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 4 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 28 27 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -14 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 279 282 477
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.55% 7.09% 9.26%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.50% 18.31% 21.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 153 181 311
10th Percentile £209 £178 £185
25th Percentile £358 £341 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £573 £588 £614
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
England median daily rate £520 £520 £525
% change year-on-year - -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 19 41
10th Percentile £20.79 £21.66 £31.25
25th Percentile £22.00 £32.63 £48.00
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.88 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.95% -28.53% +33.33%
75th Percentile £81.00 £74.38 £70.50
90th Percentile £89.63 £75.67 £77.50
England median hourly rate £37.46 £42.88 £50.00
% change year-on-year -12.64% -14.24% +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 1,800 1,540 2,209
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 42.28% 38.74% 42.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,178 1,016 1,301
10th Percentile £256 £263 £213
25th Percentile £413 £408 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +1.80%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £688 £700 £694
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 84 142
10th Percentile - £20.90 £27.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £27.00 £48.73
Median hourly rate £25.15 £54.87 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -54.17% -8.55% +33.33%
75th Percentile £57.63 £64.73 £70.05
90th Percentile £90.09 £75.00 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £48.56 £52.50
% change year-on-year -48.21% -7.50% +16.67%

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 2025.

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 4 December 2025. 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 +4 134 £450 -10.00% 704
Berkshire +2 95 £450 -10.00% 396
Hampshire +20 63 £475 -8.12% 292
Surrey -16 35 £463 +15.63% 198
Buckinghamshire +11 24 £343 -23.89% 164
West Sussex -6 17 £500 - 83
Oxfordshire -12 15 £488 +14.71% 153
Isle of Wight - 6 - - 57
East Sussex -1 5 £565 -9.60% 82
Kent -3 5 £450 -5.76% 159
Home Counties - 3 £625 -
Sussex -5 1 - - 22
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 13 (4.66%) Confluence
2 11 (3.94%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.43%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.43%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.43%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.43%) Smallworld
5 3 (1.08%) Apache
6 2 (0.72%) nginx
7 1 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.36%) CMS
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 47 (16.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 39 (13.98%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (10.04%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (4.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.51%) Chatbot
6 5 (1.79%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.36%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 7 (2.51%) Primavera
2 5 (1.79%) SAP ERP
3 4 (1.43%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.72%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.36%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.36%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.36%) SAP WM
5 1 (0.36%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.36%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 38 (13.62%) Azure
2 32 (11.47%) AWS
3 24 (8.60%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (7.89%) Power Platform
5 17 (6.09%) GCP
6 10 (3.58%) Entra ID
7 8 (2.87%) GitHub
8 6 (2.15%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (2.15%) SaaS
