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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,557 2,303 3,730
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.88% 7.87% 8.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.42% 25.81% 27.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,508 1,330 2,063
10th Percentile £287 £244 £205
25th Percentile £400 £399 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.10%
75th Percentile £625 £639 £638
90th Percentile £738 £775 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.21% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 170 367
10th Percentile £15.70 £20.45 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.87 £28.43 £21.69
Median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.02% +20.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £83.00 £71.19 £59.96
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £42.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +6.96% +13.33% -16.67%

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 14,680 8,923 13,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.75% 30.50% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,675 5,641 8,391
10th Percentile £335 £288 £295
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £719 £715 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,083 476 1,004
10th Percentile £16.19 £18.51 £13.99
25th Percentile £19.83 £24.42 £17.80
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -30.33% +13.33% -25.74%
75th Percentile £67.67 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £84.00 £81.73 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.05 £49.41 £37.50
% change year-on-year -43.24% +31.75% -23.46%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 2,233 £500 -4.76% 2,566
UK excluding London -5 1,337 £490 +3.21% 2,042
London -14 974 £515 -6.36% 887
Work from Home -5 710 £500 -3.85% 1,006
South East -3 365 £475 -5.00% 683
North of England -8 344 £445 -8.38% 475
Midlands -20 208 £500 +40.45% 313
North West -4 180 £400 -19.52% 239
South West -2 153 £694 +26.14% 215
West Midlands -23 153 £498 +53.08% 174
Yorkshire -12 149 £516 +22.33% 167
East of England -6 134 £500 - 222
Scotland -5 98 £496 +12.15% 104
East Midlands -19 54 £531 +49.16% 138
Wales -11 45 £300 +3.90% 65
Northern Ireland -11 16 £388 +5.08% 18
North East -18 16 £364 -23.37% 76

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
1 212 (8.29%) Confluence
2 116 (4.54%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.46%) Microsoft Exchange
4 55 (2.15%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (0.74%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
10 5 (0.20%) SAS
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
11 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.12%) Drupal
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
12 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 311 (12.16%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 205 (8.02%) Microsoft Project
4 132 (5.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 75 (2.93%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
8 11 (0.43%) Simulink
9 10 (0.39%) Trello
10 7 (0.27%) Sketch
11 6 (0.23%) Adobe XD
12 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.12%) InVision
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.078%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.078%) InDesign
13 2 (0.078%) Photoshop
13 2 (0.078%) PTC Creo
14 1 (0.039%) CPLEX
14 1 (0.039%) FrameMaker
Business Applications
1 67 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.98%) Primavera
4 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
5 11 (0.43%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
11 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) NetSuite
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
11 4 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 556 (21.74%) Azure
2 309 (12.08%) AWS
3 210 (8.21%) Microsoft 365
4 200 (7.82%) Power Platform
5 139 (5.44%) GCP
6 113 (4.42%) Entra ID
7 108 (4.22%) SaaS
8 102 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
9 85 (3.32%) GitHub
10 52 (2.03%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.92%) Serverless
12 42 (1.64%) Cloud Computing
13 41 (1.60%) Power Automate
14 39 (1.53%) Snowflake
15 32 (1.25%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (1.25%) IaaS
15 32 (1.25%) PaaS
16 31 (1.21%) PowerApps
