Python Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Python
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Python skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 18 30
Rank change year-on-year -6 +12 -4
Contract jobs citing Python 247 156 137
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 7.85% 9.31% 6.09%
As % of the Programming Languages category 43.11% 36.36% 28.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 159 88 104
10th Percentile £349 £353 £363
25th Percentile £424 £444 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.50% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £622 £553 £638
90th Percentile £705 £600 £650
South East median daily rate £543 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +8.50% - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 0 3
10th Percentile £43.81 - £35.20
25th Percentile £51.25 - £46.38
Median hourly rate £69.61 - £65.00
75th Percentile £77.50 - £71.25
90th Percentile £84.13 - £75.00
South East median hourly rate £67.47 £57.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year +17.34% +29.21% -13.17%

All Programming Languages
Thames Valley

Python falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills in the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 573 429 474
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.21% 25.60% 21.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 384 255 326
10th Percentile £332 £344 £363
25th Percentile £407 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £593 £569 £617
90th Percentile £650 £648 £656
South East median daily rate £516 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +3.25% -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 3 11
10th Percentile £33.70 £22.73 £35.58
25th Percentile £45.67 £25.55 £58.49
Median hourly rate £68.11 £31.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +116.21% -51.54% +34.30%
75th Percentile £77.50 £43.25 £76.18
90th Percentile £83.66 £49.55 £87.50
South East median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £69.38
% change year-on-year +9.09% -20.72% +24.93%

Python
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Python relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Python job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Python
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Python.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Python

Python
Daily Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Python in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 29 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Python in the Thames Valley

Python
Hourly Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Python.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Python

Python
Hourly Rate Histogram in the Thames Valley

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Python in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 29 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Python in the Thames Valley

Python
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Python within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 29 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
Berkshire -1 169 £525 +5.00% 103
Oxfordshire +9 47 £600 +33.33% 90
Buckinghamshire -31 31 £525 +15.01% 32
Python
South East

