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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 24 17
Rank change year-on-year -9 -7 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,475 2,294 3,665
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 5.26% 7.86% 8.46%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.21% 25.58% 27.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,458 1,318 1,954
10th Percentile £250 £242 £212
25th Percentile £380 £376 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year - -1.48% -3.33%
75th Percentile £624 £638 £629
90th Percentile £750 £768 £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 220 185 403
10th Percentile £17.23 £18.13 £14.01
25th Percentile £27.97 £28.18 £22.63
Median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% +33.75% -11.11%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.25 £47.05 £40.25
% change year-on-year +21.67% +16.90% -10.56%

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 15,272 8,969 13,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.44% 30.74% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,150 5,666 8,172
10th Percentile £350 £289 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -1.33% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £707 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £507 £530
% change year-on-year -1.38% -4.34% +0.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,116 512 1,072
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.27 £17.86
Median hourly rate £47.50 £42.21 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.55% +5.51% -25.93%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.25 £80.09 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £47.00 £45.00 £40.31
% change year-on-year +4.44% +11.63% -18.64%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 2,186 £500 -3.85% 2,532
UK excluding London -7 1,339 £475 +5.56% 2,075
London -16 926 £503 -8.64% 747
Work from Home -9 677 £500 - 800
South East -7 371 £500 - 570
North of England -9 335 £417 -8.45% 670
Midlands -24 211 £503 +67.50% 320
North West -2 181 £400 -13.51% 450
West Midlands -24 150 £500 +66.67% 194
South West -11 144 £650 +30.00% 211
East of England -9 139 £475 -5.00% 198
Yorkshire -16 137 £474 +14.43% 171
Scotland -8 97 £500 +11.11% 72
East Midlands -20 59 £525 +55.33% 125
Wales -15 37 £291 -4.68% 42
North East -20 17 £364 -21.30% 57
Northern Ireland -6 15 £425 +36.00% 41

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 (6.87%) Confluence
2 119 (4.81%) SharePoint
3 71 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (2.06%) Apache Spark
5 25 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (0.81%) Apache
7 9 (0.36%) CMS
8 7 (0.28%) SAS
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.16%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 4 (0.16%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) Moodle
12 3 (0.12%) MS Project Server
13 2 (0.081%) Appian
13 2 (0.081%) Camunda
13 2 (0.081%) Ethereum
13 2 (0.081%) Skype for Business
13 2 (0.081%) WinCC
Applications
1 318 (12.85%) Microsoft Office
2 245 (9.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 198 (8.00%) Microsoft Project
4 145 (5.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 62 (2.51%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.44%) Simulink
8 10 (0.40%) Trello
9 8 (0.32%) Navisworks
9 8 (0.32%) Revit
10 6 (0.24%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.24%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.24%) Sketch
11 5 (0.20%) Adobe After Effects
12 4 (0.16%) Adobe Illustrator
12 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
13 3 (0.12%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.081%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.081%) FrameMaker
14 2 (0.081%) InVision
Business Applications
1 76 (3.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 22 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.77%) Primavera
4 15 (0.61%) Remedy ITSM
5 10 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
6 9 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
7 8 (0.32%) Aladdin
7 8 (0.32%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 7 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
8 7 (0.28%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.24%) NetSuite
9 6 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 6 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
9 6 (0.24%) SAP EWM
10 5 (0.20%) Dynamics GP
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.16%) Fidessa
11 4 (0.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 4 (0.16%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 512 (20.69%) Azure
