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 5 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 43 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,458 2,370 2,926
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.56% 7.29% 7.70%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.48% 23.38% 26.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,285 1,316 1,670
10th Percentile £204 £260 £257
25th Percentile £356 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% -1.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £610 £625 £619
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 271 194 229
10th Percentile £16.46 £20.00 £19.97
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £26.42
Median hourly rate £38.25 £41.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% -24.55% +15.79%
75th Percentile £70.88 £60.00 £70.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.23 £75.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £39.89 £57.35
% change year-on-year -4.11% -30.44% +24.19%

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 16,979 10,137 11,208
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.47% 31.16% 29.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,380 6,283 7,010
10th Percentile £350 £300 £313
25th Percentile £438 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £627 £621 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,272 804 692
10th Percentile £17.27 £18.04 £15.93
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.65
Median hourly rate £47.54 £25.15 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.03% -48.67% -10.91%
75th Percentile £72.54 £49.06 £68.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £71.39 £76.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -52.10% +5.00%

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 5 September 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 5 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 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 5 September 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 -16 2,243 £500 +0.05% 7,553
UK excluding London -15 1,310 £475 +5.56% 4,114
London -20 980 £525 -4.55% 4,306
Work from Home -18 661 £500 +4.17% 2,589
South East +9 467 £525 +10.53% 1,164
North of England -18 326 £475 +9.71% 741
North West -11 201 £465 +1.81% 420
Midlands -34 175 £450 - 500
East of England -13 131 £300 -33.33% 604
West Midlands -36 129 £450 -5.26% 288
South West -19 121 £400 -13.51% 605
Yorkshire -7 110 £500 +26.58% 204
Scotland -57 66 £488 +8.33% 347
East Midlands -26 45 £475 +6.26% 210
North East -37 15 £450 +39.53% 129
Northern Ireland -13 14 £238 -58.24% 163
Wales -33 14 £530 +71.67% 97
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1

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
1 149 (6.06%) SharePoint
2 106 (4.31%) Confluence
3 55 (2.24%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.18%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 16 (0.65%) IIS
8 13 (0.53%) Camunda
8 13 (0.53%) CMS
9 9 (0.37%) SAS
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
11 6 (0.24%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 248 (10.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 244 (9.93%) Microsoft Office
3 131 (5.33%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 55 (2.24%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 16 (0.65%) Photoshop
9 15 (0.61%) Adobe Illustrator
10 9 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
10 9 (0.37%) Windchill
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) Trello
14 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 45 (1.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.77%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.65%) Primavera
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.33%) Magento
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.12%) Actimize
9 3 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 565 (22.99%) Azure
2 318 (12.94%) AWS
3 229 (9.32%) Power Platform
4 224 (9.11%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (5.86%) GCP
6 139 (5.66%) Entra ID
7 120 (4.88%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.34%) SaaS
9 71 (2.89%) GitHub
10 59 (2.40%) Dynamics 365
11 56 (2.28%) Serverless
12 51 (2.07%) Power Automate
