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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 123 112
Rank change year-on-year +18 -11 -17
Contract jobs citing SDLC 125 43 90
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.91% 1.26% 1.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.35% 1.40% 1.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 24 71
10th Percentile £394 £325 £381
25th Percentile £500 £404 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -9.39% +9.52%
75th Percentile £577 £550 £650
90th Percentile £638 £596 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £565
% change year-on-year - -7.08% -5.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 6 1
10th Percentile £55.00 - -
25th Percentile £61.87 - £57.50
Median hourly rate £65.00 £50.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% -16.67% +9.09%
75th Percentile £70.00 - £62.50
90th Percentile - £52.50 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £52.50 £51.25
% change year-on-year +23.81% +2.44% -5.07%

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 5,325 3,063 4,556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.31% 90.04% 82.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,362 1,906 2,678
10th Percentile £280 £250 £263
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -0.49%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £670 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 528 266 405
10th Percentile £15.74 £13.50 £13.10
25th Percentile £25.18 £15.13 £18.35
Median hourly rate £55.00 £23.25 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year +136.56% -57.63% +9.75%
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.69 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -8.14%

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 July 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SDLC in the South East over the 6 months to 18 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SDLC in the South East

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 July 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
Surrey +15 38 £525 -4.55% 8
Thames Valley -30 37 £552 +22.58% 18
Hampshire -32 22 £631 +13.74% 17
Berkshire -26 19 £560 +7.39% 10
Buckinghamshire -21 18 £552 +69.73% 4
East Sussex - 12 - - 3
West Sussex -16 9 £488 -11.36% 4
Middlesex - 2 - - 2
Sussex - 1 - - 3
Kent - 1 £625 - 2
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 5 (4.00%) Confluence
2 3 (2.40%) FactoryTalk
3 2 (1.60%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.80%) Apache
4 1 (0.80%) Appian
4 1 (0.80%) IIS
4 1 (0.80%) JBoss
4 1 (0.80%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.80%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.80%) WebLogic
Applications
1 5 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (3.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (2.40%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (2.40%) Primavera
2 2 (1.60%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.80%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.80%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 24 (19.20%) Azure
2 20 (16.00%) AWS
3 19 (15.20%) OpenShift
4 7 (5.60%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (5.60%) GCP
5 3 (2.40%) Azure Key Vault
5 3 (2.40%) Azure Monitor
5 3 (2.40%) GitHub
5 3 (2.40%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (2.40%) Power Platform
5 3 (2.40%) Serverless
6 2 (1.60%) Amazon S3
6 2 (1.60%) Azure AI
6 2 (1.60%) Entra ID
6 2 (1.60%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (1.60%) Nutanix
6 2 (1.60%) Power Automate
6 2 (1.60%) SaaS
7 1 (0.80%) Copilot Studio
7 1 (0.80%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 9 (7.20%) Firewall
2 5 (4.00%) TCP/IP
2 5 (4.00%) VLAN
3 4 (3.20%) HTTPS
4 2 (1.60%) Broadband
4 2 (1.60%) DHCP
4 2 (1.60%) DNS
4 2 (1.60%) LAN
4 2 (1.60%) Network Security
4 2 (1.60%) WAN
4 2 (1.60%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.80%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.60%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.80%) Big Data
2 1 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (0.80%) Metadata
2 1 (0.80%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 20 (16.00%) SonarQube
2 15 (12.00%) Git
3 12 (9.60%) JIRA
4 7 (5.60%) Visual Studio
5 5 (4.00%) Postman
6 2 (1.60%) GitLab
6 2 (1.60%) Jenkins
6 2 (1.60%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (1.60%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.80%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.80%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.80%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.80%) JUnit
7 1 (0.80%) Mockito
7 1 (0.80%) Rational DOORS
7 1 (0.80%) SoapUI
7 1 (0.80%) TestRail
General
1 24 (19.20%) Social Skills
2 14 (11.20%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (8.00%) Public Sector
4 8 (6.40%) Aerospace
5 7 (5.60%) Finance
6 6 (4.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 4 (3.20%) Manufacturing
8 3 (2.40%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.60%) Law
9 2 (1.60%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.80%) Automotive
