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 3 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 25 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -12 +14
Contract jobs citing Degree 323 225 505
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.52% 7.41% 9.07%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.01% 19.55% 20.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 175 129 304
10th Percentile £258 £186 £202
25th Percentile £362 £330 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +2.67%
75th Percentile £573 £579 £608
90th Percentile £650 £657 £667
England median daily rate £500 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 18 54
10th Percentile £20.79 £27.13 £16.66
25th Percentile £26.80 £42.07 £23.40
Median hourly rate £81.00 £63.38 £51.75
Median % change year-on-year +27.80% +22.47% +15.00%
75th Percentile £85.50 £75.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £78.88 £69.94
England median hourly rate £38.54 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -26.59% +31.25% -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 2,306 1,151 2,489
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 46.53% 37.91% 44.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,539 729 1,412
10th Percentile £300 £263 £250
25th Percentile £413 £415 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% +3.77%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £688 £700
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 74 178
10th Percentile £15.62 £20.01 £18.32
25th Percentile £19.36 £28.14 £33.88
Median hourly rate £29.61 £57.87 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year -48.84% -0.73% +26.05%
75th Percentile £82.25 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.09 £79.51 £83.41
England median hourly rate £25.20 £50.00 £40.28
% change year-on-year -49.61% +24.15% -17.81%

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 3 March 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 3 March 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 3 March 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 -4 166 £446 -9.72% 306
Berkshire +2 121 £413 -13.61% 182
Hampshire +15 80 £523 -1.88% 150
Buckinghamshire +5 34 £475 -7.32% 65
Surrey -17 28 £500 - 85
West Sussex -10 17 £400 -11.11% 30
Kent -1 14 £445 -1.11% 58
Oxfordshire -13 11 £500 -28.57% 65
East Sussex +2 8 £565 -9.60% 35
Home Counties - 4 £700 -
Isle of Wight - 2 - - 23
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 (5.57%) Confluence
2 12 (3.72%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.55%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.24%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.24%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.24%) Smallworld
5 3 (0.93%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 3 (0.93%) Apache
5 3 (0.93%) CMS
5 3 (0.93%) MS Project Server
6 2 (0.62%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.31%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.31%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.31%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 58 (17.96%) Microsoft Office
2 51 (15.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (11.46%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (6.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.17%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.62%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.31%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 12 (3.72%) Primavera
2 5 (1.55%) SAP ERP
3 3 (0.93%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.62%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.31%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.31%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.31%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.31%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.31%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 54 (16.72%) Azure
2 41 (12.69%) AWS
3 17 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
3 17 (5.26%) Power Platform
4 13 (4.02%) GCP
4 13 (4.02%) GitHub
4 13 (4.02%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (2.17%) Entra ID
6 6 (1.86%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (1.55%) SaaS
8 4 (1.24%) IaaS
