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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 109 98
Rank change year-on-year +3 -11 +3
Contract jobs citing SDLC 141 53 90
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.09% 1.50% 1.86%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.60% 1.66% 2.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 63 30 69
10th Percentile £363 £325 £360
25th Percentile £466 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £521 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.77% -9.39% +4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £569 £650
90th Percentile £652 £679 £660
England median daily rate £539 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +2.67% -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 7 2
10th Percentile £55.00 - £58.45
25th Percentile £61.87 - £59.88
Median hourly rate £70.00 £50.00 £63.51
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -21.27% +20.97%
75th Percentile - - £65.89
90th Percentile £84.00 £52.00 £66.57
England median hourly rate £69.50 £51.25 £66.01
% change year-on-year +35.61% -22.36% +25.73%

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 5,431 3,187 3,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.65% 89.90% 82.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,342 1,983 2,442
10th Percentile £280 £250 £255
25th Percentile £419 £400 £404
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 £706 £665 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 605 301 315
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £21.30 £15.13 £26.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £21.90 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +151.14% -61.81% +14.70%
75th Percentile £78.75 £51.00 £70.09
90th Percentile £88.00 £70.16 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +5.94%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -27 45 £551 +22.40% 24
Surrey +16 40 £513 -6.82% 4
Berkshire -19 25 £562 +7.87% 18
Hampshire -17 21 £613 +4.70% 17
Buckinghamshire -26 19 £552 +69.73% 3
East Sussex - 14 £652 - 2
West Sussex -16 13 £463 -15.91% 6
Middlesex - 5 - - 2
Oxfordshire -26 1 £330 -35.61% 4
Kent - 1 £625 - 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 8 (5.67%) Confluence
2 4 (2.84%) FactoryTalk
3 2 (1.42%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.71%) Apache
Applications
1 4 (2.84%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (2.84%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (2.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (2.13%) Primavera
2 2 (1.42%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.71%) Oracle Payroll
Cloud Services
1 29 (20.57%) Azure
2 28 (19.86%) AWS
3 22 (15.60%) OpenShift
4 10 (7.09%) GCP
5 9 (6.38%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (4.96%) GitHub
7 6 (4.26%) GitHub Actions
8 3 (2.13%) Entra ID
8 3 (2.13%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (2.13%) Power Platform
8 3 (2.13%) Serverless
9 2 (1.42%) Amazon S3
9 2 (1.42%) AWS CloudFormation
9 2 (1.42%) Power Automate
10 1 (0.71%) Amazon EC2
10 1 (0.71%) Amazon EKS
10 1 (0.71%) Amazon SQS
10 1 (0.71%) Azure Monitor
10 1 (0.71%) Google Sheets
10 1 (0.71%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (5.67%) Firewall
2 6 (4.26%) TCP/IP
2 6 (4.26%) VLAN
3 5 (3.55%) Broadband
4 3 (2.13%) HTTPS
5 2 (1.42%) DHCP
5 2 (1.42%) DNS
5 2 (1.42%) LAN
5 2 (1.42%) WAN
5 2 (1.42%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.71%) MQTT
6 1 (0.71%) Network Security
6 1 (0.71%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (2.13%) SQL Server
2 2 (1.42%) PostgreSQL
3 1 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
3 1 (0.71%) Big Data
3 1 (0.71%) Couchbase
3 1 (0.71%) Data Lake
3 1 (0.71%) Data Warehouse
3 1 (0.71%) Elasticsearch
3 1 (0.71%) Metadata
3 1 (0.71%) MySQL
3 1 (0.71%) NoSQL
3 1 (0.71%) Oracle Reports
3 1 (0.71%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 22 (15.60%) SonarQube
2 16 (11.35%) JIRA
3 14 (9.93%) Git
4 8 (5.67%) Visual Studio
5 6 (4.26%) GitLab
5 6 (4.26%) Jenkins
6 5 (3.55%) Postman
7 2 (1.42%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.71%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.71%) Browser DevTools
8 1 (0.71%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.71%) JUnit
8 1 (0.71%) Mockito
8 1 (0.71%) Rational DOORS
8 1 (0.71%) SoapUI
8 1 (0.71%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.71%) TestRail
8 1 (0.71%) tSQLt
8 1 (0.71%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 34 (24.11%) Social Skills
2 21 (14.89%) Analytical Skills
3 15 (10.64%) Aerospace
4 12 (8.51%) Public Sector
5 11 (7.80%) Finance
6 7 (4.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (4.26%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (4.26%) Manufacturing
8 4 (2.84%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (1.42%) Banking
9 2 (1.42%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.71%) Automotive
10 1 (0.71%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.71%) Military
10 1 (0.71%) Retail
Job Titles
1 25 (17.73%) Developer
2 18 (12.77%) Senior
3 15 (10.64%) Architect
