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 3 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 33 41
Rank change year-on-year +21 +8 +30
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 705 191 207
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 10.75% 5.37% 4.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.33% 6.03% 5.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 405 108 108
10th Percentile £331 £314 £363
25th Percentile £433 £412 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £516
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% -3.15% -7.19%
75th Percentile £618 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £650 £651
England median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 18 9
10th Percentile £13.99 £12.50 £13.25
25th Percentile £20.13 £15.13 £25.99
Median hourly rate £56.49 £15.25 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +270.39% -70.95% -10.00%
75th Percentile £84.50 £58.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £87.88 £61.65 £60.73
England median hourly rate £30.22 £21.30 £35.00
% change year-on-year +41.88% -39.14% -46.15%

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 5,290 3,167 3,651
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.69% 89.04% 82.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,107 1,977 2,189
10th Percentile £275 £216 £254
25th Percentile £419 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £618 £588 £625
90th Percentile £713 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 660 317 205
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.33 £16.17 £30.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £22.19 £58.38
Median % change year-on-year +114.24% -61.99% +9.11%
75th Percentile £69.77 £48.75 £70.43
90th Percentile £87.84 £69.11 £77.99
England median hourly rate £40.08 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.36% -41.51% -3.37%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 +21 330 £564 +12.75% 659
Berkshire +19 226 £550 +17.33% 335
Hampshire +16 205 £575 +9.52% 319
Buckinghamshire +6 82 £577 +4.91% 173
Surrey +22 70 £438 -12.50% 178
West Sussex +8 45 £475 +23.38% 107
Middlesex - 25 - - 10
Oxfordshire -11 22 £640 -3.40% 157
Kent +6 14 £411 - 86
East Sussex +2 3 £575 +17.95% 68
Sussex -3 2 £600 - 9
Isle of Wight - 1 £400 - 9
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 36 (5.11%) SharePoint
2 14 (1.99%) Confluence
3 4 (0.57%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.28%) Oracle Application Server
4 2 (0.28%) Smallworld
5 1 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.14%) Apache
5 1 (0.14%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.14%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.14%) CMS
5 1 (0.14%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.14%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.14%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 72 (10.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (4.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 27 (3.83%) Microsoft Project
4 17 (2.41%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.14%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.14%) CINEMA 4D
6 1 (0.14%) Houdini
6 1 (0.14%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.14%) NUKE
6 1 (0.14%) Revit
Business Applications
1 14 (1.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.71%) Primavera
3 4 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.57%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.43%) Maximo
4 3 (0.43%) NEC Housing
4 3 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 3 (0.43%) SAP PSCD
4 3 (0.43%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.28%) iTrent
5 2 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.28%) SAP FI
5 2 (0.28%) SAP FI-CA
5 2 (0.28%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.14%) SAP Convergent Charging
6 1 (0.14%) SAP MDG
6 1 (0.14%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 133 (18.87%) Azure
2 106 (15.04%) AWS
3 37 (5.25%) Power Platform
4 33 (4.68%) GCP
5 27 (3.83%) Azure DevOps
6 25 (3.55%) GitHub
7 24 (3.40%) SaaS
8 23 (3.26%) Entra ID
9 18 (2.55%) Microsoft 365
