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 6 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 23 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -9 +14
Contract jobs citing Degree 370 234 499
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.31% 7.81% 9.04%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.82% 19.29% 20.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 203 128 254
10th Percentile £204 £244 £205
25th Percentile £350 £394 £355
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £497 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.92% -0.60% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £608
90th Percentile £650 £647 £646
England median daily rate £500 £515 £511
% change year-on-year -2.91% +0.76% -6.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 26 85
10th Percentile £51.25 £17.50 £17.80
25th Percentile £80.50 £35.17 £26.73
Median hourly rate £84.00 £58.38 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +43.90% +1.79% +27.44%
75th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile - £76.68 £66.20
England median hourly rate £65.00 £53.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +22.64% +32.50% -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 2,677 1,213 2,465
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.64% 40.49% 44.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,810 774 1,430
10th Percentile £310 £300 £313
25th Percentile £429 £432 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £537 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.14% -2.45% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £688 £738
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 267 83 211
10th Percentile £16.35 £20.00 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.52 £26.13 £26.05
Median hourly rate £55.00 £56.75 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -3.08% -1.05% +0.05%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.63 £67.01
90th Percentile £88.84 £78.13 £85.65
England median hourly rate £47.50 £44.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +7.95% +10.00% -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 6 May 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 6 May 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 6 May 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 -3 193 £485 +2.05% 218
Berkshire -1 128 £400 -15.79% 106
Hampshire -2 87 £525 -1.41% 129
Buckinghamshire -2 39 £582 +10.24% 54
Surrey -16 33 £208 -53.89% 62
Oxfordshire -12 26 £488 +2.63% 62
Kent -2 16 £445 +27.14% 34
West Sussex -15 13 £285 -18.57% 19
Sussex -1 4 £275 -41.02% 6
East Sussex -2 4 £600 -4.00% 18
Home Counties - 4 - -
Middlesex -3 1 £198 -73.67% 12
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 9 (2.43%) SharePoint
2 8 (2.16%) Confluence
3 5 (1.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.81%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.81%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.81%) CMS
4 3 (0.81%) MS Project Server
5 1 (0.27%) Apache
5 1 (0.27%) Apache Pulsar
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 55 (14.86%) Microsoft Office
2 48 (12.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 31 (8.38%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (5.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.81%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 12 (3.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (2.43%) Primavera
3 2 (0.54%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.27%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.27%) SAP Hybris
4 1 (0.27%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 61 (16.49%) Azure
2 45 (12.16%) AWS
3 23 (6.22%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (4.86%) Entra ID
4 18 (4.86%) Power Platform
5 11 (2.97%) GCP
5 11 (2.97%) SaaS
6 9 (2.43%) IaaS
7 8 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
7 8 (2.16%) GitHub
7 8 (2.16%) GitHub Actions
