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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 18 27
Rank change year-on-year -3 +9 +1
Contract jobs citing Python 234 135 161
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 7.75% 9.27% 6.13%
As % of the Programming Languages category 42.62% 34.35% 30.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 169 85 120
10th Percentile £332 £350 £330
25th Percentile £400 £450 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £585 £575 £623
90th Percentile £678 £623 £653
South East median daily rate £525 £509 £525
% change year-on-year +3.19% -3.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 0 8
10th Percentile £34.25 - £59.38
25th Percentile £43.81 - -
Median hourly rate £52.50 - £65.00
75th Percentile £67.60 - £67.50
90th Percentile £83.05 - £70.50
South East median hourly rate £47.54 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year -13.56% -15.38% +185.97%

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 549 393 531
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 18.18% 26.97% 20.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 252 365
10th Percentile £310 £360 £335
25th Percentile £392 £450 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £608
90th Percentile £650 £700 £650
South East median daily rate £500 £505 £501
% change year-on-year -0.99% +0.80% -4.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 6 29
10th Percentile £27.66 £25.55 £32.89
25th Percentile £43.81 £35.50 £46.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £58.12 £58.30
Median % change year-on-year -9.67% -0.30% +2.51%
75th Percentile £82.25 £65.62 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.40 £71.40 £67.75
South East median hourly rate £53.75 £55.00 £61.60
% change year-on-year -2.27% -10.71% +12.00%

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 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 29 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 29 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 -6 152 £450 -10.00% 51
Buckinghamshire -9 42 £525 +50.00% 23
Oxfordshire +5 40 £575 +35.29% 36
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 11 (4.70%) OpenStack
2 4 (1.71%) Apache Spark
2 4 (1.71%) WebSphere
2 4 (1.71%) WebSphere Application Server
3 2 (0.85%) Apache
3 2 (0.85%) ArcGIS
3 2 (0.85%) IBM HTTP Server
3 2 (0.85%) JBoss
3 2 (0.85%) Oracle HTTP Server
3 2 (0.85%) WebSphere Portal
4 1 (0.43%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (2.14%) CPLEX
2 3 (1.28%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.43%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 100 (42.74%) Azure
2 78 (33.33%) AWS
3 44 (18.80%) GCP
4 18 (7.69%) Azure DevOps
4 18 (7.69%) Entra ID
5 13 (5.56%) GitHub
6 10 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
6 10 (4.27%) OpenShift
7 8 (3.42%) Azure Monitor
8 7 (2.99%) Azure Key Vault
8 7 (2.99%) Power Platform
9 6 (2.56%) Azure Sentinel
10 5 (2.14%) Amazon S3
10 5 (2.14%) Azure Data Factory
10 5 (2.14%) Serverless
11 4 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 4 (1.71%) Azure Machine Learning
11 4 (1.71%) Datadog
11 4 (1.71%) dbt
12 3 (1.28%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.85%) BGP
1 9 (3.85%) MPLS
1 9 (3.85%) Network Security
1 9 (3.85%) WAN
2 8 (3.42%) Wireshark
3 7 (2.99%) Firewall
4 6 (2.56%) 5G
4 6 (2.56%) Diameter Protocol
4 6 (2.56%) LAN
4 6 (2.56%) LTE
4 6 (2.56%) Radio Access Network
4 6 (2.56%) VoLTE
4 6 (2.56%) VoWiFi
5 5 (2.14%) TCP/IP
6 4 (1.71%) SSH
7 3 (1.28%) DNS
7 3 (1.28%) HTTP
7 3 (1.28%) SNMP
7 3 (1.28%) SSL
