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 28 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 48 81
Rank change year-on-year -12 +33 +12
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 230 145 108
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.47% 4.11% 2.26%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.31% 4.60% 2.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 137 65 65
10th Percentile £180 £170 £203
25th Percentile £189 £274 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £388 £425 £450
Median % change year-on-year -8.82% -5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £588 £523 £575
90th Percentile £625 £588 £628
England median daily rate £464 £492 £550
% change year-on-year -5.74% -10.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 5 7
10th Percentile £51.48 £40.91 £18.47
25th Percentile £72.50 £71.00 £23.93
Median hourly rate £84.00 £89.63 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.28% +49.38% -
75th Percentile £88.00 - £65.00
90th Percentile - - £71.00
England median hourly rate £67.75 £63.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +6.69% +20.95% -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 5,337 3,153 3,927
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.51% 89.32% 82.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,256 1,962 2,362
10th Percentile £280 £238 £256
25th Percentile £421 £394 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £517
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -3.34% -0.53%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £638
90th Percentile £713 £675 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 606 307 307
10th Percentile £13.48 £13.71 £15.00
25th Percentile £19.33 £15.50 £26.47
Median hourly rate £52.50 £23.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +128.26% -59.90% +14.70%
75th Percentile £71.32 £53.63 £70.29
90th Percentile £88.00 £69.65 £76.86
England median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +74.79% -40.82% -

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 +18 129 £558 +17.37% 166
Berkshire +16 81 £550 +17.33% 75
Surrey +10 41 £209 +0.72% 37
Oxfordshire -4 28 £550 - 60
Hampshire -31 28 £455 -4.21% 67
Kent +19 20 £215 -49.34% 14
Buckinghamshire -19 20 £593 +12.95% 36
West Sussex -23 6 £225 -20.77% 19
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 6
East Sussex -15 1 £600 +210.93% 9
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 4 (1.74%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.30%) Confluence
2 3 (1.30%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.43%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 14 (6.09%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (3.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (2.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.30%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.43%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (1.30%) Primavera
1 3 (1.30%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.43%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 57 (24.78%) Azure
2 24 (10.43%) AWS
3 23 (10.00%) Entra ID
4 18 (7.83%) GCP
5 15 (6.52%) SaaS
6 7 (3.04%) Microsoft 365
6 7 (3.04%) Power Platform
7 4 (1.74%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (1.30%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (1.30%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (1.30%) Azure Sentinel
8 3 (1.30%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
8 3 (1.30%) Sauce Labs
8 3 (1.30%) Snowflake
8 3 (1.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (0.87%) GitHub
9 2 (0.87%) OpenShift
9 2 (0.87%) Power Automate
9 2 (0.87%) PowerApps
9 2 (0.87%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.91%) DNS
1 9 (3.91%) Firewall
2 8 (3.48%) TCP/IP
2 8 (3.48%) VPN
3 7 (3.04%) Network Security
4 6 (2.61%) DHCP
4 6 (2.61%) SSH
5 5 (2.17%) LAN
5 5 (2.17%) WAN
6 4 (1.74%) BGP
6 4 (1.74%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (1.74%) OSPF
6 4 (1.74%) Software-Defined Networking
7 3 (1.30%) BIG-IP
7 3 (1.30%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (1.30%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 3 (1.30%) IPsec
7 3 (1.30%) MPLS
7 3 (1.30%) VLAN
7 3 (1.30%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (5.65%) Relational Database
1 13 (5.65%) SQL Server
2 8 (3.48%) Metadata
3 7 (3.04%) Power BI
4 6 (2.61%) MySQL
4 6 (2.61%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.87%) Tableau
7 1 (0.43%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (0.43%) Big Data
7 1 (0.43%) BigQuery
7 1 (0.43%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 25 (10.87%) Rational DOORS
2 9 (3.91%) Git
3 4 (1.74%) GitLab
4 3 (1.30%) Android Studio
4 3 (1.30%) Browser DevTools
4 3 (1.30%) Eclipse
4 3 (1.30%) JIRA
4 3 (1.30%) Xcode
5 2 (0.87%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.87%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.43%) JUnit
6 1 (0.43%) Octopus Deploy
6 1 (0.43%) Selenium
6 1 (0.43%) TestNG
6 1 (0.43%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 67 (29.13%) Social Skills
2 49 (21.30%) Aerospace
3 41 (17.83%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (14.35%) Public Sector
5 19 (8.26%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (7.39%) Finance
7 13 (5.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (5.65%) Military
8 9 (3.91%) Manufacturing
9 8 (3.48%) Organisational Skills
10 7 (3.04%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (3.04%) Telecoms
11 5 (2.17%) Legal
11 5 (2.17%) Marketing
12 4 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.87%) Avionics
