Degree Contracts

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 25 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 25 19 28
Rank change year-on-year -6 +9 +2
Contract jobs citing Degree 2,275 3,566 3,735
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 7.54% 8.19% 6.73%
As % of the Qualifications category 24.27% 27.47% 24.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,301 1,910 2,300
10th Percentile £235 £225 £270
25th Percentile £363 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £663
90th Percentile £750 £738 £790
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £488 £495
% change year-on-year -7.69% -1.52% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 420 197
10th Percentile £20.00 £15.61 £16.15
25th Percentile £26.32 £22.19 £22.50
Median hourly rate £47.81 £40.00 £48.28
Median % change year-on-year +19.51% -17.15% +35.69%
75th Percentile £65.00 £61.30 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.75 £74.00 £82.15
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £41.50 £47.75
% change year-on-year -1.20% -13.09% +54.03%

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 9,374 12,982 14,946
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.07% 29.80% 26.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,798 8,015 9,930
10th Percentile £275 £313 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £530 £530
% change year-on-year -5.66% - +6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 606 1,132 732
10th Percentile £17.87 £14.00 £15.25
25th Percentile £20.00 £19.25 £22.15
Median hourly rate £28.58 £40.94 £55.13
Median % change year-on-year -30.20% -25.73% +23.88%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £75.25 £75.25 £79.98
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.40 £43.00 £53.67
% change year-on-year -36.28% -19.87% +53.33%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Degree.

Daily rate trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 25 June 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Degree.

Hourly rate trend for Degree in the UK

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree over the 6 months to 25 June 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the UK

Degree
Top 18 Contract 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 25 June 2025. 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 -7 1,857 £500 - 11,985
UK excluding London -6 1,071 £450 -7.69% 6,600
London -3 969 £550 +4.76% 6,205
Work from Home -6 686 £525 +0.63% 9,358
North of England -10 229 £450 -11.07% 1,465
South East -10 210 £475 -5.00% 1,861
Midlands -3 168 £358 -15.76% 997
Scotland -4 144 £450 - 477
North West -10 141 £455 -13.33% 854
South West 0 128 £475 -9.09% 663
West Midlands -2 119 £413 -12.23% 625
East of England 0 111 £500 +9.29% 897
Yorkshire -12 71 £447 -8.78% 457
Wales +5 56 £305 -38.44% 207
East Midlands -6 49 £353 +38.08% 354
Northern Ireland -3 31 £425 +6.25% 170
North East -14 17 £195 -61.95% 162
Channel Islands - 1 - -

