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 9 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 42 38
Rank change year-on-year +26 -4 +33
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 556 166 238
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 8.58% 4.95% 4.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.53% 5.47% 5.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 329 104 122
10th Percentile £363 £316 £363
25th Percentile £433 £444 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £531 £510
Median % change year-on-year -1.13% +4.07% -7.23%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £650
90th Percentile £700 £650 £688
England median daily rate £509 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.70% -4.76% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 12 17
10th Percentile £46.50 - £18.35
25th Percentile £80.75 £15.13 £26.73
Median hourly rate £85.40 £17.58 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +385.78% -53.12% -25.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £43.75
90th Percentile £92.75 £69.89 £60.61
England median hourly rate £55.00 £28.75 £35.00
% change year-on-year +91.30% -17.86% -30.00%

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 5,279 3,032 4,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.50% 90.43% 82.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,332 1,894 2,746
10th Percentile £280 £250 £260
25th Percentile £413 £400 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -0.49%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £634
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 517 253 442
10th Percentile £15.74 £13.30 £13.00
25th Percentile £24.25 £15.12 £18.32
Median hourly rate £55.00 £24.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +129.17% -52.00% -
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.50 £68.56
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.75 £77.45
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -6.07%

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 9 July 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 9 July 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 9 July 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 +21 272 £525 +5.00% 185
Berkshire +28 210 £515 +2.90% 100
Hampshire +23 162 £538 -10.42% 114
Surrey +14 52 £450 -14.29% 59
Buckinghamshire -10 51 £575 +12.20% 45
West Sussex -9 30 £515 +35.08% 19
Oxfordshire -21 11 £650 +44.44% 41
Middlesex - 10 - - 5
East Sussex +2 8 £643 +22.48% 6
Kent -2 2 £463 -18.50% 24
Sussex - 1 £600 - 3
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 18 (3.24%) Confluence
2 16 (2.88%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2010
4 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 38 (6.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.16%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (1.62%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (1.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.36%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.18%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (2.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.72%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (0.72%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 4 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (0.54%) iTrent
3 3 (0.54%) Maximo
3 3 (0.54%) Primavera
3 3 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.36%) SAP SD
4 2 (0.36%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.18%) SAP BPC
5 1 (0.18%) SAP BRIM
5 1 (0.18%) SAP Business One
5 1 (0.18%) SAP Convergent Charging
5 1 (0.18%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.18%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.18%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 85 (15.29%) Azure
2 61 (10.97%) AWS
3 29 (5.22%) Power Platform
4 22 (3.96%) GCP
5 16 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (2.88%) SaaS
6 15 (2.70%) Entra ID
7 13 (2.34%) GitHub
8 12 (2.16%) Serverless
9 8 (1.44%) GitHub Actions
9 8 (1.44%) Microsoft 365
10 6 (1.08%) Azure AKS
10 6 (1.08%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (1.08%) Microsoft Purview
10 6 (1.08%) OCI
