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 14 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 23 13
Rank change year-on-year -4 -10 +14
Contract jobs citing Degree 359 238 499
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.82% 7.97% 8.87%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.51% 20.46% 19.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 191 132 280
10th Percentile £275 £201 £205
25th Percentile £394 £350 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £554 £608
90th Percentile £650 £650 £667
England median daily rate £500 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 24 63
10th Percentile £23.28 £17.50 £17.64
25th Percentile £29.61 £38.75 £21.49
Median hourly rate £84.00 £55.13 £45.21
Median % change year-on-year +52.38% +21.93% +0.47%
75th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £61.98
90th Percentile - £77.35 £67.40
England median hourly rate £45.46 £52.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year -13.41% +40.00% -16.67%

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 2,475 1,163 2,531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 47.02% 38.96% 44.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,640 750 1,428
10th Percentile £303 £263 £250
25th Percentile £413 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.63% -1.82% +3.77%
75th Percentile £610 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £689 £713
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 79 177
10th Percentile £15.62 £19.68 £17.80
25th Percentile £19.74 £27.55 £22.75
Median hourly rate £40.22 £56.75 £56.89
Median % change year-on-year -29.13% -0.24% +14.92%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £89.46 £78.69 £82.67
England median hourly rate £27.50 £52.00 £39.44
% change year-on-year -47.12% +31.86% -21.13%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 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 -2 198 £450 -8.91% 184
Berkshire +3 147 £419 -12.30% 88
Hampshire +14 85 £510 -0.97% 117
Buckinghamshire +5 39 £488 -4.88% 52
Surrey -22 27 £525 +5.00% 52
West Sussex -10 17 £400 -11.11% 13
Kent -6 14 £445 +1.71% 36
Oxfordshire -12 12 £525 -25.00% 48
East Sussex +2 8 £565 -9.60% 21
Home Counties - 5 £700 -
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 18 (5.01%) Confluence
2 12 (3.34%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.39%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.11%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.11%) Smallworld
5 3 (0.84%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (0.84%) Apache
5 3 (0.84%) CMS
5 3 (0.84%) MS Project Server
6 2 (0.56%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.28%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.28%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 58 (16.16%) Microsoft Office
2 49 (13.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 41 (11.42%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (5.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (1.95%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.56%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.28%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 13 (3.62%) Primavera
2 5 (1.39%) SAP ERP
3 4 (1.11%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.56%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.56%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.28%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 57 (15.88%) Azure
2 44 (12.26%) AWS
3 20 (5.57%) Power Platform
4 16 (4.46%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (3.90%) GCP
6 13 (3.62%) GitHub
6 13 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
7 9 (2.51%) Entra ID
8 6 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (1.39%) SaaS
10 4 (1.11%) IaaS
10 4 (1.11%) PowerApps
11 3 (0.84%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.84%) Amazon S3
11 3 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (0.84%) Lucidchart
11 3 (0.84%) Power Automate
12 2 (0.56%) Amazon EC2
12 2 (0.56%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (0.56%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (8.08%) Firewall
