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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 26 20
Rank change year-on-year -18 -6 +2
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,492 2,376 3,015
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.57% 7.16% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.35% 22.50% 27.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,270 1,297 1,706
10th Percentile £206 £267 £241
25th Percentile £371 £400 £382
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £618 £625 £613
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +7.83% -5.26% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 305 208 187
10th Percentile £16.38 £15.50 £20.12
25th Percentile £24.72 £25.00 £25.99
Median hourly rate £39.50 £33.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.91% -25.56% -6.52%
75th Percentile £65.00 £56.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £82.80 £81.60 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.49 £33.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +14.88% -36.19% +5.00%

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 17,360 10,559 11,139
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.85% 31.84% 29.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,510 6,590 6,740
10th Percentile £356 £282 £311
25th Percentile £448 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £631 £625 £631
90th Percentile £713 £704 £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 1,448 891 595
10th Percentile £16.50 £17.69 £18.03
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.87 £25.43
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -47.05% -11.52%
75th Percentile £71.69 £41.71 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £70.00 £75.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £50.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -49.70% -3.66%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 2,268 £513 +2.50% 13,049
UK excluding London -17 1,335 £485 +7.83% 6,774
London -18 989 £527 -4.18% 6,902
Work from Home -19 666 £513 +4.17% 4,345
South East +6 462 £525 +16.67% 1,854
North of England -12 337 £475 +5.56% 1,254
North West -4 217 £479 +4.70% 677
Midlands -29 184 £450 -5.26% 895
West Midlands -31 137 £450 -5.26% 547
East of England -14 135 £425 -15.00% 969
South West -21 127 £415 -20.95% 686
Yorkshire -20 103 £500 +11.11% 385
Scotland -53 69 £463 +2.78% 634
East Midlands -22 46 £478 +6.70% 348
North East -31 17 £460 +2.22% 195
Northern Ireland -13 12 £250 -57.45% 326
Wales -33 12 £530 +71.67% 223
Channel Islands - 3 £350 - 4

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
1 154 (6.18%) SharePoint
2 119 (4.78%) Confluence
3 58 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (1.16%) Apache Spark
5 23 (0.92%) Apache
6 21 (0.84%) IIS
7 20 (0.80%) Apache Airflow
8 17 (0.68%) CMS
9 14 (0.56%) Camunda
9 14 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
10 10 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 7 (0.28%) SAS
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
13 4 (0.16%) nginx
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Service Bus
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.12%) CICS
Applications
1 246 (9.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 233 (9.35%) Microsoft Office
3 112 (4.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 108 (4.33%) Microsoft Project
5 58 (2.33%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 16 (0.64%) Photoshop
8 15 (0.60%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Simulink
9 12 (0.48%) Windchill
10 9 (0.36%) Revit
11 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
11 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.32%) Sketch
12 6 (0.24%) AutoCAD
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
14 4 (0.16%) CATIA
Business Applications
1 30 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Primavera
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.32%) Magento
7 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.24%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.20%) Workfront
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
10 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
11 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
11 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
11 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
11 3 (0.12%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.71%) Azure
2 309 (12.40%) AWS
3 219 (8.79%) Power Platform
4 212 (8.51%) Microsoft 365
5 155 (6.22%) GCP
6 137 (5.50%) Entra ID
