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

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,409 2,249 3,597
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.82% 7.62% 8.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.35% 24.65% 27.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,326 1,289 1,943
10th Percentile £213 £235 £225
25th Percentile £367 £367 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £615
90th Percentile £713 £755 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £464 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +3.06% -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 181 418
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.80 £14.25
25th Percentile £27.30 £26.32 £21.90
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.37 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.25 £45.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +16.11% +11.59% -18.17%

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 15,694 9,122 13,068
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 30.91% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,424 5,666 8,105
10th Percentile £350 £276 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £624 £615 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,162 576 1,113
10th Percentile £17.09 £17.71 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.00 £18.35
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.27 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.18% -24.33% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £64.50 £63.41
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £76.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £29.27 £41.27
% change year-on-year +62.28% -29.07% -21.40%

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 13 June 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 13 June 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 13 June 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 2,147 £500 -1.96% 2,481
UK excluding London -10 1,310 £464 +3.06% 1,975
London -16 922 £502 -8.82% 859
Work from Home -16 654 £500 -4.76% 964
South East -1 395 £500 +5.26% 634
North of England -13 325 £447 -3.35% 461
Midlands -22 198 £523 +45.95% 252
North West -9 176 £418 -10.98% 258
West Midlands -29 143 £487 +17.94% 141
East of England -4 137 £450 -10.00% 219
Yorkshire -8 134 £500 +11.86% 152
South West -21 118 £460 -3.26% 281
Scotland -16 96 £500 +11.11% 92
East Midlands -13 53 £545 +55.71% 111
Wales -23 28 £490 +57.05% 44
Northern Ireland -6 17 £254 -40.24% 52
North East -37 15 £450 +130.77% 63

