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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -8 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,471 2,308 3,668
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.38% 7.88% 8.37%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.32% 25.62% 27.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,449 1,323 1,982
10th Percentile £263 £250 £208
25th Percentile £386 £381 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £512
Median % change year-on-year - -2.41% -2.41%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £635
90th Percentile £742 £775 £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 226 185 381
10th Percentile £16.92 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £28.50 £22.00
Median hourly rate £50.72 £54.00 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -6.07% +35.27% -11.29%
75th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year +15.05% +19.51% -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 15,141 9,008 13,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.97% 30.75% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,076 5,717 8,307
10th Percentile £350 £293 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -1.23% -2.23% -2.36%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,097 499 1,029
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.82 £22.72 £17.60
Median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year +1.02% +15.53% -27.87%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.67 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year -4.91% +19.51% -20.00%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -7 2,166 £500 -4.76% 3,265
UK excluding London -7 1,305 £475 +5.56% 2,403
London -13 938 £513 -6.82% 1,140
Work from Home -7 678 £500 -1.48% 926
South East -4 359 £500 - 768
North of England -7 324 £412 -9.59% 628
Midlands -24 204 £500 +61.29% 359
North West -6 180 £400 -14.12% 407
West Midlands -29 146 £494 +64.50% 211
South West -8 143 £669 +27.38% 225
East of England -8 140 £498 -4.14% 317
Yorkshire -19 127 £475 +6.26% 167
Scotland -4 96 £500 +12.11% 94
East Midlands -16 57 £525 +47.47% 147
Wales -13 40 £291 -4.60% 44
North East -19 18 £407 -4.24% 60
Northern Ireland -7 16 £406 +30.00% 15

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
1 176 (7.12%) Confluence
2 119 (4.82%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 52 (2.10%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.05%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 11 (0.45%) 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%) Drupal
12 3 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.081%) nginx
13 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.081%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 316 (12.79%) Microsoft Office
2 241 (9.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 199 (8.05%) Microsoft Project
4 143 (5.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.67%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.45%) Simulink
8 10 (0.40%) Trello
9 7 (0.28%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
11 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) InVision
12 3 (0.12%) Navisworks
12 3 (0.12%) Revit
13 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.081%) FrameMaker
13 2 (0.081%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 73 (2.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.81%) Primavera
4 17 (0.69%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
6 9 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
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%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 531 (21.49%) Azure
2 286 (11.57%) AWS
3 213 (8.62%) Microsoft 365
4 204 (8.26%) Power Platform
5 111 (4.49%) Entra ID
6 110 (4.45%) GCP
7 107 (4.33%) SaaS
8 101 (4.09%) Azure DevOps
9 68 (2.75%) GitHub
10 50 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
11 39 (1.58%) Power Automate
12 38 (1.54%) Snowflake
13 33 (1.34%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.30%) Google Workspace
15 31 (1.25%) PaaS
16 30 (1.21%) PowerApps
17 29 (1.17%) IaaS
18 28 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
18 28 (1.13%) Serverless
19 26 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 121 (4.90%) Firewall
2 63 (2.55%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.51%) WAN
4 61 (2.47%) LAN
5 60 (2.43%) DNS
6 51 (2.06%) Network Security
7 38 (1.54%) VPN
8 31 (1.25%) BGP
9 29 (1.17%) Wireless
10 26 (1.05%) Ethernet
11 25 (1.01%) HTTP
11 25 (1.01%) OSPF
12 24 (0.97%) Skype
13 21 (0.85%) DHCP
14 18 (0.73%) VLAN
15 16 (0.65%) Internet
15 16 (0.65%) SAN
15 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.61%) VXLAN
17 13 (0.53%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (6.80%) Power BI
2 102 (4.13%) SQL Server
3 69 (2.79%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.02%) Big Data
6 49 (1.98%) Relational Database
7 42 (1.70%) Tableau
8 38 (1.54%) Metadata
8 38 (1.54%) NoSQL
9 34 (1.38%) MySQL
10 29 (1.17%) Hadoop
11 26 (1.05%) Data Lake
12 20 (0.81%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
15 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.45%) Star Schema
17 10 (0.40%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 282 (11.41%) JIRA
2 116 (4.69%) Git
3 50 (2.02%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.62%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (1.05%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.97%) Selenium
8 18 (0.73%) MLflow
9 14 (0.57%) Burp Suite
10 13 (0.53%) Postman
11 11 (0.45%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.36%) JUnit
14 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
15 7 (0.28%) JMeter
15 7 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,180 (47.75%) Social Skills
2 751 (30.39%) Finance
3 555 (22.46%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (9.27%) Banking
5 212 (8.58%) Public Sector
6 124 (5.02%) Presentation Skills
7 120 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
8 96 (3.89%) Marketing
9 90 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
10 86 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
11 80 (3.24%) Manufacturing
12 74 (2.99%) Legal
13 72 (2.91%) Aerospace
14 66 (2.67%) Telecoms
15 57 (2.31%) Military
16 50 (2.02%) Retail
17 46 (1.86%) Electronics
17 46 (1.86%) Law
18 45 (1.82%) Front Office
19 41 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 335 (13.56%) Analyst
2 242 (9.79%) Senior
3 210 (8.50%) Architect
4 204 (8.26%) Lead
5 187 (7.57%) Developer
5 187 (7.57%) Project Manager
6 155 (6.27%) Business Analyst
7 93 (3.76%) Consultant
8 68 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
