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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,562 2,310 3,783
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.25% 7.65% 8.52%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.36% 25.70% 28.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,478 1,277 2,124
10th Percentile £285 £225 £206
25th Percentile £400 £399 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.66%
75th Percentile £637 £638 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 143 349
10th Percentile £15.45 £20.94 £14.04
25th Percentile £21.25 £30.00 £22.50
Median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £66.50 £70.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £83.15 £85.00 £72.95
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 13,951 8,988 13,453
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.05% 29.75% 30.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,211 5,527 8,301
10th Percentile £330 £294 £290
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £630 £650
90th Percentile £719 £715 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,017 438 968
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.00 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.34 £24.18 £20.77
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.25 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.52% -8.52% -7.37%
75th Percentile £64.00 £67.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.04 £82.15 £77.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £44.50
% change year-on-year -46.16% +4.97% -1.11%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 2,216 £500 -4.76% 2,416
UK excluding London -4 1,337 £490 +3.16% 1,980
London -10 980 £517 -6.07% 794
Work from Home -2 716 £500 -2.44% 916
North of England -5 346 £445 -7.24% 451
South East -2 311 £475 -5.00% 713
Midlands -15 213 £523 +30.63% 302
North West +1 182 £397 -16.45% 261
South West +9 179 £650 +20.93% 209
West Midlands -22 154 £520 +4.00% 194
Yorkshire -13 147 £525 +5.00% 145
East of England -9 135 £528 +17.22% 223
Scotland +1 116 £525 +22.09% 87
East Midlands -12 59 £525 +47.47% 108
Wales -5 51 £254 -12.35% 40
North East -10 18 £364 -27.20% 52
Northern Ireland -14 15 £425 +15.25% 12

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
1 218 (8.51%) Confluence
2 114 (4.45%) SharePoint
3 67 (2.62%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.19%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 12 (0.47%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.43%) CMS
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.23%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
11 5 (0.20%) Exchange Server 2013
11 5 (0.20%) nginx
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 318 (12.41%) Microsoft Office
2 239 (9.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 198 (7.73%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (5.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 80 (3.12%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Simulink
8 14 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 9 (0.35%) Sketch
11 7 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.12%) Mozilla Thunderbird
14 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.078%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.078%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
14 2 (0.078%) Revit
Business Applications
1 66 (2.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.94%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.47%) SAP ERP
6 10 (0.39%) Oracle General Ledger
7 9 (0.35%) SAP EWM
8 8 (0.31%) SAP WM
8 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
12 4 (0.16%) Aladdin
12 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 4 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 543 (21.19%) Azure
2 311 (12.14%) AWS
3 215 (8.39%) Microsoft 365
4 197 (7.69%) Power Platform
5 157 (6.13%) GCP
6 112 (4.37%) SaaS
7 97 (3.79%) Entra ID
8 95 (3.71%) Azure DevOps
9 92 (3.59%) GitHub
10 60 (2.34%) Serverless
11 55 (2.15%) Dynamics 365
12 45 (1.76%) Cloud Computing
13 40 (1.56%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.37%) OCI
15 34 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (1.33%) Snowflake
16 32 (1.25%) IaaS
16 32 (1.25%) PaaS
17 31 (1.21%) PowerApps
