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 31 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 28 24 20
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,486 2,625 3,486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.71% 7.86% 8.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.85% 26.27% 27.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,459 1,466 2,107
10th Percentile £288 £225 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year - -2.72% -4.81%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 160 225
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.11 £16.27
25th Percentile £22.50 £27.00 £26.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £41.46 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -15.57% -10.23% +14.02%
75th Percentile £60.61 £70.25 £68.63
90th Percentile £89.63 £85.00 £82.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.50 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -13.75% -20.00% +12.61%

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 12,527 9,992 12,905
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.82% 29.93% 30.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,191 6,111 8,135
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £417 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £501 £540
% change year-on-year -0.22% -7.20% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 985 483 737
10th Percentile £16.25 £18.50 £16.48
25th Percentile £19.23 £23.80 £26.24
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -23.81% +16.67%
75th Percentile £55.00 £66.50 £67.56
90th Percentile £75.95 £75.20 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £51.89
% change year-on-year -40.82% -18.10% +16.87%

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025.

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 31 December 2025. 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% 7,532
UK excluding London -3 1,245 £475 - 6,692
London -4 1,013 £525 -4.55% 1,529
Work from Home +1 714 £500 - 3,441
North of England -7 311 £442 -11.55% 1,511
South East -3 283 £475 -5.00% 1,905
Midlands -13 218 £492 +15.49% 1,131
North West 0 167 £402 -19.60% 785
South West +6 164 £649 +21.76% 725
West Midlands -15 161 £500 - 557
Yorkshire -9 133 £475 - 600
East of England -11 123 £500 +14.29% 957
Scotland -1 108 £469 +9.01% 322
East Midlands -5 57 £450 +26.40% 518
Wales 0 42 £226 -9.60% 174
Northern Ireland -10 25 £425 -10.53% 98
North East -10 12 £364 -27.20% 131

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
1 190 (7.64%) Confluence
2 119 (4.79%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 36 (1.45%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (0.68%) nginx
6 14 (0.56%) IIS
6 14 (0.56%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.52%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
11 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.16%) Luigi
11 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 297 (11.95%) Microsoft Office
2 244 (9.81%) Microsoft Excel
3 188 (7.56%) Microsoft Project
4 129 (5.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (3.02%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.64%) Simulink
8 12 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
8 12 (0.48%) Trello
9 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
10 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 9 (0.36%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
15 2 (0.080%) InDesign
15 2 (0.080%) Navisworks
15 2 (0.080%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 62 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.72%) Primavera
4 17 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.60%) SAP ERP
6 13 (0.52%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.28%) Workday HCM
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
12 6 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
13 5 (0.20%) Veritas eDiscovery
Cloud Services
1 496 (19.95%) Azure
2 321 (12.91%) AWS
3 205 (8.25%) Microsoft 365
4 186 (7.48%) Power Platform
5 154 (6.19%) GCP
6 101 (4.06%) GitHub
7 93 (3.74%) SaaS
8 83 (3.34%) Entra ID
9 80 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
10 72 (2.90%) Serverless
11 54 (2.17%) Dynamics 365
12 44 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.41%) Cloud Computing
