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 15 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 28 29 13
Rank change year-on-year +1 -16 +12
Contract jobs citing Degree 283 259 481
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.54% 6.88% 9.48%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.23% 17.72% 21.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 157 318
10th Percentile £224 £180 £161
25th Percentile £359 £341 £239
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +1.40%
75th Percentile £569 £588 £621
90th Percentile £652 £685 £700
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 19 41
10th Percentile £20.79 £21.66 £31.25
25th Percentile £22.25 £32.63 £48.00
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.88 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.95% -28.53% +33.33%
75th Percentile £81.00 £74.38 £70.50
90th Percentile £89.63 £75.67 £77.50
England median hourly rate £37.50 £43.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -12.79% -14.00% +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 1,858 1,462 2,199
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 42.95% 38.84% 43.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,237 976 1,305
10th Percentile £265 £267 £213
25th Percentile £413 £412 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £540 £538
Median % change year-on-year -7.45% +0.51% +1.42%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £692 £701 £688
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 81 143
10th Percentile £18.50 £20.12 £27.09
25th Percentile £19.00 £27.00 £49.07
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% -5.43% +33.33%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.73 £70.04
90th Percentile £90.09 £75.00 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £48.56 £52.50
% change year-on-year -48.21% -7.50% +16.67%

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 15 December 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 15 December 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 15 December 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 +9 140 £450 -8.63% 758
Berkshire -1 102 £450 -10.00% 477
Hampshire +12 60 £475 -8.12% 306
Surrey -17 33 £500 +11.11% 215
Buckinghamshire +14 23 £335 -24.72% 165
West Sussex -2 17 £500 - 83
Oxfordshire -8 15 £469 +10.29% 116
Kent +4 7 £450 -5.76% 153
East Sussex +3 7 £565 -9.60% 75
Isle of Wight - 6 - - 68
Home Counties - 3 £625 -
Sussex -6 1 - - 4
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 16 (5.65%) Confluence
2 12 (4.24%) SharePoint
3 6 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.41%) Apache
4 4 (1.41%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.41%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.41%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.41%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.71%) nginx
6 1 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.35%) CMS
6 1 (0.35%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.35%) IIS
6 1 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.35%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.35%) Tomcat
Applications
1 48 (16.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (14.84%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (10.60%) Microsoft Project
4 15 (5.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.47%) Chatbot
6 5 (1.77%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.35%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 8 (2.83%) Primavera
2 5 (1.77%) SAP ERP
3 4 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.71%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.35%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.35%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.35%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.35%) SAP WM
5 1 (0.35%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.35%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 39 (13.78%) Azure
2 35 (12.37%) AWS
3 22 (7.77%) Microsoft 365
3 22 (7.77%) Power Platform
