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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 69 46 84
Rank change year-on-year -23 +38 +9
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 204 146 105
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 3.10% 4.12% 2.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.85% 4.63% 2.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 137 75 66
10th Percentile £189 £170 £198
25th Percentile £192 £204 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £365 £450
Median % change year-on-year +19.86% -18.89% -10.00%
75th Percentile £588 £509 £534
90th Percentile £634 £587 £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% -52.50%
75th Percentile £83.50 - £62.50
90th Percentile £87.16 - £73.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £43.50 £50.50
% change year-on-year +20.69% -13.86% -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 5,305 3,154 3,728
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 80.53% 88.97% 82.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,137 1,966 2,222
10th Percentile £275 £219 £255
25th Percentile £420 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -1.96% -1.92%
75th Percentile £613 £588 £625
90th Percentile £706 £650 £688
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 643 314 219
10th Percentile £13.44 £13.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £16.38 £15.91 £30.00
Median hourly rate £48.81 £22.13 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year +120.56% -62.04% +11.05%
75th Percentile £69.91 £50.00 £70.84
90th Percentile £87.83 £69.38 £78.75
England median hourly rate £41.03 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +63.14% -41.51% -2.27%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 +14 110 £550 +25.71% 207
Berkshire +9 69 £550 +22.22% 95
Surrey +13 45 £209 +0.72% 52
Oxfordshire -8 27 £559 - 83
Hampshire -38 19 £455 +41.09% 93
Kent +15 18 £215 +11.55% 18
Buckinghamshire -23 14 £615 +83.57% 31
West Sussex -29 8 £305 +5.90% 44
Middlesex - 2 £334 - 8
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
Cloud Services
1 63 (30.88%) Azure
2 28 (13.73%) 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%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 3 (1.47%) IPsec
7 3 (1.47%) MPLS
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%) 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 38 (18.63%) Analytical Skills
3 32 (15.69%) Aerospace
3 32 (15.69%) Public Sector
4 19 (9.31%) Documentation Skills
5 13 (6.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 12 (5.88%) Military
7 11 (5.39%) Finance
8 10 (4.90%) Manufacturing
9 9 (4.41%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (2.45%) Legal
10 5 (2.45%) Marketing
10 5 (2.45%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.98%) Advertising
13 2 (0.98%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 18 (8.82%) Senior
2 16 (7.84%) Analyst
3 15 (7.35%) Architect
3 15 (7.35%) Lead
4 14 (6.86%) Delivery Manager
5 11 (5.39%) IAM Specialist
5 11 (5.39%) Technical Leader
6 10 (4.90%) Change Manager
7 8 (3.92%) Developer
7 8 (3.92%) Product Delivery Manager
7 8 (3.92%) Product Manager
7 8 (3.92%) Support Engineer
8 7 (3.43%) Data Engineer
8 7 (3.43%) Product Owner
8 7 (3.43%) Technical Engineer
8 7 (3.43%) Technical Support
8 7 (3.43%) Technical Support Engineer
9 6 (2.94%) Information Specialist
9 6 (2.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 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
10 4 (1.96%) .NET
10 4 (1.96%) AngularJS
10 4 (1.96%) GraphQL
10 4 (1.96%) Middleware
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
11 3 (1.47%) Security Posture
12 2 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 34 (16.67%) Windows
2 33 (16.18%) 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 57 (27.94%) Agile
2 47 (23.04%) Continuous Improvement
2 47 (23.04%) ITIL
2 47 (23.04%) Problem-Solving
3 43 (21.08%) Stakeholder Management
4 40 (19.61%) ITSM
4 40 (19.61%) Roadmaps
5 36 (17.65%) Information Security
6 35 (17.16%) Service Management
7 34 (16.67%) CI/CD
8 33 (16.18%) Cybersecurity
8 33 (16.18%) Software Engineering
9 32 (15.69%) Analytics
10 30 (14.71%) Change Control
10 30 (14.71%) DevOps
11 28 (13.73%) Change Management
12 26 (12.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 26 (12.75%) Technical Leadership
13 25 (12.25%) PRINCE2
13 25 (12.25%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 57 (27.94%) Python
2 38 (18.63%) PowerShell
3 20 (9.80%) 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 91 (44.61%) Security Cleared
3 65 (31.86%) Computer Science Degree
3 65 (31.86%) SC Cleared
4 17 (8.33%) DV Cleared
5 16 (7.84%) Azure Certification
5 16 (7.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 14 (6.86%) CISSP
6 14 (6.86%) Master's Degree
7 10 (4.90%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (4.90%) PMI Certification
7 10 (4.90%) PMP
8 9 (4.41%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (3.92%) AWS Certification
10 7 (3.43%) CISM
10 7 (3.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 6 (2.94%) CISA
12 5 (2.45%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 5 (2.45%) CCSP
12 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 8 (3.92%) GRC
6 7 (3.43%) GDPR
6 7 (3.43%) ISO 9001
7 6 (2.94%) Accessibility
8 5 (2.45%) ISO 31000
8 5 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 5 (2.45%) PCI DSS
9 3 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (1.47%) NCSC
10 2 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 20000
10 2 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.49%) DICOM
11 1 (0.49%) DO-254
11 1 (0.49%) HL7
11 1 (0.49%) ISO 22301
11 1 (0.49%) ISO 26262
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%) Okta
11 3 (1.47%) Ping Identity