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 16 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 40 61
Rank change year-on-year +12 +21 +9
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 276 171 165
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.27% 5.08% 3.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 7.45% 5.68% 3.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 169 94 86
10th Percentile £303 £404 £400
25th Percentile £350 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £550 £544
Median % change year-on-year -15.91% +1.15% +5.48%
75th Percentile £550 £638 £648
90th Percentile £653 £684 £700
England median daily rate £500 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 11 12
10th Percentile - £13.25 £17.67
25th Percentile £12.50 £21.00 £38.12
Median hourly rate £16.00 £52.50 £64.83
Median % change year-on-year -69.52% -19.02% +126.89%
75th Percentile £58.00 £59.53 £72.33
90th Percentile £90.03 £61.76 £77.76
England median hourly rate £27.22 £51.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -46.89% -21.15% +8.33%

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 3,705 3,008 4,428
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 84.22% 89.28% 88.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,441 1,860 2,806
10th Percentile £231 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £515
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -0.97% +1.98%
75th Percentile £600 £620 £615
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 329 115 265
10th Percentile £14.50 £19.57 £17.26
25th Percentile £17.00 £25.87 £26.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £42.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -45.88% -22.73% +22.22%
75th Percentile £50.00 £62.50 £65.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.68 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -17.65% +21.43%

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 16 January 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 16 January 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 16 January 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 +1 134 £423 -23.18% 162
Berkshire +6 105 £373 -32.27% 104
Hampshire +20 76 £475 -13.64% 76
Surrey +6 25 £475 -24.00% 44
Buckinghamshire -1 24 £500 -9.09% 29
West Sussex +4 14 £500 +11.11% 24
Sussex 0 9 - - 4
Kent +5 8 £594 +7.91% 38
East Sussex +3 7 £600 -7.69% 25
Oxfordshire -10 5 £529 +17.61% 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 (2.90%) Confluence
2 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (1.45%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.09%) Camunda
4 2 (0.72%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.36%) Tomcat
Applications
1 21 (7.61%) Microsoft Office
2 12 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
3 11 (3.99%) MS Visio
4 8 (2.90%) Microsoft Project
5 7 (2.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (1.09%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.81%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (1.81%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 2 (0.72%) NetSuite
2 2 (0.72%) Workday HCM
3 1 (0.36%) assyst
3 1 (0.36%) iTrent
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle BRM
3 1 (0.36%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.36%) SAP PM
Cloud Services
1 78 (28.26%) Azure
2 58 (21.01%) AWS
3 38 (13.77%) GCP
4 13 (4.71%) Azure DevOps
5 12 (4.35%) Google Workspace
6 11 (3.99%) Power Platform
7 10 (3.62%) SaaS
8 9 (3.26%) GitHub
9 8 (2.90%) Microsoft 365
10 6 (2.17%) Entra ID
10 6 (2.17%) IaaS
11 5 (1.81%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.81%) PaaS
12 4 (1.45%) dbt
13 3 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 3 (1.09%) Azure Machine Learning
13 3 (1.09%) Lucidchart
13 3 (1.09%) OCI
13 3 (1.09%) Power Automate
13 3 (1.09%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 14 (5.07%) Network Security
2 11 (3.99%) Firewall
3 8 (2.90%) DNS
3 8 (2.90%) VPN
4 5 (1.81%) TCP/IP
5 4 (1.45%) DHCP
6 3 (1.09%) Broadband
6 3 (1.09%) IPv4
6 3 (1.09%) IPv6
6 3 (1.09%) MPLS
