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

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 25 12
Rank change year-on-year -2 -13 +14
Contract jobs citing Degree 311 217 490
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 6.43% 7.00% 8.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 13.85% 18.74% 19.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 173 125 294
10th Percentile £258 £188 £200
25th Percentile £358 £338 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +3.46%
75th Percentile £569 £588 £608
90th Percentile £650 £685 £667
England median daily rate £500 £525 £513
% change year-on-year -4.76% +2.44% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 13 50
10th Percentile £20.79 £20.25 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.50 £41.25 £27.50
Median hourly rate £29.61 £47.81 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -38.06% -10.64% +18.89%
75th Percentile £82.19 £75.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.50 £79.75 £70.68
England median hourly rate £35.00 £46.84 £40.00
% change year-on-year -25.28% +17.10% -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 2,246 1,158 2,465
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 46.42% 37.37% 44.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,510 731 1,396
10th Percentile £300 £263 £229
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £502 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.48% -2.78% +1.89%
75th Percentile £604 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £675 £700
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 217 68 175
10th Percentile £15.47 £19.59 £18.59
25th Percentile £19.34 £30.21 £40.63
Median hourly rate £27.50 £57.87 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year -52.48% -0.73% +29.56%
75th Percentile £79.85 £64.95 £70.00
90th Percentile £90.09 £80.03 £83.29
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -49.70% +12.36% -4.30%

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 24 February 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 24 February 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 24 February 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 -2 155 £435 -8.90% 196
Berkshire -5 112 £413 -11.05% 84
Hampshire +17 79 £523 -0.48% 129
Buckinghamshire +9 32 £463 +25.42% 56
Surrey -21 27 £500 - 62
West Sussex -5 17 £400 -15.79% 18
Kent -2 14 £445 -1.11% 31
Oxfordshire -12 11 £500 -28.57% 60
East Sussex +1 8 £565 -9.60% 14
Home Counties - 4 £700 -
Isle of Wight - 3 - - 2
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 19 (6.11%) Confluence
2 12 (3.86%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.29%) Apache Spark
4 4 (1.29%) GeoServer
4 4 (1.29%) Smallworld
5 3 (0.96%) Apache
5 3 (0.96%) MS Project Server
6 2 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 2 (0.64%) CMS
6 2 (0.64%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.32%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.32%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.32%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 59 (18.97%) Microsoft Office
2 52 (16.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 36 (11.58%) Microsoft Project
4 21 (6.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (2.25%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.64%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.32%) PTC Creo
Business Applications
1 10 (3.22%) Primavera
2 5 (1.61%) SAP ERP
3 3 (0.96%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.64%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.32%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.32%) Dynamics GP
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.32%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
5 1 (0.32%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.32%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 53 (17.04%) Azure
2 39 (12.54%) AWS
3 17 (5.47%) Microsoft 365
3 17 (5.47%) Power Platform
4 13 (4.18%) GCP
4 13 (4.18%) GitHub
4 13 (4.18%) GitHub Actions
5 7 (2.25%) Entra ID
