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 18 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,432 2,481 3,640
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.55% 7.82% 8.41%
As % of the Qualifications category 19.28% 26.17% 27.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,430 1,355 2,105
10th Percentile £270 £248 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.49% -6.82%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £787 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 149 271
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.09 £14.06
25th Percentile £21.02 £27.00 £22.13
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -16.25% -11.52% +13.03%
75th Percentile £57.63 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.30 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £37.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -10.67% -18.80% +10.56%

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 12,617 9,480 13,128
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.98% 29.86% 30.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,314 5,736 8,232
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £416 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 948 468 796
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.54 £14.50
25th Percentile £19.10 £24.18 £22.64
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.36% -20.96% +11.11%
75th Percentile £60.00 £66.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.54 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -40.82% -15.00% +11.11%

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 18 January 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 18 January 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 18 January 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 -3 2,122 £500 -4.76% 4,330
UK excluding London -4 1,208 £475 - 4,079
London -3 997 £525 -4.55% 803
Work from Home -1 697 £500 -1.23% 1,896
North of England -6 311 £425 -15.00% 702
South East +1 275 £475 -5.00% 1,380
Midlands -13 207 £513 +20.59% 540
South West +5 170 £650 +21.95% 504
North West -1 167 £389 -22.25% 309
West Midlands -15 149 £525 +7.69% 216
Yorkshire -10 134 £516 +3.25% 281
East of England -13 114 £505 +12.22% 640
Scotland -5 96 £475 +8.57% 160
East Midlands -6 58 £492 +38.20% 317
Wales -1 44 £232 -20.00% 200
Northern Ireland -12 19 £425 -10.53% 86
North East -16 11 £364 -27.20% 119

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
1 195 (8.02%) Confluence
2 118 (4.85%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 35 (1.44%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (0.66%) nginx
6 14 (0.58%) Skype for Business
7 13 (0.53%) Apache
8 12 (0.49%) IIS
9 11 (0.45%) CMS
10 7 (0.29%) Exchange Server 2013
10 7 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.29%) SAS
11 5 (0.21%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Luigi
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 294 (12.09%) Microsoft Office
2 247 (10.16%) Microsoft Excel
3 184 (7.57%) Microsoft Project
4 125 (5.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 81 (3.33%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.82%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.66%) Simulink
8 14 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
9 11 (0.45%) FrameMaker
9 11 (0.45%) Trello
10 9 (0.37%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 7 (0.29%) Adobe XD
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 4 (0.16%) InVision
13 2 (0.082%) Adobe After Effects
13 2 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.082%) InDesign
13 2 (0.082%) Navisworks
13 2 (0.082%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 59 (2.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.86%) Primavera
4 18 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
5 15 (0.62%) Oracle General Ledger
6 13 (0.53%) SAP WM
7 12 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.49%) SAP ERP
7 12 (0.49%) SAP EWM
8 11 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
9 10 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
10 9 (0.37%) Dynamics GP
11 8 (0.33%) Oracle Financials
12 7 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
12 7 (0.29%) Veritas eDiscovery
13 6 (0.25%) Oracle E-Business Tax
13 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
13 6 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
13 6 (0.25%) Workday HCM
14 5 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 493 (20.27%) Azure
2 290 (11.92%) AWS
3 213 (8.76%) Microsoft 365
4 189 (7.77%) Power Platform
5 140 (5.76%) GCP
