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 19 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 55 81
Rank change year-on-year -14 +26 +16
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 205 125 105
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.08% 3.58% 2.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.82% 4.02% 2.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 135 61 65
10th Percentile £189 £170 £197
25th Percentile £192 £204 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £400 £450
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £588 £519 £538
90th Percentile £638 £588 £625
England median daily rate £475 £490 £550
% change year-on-year -3.16% -10.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 4 5
10th Percentile £51.25 £76.59 £17.65
25th Percentile £64.88 £84.97 £20.12
Median hourly rate £75.00 £89.63 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.32% +214.49% -53.28%
75th Percentile £83.00 - £62.50
90th Percentile £87.16 - £73.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £48.00 £50.50
% change year-on-year +9.38% -4.95% -18.55%

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 5,372 3,112 3,807
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.59% 89.17% 82.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,222 1,939 2,269
10th Percentile £280 £220 £255
25th Percentile £425 £378 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -1.14%
75th Percentile £619 £592 £625
90th Percentile £713 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 636 304 251
10th Percentile £13.45 £13.33 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.84 £15.50 £30.83
Median hourly rate £52.21 £20.73 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +151.87% -63.85% +9.24%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £71.50
90th Percentile £87.50 £69.65 £78.75
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%

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 19 September 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 19 September 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 19 September 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 +11 110 £558 +20.54% 201
Berkshire +13 69 £550 +20.55% 101
Surrey +14 44 £209 +0.72% 48
Oxfordshire -8 27 £559 - 77
Hampshire -35 22 £510 +40.30% 71
Kent - 17 £215 - 18
Buckinghamshire -19 14 £615 +17.14% 26
West Sussex -28 7 £265 -7.99% 51
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 3
East Sussex -16 1 £600 +210.93% 12
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 (2.93%) SharePoint
2 4 (1.95%) IIS
3 3 (1.46%) Confluence
3 3 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 12 (5.85%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (3.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.46%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.49%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.46%) Primavera
1 3 (1.46%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 63 (30.73%) Azure
2 28 (13.66%) AWS
3 23 (11.22%) Entra ID
4 21 (10.24%) GCP
5 16 (7.80%) SaaS
6 7 (3.41%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (1.95%) Azure Data Factory
7 4 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (1.95%) Power Platform
8 3 (1.46%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (1.46%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (1.46%) GitHub
8 3 (1.46%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.46%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 3 (1.46%) Sauce Labs
8 3 (1.46%) Serverless
8 3 (1.46%) Snowflake
8 3 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (0.98%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (4.39%) DNS
1 9 (4.39%) Firewall
2 8 (3.90%) TCP/IP
2 8 (3.90%) VPN
3 7 (3.41%) Network Security
4 6 (2.93%) DHCP
4 6 (2.93%) SSH
5 5 (2.44%) LAN
5 5 (2.44%) Software-Defined Networking
5 5 (2.44%) WAN
6 4 (1.95%) BGP
6 4 (1.95%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (1.95%) OSPF
7 3 (1.46%) BIG-IP
7 3 (1.46%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (1.46%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 3 (1.46%) IPsec
7 3 (1.46%) MPLS
7 3 (1.46%) VLAN
7 3 (1.46%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (7.32%) Metadata
2 13 (6.34%) Relational Database
2 13 (6.34%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.93%) MySQL
3 6 (2.93%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (1.95%) Power BI
5 3 (1.46%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.49%) Apache Iceberg
6 1 (0.49%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.49%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.49%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.49%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (3.90%) Git
2 4 (1.95%) Rational DOORS
3 3 (1.46%) Android Studio
3 3 (1.46%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (1.46%) Eclipse
3 3 (1.46%) JIRA
3 3 (1.46%) Xcode
4 2 (0.98%) GitLab
4 2 (0.98%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.49%) CircleCI
5 1 (0.49%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.49%) JUnit
5 1 (0.49%) Octopus Deploy
5 1 (0.49%) Selenium
5 1 (0.49%) TestNG
5 1 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
5 1 (0.49%) XCTest
5 1 (0.49%) XCUITest
General
1 66 (32.20%) Social Skills
2 39 (19.02%) Analytical Skills
3 34 (16.59%) Aerospace
4 32 (15.61%) Public Sector
5 19 (9.27%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (6.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (5.85%) Finance
7 12 (5.85%) Military
8 11 (5.37%) Manufacturing
9 9 (4.39%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (2.44%) Legal
10 5 (2.44%) Marketing
