Lead Contracts in the South East

Leader
England > South East

The median Leader daily rate in the South East is £550, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 August 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 34 38 34
Rank change year-on-year +4 -4 0
Contract jobs requiring a Lead 193 226 347
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 5.44% 4.67% 6.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.02% 5.06% 6.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 143 230
10th Percentile £360 £380 £400
25th Percentile £453 £481 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% +11.11%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £675 £750 £775
England median daily rate £575 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -4.17% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 6 8
10th Percentile £29.14 - £46.01
25th Percentile £52.00 £18.35 £49.06
Median hourly rate £68.50 £22.54 £60.84
Median % change year-on-year +203.90% -62.95% +23.19%
75th Percentile £88.87 £57.31 £72.42
90th Percentile £89.23 £68.84 £84.68
England median hourly rate £72.50 £47.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year +52.63% -5.00% +5.26%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
South East

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the South East. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the South East with a recognized job title 3,208 4,462 5,291
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.49% 92.29% 95.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,069 2,741 3,629
10th Percentile £208 £250 £213
25th Percentile £375 £400 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% +4.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £635 £613
90th Percentile £663 £688 £700
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 369 234
10th Percentile £13.75 £16.00 £16.00
25th Percentile £15.50 £27.00 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.35 £49.87
Median % change year-on-year -56.15% +15.01% +121.62%
75th Percentile £57.50 £73.75 £64.41
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £41.50
% change year-on-year -44.11% +8.43% +61.60%

Lead
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings that featured Lead in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Lead in the South East

Lead
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Lead in the South East.

Daily rate trend for Lead in the South East

Lead
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Lead in the South East over the 6 months to 18 August 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Lead in the South East

Lead
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Lead in the South East.

Hourly rate trend for Lead in the South East

Lead
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Lead in the South East over the 6 months to 18 August 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Lead in the South East

Lead
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 Lead within the South East region over the 6 months to 18 August 2025. 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 +17 135 £528 -12.08% 223
Berkshire +16 100 £598 -0.33% 158
Hampshire +9 41 £600 - 55
Buckinghamshire +15 27 £490 -10.91% 35
Surrey -15 9 £550 +10.00% 64
West Sussex 0 8 £525 - 14
Oxfordshire -11 8 £625 +127.27% 33
Kent -2 7 £430 -11.79% 19
East Sussex -4 2 £531 -7.61% 17
Sussex +3 1 - - 22
Lead
England

Lead Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East

For the 6 months to 18 August 2025, Lead contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the South East region featuring Lead in the job title.

1 67 (34.72%) Social Skills
2 41 (21.24%) Agile
3 36 (18.65%) Oracle
4 34 (17.62%) Security Cleared
5 28 (14.51%) Problem-Solving
6 27 (13.99%) Finance
7 26 (13.47%) Azure
7 26 (13.47%) DevOps
8 24 (12.44%) Stakeholder Management
9 23 (11.92%) Cybersecurity
10 21 (10.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 21 (10.88%) SAP
10 21 (10.88%) OCI
11 19 (9.84%) DV Cleared
11 19 (9.84%) Migration
11 19 (9.84%) Analytical Skills
11 19 (9.84%) Project Delivery
12 18 (9.33%) Analytics
12 18 (9.33%) SC Cleared
13 17 (8.81%) ERP
13 17 (8.81%) Oracle EBS
13 17 (8.81%) Project Management
14 16 (8.29%) ITIL
14 16 (8.29%) User Acceptance Testing
14 16 (8.29%) Data Migration
14 16 (8.29%) Continuous Improvement
14 16 (8.29%) Decision-Making
15 15 (7.77%) CI/CD
15 15 (7.77%) Roadmaps
15 15 (7.77%) GDPR