18 27 (1.05%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.53%) Firewall
2 69 (2.69%) DNS
3 61 (2.38%) TCP/IP
4 60 (2.34%) WAN
5 59 (2.30%) LAN
6 48 (1.87%) Network Security
7 46 (1.80%) VPN
8 34 (1.33%) Skype
9 32 (1.25%) HTTP
10 31 (1.21%) Ethernet
11 28 (1.09%) DHCP
12 27 (1.05%) Internet
13 26 (1.01%) BGP
13 26 (1.01%) Wireless
14 24 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
15 23 (0.90%) OSPF
15 23 (0.90%) Unified Communications
16 18 (0.70%) SSH
16 18 (0.70%) VLAN
17 17 (0.66%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (5.89%) Power BI
2 98 (3.83%) PostgreSQL
3 97 (3.79%) SQL Server
4 67 (2.62%) NoSQL
5 61 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
6 51 (1.99%) Big Data
7 49 (1.91%) Tableau
8 47 (1.83%) Relational Database
9 44 (1.72%) MySQL
10 37 (1.44%) Metadata
11 35 (1.37%) Data Lake
12 27 (1.05%) Hadoop
13 24 (0.94%) MongoDB
14 21 (0.82%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.59%) GIS
17 13 (0.51%) BigQuery
18 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
19 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
19 11 (0.43%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 300 (11.71%) JIRA
2 124 (4.84%) Git
3 81 (3.16%) Jenkins
4 64 (2.50%) GitLab
5 29 (1.13%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.86%) Liquibase
7 21 (0.82%) Selenium
8 18 (0.70%) Postman
9 14 (0.55%) MLflow
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.39%) Gradle
13 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.31%) JMeter
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
16 5 (0.20%) ERwin
General
1 1,302 (50.82%) Social Skills
2 816 (31.85%) Finance
3 598 (23.34%) Analytical Skills
4 266 (10.38%) Banking
5 220 (8.59%) Public Sector
6 127 (4.96%) Presentation Skills
7 115 (4.49%) Organisational Skills
8 106 (4.14%) Manufacturing
9 100 (3.90%) Marketing
10 85 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
11 83 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
12 69 (2.69%) Legal
13 61 (2.38%) Military
14 58 (2.26%) Financial Institution
14 58 (2.26%) Telecoms
15 48 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
16 47 (1.83%) Front Office
17 46 (1.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 44 (1.72%) Electronics
18 44 (1.72%) Retail
Job Titles
1 375 (14.64%) Analyst
2 253 (9.88%) Senior
3 213 (8.31%) Lead
4 212 (8.27%) Developer
5 204 (7.96%) Architect
6 182 (7.10%) Project Manager
7 168 (6.56%) Business Analyst
8 105 (4.10%) Consultant
9 86 (3.36%) Software Engineer
10 75 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
11 66 (2.58%) Technical Support
12 58 (2.26%) IT Support
13 57 (2.22%) Security Engineer
14 48 (1.87%) Senior Analyst
15 46 (1.80%) Data Scientist
16 44 (1.72%) Designer
17 42 (1.64%) Support Analyst
18 41 (1.60%) Senior Software Engineer
19 40 (1.56%) Delivery Manager
20 39 (1.52%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (4.68%) REST
2 78 (3.04%) .NET
3 74 (2.89%) RESTful
4 68 (2.65%) HTML
5 64 (2.50%) React
6 55 (2.15%) CSS
7 53 (2.07%) Middleware
8 50 (1.95%) Elastic Stack
9 45 (1.76%) Kafka
10 41 (1.60%) Oracle Fusion
10 41 (1.60%) XML
11 40 (1.56%) JSON
11 40 (1.56%) SOAP
12 36 (1.41%) PyTorch
12 36 (1.41%) TensorFlow
13 35 (1.37%) OAuth
14 31 (1.21%) AngularJS
14 31 (1.21%) Spring
15 29 (1.13%) Node.js
15 29 (1.13%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 213 (8.31%) Management Information System
2 131 (5.11%) Product Ownership
3 121 (4.72%) Cloud Native
4 107 (4.18%) Onboarding
5 85 (3.32%) Algorithms
6 76 (2.97%) Virtual Team
7 74 (2.89%) Distributed Systems
8 64 (2.50%) Data Centre
9 63 (2.46%) Self-Motivation
10 62 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
11 55 (2.15%) Analytical Mindset
12 54 (2.11%) PMI
13 44 (1.72%) Security Posture
14 42 (1.64%) Derivative
15 41 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (1.60%) Public Cloud
16 39 (1.52%) Data Structures
17 38 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
17 38 (1.48%) Life Science
18 34 (1.33%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 311 (12.14%) Windows
2 214 (8.35%) Linux
3 88 (3.43%) Unix
4 77 (3.01%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.30%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.13%) Android
7 26 (1.01%) Mac OS
8 20 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 18 (0.70%) Apple iOS
