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

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,394 2,212 3,494
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.87% 7.64% 8.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.46% 24.62% 27.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,320 1,268 1,888
10th Percentile £217 £235 £225
25th Percentile £375 £363 £379
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £718 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +2.78% -10.00% +2.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 177 418
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.68 £14.25
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.94 £21.90
Median hourly rate £52.75 £51.80 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.84% +29.49% -20.00%
75th Percentile £83.19 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.75 £45.01 £40.33
% change year-on-year +23.87% +11.61% -19.00%

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 15,482 8,985 12,838
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.53% 31.05% 29.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,269 5,617 7,970
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £618 £644
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,134 539 1,103
10th Percentile £17.00 £17.76 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.33 £22.25 £18.26
Median hourly rate £50.00 £32.31 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +54.75% -19.23% -27.27%
75th Percentile £72.50 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.54 £32.00 £41.27
% change year-on-year +48.56% -22.45% -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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -10 2,135 £500 - 3,442
UK excluding London -8 1,308 £463 +2.78% 2,268
London -17 905 £515 -6.36% 1,480
Work from Home -16 650 £500 -2.82% 1,767
South East -1 380 £500 +5.26% 700
North of England -14 328 £447 -3.35% 516
Midlands -21 208 £503 +40.36% 294
North West -6 180 £417 -11.09% 270
West Midlands -30 148 £475 +15.15% 187
East of England -5 139 £450 -10.00% 265
Yorkshire -8 133 £475 +6.26% 185
South West -20 122 £477 -1.45% 294
Scotland -15 93 £500 +11.11% 116
East Midlands -15 58 £537 +50.84% 107
Wales -24 27 £450 +44.23% 52
Northern Ireland -4 16 £254 -18.72% 83
North East -31 15 £450 +130.77% 69

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
1 133 (5.56%) Confluence
2 127 (5.30%) SharePoint
3 65 (2.72%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.13%) Apache Spark
5 32 (1.34%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (1.00%) Apache
7 11 (0.46%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.25%) SAS
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.13%) Moodle
12 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.084%) Drupal
13 2 (0.084%) nginx
13 2 (0.084%) WebSphere
Applications
1 263 (10.99%) Microsoft Office
2 221 (9.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 137 (5.72%) Microsoft Project
4 132 (5.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.59%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.63%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.42%) Simulink
10 9 (0.38%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
12 7 (0.29%) Trello
13 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
14 4 (0.17%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.084%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 66 (2.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.58%) Primavera
4 10 (0.42%) Payment Gateway
4 10 (0.42%) Remedy ITSM
5 8 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
5 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
6 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
7 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.17%) HFM
9 4 (0.17%) Magento
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 4 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
10 3 (0.13%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 526 (21.97%) Azure
2 311 (12.99%) AWS
3 201 (8.40%) Microsoft 365
4 185 (7.73%) Power Platform
5 124 (5.18%) Entra ID
6 108 (4.51%) GCP
7 85 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
7 85 (3.55%) SaaS
8 62 (2.59%) GitHub
9 44 (1.84%) Figma
10 37 (1.55%) Dynamics 365
11 34 (1.42%) PaaS
12 33 (1.38%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.34%) Google Workspace
14 30 (1.25%) IaaS
15 29 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
15 29 (1.21%) Power Automate
16 28 (1.17%) OneDrive
