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

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -19 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,474 2,479 3,044
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.61% 7.49% 7.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.69% 23.96% 26.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,318 1,401 1,768
10th Percentile £205 £250 £257
25th Percentile £363 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £714 £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 273 217 268
10th Percentile £17.25 £19.12 £18.09
25th Percentile £26.90 £25.75 £25.47
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.52 £68.19
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.98 £77.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £41.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +0.51% -27.64% +18.79%

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 16,845 10,348 11,632
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 31.27% 30.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,288 6,362 7,388
10th Percentile £350 £288 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £526
Median % change year-on-year - -0.24% -4.32%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £702 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £514 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.80% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,263 822 844
10th Percentile £17.72 £17.98 £14.94
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £51.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +102.78% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £74.00 £53.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.80 £73.75 £75.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.46%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -15 2,267 £500 - 2,638
UK excluding London -17 1,341 £475 +5.56% 2,177
London -21 976 £525 -4.55% 804
Work from Home -20 655 £500 - 851
South East -1 480 £500 +5.26% 658
North of England -17 332 £470 +4.50% 498
North West -12 192 £459 -2.39% 243
Midlands -29 178 £450 +0.67% 346
East of England -13 135 £425 -5.56% 296
West Midlands -38 133 £450 - 178
Yorkshire -8 126 £500 +23.84% 162
South West -27 123 £415 +10.67% 271
Scotland -46 67 £475 +5.56% 96
East Midlands -26 43 £475 +33.80% 168
Northern Ireland -14 15 £252 -52.00% 24
Wales -30 14 £530 +73.50% 54
North East -45 14 £450 +130.77% 102
Channel Islands - 1 - - 1

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
1 149 (6.02%) SharePoint
2 111 (4.49%) Confluence
3 66 (2.67%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.85%) Apache
7 13 (0.53%) CMS
7 13 (0.53%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) 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%) HCL Notes
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
Applications
1 251 (10.15%) Microsoft Office
2 237 (9.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 135 (5.46%) Microsoft Project
4 121 (4.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 59 (2.38%) 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 11 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Simulink
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 7 (0.28%) Windchill
13 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
13 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
14 5 (0.20%) Trello
15 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 53 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 17 (0.69%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.32%) 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%) Actimize
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.88%) Azure
2 321 (12.97%) AWS
3 226 (9.14%) Power Platform
4 225 (9.09%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (6.14%) Entra ID
6 139 (5.62%) GCP
7 104 (4.20%) Azure DevOps
8 88 (3.56%) SaaS
9 62 (2.51%) GitHub
10 51 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
11 50 (2.02%) PowerApps
12 49 (1.98%) Power Automate
13 48 (1.94%) Serverless
14 46 (1.86%) Snowflake
15 43 (1.74%) OneDrive
16 42 (1.70%) Figma
17 40 (1.62%) Microsoft Copilot
18 28 (1.13%) IaaS
19 27 (1.09%) Azure Data Factory
