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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 24 19
Rank change year-on-year -14 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,436 2,219 3,490
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.98% 7.72% 8.15%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.74% 24.87% 27.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,362 1,282 1,902
10th Percentile £225 £235 £221
25th Percentile £380 £375 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £609 £626 £625
90th Percentile £731 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £467 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +3.67% -5.26% -2.16%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 174 417
10th Percentile £17.23 £17.59 £14.17
25th Percentile £28.00 £26.59 £22.33
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +31.25% -18.83%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.52 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £55.00 £45.02 £41.25
% change year-on-year +22.18% +9.13% -13.73%

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 15,473 8,923 12,806
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.63% 31.03% 29.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,267 5,624 8,010
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -1.84% -3.64%
75th Percentile £620 £619 £645
90th Percentile £715 £700 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £534
% change year-on-year - -6.28% +1.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,134 519 1,084
10th Percentile £16.35 £17.86 £13.74
25th Percentile £21.33 £21.39 £18.00
Median hourly rate £48.05 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.85% -18.75% -27.27%
75th Percentile £71.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £78.37 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.50 £32.05 £40.94
% change year-on-year +48.21% -21.71% -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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -10 2,179 £500 -0.99% 1,758
UK excluding London -7 1,334 £467 +3.67% 1,487
London -18 916 £515 -6.36% 545
Work from Home -14 647 £500 - 657
South East 0 382 £500 +5.26% 520
North of England -12 331 £443 -3.48% 344
Midlands -20 216 £503 +40.76% 220
North West -6 177 £415 -12.63% 167
West Midlands -23 154 £478 +23.35% 131
East of England -6 141 £450 -10.00% 157
Yorkshire -12 139 £463 +10.25% 126
South West -17 136 £505 +6.32% 203
Scotland -15 92 £500 +11.11% 42
East Midlands -13 60 £537 +50.84% 89
Wales -21 28 £450 +47.31% 37
North East -30 15 £450 +130.77% 58
Northern Ireland -8 14 £350 -17.65% 11

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
1 146 (5.99%) Confluence
2 130 (5.34%) SharePoint
3 64 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.09%) Apache Spark
5 31 (1.27%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.99%) Apache
7 9 (0.37%) IIS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.29%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Camunda
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.21%) OpenStack
11 5 (0.21%) SAS
12 4 (0.16%) Appian
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.12%) Moodle
13 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
14 2 (0.082%) Drupal
14 2 (0.082%) nginx
14 2 (0.082%) WebSphere
Applications
1 284 (11.66%) Microsoft Office
2 231 (9.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 159 (6.53%) Microsoft Project
4 139 (5.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 65 (2.67%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.62%) Adobe After Effects
7 14 (0.57%) Adobe Illustrator
7 14 (0.57%) Photoshop
8 13 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 12 (0.49%) Simulink
10 9 (0.37%) Sketch
11 8 (0.33%) Navisworks
11 8 (0.33%) Revit
11 8 (0.33%) Trello
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 6 (0.25%) Adobe XD
13 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
13 5 (0.21%) UserZoom
14 3 (0.12%) Final Cut Pro
15 2 (0.082%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 66 (2.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.62%) Primavera
3 12 (0.49%) Remedy ITSM
4 10 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
5 9 (0.37%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
6 8 (0.33%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 7 (0.29%) Aladdin
7 7 (0.29%) SAP EWM
8 6 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 5 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
10 4 (0.16%) HFM
10 4 (0.16%) Magento
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 523 (21.47%) Azure
2 309 (12.68%) AWS
3 204 (8.37%) Microsoft 365
4 190 (7.80%) Power Platform
5 124 (5.09%) Entra ID
