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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 35 52
Rank change year-on-year +9 +17 +23
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 331 168 188
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.77% 5.32% 3.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.09% 5.85% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 100 92
10th Percentile £306 £374 £400
25th Percentile £374 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% +5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £628 £628
90th Percentile £666 £689 £686
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 9 19
10th Percentile - £13.25 £26.65
25th Percentile £12.50 £21.00 £36.25
Median hourly rate £58.00 £59.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.69% +38.82% +28.50%
75th Percentile £85.38 £67.50 £70.50
90th Percentile £103.30 £80.10 £73.54
England median hourly rate £35.00 £54.63 £38.95
% change year-on-year -35.93% +40.24% -27.87%

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 4,090 2,874 4,757
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.66% 91.04% 87.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,684 1,782 2,884
10th Percentile £263 £250 £213
25th Percentile £401 £400 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% +0.10% -
75th Percentile £600 £610 £613
90th Percentile £693 £671 £688
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 357 109 357
10th Percentile £14.50 £17.05 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £24.18 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year -41.35% -5.15% +0.47%
75th Percentile £60.90 £62.50 £62.54
90th Percentile £84.00 £75.10 £76.53
England median hourly rate £28.00 £35.00 £34.21
% change year-on-year -20.00% +2.31% -2.26%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +9 176 £460 -11.96% 111
Berkshire +13 144 £425 -16.67% 56
Hampshire +11 88 £513 -10.87% 79
Buckinghamshire -5 30 £500 -6.98% 32
Surrey +7 23 £500 -20.00% 33
West Sussex -2 16 £500 +33.33% 14
East Sussex +3 10 £622 +13.00% 8
Sussex - 9 - - 3
Kent -5 5 £594 +7.91% 18
Oxfordshire -18 2 £529 +17.61% 28
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 8 (2.42%) Confluence
2 6 (1.81%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.51%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.60%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.30%) Tomcat
Applications
1 23 (6.95%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (3.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (2.72%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (2.11%) MS Visio
5 6 (1.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.91%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (2.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 3 (0.91%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.60%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.30%) assyst
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.30%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 83 (25.08%) Azure
2 60 (18.13%) AWS
3 38 (11.48%) GCP
4 14 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
4 14 (4.23%) Power Platform
5 12 (3.63%) Google Workspace
6 10 (3.02%) SaaS
7 8 (2.42%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (1.81%) Entra ID
8 6 (1.81%) GitHub
9 5 (1.51%) PaaS
10 4 (1.21%) IaaS
10 4 (1.21%) OpenShift
10 4 (1.21%) Serverless
11 3 (0.91%) Azure Functions
11 3 (0.91%) Azure Machine Learning
11 3 (0.91%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (0.91%) Power Automate
11 3 (0.91%) Vertex AI
11 3 (0.91%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.93%) Firewall
1 13 (3.93%) Network Security
2 10 (3.02%) VPN
3 9 (2.72%) DNS
4 7 (2.11%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.51%) MPLS
5 5 (1.51%) VLAN
6 4 (1.21%) Broadband
6 4 (1.21%) DHCP
6 4 (1.21%) WAN
7 3 (0.91%) IPv4
7 3 (0.91%) IPv6
7 3 (0.91%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.60%) BGP
