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 9 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 27 28
Rank change year-on-year +6 +1 -13
Contract jobs citing Degree 462 231 307
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.09% 6.46% 7.08%
As % of the Qualifications category 16.31% 16.28% 17.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 238 128 197
10th Percentile £189 £204 £202
25th Percentile £307 £321 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £450 £455
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -1.10% -9.00%
75th Percentile £588 £570 £590
90th Percentile £700 £633 £633
England median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -6.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 31 24
10th Percentile £20.13 £21.50 £23.68
25th Percentile £31.86 £23.83 £33.31
Median hourly rate £52.50 £29.61 £58.68
Median % change year-on-year +77.30% -49.54% +4.31%
75th Percentile £70.25 £81.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £82.38 £89.63 £91.40
England median hourly rate £38.72 £35.00 £52.19
% change year-on-year +10.63% -32.94% +8.73%

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 2,832 1,419 1,798
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.49% 39.67% 41.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,854 924 1,144
10th Percentile £337 £204 £313
25th Percentile £463 £400 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £500 £540
Median % change year-on-year +10.00% -7.41% +0.47%
75th Percentile £638 £588 £638
90th Percentile £737 £650 £700
England median daily rate £535 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 328 130 114
10th Percentile £18.25 - £22.43
25th Percentile £33.74 £18.87 £35.60
Median hourly rate £61.75 £25.15 £60.83
Median % change year-on-year +145.53% -58.66% +1.38%
75th Percentile £85.00 £56.56 £73.75
90th Percentile £101.12 £81.00 £91.40
England median hourly rate £49.50 £25.15 £52.50
% change year-on-year +96.82% -52.10% -2.36%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 +11 251 £550 +22.22% 844
Berkshire +11 160 £558 +23.89% 385
Hampshire -8 96 £550 +14.58% 388
Surrey +9 70 £450 +109.30% 201
Oxfordshire -1 53 £405 -10.00% 283
Buckinghamshire -14 38 £525 +65.35% 180
Kent +10 17 £250 - 76
West Sussex -24 15 £305 +5.90% 139
Sussex +1 3 £275 - 21
Middlesex - 3 £334 - 10
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 28 (6.06%) SharePoint
2 14 (3.03%) Confluence
3 6 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (1.08%) IIS
5 4 (0.87%) FactoryTalk
6 2 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.22%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.22%) CMS
7 1 (0.22%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle Service Bus
7 1 (0.22%) WebLogic
Applications
1 59 (12.77%) Microsoft Office
2 54 (11.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (5.84%) Microsoft Project
4 24 (5.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.87%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.65%) Revit
7 2 (0.43%) AutoCAD
7 2 (0.43%) MicroStation
8 1 (0.22%) CATIA
8 1 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.22%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 6 (1.30%) Salesforce CRM
2 5 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.87%) Primavera
4 3 (0.65%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.43%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.22%) Dynamics CRM
6 1 (0.22%) ENOVIA
6 1 (0.22%) SAP CAR
6 1 (0.22%) SAP CRM
6 1 (0.22%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 109 (23.59%) Azure
2 44 (9.52%) AWS
3 43 (9.31%) Entra ID
4 39 (8.44%) Microsoft 365
5 25 (5.41%) GCP
6 23 (4.98%) SaaS
7 19 (4.11%) Azure DevOps
7 19 (4.11%) Power Platform
8 13 (2.81%) OneDrive
9 11 (2.38%) Serverless
10 9 (1.95%) IaaS
11 6 (1.30%) Power Automate
12 5 (1.08%) Azure ExpressRoute
12 5 (1.08%) Azure Functions
12 5 (1.08%) Azure Logic Apps
12 5 (1.08%) Azure Monitor
12 5 (1.08%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (1.08%) PowerApps
12 5 (1.08%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 4 (0.87%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 28 (6.06%) TCP/IP
