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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 24 18
Rank change year-on-year -6 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,571 2,331 3,739
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.96% 7.88% 8.41%
As % of the Qualifications category 17.63% 25.94% 27.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,506 1,346 2,071
10th Percentile £287 £230 £210
25th Percentile £400 £400 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £508 £507
Median % change year-on-year -1.48% +0.10% -4.88%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £788 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 170 366
10th Percentile £15.50 £20.45 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.89 £29.25 £21.42
Median hourly rate £45.46 £45.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.29% +24.90% -18.89%
75th Percentile £82.25 £71.19 £58.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £45.00 £36.77
% change year-on-year +1.02% +22.37% -18.28%

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 14,579 8,987 13,558
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.81% 30.40% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,593 5,683 8,376
10th Percentile £333 £285 £300
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £614 £626 £650
90th Percentile £720 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,079 471 1,017
10th Percentile £16.17 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.75 £24.50 £18.00
Median hourly rate £29.00 £45.00 £38.16
Median % change year-on-year -35.56% +17.94% -25.19%
75th Percentile £67.50 £67.50 £62.00
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.10 £75.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.77 £50.00 £39.44
% change year-on-year -48.46% +26.79% -19.52%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -5 2,238 £500 -4.76% 2,349
UK excluding London -6 1,339 £488 +2.63% 1,956
London -12 981 £513 -6.82% 772
Work from Home -3 713 £500 -4.31% 931
South East -5 361 £478 -4.50% 642
North of England -7 343 £436 -12.75% 461
Midlands -20 206 £500 +39.66% 306
North West -6 176 £400 -19.76% 243
South West -4 156 £688 +25.00% 232
Yorkshire -13 152 £500 - 162
West Midlands -23 149 £498 +26.59% 176
East of England -9 133 £500 +2.77% 209
Scotland -1 105 £513 +16.48% 88
East Midlands -12 56 £525 +47.47% 130
Wales -10 45 £282 -2.20% 60
Northern Ireland -11 16 £388 +24.00% 18
North East -14 16 £364 -23.37% 60

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
1 213 (8.28%) Confluence
2 113 (4.40%) SharePoint
3 62 (2.41%) Microsoft Exchange
4 57 (2.22%) Apache Spark
5 26 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.70%) Apache
7 11 (0.43%) CMS
8 7 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.19%) Ethereum
9 5 (0.19%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 5 (0.19%) SAS
10 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.16%) GeoServer
10 4 (0.16%) IIS
10 4 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
10 4 (0.16%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.12%) Hyperledger
11 3 (0.12%) Skype for Business
11 3 (0.12%) WebSphere
Applications
1 310 (12.06%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 201 (7.82%) Microsoft Project
4 128 (4.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 72 (2.80%) MS Visio
6 18 (0.70%) Chatbot
7 16 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
8 15 (0.58%) 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 69 (2.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 25 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 25 (0.97%) Primavera
3 20 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
4 11 (0.43%) SAP ERP
5 9 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.27%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.19%) Dynamics GP
9 5 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
9 5 (0.19%) Teamcenter
10 4 (0.16%) Dynamics AX
10 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 556 (21.63%) Azure
2 312 (12.14%) AWS
3 208 (8.09%) Microsoft 365
4 203 (7.90%) Power Platform
5 146 (5.68%) GCP
6 115 (4.47%) Entra ID
7 111 (4.32%) SaaS
8 101 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
9 89 (3.46%) GitHub
10 52 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
11 49 (1.91%) Serverless
12 45 (1.75%) Cloud Computing
13 41 (1.59%) Snowflake
14 40 (1.56%) Power Automate
15 34 (1.32%) GitHub Actions
