 (8.04%) Confluence
2 119 (4.83%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.50%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (0.65%) nginx
6 15 (0.61%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.53%) Apache
8 12 (0.49%) IIS
9 11 (0.45%) CMS
10 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.28%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Luigi
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 296 (12.02%) Microsoft Office
2 247 (10.03%) Microsoft Excel
3 184 (7.47%) Microsoft Project
4 124 (5.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 83 (3.37%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.69%) Simulink
8 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
9 12 (0.49%) FrameMaker
10 11 (0.45%) Trello
11 9 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 9 (0.37%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.081%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.081%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.081%) Revit
Business Applications
1 58 (2.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.85%) Primavera
4 18 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.61%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.53%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.49%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.49%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
10 9 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
11 8 (0.32%) Oracle Financials
12 7 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
12 7 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
13 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 506 (20.55%) Azure
2 297 (12.06%) AWS
3 215 (8.73%) Microsoft 365
4 190 (7.72%) Power Platform
5 144 (5.85%) GCP
6 102 (4.14%) SaaS
7 97 (3.94%) GitHub
8 87 (3.53%) Entra ID
9 86 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
10 66 (2.68%) Serverless
11 55 (2.23%) Dynamics 365
12 44 (1.79%) Power Automate
13 38 (1.54%) Cloud Computing
14 34 (1.38%) GitHub Actions
14 34 (1.38%) OCI
14 34 (1.38%) Snowflake
15 32 (1.30%) IaaS
15 32 (1.30%) PowerApps
16 29 (1.18%) Amazon S3
16 29 (1.18%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.51%) Firewall
2 69 (2.80%) DNS
3 50 (2.03%) LAN
4 48 (1.95%) WAN
5 46 (1.87%) Network Security
6 44 (1.79%) VPN
7 39 (1.58%) TCP/IP
8 37 (1.50%) HTTP
9 33 (1.34%) Skype
10 28 (1.14%) DHCP
10 28 (1.14%) Internet
11 26 (1.06%) Wireless
12 22 (0.89%) SSH
13 21 (0.85%) BGP
14 20 (0.81%) Unified Communications
14 20 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
15 18 (0.73%) OSPF
16 17 (0.69%) Ethernet
16 17 (0.69%) VLAN
17 16 (0.65%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (5.97%) Power BI
2 92 (3.74%) SQL Server
3 88 (3.57%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.40%) NoSQL
5 57 (2.32%) Relational Database
6 55 (2.23%) Data Warehouse
7 53 (2.15%) Tableau
8 40 (1.62%) MySQL
9 32 (1.30%) Big Data
10 27 (1.10%) Data Lake
11 24 (0.97%) Metadata
12 20 (0.81%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
13 19 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (0.61%) Oracle Database
15 14 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
15 14 (0.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.49%) GIS
18 11 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 289 (11.74%) JIRA
2 123 (5.00%) Git
3 85 (3.45%) Jenkins
4 62 (2.52%) GitLab
5 29 (1.18%) Visual Studio
6 23 (0.93%) Selenium
7 22 (0.89%) Liquibase
8 19 (0.77%) Postman
9 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.45%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.45%) Cypress.io
10 11 (0.45%) JUnit
11 10 (0.41%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.41%) Vagrant
12 9 (0.37%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.37%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.32%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.32%) Jaeger
14 7 (0.28%) Gradle
14 7 (0.28%) SonarQube
General
1 1,275 (51.79%) Social Skills
2 787 (31.97%) Finance
3 588 (23.88%) Analytical Skills
4 274 (11.13%) Banking
5 200 (8.12%) Public Sector
6 112 (4.55%) Manufacturing
7 110 (4.47%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.02%) Organisational Skills
9 89 (3.61%) Marketing
10 88 (3.57%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (3.29%) Legal
12 67 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
13 66 (2.68%) Military
14 62 (2.52%) Financial Institution
15 58 (2.36%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.07%) Front Office
16 51 (2.07%) Pharmaceutical
17 49 (1.99%) Investment Banking
18 40 (1.62%) Law
19 39 (1.58%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 357 (14.50%) Analyst
2 245 (9.95%) Senior
3 234 (9.50%) Developer
4 199 (8.08%) Lead
5 175 (7.11%) Architect
6 166 (6.74%) Project Manager
7 161 (6.54%) Business Analyst
8 98 (3.98%) Consultant
9 84 (3.41%) Software Engineer
10 64 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
11 63 (2.56%) IT Support
12 59 (2.40%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.23%) Security Engineer
13 55 (2.23%) Support Analyst
14 41 (1.67%) Designer
14 41 (1.67%) Senior Software Engineer
15 39 (1.58%) Senior Developer
16 38 (1.54%) IT Analyst
17 37 (1.50%) IT Manager
18 36 (1.46%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (5.04%) REST
2 86 (3.49%) RESTful
3 82 (3.33%) HTML
4 80 (3.25%) .NET
5 63 (2.56%) CSS
6 59 (2.40%) XML
7 50 (2.03%) Middleware
7 50 (2.03%) React
8 46 (1.87%) Elastic Stack
8 46 (1.87%) JSON
