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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 40 47
Rank change year-on-year +15 +7 +31
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 381 154 223
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.95% 5.17% 3.96%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.43% 5.64% 4.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 101 110
10th Percentile £306 £325 £400
25th Percentile £413 £438 £461
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 £666 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.75% -1.05% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 9 21
10th Percentile £13.25 £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 £96.75 £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 4,517 2,729 4,878
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 82.44% 91.61% 86.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,948 1,758 2,881
10th Percentile £281 £254 £219
25th Percentile £410 £401 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £508 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.44% +1.50% -0.99%
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 400 159 414
10th Percentile £15.50 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £18.50 £18.20
Median hourly rate £38.40 £32.50 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.16% -22.62% -6.67%
75th Percentile £81.00 £62.50 £62.35
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.76
England median hourly rate £36.71 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.95% - -13.33%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +18 203 £480 -8.57% 98
Berkshire +16 164 £461 -10.49% 51
Hampshire +9 98 £503 -12.61% 67
Buckinghamshire -5 36 £518 -8.00% 21
Surrey +5 30 £525 - 40
West Sussex -5 19 £500 +29.03% 14
East Sussex +1 10 £622 +13.00% 13
Sussex - 6 - - 6
Kent -8 3 £594 +7.91% 15
Oxfordshire -14 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 7 (1.84%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.52%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.26%) Tomcat
Applications
1 17 (4.46%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (4.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (1.84%) MS Visio
4 6 (1.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.79%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (2.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 5 (1.31%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
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%) iTrent
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 (19.16%) Azure
2 54 (14.17%) AWS
3 30 (7.87%) GCP
4 17 (4.46%) Power Platform
5 13 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (2.89%) SaaS
7 8 (2.10%) Google Workspace
7 8 (2.10%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (1.84%) GitHub
9 5 (1.31%) PaaS
9 5 (1.31%) Serverless
10 4 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
10 4 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (1.05%) IaaS
10 4 (1.05%) OpenShift
11 3 (0.79%) Azure Machine Learning
11 3 (0.79%) Entra ID
11 3 (0.79%) OCI
11 3 (0.79%) Vertex AI
11 3 (0.79%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 14 (3.67%) Network Security
2 11 (2.89%) Firewall
3 10 (2.62%) VPN
4 6 (1.57%) DNS
5 5 (1.31%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.31%) VLAN
6 4 (1.05%) Broadband
6 4 (1.05%) MPLS
7 3 (0.79%) IPv4
7 3 (0.79%) IPv6
7 3 (0.79%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.79%) WAN
8 2 (0.52%) BGP
8 2 (0.52%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.52%) Intranet
8 2 (0.52%) Multicast
8 2 (0.52%) NaaS
8 2 (0.52%) OSPF
8 2 (0.52%) Wireshark
9 1 (0.26%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (3.67%) Power BI
2 6 (1.57%) Data Lake
2 6 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
2 6 (1.57%) Metadata
3 5 (1.31%) 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 (0.52%) 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 Analysis Services
6 2 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 2 (0.52%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 27 (7.09%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (4.99%) JIRA
3 7 (1.84%) GitLab
4 6 (1.57%) Jenkins
5 5 (1.31%) Git
6 4 (1.05%) 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
1 172 (45.14%) Social Skills
2 87 (22.83%) Analytical Skills
3 77 (20.21%) Finance
4 45 (11.81%) Public Sector
5 44 (11.55%) Aerospace
6 17 (4.46%) Influencing Skills
7 16 (4.20%) Legal
8 15 (3.94%) Organisational Skills
9 14 (3.67%) Telecoms
10 13 (3.41%) Law
11 7 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.84%) Retail
12 6 (1.57%) Documentation Skills
12 6 (1.57%) Manufacturing
12 6 (1.57%) Marketing
13 4 (1.05%) Billing
13 4 (1.05%) Military
13 4 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (0.79%) Automotive
