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 26 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 21 14
Rank change year-on-year -8 -7 +14
Contract jobs citing Degree 368 240 495
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.36% 8.02% 8.90%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.93% 19.64% 19.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 133 250
10th Percentile £204 £235 £205
25th Percentile £356 £400 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +4.17%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £691 £650 £638
England median daily rate £500 £523 £512
% change year-on-year -4.31% +1.98% -5.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 27 88
10th Percentile £40.13 £17.50 £17.80
25th Percentile £80.50 £38.28 £27.31
Median hourly rate £84.00 £60.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% +4.62% +27.44%
75th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile - £76.34 £65.60
England median hourly rate £55.00 £54.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +1.85% +35.00% -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 2,641 1,222 2,500
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.62% 40.81% 44.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,774 773 1,414
10th Percentile £309 £301 £311
25th Percentile £425 £438 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £688 £735
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 266 84 215
10th Percentile £16.35 £20.01 £17.54
25th Percentile £22.79 £26.62 £27.12
Median hourly rate £55.00 £57.13 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -3.72% -0.39% +0.82%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.31 £66.87
90th Percentile £88.00 £78.01 £85.17
England median hourly rate £47.50 £47.65 £40.00
% change year-on-year -0.32% +19.13% -23.81%

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 26 April 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 26 April 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 26 April 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 -3 190 £481 +0.79% 173
Berkshire -3 130 £400 -15.79% 72
Hampshire -5 89 £525 - 105
Buckinghamshire -7 38 £593 +12.42% 42
Surrey -20 32 £425 -5.56% 63
Oxfordshire -13 22 £488 +2.63% 63
Kent +1 15 £445 +27.14% 28
West Sussex -14 13 £285 -43.00% 17
Home Counties - 5 £700 -
Sussex -2 4 £275 -41.02% 7
East Sussex -2 4 £600 -14.29% 11
Middlesex -3 1 £198 -73.67% 8
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 11 (2.99%) SharePoint
2 8 (2.17%) Confluence
3 6 (1.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.82%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.82%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.82%) CMS
4 3 (0.82%) MS Project Server
5 1 (0.27%) Apache
5 1 (0.27%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.27%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 58 (15.76%) Microsoft Office
2 52 (14.13%) Microsoft Excel
3 33 (8.97%) Microsoft Project
4 24 (6.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.82%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 12 (3.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.72%) Primavera
3 3 (0.82%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.54%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.27%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.27%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 59 (16.03%) Azure
2 46 (12.50%) AWS
3 18 (4.89%) Power Platform
4 16 (4.35%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (4.08%) Entra ID
6 11 (2.99%) GCP
7 9 (2.45%) SaaS
8 8 (2.17%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (2.17%) GitHub
8 8 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (1.36%) IaaS
10 4 (1.09%) Power Automate
11 3 (0.82%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.82%) Amazon S3
11 3 (0.82%) AWS CloudFormation
11 3 (0.82%) Lucidchart
12 2 (0.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 2 (0.54%) Amazon EC2
12 2 (0.54%) PaaS
12 2 (0.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 31 (8.42%) Firewall
2 20 (5.43%) WAN
3 17 (4.62%) LAN
4 14 (3.80%) Network Security
5 13 (3.53%) Wireless
