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

6 months to
25 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 24 14
Rank change year-on-year -1 -10 +12
Contract jobs citing Degree 418 210 491
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.74% 6.87% 8.60%
As % of the Qualifications category 14.88% 17.28% 19.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 129 247
10th Percentile £204 £228 £208
25th Percentile £317 £354 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £588 £608
90th Percentile £725 £640 £638
England median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -8.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 26 83
10th Percentile £25.77 £21.33 £17.80
25th Percentile £36.81 £32.12 £22.50
Median hourly rate £82.75 £55.13 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +50.11% -3.88% +20.74%
75th Percentile £87.37 £73.38 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £65.00
England median hourly rate £51.44 £48.90 £41.00
% change year-on-year +5.19% +19.27% -11.35%

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 2,810 1,215 2,564
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 45.29% 39.76% 44.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,908 770 1,487
10th Percentile £313 £250 £351
25th Percentile £445 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.43% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £625 £600 £650
90th Percentile £725 £664 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £537
% change year-on-year - -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 293 87 227
10th Percentile £17.95 £18.72 £17.80
25th Percentile £29.07 £25.15 £28.37
Median hourly rate £60.00 £47.81 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +25.51% -16.64% -4.42%
75th Percentile £85.00 £70.00 £70.04
90th Percentile £88.00 £78.31 £87.46
England median hourly rate £52.50 £29.27 £42.50
% change year-on-year +79.36% -31.13% -22.73%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 +3 210 £509 +6.82% 141
Berkshire +2 127 £400 -16.23% 62
Hampshire +8 108 £556 +6.97% 105
Surrey -13 45 £305 -16.44% 57
Oxfordshire -2 44 £525 +16.67% 44
Buckinghamshire -13 39 £570 +6.79% 38
Kent +11 15 £445 +61.82% 22
West Sussex -21 13 £338 +16.78% 24
Sussex - 4 £275 - 5
Home Counties +1 3 - -
East Sussex -5 2 £461 - 9
Middlesex - 1 £198 - 8
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 16 (3.83%) SharePoint
2 9 (2.15%) Confluence
3 5 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.72%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.48%) CMS
5 2 (0.48%) MS Project Server
6 1 (0.24%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 54 (12.92%) Microsoft Office
2 42 (10.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 22 (5.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 22 (5.26%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.72%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.24%) CATIA
5 1 (0.24%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.24%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 11 (2.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.20%) Primavera
3 3 (0.72%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.48%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.24%) ENOVIA
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.24%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 91 (21.77%) Azure
2 55 (13.16%) AWS
3 36 (8.61%) Entra ID
4 30 (7.18%) Microsoft 365
5 19 (4.55%) GCP
5 19 (4.55%) Power Platform
6 13 (3.11%) SaaS
7 11 (2.63%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (2.63%) OneDrive
8 7 (1.67%) Serverless
9 6 (1.44%) IaaS
9 6 (1.44%) Power Automate
10 5 (1.20%) GitHub
10 5 (1.20%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (1.20%) PaaS
11 4 (0.96%) PowerApps
11 4 (0.96%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 3 (0.72%) Lucidchart
12 3 (0.72%) Sauce Labs
13 2 (0.48%) Figma
Communications & Networking
1 25 (5.98%) Firewall
2 21 (5.02%) DNS
2 21 (5.02%) TCP/IP
3 15 (3.59%) LAN
