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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,503 2,417 3,759
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.39% 7.76% 8.45%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.97% 26.16% 27.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,463 1,323 2,118
10th Percentile £275 £226 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -7.41%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 143 346
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.79 £29.50 £21.42
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% - -1.23%
75th Percentile £57.31 £65.00 £59.98
90th Percentile £81.00 £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 13,197 9,238 13,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.71% 29.66% 30.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,702 5,596 8,439
10th Percentile £318 £300 £294
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £636 £650
90th Percentile £721 £725 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 975 453 951
10th Percentile £15.75 £19.86 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.04 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -35.58% -15.46% +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.58 £65.62 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.44 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -40.82% -7.97% +2.62%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 2,161 £500 -4.76% 2,853
UK excluding London -4 1,261 £475 - 2,187
London -6 1,001 £525 -4.55% 1,041
Work from Home -2 719 £500 - 1,256
North of England -7 334 £425 -11.46% 424
South East -3 280 £475 -5.00% 778
Midlands -15 212 £520 +22.35% 349
North West +1 175 £393 -17.26% 244
South West +6 174 £650 +21.95% 249
West Midlands -16 147 £510 +2.00% 219
Yorkshire -11 145 £508 +1.50% 123
Scotland +2 116 £500 +17.65% 105
East of England -14 111 £528 +14.05% 281
East Midlands -3 65 £523 +46.77% 130
Wales -4 46 £232 -20.00% 59
Northern Ireland -13 17 £425 -8.11% 17
North East -10 15 £364 -27.20% 59

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
1 213 (8.51%) Confluence
2 122 (4.87%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.76%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.00%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) Apache
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
9 8 (0.32%) nginx
10 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.24%) IIS
11 6 (0.24%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.12%) Luigi
14 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 297 (11.87%) Microsoft Office
2 250 (9.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 194 (7.75%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (5.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 79 (3.16%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.68%) Simulink
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.44%) Trello
10 9 (0.36%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 7 (0.28%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 6 (0.24%) FrameMaker
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 63 (2.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.92%) Primavera
4 20 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP EWM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.48%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle E-Business Tax
Cloud Services
1 524 (20.93%) Azure
2 294 (11.75%) AWS
3 224 (8.95%) Microsoft 365
4 193 (7.71%) Power Platform
5 151 (6.03%) GCP
6 111 (4.43%) SaaS
7 93 (3.72%) Azure DevOps
8 89 (3.56%) Entra ID
8 89 (3.56%) GitHub
9 59 (2.36%) Serverless
10 57 (2.28%) Dynamics 365
11 46 (1.84%) Cloud Computing
12 43 (1.72%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.36%) OCI
13 34 (1.36%) Snowflake
14 33 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.28%) IaaS
15 32 (1.28%) PaaS
15 32 (1.28%) PowerApps
16 26 (1.04%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.55%) Firewall
2 74 (2.96%) DNS
3 56 (2.24%) WAN
4 55 (2.20%) LAN
5 48 (1.92%) Network Security
6 45 (1.80%) TCP/IP
7 44 (1.76%) VPN
8 35 (1.40%) HTTP
8 35 (1.40%) Skype
