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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,486 2,442 3,353
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.72% 7.51% 7.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.04% 24.40% 26.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,335 1,403 1,906
10th Percentile £209 £250 £217
25th Percentile £363 £373 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +0.67% -5.26% -2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 275 203 358
10th Percentile £16.70 £18.24 £17.57
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.29 £25.35
Median hourly rate £43.00 £45.02 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.48% +5.92% -15.00%
75th Percentile £82.43 £65.00 £62.54
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.99 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £40.00 £52.19
% change year-on-year +7.50% -23.36% +5.91%

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 16,532 10,007 12,619
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.39% 30.77% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,048 6,209 7,900
10th Percentile £350 £280 £310
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £706 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,192 730 1,045
10th Percentile £17.74 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £20.75
Median hourly rate £50.74 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +101.76% -40.82% -24.47%
75th Percentile £73.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.49 £75.00 £75.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.19%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,235 £500 - 2,216
UK excluding London -9 1,378 £453 +0.67% 1,487
London -20 938 £525 -4.55% 984
Work from Home -16 670 £500 - 750
South East 0 459 £500 +4.71% 521
North of England -12 328 £450 +0.67% 308
Midlands -25 196 £498 +18.45% 218
North West -14 186 £447 -3.35% 148
East of England -4 149 £450 - 193
West Midlands -34 147 £481 +6.89% 120
Yorkshire -12 125 £475 +11.76% 112
South West -29 118 £415 -12.63% 183
Scotland -31 89 £463 +3.12% 48
East Midlands -15 47 £515 +43.85% 98
Wales -25 25 £450 +47.31% 32
North East -39 17 £450 +130.77% 52
Northern Ireland -11 16 £254 -40.24% 33

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
1 142 (5.71%) SharePoint
2 135 (5.43%) Confluence
3 61 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (1.85%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.32%) Camunda
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.080%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 286 (11.50%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.45%) Microsoft Excel
3 145 (5.83%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.61%) 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
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.36%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) Trello
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) CATIA
14 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.64%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) HFM
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
10 3 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 573 (23.05%) Azure
2 325 (13.07%) AWS
3 217 (8.73%) Power Platform
4 206 (8.29%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (5.87%) Entra ID
6 127 (5.11%) GCP
7 104 (4.18%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.30%) SaaS
9 66 (2.65%) GitHub
10 46 (1.85%) Figma
11 43 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
12 41 (1.65%) Serverless
12 41 (1.65%) Snowflake
13 36 (1.45%) PowerApps
14 34 (1.37%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.33%) OneDrive
16 32 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
18 27 (1.09%) IaaS
18 27 (1.09%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.34%) Firewall
2 78 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 75 (3.02%) DNS
4 64 (2.57%) Network Security
5 54 (2.17%) VPN
6 51 (2.05%) WAN
7 47 (1.89%) LAN
8 34 (1.37%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) BGP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 23 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
11 21 (0.84%) OSPF
12 20 (0.80%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.72%) SSL
13 18 (0.72%) VLAN
14 16 (0.64%) Internet
15 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.56%) SAN
16 13 (0.52%) HTTP
16 13 (0.52%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 182 (7.32%) Power BI
2 115 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 66 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.13%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.09%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.89%) Big Data
7 46 (1.85%) Metadata
8 38 (1.53%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 30 (1.21%) MongoDB
11 29 (1.17%) MySQL
12 25 (1.01%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.76%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
18 14 (0.56%) GIS
19 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 222 (8.93%) JIRA
2 132 (5.31%) Git
3 55 (2.21%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.65%) GitLab
5 33 (1.33%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.84%) MLflow
7 18 (0.72%) Selenium
8 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.60%) Postman
10 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 14 (0.56%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.44%) Gradle
12 11 (0.44%) Subversion
13 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.36%) Maven
15 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,098 (44.17%) Social Skills
2 740 (29.77%) Finance
3 538 (21.64%) Analytical Skills
4 215 (8.65%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.72%) Banking
6 155 (6.23%) Organisational Skills
7 107 (4.30%) Marketing
7 107 (4.30%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (3.94%) Legal
9 92 (3.70%) Manufacturing
10 91 (3.66%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
12 82 (3.30%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (2.94%) Telecoms
