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 15 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 24 14
Rank change year-on-year -4 -10 +14
Contract jobs citing Degree 295 217 478
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.29% 6.91% 8.69%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.86% 18.67% 19.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 122 288
10th Percentile £238 £189 £184
25th Percentile £358 £319 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £573 £588 £606
90th Percentile £654 £685 £667
England median daily rate £500 £525 £517
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.55% -6.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 10 50
10th Percentile £20.79 £17.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £33.75 £28.23
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.69 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.64% -22.38% +22.22%
75th Percentile £80.00 £74.21 £67.02
90th Percentile £81.10 £80.80 £72.33
England median hourly rate £34.25 £42.88 £40.00
% change year-on-year -20.13% +7.20% -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 2,129 1,162 2,422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.38% 37.01% 44.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,432 732 1,387
10th Percentile £289 £263 £215
25th Percentile £413 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.23% -0.09%
75th Percentile £606 £629 £638
90th Percentile £725 £686 £700
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 65 171
10th Percentile £15.25 £18.58 £18.32
25th Percentile £19.10 £31.25 £40.35
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% -2.67% +29.56%
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.73 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.09 £80.06 £82.17
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.37 £45.21
% change year-on-year -46.91% +4.78% +0.47%

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 15 February 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 15 February 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 15 February 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 -4 138 £447 -6.39% 172
Berkshire -2 99 £425 -5.56% 70
Hampshire +20 79 £523 -0.48% 109
Buckinghamshire +12 30 £475 +31.03% 54
Surrey -19 28 £500 - 76
West Sussex -4 17 £400 -20.00% 19
Kent -3 14 £445 -1.11% 34
Oxfordshire -14 9 £494 -29.46% 52
East Sussex +1 7 £565 -9.60% 14
Isle of Wight - 4 - - 2
Home Counties - 4 £700 -
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 17 (5.76%) Confluence
2 13 (4.41%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.36%) GeoServer
3 4 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.36%) Smallworld
4 3 (1.02%) Apache
4 3 (1.02%) Apache Spark
4 3 (1.02%) MS Project Server
5 2 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.68%) CMS
5 2 (0.68%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.34%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.34%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.34%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 56 (18.98%) Microsoft Office
2 53 (17.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 36 (12.20%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (7.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.37%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.68%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.34%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 10 (3.39%) Primavera
2 5 (1.69%) SAP ERP
3 3 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.68%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.34%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.34%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.34%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.34%) SAP WM
5 1 (0.34%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.34%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 51 (17.29%) Azure
2 35 (11.86%) AWS
3 16 (5.42%) Microsoft 365
3 16 (5.42%) Power Platform
4 13 (4.41%) GitHub
4 13 (4.41%) GitHub Actions
5 12 (4.07%) GCP
6 7 (2.37%) Entra ID
7 6 (2.03%) SaaS
8 5 (1.69%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (1.36%) IaaS