2 277 (11.19%) AWS
3 213 (8.61%) Microsoft 365
4 205 (8.28%) Power Platform
5 113 (4.57%) Entra ID
6 106 (4.28%) SaaS
7 102 (4.12%) GCP
8 93 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
9 63 (2.55%) GitHub
10 49 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
11 37 (1.49%) Power Automate
12 34 (1.37%) Snowflake
13 32 (1.29%) Google Workspace
14 29 (1.17%) PaaS
15 28 (1.13%) Cloud Computing
15 28 (1.13%) IaaS
15 28 (1.13%) PowerApps
15 28 (1.13%) Serverless
16 27 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
17 26 (1.05%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 112 (4.53%) Firewall
2 62 (2.51%) TCP/IP
3 57 (2.30%) DNS
4 56 (2.26%) WAN
5 54 (2.18%) LAN
6 50 (2.02%) Network Security
7 37 (1.49%) VPN
8 27 (1.09%) Skype
9 26 (1.05%) Wireless
10 25 (1.01%) BGP
10 25 (1.01%) Ethernet
11 23 (0.93%) HTTP
12 22 (0.89%) OSPF
13 17 (0.69%) DHCP
14 16 (0.65%) SAN
14 16 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
15 12 (0.48%) Cisco IOS
15 12 (0.48%) SSL
15 12 (0.48%) VLAN
15 12 (0.48%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (6.83%) Power BI
2 101 (4.08%) SQL Server
3 67 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
4 60 (2.42%) Data Warehouse
5 51 (2.06%) Relational Database
6 48 (1.94%) Big Data
7 42 (1.70%) Metadata
8 40 (1.62%) Tableau
9 36 (1.45%) NoSQL
10 33 (1.33%) MySQL
11 28 (1.13%) Hadoop
12 26 (1.05%) Data Lake
13 21 (0.85%) MongoDB
14 19 (0.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 15 (0.61%) Elasticsearch
16 12 (0.48%) Oracle Reports
16 12 (0.48%) Power Query
16 12 (0.48%) Snowflake Schema
17 11 (0.44%) Amazon RDS
17 11 (0.44%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 279 (11.27%) JIRA
2 117 (4.73%) Git
3 48 (1.94%) Jenkins
4 41 (1.66%) GitLab
5 31 (1.25%) Rational DOORS
6 21 (0.85%) Visual Studio
7 20 (0.81%) MLflow
8 19 (0.77%) Selenium
9 13 (0.53%) Postman
10 12 (0.48%) Burp Suite
11 11 (0.44%) Metasploit
12 10 (0.40%) Gradle
13 9 (0.36%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.36%) Jaeger
13 9 (0.36%) JUnit
13 9 (0.36%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 7 (0.28%) CircleCI
15 7 (0.28%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.24%) Artifactory
General
1 1,162 (46.95%) Social Skills
2 756 (30.55%) Finance
3 548 (22.14%) Analytical Skills
4 227 (9.17%) Banking
5 216 (8.73%) Public Sector
6 129 (5.21%) Organisational Skills
7 126 (5.09%) Presentation Skills
8 104 (4.20%) Marketing
9 89 (3.60%) Documentation Skills
10 83 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
11 77 (3.11%) Manufacturing
12 73 (2.95%) Aerospace
13 70 (2.83%) Legal
13 70 (2.83%) Telecoms
14 58 (2.34%) Military
15 49 (1.98%) Law
16 47 (1.90%) Retail
17 45 (1.82%) Electronics
18 42 (1.70%) Front Office
19 40 (1.62%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 339 (13.70%) Analyst
2 239 (9.66%) Senior
3 215 (8.69%) Architect
4 202 (8.16%) Lead
5 180 (7.27%) Project Manager
6 179 (7.23%) Developer
7 159 (6.42%) Business Analyst
8 86 (3.47%) Consultant
9 67 (2.71%) Senior Analyst
10 66 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
11 62 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
12 57 (2.30%) Technical Support
13 54 (2.18%) Designer
14 53 (2.14%) Security Engineer
15 52 (2.10%) Data Scientist
16 50 (2.02%) Software Engineer
17 45 (1.82%) Product Manager
18 44 (1.78%) Data Engineer
19 42 (1.70%) Systems Engineer
20 38 (1.54%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (3.88%) REST
2 81 (3.27%) .NET
3 56 (2.26%) Middleware
3 56 (2.26%) React
4 51 (2.06%) HTML
5 48 (1.94%) RESTful
6 44 (1.78%) Kafka
7 38 (1.54%) SOAP
7 38 (1.54%) XML
8 37 (1.49%) Oracle Fusion
9 36 (1.45%) CSS
9 36 (1.45%) JSON
9 36 (1.45%) Spring Boot
10 34 (1.37%) OAuth
10 34 (1.37%) Pandas
10 34 (1.37%) PyTorch
11 33 (1.33%) Spring
12 30 (1.21%) TensorFlow
13 29 (1.17%) .NET Framework
14 26 (1.05%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 201 (8.12%) Management Information System
2 171 (6.91%) Product Ownership
3 131 (5.29%) Onboarding
4 87 (3.52%) Cloud Native
5 81 (3.27%) Virtual Team
6 72 (2.91%) Self-Motivation
7 68 (2.75%) Algorithms
8 62 (2.51%) Data Structures
9 60 (2.42%) Data Centre
9 60 (2.42%) PMI
10 54 (2.18%) Data Protection Act
11 51 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
12 42 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
13 36 (1.45%) Robotics
13 36 (1.45%) Security Posture
14 35 (1.41%) Operational Technology
15 33 (1.33%) Derivative
15 33 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
16 32 (1.29%) AI Agents
17 30 (1.21%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 279 (11.27%) Windows
2 173 (6.99%) Linux
3 74 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 61 (2.46%) Unix
