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 25 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 31 39 67
Rank change year-on-year +8 +28 0
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 271 178 160
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.12% 4.83% 3.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.23% 5.46% 3.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 98 81
10th Percentile £300 £375 £400
25th Percentile £350 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% - +10.00%
75th Percentile £572 £638 £650
90th Percentile £625 £698 £700
England median daily rate £500 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 11 10
10th Percentile - £13.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £12.50 £21.00 £32.98
Median hourly rate £16.00 £52.50 £64.40
Median % change year-on-year -69.52% -18.48% +125.38%
75th Percentile £58.00 £59.53 £71.87
90th Percentile £92.52 £61.76 £72.93
England median hourly rate £23.33 £51.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -54.48% -21.15% +4.00%

All Process and 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 3,747 3,262 4,456
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 84.66% 88.45% 89.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,453 2,041 2,858
10th Percentile £222 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £518
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -1.54% +1.07%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £613
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
England median daily rate £501 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.67% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 363 120 234
10th Percentile £14.75 £20.00 £18.95
25th Percentile £17.05 £26.81 £27.50
Median hourly rate £22.50 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.00% -9.09% +41.94%
75th Percentile £48.75 £63.51 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +22.56%

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 25 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025.

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 25 December 2025. 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 +6 140 £438 -20.45% 283
Berkshire +5 108 £420 -23.64% 170
Hampshire +15 68 £475 -9.52% 127
Buckinghamshire +8 25 £475 -13.64% 69
Surrey +4 22 £500 -23.08% 70
West Sussex +4 16 £500 +11.11% 39
Sussex 0 9 - - 6
Kent +9 8 £594 +7.91% 69
Oxfordshire -13 7 £529 +17.61% 45
East Sussex +7 6 £600 -14.29% 34
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 (2.95%) Confluence
2 7 (2.58%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.48%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (1.11%) Camunda
5 2 (0.74%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.37%) CMS
6 1 (0.37%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.37%) Umbraco
Applications
1 21 (7.75%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (6.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (4.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 10 (3.69%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (3.69%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.74%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.85%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.11%) NetSuite
2 3 (1.11%) Workday HCM
3 2 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.37%) assyst
4 1 (0.37%) iTrent
4 1 (0.37%) Oracle Applications
4 1 (0.37%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.37%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.37%) SAP HCM
4 1 (0.37%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.37%) SAP PM
4 1 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 75 (27.68%) Azure
2 56 (20.66%) AWS
3 38 (14.02%) GCP
4 12 (4.43%) Azure DevOps
4 12 (4.43%) Google Workspace
5 11 (4.06%) Power Platform
6 10 (3.69%) Microsoft 365
7 9 (3.32%) GitHub
7 9 (3.32%) SaaS
8 8 (2.95%) Entra ID
9 5 (1.85%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.85%) IaaS
10 4 (1.48%) PaaS
10 4 (1.48%) Serverless
11 3 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 3 (1.11%) Azure Functions
11 3 (1.11%) Azure Monitor
