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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 82 96
Rank change year-on-year +21 +14 +31
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 149 79 116
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.09% 2.50% 2.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.69% 2.76% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 97 44 73
10th Percentile £183 £386 £223
25th Percentile £190 £466 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £365 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -27.00% +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £545 £538 £588
90th Percentile £678 £650 £638
England median daily rate £475 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -10.38% -3.64% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 0 10
10th Percentile £26.75 - £54.50
25th Percentile £27.32 - £55.88
Median hourly rate £81.50 - £65.00
75th Percentile £83.88 - £67.50
90th Percentile £85.50 - £74.13
England median hourly rate £33.50 £54.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -38.53% -0.91% +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 4,034 2,867 4,827
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.76% 90.73% 87.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,649 1,770 2,933
10th Percentile £259 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% +0.05% -
75th Percentile £600 £609 £613
90th Percentile £694 £670 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 356 109 357
10th Percentile £14.50 £17.05 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.00 £24.18 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £42.88 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -41.35% -9.73% +5.56%
75th Percentile £58.50 £62.50 £63.00
90th Percentile £83.38 £75.10 £76.53
England median hourly rate £26.61 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -23.99% - -

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +7 67 £400 -20.00% 51
Berkshire +2 43 £365 -27.00% 28
Hampshire -7 30 £515 -10.43% 33
Buckinghamshire - 17 £445 - 11
West Sussex -3 15 £275 -21.43% 7
Kent +3 14 £205 -18.00% 16
Surrey -22 14 £463 -7.50% 16
Oxfordshire -10 7 £500 -28.57% 15
East Sussex +3 5 £463 +15.63% 8
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 (4.70%) Confluence
2 5 (3.36%) Smallworld
3 4 (2.68%) GeoServer
4 3 (2.01%) Apache
4 3 (2.01%) Apache Spark
5 2 (1.34%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.67%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.67%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.67%) CMS
6 1 (0.67%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (2.68%) SAP ERP
2 2 (1.34%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.67%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.67%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 28 (18.79%) Azure
2 20 (13.42%) AWS
3 13 (8.72%) GitHub
3 13 (8.72%) GitHub Actions
4 10 (6.71%) GCP
5 4 (2.68%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.68%) Power Platform
6 3 (2.01%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (2.01%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (1.34%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.34%) Amazon ECS
7 2 (1.34%) Amazon S3
7 2 (1.34%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.34%) IaaS
7 2 (1.34%) PowerApps
7 2 (1.34%) SaaS
7 2 (1.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (0.67%) Collibra
8 1 (0.67%) Kong
8 1 (0.67%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.36%) Firewall
1 5 (3.36%) Network Security
2 4 (2.68%) DNS
