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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 26 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -6 +3
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,559 2,350 2,965
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.63% 7.08% 7.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.47% 22.22% 26.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,311 1,292 1,681
10th Percentile £205 £268 £230
25th Percentile £371 £400 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £632 £613
90th Percentile £710 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £465 £475
% change year-on-year +2.80% -2.11% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 317 203 181
10th Percentile £16.41 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £23.72 £24.50 £25.99
Median hourly rate £39.50 £33.50 £42.88
Median % change year-on-year +17.91% -21.88% -11.18%
75th Percentile £65.00 £53.95 £72.50
90th Percentile £81.28 £86.15 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £33.50 £52.19
% change year-on-year +14.18% -35.81% +4.38%

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 17,680 10,576 11,053
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.97% 31.85% 29.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,674 6,634 6,698
10th Percentile £353 £285 £310
25th Percentile £447 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £532 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.24% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £630
90th Percentile £713 £706 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,508 889 573
10th Percentile £16.50 £17.59 £18.13
25th Percentile £24.84 £18.87 £25.36
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.49%
75th Percentile £71.69 £40.00 £68.00
90th Percentile £88.85 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -3.65%

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 15 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 2,322 £510 +1.22% 6,628
UK excluding London -15 1,369 £478 +2.80% 3,124
London -18 1,012 £530 -3.64% 3,881
Work from Home -18 690 £505 +1.00% 3,834
South East +7 481 £525 +16.67% 917
North of England -12 344 £477 +4.15% 603
North West -7 219 £475 +3.83% 344
Midlands -33 182 £450 -5.26% 362
East of England -13 138 £425 -15.00% 413
West Midlands -37 133 £450 -10.00% 250
South West -27 127 £415 -20.95% 350
Yorkshire -27 107 £500 +11.11% 171
Scotland -44 75 £463 +2.78% 262
East Midlands -15 48 £463 +3.24% 112
North East -26 18 £460 +2.22% 92
Wales -30 13 £530 +66.62% 92
Northern Ireland -15 12 £250 -56.04% 178
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 5

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
1 153 (5.98%) SharePoint
2 127 (4.96%) Confluence
3 57 (2.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.13%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.90%) Apache
6 22 (0.86%) CMS
7 21 (0.82%) IIS
8 20 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
9 14 (0.55%) Camunda
9 14 (0.55%) SharePoint Server
10 10 (0.39%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 8 (0.31%) SAS
12 6 (0.23%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.20%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.20%) FactoryTalk
14 4 (0.16%) Appian
14 4 (0.16%) nginx
14 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 248 (9.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 230 (8.99%) Microsoft Office
3 111 (4.34%) Microsoft Project
4 109 (4.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 61 (2.38%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.66%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.63%) Adobe After Effects
7 16 (0.63%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.55%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.51%) Simulink
9 13 (0.51%) Windchill
10 8 (0.31%) AutoCAD
10 8 (0.31%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.31%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.31%) Revit
10 8 (0.31%) Sketch
11 7 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
12 6 (0.23%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.23%) UserZoom
13 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 30 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.51%) Primavera
4 11 (0.43%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.31%) Magento
5 8 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 7 (0.27%) HFM
6 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 6 (0.23%) Workday HCM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Workfront
9 4 (0.16%) Dynamics NAV
