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

6 months to
11 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 29 27 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -14 +8
Contract jobs citing Degree 282 280 481
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.65% 7.07% 9.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 15.68% 18.10% 21.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 179 315
10th Percentile £209 £181 £182
25th Percentile £358 £346 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -
75th Percentile £569 £588 £619
90th Percentile £675 £677 £688
England median daily rate £518 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -1.42% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 19 41
10th Percentile £20.79 £21.66 £31.25
25th Percentile £21.75 £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 £36.23 £43.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -15.74% -14.00% +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 1,798 1,547 2,235
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 42.39% 39.06% 42.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,183 1,023 1,322
10th Percentile £260 £263 £213
25th Percentile £413 £407 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +1.42%
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 188 86 144
10th Percentile £18.76 £20.68 £27.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £28.06 £49.40
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% -5.43% +33.33%
75th Percentile £61.13 £64.73 £70.02
90th Percentile £90.09 £75.00 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £52.50
% change year-on-year -49.70% -4.76% +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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +3 139 £450 -10.00% 216
Berkshire +1 100 £450 -10.00% 100
Hampshire +16 60 £475 -8.12% 128
Surrey -15 34 £500 +25.00% 72
Buckinghamshire +11 24 £343 -23.89% 56
West Sussex -5 17 £500 - 20
Oxfordshire -10 15 £488 +51.62% 64
Kent +2 6 £445 -6.81% 49
East Sussex 0 6 £565 -9.60% 21
Isle of Wight - 6 - - 2
Home Counties - 3 £625 -
Sussex -5 1 - - 20
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 14 (4.96%) Confluence
2 12 (4.26%) SharePoint
3 6 (2.13%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.42%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.42%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.42%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.42%) Smallworld
5 3 (1.06%) Apache
6 2 (0.71%) nginx
7 1 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.35%) CMS
7 1 (0.35%) Gunicorn
7 1 (0.35%) IIS
7 1 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.35%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.35%) Tomcat
Applications
1 47 (16.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (14.54%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (10.64%) Microsoft Project
4 14 (4.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.48%) Chatbot
6 5 (1.77%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.35%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.35%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 8 (2.84%) Primavera
2 5 (1.77%) SAP ERP
3 4 (1.42%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.71%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.35%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.35%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.35%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.35%) SAP WM
5 1 (0.35%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.35%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 38 (13.48%) Azure
2 33 (11.70%) AWS
3 22 (7.80%) Microsoft 365
3 22 (7.80%) Power Platform
4 17 (6.03%) GCP
5 9 (3.19%) Entra ID
6 8 (2.84%) GitHub
7 6 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (2.13%) SaaS
8 5 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.42%) Cloud Computing
9 4 (1.42%) dbt
9 4 (1.42%) Lucidchart
10 3 (1.06%) Amazon ECS
