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 20 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 40 38
Rank change year-on-year +26 -2 +26
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 587 177 244
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 8.95% 5.16% 4.47%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 11.03% 5.73% 5.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 354 111 132
10th Percentile £359 £325 £363
25th Percentile £436 £438 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.23% +2.29% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £650
90th Percentile £696 £650 £688
England median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 12 18
10th Percentile £47.50 - £18.35
25th Percentile £80.75 £15.13 £26.18
Median hourly rate £85.40 £17.58 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +385.78% -53.12% -25.00%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £51.25
90th Percentile £91.80 £69.89 £58.75
England median hourly rate £54.00 £31.40 £36.50
% change year-on-year +71.96% -13.97% -34.15%

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 5,323 3,089 4,524
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.18% 90.06% 82.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,355 1,923 2,680
10th Percentile £280 £250 £263
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £514
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.72% -0.19%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £665 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 534 270 398
10th Percentile £15.73 £13.50 £13.18
25th Percentile £25.36 £15.13 £18.39
Median hourly rate £56.00 £21.99 £54.62
Median % change year-on-year +154.72% -59.75% +9.24%
75th Percentile £82.25 £52.90 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.90
England median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £39.50
% change year-on-year +88.87% -36.33% -7.06%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 +19 280 £525 +5.00% 162
Berkshire +24 212 £519 +3.80% 84
Hampshire +18 174 £550 -8.33% 107
Buckinghamshire -12 57 £544 +2.41% 49
Surrey +17 56 £475 -5.00% 60
West Sussex -8 34 £500 +29.03% 16
Middlesex - 12 - - 5
Oxfordshire -17 11 £650 +44.44% 29
East Sussex +5 7 £625 +13.64% 6
Kent +2 4 £468 -17.54% 21
Sussex - 1 £600 - 5
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 21 (3.58%) SharePoint
2 18 (3.07%) Confluence
3 3 (0.51%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.17%) SharePoint 2010
5 1 (0.17%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 46 (7.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (2.73%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (2.21%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (2.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.34%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (2.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.85%) Primavera
3 4 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.51%) iTrent
4 3 (0.51%) Maximo
4 3 (0.51%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 3 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.34%) SAP SD
5 2 (0.34%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS R12
6 1 (0.17%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.17%) SAP BRIM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP Business One
6 1 (0.17%) SAP Convergent Charging
6 1 (0.17%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.17%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.17%) SAP PSCD
6 1 (0.17%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 95 (16.18%) Azure
2 67 (11.41%) AWS
3 31 (5.28%) Power Platform
4 26 (4.43%) GCP
5 16 (2.73%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (2.73%) Entra ID
5 16 (2.73%) SaaS
6 15 (2.56%) GitHub
7 12 (2.04%) Serverless
8 10 (1.70%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (1.53%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (1.02%) Azure AKS
11 6 (1.02%) Microsoft Purview
11 6 (1.02%) OCI
11 6 (1.02%) OpenShift
12 5 (0.85%) Datadog
13 4 (0.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 4 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 25 (4.26%) Network Security
2 22 (3.75%) DNS