2 24 (5.19%) DNS
3 20 (4.33%) DHCP
4 18 (3.90%) Firewall
5 13 (2.81%) Network Security
6 12 (2.60%) VPN
7 7 (1.52%) SSH
7 7 (1.52%) VLAN
8 6 (1.30%) LAN
9 4 (0.87%) BGP
9 4 (0.87%) MQTT
9 4 (0.87%) OSPF
9 4 (0.87%) Software-Defined Networking
9 4 (0.87%) WAN
9 4 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
9 4 (0.87%) Wireshark
10 3 (0.65%) Cisco Firepower
10 3 (0.65%) Cisco Nexus
10 3 (0.65%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
10 3 (0.65%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (4.33%) Metadata
2 17 (3.68%) Power BI
3 13 (2.81%) Relational Database
4 9 (1.95%) SQL Server
5 7 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (1.30%) MySQL
6 6 (1.30%) Tableau
7 5 (1.08%) GIS
8 4 (0.87%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.22%) Amazon RDS
9 1 (0.22%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.22%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.22%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.22%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (0.22%) Redis
9 1 (0.22%) Tableau Desktop
9 1 (0.22%) Tableau Server
Development Applications
1 23 (4.98%) JIRA
2 13 (2.81%) Git
3 6 (1.30%) GitLab
4 5 (1.08%) Rational DOORS
5 4 (0.87%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.65%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.65%) Browser DevTools
6 3 (0.65%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.65%) Xcode
7 2 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.22%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.22%) MSI
8 1 (0.22%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
8 1 (0.22%) XCTest
8 1 (0.22%) XCUITest
General
1 210 (45.45%) Social Skills
2 102 (22.08%) Analytical Skills
3 69 (14.94%) Aerospace
4 54 (11.69%) Public Sector
5 53 (11.47%) Finance
6 37 (8.01%) Manufacturing
7 25 (5.41%) Organisational Skills
8 21 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
9 16 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (3.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 15 (3.25%) Marketing
11 14 (3.03%) Pharmaceutical
12 13 (2.81%) Military
13 11 (2.38%) Law
13 11 (2.38%) Telecoms
14 10 (2.16%) Automotive
15 9 (1.95%) French Language
15 9 (1.95%) Games
16 8 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
16 8 (1.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 53 (11.47%) Analyst
2 52 (11.26%) Senior
3 34 (7.36%) Lead
4 30 (6.49%) Delivery Manager
5 22 (4.76%) Architect
5 22 (4.76%) IT Manager
6 21 (4.55%) Senior Manager
7 20 (4.33%) Project Manager
8 19 (4.11%) IT Support
8 19 (4.11%) Product Delivery Manager
8 19 (4.11%) Product Manager
9 16 (3.46%) Senior IT Manager
10 15 (3.25%) Category Manager
10 15 (3.25%) IT Services Manager
10 15 (3.25%) Senior Category Manager
10 15 (3.25%) Senior Service Manager
10 15 (3.25%) Test Manager
11 14 (3.03%) Business Analyst
11 14 (3.03%) Data Analyst
12 12 (2.60%) IAM Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (5.19%) OAuth
2 23 (4.98%) OpenID
3 19 (4.11%) SAML
4 18 (3.90%) LDAP
4 18 (3.90%) SailPoint
5 17 (3.68%) OAuth2
6 15 (3.25%) Oracle Fusion
6 15 (3.25%) Terraform
7 13 (2.81%) Web Services
8 11 (2.38%) CSS
8 11 (2.38%) Middleware
8 11 (2.38%) React
8 11 (2.38%) RESTful
9 10 (2.16%) .NET
10 8 (1.73%) HTML
11 7 (1.52%) ARM Templates
12 6 (1.30%) Django
12 6 (1.30%) REST
13 5 (1.08%) XML
14 4 (0.87%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 58 (12.55%) Management Information System
2 34 (7.36%) Product Ownership
3 29 (6.28%) Onboarding
4 21 (4.55%) Data Centre
5 19 (4.11%) SCADA
6 17 (3.68%) Operational Technology
7 16 (3.46%) Self-Motivation
8 15 (3.25%) Cloud Native
9 14 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
9 14 (3.03%) Life Science
10 11 (2.38%) Virtual Team
11 9 (1.95%) Animation
11 9 (1.95%) Data Structures
11 9 (1.95%) Interactive Media
11 9 (1.95%) PMI
12 8 (1.73%) Embedded Systems
12 8 (1.73%) Graphic Design
12 8 (1.73%) Security Posture
13 7 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
14 6 (1.30%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 64 (13.85%) Windows
