Master's Degree Contract Job Trends in the South East

Master's Degree
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the South East with a requirement for Master's Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 16 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 152 152 175
Rank change year-on-year 0 +23 -9
Contract jobs citing Master's Degree 38 21 32
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.87% 0.56% 0.63%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.02% 1.43% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 8 14 20
10th Percentile £406 £399 £385
25th Percentile £471 £403 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +3.70% -13.04% +27.78%
75th Percentile £552 £605 £741
90th Percentile £606 £703 £830
England median daily rate £525 £570 £650
% change year-on-year -7.89% -12.31% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 2
10th Percentile - £41.19 £27.48
25th Percentile - £41.47 £34.58
Median hourly rate £29.61 £41.94 £46.79
Median % change year-on-year -29.40% -10.36% +3.97%
75th Percentile - £42.41 £58.62
90th Percentile - £42.69 £65.49
England median hourly rate £33.50 £27.67 £57.50
% change year-on-year +21.07% -51.88% +27.78%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

Master's 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 1,879 1,464 2,191
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 43.16% 38.92% 43.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,253 977 1,298
10th Percentile £267 £267 £213
25th Percentile £413 £412 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £540 £538
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +0.47% +1.37%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £690 £701 £688
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 81 143
10th Percentile £18.44 £20.12 £27.09
25th Percentile £18.90 £27.00 £49.07
Median hourly rate £25.15 £56.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -55.68% -5.43% +33.33%
75th Percentile £62.88 £64.73 £70.04
90th Percentile £90.09 £75.00 £78.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -47.05% -9.52% +16.67%

Master's Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Master's Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Master's Degree job vacancy trend in the South East

Master's Degree
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Master's Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Master's Degree

Master's Degree
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Master's Degree in the South East over the 6 months to 16 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Master's Degree in the South East

Master's Degree
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Master's Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Master's Degree

Master's 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 Master's Degree within the South East region over the 6 months to 16 December 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 +13 27 £456 -8.75% 78
Berkshire +4 20 £456 -18.89% 44
Hampshire -8 8 £537 +26.35% 35
Buckinghamshire +11 7 - - 14
Surrey -9 1 - - 22
West Sussex - 1 £575 - 6
East Sussex - 1 - - 6
Master's Degree
England