10 15 (2.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 15 (2.13%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (2.13%) Serverless
11 14 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (1.84%) OpenShift
13 11 (1.56%) Datadog
14 8 (1.13%) AWS CloudFormation
14 8 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
14 8 (1.13%) OCI
15 6 (0.85%) Azure AKS
15 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.11%) DNS
2 23 (3.26%) Network Security
3 17 (2.41%) Firewall
4 13 (1.84%) DHCP
4 13 (1.84%) LAN
5 11 (1.56%) Broadband
6 9 (1.28%) TCP/IP
7 8 (1.13%) WAN
8 7 (0.99%) SD-WAN
8 7 (0.99%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.85%) VPN
9 6 (0.85%) Wireless
10 5 (0.71%) Intranet
10 5 (0.71%) Intrusion Detection
10 5 (0.71%) Software-Defined Networking
11 4 (0.57%) DNSSEC
11 4 (0.57%) Radio Access Network
12 3 (0.43%) MQTT
12 3 (0.43%) VLAN
13 2 (0.28%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.82%) Power BI
2 18 (2.55%) Metadata
3 17 (2.41%) Relational Database
4 13 (1.84%) Data Warehouse
5 11 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
6 7 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
6 7 (0.99%) Spark SQL
7 6 (0.85%) DynamoDB
7 6 (0.85%) Tableau
8 4 (0.57%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.43%) Big Data
9 3 (0.43%) Elasticsearch
9 3 (0.43%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.43%) GIS
9 3 (0.43%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.43%) Redis
10 2 (0.28%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.28%) Oracle ODI
10 2 (0.28%) SQL Server
11 1 (0.14%) Couchbase
Development Applications
1 33 (4.68%) Git
2 32 (4.54%) JIRA
3 21 (2.98%) GitLab
4 20 (2.84%) Jenkins
5 15 (2.13%) Selenium
6 8 (1.13%) MSI
7 5 (0.71%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.28%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.28%) Gatling
8 2 (0.28%) JMeter
8 2 (0.28%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.28%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.28%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.14%) ERwin
9 1 (0.14%) Hudson
9 1 (0.14%) JUnit
9 1 (0.14%) Mockito
9 1 (0.14%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.14%) Subversion
9 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 341 (48.37%) Social Skills
2 197 (27.94%) Analytical Skills
3 119 (16.88%) Finance
4 77 (10.92%) Public Sector
5 55 (7.80%) Aerospace
6 50 (7.09%) Organisational Skills
7 35 (4.96%) Influencing Skills
8 34 (4.82%) Manufacturing
9 25 (3.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 21 (2.98%) Telecoms
11 19 (2.70%) Retail
12 17 (2.41%) Legal
13 16 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
14 15 (2.13%) French Language
14 15 (2.13%) Spanish Language
15 14 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
16 13 (1.84%) Military
17 12 (1.70%) Electronics
18 10 (1.42%) Marketing
19 9 (1.28%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 92 (13.05%) Lead
2 81 (11.49%) Analyst
3 67 (9.50%) Senior
4 62 (8.79%) Architect
5 46 (6.52%) Delivery Manager
6 28 (3.97%) Product Manager
7 25 (3.55%) Consultant
8 22 (3.12%) Data Analyst
9 19 (2.70%) Senior Manager
10 18 (2.55%) IT Manager
10 18 (2.55%) Project Manager
10 18 (2.55%) Security Analyst
11 17 (2.41%) Product Delivery Manager
11 17 (2.41%) Service Manager
12 15 (2.13%) 2nd Line Support
12 15 (2.13%) 2nd Line Technical Support
12 15 (2.13%) Technical Manager
12 15 (2.13%) Technical Support
13 14 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 14 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (7.80%) Terraform
2 15 (2.13%) REST
3 12 (1.70%) .NET
4 11 (1.56%) ARM Templates
5 10 (1.42%) Kafka
5 10 (1.42%) Middleware
5 10 (1.42%) OAuth
5 10 (1.42%) PySpark
5 10 (1.42%) RESTful
5 10 (1.42%) SOAP
6 8 (1.13%) SAML
7 7 (0.99%) OpenID
7 7 (0.99%) React
8 6 (0.85%) EDI
8 6 (0.85%) GraphQL
8 6 (0.85%) HTML
8 6 (0.85%) JSON
8 6 (0.85%) LDAP
9 5 (0.71%) CSS
9 5 (0.71%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 61 (8.65%) Product Ownership
2 41 (5.82%) Onboarding
3 39 (5.53%) Cloud Native
3 39 (5.53%) Management Information System
4 23 (3.26%) Operational Technology
5 18 (2.55%) Hybrid Cloud
5 18 (2.55%) Security Posture
6 17 (2.41%) Data Centre
6 17 (2.41%) Enterprise Software
7 16 (2.27%) Cyber Threat