8 6 (1.62%) PaaS
9 4 (1.08%) Power Automate
10 3 (0.81%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.81%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.81%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.81%) Lucidchart
11 2 (0.54%) Amazon EC2
11 2 (0.54%) Amazon ECS
11 2 (0.54%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 31 (8.38%) Firewall
2 20 (5.41%) WAN
3 17 (4.59%) LAN
4 13 (3.51%) Wireless
5 12 (3.24%) Network Security
6 11 (2.97%) BGP
6 11 (2.97%) OSPF
7 9 (2.43%) DNS
7 9 (2.43%) IPsec
7 9 (2.43%) Structured Cabling
8 8 (2.16%) TCP/IP
9 6 (1.62%) HTTP
10 4 (1.08%) RSVP
10 4 (1.08%) SSH
11 3 (0.81%) DHCP
11 3 (0.81%) Ethernet
11 3 (0.81%) NAS
11 3 (0.81%) Radio Access Network
11 3 (0.81%) SAN
11 3 (0.81%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (4.32%) Power BI
2 15 (4.05%) Relational Database
2 15 (4.05%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.78%) MySQL
4 6 (1.62%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
4 6 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (0.81%) Big Data
5 3 (0.81%) Oracle Database
5 3 (0.81%) Tableau
6 2 (0.54%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.54%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.54%) Hadoop
6 2 (0.54%) Metadata
7 1 (0.27%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.27%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.27%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.27%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.27%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 28 (7.57%) Rational DOORS
2 19 (5.14%) JIRA
3 11 (2.97%) Burp Suite
3 11 (2.97%) Metasploit
4 8 (2.16%) Git
5 7 (1.89%) CircleCI
5 7 (1.89%) Gradle
6 6 (1.62%) GitLab
6 6 (1.62%) JUnit
7 5 (1.35%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.81%) Selenium
9 2 (0.54%) Android Studio
9 2 (0.54%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.54%) Browser DevTools
9 2 (0.54%) Eclipse
9 2 (0.54%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.54%) WebDriver
9 2 (0.54%) Xcode
10 1 (0.27%) XCTest
10 1 (0.27%) XCUITest
General
1 125 (33.78%) Social Skills
2 60 (16.22%) Analytical Skills
3 57 (15.41%) Aerospace
4 53 (14.32%) Finance
5 34 (9.19%) Public Sector
6 23 (6.22%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (4.86%) Organisational Skills
8 15 (4.05%) Influencing Skills
8 15 (4.05%) Manufacturing
9 14 (3.78%) Law
10 11 (2.97%) Marketing
11 8 (2.16%) Legal
11 8 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (1.89%) Telecoms
13 6 (1.62%) Retail
14 5 (1.35%) Aviation
14 5 (1.35%) Military
15 4 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 3 (0.81%) Avionics
16 3 (0.81%) Billing
Job Titles
1 41 (11.08%) Analyst
2 35 (9.46%) Senior
3 33 (8.92%) Product Manager
4 31 (8.38%) Delivery Manager
5 28 (7.57%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (7.30%) Project Manager
7 26 (7.03%) Lead
8 22 (5.95%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 22 (5.95%) Systems Manager
9 20 (5.41%) Technical Support
10 18 (4.86%) Architect
11 13 (3.51%) IT Manager
12 12 (3.24%) SC Cleared Project Manager
12 12 (3.24%) Senior Analyst
13 11 (2.97%) Consultant
13 11 (2.97%) Financial Analyst
13 11 (2.97%) Penetration Tester
13 11 (2.97%) Tester
14 10 (2.70%) Network Engineer
14 10 (2.70%) Senior Financial Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (2.70%) REST
2 7 (1.89%) RAML
2 7 (1.89%) React
3 6 (1.62%) Android Jetpack
3 6 (1.62%) LDAP
3 6 (1.62%) OAuth
3 6 (1.62%) OAuth2
3 6 (1.62%) SailPoint
3 6 (1.62%) Web Services
4 5 (1.35%) ADO
4 5 (1.35%) Dagger
4 5 (1.35%) Jetpack Compose
4 5 (1.35%) OkHttp
4 5 (1.35%) OpenID
4 5 (1.35%) RxJava
4 5 (1.35%) SAML
4 5 (1.35%) WireMock
5 4 (1.08%) AngularJS
5 4 (1.08%) CSS
5 4 (1.08%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 41 (11.08%) Product Ownership
2 33 (8.92%) Management Information System
3 24 (6.49%) Data Structures
4 23 (6.22%) Data Centre
5 20 (5.41%) Virtual Team
6 19 (5.14%) Onboarding
