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

6 months to
27 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,575 2,359 3,755
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.20% 7.70% 8.51%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.20% 25.81% 28.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,488 1,305 2,103
10th Percentile £286 £225 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £508
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -0.49% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £640 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £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 215 143 353
10th Percentile £15.50 £21.00 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.00 £22.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -11.76% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £68.75 £70.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £85.50 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -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 14,147 9,140 13,383
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.06% 29.83% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,349 5,625 8,258
10th Percentile £331 £288 £290
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £614 £630 £650
90th Percentile £719 £718 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £505 £530
% change year-on-year -0.89% -4.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,031 447 970
10th Percentile £16.09 £20.07 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.36 £24.18 £20.49
Median hourly rate £25.47 £40.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -36.33% -5.88% -11.46%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.25 £64.31
90th Percentile £81.24 £81.45 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £44.25
% change year-on-year -44.11% +1.69% -1.67%

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 27 February 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 27 February 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 27 February 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 2,230 £500 -4.76% 2,224
UK excluding London -5 1,354 £493 +3.68% 1,903
London -10 976 £517 -6.07% 688
Work from Home -4 718 £500 -3.29% 796
North of England -3 350 £447 -10.60% 410
South East -2 318 £475 -5.00% 689
Midlands -18 214 £520 +30.00% 293
South West +6 183 £650 +21.95% 217
North West 0 182 £400 -15.79% 225
West Midlands -19 156 £500 - 187
Yorkshire -16 151 £525 +5.00% 140
East of England -9 136 £528 +17.22% 225
Scotland -1 115 £525 +22.09% 79
East Midlands -10 58 £525 +47.47% 106
Wales -7 50 £254 -12.35% 43
North East -13 18 £364 -27.20% 52
Northern Ireland -14 17 £388 -8.82% 10

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
1 223 (8.66%) Confluence
2 118 (4.58%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.68%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.17%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 13 (0.50%) CMS
8 11 (0.43%) Skype for Business
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.23%) SAS
11 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
11 5 (0.19%) nginx
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 318 (12.35%) Microsoft Office
2 236 (9.17%) Microsoft Excel
3 198 (7.69%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (5.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 81 (3.15%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Simulink
8 14 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 9 (0.35%) Sketch
11 7 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Mozilla Thunderbird
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.078%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.078%) InDesign
14 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 66 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.97%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.39%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) SAP EWM
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.27%) SAP WM
9 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.16%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 546 (21.20%) Azure
2 309 (12.00%) AWS
3 216 (8.39%) Microsoft 365
4 199 (7.73%) Power Platform
5 157 (6.10%) GCP
6 114 (4.43%) SaaS
7 105 (4.08%) Entra ID
8 94 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