7 133 (5.34%) Azure DevOps
8 75 (3.01%) SaaS
9 70 (2.81%) GitHub
10 62 (2.49%) Serverless
11 61 (2.45%) Dynamics 365
12 60 (2.41%) Power Automate
13 52 (2.09%) PowerApps
14 49 (1.97%) Microsoft Copilot
15 48 (1.93%) OneDrive
16 41 (1.65%) Snowflake
17 40 (1.61%) Figma
18 31 (1.24%) Amazon S3
18 31 (1.24%) IaaS
19 29 (1.16%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 102 (4.09%) Firewall
2 83 (3.33%) DNS
3 66 (2.65%) Network Security
4 65 (2.61%) TCP/IP
5 58 (2.33%) VPN
6 45 (1.81%) DHCP
7 30 (1.20%) WAN
8 29 (1.16%) LAN
9 27 (1.08%) Wireless
10 22 (0.88%) 3GPP
11 21 (0.84%) 5G
11 21 (0.84%) VLAN
12 20 (0.80%) SSL
13 19 (0.76%) Internet
13 19 (0.76%) SSH
14 17 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
14 17 (0.68%) Wireshark
15 16 (0.64%) BGP
16 15 (0.60%) HTTP
16 15 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.30%) Power BI
2 108 (4.33%) SQL Server
3 59 (2.37%) Metadata
3 59 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (1.93%) Relational Database
5 47 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.52%) MySQL
7 34 (1.36%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.28%) Tableau
9 31 (1.24%) Big Data
10 29 (1.16%) MongoDB
11 27 (1.08%) Elasticsearch
12 25 (1.00%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 19 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
14 19 (0.76%) Data Lake
15 18 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
16 16 (0.64%) Data Mining
16 16 (0.64%) GIS
17 12 (0.48%) Redis
Development Applications
1 170 (6.82%) JIRA
2 150 (6.02%) Git
3 65 (2.61%) Jenkins
4 56 (2.25%) GitLab
5 25 (1.00%) JUnit
6 24 (0.96%) Maven
7 23 (0.92%) Gradle
7 23 (0.92%) SonarQube
8 22 (0.88%) Selenium
9 20 (0.80%) Cucumber
10 19 (0.76%) Visual Studio
11 18 (0.72%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.68%) Mockito
13 16 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
14 15 (0.60%) Postman
15 11 (0.44%) SpecFlow
16 10 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
17 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
17 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket Server
17 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,127 (45.22%) Social Skills
2 725 (29.09%) Finance
3 588 (23.60%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.39%) Public Sector
5 204 (8.19%) Banking
6 166 (6.66%) Organisational Skills
7 145 (5.82%) Manufacturing
8 131 (5.26%) Aerospace
9 126 (5.06%) Influencing Skills
10 105 (4.21%) Marketing
11 91 (3.65%) Telecoms
12 87 (3.49%) Presentation Skills
13 83 (3.33%) Legal
14 81 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
15 69 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 63 (2.53%) Retail
17 60 (2.41%) Pharmaceutical
18 49 (1.97%) Law
19 48 (1.93%) Military
20 44 (1.77%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 332 (13.32%) Analyst
2 287 (11.52%) Senior
3 209 (8.39%) Developer
4 196 (7.87%) Lead
5 165 (6.62%) Business Analyst
6 161 (6.46%) Architect
7 107 (4.29%) Project Manager
8 79 (3.17%) Consultant
9 67 (2.69%) IT Support
9 67 (2.69%) Support Engineer
10 61 (2.45%) Senior Manager
11 56 (2.25%) Administrator
12 53 (2.13%) Solutions Architect
13 52 (2.09%) IT Manager
14 48 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
14 48 (1.93%) Security Engineer
15 46 (1.85%) Designer
16 45 (1.81%) IT Analyst
17 44 (1.77%) Software Engineer
18 43 (1.73%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (4.82%) Terraform
2 119 (4.78%) REST
3 102 (4.09%) .NET
4 76 (3.05%) React
5 73 (2.93%) HTML
6 67 (2.69%) Kafka
7 65 (2.61%) CSS
8 62 (2.49%) RESTful
9 52 (2.09%) OAuth
10 49 (1.97%) XML
11 46 (1.85%) Oracle Fusion
12 45 (1.81%) Web Services
13 44 (1.77%) Middleware
14 42 (1.69%) Spring Boot
15 40 (1.61%) OAuth2
15 40 (1.61%) SOAP
16 39 (1.57%) SAML
17 36 (1.44%) JSON
17 36 (1.44%) OpenID
17 36 (1.44%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 233 (9.35%) Management Information System
2 132 (5.30%) Onboarding
3 126 (5.06%) Product Ownership
4 109 (4.37%) Self-Motivation
5 103 (4.13%) Cloud Native
6 63 (2.53%) Algorithms
7 60 (2.41%) Data Structures
7 60 (2.41%) Operational Technology
8 59 (2.37%) Data Centre
9 57 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
10 53 (2.13%) Life Science
11 51 (2.05%) Security Posture
12 46 (1.85%) AI Agents
12 46 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
13 41 (1.65%) Virtual Team
14 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
15 36 (1.44%) SCADA
16 34 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
17 32 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
18 31 (1.24%) PMI
