Master's Degree Job Trends in the South East

Master's Degree
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the South East with a requirement for Master's Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 14 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 158 178
Rank change year-on-year +145 +20 -61
Permanent jobs citing Master's Degree 820 157 121
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 7.90% 1.75% 1.37%
As % of the Qualifications category 25.41% 3.94% 3.55%
Number of salaries quoted 61 67 62
10th Percentile £43,750 £40,000 £41,250
25th Percentile £50,000 £41,263 £42,798
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £62,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +20.00% +13.64% -8.33%
75th Percentile £99,800 £81,875 £72,500
90th Percentile £105,000 £90,000 £75,450
England median annual salary £75,000 £70,000 £73,750
% change year-on-year +7.14% -5.08% +18.00%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

Master's Degree falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the South East.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 3,227 3,982 3,411
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 31.09% 44.35% 38.75%
Number of salaries quoted 1,372 1,739 2,120
10th Percentile £27,500 £35,000 £27,965
25th Percentile £36,250 £46,250 £36,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £60,000 £52,500
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +14.29% +0.96%
75th Percentile £67,313 £77,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £86,250 £82,500
England median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -

Master's Degree
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Master's Degree relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Master's Degree job vacancy trend in the South East

Master's Degree
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Master's Degree.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Master's Degree

Master's Degree
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing Master's Degree in the South East over the 6 months to 14 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Master's Degree in the South East

Master's Degree
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Master's Degree within the South East region over the 6 months to 14 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Surrey +69 355 £91,250 +30.36% 21
Thames Valley +75 210 £56,430 -13.18% 92
Kent +63 166 £100,000 - 19
Berkshire +65 137 £49,220 -5.35% 56
Buckinghamshire +57 59 £47,500 -47.22% 17
Hampshire +51 45 £75,000 +30.43% 41
Middlesex +16 34 - - 2
Oxfordshire -9 14 £67,500 +19.45% 19
Isle of Wight - 8 - - 9
Sussex 0 1 - -
West Sussex -1 1 - - 14
Master's Degree
England

