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 1 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 24 14
Rank change year-on-year -2 -10 +13
Contract jobs citing Degree 422 218 482
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.69% 6.93% 8.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.85% 17.36% 19.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 215 134 244
10th Percentile £204 £237 £205
25th Percentile £309 £355 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.71% -4.50% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £718 £646 £638
England median daily rate £500 £503 £500
% change year-on-year -0.60% +0.60% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 27 82
10th Percentile £25.77 £22.09 £17.80
25th Percentile £36.81 £32.18 £22.50
Median hourly rate £82.75 £56.75 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +45.81% -1.05% +19.48%
75th Percentile £87.37 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 - £65.00
England median hourly rate £47.00 £46.30 £41.50
% change year-on-year +1.51% +11.57% -15.29%

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 2,841 1,256 2,532
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.05% 39.94% 44.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,927 798 1,470
10th Percentile £316 £257 £351
25th Percentile £450 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.17% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £663 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 298 91 225
10th Percentile £18.14 £18.87 £17.80
25th Percentile £29.40 £24.91 £26.73
Median hourly rate £60.58 £47.81 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +26.72% -16.64% -4.42%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.00 £70.39
90th Percentile £88.00 £80.00 £87.46
England median hourly rate £52.75 £28.60 £42.50
% change year-on-year +84.44% -32.71% -22.73%

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 +2 214 £500 +4.71% 205
Berkshire +5 129 £400 -16.23% 105
Hampshire +3 109 £550 +4.76% 135
Oxfordshire -3 45 £525 +16.67% 60
Surrey -10 45 £305 -16.44% 80
Buckinghamshire -11 40 £570 +8.57% 45
Kent +8 14 £445 +61.82% 29
West Sussex -15 14 £275 -4.84% 22
Sussex - 4 £275 - 4
Home Counties +1 3 - -
East Sussex -4 2 £461 - 15
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 7
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 (3.79%) SharePoint
2 11 (2.61%) Confluence
3 5 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.71%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.47%) CMS
5 2 (0.47%) MS Project Server
6 1 (0.24%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 55 (13.03%) Microsoft Office
2 39 (9.24%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (5.21%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (4.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.71%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.24%) CATIA
6 1 (0.24%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.24%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (2.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.18%) Primavera
3 4 (0.95%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.47%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.24%) ENOVIA
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.24%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 90 (21.33%) Azure
2 54 (12.80%) AWS
3 36 (8.53%) Entra ID
4 30 (7.11%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (4.74%) GCP
6 18 (4.27%) Power Platform
7 13 (3.08%) SaaS
8 11 (2.61%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (2.61%) OneDrive
9 8 (1.90%) Serverless
10 6 (1.42%) Power Automate
11 5 (1.18%) GitHub
11 5 (1.18%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.18%) IaaS
12 4 (0.95%) PaaS
12 4 (0.95%) PowerApps
12 4 (0.95%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 3 (0.71%) Lucidchart
13 3 (0.71%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
13 3 (0.71%) Sauce Labs
Communications & Networking
1 22 (5.21%) Firewall
