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 5 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 62 69 101
Rank change year-on-year +7 +32 +16
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 169 93 113
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.33% 3.02% 2.05%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.00% 3.30% 2.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 98 49 68
10th Percentile £183 £356 £263
25th Percentile £204 £463 £330
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% +11.11% -14.29%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £568
90th Percentile £678 £650 £607
England median daily rate £484 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -11.19% -0.91% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 0 10
10th Percentile £27.65 - £54.50
25th Percentile £80.50 - £55.88
Median hourly rate £84.00 - £65.00
75th Percentile £88.00 - £66.52
90th Percentile - - £68.13
England median hourly rate £67.50 £54.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +23.85% -0.91% +4.76%

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 4,226 2,815 4,790
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 83.24% 91.51% 87.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,770 1,756 2,884
10th Percentile £263 £250 £213
25th Percentile £403 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.74% +0.75% -
75th Percentile £600 £613 £610
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 365 127 367
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £13.22
25th Percentile £17.25 £21.43 £18.54
Median hourly rate £27.50 £45.00 £43.33
Median % change year-on-year -38.89% +3.85% -3.71%
75th Percentile £71.99 £62.50 £62.52
90th Percentile £87.20 £75.00 £76.53
England median hourly rate £29.32 £35.00 £33.78
% change year-on-year -16.23% +3.63% -5.26%

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 5 March 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 5 March 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 5 March 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 89 £413 -17.50% 73
Berkshire +11 59 £307 -38.60% 42
Hampshire -12 28 £575 +3.14% 42
Buckinghamshire - 23 £535 - 12
Kent +4 14 £205 -18.00% 13
West Sussex -4 14 £275 -21.43% 6
Surrey -20 14 £463 -7.50% 18
Oxfordshire -9 7 £500 -28.57% 23
East Sussex -4 6 £360 -10.00% 7
Home Counties - 3 - -
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 7 (4.14%) Confluence
2 5 (2.96%) Smallworld
3 4 (2.37%) GeoServer
4 3 (1.78%) Apache
4 3 (1.78%) Apache Spark
5 2 (1.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (1.18%) CMS
5 2 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.59%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.59%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.78%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 4 (2.37%) SAP ERP
2 2 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.59%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.59%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 28 (16.57%) Azure
2 20 (11.83%) AWS
3 13 (7.69%) GitHub
3 13 (7.69%) GitHub Actions
4 10 (5.92%) GCP
5 4 (2.37%) Entra ID
5 4 (2.37%) Power Platform
6 3 (1.78%) Amazon EKS
6 3 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
7 2 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
7 2 (1.18%) Amazon ECS
7 2 (1.18%) Amazon S3
7 2 (1.18%) Azure DevOps
7 2 (1.18%) IaaS
7 2 (1.18%) PowerApps
7 2 (1.18%) SaaS
7 2 (1.18%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 1 (0.59%) Amazon SageMaker
8 1 (0.59%) Azure Machine Learning
8 1 (0.59%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.96%) DNS
1 5 (2.96%) Firewall
1 5 (2.96%) Network Security