Python
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 14 (5.67%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.02%) Confluence
3 4 (1.62%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.62%) WebSphere
3 4 (1.62%) WebSphere Application Server
4 2 (0.81%) Apache
4 2 (0.81%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.81%) Apache Superset
4 2 (0.81%) IBM HTTP Server
4 2 (0.81%) JBoss
4 2 (0.81%) Oracle HTTP Server
4 2 (0.81%) WebSphere Portal
5 1 (0.40%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 8 (3.24%) CPLEX
2 5 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.21%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.40%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.40%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 131 (53.04%) Azure
2 84 (34.01%) AWS
3 39 (15.79%) GCP
4 32 (12.96%) Entra ID
5 25 (10.12%) Azure DevOps
6 22 (8.91%) OpenShift
7 18 (7.29%) GitHub
8 16 (6.48%) GitHub Actions
9 14 (5.67%) Azure Monitor
10 11 (4.45%) Serverless
11 10 (4.05%) Power Platform
12 9 (3.64%) Azure AKS
12 9 (3.64%) Azure Key Vault
13 8 (3.24%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (3.24%) AWS Lambda
13 8 (3.24%) SaaS
14 7 (2.83%) Azure App Service
15 6 (2.43%) Amazon Bedrock
15 6 (2.43%) AWS Step Functions
15 6 (2.43%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 21 (8.50%) Firewall
2 20 (8.10%) DNS
2 20 (8.10%) TCP/IP
3 17 (6.88%) BGP
4 12 (4.86%) MPLS
4 12 (4.86%) VPN
4 12 (4.86%) WAN
5 11 (4.45%) DHCP
6 10 (4.05%) LAN
7 7 (2.83%) Network Security
8 6 (2.43%) 5G
8 6 (2.43%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (2.43%) DNSSEC
8 6 (2.43%) LTE
8 6 (2.43%) Radio Access Network
8 6 (2.43%) VoLTE
8 6 (2.43%) VoWiFi
8 6 (2.43%) Wireshark
9 5 (2.02%) VLAN
9 5 (2.02%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.72%) SQL Server
2 19 (7.69%) NoSQL
3 14 (5.67%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (4.05%) Power BI
4 10 (4.05%) Relational Database
5 9 (3.64%) MongoDB
6 7 (2.83%) Azure SQL Database
6 7 (2.83%) Big Data
7 6 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (2.02%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.62%) Hadoop
9 4 (1.62%) MySQL
9 4 (1.62%) Tableau
10 2 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.81%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.81%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.81%) Metadata
10 2 (0.81%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.81%) Parquet
10 2 (0.81%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 29 (11.74%) Git
2 19 (7.69%) Jenkins
3 14 (5.67%) GitLab
4 7 (2.83%) JIRA
5 2 (0.81%) Introscope
5 2 (0.81%) Jaeger
5 2 (0.81%) JMeter
5 2 (0.81%) MLflow
5 2 (0.81%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.40%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.40%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.40%) NeoLoad
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle Developer 2000
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.40%) Selenium
General
1 81 (32.79%) Social Skills
2 56 (22.67%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (14.98%) Documentation Skills
4 36 (14.57%) Public Sector
5 24 (9.72%) Aerospace
6 13 (5.26%) Telecoms
7 11 (4.45%) Military
8 5 (2.02%) Finance
8 5 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.81%) Marketing
10 2 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.40%) Advertising
11 1 (0.40%) Banking
11 1 (0.40%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 38 (15.38%) Senior
2 36 (14.57%) Developer
3 30 (12.15%) Data Engineer
4 27 (10.93%) Python Developer
5 22 (8.91%) Architect
6 13 (5.26%) IAM Specialist
7 12 (4.86%) Data Scientist
7 12 (4.86%) Network Architect
8 11 (4.45%) Senior Data Engineer
9 10 (4.05%) Platform Engineer
10 9 (3.64%) Analyst
10 9 (3.64%) Lead
11 8 (3.24%) Full-Stack Developer
11 8 (3.24%) Systems Engineer
12 7 (2.83%) Cloud Engineer
13 6 (2.43%) Consultant
13 6 (2.43%) DevSecOps Engineer
13 6 (2.43%) Technical Leader
14 5 (2.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 5 (2.02%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (22.67%) Terraform
2 20 (8.10%) LDAP
2 20 (8.10%) OAuth
2 20 (8.10%) RESTful
3 19 (7.69%) REST
4 18 (7.29%) SAML
5 17 (6.88%) OpenID
5 17 (6.88%) PySpark
6 16 (6.48%) .NET
7 15 (6.07%) SailPoint
8 14 (5.67%) FastAPI
8 14 (5.67%) OAuth2
8 14 (5.67%) Web Services
