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

6 months to
25 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -9 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,478 2,312 3,680
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.31% 7.83% 8.43%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.33% 25.51% 27.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,461 1,324 1,969
10th Percentile £250 £250 £210
25th Percentile £379 £380 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £630
90th Percentile £750 £772 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 185 393
10th Percentile £17.23 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.00 £28.18 £22.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.50 £47.05 £40.00
% change year-on-year +20.08% +17.63% -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 15,175 9,063 13,412
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.55% 30.71% 30.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,112 5,729 8,277
10th Percentile £350 £290 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £709 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £504 £530
% change year-on-year -0.79% -4.91% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,097 515 1,063
10th Percentile £16.44 £18.20 £13.85
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.80
Median hourly rate £47.50 £41.91 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.34% +4.78% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.25 £79.48 £75.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £45.00 £40.25
% change year-on-year +4.44% +11.80% -19.50%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -8 2,185 £500 -4.76% 2,397
UK excluding London -4 1,335 £475 +5.56% 2,063
London -13 931 £502 -8.82% 636
Work from Home -9 675 £500 - 2,634
South East -7 367 £500 - 596
North of England -7 336 £417 -8.55% 612
Midlands -19 209 £500 +66.67% 339
North West -4 183 £400 -13.51% 381
West Midlands -23 148 £500 +66.67% 194
South West -12 144 £650 +25.00% 196
East of England -7 140 £475 -5.00% 202
Yorkshire -17 136 £474 +10.05% 176
Scotland -3 97 £500 +11.11% 82
East Midlands -17 59 £525 +55.33% 144
Wales -13 37 £291 -4.68% 40
North East -23 17 £364 -21.30% 61
Northern Ireland -6 16 £406 +30.00% 43

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
1 170 (6.86%) Confluence
2 122 (4.92%) SharePoint
3 71 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.06%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) Drupal
13 2 (0.081%) nginx
13 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.081%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 317 (12.79%) Microsoft Office
2 244 (9.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 198 (7.99%) Microsoft Project
4 144 (5.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.46%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
8 10 (0.40%) Trello
9 7 (0.28%) Navisworks
9 7 (0.28%) Revit
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.24%) Sketch
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Illustrator
12 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.081%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.081%) InVision
Business Applications
1 75 (3.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.77%) Primavera
4 16 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.32%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 515 (20.78%) Azure
2 282 (11.38%) AWS
3 212 (8.56%) Microsoft 365
4 207 (8.35%) Power Platform
5 113 (4.56%) Entra ID
6 110 (4.44%) SaaS
7 105 (4.24%) GCP
8 93 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
9 62 (2.50%) GitHub
10 49 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
11 41 (1.65%) Power Automate
12 35 (1.41%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.29%) Google Workspace
13 32 (1.29%) PowerApps
14 29 (1.17%) PaaS
14 29 (1.17%) Serverless
15 28 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
15 28 (1.13%) IaaS
16 27 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.52%) Firewall
2 62 (2.50%) TCP/IP
3 57 (2.30%) DNS
3 57 (2.30%) WAN
4 55 (2.22%) LAN
5 50 (2.02%) Network Security
6 38 (1.53%) VPN
7 26 (1.05%) Ethernet
7 26 (1.05%) Skype
7 26 (1.05%) Wireless
8 25 (1.01%) BGP
9 23 (0.93%) HTTP
10 22 (0.89%) OSPF
11 18 (0.73%) DHCP
12 17 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (0.65%) SAN
14 13 (0.52%) Internet
15 12 (0.48%) Cisco IOS
15 12 (0.48%) SSL
15 12 (0.48%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (6.90%) Power BI
2 103 (4.16%) SQL Server
3 68 (2.74%) PostgreSQL
4 62 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
5 53 (2.14%) Relational Database
6 49 (1.98%) Big Data
7 42 (1.69%) Tableau
8 41 (1.65%) Metadata
9 37 (1.49%) NoSQL
10 35 (1.41%) MySQL
11 29 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 25 (1.01%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.85%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.48%) Power Query
16 12 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
17 11 (0.44%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 278 (11.22%) JIRA
2 114 (4.60%) Git
3 49 (1.98%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.65%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.89%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.81%) MLflow
7 20 (0.81%) Selenium
8 13 (0.52%) Postman
9 12 (0.48%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
13 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.32%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
15 6 (0.24%) Artifactory
General
1 1,164 (46.97%) Social Skills
2 757 (30.55%) Finance
3 545 (21.99%) Analytical Skills
4 232 (9.36%) Banking
5 216 (8.72%) Public Sector
6 125 (5.04%) Organisational Skills
6 125 (5.04%) Presentation Skills
7 101 (4.08%) Marketing
8 89 (3.59%) Documentation Skills
9 85 (3.43%) Influencing Skills
10 77 (3.11%) Manufacturing
11 73 (2.95%) Aerospace
12 71 (2.87%) Telecoms
13 70 (2.82%) Legal
14 58 (2.34%) Military
15 48 (1.94%) Law
16 45 (1.82%) Electronics
16 45 (1.82%) Retail
17 43 (1.74%) Front Office
18 41 (1.65%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 333 (13.44%) Analyst
2 237 (9.56%) Senior
3 211 (8.51%) Architect
4 204 (8.23%) Lead
