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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 29 30 13
Rank change year-on-year +1 -17 +12
Contract jobs citing Degree 283 213 476
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.18% 6.61% 8.86%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.03% 17.53% 20.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 119 297
10th Percentile £204 £181 £167
25th Percentile £322 £309 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
75th Percentile £569 £588 £608
90th Percentile £654 £686 £673
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 9 46
10th Percentile £20.79 £18.44 £16.63
25th Percentile £21.32 £31.25 £30.62
Median hourly rate £29.61 £42.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.33% -22.73% +22.22%
75th Percentile £80.25 £61.76 £67.38
90th Percentile £81.30 £78.71 £72.33
England median hourly rate £35.00 £42.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -17.65% +6.25% -7.51%

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 2,017 1,215 2,336
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 44.07% 37.70% 43.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,357 762 1,363
10th Percentile £275 £250 £213
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.23% +0.37%
75th Percentile £600 £631 £643
90th Percentile £723 £688 £700
England median daily rate £522 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 68 152
10th Percentile £15.25 £19.12 £20.95
25th Percentile £19.34 £31.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.88% -5.00% +33.33%
75th Percentile £55.00 £64.73 £70.50
90th Percentile £90.09 £77.54 £79.78
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £46.39
% change year-on-year -45.54% -0.45% +3.09%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +4 135 £435 -6.20% 273
Berkshire 0 99 £425 -5.56% 143
Hampshire +15 67 £500 -4.76% 145
Surrey -14 34 £500 - 97
Buckinghamshire +15 30 £445 +22.76% 64
West Sussex -2 16 £385 -23.00% 39
Kent -4 12 £445 -1.11% 49
East Sussex +2 7 £565 -9.60% 34
Oxfordshire -16 6 £494 -17.71% 68
Isle of Wight - 4 - - 20
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 18 (6.36%) Confluence
2 14 (4.95%) SharePoint
3 6 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.41%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.41%) Smallworld
5 3 (1.06%) Apache
5 3 (1.06%) Apache Spark
5 3 (1.06%) MS Project Server
6 2 (0.71%) CMS
6 2 (0.71%) nginx
6 2 (0.71%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.35%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 1 (0.35%) Gunicorn
7 1 (0.35%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.35%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (18.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 50 (17.67%) Microsoft Office
3 36 (12.72%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (7.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.47%) Chatbot
6 3 (1.06%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.35%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 10 (3.53%) Primavera
2 5 (1.77%) SAP ERP
3 3 (1.06%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.35%) Dynamics AX
4 1 (0.35%) Dynamics GP
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle EBS R12
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.35%) SAP WM
4 1 (0.35%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.35%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 41 (14.49%) Azure
2 30 (10.60%) AWS
3 18 (6.36%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (6.01%) Power Platform
5 11 (3.89%) GitHub
6 10 (3.53%) GitHub Actions
7 8 (2.83%) GCP
8 6 (2.12%) Entra ID
8 6 (2.12%) SaaS
9 5 (1.77%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (1.77%) IaaS
10 3 (1.06%) Amazon S3
10 3 (1.06%) PowerApps
10 3 (1.06%) Serverless
