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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,472 2,443 3,114
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 7.44% 7.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.90% 24.03% 26.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,323 1,384 1,805
10th Percentile £206 £250 £233
25th Percentile £363 £371 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +3.33% -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 278 208 286
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.71 £18.13
25th Percentile £27.45 £25.75 £25.35
Median hourly rate £44.75 £43.00 £51.10
Median % change year-on-year +4.07% -15.84% -2.68%
75th Percentile £82.47 £64.64 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.11 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £40.46 £57.35
% change year-on-year +11.22% -29.45% +14.70%

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 16,596 10,167 11,894
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.98% 29.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,110 6,305 7,540
10th Percentile £350 £281 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £618 £638
90th Percentile £714 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,225 773 901
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.19
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.30%
75th Percentile £74.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £76.99
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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -12 2,254 £500 - 3,202
UK excluding London -11 1,360 £465 +3.33% 1,972
London -21 956 £525 -4.55% 1,575
Work from Home -22 650 £500 - 1,099
South East +3 471 £500 +5.26% 646
North of England -14 334 £450 -0.66% 429
North West -11 193 £449 -5.42% 213
Midlands -31 185 £475 +11.76% 281
East of England -6 144 £450 - 252
West Midlands -36 144 £466 +3.44% 150
Yorkshire -10 125 £500 +18.34% 139
South West -23 119 £415 -7.78% 242
Scotland -38 73 £475 +5.56% 81
East Midlands -24 39 £478 +33.52% 131
Wales -30 21 £490 +52.37% 55
North East -48 16 £450 +130.77% 81
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -46.95% 38

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
1 146 (5.91%) SharePoint
2 120 (4.85%) Confluence
3 63 (2.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 33 (1.33%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.85%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) Camunda
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.16%) Appian
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
11 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 273 (11.04%) Microsoft Office
2 234 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 143 (5.78%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (5.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.59%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) Trello
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 61 (2.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.69%) Primavera
3 13 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
10 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 573 (23.18%) Azure
2 325 (13.15%) AWS
3 229 (9.26%) Power Platform
4 218 (8.82%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (6.15%) Entra ID
6 139 (5.62%) GCP
7 104 (4.21%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (3.20%) SaaS
9 68 (2.75%) GitHub
10 46 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
10 46 (1.86%) Snowflake
11 45 (1.82%) Figma
11 45 (1.82%) Power Automate
11 45 (1.82%) PowerApps
12 44 (1.78%) Serverless
13 39 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
13 39 (1.58%) OneDrive
14 29 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
15 28 (1.13%) IaaS
16 26 (1.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.73%) Firewall
2 76 (3.07%) DNS
3 75 (3.03%) TCP/IP
4 67 (2.71%) Network Security
5 61 (2.47%) VPN
6 43 (1.74%) WAN
7 39 (1.58%) DHCP
7 39 (1.58%) LAN
8 27 (1.09%) Wireless
9 21 (0.85%) BGP
10 20 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
11 19 (0.77%) SSL
11 19 (0.77%) VLAN
12 17 (0.69%) OSPF
13 16 (0.65%) SSH
14 15 (0.61%) HTTP
15 14 (0.57%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.57%) Internet
16 13 (0.53%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 183 (7.40%) Power BI
2 112 (4.53%) SQL Server
3 61 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.14%) Relational Database
5 50 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.66%) Metadata
7 40 (1.62%) Tableau
8 35 (1.42%) Big Data
9 31 (1.25%) NoSQL
10 27 (1.09%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.01%) MySQL
12 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 19 (0.77%) Data Lake
15 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
15 17 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.69%) Hadoop
16 15 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
16 15 (0.61%) Data Mining
17 14 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 197 (7.97%) JIRA
2 125 (5.06%) Git
3 55 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.62%) GitLab
5 34 (1.38%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.73%) MLflow
7 17 (0.69%) Selenium
8 16 (0.65%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.57%) JUnit
10 12 (0.49%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
11 11 (0.44%) TeamCity
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,086 (43.93%) Social Skills
2 723 (29.25%) Finance
3 552 (22.33%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.29%) Public Sector
5 186 (7.52%) Banking
6 160 (6.47%) Organisational Skills
7 107 (4.33%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (3.96%) Legal
9 97 (3.92%) Marketing
10 93 (3.76%) Aerospace
11 90 (3.64%) Manufacturing
12 86 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
13 76 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
