Degree Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Academic Degree
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 17 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 2 8
Rank change year-on-year -8 +6 -5
Permanent jobs citing Degree 5,608 6,926 9,668
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 8.46% 23.71% 13.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 35.72% 54.22% 53.16%
Number of salaries quoted 1,938 2,331 6,045
10th Percentile £27,425 £27,250 £26,250
25th Percentile £32,563 £37,500 £33,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,620 £50,890 £48,039
Median % change year-on-year -6.43% +5.93% -3.92%
75th Percentile £65,000 £66,225 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,177 £77,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year - +4.76% -9.48%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

Degree falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 15,698 12,773 18,187
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 23.68% 43.73% 26.32%
Number of salaries quoted 6,063 5,241 12,149
10th Percentile £28,250 £28,750 £27,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £36,925 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,000 £51,645 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.56% +3.29% -3.05%
75th Percentile £70,000 £66,274 £65,000
90th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £79,120
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £54,022
% change year-on-year +9.09% +1.81% -9.25%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Degree relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Degree job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Degree
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Degree.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Degree

Degree
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Degree in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 17 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Degree in the UK excluding London

Degree
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Degree within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 17 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England -7 1,722 £45,000 -5.63% 466
Midlands -6 1,409 £42,500 -13.27% 288
North West +4 1,295 £45,000 -10.00% 232
South East -6 1,251 £55,000 -0.51% 683
West Midlands -2 1,186 £44,543 -12.66% 178
East of England -6 566 £46,750 -19.40% 242
South West -20 372 £44,050 -14.47% 269
Yorkshire -26 321 £45,000 +38.46% 171
East Midlands -21 234 £36,332 -23.51% 110
Scotland -21 145 £49,100 -1.80% 93
North East -28 106 £51,500 -4.19% 71
Wales -12 104 £53,171 -3.33% 54
Northern Ireland -26 42 £40,000 -0.55% 16
Isle of Man +3 2 £35,000 -9.68% 2
Channel Islands +1 2 - - 1
Degree
UK

Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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
1 128 (2.28%) SharePoint
2 82 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 39 (0.70%) CMS
4 27 (0.48%) Confluence
5 25 (0.45%) WordPress
6 15 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
7 11 (0.20%) IIS
8 10 (0.18%) SAS
9 7 (0.12%) FactoryTalk
10 6 (0.11%) Apache Spark
11 5 (0.089%) Apache
12 3 (0.053%) PowerFactory
12 3 (0.053%) WebSphere
12 3 (0.053%) WebSphere Application Server
13 2 (0.036%) Artix
13 2 (0.036%) Luigi
14 1 (0.018%) Camunda
14 1 (0.018%) Jupyter
14 1 (0.018%) Kinematics
14 1 (0.018%) OpenStack
Applications
1 420 (7.49%) Microsoft Office
