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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 18
Rank change year-on-year -15 -7 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,410 2,264 3,609
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.78% 7.61% 8.23%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.28% 24.56% 27.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,327 1,294 1,941
10th Percentile £213 £235 £225
25th Percentile £366 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% - -5.66%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £615
90th Percentile £713 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £459 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +2.06% -7.69% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 248 186 420
10th Percentile £17.16 £17.97 £14.48
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.59 £21.97
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +25.00% -17.15%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.19 £72.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.25 £45.00 £40.33
% change year-on-year +16.11% +11.59% -15.66%

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 15,774 9,218 13,110
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.30% 30.97% 29.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,501 5,726 8,114
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £614 £638
90th Percentile £713 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.25% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,161 600 1,122
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.78 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.68 £20.81 £18.84
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.00% -27.65%
75th Percentile £72.50 £63.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £77.50 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.61 £28.50 £41.50
% change year-on-year +70.56% -31.33% -20.95%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -11 2,152 £500 -0.30% 2,101
UK excluding London -10 1,318 £459 +2.06% 1,766
London -17 919 £506 -8.05% 707
Work from Home -16 657 £500 -4.76% 805
South East 0 405 £500 +5.26% 600
North of England -12 329 £447 -3.35% 390
Midlands -20 194 £523 +46.77% 240
North West -6 179 £424 -8.30% 228
West Midlands -25 141 £487 +25.55% 128
East of England -5 138 £450 -10.00% 194
Yorkshire -11 135 £500 +11.86% 121
South West -22 119 £450 -5.26% 193
Scotland -22 93 £500 +11.11% 61
East Midlands -14 51 £545 +55.71% 112
Wales -22 29 £530 +73.50% 31
Northern Ireland -8 15 £254 -40.24% 110
North East -38 15 £450 +130.77% 52

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
1 129 (5.35%) Confluence
1 129 (5.35%) SharePoint
2 65 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 46 (1.91%) Apache Spark
4 32 (1.33%) Apache Airflow
5 21 (0.87%) Apache
6 12 (0.50%) IIS
7 9 (0.37%) CMS
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
8 8 (0.33%) SAS
9 7 (0.29%) Camunda
10 5 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.17%) Appian
11 4 (0.17%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 2 (0.083%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.083%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.083%) nginx
13 2 (0.083%) WinCC
Applications
1 275 (11.41%) Microsoft Office
2 226 (9.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 140 (5.81%) Microsoft Project
4 135 (5.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.70%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.71%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.58%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.58%) Photoshop
7 14 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
8 12 (0.50%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 9 (0.37%) Simulink
10 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 7 (0.29%) Sketch
11 7 (0.29%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
12 6 (0.25%) Final Cut Pro
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.083%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 64 (2.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.66%) Primavera
3 14 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 9 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
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 Payables
7 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
8 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 5 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 4 (0.17%) HFM
9 4 (0.17%) Magento
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 3 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 529 (21.95%) Azure