3 17 (2.90%) Firewall
4 14 (2.39%) LAN
5 8 (1.36%) DHCP
5 8 (1.36%) TCP/IP
6 7 (1.19%) WAN
7 6 (1.02%) SD-WAN
7 6 (1.02%) VPN
7 6 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.85%) Broadband
8 5 (0.85%) Wireless
9 4 (0.68%) DNSSEC
10 3 (0.51%) BGP
10 3 (0.51%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.51%) MQTT
10 3 (0.51%) OSPF
10 3 (0.51%) Radio Access Network
10 3 (0.51%) VLAN
11 2 (0.34%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (5.11%) Power BI
2 11 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (1.36%) Metadata
4 7 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (1.19%) Tableau
5 5 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
6 4 (0.68%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (0.68%) GIS
6 4 (0.68%) Redis
7 3 (0.51%) Big Data
7 3 (0.51%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.51%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.51%) Elasticsearch
7 3 (0.51%) Spark SQL
7 3 (0.51%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.34%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.34%) SAP HANA
8 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 31 (5.28%) JIRA
2 27 (4.60%) Rational DOORS
3 11 (1.87%) GitLab
4 10 (1.70%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.53%) Git
6 5 (0.85%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.51%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.51%) Hudson
8 2 (0.34%) Selenium
8 2 (0.34%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.34%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.17%) Balsamiq
9 1 (0.17%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.17%) ERwin
9 1 (0.17%) JUnit
9 1 (0.17%) Mockito
9 1 (0.17%) MSI
9 1 (0.17%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.17%) Subversion
9 1 (0.17%) TestRail
General
1 265 (45.14%) Social Skills
2 151 (25.72%) Analytical Skills
3 117 (19.93%) Finance
4 62 (10.56%) Public Sector
5 56 (9.54%) Aerospace
6 29 (4.94%) Organisational Skills
7 21 (3.58%) Influencing Skills
8 20 (3.41%) Retail
8 20 (3.41%) Telecoms
9 16 (2.73%) French Language
9 16 (2.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 16 (2.73%) Spanish Language
10 15 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
11 14 (2.39%) Legal
12 9 (1.53%) Law
13 8 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (1.19%) Aviation
15 6 (1.02%) Games
16 5 (0.85%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.85%) Military
Job Titles
1 80 (13.63%) Analyst
2 70 (11.93%) Lead
3 52 (8.86%) Senior
4 48 (8.18%) Architect
5 44 (7.50%) Delivery Manager
6 40 (6.81%) Product Manager
7 29 (4.94%) Product Delivery Manager
8 27 (4.60%) IT Manager
9 22 (3.75%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 22 (3.75%) Systems Manager
10 18 (3.07%) Data Analyst
11 16 (2.73%) 2nd Line Support
11 16 (2.73%) 2nd Line Technical Support
11 16 (2.73%) Technical Support
12 15 (2.56%) Consultant
12 15 (2.56%) Project Manager
12 15 (2.56%) Service Manager
13 14 (2.39%) Senior Analyst
13 14 (2.39%) Solutions Architect
14 13 (2.21%) Change Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (1.87%) OAuth
2 10 (1.70%) REST
2 10 (1.70%) RESTful
2 10 (1.70%) SOAP
3 8 (1.36%) .NET
3 8 (1.36%) Kafka
3 8 (1.36%) SAML
4 7 (1.19%) OpenID
5 6 (1.02%) EDI
5 6 (1.02%) GraphQL
5 6 (1.02%) LDAP
5 6 (1.02%) OAuth2
5 6 (1.02%) React
6 5 (0.85%) ARM Templates
6 5 (0.85%) JSON
6 5 (0.85%) Keycloak
6 5 (0.85%) Middleware
6 5 (0.85%) PySpark
6 5 (0.85%) YAML
7 4 (0.68%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 79 (13.46%) Product Ownership
2 31 (5.28%) Onboarding
3 29 (4.94%) Cloud Native
4 27 (4.60%) Management Information System
5 25 (4.26%) Data Structures
6 21 (3.58%) Operational Technology
6 21 (3.58%) Security Posture
7 15 (2.56%) Data Centre
8 14 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
8 14 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
9 12 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (2.04%) PMI
10 11 (1.87%) CMDB
11 10 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.70%) Hybrid Cloud
11 10 (1.70%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.53%) Cyber Threat
13 7 (1.19%) Security Operations Centre
14 6 (1.02%) Cyber Defence
