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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 23 17
Rank change year-on-year -15 -6 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,373 2,268 3,614
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.03% 7.83% 8.45%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.80% 25.26% 27.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,372 1,305 1,907
10th Percentile £244 £243 £217
25th Percentile £375 £379 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £633
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 178 407
10th Percentile £17.62 £17.28 £14.03
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.10 £22.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.80% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £73.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.50 £45.66 £41.50
% change year-on-year +41.27% +10.02% -7.78%

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 15,023 8,977 12,977
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.83% 30.98% 30.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,981 5,660 7,999
10th Percentile £350 £285 £305
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £623 £650
90th Percentile £719 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,063 507 1,065
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.75
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.27 £17.80
Median hourly rate £50.00 £37.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -6.25% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.42 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £79.22 £75.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £37.50 £40.94
% change year-on-year +26.67% -8.40% -18.12%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 13 May 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 -9 2,113 £500 -2.91% 2,784
UK excluding London -8 1,291 £475 +5.56% 2,076
London -16 885 £505 -8.18% 1,001
Work from Home -14 639 £500 -2.72% 1,176
South East -5 366 £500 +1.21% 686
North of England -10 318 £418 -8.98% 485
Midlands -23 211 £505 +57.81% 302
North West -5 164 £400 -14.12% 248
West Midlands -25 147 £498 +65.83% 187
Yorkshire -13 139 £473 +5.70% 166
East of England -7 136 £450 -10.00% 229
South West -17 135 £556 +16.01% 267
Scotland -10 89 £500 +11.11% 89
East Midlands -12 62 £531 +49.16% 115
Wales -21 28 £370 +21.12% 52
North East -26 15 £450 - 77
Northern Ireland -7 14 £456 +7.35% 17

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
1 165 (6.95%) Confluence
2 118 (4.97%) SharePoint
3 63 (2.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (2.06%) Apache Spark
5 24 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.93%) Apache
7 8 (0.34%) CMS
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.25%) SAS
9 5 (0.21%) IIS
9 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.13%) Moodle
11 3 (0.13%) MS Project Server
12 2 (0.084%) Drupal
12 2 (0.084%) Ethereum
12 2 (0.084%) nginx
12 2 (0.084%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.084%) WinCC
Applications
1 302 (12.73%) Microsoft Office
2 234 (9.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 184 (7.75%) Microsoft Project
4 141 (5.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.74%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.46%) Adobe Illustrator
7 11 (0.46%) Photoshop
8 10 (0.42%) Adobe After Effects
8 10 (0.42%) Simulink
9 9 (0.38%) Trello
10 8 (0.34%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.34%) Revit
11 6 (0.25%) Sketch
12 5 (0.21%) Adobe XD
13 4 (0.17%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 4 (0.17%) Chatbot
14 2 (0.084%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.084%) FrameMaker
15 1 (0.042%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 70 (2.95%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.67%) Primavera
4 13 (0.55%) Remedy ITSM
5 9 (0.38%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.34%) Aladdin
6 8 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.34%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
9 5 (0.21%) Shopify
10 4 (0.17%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.17%) NEC Housing
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 3 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 494 (20.82%) Azure
2 284 (11.97%) AWS
3 200 (8.43%) Microsoft 365
4 185 (7.80%) Power Platform
5 106 (4.47%) Entra ID
6 95 (4.00%) GCP
6 95 (4.00%) SaaS
7 86 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
8 57 (2.40%) GitHub
9 42 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
10 34 (1.43%) Figma
11 33 (1.39%) Google Workspace
