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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -9 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,474 2,300 3,665
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.38% 7.84% 8.36%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.34% 25.46% 27.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,453 1,322 1,976
10th Percentile £263 £244 £207
25th Percentile £385 £380 £387
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £635
90th Percentile £748 £765 £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 226 185 383
10th Percentile £16.92 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £28.50 £22.16
Median hourly rate £50.72 £54.00 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year -6.07% +38.64% -13.44%
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 15,143 9,033 13,447
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.91% 30.77% 30.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,073 5,738 8,317
10th Percentile £346 £290 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% -2.05% -2.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £711 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,096 505 1,035
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £13.69
25th Percentile £20.82 £22.50 £17.66
Median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £38.95
Median % change year-on-year +6.96% +9.11% -26.99%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.39 £75.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £46.30 £40.00
% change year-on-year -1.81% +15.75% -19.27%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,174 £500 -3.75% 3,357
UK excluding London -7 1,307 £475 +5.56% 2,470
London -14 944 £506 -8.05% 1,159
Work from Home -7 671 £500 - 928
South East -5 358 £500 - 788
North of England -10 325 £417 -8.35% 660
Midlands -26 207 £500 +61.29% 353
North West -5 181 £400 -12.90% 410
West Midlands -25 149 £494 +64.50% 207
South West -7 143 £669 +27.38% 241
East of England -4 142 £498 -4.14% 323
Yorkshire -20 127 £475 +9.32% 191
Scotland -6 96 £500 +11.48% 95
East Midlands -17 57 £525 +47.47% 145
Wales -14 37 £282 -7.49% 45
North East -20 18 £407 -4.24% 66
Northern Ireland -6 16 £406 +30.00% 13

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
1 177 (7.15%) Confluence
2 118 (4.77%) 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 10 (0.40%) 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%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) Drupal
13 2 (0.081%) Moodle
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 (12.77%) Microsoft Office
2 239 (9.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 200 (8.08%) Microsoft Project
4 143 (5.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 67 (2.71%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) 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 74 (2.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.81%) Primavera
4 18 (0.73%) 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%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) NetSuite
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
1 527 (21.30%) Azure
2 289 (11.68%) AWS
3 212 (8.57%) Microsoft 365
4 198 (8.00%) Power Platform
5 112 (4.53%) GCP
6 110 (4.45%) Entra ID
7 107 (4.32%) SaaS
8 98 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (2.59%) GitHub
10 46 (1.86%) Dynamics 365
11 38 (1.54%) Power Automate
11 38 (1.54%) Snowflake
12 33 (1.33%) Cloud Computing
12 33 (1.33%) Google Workspace
13 31 (1.25%) PaaS
14 30 (1.21%) PowerApps
15 29 (1.17%) IaaS
16 28 (1.13%) GitHub Actions
16 28 (1.13%) Serverless
17 26 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 123 (4.97%) Firewall
2 64 (2.59%) TCP/IP
3 62 (2.51%) WAN
4 61 (2.47%) LAN
5 60 (2.43%) DNS
6 51 (2.06%) Network Security
7 40 (1.62%) 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
11 25 (1.01%) Skype
12 21 (0.85%) DHCP
13 18 (0.73%) VLAN
14 16 (0.65%) Internet
14 16 (0.65%) SAN
14 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 15 (0.61%) VXLAN
16 13 (0.53%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (6.71%) Power BI
2 103 (4.16%) SQL Server
3 70 (2.83%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.02%) Big Data
5 50 (2.02%) Relational Database
6 42 (1.70%) Tableau
7 39 (1.58%) NoSQL
8 38 (1.54%) Metadata
9 34 (1.37%) MySQL
10 29 (1.17%) Hadoop
11 26 (1.05%) Data Lake
12 21 (0.85%) 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 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.44%) Star Schema
17 10 (0.40%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 283 (11.44%) JIRA
2 116 (4.69%) Git
3 50 (2.02%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.62%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.89%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.81%) Selenium
8 18 (0.73%) MLflow
9 14 (0.57%) Burp Suite
10 13 (0.53%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) 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%) TeamCity
16 6 (0.24%) REST Assured
General
1 1,179 (47.66%) Social Skills
2 755 (30.52%) Finance
3 553 (22.35%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (9.30%) Banking
5 211 (8.53%) Public Sector
6 126 (5.09%) Presentation Skills
7 119 (4.81%) Organisational Skills
8 97 (3.92%) Marketing
9 89 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
10 86 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
11 79 (3.19%) Manufacturing
12 74 (2.99%) Legal
13 71 (2.87%) Aerospace
14 66 (2.67%) Telecoms
15 57 (2.30%) Military
16 49 (1.98%) Retail
17 46 (1.86%) Electronics
17 46 (1.86%) Front Office
17 46 (1.86%) Law
18 41 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 339 (13.70%) Analyst
2 239 (9.66%) Senior
3 209 (8.45%) Architect
4 204 (8.25%) Lead
5 188 (7.60%) Project Manager
6 187 (7.56%) Developer
7 156 (6.31%) Business Analyst
8 93 (3.76%) Consultant
9 67 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
10 65 (2.63%) Senior Analyst
11 63 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
12 56 (2.26%) Technical Support
