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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,453 2,463 3,026
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.58% 7.50% 7.80%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.64% 23.92% 26.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,307 1,388 1,756
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £363 £374 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £724 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £499
% change year-on-year +5.56% -9.82% +0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 216 263
10th Percentile £17.25 £16.50 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.60 £25.43
Median hourly rate £39.11 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.98% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £62.44 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year -4.82% -27.64% +18.79%

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 16,752 10,297 11,620
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.31% 31.36% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,227 6,345 7,361
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £433 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £528
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -1.04% -4.00%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,249 827 815
10th Percentile £17.70 £17.97 £14.65
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £72.54 £53.81 £65.50
90th Percentile £87.32 £73.75 £76.69
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -6.40%

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 20 August 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 20 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 20 August 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 -16 2,253 £500 - 4,187
UK excluding London -15 1,325 £475 +5.56% 2,751
London -20 973 £525 -4.55% 1,913
Work from Home -22 653 £500 - 1,284
South East 0 472 £510 +7.37% 809
North of England -15 331 £474 +6.04% 561
North West -14 196 £465 +0.54% 280
Midlands -28 178 £450 - 393
West Midlands -38 133 £450 - 209
East of England -10 132 £400 -11.11% 422
Yorkshire -6 122 £500 +26.58% 171
South West -21 122 £415 +10.67% 325
Scotland -51 64 £450 - 217
East Midlands -27 43 £475 +32.68% 183
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -52.00% 37
Wales -31 14 £530 +73.50% 61
North East -43 13 £450 +130.77% 117
Channel Islands - 1 - - 2