4 17 (6.01%) GCP
5 8 (2.83%) Entra ID
5 8 (2.83%) GitHub
6 6 (2.12%) GitHub Actions
6 6 (2.12%) SaaS
7 5 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (1.41%) Cloud Computing
8 4 (1.41%) dbt
8 4 (1.41%) IaaS
8 4 (1.41%) Lucidchart
9 3 (1.06%) Amazon ECS
9 3 (1.06%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (1.06%) OCI
10 2 (0.71%) Amazon EKS
10 2 (0.71%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 19 (6.71%) Firewall
2 15 (5.30%) Wireless
3 12 (4.24%) Network Security
4 7 (2.47%) DNS
4 7 (2.47%) WAN
5 6 (2.12%) LAN
5 6 (2.12%) Unified Communications
5 6 (2.12%) VPN
6 5 (1.77%) TCP/IP
7 4 (1.41%) BGP
7 4 (1.41%) DHCP
7 4 (1.41%) IPsec
7 4 (1.41%) OSPF
7 4 (1.41%) Structured Cabling
7 4 (1.41%) WebEx
8 3 (1.06%) HTTP
8 3 (1.06%) VoIP
8 3 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.71%) 5G
9 2 (0.71%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (7.07%) Power BI
2 17 (6.01%) Relational Database
3 12 (4.24%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (3.18%) Tableau
5 8 (2.83%) MySQL
6 6 (2.12%) Big Data
6 6 (2.12%) SQL Server
7 5 (1.77%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (1.77%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7 5 (1.77%) Couchbase
7 5 (1.77%) Metadata
7 5 (1.77%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.41%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.41%) GIS
8 4 (1.41%) Hadoop
8 4 (1.41%) QGIS
9 3 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.71%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.71%) Redis
Development Applications
1 29 (10.25%) JIRA
2 20 (7.07%) Git
3 9 (3.18%) Jenkins
4 8 (2.83%) Burp Suite
4 8 (2.83%) GitLab
5 6 (2.12%) Metasploit
6 4 (1.41%) Subversion
7 3 (1.06%) Rational DOORS
7 3 (1.06%) Selenium
8 2 (0.71%) SoapUI
8 2 (0.71%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.35%) Appium
9 1 (0.35%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.35%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.35%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.35%) Katalon Studio
9 1 (0.35%) Postman
9 1 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.35%) WebDriver
General
1 149 (52.65%) Social Skills
2 89 (31.45%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (15.19%) Finance
4 26 (9.19%) Manufacturing
5 17 (6.01%) Organisational Skills
6 12 (4.24%) Public Sector
7 11 (3.89%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (3.89%) Legal
8 9 (3.18%) Telecoms
9 7 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (2.47%) Marketing
10 6 (2.12%) Aerospace
10 6 (2.12%) Law
11 5 (1.77%) Military
12 4 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (1.06%) Advertising
13 3 (1.06%) Aviation
13 3 (1.06%) Banking
13 3 (1.06%) Electronics
13 3 (1.06%) Retail
Job Titles
1 38 (13.43%) Analyst
2 26 (9.19%) Senior
3 22 (7.77%) Developer
4 18 (6.36%) Project Manager
5 15 (5.30%) Architect
6 13 (4.59%) Lead
7 9 (3.18%) Tester
8 8 (2.83%) Business Analyst
8 8 (2.83%) IT Analyst
8 8 (2.83%) Network Engineer
8 8 (2.83%) Penetration Tester
8 8 (2.83%) Principal Engineer
8 8 (2.83%) Technical Support
9 7 (2.47%) Data Scientist
9 7 (2.47%) IT Support
9 7 (2.47%) Project Planner
9 7 (2.47%) SC Cleared Project Manager
9 7 (2.47%) Trainer
10 6 (2.12%) IT Manager
10 6 (2.12%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (3.89%) REST
2 8 (2.83%) Kafka
2 8 (2.83%) RabbitMQ
3 7 (2.47%) HTML
4 5 (1.77%) RESTful
5 4 (1.41%) CSS
5 4 (1.41%) Pandas
5 4 (1.41%) scikit-learn
5 4 (1.41%) XML
6 3 (1.06%) GraphQL
6 3 (1.06%) gRPC
6 3 (1.06%) Material Design
6 3 (1.06%) NumPy
6 3 (1.06%) SOAP
6 3 (1.06%) Web Services
7 2 (0.71%) JSON
7 2 (0.71%) Node.js
7 2 (0.71%) OAuth
7 2 (0.71%) OAuth2
8 1 (0.35%) Matplotlib
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.54%) Management Information System
2 15 (5.30%) Analytical Mindset
3 12 (4.24%) Driving Licence
4 11 (3.89%) Data Centre
5 8 (2.83%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.83%) Security Posture
6 7 (2.47%) Algorithms
6 7 (2.47%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (2.47%) Mobile App
