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

6 months to
2 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 101 121
Rank change year-on-year -18 +20 -18
Contract jobs citing SDLC 90 51 78
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.54% 1.69% 1.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.89% 1.85% 1.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 30 60
10th Percentile £401 £418 £367
25th Percentile £472 £452 £472
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £595
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% -9.66% +15.53%
75th Percentile £628 £600 £672
90th Percentile £725 £638 £688
England median daily rate £525 £550 £600
% change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 3 1
10th Percentile £60.00 - -
25th Percentile £61.87 - -
Median hourly rate £63.73 £50.00 £67.02
Median % change year-on-year +27.46% -25.40% +25.27%
75th Percentile £70.00 £52.50 -
90th Percentile - £54.00 -
England median hourly rate £63.73 £55.00 £48.00
% change year-on-year +15.87% +14.58% -14.67%

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 4,756 2,758 4,708
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.31% 91.54% 84.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,099 1,757 2,740
10th Percentile £281 £256 £243
25th Percentile £408 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% - -1.96%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £623
90th Percentile £713 £675 £700
England median daily rate £509 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.05% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 434 172 435
10th Percentile £15.36 £13.85 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.69 £16.05 £18.26
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +87.50% -41.05% -5.00%
75th Percentile £81.05 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £35.95
% change year-on-year +50.00% -16.55% -4.13%