13 53 (2.14%) Data Scientist
13 53 (2.14%) Security Engineer
14 52 (2.10%) Designer
15 50 (2.02%) Software Engineer
16 44 (1.78%) Product Manager
17 43 (1.74%) Data Engineer
17 43 (1.74%) IT Support
18 42 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (4.04%) REST
2 78 (3.15%) .NET
3 55 (2.22%) React
4 53 (2.14%) HTML
5 52 (2.10%) Middleware
6 48 (1.94%) RESTful
7 46 (1.86%) Kafka
8 38 (1.54%) CSS
8 38 (1.54%) JSON
8 38 (1.54%) SOAP
8 38 (1.54%) XML
9 36 (1.46%) Oracle Fusion
9 36 (1.46%) PyTorch
9 36 (1.46%) Spring Boot
10 33 (1.33%) Pandas
10 33 (1.33%) Spring
11 32 (1.29%) TensorFlow
12 29 (1.17%) .NET Framework
12 29 (1.17%) OAuth
13 25 (1.01%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 199 (8.04%) Management Information System
2 167 (6.75%) Product Ownership
3 125 (5.05%) Onboarding
4 90 (3.64%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 74 (2.99%) Algorithms
7 70 (2.83%) Self-Motivation
8 69 (2.79%) Data Centre
9 62 (2.51%) Data Structures
10 59 (2.38%) PMI
11 55 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
12 53 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
13 42 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
14 37 (1.50%) Derivative
15 34 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
15 34 (1.37%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.29%) Operational Technology
16 32 (1.29%) Robotics
17 29 (1.17%) AI Agents
17 29 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 289 (11.68%) Windows
2 181 (7.32%) Linux
3 78 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 63 (2.55%) Unix
5 57 (2.30%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.29%) 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
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Debian
15 3 (0.12%) CentOS
15 3 (0.12%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 894 (36.14%) Computer Science
2 749 (30.27%) Agile
3 663 (26.80%) Problem-Solving
4 394 (15.93%) Stakeholder Management
5 365 (14.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 353 (14.27%) Project Management
7 349 (14.11%) AI
8 342 (13.82%) DevOps
9 283 (11.44%) CI/CD
10 277 (11.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 272 (10.99%) Analytics
12 262 (10.59%) Change Management
13 260 (10.51%) ITIL
14 254 (10.27%) Cybersecurity
15 251 (10.15%) Decision-Making
16 249 (10.06%) Migration
17 229 (9.26%) Project Delivery
18 227 (9.18%) PRINCE2
19 213 (8.61%) Roadmaps
20 209 (8.45%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 398 (16.09%) Python
2 363 (14.67%) SQL
3 168 (6.79%) Java
4 122 (4.93%) PowerShell
5 87 (3.52%) C#
6 83 (3.35%) JavaScript
7 69 (2.79%) C++
8 45 (1.82%) Bash
9 39 (1.58%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.29%) R
11 27 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.77%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.69%) Go
13 17 (0.69%) Perl
13 17 (0.69%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.61%) C
15 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.57%) Rust
16 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 556 (22.47%) Computer Science Degree
2 472 (19.08%) Security Cleared
3 339 (13.70%) SC Cleared
4 316 (12.77%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.22%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.34%) PMP
7 111 (4.49%) CISSP
8 87 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 64 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
10 63 (2.55%) Cisco Certification
10 63 (2.55%) CISM
11 61 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
12 57 (2.30%) DV Cleared
13 56 (2.26%) Azure Certification
13 56 (2.26%) PhD
14 42 (1.70%) CCNP
15 39 (1.58%) MBA
16 35 (1.41%) AWS Certification
17 34 (1.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 33 (1.33%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 166 (6.71%) QA
2 116 (4.69%) PMO
3 114 (4.61%) GDPR
4 104 (4.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (4.12%) NIST
6 100 (4.04%) Data Quality
7 47 (1.90%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.82%) SLA
9 40 (1.62%) Accessibility
10 26 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 23 (0.93%) GRC
12 18 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
12 18 (0.73%) NCSC
13 13 (0.53%) Basel III
13 13 (0.53%) COBIT
13 13 (0.53%) IFRS
14 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.49%) SOC 2
15 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 11 (0.44%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 166 (6.71%) Active Directory
2 148 (5.98%) Docker
3 46 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
5 22 (0.89%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.36%) vSphere
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.24%) VMware NSX
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
11 3 (0.12%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
12 2 (0.081%) HDFS
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.040%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 1 (0.040%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 149 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 84 (3.40%) Terraform
3 65 (2.63%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.47%) Ansible
5 40 (1.62%) Grafana
6 38 (1.54%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
7 30 (1.21%) Prometheus
8 17 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 17 (0.69%) Puppet
9 16 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.53%) Nmap
11 11 (0.44%) Kibana
12 10 (0.40%) SCOM
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.32%) vCenter Server
15 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 559 (22.59%) Microsoft
2 158 (6.39%) SAP
3 157 (6.35%) Oracle
4 127 (5.13%) ServiceNow
5 93 (3.76%) Google
6 83 (3.35%) Cisco
7 64 (2.59%) Splunk
8 56 (2.26%) Databricks
9 54 (2.18%) VMware
10 52 (2.10%) Remedy
11 49 (1.98%) Citrix
12 45 (1.82%) Atlassian
13 42 (1.70%) IBM
14 41 (1.66%) Salesforce
15 39 (1.58%) Palo Alto
16 33 (1.33%) CheckPoint
17 26 (1.05%) Adobe
18 24 (0.97%) Informatica
19 23 (0.93%) CyberArk
20 21 (0.85%) Aruba