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 5 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,607 2,366 3,753
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.12% 7.82% 8.52%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.03% 26.03% 28.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,509 1,328 2,094
10th Percentile £286 £225 £206
25th Percentile £400 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £507
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +1.03% -5.01%
75th Percentile £631 £646 £638
90th Percentile £738 £776 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 152 360
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.30 £30.24 £22.33
Median hourly rate £39.43 £46.24 £39.92
Median % change year-on-year -14.73% +15.83% -11.29%
75th Percentile £73.15 £75.00 £59.04
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.43 £45.59 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.51% +13.98% -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 14,461 9,088 13,350
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.97% 30.03% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,541 5,628 8,227
10th Percentile £331 £285 £287
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £627 £650
90th Percentile £719 £725 £734
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £528
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.32% -0.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,054 453 988
10th Percentile £16.17 £20.02 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.40 £24.19 £19.99
Median hourly rate £25.77 £42.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -39.36% +6.25% -20.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £67.50 £63.41
90th Percentile £82.25 £82.22 £76.67
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.81 £40.94
% change year-on-year -47.39% +16.77% -10.02%

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 5 March 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 5 March 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 5 March 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 2,266 £500 -4.76% 2,878
UK excluding London -6 1,367 £493 +3.68% 2,242
London -11 992 £515 -6.36% 1,020
Work from Home -4 718 £500 -4.76% 1,140
North of England -2 352 £447 -10.60% 505
South East -4 337 £475 -5.00% 760
Midlands -16 214 £500 +25.00% 338
North West 0 182 £400 -20.00% 255
South West +6 180 £650 +21.95% 260
West Midlands -22 157 £500 +2.56% 198
Yorkshire -13 153 £525 +5.00% 189
East of England -10 134 £525 +8.25% 276
Scotland -1 112 £525 +20.34% 95
East Midlands -11 56 £525 +47.47% 139
Wales -9 49 £254 -12.35% 67
North East -10 18 £364 -27.20% 68
Northern Ireland -11 17 £388 -8.82% 17

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
1 216 (8.29%) Confluence
2 120 (4.60%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 56 (2.15%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.00%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.69%) Apache
7 11 (0.42%) CMS
8 9 (0.35%) Skype for Business
9 8 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.19%) SAS
11 4 (0.15%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.15%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.15%) IIS
11 4 (0.15%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.15%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.15%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.12%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 313 (12.01%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 201 (7.71%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (4.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 77 (2.95%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.69%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.61%) Simulink
8 14 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.38%) Trello
10 9 (0.35%) Sketch
11 7 (0.27%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.15%) InVision
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.077%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.077%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.077%) InDesign
14 2 (0.077%) Photoshop
14 2 (0.077%) PTC Creo
15 1 (0.038%) CPLEX
15 1 (0.038%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 65 (2.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
3 27 (1.04%) Primavera
4 20 (0.77%) Remedy ITSM
5 12 (0.46%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.27%) SAP EWM
9 6 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 6 (0.23%) SAP WM
10 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
