Abstract. Simple families of increasing trees can be constructed from simply generated tree families, if one considers for every tree of size n all its increasing labellings, i.e., labellings of the nodes by distinct integers of the set {1, . . . , n} in such a way that each sequence of labels along any branch starting at the root is increasing. Three such tree families are of particular interest: recursive trees, plane-oriented recursive trees and binary increasing trees. We study the quantity degree of node j in a random tree of size n and give closed formulæ for the probability distribution and all factorial moments for those subclass of tree families, which can be constructed via a tree evolution process. Furthermore limiting distribution results of this parameter are given, which completely characterize the phase change behaviour depending on the growth of j compared to n.