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 27 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 40 47
Rank change year-on-year +15 +7 +33
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 380 155 216
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.01% 5.27% 3.85%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.48% 5.73% 4.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 103 105
10th Percentile £306 £325 £400
25th Percentile £413 £431 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £618 £650
90th Percentile £670 £670 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 9 21
10th Percentile £12.50 £20.78 £18.35
25th Percentile £76.94 £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 £96.25 £80.10 £70.50
England median hourly rate £45.46 £56.38 £37.50
% change year-on-year -19.36% +50.33% -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 4,479 2,703 4,862
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 82.61% 91.91% 86.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,929 1,747 2,873
10th Percentile £281 £254 £213
25th Percentile £410 £404 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £509 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.20% +2.00% -0.45%
75th Percentile £610 £613 £615
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 396 156 411
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.78 £19.56 £18.26
Median hourly rate £37.00 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.85% -23.53% -5.56%
75th Percentile £80.12 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £35.91 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +10.49% -1.52% -12.00%

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 27 March 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 27 March 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 27 March 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 +12 203 £480 -7.69% 98
Berkshire +19 164 £461 -8.71% 51
Hampshire +12 97 £501 -12.83% 67
Buckinghamshire -5 36 £518 -8.00% 21
Surrey +8 30 £525 - 40
West Sussex -6 18 £500 +29.03% 14
East Sussex 0 10 £622 +13.00% 13
Sussex - 7 - - 6
Kent -10 4 £594 +7.91% 15
Oxfordshire -8 3 £525 +110.00% 27
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 11 (2.89%) Confluence
2 8 (2.11%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.53%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.26%) Tomcat
Applications
1 19 (5.00%) Microsoft Office
2 15 (3.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.84%) MS Visio
4 6 (1.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.79%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (2.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 4 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.53%) SAP SD
4 2 (0.53%) 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 73 (19.21%) Azure
2 54 (14.21%) AWS
3 30 (7.89%) GCP
4 16 (4.21%) Power Platform
5 13 (3.42%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.89%) SaaS
7 9 (2.37%) Google Workspace
8 8 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (1.84%) GitHub
10 5 (1.32%) PaaS
10 5 (1.32%) Serverless
11 4 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
11 4 (1.05%) IaaS
11 4 (1.05%) OpenShift
12 3 (0.79%) Azure Machine Learning
12 3 (0.79%) dbt
12 3 (0.79%) Entra ID
12 3 (0.79%) Vertex AI
12 3 (0.79%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 15 (3.95%) Network Security
2 11 (2.89%) Firewall
3 10 (2.63%) VPN
4 6 (1.58%) DNS
5 5 (1.32%) MPLS
5 5 (1.32%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.32%) VLAN
6 4 (1.05%) Broadband
6 4 (1.05%) WAN
7 3 (0.79%) IPv4
7 3 (0.79%) IPv6
7 3 (0.79%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.53%) BGP
8 2 (0.53%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.53%) Intranet
8 2 (0.53%) Multicast
8 2 (0.53%) NaaS
8 2 (0.53%) OSPF
8 2 (0.53%) Wireshark
9 1 (0.26%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (3.42%) Power BI
2 6 (1.58%) Data Lake
2 6 (1.58%) Data Warehouse
2 6 (1.58%) Metadata
3 5 (1.32%) Oracle Database
4 4 (1.05%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.79%) Metadata Repository
5 3 (0.79%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.79%) Weaviate
6 2 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
6 2 (0.53%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.53%) Oracle Database 11g
6 2 (0.53%) Oracle Database 12c
6 2 (0.53%) Oracle ODI
6 2 (0.53%) Redis
6 2 (0.53%) Relational Database
6 2 (0.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (0.53%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (7.11%) Rational DOORS
2 18 (4.74%) JIRA
3 7 (1.84%) GitLab
4 6 (1.58%) Jenkins
5 5 (1.32%) Git
6 4 (1.05%) Selenium
7 2 (0.53%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.53%) Hudson
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle APEX
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.53%) SpecFlow
7 2 (0.53%) 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
1 173 (45.53%) Social Skills
2 86 (22.63%) Analytical Skills
3 76 (20.00%) Finance
4 44 (11.58%) Aerospace
4 44 (11.58%) Public Sector
5 17 (4.47%) Influencing Skills
5 17 (4.47%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (3.95%) Legal
6 15 (3.95%) Telecoms
7 13 (3.42%) Law
8 7 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (1.84%) Retail
9 6 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.58%) Manufacturing
9 6 (1.58%) Marketing
10 4 (1.05%) Billing
10 4 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.79%) Automotive
11 3 (0.79%) Military
12 2 (0.53%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 47 (12.37%) Lead
2 46 (12.11%) Delivery Manager