6 100 (4.11%) GCP
7 86 (3.53%) SaaS
8 82 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
9 61 (2.50%) GitHub
10 42 (1.72%) Figma
11 39 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (1.35%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.31%) Google Workspace
14 31 (1.27%) PaaS
15 30 (1.23%) PowerApps
16 29 (1.19%) Power Automate
17 28 (1.15%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (1.15%) IaaS
18 27 (1.11%) Cloud Computing
18 27 (1.11%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 113 (4.64%) Firewall
2 71 (2.91%) DNS
2 71 (2.91%) TCP/IP
3 60 (2.46%) Network Security
4 56 (2.30%) WAN
5 52 (2.13%) LAN
6 38 (1.56%) VPN
7 26 (1.07%) BGP
7 26 (1.07%) Wireless
8 25 (1.03%) DHCP
9 23 (0.94%) Ethernet
9 23 (0.94%) OSPF
10 18 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
11 17 (0.70%) SAN
11 17 (0.70%) Skype
12 14 (0.57%) HTTP
12 14 (0.57%) SSL
12 14 (0.57%) VXLAN
13 12 (0.49%) VLAN
14 11 (0.45%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (6.40%) Power BI
2 111 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 62 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
4 57 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
5 48 (1.97%) Relational Database
6 46 (1.89%) Big Data
7 41 (1.68%) Metadata
7 41 (1.68%) Tableau
8 36 (1.48%) NoSQL
9 28 (1.15%) Hadoop
10 27 (1.11%) MySQL
11 25 (1.03%) MongoDB
12 21 (0.86%) Data Lake
13 18 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
13 18 (0.74%) Oracle Database
14 16 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 13 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
15 13 (0.53%) Snowflake Schema
16 11 (0.45%) GIS
16 11 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 244 (10.02%) JIRA
2 112 (4.60%) Git
3 45 (1.85%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.68%) GitLab
5 31 (1.27%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.86%) Visual Studio
7 19 (0.78%) MLflow
8 17 (0.70%) Selenium
9 14 (0.57%) Gradle
10 13 (0.53%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.53%) JUnit
10 13 (0.53%) Postman
11 11 (0.45%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.41%) TeamCity
13 9 (0.37%) Burp Suite
13 9 (0.37%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 8 (0.33%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.33%) Maven
14 8 (0.33%) Metasploit
General
1 1,125 (46.18%) Social Skills
2 745 (30.58%) Finance
3 487 (19.99%) Analytical Skills
4 208 (8.54%) Banking
5 200 (8.21%) Public Sector
6 136 (5.58%) Organisational Skills
7 123 (5.05%) Presentation Skills
8 98 (4.02%) Marketing
9 81 (3.33%) Documentation Skills
10 80 (3.28%) Aerospace
10 80 (3.28%) Legal
11 77 (3.16%) Manufacturing
12 72 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
13 65 (2.67%) Telecoms
14 52 (2.13%) Law
15 50 (2.05%) Retail
16 41 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (1.60%) Front Office
17 39 (1.60%) Investment Banking
18 37 (1.52%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 351 (14.41%) Analyst
2 273 (11.21%) Senior
3 199 (8.17%) Architect
4 185 (7.59%) Lead
5 171 (7.02%) Project Manager
6 168 (6.90%) Developer
7 157 (6.44%) Business Analyst
8 70 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
9 67 (2.75%) Senior Analyst
10 66 (2.71%) Consultant
11 64 (2.63%) Designer
12 62 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
13 60 (2.46%) Software Engineer
14 57 (2.34%) Technical Support
15 55 (2.26%) Senior Manager
16 53 (2.18%) Security Engineer
17 49 (2.01%) Product Manager
18 46 (1.89%) Data Scientist
18 46 (1.89%) IT Manager
19 45 (1.85%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.27%) REST
2 84 (3.45%) .NET
3 66 (2.71%) React
4 55 (2.26%) Middleware
5 54 (2.22%) Oracle Fusion
6 52 (2.13%) Kafka
7 51 (2.09%) HTML
8 42 (1.72%) RESTful
9 41 (1.68%) CSS
10 35 (1.44%) Spring Boot
11 34 (1.40%) .NET Framework
12 31 (1.27%) XML
13 30 (1.23%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.23%) Spring
14 28 (1.15%) OAuth
14 28 (1.15%) Pandas
14 28 (1.15%) PyTorch
14 28 (1.15%) SOAP
15 27 (1.11%) Web Services
16 26 (1.07%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 182 (7.47%) Management Information System
2 148 (6.08%) Product Ownership
3 134 (5.50%) Onboarding
4 96 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
5 91 (3.74%) Cloud Native
6 68 (2.79%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.67%) Virtual Team
8 62 (2.55%) Data Structures
9 61 (2.50%) Algorithms
10 53 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
11 52 (2.13%) Data Protection Act
12 47 (1.93%) PMI
13 42 (1.72%) Operational Technology
14 39 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
15 38 (1.56%) Robotics
16 37 (1.52%) Security Posture
17 35 (1.44%) Life Science