9 43 (1.75%) OAuth
10 40 (1.62%) SOAP
11 38 (1.54%) Kafka
12 36 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
13 32 (1.30%) AngularJS
14 31 (1.26%) TensorFlow
15 30 (1.22%) PyTorch
16 29 (1.18%) Node.js
16 29 (1.18%) Spring
17 27 (1.10%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.33%) Management Information System
2 121 (4.91%) Product Ownership
3 107 (4.35%) Cloud Native
4 79 (3.21%) Algorithms
5 78 (3.17%) Onboarding
6 65 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
7 61 (2.48%) Data Centre
8 60 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
9 58 (2.36%) PMI
10 57 (2.32%) Virtual Team
11 56 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
12 55 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
13 45 (1.83%) Derivative
14 43 (1.75%) Life Science
14 43 (1.75%) Public Cloud
15 42 (1.71%) Security Posture
16 41 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
16 41 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
17 35 (1.42%) Mobile App
18 34 (1.38%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 295 (11.98%) Windows
2 212 (8.61%) Linux
3 89 (3.61%) Unix
4 69 (2.80%) Windows Server
5 52 (2.11%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.30%) Android
7 27 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 24 (0.97%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.73%) Ubuntu
9 18 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
10 15 (0.61%) VMS
10 15 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
11 14 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
14 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.12%) CentOS
15 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
15 3 (0.12%) Windows 7
16 2 (0.081%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 919 (37.33%) Computer Science
2 792 (32.17%) Agile
3 717 (29.12%) Problem-Solving
4 394 (16.00%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (15.15%) DevOps
6 368 (14.95%) Project Management
7 295 (11.98%) Change Management
8 283 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
9 282 (11.45%) CI/CD
10 279 (11.33%) AI
11 264 (10.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 257 (10.44%) Cybersecurity
13 253 (10.28%) Analytics
14 252 (10.24%) ITIL
15 241 (9.79%) Migration
16 228 (9.26%) Decision-Making
17 226 (9.18%) Software Engineering
18 225 (9.14%) Project Delivery
19 222 (9.02%) Risk Management
20 201 (8.16%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 441 (17.91%) Python
2 372 (15.11%) SQL
3 170 (6.90%) Java
4 135 (5.48%) PowerShell
5 127 (5.16%) JavaScript
6 94 (3.82%) C#
7 82 (3.33%) C++
8 57 (2.32%) TypeScript
9 50 (2.03%) Bash
9 50 (2.03%) Go
10 31 (1.26%) R
11 26 (1.06%) Perl
12 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.85%) C
13 21 (0.85%) MATLAB
13 21 (0.85%) T-SQL
14 18 (0.73%) Kotlin
15 16 (0.65%) SystemVerilog
16 14 (0.57%) Kusto Query Language
16 14 (0.57%) Rust
Qualifications
1 625 (25.39%) Computer Science Degree
2 415 (16.86%) Security Cleared
3 375 (15.23%) Master's Degree
4 319 (12.96%) SC Cleared
5 164 (6.66%) PMI Certification
6 140 (5.69%) PMP
7 119 (4.83%) CISSP
8 92 (3.74%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.05%) CISM
10 73 (2.97%) Azure Certification
11 72 (2.92%) PhD
12 68 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
13 63 (2.56%) TOGAF Certification
14 57 (2.32%) Cisco Certification
15 56 (2.27%) DV Cleared
16 47 (1.91%) AWS Certification
17 43 (1.75%) HND
18 38 (1.54%) CCNP
19 37 (1.50%) MBA
20 34 (1.38%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (6.62%) QA
2 127 (5.16%) GDPR
3 99 (4.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 89 (3.61%) PMO
5 80 (3.25%) Data Quality
6 71 (2.88%) NIST
7 45 (1.83%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.58%) PCI DSS
9 36 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 34 (1.38%) SLA
11 29 (1.18%) GRC
12 18 (0.73%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.61%) WCAG
15 14 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.57%) NCSC
15 14 (0.57%) P3O
16 13 (0.53%) Basel III
17 12 (0.49%) Def Stans
18 11 (0.45%) IFRS
System Software
1 195 (7.92%) Docker
2 152 (6.17%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Firmware
5 18 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) DFS Replication
7 9 (0.37%) Dovecot
7 9 (0.37%) Postfix
7 9 (0.37%) Squid
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 6 (0.24%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 177 (7.19%) Kubernetes
2 127 (5.16%) Terraform
3 79 (3.21%) Ansible
4 61 (2.48%) Grafana
5 59 (2.40%) Microsoft Intune
6 51 (2.07%) Prometheus
7 49 (1.99%) SCCM
8 30 (1.22%) OPNET
9 26 (1.06%) Puppet
10 15 (0.61%) Kibana
11 14 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.53%) SCOM
13 12 (0.49%) Nmap
14 11 (0.45%) Nessus
15 10 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 10 (0.41%) QRadar
16 9 (0.37%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.37%) WSUS
17 8 (0.32%) Kiali
18 7 (0.28%) Argo
Vendors
1 516 (20.96%) Microsoft
2 175 (7.11%) Oracle
3 157 (6.38%) SAP
4 118 (4.79%) ServiceNow
5 108 (4.39%) Splunk
6 95 (3.86%) Google
7 73 (2.97%) Cisco
8 58 (2.36%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.19%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.07%) Remedy
11 47 (1.91%) VMware
12 45 (1.83%) Databricks
13 37 (1.50%) Citrix
14 27 (1.10%) IBM
15 26 (1.06%) Palo Alto
16 23 (0.93%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.89%) Adobe
17 22 (0.89%) Red Hat
18 19 (0.77%) Informatica
19 18 (0.73%) CheckPoint