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

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,506 2,408 3,782
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.42% 7.78% 8.45%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.01% 26.21% 27.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,462 1,314 2,130
10th Percentile £269 £225 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% +0.80% -7.41%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 143 346
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.79 £29.50 £21.42
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% - -0.62%
75th Percentile £57.31 £65.00 £59.98
90th Percentile £81.00 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -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 13,183 9,186 13,617
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.75% 29.69% 30.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,693 5,549 8,484
10th Percentile £315 £300 £295
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £544
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -3.40% -1.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £720 £725 £729
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 968 452 950
10th Percentile £15.71 £19.84 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.08 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.02 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -35.55% -15.50% +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.71 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.47 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -40.82% -7.97% +2.62%

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 February 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 February 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 4 February 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 -4 2,164 £500 -4.76% 2,495
UK excluding London -5 1,264 £475 - 2,045
London -5 1,001 £525 -4.55% 824
Work from Home -1 720 £500 - 1,083
North of England -8 334 £425 -11.46% 403
South East -3 282 £475 -5.00% 740
Midlands -15 211 £520 +22.35% 321
North West -3 175 £393 -17.26% 232
South West +4 174 £649 +21.76% 240
West Midlands -18 146 £520 +6.67% 197
Yorkshire -9 145 £508 +1.50% 124
Scotland +3 116 £500 +16.28% 91
East of England -14 113 £505 +9.19% 257
East Midlands -6 65 £523 +46.77% 124
Wales -3 46 £232 -20.00% 54
Northern Ireland -12 17 £425 -8.11% 13
North East -11 15 £364 -27.20% 49

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
1 211 (8.42%) Confluence
2 122 (4.87%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.75%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.04%) Apache Spark
5 27 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) Apache
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
9 8 (0.32%) nginx
10 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.24%) IIS
11 6 (0.24%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
13 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.16%) Luigi
13 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 298 (11.89%) Microsoft Office
2 251 (10.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 195 (7.78%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.19%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.80%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.68%) Simulink
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.40%) Trello
10 9 (0.36%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 7 (0.28%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 6 (0.24%) FrameMaker
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.080%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.080%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.080%) InDesign
14 2 (0.080%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.080%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 63 (2.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.92%) Primavera
4 20 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP EWM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.48%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
10 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle E-Business Tax
Cloud Services
1 525 (20.95%) Azure
2 297 (11.85%) AWS
3 223 (8.90%) Microsoft 365
4 195 (7.78%) Power Platform
5 150 (5.99%) GCP
6 112 (4.47%) SaaS
7 92 (3.67%) Azure DevOps
8 89 (3.55%) Entra ID
8 89 (3.55%) GitHub
9 59 (2.35%) Serverless
10 57 (2.27%) Dynamics 365
11 46 (1.84%) Cloud Computing
