Systems or Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for SDLC skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited SDLC over the 6 months to 1 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
1 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 99 72 79
Rank change year-on-year -27 +7 +1
Contract jobs citing SDLC 988 1,904 2,774
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.27% 3.20% 3.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.63% 3.56% 3.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 694 1,256 1,912
10th Percentile £390 £413 £405
25th Percentile £463 £495 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £573
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% +4.76% +14.55%
75th Percentile £700 £725 £675
90th Percentile £825 £825 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £538 £525 £503
% change year-on-year +2.38% +4.48% +11.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 53 62
10th Percentile £35.50 £45.00 £35.00
25th Percentile £46.69 £50.00 £41.06
Median hourly rate £48.00 £59.03 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.69% +7.33% -
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.54
90th Percentile £57.50 £68.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.00 £59.03 £57.50
% change year-on-year -18.69% +2.66% +4.55%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

SDLC is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 37,562 53,490 80,370
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.33% 89.88% 90.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,188 37,115 56,434
10th Percentile £300 £325 £340
25th Percentile £413 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% +7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £475
% change year-on-year - +5.26% +8.63%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,451 1,742 1,926
10th Percentile £12.75 £11.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £16.00 £16.25 £15.27
Median hourly rate £35.50 £36.42 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.53% +45.69% -
75th Percentile £59.95 £65.00 £49.25
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £64.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.50 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +4.29% +75.00% -8.00%

SDLC
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SDLC as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SDLC in the UK

SDLC
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SDLC.

Daily rate trend for SDLC in the UK

SDLC
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SDLC over the 6 months to 1 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for SDLC in the UK

SDLC
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SDLC.

Hourly rate trend for SDLC in the UK

SDLC
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SDLC over the 6 months to 1 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for SDLC in the UK

SDLC
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SDLC within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 2024. 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 -25 834 £600 - 646
London -16 543 £600 -7.69% 277
Work from Home -15 361 £588 -2.08% 340
UK excluding London -27 346 £538 +2.38% 439
North of England +24 93 £475 -9.52% 105
South East -20 78 £595 +15.53% 98
Scotland +6 68 £500 -4.76% 55
North West +17 62 £450 -14.29% 66
South West +5 40 £625 +4.17% 53
Midlands -44 29 £575 +15.00% 74
Yorkshire +20 27 £500 -9.09% 26
West Midlands -25 25 £675 +25.46% 43
East of England -9 20 £550 +4.76% 38
Wales +18 19 £515 +8.42% 15
North East +16 4 - - 13
East Midlands -7 4 £445 +4.71% 31
Isle of Man - 2 - -

