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 21 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 24 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -10 +12
Contract jobs citing Degree 374 226 495
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.28% 7.60% 9.06%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.90% 18.83% 20.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 206 129 250
10th Percentile £204 £246 £205
25th Percentile £350 £363 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.04% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £608
90th Percentile £678 £639 £638
England median daily rate £500 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 25 86
10th Percentile £31.25 £17.50 £17.80
25th Percentile £77.46 £32.05 £25.70
Median hourly rate £84.00 £56.75 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +48.02% -1.05% +27.44%
75th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile - - £65.00
England median hourly rate £59.31 £54.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +8.82% +36.25% -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 2,690 1,200 2,426
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.20% 40.34% 44.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,833 764 1,409
10th Percentile £313 £288 £332
25th Percentile £435 £419 £449
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +5.41%
75th Percentile £625 £613 £650
90th Percentile £725 £688 £738
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 79 208
10th Percentile £16.35 £19.68 £17.13
25th Percentile £24.41 £27.55 £25.02
Median hourly rate £54.50 £56.75 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -3.96% -1.05% -2.64%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.63 £67.01
90th Percentile £88.00 £77.42 £85.65
England median hourly rate £47.52 £37.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +28.43% -7.50% -24.42%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 -2 196 £496 +4.42% 172
Berkshire 0 126 £400 -13.51% 79
Hampshire +2 90 £550 +3.29% 125
Buckinghamshire -8 39 £570 +5.07% 41
Oxfordshire -6 31 £525 +10.53% 57
Surrey -21 30 £208 -49.24% 70
Kent +5 16 £445 +61.82% 25
West Sussex -11 14 £275 -21.43% 13
East Sussex -2 4 £600 - 15
Sussex -3 4 £275 -41.02% 7
Home Counties - 3 - -
Middlesex - 1 £198 - 13
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 12 (3.21%) SharePoint
2 10 (2.67%) Confluence
3 5 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.80%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.80%) MS Project Server
5 2 (0.53%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.53%) CMS
6 1 (0.27%) Apache
6 1 (0.27%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 52 (13.90%) Microsoft Office
2 41 (10.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 28 (7.49%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (5.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.80%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (2.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.87%) Primavera
3 2 (0.53%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.27%) SAP Hybris
4 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 73 (19.52%) Azure
2 49 (13.10%) AWS
3 25 (6.68%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (6.15%) Entra ID
5 15 (4.01%) Power Platform
6 12 (3.21%) GCP
7 11 (2.94%) SaaS
8 8 (2.14%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (2.14%) GitHub
8 8 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.14%) IaaS
9 6 (1.60%) PaaS
10 5 (1.34%) OneDrive
11 4 (1.07%) Power Automate
12 3 (0.80%) Lucidchart
12 3 (0.80%) Sauce Labs
12 3 (0.80%) Serverless
13 2 (0.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 2 (0.53%) AWS CloudFormation
13 2 (0.53%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 32 (8.56%) Firewall
2 20 (5.35%) WAN
3 17 (4.55%) LAN
4 13 (3.48%) DNS
4 13 (3.48%) Wireless
5 12 (3.21%) BGP
5 12 (3.21%) Network Security
5 12 (3.21%) OSPF
5 12 (3.21%) TCP/IP
6 9 (2.41%) IPsec
6 9 (2.41%) Structured Cabling
7 7 (1.87%) DHCP