10 3 (1.06%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (1.06%) IaaS
10 3 (1.06%) OCI
11 2 (0.71%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (0.71%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 17 (6.03%) Firewall
2 13 (4.61%) Wireless
3 10 (3.55%) Network Security
4 7 (2.48%) DNS
5 6 (2.13%) Unified Communications
6 5 (1.77%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.77%) VPN
6 5 (1.77%) WAN
7 4 (1.42%) BGP
7 4 (1.42%) DHCP
7 4 (1.42%) IPsec
7 4 (1.42%) LAN
7 4 (1.42%) OSPF
7 4 (1.42%) Structured Cabling
7 4 (1.42%) VoIP
8 3 (1.06%) HTTP
8 3 (1.06%) WebEx
8 3 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.71%) 5G
9 2 (0.71%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (7.09%) Power BI
2 15 (5.32%) Relational Database
3 12 (4.26%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (3.19%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (3.19%) Tableau
5 7 (2.48%) MySQL
6 6 (2.13%) Big Data
7 5 (1.77%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (1.77%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7 5 (1.77%) Couchbase
7 5 (1.77%) Metadata
7 5 (1.77%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.77%) SQL Server
8 4 (1.42%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.42%) GIS
8 4 (1.42%) Hadoop
8 4 (1.42%) QGIS
9 3 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.71%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.71%) Redis
Development Applications
1 28 (9.93%) JIRA
2 20 (7.09%) Git
3 9 (3.19%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.48%) Burp Suite
4 7 (2.48%) GitLab
5 5 (1.77%) Metasploit
6 4 (1.42%) Subversion
7 3 (1.06%) Rational DOORS
7 3 (1.06%) Selenium
8 2 (0.71%) SoapUI
8 2 (0.71%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.35%) Appium
9 1 (0.35%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.35%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.35%) Katalon Studio
9 1 (0.35%) Postman
9 1 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.35%) WebDriver
General
1 151 (53.55%) Social Skills
2 92 (32.62%) Analytical Skills
3 48 (17.02%) Finance
4 26 (9.22%) Manufacturing
5 20 (7.09%) Organisational Skills
6 11 (3.90%) Influencing Skills
6 11 (3.90%) Legal
6 11 (3.90%) Public Sector
6 11 (3.90%) Telecoms
7 7 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.48%) Law
7 7 (2.48%) Marketing
8 6 (2.13%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.77%) Military
10 4 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.06%) Advertising
11 3 (1.06%) Aviation
11 3 (1.06%) Banking
11 3 (1.06%) Electronics
12 2 (0.71%) Retail
Job Titles
1 39 (13.83%) Analyst
2 24 (8.51%) Senior
3 22 (7.80%) Developer
4 18 (6.38%) Project Manager
5 14 (4.96%) Lead
6 13 (4.61%) Architect
7 9 (3.19%) IT Analyst
8 8 (2.84%) Business Analyst
8 8 (2.84%) IT Support
8 8 (2.84%) Principal Engineer
8 8 (2.84%) Tester
9 7 (2.48%) Consultant
9 7 (2.48%) Data Scientist
9 7 (2.48%) Network Engineer
9 7 (2.48%) Penetration Tester
9 7 (2.48%) Project Planner
9 7 (2.48%) SC Cleared Project Manager
9 7 (2.48%) Technical Support
9 7 (2.48%) Trainer
10 6 (2.13%) IT Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (3.55%) REST
2 8 (2.84%) Kafka
2 8 (2.84%) RabbitMQ
3 7 (2.48%) HTML
4 5 (1.77%) RESTful
5 4 (1.42%) CSS
5 4 (1.42%) Pandas
5 4 (1.42%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.06%) GraphQL
6 3 (1.06%) gRPC
6 3 (1.06%) Material Design
6 3 (1.06%) NumPy
6 3 (1.06%) SOAP
6 3 (1.06%) Web Services
6 3 (1.06%) XML
7 2 (0.71%) JSON
7 2 (0.71%) Node.js
7 2 (0.71%) OAuth
7 2 (0.71%) OAuth2
8 1 (0.35%) Matplotlib
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.93%) Management Information System
2 14 (4.96%) Analytical Mindset
3 13 (4.61%) Driving Licence
4 11 (3.90%) Data Centre
5 9 (3.19%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (2.48%) Algorithms
6 7 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (2.48%) Mobile App
6 7 (2.48%) Security Posture
6 7 (2.48%) Virtual Team
7 6 (2.13%) Cloud Native
7 6 (2.13%) Security Operations Centre
8 5 (1.77%) Handset
