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 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 27 22 23
Rank change year-on-year -5 +1 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,484 2,815 3,556
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 7.00% 7.72% 7.69%
As % of the Qualifications category 21.22% 26.40% 26.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,390 1,589 2,225
10th Percentile £268 £224 £238
25th Percentile £400 £391 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £645
90th Percentile £750 £763 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £499
% change year-on-year - -4.81% +0.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 236 150 211
10th Percentile £15.25 £20.12 £18.00
25th Percentile £23.34 £24.05 £26.81
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.33 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.92% -19.35% +11.11%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £86.00 £75.00 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.33 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.92% -19.35% +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 11,705 10,663 13,348
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.97% 29.24% 28.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,498 6,470 8,526
10th Percentile £300 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £637 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £520 £534
% change year-on-year -3.85% -2.62% +1.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,007 503 752
10th Percentile £17.30 £19.04 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.23 £24.18 £26.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% -15.09% +17.78%
75th Percentile £43.75 £66.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £70.50 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £51.89
% change year-on-year -46.91% -8.71% +15.31%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 -1 2,116 £523 +3.87% 5,226
UK excluding London -2 1,217 £475 - 3,432
London -4 1,040 £550 +3.77% 2,163
Work from Home +2 732 £515 +3.00% 3,518
North of England -11 287 £454 -13.57% 660
South East +3 265 £475 +2.70% 1,131
Midlands -8 220 £475 -4.33% 529
West Midlands -9 169 £500 -2.44% 338
North West -7 167 £454 -14.63% 350
South West +1 137 £550 -4.84% 390
East of England -6 132 £505 +18.82% 423
Scotland -5 120 £456 +7.35% 207
Yorkshire -11 113 £475 -5.05% 207
East Midlands -5 51 £448 +12.00% 185
Wales -5 45 £252 -30.44% 79
Northern Ireland -4 37 £370 -22.11% 82
North East -17 8 £364 -27.20% 107

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
1 154 (6.20%) Confluence
2 126 (5.07%) SharePoint
3 73 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (2.13%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) nginx
7 16 (0.64%) CMS
7 16 (0.64%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.52%) Apache
8 13 (0.52%) IIS
9 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.28%) Moodle
10 5 (0.20%) Luigi
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.20%) SAS
11 4 (0.16%) Alfresco
11 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.12%) Ethereum
Applications
1 278 (11.19%) Microsoft Office
2 224 (9.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 147 (5.92%) Microsoft Project
4 118 (4.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 69 (2.78%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.89%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.64%) Simulink
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
8 13 (0.52%) Trello
9 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
10 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.24%) Maya
11 6 (0.24%) Navisworks
11 6 (0.24%) Revit
11 6 (0.24%) Sketch
12 5 (0.20%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.20%) AutoCAD
13 3 (0.12%) InDesign
13 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 64 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.76%) Primavera
4 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
5 12 (0.48%) SAP ERP
5 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
6 11 (0.44%) Remedy ITSM
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
8 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
8 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
9 8 (0.32%) Dynamics GP
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.28%) FLEXCUBE
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle BPM
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.28%) Teamcenter
11 6 (0.24%) Endur
11 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
11 6 (0.24%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 478 (19.24%) Azure
