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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,486 2,446 3,326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.71% 7.46% 7.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.02% 24.23% 26.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,333 1,397 1,905
10th Percentile £208 £250 £225
25th Percentile £363 £371 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £453 £450 £486
% change year-on-year +0.67% -7.45% -0.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 202 342
10th Percentile £16.65 £18.02 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.25 £25.40
Median hourly rate £45.25 £43.25 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.62% +1.76% -21.30%
75th Percentile £82.47 £65.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.50 £39.32 £53.75
% change year-on-year +15.72% -26.85% +4.88%

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 16,553 10,093 12,514
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.36% 30.77% 29.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,051 6,266 7,874
10th Percentile £350 £278 £310
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £713 £704 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,198 736 1,011
10th Percentile £17.73 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.25 £20.76
Median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +107.75% -40.82% -25.74%
75th Percentile £73.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.50 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 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 20 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 20 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 -13 2,236 £500 - 2,226
UK excluding London -9 1,379 £453 +0.67% 1,478
London -20 939 £525 -4.55% 1,014
Work from Home -17 670 £500 - 737
South East +3 462 £500 +4.99% 511
North of England -13 328 £450 +0.67% 306
Midlands -24 197 £498 +18.45% 212
North West -12 186 £447 -5.89% 142
East of England -5 147 £450 - 193
West Midlands -32 147 £481 +6.89% 117
Yorkshire -14 125 £475 +11.76% 111
South West -28 118 £415 -7.78% 183
Scotland -31 88 £463 +3.12% 49
East Midlands -15 48 £515 +43.85% 95
Wales -27 25 £450 +47.31% 33
North East -37 17 £450 +130.77% 57
Northern Ireland -12 16 £254 -46.53% 36

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
1 142 (5.71%) SharePoint
2 133 (5.35%) Confluence
3 60 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (1.85%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Appian
10 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
11 3 (0.12%) Moodle
11 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.080%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 283 (11.38%) Microsoft Office
2 236 (9.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 146 (5.87%) Microsoft Project
4 136 (5.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.57%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) Trello
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 3 (0.12%) CATIA
13 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.64%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
8 4 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
9 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.12%) Workday HCM
9 3 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 578 (23.25%) Azure
2 326 (13.11%) AWS
3 220 (8.85%) Power Platform
4 206 (8.29%) Microsoft 365
5 149 (5.99%) Entra ID
6 128 (5.15%) GCP
7 106 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.30%) SaaS
9 66 (2.65%) GitHub
10 46 (1.85%) Figma
11 43 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
11 43 (1.73%) Snowflake
12 40 (1.61%) Serverless
13 36 (1.45%) PowerApps
14 34 (1.37%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.33%) OneDrive
16 32 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
17 30 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
18 27 (1.09%) IaaS
18 27 (1.09%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 110 (4.42%) Firewall
2 78 (3.14%) TCP/IP
3 75 (3.02%) DNS
4 64 (2.57%) Network Security
5 55 (2.21%) VPN
6 49 (1.97%) WAN
7 44 (1.77%) LAN
8 35 (1.41%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) BGP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 22 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
11 21 (0.84%) OSPF
12 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.72%) SSL
14 17 (0.68%) VLAN
15 15 (0.60%) Internet
15 15 (0.60%) SSH
16 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
16 14 (0.56%) SAN
17 13 (0.52%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (7.44%) Power BI
2 115 (4.63%) SQL Server
3 64 (2.57%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.09%) Relational Database
6 48 (1.93%) Metadata
7 47 (1.89%) Big Data
8 40 (1.61%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 29 (1.17%) MySQL
11 28 (1.13%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.01%) Hadoop
13 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.76%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
16 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
17 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
18 14 (0.56%) GIS
19 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 220 (8.85%) JIRA
2 131 (5.27%) Git
3 55 (2.21%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.65%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.84%) MLflow
7 18 (0.72%) Selenium
8 16 (0.64%) Visual Studio
9 15 (0.60%) Postman
10 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 14 (0.56%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.44%) Gradle
12 11 (0.44%) Subversion
13 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.36%) Maven
15 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,091 (43.89%) Social Skills
2 738 (29.69%) Finance
3 540 (21.72%) Analytical Skills
4 214 (8.61%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.72%) Banking
6 155 (6.23%) Organisational Skills
7 107 (4.30%) Marketing
8 106 (4.26%) Presentation Skills
9 98 (3.94%) Legal
10 91 (3.66%) Aerospace
10 91 (3.66%) Manufacturing
11 86 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
