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 19 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 34 46
Rank change year-on-year +10 +12 +31
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 327 161 196
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.84% 5.10% 3.61%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.17% 5.64% 4.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 206 96 96
10th Percentile £306 £385 £400
25th Percentile £370 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - +10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £628 £667
90th Percentile £675 £694 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 8 17
10th Percentile - £13.25 £24.05
25th Percentile £12.50 £19.06 £36.25
Median hourly rate £58.00 £40.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.21% -26.36% +76.57%
75th Percentile £85.50 £65.91 £70.50
90th Percentile £104.40 £80.97 £74.74
England median hourly rate £35.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -30.00% +33.33% -36.44%

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 4,001 2,857 4,747
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.70% 90.47% 87.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,624 1,758 2,880
10th Percentile £256 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £392
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £600 £612 £614
90th Percentile £694 £675 £694
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 354 104 356
10th Percentile £14.50 £18.29 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £24.18 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £43.94 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -42.76% -7.49% +5.56%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £63.00
90th Percentile £82.78 £75.35 £76.53
England median hourly rate £26.78 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -23.49% - -

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 19 February 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 19 February 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 19 February 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 +12 171 £455 -13.33% 131
Berkshire +16 141 £425 -18.27% 76
Hampshire +15 88 £508 -11.74% 82
Buckinghamshire 0 28 £500 -6.98% 29
Surrey -2 24 £475 -24.00% 49
West Sussex -2 16 £500 +33.33% 21
East Sussex +4 10 £622 +13.00% 11
Sussex +2 9 - - 3
Kent -6 5 £594 +7.91% 21
Oxfordshire -18 2 £529 +17.61% 32
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 9 (2.75%) Confluence
2 5 (1.53%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (1.53%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.61%) WebLogic
4 1 (0.31%) Tomcat
Applications
1 23 (7.03%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (3.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.75%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (2.14%) MS Visio
5 6 (1.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.92%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (2.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 3 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.92%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.61%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.31%) assyst
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.31%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 84 (25.69%) Azure
2 62 (18.96%) AWS
3 39 (11.93%) GCP
4 14 (4.28%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (3.98%) Power Platform
6 12 (3.67%) Google Workspace
7 10 (3.06%) SaaS
8 8 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
9 6 (1.83%) GitHub
10 5 (1.53%) Entra ID
10 5 (1.53%) IaaS
10 5 (1.53%) PaaS
11 4 (1.22%) Serverless
12 3 (0.92%) Azure Functions
12 3 (0.92%) Azure Machine Learning
12 3 (0.92%) GitHub Actions
12 3 (0.92%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.92%) Power Automate
12 3 (0.92%) Vertex AI
12 3 (0.92%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.28%) Firewall
1 14 (4.28%) Network Security
2 10 (3.06%) VPN
3 8 (2.45%) DNS