Master's 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 4 (10.53%) Apache Airflow
1 4 (10.53%) GeoServer
1 4 (10.53%) Smallworld
2 3 (7.89%) Apache
2 3 (7.89%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 7 (18.42%) Chatbot
2 6 (15.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (2.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (2.63%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (2.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
1 1 (2.63%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 12 (31.58%) Azure
1 12 (31.58%) GCP
2 11 (28.95%) AWS
3 6 (15.79%) Power Platform
4 4 (10.53%) Cloud Computing
4 4 (10.53%) dbt
5 3 (7.89%) Microsoft 365
6 2 (5.26%) Entra ID
7 1 (2.63%) OCI
7 1 (2.63%) Veeva
7 1 (2.63%) WhatsApp
Communications & Networking
1 1 (2.63%) Internet
1 1 (2.63%) Intranet
1 1 (2.63%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 8 (21.05%) Relational Database
2 6 (15.79%) Power BI
2 6 (15.79%) Tableau
3 5 (13.16%) BusinessObjects Business Intelligence
4 4 (10.53%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (10.53%) Geospatial Data
4 4 (10.53%) GIS
4 4 (10.53%) QGIS
5 3 (7.89%) Big Data
5 3 (7.89%) Hadoop
6 2 (5.26%) Data Lake
6 2 (5.26%) Metadata
7 1 (2.63%) EDMS
7 1 (2.63%) Oracle Database
7 1 (2.63%) RDBMS
7 1 (2.63%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (7.89%) Git
2 1 (2.63%) Appium
2 1 (2.63%) Burp Suite
2 1 (2.63%) Cypress.io
2 1 (2.63%) Selenium
General
1 23 (60.53%) Analytical Skills
2 17 (44.74%) Social Skills
3 9 (23.68%) Finance
4 4 (10.53%) Telecoms
5 2 (5.26%) Advertising
5 2 (5.26%) Marketing
5 2 (5.26%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (2.63%) Agriculture
6 1 (2.63%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.63%) Manufacturing
6 1 (2.63%) Military
6 1 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (2.63%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (2.63%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 7 (18.42%) Trainer
2 6 (15.79%) Architect
3 5 (13.16%) Finance Manager
4 4 (10.53%) Data Engineer
5 3 (7.89%) Lead
5 3 (7.89%) Telecoms Engineer
6 2 (5.26%) Analyst
6 2 (5.26%) Cloud Architect
6 2 (5.26%) Data Analyst
6 2 (5.26%) Data Centre Analyst
6 2 (5.26%) Data Scientist
6 2 (5.26%) GIS Architect
6 2 (5.26%) Marketing Manager
6 2 (5.26%) Senior
7 1 (2.63%) Head of Architecture
7 1 (2.63%) Machine Learning Engineer
7 1 (2.63%) Public Sector Project Manager
7 1 (2.63%) Senior Data Architect
7 1 (2.63%) Stakeholder Management Project Manager
7 1 (2.63%) Stakeholder Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (7.89%) NumPy
1 3 (7.89%) Pandas
1 3 (7.89%) scikit-learn
2 1 (2.63%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 6 (15.79%) Analytical Mindset
1 6 (15.79%) Legacy Systems
2 4 (10.53%) Algorithms
3 3 (7.89%) Distributed Computing
4 2 (5.26%) Data Centre
4 2 (5.26%) Replication
4 2 (5.26%) Social Media
5 1 (2.63%) Cloud Native
5 1 (2.63%) Data Structures
5 1 (2.63%) Mobile App
5 1 (2.63%) Security Posture
5 1 (2.63%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 3 (7.89%) Mac OS
1 3 (7.89%) Windows
1 3 (7.89%) Windows 10
2 1 (2.63%) Kali Linux
2 1 (2.63%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (42.11%) Computer Science
2 15 (39.47%) Decision-Making
3 14 (36.84%) Problem-Solving
4 12 (31.58%) AI
5 11 (28.95%) Business Intelligence
5 11 (28.95%) Visualisation
6 10 (26.32%) Agile
7 8 (21.05%) Analytics
7 8 (21.05%) Data Engineering
7 8 (21.05%) Machine Learning
8 7 (18.42%) Actionable Insight
8 7 (18.42%) Chemistry
8 7 (18.42%) Conversational UI
8 7 (18.42%) Data Pipeline
8 7 (18.42%) Stakeholder Management
9 6 (15.79%) Data Migration
9 6 (15.79%) Data Modelling
9 6 (15.79%) Migration
9 6 (15.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 6 (15.79%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 10 (26.32%) Python
2 9 (23.68%) SQL
3 2 (5.26%) Bash
3 2 (5.26%) PowerShell
4 1 (2.63%) Java
4 1 (2.63%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 38 (100.00%) Degree
2 13 (34.21%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (23.68%) PhD
4 3 (7.89%) Citrix Certification
4 3 (7.89%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (5.26%) CISSP
6 1 (2.63%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 1 (2.63%) CCSP
6 1 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (2.63%) DV Cleared
6 1 (2.63%) ISTQB
6 1 (2.63%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (2.63%) OSCP
6 1 (2.63%) PMI Certification
6 1 (2.63%) PMP
6 1 (2.63%) SANS
6 1 (2.63%) Security Cleared
6 1 (2.63%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (28.95%) Data Quality
2 4 (10.53%) GDPR
2 4 (10.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (7.89%) QA
4 2 (5.26%) GRC
5 1 (2.63%) JSP 440
5 1 (2.63%) NCSC
5 1 (2.63%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 3 (7.89%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (5.26%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (7.89%) SCCM
2 2 (5.26%) Microsoft Intune
3 1 (2.63%) Nessus
3 1 (2.63%) Nmap
Vendors
1 9 (23.68%) Microsoft
2 7 (18.42%) PayPal
3 6 (15.79%) SAP
4 5 (13.16%) Google
5 4 (10.53%) ESRI
5 4 (10.53%) Intergraph
6 3 (7.89%) Citrix
6 3 (7.89%) VMware
7 2 (5.26%) HP
7 2 (5.26%) Oracle