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 13 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 26 14
Rank change year-on-year +3 -12 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 475 235 425
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 7.09% 6.69% 8.62%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.78% 16.53% 19.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 244 136 235
10th Percentile £192 £208 £205
25th Percentile £313 £357 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £713 £650 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -4.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 33 77
10th Percentile £27.36 £22.23 £18.35
25th Percentile £38.25 £32.31 £41.00
Median hourly rate £79.91 £60.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +33.18% +4.62% -4.42%
75th Percentile £85.50 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.30 £74.25
England median hourly rate £47.00 £42.50 £57.35
% change year-on-year +10.59% -25.89% +15.69%

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 3,011 1,422 2,211
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 44.92% 40.50% 44.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,034 920 1,376
10th Percentile £332 £244 £350
25th Percentile £462 £414 £429
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £600 £638
90th Percentile £725 £675 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 333 117 186
10th Percentile £18.50 - £18.08
25th Percentile £38.25 £18.87 £41.06
Median hourly rate £68.22 £27.76 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +145.73% -51.60% -4.42%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £70.39
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.00 £87.46
England median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 August 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 +9 265 £525 +16.67% 521
Berkshire +15 162 £525 +10.53% 233
Hampshire -2 108 £550 +10.00% 232
Surrey +3 57 £310 +19.81% 148
Oxfordshire -2 55 £405 -10.00% 158
Buckinghamshire -5 48 £570 +32.17% 135
Kent +8 11 £201 -52.63% 61
West Sussex -30 10 £338 +16.78% 42
Sussex -1 4 £275 - 8
East Sussex +1 2 £461 - 41
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 19
Home Counties +1 1 - -
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 24 (5.05%) SharePoint
2 15 (3.16%) Confluence
3 7 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (0.84%) FactoryTalk
5 2 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.42%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.21%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.21%) CMS
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Service Bus
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.21%) WebLogic
Applications
1 63 (13.26%) Microsoft Office
2 50 (10.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 32 (6.74%) Microsoft Project
4 24 (5.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (1.05%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.21%) CATIA
6 1 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.21%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (2.32%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (1.47%) Primavera
2 7 (1.47%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.63%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.42%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 2 (0.42%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.21%) ENOVIA
Cloud Services
1 105 (22.11%) Azure
2 49 (10.32%) AWS
3 44 (9.26%) Entra ID
4 40 (8.42%) Microsoft 365
5 24 (5.05%) Power Platform
6 22 (4.63%) SaaS
7 20 (4.21%) GCP
8 19 (4.00%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (2.53%) OneDrive
10 10 (2.11%) Serverless
11 7 (1.47%) IaaS
11 7 (1.47%) Power Automate
12 6 (1.26%) PowerApps
13 5 (1.05%) Azure Functions
13 5 (1.05%) Azure Logic Apps
13 5 (1.05%) Dynamics 365
13 5 (1.05%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
14 4 (0.84%) PaaS
14 4 (0.84%) Smartsheet