9 5 (1.79%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (1.43%) Cloud Computing
10 4 (1.43%) dbt
10 4 (1.43%) Lucidchart
11 3 (1.08%) Amazon ECS
11 3 (1.08%) Amazon S3
11 3 (1.08%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (1.08%) IaaS
11 3 (1.08%) OCI
11 3 (1.08%) Serverless
12 2 (0.72%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 15 (5.38%) Firewall
2 12 (4.30%) Wireless
3 10 (3.58%) Network Security
4 7 (2.51%) DNS
5 6 (2.15%) Unified Communications
6 5 (1.79%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.79%) VPN
7 4 (1.43%) DHCP
7 4 (1.43%) VoIP
7 4 (1.43%) WAN
8 3 (1.08%) BGP
8 3 (1.08%) HTTP
8 3 (1.08%) IPsec
8 3 (1.08%) LAN
8 3 (1.08%) OSPF
8 3 (1.08%) Structured Cabling
8 3 (1.08%) WebEx
8 3 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.72%) 5G
9 2 (0.72%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (7.17%) Power BI
2 14 (5.02%) Relational Database
3 12 (4.30%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (3.23%) Tableau
5 6 (2.15%) Big Data
5 6 (2.15%) MySQL
6 5 (1.79%) Apache Cassandra
6 5 (1.79%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6 5 (1.79%) Couchbase
6 5 (1.79%) Metadata
6 5 (1.79%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.79%) SQL Server
7 4 (1.43%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.43%) GIS
7 4 (1.43%) Hadoop
7 4 (1.43%) QGIS
8 3 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.72%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.72%) Redis
Development Applications
1 27 (9.68%) JIRA
2 20 (7.17%) Git
3 9 (3.23%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.51%) GitLab
5 6 (2.15%) Burp Suite
6 4 (1.43%) Metasploit
6 4 (1.43%) Subversion
7 3 (1.08%) Rational DOORS
7 3 (1.08%) Selenium
8 2 (0.72%) SoapUI
8 2 (0.72%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.36%) Appium
9 1 (0.36%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.36%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.36%) Katalon Studio
9 1 (0.36%) Postman
9 1 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.36%) WebDriver
General
1 150 (53.76%) Social Skills
2 91 (32.62%) Analytical Skills
3 46 (16.49%) Finance
4 26 (9.32%) Manufacturing
5 19 (6.81%) Organisational Skills
6 11 (3.94%) Influencing Skills
6 11 (3.94%) Legal
6 11 (3.94%) Public Sector
6 11 (3.94%) Telecoms
7 7 (2.51%) Law
7 7 (2.51%) Marketing
8 6 (2.15%) Aerospace
8 6 (2.15%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.79%) Military
10 4 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.08%) Advertising
11 3 (1.08%) Aviation
11 3 (1.08%) Banking
11 3 (1.08%) Electronics
12 2 (0.72%) Retail
Job Titles
1 39 (13.98%) Analyst
2 24 (8.60%) Senior
3 22 (7.89%) Developer
4 17 (6.09%) Project Manager
5 14 (5.02%) Architect
5 14 (5.02%) Lead
6 9 (3.23%) Desktop Support
6 9 (3.23%) IT Analyst
7 8 (2.87%) Business Analyst
7 8 (2.87%) IT Support
7 8 (2.87%) Principal Engineer
8 7 (2.51%) Consultant
8 7 (2.51%) Data Scientist
8 7 (2.51%) SC Cleared Project Manager
8 7 (2.51%) Support Engineer
8 7 (2.51%) Tester
8 7 (2.51%) Trainer
9 6 (2.15%) Senior Developer
9 6 (2.15%) Support Analyst
9 6 (2.15%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (3.58%) REST
2 8 (2.87%) Kafka
2 8 (2.87%) RabbitMQ
3 7 (2.51%) HTML
4 5 (1.79%) RESTful
5 4 (1.43%) CSS
5 4 (1.43%) Pandas
5 4 (1.43%) scikit-learn
5 4 (1.43%) Web Services
6 3 (1.08%) GraphQL
6 3 (1.08%) gRPC
6 3 (1.08%) Material Design
6 3 (1.08%) NumPy
6 3 (1.08%) SOAP
6 3 (1.08%) XML
7 2 (0.72%) JSON
7 2 (0.72%) Middleware
7 2 (0.72%) Node.js
7 2 (0.72%) OAuth
7 2 (0.72%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 28 (10.04%) Management Information System
2 15 (5.38%) Driving Licence
3 14 (5.02%) Analytical Mindset
4 10 (3.58%) Data Centre
5 7 (2.51%) Algorithms
5 7 (2.51%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
5 7 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.51%) Mobile App
6 6 (2.15%) Security Operations Centre
6 6 (2.15%) Security Posture
6 6 (2.15%) Virtual Team
7 5 (1.79%) Handset
7 5 (1.79%) Life Science
7 5 (1.79%) PMI
7 5 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (1.43%) Digital Media
