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

6 months to
24 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 111 106
Rank change year-on-year -10 -5 +5
Contract jobs citing SDLC 91 42 94
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.52% 1.43% 1.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.89% 1.57% 2.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 23 70
10th Percentile £387 £426 £361
25th Percentile £472 £460 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £517 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.42% -10.09% +11.92%
75th Percentile £628 £588 £651
90th Percentile £725 £600 £688
England median daily rate £525 £545 £585
% change year-on-year -3.67% -6.84% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 4 2
10th Percentile £60.00 - £58.45
25th Percentile £61.87 - £59.88
Median hourly rate £63.73 £50.00 £63.51
Median % change year-on-year +27.46% -21.27% +27.02%
75th Percentile £70.00 £51.25 £65.89
90th Percentile - £53.50 £66.57
England median hourly rate £63.73 £52.50 £48.00
% change year-on-year +21.39% +9.38% -9.38%

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 4,809 2,681 4,623
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.43% 91.41% 83.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,130 1,727 2,687
10th Percentile £280 £250 £255
25th Percentile £412 £386 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% -0.20% -0.79%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £656 £700
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 439 174 443
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.33 £13.00
25th Percentile £22.79 £15.00 £18.20
Median hourly rate £52.50 £27.05 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +94.10% -43.06% -5.00%
75th Percentile £82.25 £61.71 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.86
England median hourly rate £45.25 £28.48 £36.50
% change year-on-year +58.88% -21.97% -2.14%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +11 27 £500 - 4
Thames Valley -37 25 £548 +15.26% 26
Berkshire -19 18 £545 -2.42% 19
Hampshire -31 15 £709 +38.29% 18
East Sussex - 13 - - 7
West Sussex -15 7 £500 -9.09% 10
Buckinghamshire -38 7 £550 +69.23% 5
Kent - 1 £625 - 4
Sussex - 1 - - 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 7 (7.69%) Confluence
2 2 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 1 (1.10%) Appian
3 1 (1.10%) IIS
3 1 (1.10%) JBoss
3 1 (1.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 1 (1.10%) Tomcat
3 1 (1.10%) WebLogic
Applications
1 4 (4.40%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.10%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
1 2 (2.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (1.10%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 22 (24.18%) Azure
2 15 (16.48%) AWS
3 13 (14.29%) OpenShift
4 7 (7.69%) Azure DevOps
4 7 (7.69%) GCP
5 4 (4.40%) Serverless
6 3 (3.30%) Azure Key Vault
6 3 (3.30%) Azure Monitor
6 3 (3.30%) Entra ID
6 3 (3.30%) Microsoft 365
6 3 (3.30%) Nutanix
6 3 (3.30%) Power Platform
6 3 (3.30%) SaaS
7 2 (2.20%) Azure AI
7 2 (2.20%) GitHub
7 2 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
7 2 (2.20%) Power Automate
8 1 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
8 1 (1.10%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (1.10%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 7 (7.69%) Firewall
2 3 (3.30%) DHCP
2 3 (3.30%) DNS
3 2 (2.20%) HTTPS
3 2 (2.20%) LAN
3 2 (2.20%) Network Security
3 2 (2.20%) TCP/IP
3 2 (2.20%) VLAN
3 2 (2.20%) WAN
3 2 (2.20%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (1.10%) MQTT
4 1 (1.10%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (1.10%) Azure SQL Database
1 1 (1.10%) Big Data
1 1 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
1 1 (1.10%) Relational Database
1 1 (1.10%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 15 (16.48%) SonarQube
2 12 (13.19%) Git
3 10 (10.99%) JIRA
4 4 (4.40%) Postman
5 3 (3.30%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 3 (3.30%) Visual Studio
6 2 (2.20%) GitLab
7 1 (1.10%) Bitbucket
7 1 (1.10%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (1.10%) Burp Suite
7 1 (1.10%) Tricentis qTest
7 1 (1.10%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 16 (17.58%) Social Skills
2 4 (4.40%) Aerospace
2 4 (4.40%) Analytical Skills
2 4 (4.40%) Public Sector
3 3 (3.30%) Law
4 2 (2.20%) Finance
5 1 (1.10%) Back Office
5 1 (1.10%) Documentation Skills
5 1 (1.10%) Front Office
5 1 (1.10%) Manufacturing
