SDLC Contract Job Trends in Berkshire

Systems or Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
South East > Berkshire

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Berkshire requiring SDLC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 3 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 84 61 89
Rank change year-on-year -23 +28 -6
Contract jobs citing SDLC 25 48 31
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 1.76% 3.04% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 3.38% 1.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 29 20
10th Percentile £382 £444 £458
25th Percentile £420 £600 £540
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £625 £613
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +2.04% +2.08%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £678
90th Percentile £711 £654 £700
South East median daily rate £550 £600 £565
% change year-on-year -8.33% +6.19% +2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate - - £48.40
75th Percentile - - £48.73
90th Percentile - - £49.33
South East median hourly rate £50.00 £67.02 £49.07
% change year-on-year -25.40% +36.59% -24.52%

All Process and Methodology Skills
Berkshire

SDLC falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Berkshire.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,271 1,421 1,601
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 89.63% 89.94% 91.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 834 780 964
10th Percentile £306 £315 £213
25th Percentile £413 £424 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £541 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.62% +8.25% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £619
90th Percentile £650 £689 £699
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £523
% change year-on-year -2.44% -1.91% +1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 45 70
10th Percentile £14.75 £22.85 £24.33
25th Percentile £18.87 £41.25 £48.40
Median hourly rate £38.86 £58.38 £61.45
Median % change year-on-year -33.43% -5.00% +22.90%
75th Percentile £78.75 £64.73 £67.75
90th Percentile £95.00 £75.19 £76.47
South East median hourly rate £22.00 £54.68 £52.50
% change year-on-year -59.77% +4.15% +23.78%

SDLC
Job Vacancy Trend in Berkshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SDLC relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire.

SDLC job vacancy trend in Berkshire

SDLC
Daily Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SDLC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SDLC

SDLC
Daily Rate Histogram in Berkshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SDLC in Berkshire over the 6 months to 3 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SDLC in Berkshire

SDLC
Hourly Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SDLC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SDLC

SDLC
Contract Job Locations in Berkshire

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SDLC within the Berkshire region over the 6 months to 3 December 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
Reading -6 15 £424 -32.16% 9
Bracknell -8 7 £600 +41.18% 1
Slough - 1 £650 -
Thatcham - 1 - -
SDLC
South East

SDLC
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Berkshire 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 1 (4.00%) Camunda
1 1 (4.00%) Smallworld
Applications
1 1 (4.00%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 8 (32.00%) Azure
2 5 (20.00%) AWS
2 5 (20.00%) GCP
3 3 (12.00%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (12.00%) Entra ID
4 2 (8.00%) Azure AKS
4 2 (8.00%) Azure Functions
4 2 (8.00%) GitHub
4 2 (8.00%) GitHub Actions
4 2 (8.00%) Serverless
5 1 (4.00%) OCI
5 1 (4.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (12.00%) Firewall
1 3 (12.00%) Network Security
2 2 (8.00%) Internet
2 2 (8.00%) Intranet
2 2 (8.00%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.00%) GIS
Development Applications
1 5 (20.00%) Git
2 2 (8.00%) Jenkins
2 2 (8.00%) Visual Studio
3 1 (4.00%) Appium
3 1 (4.00%) Burp Suite
3 1 (4.00%) Cypress.io
3 1 (4.00%) Selenium
General
1 20 (80.00%) Social Skills
2 9 (36.00%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (20.00%) Finance
4 4 (16.00%) Presentation Skills
4 4 (16.00%) Public Sector
5 1 (4.00%) Automotive
5 1 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (4.00%) Retail
Job Titles
1 7 (28.00%) Architect
1 7 (28.00%) Security Architect
2 5 (20.00%) Senior
3 4 (16.00%) Test Manager
4 3 (12.00%) Analyst
4 3 (12.00%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
4 3 (12.00%) Business Analyst
4 3 (12.00%) Developer
4 3 (12.00%) Software Developer
4 3 (12.00%) Tester
5 2 (8.00%) Assembler Developer
5 2 (8.00%) C# Developer
5 2 (8.00%) C# Software Developer
5 2 (8.00%) Operations Analyst
5 2 (8.00%) Penetration Tester
5 2 (8.00%) Release Manager
5 2 (8.00%) Senior Analyst
5 2 (8.00%) Senior Business Analyst
5 2 (8.00%) Senior DevOps
5 2 (8.00%) Strategy Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (12.00%) Google JAX
1 3 (12.00%) JAX
1 3 (12.00%) JWT
1 3 (12.00%) OAuth
1 3 (12.00%) PyTorch
1 3 (12.00%) REST
1 3 (12.00%) SAML
1 3 (12.00%) scikit-learn
1 3 (12.00%) TensorFlow
2 2 (8.00%) .NET
2 2 (8.00%) .NET Core
2 2 (8.00%) GraphQL
3 1 (4.00%) HTML
3 1 (4.00%) SOAP
3 1 (4.00%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 6 (24.00%) Security Posture
2 4 (16.00%) Cloud Native
3 3 (12.00%) Algorithms
3 3 (12.00%) Cloud Security Posture
3 3 (12.00%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (12.00%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (12.00%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (12.00%) Public Cloud
4 2 (8.00%) Operational Technology
5 1 (4.00%) IoT
5 1 (4.00%) Mobile App
5 1 (4.00%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 3 (12.00%) Linux
2 2 (8.00%) Windows
3 1 (4.00%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (56.00%) Problem-Solving
2 12 (48.00%) Agile
3 10 (40.00%) CI/CD
3 10 (40.00%) Test Automation
3 10 (40.00%) Threat Modelling
4 9 (36.00%) DevOps
4 9 (36.00%) Secure Coding
5 7 (28.00%) Computer Science
5 7 (28.00%) Security Architecture
6 6 (24.00%) DevSecOps
6 6 (24.00%) Dynamic Application Security Testing
6 6 (24.00%) Security Testing
6 6 (24.00%) Static Application Security Testing
6 6 (24.00%) Waterfall
7 5 (20.00%) AI
7 5 (20.00%) Cloud Security
7 5 (20.00%) Information Security
7 5 (20.00%) Penetration Testing
7 5 (20.00%) Test Management
7 5 (20.00%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 6 (24.00%) Java
2 5 (20.00%) C
2 5 (20.00%) Python
3 4 (16.00%) C#
3 4 (16.00%) JavaScript
4 3 (12.00%) C++
4 3 (12.00%) R
5 2 (8.00%) Ada
5 2 (8.00%) Assembly Language
5 2 (8.00%) Bash
5 2 (8.00%) MATLAB
5 2 (8.00%) PHP
5 2 (8.00%) PowerShell
6 1 (4.00%) Magik
Qualifications
1 7 (28.00%) Degree
2 6 (24.00%) Security Cleared
3 5 (20.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 5 (20.00%) CCSP
3 5 (20.00%) Cisco Certification
3 5 (20.00%) CISSP
4 4 (16.00%) AWS Certification
4 4 (16.00%) Computer Science Degree
5 3 (12.00%) Azure Certification
6 2 (8.00%) Master's Degree
6 2 (8.00%) PMP
6 2 (8.00%) SC Cleared
7 1 (4.00%) ISTQB
7 1 (4.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (4.00%) OSCP
7 1 (4.00%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (28.00%) GDPR
1 7 (28.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 7 (28.00%) QA
2 6 (24.00%) NIST
3 4 (16.00%) PCI DSS
3 4 (16.00%) PSD2
4 3 (12.00%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 5 (20.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (32.00%) Kubernetes
2 2 (8.00%) Nessus
3 1 (4.00%) Nmap
Vendors
1 3 (12.00%) SAP