SDLC Contract Job Trends in the South East

Systems or Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring SDLC skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 123 93 113
Rank change year-on-year -30 +20 -12
Contract jobs citing SDLC 53 88 107
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.33% 2.16% 1.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.52% 2.55% 2.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 33 57 77
10th Percentile £332 £400 £423
25th Percentile £415 £425 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £618 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.93% +12.27% -
75th Percentile £600 £650 £620
90th Percentile £753 £660 £657
England median daily rate £509 £550 £593
% change year-on-year -7.50% -7.17% -1.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 1 8
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £48.40
Median hourly rate £50.00 £67.02 £51.12
Median % change year-on-year -25.40% +31.12% -21.36%
75th Percentile £51.25 - £55.94
90th Percentile £53.50 - £59.88
England median hourly rate £55.00 £67.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -18.52% +28.57% -19.23%

All Process and Methodology Skills
South East

SDLC falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,490 3,456 4,845
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 87.56% 84.93% 89.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,210 2,116 3,148
10th Percentile £220 £260 £217
25th Percentile £400 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £523
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -1.91% +1.95%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £619
90th Percentile £669 £688 £695
England median daily rate £505 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -3.81% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 384 160 252
10th Percentile £14.50 £18.75 £16.40
25th Percentile £16.17 £29.44 £25.00
Median hourly rate £20.71 £58.17 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -64.40% +10.80% +19.37%
75th Percentile £36.61 £70.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £69.38 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% -16.67% +28.57%

SDLC
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

SDLC job vacancy trend in the South East

SDLC
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing SDLC.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing SDLC

SDLC
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

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

Daily rate histogram for SDLC in the South East

SDLC
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing SDLC.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing SDLC

SDLC
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 SDLC within the South East region over the 6 months to 18 November 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 £525 -16.00% 130
Berkshire -20 25 £575 -8.00% 70
Hampshire +1 13 £568 +19.47% 37
Surrey -2 5 £550 +57.14% 23
West Sussex -8 5 £525 +7.69% 26
Buckinghamshire +3 4 £325 -48.72% 44
SDLC
England