11 3 (1.11%) Lucidchart
11 3 (1.11%) OpenShift
11 3 (1.11%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 12 (4.43%) Network Security
2 10 (3.69%) Firewall
3 8 (2.95%) DNS
4 7 (2.58%) VPN
5 4 (1.48%) DHCP
5 4 (1.48%) TCP/IP
6 3 (1.11%) Broadband
6 3 (1.11%) LAN
6 3 (1.11%) MPLS
6 3 (1.11%) WAN
7 2 (0.74%) 5G
7 2 (0.74%) Internet
7 2 (0.74%) IPv4
7 2 (0.74%) IPv6
7 2 (0.74%) NaaS
7 2 (0.74%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
7 2 (0.74%) VLAN
8 1 (0.37%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (0.37%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.95%) Power BI
2 6 (2.21%) Oracle Database
3 5 (1.85%) SQL Server
4 4 (1.48%) Data Lake
4 4 (1.48%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (1.48%) Relational Database
5 3 (1.11%) Oracle Reports
6 2 (0.74%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.74%) Oracle Database 11g
6 2 (0.74%) Oracle Database 12c
6 2 (0.74%) Oracle ODI
6 2 (0.74%) Pinecone
6 2 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.74%) Tableau
6 2 (0.74%) Weaviate
7 1 (0.37%) Data Hub
7 1 (0.37%) Data Vault
7 1 (0.37%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.37%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 21 (7.75%) JIRA
2 7 (2.58%) Jenkins
3 6 (2.21%) GitLab
4 4 (1.48%) Git
4 4 (1.48%) Selenium
5 3 (1.11%) Bitbucket
5 3 (1.11%) Rational DOORS
6 2 (0.74%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.74%) Oracle APEX
6 2 (0.74%) Oracle Forms
6 2 (0.74%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.37%) Appium
7 1 (0.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.37%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.37%) Gatling
7 1 (0.37%) HP UFT
7 1 (0.37%) JMeter
7 1 (0.37%) Katalon Studio
7 1 (0.37%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.37%) Subversion
General
1 140 (51.66%) Social Skills
2 70 (25.83%) Analytical Skills
3 50 (18.45%) Finance
4 23 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 18 (6.64%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (4.80%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (4.43%) Manufacturing
8 9 (3.32%) Retail
9 8 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.95%) Legal
10 7 (2.58%) Telecoms
11 6 (2.21%) Aerospace
12 4 (1.48%) Automotive
12 4 (1.48%) Aviation
12 4 (1.48%) Billing
12 4 (1.48%) Environmental Health
13 3 (1.11%) Electronics
13 3 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (1.11%) Law
13 3 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 37 (13.65%) Lead
2 27 (9.96%) Analyst
3 25 (9.23%) Senior
4 15 (5.54%) Project Manager
4 15 (5.54%) Support Officer
5 12 (4.43%) Consultant
5 12 (4.43%) IT Support
6 11 (4.06%) Architect
6 11 (4.06%) Support Assistant
7 10 (3.69%) IT Assistant
7 10 (3.69%) IT Support Assistant
8 8 (2.95%) Delivery Manager
8 8 (2.95%) IT Manager
8 8 (2.95%) Senior Analyst
8 8 (2.95%) Service Manager
8 8 (2.95%) Test Manager
9 7 (2.58%) Designer
9 7 (2.58%) Service Analyst
9 7 (2.58%) Service Delivery Manager
10 6 (2.21%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.58%) .NET
1 7 (2.58%) REST
2 6 (2.21%) React
3 4 (1.48%) Oracle Fusion
3 4 (1.48%) RESTful
3 4 (1.48%) SOAP
4 3 (1.11%) AngularJS
4 3 (1.11%) Node.js
5 2 (0.74%) Faiss
5 2 (0.74%) Kafka
5 2 (0.74%) Oracle GoldenGate
6 1 (0.37%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.37%) Entity Framework
6 1 (0.37%) Keycloak
6 1 (0.37%) Lightning Web Components
6 1 (0.37%) OAuth2
6 1 (0.37%) Play Framework
6 1 (0.37%) Playwright
6 1 (0.37%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.37%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 18 (6.64%) Enterprise Software
2 15 (5.54%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.43%) Data Centre
4 11 (4.06%) Virtual Team
5 9 (3.32%) Product Ownership
5 9 (3.32%) Security Operations Centre
6 8 (2.95%) PMI
7 7 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (2.21%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (2.21%) e-Learning
8 6 (2.21%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.21%) PKI
9 5 (1.85%) Cloud Native
10 4 (1.48%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.48%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (1.48%) Learning Management System