12 81 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (2.94%) Telecoms
14 63 (2.53%) Retail
15 59 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 53 (2.13%) Law
17 43 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
18 35 (1.41%) Front Office
18 35 (1.41%) Military
Job Titles
1 351 (14.12%) Analyst
2 285 (11.46%) Senior
3 198 (7.96%) Architect
4 189 (7.60%) Lead
5 177 (7.12%) Developer
6 161 (6.48%) Project Manager
7 153 (6.15%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.90%) Consultant
8 72 (2.90%) Senior Manager
9 68 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
10 65 (2.61%) Designer
11 58 (2.33%) IT Manager
12 55 (2.21%) IT Support
12 55 (2.21%) Software Engineer
13 52 (2.09%) Support Engineer
14 51 (2.05%) Senior Analyst
15 50 (2.01%) Product Manager
15 50 (2.01%) Technical Support
16 49 (1.97%) Administrator
16 49 (1.97%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.18%) REST
2 100 (4.02%) .NET
3 67 (2.70%) React
4 50 (2.01%) Kafka
5 45 (1.81%) RESTful
6 40 (1.61%) HTML
6 40 (1.61%) OAuth
7 38 (1.53%) Middleware
8 36 (1.45%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.33%) Spring
9 33 (1.33%) Web Services
10 32 (1.29%) CSS
10 32 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
11 31 (1.25%) Spring Boot
11 31 (1.25%) XML
12 30 (1.21%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.21%) LDAP
12 30 (1.21%) SAML
13 28 (1.13%) JSON
13 28 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.29%) Management Information System
2 154 (6.19%) Product Ownership
3 150 (6.03%) Onboarding
4 116 (4.67%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.10%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.65%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.57%) Data Structures
8 62 (2.49%) Algorithms
9 60 (2.41%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.09%) Operational Technology
11 51 (2.05%) Security Posture
12 44 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
13 42 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
14 41 (1.65%) Life Science
15 40 (1.61%) Enterprise Software
15 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
16 35 (1.41%) PMI
17 34 (1.37%) Robotics
18 32 (1.29%) AI Agents
19 31 (1.25%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 304 (12.23%) Windows
2 174 (7.00%) Linux
3 76 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.57%) Unix
5 50 (2.01%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Apple iOS
7 30 (1.21%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.13%) Android
9 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.28%) VMS
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.12%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 837 (33.67%) Computer Science
2 699 (28.12%) Agile
3 666 (26.79%) Problem-Solving
4 431 (17.34%) Stakeholder Management
5 403 (16.21%) Continuous Improvement
6 390 (15.69%) AI
7 337 (13.56%) DevOps
8 310 (12.47%) Project Management
9 308 (12.39%) Analytics
10 297 (11.95%) CI/CD
11 275 (11.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 270 (10.86%) Decision-Making
13 265 (10.66%) ITIL
14 245 (9.86%) Cybersecurity
15 227 (9.13%) Change Management
16 221 (8.89%) Roadmaps
17 215 (8.65%) Software Engineering
18 208 (8.37%) Migration
19 205 (8.25%) Scrum
20 202 (8.13%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 426 (17.14%) Python
2 368 (14.80%) SQL
3 176 (7.08%) Java
4 142 (5.71%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.22%) C#
6 88 (3.54%) JavaScript
7 51 (2.05%) C++
8 44 (1.77%) Bash
9 39 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.25%) R
11 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 23 (0.93%) T-SQL
14 21 (0.84%) C
15 20 (0.80%) Bicep
16 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Perl
18 10 (0.40%) Go
18 10 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 487 (19.59%) Computer Science Degree
2 440 (17.70%) Security Cleared
3 288 (11.58%) SC Cleared
4 258 (10.38%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.75%) PMI Certification
6 124 (4.99%) PMP
7 120 (4.83%) CISSP
8 103 (4.14%) Microsoft Certification
9 83 (3.34%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (3.06%) Azure Certification
11 70 (2.82%) DV Cleared
12 67 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.45%) CISM
14 47 (1.89%) PhD
15 43 (1.73%) AWS Certification
16 42 (1.69%) CCNA
17 40 (1.61%) CCNP
18 36 (1.45%) CISA
19 35 (1.41%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
20 34 (1.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.35%) Data Quality
2 132 (5.31%) QA
3 115 (4.63%) NIST
4 112 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 104 (4.18%) PMO
6 87 (3.50%) GDPR
7 51 (2.05%) Accessibility
8 49 (1.97%) SLA
9 30 (1.21%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.13%) GRC
10 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.88%) NCSC
12 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.52%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 10 (0.40%) COBIT
16 10 (0.40%) P3O
16 10 (0.40%) SOC 2
System Software
1 194 (7.80%) Active Directory
2 127 (5.11%) Docker
3 48 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.84%) Firmware
6 15 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 139 (5.59%) Kubernetes
2 91 (3.66%) Terraform
3 74 (2.98%) Microsoft Intune
4 58 (2.33%) Ansible
5 35 (1.41%) SCCM
6 32 (1.29%) Grafana
7 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 13 (0.52%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.40%) HP ALM
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
15 5 (0.20%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
16 4 (0.16%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 614 (24.70%) Microsoft
2 167 (6.72%) Oracle
3 150 (6.03%) SAP
4 131 (5.27%) ServiceNow
5 97 (3.90%) Google
6 71 (2.86%) Cisco
7 66 (2.65%) Databricks
8 62 (2.49%) VMware
9 56 (2.25%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.21%) Adobe
11 50 (2.01%) IBM
12 35 (1.41%) Citrix
12 35 (1.41%) Splunk
13 32 (1.29%) CyberArk
13 32 (1.29%) Palo Alto
14 26 (1.05%) Red Hat
15 22 (0.88%) CheckPoint
16 21 (0.84%) Ariba
16 21 (0.84%) Siemens
17 20 (0.80%) HP