6 3 (1.09%) VLAN
6 3 (1.09%) WAN
7 2 (0.72%) Intranet
7 2 (0.72%) NaaS
7 2 (0.72%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.72%) Software-Defined Networking
8 1 (0.36%) 5G
8 1 (0.36%) DWDM
8 1 (0.36%) Internet
8 1 (0.36%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (2.90%) Power BI
2 5 (1.81%) Oracle Database
3 4 (1.45%) Metadata
4 3 (1.09%) Data Lake
4 3 (1.09%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (1.09%) Metadata Repository
4 3 (1.09%) Oracle Reports
4 3 (1.09%) Pinecone
4 3 (1.09%) Relational Database
4 3 (1.09%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.09%) Weaviate
5 2 (0.72%) DynamoDB
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle Database 11g
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle Database 12c
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle ODI
5 2 (0.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 2 (0.72%) Tableau
6 1 (0.36%) Big Data
6 1 (0.36%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.36%) Redis
Development Applications
1 21 (7.61%) JIRA
2 7 (2.54%) Jenkins
3 6 (2.17%) GitLab
3 6 (2.17%) Selenium
4 3 (1.09%) Bitbucket
4 3 (1.09%) Git
4 3 (1.09%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (0.72%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.72%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle APEX
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle Forms
5 2 (0.72%) REST Assured
5 2 (0.72%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.36%) Appium
6 1 (0.36%) Gatling
6 1 (0.36%) HP UFT
6 1 (0.36%) JMeter
6 1 (0.36%) Katalon Studio
6 1 (0.36%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.36%) Subversion
General
1 140 (50.72%) Social Skills
2 73 (26.45%) Analytical Skills
3 48 (17.39%) Finance
4 31 (11.23%) Public Sector
5 18 (6.52%) Organisational Skills
6 14 (5.07%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (3.99%) Manufacturing
8 9 (3.26%) Retail
9 8 (2.90%) Aerospace
9 8 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (2.90%) Law
9 8 (2.90%) Legal
10 7 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (2.54%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.81%) Billing
11 5 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.45%) Aviation
12 4 (1.45%) Environmental Health
12 4 (1.45%) Marketing
13 3 (1.09%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 37 (13.41%) Lead
2 27 (9.78%) Senior
3 21 (7.61%) Analyst
4 15 (5.43%) Support Officer
5 13 (4.71%) Project Manager
6 12 (4.35%) Consultant
6 12 (4.35%) IT Support
7 11 (3.99%) Delivery Manager
7 11 (3.99%) Support Assistant
8 10 (3.62%) Designer
8 10 (3.62%) IT Assistant
8 10 (3.62%) IT Support Assistant
9 9 (3.26%) Service Manager
10 8 (2.90%) Service Delivery Manager
10 8 (2.90%) Test Manager
11 7 (2.54%) Architect
11 7 (2.54%) IT Manager
12 6 (2.17%) Azure Engineer
12 6 (2.17%) Cloud Consultant
12 6 (2.17%) Technology Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (2.54%) .NET
1 7 (2.54%) REST
2 6 (2.17%) React
3 4 (1.45%) Node.js
3 4 (1.45%) Oracle Fusion
3 4 (1.45%) SOAP
4 3 (1.09%) AngularJS
4 3 (1.09%) Faiss
4 3 (1.09%) Playwright
4 3 (1.09%) RESTful
5 2 (0.72%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 2 (0.72%) Unity (Game Engine)
5 2 (0.72%) Unreal Engine
6 1 (0.36%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.36%) Kafka
6 1 (0.36%) Keycloak
6 1 (0.36%) Lightning Web Components
6 1 (0.36%) OAuth2
6 1 (0.36%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.36%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 17 (6.16%) Enterprise Software
2 13 (4.71%) Data Centre
3 12 (4.35%) Onboarding
3 12 (4.35%) Product Ownership
4 10 (3.62%) Virtual Team
5 8 (2.90%) e-Learning
5 8 (2.90%) PMI
5 8 (2.90%) Security Operations Centre
6 7 (2.54%) Analytical Mindset
6 7 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.17%) PKI
8 5 (1.81%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.81%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.45%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.45%) Life Science
9 4 (1.45%) Operational Technology
9 4 (1.45%) Renewable Energy
