Continuous Improvement Contracts

Continual Improvement
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Continuous Improvement skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Continuous Improvement over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 47 51 78
Rank change year-on-year +4 +27 -2
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 1,325 1,610 1,834
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 4.53% 3.69% 3.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.99% 4.28% 3.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 816 1,021 1,235
10th Percentile £328 £325 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.87% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £794 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £550
% change year-on-year - -9.09% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 140 41
10th Percentile £20.09 £16.25 £20.00
25th Percentile £22.00 £25.00 £26.00
Median hourly rate £52.63 £39.48 £57.99
Median % change year-on-year +33.31% -31.93% +30.31%
75th Percentile £68.88 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.02 - £83.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £42.00 £52.93
% change year-on-year +42.86% -20.64% +45.18%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Continuous Improvement 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 26,551 37,621 53,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.82% 86.30% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,137 24,254 37,244
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £744 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.80% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,437 1,746
10th Percentile £14.70 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.50 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.31% -4.83% +49.20%
75th Percentile £62.00 £59.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.94 £36.50 £36.00
% change year-on-year -23.45% +1.39% +80.00%

Continuous Improvement
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Continuous Improvement as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Continuous Improvement in the UK

Continuous Improvement
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Continuous Improvement.

Daily rate trend for Continuous Improvement in the UK

Continuous Improvement
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Continuous Improvement over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Continuous Improvement in the UK

Continuous Improvement
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Continuous Improvement.

Hourly rate trend for Continuous Improvement in the UK

Continuous Improvement
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Continuous Improvement over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Continuous Improvement in the UK

Continuous Improvement
Top 18 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Continuous Improvement within the UK over the 6 months to 30 April 2025. 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
England +5 1,115 £519 -1.14% 3,033
UK excluding London +7 646 £500 - 1,959
London +13 523 £550 - 1,280
Work from Home +13 441 £500 - 1,520
North of England +5 162 £497 -5.33% 557
South East -2 144 £525 - 390
Midlands +4 110 £450 -2.17% 357
North West +2 92 £475 -11.63% 344
South West +1 90 £500 - 271
Scotland -2 83 £450 - 151
West Midlands +10 72 £525 -4.55% 225
Yorkshire +17 57 £488 -2.50% 171
East of England +19 48 £540 +8.00% 163
East Midlands +2 38 £382 +41.91% 126
North East -3 15 £538 -2.93% 50
Northern Ireland +1 12 £625 +47.06% 29
Channel Islands - 3 £425 -
Wales -1 2 £378 -41.85% 71

