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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 12 35
Rank change year-on-year -10 +23 -8
Contract jobs citing Python 240 168 143
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 8.71% 11.09% 5.07%
As % of the Programming Languages category 46.51% 39.53% 25.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 182 96 103
10th Percentile £349 £355 £375
25th Percentile £403 £471 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.54% -0.48% +2.44%
75th Percentile £573 £600 £605
90th Percentile £650 £638 £675
South East median daily rate £500 £529 £525
% change year-on-year -5.44% +0.71% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 8
10th Percentile £27.02 - £59.38
25th Percentile £48.94 - -
Median hourly rate £76.80 - £65.00
75th Percentile £82.88 - £67.50
90th Percentile £84.65 - £68.25
South East median hourly rate £47.50 £61.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year -22.45% -5.77% +46.89%

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 516 425 551
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.72% 28.05% 19.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 381 269 384
10th Percentile £322 £325 £359
25th Percentile £403 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% - +4.58%
75th Percentile £575 £638 £608
90th Percentile £638 £700 £673
South East median daily rate £500 £513 £511
% change year-on-year -2.44% +0.29% -2.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 30
10th Percentile £27.45 £27.43 £33.94
25th Percentile £70.00 £46.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £76.80 £55.87 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year +37.46% -4.16% +2.51%
75th Percentile £82.25 £65.62 £65.00
90th Percentile £84.20 £69.09 £67.63
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £57.65 £59.00
% change year-on-year -4.59% -2.30% +7.27%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 25 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
Berkshire -7 184 £465 -8.37% 67
Buckinghamshire -5 37 £515 -5.50% 30
Oxfordshire +1 19 £575 +35.29% 65
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 4 (1.67%) Apache
1 4 (1.67%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.83%) ArcGIS
2 2 (0.83%) Confluence
2 2 (0.83%) IBM HTTP Server
2 2 (0.83%) OpenStack
2 2 (0.83%) Oracle HTTP Server
2 2 (0.83%) WebSphere
2 2 (0.83%) WebSphere Application Server
2 2 (0.83%) WebSphere Portal
3 1 (0.42%) Jupyter
Applications
1 5 (2.08%) MS Visio
2 4 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.67%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.25%) CPLEX
Cloud Services
1 108 (45.00%) Azure
2 90 (37.50%) AWS
3 52 (21.67%) GCP
4 22 (9.17%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (9.17%) GitHub
5 19 (7.92%) OpenShift
6 13 (5.42%) GitHub Actions
7 11 (4.58%) Power Platform
8 9 (3.75%) Azure Monitor
8 9 (3.75%) Entra ID
8 9 (3.75%) Serverless
9 8 (3.33%) IaaS
10 7 (2.92%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (2.92%) Azure Functions
10 7 (2.92%) Azure Sentinel
11 6 (2.50%) Azure Key Vault
11 6 (2.50%) dbt
12 5 (2.08%) Azure AKS
12 5 (2.08%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (1.67%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 16 (6.67%) DNS
2 15 (6.25%) Network Security
3 11 (4.58%) Firewall
3 11 (4.58%) TCP/IP
4 8 (3.33%) BGP
4 8 (3.33%) MPLS
4 8 (3.33%) WAN
5 7 (2.92%) Wireshark
6 5 (2.08%) SNMP
6 5 (2.08%) SSL
