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 23 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 31 12
Rank change year-on-year +1 -19 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 274 220 468
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.12% 6.70% 8.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.92% 17.63% 20.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 155 124 300
10th Percentile £204 £179 £162
25th Percentile £311 £303 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £569 £588 £600
90th Percentile £655 £685 £673
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 9 45
10th Percentile £20.79 £18.44 £19.59
25th Percentile £21.32 £31.25 £31.25
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.33% -22.73% +22.22%
75th Percentile £80.25 £61.76 £67.50
90th Percentile £81.30 £78.71 £72.33
England median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £41.50
% change year-on-year -11.76% +2.41% +2.47%

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 1,969 1,248 2,277
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.99% 38.00% 43.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,324 796 1,336
10th Percentile £275 £250 £213
25th Percentile £413 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -0.65%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £688 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 70 145
10th Percentile £15.47 £19.24 £24.55
25th Percentile £19.36 £31.25 £48.40
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% -5.43% +33.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £64.73 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.09 £77.31 £78.22
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.75
% change year-on-year -45.54% -3.29% +6.11%

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 23 January 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 23 January 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 23 January 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 +7 133 £445 -1.11% 463
Berkshire +1 97 £425 -4.23% 262
Hampshire +11 65 £500 -4.76% 192
Surrey -16 34 £500 - 153
Buckinghamshire +19 29 £445 -11.00% 103
West Sussex -4 16 £385 -23.00% 90
Kent 0 10 £445 -1.11% 108
East Sussex +2 7 £565 -9.60% 86
Oxfordshire -14 7 £494 -1.25% 100
Isle of Wight - 4 - - 75
Home Counties - 2 £700 -
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 (6.57%) Confluence
2 14 (5.11%) SharePoint
3 6 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.46%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.46%) Smallworld
5 3 (1.09%) Apache
5 3 (1.09%) Apache Spark
5 3 (1.09%) MS Project Server
6 2 (0.73%) CMS
6 2 (0.73%) nginx
7 1 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.36%) Gunicorn
7 1 (0.36%) IIS
7 1 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.36%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.36%) Tomcat
Applications
1 49 (17.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (17.52%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (12.77%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (7.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.55%) Chatbot
6 3 (1.09%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.36%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 10 (3.65%) Primavera
2 5 (1.82%) SAP ERP
3 3 (1.09%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.36%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.36%) SAP PM
4 1 (0.36%) SAP WM
4 1 (0.36%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.36%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 40 (14.60%) Azure
2 30 (10.95%) AWS
3 18 (6.57%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (5.47%) Power Platform
5 11 (4.01%) GitHub
6 10 (3.65%) GitHub Actions
7 8 (2.92%) GCP
8 7 (2.55%) SaaS
9 6 (2.19%) Entra ID
10 5 (1.82%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (1.82%) IaaS
11 3 (1.09%) Amazon S3
11 3 (1.09%) Serverless
12 2 (0.73%) Amazon EC2
12 2 (0.73%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (0.73%) Amazon EKS