6 11 (2.99%) BGP
6 11 (2.99%) OSPF
7 9 (2.45%) DNS
7 9 (2.45%) IPsec
7 9 (2.45%) Structured Cabling
8 8 (2.17%) TCP/IP
9 6 (1.63%) HTTP
10 4 (1.09%) RSVP
10 4 (1.09%) SSH
11 3 (0.82%) DHCP
11 3 (0.82%) Ethernet
11 3 (0.82%) NAS
11 3 (0.82%) SAN
11 3 (0.82%) VXLAN
11 3 (0.82%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (4.35%) Power BI
2 15 (4.08%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.53%) Relational Database
4 12 (3.26%) MySQL
5 6 (1.63%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5 6 (1.63%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (0.82%) Big Data
6 3 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.82%) Oracle Database
6 3 (0.82%) Tableau
7 2 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.54%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.54%) Metadata
8 1 (0.27%) Data Mining
8 1 (0.27%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.27%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.27%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 28 (7.61%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (5.16%) JIRA
3 11 (2.99%) Burp Suite
3 11 (2.99%) Metasploit
4 8 (2.17%) Git
5 7 (1.90%) CircleCI
5 7 (1.90%) Gradle
6 6 (1.63%) GitLab
6 6 (1.63%) JUnit
7 5 (1.36%) Jenkins
8 4 (1.09%) Selenium
9 2 (0.54%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.54%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.54%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.54%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.27%) Eclipse
10 1 (0.27%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.27%) TestNG
10 1 (0.27%) Xcode
General
1 124 (33.70%) Social Skills
2 61 (16.58%) Analytical Skills
3 57 (15.49%) Aerospace
4 52 (14.13%) Finance
5 34 (9.24%) Public Sector
6 23 (6.25%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (4.89%) Influencing Skills
8 17 (4.62%) Organisational Skills
9 16 (4.35%) Manufacturing
10 12 (3.26%) Marketing
11 10 (2.72%) Law
12 9 (2.45%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (1.90%) Legal
13 7 (1.90%) Telecoms
14 5 (1.36%) Retail
15 4 (1.09%) Electronics
15 4 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 4 (1.09%) Military
16 3 (0.82%) Aviation
16 3 (0.82%) Billing
Job Titles
1 42 (11.41%) Analyst
2 33 (8.97%) Product Manager
3 32 (8.70%) Senior
4 31 (8.42%) Delivery Manager
5 28 (7.61%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (7.34%) Lead
7 25 (6.79%) Project Manager
8 22 (5.98%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 22 (5.98%) Systems Manager
9 18 (4.89%) Technical Support
10 17 (4.62%) Architect
11 12 (3.26%) Consultant
12 11 (2.99%) IT Manager
12 11 (2.99%) Penetration Tester
12 11 (2.99%) SC Cleared Project Manager
12 11 (2.99%) Senior Analyst
12 11 (2.99%) Tester
13 10 (2.72%) Developer
13 10 (2.72%) Network Engineer
13 10 (2.72%) Project Planner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (2.72%) REST
2 7 (1.90%) OAuth
2 7 (1.90%) OAuth2
2 7 (1.90%) RAML
2 7 (1.90%) Web Services
3 6 (1.63%) Android Jetpack
3 6 (1.63%) LDAP
3 6 (1.63%) OpenID
3 6 (1.63%) React
3 6 (1.63%) SailPoint
3 6 (1.63%) SAML
4 5 (1.36%) ADO
4 5 (1.36%) Dagger
4 5 (1.36%) Jetpack Compose
4 5 (1.36%) OkHttp
4 5 (1.36%) RxJava
4 5 (1.36%) WireMock
5 3 (0.82%) AngularJS
5 3 (0.82%) GraphQL
5 3 (0.82%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 41 (11.14%) Product Ownership
2 38 (10.33%) Management Information System
3 24 (6.52%) Data Structures
4 23 (6.25%) Data Centre
5 19 (5.16%) Virtual Team
6 18 (4.89%) Onboarding
7 11 (2.99%) Analytical Mindset
7 11 (2.99%) PMI
7 11 (2.99%) Security Posture
8 10 (2.72%) Data Protection Act
9 9 (2.45%) Security Operations Centre
10 7 (1.90%) Cloud Native
10 7 (1.90%) Legacy Code
10 7 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
11 6 (1.63%) BYOD
12 5 (1.36%) Cyberattack
12 5 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
12 5 (1.36%) Mobile App
12 5 (1.36%) Robotics
13 4 (1.09%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 63 (17.12%) Windows
2 39 (10.60%) Linux
3 24 (6.52%) Unix
4 12 (3.26%) Windows Server
5 8 (2.17%) Android
6 6 (1.63%) Windows 10