SDLC
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 37 (3.74%) Confluence
2 26 (2.63%) Apache Spark
3 13 (1.32%) Apache
4 12 (1.21%) IIS
4 12 (1.21%) SharePoint
5 11 (1.11%) CMS
6 9 (0.91%) BizTalk Server
7 8 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.81%) Drupal
7 8 (0.81%) SAS
8 6 (0.61%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.51%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.51%) nginx
9 5 (0.51%) WordPress
10 4 (0.40%) SharePoint 2013
11 3 (0.30%) OpenEdge
11 3 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.30%) WebSphere
12 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.20%) MQSeries
Applications
1 40 (4.05%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.71%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.10%) Camtasia
7 1 (0.10%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.10%) PlantUML
Business Applications
1 14 (1.42%) Endur
2 12 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 9 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.71%) Loan IQ
4 7 (0.71%) SAP PM
5 5 (0.51%) Magento
6 3 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
6 3 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
7 2 (0.20%) FLEXCUBE
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle BPM
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.20%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.20%) SAP EWM
7 2 (0.20%) SAP FI/CO
7 2 (0.20%) SAP R/3
7 2 (0.20%) Shopify
7 2 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 235 (23.79%) Azure
2 207 (20.95%) AWS
3 72 (7.29%) Serverless
4 62 (6.28%) GCP
5 59 (5.97%) GitHub
6 48 (4.86%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (3.44%) SaaS
8 33 (3.34%) Azure Data Factory
8 33 (3.34%) Power Platform
9 30 (3.04%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 30 (3.04%) Azure Functions
10 26 (2.63%) Azure Monitor
10 26 (2.63%) Microsoft 365
10 26 (2.63%) PaaS
11 24 (2.43%) AWS Lambda
11 24 (2.43%) Entra ID
12 19 (1.92%) Azure Logic Apps
13 17 (1.72%) AWS CloudFormation
13 17 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
13 17 (1.72%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.21%) DNS
2 11 (1.11%) Firewall
3 9 (0.91%) Internet
4 8 (0.81%) ATM
4 8 (0.81%) SNA
4 8 (0.81%) TCP/IP
4 8 (0.81%) VSAN
5 7 (0.71%) Fibre Channel
5 7 (0.71%) iSCSI
6 6 (0.61%) WAN
7 5 (0.51%) Network Security
7 5 (0.51%) SD-WAN
7 5 (0.51%) SSH
7 5 (0.51%) SSL
8 4 (0.40%) HTTPS
8 4 (0.40%) IPsec
8 4 (0.40%) SAN
9 3 (0.30%) BGP
9 3 (0.30%) Cisco IOS
9 3 (0.30%) IOS XR
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (9.01%) SQL Server
2 57 (5.77%) NoSQL
3 51 (5.16%) Relational Database
4 35 (3.54%) MySQL
5 33 (3.34%) Data Lake
6 31 (3.14%) Big Data
6 31 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
7 26 (2.63%) MongoDB
8 23 (2.33%) Power BI
9 20 (2.02%) Azure SQL Database
9 20 (2.02%) Oracle Database
10 19 (1.92%) Data Warehouse
11 14 (1.42%) KDB
12 13 (1.32%) DB2
13 8 (0.81%) Couchbase
13 8 (0.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 7 (0.71%) Apache Cassandra
14 7 (0.71%) Metadata
14 7 (0.71%) Sybase ASE
14 7 (0.71%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 107 (10.83%) JIRA
2 101 (10.22%) Git
3 82 (8.30%) Jenkins
4 38 (3.85%) GitLab
5 32 (3.24%) Selenium
6 27 (2.73%) Cucumber
7 26 (2.63%) JUnit
8 16 (1.62%) Maven
8 16 (1.62%) Mockito
9 15 (1.52%) TeamCity
10 13 (1.32%) Cypress.io
10 13 (1.32%) git-flow
10 13 (1.32%) SonarQube
11 12 (1.21%) JMeter
12 10 (1.01%) Subversion
12 10 (1.01%) TestRail
13 9 (0.91%) Team Foundation Server
13 9 (0.91%) Visual Studio
14 8 (0.81%) Bitbucket
15 6 (0.61%) Artifactory
General
1 290 (29.35%) Social Skills
2 266 (26.92%) Finance
3 152 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
4 132 (13.36%) Banking
5 59 (5.97%) Public Sector
6 41 (4.15%) Investment Banking
7 39 (3.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 37 (3.74%) Marketing
9 35 (3.54%) Front Office
10 28 (2.83%) Presentation Skills
11 26 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
12 22 (2.23%) Aerospace
13 18 (1.82%) Retail
14 15 (1.52%) Manufacturing
15 14 (1.42%) Telecoms
16 8 (0.81%) Electronics
17 7 (0.71%) Documentation Skills
17 7 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
17 7 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
17 7 (0.71%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 285 (28.85%) Developer
2 142 (14.37%) Senior
3 109 (11.03%) Analyst
4 82 (8.30%) Architect
5 80 (8.10%) Java Developer
6 72 (7.29%) Lead
7 69 (6.98%) Software Engineer
8 63 (6.38%) Business Analyst
9 59 (5.97%) Project Manager
10 56 (5.67%) Full Stack Developer
11 54 (5.47%) Senior Developer
12 43 (4.35%) Solutions Architect
13 37 (3.74%) Consultant
14 31 (3.14%) Data Engineer
15 30 (3.04%) Python Developer
16 28 (2.83%) DevOps Engineer
17 25 (2.53%) Senior Java Developer
18 23 (2.33%) Azure Developer
19 22 (2.23%) Cloud Architect
19 22 (2.23%) Scrum Master
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (10.12%) React
2 94 (9.51%) .NET
3 68 (6.88%) Spring
4 63 (6.38%) REST
5 60 (6.07%) Spring Boot
6 58 (5.87%) HTML
7 55 (5.57%) AngularJS
8 51 (5.16%) CSS
9 42 (4.25%) JSON
