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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 156 144 188
Rank change year-on-year -12 +44 +16
Contract jobs citing Data Strategy 28 14 24
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.59% 0.45% 0.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.71% 0.50% 0.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 19 10 16
10th Percentile £380 £497 £453
25th Percentile £500 £538 £622
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £625 £713
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% -12.28% +18.75%
75th Percentile £850 £683 £828
90th Percentile £1,000 £754 £950
England median daily rate £600 £600 £688
% change year-on-year - -12.79% +10.08%
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 £80.50 £80.50 £70.09
% change year-on-year - +14.86% +100.24%

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 3,948 2,813 4,813
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.63% 90.22% 87.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,597 1,722 2,925
10th Percentile £256 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £402 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% -0.15% +0.10%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £615
90th Percentile £692 £675 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 343 103 360
10th Percentile £14.10 £18.26 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £24.18 £19.25
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 £63.07
90th Percentile £80.07 £75.40 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

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 17 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 17 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 -15 11 £1,000 +53.85% 2
Thames Valley -16 9 £575 +11.65% 11
Surrey -7 8 £500 -20.00% 1
Berkshire -1 7 £633 -7.93% 5
Buckinghamshire -8 2 £575 +13.86% 5
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 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (10.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (7.14%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 7 (25.00%) Tricentis Tosca
2 2 (7.14%) AWS
2 2 (7.14%) Azure
2 2 (7.14%) OCI
2 2 (7.14%) Power Platform
3 1 (3.57%) Azure Data Factory
3 1 (3.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
3 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Purview
3 1 (3.57%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (14.29%) Metadata
2 3 (10.71%) SAP Data Services
3 2 (7.14%) Data Lake
3 2 (7.14%) Power BI
3 2 (7.14%) SQL Server
4 1 (3.57%) Oracle Database
4 1 (3.57%) RDBMS
4 1 (3.57%) Relational Database
4 1 (3.57%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 7 (25.00%) GitLab
1 7 (25.00%) JIRA
2 2 (7.14%) Jenkins
General
1 8 (28.57%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (21.43%) Influencing Skills
3 5 (17.86%) Public Sector
3 5 (17.86%) Social Skills
4 2 (7.14%) Law
5 1 (3.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 1 (3.57%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 8 (28.57%) Lead
2 7 (25.00%) QA Engineer
3 5 (17.86%) Senior
4 4 (14.29%) Architect
4 4 (14.29%) Data Architect
4 4 (14.29%) Data Migration Lead
5 3 (10.71%) QA Leader
5 3 (10.71%) Senior QA Engineer
6 2 (7.14%) Data Manager
6 2 (7.14%) SAP Data Migration Lead
7 1 (3.57%) Data Consultant
7 1 (3.57%) Data Migration Consultant
7 1 (3.57%) Head of Analytics
7 1 (3.57%) Head of Strategy
7 1 (3.57%) SAP Data Consultant
7 1 (3.57%) SAP Data Migration Consultant
7 1 (3.57%) SAP Migration Consultant
7 1 (3.57%) Senior Architect
7 1 (3.57%) Senior Data Architect
7 1 (3.57%) Strategy Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (25.00%) Oracle Fusion
2 2 (7.14%) ADO
3 1 (3.57%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 7 (25.00%) Synthetic Data
2 6 (21.43%) Legacy Systems
3 5 (17.86%) Management Information System
4 3 (10.71%) Greenfield Project
5 1 (3.57%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (3.57%) Data Structures
5 1 (3.57%) EPoS
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (46.43%) Agile
2 11 (39.29%) Data Management
2 11 (39.29%) Problem-Solving
3 10 (35.71%) Validation
4 9 (32.14%) Data Governance
5 8 (28.57%) Computer Science
5 8 (28.57%) Digital Transformation Programme
6 7 (25.00%) Acceptance Criteria
6 7 (25.00%) Analytics
6 7 (25.00%) CI/CD
6 7 (25.00%) Data Privacy
6 7 (25.00%) Decision-Making
6 7 (25.00%) DevOps
6 7 (25.00%) ERP
6 7 (25.00%) Mathematics
6 7 (25.00%) QA Automation
6 7 (25.00%) Test Automation
6 7 (25.00%) Test Planning
6 7 (25.00%) User Experience
6 7 (25.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 10 (35.71%) SQL
2 8 (28.57%) PL/SQL
3 2 (7.14%) Python
4 1 (3.57%) R
4 1 (3.57%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 14 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 9 (32.14%) SC Cleared
3 8 (28.57%) Degree
4 7 (25.00%) OCA
4 7 (25.00%) Oracle Certification
5 3 (10.71%) DV Cleared
6 1 (3.57%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (3.57%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (28.57%) GDPR
1 8 (28.57%) QA
2 4 (14.29%) Data Quality
Vendors
1 8 (28.57%) Oracle
2 3 (10.71%) SAP
3 2 (7.14%) Microsoft
3 2 (7.14%) Salesforce
4 1 (3.57%) Ab Initio
4 1 (3.57%) Arqiva
4 1 (3.57%) Informatica