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
1 150 (6.11%) SharePoint
2 109 (4.44%) Confluence
3 65 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.10%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.41%) SAS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.29%) Camunda
10 7 (0.29%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 246 (10.03%) Microsoft Office
2 241 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 134 (5.46%) Microsoft Project
4 122 (4.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 58 (2.36%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Windchill
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 49 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 16 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.33%) Magento
7 7 (0.29%) HFM
8 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 562 (22.91%) Azure
2 317 (12.92%) AWS
3 223 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
3 223 (9.09%) Power Platform
4 149 (6.07%) Entra ID
5 137 (5.58%) GCP
6 108 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
7 85 (3.47%) SaaS
8 63 (2.57%) GitHub
9 52 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
10 50 (2.04%) PowerApps
11 49 (2.00%) Power Automate
11 49 (2.00%) Serverless
12 45 (1.83%) Snowflake
13 43 (1.75%) OneDrive
14 41 (1.67%) Figma
15 39 (1.59%) Microsoft Copilot
16 28 (1.14%) IaaS
17 27 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
18 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.73%) Firewall
2 84 (3.42%) DNS
3 70 (2.85%) Network Security
4 66 (2.69%) TCP/IP
5 64 (2.61%) VPN
6 44 (1.79%) DHCP
7 40 (1.63%) WAN
8 38 (1.55%) LAN
9 30 (1.22%) Wireless
10 21 (0.86%) VLAN
10 21 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.82%) BGP
12 19 (0.77%) HTTP
13 18 (0.73%) Internet
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 17 (0.69%) 3GPP
15 16 (0.65%) OSPF
15 16 (0.65%) SSH
16 15 (0.61%) 5G
16 15 (0.61%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 175 (7.13%) Power BI
2 106 (4.32%) SQL Server
3 57 (2.32%) Relational Database
4 55 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
5 51 (2.08%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.79%) Metadata
7 33 (1.35%) NoSQL
8 31 (1.26%) Tableau
9 26 (1.06%) Big Data
9 26 (1.06%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.02%) MySQL
10 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.98%) MongoDB
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
13 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
14 14 (0.57%) Power Query
15 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 183 (7.46%) JIRA
2 134 (5.46%) Git
3 57 (2.32%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.83%) GitLab
5 36 (1.47%) Rational DOORS
6 23 (0.94%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.53%) JUnit
9 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
9 12 (0.49%) SonarQube
10 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.45%) MLflow
10 11 (0.45%) Postman
10 11 (0.45%) Subversion
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,082 (44.11%) Social Skills
2 725 (29.56%) Finance
3 586 (23.89%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (7.91%) Public Sector
5 185 (7.54%) Banking
6 154 (6.28%) Organisational Skills
7 113 (4.61%) Aerospace
8 98 (4.00%) Legal
9 96 (3.91%) Manufacturing
9 96 (3.91%) Marketing
10 90 (3.67%) Telecoms
11 89 (3.63%) Influencing Skills
12 88 (3.59%) Presentation Skills
13 76 (3.10%) Documentation Skills
14 63 (2.57%) Retail
15 52 (2.12%) Law
16 50 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 49 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
18 41 (1.67%) Front Office
19 39 (1.59%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 334 (13.62%) Analyst
2 276 (11.25%) Senior
3 195 (7.95%) Lead
4 183 (7.46%) Developer
5 165 (6.73%) Architect
6 154 (6.28%) Business Analyst
7 128 (5.22%) Project Manager
8 72 (2.94%) Consultant
9 68 (2.77%) IT Support
9 68 (2.77%) Senior Manager
10 67 (2.73%) Support Engineer
11 57 (2.32%) Designer
12 55 (2.24%) Product Manager
12 55 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
14 52 (2.12%) IT Manager
15 50 (2.04%) Delivery Manager
16 46 (1.88%) Software Engineer
17 45 (1.83%) Administrator
18 43 (1.75%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.48%) REST
2 101 (4.12%) .NET
3 100 (4.08%) Terraform
4 61 (2.49%) React
5 53 (2.16%) Kafka
6 50 (2.04%) RESTful
7 49 (2.00%) HTML
8 46 (1.88%) OAuth
9 41 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
10 38 (1.55%) CSS
11 37 (1.51%) Middleware
12 36 (1.47%) Web Services
13 35 (1.43%) OAuth2
14 34 (1.39%) .NET Framework
15 33 (1.35%) SAML
16 32 (1.30%) XML
17 31 (1.26%) OpenID
18 29 (1.18%) JSON
18 29 (1.18%) SOAP
19 28 (1.14%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.52%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 142 (5.79%) Onboarding
4 109 (4.44%) Self-Motivation
5 94 (3.83%) Cloud Native
6 79 (3.22%) Data Structures
7 68 (2.77%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.53%) Data Centre
9 50 (2.04%) Security Posture
10 49 (2.00%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
12 46 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
13 45 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
14 44 (1.79%) Virtual Team
15 41 (1.67%) Life Science
16 37 (1.51%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
18 33 (1.35%) PMI
18 33 (1.35%) SCADA
19 31 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 296 (12.07%) Windows
2 179 (7.30%) Linux
3 70 (2.85%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.45%) Unix
5 51 (2.08%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.22%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 26 (1.06%) Android
10 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) VMS
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.12%) Rocky
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 849 (34.61%) Computer Science
2 662 (26.99%) Agile
3 645 (26.29%) Problem-Solving
4 462 (18.83%) Stakeholder Management
5 435 (17.73%) Continuous Improvement
6 378 (15.41%) AI
7 328 (13.37%) DevOps
8 315 (12.84%) Project Management
9 298 (12.15%) Analytics
9 298 (12.15%) CI/CD
10 289 (11.78%) ITIL
11 259 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 237 (9.66%) Decision-Making
13 236 (9.62%) Cybersecurity
14 226 (9.21%) Change Management
15 217 (8.85%) Software Engineering
16 212 (8.64%) PRINCE2
17 210 (8.56%) Scrum
18 207 (8.44%) Roadmaps
19 206 (8.40%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 420 (17.12%) Python
2 354 (14.43%) SQL
3 167 (6.81%) Java
3 167 (6.81%) PowerShell
4 113 (4.61%) C#
5 101 (4.12%) JavaScript
6 58 (2.36%) Bash
7 50 (2.04%) C++
8 42 (1.71%) TypeScript
9 28 (1.14%) Bicep
10 27 (1.10%) Shell Script
11 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.98%) C
12 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 22 (0.90%) R
14 15 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.45%) Scala
16 11 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 502 (20.46%) Computer Science Degree
2 456 (18.59%) Security Cleared
3 301 (12.27%) SC Cleared
4 217 (8.85%) Master's Degree
5 138 (5.63%) PMI Certification
6 120 (4.89%) Microsoft Certification
7 118 (4.81%) PMP
8 112 (4.57%) CISSP
9 84 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (3.10%) Azure Certification
10 76 (3.10%) DV Cleared
11 65 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
12 54 (2.20%) CISM
13 51 (2.08%) PhD
14 43 (1.75%) CCNA
15 41 (1.67%) CCNP
16 40 (1.63%) AWS Certification
16 40 (1.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 33 (1.35%) A+ Certification
17 33 (1.35%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.46%) Data Quality
2 132 (5.38%) QA
3 109 (4.44%) NIST
4 103 (4.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 91 (3.71%) PMO
6 69 (2.81%) GDPR
7 50 (2.04%) SLA
8 49 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.94%) GRC
11 22 (0.90%) NCSC
11 22 (0.90%) PCI DSS
12 15 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) IFRS
14 11 (0.45%) COBIT
14 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.45%) P3O
15 8 (0.33%) GxP
15 8 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 204 (8.32%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.93%) Docker
3 55 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) Firmware
5 24 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.29%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.29%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.22%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.34%) Microsoft Intune
3 65 (2.65%) Ansible
4 40 (1.63%) SCCM
5 30 (1.22%) Grafana
6 27 (1.10%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.29%) Argo
14 7 (0.29%) Control-M
14 7 (0.29%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.29%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.29%) SCOM
15 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
15 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 636 (25.93%) Microsoft
2 177 (7.22%) Oracle
3 143 (5.83%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.46%) SAP
5 91 (3.71%) Google
6 71 (2.89%) VMware
7 70 (2.85%) Cisco
8 67 (2.73%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.57%) Databricks
10 59 (2.41%) Adobe
11 53 (2.16%) IBM
12 43 (1.75%) Splunk
13 32 (1.30%) CyberArk
14 27 (1.10%) Palo Alto
14 27 (1.10%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.06%) Citrix
16 22 (0.90%) Apple
17 21 (0.86%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.82%) Ariba
19 18 (0.73%) HP