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 21 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 40 25 20
Rank change year-on-year -15 -5 +6
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,481 2,434 3,280
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 4.71% 7.47% 7.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.02% 24.28% 26.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,326 1,388 1,886
10th Percentile £206 £250 £225
25th Percentile £360 £374 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £454 £450 £489
% change year-on-year +0.89% -7.93% +0.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 273 201 327
10th Percentile £16.60 £17.80 £17.72
25th Percentile £26.25 £26.25 £25.36
Median hourly rate £45.00 £44.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.27% -7.37% -12.84%
75th Percentile £82.50 £65.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.25 £39.66 £55.00
% change year-on-year +14.09% -27.89% +4.76%

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 16,518 10,025 12,378
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.33% 30.76% 29.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,028 6,216 7,798
10th Percentile £350 £275 £310
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £713 £703 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,196 738 985
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £25.75 £19.38 £20.75
Median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +107.75% -41.51% -25.00%
75th Percentile £73.00 £56.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.81 £75.00 £75.24
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -41.51% -21.82%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 -13 2,233 £500 - 2,563
UK excluding London -9 1,374 £454 +0.89% 1,581
London -20 941 £525 -4.55% 1,258
Work from Home -19 659 £500 - 884
South East +3 464 £500 +3.90% 538
North of England -14 325 £448 +0.11% 332
Midlands -23 196 £500 +19.05% 228
North West -16 182 £447 -4.64% 162
East of England -4 146 £450 - 197
West Midlands -28 146 £487 +8.11% 126
Yorkshire -12 126 £475 +11.76% 109
South West -24 118 £415 -7.78% 183
Scotland -37 87 £475 +5.91% 61
East Midlands -15 48 £515 +43.85% 102
Wales -26 25 £450 +47.31% 37
North East -43 17 £450 +130.77% 64
Northern Ireland -13 16 £254 -46.53% 49

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
1 142 (5.72%) SharePoint
2 133 (5.36%) Confluence
3 59 (2.38%) Microsoft Exchange
4 44 (1.77%) Apache Spark
5 35 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
6 25 (1.01%) Apache
7 13 (0.52%) IIS
8 10 (0.40%) CMS
8 10 (0.40%) SAS
9 8 (0.32%) Camunda
9 8 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.16%) Appian
10 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.16%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
11 3 (0.12%) Moodle
11 3 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.081%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 281 (11.33%) Microsoft Office
2 235 (9.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 144 (5.80%) Microsoft Project
4 137 (5.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 64 (2.58%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe After Effects
6 17 (0.69%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 15 (0.60%) Photoshop
8 14 (0.56%) Adobe Illustrator
9 13 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
10 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
10 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 8 (0.32%) Simulink
10 8 (0.32%) Sketch
11 6 (0.24%) Final Cut Pro
11 6 (0.24%) Trello
11 6 (0.24%) UserZoom
12 3 (0.12%) CATIA
12 3 (0.12%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 65 (2.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 16 (0.64%) Primavera
3 11 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 11 (0.44%) Salesforce CRM
4 9 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
5 8 (0.32%) Magento
6 7 (0.28%) Aladdin
6 7 (0.28%) SAP EWM
7 6 (0.24%) HFM
7 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
7 6 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
7 6 (0.24%) SAP MM
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
8 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
9 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 3 (0.12%) Dynamics GP
10 3 (0.12%) OpenText MBPM
10 3 (0.12%) SAP HR
10 3 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 574 (23.14%) Azure
2 324 (13.06%) AWS
3 220 (8.87%) Power Platform
4 206 (8.30%) Microsoft 365
5 151 (6.09%) Entra ID
6 129 (5.20%) GCP