1 5 (2.96%) TCP/IP
2 3 (1.78%) LAN
2 3 (1.78%) SSH
2 3 (1.78%) VoIP
2 3 (1.78%) WAN
2 3 (1.78%) Wireless
3 2 (1.18%) BGP
3 2 (1.18%) Internet
3 2 (1.18%) IPsec
3 2 (1.18%) OSPF
3 2 (1.18%) Structured Cabling
4 1 (0.59%) 5G
4 1 (0.59%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (0.59%) MGCP
4 1 (0.59%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.59%) Telepresence
4 1 (0.59%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (7.10%) Relational Database
2 9 (5.33%) MySQL
3 8 (4.73%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (4.14%) SQL Server
5 5 (2.96%) Apache Cassandra
5 5 (2.96%) Big Data
5 5 (2.96%) Couchbase
5 5 (2.96%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (2.96%) GIS
5 5 (2.96%) NoSQL
6 4 (2.37%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (2.37%) Power BI
6 4 (2.37%) QGIS
7 3 (1.78%) Hadoop
8 2 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (1.18%) Metadata
8 2 (1.18%) Tableau
9 1 (0.59%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.59%) Oracle Database
9 1 (0.59%) Redis
Development Applications
1 14 (8.28%) Rational DOORS
2 13 (7.69%) Git
3 8 (4.73%) Jenkins
3 8 (4.73%) JIRA
4 7 (4.14%) CircleCI
4 7 (4.14%) GitLab
4 7 (4.14%) Gradle
5 5 (2.96%) JUnit
6 3 (1.78%) Visual Studio
7 2 (1.18%) Cypress.io
7 2 (1.18%) Selenium
8 1 (0.59%) Appium
8 1 (0.59%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.59%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.59%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.59%) Maven
8 1 (0.59%) MLflow
8 1 (0.59%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.59%) XCTest
8 1 (0.59%) XCUITest
General
1 55 (32.54%) Social Skills
2 32 (18.93%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (15.38%) Aerospace
4 12 (7.10%) Public Sector
5 9 (5.33%) Finance
5 9 (5.33%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (4.73%) Manufacturing
7 5 (2.96%) Military
8 4 (2.37%) Marketing
9 3 (1.78%) Law
10 2 (1.18%) Electronics
10 2 (1.18%) Legal
10 2 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.59%) Advertising
11 1 (0.59%) Avionics
11 1 (0.59%) Banking
11 1 (0.59%) Humanities
11 1 (0.59%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.59%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 19 (11.24%) Developer
2 17 (10.06%) Delivery Manager
2 17 (10.06%) Product Manager
3 14 (8.28%) Product Delivery Manager
4 12 (7.10%) Analyst
4 12 (7.10%) Senior
5 11 (6.51%) Architect
5 11 (6.51%) Systems Delivery Manager
5 11 (6.51%) Systems Manager
6 9 (5.33%) Technical Support
7 8 (4.73%) Lead
8 7 (4.14%) Senior Developer
9 5 (2.96%) Android Engineer
9 5 (2.96%) Software Engineer
10 4 (2.37%) Consultant
10 4 (2.37%) Data Scientist
10 4 (2.37%) Designer
10 4 (2.37%) Informatica Developer
10 4 (2.37%) Service Designer
10 4 (2.37%) SOC Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (9.47%) REST
2 7 (4.14%) Kafka
2 7 (4.14%) RAML
3 6 (3.55%) RabbitMQ
4 5 (2.96%) Android Jetpack
4 5 (2.96%) Dagger
4 5 (2.96%) Jetpack Compose
4 5 (2.96%) OkHttp
4 5 (2.96%) React
4 5 (2.96%) RxJava
4 5 (2.96%) WireMock
5 3 (1.78%) HTML
5 3 (1.78%) Node.js
5 3 (1.78%) Pandas
5 3 (1.78%) scikit-learn
5 3 (1.78%) Web Services
6 2 (1.18%) HTML5
6 2 (1.18%) NumPy
6 2 (1.18%) RESTful
6 2 (1.18%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 22 (13.02%) Product Ownership
2 13 (7.69%) Management Information System
3 12 (7.10%) Virtual Team
4 11 (6.51%) Data Structures
5 8 (4.73%) Algorithms
6 7 (4.14%) Data Protection Act
6 7 (4.14%) Legacy Code
7 6 (3.55%) Cloud Native
7 6 (3.55%) Onboarding
8 5 (2.96%) Cyberattack
8 5 (2.96%) Security Operations Centre
9 4 (2.37%) AI Agents
9 4 (2.37%) Data Centre