14 6 (1.02%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 55 (9.37%) Windows
2 23 (3.92%) Linux
3 13 (2.21%) Windows Server
4 6 (1.02%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.34%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.17%) Android
7 1 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.17%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 200 (34.07%) Agile
2 156 (26.58%) Stakeholder Management
3 142 (24.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 137 (23.34%) Problem-Solving
5 104 (17.72%) ITIL
6 88 (14.99%) Decision-Making
7 77 (13.12%) Service Delivery
8 76 (12.95%) Roadmaps
9 74 (12.61%) Service Management
10 68 (11.58%) ITSM
11 66 (11.24%) Cybersecurity
12 62 (10.56%) CI/CD
13 61 (10.39%) Change Management
14 59 (10.05%) DevOps
15 55 (9.37%) Project Delivery
16 54 (9.20%) PRINCE2
17 53 (9.03%) Project Management
18 52 (8.86%) Computer Science
19 51 (8.69%) Risk Management
19 51 (8.69%) Scaled Agile Framework
Programming Languages
1 52 (8.86%) SQL
2 48 (8.18%) Python
3 31 (5.28%) PowerShell
4 21 (3.58%) Bash
5 17 (2.90%) Java
6 7 (1.19%) C#
7 6 (1.02%) JavaScript
8 5 (0.85%) Bicep
8 5 (0.85%) TypeScript
9 4 (0.68%) Apex Code
9 4 (0.68%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.51%) Go
10 3 (0.51%) Rust
11 2 (0.34%) ABAP
11 2 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.34%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.34%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.17%) C
12 1 (0.17%) VBA
Qualifications
1 290 (49.40%) Security Cleared
2 148 (25.21%) SC Cleared
3 104 (17.72%) Degree
4 90 (15.33%) DV Cleared
5 33 (5.62%) PMI Certification
6 23 (3.92%) PMP
7 18 (3.07%) ACCA
7 18 (3.07%) CIMA
8 15 (2.56%) Azure Certification
9 13 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
10 12 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
10 12 (2.04%) CISSP
11 10 (1.70%) AWS Certification
12 9 (1.53%) CCNP
12 9 (1.53%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (1.19%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 6 (1.02%) ISTQB
14 6 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
14 6 (1.02%) Master's Degree
15 5 (0.85%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (7.50%) QA
2 43 (7.33%) Data Quality
3 35 (5.96%) PMO
4 32 (5.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 23 (3.92%) NIST
6 18 (3.07%) GDPR
6 18 (3.07%) NCSC
7 17 (2.90%) SLA
8 8 (1.36%) GRC
9 7 (1.19%) Accessibility
10 6 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (1.02%) ISO 9001
11 4 (0.68%) Def Stans
11 4 (0.68%) ISO 31000
11 4 (0.68%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.51%) ISO 22301
13 2 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
13 2 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 2 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 1 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 24 (4.09%) Active Directory
1 24 (4.09%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (3.41%) Docker
3 5 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.85%) vSphere
4 4 (0.68%) IAG
4 4 (0.68%) VMware NSX
5 3 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.34%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 32 (5.45%) Kubernetes
2 30 (5.11%) Terraform
3 21 (3.58%) Ansible
4 9 (1.53%) Grafana
5 8 (1.36%) Prometheus
6 7 (1.19%) Puppet
7 5 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
7 5 (0.85%) SCCM
8 4 (0.68%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 4 (0.68%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 3 (0.51%) Nessus
9 3 (0.51%) Podman
10 2 (0.34%) Argo
10 2 (0.34%) CASB
10 2 (0.34%) Cisco Prime
10 2 (0.34%) CSIRT
10 2 (0.34%) Nmap
10 2 (0.34%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.34%) WMI
Vendors
1 76 (12.95%) Microsoft
2 47 (8.01%) ServiceNow
3 41 (6.98%) SAP
4 32 (5.45%) VMware
5 25 (4.26%) IBM
6 23 (3.92%) Oracle
7 11 (1.87%) Cisco
7 11 (1.87%) Juniper
7 11 (1.87%) Salesforce
8 10 (1.70%) Databricks
8 10 (1.70%) Google
9 8 (1.36%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.02%) Palo Alto
10 6 (1.02%) Virgin Media
10 6 (1.02%) Workday
11 5 (0.85%) Aruba
11 5 (0.85%) Baan
11 5 (0.85%) Dynatrace
11 5 (0.85%) Qualys
11 5 (0.85%) Red Hat