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 25 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 39 55 71
Rank change year-on-year +16 +16 +4
Contract jobs citing Continuous Improvement 1,513 1,521 1,754
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 5.01% 3.49% 3.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 5.51% 4.10% 3.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 969 972 1,152
10th Percentile £313 £325 £363
25th Percentile £406 £425 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £540
% change year-on-year -5.00% -7.41% +8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 132 54
10th Percentile £15.13 £17.00 £18.83
25th Percentile £22.26 £23.75 £23.15
Median hourly rate £33.64 £36.50 £41.04
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% -11.06% -7.78%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.45 £65.00 £83.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.75 £37.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -23.33% +7.14% -28.57%

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 27,473 37,081 49,734
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 91.06% 85.12% 89.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,374 23,644 34,319
10th Percentile £300 £300 £325
25th Percentile £406 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% +1.85%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +1.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,294 2,582 1,699
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.65 £11.45
25th Percentile £17.44 £16.06 £15.83
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.93% +7.14% +34.62%
75th Percentile £54.56 £61.30 £64.50
90th Percentile £70.92 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.83 £38.12 £32.50
% change year-on-year -34.86% +17.29% +54.76%

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 25 June 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 25 June 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 25 June 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 +18 1,254 £500 -4.76% 4,897
UK excluding London +10 752 £475 -5.00% 3,158
London +25 596 £530 -4.25% 2,088
Work from Home +17 497 £500 - 2,749
North of England +12 198 £475 -5.00% 929
South East 0 153 £525 +3.65% 785
Midlands +15 147 £400 -21.95% 466
Scotland +17 116 £475 +7.95% 213
North West +12 116 £450 -14.29% 530
West Midlands +20 94 £450 -18.18% 287
South West +1 89 £519 +3.75% 351
Yorkshire +16 71 £500 - 320
East Midlands +12 53 £358 +33.09% 173
East of England +11 47 £475 -5.00% 310
North East -6 13 £525 -1.41% 89
Northern Ireland +3 11 £625 - 58
Wales +4 3 £403 - 107
Channel Islands - 3 £425 -

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 82 (5.42%) Confluence
2 53 (3.50%) SharePoint
3 22 (1.45%) CMS
4 16 (1.06%) Apache
5 15 (0.99%) Apache Spark
6 14 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
7 13 (0.86%) Headless CMS
8 11 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
8 11 (0.73%) JBoss
8 11 (0.73%) WebLogic
8 11 (0.73%) WebSphere
9 9 (0.59%) CICS
9 9 (0.59%) IIS
10 8 (0.53%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.20%) OpenEdge
11 3 (0.20%) Oracle Service Bus
11 3 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.20%) SharePoint 2010
12 2 (0.13%) Drupal
12 2 (0.13%) Umbraco
Applications
1 72 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (3.37%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (2.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (1.52%) Trello
5 22 (1.45%) MS Visio
6 21 (1.39%) Microsoft Project
7 9 (0.59%) Chatbot
8 8 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
9 5 (0.33%) Windchill
10 3 (0.20%) AutoCAD
10 3 (0.20%) InfoPath
10 3 (0.20%) Revit
11 2 (0.13%) Simulink
12 1 (0.066%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.066%) Camtasia
12 1 (0.066%) CATIA
12 1 (0.066%) Final Cut Pro
12 1 (0.066%) Sketch
12 1 (0.066%) SketchUp
12 1 (0.066%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 52 (3.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 13 (0.86%) Endur
3 7 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
4 6 (0.40%) SAP IBP
5 5 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
5 5 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
5 5 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
5 5 (0.33%) Primavera
5 5 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
6 4 (0.26%) Maximo
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
6 4 (0.26%) Oracle EBS R12