9 4 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.45%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 25 (9.06%) Linux
2 24 (8.70%) Windows
3 5 (1.81%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.45%) Unix
5 3 (1.09%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.72%) CentOS
6 2 (0.72%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.36%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.36%) Solaris
7 1 (0.36%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (28.62%) Problem-Solving
2 78 (28.26%) Agile
3 62 (22.46%) Change Management
4 59 (21.38%) ITIL
5 57 (20.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 47 (17.03%) ITSM
6 47 (17.03%) Service Management
7 39 (14.13%) Stakeholder Management
8 37 (13.41%) Performance Metrics
9 28 (10.14%) Decision-Making
9 28 (10.14%) Roadmaps
10 26 (9.42%) DevOps
11 25 (9.06%) Service Delivery
12 22 (7.97%) Cybersecurity
12 22 (7.97%) ERP
12 22 (7.97%) Incident Management
12 22 (7.97%) Incident Response
12 22 (7.97%) Root Cause Analysis
13 21 (7.61%) Collaborative Working
13 21 (7.61%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 22 (7.97%) Python
2 14 (5.07%) PowerShell
3 10 (3.62%) SQL
4 7 (2.54%) Java
5 6 (2.17%) Bash
6 5 (1.81%) C#
6 5 (1.81%) PL/SQL
7 3 (1.09%) Perl
8 2 (0.72%) Bicep
9 1 (0.36%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.36%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.36%) Scala
9 1 (0.36%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.36%) VB
Qualifications
1 91 (32.97%) Security Cleared
2 65 (23.55%) SC Cleared
3 30 (10.87%) Degree
4 22 (7.97%) DV Cleared
5 14 (5.07%) PMI Certification
6 10 (3.62%) CISSP
7 9 (3.26%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (2.90%) ACCA
8 8 (2.90%) CIMA
9 7 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
9 7 (2.54%) ISTQB
10 6 (2.17%) PMP
11 5 (1.81%) CCNA
11 5 (1.81%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 5 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (1.45%) Azure Certification
12 4 (1.45%) CCNP
13 3 (1.09%) CISM
13 3 (1.09%) GCIA
13 3 (1.09%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (5.80%) GDPR
2 15 (5.43%) PMO
3 14 (5.07%) QA
4 12 (4.35%) NIST
5 10 (3.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (2.90%) Data Quality
6 8 (2.90%) SLA
7 4 (1.45%) Accessibility
7 4 (1.45%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.72%) GRC
9 2 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 2 (0.72%) NCSC
10 1 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.36%) COBIT
10 1 (0.36%) COSHH
10 1 (0.36%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.36%) ISO 31000
10 1 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.36%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (3.99%) Docker
1 11 (3.99%) VMware Infrastructure
2 9 (3.26%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.17%) vSphere
4 5 (1.81%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.72%) Firmware
5 2 (0.72%) KVM
5 2 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.36%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 11 (3.99%) Ansible
2 9 (3.26%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.90%) Terraform
4 5 (1.81%) SCCM
5 4 (1.45%) Nagios
5 4 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (1.09%) Grafana
6 3 (1.09%) Podman
6 3 (1.09%) Progress Chef
6 3 (1.09%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.09%) Proxmox
6 3 (1.09%) Puppet
7 2 (0.72%) CSIRT
7 2 (0.72%) vRealize
7 2 (0.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
8 1 (0.36%) Amdocs OSS
8 1 (0.36%) OpenVAS
8 1 (0.36%) Rancher
8 1 (0.36%) SELinux
8 1 (0.36%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 45 (16.30%) Microsoft
2 35 (12.68%) Google
3 23 (8.33%) Oracle
4 20 (7.25%) ServiceNow
5 15 (5.43%) VMware
6 8 (2.90%) SAP
7 7 (2.54%) Cisco
7 7 (2.54%) Juniper
7 7 (2.54%) Workday
8 6 (2.17%) Splunk
8 6 (2.17%) Zscaler
9 5 (1.81%) BMC
9 5 (1.81%) Salesforce
10 4 (1.45%) Fortinet
10 4 (1.45%) SolarWinds
11 3 (1.09%) CyberArk
11 3 (1.09%) F5
11 3 (1.09%) Palo Alto
11 3 (1.09%) Red Hat
11 3 (1.09%) Tenable