7 4 (1.67%) DHCP
7 4 (1.67%) TACACS
7 4 (1.67%) VoIP
8 3 (1.25%) LAN
8 3 (1.25%) SSH
8 3 (1.25%) VPN
9 2 (0.83%) 2G
9 2 (0.83%) HTTP
9 2 (0.83%) LTE
9 2 (0.83%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (9.17%) Relational Database
2 16 (6.67%) MySQL
2 16 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (5.00%) SQL Server
4 11 (4.58%) Power BI
5 10 (4.17%) Big Data
5 10 (4.17%) NoSQL
6 7 (2.92%) MongoDB
6 7 (2.92%) Tableau
7 6 (2.50%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (2.50%) Hadoop
8 4 (1.67%) Data Lake
9 3 (1.25%) Parquet
10 2 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.83%) Data Mining
10 2 (0.83%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.83%) Metadata
11 1 (0.42%) Delta Lake
11 1 (0.42%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 25 (10.42%) Git
2 19 (7.92%) Jenkins
3 6 (2.50%) Burp Suite
3 6 (2.50%) Metasploit
4 5 (2.08%) GitLab
4 5 (2.08%) JIRA
5 3 (1.25%) Jaeger
6 2 (0.83%) Introscope
7 1 (0.42%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.42%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.42%) JUnit
7 1 (0.42%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.42%) Storybook
7 1 (0.42%) Visual Studio
General
1 109 (45.42%) Social Skills
2 53 (22.08%) Analytical Skills
3 29 (12.08%) Documentation Skills
4 28 (11.67%) Public Sector
5 5 (2.08%) Finance
6 3 (1.25%) Billing
6 3 (1.25%) Telecoms
7 2 (0.83%) Advertising
7 2 (0.83%) Aerospace
7 2 (0.83%) Banking
7 2 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (0.83%) Legal
7 2 (0.83%) Retail
8 1 (0.42%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.42%) Marketing
8 1 (0.42%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 43 (17.92%) Senior
2 28 (11.67%) SIEM Engineer
3 23 (9.58%) Developer
4 16 (6.67%) Data Engineer
5 14 (5.83%) Architect
6 13 (5.42%) DevOps Engineer
7 12 (5.00%) Azure Engineer
7 12 (5.00%) Python Developer
8 11 (4.58%) Analyst
8 11 (4.58%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 11 (4.58%) Tester
9 10 (4.17%) Site Engineer
10 9 (3.75%) Technical Support
11 8 (3.33%) Security Engineer
12 7 (2.92%) Azure DevOps Engineer
13 6 (2.50%) Cloud Engineer
13 6 (2.50%) Data Scientist
13 6 (2.50%) Penetration Tester
13 6 (2.50%) Platform Engineer
13 6 (2.50%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (10.83%) LDAP
2 17 (7.08%) .NET
2 17 (7.08%) REST
3 14 (5.83%) Loki
4 11 (4.58%) OAuth
5 10 (4.17%) PySpark
6 9 (3.75%) React
6 9 (3.75%) RESTful
7 8 (3.33%) GraphQL
7 8 (3.33%) Node.js
8 7 (2.92%) .NET Core
8 7 (2.92%) FastAPI
8 7 (2.92%) Kafka
8 7 (2.92%) Pandas
9 6 (2.50%) Middleware
9 6 (2.50%) NETCONF
9 6 (2.50%) NumPy
9 6 (2.50%) OAuth2
9 6 (2.50%) OpenID
9 6 (2.50%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 24 (10.00%) Onboarding
2 23 (9.58%) Cloud Native
3 17 (7.08%) Distributed Systems
4 13 (5.42%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (5.00%) Algorithms
6 11 (4.58%) Cyber Security Posture
7 8 (3.33%) Analytical Mindset
7 8 (3.33%) Enterprise Software
7 8 (3.33%) Operational Technology
7 8 (3.33%) PKI
7 8 (3.33%) Virtual Team
8 7 (2.92%) Security Posture
9 6 (2.50%) Management Information System
10 5 (2.08%) Clustering
10 5 (2.08%) Data Centre
10 5 (2.08%) Security Operations Centre
11 4 (1.67%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (1.25%) Distributed Architecture
12 3 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 64 (26.67%) Linux
2 32 (13.33%) Windows
3 15 (6.25%) Unix