8 6 (1.60%) HTTP
9 4 (1.07%) RSVP
9 4 (1.07%) SSH
10 3 (0.80%) Ethernet
10 3 (0.80%) NAS
10 3 (0.80%) Radio Access Network
10 3 (0.80%) SAN
10 3 (0.80%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.01%) Relational Database
2 14 (3.74%) MySQL
2 14 (3.74%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.48%) Power BI
4 5 (1.34%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (0.80%) Big Data
5 3 (0.80%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5 3 (0.80%) Oracle Database
5 3 (0.80%) Tableau
6 2 (0.53%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.53%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.27%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.27%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.27%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.27%) Metadata
7 1 (0.27%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.27%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 28 (7.49%) Rational DOORS
2 18 (4.81%) JIRA
3 11 (2.94%) Burp Suite
3 11 (2.94%) Metasploit
4 8 (2.14%) Git
5 7 (1.87%) CircleCI
5 7 (1.87%) GitLab
5 7 (1.87%) Gradle
6 6 (1.60%) JUnit
7 5 (1.34%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.80%) Android Studio
8 3 (0.80%) Browser DevTools
8 3 (0.80%) Eclipse
8 3 (0.80%) Selenium
8 3 (0.80%) Xcode
9 2 (0.53%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.53%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.53%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.27%) TestNG
General
1 138 (36.90%) Social Skills
2 61 (16.31%) Analytical Skills
3 58 (15.51%) Aerospace
4 56 (14.97%) Finance
5 39 (10.43%) Public Sector
6 23 (6.15%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (4.55%) Organisational Skills
8 16 (4.28%) Manufacturing
9 15 (4.01%) Law
10 12 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
11 11 (2.94%) Marketing
12 9 (2.41%) Legal
13 8 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
14 7 (1.87%) Retail
14 7 (1.87%) Telecoms
15 6 (1.60%) Aviation
16 5 (1.34%) Military
17 3 (0.80%) Banking
17 3 (0.80%) Billing
17 3 (0.80%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 50 (13.37%) Analyst
2 40 (10.70%) Senior
3 33 (8.82%) Product Manager
4 29 (7.75%) Delivery Manager
5 28 (7.49%) Product Delivery Manager
6 26 (6.95%) Project Manager
7 24 (6.42%) Lead
8 22 (5.88%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 22 (5.88%) Systems Manager
9 20 (5.35%) Technical Support
10 18 (4.81%) Architect
11 17 (4.55%) IT Manager
12 14 (3.74%) Senior Manager
13 13 (3.48%) Senior Analyst
14 12 (3.21%) Network Engineer
15 11 (2.94%) Business Analyst
15 11 (2.94%) Financial Analyst
15 11 (2.94%) Penetration Tester
15 11 (2.94%) Technical Engineer
15 11 (2.94%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.94%) REST
2 9 (2.41%) SailPoint
3 8 (2.14%) OAuth
3 8 (2.14%) Web Services
4 7 (1.87%) LDAP
4 7 (1.87%) RAML
4 7 (1.87%) React
4 7 (1.87%) SAML
5 6 (1.60%) Android Jetpack
5 6 (1.60%) OAuth2
5 6 (1.60%) OpenID
6 5 (1.34%) Dagger
6 5 (1.34%) GraphQL
6 5 (1.34%) Jetpack Compose
6 5 (1.34%) OkHttp
6 5 (1.34%) Oracle Fusion
6 5 (1.34%) RxJava
6 5 (1.34%) WireMock
7 4 (1.07%) AngularJS
7 4 (1.07%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 43 (11.50%) Product Ownership
2 32 (8.56%) Management Information System
3 28 (7.49%) Data Centre
4 24 (6.42%) Data Structures
5 21 (5.61%) Onboarding
6 20 (5.35%) Virtual Team
7 12 (3.21%) Security Posture
8 10 (2.67%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (2.14%) Robotics
11 7 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
11 7 (1.87%) Legacy Code
11 7 (1.87%) Mobile App
11 7 (1.87%) PMI
11 7 (1.87%) Security Operations Centre
12 6 (1.60%) BYOD
12 6 (1.60%) Cloud Native
13 5 (1.34%) CCTV
13 5 (1.34%) Cyberattack
13 5 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 74 (19.79%) Windows
2 48 (12.83%) Linux
3 32 (8.56%) Unix
4 13 (3.48%) Android
5 12 (3.21%) Windows Server
6 9 (2.41%) Apple iOS
7 8 (2.14%) Windows 10
8 5 (1.34%) Mac OS
