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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,514 2,278 3,681
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.48% 7.80% 8.37%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.54% 25.38% 27.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,484 1,318 1,989
10th Percentile £263 £250 £205
25th Percentile £386 £387 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.66%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £635
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £457 £500
% change year-on-year +6.13% -8.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 177 385
10th Percentile £16.81 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.85 £28.41 £22.33
Median hourly rate £50.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £83.00 £70.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £47.05 £40.00
% change year-on-year +16.89% +17.63% -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 15,195 8,976 13,507
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.13% 30.72% 30.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,101 5,715 8,365
10th Percentile £343 £295 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,104 490 1,032
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.79 £23.00 £17.74
Median hourly rate £40.75 £45.00 £39.96
Median % change year-on-year -9.44% +12.61% -23.89%
75th Percentile £69.30 £67.44 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.18 £81.01 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.50 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.19% +19.51% -19.22%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -8 2,200 £500 -4.76% 2,536
UK excluding London -5 1,321 £485 +6.13% 2,012
London -12 957 £513 -6.82% 866
Work from Home -4 696 £500 -4.76% 927
South East -6 358 £500 - 660
North of England -6 336 £418 -12.11% 472
Midlands -25 197 £500 +56.25% 318
North West -3 183 £400 -15.79% 244
South West -3 152 £650 +23.81% 220
West Midlands -30 142 £500 +66.67% 181
East of England -9 139 £500 - 213
Yorkshire -13 136 £488 -3.70% 164
Scotland -5 97 £500 +13.96% 94
East Midlands -15 54 £525 +47.47% 136
Wales -14 40 £291 +1.29% 61
Northern Ireland -6 18 £388 +24.00% 17
North East -18 18 £407 -4.24% 71

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
1 181 (7.20%) Confluence
2 120 (4.77%) SharePoint
3 70 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 53 (2.11%) Apache Spark
5 25 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.72%) Apache
7 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Drupal
11 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.080%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.080%) IIS
12 2 (0.080%) nginx
12 2 (0.080%) Skype for Business
12 2 (0.080%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.080%) WinCC
Applications
1 318 (12.65%) Microsoft Office
2 240 (9.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 207 (8.23%) Microsoft Project
4 138 (5.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 66 (2.63%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
7 11 (0.44%) Trello
8 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
9 7 (0.28%) Sketch
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 3 (0.12%) InVision
12 2 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.080%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.080%) FrameMaker
12 2 (0.080%) Navisworks
12 2 (0.080%) Revit
13 1 (0.040%) MicroStation
13 1 (0.040%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 75 (2.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.88%) Primavera
4 17 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.44%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
8 8 (0.32%) NetSuite
8 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 5 (0.20%) SAP EWM
12 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 537 (21.36%) Azure
2 295 (11.73%) AWS
3 216 (8.59%) Microsoft 365
4 203 (8.07%) Power Platform
5 113 (4.49%) Entra ID
6 111 (4.42%) GCP
7 108 (4.30%) SaaS
8 104 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
9 71 (2.82%) GitHub
10 51 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
11 42 (1.67%) Power Automate
12 39 (1.55%) Snowflake
13 33 (1.31%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.27%) Google Workspace
14 32 (1.27%) PaaS
15 31 (1.23%) IaaS
15 31 (1.23%) PowerApps
16 30 (1.19%) Serverless
17 28 (1.11%) GitHub Actions