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
1 130 (5.40%) Confluence
2 129 (5.35%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (1.95%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.87%) Apache
7 11 (0.46%) IIS
8 9 (0.37%) CMS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.29%) SAS
11 6 (0.25%) Camunda
11 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Appian
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.083%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.083%) Drupal
14 2 (0.083%) nginx
Applications
1 269 (11.17%) Microsoft Office
2 220 (9.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (5.81%) Microsoft Project
4 133 (5.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.66%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.66%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
8 10 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Sketch
13 5 (0.21%) Final Cut Pro
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.66%) Primavera
3 13 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
4 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
10 4 (0.17%) HFM
10 4 (0.17%) Magento
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 527 (21.88%) Azure
2 308 (12.79%) AWS
3 201 (8.34%) Microsoft 365
4 192 (7.97%) Power Platform
5 129 (5.35%) Entra ID
6 111 (4.61%) GCP
7 91 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 86 (3.57%) SaaS
9 63 (2.62%) GitHub
10 41 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
10 41 (1.70%) Figma
11 36 (1.49%) Snowflake
12 34 (1.41%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.41%) Serverless
13 33 (1.37%) PowerApps
14 31 (1.29%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.29%) OneDrive
15 30 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.25%) PaaS
16 27 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.48%) Firewall
2 78 (3.24%) TCP/IP
3 76 (3.15%) DNS
4 61 (2.53%) Network Security
5 51 (2.12%) WAN
6 48 (1.99%) LAN
7 39 (1.62%) VPN
8 31 (1.29%) DHCP
9 25 (1.04%) BGP
10 24 (1.00%) Wireless
11 22 (0.91%) OSPF
12 20 (0.83%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
13 16 (0.66%) SSL
14 15 (0.62%) SAN
14 15 (0.62%) Skype
15 14 (0.58%) HTTP
15 14 (0.58%) SSH
16 13 (0.54%) 3GPP
16 13 (0.54%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (6.72%) Power BI
2 109 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (1.99%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.95%) Big Data
7 40 (1.66%) Metadata
8 39 (1.62%) Tableau
9 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
11 26 (1.08%) MySQL
12 24 (1.00%) MongoDB
13 20 (0.83%) Data Lake
14 19 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
15 18 (0.75%) Oracle Database
15 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 14 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
16 14 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.46%) GIS
17 11 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 217 (9.01%) JIRA
2 113 (4.69%) Git
3 47 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.70%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.87%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.83%) MLflow
8 16 (0.66%) Selenium
9 15 (0.62%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.54%) JUnit
11 12 (0.50%) Gradle
11 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
12 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.33%) Bitbucket
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,107 (45.95%) Social Skills
2 743 (30.84%) Finance
3 491 (20.38%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.55%) Public Sector
5 198 (8.22%) Banking
6 138 (5.73%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
8 106 (4.40%) Marketing
9 91 (3.78%) Legal
10 87 (3.61%) Aerospace
11 84 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
12 79 (3.28%) Manufacturing
13 74 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
14 68 (2.82%) Telecoms
15 53 (2.20%) Retail
16 52 (2.16%) Law
17 47 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 36 (1.49%) Front Office
18 36 (1.49%) Pharmaceutical
19 33 (1.37%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 361 (14.99%) Analyst
2 271 (11.25%) Senior
3 194 (8.05%) Architect
4 184 (7.64%) Lead
5 166 (6.89%) Developer
6 161 (6.68%) Project Manager
7 160 (6.64%) Business Analyst
8 75 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
9 68 (2.82%) Designer
10 67 (2.78%) Consultant
11 66 (2.74%) Senior Analyst
12 58 (2.41%) Software Engineer
13 57 (2.37%) Senior Manager
14 55 (2.28%) Technical Support
15 53 (2.20%) Security Engineer
16 52 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
17 50 (2.08%) Administrator
18 48 (1.99%) Product Manager
19 46 (1.91%) Data Scientist
19 46 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (4.28%) REST
2 88 (3.65%) .NET
3 64 (2.66%) React
4 50 (2.08%) Kafka
5 49 (2.03%) Middleware
6 47 (1.95%) HTML
7 46 (1.91%) Oracle Fusion
8 39 (1.62%) RESTful
9 36 (1.49%) .NET Framework
9 36 (1.49%) CSS
10 33 (1.37%) OAuth
11 32 (1.33%) XML
12 30 (1.25%) JSON
12 30 (1.25%) Spring Boot
13 29 (1.20%) Web Services
14 28 (1.16%) Spring
15 27 (1.12%) AngularJS
15 27 (1.12%) SOAP
16 26 (1.08%) Pandas
17 22 (0.91%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 192 (7.97%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.94%) Onboarding
3 141 (5.85%) Product Ownership
4 102 (4.23%) Self-Motivation
5 87 (3.61%) Cloud Native
6 73 (3.03%) Data Centre
7 61 (2.53%) Data Structures
7 61 (2.53%) Virtual Team
8 59 (2.45%) Algorithms
9 50 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
10 49 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (1.87%) PMI
12 42 (1.74%) Operational Technology
13 39 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
13 39 (1.62%) Security Posture
14 37 (1.54%) Robotics
15 33 (1.37%) Life Science
16 30 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (1.25%) Derivative
17 29 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 308 (12.79%) Windows
2 189 (7.85%) Linux
3 75 (3.11%) Windows Server
4 74 (3.07%) Unix
5 56 (2.32%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.29%) Android
8 29 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 28 (1.16%) Mac OS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.29%) AIX
13 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
14 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
15 4 (0.17%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 813 (33.75%) Computer Science
2 656 (27.23%) Agile
3 634 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
4 383 (15.90%) Stakeholder Management
5 364 (15.11%) Continuous Improvement
6 359 (14.90%) AI
7 320 (13.28%) DevOps
8 291 (12.08%) Project Management
9 280 (11.62%) CI/CD
10 274 (11.37%) Analytics
11 256 (10.63%) Decision-Making
12 253 (10.50%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 240 (9.96%) Cybersecurity
14 233 (9.67%) Migration
15 228 (9.46%) Change Management
16 214 (8.88%) Roadmaps
17 212 (8.80%) ITIL
18 199 (8.26%) Software Engineering
19 187 (7.76%) Risk Management
20 183 (7.60%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 391 (16.23%) Python
2 362 (15.03%) SQL
3 171 (7.10%) Java
4 121 (5.02%) PowerShell
5 96 (3.99%) C#
6 91 (3.78%) JavaScript
7 55 (2.28%) C++
8 41 (1.70%) Bash
9 30 (1.25%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.12%) R
11 23 (0.95%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.95%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.71%) C
13 16 (0.66%) T-SQL
14 14 (0.58%) Rust
15 13 (0.54%) Go
15 13 (0.54%) Perl
16 12 (0.50%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 9 (0.37%) VB
Qualifications
1 494 (20.51%) Computer Science Degree
2 431 (17.89%) Security Cleared
3 292 (12.12%) SC Cleared
4 254 (10.54%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.94%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.06%) PMP
7 120 (4.98%) CISSP
8 85 (3.53%) Microsoft Certification
9 80 (3.32%) Cisco Certification
10 70 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
11 67 (2.78%) CISM
12 61 (2.53%) DV Cleared
13 53 (2.20%) Azure Certification
14 45 (1.87%) PhD
15 42 (1.74%) CCNP
16 38 (1.58%) CBAP
17 36 (1.49%) CCNA
17 36 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
18 35 (1.45%) MBA
19 34 (1.41%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.60%) QA
2 118 (4.90%) NIST
3 114 (4.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 113 (4.69%) Data Quality
5 105 (4.36%) PMO
6 101 (4.19%) GDPR
7 49 (2.03%) SLA
8 48 (1.99%) Accessibility
9 41 (1.70%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (1.12%) GRC
12 18 (0.75%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.66%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.54%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
17 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
18 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 172 (7.14%) Active Directory
2 135 (5.60%) Docker
3 39 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (1.25%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 9 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.12%) NFS
10 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 143 (5.94%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.20%) Terraform
3 75 (3.11%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.57%) Ansible
5 38 (1.58%) Grafana
6 36 (1.49%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.49%) SCCM
7 22 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.62%) Puppet
10 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
11 10 (0.42%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
13 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.33%) Kibana
13 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 6 (0.25%) Kiali
15 5 (0.21%) Nmap
Vendors
1 549 (22.79%) Microsoft
2 171 (7.10%) Oracle
3 142 (5.89%) SAP
4 108 (4.48%) ServiceNow
5 93 (3.86%) Google
6 71 (2.95%) Cisco
7 57 (2.37%) Databricks
8 52 (2.16%) Splunk
9 48 (1.99%) Salesforce
10 46 (1.91%) Citrix
10 46 (1.91%) VMware
11 44 (1.83%) Adobe
12 39 (1.62%) IBM
13 34 (1.41%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.20%) CheckPoint
15 26 (1.08%) CyberArk
16 23 (0.95%) Red Hat
17 21 (0.87%) Aruba
17 21 (0.87%) Informatica
18 20 (0.83%) Siemens