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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,403 2,268 3,584
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.04% 7.80% 8.40%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.84% 25.24% 27.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,381 1,311 1,906
10th Percentile £238 £238 £216
25th Percentile £375 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £630
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 211 179 411
10th Percentile £18.00 £17.35 £14.06
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.67 £22.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.61 £47.81 £41.25
% change year-on-year +26.79% +15.89% -8.33%

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 15,166 8,985 12,903
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.80% 30.91% 30.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,080 5,664 7,976
10th Percentile £350 £281 £301
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £621 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £527
% change year-on-year - -5.17% +0.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,072 508 1,068
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.80
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.42 £17.80
Median hourly rate £49.36 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.63% -6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.81 £65.15 £61.35
90th Percentile £85.36 £80.03 £75.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £38.00 £40.94
% change year-on-year +25.00% -7.18% -18.12%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 -9 2,140 £500 -2.82% 2,683
UK excluding London -8 1,308 £475 +5.56% 2,008
London -17 897 £505 -8.18% 962
Work from Home -12 658 £500 -2.72% 1,102
South East -4 373 £500 +1.63% 683
North of England -11 319 £418 -9.62% 450
Midlands -22 213 £500 +49.25% 287
North West -9 163 £401 -14.01% 233
West Midlands -27 148 £495 +65.00% 175
Yorkshire -11 140 £450 +4.53% 150
South West -12 139 £553 +16.32% 255
East of England -10 138 £450 -10.00% 230
Scotland -12 90 £500 +11.11% 86
East Midlands -11 63 £525 +47.47% 112
Wales -20 28 £373 +21.94% 53
North East -23 16 £450 -5.26% 74
Northern Ireland -9 14 £369 -13.24% 17

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
1 165 (6.87%) Confluence
2 124 (5.16%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.12%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 23 (0.96%) Apache
7 8 (0.33%) CMS
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.25%) SAS
9 5 (0.21%) IIS
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) Moodle
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.083%) Drupal
12 2 (0.083%) nginx
12 2 (0.083%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.083%) WinCC
Applications
1 302 (12.57%) Microsoft Office
2 234 (9.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 182 (7.57%) Microsoft Project
4 140 (5.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.75%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
7 11 (0.46%) Photoshop
8 10 (0.42%) Adobe After Effects
8 10 (0.42%) Simulink
9 9 (0.37%) Trello
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 6 (0.25%) Sketch
12 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
13 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 3 (0.12%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
15 2 (0.083%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 71 (2.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.67%) Primavera
4 13 (0.54%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.21%) Shopify
11 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.17%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 504 (20.97%) Azure
2 291 (12.11%) AWS
3 206 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.87%) Power Platform
5 107 (4.45%) Entra ID
6 94 (3.91%) GCP
6 94 (3.91%) SaaS
7 87 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
8 58 (2.41%) GitHub
9 44 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
10 34 (1.41%) Figma
11 33 (1.37%) Google Workspace
12 32 (1.33%) PaaS
12 32 (1.33%) Power Automate
12 32 (1.33%) Snowflake
13 30 (1.25%) IaaS
14 28 (1.17%) Serverless
15 27 (1.12%) Cloud Computing
15 27 (1.12%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (1.08%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.49%) Firewall
2 68 (2.83%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.58%) DNS
4 56 (2.33%) WAN
5 53 (2.21%) LAN
6 50 (2.08%) Network Security
7 35 (1.46%) VPN
8 28 (1.17%) BGP
9 27 (1.12%) Wireless
10 25 (1.04%) OSPF
11 23 (0.96%) Ethernet
12 20 (0.83%) DHCP
12 20 (0.83%) Skype
13 17 (0.71%) HTTP
13 17 (0.71%) SAN
14 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 13 (0.54%) SSL
16 12 (0.50%) IPsec
16 12 (0.50%) VLAN
16 12 (0.50%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.53%) Power BI
2 99 (4.12%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
4 61 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.08%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.04%) Big Data
7 40 (1.66%) Metadata
8 39 (1.62%) Tableau
9 35 (1.46%) NoSQL
10 30 (1.25%) MySQL
11 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
12 23 (0.96%) Data Lake
13 22 (0.92%) MongoDB
14 17 (0.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.54%) Oracle Database
17 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
17 12 (0.50%) Power Query
17 12 (0.50%) Snowflake Schema
18 10 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 269 (11.19%) JIRA
2 108 (4.49%) Git
3 44 (1.83%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.71%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.92%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.79%) MLflow
8 18 (0.75%) Selenium
9 13 (0.54%) Gradle
9 13 (0.54%) Postman
10 12 (0.50%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.42%) Cucumber
13 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.37%) JUnit
13 9 (0.37%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,122 (46.69%) Social Skills
2 734 (30.55%) Finance
3 517 (21.51%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.78%) Banking
5 203 (8.45%) Public Sector
6 131 (5.45%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.04%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.12%) Marketing
9 87 (3.62%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.20%) Legal
11 71 (2.95%) Aerospace
11 71 (2.95%) Influencing Skills