10 6 (1.08%) OpenShift
11 5 (0.90%) AWS CloudFormation
11 5 (0.90%) Datadog
12 4 (0.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 4 (0.72%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 26 (4.68%) Network Security
2 19 (3.42%) DNS
3 18 (3.24%) Firewall
4 14 (2.52%) LAN
5 9 (1.62%) TCP/IP
6 8 (1.44%) DHCP
7 7 (1.26%) VPN
7 7 (1.26%) WAN
8 6 (1.08%) SD-WAN
8 6 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.90%) Wireless
10 4 (0.72%) DNSSEC
10 4 (0.72%) VLAN
11 3 (0.54%) BGP
11 3 (0.54%) Broadband
11 3 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
11 3 (0.54%) MQTT
11 3 (0.54%) OSPF
11 3 (0.54%) Radio Access Network
12 2 (0.36%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (5.04%) Power BI
2 8 (1.44%) Metadata
3 7 (1.26%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (1.26%) Tableau
4 6 (1.08%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (0.72%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (0.72%) GIS
5 4 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
5 4 (0.72%) Redis
6 3 (0.54%) Data Lake
6 3 (0.54%) DynamoDB
6 3 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
6 3 (0.54%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.36%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.36%) Metadata Repository
7 2 (0.36%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.36%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 29 (5.22%) JIRA
2 27 (4.86%) Rational DOORS
3 11 (1.98%) GitLab
4 9 (1.62%) Jenkins
5 8 (1.44%) Git
6 5 (0.90%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.54%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.54%) Hudson
7 3 (0.54%) Selenium
7 3 (0.54%) SpecFlow
8 2 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.18%) Balsamiq
9 1 (0.18%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.18%) ERwin
9 1 (0.18%) JUnit
9 1 (0.18%) Mockito
9 1 (0.18%) Postman
9 1 (0.18%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.18%) TestRail
General
1 252 (45.32%) Social Skills
2 136 (24.46%) Analytical Skills
3 111 (19.96%) Finance
4 63 (11.33%) Public Sector
5 56 (10.07%) Aerospace
6 23 (4.14%) Organisational Skills
7 20 (3.60%) Retail
7 20 (3.60%) Telecoms
8 18 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (3.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (2.88%) French Language
10 16 (2.88%) Legal
10 16 (2.88%) Spanish Language
11 9 (1.62%) Law
12 7 (1.26%) Marketing
12 7 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.08%) Aviation
14 5 (0.90%) Military
15 4 (0.72%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 77 (13.85%) Analyst
2 65 (11.69%) Lead
3 54 (9.71%) Senior
4 46 (8.27%) Delivery Manager
5 44 (7.91%) Architect
6 39 (7.01%) Product Manager
7 29 (5.22%) Product Delivery Manager
8 25 (4.50%) IT Manager
9 22 (3.96%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 22 (3.96%) Systems Manager
10 18 (3.24%) Service Manager
11 17 (3.06%) Data Analyst
12 16 (2.88%) 2nd Line Support
12 16 (2.88%) 2nd Line Technical Support
12 16 (2.88%) Technical Support
13 14 (2.52%) Consultant
13 14 (2.52%) Senior Analyst
13 14 (2.52%) Solutions Architect
14 12 (2.16%) Change Manager
14 12 (2.16%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.98%) OAuth
2 10 (1.80%) RESTful
2 10 (1.80%) SOAP
3 9 (1.62%) REST
4 8 (1.44%) .NET
4 8 (1.44%) SAML
5 7 (1.26%) OpenID
6 6 (1.08%) EDI
6 6 (1.08%) LDAP
6 6 (1.08%) OAuth2
6 6 (1.08%) React
7 5 (0.90%) GraphQL
7 5 (0.90%) JSON
7 5 (0.90%) Kafka
7 5 (0.90%) Keycloak
7 5 (0.90%) Middleware
7 5 (0.90%) YAML
8 4 (0.72%) ARM Templates
8 4 (0.72%) Elastic Stack
8 4 (0.72%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 75 (13.49%) Product Ownership
2 28 (5.04%) Onboarding
3 25 (4.50%) Data Structures
4 23 (4.14%) Cloud Native
4 23 (4.14%) Management Information System
5 20 (3.60%) Security Posture
6 19 (3.42%) Operational Technology
7 16 (2.88%) Data Centre
8 15 (2.70%) Analytical Mindset
9 14 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (2.34%) CMDB
11 11 (1.98%) PMI
12 9 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
13 8 (1.44%) Cyber Threat
13 8 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
13 8 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