7 106 (4.27%) Azure DevOps
8 81 (3.26%) SaaS
9 66 (2.66%) GitHub
10 46 (1.85%) Figma
11 44 (1.77%) Snowflake
12 42 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
13 41 (1.65%) Serverless
14 36 (1.45%) PowerApps
15 34 (1.37%) Power Automate
16 33 (1.33%) OneDrive
17 32 (1.29%) GitHub Actions
18 30 (1.21%) Microsoft Copilot
19 27 (1.09%) IaaS
19 27 (1.09%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (4.59%) Firewall
2 79 (3.18%) TCP/IP
3 76 (3.06%) DNS
4 66 (2.66%) Network Security
5 57 (2.30%) VPN
6 47 (1.89%) WAN
7 42 (1.69%) LAN
8 37 (1.49%) DHCP
9 25 (1.01%) BGP
9 25 (1.01%) Wireless
10 22 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 21 (0.85%) OSPF
12 19 (0.77%) Ethernet
13 18 (0.73%) SSL
14 17 (0.69%) VLAN
15 16 (0.64%) SSH
16 15 (0.60%) Internet
17 14 (0.56%) 3GPP
17 14 (0.56%) SAN
18 13 (0.52%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 185 (7.46%) Power BI
2 114 (4.59%) SQL Server
3 63 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.06%) Relational Database
6 47 (1.89%) Metadata
7 45 (1.81%) Big Data
8 39 (1.57%) Tableau
9 35 (1.41%) NoSQL
10 28 (1.13%) MongoDB
10 28 (1.13%) MySQL
11 23 (0.93%) Data Lake
11 23 (0.93%) Hadoop
11 23 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (0.77%) Oracle Database
13 17 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
13 17 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
14 16 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
15 14 (0.56%) GIS
16 13 (0.52%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 218 (8.79%) JIRA
2 130 (5.24%) Git
3 54 (2.18%) Jenkins
4 40 (1.61%) GitLab
5 34 (1.37%) Rational DOORS
6 20 (0.81%) MLflow
7 17 (0.69%) Selenium
8 15 (0.60%) Visual Studio
9 14 (0.56%) JUnit
9 14 (0.56%) Postman
10 13 (0.52%) REST Assured
11 12 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 11 (0.44%) Gradle
12 11 (0.44%) Subversion
13 10 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 10 (0.40%) TeamCity
14 9 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.36%) Maven
15 8 (0.32%) Cypress.io
15 8 (0.32%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,084 (43.69%) Social Skills
2 737 (29.71%) Finance
3 536 (21.60%) Analytical Skills
4 211 (8.50%) Public Sector
5 192 (7.74%) Banking
6 155 (6.25%) Organisational Skills
7 107 (4.31%) Marketing
8 104 (4.19%) Presentation Skills
9 99 (3.99%) Legal
10 91 (3.67%) Aerospace
11 89 (3.59%) Manufacturing
12 86 (3.47%) Documentation Skills
13 81 (3.26%) Influencing Skills
14 74 (2.98%) Telecoms
15 62 (2.50%) Retail
16 58 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 53 (2.14%) Law
18 43 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
19 35 (1.41%) Front Office
19 35 (1.41%) Military
Job Titles
1 349 (14.07%) Analyst
2 285 (11.49%) Senior
3 197 (7.94%) Architect
4 186 (7.50%) Lead
5 173 (6.97%) Developer
6 158 (6.37%) Project Manager
7 152 (6.13%) Business Analyst
8 72 (2.90%) Consultant
8 72 (2.90%) Senior Manager
9 67 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
10 66 (2.66%) Designer
11 57 (2.30%) IT Manager
12 56 (2.26%) IT Support
13 55 (2.22%) Software Engineer
14 51 (2.06%) Senior Analyst
14 51 (2.06%) Support Engineer
15 50 (2.02%) Administrator
15 50 (2.02%) Product Manager
16 49 (1.98%) IT Analyst
16 49 (1.98%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (4.19%) REST
2 98 (3.95%) .NET
3 67 (2.70%) React
4 50 (2.02%) Kafka
5 44 (1.77%) RESTful
6 39 (1.57%) HTML
6 39 (1.57%) OAuth
7 36 (1.45%) Middleware
8 35 (1.41%) .NET Framework
9 33 (1.33%) Spring
9 33 (1.33%) Web Services
10 32 (1.29%) CSS
11 31 (1.25%) JSON
11 31 (1.25%) Oracle Fusion
11 31 (1.25%) Spring Boot
12 30 (1.21%) AngularJS
12 30 (1.21%) LDAP
12 30 (1.21%) XML
13 29 (1.17%) SAML
14 27 (1.09%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 209 (8.42%) Management Information System
2 153 (6.17%) Onboarding
3 152 (6.13%) Product Ownership
4 115 (4.64%) Self-Motivation
5 102 (4.11%) Cloud Native
6 66 (2.66%) Data Centre
7 64 (2.58%) Algorithms
7 64 (2.58%) Data Structures
8 60 (2.42%) Virtual Team
9 52 (2.10%) Operational Technology
9 52 (2.10%) Security Posture
10 44 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
11 42 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
12 40 (1.61%) Life Science
13 39 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
13 39 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
14 34 (1.37%) AI Agents
14 34 (1.37%) Robotics
15 33 (1.33%) PMI
16 31 (1.25%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 307 (12.37%) Windows
2 179 (7.21%) Linux
3 76 (3.06%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.62%) Unix