Lead Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 5 (2.59%) Anypoint
2 2 (1.04%) Confluence
2 2 (1.04%) JBoss
2 2 (1.04%) Mule
2 2 (1.04%) Oracle Service Bus
2 2 (1.04%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.04%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.52%) Camunda
3 1 (0.52%) ThingWorx
Applications
1 3 (1.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.52%) Adobe Captivate
3 1 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 17 (8.81%) Oracle EBS
2 12 (6.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (3.11%) Oracle ERP
4 5 (2.59%) SAP IBP
5 3 (1.55%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (1.04%) Maximo
7 1 (0.52%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.52%) SAP EWM
7 1 (0.52%) SAP FI
7 1 (0.52%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.52%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 26 (13.47%) Azure
2 21 (10.88%) OCI
3 11 (5.70%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (3.63%) Entra ID
5 5 (2.59%) Google Workspace
6 4 (2.07%) AWS
6 4 (2.07%) GCP
6 4 (2.07%) GitHub
7 3 (1.55%) Azure Logic Apps
7 3 (1.55%) IaaS
7 3 (1.55%) Oracle CX
7 3 (1.55%) Power Platform
7 3 (1.55%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 2 (1.04%) Alation
8 2 (1.04%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (1.04%) Collibra
8 2 (1.04%) Google Play
8 2 (1.04%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (1.04%) SaaS
8 2 (1.04%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 11 (5.70%) Firewall
2 6 (3.11%) Intrusion Detection
2 6 (3.11%) Wi-Fi
3 5 (2.59%) VLAN
4 2 (1.04%) DHCP
4 2 (1.04%) DNS
4 2 (1.04%) SSL
4 2 (1.04%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.52%) 4G
5 1 (0.52%) ADSL
5 1 (0.52%) Internet
5 1 (0.52%) Intranet
5 1 (0.52%) Modbus
5 1 (0.52%) NAS
5 1 (0.52%) Network Security
5 1 (0.52%) SAN
5 1 (0.52%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (4.66%) Oracle Reports
2 6 (3.11%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 5 (2.59%) Metadata
4 4 (2.07%) Oracle BI EE
5 3 (1.55%) Power BI
5 3 (1.55%) Tableau
6 2 (1.04%) BigQuery
6 2 (1.04%) Data Lake
6 2 (1.04%) MongoDB
6 2 (1.04%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.52%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.52%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
7 1 (0.52%) Qlik Sense
7 1 (0.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 10 (5.18%) JIRA
2 5 (2.59%) Git
3 4 (2.07%) Selenium
4 2 (1.04%) IntelliJ
4 2 (1.04%) JUnit
5 1 (0.52%) HP UFT
5 1 (0.52%) Katalon Studio
5 1 (0.52%) Subversion
General
1 67 (34.72%) Social Skills
2 27 (13.99%) Finance
3 19 (9.84%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (5.70%) Manufacturing
5 6 (3.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 6 (3.11%) Legal
6 5 (2.59%) Law
6 5 (2.59%) Public Sector
7 4 (2.07%) Billing
7 4 (2.07%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.07%) Military
7 4 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (2.07%) Retail
7 4 (2.07%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.04%) German Language
8 2 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
8 2 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Front Office
9 1 (0.52%) General Ledger
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.70%) Oracle Fusion
2 6 (3.11%) Elastic Stack
2 6 (3.11%) JBoss Seam
3 5 (2.59%) RAML
3 5 (2.59%) Web Services
4 4 (2.07%) SOAP
5 3 (1.55%) .NET
5 3 (1.55%) ADO
5 3 (1.55%) HTML
5 3 (1.55%) Node.js
5 3 (1.55%) OAuth
6 2 (1.04%) CSS
6 2 (1.04%) CSS3
6 2 (1.04%) HTML5
6 2 (1.04%) Kafka
6 2 (1.04%) Middleware
6 2 (1.04%) OAuth2
6 2 (1.04%) REST
6 2 (1.04%) SAP PI
6 2 (1.04%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 13 (6.74%) Management Information System