14 63 (2.53%) Retail
15 59 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 53 (2.13%) Law
17 44 (1.77%) Pharmaceutical
18 36 (1.45%) Front Office
19 32 (1.29%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 352 (14.16%) Analyst
2 280 (11.26%) Senior
3 198 (7.96%) Architect
4 188 (7.56%) Lead
5 180 (7.24%) Developer
6 162 (6.52%) Project Manager
7 153 (6.15%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.90%) Senior Manager
9 71 (2.86%) Consultant
10 68 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
11 67 (2.70%) Designer
12 58 (2.33%) IT Manager
13 54 (2.17%) IT Support
13 54 (2.17%) Software Engineer
14 52 (2.09%) Support Engineer
14 52 (2.09%) Technical Support
15 51 (2.05%) Senior Analyst
16 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
17 49 (1.97%) Administrator
18 48 (1.93%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.22%) REST
2 100 (4.02%) .NET
3 70 (2.82%) React
4 50 (2.01%) Kafka
5 47 (1.89%) RESTful
6 41 (1.65%) HTML
6 41 (1.65%) OAuth
7 38 (1.53%) Middleware
8 36 (1.45%) .NET Framework
9 34 (1.37%) Spring
10 33 (1.33%) Web Services
11 32 (1.29%) CSS
11 32 (1.29%) Spring Boot
12 31 (1.25%) AngularJS
12 31 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
13 30 (1.21%) LDAP
13 30 (1.21%) SAML
13 30 (1.21%) XML
14 28 (1.13%) JSON
14 28 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.17%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.07%) Product Ownership
3 149 (5.99%) Onboarding
4 116 (4.67%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.10%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.65%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.57%) Data Structures
8 63 (2.53%) Algorithms
9 62 (2.49%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.09%) Operational Technology
11 50 (2.01%) Security Posture
12 45 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
14 41 (1.65%) Life Science
15 40 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
16 38 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
17 36 (1.45%) PMI
18 34 (1.37%) Robotics
19 32 (1.29%) AI Agents
20 31 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 306 (12.31%) Windows
2 172 (6.92%) Linux
3 76 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.61%) Unix
5 53 (2.13%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 30 (1.21%) Mac OS
9 28 (1.13%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.32%) Windows 7
13 7 (0.28%) AIX
13 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.24%) Solaris
14 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 3 (0.12%) MVS
16 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
16 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 837 (33.67%) Computer Science
2 700 (28.16%) Agile
3 666 (26.79%) Problem-Solving
4 428 (17.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 405 (16.29%) Continuous Improvement
6 391 (15.73%) AI
7 335 (13.48%) DevOps
8 310 (12.47%) Project Management
9 304 (12.23%) Analytics
10 296 (11.91%) CI/CD
11 277 (11.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 269 (10.82%) Decision-Making
13 263 (10.58%) ITIL
14 244 (9.81%) Cybersecurity
15 228 (9.17%) Change Management
16 221 (8.89%) Roadmaps
17 219 (8.81%) Software Engineering
18 210 (8.45%) Migration
19 202 (8.13%) Project Delivery
19 202 (8.13%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 421 (16.93%) Python
2 364 (14.64%) SQL
3 175 (7.04%) Java
4 139 (5.59%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.22%) C#
6 89 (3.58%) JavaScript
7 49 (1.97%) C++
8 41 (1.65%) Bash
9 39 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.17%) R
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.01%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 20 (0.80%) C
15 16 (0.64%) Bicep
16 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Go
17 11 (0.44%) Perl
18 10 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 492 (19.79%) Computer Science Degree
2 437 (17.58%) Security Cleared
3 288 (11.58%) SC Cleared
4 260 (10.46%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 124 (4.99%) PMP
7 122 (4.91%) CISSP
8 103 (4.14%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.30%) Cisco Certification
10 75 (3.02%) Azure Certification
11 67 (2.70%) DV Cleared
12 66 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
13 62 (2.49%) CISM
14 47 (1.89%) PhD
15 44 (1.77%) AWS Certification
16 41 (1.65%) CCNA
17 40 (1.61%) CCNP
18 36 (1.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 35 (1.41%) CISA
20 34 (1.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (5.27%) Data Quality
2 128 (5.15%) QA
3 117 (4.71%) NIST
4 112 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 103 (4.14%) PMO
6 87 (3.50%) GDPR
7 51 (2.05%) Accessibility
8 50 (2.01%) SLA
9 30 (1.21%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.13%) GRC
10 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.88%) NCSC
12 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.52%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.40%) COBIT
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
16 10 (0.40%) SOC 2
System Software
1 193 (7.76%) Active Directory
2 128 (5.15%) Docker
3 47 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.88%) Firmware
6 14 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 139 (5.59%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.54%) Terraform
3 73 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
4 57 (2.29%) Ansible
5 34 (1.37%) SCCM
6 33 (1.33%) Grafana
7 30 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.52%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.20%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 611 (24.58%) Microsoft
2 167 (6.72%) Oracle
3 148 (5.95%) SAP
4 132 (5.31%) ServiceNow
5 98 (3.94%) Google
6 70 (2.82%) Cisco
7 66 (2.65%) Databricks
8 60 (2.41%) VMware
9 56 (2.25%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.21%) Adobe
11 50 (2.01%) IBM
12 36 (1.45%) Citrix
13 35 (1.41%) Splunk
14 32 (1.29%) CyberArk
14 32 (1.29%) Palo Alto
15 26 (1.05%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.88%) CheckPoint
17 21 (0.84%) Ariba
17 21 (0.84%) Siemens
18 20 (0.80%) HP