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

6 months to
9 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 41 25 19
Rank change year-on-year -16 -6 +7
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,504 2,482 3,044
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.67% 7.49% 7.83%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.89% 24.04% 26.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,333 1,407 1,777
10th Percentile £208 £255 £259
25th Percentile £364 £377 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £630 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +0.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 210 267
10th Percentile £17.15 £17.50 £18.13
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.75 £25.43
Median hourly rate £42.50 £42.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year - -19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £83.00 £64.20 £67.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.04 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £41.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +1.73% -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 16,813 10,323 11,638
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.37% 31.15% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,243 6,376 7,410
10th Percentile £350 £289 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £715 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,264 801 843
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £50.24 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +99.77% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £73.11 £53.86 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +98.81% -47.05% -8.46%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 -12 2,289 £500 - 4,883
UK excluding London -12 1,378 £475 +5.56% 2,739
London -21 969 £525 -4.55% 2,492
Work from Home -20 660 £500 - 1,576
South East +4 487 £500 +5.26% 831
North of England -11 338 £465 +3.33% 551
North West -13 195 £452 -4.95% 292
Midlands -33 181 £463 +3.47% 389
East of England -7 144 £425 -5.56% 417
West Midlands -32 138 £466 +3.44% 222
Yorkshire -7 127 £500 +20.12% 159
South West -22 125 £415 -7.78% 306
Scotland -38 72 £484 +7.50% 172
East Midlands -22 41 £475 +32.68% 167
Wales -31 17 £530 +71.67% 77
North East -46 16 £450 +130.77% 105
Northern Ireland -14 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
1 145 (5.79%) SharePoint
2 119 (4.75%) Confluence
3 63 (2.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (1.24%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.80%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 12 (0.48%) 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%) Oracle Service Bus
14 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.080%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 271 (10.82%) Microsoft Office
2 246 (9.82%) Microsoft Excel
3 144 (5.75%) Microsoft Project
4 127 (5.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.56%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 12 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 5 (0.20%) Trello
13 4 (0.16%) CPLEX
13 4 (0.16%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 60 (2.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (0.72%) Primavera
3 17 (0.68%) 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%) Oracle EBS
7 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
7 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
8 5 (0.20%) NEC Housing
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%) Oracle Receivables
9 4 (0.16%) SAP MM
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 565 (22.56%) Azure
2 324 (12.94%) AWS
3 225 (8.99%) Power Platform
4 218 (8.71%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (6.11%) Entra ID
6 134 (5.35%) GCP
7 106 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
8 82 (3.27%) SaaS
9 72 (2.88%) GitHub
10 51 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
11 48 (1.92%) PowerApps
12 47 (1.88%) Power Automate
12 47 (1.88%) Snowflake
13 45 (1.80%) Figma
13 45 (1.80%) Serverless
14 40 (1.60%) OneDrive
15 39 (1.56%) Microsoft Copilot
