Data Strategy Contract Job Trends in the South East

Data Strategy
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Data Strategy skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 4 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 161 151 174
Rank change year-on-year -10 +23 +43
Contract jobs citing Data Strategy 23 14 27
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.53% 0.40% 0.55%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.63% 0.45% 0.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17 8 16
10th Percentile £426 £487 £453
25th Percentile £500 £585 £538
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £625 £613
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +2.04% +2.08%
75th Percentile £774 £661 £828
90th Percentile £955 £711 £950
England median daily rate £575 £625 £665
% change year-on-year -8.00% -6.02% +10.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £60.50
Median hourly rate - - £61.00
75th Percentile - - £61.50
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £82.25 £80.50 £70.09
% change year-on-year +2.17% +14.86% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Data Strategy 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 3,676 3,082 4,406
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 84.22% 88.54% 89.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,424 1,905 2,820
10th Percentile £223 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £403 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £516
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -1.16% +1.18%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £614
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 119 247
10th Percentile £14.75 £19.84 £17.60
25th Percentile £17.00 £26.00 £26.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £45.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -50.00% -18.18% +28.87%
75th Percentile £53.17 £63.00 £66.13
90th Percentile £75.50 £74.89 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.90
% change year-on-year -28.14% -20.27% +23.66%

Data Strategy
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Data Strategy job vacancy trend in the South East

Data Strategy
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Strategy.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Strategy

Data Strategy
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Strategy in the South East over the 6 months to 4 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Strategy in the South East

Data Strategy
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Strategy.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Data Strategy

Data Strategy
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 Data Strategy within the South East region over the 6 months to 4 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Surrey -4 9 £500 -20.00%
Thames Valley -8 7 £575 +13.86% 10
Hampshire -13 7 £950 +46.15% 1
Berkshire -2 5 £766 +11.42% 6
Buckinghamshire -4 2 £575 +20.42% 4
Data Strategy
England

Data Strategy
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:

Applications
1 1 (4.35%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (13.04%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 7 (30.43%) Tricentis Tosca
2 2 (8.70%) AWS
2 2 (8.70%) Azure
2 2 (8.70%) OCI
2 2 (8.70%) Power Platform
3 1 (4.35%) Azure Data Factory
3 1 (4.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
3 1 (4.35%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
3 1 (4.35%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 3 (13.04%) SAP Data Services
2 2 (8.70%) Data Lake
2 2 (8.70%) Metadata
2 2 (8.70%) Power BI
2 2 (8.70%) SQL Server
2 2 (8.70%) Tableau
3 1 (4.35%) Oracle Database
3 1 (4.35%) RDBMS
3 1 (4.35%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 7 (30.43%) GitLab
1 7 (30.43%) JIRA
2 2 (8.70%) Jenkins
General
1 6 (26.09%) Analytical Skills
2 5 (21.74%) Social Skills
3 4 (17.39%) Influencing Skills
4 2 (8.70%) Law
4 2 (8.70%) Public Sector
5 1 (4.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (4.35%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 7 (30.43%) QA Engineer
2 6 (26.09%) Lead
3 5 (21.74%) Senior
4 4 (17.39%) Architect
4 4 (17.39%) Data Architect
5 3 (13.04%) QA Leader
5 3 (13.04%) Senior QA Engineer
6 2 (8.70%) Data Migration Lead
6 2 (8.70%) Head of Analytics
6 2 (8.70%) SAP Data Migration Lead
7 1 (4.35%) Data Consultant
7 1 (4.35%) Data Migration Consultant
7 1 (4.35%) Head of Data Analytics
7 1 (4.35%) Head of Strategy
7 1 (4.35%) Salesforce Analyst
7 1 (4.35%) SAP Data Consultant
7 1 (4.35%) SAP Data Migration Consultant
7 1 (4.35%) SAP Migration Consultant
7 1 (4.35%) Senior Architect
7 1 (4.35%) Senior Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (30.43%) Oracle Fusion
2 2 (8.70%) ADO
3 1 (4.35%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 7 (30.43%) Synthetic Data
2 4 (17.39%) Greenfield Project
2 4 (17.39%) Legacy Systems
2 4 (17.39%) Management Information System
3 2 (8.70%) Data Structures
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (60.87%) Agile
2 11 (47.83%) Validation
3 10 (43.48%) Problem-Solving
4 9 (39.13%) Data Management
5 8 (34.78%) Data Governance
5 8 (34.78%) Data Modelling
5 8 (34.78%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 7 (30.43%) Acceptance Criteria
6 7 (30.43%) Analytics
6 7 (30.43%) CI/CD
6 7 (30.43%) Data Privacy
6 7 (30.43%) DevOps
6 7 (30.43%) ERP
6 7 (30.43%) QA Automation
6 7 (30.43%) Test Automation
6 7 (30.43%) Test Planning
6 7 (30.43%) User Experience
6 7 (30.43%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
7 6 (26.09%) Computer Science
8 5 (21.74%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 11 (47.83%) SQL
2 8 (34.78%) PL/SQL
3 4 (17.39%) Python
4 2 (8.70%) R
5 1 (4.35%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 12 (52.17%) Security Cleared
2 8 (34.78%) SC Cleared
3 7 (30.43%) OCA
3 7 (30.43%) Oracle Certification
4 6 (26.09%) Degree
5 3 (13.04%) DV Cleared
6 1 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (4.35%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (34.78%) GDPR
1 8 (34.78%) QA
2 5 (21.74%) Data Quality
Vendors
1 8 (34.78%) Oracle
2 3 (13.04%) SAP
3 2 (8.70%) Salesforce
4 1 (4.35%) Ab Initio
4 1 (4.35%) Arqiva
4 1 (4.35%) Informatica
4 1 (4.35%) Microsoft