Continuous Improvement Contract Job Trends in the South East

Continual Improvement
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Continuous Improvement skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 39 38
Rank change year-on-year +18 -1 +28
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 404 144 235
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.86% 4.85% 4.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.49% 5.32% 5.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 236 88 124
10th Percentile £322 £321 £393
25th Percentile £425 £415 £459
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -3.61% -5.68%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £650
90th Percentile £683 £650 £688
England median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.21% -2.61% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 8 19
10th Percentile £37.80 £20.67 £17.93
25th Percentile £80.75 £21.00 £21.18
Median hourly rate £88.00 £62.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.94% +65.33% -6.25%
75th Percentile - £70.22 £43.75
90th Percentile £96.75 £80.97 £60.61
England median hourly rate £56.50 £49.23 £36.50
% change year-on-year +14.77% +34.88% -34.53%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Continuous Improvement 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 South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 4,758 2,709 4,611
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.75% 91.30% 84.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,096 1,731 2,685
10th Percentile £280 £250 £250
25th Percentile £409 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £706 £663 £700
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 433 170 436
10th Percentile £15.32 £13.46 £13.00
25th Percentile £25.15 £15.00 £18.20
Median hourly rate £55.00 £27.88 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +97.27% -41.31% -3.06%
75th Percentile £82.25 £62.24 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £47.00 £29.07 £36.50
% change year-on-year +61.68% -20.36% -2.67%

Continuous Improvement
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Continuous Improvement relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Continuous Improvement job vacancy trend in the South East

Continuous Improvement
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Continuous Improvement.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Continuous Improvement in the South East over the 6 months to 15 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Continuous Improvement in the South East

Continuous Improvement
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Continuous Improvement.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Continuous Improvement in the South East over the 6 months to 15 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Continuous Improvement in the South East

Continuous Improvement
Contract Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Continuous Improvement within the South East region over the 6 months to 15 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Thames Valley +16 200 £505 +0.95% 172
Berkshire +23 161 £500 +2.04% 92
Hampshire +18 117 £548 -0.45% 97
Buckinghamshire -16 36 £525 -4.55% 50
Surrey +7 34 £513 +7.89% 43
West Sussex -9 19 £475 +13.43% 16
East Sussex +3 10 £600 +9.09% 9
Oxfordshire -17 3 £525 +110.00% 35
Kent -8 2 £463 -18.50% 23
Middlesex - 2 - - 7
Sussex - 1 - - 1
Continuous Improvement
England

Continuous Improvement
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South 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:

