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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 116 108
Rank change year-on-year +12 -8 -8
Contract jobs citing SDLC 136 49 93
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.06% 1.41% 1.81%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.54% 1.57% 2.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 58 28 73
10th Percentile £371 £325 £383
25th Percentile £478 £445 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -8.70% +9.52%
75th Percentile £575 £559 £650
90th Percentile £656 £688 £669
England median daily rate £539 £525 £563
% change year-on-year +2.67% -6.67% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 6 1
10th Percentile £54.50 - -
25th Percentile £61.87 - £57.50
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -16.67% +11.63%
75th Percentile - - £62.50
90th Percentile £84.00 £52.50 -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £51.25 £48.00
% change year-on-year +26.83% +6.77% -8.57%

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 5,356 3,126 4,248
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.07% 90.22% 82.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,347 1,954 2,547
10th Percentile £280 £250 £263
25th Percentile £413 £400 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% +1.35%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £672 £700
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.54% -2.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 551 278 356
10th Percentile £15.72 £13.50 £14.50
25th Percentile £26.44 £15.13 £22.00
Median hourly rate £57.79 £21.99 £56.34
Median % change year-on-year +162.84% -60.98% +12.69%
75th Percentile £82.25 £51.07 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.25
England median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -39.40% -2.35%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 41 £525 -4.55% 5
Thames Valley -32 41 £553 +16.49% 32
Hampshire -20 24 £613 +10.36% 23
Berkshire -31 22 £574 +9.33% 18
Buckinghamshire -24 19 £552 +69.73% 7
East Sussex - 12 - - 4
West Sussex -17 11 £463 -15.91% 4
Middlesex - 2 - - 2
Sussex - 1 - - 2
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 4 (2.94%) Confluence
1 4 (2.94%) FactoryTalk
2 2 (1.47%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.74%) Apache
3 1 (0.74%) Appian
3 1 (0.74%) IIS
3 1 (0.74%) JBoss
3 1 (0.74%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 1 (0.74%) Tomcat
3 1 (0.74%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (2.21%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (2.21%) Primavera
2 2 (1.47%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.74%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.74%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 27 (19.85%) Azure
2 25 (18.38%) AWS
3 23 (16.91%) OpenShift
4 10 (7.35%) GCP
5 6 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
6 4 (2.94%) GitHub
7 3 (2.21%) Entra ID
7 3 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (2.21%) Microsoft 365
7 3 (2.21%) Power Platform
7 3 (2.21%) Serverless
8 2 (1.47%) Amazon S3
8 2 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
8 2 (1.47%) Azure AI
8 2 (1.47%) Power Automate
8 2 (1.47%) SaaS
9 1 (0.74%) Amazon EC2
9 1 (0.74%) Copilot Studio
9 1 (0.74%) Microsoft Copilot
9 1 (0.74%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 8 (5.88%) Firewall
2 6 (4.41%) TCP/IP
2 6 (4.41%) VLAN
3 5 (3.68%) HTTPS
4 2 (1.47%) Broadband
4 2 (1.47%) DHCP
4 2 (1.47%) DNS
4 2 (1.47%) LAN
4 2 (1.47%) WAN
4 2 (1.47%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.74%) MQTT
5 1 (0.74%) Network Security
5 1 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.47%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (0.74%) Big Data
2 1 (0.74%) Data Lake
2 1 (0.74%) Data Warehouse
2 1 (0.74%) Elasticsearch
2 1 (0.74%) Metadata
2 1 (0.74%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.74%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 23 (16.91%) SonarQube
2 16 (11.76%) Git
3 14 (10.29%) JIRA
4 7 (5.15%) Visual Studio
5 5 (3.68%) Postman
6 3 (2.21%) GitLab
6 3 (2.21%) Jenkins
7 2 (1.47%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.74%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.74%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.74%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.74%) JUnit
8 1 (0.74%) Mockito
8 1 (0.74%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.74%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.74%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.74%) TestRail
8 1 (0.74%) tSQLt
8 1 (0.74%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 28 (20.59%) Social Skills
2 19 (13.97%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (8.82%) Aerospace
4 9 (6.62%) Finance
4 9 (6.62%) Public Sector
5 6 (4.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (3.68%) Manufacturing
7 4 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
7 4 (2.94%) Pharmaceutical
8 3 (2.21%) Telecoms
9 2 (1.47%) Law
10 1 (0.74%) Automotive
10 1 (0.74%) Banking
10 1 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.74%) Military