5 48 (1.93%) Windows 10
6 35 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 29 (1.17%) Apple iOS
7 29 (1.17%) Mac OS
8 28 (1.13%) Android
9 12 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 6 (0.24%) AIX
11 6 (0.24%) Solaris
11 6 (0.24%) VMS
11 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 5 (0.20%) Windows 7
13 3 (0.12%) MVS
13 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
13 3 (0.12%) Rocky
13 3 (0.12%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 838 (33.78%) Computer Science
2 690 (27.81%) Agile
3 664 (26.76%) Problem-Solving
4 431 (17.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 400 (16.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 393 (15.84%) AI
7 336 (13.54%) DevOps
8 311 (12.54%) Analytics
9 308 (12.41%) Project Management
10 301 (12.13%) CI/CD
11 272 (10.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 266 (10.72%) Decision-Making
12 266 (10.72%) ITIL
13 250 (10.08%) Cybersecurity
14 224 (9.03%) Change Management
15 218 (8.79%) Roadmaps
16 214 (8.63%) Software Engineering
17 206 (8.30%) Migration
18 203 (8.18%) Scrum
19 202 (8.14%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 426 (17.17%) Python
2 364 (14.67%) SQL
3 175 (7.05%) Java
4 144 (5.80%) PowerShell
5 104 (4.19%) C#
6 87 (3.51%) JavaScript
7 50 (2.02%) C++
8 48 (1.93%) Bash
9 39 (1.57%) TypeScript
10 30 (1.21%) R
11 25 (1.01%) Shell Script
12 24 (0.97%) PL/SQL
13 23 (0.93%) Bicep
14 22 (0.89%) T-SQL
15 21 (0.85%) C
16 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.44%) MATLAB
17 11 (0.44%) Perl
18 10 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 10 (0.40%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 484 (19.51%) Computer Science Degree
2 439 (17.69%) Security Cleared
3 286 (11.53%) SC Cleared
4 255 (10.28%) Master's Degree
5 140 (5.64%) PMI Certification
6 122 (4.92%) PMP
7 121 (4.88%) CISSP
8 104 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.39%) Cisco Certification
10 76 (3.06%) Azure Certification
11 71 (2.86%) DV Cleared
12 64 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
13 61 (2.46%) CISM
14 50 (2.02%) PhD
15 44 (1.77%) AWS Certification
16 43 (1.73%) CCNA
17 40 (1.61%) CCNP
18 36 (1.45%) CISA
19 34 (1.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 34 (1.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (5.32%) Data Quality
2 131 (5.28%) QA
3 115 (4.64%) NIST
4 111 (4.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 104 (4.19%) PMO
6 85 (3.43%) GDPR
7 51 (2.06%) Accessibility
8 48 (1.93%) SLA
9 30 (1.21%) PCI DSS
10 28 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 26 (1.05%) GRC
12 22 (0.89%) NCSC
13 16 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.52%) IFRS
16 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
17 11 (0.44%) HIPAA
18 10 (0.40%) COBIT
18 10 (0.40%) P3O
19 9 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 196 (7.90%) Active Directory
2 128 (5.16%) Docker
3 47 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 21 (0.85%) Firmware
6 15 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) BitLocker
8 7 (0.28%) VMware NSX
9 6 (0.24%) Embedded Firmware
9 6 (0.24%) vSphere
10 4 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
10 4 (0.16%) NFS
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.16%) Terminal Services
11 3 (0.12%) ACF2
11 3 (0.12%) RACF
11 3 (0.12%) Veritas Volume Manager
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 138 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 93 (3.75%) Terraform
3 76 (3.06%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.42%) Ansible
5 36 (1.45%) SCCM
6 32 (1.29%) Grafana
7 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
8 21 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
9 14 (0.56%) Progress Chef
10 13 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Puppet
11 11 (0.44%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.36%) HP ALM
12 9 (0.36%) WSUS
13 8 (0.32%) Nessus
14 5 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.20%) SCOM
14 5 (0.20%) Tivoli
15 4 (0.16%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 612 (24.67%) Microsoft
2 165 (6.65%) Oracle
3 149 (6.01%) SAP
4 128 (5.16%) ServiceNow
5 100 (4.03%) Google
6 72 (2.90%) Cisco
7 65 (2.62%) Databricks
8 62 (2.50%) VMware
9 55 (2.22%) Adobe
9 55 (2.22%) Salesforce
10 51 (2.06%) IBM
11 35 (1.41%) Splunk
12 34 (1.37%) Citrix
13 33 (1.33%) CyberArk
14 32 (1.29%) Palo Alto
15 28 (1.13%) Red Hat
16 21 (0.85%) Ariba
16 21 (0.85%) CheckPoint
16 21 (0.85%) Siemens
17 20 (0.81%) Informatica