12 32 (1.35%) PaaS
13 31 (1.31%) Power Automate
13 31 (1.31%) Snowflake
14 30 (1.26%) IaaS
15 27 (1.14%) Cloud Computing
15 27 (1.14%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (1.14%) Serverless
16 25 (1.05%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 108 (4.55%) Firewall
2 63 (2.65%) TCP/IP
3 57 (2.40%) DNS
4 56 (2.36%) WAN
5 53 (2.23%) LAN
6 49 (2.06%) Network Security
7 35 (1.47%) VPN
8 28 (1.18%) BGP
9 27 (1.14%) Wireless
10 25 (1.05%) OSPF
11 23 (0.97%) Ethernet
12 21 (0.88%) Skype
13 17 (0.72%) DHCP
13 17 (0.72%) HTTP
13 17 (0.72%) SAN
14 16 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.51%) IPsec
15 12 (0.51%) SSL
15 12 (0.51%) VLAN
15 12 (0.51%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (6.53%) Power BI
2 96 (4.05%) SQL Server
3 60 (2.53%) PostgreSQL
4 59 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
5 50 (2.11%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.06%) Big Data
7 40 (1.69%) Metadata
8 38 (1.60%) Tableau
9 34 (1.43%) NoSQL
10 30 (1.26%) MySQL
11 28 (1.18%) Hadoop
12 22 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.88%) MongoDB
14 17 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
16 13 (0.55%) Oracle Database
17 12 (0.51%) Power Query
17 12 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
18 11 (0.46%) Oracle Reports
19 10 (0.42%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 270 (11.38%) JIRA
2 109 (4.59%) Git
3 45 (1.90%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.73%) GitLab
5 31 (1.31%) Rational DOORS
6 22 (0.93%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.80%) MLflow
8 18 (0.76%) Selenium
9 13 (0.55%) Gradle
10 12 (0.51%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.46%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.42%) Postman
13 9 (0.38%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.38%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.38%) JUnit
13 9 (0.38%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
14 7 (0.29%) Maven
14 7 (0.29%) SonarQube
15 6 (0.25%) Artifactory
General
1 1,105 (46.57%) Social Skills
2 721 (30.38%) Finance
3 512 (21.58%) Analytical Skills
4 209 (8.81%) Banking
5 200 (8.43%) Public Sector
6 127 (5.35%) Organisational Skills
7 121 (5.10%) Presentation Skills
8 99 (4.17%) Marketing
9 85 (3.58%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (3.20%) Legal
11 72 (3.03%) Manufacturing
12 71 (2.99%) Aerospace
12 71 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
13 67 (2.82%) Telecoms
14 56 (2.36%) Military
15 52 (2.19%) Law
16 47 (1.98%) Retail
17 40 (1.69%) Front Office
17 40 (1.69%) Pharmaceutical
18 39 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 342 (14.41%) Analyst
2 248 (10.45%) Senior
3 208 (8.77%) Architect
4 182 (7.67%) Lead
5 176 (7.42%) Project Manager
6 169 (7.12%) Developer
7 162 (6.83%) Business Analyst
8 69 (2.91%) Consultant
9 67 (2.82%) Senior Analyst
9 67 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
10 63 (2.65%) Delivery Manager
11 59 (2.49%) Designer
12 57 (2.40%) Technical Support
13 50 (2.11%) Software Engineer
14 48 (2.02%) Product Manager
14 48 (2.02%) Security Engineer
15 44 (1.85%) Data Scientist
16 43 (1.81%) Data Engineer
16 43 (1.81%) Senior Manager
16 43 (1.81%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (3.96%) REST
2 79 (3.33%) .NET
3 59 (2.49%) React
4 56 (2.36%) Middleware
5 50 (2.11%) HTML
6 45 (1.90%) Kafka
6 45 (1.90%) RESTful
7 41 (1.73%) Oracle Fusion
8 38 (1.60%) CSS
9 36 (1.52%) Spring Boot
10 35 (1.47%) SOAP
10 35 (1.47%) XML
11 33 (1.39%) Spring
12 32 (1.35%) PyTorch
13 29 (1.22%) Pandas
14 28 (1.18%) .NET Framework
14 28 (1.18%) JSON
15 26 (1.10%) OAuth
15 26 (1.10%) TensorFlow
16 25 (1.05%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 186 (7.84%) Management Information System
2 165 (6.95%) Product Ownership
3 130 (5.48%) Onboarding
4 83 (3.50%) Cloud Native
5 75 (3.16%) Self-Motivation
6 66 (2.78%) Virtual Team
7 62 (2.61%) Data Centre
8 61 (2.57%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.53%) Algorithms
10 53 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
10 53 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
11 52 (2.19%) PMI
12 40 (1.69%) Operational Technology
13 38 (1.60%) Robotics
14 36 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
15 33 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
16 32 (1.35%) Security Posture
17 31 (1.31%) Derivative
18 29 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
18 29 (1.22%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 279 (11.76%) Windows
2 178 (7.50%) Linux
3 71 (2.99%) Unix
3 71 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 57 (2.40%) Windows 10