9 89 (3.46%) GitHub
10 60 (2.33%) Serverless
11 55 (2.14%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.75%) Cloud Computing
13 41 (1.59%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.36%) OCI
14 35 (1.36%) Snowflake
15 33 (1.28%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.24%) PaaS
17 31 (1.20%) IaaS
17 31 (1.20%) PowerApps
18 28 (1.09%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 119 (4.62%) Firewall
2 68 (2.64%) DNS
3 64 (2.49%) TCP/IP
4 62 (2.41%) WAN
5 61 (2.37%) LAN
6 47 (1.83%) Network Security
7 45 (1.75%) VPN
8 33 (1.28%) Skype
9 32 (1.24%) HTTP
10 31 (1.20%) Ethernet
11 30 (1.17%) Wireless
12 27 (1.05%) DHCP
13 26 (1.01%) BGP
13 26 (1.01%) Internet
13 26 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
14 23 (0.89%) OSPF
14 23 (0.89%) Unified Communications
15 21 (0.82%) VLAN
16 19 (0.74%) SSH
17 18 (0.70%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (5.90%) Power BI
2 101 (3.92%) PostgreSQL
3 96 (3.73%) SQL Server
4 67 (2.60%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.37%) Data Warehouse
6 51 (1.98%) Big Data
7 49 (1.90%) Tableau
8 48 (1.86%) Relational Database
9 45 (1.75%) MySQL
10 37 (1.44%) Metadata
11 33 (1.28%) Data Lake
12 28 (1.09%) Hadoop
13 25 (0.97%) MongoDB
14 21 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.58%) GIS
17 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
18 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
19 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
19 11 (0.43%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 303 (11.77%) JIRA
2 125 (4.85%) Git
3 83 (3.22%) Jenkins
4 65 (2.52%) GitLab
5 28 (1.09%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.85%) Liquibase
7 20 (0.78%) Selenium
8 18 (0.70%) Postman
9 13 (0.50%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.47%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.47%) MLflow
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
14 8 (0.31%) JMeter
14 8 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,302 (50.56%) Social Skills
2 809 (31.42%) Finance
3 597 (23.18%) Analytical Skills
4 262 (10.17%) Banking
5 223 (8.66%) Public Sector
6 125 (4.85%) Presentation Skills
7 113 (4.39%) Organisational Skills
8 105 (4.08%) Manufacturing
9 101 (3.92%) Marketing
10 84 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
11 83 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
12 69 (2.68%) Legal
13 60 (2.33%) Military
14 57 (2.21%) Financial Institution
15 56 (2.17%) Telecoms
16 47 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
17 46 (1.79%) Aerospace
17 46 (1.79%) Front Office
17 46 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 45 (1.75%) Retail
Job Titles
1 367 (14.25%) Analyst
2 260 (10.10%) Senior
3 216 (8.39%) Lead
4 210 (8.16%) Developer
5 205 (7.96%) Architect
6 178 (6.91%) Project Manager
7 162 (6.29%) Business Analyst
8 103 (4.00%) Consultant
9 87 (3.38%) Software Engineer
10 74 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
11 66 (2.56%) Technical Support
12 57 (2.21%) Security Engineer
13 55 (2.14%) IT Support
14 51 (1.98%) Senior Analyst
15 47 (1.83%) Data Scientist
16 44 (1.71%) Designer
17 43 (1.67%) Delivery Manager
18 41 (1.59%) Data Engineer
18 41 (1.59%) Senior Software Engineer
19 39 (1.51%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (4.82%) REST
2 76 (2.95%) .NET
3 75 (2.91%) RESTful
4 68 (2.64%) HTML
5 65 (2.52%) React
6 55 (2.14%) CSS
7 53 (2.06%) Middleware
8 50 (1.94%) Elastic Stack
9 47 (1.83%) Kafka
10 41 (1.59%) Oracle Fusion
11 40 (1.55%) SOAP
11 40 (1.55%) XML
12 39 (1.51%) JSON
13 36 (1.40%) PyTorch
13 36 (1.40%) TensorFlow
14 35 (1.36%) OAuth
15 32 (1.24%) Spring
16 30 (1.17%) AngularJS
16 30 (1.17%) Spring Boot
17 29 (1.13%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 213 (8.27%) Management Information System
2 136 (5.28%) Product Ownership
3 120 (4.66%) Cloud Native
4 112 (4.35%) Onboarding
5 87 (3.38%) Algorithms
6 78 (3.03%) Virtual Team
7 74 (2.87%) Distributed Systems
8 69 (2.68%) Self-Motivation
9 63 (2.45%) Data Centre
10 59 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
11 57 (2.21%) Analytical Mindset
12 53 (2.06%) PMI
13 45 (1.75%) Security Posture
14 43 (1.67%) Derivative
15 41 (1.59%) Data Structures
15 41 (1.59%) Public Cloud
16 40 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
17 38 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