8 2 (0.60%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.60%) Intranet
8 2 (0.60%) Multicast
8 2 (0.60%) NaaS
8 2 (0.60%) OSPF
8 2 (0.60%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (3.32%) Power BI
2 6 (1.81%) Data Lake
3 5 (1.51%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (1.51%) Oracle Database
4 4 (1.21%) Metadata
4 4 (1.21%) Tableau
5 3 (0.91%) Metadata Repository
5 3 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.91%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.91%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.91%) Weaviate
6 2 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.60%) Oracle Database 11g
6 2 (0.60%) Oracle Database 12c
6 2 (0.60%) Oracle ODI
6 2 (0.60%) Relational Database
6 2 (0.60%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 1 (0.30%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 21 (6.34%) JIRA
2 5 (1.51%) Git
2 5 (1.51%) GitLab
2 5 (1.51%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.21%) Selenium
4 2 (0.60%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.60%) Oracle APEX
4 2 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
4 2 (0.60%) Rational DOORS
4 2 (0.60%) SpecFlow
4 2 (0.60%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.30%) Appium
5 1 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
5 1 (0.30%) Balsamiq
5 1 (0.30%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.30%) Hudson
5 1 (0.30%) JMeter
5 1 (0.30%) LoadRunner
5 1 (0.30%) Subversion
5 1 (0.30%) WebDriver
General
1 166 (50.15%) Social Skills
2 81 (24.47%) Analytical Skills
3 66 (19.94%) Finance
4 40 (12.08%) Public Sector
5 21 (6.34%) Aerospace
6 19 (5.74%) Influencing Skills
6 19 (5.74%) Organisational Skills
7 14 (4.23%) Telecoms
8 11 (3.32%) Legal
9 10 (3.02%) Law
10 9 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (2.42%) Marketing
12 7 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (2.11%) Manufacturing
13 5 (1.51%) Billing
13 5 (1.51%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (1.51%) Retail
14 4 (1.21%) Environmental Health
14 4 (1.21%) Military
15 3 (0.91%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 47 (14.20%) Lead
2 28 (8.46%) Senior
3 22 (6.65%) Analyst
4 21 (6.34%) Delivery Manager
5 20 (6.04%) IT Manager
6 17 (5.14%) Service Manager
7 15 (4.53%) Project Manager
7 15 (4.53%) Support Officer
8 12 (3.63%) Consultant
8 12 (3.63%) IT Support
8 12 (3.63%) Service Delivery Manager
9 10 (3.02%) Designer
9 10 (3.02%) IT Assistant
9 10 (3.02%) IT Support Assistant
9 10 (3.02%) Support Assistant
10 8 (2.42%) Accountant
10 8 (2.42%) Systems Accountant
11 7 (2.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 7 (2.11%) Test Manager
11 7 (2.11%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.81%) .NET
2 4 (1.21%) Node.js
3 3 (0.91%) Faiss
3 3 (0.91%) Oracle Fusion
3 3 (0.91%) Playwright
3 3 (0.91%) React
3 3 (0.91%) YAML
4 2 (0.60%) ADO
4 2 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.60%) JSON
4 2 (0.60%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 2 (0.60%) REST
4 2 (0.60%) RESTful
4 2 (0.60%) SOAP
4 2 (0.60%) Spring
4 2 (0.60%) Spring Boot
4 2 (0.60%) Unity (Game Engine)
4 2 (0.60%) Unreal Engine
4 2 (0.60%) XML
5 1 (0.30%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.65%) Product Ownership
2 17 (5.14%) Enterprise Software
2 17 (5.14%) Onboarding
3 15 (4.53%) Data Centre
4 12 (3.63%) Legacy Systems
5 11 (3.32%) Virtual Team
6 10 (3.02%) Analytical Mindset
6 10 (3.02%) Management Information System
6 10 (3.02%) Security Operations Centre
7 9 (2.72%) PMI
7 9 (2.72%) Security Posture
8 8 (2.42%) PKI
9 6 (1.81%) Cloud Native
9 6 (1.81%) CMDB
10 5 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.51%) e-Learning
11 4 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (1.21%) Learning Management System
11 4 (1.21%) Mainframe
11 4 (1.21%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 26 (7.85%) Linux
2 22 (6.65%) Windows
3 4 (1.21%) Unix
