Computer Science Contract Job Trends in the South East

Computer Science
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South East requiring Computer Science skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 79 100
Rank change year-on-year +7 +21 +32
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 139 75 112
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 2.95% 2.40% 2.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.52% 2.66% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 40 72
10th Percentile £183 £373 £213
25th Percentile £188 £473 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £360 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -28.00% +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £545 £538 £588
90th Percentile £678 £654 £638
England median daily rate £477 £548 £550
% change year-on-year -12.92% -0.45% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 11
10th Percentile £26.13 - £50.00
25th Percentile £26.75 - £55.00
Median hourly rate £28.50 - £63.00
75th Percentile £30.25 - £67.50
90th Percentile £61.30 - £73.75
England median hourly rate £33.50 £53.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -37.38% -2.73% +4.76%

All Process & Methodology Skills
South East

Computer Science 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 3,944 2,820 4,780
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.67% 90.07% 87.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,604 1,727 2,926
10th Percentile £255 £252 £213
25th Percentile £400 £402 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £509
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -1.28% +1.80%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £613
90th Percentile £688 £675 £691
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 340 102 355
10th Percentile £14.45 £18.50 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £24.18 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.11 £43.94 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -42.85% -7.49% +5.56%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £63.15
90th Percentile £80.01 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.77 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -26.37% - -

Computer Science
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Computer Science job vacancy trend in the South East

Computer Science
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Computer Science.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Computer Science

Computer Science
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Computer Science in the South East over the 6 months to 11 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Computer Science in the South East

Computer Science
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Computer Science.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Computer Science

Computer Science
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South East

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Computer Science in the South East over the 6 months to 11 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Computer Science in the South East

Computer Science
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 Computer Science within the South East region over the 6 months to 11 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
Thames Valley +9 58 £383 -23.50% 58
Berkshire -1 34 £364 -27.25% 27
Hampshire -3 29 £500 -13.04% 36
Buckinghamshire - 18 £445 - 13
Surrey -22 15 £425 -15.00% 22
Kent +3 14 £205 -18.00% 25
West Sussex -3 14 £275 -21.43% 7
Oxfordshire -12 6 £450 -35.71% 19
East Sussex 0 5 £463 +15.63% 5
Home Counties - 3 - -
Computer Science
England

