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 25 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 24 13
Rank change year-on-year -3 -11 +12
Contract jobs citing Degree 357 234 494
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.60% 7.98% 8.78%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.03% 20.24% 19.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 123 261
10th Percentile £275 £226 £205
25th Percentile £400 £389 £331
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - +2.67%
75th Percentile £584 £566 £608
90th Percentile £650 £650 £667
England median daily rate £500 £520 £513
% change year-on-year -3.85% +1.46% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 26 72
10th Percentile £25.22 £17.50 £17.80
25th Percentile £61.88 £41.25 £22.50
Median hourly rate £84.00 £56.75 £56.18
Median % change year-on-year +48.02% +1.02% +24.83%
75th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £61.30
90th Percentile - £76.68 £67.02
England median hourly rate £45.46 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -13.41% +31.25% -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 2,545 1,156 2,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 47.08% 39.44% 44.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,690 754 1,423
10th Percentile £306 £290 £263
25th Percentile £419 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - +4.76%
75th Percentile £618 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £688 £719
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 264 84 188
10th Percentile £15.62 £20.01 £17.80
25th Percentile £20.13 £28.00 £24.19
Median hourly rate £47.50 £56.75 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year -16.30% -1.05% +10.29%
75th Percentile £84.00 £70.00 £66.81
90th Percentile £88.00 £78.01 £84.41
England median hourly rate £35.00 £50.00 £38.75
% change year-on-year -30.00% +29.03% -22.50%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 25 March 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 +2 197 £465 -7.00% 191
Berkshire +1 144 £400 -19.03% 94
Hampshire 0 84 £525 +1.94% 113
Buckinghamshire +1 40 £558 +5.69% 47
Surrey -17 28 £525 +5.00% 70
West Sussex -10 16 £348 -18.24% 14
Kent -3 14 £445 +27.14% 34
Oxfordshire -10 13 £525 -25.00% 53
East Sussex -5 6 £565 -14.72% 21
Home Counties - 5 £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 12 (3.36%) Confluence
1 12 (3.36%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.40%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.12%) GeoServer
3 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (1.12%) Smallworld
4 3 (0.84%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 3 (0.84%) Apache
4 3 (0.84%) CMS
4 3 (0.84%) MS Project Server
5 2 (0.56%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.28%) SharePoint Server
6 1 (0.28%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 58 (16.25%) Microsoft Office
2 50 (14.01%) Microsoft Excel
3 39 (10.92%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (5.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (1.40%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.56%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.28%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 13 (3.64%) Primavera
2 6 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (1.40%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.56%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.56%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.28%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.28%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 61 (17.09%) Azure
2 47 (13.17%) AWS
3 20 (5.60%) Power Platform
4 17 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (4.20%) GCP
6 11 (3.08%) GitHub
6 11 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
7 9 (2.52%) Azure DevOps
7 9 (2.52%) Entra ID
8 5 (1.40%) SaaS
9 4 (1.12%) IaaS
9 4 (1.12%) PowerApps
10 3 (0.84%) Amazon EKS
10 3 (0.84%) Amazon S3
10 3 (0.84%) AWS CloudFormation
10 3 (0.84%) Lucidchart
10 3 (0.84%) Power Automate