6 6 (1.93%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (1.61%) SaaS
8 4 (1.29%) IaaS
9 3 (0.96%) Amazon EKS
9 3 (0.96%) Amazon S3
9 3 (0.96%) AWS CloudFormation
9 3 (0.96%) Lucidchart
9 3 (0.96%) PowerApps
10 2 (0.64%) Amazon ECS
10 2 (0.64%) Azure Sentinel
10 2 (0.64%) Power Automate
10 2 (0.64%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 27 (8.68%) Firewall
2 16 (5.14%) WAN
3 15 (4.82%) Wireless
4 13 (4.18%) LAN
5 12 (3.86%) Network Security
6 10 (3.22%) BGP
6 10 (3.22%) OSPF
7 9 (2.89%) IPsec
7 9 (2.89%) Structured Cabling
8 7 (2.25%) TCP/IP
8 7 (2.25%) Unified Communications
9 6 (1.93%) DNS
10 5 (1.61%) HTTP
10 5 (1.61%) WebEx
11 3 (0.96%) Ethernet
11 3 (0.96%) SSH
11 3 (0.96%) VoIP
11 3 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (0.64%) Internet
12 2 (0.64%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.82%) Power BI
2 13 (4.18%) Relational Database
3 10 (3.22%) MySQL
3 10 (3.22%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (2.89%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.93%) Big Data
6 6 (1.93%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
6 6 (1.93%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.61%) Apache Cassandra
7 5 (1.61%) Couchbase
7 5 (1.61%) Metadata
8 4 (1.29%) Geospatial Data
8 4 (1.29%) GIS
8 4 (1.29%) QGIS
8 4 (1.29%) Tableau
9 3 (0.96%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.32%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 26 (8.36%) JIRA
2 14 (4.50%) Git
3 13 (4.18%) Burp Suite
4 11 (3.54%) Metasploit
5 8 (2.57%) GitLab
5 8 (2.57%) Jenkins
6 7 (2.25%) CircleCI
6 7 (2.25%) Gradle
7 5 (1.61%) JUnit
8 4 (1.29%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.96%) Rational DOORS
9 3 (0.96%) Selenium
10 2 (0.64%) Balsamiq
10 2 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 2 (0.64%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.32%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.32%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.32%) Postman
11 1 (0.32%) SoapUI
11 1 (0.32%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 144 (46.30%) Social Skills
2 69 (22.19%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (12.22%) Finance
4 21 (6.75%) Public Sector
5 20 (6.43%) Manufacturing
6 15 (4.82%) Influencing Skills
7 14 (4.50%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (4.18%) Aerospace
9 12 (3.86%) Organisational Skills
10 10 (3.22%) Marketing
11 9 (2.89%) Presentation Skills
12 7 (2.25%) Legal
13 6 (1.93%) Law
13 6 (1.93%) Retail
14 5 (1.61%) Military
14 5 (1.61%) Telecoms
15 4 (1.29%) Advertising
15 4 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 3 (0.96%) Banking
16 3 (0.96%) Billing
Job Titles
1 39 (12.54%) Analyst
2 27 (8.68%) Senior
3 23 (7.40%) Project Manager
4 20 (6.43%) Developer
5 15 (4.82%) Architect
6 14 (4.50%) Lead
6 14 (4.50%) Technical Support
7 13 (4.18%) Penetration Tester
7 13 (4.18%) Project Planner
7 13 (4.18%) Tester
8 10 (3.22%) SC Cleared Project Manager
9 9 (2.89%) Network Engineer
10 8 (2.57%) Delivery Manager
10 8 (2.57%) IT Analyst
11 7 (2.25%) Business Analyst
11 7 (2.25%) Cisco Engineer
11 7 (2.25%) Consultant
11 7 (2.25%) Security Analyst
11 7 (2.25%) Trainer
12 6 (1.93%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (4.82%) REST
2 8 (2.57%) Kafka
3 7 (2.25%) RAML
4 6 (1.93%) RabbitMQ
5 5 (1.61%) Android Jetpack
5 5 (1.61%) Dagger
5 5 (1.61%) Jetpack Compose
5 5 (1.61%) OkHttp
5 5 (1.61%) RxJava
5 5 (1.61%) WireMock
6 4 (1.29%) React
7 3 (0.96%) ADO
7 3 (0.96%) Pandas
7 3 (0.96%) scikit-learn
7 3 (0.96%) Spring
7 3 (0.96%) Web Services
8 2 (0.64%) Matplotlib
8 2 (0.64%) Node.js
8 2 (0.64%) NumPy
8 2 (0.64%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 29 (9.32%) Management Information System
2 19 (6.11%) Data Centre
3 14 (4.50%) Virtual Team
4 12 (3.86%) Data Protection Act
4 12 (3.86%) Security Posture
5 11 (3.54%) Product Ownership
6 10 (3.22%) Analytical Mindset
6 10 (3.22%) Driving Licence
6 10 (3.22%) Onboarding
6 10 (3.22%) Security Operations Centre
7 9 (2.89%) Self-Motivation
8 8 (2.57%) PMI
9 7 (2.25%) Algorithms
9 7 (2.25%) Cloud Native