17 29 (1.13%) Microsoft Purview
18 28 (1.10%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 116 (4.54%) Firewall
2 59 (2.31%) DNS
2 59 (2.31%) LAN
2 59 (2.31%) TCP/IP
2 59 (2.31%) WAN
3 51 (1.99%) Network Security
4 39 (1.53%) VPN
5 28 (1.10%) BGP
5 28 (1.10%) HTTP
5 28 (1.10%) Wireless
6 26 (1.02%) Ethernet
7 25 (0.98%) Skype
8 23 (0.90%) Internet
8 23 (0.90%) OSPF
9 21 (0.82%) DHCP
10 20 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
11 19 (0.74%) VLAN
12 16 (0.63%) SAN
12 16 (0.63%) SSL
13 15 (0.59%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (6.14%) Power BI
2 98 (3.83%) PostgreSQL
3 95 (3.72%) SQL Server
4 61 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (2.31%) NoSQL
6 53 (2.07%) Big Data
7 48 (1.88%) Tableau
8 45 (1.76%) Relational Database
9 40 (1.56%) MySQL
10 34 (1.33%) Metadata
11 31 (1.21%) Data Lake
12 30 (1.17%) Hadoop
13 22 (0.86%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 17 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (0.59%) GIS
17 13 (0.51%) Geospatial Data
18 11 (0.43%) Amazon RDS
18 11 (0.43%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.43%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 308 (12.05%) JIRA
2 132 (5.16%) Git
3 75 (2.93%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.27%) GitLab
5 30 (1.17%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.06%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.86%) Selenium
8 18 (0.70%) MLflow
9 15 (0.59%) Postman
10 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.39%) Gradle
12 10 (0.39%) Liquibase
13 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
14 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 8 (0.31%) Cypress.io
15 7 (0.27%) JMeter
15 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,221 (47.75%) Social Skills
2 789 (30.86%) Finance
3 583 (22.80%) Analytical Skills
4 250 (9.78%) Banking
5 225 (8.80%) Public Sector
6 119 (4.65%) Presentation Skills
7 103 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
8 96 (3.75%) Marketing
9 90 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
9 90 (3.52%) Influencing Skills
10 88 (3.44%) Manufacturing
11 77 (3.01%) Legal
12 68 (2.66%) Aerospace
13 65 (2.54%) Telecoms
14 56 (2.19%) Military
15 50 (1.96%) Financial Institution
15 50 (1.96%) Front Office
16 47 (1.84%) Retail
17 44 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 43 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 364 (14.24%) Analyst
2 255 (9.97%) Senior
3 214 (8.37%) Lead
4 213 (8.33%) Architect
5 204 (7.98%) Developer
6 189 (7.39%) Project Manager
7 166 (6.49%) Business Analyst
8 96 (3.75%) Consultant
9 72 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
10 64 (2.50%) Delivery Manager
11 61 (2.39%) Software Engineer
12 60 (2.35%) Security Engineer
13 58 (2.27%) Senior Analyst
13 58 (2.27%) Technical Support
14 53 (2.07%) Data Scientist
15 47 (1.84%) Designer
16 46 (1.80%) IT Support
16 46 (1.80%) Product Manager
17 38 (1.49%) Data Engineer
17 38 (1.49%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (4.30%) REST
2 76 (2.97%) .NET
3 63 (2.46%) RESTful
4 62 (2.42%) React
5 59 (2.31%) HTML
6 51 (1.99%) Middleware
7 48 (1.88%) CSS
8 47 (1.84%) Kafka
9 39 (1.53%) Elastic Stack
9 39 (1.53%) JSON
9 39 (1.53%) PyTorch
9 39 (1.53%) TensorFlow
9 39 (1.53%) XML
10 38 (1.49%) SOAP
11 37 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
11 37 (1.45%) Spring
12 36 (1.41%) OAuth
13 34 (1.33%) Pandas
14 33 (1.29%) Spring Boot
15 29 (1.13%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 211 (8.25%) Management Information System
2 166 (6.49%) Product Ownership
3 116 (4.54%) Onboarding
4 109 (4.26%) Cloud Native
5 93 (3.64%) Algorithms
6 84 (3.29%) Virtual Team
7 69 (2.70%) Distributed Systems
8 68 (2.66%) Data Centre
9 66 (2.58%) Self-Motivation
10 63 (2.46%) Data Structures
11 57 (2.23%) PMI
12 56 (2.19%) Data Protection Act
13 53 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
14 45 (1.76%) Derivative
15 37 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
15 37 (1.45%) Security Posture
16 35 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
17 33 (1.29%) NHS
18 32 (1.25%) Equities
18 32 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 293 (11.46%) Windows
2 192 (7.51%) Linux
3 74 (2.89%) Unix
4 72 (2.82%) Windows Server
5 55 (2.15%) Windows 10
6 30 (1.17%) Android