18 34 (1.40%) Derivative
19 33 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
20 29 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 305 (12.52%) Windows
2 188 (7.72%) Linux
3 73 (3.00%) Unix
4 72 (2.96%) Windows Server
5 60 (2.46%) Windows 10
6 32 (1.31%) Android
7 30 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 25 (1.03%) Apple iOS
8 25 (1.03%) Mac OS
9 12 (0.49%) Windows Server 2019
10 9 (0.37%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
11 8 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 7 (0.29%) AIX
12 7 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 4 (0.16%) Debian
13 4 (0.16%) Rocky
13 4 (0.16%) Solaris
13 4 (0.16%) VMS
14 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 834 (34.24%) Computer Science
2 671 (27.55%) Agile
3 635 (26.07%) Problem-Solving
4 371 (15.23%) Stakeholder Management
5 363 (14.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 352 (14.45%) AI
7 319 (13.10%) DevOps
8 312 (12.81%) Project Management
9 285 (11.70%) CI/CD
10 273 (11.21%) Analytics
11 263 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 261 (10.71%) Decision-Making
13 241 (9.89%) Cybersecurity
14 236 (9.69%) Migration
15 232 (9.52%) Change Management
16 212 (8.70%) Software Engineering
17 210 (8.62%) Roadmaps
18 208 (8.54%) ITIL
19 200 (8.21%) Risk Management
20 198 (8.13%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 394 (16.17%) Python
2 370 (15.19%) SQL
3 182 (7.47%) Java
4 121 (4.97%) PowerShell
5 94 (3.86%) C#
6 91 (3.74%) JavaScript
7 63 (2.59%) C++
8 43 (1.77%) Bash
9 33 (1.35%) TypeScript
10 29 (1.19%) R
11 21 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 21 (0.86%) Shell Script
12 19 (0.78%) C
13 16 (0.66%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.62%) Perl
14 15 (0.62%) Rust
15 14 (0.57%) Go
15 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
16 12 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.45%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 511 (20.98%) Computer Science Degree
2 443 (18.19%) Security Cleared
3 300 (12.32%) SC Cleared
4 271 (11.12%) Master's Degree
5 145 (5.95%) PMI Certification
6 126 (5.17%) PMP
7 120 (4.93%) CISSP
8 80 (3.28%) Cisco Certification
9 79 (3.24%) Microsoft Certification
10 69 (2.83%) CISM
11 66 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
12 63 (2.59%) DV Cleared
13 56 (2.30%) Azure Certification
14 49 (2.01%) PhD
15 46 (1.89%) TOGAF Certification
16 45 (1.85%) CCNP
17 36 (1.48%) CBAP
17 36 (1.48%) CCNA
18 35 (1.44%) MBA
19 33 (1.35%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (5.91%) QA
2 113 (4.64%) Data Quality
3 111 (4.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 111 (4.56%) PMO
4 110 (4.52%) NIST
5 102 (4.19%) GDPR
6 51 (2.09%) SLA
7 50 (2.05%) Accessibility
8 42 (1.72%) PCI DSS
9 29 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 25 (1.03%) GRC
11 20 (0.82%) NCSC
12 17 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.66%) IFRS
14 14 (0.57%) COBIT
15 13 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.49%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.45%) HIPAA
17 11 (0.45%) SOC 2
18 10 (0.41%) WCAG
System Software
1 162 (6.65%) Active Directory
2 137 (5.62%) Docker
3 38 (1.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (1.19%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.86%) Firmware
6 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 7 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.25%) BitLocker
8 6 (0.25%) vSphere
9 5 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
10 4 (0.16%) VMware NSX
10 4 (0.16%) XenApp
10 4 (0.16%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
12 2 (0.082%) HDFS
12 2 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 152 (6.24%) Kubernetes
2 83 (3.41%) Terraform
3 72 (2.96%) Microsoft Intune
4 61 (2.50%) Ansible
5 40 (1.64%) Grafana
6 37 (1.52%) SCCM
7 34 (1.40%) Prometheus
8 20 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 14 (0.57%) Puppet
11 13 (0.53%) Progress Chef
12 11 (0.45%) Kibana
13 10 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.37%) Functional Safety
14 9 (0.37%) Kiali
14 9 (0.37%) WSUS
15 8 (0.33%) HP ALM
15 8 (0.33%) Nessus
15 8 (0.33%) Nmap
15 8 (0.33%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 552 (22.66%) Microsoft
2 179 (7.35%) Oracle
3 143 (5.87%) SAP
4 108 (4.43%) ServiceNow
5 85 (3.49%) Google
6 76 (3.12%) Cisco
7 63 (2.59%) Splunk
8 60 (2.46%) Databricks
9 46 (1.89%) Citrix
10 45 (1.85%) VMware
11 44 (1.81%) Salesforce
12 43 (1.77%) Adobe
13 37 (1.52%) IBM
14 35 (1.44%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.35%) CheckPoint
16 25 (1.03%) Remedy
17 23 (0.94%) Informatica
17 23 (0.94%) Red Hat
18 22 (0.90%) Aruba
18 22 (0.90%) CyberArk