15 3 (0.63%) Azure ExpressRoute
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.68%) TCP/IP
2 23 (4.84%) DNS
3 21 (4.42%) Firewall
4 18 (3.79%) DHCP
4 18 (3.79%) Network Security
5 9 (1.89%) LAN
5 9 (1.89%) VPN
6 8 (1.68%) WAN
7 7 (1.47%) VLAN
8 6 (1.26%) HTTP
8 6 (1.26%) SSH
9 5 (1.05%) BGP
9 5 (1.05%) OSPF
10 4 (0.84%) Cisco Nexus
10 4 (0.84%) MQTT
10 4 (0.84%) RSVP
10 4 (0.84%) SD-WAN
11 3 (0.63%) Cisco Firepower
11 3 (0.63%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 3 (0.63%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (4.63%) Power BI
2 16 (3.37%) SQL Server
3 11 (2.32%) Relational Database
4 7 (1.47%) MySQL
4 7 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.26%) Metadata
6 5 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (1.05%) Tableau
7 4 (0.84%) Elasticsearch
8 3 (0.63%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.42%) Big Data
9 2 (0.42%) Hadoop
10 1 (0.21%) BigQuery
10 1 (0.21%) Data Mining
10 1 (0.21%) GIS
10 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 10g
10 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 11g
10 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 12c
10 1 (0.21%) SQLite
10 1 (0.21%) Text Mining
Development Applications
1 32 (6.74%) Rational DOORS
2 28 (5.89%) JIRA
3 12 (2.53%) Git
4 8 (1.68%) GitLab
5 4 (0.84%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.63%) Android Studio
6 3 (0.63%) Browser DevTools
6 3 (0.63%) Eclipse
6 3 (0.63%) Jenkins
6 3 (0.63%) Xcode
7 2 (0.42%) Balsamiq
7 2 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.21%) JUnit
8 1 (0.21%) MSI
8 1 (0.21%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.21%) Selenium
8 1 (0.21%) TestNG
8 1 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 205 (43.16%) Social Skills
2 104 (21.89%) Analytical Skills
3 76 (16.00%) Aerospace
4 67 (14.11%) Finance
5 57 (12.00%) Public Sector
6 26 (5.47%) Manufacturing
7 24 (5.05%) Documentation Skills
8 23 (4.84%) Organisational Skills
9 18 (3.79%) Marketing
10 16 (3.37%) Military
11 14 (2.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (2.95%) Influencing Skills
11 14 (2.95%) Law
12 13 (2.74%) Presentation Skills
13 11 (2.32%) Telecoms
14 9 (1.89%) French Language
14 9 (1.89%) Legal
14 9 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
15 8 (1.68%) Games
16 7 (1.47%) Retail
Job Titles
1 65 (13.68%) Analyst
2 55 (11.58%) Senior
3 42 (8.84%) Lead
4 37 (7.79%) Product Manager
5 35 (7.37%) Delivery Manager
6 33 (6.95%) Product Delivery Manager
7 27 (5.68%) IT Manager
8 25 (5.26%) Systems Manager
9 24 (5.05%) Senior Manager
10 23 (4.84%) Architect
11 22 (4.63%) Project Manager
11 22 (4.63%) Systems Delivery Manager
12 19 (4.00%) IT Support
13 17 (3.58%) Business Analyst
14 16 (3.37%) Senior IT Manager
15 15 (3.16%) Category Manager
15 15 (3.16%) Data Analyst
15 15 (3.16%) IT Services Manager
15 15 (3.16%) Senior Category Manager
15 15 (3.16%) Senior Service Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (4.63%) OAuth
2 21 (4.42%) OpenID
3 19 (4.00%) LDAP
3 19 (4.00%) SAML
4 17 (3.58%) SailPoint
5 15 (3.16%) OAuth2
5 15 (3.16%) Oracle Fusion
6 13 (2.74%) Web Services
7 10 (2.11%) .NET
8 9 (1.89%) CSS
8 9 (1.89%) React
8 9 (1.89%) RESTful
9 7 (1.47%) Middleware
10 6 (1.26%) HTML
11 5 (1.05%) ADO
11 5 (1.05%) AngularJS
11 5 (1.05%) GraphQL
11 5 (1.05%) gRPC
11 5 (1.05%) Kafka
11 5 (1.05%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 59 (12.42%) Product Ownership
2 56 (11.79%) Management Information System
3 30 (6.32%) Data Structures
3 30 (6.32%) Onboarding
4 22 (4.63%) Data Centre
5 14 (2.95%) Operational Technology
5 14 (2.95%) Self-Motivation
6 13 (2.74%) Hybrid Cloud
6 13 (2.74%) SCADA
7 12 (2.53%) Virtual Team
8 11 (2.32%) Cloud Native
8 11 (2.32%) Life Science
9 9 (1.89%) PMI
9 9 (1.89%) Security Posture
10 8 (1.68%) Animation
10 8 (1.68%) Graphic Design
10 8 (1.68%) Interactive Media
10 8 (1.68%) Robotics
11 7 (1.47%) CCTV
11 7 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 64 (13.47%) Windows
