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 25 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,452 2,459 3,739
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.47% 7.80% 8.44%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.09% 26.09% 27.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,452 1,344 2,125
10th Percentile £275 £225 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £508
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% -0.69% -7.22%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £465 £500
% change year-on-year +2.26% -7.10% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 147 320
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.07 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.25 £26.42 £22.19
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% - -
75th Percentile £56.13 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.40 £85.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £42.25
% change year-on-year -10.67% -11.24% -6.11%

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 12,847 9,424 13,441
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.91% 29.88% 30.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,500 5,673 8,379
10th Percentile £315 £300 £298
25th Percentile £416 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.14% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £723 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 947 460 894
10th Percentile £15.95 £18.69 £14.26
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.51% -17.89% +5.56%
75th Percentile £62.38 £65.71 £65.56
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.22 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year -40.82% -10.53% +5.56%

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 25 January 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 25 January 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 25 January 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 -2 2,137 £500 -4.76% 4,203
UK excluding London -5 1,226 £475 +2.26% 3,975
London -4 996 £525 -4.55% 780
Work from Home 0 703 £500 - 1,704
North of England -8 323 £447 -6.39% 694
South East 0 274 £475 -5.00% 1,291
Midlands -12 212 £505 +23.40% 553
North West -5 176 £397 -16.45% 314
South West +3 169 £650 +18.18% 522
West Midlands -17 149 £520 +22.07% 237
Yorkshire -12 137 £516 +5.36% 269
East of England -14 114 £550 +22.22% 615
Scotland -2 100 £488 +13.37% 158
East Midlands -6 63 £499 +40.03% 309
Wales -2 45 £260 -9.50% 190
Northern Ireland -13 17 £425 -10.53% 78
North East -15 11 £364 -27.20% 116

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
1 205 (8.36%) Confluence
2 119 (4.85%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 37 (1.51%) Apache Spark
5 17 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.61%) nginx
6 15 (0.61%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.45%) Apache
7 11 (0.45%) CMS
8 10 (0.41%) IIS
9 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.24%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Luigi
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 296 (12.07%) Microsoft Office
2 243 (9.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 184 (7.50%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.26%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.82%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.69%) Simulink
8 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.41%) FrameMaker
9 10 (0.41%) Trello
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 7 (0.29%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.082%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.082%) InDesign
14 2 (0.082%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.082%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 59 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.90%) Primavera
4 18 (0.73%) Remedy ITSM
5 14 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.53%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.49%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.49%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
10 9 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
10 9 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
11 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
12 7 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
12 7 (0.29%) Veritas eDiscovery
13 6 (0.24%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 6 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
14 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 500 (20.39%) Azure
