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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -16 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,481 2,465 3,078
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.65% 7.49% 7.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.83% 24.04% 26.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,322 1,392 1,784
10th Percentile £207 £250 £251
25th Percentile £365 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £472 £450 £499
% change year-on-year +4.89% -9.82% -0.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 281 212 274
10th Percentile £17.25 £17.53 £18.35
25th Percentile £26.90 £25.75 £25.35
Median hourly rate £44.50 £42.50 £52.35
Median % change year-on-year +4.71% -18.81% -0.30%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.52 £66.88
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.37 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.11 £41.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +2.70% -28.51% +14.70%

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 16,725 10,253 11,715
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.38% 31.15% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,192 6,339 7,422
10th Percentile £350 £285 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £619 £638
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,253 787 859
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £19.38 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -41.51% -23.21%
75th Percentile £74.00 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £75.00 £77.09
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -44.11% -16.15%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -13 2,271 £500 - 4,753
UK excluding London -11 1,370 £472 +4.89% 2,687
London -21 960 £525 -4.55% 2,423
Work from Home -20 646 £500 - 1,711
South East +3 480 £500 +5.26% 801
North of England -12 336 £453 - 555
North West -13 196 £450 -5.26% 294
Midlands -33 181 £450 +5.88% 392
East of England -7 143 £425 -5.56% 394
West Midlands -36 138 £450 - 215
South West -24 126 £415 -7.78% 312
Yorkshire -11 124 £500 +19.05% 168
Scotland -33 72 £475 +5.56% 172
East Midlands -21 41 £475 +32.68% 177
Wales -27 18 £530 +71.67% 71
North East -43 16 £450 +130.77% 101
Northern Ireland -12 15 £252 -46.95% 50
Channel Islands - 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
1 148 (5.97%) SharePoint
2 118 (4.76%) Confluence
3 63 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (1.21%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.77%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 11 (0.44%) CMS
9 10 (0.40%) SAS
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
11 7 (0.28%) Camunda
11 7 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
13 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.16%) FactoryTalk
14 3 (0.12%) Moodle
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 2 (0.081%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 272 (10.96%) Microsoft Office
2 240 (9.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 143 (5.76%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.54%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Simulink
12 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
12 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
13 5 (0.20%) Trello
14 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
15 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 59 (2.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.73%) Primavera
3 16 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
4 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) Aladdin
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 5 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 5 (0.20%) Workday HCM
9 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 566 (22.81%) Azure
2 322 (12.98%) AWS
3 226 (9.11%) Power Platform
4 220 (8.87%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (6.17%) Entra ID
6 132 (5.32%) GCP
7 106 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 80 (3.22%) SaaS
9 71 (2.86%) GitHub
10 50 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
11 47 (1.89%) Power Automate
11 47 (1.89%) PowerApps
11 47 (1.89%) Snowflake
12 45 (1.81%) Figma
13 44 (1.77%) Serverless
14 40 (1.61%) OneDrive
15 39 (1.57%) Microsoft Copilot
16 29 (1.17%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.13%) IaaS
18 26 (1.05%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 120 (4.84%) Firewall
2 79 (3.18%) DNS
3 77 (3.10%) TCP/IP
4 69 (2.78%) Network Security
5 62 (2.50%) VPN
6 43 (1.73%) WAN
7 40 (1.61%) DHCP
7 40 (1.61%) LAN
8 27 (1.09%) Wireless
9 22 (0.89%) BGP
10 20 (0.81%) SSL
10 20 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.77%) SSH
11 19 (0.77%) VLAN
12 18 (0.73%) Ethernet
12 18 (0.73%) HTTP
12 18 (0.73%) OSPF
13 15 (0.60%) Internet
13 15 (0.60%) MPLS
14 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 179 (7.21%) Power BI
2 109 (4.39%) SQL Server
3 56 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.14%) Relational Database
5 47 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.65%) Metadata
7 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
8 34 (1.37%) Tableau
9 30 (1.21%) Big Data
10 28 (1.13%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.01%) MySQL
12 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (0.89%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.69%) Data Mining
15 16 (0.64%) Data Lake
15 16 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
17 14 (0.56%) Power Query
18 12 (0.48%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 194 (7.82%) JIRA
2 130 (5.24%) Git
3 58 (2.34%) Jenkins
4 46 (1.85%) GitLab
5 35 (1.41%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (0.73%) Selenium
7 17 (0.69%) Visual Studio
8 16 (0.64%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
12 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
12 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.36%) Maven
13 9 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,092 (44.01%) Social Skills
2 722 (29.10%) Finance
3 562 (22.65%) Analytical Skills
4 199 (8.02%) Public Sector
5 179 (7.21%) Banking
6 163 (6.57%) Organisational Skills
7 106 (4.27%) Aerospace
7 106 (4.27%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.03%) Legal
9 97 (3.91%) Marketing
10 93 (3.75%) Manufacturing