2 209 (3.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 109 (1.94%) Microsoft Project
4 57 (1.02%) Simulink
5 53 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 39 (0.70%) MS Visio
7 18 (0.32%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 17 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
9 16 (0.29%) AutoCAD
10 12 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
11 11 (0.20%) CATIA
12 10 (0.18%) Photoshop
13 5 (0.089%) SOLIDWORKS
14 4 (0.071%) Fusion 360
14 4 (0.071%) InDesign
15 3 (0.053%) Adobe XD
15 3 (0.053%) Autodesk Inventor
15 3 (0.053%) FrameMaker
15 3 (0.053%) Revit
15 3 (0.053%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (0.32%) Dynamics AX
3 14 (0.25%) SAP HR
4 11 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
4 11 (0.20%) SAP CO
5 9 (0.16%) Dynamics GP
6 6 (0.11%) Sage 50
7 5 (0.089%) Primavera
7 5 (0.089%) SAP GTS
8 4 (0.071%) SAP S/4HANA
8 4 (0.071%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 3 (0.053%) Oracle EBS
9 3 (0.053%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.053%) SAP SD
10 2 (0.036%) Eloqua
10 2 (0.036%) NetSuite
10 2 (0.036%) Salesforce CRM
10 2 (0.036%) SAP FI
10 2 (0.036%) SAP FI/CO
11 1 (0.018%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 2,333 (41.60%) Cloud Computing
2 464 (8.27%) Azure
3 377 (6.72%) Microsoft 365
4 328 (5.85%) AWS
5 219 (3.91%) Power Platform
6 134 (2.39%) Entra ID
7 91 (1.62%) GCP
8 75 (1.34%) SaaS
9 63 (1.12%) Serverless
10 61 (1.09%) Azure DevOps
11 43 (0.77%) PowerApps
12 36 (0.64%) GitHub
12 36 (0.64%) Power Automate
13 33 (0.59%) Dynamics 365
14 26 (0.46%) Azure Data Factory
15 24 (0.43%) Microsoft Copilot
16 22 (0.39%) Azure Functions
16 22 (0.39%) Azure Logic Apps
17 21 (0.37%) OneDrive
18 20 (0.36%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2,355 (41.99%) Internet
2 119 (2.12%) Firewall
3 93 (1.66%) WAN
4 79 (1.41%) DNS
5 72 (1.28%) LAN
6 68 (1.21%) VPN
7 63 (1.12%) DHCP
8 47 (0.84%) VoIP
8 47 (0.84%) Wireless
9 44 (0.78%) TCP/IP
9 44 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
10 41 (0.73%) Network Security
11 35 (0.62%) VLAN
12 33 (0.59%) Broadband
13 24 (0.43%) Unified Communications
14 22 (0.39%) SD-WAN
15 20 (0.36%) BGP
15 20 (0.36%) Ethernet
16 19 (0.34%) 4G
17 15 (0.27%) Profibus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 184 (3.28%) Power BI
2 133 (2.37%) SQL Server
3 48 (0.86%) MySQL
4 47 (0.84%) PostgreSQL
5 42 (0.75%) Tableau
6 40 (0.71%) Metadata
7 32 (0.57%) Data Warehouse
8 26 (0.46%) Relational Database
9 24 (0.43%) GIS
10 23 (0.41%) NoSQL
11 21 (0.37%) Amazon Redshift
12 18 (0.32%) OLTP
13 16 (0.29%) Big Data
14 14 (0.25%) MongoDB
15 13 (0.23%) Data Lake
16 11 (0.20%) Amazon RDS
16 11 (0.20%) Spark SQL
17 10 (0.18%) BigQuery
17 10 (0.18%) Spotfire
18 9 (0.16%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 143 (2.55%) JIRA
2 119 (2.12%) Git
3 96 (1.71%) Rational DOORS
4 40 (0.71%) GitLab
5 36 (0.64%) Selenium
6 25 (0.45%) Postman
7 22 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
8 18 (0.32%) Jenkins
8 18 (0.32%) LabVIEW
8 18 (0.32%) Team Foundation Server
9 17 (0.30%) WebDriver
10 16 (0.29%) SoapUI
11 11 (0.20%) Cypress.io
12 9 (0.16%) Visual Studio
13 8 (0.14%) Burp Suite
14 7 (0.12%) Cucumber
14 7 (0.12%) Moq
14 7 (0.12%) SonarQube
15 6 (0.11%) Bitbucket
16 5 (0.089%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 3,600 (64.19%) Social Skills
2 2,613 (46.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 2,342 (41.76%) Banking
4 649 (11.57%) Finance