14 7 (1.26%) Security Operations Centre
15 6 (1.08%) Taxonomies
16 5 (0.90%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 46 (8.27%) Windows
2 18 (3.24%) Linux
3 9 (1.62%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
5 2 (0.36%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.18%) Android
6 1 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
6 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.18%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (31.83%) Agile
2 149 (26.80%) Stakeholder Management
3 133 (23.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 117 (21.04%) Problem-Solving
5 104 (18.71%) ITIL
6 85 (15.29%) Decision-Making
7 76 (13.67%) Roadmaps
8 73 (13.13%) Service Delivery
9 70 (12.59%) Service Management
10 68 (12.23%) ITSM
11 63 (11.33%) Cybersecurity
12 57 (10.25%) Change Management
13 54 (9.71%) CI/CD
14 52 (9.35%) DevOps
15 49 (8.81%) Project Delivery
15 49 (8.81%) Risk Management
15 49 (8.81%) Scaled Agile Framework
16 48 (8.63%) PRINCE2
17 46 (8.27%) Analytics
18 45 (8.09%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 47 (8.45%) SQL
2 44 (7.91%) Python
3 26 (4.68%) PowerShell
4 18 (3.24%) Java
5 16 (2.88%) Bash
6 7 (1.26%) C#
7 6 (1.08%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.90%) TypeScript
9 4 (0.72%) Bicep
9 4 (0.72%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.54%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.54%) Rust
11 2 (0.36%) ABAP
11 2 (0.36%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.36%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.18%) C
12 1 (0.18%) Perl
12 1 (0.18%) VB
12 1 (0.18%) VBA
Qualifications
1 277 (49.82%) Security Cleared
2 144 (25.90%) SC Cleared
3 91 (16.37%) Degree
4 83 (14.93%) DV Cleared
5 29 (5.22%) PMI Certification
6 20 (3.60%) PMP
7 19 (3.42%) ACCA
7 19 (3.42%) CIMA
8 14 (2.52%) Azure Certification
9 13 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (1.98%) CISSP
11 10 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
11 10 (1.80%) CCNP
12 8 (1.44%) AWS Certification
13 6 (1.08%) CCNA
13 6 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
13 6 (1.08%) ITIL Certification
13 6 (1.08%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.90%) CISM
14 5 (0.90%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (7.01%) Data Quality
2 37 (6.65%) QA
3 33 (5.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 30 (5.40%) PMO
5 24 (4.32%) NIST
6 18 (3.24%) GDPR
6 18 (3.24%) NCSC
7 17 (3.06%) SLA
8 8 (1.44%) GRC
9 7 (1.26%) Accessibility
10 6 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
11 5 (0.90%) ISO 9001
12 4 (0.72%) Def Stans
12 4 (0.72%) NIST 800
13 3 (0.54%) ISO 22301
13 3 (0.54%) ISO 31000
14 2 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 2 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 1 (0.18%) COBIT
15 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 22 (3.96%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (3.60%) Active Directory
3 15 (2.70%) Docker
4 5 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (0.90%) vSphere
5 4 (0.72%) IAG
5 4 (0.72%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.36%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 27 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 26 (4.68%) Terraform
3 19 (3.42%) Ansible
4 9 (1.62%) Grafana
5 8 (1.44%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.90%) Puppet
6 5 (0.90%) SCCM
7 4 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.72%) Nessus
7 4 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 3 (0.54%) OpenVAS
8 3 (0.54%) Podman
9 2 (0.36%) CASB
9 2 (0.36%) Cisco Prime
9 2 (0.36%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.36%) Iperf
9 2 (0.36%) Nmap
9 2 (0.36%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.36%) Rancher
Vendors
1 61 (10.97%) Microsoft
2 47 (8.45%) ServiceNow
3 40 (7.19%) SAP
4 30 (5.40%) VMware
5 25 (4.50%) IBM
6 23 (4.14%) Oracle
7 12 (2.16%) Cisco
8 11 (1.98%) Google
9 10 (1.80%) Juniper
9 10 (1.80%) Salesforce
10 9 (1.62%) SolarWinds
11 6 (1.08%) Databricks
11 6 (1.08%) Palo Alto
11 6 (1.08%) Qualys
11 6 (1.08%) Remedy
11 6 (1.08%) Virgin Media
11 6 (1.08%) Workday
12 5 (0.90%) Aruba
12 5 (0.90%) Baan
12 5 (0.90%) Red Hat