16 32 (1.24%) IaaS
16 32 (1.24%) PaaS
17 31 (1.21%) PowerApps
18 28 (1.09%) Google Workspace
18 28 (1.09%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 120 (4.67%) Firewall
2 62 (2.41%) WAN
3 61 (2.37%) TCP/IP
4 60 (2.33%) DNS
4 60 (2.33%) LAN
5 50 (1.94%) Network Security
6 41 (1.59%) VPN
7 31 (1.21%) Ethernet
8 30 (1.17%) HTTP
9 29 (1.13%) BGP
9 29 (1.13%) Wireless
10 25 (0.97%) Internet
10 25 (0.97%) Skype
11 24 (0.93%) OSPF
12 22 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (0.82%) DHCP
14 20 (0.78%) VLAN
15 18 (0.70%) SSL
16 16 (0.62%) Unified Communications
17 15 (0.58%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (6.22%) Power BI
2 100 (3.89%) PostgreSQL
3 98 (3.81%) SQL Server
4 63 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 61 (2.37%) NoSQL
6 53 (2.06%) Big Data
7 48 (1.87%) Tableau
8 47 (1.83%) Relational Database
9 42 (1.63%) MySQL
10 34 (1.32%) Metadata
11 32 (1.24%) Data Lake
12 30 (1.17%) Hadoop
13 25 (0.97%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
15 17 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 15 (0.58%) GIS
17 12 (0.47%) Amazon RDS
17 12 (0.47%) Geospatial Data
17 12 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
18 11 (0.43%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 305 (11.86%) JIRA
2 133 (5.17%) Git
3 74 (2.88%) Jenkins
4 58 (2.26%) GitLab
5 29 (1.13%) Rational DOORS
6 27 (1.05%) Visual Studio
7 22 (0.86%) Selenium
8 16 (0.62%) MLflow
8 16 (0.62%) Postman
9 13 (0.51%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.43%) Bitbucket
10 11 (0.43%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.39%) Gradle
11 10 (0.39%) Liquibase
12 9 (0.35%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.35%) Jaeger
13 8 (0.31%) CircleCI
13 8 (0.31%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.27%) JMeter
14 7 (0.27%) JUnit
General
1 1,243 (48.35%) Social Skills
2 793 (30.84%) Finance
3 587 (22.83%) Analytical Skills
4 249 (9.68%) Banking
5 226 (8.79%) Public Sector
6 121 (4.71%) Presentation Skills
7 102 (3.97%) Organisational Skills
8 95 (3.70%) Marketing
9 89 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
9 89 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
9 89 (3.46%) Manufacturing
10 78 (3.03%) Legal
11 68 (2.64%) Aerospace
12 63 (2.45%) Telecoms
13 61 (2.37%) Military
14 50 (1.94%) Financial Institution
14 50 (1.94%) Front Office
15 48 (1.87%) Electronics
15 48 (1.87%) Retail
16 47 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 366 (14.24%) Analyst
2 251 (9.76%) Senior
3 216 (8.40%) Lead
4 208 (8.09%) Architect
5 205 (7.97%) Developer
6 183 (7.12%) Project Manager
7 167 (6.50%) Business Analyst
8 103 (4.01%) Consultant
9 71 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
10 65 (2.53%) Software Engineer
11 64 (2.49%) Delivery Manager
12 61 (2.37%) Security Engineer
13 60 (2.33%) Technical Support
14 57 (2.22%) Senior Analyst
15 53 (2.06%) Data Scientist
16 48 (1.87%) IT Support
17 46 (1.79%) Designer
17 46 (1.79%) Product Manager
18 39 (1.52%) Technical Analyst
19 38 (1.48%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (4.36%) REST
2 76 (2.96%) .NET
3 65 (2.53%) RESTful
4 64 (2.49%) React
5 63 (2.45%) HTML
6 52 (2.02%) CSS
7 51 (1.98%) Middleware
8 47 (1.83%) Kafka
9 41 (1.59%) PyTorch
9 41 (1.59%) TensorFlow
10 39 (1.52%) Elastic Stack
10 39 (1.52%) JSON
10 39 (1.52%) SOAP
10 39 (1.52%) XML
11 37 (1.44%) Oracle Fusion
12 36 (1.40%) OAuth
13 35 (1.36%) Spring
14 33 (1.28%) Pandas
15 30 (1.17%) Spring Boot
16 29 (1.13%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.13%) Management Information System
2 165 (6.42%) Product Ownership
3 118 (4.59%) Onboarding
4 114 (4.43%) Cloud Native
5 93 (3.62%) Algorithms
6 81 (3.15%) Virtual Team
7 73 (2.84%) Data Centre
8 68 (2.64%) Distributed Systems
9 67 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
10 64 (2.49%) Data Structures
11 57 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
11 57 (2.22%) PMI
12 55 (2.14%) Analytical Mindset
13 47 (1.83%) Derivative
14 38 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
15 37 (1.44%) Security Posture
16 36 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
17 34 (1.32%) NHS
18 33 (1.28%) Equities
19 32 (1.24%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 299 (11.63%) Windows
2 193 (7.51%) Linux
3 75 (2.92%) Unix
4 73 (2.84%) Windows Server
5 56 (2.18%) Windows 10
6 28 (1.09%) Android