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 2 May 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 2 May 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 2 May 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 +4 26 £506 +6.58% 5
Thames Valley -40 26 £548 -8.75% 29
Berkshire -28 19 £500 -16.67% 17
Hampshire -29 14 £750 +50.00% 19
East Sussex - 13 - - 11
West Sussex -10 7 £500 -9.09% 3
Buckinghamshire -28 7 £550 +69.23% 3
Kent - 1 £625 - 1
Sussex - 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 (6.67%) Confluence
2 1 (1.11%) Appian
2 1 (1.11%) IIS
2 1 (1.11%) JBoss
2 1 (1.11%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 1 (1.11%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.11%) Tomcat
2 1 (1.11%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (4.44%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (2.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (1.11%) SAP ERP
2 1 (1.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 18 (20.00%) Azure
2 13 (14.44%) OpenShift
3 10 (11.11%) Azure DevOps
4 9 (10.00%) AWS
5 5 (5.56%) Serverless
6 4 (4.44%) GitHub
6 4 (4.44%) GitHub Actions
7 3 (3.33%) Azure Functions
7 3 (3.33%) Azure Key Vault
7 3 (3.33%) Azure Monitor
7 3 (3.33%) GCP
7 3 (3.33%) Nutanix
7 3 (3.33%) SaaS
8 2 (2.22%) Azure AI
8 2 (2.22%) Azure AKS
8 2 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (2.22%) Power Platform
9 1 (1.11%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (1.11%) Entra ID
9 1 (1.11%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (8.89%) Firewall
2 3 (3.33%) DHCP
2 3 (3.33%) DNS
3 2 (2.22%) HTTPS
3 2 (2.22%) LAN
3 2 (2.22%) Network Security
3 2 (2.22%) TCP/IP
3 2 (2.22%) VLAN
3 2 (2.22%) WAN
3 2 (2.22%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (1.11%) DMZ
4 1 (1.11%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.11%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (1.11%) Big Data
1 1 (1.11%) Oracle Database
1 1 (1.11%) Oracle Reports
1 1 (1.11%) Relational Database
1 1 (1.11%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 14 (15.56%) SonarQube
2 13 (14.44%) Git
3 9 (10.00%) JIRA
4 4 (4.44%) Postman
5 3 (3.33%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 3 (3.33%) Visual Studio
6 2 (2.22%) Jenkins
7 1 (1.11%) Bitbucket
7 1 (1.11%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (1.11%) Burp Suite
7 1 (1.11%) GitLab
7 1 (1.11%) Oracle APEX
7 1 (1.11%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (1.11%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (1.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 16 (17.78%) Social Skills
2 5 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (5.56%) Public Sector
3 4 (4.44%) Presentation Skills
4 3 (3.33%) Aerospace
4 3 (3.33%) Law
5 2 (2.22%) Finance
6 1 (1.11%) Automotive
6 1 (1.11%) Back Office
6 1 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (1.11%) Front Office
6 1 (1.11%) Manufacturing
6 1 (1.11%) Military
6 1 (1.11%) Retail
6 1 (1.11%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 16 (17.78%) Developer
2 14 (15.56%) Software Engineer
3 12 (13.33%) Environment Manager
3 12 (13.33%) Programme Manager
4 10 (11.11%) Architect
5 9 (10.00%) DevOps Engineer
6 8 (8.89%) Senior
7 7 (7.78%) Java Developer
8 6 (6.67%) Java Engineer
8 6 (6.67%) Test Engineer
9 4 (4.44%) Analyst
9 4 (4.44%) Cloud Engineer
9 4 (4.44%) Java Software Engineer
9 4 (4.44%) Software Test Engineer
9 4 (4.44%) Test Manager
10 3 (3.33%) Consultant
10 3 (3.33%) Embedded Software Engineer
10 3 (3.33%) Senior Software Engineer
10 3 (3.33%) Software Developer
10 3 (3.33%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (14.44%) AngularJS
1 13 (14.44%) Quarkus
2 10 (11.11%) REST
3 9 (10.00%) .NET
4 8 (8.89%) RESTful
5 4 (4.44%) JWT
5 4 (4.44%) OAuth
6 3 (3.33%) SAML
6 3 (3.33%) Web Services
6 3 (3.33%) WinForms
7 2 (2.22%) .NET Core
7 2 (2.22%) ARM Templates
7 2 (2.22%) GraphQL
7 2 (2.22%) Hibernate
7 2 (2.22%) SOAP
7 2 (2.22%) Spring
7 2 (2.22%) Spring Boot
8 1 (1.11%) Blazor
8 1 (1.11%) Keycloak
8 1 (1.11%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 8 (8.89%) Product Ownership
2 7 (7.78%) Cloud Native
2 7 (7.78%) Distributed Systems
3 6 (6.67%) Virtual Team
4 5 (5.56%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (3.33%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (2.22%) Distributed Architecture
7 1 (1.11%) AI Agents
7 1 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.11%) Cyber Kill Chain
7 1 (1.11%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.11%) IoT
7 1 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.11%) Mobile Computing
7 1 (1.11%) N-Tier
7 1 (1.11%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.11%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 8 (8.89%) Linux
2 6 (6.67%) Windows
3 1 (1.11%) Kali Linux
3 1 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (1.11%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.11%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (1.11%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (53.33%) Agile
2 34 (37.78%) Test Automation
3 31 (34.44%) Scrum
4 28 (31.11%) DevOps
5 22 (24.44%) Software Engineering
6 20 (22.22%) Sprint Planning
6 20 (22.22%) Unit Testing
7 18 (20.00%) DevSecOps
8 16 (17.78%) CI/CD
9 14 (15.56%) Sprint Review
10 13 (14.44%) Front End Development
11 11 (12.22%) AI
11 11 (12.22%) Problem-Solving
12 9 (10.00%) Code Quality
12 9 (10.00%) Microservices
12 9 (10.00%) User Stories
13 8 (8.89%) Infrastructure as Code
13 8 (8.89%) Migration
13 8 (8.89%) Requirements Analysis
13 8 (8.89%) Test Management
Programming Languages
1 20 (22.22%) Java
2 11 (12.22%) Python
3 10 (11.11%) PowerShell
3 10 (11.11%) SQL
4 6 (6.67%) Bash
4 6 (6.67%) C
4 6 (6.67%) C#
5 4 (4.44%) C++
6 3 (3.33%) Ada
6 3 (3.33%) Go
6 3 (3.33%) Rust
6 3 (3.33%) T-SQL
7 2 (2.22%) JavaScript
7 2 (2.22%) PHP
8 1 (1.11%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (1.11%) PL/SQL
8 1 (1.11%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 47 (52.22%) Security Cleared
2 38 (42.22%) SC Cleared
3 5 (5.56%) Degree
3 5 (5.56%) DV Cleared
4 2 (2.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (1.11%) AWS Certification
5 1 (1.11%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (18.89%) QA
2 4 (4.44%) NCSC
3 3 (3.33%) GDPR
3 3 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (3.33%) NIST
4 2 (2.22%) NIST 800
5 1 (1.11%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.11%) GRC
5 1 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 1 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
5 1 (1.11%) JSP 440
5 1 (1.11%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 4 (4.44%) Docker
2 3 (3.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.11%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 17 (18.89%) Kubernetes
2 13 (14.44%) Argo
3 9 (10.00%) Terraform
4 4 (4.44%) HP Quality Center
5 1 (1.11%) Ansible
5 1 (1.11%) Nessus
5 1 (1.11%) Nmap
5 1 (1.11%) Podman
5 1 (1.11%) Puppet
5 1 (1.11%) SCCM
Vendors
1 13 (14.44%) Microsoft
1 13 (14.44%) Red Hat
2 5 (5.56%) SAP
3 4 (4.44%) Oracle
4 3 (3.33%) Citrix
4 3 (3.33%) VMware
5 1 (1.11%) Atlassian
5 1 (1.11%) Checkmarx
5 1 (1.11%) Foundry
5 1 (1.11%) Google
5 1 (1.11%) OpenAI
5 1 (1.11%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.11%) Sparx
5 1 (1.11%) Tenable