10 5 (2.44%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.98%) Automotive
13 2 (0.98%) Avionics
13 2 (0.98%) Electronics
14 1 (0.49%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 17 (8.29%) Architect
1 17 (8.29%) Lead
1 17 (8.29%) Senior
2 15 (7.32%) Analyst
3 13 (6.34%) Delivery Manager
4 11 (5.37%) IAM Specialist
4 11 (5.37%) Technical Leader
5 10 (4.88%) Change Manager
6 8 (3.90%) Developer
6 8 (3.90%) Product Delivery Manager
6 8 (3.90%) Product Manager
6 8 (3.90%) Security Architect
6 8 (3.90%) Support Engineer
7 7 (3.41%) Data Engineer
7 7 (3.41%) Product Owner
7 7 (3.41%) Technical Engineer
7 7 (3.41%) Technical Support
7 7 (3.41%) Technical Support Engineer
8 6 (2.93%) Information Specialist
8 6 (2.93%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (8.78%) OAuth
1 18 (8.78%) OpenID
2 17 (8.29%) SailPoint
3 15 (7.32%) OAuth2
4 13 (6.34%) LDAP
4 13 (6.34%) SAML
4 13 (6.34%) Web Services
5 11 (5.37%) React
6 10 (4.88%) CSS
7 8 (3.90%) Terraform
8 7 (3.41%) HTML
9 6 (2.93%) RESTful
10 5 (2.44%) ARM Templates
10 5 (2.44%) Django
11 4 (1.95%) .NET
11 4 (1.95%) AngularJS
11 4 (1.95%) GraphQL
11 4 (1.95%) Middleware
11 4 (1.95%) REST
12 3 (1.46%) Ajax
Miscellaneous
1 38 (18.54%) Management Information System
2 24 (11.71%) Onboarding
3 17 (8.29%) Product Ownership
4 16 (7.80%) Cloud Native
5 13 (6.34%) Data Centre
5 13 (6.34%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (5.37%) Virtual Team
7 6 (2.93%) Mobile App
8 5 (2.44%) Embedded Systems
8 5 (2.44%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.95%) Data Structures
9 4 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.95%) Mobile Payment
9 4 (1.95%) Smartcard
10 3 (1.46%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.46%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.46%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (1.46%) Driving Licence
10 3 (1.46%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.46%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 34 (16.59%) Windows
2 33 (16.10%) Linux
3 19 (9.27%) Unix
4 18 (8.78%) Windows Server
5 7 (3.41%) Android
6 4 (1.95%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.98%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (27.32%) Agile
2 49 (23.90%) Problem-Solving
3 45 (21.95%) Continuous Improvement
3 45 (21.95%) ITIL
4 42 (20.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 39 (19.02%) ITSM
6 38 (18.54%) Roadmaps
7 35 (17.07%) Information Security
8 34 (16.59%) Cybersecurity
9 33 (16.10%) CI/CD
9 33 (16.10%) Service Management
9 33 (16.10%) Software Engineering
10 31 (15.12%) Analytics
11 30 (14.63%) Change Control
12 29 (14.15%) DevOps
13 25 (12.20%) Change Management
13 25 (12.20%) Runbook
13 25 (12.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 25 (12.20%) Technical Leadership
14 24 (11.71%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 59 (28.78%) Python
2 38 (18.54%) PowerShell
3 20 (9.76%) SQL
4 13 (6.34%) JavaScript
5 12 (5.85%) Java
6 7 (3.41%) Bash
7 5 (2.44%) Bicep
7 5 (2.44%) C
7 5 (2.44%) Perl
8 3 (1.46%) Apex Code
8 3 (1.46%) C#
8 3 (1.46%) C++
8 3 (1.46%) Lua
9 2 (0.98%) Ada
9 2 (0.98%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.98%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.49%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.49%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.49%) Swift
10 1 (0.49%) X++
Qualifications
1 156 (76.10%) Degree
2 92 (44.88%) Security Cleared
3 64 (31.22%) Computer Science Degree
4 63 (30.73%) SC Cleared
5 18 (8.78%) DV Cleared
6 16 (7.80%) Azure Certification
6 16 (7.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (6.83%) Master's Degree
8 13 (6.34%) CISSP
9 10 (4.88%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (4.88%) PMI Certification
9 10 (4.88%) PMP
10 9 (4.39%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (3.90%) AWS Certification
12 7 (3.41%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 6 (2.93%) CISM
14 5 (2.44%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (2.44%) CCSP
14 5 (2.44%) CISA
14 5 (2.44%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (17.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 32 (15.61%) NIST
3 16 (7.80%) Data Quality
4 13 (6.34%) QA
5 7 (3.41%) GRC
6 6 (2.93%) GDPR
6 6 (2.93%) ISO 9001
7 5 (2.44%) Accessibility
8 4 (1.95%) ISO 31000
8 4 (1.95%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 4 (1.95%) PCI DSS
9 3 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (1.46%) NCSC
9 3 (1.46%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 2 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.49%) DICOM
11 1 (0.49%) HL7
11 1 (0.49%) IEC 61508
11 1 (0.49%) ITGC
System Software
1 32 (15.61%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.85%) Docker
3 11 (5.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.93%) VMware NSX
5 4 (1.95%) ISA Server
6 2 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.98%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (5.85%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.41%) Ansible
3 6 (2.93%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (2.93%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (2.44%) CASB
5 3 (1.46%) SCCM
6 2 (0.98%) Istio
6 2 (0.98%) vRealize
6 2 (0.98%) vRealize Orchestrator
7 1 (0.49%) Argo
Vendors
1 60 (29.27%) Microsoft
2 17 (8.29%) Oracle
3 15 (7.32%) VMware
4 13 (6.34%) CyberArk
5 12 (5.85%) BeyondTrust
5 12 (5.85%) Google
6 10 (4.88%) Cisco
6 10 (4.88%) ServiceNow
7 8 (3.90%) F5
8 7 (3.41%) CrowdStrike
8 7 (3.41%) Splunk
9 5 (2.44%) Salesforce
10 4 (1.95%) Centrify
10 4 (1.95%) Databricks
10 4 (1.95%) IBM
10 4 (1.95%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.95%) Qualys
10 4 (1.95%) Tripwire
11 3 (1.46%) Dell
11 3 (1.46%) SolarWinds