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 10 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 48 77
Rank change year-on-year -6 +29 +10
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 247 150 118
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.70% 4.25% 2.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.58% 4.72% 2.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 64 70
10th Percentile £179 £172 £203
25th Percentile £189 £286 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £363 £438 £450
Median % change year-on-year -17.14% -2.78% -10.00%
75th Percentile £582 £523 £566
90th Percentile £636 £596 £626
England median daily rate £450 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -10.00% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 5 9
10th Percentile £51.70 £40.91 £19.29
25th Percentile £79.00 £71.00 £27.75
Median hourly rate £84.00 £89.63 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.28% +37.89% +10.64%
75th Percentile £88.00 - -
90th Percentile - - £68.00
England median hourly rate £75.00 £59.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +26.05% +8.18% -11.29%

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 5,398 3,175 4,060
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.77% 89.92% 82.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,327 1,986 2,480
10th Percentile £280 £250 £255
25th Percentile £414 £400 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £517
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.34% -0.22%
75th Percentile £613 £600 £638
90th Percentile £706 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 586 293 323
10th Percentile £14.69 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £23.05 £15.13 £26.25
Median hourly rate £57.25 £21.25 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +169.41% -62.95% +14.70%
75th Percentile £78.75 £50.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £71.45 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +2.19%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 +25 144 £558 +17.37% 89
Berkshire +21 92 £488 +2.63% 38
Surrey +1 39 £209 -42.74% 22
Oxfordshire -4 30 £550 - 31
Hampshire -35 28 £455 -6.67% 46
Buckinghamshire -17 22 £593 +12.95% 21
Kent +19 20 £215 -49.34% 6
West Sussex -26 9 £225 -20.77% 13
East Sussex -12 2 £461 +139.03% 7
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 3
Home Counties - 1 - -
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 (1.21%) Confluence
1 3 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.81%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.81%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.40%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.40%) CMS
Applications
1 15 (6.07%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (3.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (2.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.21%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.40%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.21%) Primavera
1 3 (1.21%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.40%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 54 (21.86%) Azure
2 23 (9.31%) AWS
2 23 (9.31%) Entra ID
3 16 (6.48%) GCP
4 14 (5.67%) SaaS
5 8 (3.24%) Power Platform
6 6 (2.43%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (1.62%) Azure Data Factory
7 4 (1.62%) GitHub
8 3 (1.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (1.21%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (1.21%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (1.21%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 3 (1.21%) Sauce Labs
8 3 (1.21%) Snowflake
8 3 (1.21%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (0.81%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (0.81%) Power Automate
9 2 (0.81%) PowerApps
9 2 (0.81%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.64%) DNS
2 8 (3.24%) Firewall
2 8 (3.24%) TCP/IP
3 7 (2.83%) Network Security
3 7 (2.83%) SSH
3 7 (2.83%) VPN
4 5 (2.02%) DHCP
5 4 (1.62%) BGP
5 4 (1.62%) Cisco Nexus
5 4 (1.62%) LAN
5 4 (1.62%) OSPF
5 4 (1.62%) WAN
6 3 (1.21%) BIG-IP
6 3 (1.21%) Cisco ASA
6 3 (1.21%) Cisco Firepower
6 3 (1.21%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 3 (1.21%) IPsec
6 3 (1.21%) MPLS
6 3 (1.21%) VLAN
6 3 (1.21%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.67%) SQL Server
2 11 (4.45%) Relational Database
3 8 (3.24%) Power BI
4 6 (2.43%) MySQL
5 5 (2.02%) Metadata
5 5 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (1.21%) Tableau
7 2 (0.81%) Big Data
7 2 (0.81%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.40%) Apache Iceberg
8 1 (0.40%) BigQuery
8 1 (0.40%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 32 (12.96%) Rational DOORS
2 8 (3.24%) Git
3 4 (1.62%) GitLab
3 4 (1.62%) JIRA
4 3 (1.21%) Android Studio
4 3 (1.21%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (1.21%) Eclipse
4 3 (1.21%) Gradle
4 3 (1.21%) Jenkins
4 3 (1.21%) Xcode
5 2 (0.81%) CircleCI
5 2 (0.81%) JUnit
5 2 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.40%) Maven
6 1 (0.40%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.40%) Selenium
6 1 (0.40%) TestNG
6 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 68 (27.53%) Social Skills
2 57 (23.08%) Aerospace
3 40 (16.19%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (13.77%) Public Sector
5 21 (8.50%) Documentation Skills
6 18 (7.29%) Finance
7 14 (5.67%) Military
8 11 (4.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (3.64%) Manufacturing
10 8 (3.24%) Marketing
10 8 (3.24%) Organisational Skills
11 7 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (2.83%) Telecoms
12 6 (2.43%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (2.02%) Legal
14 3 (1.21%) Avionics