20 26 (1.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.69%) Firewall
2 83 (3.35%) DNS
3 71 (2.87%) TCP/IP
4 68 (2.75%) Network Security
5 63 (2.55%) VPN
6 43 (1.74%) DHCP
7 40 (1.62%) WAN
8 38 (1.54%) LAN
9 30 (1.21%) Wireless
10 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 20 (0.81%) BGP
11 20 (0.81%) VLAN
12 19 (0.77%) HTTP
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 17 (0.69%) Internet
15 16 (0.65%) OSPF
16 15 (0.61%) 3GPP
16 15 (0.61%) SSH
17 14 (0.57%) 5G
17 14 (0.57%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.19%) Power BI
2 104 (4.20%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.26%) Relational Database
4 55 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
5 50 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
6 42 (1.70%) Metadata
7 35 (1.41%) Tableau
8 31 (1.25%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.13%) Big Data
10 25 (1.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 24 (0.97%) MongoDB
11 24 (0.97%) MySQL
11 24 (0.97%) Oracle Database
12 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
12 17 (0.69%) Data Lake
12 17 (0.69%) Data Mining
13 16 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 16 (0.65%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (0.57%) Power Query
15 12 (0.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 183 (7.40%) JIRA
2 131 (5.30%) Git
3 55 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.86%) GitLab
5 36 (1.46%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 13 (0.53%) JUnit
9 12 (0.49%) MLflow
9 12 (0.49%) Postman
9 12 (0.49%) REST Assured
9 12 (0.49%) SonarQube
10 11 (0.44%) Cucumber
10 11 (0.44%) Subversion
11 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
12 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
13 8 (0.32%) Maven
13 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,091 (44.10%) Social Skills
2 722 (29.18%) Finance
3 577 (23.32%) Analytical Skills
4 201 (8.12%) Public Sector
5 182 (7.36%) Banking
6 155 (6.27%) Organisational Skills
7 114 (4.61%) Aerospace
8 100 (4.04%) Legal
8 100 (4.04%) Marketing
9 95 (3.84%) Presentation Skills
10 94 (3.80%) Manufacturing
11 89 (3.60%) Influencing Skills
11 89 (3.60%) Telecoms
12 76 (3.07%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (2.59%) Retail
14 55 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 51 (2.06%) Law
16 48 (1.94%) Pharmaceutical
17 42 (1.70%) Front Office
18 38 (1.54%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 339 (13.70%) Analyst
2 284 (11.48%) Senior
3 193 (7.80%) Lead
4 179 (7.24%) Developer
5 171 (6.91%) Architect
6 158 (6.39%) Business Analyst
7 134 (5.42%) Project Manager
8 77 (3.11%) Consultant
9 71 (2.87%) Senior Manager
10 67 (2.71%) IT Support
11 62 (2.51%) Support Engineer
12 59 (2.38%) Solutions Architect
13 58 (2.34%) Designer
14 56 (2.26%) Product Manager
15 53 (2.14%) IT Analyst
15 53 (2.14%) IT Manager
16 50 (2.02%) Delivery Manager
17 48 (1.94%) Software Engineer
18 47 (1.90%) Administrator
19 46 (1.86%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.24%) REST
2 98 (3.96%) .NET
3 60 (2.43%) React
4 54 (2.18%) Kafka
5 48 (1.94%) RESTful
6 47 (1.90%) OAuth
7 46 (1.86%) HTML
8 41 (1.66%) Oracle Fusion
9 37 (1.50%) Middleware
10 35 (1.41%) CSS
10 35 (1.41%) OAuth2
10 35 (1.41%) Web Services
11 34 (1.37%) SAML
12 32 (1.29%) OpenID
13 31 (1.25%) .NET Framework
13 31 (1.25%) XML
14 29 (1.17%) JSON
15 28 (1.13%) LDAP
15 28 (1.13%) SOAP
16 27 (1.09%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 208 (8.41%) Management Information System
2 145 (5.86%) Product Ownership
3 142 (5.74%) Onboarding
4 111 (4.49%) Self-Motivation
5 94 (3.80%) Cloud Native
6 76 (3.07%) Data Structures
7 69 (2.79%) Algorithms
8 64 (2.59%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.14%) Security Posture
10 50 (2.02%) Operational Technology
11 48 (1.94%) Virtual Team
12 47 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
13 46 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
13 46 (1.86%) Legacy Systems
14 41 (1.66%) Life Science
15 40 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
16 38 (1.54%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.37%) PMI
17 34 (1.37%) SCADA
18 31 (1.25%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 295 (11.92%) Windows