16 29 (1.16%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.12%) IaaS
18 26 (1.04%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 120 (4.79%) Firewall
2 81 (3.23%) DNS
3 80 (3.19%) TCP/IP
4 70 (2.80%) Network Security
5 62 (2.48%) VPN
6 42 (1.68%) WAN
7 41 (1.64%) DHCP
8 40 (1.60%) LAN
9 29 (1.16%) Wireless
10 22 (0.88%) BGP
11 21 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 19 (0.76%) Ethernet
12 19 (0.76%) HTTP
12 19 (0.76%) SSL
12 19 (0.76%) VLAN
13 18 (0.72%) SSH
14 17 (0.68%) Internet
14 17 (0.68%) OSPF
15 15 (0.60%) MPLS
16 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 178 (7.11%) Power BI
2 108 (4.31%) SQL Server
3 58 (2.32%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (2.16%) Relational Database
5 48 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
6 41 (1.64%) Metadata
7 35 (1.40%) NoSQL
8 34 (1.36%) Tableau
9 30 (1.20%) Big Data
10 26 (1.04%) MongoDB
11 25 (1.00%) MySQL
12 24 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 22 (0.88%) Oracle Database
14 17 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
14 17 (0.68%) Data Lake
14 17 (0.68%) Data Mining
15 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (0.64%) Elasticsearch
16 14 (0.56%) Power Query
17 12 (0.48%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 195 (7.79%) JIRA
2 131 (5.23%) Git
3 59 (2.36%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.88%) GitLab
5 35 (1.40%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.80%) Selenium
7 17 (0.68%) Visual Studio
8 15 (0.60%) MLflow
9 14 (0.56%) JUnit
10 12 (0.48%) REST Assured
11 11 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 11 (0.44%) Cucumber
11 11 (0.44%) Gradle
11 11 (0.44%) Postman
11 11 (0.44%) Subversion
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 1,108 (44.25%) Social Skills
2 734 (29.31%) Finance
3 577 (23.04%) Analytical Skills
4 205 (8.19%) Public Sector
5 182 (7.27%) Banking
6 161 (6.43%) Organisational Skills
7 108 (4.31%) Aerospace
8 106 (4.23%) Presentation Skills
9 100 (3.99%) Legal
10 97 (3.87%) Marketing
11 93 (3.71%) Manufacturing
12 89 (3.55%) Influencing Skills
13 85 (3.39%) Telecoms
14 79 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
15 65 (2.60%) Retail
16 62 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 54 (2.16%) Law
18 50 (2.00%) Pharmaceutical
19 39 (1.56%) Front Office
20 38 (1.52%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 340 (13.58%) Analyst
2 286 (11.42%) Senior
3 189 (7.55%) Lead
4 179 (7.15%) Developer
5 176 (7.03%) Architect
6 156 (6.23%) Business Analyst
7 146 (5.83%) Project Manager
8 74 (2.96%) Consultant
9 73 (2.92%) Senior Manager
10 62 (2.48%) IT Support
11 61 (2.44%) Designer
12 59 (2.36%) Support Engineer
13 57 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
14 54 (2.16%) IT Manager
14 54 (2.16%) Product Manager
15 52 (2.08%) IT Analyst
16 50 (2.00%) Software Engineer
17 48 (1.92%) Administrator
18 47 (1.88%) Senior Analyst
19 46 (1.84%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (4.31%) REST
2 99 (3.95%) .NET
3 63 (2.52%) React
4 48 (1.92%) Kafka
5 47 (1.88%) RESTful
6 45 (1.80%) HTML
6 45 (1.80%) OAuth
7 38 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
8 36 (1.44%) CSS
9 35 (1.40%) Middleware
10 34 (1.36%) SAML
11 33 (1.32%) .NET Framework
11 33 (1.32%) OAuth2
11 33 (1.32%) Web Services
12 30 (1.20%) JSON
13 29 (1.16%) AngularJS
13 29 (1.16%) LDAP
13 29 (1.16%) OpenID
14 28 (1.12%) XML
15 27 (1.08%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 207 (8.27%) Management Information System
2 151 (6.03%) Product Ownership
3 150 (5.99%) Onboarding
4 112 (4.47%) Self-Motivation
5 93 (3.71%) Cloud Native
6 75 (3.00%) Data Structures
7 70 (2.80%) Algorithms
8 66 (2.64%) Data Centre
9 55 (2.20%) Security Posture
10 54 (2.16%) Virtual Team
11 51 (2.04%) Operational Technology
12 46 (1.84%) Legacy Systems
13 44 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
14 42 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
15 40 (1.60%) Life Science
16 37 (1.48%) AI Agents
17 34 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
17 34 (1.36%) PMI
17 34 (1.36%) SCADA