4 7 (2.14%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.53%) MPLS
5 5 (1.53%) VLAN
6 4 (1.22%) Broadband
6 4 (1.22%) DHCP
6 4 (1.22%) WAN
7 3 (0.92%) IPv4
7 3 (0.92%) IPv6
7 3 (0.92%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.61%) BGP
8 2 (0.61%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.61%) Intranet
8 2 (0.61%) Multicast
8 2 (0.61%) NaaS
8 2 (0.61%) OSPF
8 2 (0.61%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.06%) Power BI
2 6 (1.83%) Data Lake
3 5 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (1.53%) Metadata
3 5 (1.53%) Oracle Database
4 3 (0.92%) Metadata Repository
4 3 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
4 3 (0.92%) Pinecone
4 3 (0.92%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 3 (0.92%) Tableau
4 3 (0.92%) Weaviate
5 2 (0.61%) Azure SQL Database
5 2 (0.61%) Oracle Database 11g
5 2 (0.61%) Oracle Database 12c
5 2 (0.61%) Oracle ODI
5 2 (0.61%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.61%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 2 (0.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 1 (0.31%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 22 (6.73%) JIRA
2 5 (1.53%) Git
2 5 (1.53%) GitLab
2 5 (1.53%) Jenkins
2 5 (1.53%) Selenium
3 2 (0.61%) Bitbucket
3 2 (0.61%) Cypress.io
3 2 (0.61%) Oracle APEX
3 2 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
3 2 (0.61%) SpecFlow
3 2 (0.61%) Visual Studio
4 1 (0.31%) Appium
4 1 (0.31%) Atlassian Bamboo
4 1 (0.31%) Balsamiq
4 1 (0.31%) Cucumber
4 1 (0.31%) JMeter
4 1 (0.31%) LoadRunner
4 1 (0.31%) Rational DOORS
4 1 (0.31%) Subversion
4 1 (0.31%) WebDriver
General
1 161 (49.24%) Social Skills
2 81 (24.77%) Analytical Skills
3 64 (19.57%) Finance
4 40 (12.23%) Public Sector
5 20 (6.12%) Aerospace
5 20 (6.12%) Influencing Skills
6 19 (5.81%) Organisational Skills
7 14 (4.28%) Telecoms
8 11 (3.36%) Legal
9 10 (3.06%) Law
10 9 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (2.45%) Marketing
12 7 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (1.83%) Billing
13 6 (1.83%) Manufacturing
14 5 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (1.53%) Retail
15 4 (1.22%) Automotive
15 4 (1.22%) Environmental Health
15 4 (1.22%) Military
Job Titles
1 47 (14.37%) Lead
2 27 (8.26%) Senior
3 22 (6.73%) Analyst
4 20 (6.12%) Delivery Manager
5 18 (5.50%) IT Manager
6 16 (4.89%) Project Manager
6 16 (4.89%) Service Manager
7 15 (4.59%) Support Officer
8 12 (3.67%) IT Support
9 11 (3.36%) Service Delivery Manager
10 10 (3.06%) Consultant
10 10 (3.06%) Designer
10 10 (3.06%) IT Assistant
10 10 (3.06%) IT Support Assistant
10 10 (3.06%) Support Assistant
11 8 (2.45%) Accountant
11 8 (2.45%) Systems Accountant
12 7 (2.14%) Service Analyst
12 7 (2.14%) Test Manager
12 7 (2.14%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.14%) .NET
2 4 (1.22%) Node.js
3 3 (0.92%) Faiss
3 3 (0.92%) Oracle Fusion
3 3 (0.92%) Playwright
3 3 (0.92%) React
3 3 (0.92%) REST
3 3 (0.92%) RESTful
3 3 (0.92%) SOAP
4 2 (0.61%) ADO
4 2 (0.61%) JSON
4 2 (0.61%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 2 (0.61%) Spring
4 2 (0.61%) Spring Boot
4 2 (0.61%) Unity (Game Engine)
4 2 (0.61%) Unreal Engine
4 2 (0.61%) XML
4 2 (0.61%) YAML
5 1 (0.31%) OAuth
5 1 (0.31%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.42%) Product Ownership
2 17 (5.20%) Enterprise Software
3 15 (4.59%) Data Centre
3 15 (4.59%) Onboarding
4 11 (3.36%) Virtual Team
5 10 (3.06%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (2.75%) Management Information System
6 9 (2.75%) PMI
6 9 (2.75%) Security Operations Centre
6 9 (2.75%) Security Posture
7 8 (2.45%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.83%) Cloud Native
8 6 (1.83%) CMDB
8 6 (1.83%) PKI
9 5 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.53%) e-Learning
10 4 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.22%) Learning Management System
10 4 (1.22%) Mainframe
10 4 (1.22%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 25 (7.65%) Linux
2 23 (7.03%) Windows
