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 14 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 27 13
Rank change year-on-year -2 -14 +11
Contract jobs citing Degree 277 226 463
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.31% 6.74% 9.29%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.28% 17.71% 20.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 127 306
10th Percentile £204 £180 £166
25th Percentile £322 £323 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £569 £594 £608
90th Percentile £654 £686 £688
England median daily rate £508 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.33% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 12 45
10th Percentile £20.79 £20.07 £27.50
25th Percentile £21.44 £30.19 £45.21
Median hourly rate £29.61 £41.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.08% -30.42% +33.33%
75th Percentile £81.00 £48.25 £70.07
90th Percentile £89.63 £76.70 £77.50
England median hourly rate £37.50 £42.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year -11.76% -7.97% +2.62%

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 1,940 1,276 2,218
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 44.21% 38.03% 44.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,301 829 1,321
10th Percentile £275 £259 £213
25th Percentile £413 £408 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +0.47%
75th Percentile £600 £631 £638
90th Percentile £725 £688 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 73 136
10th Percentile £15.62 £20.00 £27.25
25th Percentile £19.43 £31.25 £49.90
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% -5.43% +33.33%
75th Percentile £60.00 £64.73 £70.18
90th Percentile £90.09 £76.85 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £50.00
% change year-on-year -46.16% -6.58% +11.11%

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 14 January 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 14 January 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 14 January 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 +3 135 £446 -10.80% 423
Berkshire -2 97 £425 -10.53% 270
Hampshire +9 65 £500 -4.76% 178
Surrey -14 35 £500 - 117
Buckinghamshire +14 26 £423 -15.50% 65
West Sussex -1 16 £500 - 60
Oxfordshire -11 12 £494 +6.76% 92
Kent -2 9 £445 -1.11% 86
East Sussex +1 7 £565 -9.60% 60
Isle of Wight - 4 - - 52
Home Counties - 2 £700 -
Sussex -6 1 - - 10
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 (6.50%) Confluence
2 13 (4.69%) SharePoint
3 6 (2.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.44%) Apache
4 4 (1.44%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.44%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.44%) Smallworld
5 2 (0.72%) MS Project Server
5 2 (0.72%) nginx
6 1 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.36%) CMS
6 1 (0.36%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.36%) IIS
6 1 (0.36%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.36%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.36%) Tomcat
Applications
1 52 (18.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (16.97%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (12.64%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (7.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.53%) Chatbot
6 4 (1.44%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.36%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 9 (3.25%) Primavera
2 5 (1.81%) SAP ERP
3 3 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.36%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.36%) Dynamics GP
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.36%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.36%) SAP PM
4 1 (0.36%) SAP WM
4 1 (0.36%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.36%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 44 (15.88%) Azure
2 32 (11.55%) AWS
3 18 (6.50%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (5.78%) Power Platform
5 10 (3.61%) GitHub
6 9 (3.25%) GCP
6 9 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
