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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -14 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,444 2,311 3,664
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.13% 7.88% 8.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.98% 25.62% 27.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,433 1,328 1,949
10th Percentile £250 £240 £213
25th Percentile £375 £375 £385
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year - -0.50% -4.29%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £626
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £500
% change year-on-year +5.56% -10.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 206 183 409
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.56 £14.04
25th Percentile £28.00 £27.20 £22.50
Median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +31.25% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £45.00 £41.25
% change year-on-year +42.22% +9.09% -8.33%

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 15,291 9,019 13,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.11% 30.76% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,164 5,698 8,137
10th Percentile £350 £287 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £707 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,102 515 1,076
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.13 £13.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £21.59 £17.86
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.75% - -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.88 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.06 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £40.59 £40.94
% change year-on-year +17.02% -0.85% -17.41%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -8 2,164 £500 -2.91% 3,668
UK excluding London -8 1,322 £475 +5.56% 2,661
London -14 917 £500 -9.09% 1,321
Work from Home -10 668 £500 - 1,246
South East -1 370 £478 -3.92% 854
North of England -8 323 £417 -8.35% 728
Midlands -24 212 £500 +66.67% 363
North West -10 168 £400 -12.90% 463
West Midlands -26 149 £500 +66.67% 207
East of England -6 142 £463 -7.50% 316
South West -14 140 £598 +19.55% 293
Yorkshire -16 139 £475 +14.73% 202
Scotland -8 98 £500 +11.48% 96
East Midlands -13 61 £525 +55.33% 155
Wales -19 31 £341 +11.46% 47
North East -25 16 £407 -12.00% 69
Northern Ireland -8 15 £425 +15.25% 18

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
1 170 (6.96%) Confluence
2 117 (4.79%) SharePoint
3 66 (2.70%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (2.05%) Apache Spark
5 24 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.82%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) CMS
8 7 (0.29%) SAS
9 6 (0.25%) IIS
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.082%) Drupal
13 2 (0.082%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.082%) nginx
13 2 (0.082%) WebSphere
13 2 (0.082%) WinCC
Applications
1 309 (12.64%) Microsoft Office
2 242 (9.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 195 (7.98%) Microsoft Project
4 144 (5.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 63 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.45%) Simulink
8 10 (0.41%) Trello
9 8 (0.33%) Adobe After Effects
9 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.33%) Revit
10 7 (0.29%) Adobe Illustrator
10 7 (0.29%) Photoshop
11 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.25%) Sketch
12 4 (0.16%) Chatbot
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.082%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.082%) InVision
Business Applications
1 74 (3.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 21 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.74%) Primavera
4 14 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.37%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.33%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
9 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 6 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
9 6 (0.25%) SAP EWM
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Shopify
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) NEC Housing
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 511 (20.91%) Azure
2 285 (11.66%) AWS
3 208 (8.51%) Microsoft 365
4 198 (8.10%) Power Platform
5 109 (4.46%) Entra ID
6 103 (4.21%) SaaS
7 100 (4.09%) GCP
8 90 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
9 58 (2.37%) GitHub