2 45 (9.74%) Linux
3 23 (4.98%) Unix
4 22 (4.76%) Windows Server
5 14 (3.03%) Apple iOS
5 14 (3.03%) Mac OS
6 8 (1.73%) Windows 10
7 6 (1.30%) Android
8 1 (0.22%) Solaris
8 1 (0.22%) VMS
8 1 (0.22%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 154 (33.33%) Computer Science
2 120 (25.97%) Stakeholder Management
3 119 (25.76%) Problem-Solving
4 118 (25.54%) Agile
5 117 (25.32%) Continuous Improvement
6 98 (21.21%) ITIL
7 72 (15.58%) Project Management
8 71 (15.37%) PRINCE2
9 69 (14.94%) ITSM
10 67 (14.50%) Roadmaps
11 64 (13.85%) Decision-Making
12 59 (12.77%) Cybersecurity
12 59 (12.77%) Service Management
13 53 (11.47%) AI
13 53 (11.47%) Change Management
14 52 (11.26%) DevOps
15 50 (10.82%) Project Delivery
16 49 (10.61%) CI/CD
17 48 (10.39%) Analytics
18 45 (9.74%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 68 (14.72%) Python
2 44 (9.52%) PowerShell
3 25 (5.41%) SQL
4 18 (3.90%) JavaScript
5 12 (2.60%) Java
6 9 (1.95%) Bash
7 7 (1.52%) Bicep
7 7 (1.52%) C#
8 6 (1.30%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.08%) Perl
10 4 (0.87%) Rust
11 3 (0.65%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.65%) C
11 3 (0.65%) Lua
11 3 (0.65%) X++
12 1 (0.22%) C++
12 1 (0.22%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.22%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.22%) Swift
12 1 (0.22%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 184 (39.83%) Security Cleared
2 134 (29.00%) SC Cleared
3 67 (14.50%) Computer Science Degree
4 37 (8.01%) DV Cleared
5 30 (6.49%) Microsoft Certification
6 29 (6.28%) PMI Certification
7 28 (6.06%) Master's Degree
8 25 (5.41%) Azure Certification
8 25 (5.41%) CISSP
9 23 (4.98%) PMP
10 22 (4.76%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 19 (4.11%) BPSS Clearance
12 17 (3.68%) Cisco Certification
13 16 (3.46%) ISTQB
14 14 (3.03%) CISM
15 11 (2.38%) AWS Certification
16 10 (2.16%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 10 (2.16%) PhD
17 7 (1.52%) CISA
17 7 (1.52%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (8.01%) NIST
2 36 (7.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 24 (5.19%) Data Quality
3 24 (5.19%) QA
4 15 (3.25%) GDPR
5 14 (3.03%) PMO
6 10 (2.16%) ISO 31000
7 9 (1.95%) NCSC
8 7 (1.52%) Accessibility
8 7 (1.52%) GRC
8 7 (1.52%) ISO 9001
8 7 (1.52%) SLA
9 5 (1.08%) Cyber Essentials
9 5 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 5 (1.08%) PCI DSS
10 4 (0.87%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 4 (0.87%) GxP
11 2 (0.43%) DO-254
11 2 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 52 (11.26%) Active Directory
2 21 (4.55%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (3.68%) Docker
4 7 (1.52%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.08%) Firmware
5 5 (1.08%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.87%) ISA Server
7 3 (0.65%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.65%) OpenAM
7 3 (0.65%) vSphere
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.22%) UAG
8 1 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 20 (4.33%) Microsoft Intune
2 16 (3.46%) Kubernetes
3 12 (2.60%) Ansible
4 10 (2.16%) Jamf Pro
5 7 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
6 5 (1.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 5 (1.08%) CASB
6 5 (1.08%) SCCM
7 4 (0.87%) Grafana
7 4 (0.87%) Podman
7 4 (0.87%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.87%) Puppet
8 3 (0.65%) MOM
9 2 (0.43%) Istio
9 2 (0.43%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.43%) vRealize
9 2 (0.43%) vRealize Orchestrator
10 1 (0.22%) Argo
10 1 (0.22%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 142 (30.74%) Microsoft
2 36 (7.79%) Oracle
3 31 (6.71%) ServiceNow
4 27 (5.84%) SAP
5 25 (5.41%) VMware
6 15 (3.25%) Ariba
6 15 (3.25%) Google
7 14 (3.03%) Cisco
7 14 (3.03%) Salesforce
8 11 (2.38%) CyberArk
9 10 (2.16%) BeyondTrust
10 8 (1.73%) CrowdStrike
11 7 (1.52%) F5
11 7 (1.52%) Splunk
12 5 (1.08%) Workday
13 4 (0.87%) Centrify
13 4 (0.87%) IBM
13 4 (0.87%) NVIDIA
13 4 (0.87%) Palo Alto
13 4 (0.87%) Rockwell