16 28 (1.17%) PowerApps
16 28 (1.17%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.68%) Firewall
2 74 (3.09%) DNS
2 74 (3.09%) TCP/IP
3 61 (2.55%) Network Security
4 55 (2.30%) WAN
5 51 (2.13%) LAN
6 40 (1.67%) VPN
7 29 (1.21%) DHCP
8 27 (1.13%) BGP
9 24 (1.00%) OSPF
9 24 (1.00%) Wireless
10 23 (0.96%) Ethernet
11 20 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 17 (0.71%) SAN
13 16 (0.67%) Skype
14 15 (0.63%) SSL
15 14 (0.58%) HTTP
15 14 (0.58%) VLAN
15 14 (0.58%) VXLAN
16 13 (0.54%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (6.39%) Power BI
2 109 (4.55%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 56 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
5 49 (2.05%) Relational Database
6 48 (2.01%) Big Data
7 39 (1.63%) Metadata
8 38 (1.59%) Tableau
9 36 (1.50%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.17%) Hadoop
11 26 (1.09%) MySQL
12 25 (1.04%) MongoDB
13 21 (0.88%) Data Lake
14 19 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
14 19 (0.79%) Oracle Database
15 16 (0.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
17 12 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.46%) GIS
18 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 219 (9.15%) JIRA
2 112 (4.68%) Git
3 47 (1.96%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.80%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 19 (0.79%) MLflow
6 19 (0.79%) Selenium
6 19 (0.79%) Visual Studio
7 14 (0.58%) Cucumber
7 14 (0.58%) Gradle
7 14 (0.58%) Postman
8 13 (0.54%) JUnit
9 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.46%) TeamCity
11 10 (0.42%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.42%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.29%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.29%) Subversion
General
1 1,105 (46.16%) Social Skills
2 739 (30.87%) Finance
3 479 (20.01%) Analytical Skills
4 207 (8.65%) Banking
5 200 (8.35%) Public Sector
6 135 (5.64%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.10%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.14%) Marketing
9 87 (3.63%) Legal
10 84 (3.51%) Aerospace
11 82 (3.43%) Documentation Skills
12 77 (3.22%) Manufacturing
13 70 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
14 67 (2.80%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.26%) Law
16 51 (2.13%) Retail
17 44 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 38 (1.59%) Front Office
19 37 (1.55%) Investment Banking
19 37 (1.55%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 351 (14.66%) Analyst
2 274 (11.45%) Senior
3 192 (8.02%) Architect
4 183 (7.64%) Lead
5 167 (6.98%) Developer
6 161 (6.73%) Project Manager
7 154 (6.43%) Business Analyst
8 69 (2.88%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.80%) Senior Analyst
10 66 (2.76%) Designer
11 65 (2.72%) Consultant
12 59 (2.46%) Software Engineer
13 56 (2.34%) Technical Support
14 55 (2.30%) Senior Manager
15 54 (2.26%) Security Engineer
16 53 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
17 47 (1.96%) Product Manager
18 46 (1.92%) Administrator
18 46 (1.92%) Systems Engineer
19 44 (1.84%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.39%) REST
2 86 (3.59%) .NET
3 66 (2.76%) React
4 53 (2.21%) Kafka
5 50 (2.09%) Middleware
6 49 (2.05%) HTML
7 48 (2.01%) Oracle Fusion
8 44 (1.84%) RESTful
9 40 (1.67%) CSS
10 35 (1.46%) .NET Framework
10 35 (1.46%) Spring Boot
11 32 (1.34%) XML
12 30 (1.25%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.25%) OAuth
12 30 (1.25%) Spring
13 29 (1.21%) Web Services
14 28 (1.17%) SOAP
15 27 (1.13%) JSON
16 26 (1.09%) Pandas
16 26 (1.09%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 183 (7.64%) Management Information System
2 140 (5.85%) Product Ownership
3 135 (5.64%) Onboarding
4 98 (4.09%) Self-Motivation
5 90 (3.76%) Cloud Native
6 69 (2.88%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.63%) Virtual Team
8 60 (2.51%) Data Structures
9 59 (2.46%) Algorithms
10 54 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
11 50 (2.09%) Data Protection Act
12 46 (1.92%) PMI
13 42 (1.75%) Operational Technology
14 40 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
15 38 (1.59%) Robotics
15 38 (1.59%) Security Posture
16 35 (1.46%) Life Science
17 32 (1.34%) Derivative
18 30 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
18 30 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 309 (12.91%) Windows
2 190 (7.94%) Linux
3 73 (3.05%) Windows Server
4 72 (3.01%) Unix
5 61 (2.55%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.29%) Android