18 25 (0.99%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 123 (4.89%) Firewall
2 64 (2.55%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.47%) WAN
4 61 (2.43%) LAN
5 59 (2.35%) DNS
6 50 (1.99%) Network Security
7 40 (1.59%) VPN
8 31 (1.23%) BGP
9 29 (1.15%) Wireless
10 27 (1.07%) HTTP
11 26 (1.03%) Ethernet
12 25 (0.99%) OSPF
12 25 (0.99%) Skype
13 20 (0.80%) DHCP
14 19 (0.76%) Internet
15 18 (0.72%) VLAN
16 17 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
17 16 (0.64%) SAN
18 15 (0.60%) VXLAN
19 14 (0.56%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (6.56%) Power BI
2 105 (4.18%) SQL Server
3 76 (3.02%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.07%) Relational Database
6 50 (1.99%) Big Data
7 42 (1.67%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.63%) Tableau
9 38 (1.51%) MySQL
10 36 (1.43%) Metadata
11 29 (1.15%) Data Lake
11 29 (1.15%) Hadoop
12 20 (0.80%) MongoDB
13 19 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
15 14 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
16 13 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
18 10 (0.40%) GIS
18 10 (0.40%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 289 (11.50%) JIRA
2 115 (4.57%) Git
3 55 (2.19%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.59%) GitLab
5 31 (1.23%) Rational DOORS
6 26 (1.03%) Visual Studio
7 24 (0.95%) Selenium
8 18 (0.72%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) Burp Suite
9 14 (0.56%) Postman
10 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.40%) Gradle
12 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.36%) JUnit
13 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.28%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.28%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) TeamCity
General
1 1,198 (47.65%) Social Skills
2 771 (30.67%) Finance
3 565 (22.47%) Analytical Skills
4 241 (9.59%) Banking
5 216 (8.59%) Public Sector
6 125 (4.97%) Presentation Skills
7 119 (4.73%) Organisational Skills
8 95 (3.78%) Marketing
9 89 (3.54%) Documentation Skills
10 87 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
11 81 (3.22%) Manufacturing
12 75 (2.98%) Legal
13 74 (2.94%) Aerospace
14 66 (2.63%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.31%) Military
16 49 (1.95%) Front Office
17 48 (1.91%) Retail
18 46 (1.83%) Electronics
19 45 (1.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 45 (1.79%) Law
Job Titles
1 354 (14.08%) Analyst
2 250 (9.94%) Senior
3 210 (8.35%) Architect
4 203 (8.07%) Lead
5 194 (7.72%) Project Manager
6 191 (7.60%) Developer
7 161 (6.40%) Business Analyst
8 94 (3.74%) Consultant
9 69 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
10 64 (2.55%) Senior Analyst
11 58 (2.31%) Technical Support
12 57 (2.27%) Security Engineer
13 52 (2.07%) Data Scientist
14 51 (2.03%) Software Engineer
15 48 (1.91%) Designer
16 45 (1.79%) IT Support
16 45 (1.79%) Product Manager
17 44 (1.75%) Systems Engineer
18 41 (1.63%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (4.02%) REST
2 78 (3.10%) .NET
3 54 (2.15%) HTML
4 53 (2.11%) Middleware
5 52 (2.07%) React
6 51 (2.03%) RESTful
7 46 (1.83%) Kafka
8 40 (1.59%) CSS
9 39 (1.55%) XML
10 38 (1.51%) JSON
10 38 (1.51%) SOAP
11 36 (1.43%) Oracle Fusion
11 36 (1.43%) PyTorch
11 36 (1.43%) Spring Boot
12 35 (1.39%) Pandas
12 35 (1.39%) TensorFlow
13 33 (1.31%) Spring
14 29 (1.15%) OAuth
15 28 (1.11%) .NET Framework
15 28 (1.11%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 200 (7.96%) Management Information System
2 167 (6.64%) Product Ownership
3 127 (5.05%) Onboarding
4 88 (3.50%) Cloud Native
5 83 (3.30%) Virtual Team
6 81 (3.22%) Algorithms
7 70 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
8 69 (2.74%) Data Centre
9 63 (2.51%) Data Structures
10 58 (2.31%) PMI
11 55 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
11 55 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
12 45 (1.79%) Analytical Mindset
13 41 (1.63%) Derivative
14 35 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
15 33 (1.31%) Robotics
15 33 (1.31%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.27%) Operational Technology
17 31 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
18 30 (1.19%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.69%) Windows
2 185 (7.36%) Linux
3 77 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 66 (2.63%) Unix
5 58 (2.31%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.35%) Android
