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

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 50 84
Rank change year-on-year -14 +34 +2
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 215 136 105
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.27% 3.89% 2.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.06% 4.36% 2.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 134 61 63
10th Percentile £177 £170 £203
25th Percentile £189 £260 £355
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £363 £402 £450
Median % change year-on-year -9.83% -10.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £519 £575
90th Percentile £625 £588 £629
England median daily rate £472 £490 £550
% change year-on-year -3.67% -10.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 5 6
10th Percentile £51.25 £40.91 £18.06
25th Percentile £69.50 £71.00 £22.03
Median hourly rate £83.00 £89.63 £44.25
Median % change year-on-year -7.40% +102.55% -26.25%
75th Percentile £88.00 - £64.38
90th Percentile - - £72.50
England median hourly rate £67.00 £62.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +7.20% +19.05% -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 5,297 3,122 3,860
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.61% 89.23% 82.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,218 1,945 2,321
10th Percentile £280 £236 £260
25th Percentile £419 £393 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -0.66%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £638
90th Percentile £707 £663 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 603 305 292
10th Percentile £13.48 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £18.45 £15.50 £27.38
Median hourly rate £52.50 £22.07 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +137.88% -61.52% +10.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £51.00 £70.40
90th Percentile £87.16 £69.65 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +19 114 £550 +18.92% 220
Berkshire +18 71 £550 +20.55% 109
Surrey +9 42 £209 +0.72% 51
Oxfordshire -3 28 £550 - 79
Hampshire -31 27 £400 -0.50% 77
Kent +18 20 £215 -49.34% 13
Buckinghamshire -25 15 £564 +7.52% 36
West Sussex -26 6 £225 -21.88% 29
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 6
East Sussex -15 1 £600 +210.93% 6
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 5 (2.33%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.40%) Confluence
2 3 (1.40%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.93%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.47%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.47%) IIS
Applications
1 14 (6.51%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (3.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.40%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.47%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.40%) Primavera
1 3 (1.40%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.47%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 58 (26.98%) Azure
2 25 (11.63%) AWS
3 23 (10.70%) Entra ID
4 19 (8.84%) GCP
5 15 (6.98%) SaaS
6 7 (3.26%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (3.26%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.86%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (1.40%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (1.40%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (1.40%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (1.40%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 3 (1.40%) Sauce Labs
8 3 (1.40%) Snowflake
8 3 (1.40%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (0.93%) GitHub
9 2 (0.93%) OpenShift
9 2 (0.93%) Power Automate
9 2 (0.93%) PowerApps
9 2 (0.93%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (4.19%) DNS
1 9 (4.19%) Firewall
2 8 (3.72%) TCP/IP
2 8 (3.72%) VPN
3 7 (3.26%) Network Security
4 6 (2.79%) DHCP
4 6 (2.79%) SSH
5 5 (2.33%) LAN
5 5 (2.33%) WAN
6 4 (1.86%) BGP
6 4 (1.86%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (1.86%) OSPF
6 4 (1.86%) Software-Defined Networking
7 3 (1.40%) BIG-IP
7 3 (1.40%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (1.40%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 3 (1.40%) IPsec
7 3 (1.40%) MPLS
7 3 (1.40%) VLAN
7 3 (1.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (6.05%) Relational Database
1 13 (6.05%) SQL Server
2 11 (5.12%) Metadata
3 7 (3.26%) Power BI
4 6 (2.79%) MySQL
4 6 (2.79%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.93%) Tableau
7 1 (0.47%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (0.47%) Big Data
7 1 (0.47%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.47%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 15 (6.98%) Rational DOORS
2 9 (4.19%) Git
3 4 (1.86%) GitLab
4 3 (1.40%) Android Studio
4 3 (1.40%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (1.40%) Eclipse
4 3 (1.40%) JIRA
4 3 (1.40%) Xcode
5 2 (0.93%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.47%) JUnit
6 1 (0.47%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.47%) Selenium
6 1 (0.47%) TestNG
6 1 (0.47%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 64 (29.77%) Social Skills
2 40 (18.60%) Analytical Skills
3 38 (17.67%) Aerospace
4 32 (14.88%) Public Sector
5 19 (8.84%) Documentation Skills
6 15 (6.98%) Finance
7 13 (6.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (6.05%) Military
8 8 (3.72%) Manufacturing
8 8 (3.72%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (3.26%) Telecoms
10 5 (2.33%) Legal
10 5 (2.33%) Marketing
11 4 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.93%) Avionics
12 2 (0.93%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 19 (8.84%) Lead
2 18 (8.37%) Delivery Manager