5 184 (7.43%) Developer
5 184 (7.43%) Project Manager
6 156 (6.30%) Business Analyst
7 90 (3.63%) Consultant
8 66 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
9 64 (2.58%) Solutions Architect
10 62 (2.50%) Delivery Manager
11 59 (2.38%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.14%) Data Scientist
12 53 (2.14%) Security Engineer
13 52 (2.10%) Designer
14 50 (2.02%) Software Engineer
15 44 (1.78%) Data Engineer
15 44 (1.78%) Product Manager
16 42 (1.69%) Systems Engineer
17 41 (1.65%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (3.95%) REST
2 81 (3.27%) .NET
3 56 (2.26%) React
4 55 (2.22%) Middleware
5 54 (2.18%) HTML
6 49 (1.98%) RESTful
7 44 (1.78%) Kafka
8 39 (1.57%) CSS
8 39 (1.57%) SOAP
9 38 (1.53%) XML
10 37 (1.49%) JSON
11 36 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.45%) Spring Boot
12 34 (1.37%) OAuth
12 34 (1.37%) Pandas
12 34 (1.37%) PyTorch
13 33 (1.33%) Spring
14 30 (1.21%) TensorFlow
15 29 (1.17%) .NET Framework
16 26 (1.05%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.19%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.70%) Product Ownership
3 131 (5.29%) Onboarding
4 89 (3.59%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 71 (2.87%) Self-Motivation
7 67 (2.70%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.50%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.42%) Data Centre
9 60 (2.42%) PMI
10 55 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
11 52 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
12 42 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
13 35 (1.41%) Derivative
13 35 (1.41%) Operational Technology
13 35 (1.41%) Security Posture
14 34 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
15 33 (1.33%) Robotics
16 30 (1.21%) Life Science
17 29 (1.17%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 278 (11.22%) Windows
2 175 (7.06%) Linux
3 73 (2.95%) Windows Server
4 64 (2.58%) Unix
5 59 (2.38%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.29%) Android
7 29 (1.17%) Mac OS
8 20 (0.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 12 (0.48%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.20%) AIX
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Debian
14 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.12%) CentOS
15 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 890 (35.92%) Computer Science
2 740 (29.86%) Agile
3 652 (26.31%) Problem-Solving
4 394 (15.90%) Stakeholder Management
5 367 (14.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 353 (14.25%) AI
7 350 (14.12%) Project Management
8 340 (13.72%) DevOps
9 281 (11.34%) CI/CD
10 279 (11.26%) Analytics
11 277 (11.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 261 (10.53%) Change Management
13 256 (10.33%) ITIL
14 249 (10.05%) Cybersecurity
14 249 (10.05%) Decision-Making
15 247 (9.97%) Migration
16 227 (9.16%) PRINCE2
17 223 (9.00%) Project Delivery
18 213 (8.60%) Business Intelligence
19 209 (8.43%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 392 (15.82%) Python
2 365 (14.73%) SQL
3 169 (6.82%) Java
4 119 (4.80%) PowerShell
5 90 (3.63%) C#
6 84 (3.39%) JavaScript
7 67 (2.70%) C++
8 40 (1.61%) Bash
9 39 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.29%) R
11 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 20 (0.81%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.69%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.61%) C
14 15 (0.61%) Go
14 15 (0.61%) Perl
15 14 (0.56%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.56%) Rust
16 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 559 (22.56%) Computer Science Degree
2 469 (18.93%) Security Cleared
3 335 (13.52%) SC Cleared
4 315 (12.71%) Master's Degree
5 158 (6.38%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.37%) PMP
7 104 (4.20%) CISSP
8 91 (3.67%) Microsoft Certification
9 68 (2.74%) TOGAF Certification
10 62 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
11 61 (2.46%) CISM
12 59 (2.38%) Cisco Certification
13 56 (2.26%) DV Cleared
14 55 (2.22%) PhD
15 52 (2.10%) Azure Certification
16 40 (1.61%) MBA
17 37 (1.49%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 36 (1.45%) CCNP
19 32 (1.29%) CBAP
19 32 (1.29%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 168 (6.78%) QA
2 114 (4.60%) PMO
3 109 (4.40%) GDPR
4 105 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.24%) NIST
5 103 (4.16%) Data Quality
6 51 (2.06%) SLA
7 45 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.74%) PCI DSS
9 25 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.97%) GRC
11 19 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
11 19 (0.77%) NCSC
12 14 (0.56%) COBIT
13 13 (0.52%) Basel III
13 13 (0.52%) IFRS
14 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.48%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.44%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 166 (6.70%) Active Directory
2 146 (5.89%) Docker
3 38 (1.53%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.93%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.081%) HDFS
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) GPFS
13 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.040%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 151 (6.09%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.23%) Terraform
3 63 (2.54%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.46%) Ansible
5 40 (1.61%) Grafana
6 37 (1.49%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
7 30 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.69%) Puppet
8 17 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 11 (0.44%) Kibana
10 11 (0.44%) Nmap
11 10 (0.40%) WSUS
12 9 (0.36%) Kiali
12 9 (0.36%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.32%) SCOM
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 570 (23.00%) Microsoft
2 158 (6.38%) SAP
3 156 (6.30%) Oracle
4 127 (5.13%) ServiceNow
5 88 (3.55%) Google
6 78 (3.15%) Cisco
7 66 (2.66%) Splunk
8 57 (2.30%) Databricks
9 51 (2.06%) Remedy
10 46 (1.86%) Citrix
10 46 (1.86%) VMware
11 43 (1.74%) Atlassian
12 39 (1.57%) IBM
12 39 (1.57%) Salesforce
13 35 (1.41%) Palo Alto
14 33 (1.33%) CheckPoint
15 29 (1.17%) Adobe
16 24 (0.97%) Informatica
17 23 (0.93%) Aruba
17 23 (0.93%) CyberArk