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 23 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 42 41
Rank change year-on-year +25 -1 +30
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 504 152 243
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 8.16% 5.00% 4.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.05% 5.47% 5.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 293 93 126
10th Percentile £351 £325 £353
25th Percentile £425 £420 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £507
Median % change year-on-year - +3.65% -7.91%
75th Percentile £616 £600 £650
90th Percentile £720 £650 £688
England median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -6.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 11 18
10th Percentile £46.25 - £18.35
25th Percentile £80.75 £15.13 £27.36
Median hourly rate £85.40 £15.25 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +460.00% -59.33% -25.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £48.88 £52.19
90th Percentile - £67.50 £62.07
England median hourly rate £54.50 £41.05 £35.75
% change year-on-year +32.78% +14.81% -14.53%

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 5,013 2,777 4,741
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.12% 91.29% 82.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,179 1,743 2,733
10th Percentile £280 £250 £263
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -2.44% +0.49%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £634
90th Percentile £700 £663 £700
England median daily rate £520 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 489 215 479
10th Percentile £15.08 £13.25 £13.04
25th Percentile £23.21 £15.06 £18.32
Median hourly rate £53.90 £24.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +124.58% -52.00% -4.03%
75th Percentile £82.25 £55.00 £65.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.09
England median hourly rate £47.00 £27.06 £37.63
% change year-on-year +73.67% -28.07% +7.07%

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 23 June 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 23 June 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 23 June 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 +14 237 £520 +4.00% 163
Berkshire +24 182 £520 +4.00% 74
Hampshire +22 153 £550 -8.33% 86
Surrey +20 53 £450 -14.29% 56
Buckinghamshire -12 44 £525 - 55
West Sussex -9 25 £533 +27.16% 26
Oxfordshire -21 11 £650 +160.00% 34
East Sussex -1 8 £643 +22.48% 7
Middlesex - 5 - - 6
Kent +1 2 £463 -18.50% 26
Sussex - 1 £600 - 5
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 16 (3.17%) Confluence
2 11 (2.18%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.20%) SharePoint 2010
3 1 (0.20%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 33 (6.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
3 6 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.40%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (2.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 4 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.60%) iTrent
4 3 (0.60%) Maximo
4 3 (0.60%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.40%) SAP SD
5 2 (0.40%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.20%) Primavera
6 1 (0.20%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.20%) SAP BRIM
6 1 (0.20%) SAP Business One
6 1 (0.20%) SAP Convergent Charging
6 1 (0.20%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.20%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.20%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 72 (14.29%) Azure
2 52 (10.32%) AWS
3 28 (5.56%) Power Platform
4 19 (3.77%) GCP
5 12 (2.38%) Entra ID
6 11 (2.18%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.18%) SaaS
7 10 (1.98%) Serverless
8 7 (1.39%) GitHub
9 5 (0.99%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (0.99%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (0.99%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (0.99%) Microsoft Purview
9 5 (0.99%) OCI
9 5 (0.99%) OpenShift
10 4 (0.79%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (0.79%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (0.79%) Azure Logic Apps