3 17 (7.91%) Product Manager
4 16 (7.44%) Product Delivery Manager
4 16 (7.44%) Senior
5 14 (6.51%) Analyst
6 13 (6.05%) Architect
7 11 (5.12%) IAM Specialist
7 11 (5.12%) Technical Leader
8 10 (4.65%) Change Manager
9 9 (4.19%) Systems Delivery Manager
9 9 (4.19%) Systems Manager
10 8 (3.72%) Support Engineer
11 7 (3.26%) Developer
11 7 (3.26%) Product Owner
11 7 (3.26%) Technical Engineer
11 7 (3.26%) Technical Support
11 7 (3.26%) Technical Support Engineer
12 6 (2.79%) Data Engineer
12 6 (2.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (8.37%) OAuth
1 18 (8.37%) OpenID
2 17 (7.91%) SailPoint
3 15 (6.98%) OAuth2
4 13 (6.05%) LDAP
4 13 (6.05%) SAML
4 13 (6.05%) Web Services
5 11 (5.12%) React
6 10 (4.65%) CSS
7 8 (3.72%) Terraform
8 7 (3.26%) HTML
9 6 (2.79%) RESTful
10 5 (2.33%) ARM Templates
10 5 (2.33%) Django
11 4 (1.86%) .NET
11 4 (1.86%) AngularJS
11 4 (1.86%) GraphQL
12 3 (1.40%) JSON
12 3 (1.40%) Middleware
12 3 (1.40%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 32 (14.88%) Management Information System
2 29 (13.49%) Onboarding
3 28 (13.02%) Product Ownership
4 14 (6.51%) Data Structures
5 13 (6.05%) Cloud Native
5 13 (6.05%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (4.19%) Data Centre
7 8 (3.72%) Virtual Team
8 5 (2.33%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.86%) Algorithms
9 4 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (1.40%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.40%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.40%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (1.40%) Driving Licence
10 3 (1.40%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.40%) Security Posture
11 2 (0.93%) Distributed Computing
11 2 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
11 2 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 31 (14.42%) Windows
2 29 (13.49%) Linux
3 19 (8.84%) Unix
4 14 (6.51%) Windows Server
5 7 (3.26%) Android
6 3 (1.40%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.93%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (30.23%) Agile
2 50 (23.26%) Continuous Improvement
3 48 (22.33%) Problem-Solving
4 39 (18.14%) ITSM
5 37 (17.21%) Change Control
5 37 (17.21%) ITIL
5 37 (17.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 32 (14.88%) Cybersecurity
6 32 (14.88%) Information Security
7 31 (14.42%) Analytics
7 31 (14.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 31 (14.42%) Systems Engineering
8 29 (13.49%) CI/CD
8 29 (13.49%) PRINCE2
8 29 (13.49%) Service Management
9 28 (13.02%) Roadmaps
10 27 (12.56%) Software Engineering
11 25 (11.63%) Runbook
12 24 (11.16%) DevOps
13 22 (10.23%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 59 (27.44%) Python
2 37 (17.21%) PowerShell
3 20 (9.30%) SQL
4 13 (6.05%) JavaScript
5 12 (5.58%) Java
6 7 (3.26%) Bash
7 5 (2.33%) Bicep
7 5 (2.33%) C
7 5 (2.33%) Perl
8 3 (1.40%) Apex Code
8 3 (1.40%) C#
8 3 (1.40%) C++
8 3 (1.40%) Lua
9 2 (0.93%) Ada
9 2 (0.93%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.93%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.47%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.47%) R
10 1 (0.47%) X++
Qualifications
1 158 (73.49%) Degree
2 98 (45.58%) Security Cleared
3 60 (27.91%) Computer Science Degree
4 57 (26.51%) SC Cleared
5 16 (7.44%) DV Cleared
5 16 (7.44%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (6.05%) Master's Degree
7 12 (5.58%) Azure Certification
8 10 (4.65%) CISSP
8 10 (4.65%) PMI Certification
8 10 (4.65%) PMP
9 9 (4.19%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (3.26%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (2.79%) AWS Certification
11 6 (2.79%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (1.86%) CCNP
13 3 (1.40%) CISM
13 3 (1.40%) CSPO
13 3 (1.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 2 (0.93%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (15.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 30 (13.95%) NIST
3 17 (7.91%) Data Quality
4 12 (5.58%) QA
5 6 (2.79%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.86%) GRC
6 4 (1.86%) NCSC
6 4 (1.86%) NIST 800
7 3 (1.40%) GDPR
7 3 (1.40%) ISO 9001
7 3 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 3 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 2 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.47%) DICOM
9 1 (0.47%) DO-254
9 1 (0.47%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.47%) HL7
9 1 (0.47%) ISO 26262
9 1 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
9 1 (0.47%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 32 (14.88%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.58%) Docker
3 10 (4.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.33%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.93%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.47%) ISA Server
6 1 (0.47%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (5.58%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.26%) Ansible
3 6 (2.79%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (2.79%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (1.40%) SCCM
5 2 (0.93%) CASB
5 2 (0.93%) Istio
6 1 (0.47%) Argo
6 1 (0.47%) Grafana
6 1 (0.47%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.47%) vRealize
6 1 (0.47%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 54 (25.12%) Microsoft
2 17 (7.91%) Oracle
3 15 (6.98%) IBM
4 14 (6.51%) VMware
5 13 (6.05%) CyberArk
6 12 (5.58%) BeyondTrust
7 11 (5.12%) ServiceNow
8 10 (4.65%) Google
9 7 (3.26%) Cisco
10 5 (2.33%) F5
11 4 (1.86%) CrowdStrike
11 4 (1.86%) Databricks
11 4 (1.86%) Palo Alto
11 4 (1.86%) Salesforce
11 4 (1.86%) Splunk
12 3 (1.40%) Dell
12 3 (1.40%) ForgeRock
12 3 (1.40%) Okta
12 3 (1.40%) Ping Identity
12 3 (1.40%) SolarWinds