5 31 (1.31%) Android
6 23 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 22 (0.93%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.67%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.46%) Ubuntu
9 11 (0.46%) Windows Server 2019
10 10 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.21%) AIX
13 5 (0.21%) Debian
13 5 (0.21%) VMS
14 4 (0.17%) Rocky
14 4 (0.17%) Solaris
15 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 823 (34.68%) Computer Science
2 682 (28.74%) Agile
3 628 (26.46%) Problem-Solving
4 374 (15.76%) Stakeholder Management
5 344 (14.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 333 (14.03%) Project Management
7 329 (13.86%) AI
8 314 (13.23%) DevOps
9 272 (11.46%) CI/CD
10 254 (10.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 250 (10.54%) Analytics
12 245 (10.32%) Decision-Making
13 234 (9.86%) Migration
14 232 (9.78%) Change Management
15 230 (9.69%) Cybersecurity
16 216 (9.10%) ITIL
17 203 (8.55%) Risk Management
18 200 (8.43%) PRINCE2
19 198 (8.34%) Roadmaps
20 195 (8.22%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 369 (15.55%) Python
2 357 (15.04%) SQL
3 170 (7.16%) Java
4 108 (4.55%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.96%) C#
6 78 (3.29%) JavaScript
7 68 (2.87%) C++
8 39 (1.64%) Bash
9 35 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.26%) R
11 22 (0.93%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.76%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.72%) C
14 16 (0.67%) Perl
15 15 (0.63%) Go
15 15 (0.63%) T-SQL
16 14 (0.59%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.59%) Rust
17 12 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 10 (0.42%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 518 (21.83%) Computer Science Degree
2 454 (19.13%) Security Cleared
3 320 (13.49%) SC Cleared
4 277 (11.67%) Master's Degree
5 154 (6.49%) PMI Certification
6 133 (5.60%) PMP
7 107 (4.51%) CISSP
8 77 (3.24%) Microsoft Certification
9 75 (3.16%) Cisco Certification
10 66 (2.78%) TOGAF Certification
11 64 (2.70%) CISM
12 60 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.40%) DV Cleared
14 48 (2.02%) Azure Certification
15 47 (1.98%) PhD
16 43 (1.81%) CCNP
17 38 (1.60%) MBA
18 35 (1.47%) CBAP
18 35 (1.47%) CCNA
19 30 (1.26%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 158 (6.66%) QA
2 113 (4.76%) PMO
3 110 (4.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 107 (4.51%) NIST
5 105 (4.42%) Data Quality
6 104 (4.38%) GDPR
7 50 (2.11%) SLA
8 44 (1.85%) Accessibility
9 42 (1.77%) PCI DSS
10 26 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.05%) GRC
12 20 (0.84%) NCSC
13 17 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.59%) COBIT
14 14 (0.59%) IFRS
15 12 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.51%) Basel III
15 12 (0.51%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.51%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.46%) HIPAA
System Software
1 149 (6.28%) Active Directory
2 136 (5.73%) Docker
3 37 (1.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.88%) Firmware
6 8 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.21%) BitLocker
9 4 (0.17%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.17%) Virtual Machines
9 4 (0.17%) XenApp
9 4 (0.17%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.13%) KVM
10 3 (0.13%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.084%) HDFS
11 2 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.042%) NFS
12 1 (0.042%) RACF
12 1 (0.042%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 147 (6.19%) Kubernetes
2 75 (3.16%) Terraform
3 61 (2.57%) Ansible
4 58 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (1.56%) Grafana
5 37 (1.56%) SCCM
6 30 (1.26%) Prometheus
7 27 (1.14%) OPNET
8 18 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.63%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (0.63%) Puppet
10 12 (0.51%) Kibana
11 11 (0.46%) Nmap
12 10 (0.42%) WSUS
13 9 (0.38%) Kiali
13 9 (0.38%) vCenter Server
14 8 (0.34%) HP ALM
14 8 (0.34%) Nessus
15 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.25%) Control-M
Vendors
1 538 (22.67%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.70%) Oracle
3 143 (6.03%) SAP
4 115 (4.85%) ServiceNow
5 81 (3.41%) Google
6 76 (3.20%) Cisco
7 64 (2.70%) Splunk
8 56 (2.36%) Databricks
9 45 (1.90%) Remedy
9 45 (1.90%) VMware
10 42 (1.77%) Citrix
10 42 (1.77%) Salesforce
11 41 (1.73%) IBM
12 38 (1.60%) Adobe
13 37 (1.56%) Atlassian
14 35 (1.47%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.39%) CheckPoint
16 23 (0.97%) Aruba
16 23 (0.97%) Informatica
17 21 (0.88%) Siemens