9 3 (0.93%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (0.93%) Amazon S3
9 3 (0.93%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (0.93%) Lucidchart
9 3 (0.93%) PowerApps
10 2 (0.62%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (0.62%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (0.62%) PaaS
10 2 (0.62%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 27 (8.36%) Firewall
2 16 (4.95%) WAN
3 15 (4.64%) Wireless
4 13 (4.02%) LAN
4 13 (4.02%) Network Security
5 10 (3.10%) BGP
5 10 (3.10%) OSPF
6 9 (2.79%) IPsec
6 9 (2.79%) Structured Cabling
7 8 (2.48%) TCP/IP
8 7 (2.17%) DNS
8 7 (2.17%) Unified Communications
9 6 (1.86%) HTTP
10 5 (1.55%) WebEx
11 3 (0.93%) Ethernet
11 3 (0.93%) SSH
11 3 (0.93%) VoIP
11 3 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (0.62%) Internet
12 2 (0.62%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.64%) Power BI
2 13 (4.02%) Relational Database
3 11 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (3.10%) MySQL
4 10 (3.10%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.86%) Big Data
6 6 (1.86%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6 6 (1.86%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.55%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (1.55%) Couchbase
8 4 (1.24%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.24%) GIS
8 4 (1.24%) Metadata
8 4 (1.24%) QGIS
8 4 (1.24%) Tableau
9 3 (0.93%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.62%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.62%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 25 (7.74%) JIRA
2 14 (4.33%) Git
3 13 (4.02%) Burp Suite
4 11 (3.41%) Metasploit
4 11 (3.41%) Rational DOORS
5 8 (2.48%) GitLab
5 8 (2.48%) Jenkins
6 7 (2.17%) CircleCI
6 7 (2.17%) Gradle
7 5 (1.55%) JUnit
8 3 (0.93%) Selenium
8 3 (0.93%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.62%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.62%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.62%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.31%) Maven
10 1 (0.31%) MLflow
10 1 (0.31%) Postman
10 1 (0.31%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 141 (43.65%) Social Skills
2 67 (20.74%) Analytical Skills
3 40 (12.38%) Finance
4 23 (7.12%) Aerospace
5 21 (6.50%) Public Sector
6 20 (6.19%) Manufacturing
7 15 (4.64%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (4.64%) Influencing Skills
8 12 (3.72%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (3.41%) Marketing
10 9 (2.79%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (2.17%) Legal
12 6 (1.86%) Law
12 6 (1.86%) Retail
13 5 (1.55%) Military
13 5 (1.55%) Telecoms
14 4 (1.24%) Advertising
14 4 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 3 (0.93%) Banking
15 3 (0.93%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 40 (12.38%) Analyst
2 27 (8.36%) Senior
3 24 (7.43%) Project Manager
4 19 (5.88%) Developer
5 16 (4.95%) Delivery Manager
6 15 (4.64%) Architect
6 15 (4.64%) Lead
6 15 (4.64%) Product Manager
7 14 (4.33%) Technical Support
8 13 (4.02%) Penetration Tester
8 13 (4.02%) Project Planner
8 13 (4.02%) Tester
9 11 (3.41%) Product Delivery Manager
10 10 (3.10%) SC Cleared Project Manager
11 9 (2.79%) Network Engineer
12 8 (2.48%) Consultant
12 8 (2.48%) IT Analyst
12 8 (2.48%) Systems Delivery Manager
12 8 (2.48%) Systems Manager
13 7 (2.17%) Security Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.64%) REST
2 8 (2.48%) Kafka
3 7 (2.17%) RAML
4 6 (1.86%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (1.55%) Android Jetpack
5 5 (1.55%) Dagger
5 5 (1.55%) Jetpack Compose
5 5 (1.55%) OkHttp
5 5 (1.55%) React
5 5 (1.55%) RxJava
5 5 (1.55%) WireMock
6 3 (0.93%) ADO
6 3 (0.93%) HTML
6 3 (0.93%) Pandas
6 3 (0.93%) scikit-learn
6 3 (0.93%) Spring
6 3 (0.93%) Web Services
7 2 (0.62%) .NET
7 2 (0.62%) CSS
7 2 (0.62%) JSR 170
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.91%) Management Information System
2 21 (6.50%) Data Centre
3 19 (5.88%) Product Ownership
4 15 (4.64%) Virtual Team
5 12 (3.72%) Security Posture
6 11 (3.41%) Data Protection Act
6 11 (3.41%) Security Operations Centre
7 10 (3.10%) Onboarding
8 9 (2.79%) Analytical Mindset
8 9 (2.79%) Data Structures
8 9 (2.79%) Driving Licence
8 9 (2.79%) PMI
8 9 (2.79%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (2.17%) Algorithms