6 4 (0.26%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 4 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 3 (0.20%) iTrent
7 3 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
7 3 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
7 3 (0.20%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 216 (14.28%) Azure
2 178 (11.76%) AWS
3 85 (5.62%) Power Platform
4 61 (4.03%) SaaS
5 60 (3.97%) Azure DevOps
6 51 (3.37%) Microsoft 365
7 45 (2.97%) GCP
8 42 (2.78%) GitHub
9 26 (1.72%) Serverless
10 19 (1.26%) IaaS
11 17 (1.12%) dbt
12 16 (1.06%) OCI
12 16 (1.06%) Snowflake
13 15 (0.99%) Amazon S3
13 15 (0.99%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (0.93%) Entra ID
14 14 (0.93%) Power Automate
15 13 (0.86%) PowerApps
16 12 (0.79%) AWS CloudFormation
16 12 (0.79%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.11%) Firewall
2 27 (1.78%) DNS
3 26 (1.72%) Network Security
4 24 (1.59%) LAN
5 17 (1.12%) WAN
6 15 (0.99%) DHCP
7 14 (0.93%) TCP/IP
8 13 (0.86%) VPN
9 8 (0.53%) Wireless
10 6 (0.40%) BGP
10 6 (0.40%) OSPF
10 6 (0.40%) Wireshark
11 5 (0.33%) Cisco ASA
11 5 (0.33%) Cisco Firepower
11 5 (0.33%) WLAN
12 4 (0.26%) Cisco ISE
12 4 (0.26%) Kerberos
12 4 (0.26%) SMTP
12 4 (0.26%) SSL
12 4 (0.26%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (4.56%) Power BI
2 42 (2.78%) SQL Server
3 32 (2.12%) Data Warehouse
4 28 (1.85%) Tableau
5 24 (1.59%) SAP HANA
6 21 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
7 20 (1.32%) MongoDB
8 19 (1.26%) NoSQL
8 19 (1.26%) Relational Database
9 18 (1.19%) Data Lake
10 17 (1.12%) Oracle Database
11 14 (0.93%) Big Data
11 14 (0.93%) DB2
11 14 (0.93%) Metadata
11 14 (0.93%) MySQL
12 12 (0.79%) Geospatial Data
13 11 (0.73%) GIS
14 9 (0.59%) Data Mining
15 8 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
16 7 (0.46%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 163 (10.77%) JIRA
2 92 (6.08%) Git
3 62 (4.10%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.72%) GitLab
5 25 (1.65%) Selenium
6 22 (1.45%) JUnit
7 16 (1.06%) Bitbucket
8 15 (0.99%) Maven
9 12 (0.79%) Cucumber
9 12 (0.79%) Postman
9 12 (0.79%) REST Assured
10 11 (0.73%) Subversion
11 10 (0.66%) Gradle
11 10 (0.66%) IntelliJ
12 9 (0.59%) MSTest
12 9 (0.59%) NUnit
13 8 (0.53%) Team Foundation Server
14 7 (0.46%) JMeter
14 7 (0.46%) SonarQube
14 7 (0.46%) Visual Studio
General
1 698 (46.13%) Social Skills
2 403 (26.64%) Finance
3 364 (24.06%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (9.12%) Public Sector
5 135 (8.92%) Banking
6 66 (4.36%) Telecoms
7 61 (4.03%) Organisational Skills
8 56 (3.70%) Marketing
9 52 (3.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 50 (3.30%) Legal
11 49 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
12 47 (3.11%) Presentation Skills
13 35 (2.31%) Manufacturing
14 34 (2.25%) Retail
15 32 (2.12%) Investment Banking
15 32 (2.12%) Law
16 26 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
16 26 (1.72%) Front Office
17 19 (1.26%) Local Government
18 18 (1.19%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 192 (12.69%) Analyst
2 163 (10.77%) Developer
3 140 (9.25%) Lead
4 125 (8.26%) Senior
5 97 (6.41%) Architect
6 81 (5.35%) Project Manager
7 72 (4.76%) Business Analyst
7 72 (4.76%) Delivery Manager
8 69 (4.56%) Consultant
9 47 (3.11%) Scrum Master
10 38 (2.51%) Service Manager
11 33 (2.18%) Data Engineer
12 30 (1.98%) IT Manager
13 27 (1.78%) .NET Developer
13 27 (1.78%) Data Analyst
13 27 (1.78%) Test Manager
14 26 (1.72%) Product Owner
15 24 (1.59%) Administrator
15 24 (1.59%) Java Developer
15 24 (1.59%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (5.09%) .NET
2 63 (4.16%) React
3 57 (3.77%) AngularJS
4 49 (3.24%) REST
5 47 (3.11%) Web Services
6 41 (2.71%) CSS
6 41 (2.71%) Spring
7 35 (2.31%) HTML
8 30 (1.98%) RESTful
9 21 (1.39%) Node.js
10 20 (1.32%) Kafka
10 20 (1.32%) Spring Boot
11 18 (1.19%) SOAP
11 18 (1.19%) Vue
12 17 (1.12%) Reactive Extensions
13 16 (1.06%) Django
13 16 (1.06%) Next.js
14 15 (0.99%) .NET Framework
14 15 (0.99%) OAuth
15 14 (0.93%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 152 (10.05%) Product Ownership
2 59 (3.90%) Management Information System
3 46 (3.04%) Cloud Native
4 41 (2.71%) Self-Motivation
5 39 (2.58%) Data Protection Act
6 36 (2.38%) Security Posture
7 33 (2.18%) Enterprise Software
8 28 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
9 27 (1.78%) Onboarding
9 27 (1.78%) Virtual Team
10 25 (1.65%) Legacy Systems
11 24 (1.59%) Algorithms
12 21 (1.39%) Mobile App
13 17 (1.12%) Cyber Threat
13 17 (1.12%) Data Centre
