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 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 132 142 160
Rank change year-on-year +10 +18 +36
Contract jobs citing Master's Degree 36 35 44
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.99% 0.82% 0.80%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.51% 1.99% 1.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 11 19 29
10th Percentile £400 £322 £370
25th Percentile £403 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% +66.67%
75th Percentile £537 £631 £681
90th Percentile £540 £730 £825
England median daily rate £525 £531 £650
% change year-on-year -1.04% -18.38% +0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 7 2
10th Percentile - £32.65 £27.48
25th Percentile - £41.94 £34.58
Median hourly rate £29.61 £90.00 £46.79
Median % change year-on-year -67.10% +92.37% +3.97%
75th Percentile - £92.19 £58.62
90th Percentile - £92.37 £65.49
England median hourly rate £33.50 £41.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -18.79% -36.54% +44.44%

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 1,435 1,758 2,220
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 39.63% 41.02% 40.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 938 1,126 1,357
10th Percentile £208 £302 £250
25th Percentile £401 £413 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £538
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -1.40% +2.38%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £638
90th Percentile £650 £700 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 136 107 142
10th Percentile - £22.46 £25.20
25th Percentile £18.87 £35.00 £50.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £60.60 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.50% +1.00% +33.33%
75th Percentile £42.93 £72.82 £73.59
90th Percentile £81.00 £92.15 £77.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £52.50 £53.67
% change year-on-year -52.10% -2.17% +19.26%

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 October 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 October 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 +19 29 £413 -17.50% 74
Berkshire +31 21 £406 -35.00% 57
Buckinghamshire +6 8 £525 +5.00% 6
Hampshire +6 3 £537 +26.35% 21
East Sussex - 2 - - 4
West Sussex -6 1 £575 - 1
Surrey -8 1 - - 22
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 (11.11%) Apache Airflow
1 4 (11.11%) GeoServer
1 4 (11.11%) Smallworld
2 3 (8.33%) Apache
2 3 (8.33%) Apache Spark
3 2 (5.56%) Camunda
Applications
1 7 (19.44%) Chatbot
2 3 (8.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (2.78%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (2.78%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 11 (30.56%) AWS
1 11 (30.56%) Azure
1 11 (30.56%) GCP
2 6 (16.67%) Power Platform
3 4 (11.11%) Cloud Computing
3 4 (11.11%) dbt
4 3 (8.33%) Entra ID
4 3 (8.33%) Microsoft 365
5 1 (2.78%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 2 (5.56%) 4G
1 2 (5.56%) 5G
1 2 (5.56%) DOCSIS
1 2 (5.56%) DSL
1 2 (5.56%) GPON
1 2 (5.56%) LTE
1 2 (5.56%) MPLS
1 2 (5.56%) Radio Access Network
1 2 (5.56%) VoIP
1 2 (5.56%) xDSL
2 1 (2.78%) Converged Networks
2 1 (2.78%) Firewall
2 1 (2.78%) NAS
2 1 (2.78%) SAN
2 1 (2.78%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (19.44%) Relational Database
2 6 (16.67%) Power BI
2 6 (16.67%) Tableau
3 4 (11.11%) Data Warehouse
3 4 (11.11%) Geospatial Data
3 4 (11.11%) GIS
3 4 (11.11%) QGIS
4 3 (8.33%) Big Data
4 3 (8.33%) Hadoop
5 2 (5.56%) Data Lake
5 2 (5.56%) Metadata
6 1 (2.78%) EDMS
Development Applications
1 3 (8.33%) Git
General
