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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,489 2,445 3,744
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.48% 7.81% 8.48%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.10% 26.14% 27.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,472 1,334 2,122
10th Percentile £275 £225 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £508
Median % change year-on-year -0.89% -0.59% -6.02%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £467 £500
% change year-on-year +1.77% -6.65% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 147 329
10th Percentile £14.97 £20.07 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.79 £26.71 £21.64
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% - -1.23%
75th Percentile £57.31 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.30 £85.00 £74.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £38.75 £41.50
% change year-on-year -13.55% -6.63% -7.78%

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 13,030 9,352 13,452
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.94% 29.88% 30.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,621 5,618 8,382
10th Percentile £315 £300 £295
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.24% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £631 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 952 457 908
10th Percentile £15.64 £19.06 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.51% -17.89% +5.56%
75th Percentile £62.50 £66.00 £65.96
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.31 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -40.82% -10.53% +5.56%

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 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 28 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 28 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 -3 2,161 £500 -4.76% 3,598
UK excluding London -5 1,244 £475 +1.77% 3,344
London -4 1,009 £525 -4.55% 773
Work from Home 0 716 £500 - 1,557
North of England -6 329 £445 -6.75% 589
South East +2 277 £475 -5.00% 1,130
Midlands -13 217 £520 +26.06% 486
North West -1 178 £394 -17.11% 288
South West +5 169 £650 +20.04% 419
West Midlands -14 150 £520 +18.72% 233
Yorkshire -13 140 £525 +7.14% 215
East of England -15 112 £550 +18.92% 472
Scotland 0 108 £475 +9.20% 154
East Midlands -9 67 £520 +46.07% 250
Wales -2 44 £238 -17.22% 142
Northern Ireland -14 17 £425 -10.53% 55
North East -16 12 £364 -27.20% 90

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 (8.48%) Confluence
2 122 (4.90%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 42 (1.69%) Apache Spark
5 19 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.60%) nginx
6 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.48%) Apache
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) IIS
10 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.24%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.16%) Luigi
13 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 302 (12.13%) Microsoft Office
2 249 (10.00%) Microsoft Excel
3 187 (7.51%) Microsoft Project
4 130 (5.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.21%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.68%) Simulink
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.40%) Trello
10 9 (0.36%) Sketch
11 8 (0.32%) FrameMaker
11 8 (0.32%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.080%) InDesign
14 2 (0.080%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.080%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 59 (2.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.88%) Primavera
4 19 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.48%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
11 8 (0.32%) 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 ERP
13 6 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
14 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 510 (20.49%) Azure
2 296 (11.89%) AWS
3 220 (8.84%) Microsoft 365
4 191 (7.67%) Power Platform
5 145 (5.83%) GCP
6 104 (4.18%) SaaS
7 98 (3.94%) GitHub
8 90 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (3.50%) Entra ID
10 65 (2.61%) Serverless
11 56 (2.25%) Dynamics 365
12 46 (1.85%) Cloud Computing
13 45 (1.81%) Power Automate
14 36 (1.45%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (1.37%) OCI
15 34 (1.37%) Snowflake
16 33 (1.33%) IaaS
16 33 (1.33%) PowerApps
17 30 (1.21%) PaaS