Continuous Improvement
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 80 (6.04%) Confluence
2 40 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.98%) CMS
4 12 (0.91%) Apache Spark
5 10 (0.75%) Headless CMS
6 9 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
7 8 (0.60%) Apache
7 8 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.60%) WebSphere
8 7 (0.53%) JBoss
8 7 (0.53%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.38%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.30%) IIS
10 4 (0.30%) nginx
10 4 (0.30%) SAS
11 3 (0.23%) OpenEdge
11 3 (0.23%) SharePoint 2010
12 2 (0.15%) Appian
12 2 (0.15%) BizTalk Server
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 57 (4.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 41 (3.09%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (2.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (1.81%) MS Visio
5 23 (1.74%) Trello
6 21 (1.58%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.53%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.38%) Windchill
9 4 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
10 3 (0.23%) InfoPath
11 2 (0.15%) AutoCAD
11 2 (0.15%) Open Workbench
11 2 (0.15%) Revit
12 1 (0.075%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.075%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.075%) CATIA
12 1 (0.075%) Final Cut Pro
12 1 (0.075%) Sketch
12 1 (0.075%) SketchUp
12 1 (0.075%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 27 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
3 5 (0.38%) Primavera
3 5 (0.38%) SAP CO
3 5 (0.38%) SAP FI
3 5 (0.38%) SAP FI/CO
3 5 (0.38%) SAP PP
3 5 (0.38%) Teamcenter
3 5 (0.38%) Workday HCM
4 4 (0.30%) Maximo
4 4 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
4 4 (0.30%) SAP IBP
4 4 (0.30%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 3 (0.23%) iTrent
5 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.23%) SAP LE
5 3 (0.23%) SAP WM
6 2 (0.15%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 189 (14.26%) Azure
2 147 (11.09%) AWS
3 73 (5.51%) Power Platform
4 48 (3.62%) GCP
5 47 (3.55%) Microsoft 365
6 46 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
7 43 (3.25%) SaaS
8 30 (2.26%) GitHub
9 26 (1.96%) Serverless
10 23 (1.74%) IaaS
11 20 (1.51%) Entra ID
12 18 (1.36%) Power Automate
13 16 (1.21%) AWS CloudFormation
14 14 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (1.06%) PaaS
15 13 (0.98%) Azure Data Factory
15 13 (0.98%) OCI
15 13 (0.98%) PowerApps
16 12 (0.91%) Microsoft Purview
16 12 (0.91%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 36 (2.72%) Firewall
2 26 (1.96%) Network Security
3 25 (1.89%) DNS
4 18 (1.36%) LAN
4 18 (1.36%) TCP/IP
5 17 (1.28%) VPN
6 16 (1.21%) 5G
6 16 (1.21%) Radio Access Network
7 15 (1.13%) DHCP
8 13 (0.98%) 4G
9 12 (0.91%) WAN
10 11 (0.83%) 5G NR
10 11 (0.83%) LTE
11 9 (0.68%) Intranet
12 8 (0.60%) Wireless
13 7 (0.53%) BGP
13 7 (0.53%) OSPF
14 6 (0.45%) Cisco ASA
14 6 (0.45%) Cisco Firepower
15 5 (0.38%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (4.30%) Power BI
2 32 (2.42%) SQL Server
3 29 (2.19%) Data Warehouse
4 21 (1.58%) Tableau
5 19 (1.43%) NoSQL
6 16 (1.21%) Data Lake
7 14 (1.06%) Relational Database
8 13 (0.98%) MongoDB
8 13 (0.98%) Oracle Database
8 13 (0.98%) PostgreSQL
9 10 (0.75%) DB2
9 10 (0.75%) Metadata
9 10 (0.75%) MySQL
10 9 (0.68%) Big Data
10 9 (0.68%) Data Mining
11 8 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
11 8 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (0.53%) Elasticsearch
13 5 (0.38%) Amazon RDS
13 5 (0.38%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 153 (11.55%) JIRA
2 69 (5.21%) Jenkins
3 68 (5.13%) Git
4 29 (2.19%) GitLab
5 25 (1.89%) Selenium
6 17 (1.28%) JUnit
7 12 (0.91%) Bitbucket
7 12 (0.91%) JMeter
8 11 (0.83%) Cucumber
9 10 (0.75%) Subversion
10 9 (0.68%) Maven
10 9 (0.68%) Postman
11 7 (0.53%) REST Assured
11 7 (0.53%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.45%) MSTest
12 6 (0.45%) NUnit
13 5 (0.38%) Gradle
13 5 (0.38%) IntelliJ
13 5 (0.38%) TeamCity
14 4 (0.30%) SpecFlow
General
1 577 (43.55%) Social Skills
2 343 (25.89%) Analytical Skills
3 332 (25.06%) Finance
4 137 (10.34%) Public Sector
5 104 (7.85%) Banking
6 67 (5.06%) Organisational Skills
7 60 (4.53%) Marketing
7 60 (4.53%) Telecoms
8 49 (3.70%) Legal
9 47 (3.55%) Presentation Skills
10 44 (3.32%) Manufacturing
11 41 (3.09%) Influencing Skills
11 41 (3.09%) Investment Banking
12 38 (2.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 34 (2.57%) Retail
14 28 (2.11%) Law
15 25 (1.89%) Front Office
16 20 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
17 18 (1.36%) Local Government
18 17 (1.28%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 152 (11.47%) Analyst
2 132 (9.96%) Lead
3 122 (9.21%) Developer
4 106 (8.00%) Senior
5 81 (6.11%) Architect
6 80 (6.04%) Project Manager
7 68 (5.13%) Delivery Manager
8 62 (4.68%) Business Analyst
9 51 (3.85%) Service Manager
10 49 (3.70%) Consultant
11 35 (2.64%) IT Manager
12 32 (2.42%) Scrum Master
13 31 (2.34%) Python Developer
14 27 (2.04%) DevOps Engineer
15 26 (1.96%) Service Delivery Manager
16 24 (1.81%) Software Engineer
16 24 (1.81%) Solutions Architect
17 23 (1.74%) Administrator
17 23 (1.74%) Product Manager
18 22 (1.66%) Gen AI Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (5.89%) .NET
2 58 (4.38%) React
3 51 (3.85%) AngularJS
4 38 (2.87%) CSS
5 34 (2.57%) HTML