12 43 (1.72%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.36%) OCI
13 34 (1.36%) Snowflake
14 33 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
14 33 (1.32%) IaaS
14 33 (1.32%) PaaS
15 32 (1.28%) PowerApps
16 26 (1.04%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.55%) Firewall
2 74 (2.95%) DNS
3 56 (2.23%) WAN
4 55 (2.19%) LAN
5 48 (1.92%) Network Security
6 45 (1.80%) TCP/IP
7 44 (1.76%) VPN
8 35 (1.40%) HTTP
8 35 (1.40%) Skype
9 30 (1.20%) DHCP
10 28 (1.12%) Internet
11 26 (1.04%) Wireless
12 25 (1.00%) BGP
13 24 (0.96%) Unified Communications
13 24 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
14 22 (0.88%) OSPF
15 19 (0.76%) VLAN
16 17 (0.68%) Ethernet
16 17 (0.68%) SSH
17 14 (0.56%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (6.11%) Power BI
2 96 (3.83%) SQL Server
3 95 (3.79%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.51%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
6 54 (2.15%) Relational Database
7 52 (2.08%) Tableau
8 47 (1.88%) MySQL
9 45 (1.80%) Big Data
10 35 (1.40%) Metadata
11 33 (1.32%) Data Lake
12 22 (0.88%) Hadoop
13 20 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
14 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
15 16 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
16 14 (0.56%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
17 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
17 13 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 10 (0.40%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 295 (11.77%) JIRA
2 120 (4.79%) Git
3 79 (3.15%) Jenkins
4 60 (2.39%) GitLab
5 30 (1.20%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.88%) Liquibase
7 21 (0.84%) Selenium
8 19 (0.76%) Postman
9 12 (0.48%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.40%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.40%) MLflow
11 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
12 8 (0.32%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
13 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
13 7 (0.28%) Vagrant
14 6 (0.24%) Katalon Studio
14 6 (0.24%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,282 (51.16%) Social Skills
2 817 (32.60%) Finance
3 597 (23.82%) Analytical Skills
4 274 (10.93%) Banking
5 205 (8.18%) Public Sector
6 112 (4.47%) Presentation Skills
7 111 (4.43%) Manufacturing
8 103 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
9 97 (3.87%) Marketing
10 81 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
11 79 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
12 77 (3.07%) Legal
13 65 (2.59%) Military
14 63 (2.51%) Financial Institution
15 61 (2.43%) Telecoms
16 52 (2.08%) Front Office
17 47 (1.88%) Pharmaceutical
18 46 (1.84%) Investment Banking
19 40 (1.60%) Retail
20 39 (1.56%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 374 (14.92%) Analyst
2 252 (10.06%) Senior
3 227 (9.06%) Developer
4 204 (8.14%) Lead
5 188 (7.50%) Architect
6 172 (6.86%) Project Manager
7 168 (6.70%) Business Analyst
8 103 (4.11%) Consultant
9 83 (3.31%) Software Engineer
10 70 (2.79%) Solutions Architect
11 65 (2.59%) IT Support
12 64 (2.55%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.19%) Security Engineer
14 52 (2.08%) Support Analyst
15 44 (1.76%) Designer
16 43 (1.72%) Senior Software Engineer
17 40 (1.60%) Senior Analyst
18 39 (1.56%) IT Manager
19 38 (1.52%) Data Scientist
20 37 (1.48%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (4.83%) REST
2 81 (3.23%) .NET
3 78 (3.11%) RESTful
4 72 (2.87%) HTML
5 58 (2.31%) CSS
6 51 (2.04%) React
7 50 (2.00%) Middleware
8 48 (1.92%) Elastic Stack
9 45 (1.80%) XML
10 43 (1.72%) Kafka
11 41 (1.64%) JSON
12 40 (1.60%) SOAP
13 39 (1.56%) OAuth
13 39 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
14 33 (1.32%) TensorFlow
15 32 (1.28%) AngularJS
15 32 (1.28%) PyTorch
16 29 (1.16%) Node.js
17 27 (1.08%) Spring
18 26 (1.04%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 213 (8.50%) Management Information System
2 124 (4.95%) Product Ownership
3 110 (4.39%) Cloud Native
4 90 (3.59%) Onboarding
5 80 (3.19%) Algorithms
6 70 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.47%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.47%) Virtual Team
8 60 (2.39%) Data Protection Act
9 57 (2.27%) Analytical Mindset
10 55 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
11 54 (2.15%) PMI
12 44 (1.76%) Derivative
12 44 (1.76%) Enterprise Software
13 42 (1.68%) Public Cloud
13 42 (1.68%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
