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 4 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +4
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,481 2,377 3,022
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.54% 7.16% 7.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.33% 22.56% 27.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,271 1,291 1,710
10th Percentile £204 £268 £230
25th Percentile £363 £400 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.24% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £613
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £482 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +7.11% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 304 214 194
10th Percentile £16.46 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £24.94 £25.30 £25.99
Median hourly rate £40.09 £34.48 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.27% -31.04% +3.86%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £84.40 £81.00 £77.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £33.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +15.58% -41.59% +14.70%

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 17,309 10,537 11,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.68% 31.75% 29.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,491 6,571 6,762
10th Percentile £351 £285 £312
25th Percentile £447 £413 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £633 £625 £634
90th Percentile £713 £706 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,430 889 611
10th Percentile £16.80 £17.87 £18.00
25th Percentile £25.55 £18.87 £25.36
Median hourly rate £45.20 £25.15 £48.18
Median % change year-on-year +79.72% -47.80% -10.08%
75th Percentile £71.39 £42.25 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.74 £70.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -3.66%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 4 October 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 2,260 £510 +2.00% 13,441
UK excluding London -15 1,342 £482 +7.11% 7,600
London -20 977 £525 -4.55% 6,807
Work from Home -20 661 £505 +3.06% 4,952
South East +7 462 £525 +16.67% 2,110
North of England -9 339 £475 +5.56% 1,398
North West -9 216 £479 +4.70% 744
Midlands -28 185 £450 -3.23% 982
East of England -14 136 £425 -15.00% 1,062
West Midlands -30 136 £450 -5.26% 567
South West -23 128 £404 -23.10% 825
Yorkshire -13 107 £500 +17.65% 439
Scotland -49 70 £500 +11.11% 698
East Midlands -16 48 £478 +6.94% 415
North East -31 16 £460 +2.22% 225
Northern Ireland -13 13 £238 -59.57% 342
Wales -34 12 £530 +73.50% 263
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 3

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
1 157 (6.33%) SharePoint
2 113 (4.55%) Confluence
3 58 (2.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.93%) Apache
6 21 (0.85%) IIS
7 20 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
8 16 (0.64%) CMS
9 14 (0.56%) Camunda
9 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
10 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.32%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) nginx
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 241 (9.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 236 (9.51%) Microsoft Office
3 113 (4.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 111 (4.47%) Microsoft Project
5 56 (2.26%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Simulink
9 12 (0.48%) Windchill
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) AutoCAD
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
15 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 33 (1.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) Changepoint
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 557 (22.45%) Azure
2 304 (12.25%) AWS
3 221 (8.91%) Power Platform
4 216 (8.71%) Microsoft 365
5 154 (6.21%) GCP
6 138 (5.56%) Entra ID
7 128 (5.16%) Azure DevOps
8 76 (3.06%) SaaS
9 69 (2.78%) GitHub
10 62 (2.50%) Dynamics 365
11 61 (2.46%) Serverless
12 60 (2.42%) Power Automate
13 52 (2.10%) PowerApps
14 49 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
15 47 (1.89%) OneDrive
16 39 (1.57%) Figma
16 39 (1.57%) Snowflake
17 31 (1.25%) Amazon S3
18 30 (1.21%) IaaS