12 2 (0.73%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (0.73%) OCI
12 2 (0.73%) PaaS
12 2 (0.73%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 21 (7.66%) Firewall
2 14 (5.11%) Wireless
3 13 (4.74%) WAN
4 11 (4.01%) Network Security
5 10 (3.65%) LAN
6 8 (2.92%) BGP
6 8 (2.92%) OSPF
7 7 (2.55%) DNS
7 7 (2.55%) IPsec
7 7 (2.55%) Structured Cabling
8 6 (2.19%) Unified Communications
9 5 (1.82%) TCP/IP
10 4 (1.46%) WebEx
11 3 (1.09%) HTTP
11 3 (1.09%) VoIP
11 3 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (0.73%) Internet
12 2 (0.73%) VPN
13 1 (0.36%) EIGRP
13 1 (0.36%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.84%) Relational Database
2 13 (4.74%) Power BI
3 11 (4.01%) MySQL
4 9 (3.28%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (2.19%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5 6 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.19%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.82%) Apache Cassandra
6 5 (1.82%) Big Data
6 5 (1.82%) Couchbase
6 5 (1.82%) Metadata
6 5 (1.82%) SQL Server
7 4 (1.46%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.46%) GIS
7 4 (1.46%) QGIS
8 3 (1.09%) Tableau
9 2 (0.73%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.73%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.73%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.73%) Redis
Development Applications
1 24 (8.76%) JIRA
2 15 (5.47%) Git
3 12 (4.38%) Burp Suite
4 10 (3.65%) Metasploit
5 7 (2.55%) GitLab
6 6 (2.19%) Jenkins
7 4 (1.46%) CircleCI
7 4 (1.46%) Selenium
7 4 (1.46%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.09%) Gradle
8 3 (1.09%) JUnit
9 2 (0.73%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.73%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.73%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.36%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.36%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.36%) HP UFT
10 1 (0.36%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.36%) Subversion
10 1 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 135 (49.27%) Social Skills
2 74 (27.01%) Analytical Skills
3 39 (14.23%) Finance
4 22 (8.03%) Manufacturing
5 14 (5.11%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.74%) Influencing Skills
6 13 (4.74%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (4.01%) Legal
8 9 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (3.28%) Marketing
9 8 (2.92%) Law
10 5 (1.82%) Aerospace
10 5 (1.82%) Military
11 4 (1.46%) Advertising
11 4 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.46%) Retail
12 3 (1.09%) Billing
12 3 (1.09%) Electronics
12 3 (1.09%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.73%) Banking
Job Titles
1 36 (13.14%) Analyst
2 27 (9.85%) Senior
3 24 (8.76%) Developer
4 19 (6.93%) Project Manager
5 13 (4.74%) Lead
5 13 (4.74%) Project Planner
6 12 (4.38%) Architect
6 12 (4.38%) Penetration Tester
6 12 (4.38%) Technical Support
6 12 (4.38%) Tester
7 9 (3.28%) SC Cleared Project Manager
8 8 (2.92%) IT Analyst
9 7 (2.55%) Network Engineer
9 7 (2.55%) Trainer
10 6 (2.19%) Administrator
10 6 (2.19%) Finance Manager
10 6 (2.19%) IT Manager
10 6 (2.19%) IT Support
10 6 (2.19%) Principal Engineer
10 6 (2.19%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (4.38%) REST
2 7 (2.55%) HTML
3 6 (2.19%) Kafka
4 5 (1.82%) RabbitMQ
4 5 (1.82%) RESTful
5 4 (1.46%) CSS
5 4 (1.46%) RAML
6 3 (1.09%) Android Jetpack
6 3 (1.09%) Dagger
6 3 (1.09%) Jetpack Compose
6 3 (1.09%) Material Design
6 3 (1.09%) OkHttp
6 3 (1.09%) Pandas
6 3 (1.09%) RxJava
6 3 (1.09%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.09%) Web Services
6 3 (1.09%) WireMock
6 3 (1.09%) XML
7 2 (0.73%) OAuth
7 2 (0.73%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.85%) Management Information System
2 15 (5.47%) Data Centre
3 14 (5.11%) Analytical Mindset
4 11 (4.01%) Security Posture
4 11 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
5 10 (3.65%) Security Operations Centre
5 10 (3.65%) Virtual Team