9 65 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
10 64 (2.59%) Delivery Manager
11 56 (2.27%) Technical Support
12 53 (2.14%) Data Scientist
13 52 (2.10%) Security Engineer
14 50 (2.02%) Designer
14 50 (2.02%) Software Engineer
15 44 (1.78%) Product Manager
16 43 (1.74%) Data Engineer
16 43 (1.74%) IT Support
17 42 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.05%) REST
2 77 (3.12%) .NET
3 55 (2.23%) React
4 53 (2.14%) HTML
4 53 (2.14%) Middleware
5 48 (1.94%) RESTful
6 46 (1.86%) Kafka
7 38 (1.54%) CSS
7 38 (1.54%) JSON
7 38 (1.54%) SOAP
7 38 (1.54%) XML
8 36 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
8 36 (1.46%) PyTorch
8 36 (1.46%) Spring Boot
9 33 (1.34%) Pandas
9 33 (1.34%) Spring
10 32 (1.30%) TensorFlow
11 29 (1.17%) OAuth
12 28 (1.13%) .NET Framework
13 25 (1.01%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 198 (8.01%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.72%) Product Ownership
3 123 (4.98%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.52%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.28%) Virtual Team
6 75 (3.04%) Algorithms
7 70 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
8 68 (2.75%) Data Centre
9 61 (2.47%) Data Structures
10 58 (2.35%) PMI
11 54 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
12 53 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
13 42 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
14 37 (1.50%) Derivative
15 34 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.38%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.30%) Robotics
17 31 (1.25%) Operational Technology
18 30 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
19 29 (1.17%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 288 (11.66%) Windows
2 181 (7.32%) Linux
3 76 (3.08%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.55%) Unix
5 58 (2.35%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.30%) Android
7 29 (1.17%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.53%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.53%) Ubuntu
10 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
11 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
11 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.20%) AIX
14 4 (0.16%) Debian
14 4 (0.16%) VMS
15 3 (0.12%) CentOS
15 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 896 (36.26%) Computer Science
2 749 (30.31%) Agile
3 663 (26.83%) Problem-Solving
4 397 (16.07%) Stakeholder Management
5 362 (14.65%) Continuous Improvement
6 352 (14.25%) Project Management
7 349 (14.12%) AI
8 344 (13.92%) DevOps
9 281 (11.37%) CI/CD
10 278 (11.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 270 (10.93%) Analytics
12 262 (10.60%) Change Management
13 261 (10.56%) ITIL
14 257 (10.40%) Cybersecurity
15 251 (10.16%) Decision-Making
16 249 (10.08%) Migration
17 231 (9.35%) Project Delivery
18 226 (9.15%) PRINCE2
19 211 (8.54%) Roadmaps
20 210 (8.50%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 400 (16.19%) Python
2 365 (14.77%) SQL
3 168 (6.80%) Java
4 121 (4.90%) PowerShell
5 89 (3.60%) C#
6 87 (3.52%) JavaScript
7 69 (2.79%) C++
8 43 (1.74%) Bash
9 39 (1.58%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.30%) R
11 27 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.73%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.69%) Go
13 17 (0.69%) Perl
13 17 (0.69%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.65%) C
15 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.57%) Rust
16 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.45%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 557 (22.54%) Computer Science Degree
2 476 (19.26%) Security Cleared
3 342 (13.84%) SC Cleared
4 317 (12.83%) Master's Degree
5 151 (6.11%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.22%) PMP
7 111 (4.49%) CISSP
8 85 (3.44%) Microsoft Certification
9 64 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
10 63 (2.55%) CISM
11 61 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
11 61 (2.47%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (2.31%) DV Cleared
13 56 (2.27%) Azure Certification
14 55 (2.23%) PhD
15 42 (1.70%) CCNP
16 40 (1.62%) MBA
17 36 (1.46%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.34%) CompTIA Security+
18 33 (1.34%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.68%) QA
2 115 (4.65%) GDPR
3 114 (4.61%) PMO
4 109 (4.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 101 (4.09%) NIST
6 99 (4.01%) Data Quality
7 47 (1.90%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.82%) SLA
9 40 (1.62%) Accessibility
10 27 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.93%) GRC
12 19 (0.77%) NCSC
13 17 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.53%) Basel III
14 13 (0.53%) COBIT
14 13 (0.53%) IFRS
15 12 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
15 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.45%) IFRS 17
16 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
System Software
1 165 (6.68%) Active Directory
2 150 (6.07%) Docker
3 45 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) vSphere
8 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.24%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.20%) XenApp
10 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
11 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
12 3 (0.12%) KVM
12 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
13 2 (0.081%) HDFS
13 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
14 1 (0.040%) Citrix Hypervisor
14 1 (0.040%) NetIQ eDirectory
14 1 (0.040%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 148 (5.99%) Kubernetes
2 84 (3.40%) Terraform
3 67 (2.71%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.43%) Ansible
5 39 (1.58%) Grafana
6 36 (1.46%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
8 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 17 (0.69%) Puppet
10 16 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
11 13 (0.53%) Nmap
12 11 (0.45%) Kibana
13 10 (0.40%) SCOM
14 9 (0.36%) Kiali
15 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.32%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.28%) WSUS
17 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 560 (22.66%) Microsoft
2 157 (6.35%) SAP
3 156 (6.31%) Oracle
4 126 (5.10%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.80%) Google
6 83 (3.36%) Cisco
7 65 (2.63%) Splunk
8 56 (2.27%) Databricks
9 53 (2.14%) VMware
10 51 (2.06%) Remedy
11 48 (1.94%) Citrix
12 46 (1.86%) Atlassian
13 42 (1.70%) IBM
13 42 (1.70%) Salesforce
14 38 (1.54%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.34%) CheckPoint
16 26 (1.05%) Adobe
17 24 (0.97%) Informatica
18 22 (0.89%) CyberArk
19 21 (0.85%) Aruba