2 4 (2.68%) TCP/IP
3 3 (2.01%) LAN
3 3 (2.01%) SSH
3 3 (2.01%) VoIP
3 3 (2.01%) WAN
3 3 (2.01%) Wireless
4 2 (1.34%) BGP
4 2 (1.34%) Internet
4 2 (1.34%) IPsec
4 2 (1.34%) OSPF
4 2 (1.34%) Structured Cabling
5 1 (0.67%) 5G
5 1 (0.67%) MGCP
5 1 (0.67%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.67%) SCCP
5 1 (0.67%) Telepresence
5 1 (0.67%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (8.05%) Relational Database
2 9 (6.04%) MySQL
3 7 (4.70%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (4.70%) SQL Server
4 5 (3.36%) Apache Cassandra
4 5 (3.36%) Big Data
4 5 (3.36%) Couchbase
4 5 (3.36%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (3.36%) GIS
4 5 (3.36%) NoSQL
5 4 (2.68%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (2.68%) Power BI
5 4 (2.68%) QGIS
6 3 (2.01%) Hadoop
6 3 (2.01%) Metadata
7 2 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (1.34%) Tableau
8 1 (0.67%) Oracle Database
8 1 (0.67%) RDBMS
8 1 (0.67%) Redis
Development Applications
1 12 (8.05%) Git
2 7 (4.70%) CircleCI
2 7 (4.70%) GitLab
2 7 (4.70%) Gradle
2 7 (4.70%) Jenkins
2 7 (4.70%) JIRA
3 5 (3.36%) JUnit
4 4 (2.68%) Visual Studio
5 2 (1.34%) Cypress.io
5 2 (1.34%) Rational DOORS
5 2 (1.34%) Selenium
6 1 (0.67%) Appium
6 1 (0.67%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.67%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.67%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.67%) Maven
6 1 (0.67%) MLflow
6 1 (0.67%) WebDriver
6 1 (0.67%) XCTest
6 1 (0.67%) XCUITest
General
1 53 (35.57%) Social Skills
2 34 (22.82%) Analytical Skills
3 10 (6.71%) Public Sector
4 9 (6.04%) Aerospace
5 7 (4.70%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (4.03%) Finance
6 6 (4.03%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (4.03%) Manufacturing
7 5 (3.36%) Military
8 3 (2.01%) Marketing
9 2 (1.34%) Electronics
9 2 (1.34%) Legal
9 2 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.67%) Advertising
10 1 (0.67%) Avionics
10 1 (0.67%) Banking
10 1 (0.67%) Law
10 1 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 19 (12.75%) Developer
2 11 (7.38%) Senior
3 10 (6.71%) Analyst
3 10 (6.71%) Architect
4 9 (6.04%) Technical Support
5 7 (4.70%) Senior Developer
6 5 (3.36%) Android Engineer
6 5 (3.36%) Delivery Manager
6 5 (3.36%) Lead
6 5 (3.36%) Software Engineer
7 4 (2.68%) Consultant
7 4 (2.68%) Data Scientist
7 4 (2.68%) Informatica Developer
7 4 (2.68%) Product Manager
7 4 (2.68%) SOC Analyst
7 4 (2.68%) Software Developer
8 3 (2.01%) IT Analyst
8 3 (2.01%) Technical Architect
9 2 (1.34%) GIS Architect
9 2 (1.34%) Product Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (10.07%) REST
2 7 (4.70%) RAML
3 6 (4.03%) Kafka
4 5 (3.36%) Android Jetpack
4 5 (3.36%) Dagger
4 5 (3.36%) Jetpack Compose
4 5 (3.36%) OkHttp
4 5 (3.36%) RabbitMQ
4 5 (3.36%) RxJava
4 5 (3.36%) WireMock
5 4 (2.68%) React
6 3 (2.01%) HTML
6 3 (2.01%) Node.js
6 3 (2.01%) Pandas
6 3 (2.01%) scikit-learn
6 3 (2.01%) Web Services
7 2 (1.34%) CSS
7 2 (1.34%) Matplotlib
7 2 (1.34%) NumPy
7 2 (1.34%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 13 (8.72%) Management Information System
2 9 (6.04%) Virtual Team
3 8 (5.37%) Algorithms
4 7 (4.70%) Data Protection Act
4 7 (4.70%) Legacy Code
4 7 (4.70%) Product Ownership
5 6 (4.03%) Onboarding
6 5 (3.36%) Cloud Native
7 4 (2.68%) AI Agents
7 4 (2.68%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (2.68%) Cyberattack
7 4 (2.68%) Data Centre
7 4 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.68%) Mobile App
7 4 (2.68%) Security Operations Centre
8 2 (1.34%) Distributed Computing
8 2 (1.34%) Mixed Reality