13 2 (0.87%) Electronics
14 1 (0.43%) Law
Job Titles
1 27 (11.74%) Delivery Manager
2 26 (11.30%) Product Manager
3 25 (10.87%) Product Delivery Manager
4 21 (9.13%) Lead
5 18 (7.83%) Systems Delivery Manager
5 18 (7.83%) Systems Manager
6 16 (6.96%) Senior
7 14 (6.09%) Analyst
8 13 (5.65%) Architect
9 11 (4.78%) IAM Specialist
9 11 (4.78%) Technical Leader
10 10 (4.35%) Change Manager
11 8 (3.48%) Support Engineer
12 7 (3.04%) Developer
12 7 (3.04%) Product Owner
12 7 (3.04%) Technical Engineer
12 7 (3.04%) Technical Support
12 7 (3.04%) Technical Support Engineer
13 6 (2.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 5 (2.17%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (7.83%) OAuth
1 18 (7.83%) OpenID
2 17 (7.39%) SailPoint
3 15 (6.52%) OAuth2
4 13 (5.65%) LDAP
4 13 (5.65%) SAML
4 13 (5.65%) Web Services
5 11 (4.78%) React
6 10 (4.35%) CSS
7 8 (3.48%) Terraform
8 7 (3.04%) HTML
9 6 (2.61%) RESTful
10 5 (2.17%) ARM Templates
10 5 (2.17%) Django
11 4 (1.74%) .NET
11 4 (1.74%) AngularJS
11 4 (1.74%) GraphQL
12 3 (1.30%) JSON
12 3 (1.30%) Middleware
12 3 (1.30%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 42 (18.26%) Product Ownership
2 31 (13.48%) Management Information System
3 29 (12.61%) Onboarding
4 23 (10.00%) Data Structures
5 13 (5.65%) Cloud Native
5 13 (5.65%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (3.91%) Virtual Team
7 8 (3.48%) Data Centre
8 5 (2.17%) Mobile App
9 4 (1.74%) Algorithms
9 4 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (1.30%) ARM Cortex
10 3 (1.30%) Distributed Architecture
10 3 (1.30%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 3 (1.30%) Driving Licence
10 3 (1.30%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.30%) Security Posture
11 2 (0.87%) Distributed Computing
11 2 (0.87%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 30 (13.04%) Windows
2 28 (12.17%) Linux
3 19 (8.26%) Unix
4 13 (5.65%) Windows Server
5 7 (3.04%) Android
6 3 (1.30%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.87%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (34.35%) Agile
2 58 (25.22%) Continuous Improvement
3 48 (20.87%) Problem-Solving
4 45 (19.57%) Change Control
5 43 (18.70%) ITSM
5 43 (18.70%) Systems Engineering
6 41 (17.83%) Stakeholder Management
7 40 (17.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 39 (16.96%) ITIL
8 39 (16.96%) PRINCE2
9 33 (14.35%) Cybersecurity
10 32 (13.91%) Service Management
11 30 (13.04%) Analytics
11 30 (13.04%) Information Security
11 30 (13.04%) Scaled Agile Framework
12 28 (12.17%) CI/CD
13 27 (11.74%) Software Engineering
14 26 (11.30%) Programme Management
14 26 (11.30%) Roadmaps
15 25 (10.87%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 59 (25.65%) Python
2 37 (16.09%) PowerShell
3 20 (8.70%) SQL
4 13 (5.65%) JavaScript
5 12 (5.22%) Java
6 7 (3.04%) Bash
7 5 (2.17%) Bicep
7 5 (2.17%) C
7 5 (2.17%) Perl
8 3 (1.30%) Apex Code
8 3 (1.30%) C#
8 3 (1.30%) C++
8 3 (1.30%) Lua
9 2 (0.87%) Ada
9 2 (0.87%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.87%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.43%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.43%) R
10 1 (0.43%) X++
Qualifications
1 172 (74.78%) Degree
2 115 (50.00%) Security Cleared
3 61 (26.52%) SC Cleared
4 59 (25.65%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (7.39%) DV Cleared
6 16 (6.96%) Microsoft Certification
7 13 (5.65%) Master's Degree
8 12 (5.22%) Azure Certification
9 10 (4.35%) PMI Certification
9 10 (4.35%) PMP
10 9 (3.91%) BPSS Clearance
10 9 (3.91%) CISSP
11 6 (2.61%) AWS Certification
11 6 (2.61%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (2.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 4 (1.74%) CCNP
13 3 (1.30%) CSPO
13 3 (1.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
14 2 (0.87%) ISTQB
14 2 (0.87%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (14.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 31 (13.48%) NIST
3 17 (7.39%) Data Quality
4 12 (5.22%) QA
5 8 (3.48%) NCSC
6 7 (3.04%) Accessibility
6 7 (3.04%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 6 (2.61%) NIST 800
8 5 (2.17%) Government Security Classifications
9 3 (1.30%) GRC
9 3 (1.30%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.87%) GDPR
10 2 (0.87%) ISO 9001
10 2 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.43%) DICOM
11 1 (0.43%) DO-254
11 1 (0.43%) HL7
11 1 (0.43%) IEC 61508
11 1 (0.43%) ISO 26262
11 1 (0.43%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 32 (13.91%) Active Directory
2 12 (5.22%) Docker
3 10 (4.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (2.17%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.87%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.43%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (5.22%) Kubernetes
2 7 (3.04%) Ansible
3 6 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (2.61%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (1.30%) SCCM
5 2 (0.87%) Istio
6 1 (0.43%) Argo
6 1 (0.43%) CASB
6 1 (0.43%) Grafana
6 1 (0.43%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.43%) vRealize
6 1 (0.43%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 53 (23.04%) Microsoft
2 25 (10.87%) IBM
3 17 (7.39%) Oracle
4 14 (6.09%) VMware
5 13 (5.65%) CyberArk
6 12 (5.22%) BeyondTrust
7 11 (4.78%) ServiceNow
8 9 (3.91%) Google
9 6 (2.61%) Cisco
10 4 (1.74%) Databricks
10 4 (1.74%) F5
10 4 (1.74%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.74%) Salesforce
11 3 (1.30%) CrowdStrike
11 3 (1.30%) Dell
11 3 (1.30%) ForgeRock
11 3 (1.30%) Okta
11 3 (1.30%) Ping Identity
11 3 (1.30%) SolarWinds
11 3 (1.30%) Splunk