11 2 (0.71%) Amazon ECS
11 2 (0.71%) Amazon EKS
11 2 (0.71%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (0.71%) Lucidchart
11 2 (0.71%) OCI
11 2 (0.71%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 22 (7.77%) Firewall
2 14 (4.95%) WAN
2 14 (4.95%) Wireless
3 11 (3.89%) LAN
3 11 (3.89%) Network Security
4 9 (3.18%) BGP
4 9 (3.18%) OSPF
5 8 (2.83%) IPsec
5 8 (2.83%) Structured Cabling
6 7 (2.47%) Unified Communications
7 6 (2.12%) DNS
8 4 (1.41%) TCP/IP
8 4 (1.41%) WebEx
9 3 (1.06%) HTTP
9 3 (1.06%) VoIP
9 3 (1.06%) Wi-Fi
10 2 (0.71%) Internet
11 1 (0.35%) Intranet
11 1 (0.35%) Symposium
11 1 (0.35%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.65%) Relational Database
2 15 (5.30%) Power BI
3 11 (3.89%) MySQL
4 9 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (2.12%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
5 6 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.12%) NoSQL
6 5 (1.77%) Apache Cassandra
6 5 (1.77%) Big Data
6 5 (1.77%) Couchbase
6 5 (1.77%) Metadata
7 4 (1.41%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.41%) GIS
7 4 (1.41%) QGIS
7 4 (1.41%) SQL Server
8 3 (1.06%) Tableau
9 2 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.71%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.71%) Redis
Development Applications
1 24 (8.48%) JIRA
2 15 (5.30%) Git
3 12 (4.24%) Burp Suite
4 10 (3.53%) Metasploit
5 7 (2.47%) GitLab
6 6 (2.12%) Jenkins
7 4 (1.41%) CircleCI
7 4 (1.41%) Selenium
7 4 (1.41%) Visual Studio
8 3 (1.06%) Gradle
8 3 (1.06%) JUnit
9 2 (0.71%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.71%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.35%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.35%) Katalon Studio
10 1 (0.35%) MLflow
10 1 (0.35%) Postman
10 1 (0.35%) Rational DOORS
10 1 (0.35%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.35%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 139 (49.12%) Social Skills
2 76 (26.86%) Analytical Skills
3 40 (14.13%) Finance
4 22 (7.77%) Manufacturing
5 16 (5.65%) Public Sector
6 14 (4.95%) Influencing Skills
7 13 (4.59%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (3.89%) Legal
9 10 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (3.18%) Marketing
11 8 (2.83%) Law
12 6 (2.12%) Aerospace
13 5 (1.77%) Military
13 5 (1.77%) Retail
14 4 (1.41%) Advertising
14 4 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (1.41%) Telecoms
15 3 (1.06%) Billing
15 3 (1.06%) Electronics
16 2 (0.71%) Banking
Job Titles
1 38 (13.43%) Analyst
2 28 (9.89%) Senior
3 24 (8.48%) Developer
4 19 (6.71%) Project Manager
5 14 (4.95%) Lead
6 13 (4.59%) Project Planner
6 13 (4.59%) Technical Support
7 12 (4.24%) Penetration Tester
7 12 (4.24%) Tester
8 11 (3.89%) Architect
9 9 (3.18%) SC Cleared Project Manager
10 8 (2.83%) IT Analyst
10 8 (2.83%) Network Engineer
11 7 (2.47%) IT Manager
11 7 (2.47%) Trainer
12 6 (2.12%) Administrator
12 6 (2.12%) Business Analyst
12 6 (2.12%) Cisco Engineer
12 6 (2.12%) Principal Engineer
12 6 (2.12%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (4.24%) REST
2 7 (2.47%) HTML
3 6 (2.12%) Kafka
4 5 (1.77%) RabbitMQ
4 5 (1.77%) RESTful
5 4 (1.41%) CSS
5 4 (1.41%) RAML
6 3 (1.06%) Android Jetpack
6 3 (1.06%) Dagger
6 3 (1.06%) Jetpack Compose
6 3 (1.06%) Material Design
6 3 (1.06%) OkHttp
6 3 (1.06%) Pandas
6 3 (1.06%) RxJava
6 3 (1.06%) scikit-learn
6 3 (1.06%) Web Services
6 3 (1.06%) WireMock
7 2 (0.71%) OAuth2
7 2 (0.71%) Unity (Game Engine)
7 2 (0.71%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 27 (9.54%) Management Information System
2 16 (5.65%) Data Centre
3 14 (4.95%) Analytical Mindset
4 11 (3.89%) Security Posture
4 11 (3.89%) Self-Motivation
5 10 (3.53%) Security Operations Centre
5 10 (3.53%) Virtual Team
6 9 (3.18%) Data Protection Act
6 9 (3.18%) Driving Licence
7 7 (2.47%) PMI
8 6 (2.12%) Mobile App
