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 1 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 68 53 78
Rank change year-on-year -15 +25 +19
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 204 145 104
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.11% 4.08% 2.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.85% 4.58% 2.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 138 76 66
10th Percentile £189 £170 £198
25th Percentile £192 £204 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £444 £365 £453
Median % change year-on-year +21.58% -19.34% -9.50%
75th Percentile £588 £528 £534
90th Percentile £631 £586 £625
England median daily rate £470 £475 £550
% change year-on-year -1.05% -13.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 4 5
10th Percentile £51.25 £76.59 £17.65
25th Percentile £66.44 £84.97 £20.12
Median hourly rate £75.25 £89.63 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.04% +214.49% -51.49%
75th Percentile £83.50 - £62.50
90th Percentile £87.16 - £73.00
England median hourly rate £49.50 £43.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +13.79% -17.14% -15.32%

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 5,301 3,165 3,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.71% 89.10% 82.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,128 1,975 2,184
10th Percentile £279 £215 £255
25th Percentile £420 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -2.49%
75th Percentile £617 £588 £625
90th Percentile £713 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £512 £525
% change year-on-year +2.64% -2.57% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 650 316 211
10th Percentile £13.44 £13.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.34 £16.10 £30.21
Median hourly rate £47.77 £22.35 £58.38
Median % change year-on-year +113.78% -61.72% +7.37%
75th Percentile £69.69 £49.06 £70.84
90th Percentile £87.84 £69.20 £78.75
England median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +63.02% -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 1 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 +5 110 £550 +25.71% 211
Berkshire +9 69 £550 +22.22% 100
Surrey +17 46 £209 +0.72% 49
Oxfordshire -6 27 £559 - 81
Hampshire -37 19 £455 +42.19% 95
Kent +12 18 £215 +11.55% 15
Buckinghamshire -18 14 £615 +83.57% 33
West Sussex -27 8 £305 +5.90% 37
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 7
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 (2.94%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.45%) IIS
3 3 (1.47%) Confluence
3 3 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.49%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 1 (0.49%) CMS
5 1 (0.49%) Headless CMS
Applications
1 12 (5.88%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (3.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.47%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.49%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.47%) Primavera
1 3 (1.47%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.49%) SAP CAR
2 1 (0.49%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 63 (30.88%) Azure
2 27 (13.24%) AWS
3 23 (11.27%) Entra ID
4 21 (10.29%) GCP
5 16 (7.84%) SaaS
6 7 (3.43%) Microsoft 365
7 4 (1.96%) Azure Data Factory
7 4 (1.96%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (1.96%) Power Platform
8 3 (1.47%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (1.47%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (1.47%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (1.47%) GitHub
8 3 (1.47%) OpenShift
8 3 (1.47%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 3 (1.47%) Sauce Labs
8 3 (1.47%) Serverless
8 3 (1.47%) Snowflake
8 3 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (0.98%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (4.41%) DNS
1 9 (4.41%) Firewall
2 8 (3.92%) TCP/IP
2 8 (3.92%) VPN
3 7 (3.43%) Network Security
4 6 (2.94%) DHCP
4 6 (2.94%) SSH
5 5 (2.45%) LAN
5 5 (2.45%) Software-Defined Networking
5 5 (2.45%) WAN
6 4 (1.96%) BGP
6 4 (1.96%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (1.96%) OSPF
7 3 (1.47%) BIG-IP
7 3 (1.47%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (1.47%) Cisco Firepower
7 3 (1.47%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 3 (1.47%) SD-WAN
7 3 (1.47%) VLAN
7 3 (1.47%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (7.35%) Metadata
2 13 (6.37%) Relational Database
2 13 (6.37%) SQL Server
3 6 (2.94%) MySQL
3 6 (2.94%) PostgreSQL
4 4 (1.96%) Power BI
5 3 (1.47%) 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%) SAP BW
6 1 (0.49%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (4.41%) Git
2 4 (1.96%) Rational DOORS
3 3 (1.47%) Android Studio
3 3 (1.47%) Browser DevTools
3 3 (1.47%) Eclipse
3 3 (1.47%) JIRA
3 3 (1.47%) 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 65 (31.86%) Social Skills
2 37 (18.14%) Analytical Skills
3 33 (16.18%) Aerospace
4 32 (15.69%) Public Sector
5 18 (8.82%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (6.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (5.88%) Military
8 11 (5.39%) Manufacturing
9 10 (4.90%) Finance
10 9 (4.41%) Organisational Skills
11 5 (2.45%) Marketing
11 5 (2.45%) Telecoms
12 4 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.96%) Legal
13 3 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.98%) Advertising
