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 25 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 21 21
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,497 2,832 3,629
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.97% 7.80% 7.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 20.96% 26.49% 26.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,418 1,573 2,209
10th Percentile £275 £225 £229
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £632 £638
90th Percentile £750 £756 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 156 219
10th Percentile £15.30 £19.92 £17.75
25th Percentile £22.84 £26.39 £27.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% -20.00% +14.94%
75th Percentile £50.00 £69.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £84.10 £82.55 £83.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% -20.00% +25.00%

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 11,911 10,689 13,502
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.27% 29.43% 29.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,669 6,433 8,550
10th Percentile £304 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £423 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £520 £538
% change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,024 524 762
10th Percentile £17.56 £18.78 £17.72
25th Percentile £19.38 £24.18 £27.70
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.85
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% -16.43% +19.67%
75th Percentile £45.46 £67.08 £68.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £47.25 £52.50
% change year-on-year -46.77% -10.01% +19.32%

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025. 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 -3 2,128 £523 +0.53% 3,475
UK excluding London -2 1,242 £475 - 2,919
London -4 1,027 £537 -0.09% 1,084
Work from Home +1 730 £500 - 1,729
North of England -5 302 £450 -14.29% 465
South East -1 263 £475 -5.00% 1,192
Midlands -10 215 £475 -4.81% 379
North West -6 176 £425 -19.81% 246
West Midlands -11 164 £500 - 237
South West +4 154 £600 - 325
East of England -8 131 £505 +18.82% 388
Scotland 0 122 £463 +8.82% 148
Yorkshire -11 117 £476 -6.71% 153
East Midlands -11 51 £447 +11.75% 136
Wales -2 45 £226 -43.50% 69
Northern Ireland -3 37 £370 -22.11% 45
North East -14 10 £298 -40.31% 71

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
1 177 (7.09%) Confluence
2 125 (5.01%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.76%) Microsoft Exchange
4 46 (1.84%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.96%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.68%) nginx
7 15 (0.60%) CMS
7 15 (0.60%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.52%) IIS
9 12 (0.48%) Apache
10 8 (0.32%) SAS
11 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
11 7 (0.28%) Moodle
12 5 (0.20%) Luigi
13 4 (0.16%) Alfresco
13 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
13 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 4 (0.16%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.12%) Ethereum
14 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 297 (11.89%) Microsoft Office
2 231 (9.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 168 (6.73%) Microsoft Project
4 120 (4.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 71 (2.84%) MS Visio
6 22 (0.88%) Chatbot
7 17 (0.68%) Simulink
8 14 (0.56%) Trello
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 11 (0.44%) FrameMaker
11 10 (0.40%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 7 (0.28%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 6 (0.24%) Sketch
14 5 (0.20%) Navisworks
14 5 (0.20%) Revit
15 4 (0.16%) Adobe Captivate
15 4 (0.16%) InDesign
15 4 (0.16%) Maya
15 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
16 3 (0.12%) InVision
Business Applications
1 67 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.84%) Primavera
4 14 (0.56%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) Remedy ITSM
6 12 (0.48%) SAP EWM
7 9 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
7 9 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
7 9 (0.36%) Workday HCM
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.24%) Endur
10 6 (0.24%) Maximo
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.20%) Dynamics AX
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.20%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 485 (19.42%) Azure
2 321 (12.86%) AWS
3 196 (7.85%) Microsoft 365
4 179 (7.17%) Power Platform