8 6 (2.12%) Product Ownership
9 5 (1.77%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.77%) Handset
9 5 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.41%) Algorithms
10 4 (1.41%) Cyberattack
10 4 (1.41%) Digital Media
10 4 (1.41%) Life Science
10 4 (1.41%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 46 (16.25%) Windows
2 28 (9.89%) Linux
3 12 (4.24%) Unix
4 7 (2.47%) Android
5 6 (2.12%) Apple iOS
5 6 (2.12%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.71%) Kali Linux
6 2 (0.71%) Mac OS
6 2 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.35%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (34.98%) Computer Science
2 78 (27.56%) Problem-Solving
3 67 (23.67%) Agile
4 44 (15.55%) Project Management
5 42 (14.84%) Cybersecurity
6 40 (14.13%) Stakeholder Management
7 33 (11.66%) PRINCE2
8 27 (9.54%) Continuous Improvement
8 27 (9.54%) ITIL
8 27 (9.54%) Line Management
9 26 (9.19%) Information Security
10 24 (8.48%) AI
10 24 (8.48%) DevOps
11 22 (7.77%) Change Management
11 22 (7.77%) Decision-Making
11 22 (7.77%) Migration
12 21 (7.42%) Business Intelligence
12 21 (7.42%) Project Delivery
13 20 (7.07%) Analytics
14 18 (6.36%) Penetration Testing
Programming Languages
1 38 (13.43%) Python
2 25 (8.83%) SQL
3 24 (8.48%) Java
4 17 (6.01%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.89%) Perl
6 6 (2.12%) Kotlin
7 5 (1.77%) C#
7 5 (1.77%) Go
7 5 (1.77%) PowerShell
8 4 (1.41%) Objective-C
8 4 (1.41%) Shell Script
8 4 (1.41%) Swift
9 3 (1.06%) Bash
9 3 (1.06%) C
10 2 (0.71%) Ada
10 2 (0.71%) Assembly Language
10 2 (0.71%) C++
10 2 (0.71%) MATLAB
10 2 (0.71%) R
11 1 (0.35%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 87 (30.74%) Security Cleared
2 78 (27.56%) Computer Science Degree
3 75 (26.50%) SC Cleared
4 26 (9.19%) Master's Degree
5 19 (6.71%) CISSP
6 18 (6.36%) PMI Certification
6 18 (6.36%) PMP
7 15 (5.30%) DV Cleared
8 14 (4.95%) Cisco Certification
8 14 (4.95%) CREST Certified
9 12 (4.24%) CCNP
10 11 (3.89%) Postgraduate
11 10 (3.53%) CHECK Team Member
11 10 (3.53%) CISM
11 10 (3.53%) Cyber Scheme
12 9 (3.18%) CCNA
12 9 (3.18%) PhD
13 6 (2.12%) CompTIA Security+
13 6 (2.12%) Microsoft Certification
14 5 (1.77%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (14.84%) PMO
2 23 (8.13%) QA
3 22 (7.77%) GDPR
4 20 (7.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 13 (4.59%) PCI DSS
6 12 (4.24%) NIST
7 8 (2.83%) Data Quality
7 8 (2.83%) SLA
8 4 (1.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (1.06%) Accessibility
9 3 (1.06%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (1.06%) HIPAA
9 3 (1.06%) NCSC
9 3 (1.06%) P3O
10 2 (0.71%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 19770
10 2 (0.71%) RMADS
11 1 (0.35%) Def Stans
11 1 (0.35%) GxP
11 1 (0.35%) JSP 440
System Software
1 12 (4.24%) Docker
2 10 (3.53%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.12%) Firmware
4 1 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.35%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.35%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (4.24%) Nmap
2 11 (3.89%) Kubernetes
3 6 (2.12%) Terraform
4 5 (1.77%) Ansible
5 3 (1.06%) Puppet
6 2 (0.71%) Grafana
6 2 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.71%) SCCM
7 1 (0.35%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.35%) Kubeflow
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 59 (20.85%) Microsoft
2 23 (8.13%) SAP
3 18 (6.36%) Oracle
4 15 (5.30%) Cisco
5 10 (3.53%) Palo Alto
5 10 (3.53%) ServiceNow
6 9 (3.18%) Aruba
6 9 (3.18%) CheckPoint
7 8 (2.83%) Splunk
8 7 (2.47%) PayPal
9 6 (2.12%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.77%) EMC
11 4 (1.41%) Cellebrite
11 4 (1.41%) ESRI
11 4 (1.41%) Google
11 4 (1.41%) Informatica
11 4 (1.41%) Intergraph
12 3 (1.06%) Apple
12 3 (1.06%) Salesforce
12 3 (1.06%) Snow