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 8 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 17 35
Rank change year-on-year -3 +18 -11
Contract jobs citing Python 251 134 141
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 8.54% 9.06% 5.33%
As % of the Programming Languages category 45.39% 35.08% 27.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 178 82 104
10th Percentile £330 £350 £339
25th Percentile £400 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.05% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
South East median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 0 8
10th Percentile £37.44 - £59.38
25th Percentile £43.81 - -
Median hourly rate £52.50 - £65.00
75th Percentile £80.20 - £67.50
90th Percentile £83.75 - £70.50
South East median hourly rate £48.50 £56.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -13.78% -13.46% +165.74%

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 553 382 522
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.81% 25.83% 19.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 396 240 359
10th Percentile £310 £349 £350
25th Percentile £399 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £608
90th Percentile £638 £700 £670
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £500
% change year-on-year -2.44% +2.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 7 30
10th Percentile - £26.49 £33.94
25th Percentile £43.81 £40.75 £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year - -5.66% +2.51%
75th Percentile £82.25 £65.62 £65.00
90th Percentile £83.75 £70.25 £67.63
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £56.75 £60.07
% change year-on-year -3.08% -5.53% +9.22%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 -1 174 £447 -10.60% 54
Buckinghamshire -2 43 £525 +47.89% 27
Oxfordshire +4 34 £563 +43.31% 55
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 9 (3.59%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.59%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.59%) WebSphere
2 4 (1.59%) WebSphere Application Server
3 2 (0.80%) Apache
3 2 (0.80%) ArcGIS
3 2 (0.80%) IBM HTTP Server
3 2 (0.80%) JBoss
3 2 (0.80%) Oracle HTTP Server
3 2 (0.80%) WebSphere Portal
4 1 (0.40%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (1.99%) CPLEX
1 5 (1.99%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 113 (45.02%) Azure
2 89 (35.46%) AWS
3 51 (20.32%) GCP
4 20 (7.97%) Azure DevOps
5 18 (7.17%) GitHub
6 15 (5.98%) Entra ID
7 13 (5.18%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (3.59%) OpenShift
9 8 (3.19%) Azure Monitor
9 8 (3.19%) Power Platform
9 8 (3.19%) Serverless
10 7 (2.79%) Azure Key Vault
10 7 (2.79%) Azure Sentinel
11 6 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (2.39%) AWS Lambda
12 5 (1.99%) Amazon S3
12 5 (1.99%) Azure AKS
12 5 (1.99%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (1.59%) Azure Functions
13 4 (1.59%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.38%) Firewall
1 11 (4.38%) TCP/IP
2 10 (3.98%) BGP
2 10 (3.98%) MPLS
2 10 (3.98%) Network Security
2 10 (3.98%) WAN
3 7 (2.79%) DNS
3 7 (2.79%) Wireshark
4 5 (1.99%) 5G
4 5 (1.99%) Diameter Protocol
4 5 (1.99%) LAN
4 5 (1.99%) LTE
4 5 (1.99%) Radio Access Network
4 5 (1.99%) SNMP
4 5 (1.99%) VoLTE
4 5 (1.99%) VoWiFi
5 4 (1.59%) DHCP
5 4 (1.59%) SSH
5 4 (1.59%) TACACS
6 3 (1.20%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (9.56%) SQL Server
2 20 (7.97%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (7.17%) MySQL
3 18 (7.17%) Relational Database
4 13 (5.18%) NoSQL
5 8 (3.19%) Big Data
5 8 (3.19%) MongoDB
5 8 (3.19%) Power BI
6 7 (2.79%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.99%) Hadoop
7 5 (1.99%) Tableau
8 4 (1.59%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (1.59%) Data Lake
9 3 (1.20%) Parquet
10 2 (0.80%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.80%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.80%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.80%) Metadata
10 2 (0.80%) Redis
Development Applications
1 27 (10.76%) Git
2 12 (4.78%) Jenkins
3 6 (2.39%) GitLab
4 4 (1.59%) Jaeger
5 3 (1.20%) JIRA
6 2 (0.80%) Introscope
7 1 (0.40%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.40%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.40%) JUnit
7 1 (0.40%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.40%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.40%) Storybook
7 1 (0.40%) Visual Studio
General
1 86 (34.26%) Social Skills
2 41 (16.33%) Analytical Skills
3 37 (14.74%) Documentation Skills
4 35 (13.94%) Public Sector
5 5 (1.99%) Aerospace
5 5 (1.99%) Telecoms
6 2 (0.80%) Advertising
6 2 (0.80%) Finance
6 2 (0.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (0.80%) Military
7 1 (0.40%) Banking
7 1 (0.40%) Billing
7 1 (0.40%) Marketing
7 1 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.40%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (0.40%) Retail
Job Titles
1 46 (18.33%) Senior
2 41 (16.33%) Developer
3 29 (11.55%) Python Developer
4 25 (9.96%) SIEM Engineer
5 18 (7.17%) Data Engineer
6 10 (3.98%) DevOps Engineer
6 10 (3.98%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 9 (3.59%) Analyst