2 21 (4.98%) DNS
2 21 (4.98%) TCP/IP
3 15 (3.55%) Network Security
4 14 (3.32%) DHCP
4 14 (3.32%) LAN
4 14 (3.32%) WAN
5 10 (2.37%) BGP
5 10 (2.37%) OSPF
6 7 (1.66%) IPsec
7 6 (1.42%) HTTP
8 5 (1.18%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.18%) SSH
8 5 (1.18%) VPN
9 4 (0.95%) BIG-IP
9 4 (0.95%) MQTT
9 4 (0.95%) RSVP
9 4 (0.95%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.95%) Structured Cabling
9 4 (0.95%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (4.50%) SQL Server
2 16 (3.79%) Power BI
3 11 (2.61%) Relational Database
4 10 (2.37%) MySQL
5 6 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.95%) Tableau
7 3 (0.71%) Big Data
7 3 (0.71%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.47%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.47%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.24%) Apache Iceberg
9 1 (0.24%) BigQuery
9 1 (0.24%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.24%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.24%) Metadata
9 1 (0.24%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (6.64%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (5.45%) JIRA
3 10 (2.37%) Git
4 8 (1.90%) GitLab
5 5 (1.18%) CircleCI
5 5 (1.18%) Gradle
6 4 (0.95%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.95%) JUnit
6 4 (0.95%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.71%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.71%) Browser DevTools
7 3 (0.71%) Burp Suite
7 3 (0.71%) Eclipse
7 3 (0.71%) Metasploit
7 3 (0.71%) Xcode
8 2 (0.47%) Balsamiq
8 2 (0.47%) Selenium
8 2 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.24%) TestNG
9 1 (0.24%) WebDriver
General
1 178 (42.18%) Social Skills
2 80 (18.96%) Analytical Skills
3 63 (14.93%) Finance
4 62 (14.69%) Aerospace
5 54 (12.80%) Public Sector
6 24 (5.69%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (4.74%) Organisational Skills
8 17 (4.03%) Manufacturing
8 17 (4.03%) Marketing
9 16 (3.79%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (3.79%) Law
10 12 (2.84%) Presentation Skills
11 10 (2.37%) Telecoms
12 9 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (1.90%) Retail
14 7 (1.66%) Military
15 6 (1.42%) Aviation
15 6 (1.42%) Legal
16 5 (1.18%) Arabic Language
16 5 (1.18%) French Language
Job Titles
1 57 (13.51%) Analyst
2 50 (11.85%) Senior
3 33 (7.82%) Lead
4 32 (7.58%) Product Manager
5 29 (6.87%) Delivery Manager
6 28 (6.64%) Product Delivery Manager
7 27 (6.40%) IT Manager
8 24 (5.69%) Architect
8 24 (5.69%) Project Manager
9 23 (5.45%) Senior Manager
10 22 (5.21%) Systems Delivery Manager
10 22 (5.21%) Systems Manager
11 17 (4.03%) Category Manager
12 15 (3.55%) IT Services Manager
12 15 (3.55%) IT Support
12 15 (3.55%) Senior Category Manager
12 15 (3.55%) Senior IT Manager
12 15 (3.55%) Senior Service Manager
12 15 (3.55%) Technical Support
13 14 (3.32%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (4.03%) OAuth
2 15 (3.55%) LDAP
2 15 (3.55%) OpenID
2 15 (3.55%) Oracle Fusion
2 15 (3.55%) SAML
3 13 (3.08%) SailPoint
4 10 (2.37%) OAuth2
4 10 (2.37%) React
4 10 (2.37%) REST
4 10 (2.37%) Web Services
5 7 (1.66%) .NET
5 7 (1.66%) Kafka
6 6 (1.42%) CSS
6 6 (1.42%) RESTful
7 5 (1.18%) AngularJS
7 5 (1.18%) GraphQL
7 5 (1.18%) gRPC
7 5 (1.18%) RAML
8 4 (0.95%) Keycloak
8 4 (0.95%) Protocol Buffers
Miscellaneous
1 50 (11.85%) Product Ownership
2 45 (10.66%) Management Information System
3 29 (6.87%) Data Centre
3 29 (6.87%) Onboarding
4 26 (6.16%) Data Structures
5 17 (4.03%) Virtual Team
6 11 (2.61%) Security Posture
7 10 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
8 9 (2.13%) Cloud Native
9 8 (1.90%) Hybrid Cloud
9 8 (1.90%) Operational Technology
9 8 (1.90%) PMI
9 8 (1.90%) Robotics
10 7 (1.66%) CCTV
10 7 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
10 7 (1.66%) Mobile App
11 6 (1.42%) BYOD
11 6 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.42%) SCADA
12 5 (1.18%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 71 (16.82%) Windows
2 50 (11.85%) Linux