5 58 (2.34%) Windows 10
6 33 (1.33%) Android
7 28 (1.13%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.53%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.53%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2016
10 11 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.24%) Windows 7
13 5 (0.20%) AIX
13 5 (0.20%) Debian
13 5 (0.20%) VMS
14 4 (0.16%) Rocky
14 4 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
15 3 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 883 (35.68%) Computer Science
2 734 (29.66%) Agile
3 657 (26.55%) Problem-Solving
4 391 (15.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 365 (14.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 357 (14.42%) AI
7 347 (14.02%) Project Management
8 336 (13.58%) DevOps
9 283 (11.43%) CI/CD
10 279 (11.27%) Analytics
11 274 (11.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 252 (10.18%) Change Management
13 249 (10.06%) ITIL
14 247 (9.98%) Decision-Making
15 246 (9.94%) Cybersecurity
15 246 (9.94%) Migration
16 223 (9.01%) PRINCE2
17 221 (8.93%) Project Delivery
18 214 (8.65%) Roadmaps
19 211 (8.53%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 389 (15.72%) Python
2 358 (14.46%) SQL
3 169 (6.83%) Java
4 118 (4.77%) PowerShell
5 92 (3.72%) C#
6 80 (3.23%) JavaScript
7 66 (2.67%) C++
8 40 (1.62%) Bash
9 39 (1.58%) TypeScript
10 32 (1.29%) R
11 25 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 18 (0.73%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.69%) T-SQL
14 15 (0.61%) C
14 15 (0.61%) Go
15 14 (0.57%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.57%) Perl
15 14 (0.57%) Rust
16 12 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.48%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 556 (22.46%) Computer Science Degree
2 473 (19.11%) Security Cleared
3 335 (13.54%) SC Cleared
4 307 (12.40%) Master's Degree
5 157 (6.34%) PMI Certification
6 132 (5.33%) PMP
7 104 (4.20%) CISSP
8 91 (3.68%) Microsoft Certification
9 69 (2.79%) TOGAF Certification
10 61 (2.46%) BPSS Clearance
10 61 (2.46%) CISM
11 60 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
12 57 (2.30%) DV Cleared
13 52 (2.10%) Azure Certification
13 52 (2.10%) PhD
14 39 (1.58%) MBA
15 37 (1.49%) CCNP
16 36 (1.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
17 34 (1.37%) CBAP
18 32 (1.29%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (6.91%) QA
2 115 (4.65%) PMO
3 108 (4.36%) GDPR
4 105 (4.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 105 (4.24%) NIST
5 103 (4.16%) Data Quality
6 51 (2.06%) SLA
7 44 (1.78%) Accessibility
8 43 (1.74%) PCI DSS
9 26 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 24 (0.97%) GRC
11 20 (0.81%) NCSC
12 19 (0.77%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.57%) COBIT
13 14 (0.57%) IFRS
14 13 (0.53%) Basel III
15 12 (0.48%) NIST 800
15 12 (0.48%) SOC 2
16 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
16 11 (0.44%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 164 (6.63%) Active Directory
2 146 (5.90%) Docker
3 37 (1.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 24 (0.97%) Firmware
6 9 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
7 8 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.28%) vSphere
9 5 (0.20%) XenApp
9 5 (0.20%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.16%) BitLocker
10 4 (0.16%) Embedded Firmware
11 3 (0.12%) KVM
11 3 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.12%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.081%) HDFS
12 2 (0.081%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.040%) GPFS
13 1 (0.040%) IAG
13 1 (0.040%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 151 (6.10%) Kubernetes
2 78 (3.15%) Terraform
3 62 (2.51%) Microsoft Intune
4 60 (2.42%) Ansible
5 39 (1.58%) Grafana
6 37 (1.49%) SCCM
7 30 (1.21%) OPNET
8 29 (1.17%) Prometheus
9 17 (0.69%) Puppet
9 17 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
10 16 (0.65%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.44%) Kibana
11 11 (0.44%) Nmap
11 11 (0.44%) WSUS
12 9 (0.36%) Kiali
12 9 (0.36%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.32%) HP ALM
13 8 (0.32%) SCOM
14 7 (0.28%) Nessus
14 7 (0.28%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 567 (22.91%) Microsoft
2 160 (6.46%) SAP
3 155 (6.26%) Oracle
4 126 (5.09%) ServiceNow
5 88 (3.56%) Google
6 77 (3.11%) Cisco
7 65 (2.63%) Splunk
8 59 (2.38%) Databricks
9 50 (2.02%) Remedy
10 45 (1.82%) Citrix
10 45 (1.82%) VMware
11 44 (1.78%) Atlassian
12 41 (1.66%) Salesforce
13 39 (1.58%) IBM
14 35 (1.41%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.33%) CheckPoint
16 30 (1.21%) Adobe
17 23 (0.93%) Aruba
17 23 (0.93%) CyberArk
17 23 (0.93%) Informatica