6 101 (4.15%) SaaS
7 96 (3.95%) GitHub
8 85 (3.50%) Entra ID
9 83 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
10 64 (2.63%) Serverless
11 54 (2.22%) Dynamics 365
12 44 (1.81%) Power Automate
13 38 (1.56%) Cloud Computing
14 34 (1.40%) OCI
14 34 (1.40%) Snowflake
15 33 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.32%) IaaS
16 32 (1.32%) PowerApps
17 29 (1.19%) PaaS
18 27 (1.11%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.56%) Firewall
2 66 (2.71%) DNS
3 46 (1.89%) LAN
4 44 (1.81%) Network Security
4 44 (1.81%) WAN
5 43 (1.77%) VPN
6 37 (1.52%) HTTP
6 37 (1.52%) TCP/IP
7 32 (1.32%) Skype
8 27 (1.11%) DHCP
8 27 (1.11%) Internet
9 26 (1.07%) Wireless
10 22 (0.90%) SSH
11 21 (0.86%) BGP
12 20 (0.82%) Unified Communications
13 19 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
14 18 (0.74%) OSPF
15 16 (0.66%) Ethernet
15 16 (0.66%) VLAN
15 16 (0.66%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (6.00%) Power BI
2 90 (3.70%) SQL Server
3 85 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.43%) NoSQL
5 56 (2.30%) Relational Database
6 52 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
6 52 (2.14%) Tableau
7 39 (1.60%) MySQL
8 30 (1.23%) Big Data
9 26 (1.07%) Data Lake
10 23 (0.95%) Metadata
11 19 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
12 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
12 18 (0.74%) MongoDB
13 16 (0.66%) Oracle Database
14 14 (0.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.49%) GIS
17 11 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 284 (11.68%) JIRA
2 121 (4.98%) Git
3 84 (3.45%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.51%) GitLab
5 28 (1.15%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.90%) Liquibase
6 22 (0.90%) Selenium
7 18 (0.74%) Postman
8 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
9 11 (0.45%) Bitbucket
9 11 (0.45%) Cypress.io
9 11 (0.45%) JUnit
10 10 (0.41%) Metasploit
10 10 (0.41%) Vagrant
11 9 (0.37%) Artifactory
12 8 (0.33%) CircleCI
12 8 (0.33%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.33%) Jaeger
13 7 (0.29%) Gradle
13 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 1,260 (51.81%) Social Skills
2 778 (31.99%) Finance
3 584 (24.01%) Analytical Skills
4 272 (11.18%) Banking
5 195 (8.02%) Public Sector
6 109 (4.48%) Manufacturing
7 107 (4.40%) Presentation Skills
8 100 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
9 90 (3.70%) Marketing
10 86 (3.54%) Influencing Skills
11 82 (3.37%) Legal
12 66 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
12 66 (2.71%) Military
13 61 (2.51%) Financial Institution
14 59 (2.43%) Telecoms
15 51 (2.10%) Front Office
16 50 (2.06%) Pharmaceutical
17 49 (2.01%) Investment Banking
18 40 (1.64%) Law
19 38 (1.56%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 353 (14.51%) Analyst
2 245 (10.07%) Senior
3 224 (9.21%) Developer
4 195 (8.02%) Lead
5 173 (7.11%) Architect
6 162 (6.66%) Project Manager
7 160 (6.58%) Business Analyst
8 100 (4.11%) Consultant
9 84 (3.45%) Software Engineer
10 63 (2.59%) IT Support
10 63 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
11 58 (2.38%) Technical Support
12 55 (2.26%) Security Engineer
12 55 (2.26%) Support Analyst
13 41 (1.69%) Senior Software Engineer
14 39 (1.60%) Designer
14 39 (1.60%) Senior Developer
15 38 (1.56%) IT Analyst
16 36 (1.48%) IT Manager
17 35 (1.44%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (5.02%) REST
2 83 (3.41%) RESTful
3 80 (3.29%) HTML
4 79 (3.25%) .NET
5 63 (2.59%) CSS
6 57 (2.34%) XML
7 49 (2.01%) Middleware
8 47 (1.93%) React
9 46 (1.89%) JSON
10 45 (1.85%) Elastic Stack
11 41 (1.69%) OAuth
12 40 (1.64%) SOAP
13 39 (1.60%) Kafka
14 35 (1.44%) Oracle Fusion
15 31 (1.27%) AngularJS
15 31 (1.27%) TensorFlow
16 29 (1.19%) PyTorch
17 28 (1.15%) Node.js
17 28 (1.15%) Spring
18 27 (1.11%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 203 (8.35%) Management Information System
2 118 (4.85%) Product Ownership
3 104 (4.28%) Cloud Native
4 77 (3.17%) Algorithms
4 77 (3.17%) Onboarding
5 64 (2.63%) Distributed Systems
6 61 (2.51%) Data Centre
7 59 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
8 57 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
9 55 (2.26%) PMI
9 55 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
9 55 (2.26%) Virtual Team
10 44 (1.81%) Derivative
11 43 (1.77%) Public Cloud
12 42 (1.73%) Life Science
12 42 (1.73%) Security Posture
13 40 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
14 38 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
15 35 (1.44%) Mobile App
16 34 (1.40%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 290 (11.92%) Windows
