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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -17 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,458 2,463 3,043
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.59% 7.51% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.65% 24.03% 26.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,313 1,387 1,763
10th Percentile £204 £250 £263
25th Percentile £363 £365 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £717 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +0.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 216 263
10th Percentile £17.25 £18.90 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.43
Median hourly rate £39.50 £42.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.60% -18.57% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.64 £68.38
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.98 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.75 £42.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year -5.36% -26.77% +18.97%

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 16,783 10,249 11,642
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 31.23% 29.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,254 6,303 7,364
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £433 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,257 823 818
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.98 £14.49
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.00 £53.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.96 £73.75 £76.47
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.77 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +93.90% -47.05% -6.40%

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 19 August 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 19 August 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 19 August 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 2,257 £500 - 7,040
UK excluding London -16 1,327 £475 +5.56% 4,122
London -20 974 £525 -4.55% 3,731
Work from Home -19 659 £500 - 2,375
South East -1 473 £500 +5.26% 1,119
North of England -19 331 £475 +6.15% 837
North West -14 196 £466 +0.70% 453
Midlands -30 178 £450 - 518
East of England -13 133 £425 -5.56% 606
West Midlands -38 133 £450 - 280
South West -24 123 £415 +11.41% 491
Yorkshire -6 122 £500 +26.58% 249
Scotland -50 63 £475 +5.56% 397
East Midlands -24 43 £475 +32.68% 237
Northern Ireland -13 15 £252 -52.00% 122
Wales -31 14 £530 +73.50% 111
North East -44 13 £450 +130.77% 156
Channel Islands - 1 - - 2