7 24 (0.94%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 16 (0.63%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.55%) Ubuntu
11 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
12 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
13 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
14 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.23%) VMS
16 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 4 (0.16%) Debian
18 3 (0.12%) CentOS
18 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 959 (37.50%) Computer Science
2 807 (31.56%) Agile
3 701 (27.41%) Problem-Solving
4 428 (16.74%) Stakeholder Management
5 378 (14.78%) DevOps
6 365 (14.27%) AI
7 350 (13.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 347 (13.57%) Project Management
9 314 (12.28%) CI/CD
10 285 (11.15%) Analytics
11 281 (10.99%) Cybersecurity
12 279 (10.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 278 (10.87%) Change Management
14 268 (10.48%) Decision-Making
15 259 (10.13%) ITIL
16 255 (9.97%) Migration
17 238 (9.31%) Project Delivery
18 235 (9.19%) PRINCE2
19 229 (8.96%) Software Engineering
20 227 (8.88%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 445 (17.40%) Python
2 376 (14.70%) SQL
3 185 (7.24%) Java
4 128 (5.01%) PowerShell
5 99 (3.87%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.25%) C#
7 72 (2.82%) C++
8 53 (2.07%) TypeScript
9 46 (1.80%) Bash
10 41 (1.60%) Go
11 32 (1.25%) R
12 26 (1.02%) PL/SQL
13 22 (0.86%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.74%) Perl
15 15 (0.59%) Kotlin
15 15 (0.59%) Rust
15 15 (0.59%) T-SQL
16 13 (0.51%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.43%) C
17 11 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 600 (23.46%) Computer Science Degree
2 495 (19.36%) Security Cleared
3 383 (14.98%) Master's Degree
4 351 (13.73%) SC Cleared
5 157 (6.14%) PMI Certification
6 135 (5.28%) PMP
7 134 (5.24%) CISSP
8 92 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
9 82 (3.21%) CISM
10 77 (3.01%) PhD
11 71 (2.78%) TOGAF Certification
12 62 (2.42%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.39%) Cisco Certification
14 60 (2.35%) Azure Certification
15 58 (2.27%) DV Cleared
16 39 (1.53%) MBA
17 38 (1.49%) CCNP
18 35 (1.37%) CBAP
19 32 (1.25%) AWS Certification
20 31 (1.21%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (6.53%) QA
2 134 (5.24%) GDPR
3 108 (4.22%) PMO
4 107 (4.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 98 (3.83%) NIST
6 96 (3.75%) Data Quality
7 53 (2.07%) PCI DSS
8 45 (1.76%) Accessibility
9 43 (1.68%) SLA
10 31 (1.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 22 (0.86%) GRC
11 22 (0.86%) NCSC
12 18 (0.70%) Actionable Recommendations
12 18 (0.70%) WCAG
13 17 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.59%) HIPAA
15 14 (0.55%) IFRS
16 13 (0.51%) Basel III
16 13 (0.51%) SOC 2
17 12 (0.47%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 182 (7.12%) Docker
2 158 (6.18%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.82%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.59%) Firmware
6 9 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.23%) vSphere
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
8 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.078%) HDFS
11 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 2 (0.078%) NDS
11 2 (0.078%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 184 (7.20%) Kubernetes
2 105 (4.11%) Terraform
3 72 (2.82%) Ansible
4 68 (2.66%) Microsoft Intune
5 51 (1.99%) Grafana
6 43 (1.68%) Prometheus
7 39 (1.53%) SCCM
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
10 18 (0.70%) Puppet
11 16 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.51%) Kibana
12 13 (0.51%) Nmap
13 11 (0.43%) SCOM
14 9 (0.35%) Kiali
15 8 (0.31%) Argo
16 7 (0.27%) HP ALM
16 7 (0.27%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.27%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.23%) Functional Safety
Vendors
1 556 (21.74%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.41%) Oracle
3 154 (6.02%) SAP
4 118 (4.61%) ServiceNow
5 111 (4.34%) Google
6 82 (3.21%) Splunk
7 81 (3.17%) Cisco
8 61 (2.39%) Databricks
9 55 (2.15%) Atlassian
9 55 (2.15%) Remedy
10 50 (1.96%) VMware
11 49 (1.92%) IBM
12 47 (1.84%) Salesforce
13 44 (1.72%) Citrix
14 40 (1.56%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.25%) CheckPoint
16 27 (1.06%) Informatica
16 27 (1.06%) Red Hat
17 25 (0.98%) BiZZdesign
18 24 (0.94%) Adobe