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 20 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 30 31 14
Rank change year-on-year +1 -17 +9
Contract jobs citing Degree 266 268 482
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.55% 6.51% 9.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.74% 16.47% 21.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 178 317
10th Percentile £208 £181 £195
25th Percentile £358 £338 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -3.61%
75th Percentile £573 £578 £615
90th Percentile £675 £638 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 16 38
10th Percentile £20.79 £24.63 £31.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £33.31 £48.50
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.69 £58.75
Median % change year-on-year -30.64% -27.34% +30.56%
75th Percentile £81.00 £71.88 £70.50
90th Percentile £89.63 £75.00 £77.76
England median hourly rate £35.25 £42.69 £50.00
% change year-on-year -17.43% -14.62% +11.11%

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 1,690 1,627 2,262
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 41.64% 39.53% 42.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,097 1,052 1,337
10th Percentile £238 £275 £213
25th Percentile £406 £413 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +2.19%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £638
90th Percentile £650 £700 £688
England median daily rate £525 £528 £550
% change year-on-year -0.47% -4.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 100 146
10th Percentile - £22.49 £26.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £31.25 £49.79
Median hourly rate £25.15 £58.34 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.89% -2.77% +33.33%
75th Percentile £64.06 £68.42 £71.74
90th Percentile £89.63 £87.75 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £53.58
% change year-on-year -49.70% -6.69% +19.07%

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 20 November 2025.

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 20 November 2025.

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 20 November 2025. 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 +3 128 £450 -10.00% 330
Berkshire -3 89 £450 -10.36% 158
Hampshire +21 61 £475 -5.00% 160
Surrey -16 33 £500 +29.03% 136
Buckinghamshire +12 24 £326 -27.50% 73
West Sussex -6 18 £475 -5.00% 44
Oxfordshire -8 15 £469 +114.95% 108
Isle of Wight - 6 - - 25
East Sussex -3 5 £565 -9.60% 23
Home Counties - 3 £625 -
Kent -2 2 - - 62
Sussex -4 1 - - 32
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 (4.89%) Confluence
2 9 (3.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (3.38%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.50%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (1.50%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.50%) GeoServer
3 4 (1.50%) Smallworld
4 3 (1.13%) Apache
5 2 (0.75%) nginx
6 1 (0.38%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.38%) CMS
6 1 (0.38%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.38%) IIS
6 1 (0.38%) JBoss
6 1 (0.38%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.38%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.38%) Tomcat
Applications
1 40 (15.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (12.78%) Microsoft Office
3 24 (9.02%) Microsoft Project
4 10 (3.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.63%) Chatbot
6 5 (1.88%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.38%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.38%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.38%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 7 (2.63%) Primavera
2 4 (1.50%) SAP ERP
2 4 (1.50%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (1.13%) Teamcenter
4 2 (0.75%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.75%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.38%) BPCS
5 1 (0.38%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.38%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.38%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.38%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.38%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.38%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.38%) SAP WM