3 15 (3.59%) WAN
4 14 (3.35%) DHCP
4 14 (3.35%) Network Security
5 11 (2.63%) BGP
5 11 (2.63%) OSPF
6 8 (1.91%) IPsec
7 6 (1.44%) HTTP
7 6 (1.44%) Wireless
8 5 (1.20%) Cisco Nexus
8 5 (1.20%) SSH
8 5 (1.20%) Structured Cabling
8 5 (1.20%) VPN
9 4 (0.96%) BIG-IP
9 4 (0.96%) MQTT
9 4 (0.96%) RSVP
9 4 (0.96%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (4.31%) SQL Server
2 17 (4.07%) Power BI
3 12 (2.87%) Relational Database
4 11 (2.63%) MySQL
5 6 (1.44%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.96%) Tableau
7 3 (0.72%) Big Data
8 2 (0.48%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.48%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.48%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.24%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
9 1 (0.24%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.24%) DynamoDB
9 1 (0.24%) Metadata
9 1 (0.24%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.24%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (6.70%) Rational DOORS
2 22 (5.26%) JIRA
3 10 (2.39%) Git
4 8 (1.91%) GitLab
5 5 (1.20%) Burp Suite
5 5 (1.20%) CircleCI
5 5 (1.20%) Gradle
5 5 (1.20%) Metasploit
6 4 (0.96%) Jenkins
6 4 (0.96%) JUnit
6 4 (0.96%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.72%) Android Studio
7 3 (0.72%) Browser DevTools
7 3 (0.72%) Eclipse
7 3 (0.72%) Xcode
8 2 (0.48%) Balsamiq
8 2 (0.48%) Selenium
8 2 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.48%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.24%) Maven
General
1 174 (41.63%) Social Skills
2 79 (18.90%) Analytical Skills
3 65 (15.55%) Finance
4 63 (15.07%) Aerospace
5 52 (12.44%) Public Sector
6 25 (5.98%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (4.78%) Organisational Skills
8 17 (4.07%) Manufacturing
9 16 (3.83%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (3.83%) Law
10 14 (3.35%) Marketing
11 12 (2.87%) Presentation Skills
12 10 (2.39%) Telecoms
13 8 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (1.91%) Retail
14 7 (1.67%) Legal
14 7 (1.67%) Military
15 6 (1.44%) Aviation
16 5 (1.20%) Arabic Language
16 5 (1.20%) French Language
Job Titles
1 57 (13.64%) Analyst
2 50 (11.96%) Senior
3 32 (7.66%) Lead
3 32 (7.66%) Product Manager
4 29 (6.94%) Delivery Manager
5 28 (6.70%) Product Delivery Manager
6 27 (6.46%) IT Manager
7 23 (5.50%) Architect
7 23 (5.50%) Project Manager
7 23 (5.50%) Senior Manager
8 22 (5.26%) Systems Delivery Manager
8 22 (5.26%) Systems Manager
9 17 (4.07%) Category Manager
10 16 (3.83%) Technical Support
11 15 (3.59%) IT Services Manager
11 15 (3.59%) IT Support
11 15 (3.59%) Senior Category Manager
11 15 (3.59%) Senior IT Manager
11 15 (3.59%) Senior Service Manager
12 14 (3.35%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (4.07%) OAuth
2 15 (3.59%) LDAP
2 15 (3.59%) OpenID
2 15 (3.59%) Oracle Fusion
2 15 (3.59%) SAML
3 13 (3.11%) SailPoint
4 10 (2.39%) OAuth2
4 10 (2.39%) REST
4 10 (2.39%) Web Services
5 9 (2.15%) React
6 7 (1.67%) .NET
6 7 (1.67%) Kafka
7 6 (1.44%) CSS
7 6 (1.44%) RESTful
8 5 (1.20%) AngularJS
8 5 (1.20%) GraphQL
8 5 (1.20%) gRPC
8 5 (1.20%) RAML
9 4 (0.96%) Android Jetpack
9 4 (0.96%) Protocol Buffers
Miscellaneous
1 47 (11.24%) Product Ownership
2 44 (10.53%) Management Information System
3 30 (7.18%) Data Centre
4 28 (6.70%) Onboarding
5 26 (6.22%) Data Structures
6 16 (3.83%) Virtual Team
7 12 (2.87%) Security Posture
8 10 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
9 9 (2.15%) Cloud Native
10 8 (1.91%) Operational Technology
10 8 (1.91%) PMI
10 8 (1.91%) Robotics
11 7 (1.67%) CCTV
11 7 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (1.67%) Hybrid Cloud
11 7 (1.67%) Mobile App
12 6 (1.44%) BYOD
12 6 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
12 6 (1.44%) Private Cloud
12 6 (1.44%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 73 (17.46%) Windows
2 50 (11.96%) Linux
3 34 (8.13%) Unix
4 15 (3.59%) Apple iOS
5 14 (3.35%) Windows Server
6 11 (2.63%) Android
6 11 (2.63%) Mac OS
7 8 (1.91%) Windows 10
