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

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 39 49
Rank change year-on-year +14 +10 +28
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 380 162 216
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.05% 5.47% 3.84%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 8.50% 5.94% 4.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 228 105 105
10th Percentile £306 £325 £400
25th Percentile £400 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% +4.48%
75th Percentile £575 £618 £650
90th Percentile £652 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 9 21
10th Percentile £12.50 £20.78 £18.35
25th Percentile £74.88 £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 £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 4,469 2,727 4,887
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 82.91% 92.07% 86.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,933 1,738 2,907
10th Percentile £275 £257 £213
25th Percentile £406 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -0.50%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £614
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 388 149 398
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.84 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.30 £18.20
Median hourly rate £35.00 £35.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year - -6.67% -16.67%
75th Percentile £80.02 £62.50 £62.49
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £75.57
England median hourly rate £32.50 £34.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -4.41% +4.62% -10.48%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +12 207 £463 -10.19% 106
Berkshire +19 168 £428 -14.50% 56
Hampshire +10 97 £501 -12.83% 75
Buckinghamshire -12 36 £518 -8.00% 24
Surrey +5 27 £525 -6.67% 45
West Sussex -7 18 £500 +29.03% 11
East Sussex +4 10 £622 +13.00% 20
Sussex - 7 - - 7
Kent -11 4 £594 +7.91% 21
Oxfordshire -12 3 £525 +110.00% 26
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 3 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
2 3 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.53%) Workday HCM
4 1 (0.26%) assyst
4 1 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle BRM
4 1 (0.26%) Primavera
4 1 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.26%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.26%) SAP PLM
4 1 (0.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 81 (21.32%) Azure
2 64 (16.84%) AWS
3 38 (10.00%) GCP
4 15 (3.95%) Power Platform
5 14 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
6 10 (2.63%) SaaS
7 9 (2.37%) Google Workspace
8 8 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (1.84%) GitHub
10 6 (1.58%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.32%) PaaS
11 5 (1.32%) Serverless
12 4 (1.05%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (1.05%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (1.05%) IaaS
13 3 (0.79%) Azure Machine Learning
13 3 (0.79%) dbt
13 3 (0.79%) Entra ID
13 3 (0.79%) Vertex AI
13 3 (0.79%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 15 (3.95%) Network Security
2 11 (2.89%) Firewall
3 10 (2.63%) VPN
4 7 (1.84%) 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%) DHCP
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
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (3.16%) 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%) Tableau
5 3 (0.79%) Metadata Repository
5 3 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
5 3 (0.79%) Pinecone
5 3 (0.79%) SQL Server
5 3 (0.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 3 (0.79%) Weaviate
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%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.53%) Relational Database
6 2 (0.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
6 2 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 27 (7.11%) Rational DOORS
2 20 (5.26%) 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%) 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%) Hudson
8 1 (0.26%) JMeter
8 1 (0.26%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.26%) Subversion
8 1 (0.26%) WebDriver
General
1 174 (45.79%) Social Skills
2 83 (21.84%) Analytical Skills
3 73 (19.21%) Finance
4 46 (12.11%) Public Sector
5 45 (11.84%) Aerospace
6 16 (4.21%) Influencing Skills
6 16 (4.21%) Organisational Skills
7 14 (3.68%) Legal
7 14 (3.68%) Telecoms
8 12 (3.16%) Law
9 7 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.58%) Manufacturing
10 6 (1.58%) Marketing
