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 14 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 16 32
Rank change year-on-year +1 +16 +1
Contract jobs citing Python 226 176 144
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 10.74% 9.93% 5.98%
As % of the Programming Languages category 51.48% 36.67% 27.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 160 101 105
10th Percentile £335 £400 £362
25th Percentile £406 £481 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.41% - -
75th Percentile £550 £638 £638
90th Percentile £613 £650 £700
South East median daily rate £481 £550 £525
% change year-on-year -12.50% +4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 3
10th Percentile £72.40 - -
25th Percentile £76.00 £27.75 -
Median hourly rate £82.00 £28.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year +187.72% -57.78% -10.60%
75th Percentile £84.00 £29.25 £68.75
90th Percentile £85.20 - £69.50
South East median hourly rate £47.50 £42.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year +13.10% -37.78% +50.00%

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 439 480 520
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 20.86% 27.09% 21.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 311 300 377
10th Percentile £335 £375 £350
25th Percentile £406 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% -
75th Percentile £561 £638 £615
90th Percentile £625 £675 £675
South East median daily rate £483 £503 £525
% change year-on-year -3.86% -4.29% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 9 18
10th Percentile £39.25 £47.55 £29.41
25th Percentile £70.00 £55.87 £47.50
Median hourly rate £75.00 £56.75 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.17% +13.49% -16.67%
75th Percentile £82.00 £65.62 £59.91
90th Percentile £84.40 £75.33 £68.25
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £57.25 £59.00
% change year-on-year -3.93% -2.97% -1.67%

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 14 January 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
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 14 January 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 +2 180 £475 -13.64% 283
Buckinghamshire +6 34 £513 -6.82% 45
Oxfordshire -6 12 £525 +23.53% 76
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 12 (5.31%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.21%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.77%) Apache
4 2 (0.88%) Appian
4 2 (0.88%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.44%) Confluence
5 1 (0.44%) nginx
Applications
1 3 (1.33%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 99 (43.81%) Azure
2 95 (42.04%) AWS
3 50 (22.12%) GCP
4 20 (8.85%) OpenShift
5 18 (7.96%) GitHub
6 14 (6.19%) Azure DevOps
6 14 (6.19%) Serverless
7 11 (4.87%) AWS CloudFormation
8 10 (4.42%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (4.42%) IaaS
9 9 (3.98%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (3.54%) Power Platform
11 7 (3.10%) Azure AKS
12 6 (2.65%) Azure Functions
13 5 (2.21%) Azure Machine Learning
13 5 (2.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 5 (2.21%) Datadog
13 5 (2.21%) dbt
13 5 (2.21%) Entra ID
13 5 (2.21%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 15 (6.64%) Network Security
2 14 (6.19%) BGP
2 14 (6.19%) DNS
2 14 (6.19%) MPLS
2 14 (6.19%) WAN
3 12 (5.31%) LAN
4 11 (4.87%) Firewall
5 8 (3.54%) SNMP
5 8 (3.54%) TACACS
5 8 (3.54%) TCP/IP
5 8 (3.54%) Wireshark
6 6 (2.65%) OSPF
6 6 (2.65%) Wireless
7 4 (1.77%) DHCP
8 3 (1.33%) 2G
8 3 (1.33%) 5G
8 3 (1.33%) SSL
8 3 (1.33%) VoIP
9 2 (0.88%) LTE
9 2 (0.88%) Mobile Backhaul
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (8.41%) Relational Database
2 13 (5.75%) MySQL
2 13 (5.75%) NoSQL
3 8 (3.54%) Big Data
3 8 (3.54%) Data Warehouse
3 8 (3.54%) Power BI
4 7 (3.10%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (2.65%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (2.65%) Amazon Redshift
5 6 (2.65%) Data Lake
5 6 (2.65%) Hadoop
5 6 (2.65%) MongoDB
6 5 (2.21%) Couchbase
6 5 (2.21%) SQL Server
7 4 (1.77%) Tableau
8 2 (0.88%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.88%) Data Mining
8 2 (0.88%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.88%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 19 (8.41%) Jenkins
2 17 (7.52%) Git
3 8 (3.54%) Burp Suite
3 8 (3.54%) Metasploit
4 7 (3.10%) JIRA
5 6 (2.65%) GitLab
6 2 (0.88%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.88%) Cucumber
6 2 (0.88%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.88%) Selenium
6 2 (0.88%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.44%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.44%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.44%) MLflow
7 1 (0.44%) Mocha
7 1 (0.44%) Visual Studio
General
1 115 (50.88%) Social Skills
2 50 (22.12%) Analytical Skills
3 28 (12.39%) Documentation Skills
4 18 (7.96%) Public Sector
5 8 (3.54%) Finance
6 7 (3.10%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.33%) Billing
7 3 (1.33%) Legal
8 2 (0.88%) Banking
8 2 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.88%) Retail