2 6 (3.11%) Data Centre
2 6 (3.11%) Data Structures
2 6 (3.11%) Product Ownership
2 6 (3.11%) Self-Motivation
3 5 (2.59%) EPoS
3 5 (2.59%) Freedom of Information Act
3 5 (2.59%) Life Science
3 5 (2.59%) Onboarding
3 5 (2.59%) Renewable Energy
4 4 (2.07%) Freedom of Information
4 4 (2.07%) Security Operations Centre
5 3 (1.55%) Cloud Native
5 3 (1.55%) Cyber Threat
5 3 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (1.55%) Security Posture
6 2 (1.04%) CSOC
6 2 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
6 2 (1.04%) SCADA
6 2 (1.04%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (5.70%) Windows
2 5 (2.59%) Linux
3 3 (1.55%) Apple iOS
3 3 (1.55%) Windows 10
4 2 (1.04%) Android
4 2 (1.04%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (1.04%) Windows Server
4 2 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
5 1 (0.52%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.52%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (21.24%) Agile
2 28 (14.51%) Problem-Solving
3 26 (13.47%) DevOps
4 24 (12.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 23 (11.92%) Cybersecurity
6 21 (10.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 19 (9.84%) Migration
7 19 (9.84%) Project Delivery
8 18 (9.33%) Analytics
9 17 (8.81%) ERP
9 17 (8.81%) Project Management
10 16 (8.29%) Continuous Improvement
10 16 (8.29%) Data Migration
10 16 (8.29%) Decision-Making
10 16 (8.29%) ITIL
10 16 (8.29%) User Acceptance Testing
11 15 (7.77%) CI/CD
11 15 (7.77%) Roadmaps
12 14 (7.25%) Mentoring
13 13 (6.74%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 11 (5.70%) SQL
2 5 (2.59%) Java
2 5 (2.59%) PowerShell
3 4 (2.07%) Python
4 3 (1.55%) Bicep
4 3 (1.55%) C#
4 3 (1.55%) PL/SQL
5 2 (1.04%) Bash
6 1 (0.52%) C
6 1 (0.52%) C++
6 1 (0.52%) DataWeave
6 1 (0.52%) JavaScript
6 1 (0.52%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 34 (17.62%) Security Cleared
2 19 (9.84%) DV Cleared
3 18 (9.33%) SC Cleared
4 12 (6.22%) Degree
5 7 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (2.59%) CISSP
7 4 (2.07%) PMI Certification
7 4 (2.07%) PMP
8 3 (1.55%) Master's Degree
9 2 (1.04%) SAP Certification
10 1 (0.52%) ACCA
10 1 (0.52%) CCNP
10 1 (0.52%) CISA
10 1 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.52%) CISM
10 1 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.52%) JNCIA
10 1 (0.52%) PhD
10 1 (0.52%) Six Sigma Black Belt
10 1 (0.52%) Six Sigma Master Black Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (7.77%) GDPR
2 7 (3.63%) Data Quality
3 6 (3.11%) PMO
4 5 (2.59%) SLA
5 4 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (2.07%) NIST
5 4 (2.07%) QA
6 3 (1.55%) GRC
7 2 (1.04%) COBIT
7 2 (1.04%) Def Stans
8 1 (0.52%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.52%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.52%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.52%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 5 (2.59%) Active Directory
2 3 (1.55%) Virtual Desktop
2 3 (1.55%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 7 (3.63%) Microsoft Intune
2 6 (3.11%) Terraform
3 3 (1.55%) HP ALM
4 2 (1.04%) NetBackup
4 2 (1.04%) SCCM
5 1 (0.52%) AirWatch
5 1 (0.52%) CloudHub
5 1 (0.52%) Functional Safety
5 1 (0.52%) Jamf Pro
5 1 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 36 (18.65%) Oracle
2 21 (10.88%) SAP
3 12 (6.22%) Microsoft
4 10 (5.18%) MuleSoft
5 9 (4.66%) Google
6 6 (3.11%) Darktrace
6 6 (3.11%) ServiceNow
6 6 (3.11%) VMware
7 5 (2.59%) HP
7 5 (2.59%) Salesforce
8 4 (2.07%) Red Hat
9 3 (1.55%) Adobe
9 3 (1.55%) Informatica
10 2 (1.04%) 3PAR
10 2 (1.04%) Dell
10 2 (1.04%) Snow
10 2 (1.04%) Splunk
10 2 (1.04%) Veritas
11 1 (0.52%) Alteryx
11 1 (0.52%) Citrix