10 4 (1.48%) Life Science
10 4 (1.48%) Operational Technology
10 4 (1.48%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.48%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 27 (9.96%) Windows
2 26 (9.59%) Linux
3 5 (1.85%) Windows 10
3 5 (1.85%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.48%) Unix
5 3 (1.11%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.74%) CentOS
6 2 (0.74%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.37%) Solaris
7 1 (0.37%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (29.15%) Problem-Solving
2 76 (28.04%) Agile
3 64 (23.62%) ITIL
4 55 (20.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 54 (19.93%) Change Management
6 48 (17.71%) ITSM
6 48 (17.71%) Service Management
7 44 (16.24%) Stakeholder Management
8 36 (13.28%) Performance Metrics
9 32 (11.81%) Decision-Making
10 28 (10.33%) Project Management
11 27 (9.96%) DevOps
11 27 (9.96%) Roadmaps
12 25 (9.23%) Service Delivery
13 23 (8.49%) Collaborative Working
13 23 (8.49%) PRINCE2
14 22 (8.12%) Cybersecurity
14 22 (8.12%) Incident Response
15 20 (7.38%) Project Delivery
15 20 (7.38%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 21 (7.75%) Python
2 16 (5.90%) PowerShell
3 14 (5.17%) SQL
4 8 (2.95%) Bash
5 5 (1.85%) Java
5 5 (1.85%) PL/SQL
6 4 (1.48%) C#
7 3 (1.11%) Perl
8 2 (0.74%) Bicep
9 1 (0.37%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.37%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.37%) Scala
9 1 (0.37%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.37%) VB
Qualifications
1 83 (30.63%) Security Cleared
2 56 (20.66%) SC Cleared
3 31 (11.44%) Degree
4 18 (6.64%) DV Cleared
5 17 (6.27%) PMI Certification
6 11 (4.06%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (3.69%) CISSP
7 10 (3.69%) PMP
8 7 (2.58%) ISTQB
8 7 (2.58%) Microsoft Certification
9 6 (2.21%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.85%) ACCA
10 5 (1.85%) CCNA
10 5 (1.85%) CIMA
10 5 (1.85%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 5 (1.85%) Master's Degree
11 4 (1.48%) Azure Certification
11 4 (1.48%) GCIA
11 4 (1.48%) GCIH
11 4 (1.48%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (7.01%) GDPR
2 15 (5.54%) PMO
3 13 (4.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (4.80%) SLA
4 12 (4.43%) NIST
4 12 (4.43%) QA
5 5 (1.85%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.48%) Accessibility
7 3 (1.11%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (1.11%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (1.11%) GRC
8 2 (0.74%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 19770
8 2 (0.74%) NCSC
8 2 (0.74%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.37%) COBIT
9 1 (0.37%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 1 (0.37%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 13 (4.80%) VMware Infrastructure
2 11 (4.06%) Active Directory
2 11 (4.06%) Docker
3 6 (2.21%) vSphere
4 5 (1.85%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.74%) KVM
5 2 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.74%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (4.06%) Ansible
2 9 (3.32%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.95%) Terraform
4 6 (2.21%) SCCM
5 4 (1.48%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (1.11%) Grafana
6 3 (1.11%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (1.11%) Nagios
6 3 (1.11%) Podman
6 3 (1.11%) Progress Chef
6 3 (1.11%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.11%) Proxmox
6 3 (1.11%) Puppet
7 2 (0.74%) CSIRT
7 2 (0.74%) vRealize
7 2 (0.74%) vRealize Orchestrator
8 1 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.37%) Argo
8 1 (0.37%) Avamar
8 1 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 52 (19.19%) Microsoft
2 33 (12.18%) Google
3 21 (7.75%) ServiceNow
4 20 (7.38%) Oracle
5 17 (6.27%) VMware
6 10 (3.69%) SAP
7 9 (3.32%) Cisco
7 9 (3.32%) Juniper
8 8 (2.95%) Workday
9 7 (2.58%) Splunk
10 6 (2.21%) Zscaler
11 5 (1.85%) Salesforce
12 4 (1.48%) BMC
12 4 (1.48%) Fortinet
12 4 (1.48%) IFS
13 3 (1.11%) CyberArk
13 3 (1.11%) Palo Alto
13 3 (1.11%) Red Hat
13 3 (1.11%) SolarWinds
13 3 (1.11%) Tenable