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.16%) Unit4 Business World
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 581 (22.70%) Azure
2 310 (12.11%) AWS
3 222 (8.68%) Power Platform
4 213 (8.32%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (5.98%) GCP
6 140 (5.47%) Azure DevOps
6 140 (5.47%) Entra ID
7 76 (2.97%) SaaS
8 75 (2.93%) GitHub
9 63 (2.46%) Dynamics 365
9 63 (2.46%) Serverless
10 59 (2.31%) Power Automate
11 52 (2.03%) PowerApps
12 49 (1.91%) Microsoft Copilot
12 49 (1.91%) OneDrive
13 41 (1.60%) Snowflake
14 37 (1.45%) Figma
15 32 (1.25%) Amazon S3
16 31 (1.21%) IaaS
17 30 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 103 (4.03%) Firewall
2 82 (3.20%) DNS
3 67 (2.62%) TCP/IP
4 63 (2.46%) Network Security
5 59 (2.31%) VPN
6 45 (1.76%) DHCP
7 30 (1.17%) WAN
8 29 (1.13%) LAN
9 28 (1.09%) Wireless
10 23 (0.90%) VLAN
11 22 (0.86%) 3GPP
12 21 (0.82%) 5G
13 20 (0.78%) SSL
14 19 (0.74%) Internet
14 19 (0.74%) SSH
15 17 (0.66%) BGP
15 17 (0.66%) Radio Access Network
15 17 (0.66%) Wireshark
16 15 (0.59%) OSPF
16 15 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (6.21%) Power BI
2 111 (4.34%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.34%) Metadata
3 60 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (1.95%) Relational Database
5 47 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
6 39 (1.52%) MySQL
7 34 (1.33%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.25%) Tableau
9 31 (1.21%) Big Data
10 30 (1.17%) MongoDB
11 27 (1.06%) Elasticsearch
12 26 (1.02%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 20 (0.78%) Data Lake
15 19 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
15 19 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
16 17 (0.66%) GIS
17 16 (0.63%) Data Mining
18 11 (0.43%) Redis
Development Applications
1 179 (6.99%) JIRA
2 149 (5.82%) Git
3 67 (2.62%) Jenkins
4 55 (2.15%) GitLab
5 29 (1.13%) Gradle
6 28 (1.09%) JUnit
7 25 (0.98%) Maven
8 24 (0.94%) SonarQube
9 22 (0.86%) Selenium
10 20 (0.78%) Cucumber
11 19 (0.74%) Visual Studio
12 18 (0.70%) Mockito
12 18 (0.70%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
14 15 (0.59%) Postman
15 11 (0.43%) Rational DOORS
15 11 (0.43%) SpecFlow
16 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket
16 9 (0.35%) Bitbucket Server
17 8 (0.31%) MLflow
General
1 1,150 (44.94%) Social Skills
2 740 (28.92%) Finance
3 597 (23.33%) Analytical Skills
4 213 (8.32%) Banking
5 212 (8.28%) Public Sector
6 165 (6.45%) Organisational Skills
7 156 (6.10%) Manufacturing
8 137 (5.35%) Aerospace
9 128 (5.00%) Influencing Skills
10 106 (4.14%) Marketing
11 93 (3.63%) Telecoms
12 88 (3.44%) Presentation Skills
13 87 (3.40%) Legal
14 82 (3.20%) Documentation Skills
15 70 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 64 (2.50%) Retail
17 63 (2.46%) Pharmaceutical
18 49 (1.91%) Law
19 47 (1.84%) Military
20 45 (1.76%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 342 (13.36%) Analyst
2 295 (11.53%) Senior
3 211 (8.25%) Developer
4 201 (7.85%) Lead
5 176 (6.88%) Business Analyst
6 163 (6.37%) Architect
7 111 (4.34%) Project Manager
8 80 (3.13%) Consultant
9 68 (2.66%) Support Engineer
10 67 (2.62%) IT Support
11 61 (2.38%) Senior Manager
12 57 (2.23%) Administrator
13 54 (2.11%) Solutions Architect
14 51 (1.99%) IT Manager
15 50 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
16 49 (1.91%) Security Engineer
17 46 (1.80%) Data Analyst
18 45 (1.76%) Product Manager
18 45 (1.76%) Software Engineer
19 43 (1.68%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 125 (4.88%) REST
2 120 (4.69%) Terraform
3 106 (4.14%) .NET
4 75 (2.93%) HTML
5 73 (2.85%) React
6 68 (2.66%) Kafka
7 67 (2.62%) CSS
8 64 (2.50%) RESTful
9 54 (2.11%) OAuth
10 51 (1.99%) XML
11 49 (1.91%) Web Services
12 45 (1.76%) Middleware
12 45 (1.76%) Oracle Fusion
13 43 (1.68%) Spring Boot
14 42 (1.64%) SOAP
15 40 (1.56%) OAuth2
15 40 (1.56%) SAML
16 39 (1.52%) Spring
17 37 (1.45%) JSON
18 36 (1.41%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 239 (9.34%) Management Information System
2 135 (5.28%) Onboarding
3 133 (5.20%) Product Ownership
4 112 (4.38%) Self-Motivation
5 107 (4.18%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.58%) Algorithms
7 64 (2.50%) Operational Technology
8 61 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
9 60 (2.34%) Data Centre
10 59 (2.31%) Data Structures
11 56 (2.19%) Life Science
12 52 (2.03%) Security Posture
13 48 (1.88%) Distributed Systems
14 46 (1.80%) AI Agents
14 46 (1.80%) Virtual Team
15 42 (1.64%) SCADA
16 41 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