11 4 (0.15%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.15%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.15%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.15%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.15%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 551 (21.14%) Azure
2 307 (11.78%) AWS
3 217 (8.32%) Microsoft 365
4 198 (7.59%) Power Platform
5 151 (5.79%) GCP
6 114 (4.37%) SaaS
7 111 (4.26%) Entra ID
8 95 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
9 88 (3.38%) GitHub
10 54 (2.07%) Dynamics 365
11 53 (2.03%) Serverless
12 44 (1.69%) Cloud Computing
13 40 (1.53%) Power Automate
14 35 (1.34%) Snowflake
15 33 (1.27%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.23%) IaaS
16 32 (1.23%) PaaS
17 31 (1.19%) OCI
18 30 (1.15%) PowerApps
19 28 (1.07%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 119 (4.56%) Firewall
2 66 (2.53%) DNS
3 63 (2.42%) TCP/IP
4 62 (2.38%) WAN
5 60 (2.30%) LAN
6 51 (1.96%) Network Security
7 44 (1.69%) VPN
8 31 (1.19%) Ethernet
8 31 (1.19%) HTTP
8 31 (1.19%) Skype
9 29 (1.11%) Wireless
10 27 (1.04%) BGP
10 27 (1.04%) Internet
11 26 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
12 25 (0.96%) DHCP
13 23 (0.88%) OSPF
14 22 (0.84%) Unified Communications
15 21 (0.81%) VLAN
16 18 (0.69%) SSL
17 17 (0.65%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (5.83%) Power BI
2 102 (3.91%) PostgreSQL
3 100 (3.84%) SQL Server
4 64 (2.45%) NoSQL
5 62 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
6 49 (1.88%) Big Data
7 48 (1.84%) Tableau
8 46 (1.76%) Relational Database
9 44 (1.69%) MySQL
10 35 (1.34%) Metadata
11 31 (1.19%) Data Lake
12 28 (1.07%) Hadoop
13 25 (0.96%) MongoDB
14 20 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
15 16 (0.61%) GIS
15 16 (0.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 13 (0.50%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.46%) Geospatial Data
17 12 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.42%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 304 (11.66%) JIRA
2 125 (4.79%) Git
3 77 (2.95%) Jenkins
4 60 (2.30%) GitLab
5 28 (1.07%) Visual Studio
6 21 (0.81%) Selenium
7 18 (0.69%) Postman
8 16 (0.61%) Liquibase
8 16 (0.61%) Rational DOORS
9 13 (0.50%) Burp Suite
10 12 (0.46%) Bitbucket
10 12 (0.46%) MLflow
11 11 (0.42%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.38%) 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
General
1 1,293 (49.60%) Social Skills
2 815 (31.26%) Finance
3 592 (22.71%) Analytical Skills
4 261 (10.01%) Banking
5 228 (8.75%) Public Sector
6 125 (4.79%) Presentation Skills
7 113 (4.33%) Organisational Skills
8 103 (3.95%) Marketing
9 97 (3.72%) Manufacturing
10 88 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
11 85 (3.26%) Documentation Skills
12 73 (2.80%) Legal
13 60 (2.30%) Military
14 57 (2.19%) Telecoms
15 56 (2.15%) Aerospace
16 53 (2.03%) Financial Institution
17 48 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 47 (1.80%) Electronics
19 46 (1.76%) Front Office
19 46 (1.76%) Retail
Job Titles
1 368 (14.12%) Analyst
2 261 (10.01%) Senior
3 219 (8.40%) Lead
4 210 (8.06%) Developer
5 207 (7.94%) Architect
6 182 (6.98%) Project Manager
7 165 (6.33%) Business Analyst
8 105 (4.03%) Consultant
9 80 (3.07%) Software Engineer
10 73 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
11 65 (2.49%) Technical Support
12 60 (2.30%) Security Engineer
13 54 (2.07%) IT Support
14 52 (1.99%) Senior Analyst
15 51 (1.96%) Delivery Manager
16 48 (1.84%) Data Scientist
16 48 (1.84%) Designer
17 41 (1.57%) Data Engineer
18 38 (1.46%) Support Analyst
19 37 (1.42%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (4.60%) REST
2 79 (3.03%) .NET
3 71 (2.72%) RESTful
4 68 (2.61%) HTML
5 65 (2.49%) React
6 55 (2.11%) CSS
7 53 (2.03%) Middleware
8 48 (1.84%) Kafka
9 44 (1.69%) Elastic Stack
10 40 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
10 40 (1.53%) SOAP
11 39 (1.50%) JSON
11 39 (1.50%) XML
12 38 (1.46%) PyTorch
12 38 (1.46%) TensorFlow
13 36 (1.38%) OAuth
14 32 (1.23%) Spring
15 30 (1.15%) AngularJS
15 30 (1.15%) Spring Boot
16 29 (1.11%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 215 (8.25%) Management Information System
2 152 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 114 (4.37%) Onboarding
4 113 (4.33%) Cloud Native
5 88 (3.38%) Algorithms
6 81 (3.11%) Virtual Team
7 71 (2.72%) Distributed Systems
8 69 (2.65%) Self-Motivation
9 68 (2.61%) Data Centre
10 61 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
11 55 (2.11%) Analytical Mindset
12 54 (2.07%) PMI
13 51 (1.96%) Data Structures
14 47 (1.80%) Security Posture
15 44 (1.69%) Derivative
15 44 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
16 38 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
17 36 (1.38%) Public Cloud
18 34 (1.30%) NHS
19 33 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 308 (11.81%) Windows