14 2 (0.98%) Automotive
15 1 (0.49%) Retail
Job Titles
1 18 (8.82%) Senior
2 16 (7.84%) Analyst
2 16 (7.84%) Lead
3 15 (7.35%) Architect
3 15 (7.35%) Delivery Manager
4 11 (5.39%) IAM Specialist
4 11 (5.39%) Technical Leader
5 10 (4.90%) Change Manager
6 8 (3.92%) Developer
6 8 (3.92%) Product Delivery Manager
6 8 (3.92%) Product Manager
6 8 (3.92%) Support Engineer
7 7 (3.43%) Data Engineer
7 7 (3.43%) Product Owner
7 7 (3.43%) Technical Engineer
7 7 (3.43%) Technical Support
7 7 (3.43%) Technical Support Engineer
8 6 (2.94%) Information Management Specialist
8 6 (2.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 6 (2.94%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (8.82%) OAuth
1 18 (8.82%) OpenID
2 17 (8.33%) SailPoint
3 15 (7.35%) OAuth2
4 13 (6.37%) LDAP
4 13 (6.37%) SAML
4 13 (6.37%) Web Services
5 12 (5.88%) React
6 11 (5.39%) CSS
7 8 (3.92%) HTML
7 8 (3.92%) Terraform
8 7 (3.43%) RESTful
9 5 (2.45%) ARM Templates
9 5 (2.45%) Django
9 5 (2.45%) Middleware
10 4 (1.96%) .NET
10 4 (1.96%) AngularJS
10 4 (1.96%) GraphQL
10 4 (1.96%) REST
11 3 (1.47%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 39 (19.12%) Management Information System
2 24 (11.76%) Onboarding
3 18 (8.82%) Product Ownership
4 15 (7.35%) Cloud Native
5 14 (6.86%) Data Centre
6 13 (6.37%) Hybrid Cloud
7 8 (3.92%) Virtual Team
8 6 (2.94%) Embedded Systems
9 5 (2.45%) Mobile App
9 5 (2.45%) Mobile Payment
9 5 (2.45%) Public Cloud
9 5 (2.45%) Smartcard
10 4 (1.96%) Data Structures
10 4 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (1.47%) ARM Cortex
11 3 (1.47%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 3 (1.47%) Driving Licence
11 3 (1.47%) Private Cloud
12 2 (0.98%) Distributed Architecture
12 2 (0.98%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 33 (16.18%) Windows
2 32 (15.69%) Linux
3 19 (9.31%) Unix
4 18 (8.82%) Windows Server
5 6 (2.94%) Android
6 4 (1.96%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.98%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (28.43%) Agile
2 48 (23.53%) Continuous Improvement
2 48 (23.53%) ITIL
3 47 (23.04%) Problem-Solving
4 44 (21.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 41 (20.10%) Roadmaps
6 40 (19.61%) ITSM
7 36 (17.65%) Service Management
8 35 (17.16%) Information Security
9 34 (16.67%) CI/CD
9 34 (16.67%) Software Engineering
10 33 (16.18%) Analytics
11 32 (15.69%) Cybersecurity
12 30 (14.71%) Change Control
12 30 (14.71%) DevOps
13 29 (14.22%) Change Management
14 27 (13.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 26 (12.75%) PRINCE2
15 26 (12.75%) Technical Leadership
16 25 (12.25%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 57 (27.94%) Python
2 38 (18.63%) PowerShell
3 19 (9.31%) SQL
4 14 (6.86%) JavaScript
5 11 (5.39%) Java
6 7 (3.43%) Bash
7 5 (2.45%) Bicep
7 5 (2.45%) Perl
8 3 (1.47%) Apex Code
8 3 (1.47%) C
8 3 (1.47%) C#
8 3 (1.47%) Lua
9 2 (0.98%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.98%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.49%) C++
10 1 (0.49%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.49%) Swift
10 1 (0.49%) X++
Qualifications
1 156 (76.47%) Degree
2 92 (45.10%) Security Cleared
3 66 (32.35%) SC Cleared
4 64 (31.37%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (8.33%) DV Cleared
6 16 (7.84%) Azure Certification
6 16 (7.84%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (6.86%) CISSP
8 13 (6.37%) Master's Degree
9 10 (4.90%) Cisco Certification
9 10 (4.90%) PMI Certification
9 10 (4.90%) PMP
10 9 (4.41%) BPSS Clearance
11 7 (3.43%) AWS Certification
11 7 (3.43%) CISM
11 7 (3.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (2.94%) CISA
13 5 (2.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (2.45%) CCSP
13 5 (2.45%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (16.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 31 (15.20%) NIST
3 16 (7.84%) Data Quality
4 15 (7.35%) QA
5 7 (3.43%) GDPR
5 7 (3.43%) GRC
5 7 (3.43%) ISO 9001
6 6 (2.94%) Accessibility
7 5 (2.45%) ISO 31000
7 5 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27005
7 5 (2.45%) PCI DSS
8 3 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (1.47%) NCSC
9 2 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
9 2 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.49%) DO-254
10 1 (0.49%) IEC 61508
10 1 (0.49%) ISO 22301
10 1 (0.49%) ISO 26262
10 1 (0.49%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 32 (15.69%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.88%) Docker
3 11 (5.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.94%) VMware NSX
5 4 (1.96%) ISA Server
6 2 (0.98%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.98%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.43%) Ansible
3 6 (2.94%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (2.94%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (2.45%) CASB
5 3 (1.47%) 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 (29.41%) Microsoft
2 17 (8.33%) Oracle
3 15 (7.35%) VMware
4 13 (6.37%) CyberArk
5 12 (5.88%) BeyondTrust
5 12 (5.88%) Google
6 10 (4.90%) Cisco
6 10 (4.90%) ServiceNow
7 8 (3.92%) F5
8 7 (3.43%) CrowdStrike
8 7 (3.43%) Splunk
9 5 (2.45%) Salesforce
10 4 (1.96%) Centrify
10 4 (1.96%) Databricks
10 4 (1.96%) IBM
10 4 (1.96%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.96%) Qualys
10 4 (1.96%) Tripwire
11 3 (1.47%) ForgeRock
11 3 (1.47%) SolarWinds