10 40 (4.05%) .NET Framework
10 40 (4.05%) Kafka
10 40 (4.05%) Web Services
11 39 (3.95%) RESTful
12 35 (3.54%) XML
13 31 (3.14%) JPA
14 25 (2.53%) Middleware
14 25 (2.53%) Node.js
15 24 (2.43%) YAML
16 22 (2.23%) Hibernate
17 21 (2.13%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 62 (6.28%) Product Ownership
2 41 (4.15%) Management Information System
3 39 (3.95%) Distributed Systems
4 38 (3.85%) Mobile App
5 34 (3.44%) Cloud Native
6 33 (3.34%) Enterprise Software
7 26 (2.63%) Public Cloud
8 24 (2.43%) Algorithms
9 23 (2.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 22 (2.23%) Data Structures
11 20 (2.02%) Derivative
11 20 (2.02%) IoT
12 18 (1.82%) Legacy Systems
13 16 (1.62%) Linux Command Line
14 15 (1.52%) Fixed Income
14 15 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (1.52%) SWIFT Messaging Network
15 12 (1.21%) Credit Derivative
15 12 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
15 12 (1.21%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 83 (8.40%) Linux
2 62 (6.28%) Windows
3 34 (3.44%) Unix
4 21 (2.13%) Android
5 12 (1.21%) Windows Server
6 10 (1.01%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.51%) Windows 10
9 4 (0.40%) CentOS
9 4 (0.40%) Data ONTAP
9 4 (0.40%) SafeRTOS
10 2 (0.20%) VMS
10 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 483 (48.89%) Agile
2 251 (25.40%) DevOps
3 241 (24.39%) CI/CD
4 196 (19.84%) Software Engineering
5 180 (18.22%) Scrum
6 175 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
7 130 (13.16%) Microservices
8 99 (10.02%) Test Automation
9 95 (9.62%) Project Management
10 92 (9.31%) Full Stack Development
11 79 (8.00%) Continuous Improvement
12 77 (7.79%) Computer Science
12 77 (7.79%) Stakeholder Management
13 70 (7.09%) Analytics
14 65 (6.58%) User Acceptance Testing
15 64 (6.48%) Migration
16 63 (6.38%) Continuous Integration
16 63 (6.38%) Waterfall
17 59 (5.97%) Change Management
17 59 (5.97%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 242 (24.49%) Java
2 207 (20.95%) SQL
3 195 (19.74%) Python
4 121 (12.25%) C#
5 112 (11.34%) JavaScript
6 67 (6.78%) PowerShell
7 63 (6.38%) TypeScript
8 30 (3.04%) C
9 28 (2.83%) Scala
10 27 (2.73%) Kotlin
11 26 (2.63%) C++
11 26 (2.63%) Go
12 25 (2.53%) T-SQL
13 22 (2.23%) PL/SQL
14 21 (2.13%) PHP
14 21 (2.13%) Shell Script
15 20 (2.02%) Perl
16 12 (1.21%) Bash
17 9 (0.91%) VB
18 7 (0.71%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 164 (16.60%) Degree
2 115 (11.64%) Security Cleared
3 89 (9.01%) SC Cleared
4 48 (4.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 40 (4.05%) DV Cleared
6 26 (2.63%) Master's Degree
7 19 (1.92%) AWS Certification
8 17 (1.72%) PMP
9 16 (1.62%) PMI Certification
10 15 (1.52%) CISSP
11 13 (1.32%) CISM
12 10 (1.01%) ISTQB
13 7 (0.71%) Azure Certification
14 5 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
15 4 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 4 (0.40%) CBAP
15 4 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 3 (0.30%) AWS Certified Developer
16 3 (0.30%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 3 (0.30%) CSSLP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 88 (8.91%) QA
2 28 (2.83%) NIST
3 22 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (1.42%) Data Quality
5 12 (1.21%) Accessibility
5 12 (1.21%) PCI DSS
6 11 (1.11%) PMO
7 8 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 7 (0.71%) EMIR
9 6 (0.61%) MiFID
9 6 (0.61%) SEPA
10 4 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.40%) GDPR
10 4 (0.40%) HIPAA
10 4 (0.40%) IFRS
11 3 (0.30%) Basel III
11 3 (0.30%) SLA
12 2 (0.20%) COBIT
12 2 (0.20%) GAAP
12 2 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 12207
System Software
1 59 (5.97%) Docker
2 33 (3.34%) Active Directory
3 11 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.11%) VMware NSX
4 8 (0.81%) VMware ESXi
5 7 (0.71%) NFS
5 7 (0.71%) Virtual Servers
6 4 (0.40%) GPFS
7 3 (0.30%) vCloud
7 3 (0.30%) vSphere
8 2 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 1 (0.10%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.10%) GridGain
9 1 (0.10%) HDFS
9 1 (0.10%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 91 (9.21%) Kubernetes
2 80 (8.10%) Terraform
3 58 (5.87%) Ansible
4 28 (2.83%) Puppet
5 13 (1.32%) Argo
6 12 (1.21%) Grafana
7 9 (0.91%) vRealize
8 8 (0.81%) Prometheus
8 8 (0.81%) vCenter Server
9 7 (0.71%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.61%) Zipkin
11 5 (0.51%) Kibana
12 4 (0.40%) Veritas Storage Foundation
12 4 (0.40%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 3 (0.30%) Autotask
13 3 (0.30%) HP Fortify
13 3 (0.30%) Netcool
14 2 (0.20%) SCOM
14 2 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
15 1 (0.10%) Istio
Vendors
1 122 (12.35%) Microsoft
2 82 (8.30%) Oracle
3 41 (4.15%) SAP
4 31 (3.14%) ServiceNow
5 27 (2.73%) Databricks
5 27 (2.73%) Salesforce
6 25 (2.53%) VMware
7 24 (2.43%) Google
8 20 (2.02%) Atlassian
9 19 (1.92%) IBM
10 14 (1.42%) Sybase
11 13 (1.32%) MuleSoft
12 11 (1.11%) Bloomberg
13 9 (0.91%) OpenLink
13 9 (0.91%) Refinitiv
14 8 (0.81%) Adobe
14 8 (0.81%) Red Hat
14 8 (0.81%) Solace
15 7 (0.71%) TOWER Software
16 6 (0.61%) TIBCO