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

6 months to
3 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -5 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,479 2,406 3,806
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 6.40% 7.79% 8.44%
As % of the Qualifications category 18.96% 26.19% 27.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,450 1,306 2,148
10th Percentile £267 £228 £209
25th Percentile £400 £400 £384
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £507
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% -0.54% -6.16%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £638
90th Percentile £750 £775 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 142 345
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.50 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.79 £30.00 £21.64
Median hourly rate £33.50 £40.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.77% +0.63% -0.62%
75th Percentile £57.38 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £85.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £40.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -16.25% - -11.11%

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 13,075 9,185 13,736
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.76% 29.75% 30.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,637 5,509 8,562
10th Percentile £315 £300 £296
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £722 £725 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 958 450 955
10th Percentile £15.62 £19.78 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.01 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.52 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -36.36% -14.42% +2.62%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.90 £65.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.59 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £42.69 £46.39
% change year-on-year -41.09% -7.98% +3.09%

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 3 February 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 3 February 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 3 February 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 2,143 £500 -4.76% 2,769
UK excluding London -5 1,245 £475 - 2,158
London -4 997 £525 -4.55% 979
Work from Home 0 713 £500 - 1,180
North of England -5 330 £429 -12.50% 425
South East -1 278 £475 -5.00% 765
Midlands -17 208 £525 +23.53% 344
North West -7 172 £393 -17.26% 247
South West +8 171 £650 +21.95% 257
Yorkshire -10 145 £508 +1.50% 129
West Midlands -18 143 £525 +7.69% 211
Scotland +1 115 £500 +16.28% 104
East of England -15 111 £505 +9.19% 261
East Midlands -5 65 £523 +46.77% 133
Wales -3 44 £232 -19.30% 55
Northern Ireland -11 17 £425 -8.11% 19
North East -12 14 £364 -27.20% 51

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
1 208 (8.39%) Confluence
2 122 (4.92%) SharePoint
3 69 (2.78%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.98%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.61%) Apache
6 15 (0.61%) Skype for Business
7 11 (0.44%) CMS
8 8 (0.32%) nginx
9 7 (0.28%) Exchange Server 2013
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.24%) IIS
10 6 (0.24%) SAS
11 5 (0.20%) Ethereum
12 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
12 4 (0.16%) Luigi
12 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 3 (0.12%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 295 (11.90%) Microsoft Office
2 247 (9.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 190 (7.66%) Microsoft Project
4 126 (5.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 79 (3.19%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.81%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.65%) Simulink
8 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
9 10 (0.40%) Trello
10 9 (0.36%) Sketch
11 7 (0.28%) Adobe XD
11 7 (0.28%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 6 (0.24%) FrameMaker
13 4 (0.16%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.16%) InVision
14 2 (0.081%) Adobe After Effects
14 2 (0.081%) Adobe Illustrator
14 2 (0.081%) InDesign
14 2 (0.081%) Navisworks
14 2 (0.081%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 60 (2.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.93%) Primavera
4 20 (0.81%) Remedy ITSM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP EWM
5 13 (0.52%) SAP WM
6 12 (0.48%) Oracle General Ledger
6 12 (0.48%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.36%) Oracle Payables
8 8 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
9 7 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