7 3 (1.28%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (10.68%) SQL Server
2 17 (7.26%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (5.98%) MySQL
3 14 (5.98%) Relational Database
4 13 (5.56%) NoSQL
5 7 (2.99%) Azure SQL Database
5 7 (2.99%) Big Data
5 7 (2.99%) Power BI
6 6 (2.56%) MongoDB
7 5 (2.14%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (2.14%) Tableau
8 4 (1.71%) Amazon Redshift
8 4 (1.71%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.71%) Hadoop
9 3 (1.28%) Parquet
10 2 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
10 2 (0.85%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.85%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.85%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.85%) Redis
Development Applications
1 25 (10.68%) Git
2 11 (4.70%) Jenkins
3 8 (3.42%) GitLab
4 4 (1.71%) Jaeger
5 3 (1.28%) JIRA
6 2 (0.85%) Introscope
6 2 (0.85%) MLflow
7 1 (0.43%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.43%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.43%) JMeter
7 1 (0.43%) JUnit
7 1 (0.43%) LoadRunner
7 1 (0.43%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.43%) NeoLoad
7 1 (0.43%) Oracle Developer 2000
7 1 (0.43%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.43%) Storybook
7 1 (0.43%) Visual Studio
General
1 69 (29.49%) Social Skills
2 36 (15.38%) Public Sector
3 35 (14.96%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (12.82%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (1.71%) Aerospace
5 4 (1.71%) Telecoms
6 3 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (0.85%) Advertising
7 2 (0.85%) Marketing
7 2 (0.85%) Military
8 1 (0.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.43%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.43%) Retail
Job Titles
1 41 (17.52%) Senior
2 39 (16.67%) Developer
3 29 (12.39%) Python Developer
4 20 (8.55%) SIEM Engineer
5 19 (8.12%) Data Engineer
6 10 (4.27%) Analyst
6 10 (4.27%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 9 (3.85%) Architect
7 9 (3.85%) Platform Engineer
7 9 (3.85%) Senior Data Engineer
7 9 (3.85%) Senior Developer
7 9 (3.85%) Site Engineer
8 7 (2.99%) DBA
8 7 (2.99%) DevOps Engineer
8 7 (2.99%) Technical Support
9 6 (2.56%) Azure Engineer
9 6 (2.56%) IAM Specialist
9 6 (2.56%) Security Engineer
9 6 (2.56%) Tester
10 5 (2.14%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (8.55%) .NET
2 18 (7.69%) LDAP
2 18 (7.69%) RESTful
3 11 (4.70%) FastAPI
3 11 (4.70%) REST
4 10 (4.27%) OAuth
4 10 (4.27%) Web Services
5 9 (3.85%) Kafka
6 8 (3.42%) Middleware
6 8 (3.42%) OAuth2
6 8 (3.42%) React
6 8 (3.42%) SailPoint
7 7 (2.99%) Flask
7 7 (2.99%) Loki
7 7 (2.99%) NETCONF
7 7 (2.99%) OpenID
7 7 (2.99%) PySpark
7 7 (2.99%) SAML
7 7 (2.99%) YANG
8 6 (2.56%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 33 (14.10%) Onboarding
2 28 (11.97%) Distributed Systems
3 17 (7.26%) Cloud Native
4 14 (5.98%) Hybrid Cloud
5 13 (5.56%) Algorithms
6 8 (3.42%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (3.42%) Management Information System
7 7 (2.99%) Cyber Security Posture
8 5 (2.14%) Clustering
8 5 (2.14%) Data Structures
8 5 (2.14%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (2.14%) Security Posture
9 4 (1.71%) AI Agents
9 4 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.71%) Operational Technology
10 3 (1.28%) Data Centre
10 3 (1.28%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (0.85%) Distributed Computing
11 2 (0.85%) Replication
11 2 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 58 (24.79%) Linux
2 35 (14.96%) Windows
3 34 (14.53%) Unix