2 293 (11.95%) AWS
3 219 (8.93%) Microsoft 365
4 187 (7.63%) Power Platform
5 143 (5.83%) GCP
6 102 (4.16%) SaaS
7 97 (3.96%) GitHub
8 86 (3.51%) Entra ID
9 85 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
10 64 (2.61%) Serverless
11 54 (2.20%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.84%) Power Automate
13 43 (1.75%) Cloud Computing
14 35 (1.43%) GitHub Actions
15 33 (1.35%) OCI
15 33 (1.35%) PowerApps
16 32 (1.31%) IaaS
16 32 (1.31%) Snowflake
17 29 (1.18%) PaaS
18 27 (1.10%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.61%) Firewall
2 70 (2.85%) DNS
3 52 (2.12%) LAN
4 50 (2.04%) WAN
5 47 (1.92%) Network Security
6 43 (1.75%) VPN
7 42 (1.71%) TCP/IP
8 36 (1.47%) HTTP
9 33 (1.35%) Skype
10 29 (1.18%) DHCP
11 28 (1.14%) Internet
12 26 (1.06%) Wireless
13 23 (0.94%) BGP
14 22 (0.90%) SSH
15 21 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
16 20 (0.82%) OSPF
16 20 (0.82%) Unified Communications
17 18 (0.73%) VLAN
18 17 (0.69%) Ethernet
19 15 (0.61%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (5.87%) Power BI
2 90 (3.67%) SQL Server
3 86 (3.51%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.41%) NoSQL
5 56 (2.28%) Relational Database
6 53 (2.16%) Data Warehouse
7 48 (1.96%) Tableau
8 40 (1.63%) MySQL
9 32 (1.31%) Big Data
10 28 (1.14%) Data Lake
11 25 (1.02%) Metadata
12 19 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
13 18 (0.73%) MongoDB
14 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
14 13 (0.53%) Oracle Database
14 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
14 13 (0.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 12 (0.49%) GIS
16 11 (0.45%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 290 (11.83%) JIRA
2 121 (4.93%) Git
3 84 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.49%) GitLab
5 29 (1.18%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.90%) Liquibase
6 22 (0.90%) Selenium
7 20 (0.82%) Postman
8 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.45%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.45%) JUnit
10 10 (0.41%) Cypress.io
10 10 (0.41%) Metasploit
11 9 (0.37%) CircleCI
11 9 (0.37%) Vagrant
12 8 (0.33%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.33%) Jaeger
13 7 (0.29%) Artifactory
13 7 (0.29%) Gradle
13 7 (0.29%) JMeter
General
1 1,269 (51.75%) Social Skills
2 790 (32.22%) Finance
3 587 (23.94%) Analytical Skills
4 266 (10.85%) Banking
5 202 (8.24%) Public Sector
6 110 (4.49%) Presentation Skills
7 108 (4.40%) Manufacturing
8 98 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
9 90 (3.67%) Marketing
10 82 (3.34%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.14%) Legal
12 69 (2.81%) Documentation Skills
13 66 (2.69%) Military
14 61 (2.49%) Financial Institution
15 60 (2.45%) Telecoms
16 51 (2.08%) Front Office
17 50 (2.04%) Pharmaceutical
18 47 (1.92%) Investment Banking
19 39 (1.59%) Electronics
19 39 (1.59%) Law
Job Titles
1 359 (14.64%) Analyst
2 248 (10.11%) Senior
3 231 (9.42%) Developer
4 199 (8.12%) Lead
5 177 (7.22%) Architect
6 162 (6.61%) Project Manager
7 159 (6.48%) Business Analyst
8 100 (4.08%) Consultant
9 86 (3.51%) Software Engineer
10 66 (2.69%) Solutions Architect
11 64 (2.61%) IT Support
12 62 (2.53%) Technical Support
13 56 (2.28%) Security Engineer
14 55 (2.24%) Support Analyst
15 43 (1.75%) Senior Software Engineer
16 42 (1.71%) Designer
17 40 (1.63%) IT Analyst
18 39 (1.59%) Senior Developer
19 37 (1.51%) IT Manager
20 35 (1.43%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (4.98%) REST
2 85 (3.47%) RESTful
3 80 (3.26%) HTML
4 79 (3.22%) .NET
5 60 (2.45%) CSS
6 53 (2.16%) XML
7 49 (2.00%) React
8 47 (1.92%) Middleware
9 46 (1.88%) Elastic Stack
10 45 (1.84%) JSON
11 42 (1.71%) OAuth
11 42 (1.71%) SOAP
12 37 (1.51%) Oracle Fusion
13 35 (1.43%) Kafka
14 31 (1.26%) TensorFlow
15 30 (1.22%) AngularJS
15 30 (1.22%) PyTorch
16 28 (1.14%) Node.js
17 27 (1.10%) Spring
18 26 (1.06%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.40%) Management Information System
2 119 (4.85%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.49%) Cloud Native
4 79 (3.22%) Onboarding
5 77 (3.14%) Algorithms
6 67 (2.73%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.53%) Data Centre
8 61 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
9 57 (2.32%) Analytical Mindset
9 57 (2.32%) PMI
10 56 (2.28%) Virtual Team
11 54 (2.20%) Self-Motivation
12 44 (1.79%) Derivative
13 43 (1.75%) Security Posture
14 42 (1.71%) Public Cloud
15 41 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
15 41 (1.67%) Life Science
16 34 (1.39%) Mobile App
