SDLC Contract Job Trends in the North East

Systems or Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
England > North East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North East requiring SDLC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 39 31 32
Rank change year-on-year -8 +1 +18
Contract jobs citing SDLC 5 6 1
As % of all contract jobs in the North East 1.56% 2.16% 0.43%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.81% 2.34% 0.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 1 0
10th Percentile £494 - -
25th Percentile £514 £313 -
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £325 -
Median % change year-on-year +69.23% - -
75th Percentile £575 £338 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median daily rate £513 £550 £581
% change year-on-year -6.68% -5.38% -3.13%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £44.50 - -
Median hourly rate £48.00 - -
75th Percentile £51.50 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £50.00 £67.02 £52.35
% change year-on-year -25.40% +28.02% -16.24%

All Process and Methodology Skills
North East

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 the North East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 276 256 201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North East 85.98% 92.09% 87.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 173 96 153
10th Percentile £171 £325 £308
25th Percentile £363 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year - - -14.29%
75th Percentile £550 £589 £575
90th Percentile £615 £694 £645
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 34 11
10th Percentile £13.98 £14.78 £16.25
25th Percentile £17.08 £15.50 £17.50
Median hourly rate £19.25 £34.02 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -43.42% +70.10% +14.29%
75th Percentile £20.63 £46.18 £39.97
90th Percentile £46.85 £70.00 £46.18
England median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -10.11% +27.14%

SDLC
Job Vacancy Trend in the North East

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

SDLC job vacancy trend in the North East

SDLC
Daily Rate Trend in the North East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing SDLC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing SDLC

SDLC
Hourly Rate Trend in the North East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing SDLC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North East citing SDLC

SDLC
Contract Job Locations in the North East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SDLC within the North East region over the 6 months to 27 October 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
Tyne and Wear -13 5 £550 +69.23% 26
SDLC
England

SDLC
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North East 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:

Cloud Services
1 3 (60.00%) AWS
2 2 (40.00%) Amazon EKS
3 1 (20.00%) OpenShift
Development Applications
1 3 (60.00%) GitLab
2 1 (20.00%) Cucumber
2 1 (20.00%) Gatling
2 1 (20.00%) JIRA
2 1 (20.00%) JMeter
2 1 (20.00%) Selenium
2 1 (20.00%) SonarQube
2 1 (20.00%) TestRail
General
1 1 (20.00%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 3 (60.00%) Java Engineer
1 3 (60.00%) Java Software Engineer
1 3 (60.00%) Software Engineer
2 2 (40.00%) SC Cleared Software Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Developer
3 1 (20.00%) Java Developer
3 1 (20.00%) QA Automation Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) QA Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) QA Test Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Test Automation Engineer
3 1 (20.00%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (60.00%) Spring Boot
2 2 (40.00%) Spring
3 1 (20.00%) AngularJS
3 1 (20.00%) Gherkin
3 1 (20.00%) Quarkus
Miscellaneous
1 1 (20.00%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (100.00%) Test Automation
2 4 (80.00%) Agile
2 4 (80.00%) BDD
2 4 (80.00%) CI/CD
2 4 (80.00%) Software Engineering
3 3 (60.00%) Containerisation
3 3 (60.00%) Functional Testing
3 3 (60.00%) Infrastructure as Code
3 3 (60.00%) Mentoring
3 3 (60.00%) Microservices
3 3 (60.00%) Non-Functional Testing
3 3 (60.00%) TDD
3 3 (60.00%) Technical Leadership
3 3 (60.00%) User Stories
4 2 (40.00%) API Design
4 2 (40.00%) API Development
4 2 (40.00%) Scrum
4 2 (40.00%) Sprint Planning
4 2 (40.00%) Test Strategy
5 1 (20.00%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 5 (100.00%) Java
Qualifications
1 3 (60.00%) SC Cleared
1 3 (60.00%) Security Cleared
2 1 (20.00%) ISTQB
2 1 (20.00%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (40.00%) QA
2 1 (20.00%) Accessibility
System Software
1 3 (60.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (60.00%) Kubernetes
1 3 (60.00%) Terraform
2 1 (20.00%) Argo
Vendors
1 1 (20.00%) Red Hat