11 5 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (1.32%) Retail
12 4 (1.05%) Billing
13 3 (0.79%) Automotive
13 3 (0.79%) Military
14 2 (0.53%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 52 (13.68%) Lead
2 46 (12.11%) Delivery Manager
3 35 (9.21%) Product Manager
4 33 (8.68%) Senior
5 29 (7.63%) Product Delivery Manager
6 28 (7.37%) Analyst
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 13 (3.42%) Consultant
11 12 (3.16%) Project Manager
11 12 (3.16%) Service Delivery Manager
11 12 (3.16%) Support Officer
12 10 (2.63%) Architect
12 10 (2.63%) Designer
13 9 (2.37%) Accountant
13 9 (2.37%) Engineering Manager
13 9 (2.37%) IT Support
13 9 (2.37%) Systems Accountant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (1.58%) .NET
2 4 (1.05%) Node.js
3 3 (0.79%) Faiss
3 3 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
3 3 (0.79%) Playwright
3 3 (0.79%) RESTful
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%) JSON
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 47 (12.37%) Product Ownership
2 23 (6.05%) Data Structures
3 18 (4.74%) Onboarding
4 17 (4.47%) Management Information System
5 15 (3.95%) Data Centre
6 14 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
7 11 (2.89%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
7 11 (2.89%) Security Posture
8 10 (2.63%) Cloud Native
8 10 (2.63%) PKI
8 10 (2.63%) Security Operations Centre
9 8 (2.11%) Virtual Team
10 7 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (1.84%) PMI
11 6 (1.58%) Taxonomies
12 5 (1.32%) CMDB
12 5 (1.32%) e-Learning
13 4 (1.05%) Hybrid Cloud
13 4 (1.05%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 22 (5.79%) Linux
2 19 (5.00%) 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
1 104 (27.37%) Agile
2 94 (24.74%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 85 (22.37%) ITIL
4 79 (20.79%) Problem-Solving
5 75 (19.74%) Stakeholder Management
6 71 (18.68%) Service Management
7 70 (18.42%) Change Management
8 67 (17.63%) ITSM
9 52 (13.68%) Roadmaps
10 42 (11.05%) Performance Metrics
10 42 (11.05%) PRINCE2
11 40 (10.53%) Computer Science
12 37 (9.74%) Configuration Management
12 37 (9.74%) Scaled Agile Framework
12 37 (9.74%) Service Delivery
13 35 (9.21%) DevOps
14 34 (8.95%) Cybersecurity
14 34 (8.95%) Programme Management
14 34 (8.95%) Systems Engineering
15 33 (8.68%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 26 (6.84%) Python
2 17 (4.47%) PowerShell
3 13 (3.42%) Java
3 13 (3.42%) SQL
4 7 (1.84%) Bash
5 6 (1.58%) C#
5 6 (1.58%) PL/SQL
6 3 (0.79%) Bicep
6 3 (0.79%) JavaScript
7 2 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.53%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.53%) TypeScript
7 2 (0.53%) VB
8 1 (0.26%) ABAP
8 1 (0.26%) C
8 1 (0.26%) Objective-C
8 1 (0.26%) Perl
8 1 (0.26%) Scala
8 1 (0.26%) Swift
Qualifications
1 176 (46.32%) Security Cleared
2 96 (25.26%) SC Cleared
3 67 (17.63%) Degree
4 35 (9.21%) DV Cleared
5 16 (4.21%) PMI Certification
6 12 (3.16%) CISSP
7 10 (2.63%) PMP
8 9 (2.37%) ACCA
8 9 (2.37%) CIMA
9 8 (2.11%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (1.84%) ISTQB
11 6 (1.58%) Azure Certification
11 6 (1.58%) CCNP
12 5 (1.32%) CISM
13 4 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (1.05%) CCNA
13 4 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
14 3 (0.79%) CESG Certified Professional
14 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 16 (4.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 16 (4.21%) PMO
4 13 (3.42%) SLA
5 11 (2.89%) GDPR
6 8 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.84%) NCSC
8 6 (1.58%) Accessibility
8 6 (1.58%) GRC
9 4 (1.05%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.79%) Def Stans
10 3 (0.79%) ISO 22301
10 3 (0.79%) ISO 31000
10 3 (0.79%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.26%) COBIT
11 1 (0.26%) COSHH
11 1 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (2.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 10 (2.63%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.63%) Docker
3 4 (1.05%) vSphere
4 3 (0.79%) VMware NSX
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 13 (3.42%) Ansible
2 10 (2.63%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.11%) 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%) EMC NetWorker
8 1 (0.26%) Puppet
8 1 (0.26%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 38 (10.00%) Microsoft
2 36 (9.47%) Google
3 30 (7.89%) ServiceNow
4 25 (6.58%) IBM
5 22 (5.79%) Oracle
6 18 (4.74%) VMware
7 10 (2.63%) 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