16 34 (1.39%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 300 (12.23%) Windows
2 215 (8.77%) Linux
3 93 (3.79%) Unix
4 70 (2.85%) Windows Server
5 54 (2.20%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Android
7 27 (1.10%) Mac OS
8 24 (0.98%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
10 17 (0.69%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
12 14 (0.57%) VMS
13 13 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
15 8 (0.33%) Amazon Linux
16 7 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.16%) Windows 7
18 3 (0.12%) CentOS
18 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
19 2 (0.082%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 912 (37.19%) Computer Science
2 786 (32.06%) Agile
3 713 (29.08%) Problem-Solving
4 405 (16.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 369 (15.05%) DevOps
5 369 (15.05%) Project Management
6 295 (12.03%) Change Management
7 287 (11.70%) AI
8 280 (11.42%) CI/CD
9 279 (11.38%) Continuous Improvement
10 264 (10.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 262 (10.69%) Cybersecurity
12 253 (10.32%) Analytics
12 253 (10.32%) ITIL
13 241 (9.83%) Migration
14 230 (9.38%) Software Engineering
15 228 (9.30%) Project Delivery
16 226 (9.22%) Decision-Making
17 223 (9.09%) Risk Management
18 198 (8.08%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 436 (17.78%) Python
2 374 (15.25%) SQL
3 172 (7.01%) Java
4 130 (5.30%) PowerShell
5 123 (5.02%) JavaScript
6 93 (3.79%) C#
7 85 (3.47%) C++
8 58 (2.37%) TypeScript
9 52 (2.12%) Go
10 50 (2.04%) Bash
11 28 (1.14%) R
12 26 (1.06%) Perl
13 24 (0.98%) PL/SQL
14 21 (0.86%) C
14 21 (0.86%) MATLAB
14 21 (0.86%) T-SQL
15 18 (0.73%) Kotlin
16 16 (0.65%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.65%) SystemVerilog
17 14 (0.57%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 618 (25.20%) Computer Science Degree
2 416 (16.97%) Security Cleared
3 378 (15.42%) Master's Degree
4 320 (13.05%) SC Cleared
5 160 (6.53%) PMI Certification
6 136 (5.55%) PMP
7 123 (5.02%) CISSP
8 94 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
9 79 (3.22%) CISM
10 71 (2.90%) Azure Certification
10 71 (2.90%) PhD
11 69 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
12 66 (2.69%) TOGAF Certification
13 59 (2.41%) Cisco Certification
14 55 (2.24%) DV Cleared
15 46 (1.88%) AWS Certification
16 40 (1.63%) HND
17 39 (1.59%) CCNP
18 38 (1.55%) MBA
19 36 (1.47%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (6.44%) QA
2 128 (5.22%) GDPR
3 100 (4.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 91 (3.71%) PMO
5 75 (3.06%) Data Quality
6 71 (2.90%) NIST
7 43 (1.75%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.71%) PCI DSS
9 36 (1.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 35 (1.43%) SLA
11 29 (1.18%) GRC
12 19 (0.77%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.61%) WCAG
14 14 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.53%) Basel III
15 13 (0.53%) NCSC
15 13 (0.53%) P3O
16 12 (0.49%) Def Stans
17 11 (0.45%) IFRS
System Software
1 195 (7.95%) Docker
2 155 (6.32%) Active Directory
3 43 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.86%) Firmware
5 18 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.33%) DFS Replication
7 8 (0.33%) Dovecot
7 8 (0.33%) Postfix
7 8 (0.33%) Squid
8 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
9 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.20%) XenApp
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 178 (7.26%) Kubernetes
2 123 (5.02%) Terraform
3 77 (3.14%) Ansible
4 62 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
5 60 (2.45%) Grafana
6 50 (2.04%) Prometheus
6 50 (2.04%) SCCM
7 30 (1.22%) OPNET
8 26 (1.06%) Puppet
9 15 (0.61%) Kibana
10 14 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.53%) SCOM
12 12 (0.49%) Nmap
13 11 (0.45%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 10 (0.41%) Nessus
15 9 (0.37%) QRadar
15 9 (0.37%) WSUS
16 8 (0.33%) Kiali
16 8 (0.33%) Proxmox
17 7 (0.29%) Argo
Vendors
1 521 (21.25%) Microsoft
2 174 (7.10%) Oracle
3 161 (6.57%) SAP
4 116 (4.73%) ServiceNow
5 109 (4.45%) Splunk
6 100 (4.08%) Google
7 74 (3.02%) Cisco
8 58 (2.37%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.20%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.08%) Remedy
11 49 (2.00%) VMware
12 45 (1.84%) Databricks
13 35 (1.43%) Citrix
14 29 (1.18%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.10%) IBM
16 23 (0.94%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.90%) Adobe
18 20 (0.82%) BiZZdesign
18 20 (0.82%) CheckPoint
18 20 (0.82%) Informatica