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 6 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 45 43
Rank change year-on-year +21 -2 +31
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 384 144 226
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.89% 4.82% 4.03%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.40% 5.26% 4.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 94 111
10th Percentile £306 £325 £400
25th Percentile £413 £421 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% +0.96%
75th Percentile £588 £618 £650
90th Percentile £661 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 9 21
10th Percentile £15.00 £20.78 £18.35
25th Percentile £80.50 £21.00 £24.00
Median hourly rate £88.00 £61.76 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +42.49% +64.69% -6.25%
75th Percentile - £67.50 £55.00
90th Percentile £96.50 £80.10 £70.50
England median hourly rate £45.46 £57.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -20.94% +53.33% -37.50%

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 4,574 2,739 4,842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 82.07% 91.76% 86.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,979 1,756 2,845
10th Percentile £285 £257 £225
25th Percentile £411 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.59% +0.90% -0.74%
75th Percentile £613 £608 £615
90th Percentile £713 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 412 156 431
10th Percentile £15.62 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.97 £16.95 £18.26
Median hourly rate £40.78 £28.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.08% -36.67% -5.26%
75th Percentile £81.00 £62.50 £62.48
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +15.38% -1.52% -13.95%

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 6 April 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 6 April 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 6 April 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 +16 202 £480 -4.00% 98
Berkshire +25 165 £461 -7.80% 51
Hampshire +12 103 £508 -11.74% 67
Buckinghamshire -11 34 £509 -9.56% 21
Surrey +10 30 £525 +5.00% 40
West Sussex -6 19 £500 +29.03% 14
East Sussex +2 10 £622 +13.00% 13
Sussex - 5 - - 6
Oxfordshire -14 3 £525 +110.00% 27
Kent -12 2 £622 +13.05% 15
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 10 (2.60%) Confluence
2 7 (1.82%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.52%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.26%) Tomcat
Applications
1 17 (4.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (4.17%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.82%) MS Visio
4 6 (1.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.78%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (2.08%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 6 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.52%) iTrent
4 2 (0.52%) SAP SD
4 2 (0.52%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.26%) assyst
5 1 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.26%) Oracle BRM
5 1 (0.26%) Primavera
5 1 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.26%) SAP Business One
5 1 (0.26%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.26%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 72 (18.75%) Azure
2 52 (13.54%) AWS
3 29 (7.55%) GCP
4 19 (4.95%) Power Platform
5 13 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.86%) SaaS
7 8 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (1.82%) Google Workspace
9 6 (1.56%) GitHub
10 5 (1.30%) Amazon EKS
10 5 (1.30%) PaaS
10 5 (1.30%) Serverless
11 4 (1.04%) GitHub Actions
11 4 (1.04%) IaaS
11 4 (1.04%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.78%) Azure Machine Learning
12 3 (0.78%) Entra ID
12 3 (0.78%) OCI
12 3 (0.78%) Vertex AI
12 3 (0.78%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 14 (3.65%) Network Security
2 11 (2.86%) Firewall
2 11 (2.86%) VPN
3 5 (1.30%) DNS
3 5 (1.30%) TCP/IP