3 5 (1.53%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.22%) Unix
5 2 (0.61%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.61%) CentOS
5 2 (0.61%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.61%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.31%) Android
6 1 (0.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.31%) Solaris
6 1 (0.31%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (25.69%) Problem-Solving
2 79 (24.16%) ITIL
3 75 (22.94%) Agile
4 67 (20.49%) Change Management
5 64 (19.57%) ITSM
5 64 (19.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 64 (19.57%) Stakeholder Management
6 63 (19.27%) Service Management
7 41 (12.54%) Performance Metrics
7 41 (12.54%) Roadmaps
8 34 (10.40%) Service Delivery
9 29 (8.87%) DevOps
9 29 (8.87%) Risk Management
10 28 (8.56%) Decision-Making
11 27 (8.26%) Incident Management
12 26 (7.95%) Analytics
12 26 (7.95%) Cybersecurity
13 25 (7.65%) Incident Response
13 25 (7.65%) Scrum
13 25 (7.65%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 27 (8.26%) Python
2 16 (4.89%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.67%) SQL
4 11 (3.36%) Java
5 8 (2.45%) Bash
6 7 (2.14%) C#
7 6 (1.83%) PL/SQL
8 4 (1.22%) Bicep
9 3 (0.92%) JavaScript
9 3 (0.92%) Perl
10 2 (0.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.61%) T-SQL
10 2 (0.61%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.61%) VB
11 1 (0.31%) ABAP
11 1 (0.31%) C
11 1 (0.31%) Objective-C
11 1 (0.31%) Scala
11 1 (0.31%) Swift
Qualifications
1 128 (39.14%) Security Cleared
2 88 (26.91%) SC Cleared
3 31 (9.48%) Degree
4 25 (7.65%) DV Cleared
5 18 (5.50%) PMI Certification
6 10 (3.06%) CISSP
6 10 (3.06%) ISTQB
7 9 (2.75%) ACCA
7 9 (2.75%) CIMA
7 9 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.75%) PMP
8 8 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (1.83%) CCNP
9 6 (1.83%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 5 (1.53%) CCNA
10 5 (1.53%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (1.22%) Azure Certification
12 3 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
12 3 (0.92%) CCIE
12 3 (0.92%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.81%) NIST
2 18 (5.50%) PMO
2 18 (5.50%) QA
3 15 (4.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (3.98%) GDPR
4 13 (3.98%) SLA
5 12 (3.67%) Data Quality
6 6 (1.83%) Accessibility
6 6 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (1.22%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (1.22%) GRC
7 4 (1.22%) NCSC
8 3 (0.92%) Def Stans
8 3 (0.92%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 1 (0.31%) COBIT
10 1 (0.31%) COSHH
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 31000
10 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 12 (3.67%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (3.06%) Docker
3 9 (2.75%) Active Directory
4 5 (1.53%) vSphere
5 4 (1.22%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.61%) Firmware
6 2 (0.61%) KVM
6 2 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
7 1 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (3.98%) Ansible
2 10 (3.06%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.45%) Terraform
4 5 (1.53%) SCCM
4 5 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (1.22%) Grafana
5 4 (1.22%) Nagios
5 4 (1.22%) Nessus
6 3 (0.92%) OpenVAS
6 3 (0.92%) Podman
6 3 (0.92%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.92%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.92%) Proxmox
6 3 (0.92%) Puppet
7 2 (0.61%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.61%) CSIRT
7 2 (0.61%) Iperf
7 2 (0.61%) Nmap
8 1 (0.31%) SELinux
8 1 (0.31%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 46 (14.07%) Microsoft
2 36 (11.01%) Google
3 31 (9.48%) ServiceNow
4 22 (6.73%) Oracle
5 17 (5.20%) VMware
6 8 (2.45%) Cisco
7 7 (2.14%) SolarWinds
7 7 (2.14%) Workday
8 6 (1.83%) Fortinet
8 6 (1.83%) Juniper
8 6 (1.83%) Splunk
8 6 (1.83%) Zscaler
9 5 (1.53%) BMC
9 5 (1.53%) Palo Alto
9 5 (1.53%) Remedy
9 5 (1.53%) SAP
10 4 (1.22%) CheckPoint
10 4 (1.22%) Qualys
10 4 (1.22%) Rapid7
11 3 (0.92%) F5