14 40 (1.60%) Life Science
15 34 (1.36%) Data Structures
16 31 (1.24%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 306 (12.21%) Windows
2 210 (8.38%) Linux
3 89 (3.55%) Unix
4 71 (2.83%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.27%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.00%) Android
7 24 (0.96%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
9 17 (0.68%) Apple iOS
10 16 (0.64%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
12 14 (0.56%) VMS
13 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 7 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
15 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.16%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
18 2 (0.080%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 922 (36.79%) Computer Science
2 785 (31.32%) Agile
3 744 (29.69%) Problem-Solving
4 423 (16.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 374 (14.92%) DevOps
6 366 (14.60%) Project Management
7 311 (12.41%) AI
8 298 (11.89%) Change Management
9 284 (11.33%) CI/CD
10 281 (11.21%) Continuous Improvement
11 277 (11.05%) Analytics
12 274 (10.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 265 (10.57%) Cybersecurity
14 258 (10.30%) Migration
15 247 (9.86%) ITIL
16 240 (9.58%) Decision-Making
17 232 (9.26%) Project Delivery
18 230 (9.18%) Software Engineering
19 229 (9.14%) Risk Management
20 211 (8.42%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 449 (17.92%) Python
2 397 (15.84%) SQL
3 168 (6.70%) Java
4 128 (5.11%) PowerShell
5 119 (4.75%) JavaScript
6 93 (3.71%) C#
7 85 (3.39%) C++
8 57 (2.27%) TypeScript
9 52 (2.08%) Go
10 48 (1.92%) Bash
11 32 (1.28%) R
12 27 (1.08%) Perl
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.88%) T-SQL
15 21 (0.84%) C
15 21 (0.84%) MATLAB
16 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.64%) SystemVerilog
17 15 (0.60%) Rust
18 12 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 617 (24.62%) Computer Science Degree
2 435 (17.36%) Security Cleared
3 404 (16.12%) Master's Degree
4 339 (13.53%) SC Cleared
5 158 (6.30%) PMI Certification
6 134 (5.35%) PMP
7 118 (4.71%) CISSP
8 91 (3.63%) Microsoft Certification
9 77 (3.07%) CISM
10 76 (3.03%) PhD
11 75 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
12 74 (2.95%) Azure Certification
13 68 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
14 57 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
15 56 (2.23%) DV Cleared
16 48 (1.92%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.60%) CCNP
18 39 (1.56%) MBA
19 38 (1.52%) CBAP
20 33 (1.32%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (6.74%) QA
2 135 (5.39%) GDPR
3 95 (3.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 94 (3.75%) Data Quality
5 92 (3.67%) PMO
6 67 (2.67%) NIST
7 43 (1.72%) PCI DSS
8 42 (1.68%) Accessibility
9 37 (1.48%) SLA
10 35 (1.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 30 (1.20%) GRC
12 19 (0.76%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.60%) WCAG
15 14 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
15 14 (0.56%) NCSC
16 13 (0.52%) Basel III
17 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
17 12 (0.48%) IFRS
18 11 (0.44%) DO-254
System Software
1 192 (7.66%) Docker
2 159 (6.34%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.84%) Firmware
5 18 (0.72%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.28%) DFS Replication
7 7 (0.28%) Dovecot
7 7 (0.28%) Postfix
7 7 (0.28%) Squid
7 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
8 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 180 (7.18%) Kubernetes
2 123 (4.91%) Terraform
3 77 (3.07%) Ansible
4 67 (2.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 62 (2.47%) Grafana
6 52 (2.08%) Prometheus
6 52 (2.08%) SCCM
7 30 (1.20%) OPNET
8 25 (1.00%) Puppet
9 16 (0.64%) Kibana
9 16 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 13 (0.52%) SCOM
12 12 (0.48%) Nmap
13 9 (0.36%) Kiali
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) Proxmox
15 7 (0.28%) QRadar
Vendors
1 535 (21.35%) Microsoft
2 180 (7.18%) Oracle
3 174 (6.94%) SAP
4 115 (4.59%) ServiceNow
5 108 (4.31%) Splunk
6 106 (4.23%) Google
7 76 (3.03%) Cisco
8 57 (2.27%) Salesforce
9 55 (2.19%) Atlassian
10 54 (2.15%) Remedy
11 52 (2.08%) VMware
12 49 (1.96%) Databricks
13 37 (1.48%) Citrix
14 30 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.16%) Informatica
16 27 (1.08%) IBM
17 23 (0.92%) MuleSoft
18 22 (0.88%) Adobe
19 20 (0.80%) BiZZdesign
19 20 (0.80%) CheckPoint