2 307 (12.74%) AWS
3 206 (8.55%) Microsoft 365
4 196 (8.13%) Power Platform
5 134 (5.56%) Entra ID
6 114 (4.73%) GCP
7 92 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
8 85 (3.53%) SaaS
9 61 (2.53%) GitHub
10 43 (1.78%) Figma
11 40 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (1.49%) Snowflake
13 35 (1.45%) Serverless
14 34 (1.41%) Power Automate
15 33 (1.37%) PowerApps
16 32 (1.33%) OneDrive
17 31 (1.29%) PaaS
18 30 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
18 30 (1.24%) Google Workspace
19 27 (1.12%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.65%) Firewall
2 75 (3.11%) TCP/IP
3 74 (3.07%) DNS
4 64 (2.66%) Network Security
5 50 (2.07%) WAN
6 44 (1.83%) LAN
7 40 (1.66%) VPN
8 33 (1.37%) DHCP
9 25 (1.04%) BGP
9 25 (1.04%) Wireless
10 22 (0.91%) OSPF
11 21 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
12 20 (0.83%) Ethernet
13 16 (0.66%) SSL
14 15 (0.62%) HTTP
14 15 (0.62%) SAN
15 14 (0.58%) 3GPP
15 14 (0.58%) Skype
16 13 (0.54%) SSH
17 12 (0.50%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (6.89%) Power BI
2 111 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.49%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (1.99%) Big Data
5 48 (1.99%) Relational Database
6 41 (1.70%) Metadata
6 41 (1.70%) Tableau
7 35 (1.45%) NoSQL
8 28 (1.16%) Hadoop
9 27 (1.12%) MySQL
10 25 (1.04%) MongoDB
11 21 (0.87%) Data Lake
12 19 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
12 19 (0.79%) Oracle Database
12 19 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 16 (0.66%) Amazon RDS
14 14 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
15 11 (0.46%) Power Query
15 11 (0.46%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 217 (9.00%) JIRA
2 113 (4.69%) Git
3 47 (1.95%) Jenkins
4 42 (1.74%) GitLab
5 31 (1.29%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.83%) MLflow
6 20 (0.83%) Visual Studio
7 16 (0.66%) Selenium
8 14 (0.58%) Postman
9 13 (0.54%) Cucumber
10 12 (0.50%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.46%) Gradle
11 11 (0.46%) JUnit
12 9 (0.37%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
12 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 7 (0.29%) Subversion
15 6 (0.25%) Burp Suite
General
1 1,109 (46.02%) Social Skills
2 740 (30.71%) Finance
3 497 (20.62%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 197 (8.17%) Banking
6 140 (5.81%) Organisational Skills
7 122 (5.06%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.32%) Marketing
9 93 (3.86%) Legal
10 90 (3.73%) Aerospace
11 86 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
12 78 (3.24%) Manufacturing
13 74 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
14 68 (2.82%) Telecoms
15 54 (2.24%) Retail
16 51 (2.12%) Law
17 47 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 40 (1.66%) Front Office
19 38 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
20 33 (1.37%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 355 (14.73%) Analyst
2 272 (11.29%) Senior
3 190 (7.88%) Architect
4 178 (7.39%) Lead
5 165 (6.85%) Developer
6 162 (6.72%) Project Manager
7 156 (6.47%) Business Analyst
8 73 (3.03%) Solutions Architect
9 71 (2.95%) Consultant
10 67 (2.78%) Designer
11 65 (2.70%) Senior Analyst
12 59 (2.45%) Senior Manager
13 56 (2.32%) Technical Support
14 54 (2.24%) Software Engineer
15 51 (2.12%) Security Engineer
16 50 (2.07%) Delivery Manager
17 49 (2.03%) Administrator
17 49 (2.03%) Product Manager
18 47 (1.95%) IT Manager
19 46 (1.91%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (4.11%) REST
2 90 (3.73%) .NET
3 66 (2.74%) React
4 50 (2.07%) Kafka
5 46 (1.91%) Middleware
6 45 (1.87%) HTML
7 44 (1.83%) Oracle Fusion
8 37 (1.54%) .NET Framework
8 37 (1.54%) RESTful
9 36 (1.49%) OAuth
10 34 (1.41%) CSS
11 30 (1.24%) Spring Boot
11 30 (1.24%) XML
12 29 (1.20%) Web Services
13 28 (1.16%) JSON
13 28 (1.16%) Spring
14 27 (1.12%) SOAP
15 26 (1.08%) AngularJS
15 26 (1.08%) Pandas
16 25 (1.04%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 198 (8.22%) Management Information System
2 145 (6.02%) Onboarding
3 142 (5.89%) Product Ownership
4 105 (4.36%) Self-Motivation
5 89 (3.69%) Cloud Native
6 71 (2.95%) Data Centre
7 63 (2.61%) Data Structures
8 60 (2.49%) Algorithms
8 60 (2.49%) Virtual Team
9 51 (2.12%) Distributed Systems
10 49 (2.03%) Data Protection Act
11 45 (1.87%) Operational Technology
11 45 (1.87%) PMI
12 42 (1.74%) Security Posture
13 39 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
14 36 (1.49%) Robotics
15 34 (1.41%) Life Science
16 32 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
17 31 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
