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 18 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 52 50 91
Rank change year-on-year -2 +41 -2
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 242 149 113
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.70% 4.38% 2.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.54% 4.86% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 59 65
10th Percentile £175 £272 £203
25th Percentile £189 £352 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £336 £478 £450
Median % change year-on-year -29.58% +6.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £564 £525 £525
90th Percentile £625 £590 £628
England median daily rate £453 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -9.40% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 5 8
10th Percentile £48.55 £40.91 £18.88
25th Percentile £77.50 £71.00 £48.15
Median hourly rate £84.00 £89.63 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.28% +37.89% +8.33%
75th Percentile £88.00 - -
90th Percentile - - £69.50
England median hourly rate £75.00 £60.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +25.00% +9.09% -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 5,325 3,063 4,556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 81.31% 90.04% 82.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,362 1,906 2,678
10th Percentile £280 £250 £263
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -0.49%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £670 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 528 266 405
10th Percentile £15.74 £13.50 £13.10
25th Percentile £25.18 £15.13 £18.35
Median hourly rate £55.00 £23.25 £54.88
Median % change year-on-year +136.56% -57.63% +9.75%
75th Percentile £82.25 £53.69 £70.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.75
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% -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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 +26 135 £525 +5.00% 49
Berkshire +14 83 £363 -25.83% 22
Surrey +8 38 £209 -51.82% 21
Hampshire -32 32 £455 -7.52% 21
Oxfordshire -3 30 £550 - 15
Buckinghamshire -11 22 £593 +12.95% 13
Kent +16 18 £215 -49.34% 14
West Sussex -25 11 £275 -4.51% 5
Home Counties - 3 - -
East Sussex -13 2 £461 +139.03% 4
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 2
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 (1.24%) Confluence
1 3 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.83%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.83%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.41%) Adobe Experience Manager
3 1 (0.41%) Apache Pulsar
3 1 (0.41%) CMS
Applications
1 13 (5.37%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.41%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.24%) Primavera
1 3 (1.24%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.41%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 53 (21.90%) Azure
2 23 (9.50%) AWS
3 22 (9.09%) Entra ID
4 17 (7.02%) GCP
5 13 (5.37%) SaaS
6 9 (3.72%) Power Platform
7 6 (2.48%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (2.07%) GitHub
9 4 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (1.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 3 (1.24%) Power Automate
10 3 (1.24%) PowerApps
10 3 (1.24%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
10 3 (1.24%) Sauce Labs
11 2 (0.83%) Azure Data Factory
11 2 (0.83%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 2 (0.83%) Azure Monitor
11 2 (0.83%) Azure Sentinel
11 2 (0.83%) Serverless
12 1 (0.41%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (3.31%) DNS
1 8 (3.31%) Firewall
2 7 (2.89%) SSH
2 7 (2.89%) TCP/IP
3 6 (2.48%) Network Security
4 5 (2.07%) BGP
4 5 (2.07%) LAN
4 5 (2.07%) OSPF
4 5 (2.07%) VPN
4 5 (2.07%) WAN
5 4 (1.65%) Cisco Nexus
5 4 (1.65%) IPsec
6 3 (1.24%) BIG-IP
6 3 (1.24%) Cisco ASA
6 3 (1.24%) Cisco Firepower
6 3 (1.24%) DHCP
6 3 (1.24%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 3 (1.24%) MPLS
6 3 (1.24%) SD-WAN
6 3 (1.24%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.61%) SQL Server
2 9 (3.72%) Power BI
2 9 (3.72%) Relational Database
3 7 (2.89%) MySQL
4 4 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.24%) Metadata
5 3 (1.24%) Tableau
6 2 (0.83%) Big Data
6 2 (0.83%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.41%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (0.41%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.41%) Data Mining
7 1 (0.41%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 30 (12.40%) Rational DOORS
2 7 (2.89%) Git
3 4 (1.65%) CircleCI
3 4 (1.65%) GitLab
3 4 (1.65%) Gradle
3 4 (1.65%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.65%) JIRA
4 3 (1.24%) Android Studio
4 3 (1.24%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (1.24%) Eclipse
4 3 (1.24%) JUnit
4 3 (1.24%) Xcode
5 2 (0.83%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.41%) Maven
6 1 (0.41%) MLflow
6 1 (0.41%) Selenium
6 1 (0.41%) TestNG
6 1 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
6 1 (0.41%) XCTest
6 1 (0.41%) XCUITest
General
1 62 (25.62%) Social Skills
2 51 (21.07%) Aerospace
3 38 (15.70%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (14.88%) Public Sector
5 22 (9.09%) Documentation Skills
6 19 (7.85%) Finance
7 11 (4.55%) Military
8 10 (4.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 8 (3.31%) Organisational Skills
10 7 (2.89%) Manufacturing
10 7 (2.89%) Marketing
11 6 (2.48%) Influencing Skills