Application Platforms
1 10 (2.48%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.98%) Confluence
3 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.25%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 26 (6.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (2.48%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.49%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.99%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 13 (3.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (1.98%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 3 (0.74%) iTrent
3 3 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.50%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.50%) SAP SD
4 2 (0.50%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.25%) Primavera
5 1 (0.25%) SAP Business One
5 1 (0.25%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.25%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 60 (14.85%) Azure
2 46 (11.39%) AWS
3 25 (6.19%) Power Platform
4 20 (4.95%) GCP
5 11 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (2.48%) SaaS
7 6 (1.49%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (1.49%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (1.49%) Serverless
8 4 (0.99%) dbt
8 4 (0.99%) Entra ID
8 4 (0.99%) OpenShift
9 3 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (0.74%) Azure Functions
9 3 (0.74%) Azure Logic Apps
9 3 (0.74%) GitHub Actions
9 3 (0.74%) OCI
9 3 (0.74%) Power Automate
9 3 (0.74%) SuccessFactors
9 3 (0.74%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.72%) Firewall
2 10 (2.48%) Network Security
3 8 (1.98%) VPN
4 7 (1.73%) LAN
5 6 (1.49%) VLAN
6 5 (1.24%) TCP/IP
7 3 (0.74%) BGP
7 3 (0.74%) DNS
7 3 (0.74%) IPv4
7 3 (0.74%) IPv6
7 3 (0.74%) OSPF
7 3 (0.74%) WAN
7 3 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.74%) Wireless
8 2 (0.50%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.50%) DHCP
8 2 (0.50%) Intranet
8 2 (0.50%) MPLS
8 2 (0.50%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.50%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (5.20%) Power BI
2 7 (1.73%) Metadata
3 6 (1.49%) Data Warehouse
3 6 (1.49%) Tableau
4 4 (0.99%) Data Lake
4 4 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
4 4 (0.99%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.74%) Metadata Repository
5 3 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (0.74%) Redis
5 3 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.50%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.25%) Ataccama
7 1 (0.25%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.25%) GIS
7 1 (0.25%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.25%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.25%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 27 (6.68%) Rational DOORS
2 14 (3.47%) JIRA
3 6 (1.49%) GitLab
4 4 (0.99%) Git
4 4 (0.99%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.74%) Hudson
5 3 (0.74%) Selenium
6 2 (0.50%) SpecFlow
6 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.25%) Balsamiq
7 1 (0.25%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.25%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.25%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.25%) ERwin
7 1 (0.25%) Postman
7 1 (0.25%) WebDriver
General
1 175 (43.32%) Social Skills
2 98 (24.26%) Finance
3 83 (20.54%) Analytical Skills
4 48 (11.88%) Public Sector
5 44 (10.89%) Aerospace
6 15 (3.71%) Legal
7 14 (3.47%) Influencing Skills
7 14 (3.47%) Law
7 14 (3.47%) Telecoms
8 13 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (2.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 11 (2.72%) Retail
10 7 (1.73%) French Language
10 7 (1.73%) Spanish Language
11 5 (1.24%) Marketing
12 3 (0.74%) Automotive
12 3 (0.74%) Aviation
12 3 (0.74%) Billing
12 3 (0.74%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.74%) Military
Job Titles
1 48 (11.88%) Analyst
2 45 (11.14%) Delivery Manager
3 44 (10.89%) Lead
4 38 (9.41%) Senior
5 35 (8.66%) Product Manager
6 29 (7.18%) Product Delivery Manager
7 24 (5.94%) Architect
8 23 (5.69%) IT Manager
9 22 (5.45%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 22 (5.45%) Systems Manager
10 17 (4.21%) Service Manager
11 13 (3.22%) Project Manager
12 12 (2.97%) Senior Analyst
13 11 (2.72%) Financial Analyst
14 10 (2.48%) Consultant
14 10 (2.48%) Designer
14 10 (2.48%) Engineering Manager
14 10 (2.48%) Senior Financial Analyst
14 10 (2.48%) Solutions Architect
14 10 (2.48%) Systems Accountant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.98%) .NET
2 5 (1.24%) Oracle Fusion
3 4 (0.99%) EDI
3 4 (0.99%) REST
3 4 (0.99%) RESTful
3 4 (0.99%) SOAP
4 3 (0.74%) JSON
4 3 (0.74%) Kafka
4 3 (0.74%) Keycloak
4 3 (0.74%) OAuth
4 3 (0.74%) Playwright
4 3 (0.74%) YAML
5 2 (0.50%) ARM Templates
5 2 (0.50%) Elastic Stack
5 2 (0.50%) Node.js
