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 19 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 123 85 107
Rank change year-on-year -38 +22 -13
Contract jobs citing SDLC 46 100 110
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.27% 2.35% 1.98%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.43% 2.79% 2.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 28 65 72
10th Percentile £325 £385 £429
25th Percentile £403 £425 £480
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -14.58% +9.09% -0.09%
75th Percentile £586 £650 £614
90th Percentile £688 £660 £650
England median daily rate £525 £550 £600
% change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 2 9
10th Percentile - £58.45 -
25th Percentile - £59.88 £48.40
Median hourly rate £50.00 £63.51 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.27% +20.97% -19.23%
75th Percentile - £65.89 £58.75
90th Percentile - £66.57 £59.90
England median hourly rate £50.00 £67.02 £52.35
% change year-on-year -25.40% +28.02% -16.24%

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 3,207 3,588 4,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 88.71% 84.19% 89.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,014 2,170 3,311
10th Percentile £218 £262 £231
25th Percentile £386 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% +2.44%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £625
90th Percentile £650 £688 £700
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 335 181 262
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.25 £15.50
25th Percentile £16.17 £30.00 £24.00
Median hourly rate £20.71 £58.30 £53.50
Median % change year-on-year -64.48% +8.97% +50.87%
75th Percentile £38.42 £70.00 £66.39
90th Percentile £69.29 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £41.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -39.40% -7.78% +28.77%

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 19 October 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 19 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 -25 24 £423 -32.32% 128
Berkshire -12 19 £525 -16.00% 88
Hampshire +10 11 £513 -6.82% 32
Buckinghamshire 0 5 £325 -48.00% 38
West Sussex -10 5 £525 +14.13% 24
Surrey -4 4 £550 +41.03% 14
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 (4.35%) Confluence
2 1 (2.17%) Anypoint
2 1 (2.17%) Camunda
2 1 (2.17%) Smallworld
2 1 (2.17%) WebSphere
Applications
1 2 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (2.17%) Microsoft Project
Cloud Services
1 14 (30.43%) Azure
2 8 (17.39%) Azure DevOps
3 6 (13.04%) AWS
4 5 (10.87%) GCP
5 3 (6.52%) Azure Logic Apps
5 3 (6.52%) Entra ID
5 3 (6.52%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 6 (13.04%) Firewall
2 3 (6.52%) Network Security
3 1 (2.17%) HTTPS
3 1 (2.17%) SSL
3 1 (2.17%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (8.70%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.17%) GIS
2 1 (2.17%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 12 (26.09%) JIRA
2 9 (19.57%) Git
3 4 (8.70%) Cucumber
3 4 (8.70%) Postman
3 4 (8.70%) Selenium
3 4 (8.70%) WebDriver
4 2 (4.35%) Visual Studio
5 1 (2.17%) Bitbucket
5 1 (2.17%) Jenkins
5 1 (2.17%) Maven
General
1 21 (45.65%) Social Skills
2 9 (19.57%) Analytical Skills
2 9 (19.57%) Finance
3 4 (8.70%) Public Sector
4 2 (4.35%) Retail
5 1 (2.17%) Banking
5 1 (2.17%) Legal
5 1 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 9 (19.57%) Architect
2 8 (17.39%) Analyst
2 8 (17.39%) Developer