8 28 (1.17%) Mac OS
9 26 (1.09%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.33%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) AIX
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 7 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
13 4 (0.17%) Debian
13 4 (0.17%) Rocky
13 4 (0.17%) Solaris
13 4 (0.17%) VMS
13 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 827 (34.54%) Computer Science
2 642 (26.82%) Agile
3 625 (26.11%) Problem-Solving
4 368 (15.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 358 (14.95%) Continuous Improvement
6 345 (14.41%) AI
7 320 (13.37%) DevOps
8 291 (12.16%) Project Management
9 285 (11.90%) CI/CD
10 260 (10.86%) Analytics
11 253 (10.57%) Decision-Making
12 252 (10.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 239 (9.98%) Cybersecurity
14 230 (9.61%) Migration
15 228 (9.52%) Change Management
16 209 (8.73%) Roadmaps
16 209 (8.73%) Software Engineering
17 206 (8.60%) ITIL
18 189 (7.89%) Risk Management
19 182 (7.60%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 393 (16.42%) Python
2 365 (15.25%) SQL
3 183 (7.64%) Java
4 122 (5.10%) PowerShell
5 95 (3.97%) C#
6 92 (3.84%) JavaScript
7 59 (2.46%) C++
8 41 (1.71%) Bash
9 33 (1.38%) TypeScript
10 26 (1.09%) R
11 23 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.92%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.75%) C
14 16 (0.67%) Rust
15 15 (0.63%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.58%) Go
16 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.58%) Perl
17 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.42%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 510 (21.30%) Computer Science Degree
2 427 (17.84%) Security Cleared
3 283 (11.82%) SC Cleared
4 259 (10.82%) Master's Degree
5 139 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 120 (5.01%) CISSP
7 119 (4.97%) PMP
8 83 (3.47%) Cisco Certification
9 80 (3.34%) Microsoft Certification
10 67 (2.80%) CISM
11 66 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
12 64 (2.67%) DV Cleared
13 56 (2.34%) Azure Certification
14 46 (1.92%) CCNP
15 45 (1.88%) PhD
16 38 (1.59%) TOGAF Certification
17 37 (1.55%) CCNA
18 36 (1.50%) CBAP
19 34 (1.42%) AWS Certification
19 34 (1.42%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 142 (5.93%) QA
2 112 (4.68%) NIST
3 111 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 109 (4.55%) Data Quality
5 103 (4.30%) PMO
6 102 (4.26%) GDPR
7 52 (2.17%) Accessibility
8 49 (2.05%) SLA
9 41 (1.71%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.09%) GRC
12 19 (0.79%) NCSC
13 17 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.67%) IFRS
15 14 (0.58%) COBIT
16 13 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.50%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
18 11 (0.46%) SOC 2
19 9 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 164 (6.85%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.72%) Docker
3 40 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.29%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.96%) Firmware
6 9 (0.38%) 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 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) Microsoft App-V
10 3 (0.13%) NFS
10 3 (0.13%) Terminal Services
10 3 (0.13%) Veritas Volume Manager
10 3 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 153 (6.39%) Kubernetes
2 82 (3.43%) Terraform
3 73 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.55%) Ansible
5 40 (1.67%) Grafana
6 36 (1.50%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.50%) SCCM
7 21 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.67%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.63%) Puppet
10 13 (0.54%) Progress Chef
11 12 (0.50%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.42%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.38%) Functional Safety
13 9 (0.38%) Kiali
13 9 (0.38%) Kibana
13 9 (0.38%) WSUS
14 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 6 (0.25%) Nmap
Vendors
1 542 (22.64%) Microsoft
2 175 (7.31%) Oracle
3 140 (5.85%) SAP
4 102 (4.26%) ServiceNow
5 91 (3.80%) Google
6 76 (3.17%) Cisco
7 60 (2.51%) Databricks
8 57 (2.38%) Splunk
9 47 (1.96%) VMware
10 46 (1.92%) Citrix
11 45 (1.88%) Adobe
12 44 (1.84%) Salesforce
13 39 (1.63%) IBM
14 34 (1.42%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.34%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.04%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.92%) CyberArk
18 21 (0.88%) Aruba
18 21 (0.88%) Fortinet
18 21 (0.88%) Siemens