11 71 (2.95%) Manufacturing
12 68 (2.83%) Telecoms
13 56 (2.33%) Military
14 52 (2.16%) Law
15 48 (2.00%) Retail
16 40 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 40 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
17 39 (1.62%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 351 (14.61%) Analyst
2 256 (10.65%) Senior
3 208 (8.66%) Architect
4 182 (7.57%) Lead
5 178 (7.41%) Project Manager
6 169 (7.03%) Developer
7 166 (6.91%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.91%) Senior Analyst
9 69 (2.87%) Consultant
10 67 (2.79%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.58%) Delivery Manager
12 58 (2.41%) Designer
13 57 (2.37%) Technical Support
14 51 (2.12%) Software Engineer
15 49 (2.04%) Product Manager
16 48 (2.00%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.91%) Data Scientist
17 46 (1.91%) Senior Manager
18 45 (1.87%) Data Engineer
19 43 (1.79%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (4.04%) REST
2 80 (3.33%) .NET
3 63 (2.62%) React
4 58 (2.41%) Middleware
5 51 (2.12%) HTML
6 46 (1.91%) Kafka
7 44 (1.83%) RESTful
8 43 (1.79%) Oracle Fusion
9 39 (1.62%) CSS
10 36 (1.50%) SOAP
11 35 (1.46%) Spring Boot
11 35 (1.46%) XML
12 32 (1.33%) PyTorch
12 32 (1.33%) Spring
13 30 (1.25%) Pandas
14 28 (1.17%) .NET Framework
14 28 (1.17%) JSON
15 26 (1.08%) TensorFlow
15 26 (1.08%) Web Services
16 25 (1.04%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 187 (7.78%) Management Information System
2 165 (6.87%) Product Ownership
3 130 (5.41%) Onboarding
4 83 (3.45%) Cloud Native
5 79 (3.29%) Self-Motivation
6 66 (2.75%) Data Centre
6 66 (2.75%) Virtual Team
7 63 (2.62%) Data Structures
8 61 (2.54%) Algorithms
9 55 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
10 54 (2.25%) Data Protection Act
11 51 (2.12%) PMI
12 40 (1.66%) Operational Technology
13 38 (1.58%) Robotics
14 36 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
15 34 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
16 33 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
17 32 (1.33%) Derivative
17 32 (1.33%) Security Posture
18 29 (1.21%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 283 (11.78%) Windows
2 177 (7.37%) Linux
3 71 (2.95%) Unix
4 70 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.37%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.29%) Android
7 25 (1.04%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.87%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
11 10 (0.42%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.21%) AIX
14 5 (0.21%) VMS
15 4 (0.17%) Debian
15 4 (0.17%) Rocky
15 4 (0.17%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 828 (34.46%) Computer Science
2 697 (29.01%) Agile
3 636 (26.47%) Problem-Solving
4 379 (15.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 352 (14.65%) Continuous Improvement
6 340 (14.15%) AI
7 335 (13.94%) Project Management
8 319 (13.28%) DevOps
9 275 (11.44%) CI/CD
10 259 (10.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 256 (10.65%) Analytics
12 252 (10.49%) Decision-Making
13 237 (9.86%) Migration
14 236 (9.82%) Change Management
15 229 (9.53%) Cybersecurity
16 225 (9.36%) ITIL
17 205 (8.53%) Risk Management
18 201 (8.36%) PRINCE2
19 200 (8.32%) Roadmaps
20 195 (8.11%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 378 (15.73%) Python
2 362 (15.06%) SQL
3 176 (7.32%) Java
4 107 (4.45%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.91%) C#
6 84 (3.50%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.83%) C++
8 39 (1.62%) Bash
9 35 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 31 (1.29%) R
11 22 (0.92%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.75%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.67%) C
13 16 (0.67%) Perl
14 15 (0.62%) Go
14 15 (0.62%) T-SQL
15 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.58%) Rust
16 12 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.42%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 519 (21.60%) Computer Science Degree
2 454 (18.89%) Security Cleared
3 319 (13.28%) SC Cleared
4 282 (11.74%) Master's Degree
5 153 (6.37%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.49%) PMP
7 106 (4.41%) CISSP
8 76 (3.16%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.12%) Cisco Certification
10 64 (2.66%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (2.62%) CISM
12 61 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.37%) DV Cleared
14 47 (1.96%) Azure Certification
14 47 (1.96%) PhD
15 43 (1.79%) CCNP
16 38 (1.58%) MBA
17 36 (1.50%) CBAP
18 35 (1.46%) CCNA
19 30 (1.25%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (6.66%) QA
2 113 (4.70%) PMO
3 111 (4.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 109 (4.54%) Data Quality
5 107 (4.45%) NIST
6 106 (4.41%) GDPR
7 50 (2.08%) SLA
8 46 (1.91%) Accessibility
9 42 (1.75%) PCI DSS
10 27 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.04%) GRC
12 20 (0.83%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.62%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 12 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.50%) Basel III
16 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
17 11 (0.46%) HIPAA
System Software
1 148 (6.16%) Active Directory
2 135 (5.62%) Docker
3 37 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.08%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.083%) HDFS
11 2 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.042%) GPFS
12 1 (0.042%) IAG
12 1 (0.042%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 145 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 74 (3.08%) Terraform
3 63 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.54%) Ansible
5 37 (1.54%) Grafana
6 36 (1.50%) SCCM
7 30 (1.25%) Prometheus
8 26 (1.08%) OPNET
9 18 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 12 (0.50%) Kibana
12 11 (0.46%) Nmap
13 9 (0.37%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 545 (22.68%) Microsoft
2 162 (6.74%) Oracle
3 146 (6.08%) SAP
4 120 (4.99%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.37%) Google
6 76 (3.16%) Cisco
7 63 (2.62%) Splunk
8 57 (2.37%) Databricks
9 46 (1.91%) Salesforce
10 45 (1.87%) VMware
11 44 (1.83%) Remedy
12 43 (1.79%) Citrix
13 41 (1.71%) IBM
14 38 (1.58%) Adobe
15 36 (1.50%) Atlassian
16 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
17 33 (1.37%) CheckPoint
18 23 (0.96%) Aruba
18 23 (0.96%) Informatica
19 21 (0.87%) Siemens