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 11 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 26 14
Rank change year-on-year 0 -12 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 396 204 506
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.52% 6.83% 8.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.42% 17.09% 19.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 204 122 257
10th Percentile £204 £221 £205
25th Percentile £324 £351 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £545 £608
90th Percentile £713 £624 £638
England median daily rate £500 £505 £500
% change year-on-year -0.99% +1.00% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 26 83
10th Percentile £27.92 £21.33 £17.80
25th Percentile £38.25 £32.12 £23.93
Median hourly rate £83.00 £55.13 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +50.57% -3.88% +27.44%
75th Percentile £88.00 £73.38 £61.30
90th Percentile - £75.00 £65.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +5.00% +25.00% -18.35%

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 2,747 1,194 2,564
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.24% 39.96% 44.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,852 758 1,476
10th Percentile £313 £263 £350
25th Percentile £442 £410 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £521 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.78% -5.23% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £675 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £536
% change year-on-year - -2.05% -2.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 288 81 225
10th Percentile £16.87 £18.50 £17.80
25th Percentile £27.79 £25.15 £30.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -8.46% -4.42%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.00 £70.39
90th Percentile £90.85 £77.19 £87.46
England median hourly rate £50.24 £32.00 £40.29
% change year-on-year +57.01% -20.57% -26.75%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 +3 202 £500 +4.71% 184
Berkshire +5 126 £400 -16.01% 86
Hampshire +4 102 £556 +6.97% 116
Surrey -13 40 £305 -16.44% 82
Oxfordshire -4 39 £525 +16.67% 57
Buckinghamshire -13 37 £570 +6.79% 43
West Sussex -20 14 £275 -5.17% 22
Kent +5 11 £445 +61.82% 27
Sussex - 4 £275 - 10
Home Counties - 3 - -
East Sussex -5 2 £461 - 12
Middlesex - 1 £198 - 9
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 15 (3.79%) SharePoint
2 8 (2.02%) Confluence
3 5 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.76%) MS Project Server
5 2 (0.51%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.51%) CMS
6 1 (0.25%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 51 (12.88%) Microsoft Office
2 38 (9.60%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (5.30%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.76%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.25%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 12 (3.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.52%) Primavera
3 3 (0.76%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.51%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 82 (20.71%) Azure
2 52 (13.13%) AWS
3 30 (7.58%) Entra ID
4 27 (6.82%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (4.29%) Power Platform
6 15 (3.79%) GCP
7 14 (3.54%) SaaS
8 11 (2.78%) OneDrive
9 10 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (1.77%) GitHub
10 7 (1.77%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (1.77%) IaaS
11 6 (1.52%) PaaS
11 6 (1.52%) Power Automate
11 6 (1.52%) Serverless
12 4 (1.01%) PowerApps
13 3 (0.76%) Lucidchart
13 3 (0.76%) Sauce Labs
14 2 (0.51%) Dynamics 365
14 2 (0.51%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 22 (5.56%) Firewall
2 20 (5.05%) DNS
3 18 (4.55%) TCP/IP
4 14 (3.54%) DHCP
4 14 (3.54%) Network Security
4 14 (3.54%) WAN
5 13 (3.28%) LAN