9 7 (2.17%) Cloud Native
9 7 (2.17%) Legacy Code
10 6 (1.86%) BYOD
11 5 (1.55%) Cyberattack
11 5 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (1.55%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 54 (16.72%) Windows
2 32 (9.91%) Linux
3 14 (4.33%) Unix
4 7 (2.17%) Android
4 7 (2.17%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (1.86%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.24%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.93%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.62%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.62%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.62%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.31%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 126 (39.01%) Computer Science
2 82 (25.39%) Agile
3 76 (23.53%) Problem-Solving
4 54 (16.72%) Cybersecurity
5 49 (15.17%) Project Management
6 44 (13.62%) Continuous Improvement
6 44 (13.62%) PRINCE2
7 37 (11.46%) Stakeholder Management
8 36 (11.15%) Information Security
9 30 (9.29%) AI
9 30 (9.29%) Decision-Making
10 28 (8.67%) DevOps
10 28 (8.67%) ITIL
11 27 (8.36%) Migration
12 26 (8.05%) Change Management
12 26 (8.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 24 (7.43%) Project Delivery
14 23 (7.12%) CI/CD
14 23 (7.12%) Line Management
15 22 (6.81%) Change Control
Programming Languages
1 39 (12.07%) Python
2 25 (7.74%) SQL
3 21 (6.50%) Java
4 15 (4.64%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.41%) PowerShell
6 9 (2.79%) Perl
7 7 (2.17%) Go
7 7 (2.17%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.55%) Bash
8 5 (1.55%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.24%) C#
10 2 (0.62%) C
10 2 (0.62%) Korn
10 2 (0.62%) R
11 1 (0.31%) Bicep
11 1 (0.31%) C++
11 1 (0.31%) Swift
11 1 (0.31%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.31%) VB
11 1 (0.31%) X++
Qualifications
1 121 (37.46%) Security Cleared
2 97 (30.03%) SC Cleared
3 81 (25.08%) Computer Science Degree
4 30 (9.29%) Master's Degree
5 23 (7.12%) CISSP
6 18 (5.57%) PMI Certification
6 18 (5.57%) PMP
7 16 (4.95%) Cisco Certification
8 15 (4.64%) CREST Certified
9 14 (4.33%) CCNP
9 14 (4.33%) DV Cleared
10 13 (4.02%) CISM
11 12 (3.72%) Postgraduate
12 11 (3.41%) CHECK Team Member
12 11 (3.41%) Cyber Scheme
13 10 (3.10%) CCNA
14 9 (2.79%) PhD
15 8 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
16 7 (2.17%) CompTIA Security+
17 6 (1.86%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (13.00%) PMO
2 29 (8.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 26 (8.05%) GDPR
4 24 (7.43%) QA
5 21 (6.50%) NIST
6 18 (5.57%) PCI DSS
7 11 (3.41%) Data Quality
8 7 (2.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (1.55%) NCSC
9 5 (1.55%) SLA
10 3 (0.93%) Accessibility
10 3 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.93%) DO-254
10 3 (0.93%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.93%) IEC 61508
10 3 (0.93%) ISO 26262
10 3 (0.93%) P3O
11 2 (0.62%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 2 (0.62%) RMADS
System Software
1 15 (4.64%) Docker
2 13 (4.02%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.24%) Firmware
4 1 (0.31%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 15 (4.64%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.02%) Nmap
3 9 (2.79%) Terraform
4 5 (1.55%) Ansible
5 4 (1.24%) Grafana
5 4 (1.24%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.93%) Nessus
6 3 (0.93%) Puppet
7 2 (0.62%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.62%) SCCM
8 1 (0.31%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.31%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.31%) Istio
8 1 (0.31%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.31%) linkerd
8 1 (0.31%) Nagios
8 1 (0.31%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.31%) Podman
8 1 (0.31%) SCOM
Vendors
1 63 (19.50%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.12%) SAP
3 20 (6.19%) Oracle
4 17 (5.26%) Cisco
5 12 (3.72%) Palo Alto
6 11 (3.41%) Aruba
6 11 (3.41%) CheckPoint
7 10 (3.10%) Splunk
8 9 (2.79%) ServiceNow
9 8 (2.48%) IBM
10 7 (2.17%) PayPal
11 6 (1.86%) Atlassian
12 5 (1.55%) BeyondTrust
12 5 (1.55%) CyberArk
12 5 (1.55%) Google
12 5 (1.55%) Snow
13 4 (1.24%) ESRI
13 4 (1.24%) Informatica
13 4 (1.24%) Intergraph
13 4 (1.24%) Tenable