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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,436 2,238 3,495
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.98% 7.68% 8.13%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.76% 24.71% 27.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,360 1,290 1,899
10th Percentile £225 £235 £225
25th Percentile £380 £371 £377
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £634 £625
90th Percentile £726 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% +0.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 175 418
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.62 £14.19
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.67 £21.90
Median hourly rate £52.50 £51.80 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.36% +29.49% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.36 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £45.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +22.22% +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 15,453 9,057 12,862
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.57% 31.09% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,254 5,685 8,011
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £619 £645
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.30% +1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,126 529 1,099
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.76 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.50 £18.13
Median hourly rate £48.61 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.57% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.37 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.18 £41.00
% change year-on-year +47.61% -21.51% -21.90%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -10 2,179 £500 -1.50% 3,528
UK excluding London -6 1,333 £465 +3.33% 2,239
London -16 918 £515 -6.36% 1,630
Work from Home -15 651 £500 -2.72% 1,343
South East 0 384 £500 +5.26% 693
North of England -11 334 £444 -2.58% 513
Midlands -19 214 £505 +41.06% 279
North West -6 180 £416 -10.68% 272
West Midlands -24 154 £478 +19.50% 186
East of England -5 141 £450 -10.00% 249
Yorkshire -16 139 £475 +8.94% 168
South West -16 132 £500 +4.28% 279
Scotland -14 92 £500 +11.11% 126
East Midlands -15 58 £537 +50.84% 93
Wales -21 28 £450 +47.31% 46
North East -29 15 £450 +130.77% 81
Northern Ireland -7 14 £350 +12.00% 96

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
1 141 (5.79%) Confluence
2 129 (5.30%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.59%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.09%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.31%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.99%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.25%) SAS
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.082%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.082%) Drupal
14 2 (0.082%) WebSphere
Applications
1 277 (11.37%) Microsoft Office
2 228 (9.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 154 (6.32%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.63%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 12 (0.49%) Simulink
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 66 (2.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.62%) Primavera
3 11 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
9 4 (0.16%) HFM
9 4 (0.16%) Magento
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 528 (21.67%) Azure
2 312 (12.81%) AWS
3 203 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
4 187 (7.68%) Power Platform
5 122 (5.01%) Entra ID
6 105 (4.31%) GCP
7 85 (3.49%) SaaS
8 83 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (2.50%) GitHub
10 42 (1.72%) Figma
11 39 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
12 34 (1.40%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.31%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.27%) PaaS
15 29 (1.19%) Power Automate
16 28 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.15%) IaaS
16 28 (1.15%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.15%) Serverless
17 27 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.60%) Firewall
2 72 (2.96%) DNS
2 72 (2.96%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.46%) Network Security
4 55 (2.26%) WAN
5 51 (2.09%) LAN
6 37 (1.52%) VPN
7 26 (1.07%) BGP
7 26 (1.07%) DHCP
8 25 (1.03%) Wireless
9 23 (0.94%) Ethernet
9 23 (0.94%) OSPF
10 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
11 17 (0.70%) SAN
11 17 (0.70%) Skype
12 14 (0.57%) HTTP
12 14 (0.57%) VXLAN
13 13 (0.53%) SSL
14 12 (0.49%) SSH
14 12 (0.49%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (6.28%) Power BI
2 111 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.01%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.89%) Big Data
7 41 (1.68%) Metadata
8 38 (1.56%) Tableau
9 36 (1.48%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
11 27 (1.11%) MySQL
12 25 (1.03%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.86%) Data Lake
14 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
14 18 (0.74%) Oracle Database
15 16 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
16 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.45%) GIS
17 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 241 (9.89%) JIRA
2 113 (4.64%) Git
3 46 (1.89%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.72%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.78%) MLflow
8 17 (0.70%) Selenium
9 14 (0.57%) Gradle
10 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.53%) JUnit
10 13 (0.53%) Postman
11 11 (0.45%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.33%) Burp Suite
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) Metasploit
General
1 1,122 (46.06%) Social Skills
2 749 (30.75%) Finance
3 481 (19.75%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.66%) Banking
5 204 (8.37%) Public Sector
6 137 (5.62%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.02%) Marketing
9 84 (3.45%) Legal
10 81 (3.33%) Aerospace
10 81 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
11 77 (3.16%) Manufacturing
12 73 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
13 66 (2.71%) Telecoms
14 54 (2.22%) Law
15 50 (2.05%) Retail