10 4 (0.79%) dbt
10 4 (0.79%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 18 (3.57%) Firewall
2 17 (3.37%) Network Security
3 14 (2.78%) LAN
4 11 (2.18%) DNS
5 9 (1.79%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.39%) DHCP
6 7 (1.39%) VPN
6 7 (1.39%) WAN
7 6 (1.19%) SD-WAN
7 6 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.99%) Wireless
9 4 (0.79%) DNSSEC
9 4 (0.79%) VLAN
10 3 (0.60%) BGP
10 3 (0.60%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.60%) MQTT
10 3 (0.60%) OSPF
10 3 (0.60%) Radio Access Network
11 2 (0.40%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (5.36%) Power BI
2 9 (1.79%) Metadata
3 7 (1.39%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (1.39%) Tableau
4 4 (0.79%) Geospatial Data
4 4 (0.79%) GIS
4 4 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
4 4 (0.79%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (0.60%) Data Lake
5 3 (0.60%) DynamoDB
5 3 (0.60%) Elasticsearch
5 3 (0.60%) Metadata Repository
5 3 (0.60%) Redis
5 3 (0.60%) SQL Server
6 2 (0.40%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.40%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.40%) SAP HANA
6 2 (0.40%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.40%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 27 (5.36%) Rational DOORS
2 25 (4.96%) JIRA
3 10 (1.98%) GitLab
4 7 (1.39%) Jenkins
5 6 (1.19%) Git
6 5 (0.99%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.60%) Hudson
7 3 (0.60%) Selenium
8 2 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.40%) SpecFlow
8 2 (0.40%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.20%) Balsamiq
9 1 (0.20%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.20%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.20%) ERwin
9 1 (0.20%) Postman
9 1 (0.20%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.20%) TestRail
9 1 (0.20%) WebDriver
General
1 230 (45.63%) Social Skills
2 122 (24.21%) Analytical Skills
3 109 (21.63%) Finance
4 64 (12.70%) Public Sector
5 55 (10.91%) Aerospace
6 20 (3.97%) Retail
7 18 (3.57%) Legal
7 18 (3.57%) Organisational Skills
8 17 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 17 (3.37%) Telecoms
9 16 (3.17%) French Language
9 16 (3.17%) Spanish Language
10 14 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
11 12 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
12 11 (2.18%) Law
13 9 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (1.19%) Aviation
14 6 (1.19%) Marketing
15 5 (0.99%) Military
16 4 (0.79%) Billing
Job Titles
1 74 (14.68%) Analyst
2 56 (11.11%) Lead
3 52 (10.32%) Senior
4 47 (9.33%) Delivery Manager
5 41 (8.13%) Architect
6 38 (7.54%) Product Manager
7 29 (5.75%) Product Delivery Manager
8 23 (4.56%) IT Manager
9 22 (4.37%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 22 (4.37%) Systems Manager
10 17 (3.37%) Service Manager
11 16 (3.17%) 2nd Line Support
11 16 (3.17%) 2nd Line Technical Support
11 16 (3.17%) Data Analyst
11 16 (3.17%) Technical Support
12 14 (2.78%) Senior Analyst
12 14 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
13 12 (2.38%) Consultant
13 12 (2.38%) Project Manager
13 12 (2.38%) Service Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.18%) OAuth
2 9 (1.79%) RESTful
3 8 (1.59%) SAML
3 8 (1.59%) SOAP
4 7 (1.39%) OpenID
5 6 (1.19%) .NET
5 6 (1.19%) EDI
5 6 (1.19%) LDAP
5 6 (1.19%) OAuth2
6 5 (0.99%) GraphQL
6 5 (0.99%) JSON
6 5 (0.99%) Kafka
6 5 (0.99%) Keycloak
6 5 (0.99%) REST
7 4 (0.79%) ARM Templates
7 4 (0.79%) Elastic Stack
7 4 (0.79%) Middleware
7 4 (0.79%) XML
8 3 (0.60%) JWT
8 3 (0.60%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 69 (13.69%) Product Ownership
2 25 (4.96%) Data Structures
3 23 (4.56%) Management Information System
4 21 (4.17%) Onboarding
5 17 (3.37%) Operational Technology
5 17 (3.37%) Security Posture
6 16 (3.17%) Cloud Native
6 16 (3.17%) Data Centre
7 14 (2.78%) Legacy Systems
8 13 (2.58%) Analytical Mindset
9 11 (2.18%) PMI
10 9 (1.79%) CMDB
11 8 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
12 6 (1.19%) Security Operations Centre
12 6 (1.19%) Taxonomies
13 5 (0.99%) Distributed Systems
13 5 (0.99%) PKI
