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 28 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 25 13
Rank change year-on-year -3 -12 +14
Contract jobs citing Degree 317 227 495
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.44% 7.25% 8.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.85% 19.08% 20.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 129 299
10th Percentile £258 £186 £200
25th Percentile £361 £338 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £574 £588 £608
90th Percentile £650 £685 £667
England median daily rate £500 £525 £515
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.04% -6.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 17 50
10th Percentile £20.79 £25.75 £16.25
25th Percentile £24.78 £41.25 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.15 £47.81 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.39% -10.64% +18.89%
75th Percentile £83.94 £75.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £79.06 £70.68
England median hourly rate £37.50 £47.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year -21.56% +19.51% -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 2,288 1,190 2,474
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 46.46% 38.01% 44.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,532 752 1,400
10th Percentile £300 £263 £248
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -3.62% -3.67% +2.83%
75th Percentile £605 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £675 £700
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 222 75 177
10th Percentile £15.62 £20.03 £18.73
25th Percentile £19.34 £29.18 £41.25
Median hourly rate £28.50 £56.75 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year -49.78% -2.67% +22.74%
75th Percentile £81.00 £65.62 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.09 £79.34 £83.41
England median hourly rate £25.15 £49.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -48.67% +15.29% -10.53%

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 28 February 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 28 February 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 28 February 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 -3 161 £445 -9.92% 173
Berkshire -6 116 £413 -13.61% 78
Hampshire +15 79 £520 -0.95% 115
Buckinghamshire +12 34 £475 -7.32% 49
Surrey -17 27 £500 - 57
West Sussex -8 18 £438 -7.89% 16
Kent -2 14 £445 -1.11% 36
Oxfordshire -11 11 £500 -28.57% 52
East Sussex +3 8 £565 -9.60% 12
Home Counties - 4 £700 -
Isle of Wight - 2 - - 2
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 (5.68%) Confluence
2 12 (3.79%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.26%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.26%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.26%) Smallworld
5 3 (0.95%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (0.95%) Apache
5 3 (0.95%) CMS
5 3 (0.95%) MS Project Server
6 2 (0.63%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.32%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.32%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 58 (18.30%) Microsoft Office
2 51 (16.09%) Microsoft Excel
3 36 (11.36%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (6.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.21%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.63%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.32%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 11 (3.47%) Primavera
2 5 (1.58%) SAP ERP
3 3 (0.95%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.32%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.32%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.32%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.32%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 53 (16.72%) Azure
2 39 (12.30%) AWS
3 17 (5.36%) Microsoft 365
3 17 (5.36%) Power Platform
4 13 (4.10%) GCP
4 13 (4.10%) GitHub
4 13 (4.10%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (2.21%) Entra ID
6 6 (1.89%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (1.58%) SaaS
8 4 (1.26%) IaaS
9 3 (0.95%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (0.95%) Amazon S3
9 3 (0.95%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (0.95%) Lucidchart
