Degree Contract Job Trends in the South East

Academic Degree
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East with a requirement for Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 3 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 14
Rank change year-on-year -3 -10 +13
Contract jobs citing Degree 383 202 495
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.44% 6.90% 8.77%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.24% 17.19% 19.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 202 120 249
10th Percentile £204 £248 £205
25th Percentile £343 £357 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £553 £608
90th Percentile £713 £625 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 25 83
10th Percentile £31.25 £20.56 £17.80
25th Percentile £51.44 £32.31 £23.93
Median hourly rate £83.50 £56.75 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +47.14% -1.05% +27.44%
75th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile - - £65.00
England median hourly rate £55.75 £51.25 £40.00
% change year-on-year +8.78% +28.13% -17.09%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

Degree falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the South East.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 2,689 1,175 2,526
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.23% 40.13% 44.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,823 749 1,460
10th Percentile £313 £263 £349
25th Percentile £438 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £675 £731
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 81 220
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.50 £17.80
25th Percentile £26.94 £28.00 £29.38
Median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year - -4.10% -4.42%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.00 £70.39
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.19 £87.46
England median hourly rate £47.54 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.28% -18.75% -27.27%

Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Degree job vacancy trend in the South East

Degree
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Degree

Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Degree in the South East over the 6 months to 3 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Degree in the South East

Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Degree

Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Degree in the South East over the 6 months to 3 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Degree in the South East

Degree
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 Degree within the South East region over the 6 months to 3 June 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 -1 195 £476 - 230
Berkshire +7 126 £400 -16.01% 106
Hampshire +7 100 £550 +6.80% 155
Buckinghamshire -14 37 £570 +5.07% 67
Surrey -17 34 £208 -43.54% 82
Oxfordshire -3 32 £525 +16.67% 60
Kent +3 13 £445 +61.82% 33
West Sussex -18 13 £275 -5.17% 28
East Sussex -2 4 £600 - 12
Sussex - 4 £275 - 11
Home Counties - 3 - -
Middlesex - 1 £198 - 16
Degree
England