18 30 (1.24%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 309 (12.82%) Windows
2 182 (7.55%) Linux
3 76 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 71 (2.95%) Unix
5 56 (2.32%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.20%) Android
8 28 (1.16%) Apple iOS
8 28 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) AIX
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.17%) Debian
14 4 (0.17%) Rocky
14 4 (0.17%) Solaris
14 4 (0.17%) VMS
15 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 798 (33.11%) Computer Science
2 656 (27.22%) Agile
3 628 (26.06%) Problem-Solving
4 388 (16.10%) Stakeholder Management
5 373 (15.48%) Continuous Improvement
6 361 (14.98%) AI
7 321 (13.32%) DevOps
8 290 (12.03%) Project Management
9 282 (11.70%) CI/CD
10 278 (11.54%) Analytics
11 252 (10.46%) Decision-Making
11 252 (10.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 235 (9.75%) Cybersecurity
13 229 (9.50%) Change Management
14 228 (9.46%) Migration
15 218 (9.05%) ITIL
16 215 (8.92%) Roadmaps
17 197 (8.17%) Software Engineering
18 188 (7.80%) Risk Management
19 187 (7.76%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 392 (16.27%) Python
2 367 (15.23%) SQL
3 170 (7.05%) Java
4 125 (5.19%) PowerShell
5 97 (4.02%) C#
6 92 (3.82%) JavaScript
7 49 (2.03%) C++
8 39 (1.62%) Bash
9 31 (1.29%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.12%) R
11 25 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 24 (1.00%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.75%) T-SQL
14 17 (0.71%) C
15 15 (0.62%) Perl
16 14 (0.58%) Rust
17 13 (0.54%) Go
18 11 (0.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.46%) Kotlin
19 10 (0.41%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 482 (20.00%) Computer Science Degree
2 425 (17.63%) Security Cleared
3 287 (11.91%) SC Cleared
4 250 (10.37%) Master's Degree
5 145 (6.02%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.23%) CISSP
7 124 (5.15%) PMP
8 87 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 77 (3.20%) Cisco Certification
10 69 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
11 68 (2.82%) CISM
12 59 (2.45%) DV Cleared
13 55 (2.28%) Azure Certification
14 44 (1.83%) PhD
15 38 (1.58%) CCNP
16 37 (1.54%) CCNA
17 36 (1.49%) AWS Certification
17 36 (1.49%) CBAP
17 36 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
18 35 (1.45%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.52%) QA
2 118 (4.90%) NIST
3 115 (4.77%) Data Quality
3 115 (4.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 103 (4.27%) PMO
5 101 (4.19%) GDPR
6 50 (2.07%) SLA
7 48 (1.99%) Accessibility
8 40 (1.66%) PCI DSS
9 29 (1.20%) GRC
9 29 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 18 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
10 18 (0.75%) NCSC
11 16 (0.66%) IFRS
12 15 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.54%) COBIT
13 13 (0.54%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 12 (0.50%) SOC 2
15 9 (0.37%) P3O
System Software
1 178 (7.39%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.64%) Docker
3 40 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (1.29%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.87%) Firmware
6 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (0.37%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.25%) vSphere
10 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.17%) Terminal Services
10 4 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.17%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.17%) XenApp
10 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 145 (6.02%) Kubernetes
2 80 (3.32%) Terraform
3 77 (3.20%) Microsoft Intune
4 63 (2.61%) Ansible
5 38 (1.58%) Grafana
6 36 (1.49%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.49%) SCCM
7 22 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.62%) Jamf Pro
9 15 (0.62%) Puppet
10 14 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 11 (0.46%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.37%) WSUS
13 8 (0.33%) Functional Safety
13 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.33%) Nessus
14 7 (0.29%) Kibana
15 6 (0.25%) Kiali
16 5 (0.21%) Nmap
Vendors
1 554 (22.99%) Microsoft
2 169 (7.01%) Oracle
3 139 (5.77%) SAP
4 111 (4.61%) ServiceNow
5 96 (3.98%) Google
6 66 (2.74%) Cisco
7 58 (2.41%) Databricks
8 48 (1.99%) Citrix
9 47 (1.95%) Splunk
9 47 (1.95%) VMware
10 46 (1.91%) Adobe
11 45 (1.87%) Salesforce
12 39 (1.62%) IBM
13 30 (1.24%) Palo Alto
14 26 (1.08%) CheckPoint
14 26 (1.08%) CyberArk
15 24 (1.00%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.87%) Ariba
16 21 (0.87%) Informatica
17 20 (0.83%) Siemens