9 4 (1.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.53%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.53%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 157 (41.98%) Computer Science
2 88 (23.53%) Agile
3 78 (20.86%) Continuous Improvement
4 68 (18.18%) Cybersecurity
4 68 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
5 53 (14.17%) Change Control
6 51 (13.64%) PRINCE2
7 48 (12.83%) Information Security
7 48 (12.83%) Project Management
7 48 (12.83%) Stakeholder Management
8 45 (12.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 44 (11.76%) Systems Engineering
10 39 (10.43%) AI
11 38 (10.16%) ITIL
11 38 (10.16%) ITSM
12 37 (9.89%) Decision-Making
13 33 (8.82%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 32 (8.56%) Programme Management
15 31 (8.29%) CI/CD
16 28 (7.49%) Process Improvement
Programming Languages
1 47 (12.57%) Python
2 24 (6.42%) Java
2 24 (6.42%) PowerShell
3 21 (5.61%) SQL
4 17 (4.55%) JavaScript
5 13 (3.48%) Perl
6 8 (2.14%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.34%) Bash
7 5 (1.34%) Shell Script
8 3 (0.80%) C
8 3 (0.80%) C#
8 3 (0.80%) C++
8 3 (0.80%) Korn
9 2 (0.53%) Ada
9 2 (0.53%) Go
9 2 (0.53%) R
10 1 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.27%) Rust
10 1 (0.27%) Swift
10 1 (0.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 171 (45.72%) Security Cleared
2 111 (29.68%) SC Cleared
3 68 (18.18%) Computer Science Degree
4 23 (6.15%) Cisco Certification
5 20 (5.35%) CISSP
6 17 (4.55%) DV Cleared
7 16 (4.28%) CCNP
8 14 (3.74%) PMI Certification
8 14 (3.74%) PMP
9 13 (3.48%) Master's Degree
10 12 (3.21%) CISM
11 11 (2.94%) CHECK Team Member
11 11 (2.94%) CompTIA Security+
11 11 (2.94%) CREST Certified
11 11 (2.94%) Cyber Scheme
11 11 (2.94%) Postgraduate
12 10 (2.67%) ACCA
12 10 (2.67%) CCNA
12 10 (2.67%) CIMA
13 9 (2.41%) CESG Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (13.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 41 (10.96%) NIST
3 27 (7.22%) PMO
4 23 (6.15%) QA
5 22 (5.88%) GDPR
6 18 (4.81%) PCI DSS
7 14 (3.74%) NCSC
8 8 (2.14%) Data Quality
8 8 (2.14%) NIST 800
9 7 (1.87%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (1.87%) SLA
10 6 (1.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (1.34%) Government Security Classifications
11 5 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 4 (1.07%) Accessibility
12 4 (1.07%) ISO 31000
13 3 (0.80%) DO-254
13 3 (0.80%) IEC 61508
13 3 (0.80%) ISO 26262
13 3 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 34 (9.09%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.67%) Docker
3 8 (2.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.87%) Firmware
5 4 (1.07%) Embedded Firmware
6 3 (0.80%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.53%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.53%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.27%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.27%) UAG
8 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 12 (3.21%) Kubernetes
2 11 (2.94%) Nmap
3 9 (2.41%) Terraform
4 8 (2.14%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (1.34%) Ansible
5 5 (1.34%) Grafana
6 4 (1.07%) Jamf Pro
6 4 (1.07%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.80%) Puppet
7 3 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.53%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.53%) Nessus
8 2 (0.53%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 2 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
8 2 (0.53%) Podman
8 2 (0.53%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.27%) Dell DRAC
9 1 (0.27%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.27%) Istio
9 1 (0.27%) linkerd
Vendors
1 72 (19.25%) Microsoft
2 31 (8.29%) Oracle
3 25 (6.68%) IBM
3 25 (6.68%) SAP
4 18 (4.81%) Cisco
5 13 (3.48%) Palo Alto
5 13 (3.48%) ServiceNow
6 12 (3.21%) CheckPoint
7 11 (2.94%) Aruba
8 10 (2.67%) BeyondTrust
8 10 (2.67%) CyberArk
8 10 (2.67%) Splunk
8 10 (2.67%) VMware
9 5 (1.34%) Ariba
9 5 (1.34%) Dell
9 5 (1.34%) Salesforce
9 5 (1.34%) Tenable
9 5 (1.34%) Workday
10 4 (1.07%) Red Hat
11 3 (0.80%) Siemens