15 2 (0.81%) Electronics
15 2 (0.81%) Law
16 1 (0.40%) Humanities
16 1 (0.40%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 35 (14.17%) Product Manager
2 31 (12.55%) Delivery Manager
2 31 (12.55%) Product Delivery Manager
3 22 (8.91%) Systems Delivery Manager
3 22 (8.91%) Systems Manager
4 20 (8.10%) Lead
5 15 (6.07%) Analyst
5 15 (6.07%) Architect
5 15 (6.07%) Senior
6 11 (4.45%) Change Manager
6 11 (4.45%) IAM Specialist
7 9 (3.64%) Technical Leader
8 8 (3.24%) Developer
8 8 (3.24%) Product Owner
8 8 (3.24%) Support Engineer
9 7 (2.83%) Technical Architect
9 7 (2.83%) Technical Engineer
9 7 (2.83%) Technical Support
9 7 (2.83%) Technical Support Engineer
10 6 (2.43%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (6.48%) OAuth
1 16 (6.48%) OpenID
1 16 (6.48%) SailPoint
2 13 (5.26%) LDAP
2 13 (5.26%) OAuth2
2 13 (5.26%) SAML
2 13 (5.26%) Web Services
3 10 (4.05%) React
4 9 (3.64%) CSS
5 6 (2.43%) HTML
5 6 (2.43%) REST
6 5 (2.02%) AngularJS
6 5 (2.02%) GraphQL
6 5 (2.02%) RESTful
7 4 (1.62%) .NET
7 4 (1.62%) ARM Templates
8 3 (1.21%) Ajax
8 3 (1.21%) Django
8 3 (1.21%) JSON
8 3 (1.21%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 49 (19.84%) Product Ownership
2 30 (12.15%) Management Information System
3 29 (11.74%) Onboarding
4 26 (10.53%) Data Structures
5 11 (4.45%) Virtual Team
6 10 (4.05%) Cloud Native
6 10 (4.05%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (2.83%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.83%) Mobile App
8 6 (2.43%) Algorithms
9 4 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (1.21%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.21%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.21%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (1.21%) Driving Licence
10 3 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (1.21%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.21%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.21%) Taxonomies
11 2 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
Operating Systems
1 30 (12.15%) Windows
2 28 (11.34%) Linux
3 20 (8.10%) Unix
4 13 (5.26%) Windows Server
5 9 (3.64%) Android
6 4 (1.62%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.81%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (33.20%) Agile
2 62 (25.10%) Continuous Improvement
3 52 (21.05%) Change Control
4 50 (20.24%) Systems Engineering
5 46 (18.62%) Problem-Solving
6 44 (17.81%) ITSM
7 42 (17.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 41 (16.60%) PRINCE2
9 38 (15.38%) Cybersecurity
10 37 (14.98%) ITIL
10 37 (14.98%) Stakeholder Management
11 35 (14.17%) Scaled Agile Framework
12 32 (12.96%) Programme Management
13 30 (12.15%) CI/CD
13 30 (12.15%) Information Security
13 30 (12.15%) Service Management
14 29 (11.74%) Analytics
14 29 (11.74%) Requirements Management
15 28 (11.34%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
15 28 (11.34%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 57 (23.08%) Python
2 36 (14.57%) PowerShell
3 21 (8.50%) SQL
4 14 (5.67%) Java
5 12 (4.86%) JavaScript
6 6 (2.43%) Bash
7 5 (2.02%) C
7 5 (2.02%) Perl
8 4 (1.62%) Bicep
8 4 (1.62%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.21%) Apex Code
9 3 (1.21%) C#
9 3 (1.21%) C++
9 3 (1.21%) Lua
10 2 (0.81%) Ada
10 2 (0.81%) R
10 2 (0.81%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.81%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.40%) Go
11 1 (0.40%) X++
Qualifications
1 188 (76.11%) Degree
2 124 (50.20%) Security Cleared
3 64 (25.91%) SC Cleared
4 61 (24.70%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (6.88%) DV Cleared
6 14 (5.67%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (4.45%) Master's Degree
7 11 (4.45%) PMI Certification
7 11 (4.45%) PMP
8 10 (4.05%) Azure Certification
8 10 (4.05%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (3.64%) CISSP
10 6 (2.43%) AWS Certification
10 6 (2.43%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (1.62%) CCNP
11 4 (1.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 3 (1.21%) CSPO
12 3 (1.21%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
13 2 (0.81%) ISTQB
13 2 (0.81%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (14.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (13.36%) NIST
3 19 (7.69%) Data Quality
4 11 (4.45%) QA
5 9 (3.64%) NCSC
6 7 (2.83%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 7 (2.83%) NIST 800
7 5 (2.02%) Accessibility
7 5 (2.02%) Government Security Classifications
8 4 (1.62%) DO-254
8 4 (1.62%) IEC 61508
8 4 (1.62%) ISO 26262
9 3 (1.21%) GDPR
9 3 (1.21%) GRC
9 3 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.81%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.40%) DICOM
11 1 (0.40%) HL7
11 1 (0.40%) ITGC
System Software
1 33 (13.36%) Active Directory
2 11 (4.45%) Docker
3 8 (3.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (1.62%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.40%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 9 (3.64%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.83%) Terraform
3 6 (2.43%) Ansible
3 6 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (2.02%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (1.21%) SCCM
6 1 (0.40%) Argo
6 1 (0.40%) CASB
6 1 (0.40%) Grafana
6 1 (0.40%) Istio
6 1 (0.40%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 51 (20.65%) Microsoft
2 29 (11.74%) IBM
3 17 (6.88%) Oracle
4 13 (5.26%) BeyondTrust
4 13 (5.26%) CyberArk
5 12 (4.86%) ServiceNow
5 12 (4.86%) VMware
6 8 (3.24%) Google
7 6 (2.43%) Cisco
8 4 (1.62%) Databricks
8 4 (1.62%) F5
8 4 (1.62%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.62%) Salesforce
8 4 (1.62%) Splunk
9 3 (1.21%) CrowdStrike
9 3 (1.21%) Dell
9 3 (1.21%) ForgeRock
9 3 (1.21%) Okta
9 3 (1.21%) Ping Identity
9 3 (1.21%) SolarWinds