7 7 (2.53%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (2.53%) SaaS
8 6 (2.17%) Entra ID
9 5 (1.81%) IaaS
10 4 (1.44%) Lucidchart
11 3 (1.08%) OCI
12 2 (0.72%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (0.72%) Amazon EKS
12 2 (0.72%) AWS CloudFormation
12 2 (0.72%) Azure Sentinel
12 2 (0.72%) PaaS
12 2 (0.72%) PowerApps
12 2 (0.72%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 24 (8.66%) Firewall
2 16 (5.78%) Wireless
3 11 (3.97%) Network Security
3 11 (3.97%) WAN
4 8 (2.89%) DNS
4 8 (2.89%) LAN
5 6 (2.17%) BGP
5 6 (2.17%) IPsec
5 6 (2.17%) OSPF
5 6 (2.17%) Structured Cabling
5 6 (2.17%) TCP/IP
5 6 (2.17%) Unified Communications
6 5 (1.81%) VPN
7 4 (1.44%) WebEx
8 3 (1.08%) DHCP
8 3 (1.08%) HTTP
8 3 (1.08%) VoIP
8 3 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.72%) Internet
10 1 (0.36%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.78%) Relational Database
2 14 (5.05%) Power BI
3 11 (3.97%) MySQL
4 8 (2.89%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (2.17%) Big Data
5 6 (2.17%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6 5 (1.81%) Apache Cassandra
6 5 (1.81%) Couchbase
6 5 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (1.81%) Metadata
6 5 (1.81%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.81%) SQL Server
7 4 (1.44%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.44%) GIS
7 4 (1.44%) Hadoop
7 4 (1.44%) QGIS
8 3 (1.08%) Tableau
9 2 (0.72%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.72%) Redis
10 1 (0.36%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 28 (10.11%) JIRA
2 17 (6.14%) Git
3 12 (4.33%) Burp Suite
4 10 (3.61%) Metasploit
5 7 (2.53%) GitLab
6 6 (2.17%) Jenkins
7 4 (1.44%) Selenium
7 4 (1.44%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.08%) CircleCI
8 3 (1.08%) Gradle
8 3 (1.08%) JUnit
8 3 (1.08%) Rational DOORS
9 2 (0.72%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.72%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.36%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.36%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.36%) HP UFT
10 1 (0.36%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.36%) Subversion
10 1 (0.36%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 139 (50.18%) Social Skills
2 77 (27.80%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (14.80%) Finance
4 24 (8.66%) Manufacturing
5 18 (6.50%) Organisational Skills
6 14 (5.05%) Public Sector
7 13 (4.69%) Influencing Skills
8 11 (3.97%) Legal
9 9 (3.25%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (2.53%) Aerospace
10 7 (2.53%) Law
10 7 (2.53%) Marketing
11 5 (1.81%) Military
12 4 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.44%) Retail
12 4 (1.44%) Telecoms
13 3 (1.08%) Advertising
13 3 (1.08%) Aviation
13 3 (1.08%) Banking
13 3 (1.08%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 36 (13.00%) Analyst
2 26 (9.39%) Senior
3 22 (7.94%) Developer
4 19 (6.86%) Project Manager
5 13 (4.69%) Lead
5 13 (4.69%) Tester
6 12 (4.33%) Architect
6 12 (4.33%) Penetration Tester
7 11 (3.97%) Project Planner
7 11 (3.97%) Technical Support
8 9 (3.25%) SC Cleared Project Manager
9 8 (2.89%) IT Analyst
9 8 (2.89%) Network Engineer
10 7 (2.53%) Business Analyst
10 7 (2.53%) Data Scientist
10 7 (2.53%) Trainer
11 6 (2.17%) Administrator
11 6 (2.17%) Finance Manager
11 6 (2.17%) IT Manager
11 6 (2.17%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (3.97%) REST
2 7 (2.53%) HTML
3 5 (1.81%) Kafka
3 5 (1.81%) RabbitMQ
3 5 (1.81%) RESTful
4 4 (1.44%) CSS
4 4 (1.44%) Pandas
4 4 (1.44%) scikit-learn
5 3 (1.08%) Android Jetpack
5 3 (1.08%) Dagger
5 3 (1.08%) Jetpack Compose
5 3 (1.08%) Material Design
5 3 (1.08%) NumPy
5 3 (1.08%) OkHttp
5 3 (1.08%) RAML
5 3 (1.08%) RxJava
5 3 (1.08%) Web Services
5 3 (1.08%) WireMock
5 3 (1.08%) XML
6 2 (0.72%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.75%) Management Information System
2 14 (5.05%) Analytical Mindset
3 13 (4.69%) Data Centre
4 11 (3.97%) Security Posture
5 9 (3.25%) Driving Licence
5 9 (3.25%) Self-Motivation
5 9 (3.25%) Virtual Team
6 8 (2.89%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (2.89%) Security Operations Centre