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
1 151 (6.14%) SharePoint
2 110 (4.48%) Confluence
3 66 (2.69%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.14%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.41%) SAS
9 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.28%) Camunda
10 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
12 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 247 (10.05%) Microsoft Office
2 242 (9.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 135 (5.49%) Microsoft Project
4 123 (5.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 57 (2.32%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.73%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
8 15 (0.61%) Photoshop
9 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
10 10 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.33%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Simulink
11 8 (0.33%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Windchill
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 51 (2.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 16 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.45%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.33%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
8 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
9 5 (0.20%) Aladdin
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 564 (22.95%) Azure
2 319 (12.98%) AWS
3 226 (9.19%) Microsoft 365
4 224 (9.11%) Power Platform
5 152 (6.18%) Entra ID
6 138 (5.61%) GCP
7 106 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
8 85 (3.46%) SaaS
9 63 (2.56%) GitHub
10 52 (2.12%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (2.03%) PowerApps
11 50 (2.03%) Serverless
12 49 (1.99%) Power Automate
13 45 (1.83%) Snowflake
14 43 (1.75%) OneDrive
15 41 (1.67%) Figma
16 40 (1.63%) Microsoft Copilot
17 28 (1.14%) IaaS
18 27 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
19 26 (1.06%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 117 (4.76%) Firewall
2 83 (3.38%) DNS
3 69 (2.81%) Network Security
4 65 (2.64%) TCP/IP
5 63 (2.56%) VPN
6 43 (1.75%) DHCP
7 40 (1.63%) WAN
8 38 (1.55%) LAN
9 30 (1.22%) Wireless
10 22 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 20 (0.81%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) HTTP
13 18 (0.73%) Internet
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 16 (0.65%) 3GPP
14 16 (0.65%) OSPF
15 15 (0.61%) SSH
16 14 (0.57%) 5G
16 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 176 (7.16%) Power BI
2 104 (4.23%) SQL Server
3 57 (2.32%) Relational Database
4 54 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
5 49 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
6 44 (1.79%) Metadata
7 32 (1.30%) Tableau
8 31 (1.26%) NoSQL
9 27 (1.10%) Big Data
10 25 (1.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.98%) MySQL
11 24 (0.98%) Oracle Database
12 23 (0.94%) MongoDB
13 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
13 17 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.65%) Data Mining
15 14 (0.57%) Power Query
16 12 (0.49%) GIS
Development Applications
1 182 (7.40%) JIRA
2 133 (5.41%) Git
3 56 (2.28%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.79%) GitLab
5 37 (1.51%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.53%) JUnit
9 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
9 12 (0.49%) SonarQube
10 11 (0.45%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.45%) MLflow
10 11 (0.45%) Postman
10 11 (0.45%) Subversion
11 10 (0.41%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
13 8 (0.33%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,082 (44.02%) Social Skills
2 725 (29.50%) Finance
3 584 (23.76%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (7.89%) Public Sector
5 185 (7.53%) Banking
6 154 (6.27%) Organisational Skills
7 114 (4.64%) Aerospace
8 99 (4.03%) Legal
9 96 (3.91%) Marketing
10 95 (3.86%) Manufacturing
11 89 (3.62%) Presentation Skills
12 87 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
12 87 (3.54%) Telecoms
13 75 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
14 64 (2.60%) Retail
15 51 (2.07%) Law
16 50 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 49 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
18 41 (1.67%) Front Office
19 40 (1.63%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 336 (13.67%) Analyst
2 278 (11.31%) Senior
3 196 (7.97%) Lead
4 181 (7.36%) Developer
5 164 (6.67%) Architect
6 154 (6.27%) Business Analyst
7 131 (5.33%) Project Manager
8 72 (2.93%) Consultant
9 69 (2.81%) Senior Manager
10 68 (2.77%) IT Support
11 67 (2.73%) Support Engineer
12 57 (2.32%) Designer
13 55 (2.24%) Product Manager
14 54 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
15 53 (2.16%) IT Analyst
15 53 (2.16%) IT Manager
16 50 (2.03%) Delivery Manager
17 46 (1.87%) Administrator
17 46 (1.87%) Software Engineer
18 44 (1.79%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.39%) REST
2 99 (4.03%) .NET
3 61 (2.48%) React
4 53 (2.16%) Kafka
5 49 (1.99%) RESTful
6 48 (1.95%) HTML
7 47 (1.91%) OAuth
8 41 (1.67%) Oracle Fusion
9 37 (1.51%) CSS
10 36 (1.46%) Web Services
11 35 (1.42%) Middleware
11 35 (1.42%) OAuth2
12 34 (1.38%) SAML
13 32 (1.30%) .NET Framework
13 32 (1.30%) OpenID
13 32 (1.30%) XML
14 29 (1.18%) JSON
14 29 (1.18%) SOAP
15 28 (1.14%) LDAP
16 27 (1.10%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 210 (8.54%) Management Information System
2 143 (5.82%) Product Ownership
3 142 (5.78%) Onboarding
4 109 (4.43%) Self-Motivation
5 96 (3.91%) Cloud Native
6 78 (3.17%) Data Structures
7 68 (2.77%) Algorithms
8 63 (2.56%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.16%) Security Posture
10 49 (1.99%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.95%) Distributed Systems
11 48 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
12 45 (1.83%) Legacy Systems
13 44 (1.79%) Virtual Team
14 41 (1.67%) Life Science
15 37 (1.51%) AI Agents
16 34 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
17 33 (1.34%) PMI
17 33 (1.34%) SCADA
18 31 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 294 (11.96%) Windows
2 178 (7.24%) Linux
3 69 (2.81%) Windows Server
4 60 (2.44%) Unix
5 52 (2.12%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.22%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.18%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.02%) Android
10 10 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) VMS
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Debian
14 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.12%) Rocky
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 849 (34.54%) Computer Science
2 664 (27.01%) Agile
3 647 (26.32%) Problem-Solving
4 464 (18.88%) Stakeholder Management
5 436 (17.74%) Continuous Improvement
6 377 (15.34%) AI
7 329 (13.38%) DevOps
8 318 (12.94%) Project Management
9 300 (12.21%) Analytics
10 298 (12.12%) CI/CD
11 293 (11.92%) ITIL
12 259 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 237 (9.64%) Decision-Making
14 236 (9.60%) Cybersecurity
15 228 (9.28%) Change Management
16 214 (8.71%) PRINCE2
16 214 (8.71%) Software Engineering
17 211 (8.58%) Scrum
18 209 (8.50%) Roadmaps
19 206 (8.38%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 422 (17.17%) Python
2 352 (14.32%) SQL
3 169 (6.88%) Java
4 168 (6.83%) PowerShell
5 111 (4.52%) C#
6 101 (4.11%) JavaScript
7 57 (2.32%) Bash
8 49 (1.99%) C++
9 42 (1.71%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.10%) Bicep
11 26 (1.06%) PL/SQL
11 26 (1.06%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 23 (0.94%) C
13 23 (0.94%) R
14 15 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.49%) Apex Code
15 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
16 11 (0.45%) Scala
16 11 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 501 (20.38%) Computer Science Degree
2 458 (18.63%) Security Cleared
3 304 (12.37%) SC Cleared
4 214 (8.71%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.70%) PMI Certification
6 121 (4.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 120 (4.88%) PMP
8 114 (4.64%) CISSP
9 85 (3.46%) Cisco Certification
10 78 (3.17%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.05%) DV Cleared
12 64 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
13 54 (2.20%) CISM
14 50 (2.03%) PhD
15 43 (1.75%) CCNA
16 41 (1.67%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.63%) CCNP
17 40 (1.63%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 33 (1.34%) A+ Certification
18 33 (1.34%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 134 (5.45%) Data Quality
2 130 (5.29%) QA
3 109 (4.43%) NIST
4 104 (4.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 92 (3.74%) PMO
6 71 (2.89%) GDPR
7 49 (1.99%) Accessibility
7 49 (1.99%) SLA
8 30 (1.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 23 (0.94%) GRC
10 22 (0.90%) PCI DSS
11 21 (0.85%) NCSC
12 15 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
13 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.49%) IFRS
15 11 (0.45%) COBIT
15 11 (0.45%) NIST 800
15 11 (0.45%) P3O
16 9 (0.37%) IEC 61508
17 8 (0.33%) HIPAA
System Software
1 204 (8.30%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.92%) Docker
3 55 (2.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.06%) Firmware
5 24 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.33%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) vSphere
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
11 4 (0.16%) NFS
11 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
12 3 (0.12%) ACF2
12 3 (0.12%) OpenAM
12 3 (0.12%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.29%) Kubernetes
2 100 (4.07%) Terraform
3 83 (3.38%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.64%) Ansible
5 41 (1.67%) SCCM
6 30 (1.22%) Grafana
7 27 (1.10%) Prometheus
8 19 (0.77%) Progress Chef
8 19 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.57%) Puppet
10 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.41%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) Control-M
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.28%) SCOM
15 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 638 (25.96%) Microsoft
2 175 (7.12%) Oracle
3 143 (5.82%) ServiceNow
4 135 (5.49%) SAP
5 92 (3.74%) Google
6 71 (2.89%) VMware
7 70 (2.85%) Cisco
8 66 (2.69%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.56%) Databricks
10 59 (2.40%) Adobe
11 53 (2.16%) IBM
12 43 (1.75%) Splunk
13 32 (1.30%) CyberArk
14 28 (1.14%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.14%) Red Hat
15 26 (1.06%) Citrix
16 22 (0.90%) Apple
17 21 (0.85%) BeyondTrust
18 20 (0.81%) Ariba
19 18 (0.73%) HP