9 11 (4.45%) ARM Templates
9 11 (4.45%) Kafka
10 10 (4.05%) Flask
10 10 (4.05%) NETCONF
11 9 (3.64%) RabbitMQ
11 9 (3.64%) YANG
12 8 (3.24%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 30 (12.15%) Hybrid Cloud
1 30 (12.15%) Onboarding
2 26 (10.53%) Cloud Native
3 17 (6.88%) Algorithms
4 16 (6.48%) Distributed Systems
5 14 (5.67%) Management Information System
6 11 (4.45%) Data Structures
7 8 (3.24%) Data Centre
8 7 (2.83%) AI Agents
8 7 (2.83%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 7 (2.83%) Product Ownership
9 5 (2.02%) Greenfield Project
9 5 (2.02%) Security Posture
10 4 (1.62%) Distributed Computing
10 4 (1.62%) Life Science
10 4 (1.62%) Private Cloud
11 3 (1.21%) Clustering
11 3 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.21%) Enterprise Cloud
11 3 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 55 (22.27%) Linux
2 42 (17.00%) Windows
3 30 (12.15%) Unix
4 16 (6.48%) Windows Server
5 9 (3.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.81%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (0.81%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (34.41%) DevOps
2 80 (32.39%) CI/CD
3 66 (26.72%) Problem-Solving
4 64 (25.91%) Analytics
5 50 (20.24%) Infrastructure as Code
6 49 (19.84%) Runbook
7 41 (16.60%) Agile
8 38 (15.38%) Computer Science
9 34 (13.77%) ITSM
9 34 (13.77%) Platform Engineering
9 34 (13.77%) SIEM
10 33 (13.36%) Data Pipeline
11 32 (12.96%) Change Control
11 32 (12.96%) Data Engineering
12 31 (12.55%) Data Science
13 30 (12.15%) AI
14 29 (11.74%) Continuous Improvement
14 29 (11.74%) Machine Learning
15 26 (10.53%) Cybersecurity
16 25 (10.12%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 101 (40.89%) PowerShell
2 56 (22.67%) SQL
3 47 (19.03%) Bash
4 15 (6.07%) Go
5 14 (5.67%) Java
6 13 (5.26%) C#
7 11 (4.45%) Bicep
8 5 (2.02%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.62%) Perl
10 3 (1.21%) JavaScript
10 3 (1.21%) PL/SQL
10 3 (1.21%) Scala
11 2 (0.81%) Jython
11 2 (0.81%) R
11 2 (0.81%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.40%) Groovy
12 1 (0.40%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 116 (46.96%) Security Cleared
2 101 (40.89%) SC Cleared
3 42 (17.00%) Degree
4 21 (8.50%) Cisco Certification
5 17 (6.88%) CISSP
6 15 (6.07%) Azure Certification
7 12 (4.86%) CCIE
8 11 (4.45%) AWS Certification
8 11 (4.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (4.05%) BPSS Clearance
9 10 (4.05%) JNCIE
10 9 (3.64%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (3.24%) DV Cleared
12 7 (2.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 7 (2.83%) CISM
13 5 (2.02%) RHCE
13 5 (2.02%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 4 (1.62%) CEH
14 4 (1.62%) CompTIA Security+
15 3 (1.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (18.22%) NIST
2 43 (17.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 27 (10.93%) Data Quality
4 11 (4.45%) GDPR
5 7 (2.83%) QA
6 6 (2.43%) NCSC
6 6 (2.43%) SLA
7 3 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.81%) GRC
8 2 (0.81%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.40%) JTAG
System Software
1 50 (20.24%) Active Directory
2 22 (8.91%) Docker
3 8 (3.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.43%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.81%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.81%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 56 (22.67%) Kubernetes
2 46 (18.62%) Ansible
3 8 (3.24%) Grafana
4 6 (2.43%) Prometheus
4 6 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (2.02%) Istio
6 4 (1.62%) Progress Chef
6 4 (1.62%) Puppet
7 2 (0.81%) CA Wily
7 2 (0.81%) CASB
7 2 (0.81%) Tivoli
8 1 (0.40%) Amdocs OSS
8 1 (0.40%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.40%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.40%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.40%) Rancher
8 1 (0.40%) SCOM
8 1 (0.40%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 67 (27.13%) Microsoft
2 30 (12.15%) CyberArk
3 27 (10.93%) BeyondTrust
4 26 (10.53%) Databricks
5 18 (7.29%) Oracle
6 15 (6.07%) Google
7 13 (5.26%) Red Hat
8 12 (4.86%) VMware
9 11 (4.45%) Cisco
10 8 (3.24%) Nokia
11 7 (2.83%) F5
12 6 (2.43%) BT
12 6 (2.43%) Ericsson
12 6 (2.43%) Huawei
12 6 (2.43%) Infoblox
12 6 (2.43%) Juniper
13 5 (2.02%) Fortinet
13 5 (2.02%) Splunk
14 4 (1.62%) IBM
15 3 (1.21%) SolarWinds