6 8 (2.02%) BGP
6 8 (2.02%) OSPF
6 8 (2.02%) Wireless
7 6 (1.52%) HTTP
8 5 (1.26%) IPsec
8 5 (1.26%) SSH
8 5 (1.26%) Structured Cabling
9 4 (1.01%) RSVP
10 3 (0.76%) Ethernet
10 3 (0.76%) NAS
10 3 (0.76%) SAN
10 3 (0.76%) VPN
10 3 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (4.29%) SQL Server
2 15 (3.79%) Power BI
3 14 (3.54%) Relational Database
4 13 (3.28%) MySQL
5 6 (1.52%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.01%) Tableau
7 3 (0.76%) Big Data
7 3 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.51%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.51%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.25%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 1 (0.25%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.25%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.25%) Metadata
9 1 (0.25%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (7.07%) Rational DOORS
2 15 (3.79%) JIRA
3 8 (2.02%) Git
4 7 (1.77%) CircleCI
4 7 (1.77%) GitLab
4 7 (1.77%) Gradle
5 6 (1.52%) Burp Suite
5 6 (1.52%) JUnit
5 6 (1.52%) Metasploit
6 4 (1.01%) Jenkins
7 3 (0.76%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.76%) Browser DevTools
7 3 (0.76%) Eclipse
7 3 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.76%) Xcode
8 2 (0.51%) Balsamiq
8 2 (0.51%) Selenium
8 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.25%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.25%) WebDriver
General
1 160 (40.40%) Social Skills
2 65 (16.41%) Analytical Skills
3 62 (15.66%) Finance
4 60 (15.15%) Aerospace
5 50 (12.63%) Public Sector
6 24 (6.06%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (4.29%) Organisational Skills
8 16 (4.04%) Law
9 15 (3.79%) Manufacturing
10 12 (3.03%) Marketing
11 11 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
12 8 (2.02%) Legal
12 8 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (1.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.77%) Military
13 7 (1.77%) Telecoms
14 6 (1.52%) Aviation
14 6 (1.52%) Retail
15 5 (1.26%) Arabic Language
15 5 (1.26%) French Language
Job Titles
1 54 (13.64%) Analyst
2 51 (12.88%) Senior
3 32 (8.08%) Product Manager
4 29 (7.32%) Delivery Manager
5 28 (7.07%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (6.82%) IT Manager
7 25 (6.31%) Lead
8 22 (5.56%) Senior Manager
8 22 (5.56%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 22 (5.56%) Systems Manager
9 21 (5.30%) Project Manager
10 20 (5.05%) Architect
11 18 (4.55%) Technical Support
12 17 (4.29%) Category Manager
13 15 (3.79%) IT Services Manager
13 15 (3.79%) Senior Category Manager
13 15 (3.79%) Senior IT Manager
13 15 (3.79%) Senior Service Manager
14 14 (3.54%) Senior Analyst
15 13 (3.28%) IT Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (3.79%) Oracle Fusion
2 13 (3.28%) OAuth
3 12 (3.03%) REST
3 12 (3.03%) SailPoint
4 11 (2.78%) LDAP
4 11 (2.78%) OpenID
4 11 (2.78%) SAML
5 10 (2.53%) OAuth2
5 10 (2.53%) Web Services
6 9 (2.27%) React
7 7 (1.77%) .NET
7 7 (1.77%) RAML
8 6 (1.52%) Android Jetpack
8 6 (1.52%) CSS
8 6 (1.52%) Kafka
9 5 (1.26%) AngularJS
9 5 (1.26%) Dagger
9 5 (1.26%) GraphQL
9 5 (1.26%) OkHttp
9 5 (1.26%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 44 (11.11%) Product Ownership
2 36 (9.09%) Management Information System
3 28 (7.07%) Data Centre
4 27 (6.82%) Onboarding
5 26 (6.57%) Data Structures
6 18 (4.55%) Virtual Team
7 11 (2.78%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (2.27%) PMI
9 8 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (2.02%) Robotics
9 8 (2.02%) Security Posture
10 7 (1.77%) CCTV
10 7 (1.77%) Legacy Code
10 7 (1.77%) Mobile App
10 7 (1.77%) Security Operations Centre
11 6 (1.52%) BYOD
11 6 (1.52%) Cloud Native
11 6 (1.52%) Life Science
12 5 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
12 5 (1.26%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 78 (19.70%) Windows