9 3 (0.95%) PowerApps
10 2 (0.63%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (0.63%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (0.63%) PaaS
10 2 (0.63%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 27 (8.52%) Firewall
2 16 (5.05%) WAN
3 15 (4.73%) Wireless
4 13 (4.10%) LAN
5 12 (3.79%) Network Security
6 10 (3.15%) BGP
6 10 (3.15%) OSPF
7 9 (2.84%) IPsec
7 9 (2.84%) Structured Cabling
8 8 (2.52%) TCP/IP
9 7 (2.21%) DNS
9 7 (2.21%) Unified Communications
10 5 (1.58%) HTTP
10 5 (1.58%) WebEx
11 3 (0.95%) Ethernet
11 3 (0.95%) SSH
11 3 (0.95%) VoIP
11 3 (0.95%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (0.63%) Internet
12 2 (0.63%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.73%) Power BI
2 13 (4.10%) Relational Database
3 11 (3.47%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (3.15%) MySQL
4 10 (3.15%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.21%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.89%) Big Data
6 6 (1.89%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6 6 (1.89%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.58%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (1.58%) Couchbase
8 4 (1.26%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.26%) GIS
8 4 (1.26%) Metadata
8 4 (1.26%) QGIS
8 4 (1.26%) Tableau
9 3 (0.95%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.63%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.63%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 25 (7.89%) JIRA
2 14 (4.42%) Git
3 13 (4.10%) Burp Suite
4 11 (3.47%) Metasploit
5 8 (2.52%) GitLab
5 8 (2.52%) Jenkins
6 7 (2.21%) CircleCI
6 7 (2.21%) Gradle
6 7 (2.21%) Rational DOORS
7 5 (1.58%) JUnit
8 3 (0.95%) Selenium
8 3 (0.95%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.63%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.63%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.63%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.32%) Maven
10 1 (0.32%) MLflow
10 1 (0.32%) Postman
10 1 (0.32%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.32%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 142 (44.79%) Social Skills
2 68 (21.45%) Analytical Skills
3 40 (12.62%) Finance
4 21 (6.62%) Public Sector
5 20 (6.31%) Aerospace
5 20 (6.31%) Manufacturing
6 15 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (4.73%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (3.79%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (3.47%) Marketing
9 9 (2.84%) Presentation Skills
10 7 (2.21%) Legal
11 6 (1.89%) Law
11 6 (1.89%) Retail
12 5 (1.58%) Military
12 5 (1.58%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.26%) Advertising
13 4 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.95%) Banking
14 3 (0.95%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 40 (12.62%) Analyst
2 27 (8.52%) Senior
3 24 (7.57%) Project Manager
4 19 (5.99%) Developer
5 16 (5.05%) Architect
6 15 (4.73%) Lead
7 14 (4.42%) Technical Support
8 13 (4.10%) Penetration Tester
8 13 (4.10%) Project Planner
8 13 (4.10%) Tester
9 12 (3.79%) Delivery Manager
10 11 (3.47%) Product Manager
11 10 (3.15%) SC Cleared Project Manager
12 9 (2.84%) Network Engineer
13 8 (2.52%) IT Analyst
14 7 (2.21%) Cisco Engineer
14 7 (2.21%) Consultant
14 7 (2.21%) IT Manager
14 7 (2.21%) Product Delivery Manager
14 7 (2.21%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.73%) REST
2 8 (2.52%) Kafka
3 7 (2.21%) RAML
4 6 (1.89%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (1.58%) Android Jetpack
5 5 (1.58%) Dagger
5 5 (1.58%) Jetpack Compose
5 5 (1.58%) OkHttp
5 5 (1.58%) React
5 5 (1.58%) RxJava
5 5 (1.58%) WireMock
6 3 (0.95%) ADO
6 3 (0.95%) HTML
6 3 (0.95%) Pandas
6 3 (0.95%) scikit-learn
6 3 (0.95%) Spring
6 3 (0.95%) Web Services
7 2 (0.63%) .NET
7 2 (0.63%) CSS
7 2 (0.63%) JSR 170
Miscellaneous
1 30 (9.46%) Management Information System
2 20 (6.31%) Data Centre
3 15 (4.73%) Product Ownership
3 15 (4.73%) Virtual Team
4 12 (3.79%) Security Posture
5 11 (3.47%) Data Protection Act
5 11 (3.47%) Security Operations Centre
6 10 (3.15%) Onboarding
7 9 (2.84%) Analytical Mindset
7 9 (2.84%) Driving Licence
7 9 (2.84%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.52%) PMI
9 7 (2.21%) Algorithms
9 7 (2.21%) Cloud Native
9 7 (2.21%) Legacy Code