Computer Science
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 7 (5.04%) Confluence
2 5 (3.60%) Smallworld
3 4 (2.88%) GeoServer
4 3 (2.16%) Apache
5 2 (1.44%) Apache Spark
5 2 (1.44%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.72%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.72%) CMS
6 1 (0.72%) SharePoint
Applications
1 2 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (2.88%) SAP ERP
2 2 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.72%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.72%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 26 (18.71%) Azure
2 18 (12.95%) AWS
3 12 (8.63%) GitHub
3 12 (8.63%) GitHub Actions
4 9 (6.47%) GCP
5 4 (2.88%) Entra ID
6 3 (2.16%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (2.16%) IaaS
6 3 (2.16%) Power Platform
7 2 (1.44%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.44%) Amazon ECS
7 2 (1.44%) Amazon S3
7 2 (1.44%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.44%) PowerApps
7 2 (1.44%) SaaS
7 2 (1.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (0.72%) Amazon SageMaker
8 1 (0.72%) Azure Machine Learning
8 1 (0.72%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.60%) Firewall
1 5 (3.60%) Network Security
2 4 (2.88%) DNS
2 4 (2.88%) TCP/IP
3 3 (2.16%) LAN
3 3 (2.16%) SSH
3 3 (2.16%) VoIP
3 3 (2.16%) WAN
3 3 (2.16%) Wireless
4 2 (1.44%) BGP
4 2 (1.44%) Internet
4 2 (1.44%) IPsec
4 2 (1.44%) OSPF
4 2 (1.44%) Structured Cabling
5 1 (0.72%) MGCP
5 1 (0.72%) SCCP
5 1 (0.72%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (0.72%) Telepresence
5 1 (0.72%) VPN
5 1 (0.72%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (9.35%) Relational Database
2 10 (7.19%) MySQL
3 7 (5.04%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (5.04%) SQL Server
4 5 (3.60%) Apache Cassandra
4 5 (3.60%) Couchbase
4 5 (3.60%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (3.60%) GIS
4 5 (3.60%) NoSQL
5 4 (2.88%) Big Data
5 4 (2.88%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (2.88%) QGIS
6 3 (2.16%) Metadata
6 3 (2.16%) Power BI
7 2 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (1.44%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.72%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.72%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.72%) Redis
8 1 (0.72%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 12 (8.63%) Git
2 7 (5.04%) GitLab
2 7 (5.04%) Jenkins
2 7 (5.04%) JIRA
3 6 (4.32%) CircleCI
3 6 (4.32%) Gradle
4 4 (2.88%) JUnit
4 4 (2.88%) Visual Studio
5 2 (1.44%) Cypress.io
5 2 (1.44%) Selenium
6 1 (0.72%) Appium
6 1 (0.72%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.72%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.72%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.72%) Maven
6 1 (0.72%) MLflow
6 1 (0.72%) WebDriver
6 1 (0.72%) XCTest
6 1 (0.72%) XCUITest
General
1 49 (35.25%) Social Skills
2 34 (24.46%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (7.19%) Public Sector
4 7 (5.04%) Documentation Skills
5 6 (4.32%) Finance
5 6 (4.32%) Influencing Skills
6 5 (3.60%) Manufacturing
7 4 (2.88%) Military
8 3 (2.16%) Aerospace
9 2 (1.44%) Electronics
9 2 (1.44%) Legal
10 1 (0.72%) Advertising
10 1 (0.72%) Banking
10 1 (0.72%) Law
10 1 (0.72%) Marketing
10 1 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 19 (13.67%) Developer
2 11 (7.91%) Senior
3 10 (7.19%) Analyst
3 10 (7.19%) Technical Support
4 7 (5.04%) Architect
4 7 (5.04%) Senior Developer
5 5 (3.60%) Lead
5 5 (3.60%) Software Engineer
6 4 (2.88%) Android Engineer
6 4 (2.88%) Informatica Developer
6 4 (2.88%) SOC Analyst
6 4 (2.88%) Software Developer
7 3 (2.16%) Data Scientist
7 3 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
7 3 (2.16%) IT Analyst
8 2 (1.44%) Asset Management Analyst
8 2 (1.44%) Data Centre Analyst
8 2 (1.44%) GIS Architect
8 2 (1.44%) QA Engineer
8 2 (1.44%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (10.07%) REST
2 6 (4.32%) Kafka
2 6 (4.32%) RAML
3 5 (3.60%) RabbitMQ
4 4 (2.88%) Android Jetpack
4 4 (2.88%) Dagger
4 4 (2.88%) HTML
4 4 (2.88%) Jetpack Compose
4 4 (2.88%) OkHttp
4 4 (2.88%) React
4 4 (2.88%) RxJava
4 4 (2.88%) WireMock
5 3 (2.16%) CSS
5 3 (2.16%) Node.js
5 3 (2.16%) Pandas
5 3 (2.16%) scikit-learn
5 3 (2.16%) Web Services
6 2 (1.44%) NumPy
6 2 (1.44%) Spring