2 17 (4.74%) WAN
3 15 (4.18%) Wireless
4 14 (3.90%) LAN
4 14 (3.90%) Network Security
5 10 (2.79%) BGP
5 10 (2.79%) OSPF
6 9 (2.51%) DNS
6 9 (2.51%) IPsec
6 9 (2.51%) Structured Cabling
7 8 (2.23%) TCP/IP
8 7 (1.95%) HTTP
8 7 (1.95%) Unified Communications
9 4 (1.11%) WebEx
10 3 (0.84%) Ethernet
10 3 (0.84%) SAN
10 3 (0.84%) SSH
10 3 (0.84%) VoIP
11 2 (0.56%) Internet
11 2 (0.56%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (5.01%) Power BI
2 13 (3.62%) Relational Database
3 11 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (3.06%) SQL Server
4 10 (2.79%) MySQL
5 7 (1.95%) Big Data
5 7 (1.95%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.67%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6 6 (1.67%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.39%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (1.39%) Couchbase
8 4 (1.11%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.11%) GIS
8 4 (1.11%) Hadoop
8 4 (1.11%) Metadata
8 4 (1.11%) QGIS
8 4 (1.11%) Tableau
9 3 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 27 (7.52%) JIRA
1 27 (7.52%) Rational DOORS
2 14 (3.90%) Git
3 13 (3.62%) Burp Suite
4 11 (3.06%) Metasploit
5 9 (2.51%) GitLab
6 8 (2.23%) Jenkins
7 7 (1.95%) CircleCI
7 7 (1.95%) Gradle
8 5 (1.39%) JUnit
9 3 (0.84%) Selenium
10 2 (0.56%) Balsamiq
10 2 (0.56%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.56%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.28%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.28%) Maven
11 1 (0.28%) MLflow
11 1 (0.28%) Postman
11 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 141 (39.28%) Social Skills
2 69 (19.22%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (12.53%) Aerospace
4 44 (12.26%) Finance
5 24 (6.69%) Public Sector
6 18 (5.01%) Influencing Skills
6 18 (5.01%) Manufacturing
7 15 (4.18%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (3.62%) Organisational Skills
9 10 (2.79%) Marketing
9 10 (2.79%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (2.23%) Legal
11 7 (1.95%) Law
11 7 (1.95%) Retail
12 6 (1.67%) Military
12 6 (1.67%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.11%) Advertising
13 4 (1.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.84%) Billing
14 3 (0.84%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 43 (11.98%) Analyst
2 32 (8.91%) Delivery Manager
2 32 (8.91%) Product Manager
3 29 (8.08%) Senior
4 27 (7.52%) Product Delivery Manager
5 25 (6.96%) Project Manager
6 22 (6.13%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 22 (6.13%) Systems Manager
7 20 (5.57%) Lead
8 18 (5.01%) Developer
9 17 (4.74%) Architect
10 14 (3.90%) Technical Support
11 13 (3.62%) Penetration Tester
11 13 (3.62%) Project Planner
11 13 (3.62%) Tester
12 10 (2.79%) Consultant
12 10 (2.79%) SC Cleared Project Manager
13 9 (2.51%) Network Engineer
13 9 (2.51%) Security Engineer
14 8 (2.23%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.18%) REST
2 8 (2.23%) Kafka
3 7 (1.95%) RAML
4 6 (1.67%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (1.39%) Android Jetpack
5 5 (1.39%) Dagger
5 5 (1.39%) Jetpack Compose
5 5 (1.39%) OkHttp
5 5 (1.39%) React
5 5 (1.39%) RxJava
5 5 (1.39%) WireMock
6 4 (1.11%) ADO
7 3 (0.84%) HTML
7 3 (0.84%) Matplotlib
7 3 (0.84%) Pandas
7 3 (0.84%) PyTorch
7 3 (0.84%) scikit-learn
7 3 (0.84%) Spring
7 3 (0.84%) TensorFlow
7 3 (0.84%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 39 (10.86%) Product Ownership
2 35 (9.75%) Management Information System
3 24 (6.69%) Data Structures
4 23 (6.41%) Data Centre
5 18 (5.01%) Virtual Team
6 12 (3.34%) Security Posture
7 11 (3.06%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (3.06%) Data Protection Act
7 11 (3.06%) Onboarding
7 11 (3.06%) Security Operations Centre
8 10 (2.79%) PMI
9 9 (2.51%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (2.23%) Algorithms
11 7 (1.95%) BYOD
11 7 (1.95%) Cloud Native
11 7 (1.95%) Driving Licence
11 7 (1.95%) Legacy Code
12 6 (1.67%) Legacy Systems
13 5 (1.39%) Cyberattack
13 5 (1.39%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 54 (15.04%) Windows
2 32 (8.91%) Linux
3 15 (4.18%) Unix
4 7 (1.95%) Android
4 7 (1.95%) Windows 10
