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

6 months to
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,484 2,308 3,649
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.43% 7.88% 8.38%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.44% 25.61% 27.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,459 1,330 1,972
10th Percentile £263 £249 £208
25th Percentile £386 £382 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year - -2.17% -2.65%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £742 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 184 380
10th Percentile £16.94 £18.69 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £28.88 £21.93
Median hourly rate £51.44 £53.75 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -4.30% +34.64% -11.29%
75th Percentile £83.38 £69.06 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.05 £40.00
% change year-on-year +16.89% +17.63% -11.11%

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 15,107 9,011 13,339
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.04% 30.78% 30.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,041 5,732 8,245
10th Percentile £349 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,103 499 1,023
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.82 £22.86 £17.36
Median hourly rate £43.00 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.44% +20.00% -30.56%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.67 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.85 £47.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -9.78% +18.75% -19.90%

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 14 April 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 14 April 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 14 April 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 -7 2,174 £500 -4.76% 2,484
UK excluding London -5 1,308 £475 +5.56% 1,900
London -13 944 £513 -6.82% 855
Work from Home -9 679 £500 - 916
South East -6 359 £500 - 630
North of England -8 328 £412 -12.66% 437
Midlands -23 199 £500 +61.29% 315
North West -7 182 £400 -15.25% 239
South West -4 148 £688 +30.95% 188
West Midlands -29 144 £500 +66.67% 196
East of England -8 137 £498 -2.36% 204
Yorkshire -18 129 £475 -6.17% 140
Scotland -7 97 £500 +12.99% 98
East Midlands -17 54 £525 +47.47% 118
Wales -13 40 £291 -4.53% 52
North East -19 18 £407 -4.24% 64
Northern Ireland -7 16 £406 +30.00% 17