10 45 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
11 34 (1.39%) Power Automate
12 33 (1.35%) Google Workspace
12 33 (1.35%) IaaS
12 33 (1.35%) PaaS
13 32 (1.31%) Snowflake
14 29 (1.19%) Figma
15 28 (1.15%) Cloud Computing
16 27 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
16 27 (1.10%) PowerApps
16 27 (1.10%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.54%) Firewall
2 62 (2.54%) TCP/IP
3 58 (2.37%) DNS
4 56 (2.29%) WAN
5 53 (2.17%) LAN
6 50 (2.05%) Network Security
7 37 (1.51%) VPN
8 27 (1.10%) BGP
9 26 (1.06%) Wireless
10 25 (1.02%) Ethernet
11 24 (0.98%) OSPF
12 23 (0.94%) Skype
13 19 (0.78%) HTTP
14 18 (0.74%) DHCP
15 17 (0.70%) SAN
16 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
17 12 (0.49%) IPsec
17 12 (0.49%) SSL
17 12 (0.49%) VLAN
17 12 (0.49%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (6.67%) Power BI
2 101 (4.13%) SQL Server
3 64 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
4 60 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (2.13%) Relational Database
6 49 (2.00%) Big Data
7 41 (1.68%) Metadata
8 37 (1.51%) Tableau
9 34 (1.39%) NoSQL
10 32 (1.31%) MySQL
11 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
12 24 (0.98%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.86%) MongoDB
14 18 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.49%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.49%) Power Query
16 12 (0.49%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
17 11 (0.45%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 276 (11.29%) JIRA
2 113 (4.62%) Git
3 45 (1.84%) Jenkins
4 43 (1.76%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.78%) MLflow
8 18 (0.74%) Selenium
9 12 (0.49%) Burp Suite
10 11 (0.45%) Gradle
10 11 (0.45%) Metasploit
11 10 (0.41%) Postman
12 9 (0.37%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
12 9 (0.37%) JUnit
12 9 (0.37%) TeamCity
13 7 (0.29%) Bitbucket
13 7 (0.29%) CircleCI
14 6 (0.25%) Artifactory
14 6 (0.25%) Cucumber
General
1 1,142 (46.73%) Social Skills
2 746 (30.52%) Finance
3 533 (21.81%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (8.96%) Banking
5 209 (8.55%) Public Sector
6 132 (5.40%) Organisational Skills
7 127 (5.20%) Presentation Skills
8 97 (3.97%) Marketing
9 89 (3.64%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (3.15%) Legal
11 75 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
12 73 (2.99%) Aerospace
13 72 (2.95%) Manufacturing
14 69 (2.82%) Telecoms
15 58 (2.37%) Military
16 52 (2.13%) Law
17 49 (2.00%) Retail
18 41 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 41 (1.68%) Pharmaceutical
19 38 (1.55%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 334 (13.67%) Analyst
2 246 (10.07%) Senior
3 218 (8.92%) Architect
4 194 (7.94%) Lead
5 184 (7.53%) Project Manager
6 170 (6.96%) Developer
7 158 (6.46%) Business Analyst
8 79 (3.23%) Consultant
9 69 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
10 68 (2.78%) Senior Analyst
11 63 (2.58%) Delivery Manager
12 60 (2.45%) Technical Support
13 56 (2.29%) Designer
14 51 (2.09%) Data Scientist
15 50 (2.05%) Security Engineer
15 50 (2.05%) Software Engineer
16 47 (1.92%) Product Manager
17 43 (1.76%) Data Engineer
17 43 (1.76%) Systems Engineer
18 42 (1.72%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.93%) REST
2 79 (3.23%) .NET
3 58 (2.37%) React
4 56 (2.29%) Middleware
5 51 (2.09%) HTML
6 46 (1.88%) RESTful
7 45 (1.84%) Kafka
8 40 (1.64%) Oracle Fusion
9 38 (1.55%) CSS
10 37 (1.51%) XML
11 36 (1.47%) SOAP
12 35 (1.43%) Spring Boot
13 33 (1.35%) PyTorch
14 32 (1.31%) JSON
14 32 (1.31%) Spring
15 30 (1.23%) .NET Framework
15 30 (1.23%) Pandas
16 27 (1.10%) OAuth
16 27 (1.10%) TensorFlow
17 24 (0.98%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 191 (7.82%) Management Information System
2 172 (7.04%) Product Ownership
3 132 (5.40%) Onboarding
4 88 (3.60%) Cloud Native
5 73 (2.99%) Self-Motivation
6 70 (2.86%) Virtual Team
7 64 (2.62%) Algorithms
7 64 (2.62%) Data Centre
8 62 (2.54%) Data Structures
9 57 (2.33%) PMI
10 54 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
11 51 (2.09%) Distributed Systems
12 42 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
13 40 (1.64%) Operational Technology
14 38 (1.55%) Robotics
15 33 (1.35%) Security Posture
16 32 (1.31%) Derivative
17 31 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
17 31 (1.27%) Legacy Systems
18 30 (1.23%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 280 (11.46%) Windows
2 182 (7.45%) Linux
3 74 (3.03%) Windows Server
4 67 (2.74%) Unix
5 56 (2.29%) Windows 10