Operating Systems
1 286 (11.48%) Windows
2 186 (7.46%) Linux
3 81 (3.25%) Windows Server
4 68 (2.73%) Unix
5 41 (1.65%) Windows 10
6 34 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 32 (1.28%) Mac OS
8 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.76%) Android
10 10 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.32%) 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%) AIX
13 4 (0.16%) zOS
14 3 (0.12%) Mac OS X
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.080%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 801 (32.14%) Computer Science
2 688 (27.61%) Agile
3 677 (27.17%) Problem-Solving
4 567 (22.75%) Stakeholder Management
5 444 (17.82%) Continuous Improvement
6 403 (16.17%) AI
7 375 (15.05%) DevOps
8 344 (13.80%) CI/CD
9 320 (12.84%) Analytics
10 302 (12.12%) Project Management
11 278 (11.16%) ITIL
12 268 (10.75%) Decision-Making
13 254 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 253 (10.15%) Scrum
15 251 (10.07%) Roadmaps
16 238 (9.55%) Change Management
17 237 (9.51%) Software Engineering
18 227 (9.11%) Cybersecurity
19 222 (8.91%) Validation
20 220 (8.83%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 397 (15.93%) Python
2 365 (14.65%) SQL
3 176 (7.06%) PowerShell
4 161 (6.46%) Java
5 132 (5.30%) JavaScript
6 123 (4.94%) C#
7 67 (2.69%) Bash
8 47 (1.89%) TypeScript
9 37 (1.48%) C++
10 32 (1.28%) Bicep
11 30 (1.20%) Shell Script
12 26 (1.04%) T-SQL
13 25 (1.00%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.88%) R
15 19 (0.76%) C
16 18 (0.72%) Scala
17 13 (0.52%) MATLAB
18 12 (0.48%) Apex Code
18 12 (0.48%) X++
19 10 (0.40%) Go
Qualifications
1 496 (19.90%) Security Cleared
2 494 (19.82%) Computer Science Degree
3 369 (14.81%) SC Cleared
4 211 (8.47%) Master's Degree
5 150 (6.02%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.26%) PMP
7 119 (4.78%) Microsoft Certification
8 110 (4.41%) CISSP
9 98 (3.93%) Azure Certification
10 95 (3.81%) DV Cleared
11 84 (3.37%) Cisco Certification
12 82 (3.29%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.41%) PhD
14 55 (2.21%) CISM
15 49 (1.97%) AWS Certification
16 44 (1.77%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 41 (1.65%) ISTQB
18 39 (1.57%) DBS Check
19 36 (1.44%) CCNA
20 34 (1.36%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (6.02%) QA
2 149 (5.98%) Data Quality
3 90 (3.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 86 (3.45%) NIST
5 84 (3.37%) GDPR
6 74 (2.97%) PMO
7 48 (1.93%) Accessibility
8 38 (1.52%) SLA
9 32 (1.28%) GRC
10 21 (0.84%) NCSC
11 19 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 18 (0.72%) PCI DSS
13 16 (0.64%) IFRS
14 13 (0.52%) IEC 61508
15 12 (0.48%) ISO 31000
15 12 (0.48%) P3O
16 11 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
17 10 (0.40%) Basel III
System Software
1 181 (7.26%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.86%) Docker
3 59 (2.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.12%) Hyper-V
5 25 (1.00%) Firmware
6 21 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.36%) vSphere
8 8 (0.32%) VMware NSX
9 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 7 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.24%) BitLocker
11 5 (0.20%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.20%) NFS
11 5 (0.20%) RACF
12 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.12%) Microsoft App-V
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
13 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
13 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 138 (5.54%) Kubernetes
2 71 (2.85%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (2.45%) Ansible
4 32 (1.28%) SCCM
5 26 (1.04%) Grafana
6 25 (1.00%) Prometheus
7 19 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Puppet
10 12 (0.48%) Functional Safety
10 12 (0.48%) SCOM
11 10 (0.40%) CASB
11 10 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.32%) Control-M
13 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 6 (0.24%) Argo
13 6 (0.24%) Nessus
13 6 (0.24%) WSUS
14 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
14 5 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 612 (24.56%) Microsoft
2 184 (7.38%) Oracle
3 133 (5.34%) ServiceNow
4 132 (5.30%) SAP
5 112 (4.49%) Google
6 72 (2.89%) Salesforce
6 72 (2.89%) VMware
7 68 (2.73%) Cisco
8 66 (2.65%) Adobe
9 62 (2.49%) Databricks
10 46 (1.85%) Splunk
11 45 (1.81%) IBM
12 31 (1.24%) Red Hat
13 27 (1.08%) OpenAI
14 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
15 21 (0.84%) Apple
15 21 (0.84%) Citrix
15 21 (0.84%) CyberArk
16 20 (0.80%) Ariba
17 17 (0.68%) EMC