9 7 (2.25%) Legacy Code
10 5 (1.61%) BYOD
10 5 (1.61%) Handset
10 5 (1.61%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.61%) Mobile App
11 4 (1.29%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 54 (17.36%) Windows
2 31 (9.97%) Linux
3 14 (4.50%) Unix
4 7 (2.25%) Android
4 7 (2.25%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.93%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.29%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.96%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.64%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.64%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 117 (37.62%) Computer Science
2 79 (25.40%) Problem-Solving
3 71 (22.83%) Agile
4 49 (15.76%) Cybersecurity
5 48 (15.43%) Project Management
6 37 (11.90%) Stakeholder Management
7 34 (10.93%) Information Security
7 34 (10.93%) PRINCE2
8 32 (10.29%) Continuous Improvement
9 30 (9.65%) Decision-Making
10 29 (9.32%) AI
11 27 (8.68%) DevOps
12 25 (8.04%) ITIL
12 25 (8.04%) Migration
13 24 (7.72%) Change Management
14 23 (7.40%) CI/CD
14 23 (7.40%) Line Management
14 23 (7.40%) Project Delivery
15 22 (7.07%) Business Intelligence
15 22 (7.07%) Customer Service
Programming Languages
1 39 (12.54%) Python
2 25 (8.04%) SQL
3 21 (6.75%) Java
4 14 (4.50%) JavaScript
5 11 (3.54%) PowerShell
6 9 (2.89%) Perl
7 7 (2.25%) Go
7 7 (2.25%) Kotlin
8 5 (1.61%) Bash
8 5 (1.61%) C#
9 4 (1.29%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.96%) C
11 2 (0.64%) Ada
11 2 (0.64%) Assembly Language
11 2 (0.64%) MATLAB
11 2 (0.64%) R
12 1 (0.32%) C++
12 1 (0.32%) Tcl
12 1 (0.32%) TypeScript
12 1 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 108 (34.73%) Security Cleared
2 95 (30.55%) SC Cleared
3 81 (26.05%) Computer Science Degree
4 30 (9.65%) Master's Degree
5 22 (7.07%) CISSP
6 17 (5.47%) PMI Certification
6 17 (5.47%) PMP
7 16 (5.14%) Cisco Certification
8 15 (4.82%) CREST Certified
9 14 (4.50%) CCNP
10 13 (4.18%) DV Cleared
11 12 (3.86%) CISM
11 12 (3.86%) Postgraduate
12 11 (3.54%) CHECK Team Member
12 11 (3.54%) Cyber Scheme
13 10 (3.22%) CCNA
14 9 (2.89%) PhD
15 8 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
16 6 (1.93%) CompTIA Security+
16 6 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (13.50%) PMO
2 27 (8.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 25 (8.04%) GDPR
4 24 (7.72%) QA
5 19 (6.11%) NIST
6 17 (5.47%) PCI DSS
7 10 (3.22%) Data Quality
8 6 (1.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (1.61%) SLA
10 4 (1.29%) NCSC
11 3 (0.96%) Accessibility
11 3 (0.96%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.96%) DO-254
11 3 (0.96%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.96%) IEC 61508
11 3 (0.96%) ISO 26262
11 3 (0.96%) P3O
12 2 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.64%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 19770
System Software
1 15 (4.82%) Docker
2 13 (4.18%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.61%) Firmware
4 1 (0.32%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 15 (4.82%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.18%) Nmap
3 9 (2.89%) Terraform
4 5 (1.61%) Ansible
5 4 (1.29%) Grafana
5 4 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (0.96%) Nessus
6 3 (0.96%) Puppet
7 2 (0.64%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.64%) SCCM
8 1 (0.32%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.32%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.32%) Istio
8 1 (0.32%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.32%) linkerd
8 1 (0.32%) Nagios
8 1 (0.32%) Podman
8 1 (0.32%) SCOM
Vendors
1 62 (19.94%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.40%) SAP
3 19 (6.11%) Oracle
4 17 (5.47%) Cisco
5 12 (3.86%) Palo Alto
6 11 (3.54%) Aruba
6 11 (3.54%) CheckPoint
7 9 (2.89%) ServiceNow
7 9 (2.89%) Splunk
8 7 (2.25%) PayPal
9 6 (1.93%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.61%) BeyondTrust
10 5 (1.61%) CyberArk
10 5 (1.61%) Google
10 5 (1.61%) Snow
11 4 (1.29%) Cellebrite
11 4 (1.29%) ESRI
11 4 (1.29%) Informatica
11 4 (1.29%) Intergraph
11 4 (1.29%) Tenable