14 14 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
14 14 (0.93%) PMI
15 13 (0.86%) Mainframe
16 11 (0.73%) CMDB
16 11 (0.73%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 66 (4.36%) Linux
2 62 (4.10%) Windows
3 21 (1.39%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.32%) Unix
5 13 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.59%) Solaris
7 8 (0.53%) Windows 10
8 6 (0.40%) CentOS
9 4 (0.26%) Android
9 4 (0.26%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.26%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.20%) AIX
10 3 (0.20%) Windows 7
10 3 (0.20%) zOS
11 2 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.066%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.066%) Rocky
12 1 (0.066%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.066%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 587 (38.80%) Agile
2 470 (31.06%) Problem-Solving
3 298 (19.70%) Stakeholder Management
4 245 (16.19%) DevOps
5 219 (14.47%) CI/CD
5 219 (14.47%) Project Management
6 198 (13.09%) Scrum
7 178 (11.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 169 (11.17%) Risk Management
9 162 (10.71%) Decision-Making
10 149 (9.85%) Roadmaps
11 145 (9.58%) Project Delivery
12 138 (9.12%) Change Management
13 136 (8.99%) ITIL
14 125 (8.26%) Analytics
15 123 (8.13%) Service Delivery
16 109 (7.20%) User Experience
17 106 (7.01%) Business Intelligence
18 105 (6.94%) Cybersecurity
19 104 (6.87%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 184 (12.16%) SQL
2 151 (9.98%) Python
3 125 (8.26%) Java
4 80 (5.29%) C#
5 79 (5.22%) JavaScript
6 63 (4.16%) TypeScript
7 54 (3.57%) PowerShell
8 37 (2.45%) Bash
9 17 (1.12%) PL/SQL
10 10 (0.66%) JCL
11 9 (0.59%) Go
12 8 (0.53%) PHP
13 7 (0.46%) COBOL
13 7 (0.46%) Perl
13 7 (0.46%) Shell Script
14 6 (0.40%) Groovy
14 6 (0.40%) VB.NET
15 5 (0.33%) C++
15 5 (0.33%) R
16 4 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 177 (11.70%) Security Cleared
2 161 (10.64%) Degree
3 136 (8.99%) SC Cleared
4 51 (3.37%) PMI Certification
5 48 (3.17%) PMP
6 42 (2.78%) CISSP
7 39 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
8 37 (2.45%) DV Cleared
9 26 (1.72%) Master's Degree
10 23 (1.52%) CISM
11 19 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
12 18 (1.19%) Azure Certification
12 18 (1.19%) ITIL Certification
13 17 (1.12%) AWS Certification
14 16 (1.06%) BPSS Clearance
15 12 (0.79%) CEH
16 11 (0.73%) Cisco Certification
17 9 (0.59%) CRISC
18 8 (0.53%) A+ Certification
18 8 (0.53%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 133 (8.79%) QA
2 71 (4.69%) GDPR
3 44 (2.91%) Data Quality
4 41 (2.71%) Accessibility
5 37 (2.45%) NIST
5 37 (2.45%) PMO
6 32 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 31 (2.05%) SLA
8 22 (1.45%) HIPAA
9 16 (1.06%) PCI DSS
10 13 (0.86%) GRC
11 10 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 9 (0.59%) SOC 2
13 8 (0.53%) Disclosure Scotland
14 7 (0.46%) Basel II
14 7 (0.46%) HL7
15 6 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 6 (0.40%) NCSC
15 6 (0.40%) P3O
16 5 (0.33%) Def Stans
System Software
1 82 (5.42%) Docker
2 51 (3.37%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.46%) Virtual Servers
6 6 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.26%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.26%) vSphere
8 3 (0.20%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.13%) Time Sharing Option
9 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.066%) Firmware
10 1 (0.066%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 92 (6.08%) Kubernetes
2 76 (5.02%) Terraform
3 61 (4.03%) Ansible
4 26 (1.72%) Grafana
5 18 (1.19%) Prometheus
6 13 (0.86%) FortiGate
7 10 (0.66%) ITRS Geneos
8 9 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.59%) Puppet
8 9 (0.59%) QRadar
9 8 (0.53%) HP ALM
10 7 (0.46%) SCCM
11 6 (0.40%) Progress Chef
11 6 (0.40%) Red Hat Satellite
11 6 (0.40%) Tivoli Identity Manager
12 4 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
12 4 (0.26%) Kibana
12 4 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.26%) Tivoli
12 4 (0.26%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 239 (15.80%) Microsoft
2 114 (7.53%) SAP
3 95 (6.28%) Oracle
4 85 (5.62%) ServiceNow
5 38 (2.51%) Cisco
6 35 (2.31%) Salesforce
7 34 (2.25%) Splunk
8 31 (2.05%) VMware
9 25 (1.65%) Dynatrace
10 23 (1.52%) Databricks
11 22 (1.45%) IBM
12 18 (1.19%) Google
13 13 (0.86%) CyberArk
13 13 (0.86%) Red Hat
14 12 (0.79%) IFS
15 11 (0.73%) Ariba
15 11 (0.73%) HP
15 11 (0.73%) Workday
16 10 (0.66%) Adobe
16 10 (0.66%) Juniper