Technical Leadership Contract Job Trends in the South East

Technical Leadership
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Technical Leadership skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 8 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 93 83
Rank change year-on-year +8 -10 +63
Contract jobs citing Technical Leadership 147 59 129
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.44% 1.98% 2.26%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.02% 2.17% 2.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 103 48 62
10th Percentile £450 £335 £475
25th Percentile £500 £402 £495
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £560 £533 £599
Median % change year-on-year +5.16% -11.06% -0.21%
75th Percentile £706 £638 £675
90th Percentile £800 £724 £725
England median daily rate £588 £586 £610
% change year-on-year +0.21% -3.89% -4.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 0 3
10th Percentile £93.28 - -
25th Percentile £100.25 - -
Median hourly rate £105.50 - £18.00
75th Percentile £110.75 - £29.13
90th Percentile £115.48 - £35.80
England median hourly rate £80.00 £43.22 £43.49
% change year-on-year +85.10% -0.62% -33.95%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Technical Leadership 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 4,868 2,717 4,723
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.77% 91.30% 82.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,104 1,734 2,720
10th Percentile £280 £250 £255
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -1.86% +1.49%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £660 £700
England median daily rate £515 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 465 188 465
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £15.00 £18.32
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -47.05% -9.52%
75th Percentile £82.25 £58.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £76.94
England median hourly rate £47.50 £28.55 £37.50
% change year-on-year +66.37% -23.87% +4.17%

Technical Leadership
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Technical Leadership relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Technical Leadership job vacancy trend in the South East

Technical Leadership
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Technical Leadership.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Technical Leadership

Technical Leadership
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Technical Leadership in the South East over the 6 months to 8 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Technical Leadership in the South East

Technical Leadership
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Technical Leadership.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Technical Leadership

Technical Leadership
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Technical Leadership in the South East over the 6 months to 8 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Technical Leadership in the South East

Technical Leadership
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 Technical Leadership within the South East region over the 6 months to 8 June 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 +3 86 £525 +10.53% 46
Berkshire -10 48 £510 +1.95% 29
Hampshire +2 43 £600 -2.04% 35
Buckinghamshire -17 31 £538 +182.89% 7
Oxfordshire - 7 £500 - 13
Surrey - 7 £488 - 17
West Sussex -16 6 £800 +36.17% 6
Kent +1 3 £723 +68.02% 9
Home Counties - 2 - -
Technical Leadership
England