16 45 (1.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 40 (1.64%) Front Office
18 39 (1.60%) Investment Banking
19 37 (1.52%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 352 (14.45%) Analyst
2 274 (11.25%) Senior
3 195 (8.00%) Architect
4 185 (7.59%) Lead
5 171 (7.02%) Developer
6 170 (6.98%) Project Manager
7 157 (6.44%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.75%) Senior Analyst
10 65 (2.67%) Consultant
11 64 (2.63%) Designer
12 62 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
13 60 (2.46%) Software Engineer
14 57 (2.34%) Technical Support
15 55 (2.26%) Senior Manager
16 54 (2.22%) Security Engineer
17 48 (1.97%) Product Manager
18 46 (1.89%) Administrator
18 46 (1.89%) IT Manager
18 46 (1.89%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.31%) REST
2 86 (3.53%) .NET
3 67 (2.75%) React
4 56 (2.30%) Middleware
5 54 (2.22%) Oracle Fusion
6 52 (2.13%) HTML
6 52 (2.13%) Kafka
7 43 (1.77%) RESTful
8 42 (1.72%) CSS
9 35 (1.44%) Spring Boot
10 34 (1.40%) .NET Framework
11 32 (1.31%) XML
12 30 (1.23%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.23%) Spring
13 29 (1.19%) OAuth
13 29 (1.19%) SOAP
14 28 (1.15%) Pandas
14 28 (1.15%) PyTorch
15 27 (1.11%) JSON
15 27 (1.11%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 184 (7.55%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.87%) Product Ownership
3 134 (5.50%) Onboarding
4 96 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
5 95 (3.90%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.79%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.67%) Virtual Team
8 61 (2.50%) Algorithms
8 61 (2.50%) Data Structures
9 55 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
10 52 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
11 46 (1.89%) PMI
12 42 (1.72%) Operational Technology
13 40 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
14 39 (1.60%) Security Posture
15 38 (1.56%) Robotics
16 35 (1.44%) Life Science
17 34 (1.40%) Derivative
18 32 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
19 30 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 306 (12.56%) Windows
2 190 (7.80%) Linux
3 74 (3.04%) Unix
4 71 (2.91%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.42%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Android
6 32 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 26 (1.07%) Apple iOS
7 26 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
10 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.29%) AIX
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 4 (0.16%) Debian
12 4 (0.16%) Rocky
12 4 (0.16%) Solaris
12 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 838 (34.40%) Computer Science
2 670 (27.50%) Agile
3 638 (26.19%) Problem-Solving
4 373 (15.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 362 (14.86%) Continuous Improvement
6 353 (14.49%) AI
7 326 (13.38%) DevOps
8 311 (12.77%) Project Management
9 291 (11.95%) CI/CD
10 271 (11.12%) Analytics
11 264 (10.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 259 (10.63%) Decision-Making
13 239 (9.81%) Cybersecurity
14 235 (9.65%) Migration
15 233 (9.56%) Change Management
16 212 (8.70%) Roadmaps
16 212 (8.70%) Software Engineering
17 206 (8.46%) ITIL
18 198 (8.13%) PRINCE2
18 198 (8.13%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 396 (16.26%) Python
2 368 (15.11%) SQL
3 186 (7.64%) Java
4 120 (4.93%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.90%) C#
6 93 (3.82%) JavaScript
7 64 (2.63%) C++
8 45 (1.85%) Bash
9 33 (1.35%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.07%) R
11 22 (0.90%) PL/SQL
12 21 (0.86%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.78%) C
14 16 (0.66%) T-SQL
15 15 (0.62%) Perl
15 15 (0.62%) Rust
16 14 (0.57%) Go
16 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
17 11 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 517 (21.22%) Computer Science Degree
2 440 (18.06%) Security Cleared
3 298 (12.23%) SC Cleared
4 268 (11.00%) Master's Degree
5 144 (5.91%) PMI Certification
6 125 (5.13%) PMP
7 120 (4.93%) CISSP
8 81 (3.33%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (3.28%) Microsoft Certification
10 67 (2.75%) CISM
11 65 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
12 63 (2.59%) DV Cleared
13 58 (2.38%) Azure Certification
14 47 (1.93%) PhD
15 45 (1.85%) CCNP
16 41 (1.68%) TOGAF Certification
17 37 (1.52%) CCNA
18 36 (1.48%) CBAP
19 34 (1.40%) AWS Certification
19 34 (1.40%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (5.83%) QA
2 110 (4.52%) Data Quality
2 110 (4.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 110 (4.52%) NIST
2 110 (4.52%) PMO
3 100 (4.11%) GDPR
4 51 (2.09%) Accessibility
5 50 (2.05%) SLA
6 41 (1.68%) PCI DSS
7 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 25 (1.03%) GRC
9 20 (0.82%) NCSC
10 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
11 16 (0.66%) IFRS
12 14 (0.57%) COBIT
13 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.45%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
16 10 (0.41%) WCAG
System Software
1 159 (6.53%) Active Directory
2 141 (5.79%) Docker
3 38 (1.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.19%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.25%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.082%) HDFS
12 2 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 158 (6.49%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.49%) Terraform
3 72 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
4 62 (2.55%) Ansible
5 40 (1.64%) Grafana
6 37 (1.52%) SCCM
7 35 (1.44%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Progress Chef
11 14 (0.57%) Puppet
12 11 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
12 11 (0.45%) Kibana
13 9 (0.37%) Functional Safety
13 9 (0.37%) Kiali
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.29%) Nmap
Vendors
1 547 (22.45%) Microsoft
2 181 (7.43%) Oracle
3 141 (5.79%) SAP
4 103 (4.23%) ServiceNow
5 88 (3.61%) Google
6 76 (3.12%) Cisco
7 61 (2.50%) Databricks
8 60 (2.46%) Splunk
9 46 (1.89%) Citrix
10 45 (1.85%) Salesforce
10 45 (1.85%) VMware
11 43 (1.77%) Adobe
12 39 (1.60%) IBM
13 35 (1.44%) Palo Alto
14 33 (1.35%) CheckPoint
15 25 (1.03%) Red Hat
16 22 (0.90%) Aruba
16 22 (0.90%) Informatica
17 21 (0.86%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.86%) Siemens