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 24 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 47 92
Rank change year-on-year -9 +45 -6
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 221 138 118
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.56% 4.52% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.39% 4.96% 2.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 119 53 66
10th Percentile £181 £288 £231
25th Percentile £189 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £215 £485 £450
Median % change year-on-year -55.61% +7.78% -13.04%
75th Percentile £538 £525 £558
90th Percentile £628 £598 £634
England median daily rate £475 £514 £525
% change year-on-year -7.54% -2.14% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 1 11
10th Percentile £39.95 - £20.12
25th Percentile £78.98 £20.85 £61.25
Median hourly rate £84.00 £21.90 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +283.56% -66.31% +217.54%
75th Percentile £88.00 £22.95 £66.01
90th Percentile - - £73.75
England median hourly rate £81.50 £44.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +83.15% -19.09% -4.35%

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 5,034 2,783 4,712
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.18% 91.25% 82.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,198 1,741 2,726
10th Percentile £280 £250 £263
25th Percentile £413 £396 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £634
90th Percentile £700 £663 £700
England median daily rate £520 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +0.97% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 490 219 470
10th Percentile £15.09 £13.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £23.05 £15.06 £18.23
Median hourly rate £53.95 £24.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +124.79% -52.00% -4.03%
75th Percentile £82.25 £55.00 £65.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.63
England median hourly rate £47.00 £26.50 £38.00
% change year-on-year +77.36% -30.26% +8.14%

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 24 June 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 24 June 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 24 June 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 +22 116 £500 +4.71% 42
Berkshire +17 73 £208 -56.39% 15
Hampshire -14 34 £550 +10.00% 32
Surrey -7 33 £209 -57.13% 15
Oxfordshire -10 27 £538 - 12
Kent +18 21 £215 -36.21% 12
Buckinghamshire -23 16 £593 +12.95% 16
West Sussex -19 10 £325 +12.85% 7
Home Counties - 3 - -
East Sussex -16 2 £461 - 4
Middlesex - 1 £198 -
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 3 (1.36%) Confluence
1 3 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.90%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.45%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.45%) Apache Pulsar
3 1 (0.45%) CMS
Applications
1 6 (2.71%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.45%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.45%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.45%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 46 (20.81%) Azure
2 20 (9.05%) AWS
3 18 (8.14%) Entra ID
4 13 (5.88%) GCP
5 9 (4.07%) SaaS
6 8 (3.62%) Power Platform
7 6 (2.71%) GitHub
7 6 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
7 6 (2.71%) Microsoft 365
8 3 (1.36%) Azure DevOps
8 3 (1.36%) Power Automate
8 3 (1.36%) PowerApps
8 3 (1.36%) Sauce Labs
8 3 (1.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (0.90%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 1 (0.45%) Apigee
10 1 (0.45%) AWS CloudFormation
10 1 (0.45%) Azure Machine Learning
10 1 (0.45%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.71%) DNS
2 5 (2.26%) Firewall
2 5 (2.26%) SSH
2 5 (2.26%) TCP/IP
3 4 (1.81%) BGP
3 4 (1.81%) LAN
3 4 (1.81%) OSPF
3 4 (1.81%) WAN
4 3 (1.36%) Cisco Nexus
4 3 (1.36%) IPsec
4 3 (1.36%) Network Security
5 2 (0.90%) BIG-IP
5 2 (0.90%) Cisco ASA
5 2 (0.90%) Cisco Firepower
5 2 (0.90%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 2 (0.90%) MPLS
5 2 (0.90%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.90%) VLAN
5 2 (0.90%) VPN
6 1 (0.45%) Ethernet VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (6.79%) SQL Server
2 11 (4.98%) Relational Database
3 10 (4.52%) MySQL
4 8 (3.62%) Power BI
5 3 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.36%) Tableau
6 2 (0.90%) Big Data
6 2 (0.90%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.45%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.45%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 28 (12.67%) Rational DOORS
2 6 (2.71%) CircleCI
2 6 (2.71%) Git
2 6 (2.71%) Gradle
3 5 (2.26%) JUnit
4 4 (1.81%) GitLab
4 4 (1.81%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.81%) JIRA
5 3 (1.36%) Android Studio
5 3 (1.36%) Browser DevTools
5 3 (1.36%) Eclipse
5 3 (1.36%) Xcode
6 2 (0.90%) Selenium
6 2 (0.90%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.45%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.45%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.45%) Maven
7 1 (0.45%) TestNG
7 1 (0.45%) Visual Studio Code
7 1 (0.45%) WebDriver
General
1 53 (23.98%) Aerospace
2 48 (21.72%) Social Skills
3 31 (14.03%) Public Sector
4 25 (11.31%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (8.60%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (6.33%) Finance
7 7 (3.17%) Influencing Skills
7 7 (3.17%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.71%) Military