13 50 (2.03%) PowerApps
14 42 (1.71%) Snowflake
15 41 (1.67%) OneDrive
16 40 (1.63%) Figma
16 40 (1.63%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
18 27 (1.10%) Azure Monitor
18 27 (1.10%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 115 (4.68%) Firewall
2 85 (3.46%) DNS
3 66 (2.69%) TCP/IP
4 64 (2.60%) Network Security
5 62 (2.52%) VPN
6 47 (1.91%) DHCP
7 37 (1.51%) WAN
8 36 (1.46%) LAN
9 29 (1.18%) Wireless
10 21 (0.85%) 3GPP
11 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 20 (0.81%) SSL
11 20 (0.81%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) 5G
13 18 (0.73%) Internet
13 18 (0.73%) SSH
13 18 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
14 17 (0.69%) HTTP
15 16 (0.65%) MPLS
15 16 (0.65%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (7.16%) Power BI
2 113 (4.60%) SQL Server
3 54 (2.20%) Metadata
3 54 (2.20%) Relational Database
4 52 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
5 43 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (1.46%) Tableau
7 31 (1.26%) MySQL
8 30 (1.22%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.14%) Big Data
10 25 (1.02%) Oracle Database
10 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 22 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
11 22 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 18 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (0.73%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
13 16 (0.65%) Data Lake
14 14 (0.57%) Power Query
15 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 181 (7.36%) JIRA
2 137 (5.57%) Git
3 62 (2.52%) Jenkins
4 52 (2.12%) GitLab
5 22 (0.90%) Selenium
6 21 (0.85%) JUnit
7 19 (0.77%) Rational DOORS
7 19 (0.77%) SonarQube
8 18 (0.73%) REST Assured
9 17 (0.69%) Maven
9 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
10 15 (0.61%) Gradle
10 15 (0.61%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.45%) MLflow
12 11 (0.45%) Mockito
12 11 (0.45%) Postman
12 11 (0.45%) Subversion
13 9 (0.37%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 1,098 (44.67%) Social Skills
2 726 (29.54%) Finance
3 579 (23.56%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (8.01%) Public Sector
5 194 (7.89%) Banking
6 162 (6.59%) Organisational Skills
7 112 (4.56%) Manufacturing
8 110 (4.48%) Aerospace
9 99 (4.03%) Marketing
10 96 (3.91%) Telecoms
11 93 (3.78%) Legal
12 91 (3.70%) Influencing Skills
13 90 (3.66%) Presentation Skills
14 80 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
15 64 (2.60%) Retail
16 58 (2.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 50 (2.03%) Law
17 50 (2.03%) Pharmaceutical
18 43 (1.75%) Military
19 42 (1.71%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 342 (13.91%) Analyst
2 277 (11.27%) Senior
3 195 (7.93%) Lead
4 194 (7.89%) Developer
5 168 (6.83%) Architect
6 161 (6.55%) Business Analyst
7 126 (5.13%) Project Manager
8 74 (3.01%) Consultant
9 72 (2.93%) Support Engineer
10 71 (2.89%) IT Support
11 67 (2.73%) Senior Manager
12 58 (2.36%) Solutions Architect
13 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
14 52 (2.12%) Designer
15 50 (2.03%) IT Manager
16 46 (1.87%) Administrator
17 45 (1.83%) Delivery Manager
17 45 (1.83%) Product Manager
18 43 (1.75%) Data Analyst
18 43 (1.75%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (4.35%) REST
1 107 (4.35%) Terraform
2 103 (4.19%) .NET
3 67 (2.73%) React
4 66 (2.69%) HTML
5 62 (2.52%) Kafka
6 54 (2.20%) CSS
7 51 (2.07%) RESTful
8 46 (1.87%) OAuth
9 43 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
10 39 (1.59%) Middleware
11 37 (1.51%) Web Services
11 37 (1.51%) XML
12 36 (1.46%) OAuth2
13 35 (1.42%) Spring Boot
14 33 (1.34%) .NET Framework
14 33 (1.34%) SAML
15 32 (1.30%) Spring
16 31 (1.26%) JSON
16 31 (1.26%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 217 (8.83%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.82%) Onboarding
3 120 (4.88%) Product Ownership
4 107 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
5 97 (3.95%) Cloud Native
6 72 (2.93%) Data Structures
7 66 (2.69%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.56%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.16%) Operational Technology
10 46 (1.87%) Distributed Systems
10 46 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
10 46 (1.87%) Security Posture