2 213 (8.76%) Linux
3 89 (3.66%) Unix
4 65 (2.67%) Windows Server
5 48 (1.97%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.32%) Android
7 26 (1.07%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.90%) Apple iOS
9 18 (0.74%) Ubuntu
10 17 (0.70%) Windows Server 2016
11 14 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 14 (0.58%) VMS
11 14 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
12 9 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
12 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2012
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.12%) CentOS
14 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
15 2 (0.082%) Debian
15 2 (0.082%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 903 (37.13%) Computer Science
2 775 (31.87%) Agile
3 712 (29.28%) Problem-Solving
4 392 (16.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 364 (14.97%) DevOps
6 363 (14.93%) Project Management
7 291 (11.97%) Change Management
8 276 (11.35%) CI/CD
9 273 (11.23%) AI
10 272 (11.18%) Continuous Improvement
11 259 (10.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 256 (10.53%) Cybersecurity
13 250 (10.28%) Analytics
14 249 (10.24%) ITIL
15 237 (9.75%) Migration
16 225 (9.25%) Decision-Making
17 222 (9.13%) Project Delivery
18 221 (9.09%) Risk Management
19 219 (9.00%) Software Engineering
20 199 (8.18%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 434 (17.85%) Python
2 368 (15.13%) SQL
3 169 (6.95%) Java
4 132 (5.43%) PowerShell
5 126 (5.18%) JavaScript
6 92 (3.78%) C#
7 82 (3.37%) C++
8 57 (2.34%) TypeScript
9 50 (2.06%) Bash
10 48 (1.97%) Go
11 30 (1.23%) R
12 26 (1.07%) Perl
13 23 (0.95%) PL/SQL
14 21 (0.86%) C
15 20 (0.82%) MATLAB
15 20 (0.82%) T-SQL
16 18 (0.74%) Kotlin
17 15 (0.62%) SystemVerilog
18 14 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
18 14 (0.58%) Rust
Qualifications
1 611 (25.12%) Computer Science Degree
2 408 (16.78%) Security Cleared
3 370 (15.21%) Master's Degree
4 314 (12.91%) SC Cleared
5 160 (6.58%) PMI Certification
6 138 (5.67%) PMP
7 117 (4.81%) CISSP
8 91 (3.74%) Microsoft Certification
9 73 (3.00%) CISM
10 72 (2.96%) PhD
11 71 (2.92%) Azure Certification
12 65 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.51%) TOGAF Certification
14 57 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
15 56 (2.30%) DV Cleared
16 46 (1.89%) AWS Certification
17 42 (1.73%) HND
18 38 (1.56%) CCNP
19 37 (1.52%) MBA
20 34 (1.40%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (6.58%) QA
2 125 (5.14%) GDPR
3 98 (4.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 89 (3.66%) PMO
5 78 (3.21%) Data Quality
6 69 (2.84%) NIST
7 45 (1.85%) Accessibility
8 39 (1.60%) PCI DSS
9 36 (1.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 33 (1.36%) SLA
11 27 (1.11%) GRC
12 17 (0.70%) HIPAA
13 16 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.62%) WCAG
15 14 (0.58%) NCSC
15 14 (0.58%) P3O
16 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
16 13 (0.53%) Basel III
17 12 (0.49%) Def Stans
18 11 (0.45%) IFRS
System Software
1 191 (7.85%) Docker
2 149 (6.13%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.90%) Firmware
5 19 (0.78%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
7 9 (0.37%) DFS Replication
7 9 (0.37%) Dovecot
7 9 (0.37%) Postfix
7 9 (0.37%) Squid
8 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.29%) XenApp
9 6 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.21%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (0.16%) NDS
11 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
11 4 (0.16%) vSphere
11 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 173 (7.11%) Kubernetes
2 124 (5.10%) Terraform
3 78 (3.21%) Ansible
4 60 (2.47%) Grafana
5 57 (2.34%) Microsoft Intune
6 50 (2.06%) Prometheus
7 47 (1.93%) SCCM
8 30 (1.23%) OPNET
9 26 (1.07%) Puppet
10 15 (0.62%) Kibana
11 14 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.53%) SCOM
13 12 (0.49%) Nmap
14 11 (0.45%) Nessus
15 10 (0.41%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 10 (0.41%) QRadar
16 9 (0.37%) Proxmox
16 9 (0.37%) WSUS
17 8 (0.33%) Kiali
18 7 (0.29%) Argo
Vendors
1 509 (20.93%) Microsoft
2 169 (6.95%) Oracle
3 156 (6.41%) SAP
4 113 (4.65%) ServiceNow
5 108 (4.44%) Splunk
6 93 (3.82%) Google
7 73 (3.00%) Cisco
8 57 (2.34%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.22%) Atlassian
10 51 (2.10%) Remedy
11 47 (1.93%) VMware
12 44 (1.81%) Databricks
13 37 (1.52%) Citrix
14 26 (1.07%) IBM
14 26 (1.07%) Palo Alto
15 23 (0.95%) MuleSoft
16 22 (0.90%) Adobe
16 22 (0.90%) Red Hat
17 19 (0.78%) Informatica
18 17 (0.70%) CheckPoint