5 507 (9.04%) Analytical Skills
6 336 (5.99%) Manufacturing
7 250 (4.46%) Electronics
8 219 (3.91%) Marketing
9 168 (3.00%) Organisational Skills
10 139 (2.48%) Aerospace
11 124 (2.21%) Pharmaceutical
12 122 (2.18%) Retail
13 117 (2.09%) Public Sector
14 110 (1.96%) Law
15 107 (1.91%) Legal
16 95 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
17 91 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
18 70 (1.25%) Telecoms
19 58 (1.03%) Military
20 57 (1.02%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 1,755 (31.29%) Lecturer
2 552 (9.84%) Senior
3 435 (7.76%) Analyst
4 279 (4.98%) Systems Engineer
5 230 (4.10%) Developer
6 221 (3.94%) Software Engineer
7 210 (3.74%) Lead
8 181 (3.23%) Support Engineer
9 153 (2.73%) IT Support
10 135 (2.41%) Business Analyst
11 128 (2.28%) Graduate
12 123 (2.19%) Senior Manager
13 122 (2.18%) Project Manager
14 120 (2.14%) Architect
15 113 (2.01%) Principal Engineer
16 100 (1.78%) Support Analyst
17 98 (1.75%) Sales Executive
18 92 (1.64%) Development Manager
19 88 (1.57%) Technical Support
20 80 (1.43%) Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (2.73%) .NET
2 138 (2.46%) HTML
3 98 (1.75%) CSS
4 63 (1.12%) SOAP
5 57 (1.02%) React
6 54 (0.96%) XML
7 52 (0.93%) REST
8 43 (0.77%) jQuery
9 34 (0.61%) JSON
10 33 (0.59%) Middleware
11 31 (0.55%) RESTful
12 30 (0.53%) Node.js
13 27 (0.48%) .NET Core
14 26 (0.46%) PyTorch
15 21 (0.37%) Playwright
16 20 (0.36%) .NET Framework
16 20 (0.36%) TensorFlow
17 18 (0.32%) PySpark
18 17 (0.30%) Vue
19 15 (0.27%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 2,347 (41.85%) IoT
2 217 (3.87%) Management Information System
3 139 (2.48%) Self-Motivation
4 137 (2.44%) Driving Licence
5 126 (2.25%) Onboarding
6 101 (1.80%) Product Ownership
7 74 (1.32%) Life Science
8 67 (1.19%) Algorithms
9 61 (1.09%) Data Centre
10 60 (1.07%) Cloud Native
11 59 (1.05%) FMCG
12 45 (0.80%) Enterprise Software
13 39 (0.70%) Distributed Systems
14 34 (0.61%) Embedded Systems
14 34 (0.61%) Social Media
15 32 (0.57%) Blog
16 31 (0.55%) Analytical Mindset
17 30 (0.53%) Web Conferencing
18 28 (0.50%) SCADA
19 27 (0.48%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 318 (5.67%) Windows
2 162 (2.89%) Linux
3 111 (1.98%) Windows 10
4 74 (1.32%) Windows Server
5 54 (0.96%) Android
6 31 (0.55%) Unix
7 17 (0.30%) Mac OS
8 11 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
9 10 (0.18%) Apple iOS
10 8 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
11 7 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 6 (0.11%) Ubuntu
13 4 (0.071%) Kali Linux
14 3 (0.053%) Robot Operating System
14 3 (0.053%) Windows Server 2019
15 2 (0.036%) FreeRTOS
15 2 (0.036%) ThreadX
15 2 (0.036%) Windows Server 2012
16 1 (0.018%) Debian
16 1 (0.018%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,629 (46.88%) AI
2 2,576 (45.93%) Cybersecurity
3 2,459 (43.85%) Machine Learning
4 2,414 (43.05%) User Experience
5 2,351 (41.92%) Web Development
6 748 (13.34%) Computer Science
7 744 (13.27%) Problem-Solving
8 587 (10.47%) Agile
9 575 (10.25%) Continuous Improvement
10 408 (7.28%) Decision-Making
11 402 (7.17%) Project Management
12 343 (6.12%) Software Engineering
13 310 (5.53%) Customer Service
14 305 (5.44%) ITIL
15 274 (4.89%) Analytics
16 262 (4.67%) Mentoring
17 240 (4.28%) DevOps
18 234 (4.17%) Systems Engineering
19 232 (4.14%) Project Delivery
20 231 (4.12%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 451 (8.04%) Python
2 379 (6.76%) SQL
3 251 (4.48%) C#
4 205 (3.66%) C++
5 159 (2.84%) Java
