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

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 136 140 163
Rank change year-on-year +4 +23 +38
Contract jobs citing Master's Degree 23 45 48
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the South East 0.67% 0.98% 0.85%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.72% 2.27% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 25 33
10th Percentile £356 £350 £279
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% -9.09% +66.67%
75th Percentile £537 £625 £681
90th Percentile £540 £689 £820
England median daily rate £537 £525 £650
% change year-on-year +2.29% -19.23% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 10 1
Median hourly rate - £61.44 £70.07
Median % change year-on-year - -12.32% +55.71%
England median hourly rate £33.50 £42.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -21.18% -34.62% +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 1,338 1,981 2,174
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 38.92% 43.17% 38.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 864 1,245 1,341
10th Percentile £222 £336 £270
25th Percentile £413 £425 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% +4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £650 £717 £700
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 158 135
10th Percentile - £22.36 £25.13
25th Percentile £18.87 £46.64 £50.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £57.70 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.41% -3.84% +33.33%
75th Percentile £68.50 £72.22 £73.73
90th Percentile £81.00 £87.46 £77.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £54.00 £54.78
% change year-on-year -53.43% -1.42% +21.73%

Master's Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing Master's Degree as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for Master's Degree 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +14 16 £425 -15.00% 91
Berkshire +18 15 £400 -23.81% 58
Hampshire +14 4 £515 +21.06% 20
East Sussex - 2 - - 9
Buckinghamshire +4 1 £525 +5.00% 12
West Sussex -1 1 £575 - 2
Master's Degree
England

Master's Degree
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 4 (17.39%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (8.70%) Camunda
3 1 (4.35%) Apache
3 1 (4.35%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 3 (13.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (4.35%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (4.35%) Trello
Business Applications
1 1 (4.35%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 9 (39.13%) GCP
2 8 (34.78%) AWS
3 6 (26.09%) Power Platform
4 4 (17.39%) Azure
4 4 (17.39%) Cloud Computing
4 4 (17.39%) dbt
5 3 (13.04%) Entra ID
5 3 (13.04%) Microsoft 365
6 1 (4.35%) Veeva
Communications & Networking
1 2 (8.70%) 4G
1 2 (8.70%) 5G
1 2 (8.70%) DOCSIS
1 2 (8.70%) DSL
1 2 (8.70%) GPON
1 2 (8.70%) LTE
1 2 (8.70%) MPLS
1 2 (8.70%) Radio Access Network
1 2 (8.70%) VoIP
1 2 (8.70%) xDSL
2 1 (4.35%) Converged Networks
2 1 (4.35%) Firewall
2 1 (4.35%) NAS
2 1 (4.35%) SAN
2 1 (4.35%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (26.09%) Power BI
1 6 (26.09%) Tableau
2 5 (21.74%) Relational Database
3 4 (17.39%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (8.70%) Data Lake
5 1 (4.35%) Big Data
5 1 (4.35%) EDMS
5 1 (4.35%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 2 (8.70%) Git
2 1 (4.35%) CMake
2 1 (4.35%) JIRA
General
1 18 (78.26%) Social Skills
2 10 (43.48%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (26.09%) Telecoms
4 3 (13.04%) Finance
4 3 (13.04%) Legal
5 2 (8.70%) Manufacturing
5 2 (8.70%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (4.35%) Agriculture
6 1 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (4.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (4.35%) Marketing
6 1 (4.35%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (4.35%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (4.35%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 5 (21.74%) Architect
2 4 (17.39%) Data Engineer
3 3 (13.04%) Telecoms Engineer
4 2 (8.70%) Auditor
4 2 (8.70%) Cloud Architect
4 2 (8.70%) Information Security Auditor
4 2 (8.70%) Lead
4 2 (8.70%) OSS Architect
4 2 (8.70%) Security Auditor
5 1 (4.35%) Consultant
5 1 (4.35%) Data Scientist
5 1 (4.35%) Information Manager
5 1 (4.35%) Information Security Manager
5 1 (4.35%) Project Manager
5 1 (4.35%) Public Sector Project Manager
5 1 (4.35%) Security Manager
5 1 (4.35%) Senior
5 1 (4.35%) Solutions Consultant
5 1 (4.35%) Stakeholder Management Project Manager
5 1 (4.35%) Stakeholder Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (4.35%) CNTK
1 1 (4.35%) NumPy
1 1 (4.35%) OpenVINO
1 1 (4.35%) Pandas
1 1 (4.35%) PyTorch
1 1 (4.35%) scikit-learn
1 1 (4.35%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 3 (13.04%) Algorithms
1 3 (13.04%) Cloud Native
2 2 (8.70%) Analytical Mindset
2 2 (8.70%) Legacy Systems
2 2 (8.70%) TM Forum
3 1 (4.35%) Data Centre
3 1 (4.35%) Distributed Computing
3 1 (4.35%) Private Cloud
3 1 (4.35%) Public Cloud
3 1 (4.35%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 5 (21.74%) Windows
2 3 (13.04%) Mac OS
2 3 (13.04%) Windows 10
3 2 (8.70%) Linux
4 1 (4.35%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (52.17%) Problem-Solving
2 11 (47.83%) Computer Science
2 11 (47.83%) Decision-Making
3 7 (30.43%) Roadmaps
3 7 (30.43%) Visualisation
4 6 (26.09%) Actionable Insight
4 6 (26.09%) Analytics
4 6 (26.09%) Business Intelligence
4 6 (26.09%) Stakeholder Management
5 5 (21.74%) Data Engineering
5 5 (21.74%) Data Modelling
5 5 (21.74%) Data Pipeline
5 5 (21.74%) Enterprise Architecture
5 5 (21.74%) ITIL
5 5 (21.74%) Validation
6 4 (17.39%) Data Science
6 4 (17.39%) Data Transformation
6 4 (17.39%) Machine Learning
6 4 (17.39%) User Experience
6 4 (17.39%) WFM
Programming Languages
1 9 (39.13%) Python
2 7 (30.43%) SQL
3 2 (8.70%) Bash
3 2 (8.70%) PowerShell
4 1 (4.35%) C++
Qualifications
1 23 (100.00%) Degree
2 5 (21.74%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (13.04%) CISMP
3 3 (13.04%) Citrix Certification
3 3 (13.04%) Microsoft Certification
4 2 (8.70%) TOGAF Certification
5 1 (4.35%) MBA
5 1 (4.35%) PhD
5 1 (4.35%) PMI Certification
5 1 (4.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (30.43%) Data Quality
2 3 (13.04%) GDPR
2 3 (13.04%) GRC
2 3 (13.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (8.70%) OASIS TOSCA
3 2 (8.70%) QA
4 1 (4.35%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (17.39%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (13.04%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 3 (13.04%) SCCM
2 2 (8.70%) Amdocs OSS
2 2 (8.70%) Ansible
2 2 (8.70%) Kubernetes
2 2 (8.70%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 6 (26.09%) Microsoft
2 4 (17.39%) VMware
3 3 (13.04%) Citrix
3 3 (13.04%) Google
4 2 (8.70%) Amdocs
4 2 (8.70%) Ericsson
4 2 (8.70%) Huawei
4 2 (8.70%) NetCracker
4 2 (8.70%) Nokia
5 1 (4.35%) Cisco
5 1 (4.35%) Dell
5 1 (4.35%) F5
5 1 (4.35%) Isilon
5 1 (4.35%) NetApp
5 1 (4.35%) SAP
5 1 (4.35%) Veeam