5 1 (0.38%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 34 (12.78%) Azure
2 27 (10.15%) AWS
3 21 (7.89%) Microsoft 365
3 21 (7.89%) Power Platform
4 15 (5.64%) GCP
5 9 (3.38%) Entra ID
6 8 (3.01%) GitHub
7 7 (2.63%) Cloud Computing
8 6 (2.26%) SaaS
9 5 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (1.88%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (1.50%) Amazon S3
10 4 (1.50%) dbt
10 4 (1.50%) Lucidchart
10 4 (1.50%) Serverless
11 3 (1.13%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (1.13%) OCI
11 3 (1.13%) PowerApps
12 2 (0.75%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (0.75%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.14%) Network Security
2 9 (3.38%) Wireless
3 8 (3.01%) Firewall
4 7 (2.63%) DNS
5 6 (2.26%) Unified Communications
5 6 (2.26%) VPN
6 5 (1.88%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.88%) VoIP
7 4 (1.50%) DHCP
8 3 (1.13%) HTTP
8 3 (1.13%) WebEx
8 3 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.75%) 5G
9 2 (0.75%) Internet
10 1 (0.38%) Ethernet
10 1 (0.38%) Intranet
10 1 (0.38%) MGCP
10 1 (0.38%) MPLS
10 1 (0.38%) SAN
10 1 (0.38%) SCCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (6.77%) Power BI
2 13 (4.89%) Relational Database
3 12 (4.51%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (4.14%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (3.38%) Tableau
6 7 (2.63%) NoSQL
7 6 (2.26%) Big Data
8 5 (1.88%) Apache Cassandra
8 5 (1.88%) Couchbase
8 5 (1.88%) MySQL
9 4 (1.50%) Geospatial Data
9 4 (1.50%) GIS
9 4 (1.50%) Hadoop
9 4 (1.50%) Metadata
9 4 (1.50%) QGIS
9 4 (1.50%) SQL Server
10 3 (1.13%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
11 2 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.75%) Data Lake
11 2 (0.75%) Redis
Development Applications
1 27 (10.15%) JIRA
2 19 (7.14%) Git
3 11 (4.14%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.26%) GitLab
5 5 (1.88%) Subversion
6 4 (1.50%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.75%) Burp Suite
7 2 (0.75%) Selenium
7 2 (0.75%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.38%) Appium
8 1 (0.38%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.38%) HP UFT
8 1 (0.38%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.38%) JUnit
8 1 (0.38%) Katalon Studio
8 1 (0.38%) SoapUI
General
1 142 (53.38%) Social Skills
2 91 (34.21%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (16.17%) Finance
4 23 (8.65%) Manufacturing
5 18 (6.77%) Organisational Skills
6 11 (4.14%) Telecoms
7 9 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (3.38%) Legal
7 9 (3.38%) Public Sector
8 8 (3.01%) Aerospace
9 7 (2.63%) Marketing
10 6 (2.26%) Law
10 6 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (1.88%) Military
12 4 (1.50%) Banking
12 4 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (1.50%) Electronics
13 3 (1.13%) Advertising
13 3 (1.13%) Aviation
14 2 (0.75%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 39 (14.66%) Analyst
2 24 (9.02%) Senior
3 22 (8.27%) Developer
4 15 (5.64%) Architect
5 13 (4.89%) Lead
5 13 (4.89%) Project Manager
6 10 (3.76%) Desktop Support
6 10 (3.76%) IT Analyst
7 9 (3.38%) IT Support
8 8 (3.01%) Business Analyst
8 8 (3.01%) Principal Engineer
8 8 (3.01%) Support Engineer
9 7 (2.63%) Consultant
9 7 (2.63%) Data Scientist
9 7 (2.63%) Trainer
10 6 (2.26%) Data Engineer
10 6 (2.26%) IT Manager
10 6 (2.26%) Project Planner
10 6 (2.26%) Senior Developer
10 6 (2.26%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.14%) Kafka
1 11 (4.14%) REST
2 9 (3.38%) RabbitMQ
3 6 (2.26%) HTML
4 5 (1.88%) RESTful
5 4 (1.50%) CSS
5 4 (1.50%) GraphQL
5 4 (1.50%) gRPC
5 4 (1.50%) Pandas
5 4 (1.50%) scikit-learn
5 4 (1.50%) Web Services
6 3 (1.13%) Material Design
6 3 (1.13%) NumPy
6 3 (1.13%) XML
7 2 (0.75%) EDI
7 2 (0.75%) JSON
7 2 (0.75%) Middleware
7 2 (0.75%) OAuth
7 2 (0.75%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.75%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 27 (10.15%) Management Information System
2 15 (5.64%) Driving Licence
3 12 (4.51%) Analytical Mindset
4 8 (3.01%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.63%) Algorithms
5 7 (2.63%) Data Centre
5 7 (2.63%) Data Protection Act