13 5 (0.99%) Virtual Team
14 4 (0.79%) e-Learning
14 4 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 35 (6.94%) Windows
2 11 (2.18%) Linux
3 4 (0.79%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.40%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (0.20%) Android
5 1 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 165 (32.74%) Agile
2 133 (26.39%) Stakeholder Management
3 114 (22.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 102 (20.24%) Problem-Solving
5 87 (17.26%) ITIL
6 72 (14.29%) Decision-Making
7 71 (14.09%) Roadmaps
8 58 (11.51%) Service Management
9 57 (11.31%) Cybersecurity
10 53 (10.52%) Service Delivery
11 51 (10.12%) ITSM
12 49 (9.72%) Change Management
13 46 (9.13%) CI/CD
13 46 (9.13%) Risk Management
13 46 (9.13%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 45 (8.93%) PRINCE2
15 43 (8.53%) Analytics
15 43 (8.53%) Project Delivery
16 42 (8.33%) Computer Science
17 41 (8.13%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 42 (8.33%) SQL
2 32 (6.35%) Python
3 19 (3.77%) PowerShell
4 15 (2.98%) Java
5 11 (2.18%) Bash
6 6 (1.19%) C#
7 4 (0.79%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.60%) Apex Code
8 3 (0.60%) Bicep
8 3 (0.60%) Rust
8 3 (0.60%) Shell Script
8 3 (0.60%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.40%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.40%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.20%) ABAP
10 1 (0.20%) C
10 1 (0.20%) Perl
10 1 (0.20%) Swift
10 1 (0.20%) VB
Qualifications
1 249 (49.40%) Security Cleared
2 132 (26.19%) SC Cleared
3 84 (16.67%) Degree
4 70 (13.89%) DV Cleared
5 25 (4.96%) PMI Certification
6 22 (4.37%) ACCA
6 22 (4.37%) CIMA
7 15 (2.98%) PMP
8 12 (2.38%) Azure Certification
9 11 (2.18%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (1.98%) CCNP
11 9 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 9 (1.79%) CISSP
12 7 (1.39%) AWS Certification
12 7 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
13 5 (0.99%) CCNA
13 5 (0.99%) CISM
13 5 (0.99%) ISTQB
14 4 (0.79%) Six Sigma Green Belt
15 3 (0.60%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (7.34%) Data Quality
2 30 (5.95%) QA
3 27 (5.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 27 (5.36%) PMO
4 20 (3.97%) NIST
5 16 (3.17%) GDPR
6 15 (2.98%) NCSC
7 12 (2.38%) SLA
8 7 (1.39%) Accessibility
9 6 (1.19%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (0.99%) GRC
11 3 (0.60%) Def Stans
11 3 (0.60%) ISO 22301
11 3 (0.60%) ISO 31000
11 3 (0.60%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.20%) COBIT
12 1 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
12 1 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 16 (3.17%) Active Directory
2 15 (2.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (2.58%) Docker
4 5 (0.99%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.79%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.40%) Firmware
6 2 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.40%) vSphere
7 1 (0.20%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.20%) IAG
7 1 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 22 (4.37%) Terraform
2 18 (3.57%) Kubernetes
3 15 (2.98%) Ansible
4 8 (1.59%) Grafana
5 7 (1.39%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.99%) Puppet
7 4 (0.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (0.79%) Nessus
7 4 (0.79%) SCCM
7 4 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (0.60%) OpenVAS
8 3 (0.60%) Podman
9 2 (0.40%) Argo
9 2 (0.40%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.40%) Iperf
9 2 (0.40%) Nmap
9 2 (0.40%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.40%) Rancher
10 1 (0.20%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 46 (9.13%) Microsoft
2 38 (7.54%) SAP
3 36 (7.14%) ServiceNow
4 25 (4.96%) IBM
5 24 (4.76%) Oracle
6 23 (4.56%) VMware
7 10 (1.98%) Cisco
7 10 (1.98%) Salesforce
8 9 (1.79%) Google
9 8 (1.59%) Juniper
9 8 (1.59%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.19%) Palo Alto
10 6 (1.19%) Qualys
10 6 (1.19%) Remedy
10 6 (1.19%) Virgin Media
11 5 (0.99%) Aruba
11 5 (0.99%) Baan
11 5 (0.99%) Databricks
11 5 (0.99%) Red Hat
11 5 (0.99%) Workday