5 2 (0.50%) React
5 2 (0.50%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.50%) Unity (Game Engine)
5 2 (0.50%) Unreal Engine
5 2 (0.50%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 47 (11.63%) Product Ownership
2 26 (6.44%) Data Structures
3 19 (4.70%) Onboarding
4 17 (4.21%) Data Centre
4 17 (4.21%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (3.96%) Management Information System
6 12 (2.97%) Security Posture
7 10 (2.48%) Analytical Mindset
7 10 (2.48%) PMI
8 9 (2.23%) Cloud Native
9 8 (1.98%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (1.73%) Operational Technology
10 7 (1.73%) PKI
11 6 (1.49%) CMDB
11 6 (1.49%) Taxonomies
11 6 (1.49%) Virtual Team
12 5 (1.24%) e-Learning
12 5 (1.24%) Mainframe
12 5 (1.24%) Security Operations Centre
13 3 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (3.47%) Windows
2 7 (1.73%) Linux
3 2 (0.50%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.25%) Android
4 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.25%) VMS
4 1 (0.25%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (26.98%) Agile
2 95 (23.51%) Stakeholder Management
3 94 (23.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 81 (20.05%) ITIL
5 70 (17.33%) Problem-Solving
6 64 (15.84%) Service Management
7 54 (13.37%) ITSM
8 49 (12.13%) Change Management
8 49 (12.13%) Decision-Making
9 46 (11.39%) Roadmaps
10 45 (11.14%) PRINCE2
11 40 (9.90%) Computer Science
12 39 (9.65%) Risk Management
12 39 (9.65%) Scaled Agile Framework
13 37 (9.16%) Configuration Management
14 36 (8.91%) ERP
14 36 (8.91%) Service Delivery
15 35 (8.66%) Analytics
15 35 (8.66%) DevOps
16 33 (8.17%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 21 (5.20%) SQL
2 17 (4.21%) Python
3 11 (2.72%) PowerShell
4 10 (2.48%) Java
5 6 (1.49%) C#
6 5 (1.24%) Bash
7 4 (0.99%) Bicep
8 3 (0.74%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.50%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.50%) T-SQL
9 2 (0.50%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.25%) ABAP
10 1 (0.25%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.25%) C
10 1 (0.25%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.25%) Swift
10 1 (0.25%) VB
Qualifications
1 189 (46.78%) Security Cleared
2 94 (23.27%) SC Cleared
3 77 (19.06%) Degree
4 48 (11.88%) DV Cleared
5 22 (5.45%) ACCA
5 22 (5.45%) CIMA
6 21 (5.20%) PMI Certification
7 12 (2.97%) PMP
8 10 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (2.23%) CCNP
10 7 (1.73%) Azure Certification
11 6 (1.49%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (1.24%) CCNA
12 5 (1.24%) CISSP
13 3 (0.74%) AWS Certification
13 3 (0.74%) CESG Certified Professional
13 3 (0.74%) CISM
13 3 (0.74%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.74%) JNCIS
13 3 (0.74%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.68%) Data Quality
2 18 (4.46%) QA
3 16 (3.96%) PMO
4 15 (3.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (3.22%) NIST
6 12 (2.97%) SLA
7 10 (2.48%) GDPR
8 9 (2.23%) NCSC
9 7 (1.73%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (1.49%) Accessibility
11 4 (0.99%) GRC
12 3 (0.74%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.74%) ISO 22301
12 3 (0.74%) ISO 31000
12 3 (0.74%) NIST 800
13 2 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 1 (0.25%) IFRS
14 1 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 1 (0.25%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (3.22%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (2.72%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.23%) Docker
4 5 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.99%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.50%) Firmware
6 2 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.25%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.25%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (2.97%) Kubernetes
2 10 (2.48%) Terraform
3 8 (1.98%) Ansible
4 5 (1.24%) Grafana
5 4 (0.99%) Nagios
5 4 (0.99%) Nessus
5 4 (0.99%) Prometheus
5 4 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (0.74%) Argo
6 3 (0.74%) OpenVAS
6 3 (0.74%) Rancher
7 2 (0.50%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.50%) Iperf
7 2 (0.50%) Nmap
7 2 (0.50%) SCCM
8 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.25%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.25%) Puppet
8 1 (0.25%) QRadar
8 1 (0.25%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 33 (8.17%) ServiceNow
2 32 (7.92%) Microsoft
3 31 (7.67%) SAP
4 26 (6.44%) Oracle
5 25 (6.19%) IBM
6 20 (4.95%) VMware
7 16 (3.96%) Google
8 9 (2.23%) Cisco
9 8 (1.98%) Salesforce
10 7 (1.73%) SolarWinds
11 6 (1.49%) Juniper
11 6 (1.49%) Palo Alto
11 6 (1.49%) Splunk
12 5 (1.24%) Databricks
12 5 (1.24%) Remedy
12 5 (1.24%) Virgin Media
13 4 (0.99%) F5
13 4 (0.99%) Qualys
13 4 (0.99%) Rapid7
14 3 (0.74%) Workday