8 4 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.48%) OpenVMS
9 2 (0.48%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.48%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (39.23%) Computer Science
2 116 (27.75%) Agile
3 90 (21.53%) Problem-Solving
4 86 (20.57%) Continuous Improvement
5 73 (17.46%) Cybersecurity
6 62 (14.83%) Change Control
6 62 (14.83%) Stakeholder Management
7 60 (14.35%) ITIL
8 59 (14.11%) Information Security
9 58 (13.88%) Decision-Making
10 56 (13.40%) ITSM
11 54 (12.92%) AI
12 50 (11.96%) PRINCE2
13 48 (11.48%) Project Management
14 46 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 44 (10.53%) Systems Engineering
16 38 (9.09%) CI/CD
17 36 (8.61%) Programme Management
18 35 (8.37%) Scaled Agile Framework
19 34 (8.13%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 58 (13.88%) Python
2 30 (7.18%) PowerShell
3 22 (5.26%) SQL
4 20 (4.78%) Java
5 17 (4.07%) JavaScript
6 9 (2.15%) Perl
7 8 (1.91%) Shell Script
8 6 (1.44%) Kotlin
9 4 (0.96%) Bash
9 4 (0.96%) C#
9 4 (0.96%) C++
9 4 (0.96%) Rust
10 3 (0.72%) C
10 3 (0.72%) Korn
11 2 (0.48%) Ada
11 2 (0.48%) Go
11 2 (0.48%) R
11 2 (0.48%) X++
12 1 (0.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.24%) Objective-C
Qualifications
1 178 (42.58%) Security Cleared
2 111 (26.56%) SC Cleared
3 61 (14.59%) Computer Science Degree
4 24 (5.74%) CISSP
5 21 (5.02%) Cisco Certification
6 19 (4.55%) PMI Certification
7 18 (4.31%) Master's Degree
8 17 (4.07%) DV Cleared
8 17 (4.07%) PMP
9 16 (3.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 14 (3.35%) CCNP
10 14 (3.35%) CISM
10 14 (3.35%) Microsoft Certification
11 10 (2.39%) ACCA
11 10 (2.39%) CIMA
12 9 (2.15%) CESG Certified Professional
13 8 (1.91%) CompTIA Security+
14 7 (1.67%) AWS Certification
15 6 (1.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 6 (1.44%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (12.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 49 (11.72%) NIST
3 19 (4.55%) PMO
4 17 (4.07%) NCSC
5 16 (3.83%) GDPR
5 16 (3.83%) QA
6 15 (3.59%) Data Quality
7 12 (2.87%) PCI DSS
8 8 (1.91%) NIST 800
9 7 (1.67%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (1.67%) SLA
10 6 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 6 (1.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (1.20%) Government Security Classifications
12 4 (0.96%) Accessibility
12 4 (0.96%) ISO 31000
13 3 (0.72%) DO-254
13 3 (0.72%) IEC 61508
13 3 (0.72%) ISO 26262
13 3 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 47 (11.24%) Active Directory
2 14 (3.35%) Docker
3 9 (2.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.67%) Firmware
5 6 (1.44%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.96%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.72%) OpenAM
8 2 (0.48%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.48%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.24%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (0.24%) UAG
9 1 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 14 (3.35%) Kubernetes
1 14 (3.35%) Microsoft Intune
2 10 (2.39%) Jamf Pro
2 10 (2.39%) Terraform
3 7 (1.67%) Grafana
3 7 (1.67%) Prometheus
4 6 (1.44%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 6 (1.44%) Ansible
5 5 (1.20%) Nmap
5 5 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.96%) Podman
6 4 (0.96%) Puppet
7 2 (0.48%) Nessus
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 2 (0.48%) Oracle RMAN
7 2 (0.48%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.24%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.24%) Istio
8 1 (0.24%) linkerd
8 1 (0.24%) SCCM
Vendors
1 94 (22.49%) Microsoft
2 42 (10.05%) Oracle
3 32 (7.66%) SAP
4 26 (6.22%) ServiceNow
5 25 (5.98%) IBM
6 16 (3.83%) BeyondTrust
6 16 (3.83%) Cisco
6 16 (3.83%) CyberArk
7 15 (3.59%) Ariba
8 13 (3.11%) VMware
9 11 (2.63%) Palo Alto
10 8 (1.91%) CheckPoint
11 7 (1.67%) Aruba
11 7 (1.67%) Google
11 7 (1.67%) Salesforce
11 7 (1.67%) Splunk
12 6 (1.44%) Tenable
13 5 (1.20%) Dell
13 5 (1.20%) F5
13 5 (1.20%) Workday