3 34 (8.06%) Unix
4 15 (3.55%) Apple iOS
5 14 (3.32%) Windows Server
6 11 (2.61%) Android
6 11 (2.61%) Mac OS
7 8 (1.90%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.47%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.47%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 169 (40.05%) Computer Science
2 119 (28.20%) Agile
3 92 (21.80%) Problem-Solving
4 86 (20.38%) Continuous Improvement
5 73 (17.30%) Cybersecurity
6 65 (15.40%) Stakeholder Management
7 64 (15.17%) Change Control
8 60 (14.22%) Decision-Making
8 60 (14.22%) ITIL
9 57 (13.51%) ITSM
10 56 (13.27%) Information Security
11 55 (13.03%) AI
12 51 (12.09%) PRINCE2
13 50 (11.85%) Project Management
14 47 (11.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 43 (10.19%) Systems Engineering
16 39 (9.24%) CI/CD
17 36 (8.53%) Programme Management
17 36 (8.53%) Scaled Agile Framework
18 34 (8.06%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 59 (13.98%) Python
2 32 (7.58%) PowerShell
3 22 (5.21%) SQL
4 19 (4.50%) Java
5 16 (3.79%) JavaScript
6 8 (1.90%) Perl
6 8 (1.90%) Shell Script
7 6 (1.42%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.18%) Bash
9 4 (0.95%) C#
9 4 (0.95%) C++
9 4 (0.95%) Rust
10 3 (0.71%) C
10 3 (0.71%) Korn
11 2 (0.47%) Ada
11 2 (0.47%) Go
11 2 (0.47%) R
11 2 (0.47%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.47%) X++
12 1 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 178 (42.18%) Security Cleared
2 110 (26.07%) SC Cleared
3 63 (14.93%) Computer Science Degree
4 25 (5.92%) CISSP
5 20 (4.74%) Cisco Certification
5 20 (4.74%) Master's Degree
5 20 (4.74%) PMI Certification
6 18 (4.27%) DV Cleared
6 18 (4.27%) PMP
7 17 (4.03%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (3.32%) CISM
8 14 (3.32%) Microsoft Certification
9 13 (3.08%) CCNP
10 10 (2.37%) ACCA
10 10 (2.37%) CIMA
11 9 (2.13%) CESG Certified Professional
12 8 (1.90%) AWS Certification
12 8 (1.90%) CompTIA Security+
13 7 (1.66%) Azure Certification
14 6 (1.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (12.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 52 (12.32%) NIST
2 17 (4.03%) NCSC
2 17 (4.03%) PMO
3 15 (3.55%) Data Quality
4 14 (3.32%) GDPR
4 14 (3.32%) QA
5 10 (2.37%) PCI DSS
6 8 (1.90%) NIST 800
7 7 (1.66%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 7 (1.66%) SLA
8 6 (1.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 5 (1.18%) Government Security Classifications
10 4 (0.95%) Accessibility
10 4 (0.95%) GRC
10 4 (0.95%) ISO 31000
11 3 (0.71%) DO-254
11 3 (0.71%) IEC 61508
11 3 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 48 (11.37%) Active Directory
2 14 (3.32%) Docker
3 9 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.42%) Firmware
4 6 (1.42%) VMware NSX
5 4 (0.95%) Embedded Firmware
6 3 (0.71%) OpenAM
7 2 (0.47%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.24%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.24%) UAG
8 1 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 15 (3.55%) Kubernetes
2 14 (3.32%) Microsoft Intune
3 10 (2.37%) Jamf Pro
3 10 (2.37%) Terraform
4 7 (1.66%) Grafana
4 7 (1.66%) Prometheus
5 6 (1.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 6 (1.42%) Ansible
6 5 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.95%) Podman
7 4 (0.95%) Puppet
8 3 (0.71%) Nmap
9 2 (0.47%) Nessus
9 2 (0.47%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 2 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
9 2 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.24%) CASB
10 1 (0.24%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.24%) Istio
10 1 (0.24%) linkerd
Vendors
1 95 (22.51%) Microsoft
2 44 (10.43%) Oracle
3 33 (7.82%) SAP
4 26 (6.16%) ServiceNow
5 25 (5.92%) IBM
6 17 (4.03%) BeyondTrust
6 17 (4.03%) CyberArk
7 15 (3.55%) Ariba
7 15 (3.55%) Cisco
8 13 (3.08%) VMware
9 10 (2.37%) Palo Alto
10 9 (2.13%) Google
10 9 (2.13%) Salesforce
11 7 (1.66%) CheckPoint
11 7 (1.66%) Splunk
12 6 (1.42%) Aruba
12 6 (1.42%) Tenable
13 5 (1.18%) Dell
13 5 (1.18%) F5
13 5 (1.18%) Workday