14 33 (1.33%) Amazon S3
14 33 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.29%) PowerApps
15 32 (1.29%) Snowflake
16 31 (1.25%) Amazon ECS
17 30 (1.21%) OCI
18 27 (1.09%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 118 (4.75%) Firewall
2 73 (2.94%) DNS
3 53 (2.13%) VPN
4 45 (1.81%) Network Security
5 44 (1.77%) LAN
6 42 (1.69%) TCP/IP
7 39 (1.57%) HTTP
7 39 (1.57%) WAN
8 31 (1.25%) DHCP
8 31 (1.25%) Skype
9 28 (1.13%) Internet
9 28 (1.13%) Wireless
10 26 (1.05%) SSH
11 21 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.80%) Unified Communications
12 20 (0.80%) VoIP
13 19 (0.76%) BGP
13 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
14 16 (0.64%) OSPF
15 15 (0.60%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (5.79%) Power BI
2 96 (3.86%) PostgreSQL
3 92 (3.70%) SQL Server
4 66 (2.65%) NoSQL
5 59 (2.37%) Relational Database
6 58 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
7 53 (2.13%) Tableau
8 36 (1.45%) MySQL
9 31 (1.25%) Big Data
10 29 (1.17%) Data Lake
11 25 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
11 25 (1.01%) Metadata
12 20 (0.80%) MongoDB
12 20 (0.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.64%) Oracle Database
14 14 (0.56%) Elasticsearch
15 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
16 12 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.48%) GIS
16 12 (0.48%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 297 (11.95%) JIRA
2 127 (5.11%) Git
3 101 (4.06%) Jenkins
4 75 (3.02%) GitLab
5 29 (1.17%) Liquibase
6 25 (1.01%) Selenium
7 24 (0.97%) Visual Studio
8 22 (0.88%) Postman
9 13 (0.52%) Cypress.io
10 12 (0.48%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.44%) JUnit
11 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
12 10 (0.40%) Artifactory
12 10 (0.40%) Burp Suite
13 8 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.32%) Metasploit
14 7 (0.28%) JMeter
14 7 (0.28%) SonarQube
15 6 (0.24%) Appium
General
1 1,287 (51.77%) Social Skills
2 790 (31.78%) Finance
3 587 (23.61%) Analytical Skills
4 285 (11.46%) Banking
5 193 (7.76%) Public Sector
6 119 (4.79%) Manufacturing
7 104 (4.18%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.02%) Organisational Skills
9 90 (3.62%) Marketing
10 84 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
10 84 (3.38%) Legal
11 69 (2.78%) Financial Institution
12 68 (2.74%) Military
13 66 (2.65%) Documentation Skills
14 61 (2.45%) Telecoms
15 57 (2.29%) Investment Banking
15 57 (2.29%) Pharmaceutical
16 55 (2.21%) Front Office
17 47 (1.89%) Aerospace
18 38 (1.53%) Law
Job Titles
1 368 (14.80%) Analyst
2 247 (9.94%) Senior
3 231 (9.29%) Developer
4 188 (7.56%) Architect
5 186 (7.48%) Lead
6 169 (6.80%) Project Manager
7 164 (6.60%) Business Analyst
8 101 (4.06%) Consultant
9 84 (3.38%) Software Engineer
10 62 (2.49%) IT Support
11 59 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
12 56 (2.25%) Support Analyst
13 54 (2.17%) Technical Support
14 49 (1.97%) Security Engineer
15 42 (1.69%) Data Scientist
15 42 (1.69%) Senior Developer
15 42 (1.69%) Senior Software Engineer
16 41 (1.65%) Support Engineer
17 40 (1.61%) IT Manager
18 39 (1.57%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (5.59%) REST
2 92 (3.70%) RESTful
3 77 (3.10%) .NET
4 75 (3.02%) HTML
5 59 (2.37%) XML
6 58 (2.33%) CSS
7 55 (2.21%) Middleware
8 52 (2.09%) JSON
9 50 (2.01%) Elastic Stack
10 47 (1.89%) Kafka
10 47 (1.89%) React
10 47 (1.89%) SOAP
11 41 (1.65%) OAuth
12 36 (1.45%) TensorFlow
13 33 (1.33%) AngularJS
14 32 (1.29%) PyTorch
15 30 (1.21%) Node.js
15 30 (1.21%) Spring
15 30 (1.21%) Web Services
16 29 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.25%) Management Information System
2 121 (4.87%) Product Ownership
3 109 (4.38%) Cloud Native
4 82 (3.30%) Algorithms
5 73 (2.94%) Onboarding
6 67 (2.70%) Distributed Systems
7 65 (2.61%) Data Protection Act
8 60 (2.41%) Data Centre
9 57 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
10 54 (2.17%) Virtual Team
11 53 (2.13%) Self-Motivation
12 50 (2.01%) Public Cloud
13 47 (1.89%) PMI
14 46 (1.85%) Derivative
15 45 (1.81%) Life Science
16 42 (1.69%) Security Posture
17 41 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
18 39 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
19 37 (1.49%) Mobile App
20 35 (1.41%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 300 (12.07%) Windows
