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 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 70 94 89
Rank change year-on-year +24 -5 +57
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 136 79 124
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.12% 2.14% 2.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.66% 2.42% 2.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 49 78
10th Percentile £170 £203 £207
25th Percentile £184 £425 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £325 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -35.00% +5.26% -9.52%
75th Percentile £530 £525 £588
90th Percentile £600 £629 £650
England median daily rate £475 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -17.39% +4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 15
10th Percentile £75.40 - £39.39
25th Percentile £82.00 £27.75 £50.00
Median hourly rate £89.63 £28.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +214.49% -48.18% +168.69%
75th Percentile - £29.25 £72.50
90th Percentile - - £79.00
England median hourly rate £43.50 £52.50 £59.00
% change year-on-year -17.14% -11.02% +8.26%

All Process and 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 3,713 3,258 4,478
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 85.10% 88.29% 89.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,428 2,030 2,900
10th Percentile £221 £250 £213
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £520
Median % change year-on-year -2.01% -1.88% +1.46%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £614
90th Percentile £675 £682 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.81% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 368 124 223
10th Percentile £14.75 £19.55 £18.59
25th Percentile £17.00 £26.00 £26.13
Median hourly rate £22.38 £47.51 £54.56
Median % change year-on-year -52.89% -12.92% +45.49%
75th Percentile £48.75 £63.11 £66.13
90th Percentile £75.00 £74.53 £76.53
England median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +19.85%

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 December 2025.

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
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 December 2025. 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 +28 61 £419 -17.89% 45
Berkshire +21 40 £425 -15.84% 15
Hampshire +5 29 £223 -62.92% 27
Surrey -17 19 £320 -36.00% 23
Buckinghamshire +17 14 £368 -26.50% 18
West Sussex -2 10 £278 -53.75% 4
Kent - 9 £205 - 15
Oxfordshire -11 7 £450 -35.71% 12
East Sussex +10 6 £360 -10.00% 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 6 (4.41%) Confluence
2 5 (3.68%) Smallworld
3 4 (2.94%) Apache
3 4 (2.94%) GeoServer
4 3 (2.21%) Apache Spark
5 2 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (1.47%) nginx
6 1 (0.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
6 1 (0.74%) CMS
6 1 (0.74%) Gunicorn
6 1 (0.74%) IIS
6 1 (0.74%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.74%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 4 (2.94%) SAP ERP
2 3 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (1.47%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.74%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 22 (16.18%) Azure
2 21 (15.44%) AWS
3 10 (7.35%) GCP
4 9 (6.62%) GitHub
5 7 (5.15%) GitHub Actions
6 4 (2.94%) Microsoft 365
6 4 (2.94%) Power Platform
7 3 (2.21%) Amazon ECS
7 3 (2.21%) Amazon S3
7 3 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
7 3 (2.21%) Entra ID
7 3 (2.21%) IaaS
7 3 (2.21%) SaaS
8 2 (1.47%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (1.47%) Amazon EKS
9 1 (0.74%) Amazon SageMaker