15 2 (0.52%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 47 (12.34%) Lead
2 46 (12.07%) Delivery Manager
3 35 (9.19%) Product Manager
3 35 (9.19%) Senior
4 32 (8.40%) Analyst
5 29 (7.61%) Product Delivery Manager
6 22 (5.77%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 22 (5.77%) Systems Manager
7 20 (5.25%) IT Manager
8 19 (4.99%) Service Manager
9 15 (3.94%) Consultant
10 12 (3.15%) Architect
10 12 (3.15%) Project Manager
10 12 (3.15%) Service Delivery Manager
11 11 (2.89%) Support Officer
12 10 (2.62%) Designer
13 9 (2.36%) Accountant
13 9 (2.36%) Systems Accountant
14 8 (2.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 8 (2.10%) Transformation Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.57%) .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 (0.52%) 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 (12.60%) Product Ownership
2 23 (6.04%) Data Structures
3 18 (4.72%) Management Information System
4 16 (4.20%) Onboarding
5 15 (3.94%) Data Centre
6 14 (3.67%) Legacy Systems
7 12 (3.15%) Analytical Mindset
8 11 (2.89%) Security Posture
9 10 (2.62%) Cloud Native
9 10 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
9 10 (2.62%) PKI
10 9 (2.36%) Security Operations Centre
11 8 (2.10%) PMI
11 8 (2.10%) Virtual Team
12 7 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (1.57%) Taxonomies
14 5 (1.31%) CMDB
14 5 (1.31%) e-Learning
14 5 (1.31%) Operational Technology
15 4 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 21 (5.51%) Linux
2 19 (4.99%) Windows
3 4 (1.05%) 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
1 102 (26.77%) Agile
2 93 (24.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 82 (21.52%) ITIL
4 78 (20.47%) Problem-Solving
5 77 (20.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 66 (17.32%) Service Management
7 63 (16.54%) Change Management
8 62 (16.27%) ITSM
9 51 (13.39%) Roadmaps
10 43 (11.29%) PRINCE2
11 40 (10.50%) Computer Science
12 37 (9.71%) Configuration Management
12 37 (9.71%) Service Delivery
13 36 (9.45%) Performance Metrics
13 36 (9.45%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 34 (8.92%) DevOps
14 34 (8.92%) Systems Engineering
15 33 (8.66%) Analytics
15 33 (8.66%) Programme Management
15 33 (8.66%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 26 (6.82%) Python
2 16 (4.20%) PowerShell
3 15 (3.94%) SQL
4 13 (3.41%) Java
5 7 (1.84%) Bash
6 6 (1.57%) C#
6 6 (1.57%) PL/SQL
7 3 (0.79%) Bicep
7 3 (0.79%) JavaScript
8 2 (0.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (0.52%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.52%) 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
1 175 (45.93%) Security Cleared
2 92 (24.15%) SC Cleared
3 69 (18.11%) Degree
4 38 (9.97%) DV Cleared
5 15 (3.94%) PMI Certification
6 12 (3.15%) CISSP
7 11 (2.89%) ACCA
7 11 (2.89%) CIMA
8 8 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
8 8 (2.10%) PMP
9 7 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
9 7 (1.84%) ISTQB
10 6 (1.57%) Azure Certification
10 6 (1.57%) CCNP
11 5 (1.31%) CISM
12 4 (1.05%) CCNA
12 4 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.79%) CCIE
13 3 (0.79%) GIAC
13 3 (0.79%) JNCIS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (5.51%) QA
2 19 (4.99%) Data Quality
3 18 (4.72%) NIST
4 17 (4.46%) PMO
5 16 (4.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (3.15%) SLA
7 10 (2.62%) GDPR
8 8 (2.10%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (1.84%) NCSC
10 6 (1.57%) Accessibility
10 6 (1.57%) GRC
11 4 (1.05%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.79%) Def Stans
12 3 (0.79%) ISO 22301
12 3 (0.79%) ISO 31000
12 3 (0.79%) NIST 800
13 1 (0.26%) COBIT
13 1 (0.26%) IFRS
13 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
13 1 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 12 (3.15%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (2.62%) Docker
3 9 (2.36%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.79%) VMware NSX
4 3 (0.79%) vSphere
5 2 (0.52%) Firmware
5 2 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (3.15%) Ansible
2 10 (2.62%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.84%) Terraform
4 5 (1.31%) Grafana
4 5 (1.31%) SCCM
4 5 (1.31%) 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 (0.52%) Argo
7 2 (0.52%) Cisco Prime
7 2 (0.52%) Iperf
7 2 (0.52%) Nmap
7 2 (0.52%) Rancher
8 1 (0.26%) CSIRT
8 1 (0.26%) Puppet
8 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 35 (9.19%) Microsoft
2 31 (8.14%) ServiceNow
3 26 (6.82%) Google
4 25 (6.56%) IBM
5 24 (6.30%) Oracle
6 19 (4.99%) VMware
7 18 (4.72%) SAP
8 8 (2.10%) Cisco
9 7 (1.84%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.57%) Fortinet
10 6 (1.57%) Juniper
10 6 (1.57%) Splunk
10 6 (1.57%) Zscaler
11 5 (1.31%) BMC
11 5 (1.31%) Palo Alto
11 5 (1.31%) Remedy
11 5 (1.31%) Salesforce
11 5 (1.31%) Workday
12 4 (1.05%) CheckPoint
12 4 (1.05%) Red Hat