Degree
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 13 (3.39%) SharePoint
2 10 (2.61%) Confluence
3 5 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.78%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.78%) MS Project Server
5 2 (0.52%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.52%) CMS
6 1 (0.26%) Apache
6 1 (0.26%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.26%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 51 (13.32%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (9.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 24 (6.27%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (5.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.78%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (2.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.83%) Primavera
3 2 (0.52%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.52%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.26%) SAP Hybris
4 1 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.26%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 76 (19.84%) Azure
2 50 (13.05%) AWS
3 26 (6.79%) Entra ID
4 25 (6.53%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (3.92%) Power Platform
6 14 (3.66%) GCP
7 11 (2.87%) SaaS
8 8 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (2.09%) OneDrive
9 7 (1.83%) GitHub
9 7 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (1.83%) IaaS
10 6 (1.57%) PaaS
11 4 (1.04%) Power Automate
11 4 (1.04%) Serverless
12 3 (0.78%) Lucidchart
12 3 (0.78%) Sauce Labs
13 2 (0.52%) PowerApps
13 2 (0.52%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 2 (0.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 25 (6.53%) Firewall
2 17 (4.44%) DNS
3 16 (4.18%) WAN
4 15 (3.92%) LAN
4 15 (3.92%) TCP/IP
5 14 (3.66%) Network Security
6 11 (2.87%) DHCP
7 9 (2.35%) BGP
7 9 (2.35%) OSPF
7 9 (2.35%) Wireless
8 6 (1.57%) HTTP
8 6 (1.57%) IPsec
8 6 (1.57%) Structured Cabling
9 4 (1.04%) RSVP
9 4 (1.04%) SSH
9 4 (1.04%) VXLAN
10 3 (0.78%) Ethernet
10 3 (0.78%) SAN
10 3 (0.78%) VPN
10 3 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.92%) Relational Database
2 13 (3.39%) MySQL
2 13 (3.39%) Power BI
2 13 (3.39%) SQL Server
3 5 (1.31%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (1.04%) Tableau
5 3 (0.78%) Big Data
5 3 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
5 3 (0.78%) Oracle Database
6 2 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.52%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.26%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7 1 (0.26%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.26%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.26%) Metadata
7 1 (0.26%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.26%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.26%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 28 (7.31%) Rational DOORS
2 17 (4.44%) JIRA
3 8 (2.09%) Git
3 8 (2.09%) GitLab
4 7 (1.83%) Burp Suite
4 7 (1.83%) CircleCI
4 7 (1.83%) Gradle
4 7 (1.83%) Metasploit
5 6 (1.57%) JUnit
6 4 (1.04%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.78%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.78%) Browser DevTools
7 3 (0.78%) Eclipse
7 3 (0.78%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.78%) Xcode
8 2 (0.52%) Balsamiq
8 2 (0.52%) Selenium
8 2 (0.52%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.26%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.26%) TestNG
General
1 150 (39.16%) Social Skills
2 61 (15.93%) Finance
3 59 (15.40%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (15.14%) Aerospace
5 42 (10.97%) Public Sector
6 21 (5.48%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (4.18%) Organisational Skills
8 14 (3.66%) Law
8 14 (3.66%) Manufacturing
9 12 (3.13%) Marketing
10 10 (2.61%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (2.09%) Legal
11 8 (2.09%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (1.83%) Retail
12 7 (1.83%) Telecoms
13 6 (1.57%) Aviation
13 6 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 5 (1.31%) Military
15 4 (1.04%) Arabic Language
15 4 (1.04%) French Language
Job Titles
1 52 (13.58%) Analyst
2 50 (13.05%) Senior
3 32 (8.36%) Product Manager
4 29 (7.57%) Delivery Manager
5 28 (7.31%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (7.05%) IT Manager
7 24 (6.27%) Lead
8 23 (6.01%) Project Manager
9 22 (5.74%) Senior Manager
9 22 (5.74%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 22 (5.74%) Systems Manager
10 21 (5.48%) Architect
11 19 (4.96%) Technical Support
12 17 (4.44%) Category Manager
13 15 (3.92%) IT Services Manager
13 15 (3.92%) Senior Category Manager
13 15 (3.92%) Senior IT Manager
13 15 (3.92%) Senior Service Manager
14 14 (3.66%) Senior Analyst
15 12 (3.13%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (3.92%) Oracle Fusion
2 12 (3.13%) REST
3 10 (2.61%) OAuth
4 9 (2.35%) SailPoint
5 8 (2.09%) LDAP
5 8 (2.09%) OAuth2
5 8 (2.09%) OpenID
5 8 (2.09%) React