Degree
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 99 (4.35%) Confluence
2 97 (4.26%) SharePoint
3 79 (3.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 67 (2.95%) Apache Spark
5 16 (0.70%) CMS
6 14 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (0.57%) Apache
8 12 (0.53%) SAS
9 10 (0.44%) OpenStack
9 10 (0.44%) Skype for Business
10 8 (0.35%) GemFire
10 8 (0.35%) Oracle Coherence
11 7 (0.31%) Moodle
12 6 (0.26%) Camunda
12 6 (0.26%) IIS
13 5 (0.22%) IBM Domino
14 4 (0.18%) JBoss
14 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
14 4 (0.18%) Tomcat
Applications
1 232 (10.20%) Microsoft Office
2 198 (8.70%) Microsoft Excel
3 125 (5.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 104 (4.57%) Microsoft Project
5 65 (2.86%) MS Visio
6 20 (0.88%) Trello
7 19 (0.84%) Simulink
8 12 (0.53%) Chatbot
9 8 (0.35%) AutoCAD
9 8 (0.35%) Windchill
10 7 (0.31%) Revit
11 6 (0.26%) Adobe Captivate
11 6 (0.26%) Maya
11 6 (0.26%) Oracle Smart View
12 3 (0.13%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 3 (0.13%) Camtasia
12 3 (0.13%) CATIA
12 3 (0.13%) Photoshop
12 3 (0.13%) Sketch
12 3 (0.13%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 54 (2.37%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.66%) FLEXCUBE
4 14 (0.62%) Oracle BPM
5 9 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
6 8 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
7 7 (0.31%) Endur
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle EBS R12
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle ERP
7 7 (0.31%) Primavera
7 7 (0.31%) Teamcenter
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
8 6 (0.26%) SAP CO
8 6 (0.26%) SAP FI
8 6 (0.26%) Workday HCM
9 5 (0.22%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 5 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
9 5 (0.22%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 401 (17.63%) Azure
2 321 (14.11%) AWS
3 150 (6.59%) Microsoft 365
3 150 (6.59%) Power Platform
4 113 (4.97%) GCP
5 74 (3.25%) SaaS
6 57 (2.51%) Azure DevOps
7 49 (2.15%) Amazon S3
8 47 (2.07%) Entra ID
8 47 (2.07%) Serverless
9 45 (1.98%) GitHub
10 43 (1.89%) Cloud Computing
11 34 (1.49%) AWS Lambda
11 34 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
12 32 (1.41%) PaaS
13 31 (1.36%) Azure Sentinel
14 26 (1.14%) IaaS
14 26 (1.14%) OneDrive
15 25 (1.10%) Snowflake
16 24 (1.05%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 129 (5.67%) Firewall
2 105 (4.62%) VPN
3 85 (3.74%) DNS
4 76 (3.34%) Network Security
5 52 (2.29%) TCP/IP
6 49 (2.15%) Wireless
7 45 (1.98%) WAN
8 43 (1.89%) DHCP
9 42 (1.85%) BGP
10 39 (1.71%) LAN
10 39 (1.71%) Skype
11 35 (1.54%) OSPF
12 28 (1.23%) WebEx
13 25 (1.10%) Internet
13 25 (1.10%) MPLS
14 23 (1.01%) IPsec
15 21 (0.92%) VLAN
16 20 (0.88%) Cisco IOS
17 19 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
18 18 (0.79%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (5.36%) Power BI
2 76 (3.34%) Data Warehouse
3 73 (3.21%) SQL Server
4 62 (2.73%) Relational Database
5 60 (2.64%) Big Data
5 60 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
6 59 (2.59%) Tableau
7 45 (1.98%) NoSQL
8 40 (1.76%) Hadoop
9 33 (1.45%) Oracle Database
10 31 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
11 28 (1.23%) MySQL
11 28 (1.23%) Oracle Reports
12 24 (1.05%) Data Lake
12 24 (1.05%) MongoDB
13 20 (0.88%) Amazon Redshift
14 19 (0.84%) Redis
15 18 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
15 18 (0.79%) Metadata
16 12 (0.53%) Apache Hive
Development Applications
1 203 (8.92%) JIRA
2 92 (4.04%) Git
3 70 (3.08%) Jenkins
4 38 (1.67%) GitLab
5 21 (0.92%) Selenium
6 20 (0.88%) Bitbucket
7 14 (0.62%) Artifactory
8 13 (0.57%) JUnit
9 12 (0.53%) Postman