7 12 (3.24%) Security Posture
8 10 (2.70%) Analytical Mindset
8 10 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.70%) PMI
9 9 (2.43%) Security Operations Centre
10 7 (1.89%) Cloud Native
10 7 (1.89%) Legacy Code
10 7 (1.89%) Robotics
11 6 (1.62%) BYOD
11 6 (1.62%) Mobile App
11 6 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
12 5 (1.35%) AI Agents
12 5 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
12 5 (1.35%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 68 (18.38%) Windows
2 47 (12.70%) Linux
3 31 (8.38%) Unix
4 12 (3.24%) Windows Server
5 10 (2.70%) Android
6 6 (1.62%) Windows 10
7 4 (1.08%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.81%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.54%) Mac OS
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
1 157 (42.43%) Computer Science
2 90 (24.32%) Agile
3 77 (20.81%) Continuous Improvement
4 68 (18.38%) Cybersecurity
5 65 (17.57%) Problem-Solving
6 54 (14.59%) Project Management
7 53 (14.32%) PRINCE2
8 51 (13.78%) Change Control
9 47 (12.70%) Stakeholder Management
10 45 (12.16%) Information Security
11 44 (11.89%) Systems Engineering
12 43 (11.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 33 (8.92%) ITIL
13 33 (8.92%) ITSM
14 32 (8.65%) Programme Management
14 32 (8.65%) Scaled Agile Framework
15 30 (8.11%) AI
15 30 (8.11%) CI/CD
16 29 (7.84%) Decision-Making
17 28 (7.57%) Configuration Management
Programming Languages
1 44 (11.89%) Python
2 24 (6.49%) Java
3 22 (5.95%) SQL
4 21 (5.68%) PowerShell
5 18 (4.86%) JavaScript
6 13 (3.51%) Perl
7 8 (2.16%) Kotlin
8 6 (1.62%) Bash
9 4 (1.08%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.81%) C
10 3 (0.81%) C#
10 3 (0.81%) C++
10 3 (0.81%) 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%) Swift
12 1 (0.27%) Tcl
12 1 (0.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 169 (45.68%) Security Cleared
2 111 (30.00%) SC Cleared
3 69 (18.65%) Computer Science Degree
4 21 (5.68%) Cisco Certification
4 21 (5.68%) CISSP
5 18 (4.86%) PMI Certification
5 18 (4.86%) PMP
6 16 (4.32%) DV Cleared
6 16 (4.32%) Master's Degree
7 15 (4.05%) CCNP
8 13 (3.51%) CREST Certified
9 12 (3.24%) CISM
10 11 (2.97%) CHECK Team Member
10 11 (2.97%) CompTIA Security+
10 11 (2.97%) Cyber Scheme
10 11 (2.97%) Postgraduate
11 10 (2.70%) ACCA
11 10 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
11 10 (2.70%) CIMA
12 9 (2.43%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 48 (12.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 40 (10.81%) NIST
3 32 (8.65%) PMO
4 24 (6.49%) QA
5 21 (5.68%) GDPR
6 18 (4.86%) PCI DSS
7 14 (3.78%) NCSC
8 8 (2.16%) Data Quality
8 8 (2.16%) NIST 800
9 7 (1.89%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (1.89%) SLA
10 6 (1.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (1.35%) Accessibility
11 5 (1.35%) Government Security Classifications
11 5 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 4 (1.08%) ISO 31000
13 3 (0.81%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.81%) IEC 61508
13 3 (0.81%) ISO 26262
13 3 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 31 (8.38%) Active Directory
2 10 (2.70%) Docker
3 7 (1.89%) Firmware
4 6 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (1.08%) 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 (2.97%) Kubernetes
1 11 (2.97%) Nmap
2 9 (2.43%) Terraform
3 5 (1.35%) Ansible
3 5 (1.35%) Grafana
4 3 (0.81%) Prometheus
4 3 (0.81%) Puppet
4 3 (0.81%) 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%) Nagios
6 1 (0.27%) Podman
6 1 (0.27%) SCCM
Vendors
1 70 (18.92%) Microsoft
2 27 (7.30%) Oracle
2 27 (7.30%) SAP
3 25 (6.76%) IBM
4 17 (4.59%) Cisco
5 13 (3.51%) Palo Alto
6 12 (3.24%) CheckPoint
7 11 (2.97%) Aruba
8 9 (2.43%) BeyondTrust
8 9 (2.43%) CyberArk
8 9 (2.43%) ServiceNow
8 9 (2.43%) Splunk
9 8 (2.16%) VMware
10 4 (1.08%) Red Hat
10 4 (1.08%) Salesforce
10 4 (1.08%) Tenable
10 4 (1.08%) Workday
11 3 (0.81%) Cadence
11 3 (0.81%) Google
11 3 (0.81%) Siemens