5 160 (6.41%) GCP
6 102 (4.08%) GitHub
7 98 (3.92%) SaaS
8 84 (3.36%) Entra ID
9 75 (3.00%) Azure DevOps
10 70 (2.80%) Serverless
11 48 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (1.52%) Amazon S3
12 38 (1.52%) Power Automate
13 35 (1.40%) Azure Sentinel
13 35 (1.40%) Cloud Computing
14 32 (1.28%) Amazon ECS
14 32 (1.28%) PowerApps
15 30 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
15 30 (1.20%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 104 (4.16%) Firewall
2 85 (3.40%) DNS
3 56 (2.24%) VPN
4 50 (2.00%) Network Security
5 44 (1.76%) DHCP
6 37 (1.48%) HTTP
6 37 (1.48%) TCP/IP
7 36 (1.44%) LAN
8 35 (1.40%) WAN
9 32 (1.28%) Wireless
10 29 (1.16%) Internet
11 27 (1.08%) Skype
12 26 (1.04%) Unified Communications
12 26 (1.04%) VoIP
13 25 (1.00%) SSH
13 25 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
14 22 (0.88%) BGP
14 22 (0.88%) Cisco IOS
15 17 (0.68%) Ethernet
16 16 (0.64%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 137 (5.49%) Power BI
2 102 (4.08%) PostgreSQL
3 81 (3.24%) SQL Server
4 71 (2.84%) NoSQL
5 58 (2.32%) Relational Database
6 57 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
6 57 (2.28%) Tableau
7 34 (1.36%) Big Data
8 33 (1.32%) MySQL
9 31 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
10 30 (1.20%) Data Lake
11 23 (0.92%) Metadata
12 19 (0.76%) MongoDB
13 18 (0.72%) Hadoop
13 18 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 16 (0.64%) Redis
15 14 (0.56%) Oracle Database
16 13 (0.52%) RDBMS
17 12 (0.48%) BigQuery
17 12 (0.48%) GIS
Development Applications
1 275 (11.01%) JIRA
2 124 (4.97%) Git
3 104 (4.16%) Jenkins
4 78 (3.12%) GitLab
5 29 (1.16%) Liquibase
6 25 (1.00%) Postman
7 22 (0.88%) Selenium
8 15 (0.60%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.44%) Vagrant
11 10 (0.40%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.40%) Cypress.io
11 10 (0.40%) JUnit
12 9 (0.36%) Artifactory
12 9 (0.36%) SpecFlow
13 7 (0.28%) IntelliJ
13 7 (0.28%) JMeter
13 7 (0.28%) MLflow
13 7 (0.28%) Subversion
14 6 (0.24%) Katalon Studio
General
1 1,297 (51.94%) Social Skills
2 802 (32.12%) Finance
3 619 (24.79%) Analytical Skills
4 273 (10.93%) Banking
5 172 (6.89%) Public Sector
6 125 (5.01%) Manufacturing
7 105 (4.21%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.00%) Organisational Skills
9 96 (3.84%) Marketing
10 90 (3.60%) Influencing Skills
11 84 (3.36%) Legal
12 77 (3.08%) Telecoms
13 69 (2.76%) Financial Institution
14 63 (2.52%) Investment Banking
15 61 (2.44%) Front Office
16 60 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
16 60 (2.40%) Pharmaceutical
17 59 (2.36%) Military
18 54 (2.16%) Aerospace
19 41 (1.64%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 379 (15.18%) Analyst
2 242 (9.69%) Developer
2 242 (9.69%) Senior
3 186 (7.45%) Lead
4 175 (7.01%) Architect
5 157 (6.29%) Business Analyst
6 156 (6.25%) Project Manager
7 110 (4.41%) Consultant
8 81 (3.24%) Software Engineer
9 66 (2.64%) IT Support
10 64 (2.56%) Support Analyst
11 53 (2.12%) Security Engineer
11 53 (2.12%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (1.92%) Technical Support
13 47 (1.88%) Support Engineer
14 46 (1.84%) Data Scientist
14 46 (1.84%) IT Manager
15 45 (1.80%) Senior Developer
16 41 (1.64%) Data Analyst
16 41 (1.64%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 133 (5.33%) REST
2 91 (3.64%) RESTful
3 76 (3.04%) HTML
4 72 (2.88%) .NET
5 59 (2.36%) CSS
6 53 (2.12%) XML
7 52 (2.08%) Kafka
8 50 (2.00%) JSON
9 45 (1.80%) SOAP
10 42 (1.68%) Web Services
11 41 (1.64%) Elastic Stack
11 41 (1.64%) Middleware
12 40 (1.60%) React
13 39 (1.56%) OAuth
14 37 (1.48%) TensorFlow
15 34 (1.36%) Node.js
16 33 (1.32%) AngularJS
16 33 (1.32%) Spring
17 31 (1.24%) PyTorch
18 29 (1.16%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.21%) Management Information System
2 114 (4.57%) Product Ownership
3 97 (3.88%) Cloud Native
4 90 (3.60%) Algorithms
5 80 (3.20%) Onboarding
6 67 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
7 65 (2.60%) Virtual Team
8 60 (2.40%) Distributed Systems
9 59 (2.36%) Analytical Mindset
10 54 (2.16%) Data Centre
11 51 (2.04%) Public Cloud
12 50 (2.00%) Derivative
13 46 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
14 44 (1.76%) Life Science
15 42 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
16 41 (1.64%) PKI
17 40 (1.60%) Mobile App
18 39 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
19 36 (1.44%) Data Structures
19 36 (1.44%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 269 (10.77%) Windows
