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 3 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 146 184
Rank change year-on-year -12 +38 +20
Contract jobs citing Data Strategy 29 14 28
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.63% 0.44% 0.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.76% 0.49% 0.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 20 10 19
10th Percentile £381 £497 £450
25th Percentile £500 £538 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £563 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -3.85% +6.12%
75th Percentile £812 £683 £766
90th Percentile £1,000 £754 £950
England median daily rate £589 £625 £688
% change year-on-year -5.80% -9.09% +10.44%
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 3,832 2,831 4,852
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.50% 89.50% 87.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,532 1,728 2,989
10th Percentile £250 £250 £213
25th Percentile £391 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £613
90th Percentile £688 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 332 105 354
10th Percentile £14.05 £18.58 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £24.18 £19.63
Median hourly rate £25.00 £45.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.44% -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £63.29
90th Percentile £79.99 £74.95 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -1.41% +1.43%

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 3 February 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 3 February 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
Hampshire -13 12 £1,000 +53.85% 1
Thames Valley -19 9 £575 +11.65% 14
Surrey +2 8 £500 -20.00% 1
Berkshire -8 7 £633 -7.93% 4
Buckinghamshire -9 2 £575 +13.86% 6
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 2 (6.90%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (10.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (6.90%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 7 (24.14%) Tricentis Tosca
2 3 (10.34%) Power Platform
3 2 (6.90%) AWS
3 2 (6.90%) Azure
3 2 (6.90%) OCI
4 1 (3.45%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (3.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 1 (3.45%) Microsoft Purview
4 1 (3.45%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (13.79%) Metadata
2 3 (10.34%) Power BI
2 3 (10.34%) SAP Data Services
3 2 (6.90%) Data Lake
3 2 (6.90%) SQL Server
3 2 (6.90%) Tableau
4 1 (3.45%) Oracle Database
4 1 (3.45%) RDBMS
4 1 (3.45%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 7 (24.14%) GitLab
1 7 (24.14%) JIRA
2 2 (6.90%) Jenkins
General
1 8 (27.59%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (20.69%) Influencing Skills
3 5 (17.24%) Public Sector
3 5 (17.24%) Social Skills
4 2 (6.90%) Law
4 2 (6.90%) Marketing
5 1 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 8 (27.59%) Lead
2 7 (24.14%) QA Engineer
3 5 (17.24%) Senior
4 4 (13.79%) Architect
4 4 (13.79%) Data Architect
4 4 (13.79%) Data Migration Lead
5 3 (10.34%) QA Leader
5 3 (10.34%) Senior QA Engineer
6 2 (6.90%) Analyst
6 2 (6.90%) Data Analyst
6 2 (6.90%) Data Manager
6 2 (6.90%) SAP Data Migration Lead
7 1 (3.45%) Consultant
7 1 (3.45%) Data Consultant
7 1 (3.45%) Data Migration Consultant
7 1 (3.45%) Migration Consultant
7 1 (3.45%) SAP Data Consultant
7 1 (3.45%) SAP Data Migration Consultant
7 1 (3.45%) Senior Data Architect
7 1 (3.45%) Strategy Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (24.14%) Oracle Fusion
2 2 (6.90%) ADO
3 1 (3.45%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 7 (24.14%) Legacy Systems
1 7 (24.14%) Synthetic Data
2 5 (17.24%) Management Information System
3 3 (10.34%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (6.90%) Data Structures
5 1 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (3.45%) EPoS
Processes & Methodologies
1 14 (48.28%) Agile
2 11 (37.93%) Data Management
2 11 (37.93%) Problem-Solving
2 11 (37.93%) Validation
3 10 (34.48%) Data Governance
4 8 (27.59%) Computer Science
4 8 (27.59%) Digital Transformation Programme
5 7 (24.14%) Acceptance Criteria
5 7 (24.14%) Analytics
5 7 (24.14%) CI/CD
5 7 (24.14%) Data Privacy
5 7 (24.14%) Decision-Making
5 7 (24.14%) DevOps
5 7 (24.14%) Mathematics
5 7 (24.14%) Migration
5 7 (24.14%) QA Automation
5 7 (24.14%) Test Automation
5 7 (24.14%) Test Planning
5 7 (24.14%) User Experience
5 7 (24.14%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 11 (37.93%) SQL
2 8 (27.59%) PL/SQL
3 3 (10.34%) Python
4 1 (3.45%) R
4 1 (3.45%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 14 (48.28%) Security Cleared
2 9 (31.03%) SC Cleared
3 8 (27.59%) Degree
4 7 (24.14%) OCA
4 7 (24.14%) Oracle Certification
5 3 (10.34%) DV Cleared
6 1 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (3.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (31.03%) GDPR
2 8 (27.59%) QA
3 5 (17.24%) Data Quality
Vendors
1 8 (27.59%) Oracle
2 3 (10.34%) Salesforce
2 3 (10.34%) SAP
3 2 (6.90%) Microsoft
4 1 (3.45%) Ab Initio
4 1 (3.45%) Arqiva
4 1 (3.45%) Informatica