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

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,405 2,241 3,585
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.81% 7.61% 8.22%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.33% 24.63% 27.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,322 1,280 1,940
10th Percentile £213 £235 £225
25th Percentile £371 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £615
90th Percentile £713 £754 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £465 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +3.33% -7.69% -0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 181 417
10th Percentile £17.16 £17.80 £14.25
25th Percentile £27.31 £27.39 £21.86
Median hourly rate £50.72 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.44% +25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £82.84 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £45.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +16.67% +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 15,684 9,098 13,043
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 30.91% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,409 5,658 8,104
10th Percentile £350 £278 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.82% -0.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £618 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £500 £527
% change year-on-year +1.00% -5.03% +0.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,159 567 1,116
10th Percentile £17.12 £17.72 £13.93
25th Percentile £22.63 £21.02 £18.32
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.93% -23.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.75 £64.76 £63.49
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £30.00 £41.27
% change year-on-year +58.47% -27.30% -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 12 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 12 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 12 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 2,143 £500 -1.50% 2,407
UK excluding London -9 1,308 £465 +3.33% 1,946
London -18 920 £505 -8.18% 830
Work from Home -16 655 £500 -4.76% 1,098
South East -1 394 £500 +5.26% 621
North of England -12 325 £447 -3.35% 454
Midlands -23 198 £523 +45.95% 252
North West -7 175 £418 -10.87% 257
West Midlands -29 143 £487 +17.94% 142
East of England -5 137 £450 -10.00% 205
Yorkshire -9 135 £500 +11.86% 148
South West -22 117 £469 -1.26% 278
Scotland -16 96 £500 +11.11% 97
East Midlands -18 53 £545 +55.71% 110
Wales -22 28 £490 +57.05% 46
Northern Ireland -7 17 £254 -40.24% 49
North East -36 15 £450 +130.77% 59

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 (5.41%) Confluence
2 128 (5.32%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 48 (2.00%) Apache Spark
5 33 (1.37%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.87%) Apache
7 11 (0.46%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) CMS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) SAS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.083%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.083%) WebSphere
Applications
1 265 (11.02%) Microsoft Office
2 219 (9.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (5.70%) Microsoft Project
4 132 (5.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 60 (2.49%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.67%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.42%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 9 (0.37%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 7 (0.29%) Trello
13 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
13 6 (0.25%) Sketch
14 5 (0.21%) Final Cut Pro
14 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
15 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
15 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (0.58%) 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
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%) NEC Housing
11 3 (0.12%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 529 (22.00%) Azure
2 309 (12.85%) AWS
3 200 (8.32%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.86%) Power Platform
5 128 (5.32%) Entra ID
6 111 (4.62%) GCP
7 91 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 86 (3.58%) SaaS
9 63 (2.62%) GitHub
10 41 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
10 41 (1.70%) Figma
11 36 (1.50%) 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
1 109 (4.53%) Firewall
2 78 (3.24%) TCP/IP
3 76 (3.16%) DNS
4 60 (2.49%) Network Security
5 52 (2.16%) WAN
6 49 (2.04%) LAN
7 38 (1.58%) VPN
8 31 (1.29%) DHCP
9 26 (1.08%) BGP
10 23 (0.96%) OSPF
10 23 (0.96%) Wireless
11 20 (0.83%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.71%) SSL
13 15 (0.62%) SAN
13 15 (0.62%) Skype
14 14 (0.58%) HTTP
14 14 (0.58%) SSH
15 13 (0.54%) 3GPP
15 13 (0.54%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (6.61%) Power BI
2 110 (4.57%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (2.00%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.95%) Big Data
7 39 (1.62%) Metadata
7 39 (1.62%) Tableau
8 35 (1.46%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
10 26 (1.08%) MySQL
11 24 (1.00%) MongoDB
12 19 (0.79%) Data Lake
12 19 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.75%) Oracle Database
13 18 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 14 (0.58%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.46%) GIS
16 11 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 216 (8.98%) JIRA
2 113 (4.70%) Git
3 47 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.75%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.87%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.83%) MLflow
8 16 (0.67%) Selenium
9 15 (0.62%) Postman
10 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.54%) JUnit
11 12 (0.50%) Gradle
12 11 (0.46%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.33%) Bitbucket
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