9 1 (0.74%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.74%) iPaaS
9 1 (0.74%) Serverless
9 1 (0.74%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (5.88%) Wireless
2 7 (5.15%) Firewall
3 6 (4.41%) DNS
3 6 (4.41%) Network Security
3 6 (4.41%) TCP/IP
3 6 (4.41%) VPN
4 4 (2.94%) DHCP
5 3 (2.21%) VoIP
6 2 (1.47%) 5G
6 2 (1.47%) Internet
6 2 (1.47%) LAN
6 2 (1.47%) WAN
7 1 (0.74%) MGCP
7 1 (0.74%) OSPF
7 1 (0.74%) Radio Access Network
7 1 (0.74%) SCCP
7 1 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
7 1 (0.74%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.74%) Telepresence
7 1 (0.74%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (10.29%) Relational Database
2 11 (8.09%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (6.62%) MySQL
4 5 (3.68%) Apache Cassandra
4 5 (3.68%) Big Data
4 5 (3.68%) Couchbase
4 5 (3.68%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (3.68%) GIS
4 5 (3.68%) NoSQL
5 4 (2.94%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (2.94%) Power BI
5 4 (2.94%) QGIS
5 4 (2.94%) SQL Server
6 3 (2.21%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (2.21%) Hadoop
6 3 (2.21%) Metadata
6 3 (2.21%) Tableau
7 2 (1.47%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.47%) Redis
8 1 (0.74%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 17 (12.50%) Git
2 13 (9.56%) JIRA
3 8 (5.88%) Jenkins
4 7 (5.15%) GitLab
5 2 (1.47%) Subversion
5 2 (1.47%) Visual Studio
6 1 (0.74%) Appium
6 1 (0.74%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.74%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.74%) CircleCI
6 1 (0.74%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.74%) Gradle
6 1 (0.74%) JUnit
6 1 (0.74%) Selenium
General
1 60 (44.12%) Social Skills
2 40 (29.41%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (5.15%) Finance
4 5 (3.68%) Organisational Skills
5 4 (2.94%) Aerospace
5 4 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
5 4 (2.94%) Legal
5 4 (2.94%) Manufacturing
5 4 (2.94%) Military
5 4 (2.94%) Public Sector
6 3 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.47%) Electronics
8 1 (0.74%) Advertising
8 1 (0.74%) Digital Healthcare
8 1 (0.74%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 22 (16.18%) Developer
2 12 (8.82%) Senior
3 10 (7.35%) Analyst
3 10 (7.35%) Architect
4 9 (6.62%) Technical Support
5 7 (5.15%) Senior Developer
6 6 (4.41%) Lead
7 4 (2.94%) Data Scientist
7 4 (2.94%) Delivery Manager
7 4 (2.94%) Informatica Developer
7 4 (2.94%) Network Engineer
7 4 (2.94%) Service Delivery Manager
7 4 (2.94%) Service Manager
7 4 (2.94%) SOC Analyst
8 3 (2.21%) Android Developer
8 3 (2.21%) IT Analyst
8 3 (2.21%) Principal Developer
8 3 (2.21%) Software Developer
8 3 (2.21%) Support Engineer
9 2 (1.47%) IT Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (8.82%) REST
2 7 (5.15%) Kafka
2 7 (5.15%) RabbitMQ
3 6 (4.41%) HTML
4 5 (3.68%) RESTful
5 4 (2.94%) CSS
5 4 (2.94%) Pandas
5 4 (2.94%) scikit-learn
6 3 (2.21%) Material Design
6 3 (2.21%) Node.js
6 3 (2.21%) NumPy
6 3 (2.21%) Web Services
6 3 (2.21%) XML
7 2 (1.47%) GraphQL
7 2 (1.47%) gRPC
7 2 (1.47%) JSON
7 2 (1.47%) SOAP
8 1 (0.74%) Dagger
8 1 (0.74%) WebdriverIO
8 1 (0.74%) WireMock
Miscellaneous
1 8 (5.88%) Management Information System
2 6 (4.41%) Algorithms
2 6 (4.41%) Legacy Systems
3 5 (3.68%) Mobile App
4 4 (2.94%) Analytical Mindset
4 4 (2.94%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.94%) Data Centre
4 4 (2.94%) Security Posture
4 4 (2.94%) Virtual Team
5 3 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
5 3 (2.21%) Distributed Computing
6 2 (1.47%) AI Agents
6 2 (1.47%) Product Ownership