6 26 (1.96%) Django
6 26 (1.96%) FastAPI
6 26 (1.96%) REST
7 22 (1.66%) Spring
8 18 (1.36%) RESTful
9 15 (1.13%) Reactive Extensions
9 15 (1.13%) Spring Boot
10 13 (0.98%) .NET Core
10 13 (0.98%) Vue
10 13 (0.98%) Web Services
11 12 (0.91%) SOAP
12 11 (0.83%) Kafka
12 11 (0.83%) Next.js
13 10 (0.75%) Middleware
13 10 (0.75%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 120 (9.06%) Product Ownership
2 70 (5.28%) Management Information System
3 48 (3.62%) Cloud Native
4 32 (2.42%) Data Centre
5 30 (2.26%) Security Posture
5 30 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
6 27 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
7 21 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
8 20 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
8 20 (1.51%) Onboarding
9 18 (1.36%) Virtual Team
10 17 (1.28%) Algorithms
10 17 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
10 17 (1.28%) PMI
11 16 (1.21%) Cyber Threat
12 15 (1.13%) Team-Oriented Environment
13 13 (0.98%) CMDB
14 12 (0.91%) Cyber Defence
14 12 (0.91%) Public Cloud
15 11 (0.83%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 61 (4.60%) Linux
2 58 (4.38%) Windows
3 18 (1.36%) Unix
4 13 (0.98%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.68%) Solaris
7 4 (0.30%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.23%) AIX
8 3 (0.23%) Windows 7
9 2 (0.15%) CentOS
10 1 (0.075%) Android
10 1 (0.075%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.075%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.075%) Rocky
10 1 (0.075%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.075%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 529 (39.92%) Agile
2 427 (32.23%) Problem-Solving
3 255 (19.25%) Stakeholder Management
4 237 (17.89%) Project Management
5 205 (15.47%) DevOps
6 202 (15.25%) CI/CD
7 171 (12.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 161 (12.15%) Risk Management
9 159 (12.00%) ITIL
10 149 (11.25%) Scrum
11 142 (10.72%) Decision-Making
12 130 (9.81%) Change Management
13 128 (9.66%) Roadmaps
14 112 (8.45%) Analytics
14 112 (8.45%) Project Delivery
15 109 (8.23%) Service Delivery
16 107 (8.08%) Cybersecurity
17 106 (8.00%) Service Management
18 97 (7.32%) Process Improvement
19 92 (6.94%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 193 (14.57%) Python
2 162 (12.23%) SQL
3 111 (8.38%) Java
4 70 (5.28%) C#
4 70 (5.28%) JavaScript
5 60 (4.53%) TypeScript
6 54 (4.08%) PowerShell
7 39 (2.94%) Bash
8 13 (0.98%) PL/SQL
9 10 (0.75%) R
10 9 (0.68%) Go
10 9 (0.68%) Ruby
11 8 (0.60%) PHP
12 7 (0.53%) Perl
13 6 (0.45%) Groovy
14 5 (0.38%) C++
15 4 (0.30%) Bicep
15 4 (0.30%) Scala
15 4 (0.30%) Shell Script
16 3 (0.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 191 (14.42%) Degree
2 167 (12.60%) Security Cleared
3 140 (10.57%) SC Cleared
4 60 (4.53%) PMI Certification
5 51 (3.85%) PMP
6 50 (3.77%) CISSP
7 45 (3.40%) Computer Science Degree
8 35 (2.64%) Master's Degree
9 27 (2.04%) CISM
10 20 (1.51%) AWS Certification
11 18 (1.36%) ITIL Certification
11 18 (1.36%) Microsoft Certification
12 17 (1.28%) Azure Certification
12 17 (1.28%) CEH
13 16 (1.21%) DV Cleared
14 11 (0.83%) ISTQB
15 10 (0.75%) CompTIA Security+
15 10 (0.75%) GIAC
16 8 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 8 (0.60%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (8.98%) QA
2 59 (4.45%) GDPR
3 45 (3.40%) Data Quality
4 40 (3.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 38 (2.87%) Accessibility
6 32 (2.42%) PMO
7 29 (2.19%) SLA
8 27 (2.04%) NIST
9 18 (1.36%) HIPAA
10 14 (1.06%) PCI DSS
11 12 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 11 (0.83%) GRC
13 8 (0.60%) NCSC
14 7 (0.53%) HL7
15 6 (0.45%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.38%) Def Stans
16 5 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
16 5 (0.38%) GxP
17 4 (0.30%) AUTOSAR
17 4 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 77 (5.81%) Docker
2 40 (3.02%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.53%) Virtual Servers
5 7 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.30%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.23%) vSphere
8 2 (0.15%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.15%) IAG
8 2 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.075%) Firmware
9 1 (0.075%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 93 (7.02%) Kubernetes
2 82 (6.19%) Ansible
3 64 (4.83%) Terraform
4 16 (1.21%) Grafana
5 15 (1.13%) FortiGate
6 13 (0.98%) Prometheus
7 9 (0.68%) Progress Chef
8 8 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (0.60%) Puppet
8 8 (0.60%) SCCM
9 7 (0.53%) QRadar
10 6 (0.45%) NSN NetAct
10 6 (0.45%) Red Hat Satellite
11 5 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.30%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.30%) Kibana
12 4 (0.30%) Tivoli
12 4 (0.30%) Tivoli Storage Manager
13 3 (0.23%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 3 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 188 (14.19%) Microsoft
2 96 (7.25%) ServiceNow
3 91 (6.87%) SAP
4 75 (5.66%) Oracle
5 31 (2.34%) Google
6 29 (2.19%) Cisco
7 22 (1.66%) Splunk
8 21 (1.58%) Salesforce
9 19 (1.43%) Dynatrace
9 19 (1.43%) VMware
10 18 (1.36%) Databricks
11 15 (1.13%) Atlassian
12 14 (1.06%) CyberArk
12 14 (1.06%) IBM
12 14 (1.06%) Red Hat
13 13 (0.98%) Workday
14 10 (0.75%) Ariba
14 10 (0.75%) Ericsson
14 10 (0.75%) Juniper
15 9 (0.68%) Veritas