9 7 (0.28%) Oracle EBS R12
9 7 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
10 6 (0.24%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
11 5 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 518 (20.90%) Azure
2 291 (11.74%) AWS
3 223 (9.00%) Microsoft 365
4 196 (7.91%) Power Platform
5 145 (5.85%) GCP
6 111 (4.48%) SaaS
7 90 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
8 89 (3.59%) Entra ID
8 89 (3.59%) GitHub
9 59 (2.38%) Serverless
10 57 (2.30%) Dynamics 365
11 46 (1.86%) Cloud Computing
12 44 (1.77%) Power Automate
13 34 (1.37%) OCI
13 34 (1.37%) Snowflake
14 33 (1.33%) GitHub Actions
14 33 (1.33%) IaaS
14 33 (1.33%) PaaS
14 33 (1.33%) PowerApps
15 26 (1.05%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.56%) Firewall
2 74 (2.99%) DNS
3 56 (2.26%) WAN
4 55 (2.22%) LAN
5 47 (1.90%) Network Security
6 45 (1.82%) TCP/IP
7 44 (1.77%) VPN
8 35 (1.41%) HTTP
8 35 (1.41%) Skype
9 30 (1.21%) DHCP
10 28 (1.13%) Internet
11 26 (1.05%) Wireless
12 25 (1.01%) BGP
13 24 (0.97%) Unified Communications
13 24 (0.97%) Wi-Fi
14 22 (0.89%) OSPF
15 19 (0.77%) VLAN
16 17 (0.69%) SSH
17 16 (0.65%) Ethernet
18 14 (0.56%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (6.17%) Power BI
2 94 (3.79%) SQL Server
3 91 (3.67%) PostgreSQL
4 63 (2.54%) NoSQL
5 59 (2.38%) Data Warehouse
6 52 (2.10%) Relational Database
7 50 (2.02%) Tableau
8 44 (1.77%) MySQL
9 43 (1.73%) Big Data
10 33 (1.33%) Metadata
11 31 (1.25%) Data Lake
12 20 (0.81%) Elasticsearch
13 19 (0.77%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.73%) Hadoop
15 16 (0.65%) Amazon RDS
16 14 (0.56%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) BigQuery
17 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
17 13 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 10 (0.40%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 289 (11.66%) JIRA
2 120 (4.84%) Git
3 79 (3.19%) Jenkins
4 60 (2.42%) GitLab
5 30 (1.21%) Visual Studio
6 22 (0.89%) Liquibase
7 21 (0.85%) Selenium
8 19 (0.77%) Postman
9 12 (0.48%) Burp Suite
10 10 (0.40%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.40%) Metasploit
11 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
11 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
11 9 (0.36%) MLflow
12 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
12 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
12 7 (0.28%) JMeter
12 7 (0.28%) Vagrant
13 6 (0.24%) Appium
13 6 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,273 (51.35%) Social Skills
2 805 (32.47%) Finance
3 591 (23.84%) Analytical Skills
4 271 (10.93%) Banking
5 203 (8.19%) Public Sector
6 110 (4.44%) Presentation Skills
7 107 (4.32%) Manufacturing
8 104 (4.20%) Organisational Skills
9 97 (3.91%) Marketing
10 81 (3.27%) Influencing Skills
11 78 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
12 76 (3.07%) Legal
13 65 (2.62%) Military
14 63 (2.54%) Financial Institution
15 61 (2.46%) Telecoms
16 52 (2.10%) Front Office
17 46 (1.86%) Investment Banking
17 46 (1.86%) Pharmaceutical
18 40 (1.61%) Retail
19 39 (1.57%) Law
Job Titles
1 367 (14.80%) Analyst
2 249 (10.04%) Senior
3 225 (9.08%) Developer
4 203 (8.19%) Lead
5 186 (7.50%) Architect
6 166 (6.70%) Business Analyst
7 164 (6.62%) Project Manager
8 102 (4.11%) Consultant
9 83 (3.35%) Software Engineer
10 70 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
11 65 (2.62%) IT Support
12 64 (2.58%) Technical Support
13 55 (2.22%) Security Engineer
14 52 (2.10%) Support Analyst
15 44 (1.77%) Designer
16 43 (1.73%) Senior Software Engineer
17 38 (1.53%) IT Manager
17 38 (1.53%) Senior Analyst
18 37 (1.49%) Data Scientist
18 37 (1.49%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 121 (4.88%) REST
2 82 (3.31%) .NET
3 78 (3.15%) RESTful
4 73 (2.94%) HTML
5 58 (2.34%) CSS
6 50 (2.02%) Middleware
7 49 (1.98%) React
8 46 (1.86%) Elastic Stack
9 45 (1.82%) XML
10 41 (1.65%) JSON
11 40 (1.61%) Kafka
11 40 (1.61%) SOAP
12 39 (1.57%) Oracle Fusion
13 38 (1.53%) OAuth
14 32 (1.29%) TensorFlow
15 31 (1.25%) PyTorch
16 30 (1.21%) AngularJS
17 29 (1.17%) Node.js
18 26 (1.05%) LangChain
18 26 (1.05%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.43%) Management Information System
2 124 (5.00%) Product Ownership
3 107 (4.32%) Cloud Native
4 89 (3.59%) Onboarding
5 77 (3.11%) Algorithms
6 69 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
7 62 (2.50%) Data Centre
7 62 (2.50%) Virtual Team
8 60 (2.42%) Data Protection Act
9 57 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
10 54 (2.18%) PMI
11 53 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
12 44 (1.77%) Derivative
12 44 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