10 1 (0.74%) Retail
Job Titles
1 25 (18.38%) Developer
2 16 (11.76%) Architect
2 16 (11.76%) Senior
3 15 (11.03%) Software Engineer
4 13 (9.56%) Analyst
5 12 (8.82%) Environment Manager
5 12 (8.82%) Programme Manager
6 11 (8.09%) Business Analyst
6 11 (8.09%) Java Developer
7 10 (7.35%) Java Engineer
8 9 (6.62%) Senior Analyst
9 8 (5.88%) Consultant
9 8 (5.88%) Senior Business Analyst
9 8 (5.88%) Software Developer
10 7 (5.15%) Test Engineer
11 6 (4.41%) Security Architect
12 5 (3.68%) Cybersecurity Architect
12 5 (3.68%) Java Software Engineer
12 5 (3.68%) SC Cleared Java Developer
12 5 (3.68%) Software Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (16.18%) AngularJS
1 22 (16.18%) Quarkus
2 15 (11.03%) RESTful
3 13 (9.56%) .NET
4 12 (8.82%) REST
5 7 (5.15%) Web Services
6 6 (4.41%) OAuth
6 6 (4.41%) Spring
6 6 (4.41%) Spring Boot
7 5 (3.68%) Hibernate
7 5 (3.68%) LDAP
7 5 (3.68%) OAuth2
7 5 (3.68%) OpenID
7 5 (3.68%) SAML
8 4 (2.94%) SOAP
9 3 (2.21%) pytest
9 3 (2.21%) WinForms
9 3 (2.21%) XML
10 2 (1.47%) Kafka
10 2 (1.47%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 13 (9.56%) Product Ownership
2 11 (8.09%) Cloud Native
3 8 (5.88%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (5.15%) Self-Motivation
5 6 (4.41%) Virtual Team
6 4 (2.94%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (2.94%) Life Science
6 4 (2.94%) Operational Technology
6 4 (2.94%) SCADA
7 3 (2.21%) PKI
8 2 (1.47%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (1.47%) Enterprise Cloud
8 2 (1.47%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.47%) Social Media
9 1 (0.74%) AI Agents
9 1 (0.74%) Distributed Applications
9 1 (0.74%) Embedded Systems
9 1 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.74%) IoT
9 1 (0.74%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 8 (5.88%) Windows
2 7 (5.15%) Linux
3 4 (2.94%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (52.21%) Agile
2 49 (36.03%) Test Automation
3 45 (33.09%) Scrum
4 35 (25.74%) DevOps
4 35 (25.74%) Software Engineering
4 35 (25.74%) Sprint Planning
5 34 (25.00%) DevSecOps
6 33 (24.26%) CI/CD
7 31 (22.79%) Unit Testing
8 26 (19.12%) Problem-Solving
9 23 (16.91%) Cybersecurity
9 23 (16.91%) Sprint Review
10 22 (16.18%) Front End Development
11 21 (15.44%) Stakeholder Management
12 17 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
12 17 (12.50%) Software Testing
13 13 (9.56%) Microservices
13 13 (9.56%) Risk Management
13 13 (9.56%) Validation
14 11 (8.09%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 42 (30.88%) Java
2 19 (13.97%) Python
3 10 (7.35%) PowerShell
3 10 (7.35%) SQL
4 9 (6.62%) C++
5 8 (5.88%) C#
6 6 (4.41%) C
7 4 (2.94%) Bash
7 4 (2.94%) VB.NET
8 3 (2.21%) Ada
8 3 (2.21%) Go
8 3 (2.21%) JavaScript
8 3 (2.21%) Rust
9 2 (1.47%) T-SQL
9 2 (1.47%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.74%) Bicep
10 1 (0.74%) Groovy
10 1 (0.74%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.74%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.74%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 77 (56.62%) Security Cleared
2 71 (52.21%) SC Cleared
3 14 (10.29%) Degree
4 11 (8.09%) CISSP
5 9 (6.62%) CISM
6 8 (5.88%) ISEB
7 7 (5.15%) DV Cleared
7 7 (5.15%) ISTQB
7 7 (5.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (4.41%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 5 (3.68%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 5 (3.68%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (2.94%) AWS Certification
10 4 (2.94%) DBS Check
10 4 (2.94%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 4 (2.94%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 3 (2.21%) CBAP
11 3 (2.21%) GIAC
11 3 (2.21%) ISEB Practitioner
12 2 (1.47%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (22.06%) QA
2 12 (8.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (8.09%) NIST
4 6 (4.41%) NIST 800
5 5 (3.68%) NCSC
6 4 (2.94%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 4 (2.94%) Def Stans
6 4 (2.94%) GDPR
6 4 (2.94%) GxP
7 1 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.74%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.74%) GRC
7 1 (0.74%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.74%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.74%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.74%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 6 (4.41%) Docker
2 5 (3.68%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 31 (22.79%) Kubernetes
2 22 (16.18%) Argo
3 9 (6.62%) Terraform
4 4 (2.94%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.47%) Ansible
6 1 (0.74%) Grafana
6 1 (0.74%) HP Quality Center
6 1 (0.74%) Podman
6 1 (0.74%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.74%) Puppet
6 1 (0.74%) QRadar
6 1 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 22 (16.18%) Red Hat
2 20 (14.71%) Microsoft
3 4 (2.94%) Rockwell
3 4 (2.94%) VMware
4 3 (2.21%) SAP
5 2 (1.47%) Google
5 2 (1.47%) Oracle
5 2 (1.47%) Sparx
6 1 (0.74%) ForgeRock
6 1 (0.74%) Foundry
6 1 (0.74%) IBM
6 1 (0.74%) NVIDIA
6 1 (0.74%) Okta
6 1 (0.74%) OpenAI
6 1 (0.74%) Ping Identity
6 1 (0.74%) ServiceNow
6 1 (0.74%) Splunk
6 1 (0.74%) Tenable