2 323 (13.00%) AWS
3 191 (7.69%) Microsoft 365
4 169 (6.80%) Power Platform
5 160 (6.44%) GCP
6 104 (4.19%) GitHub
7 95 (3.82%) SaaS
8 83 (3.34%) Entra ID
9 71 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
10 70 (2.82%) Serverless
11 41 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
12 40 (1.61%) Amazon S3
12 40 (1.61%) Cloud Computing
13 36 (1.45%) Azure Sentinel
14 32 (1.29%) Power Automate
15 30 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.21%) Microsoft Purview
16 29 (1.17%) Amazon ECS
16 29 (1.17%) Snowflake
17 27 (1.09%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.39%) Firewall
2 89 (3.58%) DNS
3 60 (2.42%) VPN
4 52 (2.09%) Network Security
5 42 (1.69%) DHCP
6 39 (1.57%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.45%) WAN
8 35 (1.41%) HTTP
8 35 (1.41%) LAN
9 32 (1.29%) Wireless
10 31 (1.25%) Internet
11 28 (1.13%) Unified Communications
11 28 (1.13%) VoIP
12 26 (1.05%) Skype
13 25 (1.01%) BGP
13 25 (1.01%) SSH
13 25 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
14 20 (0.81%) Cisco IOS
14 20 (0.81%) MPLS
14 20 (0.81%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (5.23%) Power BI
2 100 (4.03%) PostgreSQL
3 83 (3.34%) SQL Server
4 75 (3.02%) NoSQL
5 60 (2.42%) Relational Database
6 58 (2.33%) Tableau
7 57 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
8 33 (1.33%) Big Data
9 30 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
9 30 (1.21%) MySQL
10 29 (1.17%) Data Lake
11 23 (0.93%) Metadata
12 19 (0.76%) Hadoop
12 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.72%) Redis
14 17 (0.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 16 (0.64%) Oracle Database
15 16 (0.64%) RDBMS
16 12 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (0.48%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 255 (10.27%) JIRA
2 122 (4.91%) Git
3 109 (4.39%) Jenkins
4 77 (3.10%) GitLab
5 29 (1.17%) Liquibase
6 26 (1.05%) Postman
7 20 (0.81%) Selenium
8 14 (0.56%) Bitbucket
9 13 (0.52%) JUnit
9 13 (0.52%) Visual Studio
10 12 (0.48%) SpecFlow
11 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
12 10 (0.40%) Artifactory
12 10 (0.40%) Cucumber
12 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.36%) MLflow
14 8 (0.32%) IntelliJ
14 8 (0.32%) Subversion
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
15 7 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,286 (51.77%) Social Skills
2 789 (31.76%) Finance
3 597 (24.03%) Analytical Skills
4 275 (11.07%) Banking
5 159 (6.40%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.87%) Manufacturing
7 107 (4.31%) Presentation Skills
8 96 (3.86%) Marketing
8 96 (3.86%) Organisational Skills
9 87 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
10 82 (3.30%) Legal
11 76 (3.06%) Telecoms
12 67 (2.70%) Financial Institution
13 65 (2.62%) Investment Banking
14 63 (2.54%) Front Office
15 62 (2.50%) Pharmaceutical
16 52 (2.09%) Aerospace
16 52 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
17 48 (1.93%) Military
18 44 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 380 (15.30%) Analyst
2 249 (10.02%) Developer
3 244 (9.82%) Senior
4 187 (7.53%) Lead
5 155 (6.24%) Architect
6 151 (6.08%) Business Analyst
7 149 (6.00%) Project Manager
8 105 (4.23%) Consultant
9 81 (3.26%) Software Engineer
10 65 (2.62%) Support Analyst
11 63 (2.54%) IT Support
12 52 (2.09%) Security Engineer
13 50 (2.01%) Solutions Architect
13 50 (2.01%) Support Engineer
14 48 (1.93%) Data Scientist
14 48 (1.93%) Senior Developer
15 46 (1.85%) Technical Support
16 45 (1.81%) Data Analyst
17 43 (1.73%) Data Engineer
18 42 (1.69%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (5.48%) REST
2 89 (3.58%) RESTful
3 77 (3.10%) HTML
4 71 (2.86%) .NET
5 62 (2.50%) CSS
6 59 (2.38%) Kafka
7 51 (2.05%) XML
8 47 (1.89%) JSON
9 43 (1.73%) SOAP
10 42 (1.69%) Web Services
11 41 (1.65%) Elastic Stack
11 41 (1.65%) Middleware
11 41 (1.65%) React
12 38 (1.53%) TensorFlow
13 37 (1.49%) AngularJS
14 35 (1.41%) OAuth
15 33 (1.33%) Node.js
15 33 (1.33%) Spring
16 32 (1.29%) PyTorch
17 31 (1.25%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 206 (8.29%) Management Information System
2 99 (3.99%) Cloud Native
3 97 (3.90%) Product Ownership
4 95 (3.82%) Algorithms
5 73 (2.94%) Onboarding
6 69 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
7 64 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
7 64 (2.58%) Virtual Team
8 57 (2.29%) Analytical Mindset
9 56 (2.25%) Data Centre
10 50 (2.01%) Public Cloud
11 49 (1.97%) Derivative
12 44 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
13 43 (1.73%) Life Science
14 41 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