13 42 (1.69%) Public Cloud
13 42 (1.69%) Security Posture
14 40 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
15 39 (1.57%) Life Science
16 34 (1.37%) Data Structures
17 31 (1.25%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 305 (12.30%) Windows
2 209 (8.43%) Linux
3 89 (3.59%) Unix
4 71 (2.86%) Windows Server
5 57 (2.30%) Windows 10
6 25 (1.01%) Android
7 24 (0.97%) Mac OS
8 18 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
9 17 (0.69%) Apple iOS
10 16 (0.65%) Ubuntu
11 15 (0.61%) Windows Server 2019
12 14 (0.56%) VMS
13 13 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
14 10 (0.40%) Windows Server 2012
15 7 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
15 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.16%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
18 2 (0.081%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 910 (36.71%) Computer Science
2 778 (31.38%) Agile
3 734 (29.61%) Problem-Solving
4 417 (16.82%) Stakeholder Management
5 371 (14.97%) DevOps
6 360 (14.52%) Project Management
7 303 (12.22%) AI
8 297 (11.98%) Change Management
9 281 (11.34%) CI/CD
10 277 (11.17%) Continuous Improvement
11 271 (10.93%) Analytics
11 271 (10.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 261 (10.53%) Cybersecurity
13 254 (10.25%) Migration
14 246 (9.92%) ITIL
15 238 (9.60%) Decision-Making
16 230 (9.28%) Project Delivery
17 228 (9.20%) Risk Management
18 226 (9.12%) Software Engineering
19 211 (8.51%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 441 (17.79%) Python
2 390 (15.73%) SQL
3 164 (6.62%) Java
4 128 (5.16%) PowerShell
5 119 (4.80%) JavaScript
6 94 (3.79%) C#
7 85 (3.43%) C++
8 57 (2.30%) TypeScript
9 52 (2.10%) Go
10 48 (1.94%) Bash
11 30 (1.21%) R
12 26 (1.05%) Perl
13 23 (0.93%) PL/SQL
14 22 (0.89%) T-SQL
15 20 (0.81%) C
15 20 (0.81%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.61%) Rust
16 15 (0.61%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.61%) SystemVerilog
17 12 (0.48%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 612 (24.69%) Computer Science Degree
2 429 (17.31%) Security Cleared
3 395 (15.93%) Master's Degree
4 333 (13.43%) SC Cleared
5 153 (6.17%) PMI Certification
6 129 (5.20%) PMP
7 117 (4.72%) CISSP
8 91 (3.67%) Microsoft Certification
9 76 (3.07%) CISM
10 74 (2.99%) Azure Certification
11 72 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
11 72 (2.90%) PhD
12 68 (2.74%) TOGAF Certification
13 57 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
14 56 (2.26%) DV Cleared
15 46 (1.86%) AWS Certification
16 40 (1.61%) CCNP
17 38 (1.53%) MBA
18 37 (1.49%) CBAP
19 32 (1.29%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (6.74%) QA
2 134 (5.41%) GDPR
3 95 (3.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 91 (3.67%) Data Quality
5 90 (3.63%) PMO
6 66 (2.66%) NIST
7 42 (1.69%) Accessibility
7 42 (1.69%) PCI DSS
8 36 (1.45%) SLA
9 35 (1.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 30 (1.21%) GRC
11 19 (0.77%) HIPAA
12 16 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.61%) WCAG
14 14 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.56%) NCSC
15 13 (0.52%) Basel III
16 12 (0.48%) Def Stans
16 12 (0.48%) IFRS
17 11 (0.44%) P3O
System Software
1 190 (7.66%) Docker
2 159 (6.41%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.81%) Firmware
5 18 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.28%) DFS Replication
7 7 (0.28%) Dovecot
7 7 (0.28%) Postfix
7 7 (0.28%) Squid
7 7 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
8 6 (0.24%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) NDS
10 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 177 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 122 (4.92%) Terraform
3 77 (3.11%) Ansible
4 67 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 59 (2.38%) Grafana
6 52 (2.10%) SCCM
7 49 (1.98%) Prometheus
8 30 (1.21%) OPNET
9 25 (1.01%) Puppet
10 16 (0.65%) Kibana
10 16 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
11 15 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 13 (0.52%) SCOM
13 12 (0.48%) Nmap
14 9 (0.36%) Kiali
14 9 (0.36%) WSUS
15 8 (0.32%) Nessus
16 7 (0.28%) Argo
16 7 (0.28%) Proxmox
16 7 (0.28%) QRadar
Vendors
1 530 (21.38%) Microsoft
2 175 (7.06%) Oracle
3 168 (6.78%) SAP
4 114 (4.60%) ServiceNow
5 107 (4.32%) Splunk
6 104 (4.20%) Google
7 76 (3.07%) Cisco
8 57 (2.30%) Salesforce
9 54 (2.18%) Atlassian
10 53 (2.14%) Remedy
11 52 (2.10%) VMware
12 48 (1.94%) Databricks
13 37 (1.49%) Citrix
14 30 (1.21%) Palo Alto
15 27 (1.09%) IBM
15 27 (1.09%) Informatica
16 23 (0.93%) MuleSoft
17 22 (0.89%) Adobe
18 20 (0.81%) BiZZdesign
18 20 (0.81%) CheckPoint