5 7 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.63%) Mobile App
6 5 (1.88%) Handset
6 5 (1.88%) Life Science
6 5 (1.88%) PMI
6 5 (1.88%) Security Operations Centre
6 5 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (1.88%) Virtual Team
7 4 (1.50%) Digital Media
7 4 (1.50%) Renewable Energy
7 4 (1.50%) Video Conferencing
8 3 (1.13%) BYOD
8 3 (1.13%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 37 (13.91%) Windows
2 20 (7.52%) Linux
3 10 (3.76%) Mac OS
4 7 (2.63%) Apple iOS
4 7 (2.63%) Windows 10
5 6 (2.26%) Unix
6 4 (1.50%) Android
7 2 (0.75%) Kali Linux
7 2 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.38%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.38%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (34.96%) Computer Science
2 92 (34.59%) Problem-Solving
3 70 (26.32%) Agile
4 45 (16.92%) ITIL
5 40 (15.04%) Stakeholder Management
6 36 (13.53%) Project Management
7 35 (13.16%) Migration
8 28 (10.53%) Cybersecurity
8 28 (10.53%) Decision-Making
9 26 (9.77%) Change Management
9 26 (9.77%) Continuous Improvement
9 26 (9.77%) DevOps
9 26 (9.77%) PRINCE2
10 23 (8.65%) Analytics
10 23 (8.65%) Business Intelligence
10 23 (8.65%) Service Management
11 20 (7.52%) Data Management
12 19 (7.14%) Line Management
12 19 (7.14%) Visualisation
13 18 (6.77%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 40 (15.04%) Python
2 27 (10.15%) SQL
3 18 (6.77%) Java
4 11 (4.14%) JavaScript
5 9 (3.38%) Go
6 6 (2.26%) PowerShell
7 5 (1.88%) Perl
8 4 (1.50%) Bash
8 4 (1.50%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.13%) C
9 3 (1.13%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.13%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.13%) Swift
10 2 (0.75%) Ada
10 2 (0.75%) Assembly Language
10 2 (0.75%) C#
10 2 (0.75%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.75%) R
10 2 (0.75%) Scala
11 1 (0.38%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 72 (27.07%) Computer Science Degree
2 61 (22.93%) Security Cleared
3 51 (19.17%) SC Cleared
4 35 (13.16%) Master's Degree
5 20 (7.52%) PMP
6 19 (7.14%) PMI Certification
7 18 (6.77%) CISSP
8 12 (4.51%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (3.76%) A+ Certification
9 10 (3.76%) CISM
9 10 (3.76%) PhD
10 8 (3.01%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (3.01%) DV Cleared
11 7 (2.63%) ACCA
11 7 (2.63%) CIMA
12 6 (2.26%) AWS Certification
13 5 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
13 5 (1.88%) GIAC
14 4 (1.50%) GCIH
14 4 (1.50%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (7.52%) GDPR
1 20 (7.52%) PMO
2 17 (6.39%) Data Quality
3 15 (5.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (4.89%) NIST
5 11 (4.14%) QA
6 6 (2.26%) SLA
7 4 (1.50%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (1.13%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (1.13%) GRC
8 3 (1.13%) HIPAA
8 3 (1.13%) NCSC
8 3 (1.13%) P3O
9 2 (0.75%) ARP4754
9 2 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 2 (0.75%) RMADS
10 1 (0.38%) GxP
10 1 (0.38%) ISO 9001
10 1 (0.38%) JSP 440
System Software
1 18 (6.77%) Active Directory
2 14 (5.26%) Docker
3 6 (2.26%) Firmware
4 5 (1.88%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.38%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.38%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (3.01%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.88%) Microsoft Intune
2 5 (1.88%) SCCM
3 2 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
3 2 (0.75%) Ansible
3 2 (0.75%) Nmap
3 2 (0.75%) Terraform
3 2 (0.75%) vCenter Server
4 1 (0.38%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
4 1 (0.38%) Grafana
4 1 (0.38%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.38%) Nessus
4 1 (0.38%) Puppet
4 1 (0.38%) SCOM
4 1 (0.38%) vRealize
4 1 (0.38%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 65 (24.44%) Microsoft
2 22 (8.27%) SAP
3 15 (5.64%) ServiceNow
4 11 (4.14%) Oracle
5 10 (3.76%) Cisco
6 7 (2.63%) Atlassian
6 7 (2.63%) EMC
6 7 (2.63%) PayPal
7 6 (2.26%) Apple
7 6 (2.26%) Google
7 6 (2.26%) Splunk
7 6 (2.26%) VMware
8 4 (1.50%) CA Agile Central
8 4 (1.50%) Cellebrite
8 4 (1.50%) CheckPoint
8 4 (1.50%) ESRI
8 4 (1.50%) Informatica
8 4 (1.50%) Intergraph
8 4 (1.50%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.50%) Salesforce