6 2 (1.44%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 13 (9.35%) Management Information System
2 7 (5.04%) Virtual Team
3 6 (4.32%) Algorithms
3 6 (4.32%) Legacy Code
3 6 (4.32%) Onboarding
4 5 (3.60%) Cloud Native
4 5 (3.60%) Data Centre
5 4 (2.88%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (2.88%) Cyberattack
5 4 (2.88%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (2.88%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (2.88%) Product Ownership
5 4 (2.88%) Security Operations Centre
6 3 (2.16%) Mobile App
7 2 (1.44%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.44%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (1.44%) Mixed Reality
7 2 (1.44%) Replication
7 2 (1.44%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.44%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 27 (19.42%) Linux
2 26 (18.71%) Windows
3 14 (10.07%) Unix
4 6 (4.32%) Android
5 4 (2.88%) Windows Server
6 3 (2.16%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.44%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.72%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (28.06%) Problem-Solving
2 33 (23.74%) Agile
3 18 (12.95%) DevOps
4 15 (10.79%) CI/CD
5 14 (10.07%) AI
6 13 (9.35%) Continuous Integration
6 13 (9.35%) Cybersecurity
6 13 (9.35%) Migration
6 13 (9.35%) Process Improvement
6 13 (9.35%) Software Engineering
7 12 (8.63%) Analytics
7 12 (8.63%) Data Governance
7 12 (8.63%) Data Science
8 11 (7.91%) Mathematics
8 11 (7.91%) Open Source
9 10 (7.19%) Continuous Improvement
9 10 (7.19%) Machine Learning
9 10 (7.19%) OO
9 10 (7.19%) OOP
9 10 (7.19%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 40 (28.78%) Python
2 19 (13.67%) Java
2 19 (13.67%) SQL
3 18 (12.95%) JavaScript
4 10 (7.19%) Perl
5 9 (6.47%) PowerShell
6 6 (4.32%) Go
6 6 (4.32%) Kotlin
7 4 (2.88%) C#
7 4 (2.88%) Shell Script
8 3 (2.16%) Bash
9 2 (1.44%) Ada
9 2 (1.44%) Assembly Language
9 2 (1.44%) C
9 2 (1.44%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.72%) Bicep
10 1 (0.72%) C++
10 1 (0.72%) Magik
10 1 (0.72%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.72%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 106 (76.26%) Degree
2 80 (57.55%) Computer Science Degree
3 29 (20.86%) Security Cleared
4 21 (15.11%) SC Cleared
5 12 (8.63%) DBS Check
6 11 (7.91%) Master's Degree
7 5 (3.60%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (3.60%) DV Cleared
8 4 (2.88%) CCNP
8 4 (2.88%) CISSP
8 4 (2.88%) CompTIA CySA+
8 4 (2.88%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (2.16%) AWS Certification
9 3 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (2.16%) CCNA
10 2 (1.44%) Azure Certification
10 2 (1.44%) PMI Certification
10 2 (1.44%) PMP
11 1 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.72%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (6.47%) Data Quality
1 9 (6.47%) QA
2 6 (4.32%) GDPR
2 6 (4.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 5 (3.60%) NIST
4 2 (1.44%) HIPAA
4 2 (1.44%) ISO/IEC 19770
4 2 (1.44%) PMO
5 1 (0.72%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.72%) Def Stans
5 1 (0.72%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.72%) JSP 440
5 1 (0.72%) NCSC
5 1 (0.72%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 12 (8.63%) Docker
2 5 (3.60%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.44%) Firmware
4 1 (0.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.72%) VMware NSX
4 1 (0.72%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 11 (7.91%) Kubernetes
2 8 (5.76%) Terraform
3 4 (2.88%) Ansible
3 4 (2.88%) Grafana
4 2 (1.44%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.44%) Puppet
5 1 (0.72%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.72%) Istio
5 1 (0.72%) Kubeflow
5 1 (0.72%) linkerd
5 1 (0.72%) Nessus
5 1 (0.72%) Nmap
5 1 (0.72%) vRealize
5 1 (0.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 15 (10.79%) Oracle
2 11 (7.91%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.32%) Atlassian
3 6 (4.32%) SAP
3 6 (4.32%) Splunk
4 5 (3.60%) Cisco
5 4 (2.88%) BeyondTrust
5 4 (2.88%) CyberArk
5 4 (2.88%) ESRI
5 4 (2.88%) Informatica
5 4 (2.88%) Intergraph
5 4 (2.88%) ServiceNow
6 3 (2.16%) Google
6 3 (2.16%) Palo Alto
6 3 (2.16%) Snow
7 2 (1.44%) Aruba
7 2 (1.44%) CheckPoint
7 2 (1.44%) PagerDuty
8 1 (0.72%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.72%) LogRhythm