5 8 (2.09%) SAML
5 8 (2.09%) Web Services
6 7 (1.83%) RAML
7 6 (1.57%) Android Jetpack
7 6 (1.57%) Kafka
8 5 (1.31%) CSS
8 5 (1.31%) Dagger
8 5 (1.31%) GraphQL
8 5 (1.31%) OkHttp
8 5 (1.31%) RESTful
8 5 (1.31%) RxJava
8 5 (1.31%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 44 (11.49%) Product Ownership
2 30 (7.83%) Management Information System
3 28 (7.31%) Data Centre
4 25 (6.53%) Data Structures
5 23 (6.01%) Onboarding
6 19 (4.96%) Virtual Team
7 10 (2.61%) Data Protection Act
7 10 (2.61%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (2.35%) Security Posture
9 8 (2.09%) PMI
9 8 (2.09%) Robotics
10 7 (1.83%) Legacy Code
10 7 (1.83%) Mobile App
10 7 (1.83%) Security Operations Centre
11 6 (1.57%) BYOD
11 6 (1.57%) Cloud Native
11 6 (1.57%) Life Science
12 5 (1.31%) CCTV
12 5 (1.31%) Cyberattack
12 5 (1.31%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 74 (19.32%) Windows
2 49 (12.79%) Linux
3 32 (8.36%) Unix
4 13 (3.39%) Android
5 12 (3.13%) Apple iOS
5 12 (3.13%) Windows Server
6 8 (2.09%) Mac OS
6 8 (2.09%) Windows 10
7 4 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.52%) OpenVMS
8 2 (0.52%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 156 (40.73%) Computer Science
2 87 (22.72%) Agile
3 79 (20.63%) Continuous Improvement
4 75 (19.58%) Problem-Solving
5 67 (17.49%) Cybersecurity
6 55 (14.36%) Information Security
7 53 (13.84%) Change Control
8 49 (12.79%) Decision-Making
9 47 (12.27%) PRINCE2
10 46 (12.01%) Stakeholder Management
11 45 (11.75%) Project Management
12 44 (11.49%) Systems Engineering
13 43 (11.23%) AI
13 43 (11.23%) ITSM
13 43 (11.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 42 (10.97%) ITIL
15 34 (8.88%) Scaled Agile Framework
16 32 (8.36%) CI/CD
16 32 (8.36%) Programme Management
17 29 (7.57%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 48 (12.53%) Python
2 25 (6.53%) PowerShell
3 22 (5.74%) Java
4 21 (5.48%) SQL
5 17 (4.44%) JavaScript
6 12 (3.13%) Perl
7 8 (2.09%) Kotlin
8 7 (1.83%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.04%) Bash
10 3 (0.78%) C
10 3 (0.78%) C++
10 3 (0.78%) Korn
10 3 (0.78%) Rust
11 2 (0.52%) Ada
11 2 (0.52%) C#
11 2 (0.52%) Go
11 2 (0.52%) R
12 1 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.26%) Swift
12 1 (0.26%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 166 (43.34%) Security Cleared
2 105 (27.42%) SC Cleared
3 66 (17.23%) Computer Science Degree
4 21 (5.48%) Cisco Certification
4 21 (5.48%) CISSP
5 16 (4.18%) DV Cleared
6 15 (3.92%) PMI Certification
7 14 (3.66%) CCNP
7 14 (3.66%) PMP
8 13 (3.39%) CISM
8 13 (3.39%) Master's Degree
9 11 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
9 11 (2.87%) CompTIA Security+
10 10 (2.61%) ACCA
10 10 (2.61%) CIMA
11 9 (2.35%) CESG Certified Professional
12 8 (2.09%) CCNA
13 7 (1.83%) Cyber Scheme
13 7 (1.83%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (1.83%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (12.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 42 (10.97%) NIST
3 24 (6.27%) PMO
4 18 (4.70%) GDPR
4 18 (4.70%) QA
5 14 (3.66%) NCSC
5 14 (3.66%) PCI DSS
6 9 (2.35%) Data Quality
7 8 (2.09%) NIST 800
8 7 (1.83%) Cyber Essentials
8 7 (1.83%) SLA
9 6 (1.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (1.31%) Government Security Classifications
10 5 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 4 (1.04%) Accessibility
11 4 (1.04%) ISO 31000
12 3 (0.78%) DO-254
12 3 (0.78%) IEC 61508
12 3 (0.78%) ISO 26262
12 3 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 37 (9.66%) Active Directory
2 11 (2.87%) Docker
3 8 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.83%) Firmware
5 4 (1.04%) Embedded Firmware
6 3 (0.78%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.52%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.26%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.26%) UAG
8 1 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 14 (3.66%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.87%) Microsoft Intune
3 8 (2.09%) Terraform
4 7 (1.83%) Jamf Pro
4 7 (1.83%) Nmap
5 6 (1.57%) Grafana
5 6 (1.57%) Prometheus
6 4 (1.04%) Ansible
6 4 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.78%) Podman
7 3 (0.78%) Puppet
8 2 (0.52%) Nessus
8 2 (0.52%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 2 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
8 2 (0.52%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.26%) Dell DRAC
9 1 (0.26%) FortiGate
9 1 (0.26%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.26%) linkerd
Vendors
1 75 (19.58%) Microsoft
2 40 (10.44%) Oracle
3 33 (8.62%) SAP
4 25 (6.53%) IBM
5 20 (5.22%) ServiceNow
6 16 (4.18%) Cisco
7 15 (3.92%) Ariba
8 11 (2.87%) BeyondTrust
8 11 (2.87%) CyberArk
8 11 (2.87%) Palo Alto
9 10 (2.61%) CheckPoint
9 10 (2.61%) VMware
10 9 (2.35%) Aruba
10 9 (2.35%) Splunk
11 6 (1.57%) Salesforce
11 6 (1.57%) Tenable
12 5 (1.31%) Dell
12 5 (1.31%) Workday
13 4 (1.04%) Juniper
13 4 (1.04%) Red Hat