10 9 (0.40%) Gradle
10 9 (0.40%) MLflow
11 8 (0.35%) ERwin
11 8 (0.35%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.35%) TeamCity
12 7 (0.31%) Cucumber
12 7 (0.31%) Maven
12 7 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
12 7 (0.31%) Subversion
13 6 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
13 6 (0.26%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,178 (51.78%) Social Skills
2 672 (29.54%) Finance
3 610 (26.81%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (8.92%) Banking
5 175 (7.69%) Public Sector
6 114 (5.01%) Marketing
7 111 (4.88%) Presentation Skills
8 94 (4.13%) Organisational Skills
9 91 (4.00%) Manufacturing
10 76 (3.34%) Telecoms
11 75 (3.30%) Legal
12 64 (2.81%) Influencing Skills
13 58 (2.55%) Investment Banking
14 57 (2.51%) Front Office
15 56 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 52 (2.29%) Pharmaceutical
17 48 (2.11%) Financial Institution
18 47 (2.07%) Electronics
19 41 (1.80%) Military
20 37 (1.63%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 306 (13.45%) Analyst
2 250 (10.99%) Developer
3 248 (10.90%) Senior
4 156 (6.86%) Architect
5 143 (6.29%) Business Analyst
6 123 (5.41%) Lead
7 114 (5.01%) Project Manager
8 81 (3.56%) Consultant
9 76 (3.34%) Support Engineer
10 73 (3.21%) Network Engineer
11 55 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
12 50 (2.20%) Java Developer
13 45 (1.98%) Data Engineer
14 42 (1.85%) Data Analyst
14 42 (1.85%) Senior Developer
14 42 (1.85%) Software Engineer
15 39 (1.71%) IT Manager
16 38 (1.67%) Security Engineer
17 35 (1.54%) Data Scientist
18 34 (1.49%) Desktop Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (4.00%) HTML
2 76 (3.34%) .NET
3 75 (3.30%) CSS
4 67 (2.95%) REST
5 52 (2.29%) Kafka
6 51 (2.24%) Web Services
7 47 (2.07%) React
8 45 (1.98%) AngularJS
9 36 (1.58%) TensorFlow
10 34 (1.49%) Spring
11 32 (1.41%) Middleware
11 32 (1.41%) Pandas
12 31 (1.36%) PyTorch
13 30 (1.32%) RESTful
14 29 (1.27%) SOAP
15 24 (1.05%) Node.js
16 22 (0.97%) XML
17 20 (0.88%) JSON
17 20 (0.88%) scikit-learn
18 19 (0.84%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 200 (8.79%) Management Information System
2 89 (3.91%) Product Ownership
3 79 (3.47%) Algorithms
4 58 (2.55%) Data Protection Act
5 52 (2.29%) Data Centre
6 44 (1.93%) Onboarding
6 44 (1.93%) Virtual Team
7 43 (1.89%) Cloud Native
8 42 (1.85%) PMI
9 41 (1.80%) PKI
10 40 (1.76%) Data Structures
10 40 (1.76%) Self-Motivation
11 39 (1.71%) Derivative
12 36 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
13 35 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
14 34 (1.49%) Life Science
15 32 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
16 26 (1.14%) Distributed Computing
16 26 (1.14%) Security Posture
17 25 (1.10%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 179 (7.87%) Windows
2 130 (5.71%) Linux
3 58 (2.55%) Windows Server
4 35 (1.54%) Windows 10
5 29 (1.27%) Unix
6 25 (1.10%) Android
7 20 (0.88%) Apple iOS
8 11 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.40%) Mac OS
10 7 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
11 6 (0.26%) Solaris
12 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 5 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.18%) AIX
13 4 (0.18%) CentOS
13 4 (0.18%) SUSE
13 4 (0.18%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
14 3 (0.13%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 920 (40.44%) Computer Science
2 731 (32.13%) Problem-Solving
3 599 (26.33%) Agile
4 410 (18.02%) Project Management
5 256 (11.25%) Stakeholder Management
6 251 (11.03%) DevOps
7 245 (10.77%) Analytics
8 201 (8.84%) ITIL
9 188 (8.26%) CI/CD
10 183 (8.04%) Migration
11 181 (7.96%) Change Management