4 14 (9.93%) Analyst
5 12 (8.51%) Business Analyst
5 12 (8.51%) Environment Manager
5 12 (8.51%) Programme Manager
6 11 (7.80%) Java Developer
7 10 (7.09%) Consultant
7 10 (7.09%) Senior Analyst
7 10 (7.09%) Software Engineer
8 9 (6.38%) Java Engineer
8 9 (6.38%) Senior Business Analyst
9 8 (5.67%) Software Developer
10 7 (4.96%) Lead
10 7 (4.96%) Test Engineer
11 6 (4.26%) Security Architect
12 5 (3.55%) Cybersecurity Architect
12 5 (3.55%) DevSecOps Engineer
12 5 (3.55%) Software Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (14.89%) AngularJS
1 21 (14.89%) Quarkus
2 14 (9.93%) .NET
3 13 (9.22%) RESTful
4 11 (7.80%) REST
5 6 (4.26%) OAuth
5 6 (4.26%) Web Services
6 5 (3.55%) LDAP
6 5 (3.55%) OAuth2
6 5 (3.55%) OpenID
6 5 (3.55%) SAML
6 5 (3.55%) Spring
7 4 (2.84%) Spring Boot
7 4 (2.84%) XML
8 3 (2.13%) ARM Templates
8 3 (2.13%) Hibernate
8 3 (2.13%) Kafka
8 3 (2.13%) pytest
8 3 (2.13%) SOAP
8 3 (2.13%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 14 (9.93%) Product Ownership
2 10 (7.09%) Cloud Native
3 7 (4.96%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
4 6 (4.26%) Virtual Team
5 4 (2.84%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.84%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (2.84%) Life Science
5 4 (2.84%) Operational Technology
5 4 (2.84%) SCADA
5 4 (2.84%) Security Posture
5 4 (2.84%) Social Media
6 3 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (2.13%) PKI
7 2 (1.42%) Distributed Architecture
7 2 (1.42%) Enterprise Cloud
8 1 (0.71%) AI Agents
8 1 (0.71%) Distributed Applications
8 1 (0.71%) Driving Licence
8 1 (0.71%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 8 (5.67%) Windows
2 5 (3.55%) Linux
3 4 (2.84%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (53.19%) Agile
2 49 (34.75%) Test Automation
3 47 (33.33%) Scrum
4 39 (27.66%) DevSecOps
5 37 (26.24%) CI/CD
6 36 (25.53%) DevOps
7 35 (24.82%) Sprint Planning
8 32 (22.70%) Software Engineering
9 31 (21.99%) Problem-Solving
10 30 (21.28%) Unit Testing
11 28 (19.86%) Stakeholder Management
12 25 (17.73%) Cybersecurity
13 24 (17.02%) Sprint Review
14 21 (14.89%) Front End Development
15 19 (13.48%) Continuous Improvement
16 17 (12.06%) Software Testing
17 16 (11.35%) Risk Management
17 16 (11.35%) Vulnerability Management
18 15 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 14 (9.93%) Security Architecture
Programming Languages
1 39 (27.66%) Java
2 21 (14.89%) Python
3 13 (9.22%) PowerShell
4 10 (7.09%) C#
4 10 (7.09%) SQL
5 9 (6.38%) C++
6 7 (4.96%) Bash
7 4 (2.84%) Bicep
7 4 (2.84%) C
7 4 (2.84%) VB.NET
8 3 (2.13%) Go
8 3 (2.13%) JavaScript
9 2 (1.42%) T-SQL
9 2 (1.42%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.71%) Ada
10 1 (0.71%) Groovy
10 1 (0.71%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.71%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.71%) Rust
10 1 (0.71%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 78 (55.32%) Security Cleared
2 72 (51.06%) SC Cleared
3 15 (10.64%) Degree
4 14 (9.93%) CISSP
5 9 (6.38%) CISM
6 8 (5.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
6 8 (5.67%) Cisco Certification
6 8 (5.67%) ISEB
7 7 (4.96%) DV Cleared
7 7 (4.96%) ISTQB
7 7 (4.96%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 6 (4.26%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 5 (3.55%) CEH
10 4 (2.84%) AWS Certification
10 4 (2.84%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (2.84%) DBS Check
10 4 (2.84%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 4 (2.84%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 3 (2.13%) CBAP
11 3 (2.13%) ISEB Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (24.11%) QA
2 15 (10.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 14 (9.93%) NIST
4 8 (5.67%) NCSC
5 6 (4.26%) NIST 800
6 4 (2.84%) 21 CFR Part 11
6 4 (2.84%) Cyber Essentials
6 4 (2.84%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (2.84%) Def Stans
6 4 (2.84%) GDPR
6 4 (2.84%) GxP
7 1 (0.71%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.71%) GRC
7 1 (0.71%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 1 (0.71%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.71%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.71%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 7 (4.96%) Docker
2 5 (3.55%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.84%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 34 (24.11%) Kubernetes
2 21 (14.89%) Argo
3 12 (8.51%) Terraform
4 5 (3.55%) Ansible
5 4 (2.84%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.71%) Grafana
6 1 (0.71%) HP Quality Center
6 1 (0.71%) Podman
6 1 (0.71%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.71%) Puppet
6 1 (0.71%) QRadar
6 1 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 21 (14.89%) Red Hat
2 20 (14.18%) Microsoft
3 4 (2.84%) Oracle
3 4 (2.84%) Rockwell
3 4 (2.84%) VMware
4 2 (1.42%) CA Agile Central
4 2 (1.42%) Google
4 2 (1.42%) SAP
4 2 (1.42%) Sparx
5 1 (0.71%) ForgeRock
5 1 (0.71%) Foundry
5 1 (0.71%) IBM
5 1 (0.71%) MuleSoft
5 1 (0.71%) NVIDIA
5 1 (0.71%) Okta
5 1 (0.71%) Ping Identity
5 1 (0.71%) Salesforce
5 1 (0.71%) Splunk
5 1 (0.71%) Tenable