3 7 (15.22%) Security Architect
3 7 (15.22%) Senior
4 5 (10.87%) C# Developer
4 5 (10.87%) Lead
5 4 (8.70%) Integration Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Integration Test Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Software Developer
5 4 (8.70%) Software Test Engineer
5 4 (8.70%) Test Analyst
5 4 (8.70%) Test Engineer
6 3 (6.52%) .NET Applications Developer
6 3 (6.52%) .NET Developer
6 3 (6.52%) Applications Developer
6 3 (6.52%) Business Analyst
6 3 (6.52%) C# Application Developer
6 3 (6.52%) Lead C# Developer
6 3 (6.52%) Lead Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (21.74%) REST
2 4 (8.70%) WebdriverIO
3 3 (6.52%) .NET
3 3 (6.52%) Google JAX
3 3 (6.52%) JAX
3 3 (6.52%) PyTorch
3 3 (6.52%) scikit-learn
3 3 (6.52%) TensorFlow
4 2 (4.35%) JSON
4 2 (4.35%) SOAP
5 1 (2.17%) Hibernate
5 1 (2.17%) HTML
5 1 (2.17%) LDAP
5 1 (2.17%) RAML
5 1 (2.17%) React
5 1 (2.17%) SAML
5 1 (2.17%) Spring
5 1 (2.17%) Spring Boot
5 1 (2.17%) Web Services
5 1 (2.17%) WebAssembly
Miscellaneous
1 5 (10.87%) Hybrid Cloud
1 5 (10.87%) Security Posture
1 5 (10.87%) Self-Motivation
2 4 (8.70%) Cloud Native
2 4 (8.70%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (6.52%) Algorithms
3 3 (6.52%) Cloud Security Posture
3 3 (6.52%) Distributed Systems
3 3 (6.52%) Product Ownership
3 3 (6.52%) Public Cloud
4 2 (4.35%) Operational Technology
5 1 (2.17%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 7 (15.22%) Windows
2 2 (4.35%) Linux
3 1 (2.17%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (58.70%) Agile
2 17 (36.96%) DevOps
2 17 (36.96%) Test Automation
3 15 (32.61%) Problem-Solving
4 13 (28.26%) CI/CD
5 10 (21.74%) Scrum
5 10 (21.74%) Software Testing
6 8 (17.39%) Test Management
6 8 (17.39%) Threat Modelling
7 7 (15.22%) Secure Coding
7 7 (15.22%) Security Architecture
7 7 (15.22%) Waterfall
8 6 (13.04%) Code Quality
8 6 (13.04%) Logistics
8 6 (13.04%) Manual Testing
8 6 (13.04%) Migration
8 6 (13.04%) Software Engineering
8 6 (13.04%) Stakeholder Management
8 6 (13.04%) Test Planning
9 5 (10.87%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 10 (21.74%) Java
2 9 (19.57%) C#
3 5 (10.87%) C
3 5 (10.87%) SQL
4 4 (8.70%) VB
5 3 (6.52%) C++
5 3 (6.52%) Python
5 3 (6.52%) R
6 2 (4.35%) Ada
6 2 (4.35%) Assembly Language
6 2 (4.35%) MATLAB
6 2 (4.35%) PowerShell
7 1 (2.17%) JavaScript
7 1 (2.17%) Magik
7 1 (2.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 7 (15.22%) Security Cleared
2 5 (10.87%) Degree
2 5 (10.87%) SC Cleared
3 4 (8.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 4 (8.70%) AWS Certification
3 4 (8.70%) CCSP
3 4 (8.70%) Cisco Certification
3 4 (8.70%) CISSP
4 3 (6.52%) Azure Certification
4 3 (6.52%) CSPO
5 2 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (4.35%) PMP
6 1 (2.17%) OCP
6 1 (2.17%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (17.39%) QA
2 7 (15.22%) GDPR
2 7 (15.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (13.04%) NIST
4 4 (8.70%) PCI DSS
4 4 (8.70%) PSD2
5 3 (6.52%) EU AI Act
6 1 (2.17%) PMO
System Software
1 3 (6.52%) Docker
Systems Management
1 7 (15.22%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.17%) CloudHub
2 1 (2.17%) HP ALM
2 1 (2.17%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 5 (10.87%) Microsoft
2 2 (4.35%) Citrix
2 2 (4.35%) Salesforce
3 1 (2.17%) BMC
3 1 (2.17%) Conga
3 1 (2.17%) HP
3 1 (2.17%) Micro Focus
3 1 (2.17%) MuleSoft
3 1 (2.17%) OpenText
3 1 (2.17%) Oracle
3 1 (2.17%) SAP
3 1 (2.17%) ServiceNow