11 2 (0.56%) Amazon EC2
11 2 (0.56%) PaaS
11 2 (0.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 29 (8.12%) Firewall
2 17 (4.76%) WAN
3 15 (4.20%) Wireless
4 14 (3.92%) LAN
5 13 (3.64%) Network Security
6 10 (2.80%) BGP
6 10 (2.80%) OSPF
7 9 (2.52%) DNS
7 9 (2.52%) IPsec
7 9 (2.52%) Structured Cabling
8 8 (2.24%) TCP/IP
9 7 (1.96%) Unified Communications
10 6 (1.68%) HTTP
11 4 (1.12%) WebEx
12 3 (0.84%) Ethernet
12 3 (0.84%) SAN
12 3 (0.84%) SSH
13 2 (0.56%) Internet
13 2 (0.56%) NAS
13 2 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (5.04%) Power BI
2 13 (3.64%) Relational Database
3 11 (3.08%) SQL Server
4 10 (2.80%) MySQL
5 9 (2.52%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (1.68%) Big Data
6 6 (1.68%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
7 4 (1.12%) Geospatial Data
7 4 (1.12%) GIS
7 4 (1.12%) Hadoop
7 4 (1.12%) Metadata
7 4 (1.12%) NoSQL
7 4 (1.12%) QGIS
8 3 (0.84%) Apache Cassandra
8 3 (0.84%) Couchbase
8 3 (0.84%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.84%) Oracle Database
8 3 (0.84%) Tableau
9 2 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (7.84%) Rational DOORS
2 23 (6.44%) JIRA
3 13 (3.64%) Burp Suite
3 13 (3.64%) Git
4 11 (3.08%) Metasploit
5 8 (2.24%) GitLab
6 7 (1.96%) CircleCI
6 7 (1.96%) Gradle
6 7 (1.96%) Jenkins
7 5 (1.40%) JUnit
8 3 (0.84%) Selenium
9 2 (0.56%) Balsamiq
9 2 (0.56%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.56%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.56%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.28%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.28%) Maven
10 1 (0.28%) MLflow
10 1 (0.28%) Postman
10 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 137 (38.38%) Social Skills
2 63 (17.65%) Analytical Skills
3 50 (14.01%) Aerospace
4 47 (13.17%) Finance
5 26 (7.28%) Public Sector
6 18 (5.04%) Influencing Skills
6 18 (5.04%) Manufacturing
7 15 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (3.64%) Organisational Skills
9 11 (3.08%) Presentation Skills
10 10 (2.80%) Marketing
11 8 (2.24%) Law
11 8 (2.24%) Legal
12 7 (1.96%) Retail
12 7 (1.96%) Telecoms
13 4 (1.12%) Advertising
13 4 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.12%) Military
14 3 (0.84%) Billing
14 3 (0.84%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 43 (12.04%) Analyst
2 35 (9.80%) Senior
3 33 (9.24%) Product Manager
4 32 (8.96%) Delivery Manager
5 28 (7.84%) Product Delivery Manager
5 28 (7.84%) Project Manager
6 22 (6.16%) Systems Delivery Manager
6 22 (6.16%) Systems Manager
7 21 (5.88%) Lead
8 18 (5.04%) Architect
9 14 (3.92%) Technical Support
10 13 (3.64%) Project Planner
11 12 (3.36%) Developer
11 12 (3.36%) Penetration Tester
11 12 (3.36%) SC Cleared Project Manager
11 12 (3.36%) Tester
12 11 (3.08%) Consultant
13 10 (2.80%) Security Engineer
14 9 (2.52%) Network Engineer
15 8 (2.24%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (3.36%) REST
2 7 (1.96%) RAML
3 6 (1.68%) Kafka
4 5 (1.40%) Android Jetpack
4 5 (1.40%) Dagger
4 5 (1.40%) Jetpack Compose
4 5 (1.40%) OkHttp
4 5 (1.40%) React
4 5 (1.40%) RxJava
4 5 (1.40%) WireMock
5 4 (1.12%) ADO
5 4 (1.12%) RabbitMQ
6 3 (0.84%) HTML
6 3 (0.84%) Spring
6 3 (0.84%) Web Services
7 2 (0.56%) HTML5
7 2 (0.56%) JSR 170
7 2 (0.56%) NumPy
7 2 (0.56%) OSGi
7 2 (0.56%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 41 (11.48%) Product Ownership
2 36 (10.08%) Management Information System
3 24 (6.72%) Data Structures
4 21 (5.88%) Data Centre
5 17 (4.76%) Virtual Team
6 12 (3.36%) Security Posture
7 11 (3.08%) Data Protection Act
7 11 (3.08%) Onboarding
7 11 (3.08%) Security Operations Centre
8 10 (2.80%) Analytical Mindset
8 10 (2.80%) PMI
9 9 (2.52%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.96%) Legacy Code
11 6 (1.68%) Algorithms
11 6 (1.68%) BYOD
11 6 (1.68%) Cloud Native
11 6 (1.68%) Driving Licence
11 6 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
12 5 (1.40%) Cyberattack
12 5 (1.40%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 56 (15.69%) Windows
2 32 (8.96%) Linux
3 15 (4.20%) Unix