2 177 (7.15%) Linux
3 70 (2.83%) Windows Server
4 59 (2.38%) Unix
5 51 (2.06%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.21%) Mac OS
8 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
9 25 (1.01%) Android
10 11 (0.44%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) AIX
12 5 (0.20%) Solaris
12 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.16%) Debian
13 4 (0.16%) Rocky
13 4 (0.16%) VMS
14 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 852 (34.44%) Computer Science
2 667 (26.96%) Agile
3 645 (26.07%) Problem-Solving
4 459 (18.55%) Stakeholder Management
5 435 (17.58%) Continuous Improvement
6 378 (15.28%) AI
7 331 (13.38%) DevOps
8 319 (12.89%) Project Management
9 303 (12.25%) Analytics
10 296 (11.96%) CI/CD
11 290 (11.72%) ITIL
12 263 (10.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 245 (9.90%) Decision-Making
14 242 (9.78%) Cybersecurity
15 227 (9.18%) Change Management
16 216 (8.73%) Software Engineering
17 212 (8.57%) Roadmaps
18 209 (8.45%) PRINCE2
19 207 (8.37%) Project Delivery
20 204 (8.25%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 424 (17.14%) Python
2 348 (14.07%) SQL
3 166 (6.71%) Java
3 166 (6.71%) PowerShell
4 110 (4.45%) C#
5 100 (4.04%) JavaScript
6 55 (2.22%) Bash
7 49 (1.98%) C++
8 41 (1.66%) TypeScript
9 26 (1.05%) PL/SQL
10 25 (1.01%) Bicep
10 25 (1.01%) R
10 25 (1.01%) Shell Script
11 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
12 22 (0.89%) C
13 15 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
14 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
14 11 (0.44%) Scala
14 11 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 502 (20.29%) Computer Science Degree
2 461 (18.63%) Security Cleared
3 304 (12.29%) SC Cleared
4 214 (8.65%) Master's Degree
5 141 (5.70%) PMI Certification
6 122 (4.93%) Microsoft Certification
7 121 (4.89%) PMP
8 117 (4.73%) CISSP
9 86 (3.48%) Cisco Certification
10 80 (3.23%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.03%) DV Cleared
12 63 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.30%) CISM
14 51 (2.06%) PhD
15 43 (1.74%) CCNA
16 41 (1.66%) AWS Certification
17 40 (1.62%) CCNP
17 40 (1.62%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 34 (1.37%) CISA
19 33 (1.33%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (5.38%) Data Quality
2 130 (5.25%) QA
3 113 (4.57%) NIST
4 106 (4.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 94 (3.80%) PMO
6 71 (2.87%) GDPR
7 50 (2.02%) Accessibility
8 48 (1.94%) SLA
9 30 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 23 (0.93%) GRC
10 23 (0.93%) PCI DSS
11 21 (0.85%) NCSC
12 15 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
13 12 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.49%) COBIT
13 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
14 11 (0.44%) IFRS
14 11 (0.44%) P3O
15 8 (0.32%) ISO 19650
15 8 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 201 (8.12%) Active Directory
2 120 (4.85%) Docker
3 55 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Firmware
5 24 (0.97%) Hyper-V
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.32%) BitLocker
8 8 (0.32%) 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%) RACF
12 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
12 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.25%) Kubernetes
2 99 (4.00%) Terraform
3 82 (3.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 66 (2.67%) Ansible
5 41 (1.66%) SCCM
6 30 (1.21%) Grafana
7 27 (1.09%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 13 (0.53%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.40%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) Control-M
15 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.28%) SCOM
16 6 (0.24%) Nessus
Vendors
1 638 (25.79%) Microsoft
2 174 (7.03%) Oracle
3 144 (5.82%) ServiceNow
4 136 (5.50%) SAP
5 92 (3.72%) Google
6 71 (2.87%) VMware
7 70 (2.83%) Cisco
8 65 (2.63%) Salesforce
9 63 (2.55%) Databricks
10 59 (2.38%) Adobe
11 53 (2.14%) IBM
12 41 (1.66%) Splunk
13 31 (1.25%) CyberArk
14 28 (1.13%) Citrix
14 28 (1.13%) Palo Alto
14 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
15 21 (0.85%) Apple
16 20 (0.81%) Ariba
16 20 (0.81%) BeyondTrust
17 18 (0.73%) HP