11 181 (7.96%) Decision-Making
12 176 (7.74%) Risk Management
13 175 (7.69%) Roadmaps
14 170 (7.47%) Software Engineering
15 168 (7.38%) Artificial Intelligence
16 164 (7.21%) Business Intelligence
17 161 (7.08%) Continuous Improvement
17 161 (7.08%) Data Analysis
18 159 (6.99%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 411 (18.07%) Python
2 333 (14.64%) SQL
3 229 (10.07%) Java
4 116 (5.10%) JavaScript
5 86 (3.78%) PowerShell
6 82 (3.60%) C++
7 81 (3.56%) C#
8 45 (1.98%) R
9 44 (1.93%) Bash
10 29 (1.27%) C
11 27 (1.19%) PL/SQL
12 20 (0.88%) Perl
13 18 (0.79%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.79%) TypeScript
14 16 (0.70%) MATLAB
14 16 (0.70%) PHP
14 16 (0.70%) Ruby
15 15 (0.66%) Rust
16 14 (0.62%) SystemVerilog
16 14 (0.62%) VBA
Qualifications
1 595 (26.15%) Computer Science Degree
2 291 (12.79%) Master's Degree
3 282 (12.40%) Security Cleared
4 218 (9.58%) SC Cleared
5 141 (6.20%) PMI Certification
6 117 (5.14%) PMP
7 107 (4.70%) Cisco Certification
8 88 (3.87%) Microsoft Certification
9 84 (3.69%) CISSP
9 84 (3.69%) PhD
10 71 (3.12%) AWS Certification
11 68 (2.99%) CCNP
12 65 (2.86%) Azure Certification
13 64 (2.81%) CCNA
14 50 (2.20%) DV Cleared
15 49 (2.15%) Numerate Degree
16 45 (1.98%) CISM
17 38 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
18 32 (1.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 27 (1.19%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (5.19%) QA
2 110 (4.84%) Data Quality
3 70 (3.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 64 (2.81%) GDPR
5 61 (2.68%) NIST
6 54 (2.37%) PMO
7 50 (2.20%) Accessibility
8 26 (1.14%) SLA
9 22 (0.97%) PCI DSS
10 18 (0.79%) HIPAA
11 16 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 15 (0.66%) NCSC
13 13 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
14 11 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
15 10 (0.44%) GRC
16 9 (0.40%) MiFID
16 9 (0.40%) SEPA
16 9 (0.40%) WCAG
17 8 (0.35%) COBIT
17 8 (0.35%) NIST 800
System Software
1 142 (6.24%) Active Directory
2 91 (4.00%) Docker
3 48 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 28 (1.23%) Hyper-V
5 25 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (0.97%) BitLocker
7 14 (0.62%) Firmware
8 12 (0.53%) Microsoft App-V
8 12 (0.53%) VMware NSX
9 11 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
10 9 (0.40%) Terminal Services
10 9 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 8 (0.35%) GridGain
12 6 (0.26%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 6 (0.26%) Virtual Servers
13 4 (0.18%) vSphere
14 3 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
15 2 (0.088%) iptables
15 2 (0.088%) Oracle RAC
15 2 (0.088%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 118 (5.19%) Kubernetes
2 88 (3.87%) Ansible
3 78 (3.43%) Terraform
4 47 (2.07%) Microsoft Intune
5 27 (1.19%) SCCM
6 21 (0.92%) vCenter Server
7 18 (0.79%) Grafana
8 17 (0.75%) Puppet
9 14 (0.62%) WSUS
10 13 (0.57%) Prometheus
10 13 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.53%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.40%) Nagios
12 9 (0.40%) vMotion
13 7 (0.31%) Argo
14 5 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 5 (0.22%) AirWatch
14 5 (0.22%) Cacti
14 5 (0.22%) FortiGate
15 4 (0.18%) SCOM
Vendors
1 445 (19.56%) Microsoft
2 158 (6.95%) Oracle
3 151 (6.64%) SAP
4 121 (5.32%) ServiceNow
5 120 (5.27%) Cisco
6 96 (4.22%) Google
7 75 (3.30%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.59%) VMware
9 35 (1.54%) Atlassian
10 34 (1.49%) Citrix
11 33 (1.45%) Adobe
12 32 (1.41%) Databricks
13 27 (1.19%) Palo Alto
13 27 (1.19%) Workday
14 25 (1.10%) Apple
15 23 (1.01%) Splunk
16 21 (0.92%) F5
16 21 (0.92%) Fortinet
17 20 (0.88%) IBM
18 18 (0.79%) Polycom