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 1 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 91 118
Rank change year-on-year -42 +27 -30
Contract jobs citing SDLC 58 67 88
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.18% 2.15% 1.59%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.42% 2.36% 1.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 34 39 67
10th Percentile £402 £434 £376
25th Percentile £431 £463 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.43% - +10.58%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £673
90th Percentile £760 £651 £688
England median daily rate £520 £550 £595
% change year-on-year -5.45% -7.56% -0.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 3
10th Percentile £54.00 - -
25th Percentile £57.50 - -
Median hourly rate £60.00 - £48.40
75th Percentile £63.75 - £57.71
90th Percentile £67.50 - £63.30
England median hourly rate £60.00 £67.50 £50.00
% change year-on-year -11.11% +35.00% -21.88%

All Process & 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 4,090 2,842 4,848
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.30% 91.21% 87.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,688 1,767 2,918
10th Percentile £263 £250 £213
25th Percentile £402 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% +0.50% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £610
90th Percentile £694 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 357 123 373
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.05 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.09 £23.84 £18.95
Median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -44.11% - -
75th Percentile £67.50 £62.50 £62.54
90th Percentile £85.38 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £28.55 £35.00 £34.21
% change year-on-year -18.43% +2.31% -2.92%

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 1 March 2026.

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 1 March 2026. 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 -48 19 £508 -18.47% 27
Berkshire -48 17 £500 -19.35% 19
Surrey +3 14 £500 +5.26% 15
Hampshire -29 13 £750 +53.85% 21
West Sussex -10 7 £500 - 7
East Sussex +5 2 - - 9
Buckinghamshire -9 2 £515 -20.77% 4
Sussex -4 1 - - 1
Home Counties - 1 - -
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 6 (10.34%) Confluence
2 1 (1.72%) Appian
2 1 (1.72%) IIS
2 1 (1.72%) JBoss
2 1 (1.72%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 1 (1.72%) Smallworld
2 1 (1.72%) Tomcat
2 1 (1.72%) WebLogic
2 1 (1.72%) WebSphere
Applications
1 4 (6.90%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (3.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (1.72%) SAP ERP
2 1 (1.72%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 11 (18.97%) Azure
2 7 (12.07%) Azure DevOps
2 7 (12.07%) OpenShift
3 4 (6.90%) AWS
3 4 (6.90%) Serverless
4 3 (5.17%) Azure Functions
4 3 (5.17%) Azure Key Vault
4 3 (5.17%) Azure Monitor
4 3 (5.17%) Nutanix
5 2 (3.45%) Azure AKS
5 2 (3.45%) GCP
5 2 (3.45%) GitHub
5 2 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
5 2 (3.45%) SaaS
6 1 (1.72%) Azure Data Factory
6 1 (1.72%) Cloud Computing
6 1 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
6 1 (1.72%) Entra ID
6 1 (1.72%) OCI
6 1 (1.72%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (6.90%) Firewall
2 3 (5.17%) Wireless
3 2 (3.45%) HTTPS
3 2 (3.45%) Internet
3 2 (3.45%) Intranet
3 2 (3.45%) Network Security
4 1 (1.72%) DHCP
4 1 (1.72%) DMZ
4 1 (1.72%) DNS
4 1 (1.72%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (3.45%) Oracle Database
1 2 (3.45%) Oracle Reports
2 1 (1.72%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (1.72%) GIS
2 1 (1.72%) Relational Database
2 1 (1.72%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 13 (22.41%) Git
2 10 (17.24%) JIRA
3 8 (13.79%) SonarQube
4 4 (6.90%) Visual Studio
5 3 (5.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (3.45%) Burp Suite
6 2 (3.45%) Jenkins
6 2 (3.45%) Oracle APEX
6 2 (3.45%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (1.72%) Appium
7 1 (1.72%) Bitbucket
7 1 (1.72%) Cypress.io
7 1 (1.72%) GitLab
7 1 (1.72%) Selenium
7 1 (1.72%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (1.72%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 17 (29.31%) Social Skills
2 7 (12.07%) Public Sector
3 6 (10.34%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (8.62%) Presentation Skills
5 3 (5.17%) Law
6 2 (3.45%) Finance
7 1 (1.72%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.72%) Automotive