18 27 (1.08%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.58%) Firewall
2 72 (2.89%) DNS
3 51 (2.05%) LAN
4 50 (2.01%) WAN
5 48 (1.93%) Network Security
6 44 (1.77%) VPN
7 42 (1.69%) TCP/IP
8 36 (1.45%) HTTP
9 34 (1.37%) Skype
10 30 (1.21%) DHCP
11 29 (1.17%) Internet
12 26 (1.04%) Wireless
13 23 (0.92%) BGP
14 22 (0.88%) SSH
15 21 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.80%) OSPF
16 20 (0.80%) Unified Communications
17 18 (0.72%) VLAN
18 17 (0.68%) Ethernet
19 15 (0.60%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (5.95%) Power BI
2 91 (3.66%) SQL Server
3 88 (3.54%) PostgreSQL
4 60 (2.41%) NoSQL
5 56 (2.25%) Relational Database
6 54 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
7 50 (2.01%) Tableau
8 41 (1.65%) MySQL
9 36 (1.45%) Big Data
10 29 (1.17%) Data Lake
10 29 (1.17%) Metadata
11 19 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
11 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
12 18 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
13 15 (0.60%) Hadoop
14 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
14 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
14 13 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.48%) GIS
15 12 (0.48%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 297 (11.93%) JIRA
2 125 (5.02%) Git
3 84 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.45%) GitLab
5 30 (1.21%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.88%) Liquibase
6 22 (0.88%) Selenium
7 20 (0.80%) Postman
8 12 (0.48%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.44%) JUnit
10 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.40%) Metasploit
11 9 (0.36%) CircleCI
11 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
11 9 (0.36%) Vagrant
12 8 (0.32%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.28%) Artifactory
13 7 (0.28%) Gradle
13 7 (0.28%) MLflow
General
1 1,286 (51.67%) Social Skills
2 811 (32.58%) Finance
3 591 (23.74%) Analytical Skills
4 269 (10.81%) Banking
5 203 (8.16%) Public Sector
6 110 (4.42%) Presentation Skills
7 108 (4.34%) Manufacturing
8 99 (3.98%) Organisational Skills
9 91 (3.66%) Marketing
10 82 (3.29%) Influencing Skills
11 76 (3.05%) Legal
12 71 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
13 66 (2.65%) Military
14 63 (2.53%) Financial Institution
15 61 (2.45%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.05%) Front Office
17 50 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
18 46 (1.85%) Investment Banking
19 39 (1.57%) Electronics
19 39 (1.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 365 (14.66%) Analyst
2 251 (10.08%) Senior
3 236 (9.48%) Developer
4 203 (8.16%) Lead
5 180 (7.23%) Architect
6 162 (6.51%) Business Analyst
6 162 (6.51%) Project Manager
7 101 (4.06%) Consultant
8 86 (3.46%) Software Engineer
9 68 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
10 65 (2.61%) IT Support
11 61 (2.45%) Technical Support
12 56 (2.25%) Security Engineer
13 54 (2.17%) Support Analyst
14 44 (1.77%) Designer
15 43 (1.73%) Senior Software Engineer
16 40 (1.61%) IT Analyst
17 39 (1.57%) Senior Developer
18 38 (1.53%) IT Manager
19 37 (1.49%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (4.90%) REST
2 86 (3.46%) RESTful
3 81 (3.25%) .NET
4 80 (3.21%) HTML
5 60 (2.41%) CSS
6 52 (2.09%) XML
7 51 (2.05%) React
8 49 (1.97%) Middleware
9 46 (1.85%) Elastic Stack
10 45 (1.81%) JSON
11 43 (1.73%) OAuth
12 41 (1.65%) SOAP
13 39 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
14 38 (1.53%) Kafka
15 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
15 31 (1.25%) TensorFlow
16 30 (1.21%) PyTorch
17 29 (1.17%) Node.js
18 27 (1.08%) Spring
19 26 (1.04%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.36%) Management Information System
2 127 (5.10%) Product Ownership
3 114 (4.58%) Cloud Native
4 82 (3.29%) Onboarding
5 78 (3.13%) Algorithms
6 68 (2.73%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.49%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
8 60 (2.41%) Virtual Team
9 58 (2.33%) Analytical Mindset
10 56 (2.25%) PMI
11 53 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
12 44 (1.77%) Derivative
13 42 (1.69%) Public Cloud
13 42 (1.69%) Security Posture
14 41 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
14 41 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.65%) Life Science
15 34 (1.37%) Mobile App
15 34 (1.37%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 304 (12.21%) Windows
2 219 (8.80%) Linux
3 93 (3.74%) Unix