2 52 (13.13%) Linux
3 35 (8.84%) Unix
4 15 (3.79%) Apple iOS
5 14 (3.54%) Windows Server
6 13 (3.28%) Android
7 11 (2.78%) Mac OS
8 8 (2.02%) Windows 10
9 4 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 2 (0.51%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 162 (40.91%) Computer Science
2 94 (23.74%) Agile
3 82 (20.71%) Problem-Solving
4 77 (19.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 68 (17.17%) Cybersecurity
6 59 (14.90%) Change Control
7 58 (14.65%) Information Security
8 51 (12.88%) ITSM
9 49 (12.37%) Decision-Making
9 49 (12.37%) Stakeholder Management
10 46 (11.62%) AI
10 46 (11.62%) ITIL
11 45 (11.36%) PRINCE2
12 44 (11.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 44 (11.11%) Systems Engineering
13 43 (10.86%) Project Management
14 34 (8.59%) CI/CD
14 34 (8.59%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 32 (8.08%) Programme Management
16 30 (7.58%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 53 (13.38%) Python
2 30 (7.58%) PowerShell
3 22 (5.56%) Java
3 22 (5.56%) SQL
4 19 (4.80%) JavaScript
5 11 (2.78%) Perl
6 8 (2.02%) Kotlin
7 7 (1.77%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.01%) Bash
8 4 (1.01%) C#
9 3 (0.76%) C
9 3 (0.76%) C++
9 3 (0.76%) Korn
9 3 (0.76%) Rust
10 2 (0.51%) Ada
10 2 (0.51%) Go
10 2 (0.51%) R
10 2 (0.51%) X++
11 1 (0.25%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.25%) VB
Qualifications
1 172 (43.43%) Security Cleared
2 109 (27.53%) SC Cleared
3 66 (16.67%) Computer Science Degree
4 22 (5.56%) CISSP
5 19 (4.80%) Cisco Certification
6 16 (4.04%) DV Cleared
6 16 (4.04%) PMI Certification
7 14 (3.54%) PMP
8 13 (3.28%) BPSS Clearance
8 13 (3.28%) CISM
9 12 (3.03%) CCNP
9 12 (3.03%) Master's Degree
10 11 (2.78%) CompTIA Security+
10 11 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
11 10 (2.53%) ACCA
11 10 (2.53%) CIMA
12 9 (2.27%) CESG Certified Professional
13 7 (1.77%) CCNA
14 6 (1.52%) Cyber Scheme
14 6 (1.52%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (12.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 48 (12.12%) NIST
3 19 (4.80%) PMO
4 18 (4.55%) QA
5 17 (4.29%) GDPR
6 14 (3.54%) NCSC
7 13 (3.28%) PCI DSS
8 11 (2.78%) Data Quality
9 8 (2.02%) NIST 800
10 7 (1.77%) Cyber Essentials
10 7 (1.77%) SLA
11 6 (1.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (1.26%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 4 (1.01%) Accessibility
13 4 (1.01%) ISO 31000
14 3 (0.76%) DO-254
14 3 (0.76%) IEC 61508
14 3 (0.76%) ISO 26262
14 3 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 43 (10.86%) Active Directory
2 12 (3.03%) Docker
3 8 (2.02%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.77%) Firmware
5 4 (1.01%) Embedded Firmware
6 3 (0.76%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.25%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.25%) UAG
8 1 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 14 (3.54%) Microsoft Intune
2 13 (3.28%) Kubernetes
3 10 (2.53%) Jamf Pro
4 7 (1.77%) Terraform
5 6 (1.52%) Grafana
5 6 (1.52%) Nmap
5 6 (1.52%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
7 3 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.76%) Ansible
7 3 (0.76%) Podman
7 3 (0.76%) Puppet
8 2 (0.51%) Nessus
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
8 2 (0.51%) vCenter Server
9 1 (0.25%) Dell DRAC
9 1 (0.25%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.25%) Istio
9 1 (0.25%) linkerd
Vendors
1 84 (21.21%) Microsoft
2 41 (10.35%) Oracle
3 33 (8.33%) SAP
4 25 (6.31%) IBM
5 23 (5.81%) ServiceNow
6 15 (3.79%) Ariba
6 15 (3.79%) BeyondTrust
6 15 (3.79%) CyberArk
7 14 (3.54%) Cisco
8 10 (2.53%) VMware
9 9 (2.27%) Palo Alto
9 9 (2.27%) Splunk
10 8 (2.02%) CheckPoint
11 7 (1.77%) Aruba
11 7 (1.77%) Salesforce
12 6 (1.52%) Tenable
13 5 (1.26%) Dell
13 5 (1.26%) Workday
14 3 (0.76%) HP
14 3 (0.76%) NVIDIA