Master's Degree
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 13 (1.59%) SharePoint
2 5 (0.61%) IIS
3 1 (0.12%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.12%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.12%) SAS
Applications
1 53 (6.46%) Chatbot
2 14 (1.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.24%) Simulink
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.12%) OrCAD
Business Applications
1 39 (4.76%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 570 (69.51%) Cloud Computing
2 40 (4.88%) SaaS
3 23 (2.80%) Azure
4 17 (2.07%) AWS
5 13 (1.59%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (1.59%) Power Platform
5 13 (1.59%) PowerApps
6 10 (1.22%) Veeva
7 8 (0.98%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (0.61%) PaaS
8 5 (0.61%) Snowflake
9 3 (0.37%) Amazon Cognito
9 3 (0.37%) Amazon EC2
9 3 (0.37%) Amazon S3
9 3 (0.37%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (0.37%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (0.37%) Collibra
9 3 (0.37%) Serverless
10 2 (0.24%) Miro
10 2 (0.24%) Smartsheet
Communications & Networking
1 570 (69.51%) Internet
2 7 (0.85%) LAN
2 7 (0.85%) SD-WAN
2 7 (0.85%) Unified Communications
2 7 (0.85%) VoIP
2 7 (0.85%) VPN
2 7 (0.85%) WAN
2 7 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
3 3 (0.37%) MQTT
3 3 (0.37%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.24%) Intranet
5 1 (0.12%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.12%) Profibus
5 1 (0.12%) RS-232
5 1 (0.12%) RS-485
5 1 (0.12%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (2.56%) Metadata
2 13 (1.59%) Power BI
3 8 (0.98%) Data Mining
4 7 (0.85%) NoSQL
4 7 (0.85%) Tableau
5 6 (0.73%) Big Data
5 6 (0.73%) Hadoop
6 3 (0.37%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.37%) SAP BW
6 3 (0.37%) SAP HANA
7 2 (0.24%) GIS
8 1 (0.12%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 7 (0.85%) MLflow
2 6 (0.73%) Git
3 5 (0.61%) Jenkins
4 4 (0.49%) JIRA
5 3 (0.37%) ERwin
5 3 (0.37%) PowerDesigner
6 2 (0.24%) TestRail
General
1 657 (80.12%) Social Skills
2 571 (69.63%) Banking
3 570 (69.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 90 (10.98%) Finance
5 55 (6.71%) Analytical Skills
6 42 (5.12%) Pharmaceutical
7 13 (1.59%) Electronics
8 11 (1.34%) Manufacturing
9 10 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
10 8 (0.98%) Telecoms
11 6 (0.73%) Automotive
11 6 (0.73%) Marketing
12 4 (0.49%) Publishing
13 2 (0.24%) Documentation Skills
13 2 (0.24%) Legal
14 1 (0.12%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.12%) Agriculture
14 1 (0.12%) Aviation
14 1 (0.12%) Influencing Skills
14 1 (0.12%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 469 (57.20%) Lecturer
2 53 (6.46%) Trainer
3 48 (5.85%) Lead
4 24 (2.93%) Senior
5 16 (1.95%) Head of IT
6 15 (1.83%) Data Manager
7 11 (1.34%) Consultant
7 11 (1.34%) Senior Manager
7 11 (1.34%) Software Engineer
8 9 (1.10%) Associate Director
8 9 (1.10%) Data Steward
8 9 (1.10%) Product Manager
9 8 (0.98%) Coordinator
9 8 (0.98%) Data Coordinator
10 7 (0.85%) C++ Software Engineer
10 7 (0.85%) Head of IT Operations
10 7 (0.85%) Head of Operations
10 7 (0.85%) Principal Consultant
11 6 (0.73%) Analyst
12 5 (0.61%) Quality Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (0.61%) Play Framework
1 5 (0.61%) PyTorch
1 5 (0.61%) TensorFlow
1 5 (0.61%) YAML
2 4 (0.49%) Keras
2 4 (0.49%) Qt
2 4 (0.49%) scikit-learn
3 3 (0.37%) Middleware
3 3 (0.37%) REST
3 3 (0.37%) SOAP
4 2 (0.24%) WPF
5 1 (0.12%) Hugging Face
5 1 (0.12%) LangChain
5 1 (0.12%) NumPy
5 1 (0.12%) Pandas
5 1 (0.12%) React
Miscellaneous
1 570 (69.51%) IoT
2 72 (8.78%) Life Science
3 31 (3.78%) Management Information System
4 16 (1.95%) Algorithms
5 10 (1.22%) Operational Technology
6 9 (1.10%) Biopharmaceutical
7 7 (0.85%) Product Ownership
8 5 (0.61%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (0.61%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (0.61%) Hackathon
8 5 (0.61%) Low-Code
8 5 (0.61%) Security Posture
9 4 (0.49%) 3D Graphics
9 4 (0.49%) Data Centre
10 3 (0.37%) Animation
10 3 (0.37%) Data Structures
10 3 (0.37%) LIMS
10 3 (0.37%) Pharmacovigilance
11 2 (0.24%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.24%) Embedded Systems
Operating Systems
1 7 (0.85%) Linux
2 4 (0.49%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 686 (83.66%) AI
2 633 (77.20%) Machine Learning
3 587 (71.59%) Cybersecurity
4 582 (70.98%) User Experience
5 570 (69.51%) Web Development
6 82 (10.00%) Computer Science
7 76 (9.27%) Agile
8 67 (8.17%) Data Science
9 61 (7.44%) Decision-Making
10 53 (6.46%) Analytics
10 53 (6.46%) Conversational UI
11 51 (6.22%) ERP
12 47 (5.73%) Hematology
12 47 (5.73%) Immunology
13 45 (5.49%) Roadmaps
14 44 (5.37%) Chemistry
14 44 (5.37%) Data-Driven Decision Making
15 39 (4.76%) Business Case
15 39 (4.76%) Financial Modelling
15 39 (4.76%) Resource Allocation
Programming Languages
1 45 (5.49%) Python
2 16 (1.95%) C++
3 15 (1.83%) SQL
4 13 (1.59%) VBA
5 9 (1.10%) Java
6 7 (0.85%) C
6 7 (0.85%) R
7 6 (0.73%) Bash
8 5 (0.61%) C#
8 5 (0.61%) PowerShell
8 5 (0.61%) Scala
9 4 (0.49%) Fortran
9 4 (0.49%) Julia
10 2 (0.24%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.12%) JavaScript
Qualifications
1 820 (100.00%) Degree
2 671 (81.83%) PhD
3 570 (69.51%) Postgraduate
4 57 (6.95%) MBA
5 22 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (2.32%) SC Cleared
6 19 (2.32%) Security Cleared
7 11 (1.34%) PMI Certification
7 11 (1.34%) PMP
8 7 (0.85%) APMP
8 7 (0.85%) AWS Certification
8 7 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 7 (0.85%) Azure Certification
8 7 (0.85%) CCNP
8 7 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
10 5 (0.61%) Six Sigma Black Belt
10 5 (0.61%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 5 (0.61%) Six Sigma Master Black Belt
11 3 (0.37%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (4.02%) GxP
2 22 (2.68%) Data Quality
3 12 (1.46%) NIST
4 10 (1.22%) Accessibility
5 8 (0.98%) QA
6 5 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
6 5 (0.61%) ISO 13485
6 5 (0.61%) ISO 9001
6 5 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.61%) NCSC
7 4 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 15288
8 3 (0.37%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.24%) AUTOSAR
9 2 (0.24%) GDPR
9 2 (0.24%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.12%) IEC 61131
System Software
1 5 (0.61%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (0.49%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.37%) Ansible
2 3 (0.37%) Kubeflow
3 2 (0.24%) Functional Safety
4 1 (0.12%) BMC PATROL
4 1 (0.12%) Terraform
Vendors
1 53 (6.46%) PayPal
2 42 (5.12%) SAP
3 15 (1.83%) Microsoft
4 9 (1.10%) Cisco
5 6 (0.73%) Databricks
6 5 (0.61%) BT
7 3 (0.37%) Agilent
8 2 (0.24%) Aruba
8 2 (0.24%) EMC
8 2 (0.24%) HP
8 2 (0.24%) IFS
8 2 (0.24%) Sage
9 1 (0.12%) Dell
9 1 (0.12%) HubSpot
9 1 (0.12%) IBM
9 1 (0.12%) NVIDIA
9 1 (0.12%) Samsung