8 2 (1.34%) Replication
8 2 (1.34%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.34%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 26 (17.45%) Linux
2 25 (16.78%) Windows
3 13 (8.72%) Unix
4 7 (4.70%) Android
5 4 (2.68%) Windows Server
6 3 (2.01%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.34%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.67%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 40 (26.85%) Problem-Solving
2 35 (23.49%) Agile
3 19 (12.75%) DevOps
4 18 (12.08%) AI
5 17 (11.41%) CI/CD
6 14 (9.40%) Continuous Integration
6 14 (9.40%) Cybersecurity
6 14 (9.40%) Software Engineering
7 13 (8.72%) Analytics
7 13 (8.72%) Continuous Improvement
7 13 (8.72%) Data Science
7 13 (8.72%) Migration
8 12 (8.05%) Data Governance
8 12 (8.05%) Machine Learning
8 12 (8.05%) Mathematics
8 12 (8.05%) Open Source
8 12 (8.05%) Process Improvement
9 11 (7.38%) Decision-Making
10 10 (6.71%) Collaborative Working
10 10 (6.71%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 38 (25.50%) Python
2 19 (12.75%) SQL
3 18 (12.08%) Java
4 16 (10.74%) JavaScript
5 9 (6.04%) Perl
6 8 (5.37%) PowerShell
7 7 (4.70%) Kotlin
8 6 (4.03%) Go
9 4 (2.68%) C#
9 4 (2.68%) Shell Script
10 3 (2.01%) Bash
11 2 (1.34%) Ada
11 2 (1.34%) Assembly Language
11 2 (1.34%) C
11 2 (1.34%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.67%) C++
12 1 (0.67%) Magik
12 1 (0.67%) Objective-C
12 1 (0.67%) Tcl
12 1 (0.67%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 116 (77.85%) Degree
2 81 (54.36%) Computer Science Degree
3 36 (24.16%) Security Cleared
4 27 (18.12%) SC Cleared
5 12 (8.05%) Master's Degree
6 11 (7.38%) DBS Check
7 5 (3.36%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (3.36%) DV Cleared
8 4 (2.68%) CCNP
8 4 (2.68%) CISSP
8 4 (2.68%) CompTIA CySA+
8 4 (2.68%) CompTIA Security+
9 3 (2.01%) AWS Certification
9 3 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (2.01%) CCNA
9 3 (2.01%) PMI Certification
9 3 (2.01%) PMP
10 2 (1.34%) Azure Certification
10 2 (1.34%) PhD
11 1 (0.67%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (6.71%) Data Quality
1 10 (6.71%) QA
2 7 (4.70%) GDPR
3 6 (4.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (3.36%) NIST
5 2 (1.34%) DO-254
5 2 (1.34%) HIPAA
5 2 (1.34%) IEC 61508
5 2 (1.34%) ISO 26262
5 2 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 19770
5 2 (1.34%) NCSC
5 2 (1.34%) PMO
6 1 (0.67%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.67%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.67%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.67%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.67%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 12 (8.05%) Docker
2 5 (3.36%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.34%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (7.38%) Kubernetes
2 8 (5.37%) Terraform
3 4 (2.68%) Ansible
3 4 (2.68%) Grafana
4 2 (1.34%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.34%) Puppet
5 1 (0.67%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.67%) Istio
5 1 (0.67%) Kubeflow
5 1 (0.67%) linkerd
5 1 (0.67%) Nessus
5 1 (0.67%) Nmap
Vendors
1 14 (9.40%) Oracle
2 12 (8.05%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.03%) Atlassian
3 6 (4.03%) SAP
3 6 (4.03%) Splunk
4 5 (3.36%) Cisco
4 5 (3.36%) ServiceNow
5 4 (2.68%) BeyondTrust
5 4 (2.68%) CyberArk
5 4 (2.68%) ESRI
5 4 (2.68%) Informatica
5 4 (2.68%) Intergraph
6 3 (2.01%) Google
6 3 (2.01%) Palo Alto
6 3 (2.01%) Snow
7 2 (1.34%) Aruba
7 2 (1.34%) CheckPoint
7 2 (1.34%) PagerDuty
8 1 (0.67%) ArcSight
8 1 (0.67%) LogRhythm