10 3 (1.02%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (1.02%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.02%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (1.02%) PowerApps
11 2 (0.68%) Amazon EC2
11 2 (0.68%) Amazon ECS
11 2 (0.68%) PaaS
11 2 (0.68%) Power Automate
11 2 (0.68%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 26 (8.81%) Firewall
2 16 (5.42%) WAN
3 15 (5.08%) Wireless
4 13 (4.41%) LAN
5 10 (3.39%) BGP
5 10 (3.39%) Network Security
5 10 (3.39%) OSPF
6 9 (3.05%) IPsec
6 9 (3.05%) Structured Cabling
7 7 (2.37%) Unified Communications
8 6 (2.03%) DNS
9 5 (1.69%) TCP/IP
9 5 (1.69%) WebEx
10 3 (1.02%) HTTP
10 3 (1.02%) SSH
10 3 (1.02%) VoIP
10 3 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
11 2 (0.68%) Internet
11 2 (0.68%) Radio Access Network
11 2 (0.68%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.75%) Power BI
2 13 (4.41%) Relational Database
3 9 (3.05%) MySQL
4 8 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
4 8 (2.71%) SQL Server
5 6 (2.03%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5 6 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.03%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.69%) Apache Cassandra
6 5 (1.69%) Big Data
6 5 (1.69%) Couchbase
6 5 (1.69%) Metadata
7 4 (1.36%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.36%) GIS
7 4 (1.36%) QGIS
8 3 (1.02%) Tableau
9 2 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.68%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
10 1 (0.34%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 23 (7.80%) JIRA
2 13 (4.41%) Burp Suite
2 13 (4.41%) Git
3 11 (3.73%) Metasploit
4 8 (2.71%) GitLab
5 7 (2.37%) CircleCI
5 7 (2.37%) Gradle
5 7 (2.37%) Jenkins
6 5 (1.69%) JUnit
7 4 (1.36%) Selenium
7 4 (1.36%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.68%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.68%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.34%) Appium
9 1 (0.34%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.34%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.34%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.34%) Maven
9 1 (0.34%) SoapUI
9 1 (0.34%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 140 (47.46%) Social Skills
2 68 (23.05%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (12.88%) Finance
4 21 (7.12%) Manufacturing
4 21 (7.12%) Public Sector
5 14 (4.75%) Documentation Skills
5 14 (4.75%) Influencing Skills
6 12 (4.07%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (3.05%) Marketing
8 6 (2.03%) Law
8 6 (2.03%) Legal
8 6 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (2.03%) Retail
9 5 (1.69%) Aerospace
9 5 (1.69%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.36%) Advertising
10 4 (1.36%) Military
11 3 (1.02%) Banking
11 3 (1.02%) Billing
11 3 (1.02%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 36 (12.20%) Analyst
2 27 (9.15%) Senior
3 23 (7.80%) Project Manager
4 19 (6.44%) Developer
5 14 (4.75%) Lead
5 14 (4.75%) Technical Support
6 13 (4.41%) Architect
6 13 (4.41%) Penetration Tester
6 13 (4.41%) Project Planner
6 13 (4.41%) Tester
7 10 (3.39%) SC Cleared Project Manager
8 9 (3.05%) Network Engineer
9 8 (2.71%) IT Analyst
10 7 (2.37%) Cisco Engineer
10 7 (2.37%) Trainer
11 6 (2.03%) Business Analyst
11 6 (2.03%) Cisco Network Engineer
11 6 (2.03%) Principal Engineer
11 6 (2.03%) Security Analyst
11 6 (2.03%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (4.75%) REST
2 7 (2.37%) Kafka
2 7 (2.37%) RAML
3 5 (1.69%) Android Jetpack
3 5 (1.69%) Dagger
3 5 (1.69%) Jetpack Compose
3 5 (1.69%) OkHttp
3 5 (1.69%) RabbitMQ
3 5 (1.69%) RxJava
3 5 (1.69%) WireMock
4 4 (1.36%) React
5 3 (1.02%) HTML
5 3 (1.02%) Pandas
5 3 (1.02%) scikit-learn
5 3 (1.02%) Spring
5 3 (1.02%) Web Services
6 2 (0.68%) .NET
6 2 (0.68%) CSS
6 2 (0.68%) Node.js
6 2 (0.68%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.47%) Management Information System
2 18 (6.10%) Data Centre
3 13 (4.41%) Virtual Team
4 12 (4.07%) Security Posture
5 10 (3.39%) Analytical Mindset
5 10 (3.39%) Security Operations Centre
6 9 (3.05%) Data Protection Act
6 9 (3.05%) Driving Licence
6 9 (3.05%) Onboarding
6 9 (3.05%) Self-Motivation