18 33 (1.32%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 300 (11.98%) Windows
2 182 (7.27%) Linux
3 76 (3.04%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.44%) Unix
5 52 (2.08%) Windows 10
6 37 (1.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 30 (1.20%) Apple iOS
8 29 (1.16%) Android
9 28 (1.12%) 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 4 (0.16%) Debian
13 4 (0.16%) Rocky
13 4 (0.16%) VMS
13 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
14 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 847 (33.83%) Computer Science
2 672 (26.84%) Agile
3 655 (26.16%) Problem-Solving
4 455 (18.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 428 (17.09%) Continuous Improvement
6 390 (15.58%) AI
7 330 (13.18%) DevOps
8 319 (12.74%) Project Management
9 305 (12.18%) Analytics
10 300 (11.98%) CI/CD
11 282 (11.26%) ITIL
12 265 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 259 (10.34%) Decision-Making
14 255 (10.18%) Cybersecurity
15 226 (9.03%) Change Management
16 220 (8.79%) Software Engineering
17 215 (8.59%) PRINCE2
18 211 (8.43%) Roadmaps
19 207 (8.27%) Project Delivery
20 204 (8.15%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 434 (17.33%) Python
2 351 (14.02%) SQL
3 164 (6.55%) Java
4 163 (6.51%) PowerShell
5 110 (4.39%) C#
6 97 (3.87%) JavaScript
7 56 (2.24%) Bash
8 47 (1.88%) C++
9 41 (1.64%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.08%) R
11 26 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 25 (1.00%) Bicep
13 24 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 24 (0.96%) T-SQL
14 22 (0.88%) C
15 14 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 11 (0.44%) Scala
17 11 (0.44%) X++
Qualifications
1 500 (19.97%) Computer Science Degree
2 453 (18.09%) Security Cleared
3 297 (11.86%) SC Cleared
4 218 (8.71%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.79%) PMI Certification
6 125 (4.99%) PMP
7 123 (4.91%) CISSP
8 117 (4.67%) Microsoft Certification
9 88 (3.51%) Cisco Certification
10 77 (3.08%) Azure Certification
11 75 (3.00%) DV Cleared
12 66 (2.64%) BPSS Clearance
13 60 (2.40%) CISM
14 52 (2.08%) PhD
15 44 (1.76%) CCNA
16 42 (1.68%) CCNP
17 41 (1.64%) AWS Certification
18 40 (1.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 37 (1.48%) CISA
20 31 (1.24%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 130 (5.19%) Data Quality
2 129 (5.15%) QA
3 120 (4.79%) NIST
4 113 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 102 (4.07%) PMO
6 74 (2.96%) GDPR
7 52 (2.08%) SLA
8 51 (2.04%) Accessibility
9 31 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 26 (1.04%) PCI DSS
11 25 (1.00%) GRC
12 23 (0.92%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 13 (0.52%) COBIT
14 13 (0.52%) IFRS
15 12 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
16 11 (0.44%) P3O
17 9 (0.36%) ISO 31000
18 8 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 198 (7.91%) Active Directory
2 121 (4.83%) Docker
3 52 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.00%) Firmware
4 25 (1.00%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) Embedded Firmware
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
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%) OpenAM
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 97 (3.87%) Terraform
3 79 (3.15%) Microsoft Intune
4 65 (2.60%) Ansible
5 39 (1.56%) SCCM
6 29 (1.16%) Grafana
7 26 (1.04%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.72%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
10 13 (0.52%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Argo
14 7 (0.28%) HP ALM
14 7 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.28%) SCOM
15 5 (0.20%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 638 (25.48%) Microsoft
2 167 (6.67%) Oracle
3 140 (5.59%) ServiceNow
4 138 (5.51%) SAP
5 89 (3.55%) Google
6 71 (2.84%) Cisco
7 68 (2.72%) VMware
8 65 (2.60%) Databricks
9 61 (2.44%) Salesforce
10 56 (2.24%) Adobe
11 48 (1.92%) IBM
12 37 (1.48%) Splunk
13 34 (1.36%) CyberArk
14 30 (1.20%) Citrix
14 30 (1.20%) Palo Alto
15 29 (1.16%) Red Hat
16 23 (0.92%) BeyondTrust
17 22 (0.88%) Siemens
18 21 (0.84%) Apple
18 21 (0.84%) Ariba