19 29 (1.17%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.11%) Firewall
2 82 (3.31%) DNS
3 65 (2.62%) Network Security
4 63 (2.54%) TCP/IP
5 57 (2.30%) VPN
6 44 (1.77%) DHCP
7 31 (1.25%) LAN
7 31 (1.25%) WAN
8 27 (1.09%) Wireless
9 23 (0.93%) 3GPP
10 21 (0.85%) 5G
11 20 (0.81%) Internet
11 20 (0.81%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) SSH
12 19 (0.77%) SSL
13 18 (0.73%) Wireshark
14 17 (0.69%) Radio Access Network
15 16 (0.64%) BGP
15 16 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
16 15 (0.60%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (6.41%) Power BI
2 113 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 55 (2.22%) Metadata
5 49 (1.98%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.85%) Data Warehouse
7 37 (1.49%) MySQL
8 33 (1.33%) NoSQL
9 32 (1.29%) Tableau
10 31 (1.25%) Big Data
11 27 (1.09%) Elasticsearch
11 27 (1.09%) MongoDB
12 25 (1.01%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
14 19 (0.77%) Data Lake
15 18 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
16 16 (0.64%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 171 (6.89%) JIRA
2 146 (5.88%) Git
3 65 (2.62%) Jenkins
4 57 (2.30%) GitLab
5 25 (1.01%) JUnit
6 23 (0.93%) Maven
7 22 (0.89%) SonarQube
8 21 (0.85%) Gradle
8 21 (0.85%) Selenium
9 19 (0.77%) Cucumber
9 19 (0.77%) Visual Studio
10 18 (0.73%) REST Assured
11 16 (0.64%) Mockito
11 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (0.48%) Postman
13 10 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
13 10 (0.40%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 1,116 (44.98%) Social Skills
2 725 (29.22%) Finance
3 583 (23.50%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (8.59%) Public Sector
5 200 (8.06%) Banking
6 167 (6.73%) Organisational Skills
7 141 (5.68%) Manufacturing
8 124 (5.00%) Aerospace
9 120 (4.84%) Influencing Skills
10 104 (4.19%) Marketing
11 89 (3.59%) Telecoms
12 88 (3.55%) Presentation Skills
13 83 (3.35%) Legal
14 81 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
15 68 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 62 (2.50%) Retail
17 58 (2.34%) Pharmaceutical
18 49 (1.98%) Law
19 47 (1.89%) Military
20 43 (1.73%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 330 (13.30%) Analyst
2 283 (11.41%) Senior
3 206 (8.30%) Developer
4 195 (7.86%) Lead
5 164 (6.61%) Business Analyst
6 159 (6.41%) Architect
7 109 (4.39%) Project Manager
8 77 (3.10%) Consultant
9 69 (2.78%) IT Support
9 69 (2.78%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.46%) Senior Manager
11 54 (2.18%) IT Manager
11 54 (2.18%) Solutions Architect
12 53 (2.14%) Administrator
13 48 (1.93%) Security Engineer
14 47 (1.89%) IT Analyst
15 46 (1.85%) Delivery Manager
15 46 (1.85%) Designer
16 45 (1.81%) Software Engineer
17 42 (1.69%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (4.68%) REST
2 115 (4.64%) Terraform
3 104 (4.19%) .NET
4 75 (3.02%) React
5 73 (2.94%) HTML
6 65 (2.62%) Kafka
7 64 (2.58%) CSS
8 60 (2.42%) RESTful
9 51 (2.06%) OAuth
10 49 (1.98%) XML
11 46 (1.85%) Oracle Fusion
12 44 (1.77%) Middleware
12 44 (1.77%) Web Services
13 40 (1.61%) OAuth2
14 39 (1.57%) SOAP
14 39 (1.57%) Spring Boot
15 38 (1.53%) SAML
16 36 (1.45%) JSON
16 36 (1.45%) OpenID
17 33 (1.33%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 229 (9.23%) Management Information System
2 137 (5.52%) Onboarding
3 119 (4.80%) Product Ownership
4 108 (4.35%) Self-Motivation
5 103 (4.15%) Cloud Native
6 64 (2.58%) Algorithms
7 61 (2.46%) Data Centre
8 59 (2.38%) Data Structures
9 58 (2.34%) Operational Technology
10 52 (2.10%) Enterprise Software
11 51 (2.06%) Security Posture
12 50 (2.02%) Life Science
13 46 (1.85%) AI Agents
14 45 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
15 40 (1.61%) Virtual Team
16 39 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
17 36 (1.45%) SCADA
18 35 (1.41%) Hybrid Cloud
19 29 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
19 29 (1.17%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.85%) Windows
2 184 (7.42%) Linux
3 84 (3.39%) Windows Server
4 69 (2.78%) Unix
5 44 (1.77%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 32 (1.29%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.77%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.32%) VMS