7 4 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.82%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.54%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.54%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.54%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.54%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.27%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (43.75%) Computer Science
2 94 (25.54%) Agile
3 74 (20.11%) Continuous Improvement
4 66 (17.93%) Cybersecurity
4 66 (17.93%) Problem-Solving
5 58 (15.76%) PRINCE2
6 53 (14.40%) Project Management
7 47 (12.77%) Information Security
8 46 (12.50%) Change Control
9 44 (11.96%) Systems Engineering
10 43 (11.68%) Stakeholder Management
11 42 (11.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 36 (9.78%) ITIL
12 36 (9.78%) Programme Management
13 32 (8.70%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 30 (8.15%) AI
14 30 (8.15%) ITSM
15 28 (7.61%) Configuration Management
16 27 (7.34%) Decision-Making
16 27 (7.34%) Requirements Management
Programming Languages
1 43 (11.68%) Python
2 23 (6.25%) Java
3 22 (5.98%) SQL
4 21 (5.71%) PowerShell
5 17 (4.62%) JavaScript
6 11 (2.99%) Perl
7 8 (2.17%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.63%) Bash
9 4 (1.09%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.82%) C
10 3 (0.82%) C#
10 3 (0.82%) C++
10 3 (0.82%) Korn
11 2 (0.54%) Ada
11 2 (0.54%) Go
11 2 (0.54%) R
12 1 (0.27%) Bicep
12 1 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.27%) Swift
12 1 (0.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 171 (46.47%) Security Cleared
2 113 (30.71%) SC Cleared
3 68 (18.48%) Computer Science Degree
4 19 (5.16%) PMI Certification
4 19 (5.16%) PMP
5 18 (4.89%) DV Cleared
6 17 (4.62%) Cisco Certification
6 17 (4.62%) Master's Degree
7 16 (4.35%) CCNP
7 16 (4.35%) CISSP
8 13 (3.53%) CREST Certified
9 11 (2.99%) CHECK Team Member
9 11 (2.99%) CompTIA Security+
9 11 (2.99%) Cyber Scheme
9 11 (2.99%) Postgraduate
10 10 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (2.72%) CCNA
11 9 (2.45%) ACCA
11 9 (2.45%) CIMA
12 8 (2.17%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (11.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 36 (9.78%) NIST
3 35 (9.51%) PMO
4 25 (6.79%) QA
5 22 (5.98%) GDPR
6 18 (4.89%) PCI DSS
7 13 (3.53%) NCSC
8 9 (2.45%) Data Quality
9 8 (2.17%) NIST 800
10 7 (1.90%) SLA
11 6 (1.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 5 (1.36%) Accessibility
12 5 (1.36%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 3 (0.82%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.82%) DO-254
13 3 (0.82%) IEC 61508
13 3 (0.82%) ISO 26262
13 3 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 2 (0.54%) RMADS
System Software
1 30 (8.15%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.72%) Docker
3 6 (1.63%) Firmware
4 5 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.09%) Embedded Firmware
6 2 (0.54%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.54%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.27%) Citrix Hypervisor
7 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.27%) UAG
7 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 11 (2.99%) Kubernetes
1 11 (2.99%) Nmap
2 9 (2.45%) Terraform
3 5 (1.36%) Ansible
3 5 (1.36%) Grafana
4 3 (0.82%) Prometheus
4 3 (0.82%) Puppet
4 3 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.54%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.54%) Nessus
5 2 (0.54%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 2 (0.54%) Oracle RMAN
5 2 (0.54%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.27%) Dell DRAC
6 1 (0.27%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.27%) HP ALM
6 1 (0.27%) Kubeflow
6 1 (0.27%) linkerd
6 1 (0.27%) Podman
Vendors
1 70 (19.02%) Microsoft
2 29 (7.88%) SAP
3 25 (6.79%) IBM
4 24 (6.52%) Oracle
5 18 (4.89%) Cisco
6 13 (3.53%) Palo Alto
7 12 (3.26%) CheckPoint
8 11 (2.99%) Aruba
9 10 (2.72%) BeyondTrust
9 10 (2.72%) CyberArk
10 9 (2.45%) ServiceNow
10 9 (2.45%) Splunk
11 7 (1.90%) VMware
12 4 (1.09%) Red Hat
12 4 (1.09%) Tenable
13 3 (0.82%) Adobe
13 3 (0.82%) Cadence
13 3 (0.82%) Dell
13 3 (0.82%) Salesforce
13 3 (0.82%) Siemens