6 2 (1.47%) Replication
6 2 (1.47%) Security Operations Centre
7 1 (0.74%) Cyber Threat
7 1 (0.74%) Cyberattack
7 1 (0.74%) Legacy Code
7 1 (0.74%) Linux Command Line
7 1 (0.74%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 27 (19.85%) Windows
2 21 (15.44%) Linux
3 10 (7.35%) Mac OS
4 9 (6.62%) Unix
5 5 (3.68%) Android
6 4 (2.94%) Apple iOS
7 3 (2.21%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.74%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.74%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (33.09%) Problem-Solving
2 33 (24.26%) Agile
3 19 (13.97%) DevOps
4 16 (11.76%) Analytics
4 16 (11.76%) Decision-Making
4 16 (11.76%) ITIL
5 15 (11.03%) Migration
6 14 (10.29%) CI/CD
7 13 (9.56%) Continuous Integration
7 13 (9.56%) Data Science
7 13 (9.56%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (8.82%) Continuous Improvement
8 12 (8.82%) Process Improvement
9 11 (8.09%) AI
10 10 (7.35%) Data Governance
10 10 (7.35%) Machine Learning
10 10 (7.35%) Microservices
10 10 (7.35%) Visualisation
11 9 (6.62%) Cybersecurity
11 9 (6.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 39 (28.68%) Python
2 21 (15.44%) Java
2 21 (15.44%) SQL
3 15 (11.03%) JavaScript
4 9 (6.62%) Perl
4 9 (6.62%) PowerShell
5 7 (5.15%) Go
6 6 (4.41%) Bash
7 4 (2.94%) Kotlin
7 4 (2.94%) Shell Script
8 3 (2.21%) C#
8 3 (2.21%) Objective-C
8 3 (2.21%) Swift
9 2 (1.47%) Ada
9 2 (1.47%) Assembly Language
9 2 (1.47%) C
9 2 (1.47%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.74%) ABAP
10 1 (0.74%) Magik
10 1 (0.74%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 100 (73.53%) Degree
2 77 (56.62%) Computer Science Degree
3 19 (13.97%) Security Cleared
4 16 (11.76%) Master's Degree
5 14 (10.29%) SC Cleared
6 10 (7.35%) DBS Check
7 7 (5.15%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (4.41%) Cisco Certification
8 6 (4.41%) CISSP
9 5 (3.68%) A+ Certification
10 3 (2.21%) AWS Certification
10 3 (2.21%) CCNP
10 3 (2.21%) CFCE
10 3 (2.21%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (2.21%) DV Cleared
10 3 (2.21%) GCFA
10 3 (2.21%) GCIA
10 3 (2.21%) GCIH
10 3 (2.21%) PMP
11 2 (1.47%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (11.03%) GDPR
2 10 (7.35%) Data Quality
3 7 (5.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 7 (5.15%) QA
4 3 (2.21%) GRC
4 3 (2.21%) HIPAA
4 3 (2.21%) NIST
5 2 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 19770
5 2 (1.47%) PMO
6 1 (0.74%) Def Stans
6 1 (0.74%) ISO/IEC 17025
6 1 (0.74%) JSP 440
6 1 (0.74%) NCSC
System Software
1 12 (8.82%) Docker
2 4 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (2.21%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.47%) VMware ESXi
5 1 (0.74%) VMware NSX
5 1 (0.74%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 7 (5.15%) Kubernetes
2 5 (3.68%) Terraform
3 4 (2.94%) Ansible
4 3 (2.21%) SCCM
5 2 (1.47%) Grafana
5 2 (1.47%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (1.47%) Puppet
5 2 (1.47%) vCenter Server
6 1 (0.74%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 1 (0.74%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.74%) Nessus
6 1 (0.74%) Nmap
6 1 (0.74%) vRealize
6 1 (0.74%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 18 (13.24%) Microsoft
2 11 (8.09%) Oracle
3 8 (5.88%) Cisco
3 8 (5.88%) SAP
3 8 (5.88%) ServiceNow
4 6 (4.41%) Palo Alto
5 5 (3.68%) Atlassian
5 5 (3.68%) CheckPoint
5 5 (3.68%) Google
6 4 (2.94%) ESRI
6 4 (2.94%) Informatica
6 4 (2.94%) Intergraph
6 4 (2.94%) Splunk
6 4 (2.94%) VMware
7 3 (2.21%) Apple
7 3 (2.21%) ArcSight
7 3 (2.21%) Citrix
7 3 (2.21%) LogRhythm
7 3 (2.21%) Snow
8 2 (1.47%) CA Agile Central