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
1 180 (7.25%) Confluence
2 121 (4.87%) SharePoint
3 70 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (2.13%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.72%) Apache
7 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Drupal
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.081%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.081%) IIS
12 2 (0.081%) nginx
12 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.081%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 319 (12.84%) Microsoft Office
2 243 (9.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 204 (8.21%) Microsoft Project
4 140 (5.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.66%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
7 11 (0.44%) Trello
8 7 (0.28%) Sketch
9 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.12%) InVision
11 3 (0.12%) Navisworks
11 3 (0.12%) Revit
12 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.081%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 73 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.89%) Primavera
4 17 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
6 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 532 (21.42%) Azure
2 286 (11.51%) AWS
3 215 (8.66%) Microsoft 365
4 203 (8.17%) Power Platform
5 112 (4.51%) Entra ID
6 110 (4.43%) GCP
7 107 (4.31%) SaaS
8 102 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
9 67 (2.70%) GitHub
10 49 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
11 39 (1.57%) Power Automate
11 39 (1.57%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
13 32 (1.29%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.25%) PaaS
15 30 (1.21%) IaaS
16 29 (1.17%) PowerApps
17 28 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
18 27 (1.09%) Serverless
19 25 (1.01%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 122 (4.91%) Firewall
2 63 (2.54%) TCP/IP
3 61 (2.46%) WAN
4 60 (2.42%) LAN
5 59 (2.38%) DNS
6 49 (1.97%) Network Security
7 39 (1.57%) VPN
8 31 (1.25%) BGP
9 29 (1.17%) Wireless
10 27 (1.09%) HTTP
11 26 (1.05%) Ethernet
12 25 (1.01%) OSPF
12 25 (1.01%) Skype
13 20 (0.81%) DHCP
14 18 (0.72%) VLAN
15 16 (0.64%) Internet
15 16 (0.64%) SAN
15 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.60%) VXLAN
17 14 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (6.76%) Power BI
2 103 (4.15%) SQL Server
3 71 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.01%) Big Data
6 49 (1.97%) Relational Database
7 41 (1.65%) Tableau
8 39 (1.57%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.49%) Metadata
10 34 (1.37%) MySQL
11 29 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 27 (1.09%) Data Lake
13 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
15 14 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
16 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
18 10 (0.40%) Power Query
18 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 286 (11.51%) JIRA
2 115 (4.63%) Git
3 51 (2.05%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.65%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (1.05%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.97%) Selenium
8 18 (0.72%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) Burp Suite
9 14 (0.56%) Postman
10 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
13 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
14 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.28%) Cypress.io
14 7 (0.28%) JMeter
14 7 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,184 (47.67%) Social Skills
2 762 (30.68%) Finance
3 561 (22.58%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (9.42%) Banking
5 212 (8.53%) Public Sector
6 124 (4.99%) Presentation Skills
7 121 (4.87%) Organisational Skills
8 94 (3.78%) Marketing
9 89 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
10 87 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (3.26%) Manufacturing
12 75 (3.02%) Aerospace
12 75 (3.02%) Legal
13 66 (2.66%) Telecoms
14 58 (2.33%) Military
15 48 (1.93%) Front Office
15 48 (1.93%) Retail
16 46 (1.85%) Electronics
16 46 (1.85%) Law
17 42 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 342 (13.77%) Analyst
2 248 (9.98%) Senior
3 207 (8.33%) Architect
4 203 (8.17%) Lead
5 190 (7.65%) Project Manager
6 187 (7.53%) Developer
7 158 (6.36%) Business Analyst
8 94 (3.78%) Consultant
9 66 (2.66%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.58%) Delivery Manager
10 64 (2.58%) Senior Analyst
11 55 (2.21%) Technical Support
12 52 (2.09%) Data Scientist
13 51 (2.05%) Security Engineer
14 50 (2.01%) Designer
15 49 (1.97%) Software Engineer
16 45 (1.81%) IT Support
17 44 (1.77%) Product Manager
17 44 (1.77%) Systems Engineer
18 42 (1.69%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.07%) REST
2 75 (3.02%) .NET
3 53 (2.13%) HTML
3 53 (2.13%) Middleware
4 52 (2.09%) React
5 49 (1.97%) RESTful
6 46 (1.85%) Kafka
7 39 (1.57%) CSS
7 39 (1.57%) XML
8 38 (1.53%) JSON
8 38 (1.53%) SOAP
9 36 (1.45%) PyTorch
9 36 (1.45%) Spring Boot
10 35 (1.41%) Oracle Fusion
11 33 (1.33%) Pandas
11 33 (1.33%) Spring
12 32 (1.29%) TensorFlow
13 29 (1.17%) OAuth
14 27 (1.09%) .NET Framework
15 25 (1.01%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 200 (8.05%) Management Information System
2 167 (6.72%) Product Ownership
3 126 (5.07%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.50%) Cloud Native
5 82 (3.30%) Virtual Team
6 78 (3.14%) Algorithms
7 71 (2.86%) Self-Motivation
8 68 (2.74%) Data Centre
9 63 (2.54%) Data Structures
10 58 (2.33%) PMI
11 55 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
12 54 (2.17%) Data Protection Act
13 44 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
14 41 (1.65%) Derivative
15 34 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
16 33 (1.33%) Security Posture
17 32 (1.29%) Operational Technology
17 32 (1.29%) Robotics
18 30 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
19 29 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 290 (11.67%) Windows
2 182 (7.33%) Linux
3 76 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.54%) Unix
5 59 (2.38%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Android
7 29 (1.17%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.56%) Apple iOS
9 14 (0.56%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
11 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.20%) AIX
14 5 (0.20%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) CentOS
15 4 (0.16%) Debian
16 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 901 (36.27%) Computer Science
2 755 (30.39%) Agile
3 666 (26.81%) Problem-Solving
4 406 (16.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 365 (14.69%) Continuous Improvement
6 354 (14.25%) Project Management
7 346 (13.93%) AI
8 343 (13.81%) DevOps
9 281 (11.31%) CI/CD
10 277 (11.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 270 (10.87%) Analytics
12 263 (10.59%) Change Management
12 263 (10.59%) ITIL
13 259 (10.43%) Cybersecurity
14 257 (10.35%) Decision-Making
15 248 (9.98%) Migration
16 232 (9.34%) Project Delivery
17 229 (9.22%) PRINCE2
18 211 (8.49%) Business Intelligence
18 211 (8.49%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 402 (16.18%) Python
2 364 (14.65%) SQL
3 171 (6.88%) Java
4 123 (4.95%) PowerShell
5 86 (3.46%) C#
5 86 (3.46%) JavaScript
6 71 (2.86%) C++
7 41 (1.65%) Bash
8 38 (1.53%) TypeScript
9 32 (1.29%) R
10 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
11 19 (0.76%) Go
12 18 (0.72%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.68%) C
14 16 (0.64%) Perl
14 16 (0.64%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.60%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.60%) Rust
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 556 (22.38%) Computer Science Degree
2 479 (19.28%) Security Cleared
3 343 (13.81%) SC Cleared
4 323 (13.00%) Master's Degree
5 153 (6.16%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.27%) PMP
7 111 (4.47%) CISSP
8 86 (3.46%) Microsoft Certification
9 65 (2.62%) TOGAF Certification
10 64 (2.58%) CISM
11 62 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
11 62 (2.50%) Cisco Certification
12 58 (2.33%) PhD
13 56 (2.25%) DV Cleared
14 55 (2.21%) Azure Certification
15 42 (1.69%) CCNP
16 40 (1.61%) MBA
17 36 (1.45%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
18 33 (1.33%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.64%) QA
2 116 (4.67%) GDPR
3 112 (4.51%) PMO
4 108 (4.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 100 (4.03%) Data Quality
5 100 (4.03%) NIST
6 47 (1.89%) PCI DSS
7 45 (1.81%) SLA
8 42 (1.69%) Accessibility
9 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.97%) GRC
11 18 (0.72%) NCSC
12 17 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.56%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) Basel III
14 13 (0.52%) COBIT
15 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS 17
16 11 (0.44%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 165 (6.64%) Active Directory
2 151 (6.08%) Docker
3 44 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.89%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) vSphere
8 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.20%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.081%) HDFS
12 2 (0.081%) NDS
12 2 (0.081%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) NFS
Systems Management
1 152 (6.12%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.42%) Terraform
3 68 (2.74%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.38%) Ansible
5 40 (1.61%) Grafana
6 37 (1.49%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
7 30 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 16 (0.64%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) Nmap
11 11 (0.44%) Kibana
11 11 (0.44%) SCOM
12 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.32%) WSUS
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
15 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 559 (22.50%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.40%) SAP
3 158 (6.36%) Oracle
4 127 (5.11%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.78%) Google
6 82 (3.30%) Cisco
7 67 (2.70%) Splunk
8 55 (2.21%) Databricks
9 52 (2.09%) VMware
10 51 (2.05%) Remedy
11 47 (1.89%) Citrix
12 46 (1.85%) Atlassian
13 43 (1.73%) Salesforce
14 42 (1.69%) IBM
15 38 (1.53%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.33%) CheckPoint
17 26 (1.05%) Adobe
18 24 (0.97%) Informatica
19 21 (0.85%) Aruba
19 21 (0.85%) Red Hat