8 5 (1.77%) Life Science
8 5 (1.77%) PMI
8 5 (1.77%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.42%) Digital Media
9 4 (1.42%) Renewable Energy
10 3 (1.06%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.06%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 40 (14.18%) Windows
2 20 (7.09%) Linux
3 10 (3.55%) Mac OS
4 8 (2.84%) Unix
5 7 (2.48%) Windows 10
6 5 (1.77%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.42%) Android
8 2 (0.71%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.35%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.35%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (34.04%) Computer Science
2 91 (32.27%) Problem-Solving
3 71 (25.18%) Agile
4 45 (15.96%) Stakeholder Management
5 41 (14.54%) Project Management
6 40 (14.18%) ITIL
7 34 (12.06%) Migration
8 32 (11.35%) Continuous Improvement
8 32 (11.35%) Cybersecurity
8 32 (11.35%) PRINCE2
9 29 (10.28%) Change Management
10 28 (9.93%) Decision-Making
11 27 (9.57%) Line Management
12 25 (8.87%) Business Intelligence
12 25 (8.87%) DevOps
13 22 (7.80%) Analytics
14 21 (7.45%) AI
15 19 (6.74%) Data Management
15 19 (6.74%) Service Management
16 18 (6.38%) Information Security
Programming Languages
1 41 (14.54%) Python
2 28 (9.93%) SQL
3 20 (7.09%) Java
4 13 (4.61%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.84%) Go
6 7 (2.48%) Perl
7 6 (2.13%) PowerShell
8 5 (1.77%) Bash
9 4 (1.42%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.06%) C
10 3 (1.06%) C#
10 3 (1.06%) Kotlin
10 3 (1.06%) Objective-C
10 3 (1.06%) Swift
11 2 (0.71%) Ada
11 2 (0.71%) Assembly Language
11 2 (0.71%) MATLAB
11 2 (0.71%) R
12 1 (0.35%) ABAP
12 1 (0.35%) C++
Qualifications
1 73 (25.89%) Computer Science Degree
2 68 (24.11%) Security Cleared
3 60 (21.28%) SC Cleared
4 38 (13.48%) Master's Degree
5 21 (7.45%) PMP
6 19 (6.74%) PMI Certification
7 18 (6.38%) CISSP
8 12 (4.26%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (3.90%) Cisco Certification
10 10 (3.55%) A+ Certification
10 10 (3.55%) CISM
10 10 (3.55%) PhD
11 9 (3.19%) CREST Certified
11 9 (3.19%) DV Cleared
12 7 (2.48%) ACCA
12 7 (2.48%) CCNP
12 7 (2.48%) CIMA
13 6 (2.13%) CCNA
13 6 (2.13%) GIAC
13 6 (2.13%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (9.93%) PMO
2 26 (9.22%) GDPR
3 20 (7.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 18 (6.38%) QA
5 15 (5.32%) Data Quality
6 13 (4.61%) NIST
7 9 (3.19%) PCI DSS
8 6 (2.13%) SLA
9 4 (1.42%) HIPAA
9 4 (1.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (1.06%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (1.06%) GRC
10 3 (1.06%) NCSC
10 3 (1.06%) P3O
11 2 (0.71%) Accessibility
11 2 (0.71%) ISO 9001
11 2 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 19770
11 2 (0.71%) RMADS
12 1 (0.35%) GxP
12 1 (0.35%) JSP 440
System Software
1 15 (5.32%) Active Directory
2 14 (4.96%) Docker
3 6 (2.13%) Firmware
4 5 (1.77%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.35%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.35%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 8 (2.84%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.48%) Nmap
3 5 (1.77%) SCCM
3 5 (1.77%) Terraform
4 4 (1.42%) Ansible
4 4 (1.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (1.06%) Puppet
6 2 (0.71%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.71%) Grafana
6 2 (0.71%) vCenter Server
7 1 (0.35%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
7 1 (0.35%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.35%) Nagios
7 1 (0.35%) Nessus
7 1 (0.35%) Podman
7 1 (0.35%) SCOM
7 1 (0.35%) vRealize
7 1 (0.35%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 67 (23.76%) Microsoft
2 24 (8.51%) SAP
3 15 (5.32%) ServiceNow
4 13 (4.61%) Cisco
4 13 (4.61%) Oracle
5 8 (2.84%) CheckPoint
5 8 (2.84%) Palo Alto
6 7 (2.48%) EMC
6 7 (2.48%) PayPal
7 6 (2.13%) Atlassian
7 6 (2.13%) Google
7 6 (2.13%) Splunk
7 6 (2.13%) VMware
8 4 (1.42%) Apple
8 4 (1.42%) Aruba
8 4 (1.42%) Cellebrite
8 4 (1.42%) ESRI
8 4 (1.42%) Informatica
8 4 (1.42%) Intergraph
9 3 (1.06%) Citrix