10 17 (0.66%) Windows Server 2016
11 16 (0.62%) Ubuntu
12 15 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
13 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
14 11 (0.43%) VMS
15 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
16 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.16%) AIX
18 3 (0.12%) CentOS
18 3 (0.12%) Debian
18 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 926 (36.14%) Computer Science
2 798 (31.15%) Agile
3 751 (29.31%) Problem-Solving
4 426 (16.63%) Stakeholder Management
5 389 (15.18%) DevOps
6 340 (13.27%) Project Management
7 335 (13.08%) AI
8 304 (11.87%) CI/CD
9 300 (11.71%) Change Management
10 297 (11.59%) Analytics
11 290 (11.32%) Continuous Improvement
12 276 (10.77%) Cybersecurity
13 271 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 270 (10.54%) Decision-Making
15 258 (10.07%) Migration
16 245 (9.56%) ITIL
17 239 (9.33%) Software Engineering
18 236 (9.21%) Project Delivery
18 236 (9.21%) Risk Management
19 213 (8.31%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 459 (17.92%) Python
2 392 (15.30%) SQL
3 179 (6.99%) Java
4 132 (5.15%) PowerShell
5 115 (4.49%) JavaScript
6 91 (3.55%) C#
7 78 (3.04%) C++
8 55 (2.15%) Go
9 54 (2.11%) TypeScript
10 50 (1.95%) Bash
11 32 (1.25%) R
12 25 (0.98%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.90%) Perl
14 19 (0.74%) MATLAB
15 18 (0.70%) C
15 18 (0.70%) Shell Script
15 18 (0.70%) T-SQL
16 15 (0.59%) Rust
16 15 (0.59%) SystemVerilog
17 13 (0.51%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 605 (23.61%) Computer Science Degree
2 452 (17.64%) Security Cleared
3 411 (16.04%) Master's Degree
4 353 (13.78%) SC Cleared
5 149 (5.82%) PMI Certification
6 130 (5.07%) PMP
7 129 (5.04%) CISSP
8 92 (3.59%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.32%) CISM
10 76 (2.97%) PhD
11 74 (2.89%) BPSS Clearance
11 74 (2.89%) TOGAF Certification
12 68 (2.65%) Azure Certification
13 59 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
14 55 (2.15%) DV Cleared
15 44 (1.72%) AWS Certification
16 39 (1.52%) CCNP
16 39 (1.52%) MBA
17 37 (1.44%) CBAP
18 33 (1.29%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (6.40%) QA
2 132 (5.15%) GDPR
3 104 (4.06%) PMO
4 103 (4.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 98 (3.83%) Data Quality
6 80 (3.12%) NIST
7 48 (1.87%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 38 (1.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 32 (1.25%) SLA
11 31 (1.21%) GRC
12 19 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.66%) HIPAA
13 17 (0.66%) WCAG
14 16 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.59%) NCSC
16 14 (0.55%) Basel III
16 14 (0.55%) IFRS
17 13 (0.51%) DO-254
18 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 198 (7.73%) Docker
2 163 (6.36%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.78%) Hyper-V
5 18 (0.70%) Firmware
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
8 6 (0.23%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 3 (0.12%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.12%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Postfix
11 3 (0.12%) Squid
Systems Management
1 193 (7.53%) Kubernetes
2 124 (4.84%) Terraform
3 78 (3.04%) Ansible
4 67 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
5 56 (2.19%) Grafana
6 49 (1.91%) SCCM
7 48 (1.87%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 23 (0.90%) Puppet
10 17 (0.66%) Kibana
11 16 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
12 15 (0.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 13 (0.51%) Nmap
14 11 (0.43%) SCOM
15 10 (0.39%) WSUS
16 9 (0.35%) Kiali
17 7 (0.27%) Argo
17 7 (0.27%) Nessus
18 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
18 6 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 542 (21.16%) Microsoft
2 173 (6.75%) Oracle
3 170 (6.64%) SAP
4 112 (4.37%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.33%) Google
6 97 (3.79%) Splunk
7 81 (3.16%) Cisco
8 54 (2.11%) Atlassian
8 54 (2.11%) Databricks
8 54 (2.11%) Remedy
9 52 (2.03%) Salesforce
10 51 (1.99%) VMware
11 42 (1.64%) Citrix
12 33 (1.29%) Palo Alto
13 27 (1.05%) IBM
13 27 (1.05%) Informatica
14 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
14 25 (0.98%) CheckPoint
15 24 (0.94%) Red Hat
16 23 (0.90%) MuleSoft