11 44 (1.79%) Virtual Team
12 43 (1.75%) Life Science
13 42 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.63%) AI Agents
15 37 (1.51%) Hybrid Cloud
16 34 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (1.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 30 (1.22%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 298 (12.12%) Windows
2 180 (7.32%) Linux
3 81 (3.30%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.44%) Unix
5 48 (1.95%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.34%) Mac OS
7 32 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 30 (1.22%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 829 (33.73%) Computer Science
2 665 (27.05%) Agile
3 652 (26.53%) Problem-Solving
4 484 (19.69%) Stakeholder Management
5 439 (17.86%) Continuous Improvement
6 382 (15.54%) AI
7 346 (14.08%) DevOps
8 313 (12.73%) CI/CD
8 313 (12.73%) Project Management
9 311 (12.65%) Analytics
10 282 (11.47%) ITIL
11 253 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 244 (9.93%) Decision-Making
13 230 (9.36%) Change Management
14 227 (9.24%) Cybersecurity
15 222 (9.03%) Scrum
16 221 (8.99%) Roadmaps
16 221 (8.99%) Software Engineering
17 209 (8.50%) PRINCE2
18 203 (8.26%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 413 (16.80%) Python
2 361 (14.69%) SQL
3 176 (7.16%) PowerShell
4 166 (6.75%) Java
5 121 (4.92%) C#
5 121 (4.92%) JavaScript
6 60 (2.44%) Bash
7 46 (1.87%) C++
7 46 (1.87%) TypeScript
8 30 (1.22%) Bicep
9 29 (1.18%) T-SQL
10 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
11 25 (1.02%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.98%) C
13 23 (0.94%) R
14 15 (0.61%) Scala
15 13 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
16 12 (0.49%) X++
17 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 504 (20.50%) Computer Science Degree
2 460 (18.71%) Security Cleared
3 326 (13.26%) SC Cleared
4 209 (8.50%) Master's Degree
5 134 (5.45%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.04%) Microsoft Certification
7 116 (4.72%) PMP
8 107 (4.35%) CISSP
9 89 (3.62%) Azure Certification
10 84 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
11 76 (3.09%) DV Cleared
12 71 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.20%) PhD
14 51 (2.07%) CISM
15 46 (1.87%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.75%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.67%) CCNA
18 40 (1.63%) CCNP
19 37 (1.51%) ISTQB
20 34 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (5.70%) QA
2 138 (5.61%) Data Quality
3 99 (4.03%) NIST
4 98 (3.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 85 (3.46%) PMO
6 71 (2.89%) GDPR
7 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
8 46 (1.87%) SLA
9 27 (1.10%) GRC
10 26 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.73%) NCSC
11 18 (0.73%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.57%) IFRS
13 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.45%) COBIT
13 11 (0.45%) P3O
14 9 (0.37%) ISO 31000
14 9 (0.37%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.33%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 194 (7.89%) Active Directory
2 123 (5.00%) Docker
3 55 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.06%) Firmware
4 26 (1.06%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
7 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) RACF
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (5.21%) Kubernetes
2 77 (3.13%) Microsoft Intune
3 62 (2.52%) Ansible
4 36 (1.46%) SCCM
5 30 (1.22%) Grafana
6 28 (1.14%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.53%) SCOM
11 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
11 8 (0.33%) WSUS
12 7 (0.28%) CASB
12 7 (0.28%) Control-M
12 7 (0.28%) Functional Safety
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Cisco Prime
13 6 (0.24%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 636 (25.87%) Microsoft
2 176 (7.16%) Oracle
3 141 (5.74%) ServiceNow
4 134 (5.45%) SAP
5 96 (3.91%) Google
6 72 (2.93%) Cisco
6 72 (2.93%) VMware
7 68 (2.77%) Salesforce
8 64 (2.60%) Adobe
9 57 (2.32%) Databricks
10 49 (1.99%) IBM
11 44 (1.79%) Splunk
12 30 (1.22%) Red Hat
13 29 (1.18%) CyberArk
14 26 (1.06%) Citrix
15 23 (0.94%) Palo Alto
16 22 (0.90%) Apple
17 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.81%) Ariba
18 20 (0.81%) OpenAI