6 31 (1.27%) Android
7 23 (0.94%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.57%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
11 11 (0.45%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.45%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 6 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.20%) AIX
14 5 (0.20%) Debian
14 5 (0.20%) VMS
15 4 (0.16%) Rocky
16 3 (0.12%) Solaris
16 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 856 (35.02%) Computer Science
2 719 (29.42%) Agile
3 638 (26.10%) Problem-Solving
4 392 (16.04%) Stakeholder Management
5 357 (14.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 346 (14.16%) AI
7 338 (13.83%) Project Management
8 323 (13.22%) DevOps
9 280 (11.46%) CI/CD
10 268 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 264 (10.80%) Analytics
12 251 (10.27%) Decision-Making
13 242 (9.90%) Change Management
14 240 (9.82%) Migration
15 239 (9.78%) Cybersecurity
16 224 (9.17%) ITIL
17 211 (8.63%) Project Delivery
18 209 (8.55%) PRINCE2
19 206 (8.43%) Risk Management
19 206 (8.43%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 385 (15.75%) Python
2 358 (14.65%) SQL
3 168 (6.87%) Java
4 112 (4.58%) PowerShell
5 92 (3.76%) C#
6 80 (3.27%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.70%) C++
8 41 (1.68%) Bash
9 37 (1.51%) TypeScript
10 33 (1.35%) R
11 24 (0.98%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.74%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.70%) T-SQL
14 16 (0.65%) Perl
15 15 (0.61%) C
15 15 (0.61%) Go
16 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.57%) Rust
17 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.49%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 545 (22.30%) Computer Science Degree
2 467 (19.11%) Security Cleared
3 329 (13.46%) SC Cleared
4 294 (12.03%) Master's Degree
5 157 (6.42%) PMI Certification
6 134 (5.48%) PMP
7 109 (4.46%) CISSP
8 85 (3.48%) Microsoft Certification
9 72 (2.95%) Cisco Certification
10 69 (2.82%) TOGAF Certification
11 66 (2.70%) CISM
12 62 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
13 57 (2.33%) DV Cleared
14 50 (2.05%) PhD
15 48 (1.96%) Azure Certification
16 40 (1.64%) CCNP
17 39 (1.60%) MBA
18 34 (1.39%) CBAP
18 34 (1.39%) CCNA
19 30 (1.23%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 167 (6.83%) QA
2 113 (4.62%) PMO
3 111 (4.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 108 (4.42%) NIST
5 107 (4.38%) GDPR
6 103 (4.21%) Data Quality
7 51 (2.09%) SLA
8 45 (1.84%) Accessibility
9 43 (1.76%) PCI DSS
10 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 25 (1.02%) GRC
12 20 (0.82%) NCSC
13 18 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
15 14 (0.57%) COBIT
15 14 (0.57%) IFRS
16 13 (0.53%) Basel III
17 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
17 12 (0.49%) SOC 2
18 11 (0.45%) WCAG
System Software
1 155 (6.34%) Active Directory
2 140 (5.73%) Docker
3 38 (1.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (1.10%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.98%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 7 (0.29%) vSphere
8 5 (0.20%) BitLocker
8 5 (0.20%) XenApp
8 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
9 4 (0.16%) Virtual Machines
10 3 (0.12%) KVM
10 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.082%) HDFS
11 2 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.041%) GPFS
12 1 (0.041%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 1 (0.041%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 148 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 79 (3.23%) Terraform
3 64 (2.62%) Ansible
4 60 (2.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 39 (1.60%) Grafana
5 39 (1.60%) SCCM
6 30 (1.23%) OPNET
7 29 (1.19%) Prometheus
8 18 (0.74%) Puppet
8 18 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 11 (0.45%) Kibana
10 11 (0.45%) Nmap
10 11 (0.45%) WSUS
11 9 (0.37%) Kiali
11 9 (0.37%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
12 8 (0.33%) Nessus
13 7 (0.29%) Progress Chef
13 7 (0.29%) SCOM
Vendors
1 555 (22.71%) Microsoft
2 159 (6.51%) Oracle
3 152 (6.22%) SAP
4 125 (5.11%) ServiceNow
5 86 (3.52%) Google
6 76 (3.11%) Cisco
7 64 (2.62%) Splunk
8 57 (2.33%) Databricks
9 49 (2.00%) Remedy
10 46 (1.88%) VMware
11 44 (1.80%) Citrix
12 42 (1.72%) Atlassian
12 42 (1.72%) Salesforce
13 39 (1.60%) IBM
14 35 (1.43%) Adobe
14 35 (1.43%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.35%) CheckPoint
16 23 (0.94%) Aruba
16 23 (0.94%) Informatica
17 22 (0.90%) CyberArk