2 45 (9.47%) Linux
3 28 (5.89%) Unix
4 18 (3.79%) Windows Server
5 13 (2.74%) Apple iOS
6 11 (2.32%) Mac OS
7 8 (1.68%) Windows 10
8 7 (1.47%) Android
9 2 (0.42%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 1 (0.21%) Solaris
10 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 185 (38.95%) Computer Science
2 141 (29.68%) Agile
3 124 (26.11%) Continuous Improvement
4 108 (22.74%) Problem-Solving
5 99 (20.84%) Stakeholder Management
6 87 (18.32%) ITIL
7 79 (16.63%) Cybersecurity
8 75 (15.79%) ITSM
9 68 (14.32%) PRINCE2
10 67 (14.11%) Project Management
11 64 (13.47%) Decision-Making
12 63 (13.26%) Change Control
13 57 (12.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 55 (11.58%) AI
15 53 (11.16%) Information Security
16 51 (10.74%) Systems Engineering
17 47 (9.89%) Roadmaps
18 45 (9.47%) Service Management
19 44 (9.26%) Scaled Agile Framework
20 43 (9.05%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 65 (13.68%) Python
2 44 (9.26%) PowerShell
3 26 (5.47%) SQL
4 16 (3.37%) JavaScript
5 15 (3.16%) Java
6 8 (1.68%) Shell Script
7 7 (1.47%) Bash
7 7 (1.47%) C#
8 5 (1.05%) C
8 5 (1.05%) Perl
9 4 (0.84%) Bicep
9 4 (0.84%) Rust
10 3 (0.63%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.63%) C++
10 3 (0.63%) Korn
10 3 (0.63%) Lua
10 3 (0.63%) X++
11 2 (0.42%) Ada
11 2 (0.42%) R
12 1 (0.21%) Go
Qualifications
1 200 (42.11%) Security Cleared
2 116 (24.42%) SC Cleared
3 58 (12.21%) Computer Science Degree
4 30 (6.32%) PMI Certification
5 29 (6.11%) Microsoft Certification
6 28 (5.89%) DV Cleared
7 27 (5.68%) CISSP
8 26 (5.47%) PMP
9 21 (4.42%) Master's Degree
10 20 (4.21%) BPSS Clearance
11 16 (3.37%) Azure Certification
11 16 (3.37%) Cisco Certification
12 15 (3.16%) CISM
13 12 (2.53%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 10 (2.11%) ACCA
14 10 (2.11%) CIMA
15 9 (1.89%) CESG Certified Professional
16 8 (1.68%) AWS Certification
16 8 (1.68%) CCNP
17 7 (1.47%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (11.37%) NIST
2 51 (10.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (5.26%) Data Quality
4 16 (3.37%) NCSC
4 16 (3.37%) PMO
5 13 (2.74%) QA
6 12 (2.53%) GDPR
7 8 (1.68%) NIST 800
7 8 (1.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 7 (1.47%) SLA
9 6 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 6 (1.26%) PCI DSS
10 5 (1.05%) Accessibility
10 5 (1.05%) Cyber Essentials
10 5 (1.05%) Government Security Classifications
10 5 (1.05%) GxP
10 5 (1.05%) ISO 31000
11 4 (0.84%) DO-254
11 4 (0.84%) GRC
11 4 (0.84%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 58 (12.21%) Active Directory
2 17 (3.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (3.37%) Docker
4 6 (1.26%) VMware NSX
5 5 (1.05%) Firmware
6 4 (0.84%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.63%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.63%) OpenAM
7 3 (0.63%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.21%) Citrix Hypervisor
8 1 (0.21%) UAG
8 1 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 17 (3.58%) Microsoft Intune
2 14 (2.95%) Kubernetes
3 11 (2.32%) Terraform
4 10 (2.11%) Ansible
4 10 (2.11%) Jamf Pro
5 8 (1.68%) Single Sign-On
6 6 (1.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 5 (1.05%) Grafana
7 5 (1.05%) Prometheus
8 4 (0.84%) Podman
8 4 (0.84%) Puppet
8 4 (0.84%) SCCM
9 3 (0.63%) Oracle RMAN
10 2 (0.42%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 2 (0.42%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.21%) Argo
11 1 (0.21%) CASB
11 1 (0.21%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.21%) Dell DRAC
11 1 (0.21%) Istio
Vendors
1 130 (27.37%) Microsoft
2 41 (8.63%) Oracle
3 37 (7.79%) ServiceNow
4 31 (6.53%) SAP
5 29 (6.11%) IBM
6 23 (4.84%) VMware
7 15 (3.16%) Ariba
8 14 (2.95%) BeyondTrust
8 14 (2.95%) CyberArk
8 14 (2.95%) Salesforce
9 10 (2.11%) Google
10 8 (1.68%) Cisco
11 5 (1.05%) Dell
11 5 (1.05%) Palo Alto
11 5 (1.05%) Workday
12 4 (0.84%) F5
12 4 (0.84%) NVIDIA
12 4 (0.84%) Red Hat
12 4 (0.84%) Rockwell
12 4 (0.84%) Splunk