1 17 (47.22%) Social Skills
2 16 (44.44%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (16.67%) Telecoms
4 3 (8.33%) Finance
5 2 (5.56%) Advertising
5 2 (5.56%) Legal
5 2 (5.56%) Marketing
5 2 (5.56%) Organisational Skills
5 2 (5.56%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Agriculture
6 1 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (2.78%) Manufacturing
6 1 (2.78%) Military
6 1 (2.78%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (2.78%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 7 (19.44%) Architect
1 7 (19.44%) Trainer
2 4 (11.11%) Data Engineer
3 3 (8.33%) Telecoms Engineer
4 2 (5.56%) Analyst
4 2 (5.56%) Auditor
4 2 (5.56%) Cloud Architect
4 2 (5.56%) Data Analyst
4 2 (5.56%) Data Centre Analyst
4 2 (5.56%) Data Scientist
4 2 (5.56%) GIS Architect
4 2 (5.56%) Information Security Auditor
4 2 (5.56%) Lead
4 2 (5.56%) Marketing Manager
4 2 (5.56%) OSS Architect
4 2 (5.56%) Security Auditor
5 1 (2.78%) Machine Learning Engineer
5 1 (2.78%) Public Sector Project Manager
5 1 (2.78%) Senior
5 1 (2.78%) Stakeholder Management Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (8.33%) NumPy
1 3 (8.33%) Pandas
1 3 (8.33%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 6 (16.67%) Legacy Systems
2 4 (11.11%) Algorithms
3 3 (8.33%) Cloud Native
3 3 (8.33%) Data Centre
3 3 (8.33%) Distributed Computing
4 2 (5.56%) Replication
4 2 (5.56%) Social Media
4 2 (5.56%) TM Forum
5 1 (2.78%) Analytical Mindset
5 1 (2.78%) Private Cloud
5 1 (2.78%) Public Cloud
5 1 (2.78%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 4 (11.11%) Windows
2 3 (8.33%) Mac OS
2 3 (8.33%) Windows 10
3 1 (2.78%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 16 (44.44%) Computer Science
2 14 (38.89%) AI
2 14 (38.89%) Decision-Making
3 12 (33.33%) Problem-Solving
4 11 (30.56%) Visualisation
5 10 (27.78%) Analytics
5 10 (27.78%) Machine Learning
6 9 (25.00%) Agile
7 8 (22.22%) Migration
8 7 (19.44%) Actionable Insight
8 7 (19.44%) Chemistry
8 7 (19.44%) Conversational UI
8 7 (19.44%) Data Engineering
8 7 (19.44%) Data Pipeline
8 7 (19.44%) Stakeholder Management
8 7 (19.44%) Validation
9 6 (16.67%) DevOps
9 6 (16.67%) Enterprise Architecture
9 6 (16.67%) Roadmaps
9 6 (16.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 10 (27.78%) Python
2 9 (25.00%) SQL
3 2 (5.56%) Bash
3 2 (5.56%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 36 (100.00%) Degree
2 10 (27.78%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (25.00%) PhD
4 3 (8.33%) Citrix Certification
4 3 (8.33%) Microsoft Certification
4 3 (8.33%) TOGAF Certification
5 2 (5.56%) CISMP
6 1 (2.78%) CISSP
6 1 (2.78%) DV Cleared
6 1 (2.78%) PMI Certification
6 1 (2.78%) PMP
6 1 (2.78%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (30.56%) Data Quality
2 4 (11.11%) GDPR
2 4 (11.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (8.33%) GRC
4 2 (5.56%) OASIS TOSCA
4 2 (5.56%) QA
5 1 (2.78%) JSP 440
5 1 (2.78%) NCSC
5 1 (2.78%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (11.11%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (8.33%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (8.33%) SCCM
2 2 (5.56%) Amdocs OSS
2 2 (5.56%) Ansible
2 2 (5.56%) Kubernetes
2 2 (5.56%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 7 (19.44%) PayPal
2 6 (16.67%) Microsoft
3 5 (13.89%) Google
4 4 (11.11%) ESRI
4 4 (11.11%) Intergraph
4 4 (11.11%) VMware
5 3 (8.33%) Citrix
6 2 (5.56%) Amdocs
6 2 (5.56%) Ericsson
6 2 (5.56%) HP
6 2 (5.56%) Huawei
6 2 (5.56%) NetCracker
6 2 (5.56%) Nokia
7 1 (2.78%) Cisco
7 1 (2.78%) Dell
7 1 (2.78%) F5
7 1 (2.78%) Isilon
7 1 (2.78%) NetApp
7 1 (2.78%) SAP
7 1 (2.78%) Veeam