2 223 (8.97%) Linux
3 90 (3.62%) Unix
4 69 (2.78%) Windows Server
5 45 (1.81%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.25%) Android
7 30 (1.21%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.88%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.68%) VMS
10 17 (0.68%) Windows Server 2016
11 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
12 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
15 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
15 2 (0.080%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 942 (37.89%) Computer Science
2 798 (32.10%) Agile
3 739 (29.73%) Problem-Solving
4 384 (15.45%) Stakeholder Management
5 376 (15.12%) DevOps
5 376 (15.12%) Project Management
6 296 (11.91%) Change Management
7 287 (11.54%) CI/CD
8 272 (10.94%) Continuous Improvement
9 269 (10.82%) ITIL
10 259 (10.42%) AI
11 258 (10.38%) Cybersecurity
12 255 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 252 (10.14%) Analytics
14 244 (9.81%) Migration
15 241 (9.69%) Decision-Making
16 234 (9.41%) Software Engineering
17 223 (8.97%) Project Delivery
18 210 (8.45%) Risk Management
19 197 (7.92%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 460 (18.50%) Python
2 364 (14.64%) SQL
3 179 (7.20%) Java
4 137 (5.51%) PowerShell
5 121 (4.87%) JavaScript
6 91 (3.66%) C#
7 80 (3.22%) C++
8 59 (2.37%) TypeScript
9 58 (2.33%) Go
10 55 (2.21%) Bash
11 33 (1.33%) R
12 26 (1.05%) Perl
13 21 (0.84%) C
13 21 (0.84%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.84%) T-SQL
14 20 (0.80%) MATLAB
15 17 (0.68%) Kotlin
16 16 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
16 16 (0.64%) Ruby
17 15 (0.60%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 645 (25.95%) Computer Science Degree
2 407 (16.37%) Security Cleared
3 377 (15.16%) Master's Degree
4 317 (12.75%) SC Cleared
5 157 (6.32%) PMI Certification
6 140 (5.63%) PMP
7 120 (4.83%) CISSP
8 99 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.18%) Azure Certification
10 72 (2.90%) CISM
10 72 (2.90%) PhD
11 64 (2.57%) AWS Certification
12 61 (2.45%) Cisco Certification
13 58 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.33%) TOGAF Certification
14 54 (2.17%) DV Cleared
15 50 (2.01%) HND
16 38 (1.53%) CCNP
17 37 (1.49%) HNC
18 35 (1.41%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (6.52%) QA
2 134 (5.39%) GDPR
3 100 (4.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 93 (3.74%) Data Quality
5 81 (3.26%) PMO
6 71 (2.86%) NIST
7 44 (1.77%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.45%) PCI DSS
9 35 (1.41%) SLA
10 34 (1.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.01%) GRC
12 18 (0.72%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.64%) NCSC
14 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
14 15 (0.60%) WCAG
15 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
15 13 (0.52%) P3O
16 12 (0.48%) Basel III
17 11 (0.44%) COBIT
System Software
1 187 (7.52%) Docker
2 148 (5.95%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Firmware
5 15 (0.60%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
8 9 (0.36%) XenApp
9 6 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (0.24%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
12 3 (0.12%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 168 (6.76%) Kubernetes
2 140 (5.63%) Terraform
3 90 (3.62%) Ansible
4 68 (2.74%) Grafana
5 57 (2.29%) Prometheus
6 49 (1.97%) Microsoft Intune
7 48 (1.93%) SCCM
8 30 (1.21%) OPNET
9 24 (0.97%) Puppet
10 14 (0.56%) SCOM
11 13 (0.52%) Kibana
12 12 (0.48%) Nessus
13 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
14 10 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.40%) Nmap
14 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
14 10 (0.40%) QRadar
15 9 (0.36%) WSUS
16 7 (0.28%) Argo
16 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 529 (21.28%) Microsoft
2 167 (6.72%) SAP
3 158 (6.36%) Oracle
4 124 (4.99%) ServiceNow
5 113 (4.55%) Splunk
6 101 (4.06%) Google
7 74 (2.98%) Cisco
8 68 (2.74%) Salesforce
9 53 (2.13%) Atlassian
10 50 (2.01%) Remedy
10 50 (2.01%) VMware
11 47 (1.89%) Databricks
12 41 (1.65%) Citrix
13 36 (1.45%) IBM
14 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
15 23 (0.93%) Adobe
16 22 (0.88%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.84%) MuleSoft
18 20 (0.80%) Workday
19 18 (0.72%) CheckPoint