4 10 (4.27%) Windows Server
5 7 (2.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.85%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (0.85%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
7 1 (0.43%) Debian
7 1 (0.43%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.43%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.43%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.43%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (31.20%) CI/CD
2 67 (28.63%) DevOps
3 62 (26.50%) Problem-Solving
4 57 (24.36%) SIEM
5 42 (17.95%) Analytics
6 34 (14.53%) Cybersecurity
7 31 (13.25%) Runbook
8 27 (11.54%) Computer Science
9 25 (10.68%) High Availability
10 24 (10.26%) Agile
10 24 (10.26%) AI
10 24 (10.26%) Machine Learning
10 24 (10.26%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 22 (9.40%) Data Pipeline
11 22 (9.40%) Microservices
12 21 (8.97%) ITSM
13 20 (8.55%) Change Control
13 20 (8.55%) Data Science
13 20 (8.55%) Observability
13 20 (8.55%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 96 (41.03%) PowerShell
2 45 (19.23%) SQL
3 35 (14.96%) Bash
4 30 (12.82%) Go
5 23 (9.83%) Java
6 19 (8.12%) Kusto Query Language
7 18 (7.69%) JavaScript
8 16 (6.84%) C#
9 12 (5.13%) Perl
10 5 (2.14%) T-SQL
10 5 (2.14%) TypeScript
11 3 (1.28%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.85%) Bicep
12 2 (0.85%) Jython
12 2 (0.85%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.85%) R
12 2 (0.85%) Rust
12 2 (0.85%) Scala
13 1 (0.43%) C++
13 1 (0.43%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 120 (51.28%) Security Cleared
2 101 (43.16%) SC Cleared
3 30 (12.82%) Degree
4 22 (9.40%) CISSP
5 13 (5.56%) CISM
5 13 (5.56%) DV Cleared
6 9 (3.85%) CEH
6 9 (3.85%) GIAC
7 8 (3.42%) CCIE
7 8 (3.42%) Cisco Certification
7 8 (3.42%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (2.99%) Azure Certification
8 7 (2.99%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (2.99%) JNCIE
9 5 (2.14%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (2.14%) RHCE
10 3 (1.28%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.85%) Master's Degree
12 1 (0.43%) AWS Certified Developer
12 1 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (16.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 38 (16.24%) NIST
3 18 (7.69%) GDPR
4 10 (4.27%) Data Quality
5 6 (2.56%) SLA
6 5 (2.14%) PCI DSS
7 4 (1.71%) GRC
7 4 (1.71%) QA
8 1 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.43%) JTAG
8 1 (0.43%) NCSC
System Software
1 40 (17.09%) Active Directory
2 23 (9.83%) Docker
3 2 (0.85%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 1 (0.43%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 49 (20.94%) Kubernetes
2 23 (9.83%) Terraform
3 18 (7.69%) Ansible
4 16 (6.84%) Grafana
4 16 (6.84%) Prometheus
5 8 (3.42%) Kibana
6 6 (2.56%) Rancher
7 4 (1.71%) Argo
7 4 (1.71%) Istio
8 3 (1.28%) Kustomize
8 3 (1.28%) Nessus
8 3 (1.28%) OpenVAS
8 3 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.85%) CA Wily
9 2 (0.85%) Tivoli
10 1 (0.43%) Cisco CUCM
10 1 (0.43%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.43%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.43%) Puppet
Vendors
1 32 (13.68%) Microsoft
2 30 (12.82%) BeyondTrust
2 30 (12.82%) CyberArk
3 20 (8.55%) Oracle
4 15 (6.41%) Databricks
5 11 (4.70%) Red Hat
6 10 (4.27%) Tanium
7 8 (3.42%) Splunk
8 7 (2.99%) FireEye
9 6 (2.56%) AppDynamics
9 6 (2.56%) BT
9 6 (2.56%) Ericsson
9 6 (2.56%) Huawei
9 6 (2.56%) Nokia
10 5 (2.14%) Dynatrace
11 4 (1.71%) IBM
11 4 (1.71%) Juniper
11 4 (1.71%) LogRhythm
11 4 (1.71%) OpenAI
12 3 (1.28%) Cisco