7 24 (0.93%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 13 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 12 (0.47%) Windows Server 2016
12 10 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
13 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.23%) VMS
15 5 (0.19%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.16%) AIX
17 3 (0.12%) CentOS
17 3 (0.12%) Debian
17 3 (0.12%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 964 (37.50%) Computer Science
2 803 (31.23%) Agile
3 708 (27.54%) Problem-Solving
4 427 (16.61%) Stakeholder Management
5 382 (14.86%) DevOps
6 363 (14.12%) AI
7 342 (13.30%) Continuous Improvement
7 342 (13.30%) Project Management
8 313 (12.17%) CI/CD
9 293 (11.40%) Analytics
10 285 (11.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 280 (10.89%) Change Management
12 277 (10.77%) Cybersecurity
13 268 (10.42%) Decision-Making
14 263 (10.23%) Migration
15 261 (10.15%) ITIL
16 234 (9.10%) Project Delivery
17 229 (8.91%) PRINCE2
17 229 (8.91%) Software Engineering
18 228 (8.87%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 454 (17.66%) Python
2 385 (14.97%) SQL
3 179 (6.96%) Java
4 128 (4.98%) PowerShell
5 105 (4.08%) JavaScript
6 83 (3.23%) C#
7 75 (2.92%) C++
8 56 (2.18%) TypeScript
9 47 (1.83%) Bash
10 40 (1.56%) Go
11 31 (1.21%) R
12 26 (1.01%) PL/SQL
13 21 (0.82%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.78%) Perl
15 16 (0.62%) MATLAB
16 15 (0.58%) Rust
16 15 (0.58%) SystemVerilog
16 15 (0.58%) T-SQL
17 14 (0.54%) C
18 13 (0.51%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 604 (23.49%) Computer Science Degree
2 493 (19.18%) Security Cleared
3 386 (15.01%) Master's Degree
4 349 (13.57%) SC Cleared
5 156 (6.07%) PMI Certification
6 135 (5.25%) CISSP
7 132 (5.13%) PMP
8 90 (3.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.27%) CISM
10 77 (2.99%) PhD
11 71 (2.76%) TOGAF Certification
12 65 (2.53%) Azure Certification
13 63 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
13 63 (2.45%) Cisco Certification
14 59 (2.29%) DV Cleared
15 40 (1.56%) CCNP
16 39 (1.52%) MBA
17 35 (1.36%) AWS Certification
18 34 (1.32%) CBAP
19 31 (1.21%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (6.57%) QA
2 140 (5.45%) GDPR
3 110 (4.28%) PMO
4 107 (4.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 98 (3.81%) Data Quality
5 98 (3.81%) NIST
6 51 (1.98%) PCI DSS
7 45 (1.75%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.63%) SLA
9 32 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 21 (0.82%) GRC
10 21 (0.82%) NCSC
11 19 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
12 18 (0.70%) WCAG
13 17 (0.66%) HIPAA
14 16 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
15 14 (0.54%) IFRS
16 13 (0.51%) Basel III
16 13 (0.51%) DO-254
17 12 (0.47%) COBIT
System Software
1 188 (7.31%) Docker
2 162 (6.30%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.78%) Firmware
4 20 (0.78%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
6 6 (0.23%) vSphere
7 5 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.19%) XenApp
7 5 (0.19%) XenDesktop
8 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
8 4 (0.16%) NDS
8 4 (0.16%) NetIQ eDirectory
8 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
9 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 2 (0.078%) HDFS
10 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 2 (0.078%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.078%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 188 (7.31%) Kubernetes
2 108 (4.20%) Terraform
3 73 (2.84%) Ansible
4 67 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
5 49 (1.91%) Grafana
6 41 (1.59%) Prometheus
7 40 (1.56%) SCCM
8 30 (1.17%) OPNET
9 19 (0.74%) Puppet
9 19 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.62%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 14 (0.54%) 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%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.27%) vCenter Server
17 6 (0.23%) HP ALM
17 6 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 547 (21.28%) Microsoft
2 164 (6.38%) Oracle
3 159 (6.18%) SAP
4 118 (4.59%) ServiceNow
5 114 (4.43%) Google
6 84 (3.27%) Cisco
7 83 (3.23%) Splunk
8 65 (2.53%) Databricks
9 55 (2.14%) Atlassian
10 54 (2.10%) Remedy
11 49 (1.91%) IBM
11 49 (1.91%) VMware
12 48 (1.87%) Salesforce
13 43 (1.67%) Citrix
14 41 (1.59%) Palo Alto
15 30 (1.17%) CheckPoint
16 28 (1.09%) Informatica
17 26 (1.01%) Red Hat
18 25 (0.97%) BiZZdesign
19 22 (0.86%) Aruba