SDLC
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 2 (3.77%) Confluence
2 1 (1.89%) Anypoint
2 1 (1.89%) Camunda
2 1 (1.89%) Smallworld
2 1 (1.89%) WebSphere
Applications
1 1 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 17 (32.08%) Azure
2 10 (18.87%) Azure DevOps
3 7 (13.21%) AWS
4 5 (9.43%) GCP
5 3 (5.66%) Azure Logic Apps
5 3 (5.66%) Entra ID
5 3 (5.66%) Nutanix
6 1 (1.89%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (1.89%) OCI
6 1 (1.89%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 7 (13.21%) Firewall
2 4 (7.55%) Network Security
3 2 (3.77%) Internet
3 2 (3.77%) Intranet
3 2 (3.77%) Wireless
4 1 (1.89%) DMZ
4 1 (1.89%) SSL
4 1 (1.89%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (7.55%) SQL Server
2 2 (3.77%) Oracle Database
2 2 (3.77%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (1.89%) GIS
3 1 (1.89%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 10 (18.87%) JIRA
2 7 (13.21%) Git
3 4 (7.55%) Selenium
4 3 (5.66%) Cucumber
4 3 (5.66%) Postman
4 3 (5.66%) WebDriver
5 2 (3.77%) Oracle APEX
5 2 (3.77%) Oracle Forms
5 2 (3.77%) Visual Studio
6 1 (1.89%) Appium
6 1 (1.89%) Bitbucket
6 1 (1.89%) Burp Suite
6 1 (1.89%) Cypress.io
6 1 (1.89%) Jenkins
6 1 (1.89%) Maven
6 1 (1.89%) SonarQube
General
1 28 (52.83%) Social Skills
2 11 (20.75%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (13.21%) Finance
4 6 (11.32%) Public Sector
5 4 (7.55%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (1.89%) Automotive
6 1 (1.89%) Banking
6 1 (1.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 10 (18.87%) Architect
1 10 (18.87%) Developer
2 7 (13.21%) Analyst
2 7 (13.21%) Security Architect
2 7 (13.21%) Senior
3 5 (9.43%) C# Developer
4 4 (7.55%) Integration Analyst
4 4 (7.55%) Integration Test Analyst
4 4 (7.55%) Lead
4 4 (7.55%) Test Analyst
4 4 (7.55%) Test Manager
5 3 (5.66%) Applications Developer
5 3 (5.66%) Business Analyst
5 3 (5.66%) C# Application Developer
5 3 (5.66%) Consultant
5 3 (5.66%) Lead Developer
5 3 (5.66%) Logic Apps Developer
5 3 (5.66%) Software Developer
5 3 (5.66%) Solutions Architect
5 3 (5.66%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (13.21%) REST
2 5 (9.43%) WebdriverIO
3 3 (5.66%) .NET
3 3 (5.66%) Google JAX
3 3 (5.66%) JAX
3 3 (5.66%) JWT
3 3 (5.66%) OAuth
3 3 (5.66%) PyTorch
3 3 (5.66%) SAML
3 3 (5.66%) scikit-learn
3 3 (5.66%) TensorFlow
4 2 (3.77%) AngularJS
4 2 (3.77%) JSON
5 1 (1.89%) HTML
5 1 (1.89%) LDAP
5 1 (1.89%) Oracle Fusion
5 1 (1.89%) Quarkus
5 1 (1.89%) RAML
5 1 (1.89%) React
5 1 (1.89%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 6 (11.32%) Security Posture
2 5 (9.43%) Hybrid Cloud
3 4 (7.55%) Cloud Native
3 4 (7.55%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (7.55%) Product Ownership
4 3 (5.66%) Algorithms
4 3 (5.66%) Cloud Security Posture
4 3 (5.66%) Enterprise Software
4 3 (5.66%) Public Cloud
4 3 (5.66%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (3.77%) Operational Technology
6 1 (1.89%) Cyber Kill Chain
6 1 (1.89%) IoT
6 1 (1.89%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (1.89%) Management Information System
6 1 (1.89%) Mobile App
6 1 (1.89%) Mobile Computing
Operating Systems
1 7 (13.21%) Windows
2 3 (5.66%) Linux
3 1 (1.89%) Kali Linux
3 1 (1.89%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (54.72%) Agile
2 21 (39.62%) Test Automation
3 20 (37.74%) Problem-Solving
4 18 (33.96%) DevOps
5 13 (24.53%) CI/CD
6 11 (20.75%) Software Testing
6 11 (20.75%) Test Management
6 11 (20.75%) Threat Modelling
7 10 (18.87%) Migration
7 10 (18.87%) Waterfall
8 9 (16.98%) Scrum
8 9 (16.98%) Secure Coding
9 8 (15.09%) Continuous Improvement
9 8 (15.09%) Security Architecture
9 8 (15.09%) Software Engineering
10 7 (13.21%) Cloud Security
10 7 (13.21%) Computer Science
10 7 (13.21%) Data Migration
10 7 (13.21%) Integration Testing
10 7 (13.21%) Test Planning
Programming Languages
1 10 (18.87%) Java
2 9 (16.98%) C#
3 7 (13.21%) SQL
4 5 (9.43%) C
5 4 (7.55%) VB
6 3 (5.66%) C++
6 3 (5.66%) Python
6 3 (5.66%) R
7 2 (3.77%) Ada
7 2 (3.77%) Assembly Language
7 2 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 2 (3.77%) MATLAB
7 2 (3.77%) PL/SQL
7 2 (3.77%) PowerShell
8 1 (1.89%) Magik
8 1 (1.89%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 14 (26.42%) Security Cleared
2 10 (18.87%) SC Cleared
3 7 (13.21%) Degree
4 5 (9.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
4 5 (9.43%) CCSP
4 5 (9.43%) Cisco Certification
4 5 (9.43%) CISSP
5 4 (7.55%) AWS Certification
5 4 (7.55%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (5.66%) Azure Certification
6 3 (5.66%) CSPO
7 2 (3.77%) Master's Degree
7 2 (3.77%) PMP
8 1 (1.89%) DV Cleared
8 1 (1.89%) ISTQB
8 1 (1.89%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (1.89%) OCP
8 1 (1.89%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (1.89%) OSCP
8 1 (1.89%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (20.75%) QA
2 10 (18.87%) GDPR
3 8 (15.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (13.21%) NIST
5 5 (9.43%) PCI DSS
6 4 (7.55%) PSD2
7 3 (5.66%) EU AI Act
7 3 (5.66%) NCSC
8 1 (1.89%) GRC
8 1 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 1 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 1 (1.89%) JSP 440
System Software
1 3 (5.66%) Docker
Systems Management
1 8 (15.09%) Kubernetes
2 2 (3.77%) Nessus
3 1 (1.89%) Argo
3 1 (1.89%) CloudHub
3 1 (1.89%) HP ALM
3 1 (1.89%) HP Quality Center
3 1 (1.89%) Nmap
Vendors
1 6 (11.32%) Microsoft
2 3 (5.66%) Oracle
2 3 (5.66%) SAP
3 2 (3.77%) Citrix
4 1 (1.89%) BMC
4 1 (1.89%) HP
4 1 (1.89%) Micro Focus
4 1 (1.89%) MuleSoft
4 1 (1.89%) OpenText
4 1 (1.89%) Red Hat
4 1 (1.89%) Salesforce
4 1 (1.89%) ServiceNow