6 9 (3.28%) Driving Licence
7 8 (2.92%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (2.55%) PMI
8 7 (2.55%) Product Ownership
9 6 (2.19%) Mobile App
10 5 (1.82%) Handset
10 5 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (1.46%) Algorithms
11 4 (1.46%) Cloud Native
11 4 (1.46%) Cyberattack
11 4 (1.46%) Digital Media
11 4 (1.46%) Legacy Code
11 4 (1.46%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 46 (16.79%) Windows
2 28 (10.22%) Linux
3 12 (4.38%) Unix
4 7 (2.55%) Android
5 6 (2.19%) Apple iOS
6 5 (1.82%) Windows 10
7 3 (1.09%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.73%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.36%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (35.77%) Computer Science
2 75 (27.37%) Problem-Solving
3 66 (24.09%) Agile
4 43 (15.69%) Project Management
5 42 (15.33%) Cybersecurity
6 38 (13.87%) Stakeholder Management
7 32 (11.68%) PRINCE2
8 28 (10.22%) ITIL
8 28 (10.22%) Line Management
9 27 (9.85%) Continuous Improvement
10 25 (9.12%) Information Security
11 23 (8.39%) DevOps
11 23 (8.39%) Migration
12 22 (8.03%) Change Management
13 21 (7.66%) AI
14 20 (7.30%) Analytics
14 20 (7.30%) Project Delivery
15 19 (6.93%) Business Intelligence
15 19 (6.93%) Decision-Making
16 18 (6.57%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 38 (13.87%) Python
2 25 (9.12%) Java
2 25 (9.12%) SQL
3 17 (6.20%) JavaScript
4 11 (4.01%) Perl
5 6 (2.19%) Kotlin
6 5 (1.82%) C#
6 5 (1.82%) Go
6 5 (1.82%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.46%) Objective-C
7 4 (1.46%) Shell Script
7 4 (1.46%) Swift
8 3 (1.09%) Bash
8 3 (1.09%) C
9 2 (0.73%) Ada
9 2 (0.73%) Assembly Language
9 2 (0.73%) C++
9 2 (0.73%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.73%) R
10 1 (0.36%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 84 (30.66%) Security Cleared
2 77 (28.10%) Computer Science Degree
3 72 (26.28%) SC Cleared
4 26 (9.49%) Master's Degree
5 19 (6.93%) CISSP
6 18 (6.57%) PMI Certification
6 18 (6.57%) PMP
7 15 (5.47%) DV Cleared
8 14 (5.11%) CREST Certified
9 13 (4.74%) Cisco Certification
10 11 (4.01%) CCNP
10 11 (4.01%) Postgraduate
11 10 (3.65%) CHECK Team Member
11 10 (3.65%) CISM
11 10 (3.65%) Cyber Scheme
12 9 (3.28%) PhD
13 8 (2.92%) CCNA
14 6 (2.19%) A+ Certification
14 6 (2.19%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (1.82%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (14.96%) PMO
2 23 (8.39%) QA
3 22 (8.03%) GDPR
4 20 (7.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (4.74%) PCI DSS
6 12 (4.38%) NIST
7 8 (2.92%) Data Quality
8 7 (2.55%) SLA
9 4 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (1.09%) Accessibility
10 3 (1.09%) HIPAA
10 3 (1.09%) NCSC
10 3 (1.09%) P3O
11 2 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.73%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 2 (0.73%) RMADS
12 1 (0.36%) Def Stans
12 1 (0.36%) GxP
12 1 (0.36%) JSP 440
System Software
1 11 (4.01%) Docker
2 10 (3.65%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.19%) Firmware
4 1 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.36%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.36%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (4.38%) Nmap
2 10 (3.65%) Kubernetes
3 5 (1.82%) Ansible
3 5 (1.82%) Terraform
4 3 (1.09%) Puppet
5 2 (0.73%) Grafana
5 2 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.73%) SCCM
6 1 (0.36%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.36%) Nagios
6 1 (0.36%) Nessus
6 1 (0.36%) Podman
6 1 (0.36%) SCOM
6 1 (0.36%) vRealize
6 1 (0.36%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 57 (20.80%) Microsoft
2 24 (8.76%) SAP
3 18 (6.57%) Oracle
4 13 (4.74%) Cisco
5 10 (3.65%) ServiceNow
6 9 (3.28%) Palo Alto
7 8 (2.92%) Aruba
7 8 (2.92%) CheckPoint
7 8 (2.92%) Splunk
8 7 (2.55%) PayPal
9 6 (2.19%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.82%) EMC
11 4 (1.46%) Cellebrite
11 4 (1.46%) ESRI
11 4 (1.46%) Google
11 4 (1.46%) Informatica
11 4 (1.46%) Intergraph
11 4 (1.46%) Salesforce
12 3 (1.09%) Apple
12 3 (1.09%) Snow