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.24%) zOS
13 5 (0.20%) Solaris
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.16%) AIX
15 3 (0.12%) MVS
15 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
16 2 (0.081%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 798 (32.16%) Computer Science
2 682 (27.49%) Agile
3 668 (26.92%) Problem-Solving
4 553 (22.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 437 (17.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 400 (16.12%) AI
7 368 (14.83%) DevOps
8 335 (13.50%) CI/CD
9 316 (12.74%) Analytics
10 305 (12.29%) Project Management
11 278 (11.21%) ITIL
12 267 (10.76%) Decision-Making
13 252 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 246 (9.92%) Scrum
15 245 (9.88%) Roadmaps
16 240 (9.67%) Change Management
17 231 (9.31%) Software Engineering
18 226 (9.11%) Cybersecurity
19 220 (8.87%) Project Delivery
20 217 (8.75%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 402 (16.20%) Python
2 364 (14.67%) SQL
3 177 (7.13%) PowerShell
4 159 (6.41%) Java
5 130 (5.24%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.96%) C#
7 65 (2.62%) Bash
8 46 (1.85%) TypeScript
9 38 (1.53%) C++
10 31 (1.25%) Bicep
11 29 (1.17%) Shell Script
12 28 (1.13%) T-SQL
13 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.89%) R
15 21 (0.85%) C
16 17 (0.69%) Scala
17 13 (0.52%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.48%) X++
19 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 492 (19.83%) Security Cleared
2 489 (19.71%) Computer Science Degree
3 366 (14.75%) SC Cleared
4 210 (8.46%) Master's Degree
5 150 (6.05%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.36%) PMP
7 119 (4.80%) Microsoft Certification
8 107 (4.31%) CISSP
9 94 (3.79%) Azure Certification
10 92 (3.71%) DV Cleared
11 85 (3.43%) Cisco Certification
12 81 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.46%) PhD
14 53 (2.14%) CISM
15 46 (1.85%) AWS Certification
15 46 (1.85%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
16 39 (1.57%) ISTQB
17 38 (1.53%) DBS Check
18 35 (1.41%) CCNA
19 34 (1.37%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (5.88%) QA
2 145 (5.84%) Data Quality
3 92 (3.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 89 (3.59%) NIST
5 85 (3.43%) GDPR
6 77 (3.10%) PMO
7 48 (1.93%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.61%) SLA
9 31 (1.25%) GRC
10 20 (0.81%) NCSC
11 19 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 18 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.73%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.64%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) IEC 61508
15 12 (0.48%) ISO 31000
15 12 (0.48%) P3O
16 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.40%) Basel III
System Software
1 187 (7.54%) Active Directory
2 122 (4.92%) Docker
3 59 (2.38%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.09%) Firmware
4 27 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.89%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
6 9 (0.36%) vSphere
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.24%) BitLocker
9 6 (0.24%) RACF
10 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
10 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
12 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 135 (5.44%) Kubernetes
2 72 (2.90%) Microsoft Intune
3 60 (2.42%) Ansible
4 31 (1.25%) SCCM
5 27 (1.09%) Grafana
6 25 (1.01%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.77%) Progress Chef
8 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Functional Safety
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.40%) CASB
11 10 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.32%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) WSUS
14 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 614 (24.75%) Microsoft
2 182 (7.34%) Oracle
3 134 (5.40%) SAP
3 134 (5.40%) ServiceNow
4 111 (4.47%) Google
5 72 (2.90%) VMware
6 71 (2.86%) Cisco
6 71 (2.86%) Salesforce
7 65 (2.62%) Adobe
8 57 (2.30%) Databricks
9 46 (1.85%) IBM
10 45 (1.81%) Splunk
11 31 (1.25%) Red Hat
12 28 (1.13%) OpenAI
13 26 (1.05%) CyberArk
14 22 (0.89%) Apple
14 22 (0.89%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
15 21 (0.85%) Citrix
16 20 (0.81%) Ariba