15 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,107 (46.03%) Social Skills
2 740 (30.77%) Finance
3 487 (20.25%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (8.57%) Public Sector
5 199 (8.27%) Banking
6 137 (5.70%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.11%) Presentation Skills
8 105 (4.37%) Marketing
9 90 (3.74%) Legal
10 87 (3.62%) Aerospace
11 84 (3.49%) Documentation Skills
12 78 (3.24%) Manufacturing
13 74 (3.08%) Influencing Skills
14 69 (2.87%) Telecoms
15 52 (2.16%) Law
15 52 (2.16%) Retail
16 48 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 36 (1.50%) Front Office
17 36 (1.50%) Pharmaceutical
18 33 (1.37%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 358 (14.89%) Analyst
2 272 (11.31%) Senior
3 192 (7.98%) Architect
4 184 (7.65%) Lead
5 168 (6.99%) Developer
6 161 (6.69%) Project Manager
7 158 (6.57%) Business Analyst
8 73 (3.04%) Solutions Architect
9 68 (2.83%) Consultant
9 68 (2.83%) Designer
10 66 (2.74%) Senior Analyst
11 59 (2.45%) Software Engineer
12 57 (2.37%) Senior Manager
13 55 (2.29%) Technical Support
14 53 (2.20%) Delivery Manager
14 53 (2.20%) Security Engineer
15 49 (2.04%) Administrator
16 48 (2.00%) Product Manager
17 46 (1.91%) Data Scientist
17 46 (1.91%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.32%) REST
2 89 (3.70%) .NET
3 65 (2.70%) React
4 51 (2.12%) Kafka
5 49 (2.04%) Middleware
6 47 (1.95%) Oracle Fusion
7 46 (1.91%) HTML
8 39 (1.62%) RESTful
9 36 (1.50%) .NET Framework
9 36 (1.50%) CSS
10 33 (1.37%) OAuth
11 32 (1.33%) XML
12 31 (1.29%) Spring Boot
13 30 (1.25%) JSON
14 29 (1.21%) Web Services
15 28 (1.16%) AngularJS
15 28 (1.16%) Spring
16 27 (1.12%) SOAP
17 26 (1.08%) Pandas
18 22 (0.91%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 187 (7.78%) Management Information System
2 142 (5.90%) Onboarding
3 139 (5.78%) Product Ownership
4 102 (4.24%) Self-Motivation
5 88 (3.66%) Cloud Native
6 73 (3.04%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.58%) Virtual Team
8 61 (2.54%) Data Structures
9 59 (2.45%) Algorithms
10 50 (2.08%) Data Protection Act
10 50 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
11 45 (1.87%) PMI
12 41 (1.70%) Operational Technology
13 39 (1.62%) Security Posture
14 38 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
14 38 (1.58%) Robotics
15 34 (1.41%) Life Science
16 30 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (1.25%) Derivative
17 29 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 307 (12.77%) Windows
2 189 (7.86%) Linux
3 75 (3.12%) Windows Server
4 74 (3.08%) Unix
5 56 (2.33%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.29%) Android
8 29 (1.21%) 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
1 815 (33.89%) Computer Science
2 652 (27.11%) Agile
3 632 (26.28%) Problem-Solving
4 380 (15.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 365 (15.18%) Continuous Improvement
6 357 (14.84%) AI
7 321 (13.35%) DevOps
8 289 (12.02%) Project Management
9 281 (11.68%) CI/CD
10 269 (11.19%) Analytics
11 253 (10.52%) Decision-Making
12 251 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 238 (9.90%) Cybersecurity
14 228 (9.48%) Change Management
14 228 (9.48%) Migration
15 211 (8.77%) ITIL
15 211 (8.77%) Roadmaps
16 201 (8.36%) Software Engineering
17 188 (7.82%) Risk Management
18 184 (7.65%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 393 (16.34%) Python
2 360 (14.97%) SQL
3 173 (7.19%) Java
4 121 (5.03%) PowerShell
5 98 (4.07%) C#
6 91 (3.78%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.33%) C++
8 41 (1.70%) Bash
9 31 (1.29%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.12%) R
11 23 (0.96%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.96%) Shell Script
12 17 (0.71%) C
13 16 (0.67%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.62%) 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
1 495 (20.58%) Computer Science Degree
2 432 (17.96%) Security Cleared
3 293 (12.18%) SC Cleared
4 253 (10.52%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.95%) PMI Certification
6 122 (5.07%) PMP
7 120 (4.99%) CISSP
8 83 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.41%) Cisco Certification
10 69 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 67 (2.79%) CISM
12 61 (2.54%) DV Cleared
13 53 (2.20%) Azure Certification
14 45 (1.87%) PhD
15 43 (1.79%) CCNP
16 38 (1.58%) CBAP
16 38 (1.58%) CCNA
17 36 (1.50%) TOGAF Certification
18 35 (1.46%) MBA
19 34 (1.41%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.57%) QA
2 118 (4.91%) NIST
3 114 (4.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 111 (4.62%) Data Quality
5 105 (4.37%) PMO
6 99 (4.12%) GDPR
7 49 (2.04%) SLA
8 48 (2.00%) Accessibility
9 41 (1.70%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 27 (1.12%) GRC
12 18 (0.75%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.67%) 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
1 171 (7.11%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.65%) 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
1 145 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.33%) Terraform
3 75 (3.12%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.62%) Ansible
5 39 (1.62%) Grafana
6 37 (1.54%) Prometheus
7 36 (1.50%) SCCM
8 22 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
10 15 (0.62%) Puppet
11 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
12 10 (0.42%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.37%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Kibana
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Kiali
16 5 (0.21%) Nmap
Vendors
1 545 (22.66%) Microsoft
2 172 (7.15%) Oracle
3 140 (5.82%) SAP
4 107 (4.45%) ServiceNow
5 92 (3.83%) Google
6 73 (3.04%) Cisco
7 58 (2.41%) Databricks
8 53 (2.20%) Splunk
9 48 (2.00%) Salesforce
10 46 (1.91%) Citrix
10 46 (1.91%) VMware
11 43 (1.79%) Adobe
12 39 (1.62%) IBM
13 35 (1.46%) Palo Alto
14 31 (1.29%) CheckPoint
15 26 (1.08%) CyberArk
16 23 (0.96%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.91%) Aruba
18 21 (0.87%) Informatica
19 20 (0.83%) Siemens