6 143 (2.55%) JavaScript
7 112 (2.00%) C
8 91 (1.62%) MATLAB
9 84 (1.50%) PowerShell
10 61 (1.09%) PHP
10 61 (1.09%) TypeScript
11 34 (0.61%) Bash
12 30 (0.53%) PL/SQL
12 30 (0.53%) Rust
13 24 (0.43%) R
14 21 (0.37%) VBA
15 20 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 18 (0.32%) Embedded C
17 15 (0.27%) T-SQL
18 13 (0.23%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,595 (46.27%) Master's Degree
2 2,390 (42.62%) PhD
3 2,329 (41.53%) Postgraduate
4 457 (8.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 337 (6.01%) BPSS Clearance
6 312 (5.56%) Security Cleared
7 223 (3.98%) SC Cleared
8 163 (2.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 129 (2.30%) HND
10 114 (2.03%) PMI Certification
11 111 (1.98%) DBS Check
12 101 (1.80%) PMP
13 100 (1.78%) HNC
14 68 (1.21%) AWS Certification
15 62 (1.11%) A+ Certification
16 59 (1.05%) DV Cleared
17 52 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
18 50 (0.89%) Chartered Engineer
18 50 (0.89%) MCSE
19 49 (0.87%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 178 (3.17%) QA
2 132 (2.35%) Accessibility
3 119 (2.12%) GDPR
4 113 (2.01%) SLA
5 105 (1.87%) Data Quality
6 87 (1.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 65 (1.16%) NIST
8 41 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
9 40 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 15288
10 35 (0.62%) PMO
11 29 (0.52%) GRC
12 28 (0.50%) ISO 9001
13 26 (0.46%) IEC 61508
14 21 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
15 19 (0.34%) GxP
15 19 (0.34%) PCI DSS
16 17 (0.30%) Good Clinical Practice
17 15 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 12207
18 14 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
19 13 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 177 (3.16%) Active Directory
2 93 (1.66%) Docker
3 75 (1.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 45 (0.80%) Hyper-V
5 43 (0.77%) Firmware
6 15 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
7 13 (0.23%) KVM
7 13 (0.23%) vSphere
8 9 (0.16%) Virtual Servers
8 9 (0.16%) VMware NSX
9 8 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 8 (0.14%) ProxySG
9 8 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.11%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 6 (0.11%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.071%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.036%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.018%) Oracle RAC
13 1 (0.018%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 81 (1.44%) Kubernetes
2 76 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
3 61 (1.09%) Terraform
4 28 (0.50%) Functional Safety
5 27 (0.48%) Ansible
6 26 (0.46%) Grafana
7 16 (0.29%) Prometheus
8 15 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
8 15 (0.27%) SCCM
9 10 (0.18%) Autotask
10 8 (0.14%) WSUS
11 7 (0.12%) Wonderware InTouch
12 5 (0.089%) FTK
13 4 (0.071%) FortiGate
13 4 (0.071%) HP Fortify
13 4 (0.071%) Nmap
13 4 (0.071%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.053%) CASB
14 3 (0.053%) HP ALM
14 3 (0.053%) Plesk
Vendors
1 624 (11.13%) Microsoft
2 134 (2.39%) Cisco
3 96 (1.71%) ServiceNow
4 79 (1.41%) VMware
5 77 (1.37%) Dell
6 71 (1.27%) Oracle
7 63 (1.12%) SAP
8 60 (1.07%) Google
9 50 (0.89%) Databricks
10 44 (0.78%) Adobe
10 44 (0.78%) IBM
11 42 (0.75%) Salesforce
11 42 (0.75%) Siemens
12 31 (0.55%) Apple
13 30 (0.53%) NEC
14 27 (0.48%) HubSpot
15 26 (0.46%) Meraki
16 21 (0.37%) Workday
17 20 (0.36%) Palo Alto
17 20 (0.36%) Sage