9 5 (2.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (2.26%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.81%) Marketing
10 4 (1.81%) Telecoms
11 3 (1.36%) Avionics
11 3 (1.36%) Law
12 2 (0.90%) Electronics
12 2 (0.90%) Legal
13 1 (0.45%) Banking
13 1 (0.45%) Humanities
Job Titles
1 32 (14.48%) Product Manager
2 29 (13.12%) Delivery Manager
3 28 (12.67%) Product Delivery Manager
4 22 (9.95%) Systems Delivery Manager
4 22 (9.95%) Systems Manager
5 14 (6.33%) Analyst
5 14 (6.33%) Lead
6 12 (5.43%) Architect
7 11 (4.98%) Technical Support
8 9 (4.07%) Developer
8 9 (4.07%) Senior
9 8 (3.62%) IAM Specialist
10 7 (3.17%) Product Owner
10 7 (3.17%) Support Engineer
10 7 (3.17%) Technical Engineer
10 7 (3.17%) Technical Support Engineer
11 6 (2.71%) Engineering Manager
11 6 (2.71%) Software Engineer
11 6 (2.71%) Technical Architect
12 5 (2.26%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (5.88%) SailPoint
2 12 (5.43%) OAuth
3 11 (4.98%) OpenID
4 10 (4.52%) LDAP
4 10 (4.52%) REST
4 10 (4.52%) SAML
4 10 (4.52%) Web Services
5 9 (4.07%) OAuth2
5 9 (4.07%) React
6 6 (2.71%) CSS
6 6 (2.71%) RAML
7 5 (2.26%) Android Jetpack
7 5 (2.26%) AngularJS
7 5 (2.26%) GraphQL
8 4 (1.81%) .NET
8 4 (1.81%) Dagger
8 4 (1.81%) Jetpack Compose
8 4 (1.81%) OkHttp
8 4 (1.81%) RxJava
8 4 (1.81%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 42 (19.00%) Product Ownership
2 25 (11.31%) Data Structures
2 25 (11.31%) Onboarding
3 22 (9.95%) Management Information System
4 14 (6.33%) Virtual Team
5 7 (3.17%) Algorithms
5 7 (3.17%) Cloud Native
5 7 (3.17%) Mobile App
6 6 (2.71%) Data Centre
6 6 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
6 6 (2.71%) Legacy Code
7 3 (1.36%) AI Agents
7 3 (1.36%) Cyberattack
7 3 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.36%) Security Operations Centre
7 3 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.36%) Taxonomies
8 2 (0.90%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 33 (14.93%) Windows
2 31 (14.03%) Linux
3 25 (11.31%) Unix
4 12 (5.43%) Android
5 10 (4.52%) Windows Server
6 5 (2.26%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.90%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (30.32%) Agile
2 49 (22.17%) Change Control
3 46 (20.81%) Systems Engineering
4 42 (19.00%) Continuous Improvement
5 35 (15.84%) PRINCE2
6 34 (15.38%) Scaled Agile Framework
7 33 (14.93%) ITSM
7 33 (14.93%) Problem-Solving
8 32 (14.48%) Cybersecurity
8 32 (14.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 30 (13.57%) Programme Management
10 27 (12.22%) Information Security
10 27 (12.22%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
11 26 (11.76%) Configuration Management
12 25 (11.31%) CI/CD
12 25 (11.31%) Requirements Management
13 24 (10.86%) Runbook
14 23 (10.41%) SysML
14 23 (10.41%) UML
15 22 (9.95%) AI
Programming Languages
1 48 (21.72%) Python
2 25 (11.31%) PowerShell
3 20 (9.05%) SQL
4 16 (7.24%) Java
4 16 (7.24%) JavaScript
5 9 (4.07%) Perl
6 7 (3.17%) Kotlin
7 4 (1.81%) C++
8 3 (1.36%) C#
9 2 (0.90%) Ada
9 2 (0.90%) C
9 2 (0.90%) Go
9 2 (0.90%) R
9 2 (0.90%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.45%) Bash
10 1 (0.45%) Bicep
10 1 (0.45%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.45%) Swift
10 1 (0.45%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.45%) X++
Qualifications
1 163 (73.76%) Degree
2 104 (47.06%) Security Cleared
3 61 (27.60%) Computer Science Degree
4 53 (23.98%) SC Cleared
5 12 (5.43%) DV Cleared
6 10 (4.52%) BPSS Clearance
7 9 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (3.17%) Master's Degree
9 5 (2.26%) AWS Certification
9 5 (2.26%) Azure Certification
9 5 (2.26%) CISSP
10 4 (1.81%) CCNP
10 4 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (1.81%) DBS Check
10 4 (1.81%) PMI Certification
10 4 (1.81%) PMP
11 3 (1.36%) CompTIA CySA+
11 3 (1.36%) CompTIA Security+
11 3 (1.36%) CSPO
12 2 (0.90%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (14.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 28 (12.67%) NIST
3 11 (4.98%) Data Quality
4 10 (4.52%) QA
5 8 (3.62%) NCSC
6 7 (3.17%) NIST 800
7 5 (2.26%) Government Security Classifications
7 5 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 4 (1.81%) Accessibility
9 3 (1.36%) DO-254
9 3 (1.36%) IEC 61508
9 3 (1.36%) ISO 26262
9 3 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.45%) DICOM
10 1 (0.45%) GDPR
10 1 (0.45%) GRC
10 1 (0.45%) HL7
10 1 (0.45%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.45%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.45%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 28 (12.67%) Active Directory
2 9 (4.07%) Docker
3 4 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (1.36%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.90%) Firmware
5 2 (0.90%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (3.62%) Kubernetes
2 5 (2.26%) Terraform
3 3 (1.36%) Grafana
3 3 (1.36%) Prometheus
3 3 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.45%) Ansible
5 1 (0.45%) Istio
5 1 (0.45%) Kubeflow
5 1 (0.45%) linkerd
Vendors
1 31 (14.03%) Microsoft
2 25 (11.31%) IBM
3 21 (9.50%) Oracle
4 14 (6.33%) BeyondTrust
4 14 (6.33%) CyberArk
5 7 (3.17%) Splunk
6 6 (2.71%) Cisco
7 5 (2.26%) VMware
8 4 (1.81%) Google
8 4 (1.81%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.81%) ServiceNow
9 3 (1.36%) Dell
9 3 (1.36%) F5
9 3 (1.36%) ForgeRock
9 3 (1.36%) Okta
9 3 (1.36%) Ping Identity
10 2 (0.90%) Databricks
10 2 (0.90%) HP
10 2 (0.90%) SolarWinds
11 1 (0.45%) CA Agile Central