9 30 (1.20%) DHCP
10 28 (1.12%) Internet
11 26 (1.04%) Wireless
12 25 (1.00%) BGP
13 24 (0.96%) Unified Communications
13 24 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
14 22 (0.88%) OSPF
15 19 (0.76%) VLAN
16 17 (0.68%) Ethernet
16 17 (0.68%) SSH
17 14 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (6.03%) Power BI
2 96 (3.84%) SQL Server
3 94 (3.76%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.44%) NoSQL
5 60 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
6 52 (2.08%) Relational Database
7 51 (2.04%) Tableau
8 45 (1.80%) MySQL
9 44 (1.76%) Big Data
10 35 (1.40%) Metadata
11 33 (1.32%) Data Lake
12 21 (0.84%) Hadoop
13 20 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
14 18 (0.72%) MongoDB
15 15 (0.60%) Amazon RDS
16 14 (0.56%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
17 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.44%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 10 (0.40%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 298 (11.91%) JIRA
2 120 (4.79%) Git
3 80 (3.20%) Jenkins
4 59 (2.36%) GitLab
5 30 (1.20%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.88%) Liquibase
6 22 (0.88%) Selenium
7 19 (0.76%) Postman
8 12 (0.48%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.40%) Metasploit
11 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
11 9 (0.36%) MLflow
12 8 (0.32%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.32%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.28%) Vagrant
14 6 (0.24%) Artifactory
14 6 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,279 (51.10%) Social Skills
2 809 (32.32%) Finance
3 591 (23.61%) Analytical Skills
4 272 (10.87%) Banking
5 207 (8.27%) Public Sector
6 113 (4.51%) Presentation Skills
7 111 (4.43%) Manufacturing
8 102 (4.08%) Organisational Skills
9 97 (3.88%) Marketing
10 81 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
11 78 (3.12%) Documentation Skills
12 74 (2.96%) Legal
13 65 (2.60%) Military
14 63 (2.52%) Financial Institution
15 61 (2.44%) Telecoms
16 52 (2.08%) Front Office
17 48 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
18 45 (1.80%) Investment Banking
19 40 (1.60%) Electronics
19 40 (1.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 374 (14.94%) Analyst
2 251 (10.03%) Senior
3 227 (9.07%) Developer
4 204 (8.15%) Lead
5 188 (7.51%) Architect
6 174 (6.95%) Project Manager
7 168 (6.71%) Business Analyst
8 103 (4.12%) Consultant
9 84 (3.36%) Software Engineer
10 70 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
11 65 (2.60%) IT Support
12 63 (2.52%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.20%) Security Engineer
14 52 (2.08%) Support Analyst
15 45 (1.80%) Designer
16 42 (1.68%) Senior Software Engineer
17 40 (1.60%) Senior Analyst
18 38 (1.52%) Data Scientist
19 37 (1.48%) IT Analyst
19 37 (1.48%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (4.79%) REST
2 82 (3.28%) .NET
3 78 (3.12%) RESTful
4 74 (2.96%) HTML
5 60 (2.40%) CSS
6 55 (2.20%) React
7 50 (2.00%) Middleware
8 49 (1.96%) Elastic Stack
9 45 (1.80%) XML
10 42 (1.68%) Kafka
11 41 (1.64%) JSON
12 40 (1.60%) SOAP
13 39 (1.56%) OAuth
13 39 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
14 33 (1.32%) TensorFlow
15 32 (1.28%) AngularJS
15 32 (1.28%) PyTorch
16 29 (1.16%) Node.js
17 27 (1.08%) Spring
18 26 (1.04%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.31%) Management Information System
2 123 (4.91%) Product Ownership
3 109 (4.35%) Cloud Native
4 90 (3.60%) Onboarding
5 80 (3.20%) Algorithms
6 70 (2.80%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.48%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
8 61 (2.44%) Virtual Team
9 56 (2.24%) Self-Motivation
10 55 (2.20%) PMI
11 53 (2.12%) Analytical Mindset
12 44 (1.76%) Derivative
12 44 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
13 42 (1.68%) Security Posture
14 41 (1.64%) Life Science
14 41 (1.64%) Public Cloud
15 40 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
16 34 (1.36%) Data Structures
17 31 (1.24%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 304 (12.15%) Windows
2 207 (8.27%) Linux
3 87 (3.48%) Unix