3 4 (1.21%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.60%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.60%) CentOS
4 2 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.60%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.60%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.30%) Android
5 1 (0.30%) Solaris
5 1 (0.30%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (25.08%) ITIL
2 82 (24.77%) Problem-Solving
3 75 (22.66%) Agile
4 68 (20.54%) Change Management
5 66 (19.94%) ITSM
5 66 (19.94%) Service Management
5 66 (19.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 65 (19.64%) Stakeholder Management
7 44 (13.29%) Roadmaps
8 41 (12.39%) Performance Metrics
9 36 (10.88%) Service Delivery
10 31 (9.37%) DevOps
11 29 (8.76%) Decision-Making
12 28 (8.46%) Analytics
12 28 (8.46%) Risk Management
13 27 (8.16%) Incident Response
13 27 (8.16%) Validation
14 26 (7.85%) Incident Management
15 25 (7.55%) Cybersecurity
16 24 (7.25%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 26 (7.85%) Python
2 16 (4.83%) PowerShell
3 12 (3.63%) SQL
4 11 (3.32%) Java
5 9 (2.72%) Bash
6 6 (1.81%) C#
6 6 (1.81%) PL/SQL
7 4 (1.21%) Bicep
8 3 (0.91%) JavaScript
8 3 (0.91%) Perl
9 2 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.60%) T-SQL
9 2 (0.60%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.60%) VB
10 1 (0.30%) ABAP
10 1 (0.30%) C
10 1 (0.30%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.30%) Scala
10 1 (0.30%) Swift
Qualifications
1 131 (39.58%) Security Cleared
2 87 (26.28%) SC Cleared
3 32 (9.67%) Degree
4 26 (7.85%) DV Cleared
5 17 (5.14%) PMI Certification
6 10 (3.02%) CISSP
6 10 (3.02%) ISTQB
7 8 (2.42%) ACCA
7 8 (2.42%) CIMA
7 8 (2.42%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (2.42%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (2.42%) PMP
8 6 (1.81%) CCNP
8 6 (1.81%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 5 (1.51%) Azure Certification
10 4 (1.21%) CCNA
10 4 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.91%) CCIE
11 3 (0.91%) CISM
11 3 (0.91%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.74%) NIST
1 19 (5.74%) QA
2 18 (5.44%) PMO
3 14 (4.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (3.93%) Data Quality
4 13 (3.93%) GDPR
4 13 (3.93%) SLA
5 7 (2.11%) Accessibility
6 6 (1.81%) Cyber Essentials
7 4 (1.21%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (1.21%) GRC
7 4 (1.21%) NCSC
8 3 (0.91%) Def Stans
8 3 (0.91%) NIST 800
9 2 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 1 (0.30%) COSHH
10 1 (0.30%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.30%) ISO 31000
10 1 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.30%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (3.32%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (3.02%) Active Directory
2 10 (3.02%) Docker
3 4 (1.21%) vSphere
4 3 (0.91%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.60%) Firmware
5 2 (0.60%) KVM
5 2 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 13 (3.93%) Ansible
2 11 (3.32%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.42%) Terraform
4 5 (1.51%) SCCM
4 5 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (1.21%) Grafana
5 4 (1.21%) Nagios
5 4 (1.21%) Nessus
6 3 (0.91%) OpenVAS
6 3 (0.91%) Podman
6 3 (0.91%) Progress Chef
6 3 (0.91%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.91%) Proxmox
6 3 (0.91%) Puppet
7 2 (0.60%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.60%) Iperf
7 2 (0.60%) Nmap
8 1 (0.30%) CSIRT
8 1 (0.30%) SELinux
8 1 (0.30%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 45 (13.60%) Microsoft
2 36 (10.88%) Google
3 33 (9.97%) ServiceNow
4 22 (6.65%) Oracle
5 17 (5.14%) VMware
6 8 (2.42%) Cisco
7 7 (2.11%) SolarWinds
7 7 (2.11%) Workday
8 6 (1.81%) Fortinet
8 6 (1.81%) Juniper
8 6 (1.81%) Zscaler
9 5 (1.51%) BMC
9 5 (1.51%) Palo Alto
9 5 (1.51%) Remedy
9 5 (1.51%) SAP
9 5 (1.51%) Splunk
10 4 (1.21%) CheckPoint
10 4 (1.21%) Qualys
10 4 (1.21%) Rapid7
10 4 (1.21%) Red Hat