7 1 (1.72%) Back Office
7 1 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (1.72%) Front Office
7 1 (1.72%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 17 (29.31%) Developer
2 9 (15.52%) Senior
3 8 (13.79%) Software Engineer
4 6 (10.34%) Java Developer
5 5 (8.62%) Architect
5 5 (8.62%) DevOps Engineer
5 5 (8.62%) Software Developer
5 5 (8.62%) Test Manager
6 4 (6.90%) Tester
7 3 (5.17%) Analyst
7 3 (5.17%) Embedded Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) Embedded Software Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) Penetration Tester
7 3 (5.17%) Senior Embedded Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) Senior Software Engineer
7 3 (5.17%) Strategy Manager
7 3 (5.17%) Test Strategy Manager
8 2 (3.45%) Azure Developer
8 2 (3.45%) SC Cleared Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (13.79%) .NET
2 7 (12.07%) AngularJS
2 7 (12.07%) Quarkus
2 7 (12.07%) REST
3 5 (8.62%) JWT
3 5 (8.62%) OAuth
4 4 (6.90%) RESTful
4 4 (6.90%) SAML
5 3 (5.17%) SOAP
5 3 (5.17%) WinForms
6 2 (3.45%) .NET Core
6 2 (3.45%) ARM Templates
6 2 (3.45%) GraphQL
6 2 (3.45%) Hibernate
6 2 (3.45%) Spring
6 2 (3.45%) Spring Boot
6 2 (3.45%) Web Services
7 1 (1.72%) Blazor
7 1 (1.72%) Keycloak
7 1 (1.72%) WebdriverIO
Miscellaneous
1 8 (13.79%) Distributed Systems
2 6 (10.34%) Product Ownership
3 2 (3.45%) Cloud Native
3 2 (3.45%) Distributed Architecture
3 2 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
3 2 (3.45%) Security Posture
4 1 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (1.72%) Cyber Kill Chain
4 1 (1.72%) Data Centre
4 1 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
4 1 (1.72%) IoT
4 1 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (1.72%) Mobile App
4 1 (1.72%) Mobile Computing
4 1 (1.72%) N-Tier
4 1 (1.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (15.52%) Linux
2 7 (12.07%) Windows
3 2 (3.45%) Kali Linux
3 2 (3.45%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (1.72%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (1.72%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (65.52%) Agile
2 23 (39.66%) Scrum
3 22 (37.93%) Test Automation
4 15 (25.86%) Software Engineering
5 13 (22.41%) Unit Testing
6 12 (20.69%) CI/CD
6 12 (20.69%) DevOps
6 12 (20.69%) Problem-Solving
7 10 (17.24%) DevSecOps
8 9 (15.52%) Microservices
8 9 (15.52%) OWASP
8 9 (15.52%) Requirements Analysis
8 9 (15.52%) Sprint Planning
9 8 (13.79%) AI
9 8 (13.79%) Scenario Testing
9 8 (13.79%) Test Strategy
9 8 (13.79%) User Stories
9 8 (13.79%) Waterfall
10 7 (12.07%) Front End Development
10 7 (12.07%) Sprint Review
Programming Languages
1 13 (22.41%) Java
2 12 (20.69%) SQL
3 7 (12.07%) C
3 7 (12.07%) Python
4 6 (10.34%) C#
4 6 (10.34%) PowerShell
5 4 (6.90%) Ada
5 4 (6.90%) Bash
5 4 (6.90%) C++
5 4 (6.90%) JavaScript
6 3 (5.17%) Rust
6 3 (5.17%) T-SQL
7 2 (3.45%) Go
7 2 (3.45%) PHP
7 2 (3.45%) PL/SQL
8 1 (1.72%) Assembly Language
8 1 (1.72%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (1.72%) Magik
8 1 (1.72%) MATLAB
8 1 (1.72%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 31 (53.45%) Security Cleared
2 23 (39.66%) SC Cleared
3 6 (10.34%) Degree
4 4 (6.90%) Computer Science Degree
5 2 (3.45%) CSPO
5 2 (3.45%) DV Cleared
5 2 (3.45%) Master's Degree
5 2 (3.45%) SANS
6 1 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 1 (1.72%) CCSP
6 1 (1.72%) Cisco Certification
6 1 (1.72%) CISSP
6 1 (1.72%) ISTQB
6 1 (1.72%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 1 (1.72%) OCP
6 1 (1.72%) Oracle Certification
6 1 (1.72%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (25.86%) QA
2 4 (6.90%) NCSC
3 3 (5.17%) GDPR
4 1 (1.72%) GRC
4 1 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27005
4 1 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 42001
4 1 (1.72%) JSP 440
4 1 (1.72%) NIST
4 1 (1.72%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 3 (5.17%) Docker
1 3 (5.17%) VMware Infrastructure
2 1 (1.72%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 10 (17.24%) Kubernetes
2 7 (12.07%) Argo
3 4 (6.90%) HP Quality Center
4 3 (5.17%) Nessus
4 3 (5.17%) Terraform
5 2 (3.45%) Nmap
6 1 (1.72%) Ansible
6 1 (1.72%) Podman
6 1 (1.72%) Puppet
6 1 (1.72%) SCCM
Vendors
1 7 (12.07%) Red Hat
2 6 (10.34%) Microsoft
3 5 (8.62%) SAP
4 4 (6.90%) Oracle
5 3 (5.17%) Citrix
5 3 (5.17%) VMware
6 1 (1.72%) Atlassian
6 1 (1.72%) Checkmarx
6 1 (1.72%) Micro Focus
6 1 (1.72%) OpenAI
6 1 (1.72%) OpenText
6 1 (1.72%) ServiceNow
6 1 (1.72%) Sparx
6 1 (1.72%) Tenable