3 35 (9.21%) Product Manager
4 34 (8.95%) Senior
5 30 (7.89%) Analyst
6 29 (7.63%) Product Delivery Manager
7 22 (5.79%) Systems Delivery Manager
7 22 (5.79%) Systems Manager
8 19 (5.00%) IT Manager
9 17 (4.47%) Service Manager
10 15 (3.95%) Consultant
11 12 (3.16%) Architect
11 12 (3.16%) Project Manager
11 12 (3.16%) Service Delivery Manager
11 12 (3.16%) Support Officer
12 10 (2.63%) Designer
13 9 (2.37%) Accountant
13 9 (2.37%) IT Support
13 9 (2.37%) Systems Accountant
14 8 (2.11%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.58%) .NET
2 4 (1.05%) Node.js
2 4 (1.05%) RESTful
3 3 (0.79%) Faiss
3 3 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
3 3 (0.79%) Playwright
3 3 (0.79%) REST
3 3 (0.79%) SOAP
3 3 (0.79%) Spring
3 3 (0.79%) Spring Boot
3 3 (0.79%) YAML
4 2 (0.53%) ADO
4 2 (0.53%) Elastic Stack
4 2 (0.53%) Kafka
4 2 (0.53%) Keycloak
4 2 (0.53%) OAuth2
4 2 (0.53%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 2 (0.53%) Unity (Game Engine)
4 2 (0.53%) Unreal Engine
4 2 (0.53%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 48 (12.63%) Product Ownership
2 23 (6.05%) Data Structures
3 17 (4.47%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.21%) Onboarding
5 15 (3.95%) Data Centre
6 14 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
7 13 (3.42%) Analytical Mindset
8 11 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (2.89%) Security Posture
9 10 (2.63%) Cloud Native
9 10 (2.63%) PKI
10 9 (2.37%) Security Operations Centre
11 8 (2.11%) PMI
11 8 (2.11%) Virtual Team
12 7 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.58%) Taxonomies
14 5 (1.32%) CMDB
14 5 (1.32%) e-Learning
14 5 (1.32%) Operational Technology
15 4 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 22 (5.79%) Linux
2 20 (5.26%) Windows
3 4 (1.05%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.53%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.53%) Unix
4 2 (0.53%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.26%) Android
5 1 (0.26%) Solaris
5 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (26.84%) Agile
2 93 (24.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 80 (21.05%) ITIL
4 78 (20.53%) Problem-Solving
5 76 (20.00%) Stakeholder Management
6 64 (16.84%) Service Management
7 63 (16.58%) Change Management
8 60 (15.79%) ITSM
9 51 (13.42%) Roadmaps
10 43 (11.32%) PRINCE2
11 40 (10.53%) Computer Science
12 38 (10.00%) Service Delivery
13 37 (9.74%) Configuration Management
14 36 (9.47%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 35 (9.21%) Performance Metrics
16 34 (8.95%) DevOps
16 34 (8.95%) Risk Management
16 34 (8.95%) Systems Engineering
17 33 (8.68%) Analytics
17 33 (8.68%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 26 (6.84%) Python
2 16 (4.21%) PowerShell
3 15 (3.95%) SQL
4 13 (3.42%) Java
5 7 (1.84%) Bash
6 6 (1.58%) C#
6 6 (1.58%) PL/SQL
7 3 (0.79%) Bicep
7 3 (0.79%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (0.53%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.53%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.26%) ABAP
9 1 (0.26%) C
9 1 (0.26%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.26%) Perl
9 1 (0.26%) Scala
9 1 (0.26%) Swift
9 1 (0.26%) VB
Qualifications
1 174 (45.79%) Security Cleared
2 92 (24.21%) SC Cleared
3 68 (17.89%) Degree
4 38 (10.00%) DV Cleared
5 15 (3.95%) PMI Certification
6 12 (3.16%) CISSP
7 10 (2.63%) ACCA
7 10 (2.63%) CIMA
8 8 (2.11%) Cisco Certification
8 8 (2.11%) PMP
9 7 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (1.84%) ISTQB
10 6 (1.58%) Azure Certification
10 6 (1.58%) CCNP
11 5 (1.32%) CISM
12 4 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
12 4 (1.05%) CCNA
12 4 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.79%) CESG Certified Professional
13 3 (0.79%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.53%) QA
2 18 (4.74%) Data Quality
2 18 (4.74%) NIST
3 17 (4.47%) PMO
4 16 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (3.42%) SLA
6 10 (2.63%) GDPR
7 8 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (1.84%) NCSC
9 6 (1.58%) Accessibility
9 6 (1.58%) GRC
10 4 (1.05%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.79%) Def Stans
11 3 (0.79%) ISO 22301
11 3 (0.79%) ISO 31000
11 3 (0.79%) NIST 800
12 1 (0.26%) COSHH
12 1 (0.26%) IFRS
12 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
12 1 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (2.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (2.63%) Docker
3 9 (2.37%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.79%) VMware NSX
4 3 (0.79%) vSphere
5 2 (0.53%) Firmware
5 2 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (3.16%) Ansible
2 10 (2.63%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.84%) Terraform
4 5 (1.32%) Grafana
4 5 (1.32%) SCCM
4 5 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (1.05%) Nagios
5 4 (1.05%) Nessus
5 4 (1.05%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.79%) OpenVAS
6 3 (0.79%) Podman
6 3 (0.79%) Proxmox
7 2 (0.53%) Argo
7 2 (0.53%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.53%) Iperf
7 2 (0.53%) Nmap
7 2 (0.53%) Rancher
8 1 (0.26%) Amdocs OSS
8 1 (0.26%) Puppet
8 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 37 (9.74%) Microsoft
2 30 (7.89%) ServiceNow
3 26 (6.84%) Google
4 25 (6.58%) IBM
5 23 (6.05%) Oracle
6 18 (4.74%) VMware
7 16 (4.21%) SAP
8 8 (2.11%) Cisco
9 7 (1.84%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.58%) Fortinet
10 6 (1.58%) Juniper
10 6 (1.58%) Splunk
10 6 (1.58%) Zscaler
11 5 (1.32%) BMC
11 5 (1.32%) Palo Alto
11 5 (1.32%) Remedy
11 5 (1.32%) Salesforce
12 4 (1.05%) CheckPoint
12 4 (1.05%) Qualys
12 4 (1.05%) Red Hat