11 6 (2.48%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (2.48%) Telecoms
12 5 (2.07%) Legal
13 3 (1.24%) Avionics
14 2 (0.83%) Electronics
14 2 (0.83%) Law
15 1 (0.41%) Humanities
15 1 (0.41%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 32 (13.22%) Product Manager
2 29 (11.98%) Delivery Manager
3 28 (11.57%) Product Delivery Manager
4 22 (9.09%) Systems Delivery Manager
4 22 (9.09%) Systems Manager
5 19 (7.85%) Lead
6 16 (6.61%) Analyst
7 14 (5.79%) Architect
8 13 (5.37%) Senior
9 10 (4.13%) IAM Specialist
10 9 (3.72%) Change Manager
10 9 (3.72%) Developer
11 8 (3.31%) Support Engineer
11 8 (3.31%) Technical Leader
11 8 (3.31%) Technical Support
12 7 (2.89%) Product Owner
12 7 (2.89%) Technical Architect
12 7 (2.89%) Technical Engineer
12 7 (2.89%) Technical Support Engineer
13 6 (2.48%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (6.20%) OAuth
1 15 (6.20%) SailPoint
2 14 (5.79%) OpenID
3 12 (4.96%) LDAP
3 12 (4.96%) OAuth2
3 12 (4.96%) React
3 12 (4.96%) SAML
3 12 (4.96%) Web Services
4 8 (3.31%) REST
5 7 (2.89%) CSS
6 5 (2.07%) AngularJS
6 5 (2.07%) GraphQL
7 4 (1.65%) .NET
7 4 (1.65%) HTML
7 4 (1.65%) RAML
8 3 (1.24%) Ajax
8 3 (1.24%) Android Jetpack
8 3 (1.24%) ARM Templates
8 3 (1.24%) Middleware
8 3 (1.24%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 47 (19.42%) Product Ownership
2 30 (12.40%) Onboarding
3 28 (11.57%) Management Information System
4 25 (10.33%) Data Structures
5 13 (5.37%) Virtual Team
6 9 (3.72%) Cloud Native
7 8 (3.31%) Data Centre
8 7 (2.89%) Algorithms
8 7 (2.89%) Data Protection Act
8 7 (2.89%) Hybrid Cloud
8 7 (2.89%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.65%) Legacy Code
10 3 (1.24%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.24%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (1.24%) Driving Licence
10 3 (1.24%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.24%) Taxonomies
11 2 (0.83%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 32 (13.22%) Windows
2 29 (11.98%) Linux
3 23 (9.50%) Unix
4 12 (4.96%) Windows Server
5 10 (4.13%) Android
6 5 (2.07%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.83%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (32.23%) Agile
2 52 (21.49%) Continuous Improvement
3 51 (21.07%) Change Control
4 47 (19.42%) Systems Engineering
5 44 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
6 42 (17.36%) ITSM
7 40 (16.53%) PRINCE2
8 38 (15.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 36 (14.88%) Cybersecurity
10 34 (14.05%) Scaled Agile Framework
11 30 (12.40%) CI/CD
11 30 (12.40%) Information Security
11 30 (12.40%) ITIL
11 30 (12.40%) Programme Management
12 28 (11.57%) Stakeholder Management
13 27 (11.16%) Model-Based Systems Engineering
13 27 (11.16%) Requirements Management
13 27 (11.16%) Runbook
14 26 (10.74%) Configuration Management
14 26 (10.74%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 54 (22.31%) Python
2 33 (13.64%) PowerShell
3 19 (7.85%) SQL
4 15 (6.20%) Java
5 14 (5.79%) JavaScript
6 6 (2.48%) Perl
7 5 (2.07%) Kotlin
8 4 (1.65%) Bash
8 4 (1.65%) C
9 3 (1.24%) Apex Code
9 3 (1.24%) Bicep
9 3 (1.24%) C++
9 3 (1.24%) TypeScript
10 2 (0.83%) Ada
10 2 (0.83%) C#
10 2 (0.83%) Go
10 2 (0.83%) Lua
10 2 (0.83%) R
10 2 (0.83%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.41%) Swift
Qualifications
1 184 (76.03%) Degree
2 117 (48.35%) Security Cleared
3 60 (24.79%) Computer Science Degree
4 59 (24.38%) SC Cleared
5 17 (7.02%) DV Cleared
6 12 (4.96%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (4.96%) Microsoft Certification
7 11 (4.55%) Master's Degree
8 9 (3.72%) PMI Certification
8 9 (3.72%) PMP
9 7 (2.89%) Azure Certification
9 7 (2.89%) CISSP
10 6 (2.48%) AWS Certification
10 6 (2.48%) Cisco Certification
11 5 (2.07%) CCNP
12 3 (1.24%) CSPO
12 3 (1.24%) DBS Check
12 3 (1.24%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 3 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 2 (0.83%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (15.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 33 (13.64%) NIST
3 14 (5.79%) Data Quality
4 10 (4.13%) QA
5 9 (3.72%) NCSC
6 7 (2.89%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 7 (2.89%) NIST 800
7 5 (2.07%) Government Security Classifications
8 4 (1.65%) Accessibility
9 3 (1.24%) DO-254
9 3 (1.24%) GDPR
9 3 (1.24%) GRC
9 3 (1.24%) IEC 61508
9 3 (1.24%) ISO 26262
9 3 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.83%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.41%) DICOM
11 1 (0.41%) HL7
11 1 (0.41%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 33 (13.64%) Active Directory
2 12 (4.96%) Docker
3 6 (2.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (1.65%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 10 (4.13%) Kubernetes
2 8 (3.31%) Terraform
3 5 (2.07%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (1.65%) Ansible
4 4 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (1.24%) Grafana
5 3 (1.24%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.83%) SCCM
7 1 (0.41%) CASB
7 1 (0.41%) Istio
7 1 (0.41%) Kubeflow
7 1 (0.41%) linkerd
Vendors
1 45 (18.60%) Microsoft
2 27 (11.16%) IBM
3 20 (8.26%) Oracle
4 15 (6.20%) BeyondTrust
4 15 (6.20%) CyberArk
5 10 (4.13%) ServiceNow
6 8 (3.31%) VMware
7 7 (2.89%) Cisco
7 7 (2.89%) Google
8 6 (2.48%) Splunk
9 5 (2.07%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.65%) F5
11 3 (1.24%) Dell
11 3 (1.24%) ForgeRock
11 3 (1.24%) Okta
11 3 (1.24%) Ping Identity
11 3 (1.24%) Salesforce
11 3 (1.24%) SolarWinds
12 2 (0.83%) CrowdStrike
12 2 (0.83%) HP