14 75 (3.03%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.51%) Retail
16 60 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.18%) Law
18 46 (1.86%) Pharmaceutical
19 37 (1.50%) Front Office
20 35 (1.42%) Military
Job Titles
1 343 (13.88%) Analyst
2 284 (11.49%) Senior
3 189 (7.65%) Lead
4 185 (7.48%) Architect
5 177 (7.16%) Developer
6 155 (6.27%) Project Manager
7 153 (6.19%) Business Analyst
8 71 (2.87%) Consultant
8 71 (2.87%) Senior Manager
9 61 (2.47%) Designer
10 60 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
11 56 (2.27%) IT Support
12 54 (2.18%) IT Manager
12 54 (2.18%) Support Engineer
13 51 (2.06%) Software Engineer
14 50 (2.02%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.02%) Product Manager
15 48 (1.94%) Senior Analyst
16 47 (1.90%) Administrator
17 46 (1.86%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (3.96%) REST
2 96 (3.88%) .NET
3 68 (2.75%) React
4 48 (1.94%) Kafka
5 43 (1.74%) RESTful
6 42 (1.70%) OAuth
7 40 (1.62%) HTML
8 33 (1.33%) .NET Framework
8 33 (1.33%) CSS
8 33 (1.33%) Middleware
8 33 (1.33%) SAML
8 33 (1.33%) Spring
9 32 (1.29%) AngularJS
9 32 (1.29%) Web Services
10 31 (1.25%) OAuth2
10 31 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
11 30 (1.21%) Spring Boot
12 29 (1.17%) JSON
12 29 (1.17%) LDAP
13 28 (1.13%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.29%) Management Information System
2 153 (6.19%) Onboarding
3 149 (6.03%) Product Ownership
4 117 (4.73%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.92%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.87%) Data Structures
7 69 (2.79%) Algorithms
8 65 (2.63%) Data Centre
9 55 (2.22%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.10%) Security Posture
11 51 (2.06%) Operational Technology
12 44 (1.78%) Distributed Systems
12 44 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
13 42 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
14 41 (1.66%) Life Science
15 38 (1.54%) AI Agents
15 38 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
16 35 (1.42%) PMI
17 33 (1.33%) Robotics
18 32 (1.29%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 302 (12.22%) Windows
2 175 (7.08%) Linux
3 75 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.47%) Unix
5 52 (2.10%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.17%) Android
9 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.12%) Rocky
14 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 840 (33.98%) Computer Science
2 671 (27.14%) Agile
3 649 (26.25%) Problem-Solving
4 426 (17.23%) Stakeholder Management
5 410 (16.59%) Continuous Improvement
6 396 (16.02%) AI
7 325 (13.15%) DevOps
8 311 (12.58%) Project Management
9 308 (12.46%) Analytics
10 296 (11.97%) CI/CD
11 273 (11.04%) ITIL
12 260 (10.52%) Decision-Making
13 255 (10.32%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 248 (10.03%) Cybersecurity
15 219 (8.86%) Change Management
16 211 (8.54%) Software Engineering
17 209 (8.45%) Roadmaps
18 208 (8.41%) PRINCE2
19 203 (8.21%) Scrum
20 201 (8.13%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 432 (17.48%) Python
2 354 (14.32%) SQL
3 169 (6.84%) Java
4 155 (6.27%) PowerShell
5 106 (4.29%) C#
6 93 (3.76%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.02%) Bash
8 45 (1.82%) C++
9 41 (1.66%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.17%) R
11 25 (1.01%) Bicep
11 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
13 22 (0.89%) C
13 22 (0.89%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.44%) X++
17 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 491 (19.86%) Computer Science Degree
2 443 (17.92%) Security Cleared
3 293 (11.85%) SC Cleared
4 235 (9.51%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.78%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.02%) PMP
7 119 (4.81%) CISSP
8 110 (4.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.44%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (3.07%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.03%) DV Cleared
12 67 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
13 58 (2.35%) CISM
14 56 (2.27%) PhD
15 42 (1.70%) CCNA
16 41 (1.66%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.62%) CCNP
18 38 (1.54%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 36 (1.46%) CISA
20 32 (1.29%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.38%) Data Quality
2 126 (5.10%) QA
3 119 (4.81%) NIST
4 111 (4.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (4.13%) PMO
6 77 (3.11%) GDPR
7 53 (2.14%) SLA
8 50 (2.02%) Accessibility
9 29 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.09%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.01%) GRC
12 21 (0.85%) NCSC
13 16 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.49%) COBIT
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) IFRS
16 11 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) HIPAA
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 200 (8.09%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.94%) Docker
3 50 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.97%) Firmware
6 16 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 138 (5.58%) Kubernetes
2 96 (3.88%) Terraform
3 79 (3.20%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.51%) Ansible
5 39 (1.58%) SCCM
6 30 (1.21%) Grafana
7 27 (1.09%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
16 6 (0.24%) Argo
16 6 (0.24%) SCOM
17 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 619 (25.04%) Microsoft
2 165 (6.67%) Oracle
3 140 (5.66%) SAP
4 134 (5.42%) ServiceNow
5 92 (3.72%) Google
6 70 (2.83%) Cisco
7 65 (2.63%) VMware
8 64 (2.59%) Databricks
9 58 (2.35%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.22%) Adobe
11 47 (1.90%) IBM
12 34 (1.38%) CyberArk
12 34 (1.38%) Splunk
13 32 (1.29%) Citrix
14 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
15 22 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
16 21 (0.85%) Ariba
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 19 (0.77%) HP