3 5 (1.30%) VLAN
4 4 (1.04%) Broadband
4 4 (1.04%) MPLS
5 3 (0.78%) IPv4
5 3 (0.78%) IPv6
5 3 (0.78%) SD-WAN
5 3 (0.78%) WAN
6 2 (0.52%) BGP
6 2 (0.52%) Cisco ASA
6 2 (0.52%) Intranet
6 2 (0.52%) Multicast
6 2 (0.52%) NaaS
6 2 (0.52%) OSPF
6 2 (0.52%) Wireshark
7 1 (0.26%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (4.17%) Power BI
2 7 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
3 6 (1.56%) Data Lake
3 6 (1.56%) Metadata
4 4 (1.04%) Oracle Database
4 4 (1.04%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.78%) Metadata Repository
5 3 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.78%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.78%) Tableau
5 3 (0.78%) Weaviate
6 2 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.52%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.52%) Oracle Database 11g
6 2 (0.52%) Oracle Database 12c
6 2 (0.52%) Oracle ODI
6 2 (0.52%) Redis
6 2 (0.52%) Relational Database
6 2 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 27 (7.03%) Rational DOORS
2 18 (4.69%) JIRA
3 7 (1.82%) GitLab
4 6 (1.56%) Jenkins
5 5 (1.30%) Git
6 4 (1.04%) Selenium
7 2 (0.52%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.52%) Hudson
7 2 (0.52%) Oracle APEX
7 2 (0.52%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.52%) SpecFlow
7 2 (0.52%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.26%) Balsamiq
8 1 (0.26%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.26%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.26%) JMeter
8 1 (0.26%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.26%) Subversion
8 1 (0.26%) WebDriver
General
1 174 (45.31%) Social Skills
2 90 (23.44%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (21.09%) Finance
4 46 (11.98%) Public Sector
5 44 (11.46%) Aerospace
6 18 (4.69%) Influencing Skills
7 17 (4.43%) Legal
8 15 (3.91%) Organisational Skills
9 14 (3.65%) Law
10 13 (3.39%) Telecoms
11 8 (2.08%) Retail
12 7 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 6 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
13 6 (1.56%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.56%) Marketing
14 4 (1.04%) Billing
14 4 (1.04%) Military
14 4 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
15 3 (0.78%) Automotive
16 2 (0.52%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 46 (11.98%) Delivery Manager
2 45 (11.72%) Lead
3 36 (9.38%) Senior
4 35 (9.11%) Analyst
4 35 (9.11%) Product Manager
5 29 (7.55%) Product Delivery Manager
6 22 (5.73%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 22 (5.73%) Systems Manager
7 20 (5.21%) IT Manager
8 19 (4.95%) Service Manager
9 15 (3.91%) Consultant
10 12 (3.13%) Service Delivery Manager
11 11 (2.86%) Architect
11 11 (2.86%) Project Manager
12 10 (2.60%) Support Officer
13 9 (2.34%) Accountant
13 9 (2.34%) Designer
13 9 (2.34%) Systems Accountant
13 9 (2.34%) Transformation Manager
14 8 (2.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.56%) .NET
2 4 (1.04%) Node.js
2 4 (1.04%) RESTful
3 3 (0.78%) Faiss
3 3 (0.78%) Oracle Fusion
3 3 (0.78%) Playwright
3 3 (0.78%) REST
3 3 (0.78%) SOAP
3 3 (0.78%) Spring
3 3 (0.78%) Spring Boot
3 3 (0.78%) YAML
4 2 (0.52%) ADO
4 2 (0.52%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.52%) Kafka
4 2 (0.52%) Keycloak
4 2 (0.52%) OAuth2
4 2 (0.52%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 2 (0.52%) Unity (Game Engine)
4 2 (0.52%) Unreal Engine
4 2 (0.52%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 48 (12.50%) Product Ownership
2 24 (6.25%) Data Structures
3 18 (4.69%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.17%) Onboarding
5 15 (3.91%) Data Centre
6 13 (3.39%) Analytical Mindset
6 13 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
7 11 (2.86%) Cloud Native
7 11 (2.86%) Security Posture
8 9 (2.34%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (2.34%) PKI
8 9 (2.34%) PMI
8 9 (2.34%) Security Operations Centre
9 8 (2.08%) Virtual Team
10 7 (1.82%) Data Protection Act