7 8 (2.71%) PMI
8 7 (2.37%) Legacy Code
8 7 (2.37%) Product Ownership
9 5 (1.69%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.69%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.69%) Handset
9 5 (1.69%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.69%) Mobile App
10 4 (1.36%) Digital Media
10 4 (1.36%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 54 (18.31%) Windows
2 30 (10.17%) Linux
3 14 (4.75%) Unix
4 7 (2.37%) Android
4 7 (2.37%) Windows 10
5 6 (2.03%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.36%) Apple iOS
6 4 (1.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (1.02%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.68%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.68%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.68%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 105 (35.59%) Computer Science
2 79 (26.78%) Problem-Solving
3 64 (21.69%) Agile
4 47 (15.93%) Project Management
5 45 (15.25%) Cybersecurity
6 37 (12.54%) Stakeholder Management
7 34 (11.53%) PRINCE2
8 31 (10.51%) Information Security
9 26 (8.81%) AI
9 26 (8.81%) Continuous Improvement
10 25 (8.47%) Decision-Making
10 25 (8.47%) DevOps
10 25 (8.47%) Migration
11 23 (7.80%) Line Management
11 23 (7.80%) Project Delivery
12 21 (7.12%) Analytics
12 21 (7.12%) Business Intelligence
12 21 (7.12%) Change Management
12 21 (7.12%) ITIL
13 20 (6.78%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 39 (13.22%) Python
2 24 (8.14%) SQL
3 21 (7.12%) Java
4 15 (5.08%) JavaScript
5 10 (3.39%) PowerShell
6 9 (3.05%) Perl
7 7 (2.37%) Kotlin
8 6 (2.03%) Go
9 5 (1.69%) C#
10 4 (1.36%) Bash
10 4 (1.36%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.02%) C
12 2 (0.68%) Ada
12 2 (0.68%) Assembly Language
12 2 (0.68%) MATLAB
12 2 (0.68%) R
13 1 (0.34%) C++
13 1 (0.34%) Tcl
13 1 (0.34%) VB
13 1 (0.34%) X++
Qualifications
1 97 (32.88%) Security Cleared
2 86 (29.15%) SC Cleared
3 79 (26.78%) Computer Science Degree
4 28 (9.49%) Master's Degree
5 19 (6.44%) CISSP
6 16 (5.42%) Cisco Certification
6 16 (5.42%) PMI Certification
6 16 (5.42%) PMP
7 15 (5.08%) CREST Certified
8 14 (4.75%) CCNP
9 13 (4.41%) DV Cleared
10 12 (4.07%) Postgraduate
11 11 (3.73%) CHECK Team Member
11 11 (3.73%) Cyber Scheme
12 10 (3.39%) CCNA
12 10 (3.39%) CISM
13 8 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
13 8 (2.71%) PhD
14 6 (2.03%) CompTIA Security+
14 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (14.24%) PMO
2 25 (8.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 25 (8.47%) QA
3 23 (7.80%) GDPR
4 16 (5.42%) NIST
5 15 (5.08%) PCI DSS
6 9 (3.05%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.69%) SLA
8 4 (1.36%) NCSC
8 4 (1.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (1.02%) Accessibility
9 3 (1.02%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (1.02%) HIPAA
9 3 (1.02%) P3O
10 2 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.68%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.68%) RMADS
11 1 (0.34%) EU AI Act
11 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (4.41%) Docker
2 12 (4.07%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.03%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 14 (4.75%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.41%) Nmap
3 9 (3.05%) Terraform
4 5 (1.69%) Ansible
5 4 (1.36%) Grafana
5 4 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (1.02%) Nessus
6 3 (1.02%) Puppet
7 2 (0.68%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.68%) SCCM
8 1 (0.34%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.34%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.34%) Istio
8 1 (0.34%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.34%) linkerd
8 1 (0.34%) Nagios
8 1 (0.34%) Podman
8 1 (0.34%) SCOM
Vendors
1 60 (20.34%) Microsoft
2 24 (8.14%) SAP
3 19 (6.44%) Oracle
4 17 (5.76%) Cisco
5 12 (4.07%) Palo Alto
6 11 (3.73%) Aruba
6 11 (3.73%) CheckPoint
7 9 (3.05%) Splunk
8 8 (2.71%) ServiceNow
9 7 (2.37%) PayPal
10 6 (2.03%) Atlassian
11 5 (1.69%) BeyondTrust
11 5 (1.69%) CyberArk
11 5 (1.69%) EMC
11 5 (1.69%) Google
11 5 (1.69%) Snow
12 4 (1.36%) Cellebrite
12 4 (1.36%) ESRI
12 4 (1.36%) Informatica
12 4 (1.36%) Tenable