2 204 (7.83%) Linux
3 84 (3.22%) Unix
4 74 (2.84%) Windows Server
5 59 (2.26%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.15%) Android
7 24 (0.92%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 18 (0.69%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.54%) Ubuntu
10 14 (0.54%) Windows Server 2016
11 13 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
13 9 (0.35%) VMS
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.15%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 951 (36.48%) Computer Science
2 805 (30.88%) Agile
3 746 (28.62%) Problem-Solving
4 433 (16.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 383 (14.69%) DevOps
6 351 (13.46%) AI
7 342 (13.12%) Project Management
8 316 (12.12%) Continuous Improvement
9 304 (11.66%) CI/CD
10 294 (11.28%) Change Management
11 293 (11.24%) Analytics
12 284 (10.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 278 (10.66%) Cybersecurity
14 272 (10.43%) Decision-Making
15 261 (10.01%) ITIL
16 260 (9.97%) Migration
17 238 (9.13%) Project Delivery
18 236 (9.05%) Risk Management
19 235 (9.01%) Software Engineering
20 213 (8.17%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 455 (17.45%) Python
2 385 (14.77%) SQL
3 181 (6.94%) Java
4 133 (5.10%) PowerShell
5 111 (4.26%) JavaScript
6 89 (3.41%) C#
7 79 (3.03%) C++
8 54 (2.07%) TypeScript
9 49 (1.88%) Bash
10 47 (1.80%) Go
11 31 (1.19%) R
12 26 (1.00%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.81%) Perl
13 21 (0.81%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.69%) MATLAB
15 17 (0.65%) T-SQL
16 16 (0.61%) C
17 15 (0.58%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.58%) Rust
17 15 (0.58%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 607 (23.28%) Computer Science Degree
2 486 (18.64%) Security Cleared
3 407 (15.61%) Master's Degree
4 362 (13.89%) SC Cleared
5 152 (5.83%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.10%) PMP
7 129 (4.95%) CISSP
8 94 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 85 (3.26%) CISM
10 76 (2.92%) PhD
11 75 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
11 75 (2.88%) TOGAF Certification
12 65 (2.49%) Azure Certification
13 63 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
14 57 (2.19%) DV Cleared
15 41 (1.57%) CCNP
16 40 (1.53%) AWS Certification
16 40 (1.53%) MBA
17 34 (1.30%) ITIL Certification
18 33 (1.27%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (6.56%) QA
2 135 (5.18%) GDPR
3 108 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (4.10%) PMO
5 97 (3.72%) Data Quality
6 90 (3.45%) NIST
7 50 (1.92%) PCI DSS
8 47 (1.80%) Accessibility
9 39 (1.50%) SLA
10 34 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 32 (1.23%) GRC
12 20 (0.77%) NCSC
13 19 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.69%) WCAG
15 17 (0.65%) HIPAA
16 15 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
17 14 (0.54%) Basel III
17 14 (0.54%) IFRS
18 13 (0.50%) DO-254
19 12 (0.46%) COBIT
System Software
1 192 (7.36%) Docker
2 168 (6.44%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.81%) Firmware
5 20 (0.77%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 8 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.23%) vSphere
8 5 (0.19%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 5 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.19%) XenApp
8 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.15%) NDS
9 4 (0.15%) NetIQ eDirectory
9 4 (0.15%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) HDFS
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 2 (0.077%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 190 (7.29%) Kubernetes
2 114 (4.37%) Terraform
3 79 (3.03%) Ansible
4 71 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
5 52 (1.99%) Grafana
6 47 (1.80%) SCCM
7 44 (1.69%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.15%) OPNET
9 22 (0.84%) Puppet
10 17 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 16 (0.61%) Kibana
12 13 (0.50%) Nmap
13 11 (0.42%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
14 9 (0.35%) WSUS
15 8 (0.31%) Argo
16 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
17 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
17 6 (0.23%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 558 (21.40%) Microsoft
2 172 (6.60%) Oracle
3 166 (6.37%) SAP
4 119 (4.56%) ServiceNow
5 112 (4.30%) Google
6 95 (3.64%) Splunk
7 85 (3.26%) Cisco
8 56 (2.15%) Atlassian
9 55 (2.11%) Databricks
10 54 (2.07%) Remedy
11 52 (1.99%) VMware
12 50 (1.92%) Salesforce
13 42 (1.61%) Citrix
14 39 (1.50%) Palo Alto
15 38 (1.46%) IBM
16 29 (1.11%) CheckPoint
17 27 (1.04%) Informatica
18 25 (0.96%) BiZZdesign
18 25 (0.96%) Red Hat
19 22 (0.84%) Adobe