4 71 (2.85%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.21%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.29%) Android
7 27 (1.08%) Mac OS
8 24 (0.96%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
10 17 (0.68%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 14 (0.56%) VMS
13 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2012
15 8 (0.32%) Amazon Linux
16 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.16%) Windows 7
18 3 (0.12%) CentOS
18 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
19 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 923 (37.08%) Computer Science
2 799 (32.10%) Agile
3 729 (29.29%) Problem-Solving
4 417 (16.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 380 (15.27%) DevOps
6 370 (14.87%) Project Management
7 305 (12.25%) Change Management
8 294 (11.81%) AI
9 286 (11.49%) CI/CD
10 285 (11.45%) Continuous Improvement
11 273 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 265 (10.65%) Cybersecurity
13 259 (10.41%) Analytics
14 255 (10.25%) ITIL
15 250 (10.04%) Migration
16 234 (9.40%) Decision-Making
17 233 (9.36%) Software Engineering
18 229 (9.20%) Risk Management
19 228 (9.16%) Project Delivery
20 205 (8.24%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 440 (17.68%) Python
2 385 (15.47%) SQL
3 175 (7.03%) Java
4 131 (5.26%) PowerShell
5 124 (4.98%) JavaScript
6 95 (3.82%) C#
7 87 (3.50%) C++
8 58 (2.33%) TypeScript
9 53 (2.13%) Go
10 50 (2.01%) Bash
11 28 (1.12%) R
12 26 (1.04%) Perl
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.88%) T-SQL
15 21 (0.84%) C
15 21 (0.84%) MATLAB
16 18 (0.72%) Kotlin
17 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
17 16 (0.64%) SystemVerilog
18 15 (0.60%) Rust
Qualifications
1 624 (25.07%) Computer Science Degree
2 420 (16.87%) Security Cleared
3 385 (15.47%) Master's Degree
4 323 (12.98%) SC Cleared
5 159 (6.39%) PMI Certification
6 135 (5.42%) PMP
7 124 (4.98%) CISSP
8 94 (3.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.21%) CISM
10 73 (2.93%) Azure Certification
11 72 (2.89%) PhD
12 71 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
13 68 (2.73%) TOGAF Certification
14 59 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
15 56 (2.25%) DV Cleared
16 46 (1.85%) AWS Certification
17 39 (1.57%) CCNP
18 38 (1.53%) HND
18 38 (1.53%) MBA
19 37 (1.49%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (6.59%) QA
2 134 (5.38%) GDPR
3 101 (4.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 93 (3.74%) PMO
5 83 (3.33%) Data Quality
6 72 (2.89%) NIST
7 43 (1.73%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.69%) PCI DSS
9 36 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 36 (1.45%) SLA
10 29 (1.17%) GRC
11 19 (0.76%) HIPAA
12 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
12 15 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
12 15 (0.60%) WCAG
13 14 (0.56%) NCSC
14 13 (0.52%) Basel III
15 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
15 12 (0.48%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) P3O
System Software
1 198 (7.96%) Docker
2 157 (6.31%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.84%) Firmware
5 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) DFS Replication
7 8 (0.32%) Dovecot
7 8 (0.32%) Postfix
7 8 (0.32%) Squid
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.20%) XenApp
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 180 (7.23%) Kubernetes
2 124 (4.98%) Terraform
3 78 (3.13%) Ansible
4 62 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
5 61 (2.45%) Grafana
6 51 (2.05%) Prometheus
6 51 (2.05%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
8 26 (1.04%) Puppet
9 15 (0.60%) Kibana
9 15 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nmap
12 10 (0.40%) Nessus
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 9 (0.36%) QRadar
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Proxmox
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
Vendors
1 533 (21.41%) Microsoft
2 177 (7.11%) Oracle
3 162 (6.51%) SAP
4 116 (4.66%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.46%) Splunk
6 105 (4.22%) Google
7 75 (3.01%) Cisco
8 57 (2.29%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.17%) Atlassian
10 52 (2.09%) Remedy
11 50 (2.01%) VMware
12 45 (1.81%) Databricks
13 37 (1.49%) Citrix
14 29 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.12%) IBM
16 23 (0.92%) Informatica
16 23 (0.92%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.88%) Adobe
18 21 (0.84%) BiZZdesign
19 20 (0.80%) CheckPoint