7 9 (3.59%) Architect
7 9 (3.59%) Senior Data Engineer
7 9 (3.59%) Senior Developer
7 9 (3.59%) Site Engineer
8 8 (3.19%) Platform Engineer
8 8 (3.19%) Technical Support
9 7 (2.79%) Azure Engineer
9 7 (2.79%) Full-Stack Developer
9 7 (2.79%) Security Engineer
10 6 (2.39%) DBA
10 6 (2.39%) IAM Specialist
10 6 (2.39%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (11.16%) LDAP
2 22 (8.76%) .NET
3 17 (6.77%) RESTful
4 15 (5.98%) REST
5 13 (5.18%) OAuth
6 10 (3.98%) FastAPI
6 10 (3.98%) React
7 9 (3.59%) Kafka
7 9 (3.59%) Web Services
8 8 (3.19%) Middleware
8 8 (3.19%) NETCONF
8 8 (3.19%) OAuth2
8 8 (3.19%) YANG
9 7 (2.79%) Loki
9 7 (2.79%) Node.js
9 7 (2.79%) OpenID
9 7 (2.79%) PySpark
9 7 (2.79%) SailPoint
9 7 (2.79%) SAML
10 6 (2.39%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 37 (14.74%) Onboarding
2 27 (10.76%) Distributed Systems
3 17 (6.77%) Cloud Native
4 15 (5.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 13 (5.18%) Algorithms
6 8 (3.19%) Cyber Security Posture
6 8 (3.19%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (3.19%) Management Information System
6 8 (3.19%) Operational Technology
7 6 (2.39%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (2.39%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.99%) Clustering
8 5 (1.99%) Data Centre
8 5 (1.99%) Data Structures
8 5 (1.99%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.99%) PKI
9 4 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.20%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (0.80%) AI Agents
11 2 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 59 (23.51%) Linux
2 38 (15.14%) Windows
3 31 (12.35%) Unix
4 10 (3.98%) Windows Server
5 6 (2.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.80%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (0.80%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
6 2 (0.80%) VMS
7 1 (0.40%) Debian
7 1 (0.40%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.40%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.40%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (33.86%) CI/CD
2 77 (30.68%) Problem-Solving
3 75 (29.88%) DevOps
4 74 (29.48%) SIEM
5 49 (19.52%) Cybersecurity
6 40 (15.94%) Analytics
7 29 (11.55%) DevSecOps
8 27 (10.76%) Agile
8 27 (10.76%) Computer Science
8 27 (10.76%) Runbook
9 25 (9.96%) Infrastructure as Code
10 24 (9.56%) High Availability
11 23 (9.16%) Containerisation
11 23 (9.16%) Data Analysis
11 23 (9.16%) Site Reliability Engineering
12 22 (8.76%) AI
12 22 (8.76%) Machine Learning
13 21 (8.37%) Data Pipeline
13 21 (8.37%) Microservices
13 21 (8.37%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 114 (45.42%) PowerShell
2 43 (17.13%) SQL
3 40 (15.94%) Bash
4 30 (11.95%) Go
5 26 (10.36%) Java
6 21 (8.37%) JavaScript
6 21 (8.37%) Kusto Query Language
7 18 (7.17%) C#
8 13 (5.18%) Perl
9 5 (1.99%) T-SQL
9 5 (1.99%) TypeScript
10 4 (1.59%) PHP
11 3 (1.20%) R
12 2 (0.80%) Bicep
12 2 (0.80%) Jython
12 2 (0.80%) Rust
12 2 (0.80%) Scala
12 2 (0.80%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.40%) C++
13 1 (0.40%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 129 (51.39%) Security Cleared
2 109 (43.43%) SC Cleared
3 32 (12.75%) CISSP
4 28 (11.16%) Degree
5 21 (8.37%) CISM
6 12 (4.78%) DV Cleared
7 11 (4.38%) CEH
7 11 (4.38%) GIAC
8 9 (3.59%) CCIE
8 9 (3.59%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (3.19%) JNCIE
10 7 (2.79%) AWS Certification
10 7 (2.79%) Azure Certification
10 7 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
11 5 (1.99%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (1.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (1.59%) RHCE
13 3 (1.20%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 2 (0.80%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (18.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 46 (18.33%) NIST
3 28 (11.16%) GDPR
4 10 (3.98%) Data Quality
5 5 (1.99%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.99%) SLA
6 4 (1.59%) GRC
6 4 (1.59%) QA
7 1 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.40%) NCSC
System Software
1 51 (20.32%) Active Directory
2 27 (10.76%) Docker
3 5 (1.99%) Hyper-V
3 5 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 50 (19.92%) Kubernetes
2 26 (10.36%) Terraform
3 23 (9.16%) Ansible
4 16 (6.37%) Grafana
4 16 (6.37%) Prometheus
5 10 (3.98%) Kibana
6 6 (2.39%) Rancher
7 4 (1.59%) Argo
7 4 (1.59%) Istio
8 3 (1.20%) Kustomize
8 3 (1.20%) Nessus
8 3 (1.20%) OpenVAS
8 3 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.80%) CA Wily
9 2 (0.80%) Tivoli
10 1 (0.40%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 1 (0.40%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.40%) Nmap
10 1 (0.40%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.40%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 38 (15.14%) BeyondTrust
1 38 (15.14%) CyberArk
1 38 (15.14%) Microsoft
2 20 (7.97%) Oracle
3 13 (5.18%) Databricks
4 12 (4.78%) Tanium
5 10 (3.98%) Red Hat
6 9 (3.59%) FireEye
7 8 (3.19%) Splunk
8 6 (2.39%) AppDynamics
8 6 (2.39%) Juniper
8 6 (2.39%) VMware
9 5 (1.99%) BT
9 5 (1.99%) Cisco
9 5 (1.99%) Ericsson
9 5 (1.99%) F5
9 5 (1.99%) Fortinet
9 5 (1.99%) Huawei
9 5 (1.99%) LogRhythm
9 5 (1.99%) Nokia