4 7 (1.95%) Windows Server
5 6 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.84%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.84%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.56%) Kali Linux
7 2 (0.56%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.56%) OpenVMS
7 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 154 (42.90%) Computer Science
2 110 (30.64%) Agile
3 76 (21.17%) Problem-Solving
4 67 (18.66%) Continuous Improvement
5 65 (18.11%) PRINCE2
6 61 (16.99%) Cybersecurity
7 54 (15.04%) Project Management
8 47 (13.09%) Stakeholder Management
9 42 (11.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 39 (10.86%) Systems Engineering
11 38 (10.58%) Change Control
11 38 (10.58%) Information Security
12 36 (10.03%) AI
13 35 (9.75%) ITIL
13 35 (9.75%) Programme Management
14 32 (8.91%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 31 (8.64%) Decision-Making
16 30 (8.36%) Change Management
16 30 (8.36%) Migration
17 29 (8.08%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 39 (10.86%) Python
2 25 (6.96%) SQL
3 20 (5.57%) Java
4 15 (4.18%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.06%) PowerShell
6 9 (2.51%) Perl
7 7 (1.95%) Go
7 7 (1.95%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.67%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.39%) Bash
10 3 (0.84%) C#
10 3 (0.84%) Korn
11 2 (0.56%) R
12 1 (0.28%) Bicep
12 1 (0.28%) C
12 1 (0.28%) C++
12 1 (0.28%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.28%) Swift
12 1 (0.28%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.28%) VB
Qualifications
1 155 (43.18%) Security Cleared
2 107 (29.81%) SC Cleared
3 83 (23.12%) Computer Science Degree
4 31 (8.64%) Master's Degree
5 24 (6.69%) CISSP
6 22 (6.13%) PMI Certification
7 21 (5.85%) PMP
8 16 (4.46%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (4.18%) CREST Certified
9 15 (4.18%) DV Cleared
10 14 (3.90%) CCNP
10 14 (3.90%) CISM
11 12 (3.34%) Postgraduate
12 11 (3.06%) CHECK Team Member
12 11 (3.06%) Cyber Scheme
13 10 (2.79%) CCNA
14 9 (2.51%) PhD
15 8 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
16 7 (1.95%) CompTIA Security+
17 6 (1.67%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (12.26%) PMO
2 34 (9.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (7.80%) GDPR
4 26 (7.24%) NIST
5 24 (6.69%) QA
6 19 (5.29%) PCI DSS
7 13 (3.62%) Data Quality
8 10 (2.79%) NCSC
9 8 (2.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (1.39%) SLA
11 4 (1.11%) Accessibility
11 4 (1.11%) Government Security Classifications
11 4 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 4 (1.11%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.84%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.84%) DO-254
12 3 (0.84%) HIPAA
12 3 (0.84%) IEC 61508
12 3 (0.84%) ISO 26262
12 3 (0.84%) P3O
System Software
1 15 (4.18%) Active Directory
1 15 (4.18%) Docker
2 2 (0.56%) Firmware
2 2 (0.56%) Oracle RAC
2 2 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.28%) Citrix Hypervisor
3 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 15 (4.18%) Kubernetes
2 13 (3.62%) Nmap
3 9 (2.51%) Terraform
4 5 (1.39%) Ansible
5 4 (1.11%) Grafana
5 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.84%) Nessus
6 3 (0.84%) Puppet
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle RMAN
7 2 (0.56%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.56%) SCCM
8 1 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.28%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.28%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.28%) Istio
8 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.28%) linkerd
8 1 (0.28%) Podman
8 1 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 62 (17.27%) Microsoft
2 24 (6.69%) IBM
2 24 (6.69%) SAP
3 21 (5.85%) Oracle
4 17 (4.74%) Cisco
5 12 (3.34%) Palo Alto
6 11 (3.06%) Aruba
6 11 (3.06%) CheckPoint
7 10 (2.79%) ServiceNow
7 10 (2.79%) Splunk
8 7 (1.95%) PayPal
9 6 (1.67%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.39%) BeyondTrust
10 5 (1.39%) CyberArk
10 5 (1.39%) Google
11 4 (1.11%) ESRI
11 4 (1.11%) Informatica
11 4 (1.11%) Intergraph
11 4 (1.11%) Salesforce
11 4 (1.11%) Tenable