8 15 (2.13%) CMDB
9 13 (1.84%) Security Operations Centre
10 12 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
10 12 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
10 12 (1.70%) Virtual Team
11 11 (1.56%) PMI
11 11 (1.56%) Social Media
12 8 (1.13%) Animation
12 8 (1.13%) Graphic Design
12 8 (1.13%) Interactive Media
Operating Systems
1 79 (11.21%) Windows
2 37 (5.25%) Linux
3 23 (3.26%) Windows Server
4 7 (0.99%) Windows Server 2019
5 5 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.28%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.14%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 258 (36.60%) Agile
2 217 (30.78%) Problem-Solving
3 203 (28.79%) Stakeholder Management
4 159 (22.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 125 (17.73%) ITIL
6 113 (16.03%) Roadmaps
7 108 (15.32%) Decision-Making
8 99 (14.04%) DevOps
9 97 (13.76%) CI/CD
9 97 (13.76%) Service Delivery
10 91 (12.91%) Service Management
11 89 (12.62%) Project Delivery
12 87 (12.34%) Cybersecurity
13 79 (11.21%) Change Management
14 75 (10.64%) Validation
15 73 (10.35%) ITSM
16 69 (9.79%) Infrastructure as Code
16 69 (9.79%) PRINCE2
17 67 (9.50%) Risk Management
18 65 (9.22%) AI
Programming Languages
1 86 (12.20%) Python
2 75 (10.64%) SQL
3 52 (7.38%) PowerShell
4 28 (3.97%) Bash
5 17 (2.41%) Java
6 9 (1.28%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.13%) Bicep
7 8 (1.13%) C#
8 6 (0.85%) Apex Code
8 6 (0.85%) TypeScript
9 5 (0.71%) Go
10 4 (0.57%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.43%) PL/SQL
11 3 (0.43%) Rust
12 2 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.28%) Magik
13 1 (0.14%) ABAP
13 1 (0.14%) C++
13 1 (0.14%) Perl
13 1 (0.14%) VBA
Qualifications
1 348 (49.36%) Security Cleared
2 196 (27.80%) SC Cleared
3 131 (18.58%) DV Cleared
4 113 (16.03%) Degree
5 37 (5.25%) PMI Certification
6 28 (3.97%) PMP
7 22 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 19 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 18 (2.55%) Azure Certification
10 16 (2.27%) CISSP
11 14 (1.99%) AWS Certification
11 14 (1.99%) ITIL Certification
12 12 (1.70%) ACCA
12 12 (1.70%) CIMA
13 11 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
14 9 (1.28%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
15 7 (0.99%) Master's Degree
15 7 (0.99%) PRINCE2 Certification
16 6 (0.85%) CCNP
16 6 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (9.22%) QA
2 58 (8.23%) PMO
3 51 (7.23%) Data Quality
4 32 (4.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 22 (3.12%) NIST
6 20 (2.84%) GDPR
7 18 (2.55%) SLA
8 15 (2.13%) NCSC
9 14 (1.99%) ISO 9001
10 8 (1.13%) GRC
11 7 (0.99%) Cyber Essentials
12 5 (0.71%) Def Stans
12 5 (0.71%) ISO 22301
12 5 (0.71%) NIST 800
13 4 (0.57%) Accessibility
14 3 (0.43%) COSHH
15 2 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
15 2 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
15 2 (0.28%) GMP
15 2 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 33 (4.68%) Active Directory
2 28 (3.97%) Docker
3 27 (3.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.13%) IAG
5 7 (0.99%) VMware NSX
5 7 (0.99%) vSphere
6 6 (0.85%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.71%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.28%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 51 (7.23%) Kubernetes
2 36 (5.11%) Ansible
3 12 (1.70%) Grafana
4 11 (1.56%) WMI
5 10 (1.42%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (1.13%) Prometheus
6 8 (1.13%) Puppet
7 7 (0.99%) SCCM
8 5 (0.71%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (0.43%) Argo
10 3 (0.43%) MOM
10 3 (0.43%) Podman
10 3 (0.43%) QRadar
10 3 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.28%) CASB
11 2 (0.28%) CSIRT
11 2 (0.28%) Rancher
11 2 (0.28%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 151 (21.42%) Microsoft
2 45 (6.38%) ServiceNow
3 43 (6.10%) SAP
4 32 (4.54%) VMware
5 24 (3.40%) Oracle
6 17 (2.41%) Databricks
6 17 (2.41%) Salesforce
7 14 (1.99%) Google
8 11 (1.56%) Dynatrace
8 11 (1.56%) Juniper
9 8 (1.13%) Cisco
9 8 (1.13%) Nexthink
9 8 (1.13%) Splunk
10 7 (0.99%) Workday
11 6 (0.85%) Baan
11 6 (0.85%) Red Hat
11 6 (0.85%) Virgin Media
12 5 (0.71%) SolarWinds
13 4 (0.57%) EMC
13 4 (0.57%) Infoblox