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 17 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 57 82
Rank change year-on-year -38 +25 +8
Contract jobs citing SDLC 22 44 40
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 1.47% 3.24% 2.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.71% 3.53% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 26 27
10th Percentile £379 £436 £456
25th Percentile £411 £600 £563
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £625 £625
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% - +1.96%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £675
90th Percentile £711 £652 £693
South East median daily rate £550 £575 £590
% change year-on-year -4.35% -2.54% +12.38%
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 £60.00 £67.02 £49.07
% change year-on-year -10.47% +36.59% -24.52%

All Process & 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 1,289 1,246 1,603
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 86.34% 91.75% 92.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 881 683 951
10th Percentile £293 £298 £213
25th Percentile £406 £407 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £608
90th Percentile £650 £675 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £506 £513
% change year-on-year -1.23% -1.27% +1.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 37 78
10th Percentile £16.39 £27.15 £24.80
25th Percentile £20.57 £42.88 £46.01
Median hourly rate £58.00 £61.50 £60.57
Median % change year-on-year -5.68% +1.53% -6.82%
75th Percentile £85.00 £65.62 £65.96
90th Percentile £99.25 £76.18 £75.80
South East median hourly rate £23.58 £43.94 £54.44
% change year-on-year -46.35% -19.29% +20.98%

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 17 January 2026.

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 17 January 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
Reading -18 13 £423 -32.32% 6
Bracknell -5 6 £600 +41.18% 1
Slough - 1 £650 - 20
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 (4.55%) Camunda
1 1 (4.55%) Smallworld
Applications
1 1 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 8 (36.36%) Azure
2 5 (22.73%) AWS
2 5 (22.73%) GCP
3 3 (13.64%) Azure DevOps
3 3 (13.64%) Entra ID
4 2 (9.09%) Azure AKS
4 2 (9.09%) Azure Functions
4 2 (9.09%) GitHub
4 2 (9.09%) GitHub Actions
4 2 (9.09%) Serverless
5 1 (4.55%) OCI
5 1 (4.55%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (13.64%) Firewall
1 3 (13.64%) Network Security
1 3 (13.64%) Wireless
2 2 (9.09%) Internet
2 2 (9.09%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.55%) GIS
Development Applications
1 2 (9.09%) Burp Suite
1 2 (9.09%) Git
1 2 (9.09%) Jenkins
1 2 (9.09%) Visual Studio
2 1 (4.55%) Appium
2 1 (4.55%) Cypress.io
2 1 (4.55%) Selenium
General
1 16 (72.73%) Social Skills
2 7 (31.82%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (22.73%) Presentation Skills
4 4 (18.18%) Finance
5 3 (13.64%) Public Sector
6 1 (4.55%) Automotive
6 1 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (4.55%) Retail
Job Titles
1 5 (22.73%) Senior
1 5 (22.73%) Test Manager
2 4 (18.18%) Architect
2 4 (18.18%) Security Architect
2 4 (18.18%) Tester
3 3 (13.64%) Analyst
3 3 (13.64%) Business Analyst
3 3 (13.64%) Developer
3 3 (13.64%) Penetration Tester
3 3 (13.64%) Software Developer
3 3 (13.64%) Strategy Manager
3 3 (13.64%) Test Strategy Manager
4 2 (9.09%) Ada Developer
4 2 (9.09%) C# Developer
4 2 (9.09%) C# Software Developer
4 2 (9.09%) DevOps Engineer
4 2 (9.09%) Operations Business Analyst
4 2 (9.09%) Senior Analyst
4 2 (9.09%) Senior DevOps Engineer
4 2 (9.09%) Senior Operations Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (18.18%) JWT
1 4 (18.18%) OAuth
1 4 (18.18%) SAML
2 3 (13.64%) REST
3 2 (9.09%) .NET
3 2 (9.09%) .NET Core
3 2 (9.09%) GraphQL
4 1 (4.55%) HTML
4 1 (4.55%) SOAP
4 1 (4.55%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 5 (22.73%) Security Posture
2 4 (18.18%) Cloud Native
2 4 (18.18%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (13.64%) Cloud Security Posture
3 3 (13.64%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (13.64%) Hybrid Cloud
3 3 (13.64%) Public Cloud
4 2 (9.09%) Operational Technology
5 1 (4.55%) IoT
5 1 (4.55%) Mobile App
5 1 (4.55%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 4 (18.18%) Linux
2 2 (9.09%) Kali Linux
2 2 (9.09%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (54.55%) Test Automation
2 11 (50.00%) Agile
3 10 (45.45%) Problem-Solving
4 8 (36.36%) Security Testing
4 8 (36.36%) Threat Modelling
5 7 (31.82%) CI/CD
5 7 (31.82%) Dynamic Application Security Testing
5 7 (31.82%) Penetration Testing
5 7 (31.82%) Secure Coding
5 7 (31.82%) Static Application Security Testing
5 7 (31.82%) Waterfall
6 6 (27.27%) DevSecOps
6 6 (27.27%) OWASP
6 6 (27.27%) Test Management
6 6 (27.27%) User Acceptance Testing
7 5 (22.73%) Cloud Security
7 5 (22.73%) Computer Science
7 5 (22.73%) Decision-Making
7 5 (22.73%) Information Security
7 5 (22.73%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 4 (18.18%) C#
1 4 (18.18%) JavaScript
2 3 (13.64%) Java
3 2 (9.09%) Ada
3 2 (9.09%) Assembly Language
3 2 (9.09%) Bash
3 2 (9.09%) C
3 2 (9.09%) MATLAB
3 2 (9.09%) PHP
3 2 (9.09%) PowerShell
3 2 (9.09%) Python
4 1 (4.55%) Magik
Qualifications
1 5 (22.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
1 5 (22.73%) CCSP
1 5 (22.73%) Cisco Certification
1 5 (22.73%) CISSP
1 5 (22.73%) Degree
1 5 (22.73%) Security Cleared
2 4 (18.18%) AWS Certification
3 3 (13.64%) Azure Certification
4 2 (9.09%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (9.09%) Master's Degree
4 2 (9.09%) SANS
4 2 (9.09%) SC Cleared
5 1 (4.55%) ISTQB
5 1 (4.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
5 1 (4.55%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (22.73%) QA
2 4 (18.18%) GDPR
2 4 (18.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 4 (18.18%) NIST
2 4 (18.18%) PCI DSS
2 4 (18.18%) PSD2
System Software
1 5 (22.73%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (22.73%) Kubernetes
2 3 (13.64%) Nessus
3 2 (9.09%) Nmap
Vendors
1 3 (13.64%) SAP