4 70 (2.80%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.28%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.00%) Android
7 24 (0.96%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
9 17 (0.68%) Apple iOS
10 16 (0.64%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 14 (0.56%) VMS
13 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 7 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
15 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.16%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
18 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 922 (36.84%) Computer Science
2 786 (31.40%) Agile
3 744 (29.72%) Problem-Solving
4 420 (16.78%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (14.90%) DevOps
6 366 (14.62%) Project Management
7 310 (12.39%) AI
8 298 (11.91%) Change Management
9 284 (11.35%) CI/CD
10 283 (11.31%) Continuous Improvement
11 277 (11.07%) Analytics
12 274 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 265 (10.59%) Cybersecurity
14 257 (10.27%) Migration
15 242 (9.67%) Decision-Making
15 242 (9.67%) ITIL
16 231 (9.23%) Project Delivery
16 231 (9.23%) Software Engineering
17 229 (9.15%) Risk Management
18 208 (8.31%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 444 (17.74%) Python
2 393 (15.70%) SQL
3 166 (6.63%) Java
4 127 (5.07%) PowerShell
5 121 (4.83%) JavaScript
6 94 (3.76%) C#
7 84 (3.36%) C++
8 57 (2.28%) TypeScript
9 52 (2.08%) Go
10 47 (1.88%) Bash
11 31 (1.24%) R
12 26 (1.04%) Perl
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 21 (0.84%) C
14 21 (0.84%) T-SQL
15 19 (0.76%) MATLAB
16 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.64%) SystemVerilog
17 15 (0.60%) Rust
18 12 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 617 (24.65%) Computer Science Degree
2 436 (17.42%) Security Cleared
3 406 (16.22%) Master's Degree
4 340 (13.58%) SC Cleared
5 155 (6.19%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.23%) PMP
7 118 (4.71%) CISSP
8 91 (3.64%) Microsoft Certification
9 77 (3.08%) CISM
10 76 (3.04%) PhD
11 75 (3.00%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.00%) BPSS Clearance
12 68 (2.72%) TOGAF Certification
13 57 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
14 56 (2.24%) DV Cleared
15 48 (1.92%) AWS Certification
16 40 (1.60%) CCNP
17 39 (1.56%) MBA
18 38 (1.52%) CBAP
19 33 (1.32%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 170 (6.79%) QA
2 135 (5.39%) GDPR
3 95 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 93 (3.72%) Data Quality
5 92 (3.68%) PMO
6 67 (2.68%) NIST
7 43 (1.72%) Accessibility
7 43 (1.72%) PCI DSS
8 35 (1.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 32 (1.28%) SLA
10 30 (1.20%) GRC
11 19 (0.76%) HIPAA
12 16 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.60%) WCAG
14 14 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.56%) NCSC
15 13 (0.52%) Basel III
16 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
16 12 (0.48%) IFRS
17 11 (0.44%) DO-254
System Software
1 195 (7.79%) Docker
2 159 (6.35%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.84%) Firmware
5 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.28%) DFS Replication
7 7 (0.28%) Dovecot
7 7 (0.28%) Postfix
7 7 (0.28%) Squid
7 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
8 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 181 (7.23%) Kubernetes
2 124 (4.95%) Terraform
3 77 (3.08%) Ansible
4 67 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 62 (2.48%) Grafana
6 52 (2.08%) Prometheus
6 52 (2.08%) SCCM
7 30 (1.20%) OPNET
8 24 (0.96%) Puppet
9 16 (0.64%) Kibana
9 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.52%) SCOM
12 12 (0.48%) Nmap
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) Proxmox
15 7 (0.28%) QRadar
Vendors
1 532 (21.25%) Microsoft
2 178 (7.11%) Oracle
3 173 (6.91%) SAP
4 115 (4.59%) ServiceNow
5 108 (4.31%) Splunk
6 106 (4.23%) Google
7 76 (3.04%) Cisco
8 57 (2.28%) Salesforce
9 56 (2.24%) Atlassian
10 54 (2.16%) Remedy
11 52 (2.08%) VMware
12 47 (1.88%) Databricks
13 37 (1.48%) Citrix
14 30 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.12%) Informatica
16 27 (1.08%) IBM
17 23 (0.92%) MuleSoft
18 22 (0.88%) Adobe
19 20 (0.80%) BiZZdesign
19 20 (0.80%) CheckPoint