10 1 (0.80%) Banking
10 1 (0.80%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.80%) Military
10 1 (0.80%) Retail
Job Titles
1 20 (16.00%) Developer
2 16 (12.80%) Senior
3 15 (12.00%) Software Engineer
4 14 (11.20%) Analyst
4 14 (11.20%) Architect
5 12 (9.60%) Environment Manager
5 12 (9.60%) Programme Manager
6 11 (8.80%) Business Analyst
7 10 (8.00%) Java Engineer
7 10 (8.00%) Senior Analyst
8 9 (7.20%) Java Developer
9 8 (6.40%) Senior Business Analyst
10 7 (5.60%) Test Engineer
11 6 (4.80%) DevOps Engineer
12 5 (4.00%) Consultant
12 5 (4.00%) Java Software Engineer
12 5 (4.00%) SC Cleared Java Developer
12 5 (4.00%) Security Architect
12 5 (4.00%) Software Developer
12 5 (4.00%) Software Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (14.40%) AngularJS
1 18 (14.40%) Quarkus
2 13 (10.40%) .NET
3 12 (9.60%) REST
3 12 (9.60%) RESTful
4 6 (4.80%) OAuth
4 6 (4.80%) Web Services
5 5 (4.00%) LDAP
5 5 (4.00%) OAuth2
5 5 (4.00%) OpenID
5 5 (4.00%) SAML
5 5 (4.00%) Spring
5 5 (4.00%) Spring Boot
6 4 (3.20%) Hibernate
6 4 (3.20%) SOAP
7 3 (2.40%) WinForms
8 2 (1.60%) ARM Templates
8 2 (1.60%) JWT
8 2 (1.60%) Kafka
8 2 (1.60%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 13 (10.40%) Product Ownership
2 10 (8.00%) Cloud Native
3 7 (5.60%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (5.60%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (4.80%) Virtual Team
5 3 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (2.40%) Life Science
5 3 (2.40%) Operational Technology
5 3 (2.40%) PKI
5 3 (2.40%) SCADA
6 2 (1.60%) Distributed Architecture
6 2 (1.60%) Enterprise Cloud
6 2 (1.60%) Security Posture
6 2 (1.60%) Social Media
7 1 (0.80%) Algorithms
7 1 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
7 1 (0.80%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (0.80%) IoT
7 1 (0.80%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 7 (5.60%) Linux
1 7 (5.60%) Windows
2 3 (2.40%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (51.20%) Agile
2 40 (32.00%) Test Automation
3 39 (31.20%) Scrum
4 32 (25.60%) DevOps
5 30 (24.00%) Software Engineering
5 30 (24.00%) Sprint Planning
6 29 (23.20%) CI/CD
6 29 (23.20%) DevSecOps
7 26 (20.80%) Unit Testing
8 21 (16.80%) Problem-Solving
9 19 (15.20%) Sprint Review
9 19 (15.20%) Stakeholder Management
10 18 (14.40%) Cybersecurity
10 18 (14.40%) Front End Development
11 15 (12.00%) Continuous Improvement
11 15 (12.00%) Software Testing
12 12 (9.60%) Microservices
13 11 (8.80%) Requirements Gathering
14 10 (8.00%) Infrastructure as Code
14 10 (8.00%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 35 (28.00%) Java
2 16 (12.80%) Python
3 11 (8.80%) PowerShell
4 10 (8.00%) SQL
5 9 (7.20%) C++
6 8 (6.40%) C#
7 6 (4.80%) C
8 5 (4.00%) Bash
9 4 (3.20%) VB.NET
10 3 (2.40%) Ada
10 3 (2.40%) Go
10 3 (2.40%) Rust
11 2 (1.60%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.80%) Groovy
12 1 (0.80%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.80%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.80%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.80%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.80%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 69 (55.20%) Security Cleared
2 62 (49.60%) SC Cleared
3 13 (10.40%) Degree
4 8 (6.40%) CISSP
5 7 (5.60%) CISM
5 7 (5.60%) DV Cleared
6 6 (4.80%) ISEB
6 6 (4.80%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 5 (4.00%) ISTQB
7 5 (4.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (3.20%) AWS Certification
8 4 (3.20%) DBS Check
9 3 (2.40%) CBAP
9 3 (2.40%) GIAC
9 3 (2.40%) ISEB Practitioner
10 2 (1.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 2 (1.60%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (1.60%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 2 (1.60%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 2 (1.60%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (19.20%) QA
2 8 (6.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (5.60%) NIST
4 4 (3.20%) NCSC
4 4 (3.20%) NIST 800
5 3 (2.40%) 21 CFR Part 11
5 3 (2.40%) GDPR
5 3 (2.40%) GxP
6 2 (1.60%) Def Stans
7 1 (0.80%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.80%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.80%) JSP 440
System Software
1 6 (4.80%) Docker
2 5 (4.00%) Active Directory
2 5 (4.00%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 24 (19.20%) Kubernetes
2 18 (14.40%) Argo
3 10 (8.00%) Terraform
4 4 (3.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.60%) HP Quality Center
6 1 (0.80%) Ansible
6 1 (0.80%) Grafana
6 1 (0.80%) Podman
6 1 (0.80%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.80%) Puppet
6 1 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 19 (15.20%) Microsoft
2 18 (14.40%) Red Hat
3 5 (4.00%) VMware
4 3 (2.40%) Rockwell
5 2 (1.60%) Citrix
5 2 (1.60%) Oracle
5 2 (1.60%) Sparx
6 1 (0.80%) Checkmarx
6 1 (0.80%) ForgeRock
6 1 (0.80%) Foundry
6 1 (0.80%) Google
6 1 (0.80%) IBM
6 1 (0.80%) NVIDIA
6 1 (0.80%) Okta
6 1 (0.80%) OpenAI
6 1 (0.80%) Ping Identity
6 1 (0.80%) SAP
6 1 (0.80%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.80%) Tenable