Technical Leadership
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 2 (1.36%) Ethereum
1 2 (1.36%) Hyperledger
1 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
2 1 (0.68%) CMS
2 1 (0.68%) Confluence
2 1 (0.68%) FactoryTalk
2 1 (0.68%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.04%) MS Visio
2 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (1.36%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (1.36%) Distributed Ledger
2 2 (1.36%) R3 Corda
3 1 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.68%) Remedy AR System
3 1 (0.68%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 45 (30.61%) Azure
2 23 (15.65%) AWS
3 10 (6.80%) Entra ID
3 10 (6.80%) IaaS
4 9 (6.12%) GCP
4 9 (6.12%) PaaS
5 7 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
6 6 (4.08%) Microsoft Purview
7 4 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (2.04%) OpenShift
8 3 (2.04%) Power Automate
8 3 (2.04%) Power Platform
8 3 (2.04%) PowerApps
9 2 (1.36%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (1.36%) Dynamics 365
9 2 (1.36%) GitHub
9 2 (1.36%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (1.36%) OCI
10 1 (0.68%) Azure AKS
10 1 (0.68%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 24 (16.33%) Firewall
2 20 (13.61%) DNS
2 20 (13.61%) WAN
3 18 (12.24%) LAN
4 14 (9.52%) Network Security
5 13 (8.84%) VPN
6 11 (7.48%) BGP
7 10 (6.80%) OSPF
8 9 (6.12%) IPsec
9 8 (5.44%) Cisco ASA
9 8 (5.44%) Cisco Firepower
9 8 (5.44%) MPLS
10 7 (4.76%) DHCP
11 6 (4.08%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
11 6 (4.08%) NGFW
11 6 (4.08%) SD-WAN
12 5 (3.40%) TCP/IP
13 4 (2.72%) ICMP
13 4 (2.72%) SSL
13 4 (2.72%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (2.72%) Relational Database
2 3 (2.04%) Metadata
2 3 (2.04%) Oracle BI Publisher
3 2 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
3 2 (1.36%) Power BI
4 1 (0.68%) Data Lake
4 1 (0.68%) Oracle Exadata
4 1 (0.68%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 3 (2.04%) JIRA
2 2 (1.36%) Visual Studio
3 1 (0.68%) Git
3 1 (0.68%) GitLab
3 1 (0.68%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.68%) JUnit
3 1 (0.68%) Storybook
General
1 41 (27.89%) Social Skills
2 21 (14.29%) Aerospace
3 20 (13.61%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (10.20%) Public Sector
5 8 (5.44%) Finance
6 4 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (2.04%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.36%) Aviation
8 2 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.36%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.36%) Retail
9 1 (0.68%) Billing
9 1 (0.68%) Electronics
9 1 (0.68%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.68%) Legal
9 1 (0.68%) Marketing
9 1 (0.68%) Police
Job Titles
1 62 (42.18%) Architect
2 32 (21.77%) Lead
3 20 (13.61%) Technical Architect
4 19 (12.93%) Senior
5 15 (10.20%) Solutions Architect
6 12 (8.16%) Network Engineer
7 11 (7.48%) Cloud Engineer
7 11 (7.48%) Support Engineer
8 10 (6.80%) Consultant
8 10 (6.80%) Lead Architect
8 10 (6.80%) Network Architect
8 10 (6.80%) Technical Leader
9 9 (6.12%) Senior Architect
10 7 (4.76%) Senior Network Engineer
11 6 (4.08%) Senior Network Architect
11 6 (4.08%) Technical Consultant
12 5 (3.40%) DV Cleared Network Engineer
12 5 (3.40%) Enterprise Architect
12 5 (3.40%) Security Engineer
12 5 (3.40%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (11.56%) REST
1 17 (11.56%) SOAP
2 8 (5.44%) Middleware
3 7 (4.76%) .NET
3 7 (4.76%) JSON
3 7 (4.76%) React
4 6 (4.08%) Web Services
5 5 (3.40%) OAuth
5 5 (3.40%) XML
6 4 (2.72%) 802.1X
6 4 (2.72%) AngularJS
6 4 (2.72%) OpenID
6 4 (2.72%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (2.04%) CSS
7 3 (2.04%) HTML
7 3 (2.04%) LDAP
7 3 (2.04%) SAML
8 2 (1.36%) RESTful
8 2 (1.36%) Unity (Game Engine)
8 2 (1.36%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 13 (8.84%) Data Centre
2 6 (4.08%) CMDB
2 6 (4.08%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.40%) Cloud Native
3 5 (3.40%) Cloud Security Posture
3 5 (3.40%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (3.40%) Enterprise Software
3 5 (3.40%) Management Information System
3 5 (3.40%) Security Posture
4 4 (2.72%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (2.72%) PKI
5 3 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (2.04%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.36%) Blockchain
6 2 (1.36%) Data Structures
6 2 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.36%) Mixed Reality
6 2 (1.36%) Operational Technology
6 2 (1.36%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 22 (14.97%) Windows
2 15 (10.20%) Windows Server
3 11 (7.48%) Linux
4 5 (3.40%) Windows Server 2019
5 3 (2.04%) Ubuntu
5 3 (2.04%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (26.53%) Agile
2 34 (23.13%) Problem-Solving
3 33 (22.45%) Roadmaps
4 31 (21.09%) Cybersecurity
4 31 (21.09%) Stakeholder Management
5 29 (19.73%) Enterprise Architecture
6 27 (18.37%) Mentoring
7 24 (16.33%) DevOps
8 23 (15.65%) CI/CD
8 23 (15.65%) ITSM
9 17 (11.56%) High Availability
10 16 (10.88%) Architectural Patterns
10 16 (10.88%) Continuous Improvement
10 16 (10.88%) Migration
11 15 (10.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 14 (9.52%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 14 (9.52%) Zero Trust
13 13 (8.84%) ITIL
13 13 (8.84%) Microservices
13 13 (8.84%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 16 (10.88%) JavaScript
1 16 (10.88%) SQL
2 10 (6.80%) PowerShell
3 9 (6.12%) Java
4 4 (2.72%) C#
5 3 (2.04%) Python
5 3 (2.04%) TypeScript
6 2 (1.36%) C++
7 1 (0.68%) Bicep
7 1 (0.68%) Swift
Qualifications
1 89 (60.54%) Security Cleared
2 50 (34.01%) SC Cleared
3 42 (28.57%) DV Cleared
4 16 (10.88%) Degree
5 14 (9.52%) Azure Certification
6 9 (6.12%) CISSP
6 9 (6.12%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (4.08%) AWS Certification
8 5 (3.40%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (2.72%) CCNP
9 4 (2.72%) CEH
9 4 (2.72%) Chartered Engineer
9 4 (2.72%) CompTIA Security+
9 4 (2.72%) TOGAF Certification
10 3 (2.04%) CCIE
11 2 (1.36%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.68%) BPSS Clearance
12 1 (0.68%) CCDE
12 1 (0.68%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.68%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.80%) NIST
2 5 (3.40%) Accessibility
2 5 (3.40%) QA
3 4 (2.72%) NCSC
4 3 (2.04%) GDPR
4 3 (2.04%) GRC
4 3 (2.04%) WCAG
5 2 (1.36%) IFRS
6 1 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.68%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.68%) PMO
System Software
1 25 (17.01%) Active Directory
2 24 (16.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (13.61%) VMware NSX
4 12 (8.16%) VMware ESXi
5 10 (6.80%) vCloud
6 6 (4.08%) Firmware
7 4 (2.72%) Embedded Firmware
7 4 (2.72%) Hyper-V
7 4 (2.72%) vSphere
8 3 (2.04%) Docker
9 1 (0.68%) UAG
Systems Management
1 12 (8.16%) vCenter Server
2 11 (7.48%) SCOM
3 6 (4.08%) Terraform
4 5 (3.40%) Endace
5 4 (2.72%) Ansible
5 4 (2.72%) Kubernetes
6 3 (2.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (2.04%) WSUS
7 2 (1.36%) Avamar
7 2 (1.36%) FortiGate
7 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (1.36%) NSN NetAct
8 1 (0.68%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.68%) McAfee ePO
8 1 (0.68%) MOM
8 1 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 31 (21.09%) VMware
2 30 (20.41%) Microsoft
3 24 (16.33%) Cisco
4 17 (11.56%) ServiceNow
5 11 (7.48%) Palo Alto
6 9 (6.12%) Juniper
7 8 (5.44%) F5
8 6 (4.08%) BMC
8 6 (4.08%) Oracle
8 6 (4.08%) SolarWinds
9 5 (3.40%) SAP
10 4 (2.72%) Becrypt
10 4 (2.72%) Nokia
11 3 (2.04%) Darktrace
11 3 (2.04%) Fortinet
11 3 (2.04%) NVIDIA
11 3 (2.04%) Red Hat
11 3 (2.04%) Zscaler
12 2 (1.36%) Broadcom
13 1 (0.68%) AVEVA