11 87 (3.51%) Influencing Skills
12 84 (3.39%) Telecoms
13 75 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
14 64 (2.58%) Retail
15 61 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 53 (2.14%) Law
17 49 (1.98%) Pharmaceutical
18 38 (1.53%) Front Office
19 37 (1.49%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 336 (13.54%) Analyst
2 286 (11.53%) Senior
3 187 (7.54%) Lead
4 180 (7.26%) Architect
5 178 (7.17%) Developer
6 154 (6.21%) Business Analyst
7 146 (5.88%) Project Manager
8 73 (2.94%) Senior Manager
9 70 (2.82%) Consultant
10 60 (2.42%) Designer
11 58 (2.34%) IT Support
11 58 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
11 58 (2.34%) Support Engineer
12 53 (2.14%) IT Manager
12 53 (2.14%) Product Manager
13 51 (2.06%) IT Analyst
14 50 (2.02%) Software Engineer
15 48 (1.93%) Systems Engineer
16 47 (1.89%) Administrator
17 46 (1.85%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (4.23%) REST
2 99 (3.99%) .NET
3 61 (2.46%) React
4 46 (1.85%) Kafka
5 45 (1.81%) RESTful
6 43 (1.73%) HTML
7 41 (1.65%) OAuth
8 35 (1.41%) CSS
8 35 (1.41%) Middleware
9 33 (1.33%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.33%) SAML
10 32 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
10 32 (1.29%) Web Services
11 30 (1.21%) AngularJS
11 30 (1.21%) OAuth2
12 29 (1.17%) JSON
12 29 (1.17%) LDAP
13 27 (1.09%) OpenID
13 27 (1.09%) Spring
13 27 (1.09%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 205 (8.26%) Management Information System
2 152 (6.13%) Product Ownership
3 150 (6.05%) Onboarding
4 114 (4.59%) Self-Motivation
5 92 (3.71%) Cloud Native
6 74 (2.98%) Data Structures
7 67 (2.70%) Algorithms
8 65 (2.62%) Data Centre
9 53 (2.14%) Security Posture
9 53 (2.14%) Virtual Team
10 52 (2.10%) Operational Technology
11 45 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
12 42 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
12 42 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
13 40 (1.61%) Life Science
14 38 (1.53%) AI Agents
15 35 (1.41%) PMI
16 34 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
16 34 (1.37%) SCADA
17 33 (1.33%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 301 (12.13%) Windows
2 183 (7.38%) Linux
3 76 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.46%) Unix
5 51 (2.06%) Windows 10
6 37 (1.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 31 (1.25%) Apple iOS
8 30 (1.21%) Android
9 27 (1.09%) Mac OS
10 13 (0.52%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.24%) AIX
12 6 (0.24%) Solaris
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Debian
14 4 (0.16%) Rocky
14 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 839 (33.82%) Computer Science
2 672 (27.09%) Agile
3 649 (26.16%) Problem-Solving
4 443 (17.86%) Stakeholder Management
5 419 (16.89%) Continuous Improvement
6 392 (15.80%) AI
7 329 (13.26%) DevOps
8 315 (12.70%) Project Management
9 304 (12.25%) Analytics
10 295 (11.89%) CI/CD
11 280 (11.29%) ITIL
12 259 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 255 (10.28%) Decision-Making
14 254 (10.24%) Cybersecurity
15 222 (8.95%) Change Management
16 214 (8.63%) PRINCE2
16 214 (8.63%) Software Engineering
17 209 (8.42%) Roadmaps
18 205 (8.26%) Project Delivery
19 202 (8.14%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 430 (17.33%) Python
2 347 (13.99%) SQL
3 161 (6.49%) PowerShell
4 160 (6.45%) Java
5 108 (4.35%) C#
6 93 (3.75%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.26%) Bash
8 46 (1.85%) C++
9 40 (1.61%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.09%) R
11 25 (1.01%) Bicep
12 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.97%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.97%) T-SQL
13 21 (0.85%) C
14 13 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
15 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
15 11 (0.44%) X++
16 10 (0.40%) Scala
Qualifications
1 492 (19.83%) Computer Science Degree
2 446 (17.98%) Security Cleared
3 290 (11.69%) SC Cleared
4 219 (8.83%) Master's Degree
5 143 (5.76%) PMI Certification
6 124 (5.00%) PMP
7 122 (4.92%) CISSP
8 116 (4.68%) Microsoft Certification
9 88 (3.55%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (3.06%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.02%) DV Cleared
12 67 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.42%) CISM
14 53 (2.14%) PhD
15 44 (1.77%) CCNA
16 42 (1.69%) CCNP
17 41 (1.65%) AWS Certification
18 39 (1.57%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 37 (1.49%) CISA
20 31 (1.25%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.24%) Data Quality
2 124 (5.00%) QA
3 119 (4.80%) NIST
4 112 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 100 (4.03%) PMO
6 75 (3.02%) GDPR
7 52 (2.10%) SLA
8 50 (2.02%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 28 (1.13%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.01%) GRC
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 17 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.52%) COBIT
15 12 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) IFRS
16 11 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
18 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 198 (7.98%) Active Directory
2 119 (4.80%) Docker
3 52 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 23 (0.93%) Firmware
6 17 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.24%) Kubernetes
2 94 (3.79%) Terraform
3 80 (3.22%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.62%) Ansible
5 38 (1.53%) SCCM
6 29 (1.17%) Grafana
7 26 (1.05%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.73%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.48%) Puppet
12 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.36%) WSUS
14 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.32%) Nessus
15 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
15 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.28%) SCOM
16 6 (0.24%) Argo
17 5 (0.20%) CASB
Vendors
1 636 (25.63%) Microsoft
2 161 (6.49%) Oracle
3 139 (5.60%) ServiceNow
4 136 (5.48%) SAP
5 90 (3.63%) Google
6 72 (2.90%) Cisco
7 67 (2.70%) VMware
8 65 (2.62%) Databricks
9 60 (2.42%) Salesforce
10 55 (2.22%) Adobe
11 49 (1.98%) IBM
12 36 (1.45%) Splunk
13 34 (1.37%) CyberArk
14 32 (1.29%) Citrix
15 30 (1.21%) Palo Alto
16 29 (1.17%) Red Hat
17 22 (0.89%) BeyondTrust
17 22 (0.89%) Siemens
18 21 (0.85%) Ariba
19 20 (0.81%) Apple