9 4 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (2.37%) Mobile App
10 3 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (1.18%) Distributed Computing
11 2 (1.18%) Mixed Reality
11 2 (1.18%) Security Posture
11 2 (1.18%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 26 (15.38%) Linux
2 25 (14.79%) Windows
3 13 (7.69%) Unix
4 7 (4.14%) Android
5 4 (2.37%) Windows Server
6 3 (1.78%) Apple iOS
7 2 (1.18%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.59%) Kali Linux
8 1 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (31.95%) Agile
2 38 (22.49%) Problem-Solving
3 25 (14.79%) Continuous Improvement
4 22 (13.02%) AI
4 22 (13.02%) Systems Engineering
5 20 (11.83%) DevOps
6 19 (11.24%) Change Control
7 18 (10.65%) CI/CD
7 18 (10.65%) Cybersecurity
7 18 (10.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 17 (10.06%) Scaled Agile Framework
8 17 (10.06%) Software Engineering
9 16 (9.47%) PRINCE2
10 15 (8.88%) Configuration Management
10 15 (8.88%) Migration
10 15 (8.88%) Programme Management
11 14 (8.28%) Continuous Integration
12 13 (7.69%) Analytics
12 13 (7.69%) ITIL
13 12 (7.10%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 37 (21.89%) Python
2 19 (11.24%) SQL
3 18 (10.65%) Java
4 16 (9.47%) JavaScript
5 9 (5.33%) Perl
6 8 (4.73%) PowerShell
7 7 (4.14%) Go
7 7 (4.14%) Kotlin
8 4 (2.37%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.78%) Bash
9 3 (1.78%) C#
10 1 (0.59%) Ada
10 1 (0.59%) Assembly Language
10 1 (0.59%) C
10 1 (0.59%) C++
10 1 (0.59%) Magik
10 1 (0.59%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.59%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.59%) R
10 1 (0.59%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 137 (81.07%) Degree
2 82 (48.52%) Computer Science Degree
3 59 (34.91%) Security Cleared
4 32 (18.93%) SC Cleared
5 12 (7.10%) Master's Degree
6 11 (6.51%) DBS Check
7 7 (4.14%) DV Cleared
8 5 (2.96%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (2.96%) CompTIA CySA+
8 5 (2.96%) CompTIA Security+
9 4 (2.37%) CCNP
9 4 (2.37%) CISSP
10 3 (1.78%) AWS Certification
10 3 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.78%) CCNA
10 3 (1.78%) PMI Certification
10 3 (1.78%) PMP
11 2 (1.18%) Azure Certification
11 2 (1.18%) PhD
12 1 (0.59%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.51%) Data Quality
2 10 (5.92%) QA
3 9 (5.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (4.73%) NIST
5 7 (4.14%) GDPR
6 6 (3.55%) NCSC
7 4 (2.37%) Government Security Classifications
7 4 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 3 (1.78%) DO-254
8 3 (1.78%) IEC 61508
8 3 (1.78%) ISO 26262
8 3 (1.78%) NIST 800
9 2 (1.18%) Accessibility
9 2 (1.18%) HIPAA
9 2 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 19770
9 2 (1.18%) PMO
10 1 (0.59%) Def Stans
10 1 (0.59%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.59%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.59%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 13 (7.69%) Docker
2 5 (2.96%) Active Directory
3 2 (1.18%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (6.51%) Kubernetes
2 8 (4.73%) Terraform
3 4 (2.37%) Ansible
3 4 (2.37%) Grafana
4 2 (1.18%) Prometheus
4 2 (1.18%) Puppet
5 1 (0.59%) FortiGate
5 1 (0.59%) Istio
5 1 (0.59%) Kubeflow
5 1 (0.59%) linkerd
5 1 (0.59%) Nessus
5 1 (0.59%) Nmap
Vendors
1 14 (8.28%) Oracle
2 12 (7.10%) Microsoft
3 11 (6.51%) IBM
4 7 (4.14%) Splunk
5 6 (3.55%) Atlassian
5 6 (3.55%) SAP
6 5 (2.96%) Cisco
6 5 (2.96%) ServiceNow
7 4 (2.37%) BeyondTrust
7 4 (2.37%) CyberArk
7 4 (2.37%) ESRI
7 4 (2.37%) Informatica
7 4 (2.37%) Intergraph
8 3 (1.78%) Google
8 3 (1.78%) Palo Alto
8 3 (1.78%) Snow
9 2 (1.18%) Adobe
9 2 (1.18%) Aruba
9 2 (1.18%) CheckPoint
9 2 (1.18%) PagerDuty