10 5 (1.58%) BYOD
10 5 (1.58%) Cyberattack
10 5 (1.58%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.58%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 54 (17.03%) Windows
2 32 (10.09%) Linux
3 14 (4.42%) Unix
4 7 (2.21%) Android
4 7 (2.21%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.89%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.26%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.95%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.63%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.63%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.32%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 123 (38.80%) Computer Science
2 76 (23.97%) Agile
2 76 (23.97%) Problem-Solving
3 52 (16.40%) Cybersecurity
4 49 (15.46%) Project Management
5 39 (12.30%) Continuous Improvement
5 39 (12.30%) PRINCE2
6 38 (11.99%) Stakeholder Management
7 34 (10.73%) Information Security
8 30 (9.46%) AI
8 30 (9.46%) Decision-Making
9 28 (8.83%) DevOps
10 27 (8.52%) ITIL
11 26 (8.20%) Migration
12 24 (7.57%) Change Management
12 24 (7.57%) Project Delivery
13 23 (7.26%) CI/CD
13 23 (7.26%) Line Management
14 22 (6.94%) Business Intelligence
14 22 (6.94%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 39 (12.30%) Python
2 25 (7.89%) SQL
3 21 (6.62%) Java
4 15 (4.73%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.47%) PowerShell
6 9 (2.84%) Perl
7 7 (2.21%) Go
7 7 (2.21%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.58%) Bash
8 5 (1.58%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.26%) C#
10 2 (0.63%) C
10 2 (0.63%) Korn
10 2 (0.63%) R
11 1 (0.32%) Bicep
11 1 (0.32%) C++
11 1 (0.32%) Swift
11 1 (0.32%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.32%) VB
11 1 (0.32%) X++
Qualifications
1 118 (37.22%) Security Cleared
2 98 (30.91%) SC Cleared
3 81 (25.55%) Computer Science Degree
4 30 (9.46%) Master's Degree
5 22 (6.94%) CISSP
6 18 (5.68%) PMP
7 17 (5.36%) PMI Certification
8 16 (5.05%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (4.73%) CREST Certified
10 14 (4.42%) CCNP
10 14 (4.42%) DV Cleared
11 12 (3.79%) CISM
11 12 (3.79%) Postgraduate
12 11 (3.47%) CHECK Team Member
12 11 (3.47%) Cyber Scheme
13 10 (3.15%) CCNA
14 9 (2.84%) PhD
15 8 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
16 7 (2.21%) CompTIA Security+
17 6 (1.89%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (13.25%) PMO
2 28 (8.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (7.89%) GDPR
4 24 (7.57%) QA
5 20 (6.31%) NIST
6 17 (5.36%) PCI DSS
7 11 (3.47%) Data Quality
8 6 (1.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (1.58%) SLA
10 4 (1.26%) NCSC
11 3 (0.95%) Accessibility
11 3 (0.95%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.95%) DO-254
11 3 (0.95%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.95%) IEC 61508
11 3 (0.95%) ISO 26262
11 3 (0.95%) P3O
12 2 (0.63%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 19770
12 2 (0.63%) RMADS
System Software
1 15 (4.73%) Docker
2 13 (4.10%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.26%) Firmware
4 1 (0.32%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 15 (4.73%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.10%) Nmap
3 9 (2.84%) Terraform
4 5 (1.58%) Ansible
5 4 (1.26%) Grafana
5 4 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.95%) Nessus
6 3 (0.95%) Puppet
7 2 (0.63%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.63%) SCCM
8 1 (0.32%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.32%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.32%) Istio
8 1 (0.32%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.32%) linkerd
8 1 (0.32%) Nagios
8 1 (0.32%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.32%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.32%) Podman
8 1 (0.32%) SCOM
Vendors
1 63 (19.87%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.26%) SAP
3 20 (6.31%) Oracle
4 17 (5.36%) Cisco
5 12 (3.79%) Palo Alto
6 11 (3.47%) Aruba
6 11 (3.47%) CheckPoint
7 10 (3.15%) Splunk
8 9 (2.84%) ServiceNow
9 7 (2.21%) PayPal
10 6 (1.89%) Atlassian
11 5 (1.58%) BeyondTrust
11 5 (1.58%) CyberArk
11 5 (1.58%) Google
11 5 (1.58%) Snow
12 4 (1.26%) ESRI
12 4 (1.26%) IBM
12 4 (1.26%) Informatica
12 4 (1.26%) Intergraph
12 4 (1.26%) Tenable