2 196 (7.85%) Linux
3 78 (3.12%) Unix
4 59 (2.36%) Windows Server
5 36 (1.44%) Windows 10
6 29 (1.16%) Mac OS
7 27 (1.08%) Android
8 25 (1.00%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.72%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.68%) VMS
11 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 12 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
12 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 4 (0.16%) CentOS
16 2 (0.080%) Kali Linux
16 2 (0.080%) Mac OS X
16 2 (0.080%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 976 (39.09%) Computer Science
2 781 (31.28%) Agile
3 760 (30.44%) Problem-Solving
4 405 (16.22%) Project Management
5 377 (15.10%) Stakeholder Management
6 342 (13.70%) DevOps
7 300 (12.01%) ITIL
8 296 (11.85%) Change Management
9 265 (10.61%) Analytics
10 260 (10.41%) CI/CD
11 258 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
12 252 (10.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 250 (10.01%) AI
13 250 (10.01%) Cybersecurity
14 235 (9.41%) Migration
15 224 (8.97%) Software Engineering
16 223 (8.93%) Project Delivery
17 212 (8.49%) Decision-Making
18 187 (7.49%) Risk Management
19 182 (7.29%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 481 (19.26%) Python
2 356 (14.26%) SQL
3 193 (7.73%) Java
4 126 (5.05%) PowerShell
5 122 (4.89%) JavaScript
6 81 (3.24%) C#
7 77 (3.08%) C++
8 62 (2.48%) Go
9 48 (1.92%) TypeScript
10 47 (1.88%) Bash
11 39 (1.56%) R
12 23 (0.92%) Perl
13 22 (0.88%) MATLAB
14 21 (0.84%) Ruby
15 20 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
16 19 (0.76%) C
17 18 (0.72%) PL/SQL
18 17 (0.68%) T-SQL
19 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
20 15 (0.60%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 646 (25.87%) Computer Science Degree
2 374 (14.98%) Master's Degree
3 353 (14.14%) Security Cleared
4 279 (11.17%) SC Cleared
5 145 (5.81%) PMI Certification
6 131 (5.25%) PMP
7 118 (4.73%) CISSP
8 99 (3.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.28%) PhD
10 74 (2.96%) Azure Certification
11 70 (2.80%) Cisco Certification
12 68 (2.72%) AWS Certification
12 68 (2.72%) CISM
13 53 (2.12%) HND
14 49 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
15 44 (1.76%) DV Cleared
16 43 (1.72%) CCNP
17 41 (1.64%) TOGAF Certification
18 40 (1.60%) HNC
19 38 (1.52%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 140 (5.61%) QA
2 125 (5.01%) GDPR
3 99 (3.96%) Data Quality
4 95 (3.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 86 (3.44%) NIST
6 65 (2.60%) PMO
7 45 (1.80%) Accessibility
8 35 (1.40%) SLA
9 32 (1.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 27 (1.08%) PCI DSS
11 26 (1.04%) GRC
12 23 (0.92%) HIPAA
13 20 (0.80%) NCSC
14 18 (0.72%) COBIT
15 16 (0.64%) NIST 800
16 15 (0.60%) Def Stans
16 15 (0.60%) P3O
17 14 (0.56%) WCAG
18 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
19 12 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 167 (6.69%) Docker
2 158 (6.33%) Active Directory
3 49 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.12%) Firmware
5 14 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 10 (0.40%) Dovecot
7 10 (0.40%) Postfix
7 10 (0.40%) Squid
7 10 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.36%) XenApp
9 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
10 6 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.24%) vSphere
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.16%) NDS
12 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
13 2 (0.080%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 145 (5.81%) Kubernetes
2 121 (4.85%) Terraform
3 87 (3.48%) Ansible
4 64 (2.56%) Grafana
5 55 (2.20%) Prometheus
6 51 (2.04%) Microsoft Intune
7 47 (1.88%) SCCM
8 19 (0.76%) OPNET
9 17 (0.68%) Puppet
10 13 (0.52%) SCOM
11 12 (0.48%) Nessus
12 11 (0.44%) QRadar
12 11 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
13 10 (0.40%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 7 (0.28%) AirWatch
15 7 (0.28%) Argo
15 7 (0.28%) CSIRT
16 6 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 6 (0.24%) Kibana
Vendors
1 548 (21.95%) Microsoft
2 169 (6.77%) SAP
3 132 (5.29%) Oracle
4 131 (5.25%) ServiceNow
5 98 (3.92%) Google
6 89 (3.56%) Cisco
7 88 (3.52%) Splunk
8 72 (2.88%) Salesforce
9 58 (2.32%) VMware
10 51 (2.04%) Atlassian
11 39 (1.56%) Remedy
12 38 (1.52%) Databricks
13 37 (1.48%) IBM
14 33 (1.32%) Citrix
15 32 (1.28%) Adobe
16 26 (1.04%) Workday
17 22 (0.88%) Palo Alto
18 20 (0.80%) Red Hat
19 18 (0.72%) Apple
20 15 (0.60%) SolarWinds