7 7 (2.53%) Mobile App
7 7 (2.53%) Product Ownership
8 6 (2.17%) Algorithms
8 6 (2.17%) Life Science
8 6 (2.17%) PMI
9 5 (1.81%) Handset
9 5 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.44%) Cloud Native
10 4 (1.44%) Digital Media
10 4 (1.44%) Renewable Energy
11 3 (1.08%) BYOD
Operating Systems
1 45 (16.25%) Windows
2 26 (9.39%) Linux
3 11 (3.97%) Unix
4 7 (2.53%) Android
5 6 (2.17%) Mac OS
6 5 (1.81%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.44%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.72%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.36%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (35.38%) Computer Science
2 82 (29.60%) Problem-Solving
3 69 (24.91%) Agile
4 43 (15.52%) Project Management
5 40 (14.44%) Cybersecurity
6 39 (14.08%) Stakeholder Management
7 32 (11.55%) ITIL
8 31 (11.19%) Continuous Improvement
8 31 (11.19%) PRINCE2
9 29 (10.47%) Line Management
10 25 (9.03%) DevOps
10 25 (9.03%) Information Security
11 24 (8.66%) Change Management
12 22 (7.94%) Migration
13 21 (7.58%) Decision-Making
14 20 (7.22%) AI
14 20 (7.22%) Business Intelligence
15 19 (6.86%) Analytics
15 19 (6.86%) Project Delivery
16 18 (6.50%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 39 (14.08%) Python
2 26 (9.39%) SQL
3 24 (8.66%) Java
4 17 (6.14%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.97%) Perl
6 6 (2.17%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.81%) C#
7 5 (1.81%) Go
7 5 (1.81%) PowerShell
8 4 (1.44%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.08%) Bash
9 3 (1.08%) C
9 3 (1.08%) Objective-C
9 3 (1.08%) Swift
10 2 (0.72%) Ada
10 2 (0.72%) Assembly Language
10 2 (0.72%) C++
10 2 (0.72%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.72%) R
11 1 (0.36%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 81 (29.24%) Security Cleared
2 75 (27.08%) Computer Science Degree
3 70 (25.27%) SC Cleared
4 28 (10.11%) Master's Degree
5 19 (6.86%) CISSP
5 19 (6.86%) PMP
6 18 (6.50%) PMI Certification
7 14 (5.05%) Cisco Certification
7 14 (5.05%) CREST Certified
7 14 (5.05%) DV Cleared
8 11 (3.97%) Postgraduate
9 10 (3.61%) CCNP
9 10 (3.61%) CHECK Team Member
9 10 (3.61%) CISM
9 10 (3.61%) Cyber Scheme
10 9 (3.25%) A+ Certification
10 9 (3.25%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (3.25%) PhD
11 8 (2.89%) CCNA
12 5 (1.81%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (14.08%) PMO
2 25 (9.03%) GDPR
2 25 (9.03%) QA
3 21 (7.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (5.05%) PCI DSS
5 12 (4.33%) NIST
6 8 (2.89%) Data Quality
7 6 (2.17%) SLA
8 4 (1.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (1.08%) Accessibility
9 3 (1.08%) HIPAA
9 3 (1.08%) NCSC
9 3 (1.08%) P3O
10 2 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.72%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.72%) RMADS
11 1 (0.36%) Def Stans
11 1 (0.36%) GxP
11 1 (0.36%) JSP 440
System Software
1 11 (3.97%) Docker
2 10 (3.61%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.17%) Firmware
4 1 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.36%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.36%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (4.33%) Nmap
2 9 (3.25%) Kubernetes
3 5 (1.81%) Ansible
3 5 (1.81%) Terraform
4 3 (1.08%) Puppet
5 2 (0.72%) Grafana
5 2 (0.72%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.72%) SCCM
6 1 (0.36%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.36%) Nagios
6 1 (0.36%) Nessus
6 1 (0.36%) Podman
6 1 (0.36%) SCOM
6 1 (0.36%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.36%) vRealize
6 1 (0.36%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 60 (21.66%) Microsoft
2 23 (8.30%) SAP
3 18 (6.50%) Oracle
4 14 (5.05%) Cisco
5 13 (4.69%) ServiceNow
6 11 (3.97%) Palo Alto
7 10 (3.61%) CheckPoint
8 7 (2.53%) Aruba
8 7 (2.53%) PayPal
8 7 (2.53%) Splunk
9 6 (2.17%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.81%) EMC
11 4 (1.44%) Cellebrite
11 4 (1.44%) ESRI
11 4 (1.44%) Google
11 4 (1.44%) Informatica
11 4 (1.44%) Intergraph
11 4 (1.44%) Salesforce
12 3 (1.08%) Apple
12 3 (1.08%) Snow