9 1 (0.44%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.44%) Digital Healthcare
9 1 (0.44%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 30 (13.27%) Senior
2 19 (8.41%) SIEM Engineer
3 17 (7.52%) Architect
3 17 (7.52%) Data Engineer
4 16 (7.08%) Developer
4 16 (7.08%) DevOps Engineer
5 11 (4.87%) Analyst
6 10 (4.42%) Cloud Engineer
6 10 (4.42%) Site Engineer
6 10 (4.42%) Site Reliability Engineer
6 10 (4.42%) Tester
7 9 (3.98%) Azure Engineer
8 8 (3.54%) Data Scientist
8 8 (3.54%) IP Specialist
8 8 (3.54%) Penetration Tester
8 8 (3.54%) Platform Engineer
8 8 (3.54%) Senior Data Engineer
8 8 (3.54%) Technical Support
9 7 (3.10%) AWS Engineer
9 7 (3.10%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (9.29%) LDAP
2 18 (7.96%) REST
3 11 (4.87%) PySpark
4 10 (4.42%) NETCONF
4 10 (4.42%) scikit-learn
5 9 (3.98%) GraphQL
5 9 (3.98%) OAuth
5 9 (3.98%) YANG
6 8 (3.54%) .NET
6 8 (3.54%) Kafka
6 8 (3.54%) Loki
7 7 (3.10%) Pandas
8 6 (2.65%) .NET Core
8 6 (2.65%) Node.js
8 6 (2.65%) NumPy
8 6 (2.65%) OAuth2
8 6 (2.65%) PyTorch
8 6 (2.65%) TensorFlow
9 5 (2.21%) OpenID
10 4 (1.77%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 25 (11.06%) Cloud Native
2 16 (7.08%) Onboarding
3 15 (6.64%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (5.75%) Algorithms
5 12 (5.31%) Cyber Security Posture
6 11 (4.87%) Distributed Systems
7 9 (3.98%) Data Centre
8 8 (3.54%) Virtual Team
9 7 (3.10%) PKI
10 6 (2.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
10 6 (2.65%) Replication
11 5 (2.21%) Operational Technology
12 4 (1.77%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (1.77%) Security Operations Centre
13 3 (1.33%) Distributed Computing
13 3 (1.33%) IoT
13 3 (1.33%) Management Information System
13 3 (1.33%) Security Posture
14 2 (0.88%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 59 (26.11%) Linux
2 22 (9.73%) Windows
3 17 (7.52%) Unix
4 8 (3.54%) Kali Linux
4 8 (3.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.44%) Debian
5 1 (0.44%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.44%) VMS
5 1 (0.44%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (45.13%) CI/CD
2 79 (34.96%) Problem-Solving
3 77 (34.07%) DevOps
4 58 (25.66%) SIEM
5 52 (23.01%) Cybersecurity
6 33 (14.60%) Infrastructure as Code
7 31 (13.72%) DevSecOps
8 29 (12.83%) Agile
9 26 (11.50%) Containerisation
10 25 (11.06%) High Availability
11 24 (10.62%) Computer Science
12 22 (9.73%) Machine Learning
12 22 (9.73%) Test Automation
13 21 (9.29%) AI
13 21 (9.29%) Analytical Thinking
14 20 (8.85%) Data Modelling
14 20 (8.85%) Incident Response
15 18 (7.96%) Observability
15 18 (7.96%) Threat Detection
15 18 (7.96%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 86 (38.05%) PowerShell
2 52 (23.01%) SQL
3 48 (21.24%) Bash
4 27 (11.95%) Java
5 24 (10.62%) JavaScript
6 14 (6.19%) Shell Script
7 13 (5.75%) Kusto Query Language
8 9 (3.98%) Go
9 8 (3.54%) Perl
9 8 (3.54%) R
10 7 (3.10%) C#
11 6 (2.65%) PHP
12 4 (1.77%) Search Processing Language
13 2 (0.88%) Rust
14 1 (0.44%) C
14 1 (0.44%) C++
14 1 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.44%) Ruby
14 1 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 93 (41.15%) Security Cleared
2 79 (34.96%) SC Cleared
3 39 (17.26%) CISSP
4 24 (10.62%) Degree
5 23 (10.18%) CEH
6 20 (8.85%) CISM
7 19 (8.41%) AWS Certification
7 19 (8.41%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (7.52%) GIAC
9 16 (7.08%) Cisco Certification
10 15 (6.64%) CCIE
11 14 (6.19%) JNCIE
12 8 (3.54%) GPEN
12 8 (3.54%) OSCP
13 6 (2.65%) DV Cleared
14 5 (2.21%) GCFA
14 5 (2.21%) GCIA
14 5 (2.21%) GCIH
15 4 (1.77%) CFCE
15 4 (1.77%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (13.27%) NIST
2 29 (12.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (12.39%) GDPR
4 10 (4.42%) Data Quality
5 9 (3.98%) QA
6 7 (3.10%) HIPAA
7 4 (1.77%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.44%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 33 (14.60%) Docker
2 31 (13.72%) Active Directory
3 23 (10.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (6.64%) vSphere
5 13 (5.75%) VMware NSX
6 4 (1.77%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.44%) NDS
8 1 (0.44%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 52 (23.01%) Kubernetes
2 42 (18.58%) Terraform
3 40 (17.70%) Ansible
4 16 (7.08%) Grafana
5 15 (6.64%) Argo
5 15 (6.64%) Prometheus
6 11 (4.87%) Kibana
7 8 (3.54%) Kustomize
7 8 (3.54%) Nmap
8 6 (2.65%) vCenter Server
9 4 (1.77%) QRadar
10 3 (1.33%) Podman
10 3 (1.33%) Proxmox
10 3 (1.33%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.88%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
11 2 (0.88%) logstash
12 1 (0.44%) Cisco CUCM
12 1 (0.44%) Puppet
12 1 (0.44%) vRealize
12 1 (0.44%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 28 (12.39%) Microsoft
2 26 (11.50%) VMware
3 21 (9.29%) BeyondTrust
3 21 (9.29%) CyberArk
4 19 (8.41%) Splunk
5 17 (7.52%) Red Hat
6 15 (6.64%) Databricks
7 11 (4.87%) Cisco
7 11 (4.87%) Tanium
8 10 (4.42%) FireEye
8 10 (4.42%) Oracle
9 8 (3.54%) ArcSight
9 8 (3.54%) F5
9 8 (3.54%) Fortinet
9 8 (3.54%) Juniper
10 6 (2.65%) Google
10 6 (2.65%) Pure Storage
11 5 (2.21%) Confluent
11 5 (2.21%) IBM
11 5 (2.21%) LogRhythm