5 1 (1.10%) Military
5 1 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
5 1 (1.10%) Retail
5 1 (1.10%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 15 (16.48%) Developer
2 14 (15.38%) Software Engineer
3 13 (14.29%) Architect
4 12 (13.19%) Environment Manager
4 12 (13.19%) Programme Manager
5 7 (7.69%) DevOps Engineer
5 7 (7.69%) Java Developer
6 6 (6.59%) Java Engineer
6 6 (6.59%) Senior
6 6 (6.59%) Test Engineer
7 5 (5.49%) Analyst
8 4 (4.40%) Cloud Engineer
8 4 (4.40%) Cybersecurity Architect
8 4 (4.40%) Java Software Engineer
8 4 (4.40%) Security Architect
8 4 (4.40%) Software Test Engineer
9 3 (3.30%) Embedded Software Engineer
9 3 (3.30%) Python Developer
9 3 (3.30%) Senior Embedded Software Engineer
9 3 (3.30%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (14.29%) AngularJS
1 13 (14.29%) Quarkus
2 9 (9.89%) RESTful
3 8 (8.79%) .NET
3 8 (8.79%) REST
4 5 (5.49%) OAuth
5 4 (4.40%) OAuth2
5 4 (4.40%) SAML
6 3 (3.30%) LDAP
6 3 (3.30%) OpenID
6 3 (3.30%) Web Services
6 3 (3.30%) WinForms
7 2 (2.20%) ARM Templates
7 2 (2.20%) Hibernate
7 2 (2.20%) JWT
7 2 (2.20%) Keycloak
7 2 (2.20%) Microsoft Graph
7 2 (2.20%) SOAP
7 2 (2.20%) Spring
7 2 (2.20%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 9 (9.89%) Product Ownership
2 7 (7.69%) Cloud Native
3 6 (6.59%) Virtual Team
4 5 (5.49%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (5.49%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (3.30%) Hybrid Cloud
5 3 (3.30%) PKI
6 2 (2.20%) Distributed Architecture
7 1 (1.10%) AI Agents
7 1 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.10%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.10%) Enterprise Cloud
7 1 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.10%) N-Tier
7 1 (1.10%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.10%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 9 (9.89%) Linux
2 6 (6.59%) Windows
3 1 (1.10%) Kali Linux
3 1 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (1.10%) Windows Server
3 1 (1.10%) Windows Server 2016
3 1 (1.10%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (52.75%) Agile
2 32 (35.16%) Scrum
2 32 (35.16%) Test Automation
3 29 (31.87%) DevOps
4 22 (24.18%) Software Engineering
5 21 (23.08%) Sprint Planning
6 20 (21.98%) DevSecOps
6 20 (21.98%) Unit Testing
7 17 (18.68%) CI/CD
8 14 (15.38%) Sprint Review
9 13 (14.29%) Front End Development
10 11 (12.09%) Problem-Solving
11 10 (10.99%) Cybersecurity
11 10 (10.99%) Threat Modelling
11 10 (10.99%) User Stories
12 9 (9.89%) AI
12 9 (9.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 9 (9.89%) Security Architecture
13 8 (8.79%) Cloud Security
13 8 (8.79%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 21 (23.08%) Java
2 10 (10.99%) Python
3 9 (9.89%) SQL
4 8 (8.79%) PowerShell
5 6 (6.59%) C
6 4 (4.40%) Bash
6 4 (4.40%) C#
6 4 (4.40%) C++
6 4 (4.40%) Rust
7 3 (3.30%) Ada
7 3 (3.30%) Go
7 3 (3.30%) T-SQL
8 1 (1.10%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (1.10%) Shell Script
8 1 (1.10%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 50 (54.95%) Security Cleared
2 43 (47.25%) SC Cleared
3 7 (7.69%) Degree
4 6 (6.59%) CISSP
4 6 (6.59%) DV Cleared
5 5 (5.49%) CISM
6 3 (3.30%) AWS Certification
6 3 (3.30%) GIAC
7 2 (2.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (1.10%) Azure Certification
8 1 (1.10%) CEH
8 1 (1.10%) CSPO
8 1 (1.10%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (16.48%) QA
2 6 (6.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (5.49%) NIST
4 3 (3.30%) NCSC
5 2 (2.20%) GDPR
5 2 (2.20%) NIST 800
6 1 (1.10%) Data Quality
6 1 (1.10%) HMG Security Policy Framework
6 1 (1.10%) JSP 440
System Software
1 4 (4.40%) Active Directory
2 3 (3.30%) Docker
2 3 (3.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 17 (18.68%) Kubernetes
2 13 (14.29%) Argo
3 10 (10.99%) Terraform
4 4 (4.40%) HP Quality Center
5 2 (2.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (2.20%) Ansible
5 2 (2.20%) Podman
5 2 (2.20%) Puppet
6 1 (1.10%) Grafana
6 1 (1.10%) Nessus
6 1 (1.10%) Nmap
6 1 (1.10%) Prometheus
6 1 (1.10%) SCCM
6 1 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 16 (17.58%) Microsoft
2 13 (14.29%) Red Hat
3 3 (3.30%) Citrix
3 3 (3.30%) Oracle
3 3 (3.30%) SAP
3 3 (3.30%) VMware
4 2 (2.20%) Sparx
4 2 (2.20%) Tenable
5 1 (1.10%) Atlassian
5 1 (1.10%) Checkmarx
5 1 (1.10%) ForgeRock
5 1 (1.10%) Foundry
5 1 (1.10%) Google
5 1 (1.10%) NVIDIA
5 1 (1.10%) Okta
5 1 (1.10%) OpenAI
5 1 (1.10%) Ping Identity
5 1 (1.10%) ServiceNow