4 7 (1.96%) Windows 10
4 7 (1.96%) Windows Server
5 6 (1.68%) Android
6 5 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.84%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.56%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.56%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.56%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.56%) OpenVMS
8 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (42.02%) Computer Science
2 111 (31.09%) Agile
3 72 (20.17%) Problem-Solving
4 67 (18.77%) Continuous Improvement
5 64 (17.93%) PRINCE2
6 60 (16.81%) Cybersecurity
7 54 (15.13%) Project Management
8 47 (13.17%) Stakeholder Management
9 43 (12.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 43 (12.04%) Systems Engineering
10 38 (10.64%) Change Control
10 38 (10.64%) Information Security
10 38 (10.64%) Programme Management
11 36 (10.08%) AI
12 35 (9.80%) ITIL
13 33 (9.24%) Scaled Agile Framework
14 32 (8.96%) DevOps
15 30 (8.40%) Decision-Making
16 28 (7.84%) Configuration Management
16 28 (7.84%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 34 (9.52%) Python
2 22 (6.16%) SQL
3 19 (5.32%) Java
4 15 (4.20%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.08%) PowerShell
6 9 (2.52%) Perl
7 7 (1.96%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.40%) Bash
8 5 (1.40%) Go
9 3 (0.84%) C#
9 3 (0.84%) Korn
9 3 (0.84%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.56%) C
10 2 (0.56%) C++
10 2 (0.56%) R
11 1 (0.28%) Bicep
11 1 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.28%) Swift
11 1 (0.28%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.28%) VB
Qualifications
1 162 (45.38%) Security Cleared
2 109 (30.53%) SC Cleared
3 75 (21.01%) Computer Science Degree
4 30 (8.40%) Master's Degree
5 19 (5.32%) CISSP
6 18 (5.04%) PMI Certification
6 18 (5.04%) PMP
7 17 (4.76%) DV Cleared
8 16 (4.48%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (4.20%) CREST Certified
10 14 (3.92%) CCNP
11 12 (3.36%) Postgraduate
12 11 (3.08%) CHECK Team Member
12 11 (3.08%) Cyber Scheme
13 10 (2.80%) CCNA
14 9 (2.52%) CISM
15 8 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
16 7 (1.96%) CompTIA Security+
16 7 (1.96%) PhD
17 5 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (10.36%) PMO
2 30 (8.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (7.00%) GDPR
4 24 (6.72%) QA
5 23 (6.44%) NIST
6 18 (5.04%) PCI DSS
7 12 (3.36%) NCSC
8 11 (3.08%) Data Quality
9 7 (1.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (1.40%) Accessibility
10 5 (1.40%) Government Security Classifications
10 5 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 5 (1.40%) NIST 800
10 5 (1.40%) SLA
11 3 (0.84%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.84%) DO-254
11 3 (0.84%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.84%) IEC 61508
11 3 (0.84%) ISO 26262
11 3 (0.84%) P3O
System Software
1 15 (4.20%) Active Directory
2 13 (3.64%) Docker
3 2 (0.56%) Firmware
3 2 (0.56%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.28%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 14 (3.92%) Kubernetes
2 13 (3.64%) Nmap
3 9 (2.52%) Terraform
4 5 (1.40%) Ansible
4 5 (1.40%) Grafana
5 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.84%) Nessus
6 3 (0.84%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.84%) Puppet
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle RMAN
7 2 (0.56%) SCCM
8 1 (0.28%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.28%) Istio
8 1 (0.28%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.28%) linkerd
8 1 (0.28%) Nagios
8 1 (0.28%) Podman
8 1 (0.28%) SCOM
8 1 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 66 (18.49%) Microsoft
2 26 (7.28%) SAP
3 25 (7.00%) IBM
4 21 (5.88%) Oracle
5 16 (4.48%) Cisco
6 12 (3.36%) CheckPoint
6 12 (3.36%) Palo Alto
7 11 (3.08%) Aruba
8 10 (2.80%) ServiceNow
8 10 (2.80%) Splunk
9 6 (1.68%) Google
10 5 (1.40%) BeyondTrust
10 5 (1.40%) CyberArk
10 5 (1.40%) PayPal
11 4 (1.12%) Atlassian
11 4 (1.12%) ESRI
11 4 (1.12%) Intergraph
11 4 (1.12%) Red Hat
11 4 (1.12%) Salesforce
11 4 (1.12%) Tenable