15 40 (1.61%) Mobile App
16 39 (1.57%) PKI
17 37 (1.49%) Data Structures
17 37 (1.49%) Security Posture
18 35 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 262 (10.55%) Windows
2 200 (8.05%) Linux
3 80 (3.22%) Unix
4 54 (2.17%) Windows Server
5 34 (1.37%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.13%) Android
7 27 (1.09%) Apple iOS
7 27 (1.09%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
9 17 (0.68%) VMS
10 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
10 10 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
10 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) CentOS
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
14 2 (0.081%) Kali Linux
14 2 (0.081%) Mac OS X
15 1 (0.040%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,006 (40.50%) Computer Science
2 773 (31.12%) Problem-Solving
3 744 (29.95%) Agile
4 394 (15.86%) Project Management
5 360 (14.49%) Stakeholder Management
6 339 (13.65%) DevOps
7 286 (11.51%) Change Management
8 282 (11.35%) ITIL
9 260 (10.47%) Analytics
10 258 (10.39%) CI/CD
11 250 (10.06%) Cybersecurity
12 243 (9.78%) AI
13 242 (9.74%) Continuous Improvement
14 238 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 231 (9.30%) Migration
16 224 (9.02%) Software Engineering
17 209 (8.41%) Project Delivery
18 204 (8.21%) Decision-Making
19 188 (7.57%) Risk Management
20 184 (7.41%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 490 (19.73%) Python
2 369 (14.86%) SQL
3 203 (8.17%) Java
4 123 (4.95%) JavaScript
5 118 (4.75%) PowerShell
6 81 (3.26%) C++
7 75 (3.02%) C#
8 63 (2.54%) Go
9 48 (1.93%) TypeScript
10 44 (1.77%) Bash
11 39 (1.57%) R
12 23 (0.93%) Perl
13 21 (0.85%) Kusto Query Language
13 21 (0.85%) MATLAB
13 21 (0.85%) Ruby
14 20 (0.81%) C
14 20 (0.81%) PL/SQL
15 19 (0.76%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
17 15 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 652 (26.25%) Computer Science Degree
2 368 (14.81%) Master's Degree
3 331 (13.33%) Security Cleared
4 257 (10.35%) SC Cleared
5 135 (5.43%) PMI Certification
6 122 (4.91%) PMP
7 120 (4.83%) CISSP
8 94 (3.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 87 (3.50%) PhD
10 75 (3.02%) Cisco Certification
11 71 (2.86%) Azure Certification
12 69 (2.78%) AWS Certification
13 68 (2.74%) CISM
14 52 (2.09%) HND
15 49 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
16 46 (1.85%) CCNP
16 46 (1.85%) DV Cleared
17 42 (1.69%) HNC
18 40 (1.61%) CCNA
19 32 (1.29%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 135 (5.43%) QA
2 123 (4.95%) GDPR
3 105 (4.23%) Data Quality
4 97 (3.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 88 (3.54%) NIST
6 58 (2.33%) PMO
7 48 (1.93%) Accessibility
8 36 (1.45%) SLA
9 33 (1.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 30 (1.21%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.05%) GRC
12 24 (0.97%) HIPAA
13 21 (0.85%) NCSC
14 19 (0.76%) COBIT
15 16 (0.64%) NIST 800
15 16 (0.64%) WCAG
16 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
17 14 (0.56%) P3O
18 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
19 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 168 (6.76%) Docker
2 160 (6.44%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.13%) Firmware
5 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
8 9 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.32%) XenApp
10 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
11 6 (0.24%) vSphere
12 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.16%) NDS
13 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
14 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
15 2 (0.081%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 147 (5.92%) Kubernetes
2 119 (4.79%) Terraform
3 88 (3.54%) Ansible
4 63 (2.54%) Grafana
5 55 (2.21%) Prometheus
6 54 (2.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 43 (1.73%) SCCM
8 16 (0.64%) Puppet
9 13 (0.52%) Nessus
9 13 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
10 12 (0.48%) QRadar
11 11 (0.44%) SCOM
12 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
15 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.24%) Kibana
15 6 (0.24%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 536 (21.58%) Microsoft
2 154 (6.20%) SAP
3 135 (5.43%) Oracle
4 118 (4.75%) ServiceNow
5 97 (3.90%) Google
6 91 (3.66%) Cisco
7 90 (3.62%) Splunk
8 69 (2.78%) Salesforce
9 55 (2.21%) VMware
10 37 (1.49%) IBM
11 34 (1.37%) Databricks
12 32 (1.29%) Citrix
13 31 (1.25%) Atlassian
14 29 (1.17%) Adobe
15 25 (1.01%) Palo Alto
15 25 (1.01%) Workday
16 21 (0.85%) Apple
16 21 (0.85%) Remedy
17 20 (0.81%) Red Hat
18 16 (0.64%) Fortinet