11 6 (1.56%) Taxonomies
12 5 (1.30%) CMDB
12 5 (1.30%) e-Learning
12 5 (1.30%) Operational Technology
13 4 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 20 (5.21%) Windows
2 18 (4.69%) Linux
3 4 (1.04%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.52%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.52%) Unix
4 2 (0.52%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.26%) Android
5 1 (0.26%) Solaris
5 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (26.82%) Agile
2 92 (23.96%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 83 (21.61%) ITIL
4 79 (20.57%) Problem-Solving
5 77 (20.05%) Stakeholder Management
6 67 (17.45%) Service Management
7 61 (15.89%) Change Management
7 61 (15.89%) ITSM
8 52 (13.54%) Roadmaps
9 42 (10.94%) PRINCE2
10 40 (10.42%) Computer Science
11 39 (10.16%) Service Delivery
12 37 (9.64%) Configuration Management
13 36 (9.38%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 35 (9.11%) DevOps
14 35 (9.11%) Performance Metrics
15 34 (8.85%) Analytics
15 34 (8.85%) Systems Engineering
16 33 (8.59%) Cybersecurity
16 33 (8.59%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 25 (6.51%) Python
2 17 (4.43%) SQL
3 15 (3.91%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.39%) Java
5 7 (1.82%) Bash
6 6 (1.56%) C#
6 6 (1.56%) PL/SQL
7 4 (1.04%) Bicep
8 3 (0.78%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.52%) T-SQL
9 2 (0.52%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.26%) ABAP
10 1 (0.26%) C
10 1 (0.26%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.26%) Perl
10 1 (0.26%) Scala
10 1 (0.26%) Swift
10 1 (0.26%) VB
Qualifications
1 179 (46.61%) Security Cleared
2 94 (24.48%) SC Cleared
3 70 (18.23%) Degree
4 39 (10.16%) DV Cleared
5 16 (4.17%) PMI Certification
6 12 (3.13%) ACCA
6 12 (3.13%) CIMA
6 12 (3.13%) CISSP
7 8 (2.08%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (2.08%) PMP
8 7 (1.82%) Azure Certification
8 7 (1.82%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.82%) ISTQB
9 6 (1.56%) CCNP
10 5 (1.30%) CISM
11 4 (1.04%) CCNA
11 4 (1.04%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.78%) CCIE
12 3 (0.78%) GIAC
12 3 (0.78%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (5.73%) QA
2 20 (5.21%) Data Quality
3 18 (4.69%) NIST
4 17 (4.43%) PMO
5 16 (4.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 13 (3.39%) SLA
7 10 (2.60%) GDPR
8 8 (2.08%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (1.82%) NCSC
10 6 (1.56%) Accessibility
10 6 (1.56%) GRC
11 3 (0.78%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.78%) Def Stans
11 3 (0.78%) ISO 22301
11 3 (0.78%) ISO 31000
11 3 (0.78%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.26%) COBIT
12 1 (0.26%) IFRS
12 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (3.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (2.60%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.34%) Docker
4 4 (1.04%) VMware NSX
4 4 (1.04%) vSphere
5 2 (0.52%) Firmware
5 2 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 11 (2.86%) Ansible
1 11 (2.86%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.08%) Terraform
3 5 (1.30%) Grafana
3 5 (1.30%) SCCM
3 5 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (1.04%) Nagios
4 4 (1.04%) Nessus
4 4 (1.04%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.78%) OpenVAS
6 2 (0.52%) Argo
6 2 (0.52%) Cisco Prime
6 2 (0.52%) Iperf
6 2 (0.52%) Nmap
6 2 (0.52%) Podman
6 2 (0.52%) Proxmox
6 2 (0.52%) Rancher
7 1 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.26%) Puppet
7 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 35 (9.11%) Microsoft
2 31 (8.07%) ServiceNow
3 25 (6.51%) Google
3 25 (6.51%) IBM
3 25 (6.51%) Oracle
4 21 (5.47%) SAP
4 21 (5.47%) VMware
5 8 (2.08%) Cisco
6 7 (1.82%) SolarWinds
7 6 (1.56%) Fortinet
7 6 (1.56%) Juniper
7 6 (1.56%) Splunk
7 6 (1.56%) Workday
8 5 (1.30%) BMC
8 5 (1.30%) Palo Alto
8 5 (1.30%) Remedy
8 5 (1.30%) Salesforce
8 5 (1.30%) Zscaler
9 4 (1.04%) CheckPoint
9 4 (1.04%) Red Hat