8 4 (1.43%) Renewable Energy
9 3 (1.08%) BYOD
9 3 (1.08%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 40 (14.34%) Windows
2 19 (6.81%) Linux
3 10 (3.58%) Mac OS
4 7 (2.51%) Unix
4 7 (2.51%) Windows 10
5 6 (2.15%) Apple iOS
6 4 (1.43%) Android
7 2 (0.72%) Kali Linux
7 2 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.36%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (33.69%) Computer Science
2 90 (32.26%) Problem-Solving
3 71 (25.45%) Agile
4 45 (16.13%) Stakeholder Management
5 42 (15.05%) ITIL
6 39 (13.98%) Project Management
7 36 (12.90%) Migration
8 31 (11.11%) Cybersecurity
9 30 (10.75%) PRINCE2
10 29 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
11 28 (10.04%) Decision-Making
12 27 (9.68%) Change Management
13 26 (9.32%) DevOps
14 25 (8.96%) Business Intelligence
14 25 (8.96%) Line Management
15 22 (7.89%) Analytics
16 21 (7.53%) Service Management
17 20 (7.17%) AI
18 19 (6.81%) Data Management
18 19 (6.81%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 40 (14.34%) Python
2 27 (9.68%) SQL
3 19 (6.81%) Java
4 12 (4.30%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.87%) Go
6 6 (2.15%) Perl
6 6 (2.15%) PowerShell
7 5 (1.79%) Bash
8 4 (1.43%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.08%) C
9 3 (1.08%) C#
9 3 (1.08%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.08%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.08%) Swift
10 2 (0.72%) Ada
10 2 (0.72%) Assembly Language
10 2 (0.72%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.72%) R
11 1 (0.36%) ABAP
11 1 (0.36%) C++
Qualifications
1 71 (25.45%) Computer Science Degree
2 68 (24.37%) Security Cleared
3 60 (21.51%) SC Cleared
4 37 (13.26%) Master's Degree
5 21 (7.53%) PMP
6 19 (6.81%) PMI Certification
7 18 (6.45%) CISSP
8 12 (4.30%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (3.58%) A+ Certification
9 10 (3.58%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (3.58%) CISM
9 10 (3.58%) PhD
10 9 (3.23%) DV Cleared
11 8 (2.87%) CREST Certified
12 7 (2.51%) ACCA
12 7 (2.51%) CIMA
13 6 (2.15%) CCNP
13 6 (2.15%) GIAC
14 5 (1.79%) CCNA
14 5 (1.79%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (8.96%) GDPR
2 24 (8.60%) PMO
3 19 (6.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 17 (6.09%) QA
5 15 (5.38%) Data Quality
6 13 (4.66%) NIST
7 8 (2.87%) PCI DSS
8 6 (2.15%) SLA
9 4 (1.43%) HIPAA
9 4 (1.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (1.08%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (1.08%) GRC
10 3 (1.08%) NCSC
10 3 (1.08%) P3O
11 2 (0.72%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.72%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 2 (0.72%) RMADS
12 1 (0.36%) GxP
12 1 (0.36%) JSP 440
System Software
1 17 (6.09%) Active Directory
2 14 (5.02%) Docker
3 6 (2.15%) Firmware
4 5 (1.79%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.72%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.36%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.36%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (2.87%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.15%) Nmap
3 5 (1.79%) Microsoft Intune
3 5 (1.79%) SCCM
3 5 (1.79%) Terraform
4 4 (1.43%) Ansible
5 3 (1.08%) Puppet
6 2 (0.72%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.72%) Grafana
6 2 (0.72%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.36%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 1 (0.36%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.36%) Nagios
7 1 (0.36%) Nessus
7 1 (0.36%) Podman
7 1 (0.36%) SCOM
7 1 (0.36%) vRealize
7 1 (0.36%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 69 (24.73%) Microsoft
2 23 (8.24%) SAP
3 14 (5.02%) ServiceNow
4 12 (4.30%) Cisco
5 11 (3.94%) Oracle
6 7 (2.51%) CheckPoint
6 7 (2.51%) EMC
6 7 (2.51%) Palo Alto
6 7 (2.51%) PayPal
7 6 (2.15%) Atlassian
7 6 (2.15%) Google
7 6 (2.15%) Splunk
7 6 (2.15%) VMware
8 5 (1.79%) Apple
9 4 (1.43%) Cellebrite
9 4 (1.43%) ESRI
9 4 (1.43%) Informatica
9 4 (1.43%) Intergraph
10 3 (1.08%) CA Agile Central
10 3 (1.08%) Snow