18 36 (1.40%) Life Science
19 34 (1.32%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.08%) Windows
2 215 (8.35%) Linux
3 87 (3.38%) Unix
4 75 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 58 (2.25%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.17%) Android
7 25 (0.97%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 18 (0.70%) Apple iOS
10 16 (0.62%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.58%) Windows Server 2016
12 13 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
12 13 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
13 11 (0.43%) VMS
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 939 (36.47%) Computer Science
2 791 (30.72%) Agile
3 748 (29.05%) Problem-Solving
4 427 (16.58%) Stakeholder Management
5 389 (15.11%) DevOps
6 340 (13.20%) AI
7 333 (12.93%) Project Management
8 307 (11.92%) CI/CD
9 299 (11.61%) Continuous Improvement
10 298 (11.57%) Analytics
11 296 (11.50%) Change Management
12 275 (10.68%) Cybersecurity
13 274 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 272 (10.56%) Decision-Making
15 258 (10.02%) Migration
16 247 (9.59%) ITIL
17 242 (9.40%) Software Engineering
18 236 (9.17%) Project Delivery
19 232 (9.01%) Risk Management
20 212 (8.23%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 459 (17.83%) Python
2 391 (15.18%) SQL
3 182 (7.07%) Java
4 136 (5.28%) PowerShell
5 112 (4.35%) JavaScript
6 88 (3.42%) C#
7 80 (3.11%) C++
8 53 (2.06%) Go
8 53 (2.06%) TypeScript
9 51 (1.98%) Bash
10 32 (1.24%) R
11 26 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.85%) Perl
13 19 (0.74%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.66%) MATLAB
14 17 (0.66%) T-SQL
15 16 (0.62%) C
16 15 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.58%) Rust
16 15 (0.58%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 612 (23.77%) Computer Science Degree
2 464 (18.02%) Security Cleared
3 411 (15.96%) Master's Degree
4 359 (13.94%) SC Cleared
5 147 (5.71%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.01%) PMP
7 128 (4.97%) CISSP
8 94 (3.65%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.26%) CISM
10 77 (2.99%) PhD
11 75 (2.91%) TOGAF Certification
12 74 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
13 68 (2.64%) Azure Certification
14 65 (2.52%) Cisco Certification
15 56 (2.17%) DV Cleared
16 44 (1.71%) AWS Certification
17 43 (1.67%) CCNP
18 39 (1.51%) MBA
19 36 (1.40%) CBAP
20 33 (1.28%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (6.49%) QA
2 132 (5.13%) GDPR
3 104 (4.04%) PMO
4 103 (4.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 99 (3.84%) Data Quality
6 82 (3.18%) NIST
7 49 (1.90%) PCI DSS
8 46 (1.79%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 33 (1.28%) SLA
11 31 (1.20%) GRC
12 20 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
13 18 (0.70%) WCAG
14 17 (0.66%) HIPAA
15 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.58%) NCSC
16 14 (0.54%) Basel III
16 14 (0.54%) IFRS
17 13 (0.50%) DO-254
18 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 197 (7.65%) Docker
2 166 (6.45%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.85%) Firmware
5 20 (0.78%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.19%) XenApp
9 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Postfix
11 3 (0.12%) Squid
Systems Management
1 192 (7.46%) Kubernetes
2 121 (4.70%) Terraform
3 81 (3.15%) Ansible
4 70 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
5 57 (2.21%) Grafana
6 49 (1.90%) Prometheus
7 48 (1.86%) SCCM
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 23 (0.89%) Puppet
10 17 (0.66%) Kibana
11 16 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
12 15 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.50%) Nmap
14 11 (0.43%) SCOM
15 10 (0.39%) WSUS
16 9 (0.35%) Kiali
17 7 (0.27%) Argo
17 7 (0.27%) Nessus
17 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
18 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 548 (21.28%) Microsoft
2 176 (6.83%) Oracle
3 170 (6.60%) SAP
4 115 (4.47%) ServiceNow
5 113 (4.39%) Google
6 99 (3.84%) Splunk
7 82 (3.18%) Cisco
8 55 (2.14%) Atlassian
9 54 (2.10%) Databricks
9 54 (2.10%) Remedy
10 52 (2.02%) VMware
11 50 (1.94%) Salesforce
12 42 (1.63%) Citrix
13 38 (1.48%) Palo Alto
14 30 (1.17%) IBM
15 29 (1.13%) CheckPoint
16 28 (1.09%) Informatica
17 25 (0.97%) BiZZdesign
17 25 (0.97%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.85%) Adobe