7 29 (1.15%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.60%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.56%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
13 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.24%) VMS
15 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 5 (0.20%) AIX
17 4 (0.16%) CentOS
17 4 (0.16%) Debian
18 3 (0.12%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 910 (36.20%) Computer Science
2 771 (30.67%) Agile
3 674 (26.81%) Problem-Solving
4 410 (16.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 370 (14.72%) Continuous Improvement
6 359 (14.28%) Project Management
7 350 (13.92%) AI
7 350 (13.92%) DevOps
8 286 (11.38%) CI/CD
9 279 (11.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 274 (10.90%) Analytics
11 266 (10.58%) Cybersecurity
12 264 (10.50%) ITIL
13 263 (10.46%) Change Management
14 257 (10.22%) Decision-Making
15 249 (9.90%) Migration
16 236 (9.39%) Project Delivery
17 232 (9.23%) PRINCE2
18 215 (8.55%) Risk Management
19 214 (8.51%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 405 (16.11%) Python
2 370 (14.72%) SQL
3 174 (6.92%) Java
4 125 (4.97%) PowerShell
5 89 (3.54%) C#
6 88 (3.50%) JavaScript
7 72 (2.86%) C++
8 41 (1.63%) Bash
9 39 (1.55%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.27%) R
11 25 (0.99%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.76%) Go
12 19 (0.76%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.68%) C
13 17 (0.68%) Perl
13 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.60%) Kotlin
14 15 (0.60%) Rust
15 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.44%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 562 (22.35%) Computer Science Degree
2 487 (19.37%) Security Cleared
3 349 (13.88%) SC Cleared
4 324 (12.89%) Master's Degree
5 155 (6.17%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.29%) PMP
7 118 (4.69%) CISSP
8 90 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
9 66 (2.63%) CISM
10 64 (2.55%) TOGAF Certification
11 63 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
11 63 (2.51%) Cisco Certification
12 60 (2.39%) DV Cleared
13 59 (2.35%) PhD
14 56 (2.23%) Azure Certification
15 42 (1.67%) CCNP
16 40 (1.59%) MBA
17 37 (1.47%) AWS Certification
18 33 (1.31%) CompTIA Security+
19 32 (1.27%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (6.56%) QA
2 118 (4.69%) GDPR
3 113 (4.49%) PMO
4 110 (4.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 100 (3.98%) NIST
6 98 (3.90%) Data Quality
7 48 (1.91%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.79%) SLA
9 42 (1.67%) Accessibility
10 28 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.95%) GRC
12 19 (0.76%) NCSC
13 17 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.56%) IFRS
15 13 (0.52%) Basel III
15 13 (0.52%) COBIT
16 12 (0.48%) IFRS 17
16 12 (0.48%) WCAG
17 11 (0.44%) SOC 2
System Software
1 166 (6.60%) Active Directory
2 153 (6.09%) Docker
3 44 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.88%) Hyper-V
5 20 (0.80%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) vSphere
8 6 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.20%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
12 2 (0.080%) HDFS
12 2 (0.080%) NDS
12 2 (0.080%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.080%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) NFS
Systems Management
1 154 (6.13%) Kubernetes
2 85 (3.38%) Terraform
3 68 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
4 59 (2.35%) Ansible
5 41 (1.63%) Grafana
6 37 (1.47%) SCCM
7 31 (1.23%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.19%) OPNET
9 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.64%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 15 (0.60%) Puppet
12 13 (0.52%) Nmap
13 11 (0.44%) Kibana
13 11 (0.44%) SCOM
14 9 (0.36%) Kiali
15 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.32%) WSUS
16 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.28%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.24%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 564 (22.43%) Microsoft
2 161 (6.40%) SAP
3 160 (6.36%) Oracle
4 125 (4.97%) ServiceNow
5 94 (3.74%) Google
6 83 (3.30%) Cisco
7 68 (2.70%) Splunk
8 55 (2.19%) Databricks
9 52 (2.07%) VMware
10 51 (2.03%) Remedy
11 47 (1.87%) Citrix
12 46 (1.83%) Atlassian
13 44 (1.75%) Salesforce
14 42 (1.67%) IBM
15 39 (1.55%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.31%) CheckPoint
17 25 (0.99%) Adobe
18 24 (0.95%) Informatica
19 22 (0.88%) CyberArk
19 22 (0.88%) Red Hat