4 12 (5.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 6 (2.50%) Kali Linux
5 6 (2.50%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.83%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (0.83%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
6 2 (0.83%) VMS
7 1 (0.42%) Debian
7 1 (0.42%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.42%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (40.42%) CI/CD
2 84 (35.00%) DevOps
2 84 (35.00%) Problem-Solving
3 73 (30.42%) SIEM
4 57 (23.75%) Cybersecurity
5 39 (16.25%) Agile
6 36 (15.00%) Infrastructure as Code
7 35 (14.58%) DevSecOps
8 34 (14.17%) Analytics
9 30 (12.50%) AI
10 27 (11.25%) Observability
11 26 (10.83%) Containerisation
12 24 (10.00%) Site Reliability Engineering
13 23 (9.58%) Data Analysis
13 23 (9.58%) Stakeholder Management
14 22 (9.17%) Computer Science
15 20 (8.33%) Analytical Thinking
15 20 (8.33%) Machine Learning
15 20 (8.33%) Threat Detection
16 19 (7.92%) Incident Response
Programming Languages
1 113 (47.08%) PowerShell
2 54 (22.50%) Bash
3 47 (19.58%) SQL
4 26 (10.83%) JavaScript
5 25 (10.42%) Java
6 24 (10.00%) Kusto Query Language
7 17 (7.08%) Go
8 13 (5.42%) C#
9 12 (5.00%) Perl
10 7 (2.92%) PHP
11 6 (2.50%) R
12 4 (1.67%) TypeScript
13 3 (1.25%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.83%) Bicep
14 2 (0.83%) Jython
14 2 (0.83%) Rust
14 2 (0.83%) Scala
15 1 (0.42%) C++
15 1 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.42%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 125 (52.08%) Security Cleared
2 102 (42.50%) SC Cleared
3 42 (17.50%) CISSP
4 24 (10.00%) CISM
5 22 (9.17%) Degree
6 19 (7.92%) CEH
7 16 (6.67%) GIAC
8 14 (5.83%) DV Cleared
9 12 (5.00%) Computer Science Degree
10 9 (3.75%) AWS Certification
11 8 (3.33%) CCIE
11 8 (3.33%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (2.92%) Azure Certification
13 6 (2.50%) GPEN
13 6 (2.50%) JNCIE
13 6 (2.50%) OSCP
14 5 (2.08%) GCFA
14 5 (2.08%) GCIA
14 5 (2.08%) GCIH
15 4 (1.67%) CFCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (16.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 39 (16.25%) NIST
2 34 (14.17%) GDPR
3 12 (5.00%) Data Quality
4 6 (2.50%) QA
5 4 (1.67%) PCI DSS
6 3 (1.25%) GRC
7 2 (0.83%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.42%) NCSC
System Software
1 39 (16.25%) Active Directory
2 31 (12.92%) Docker
3 17 (7.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (5.83%) vSphere
5 6 (2.50%) VMware NSX
6 5 (2.08%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 51 (21.25%) Kubernetes
2 31 (12.92%) Terraform
3 26 (10.83%) Ansible
4 24 (10.00%) Grafana
4 24 (10.00%) Prometheus
5 19 (7.92%) Argo
6 13 (5.42%) Kibana
7 11 (4.58%) Kustomize
8 6 (2.50%) Nmap
8 6 (2.50%) vCenter Server
9 5 (2.08%) Rancher
10 3 (1.25%) Istio
10 3 (1.25%) Nessus
10 3 (1.25%) OpenVAS
10 3 (1.25%) Podman
10 3 (1.25%) Proxmox
11 2 (0.83%) CA Wily
11 2 (0.83%) Cisco CUCM
11 2 (0.83%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
11 2 (0.83%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 35 (14.58%) Microsoft
2 30 (12.50%) BeyondTrust
2 30 (12.50%) CyberArk
3 20 (8.33%) VMware
4 19 (7.92%) Red Hat
5 15 (6.25%) Databricks
5 15 (6.25%) Tanium
6 14 (5.83%) Oracle
7 12 (5.00%) FireEye
8 10 (4.17%) Splunk
9 7 (2.92%) LogRhythm
10 6 (2.50%) AppDynamics
10 6 (2.50%) Cisco
10 6 (2.50%) Juniper
10 6 (2.50%) Pure Storage
11 5 (2.08%) F5
11 5 (2.08%) Fortinet
12 4 (1.67%) ArcSight
12 4 (1.67%) Dynatrace
12 4 (1.67%) Google