6 7 (2.47%) Security Operations Centre
6 7 (2.47%) Virtual Team
7 6 (2.12%) Life Science
8 5 (1.77%) Cloud Native
8 5 (1.77%) Handset
8 5 (1.77%) PMI
8 5 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.41%) Digital Media
9 4 (1.41%) Product Ownership
9 4 (1.41%) Renewable Energy
10 3 (1.06%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 42 (14.84%) Windows
2 21 (7.42%) Linux
3 10 (3.53%) Mac OS
4 9 (3.18%) Unix
5 7 (2.47%) Windows 10
6 5 (1.77%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.41%) Android
8 2 (0.71%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.35%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (34.28%) Computer Science
2 92 (32.51%) Problem-Solving
3 70 (24.73%) Agile
4 45 (15.90%) Stakeholder Management
5 40 (14.13%) ITIL
5 40 (14.13%) Project Management
6 35 (12.37%) Cybersecurity
7 30 (10.60%) Continuous Improvement
7 30 (10.60%) Decision-Making
7 30 (10.60%) Migration
7 30 (10.60%) PRINCE2
8 27 (9.54%) Line Management
9 26 (9.19%) Change Management
9 26 (9.19%) DevOps
10 25 (8.83%) Business Intelligence
11 22 (7.77%) Analytics
12 21 (7.42%) AI
13 20 (7.07%) Information Security
14 19 (6.71%) Service Management
15 18 (6.36%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 44 (15.55%) Python
2 30 (10.60%) SQL
3 21 (7.42%) Java
4 14 (4.95%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.83%) Go
5 8 (2.83%) Perl
5 8 (2.83%) PowerShell
6 5 (1.77%) Bash
7 4 (1.41%) C#
7 4 (1.41%) Shell Script
8 3 (1.06%) C
8 3 (1.06%) Kotlin
8 3 (1.06%) Objective-C
8 3 (1.06%) Swift
9 2 (0.71%) Ada
9 2 (0.71%) Assembly Language
9 2 (0.71%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.71%) R
10 1 (0.35%) ABAP
10 1 (0.35%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 76 (26.86%) Computer Science Degree
2 71 (25.09%) Security Cleared
3 62 (21.91%) SC Cleared
4 38 (13.43%) Master's Degree
5 19 (6.71%) CISSP
5 19 (6.71%) PMP
6 18 (6.36%) PMI Certification
7 13 (4.59%) Cisco Certification
7 13 (4.59%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (3.53%) A+ Certification
8 10 (3.53%) CREST Certified
8 10 (3.53%) DV Cleared
8 10 (3.53%) PhD
9 9 (3.18%) CCNP
9 9 (3.18%) CISM
10 7 (2.47%) CCNA
10 7 (2.47%) Postgraduate
11 6 (2.12%) ACCA
11 6 (2.12%) CIMA
11 6 (2.12%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (10.60%) PMO
2 26 (9.19%) GDPR
3 21 (7.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 20 (7.07%) QA
5 15 (5.30%) Data Quality
6 13 (4.59%) NIST
7 10 (3.53%) PCI DSS
8 6 (2.12%) SLA
9 4 (1.41%) HIPAA
9 4 (1.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (1.06%) GRC
10 3 (1.06%) NCSC
10 3 (1.06%) P3O
11 2 (0.71%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.71%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 2 (0.71%) RMADS
12 1 (0.35%) GxP
12 1 (0.35%) JSP 440
System Software
1 14 (4.95%) Docker
2 13 (4.59%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.12%) Firmware
4 4 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.35%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.35%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 9 (3.18%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.83%) Nmap
3 6 (2.12%) Terraform
4 5 (1.77%) Ansible
4 5 (1.77%) SCCM
5 4 (1.41%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (1.06%) Puppet
7 2 (0.71%) Grafana
7 2 (0.71%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 1 (0.35%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
8 1 (0.35%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.35%) Nagios
8 1 (0.35%) Nessus
8 1 (0.35%) Podman
8 1 (0.35%) SCOM
8 1 (0.35%) vRealize
8 1 (0.35%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 67 (23.67%) Microsoft
2 23 (8.13%) SAP
3 15 (5.30%) Oracle
3 15 (5.30%) ServiceNow
4 13 (4.59%) Cisco
5 10 (3.53%) Palo Alto
6 9 (3.18%) CheckPoint
7 7 (2.47%) EMC
7 7 (2.47%) PayPal
8 6 (2.12%) Atlassian
8 6 (2.12%) Google
8 6 (2.12%) Splunk
9 5 (1.77%) Aruba
9 5 (1.77%) VMware
10 4 (1.41%) Cellebrite
10 4 (1.41%) ESRI
10 4 (1.41%) Informatica
10 4 (1.41%) Intergraph
11 3 (1.06%) CA Agile Central
11 3 (1.06%) Snow