17 36 (1.41%) Data Protection Act
18 34 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
19 32 (1.25%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 287 (11.22%) Windows
2 182 (7.11%) Linux
3 82 (3.20%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.62%) Unix
5 40 (1.56%) Windows 10
6 36 (1.41%) macOS
7 34 (1.33%) Apple iOS
8 33 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 23 (0.90%) Android
10 10 (0.39%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.31%) VMS
12 5 (0.20%) Solaris
12 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) AIX
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.078%) CentOS
15 2 (0.078%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 822 (32.12%) Computer Science
2 698 (27.28%) Agile
3 696 (27.20%) Problem-Solving
4 592 (23.13%) Stakeholder Management
5 459 (17.94%) Continuous Improvement
6 403 (15.75%) AI
7 379 (14.81%) DevOps
8 353 (13.79%) CI/CD
9 326 (12.74%) Analytics
10 307 (12.00%) Project Management
11 278 (10.86%) Decision-Making
12 276 (10.79%) ITIL
13 261 (10.20%) Scrum
14 260 (10.16%) Roadmaps
15 256 (10.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 245 (9.57%) Software Engineering
17 237 (9.26%) Cybersecurity
18 236 (9.22%) Change Management
19 233 (9.11%) Project Delivery
20 231 (9.03%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 398 (15.55%) Python
2 368 (14.38%) SQL
3 178 (6.96%) PowerShell
4 167 (6.53%) Java
5 131 (5.12%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.81%) C#
7 65 (2.54%) Bash
8 45 (1.76%) TypeScript
9 36 (1.41%) C++
10 33 (1.29%) Bicep
11 30 (1.17%) Shell Script
12 26 (1.02%) T-SQL
13 23 (0.90%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.90%) R
14 20 (0.78%) Scala
15 19 (0.74%) C
16 14 (0.55%) MATLAB
17 13 (0.51%) Kotlin
18 12 (0.47%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 509 (19.89%) Computer Science Degree
2 507 (19.81%) Security Cleared
3 376 (14.69%) SC Cleared
4 217 (8.48%) Master's Degree
5 155 (6.06%) PMI Certification
6 135 (5.28%) PMP
7 120 (4.69%) Microsoft Certification
8 109 (4.26%) CISSP
9 103 (4.03%) Azure Certification
10 98 (3.83%) DV Cleared
11 88 (3.44%) BPSS Clearance
12 84 (3.28%) Cisco Certification
13 62 (2.42%) PhD
14 56 (2.19%) CISM
15 50 (1.95%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.68%) DBS Check
16 43 (1.68%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.60%) ISTQB
18 38 (1.48%) HNC
19 36 (1.41%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (6.29%) QA
2 155 (6.06%) Data Quality
3 88 (3.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 85 (3.32%) GDPR
4 85 (3.32%) NIST
5 72 (2.81%) PMO
6 51 (1.99%) Accessibility
7 38 (1.48%) SLA
8 32 (1.25%) GRC
9 21 (0.82%) NCSC
10 19 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
11 18 (0.70%) PCI DSS
11 18 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 17 (0.66%) IFRS
13 14 (0.55%) IEC 61508
14 12 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.47%) ISO 31000
15 11 (0.43%) HIPAA
15 11 (0.43%) ISO 9001
15 11 (0.43%) P3O
System Software
1 180 (7.03%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.69%) Docker
3 62 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.09%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.94%) Firmware
6 20 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.35%) vSphere
8 8 (0.31%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.23%) BitLocker
10 6 (0.23%) Embedded Firmware
11 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.20%) RACF
12 4 (0.16%) NFS
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 140 (5.47%) Kubernetes
2 72 (2.81%) Microsoft Intune
3 59 (2.31%) Ansible
4 32 (1.25%) SCCM
5 26 (1.02%) Grafana
6 25 (0.98%) Prometheus
7 18 (0.70%) Progress Chef
7 18 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.59%) Functional Safety
9 12 (0.47%) Puppet
9 12 (0.47%) SCOM
10 10 (0.39%) CASB
10 10 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
11 8 (0.31%) Control-M
12 6 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.23%) Argo
12 6 (0.23%) Nessus
12 6 (0.23%) WSUS
13 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
13 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 626 (24.46%) Microsoft
2 184 (7.19%) Oracle
3 135 (5.28%) SAP
4 132 (5.16%) ServiceNow
5 114 (4.45%) Google
6 75 (2.93%) VMware
7 72 (2.81%) Salesforce
8 69 (2.70%) Cisco
9 65 (2.54%) Adobe
9 65 (2.54%) Databricks
10 46 (1.80%) Splunk
11 45 (1.76%) IBM
12 30 (1.17%) Red Hat
13 28 (1.09%) OpenAI
14 23 (0.90%) CyberArk
14 23 (0.90%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.82%) Apple
15 21 (0.82%) Citrix
16 20 (0.78%) Ariba
17 18 (0.70%) EMC