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 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 11 23 34
Rank change year-on-year +12 +11 -1
Contract jobs citing Python 228 172 156
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 11.59% 8.19% 6.07%
As % of the Programming Languages category 50.11% 32.45% 28.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 99 119
10th Percentile £363 £397 £350
25th Percentile £413 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.55% - -
75th Percentile £565 £638 £638
90th Percentile £600 £651 £710
South East median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 1
10th Percentile £71.20 - -
25th Percentile £73.00 £27.75 -
Median hourly rate £79.50 £28.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +178.95% -59.29% -
75th Percentile £84.50 £29.25 -
90th Percentile £85.40 - -
South East median hourly rate £52.50 £42.00 £66.25
% change year-on-year +25.00% -36.60% +5.22%

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 455 530 557
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 23.12% 25.25% 21.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 292 337 423
10th Percentile £336 £382 £350
25th Percentile £406 £420 £417
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.58% +2.38% -
75th Percentile £563 £638 £620
90th Percentile £600 £663 £685
South East median daily rate £481 £508 £525
% change year-on-year -5.17% -3.33% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 9 12
10th Percentile £34.13 £34.02 £33.93
25th Percentile £57.19 £52.50 £48.40
Median hourly rate £75.00 £56.75 £52.15
Median % change year-on-year +32.17% +8.82% -9.31%
75th Percentile £81.50 £69.69 £58.96
90th Percentile £84.20 £77.39 £69.04
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £62.50 £55.53
% change year-on-year -12.00% +12.55% -10.20%

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 1 December 2025.

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 1 December 2025. 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 +10 178 £492 -10.55% 65
Buckinghamshire +13 41 £488 -11.36% 33
Oxfordshire -11 9 £513 +2.50% 74
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 (6.14%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.19%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.75%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (1.32%) Apache
5 2 (0.88%) Appian
5 2 (0.88%) Confluence
5 2 (0.88%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.44%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.88%) CPLEX
1 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
1 2 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 2 (0.88%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 1 (0.44%) SAP GRC
Cloud Services
1 102 (44.74%) AWS
2 92 (40.35%) Azure
3 50 (21.93%) GCP
4 22 (9.65%) GitHub
5 20 (8.77%) OpenShift
6 19 (8.33%) Serverless
7 18 (7.89%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (7.02%) AWS Lambda
9 14 (6.14%) Power Platform
10 13 (5.70%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (4.39%) AWS CloudFormation
11 10 (4.39%) IaaS
12 8 (3.51%) Amazon S3
13 7 (3.07%) Amazon SageMaker
13 7 (3.07%) AWS Step Functions
13 7 (3.07%) dbt
14 6 (2.63%) Azure AKS
15 5 (2.19%) Amazon Bedrock
15 5 (2.19%) ChatGPT
15 5 (2.19%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 15 (6.58%) BGP
1 15 (6.58%) MPLS
2 14 (6.14%) WAN
3 13 (5.70%) DNS
4 12 (5.26%) LAN
5 11 (4.82%) Firewall
5 11 (4.82%) Network Security
5 11 (4.82%) TCP/IP
6 8 (3.51%) SNMP
6 8 (3.51%) TACACS
7 7 (3.07%) Wireshark
8 6 (2.63%) OSPF
8 6 (2.63%) Wireless
9 5 (2.19%) SAN
10 4 (1.75%) DHCP
11 3 (1.32%) 2G
11 3 (1.32%) 5G
11 3 (1.32%) SSL
11 3 (1.32%) VoIP
12 2 (0.88%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (8.33%) Relational Database
2 16 (7.02%) NoSQL
3 14 (6.14%) Power BI
4 12 (5.26%) Big Data
5 11 (4.82%) Data Warehouse
6 10 (4.39%) MongoDB
6 10 (4.39%) Tableau
7 8 (3.51%) MySQL
8 7 (3.07%) Amazon RDS
8 7 (3.07%) PostgreSQL
9 6 (2.63%) Amazon Athena
9 6 (2.63%) Amazon Redshift
9 6 (2.63%) Data Lake
9 6 (2.63%) Hadoop
10 5 (2.19%) Couchbase
10 5 (2.19%) SQL Server
11 2 (0.88%) Data Mining
11 2 (0.88%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.88%) RDBMS
12 1 (0.44%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 19 (8.33%) Git
2 18 (7.89%) Jenkins
3 13 (5.70%) JIRA
4 7 (3.07%) Burp Suite
4 7 (3.07%) Metasploit
5 6 (2.63%) 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%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.44%) MLflow
7 1 (0.44%) Mocha
General
1 111 (48.68%) Social Skills
2 52 (22.81%) Analytical Skills
3 25 (10.96%) Documentation Skills
4 24 (10.53%) Public Sector
5 16 (7.02%) Telecoms
6 10 (4.39%) Finance
7 8 (3.51%) Legal
8 3 (1.32%) Billing
9 2 (0.88%) Banking
10 1 (0.44%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.44%) Digital Healthcare
10 1 (0.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.44%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.44%) Retail
Job Titles
1 34 (14.91%) Senior
2 27 (11.84%) Developer
3 20 (8.77%) Architect
4 18 (7.89%) Data Engineer
5 17 (7.46%) DevOps Engineer
6 16 (7.02%) Python Developer
7 15 (6.58%) Analyst
8 14 (6.14%) Data Scientist
9 13 (5.70%) Cloud Engineer
10 12 (5.26%) Senior Developer
10 12 (5.26%) SIEM Engineer
11 10 (4.39%) SOC Analyst
12 9 (3.95%) Senior Python Developer
12 9 (3.95%) Site Engineer
12 9 (3.95%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 8 (3.51%) AWS Engineer
13 8 (3.51%) IP Specialist
14 7 (3.07%) Azure Engineer
14 7 (3.07%) Consultant
14 7 (3.07%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (8.77%) REST
2 19 (8.33%) scikit-learn
3 18 (7.89%) LDAP
4 15 (6.58%) PyTorch
5 14 (6.14%) Pandas
6 13 (5.70%) NumPy
7 11 (4.82%) NETCONF
8 10 (4.39%) PySpark
8 10 (4.39%) TensorFlow
8 10 (4.39%) YANG
9 9 (3.95%) GraphQL
9 9 (3.95%) OAuth
10 8 (3.51%) Kafka
10 8 (3.51%) Loki
11 7 (3.07%) .NET
11 7 (3.07%) FastAPI
11 7 (3.07%) RESTful
12 6 (2.63%) .NET Core
12 6 (2.63%) JSON
12 6 (2.63%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 21 (9.21%) Cloud Native
2 19 (8.33%) Algorithms
3 16 (7.02%) Onboarding
4 15 (6.58%) Hybrid Cloud
5 9 (3.95%) Data Centre
6 8 (3.51%) Cyber Security Posture
6 8 (3.51%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (3.51%) Virtual Team
7 7 (3.07%) PKI
7 7 (3.07%) Security Operations Centre
7 7 (3.07%) Security Posture
8 6 (2.63%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (2.63%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.63%) Replication
9 5 (2.19%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
10 4 (1.75%) Operational Technology
11 3 (1.32%) Distributed Computing
12 2 (0.88%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 63 (27.63%) Linux
2 26 (11.40%) Windows
3 14 (6.14%) Unix
4 8 (3.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.07%) Kali Linux
5 7 (3.07%) Windows Server
6 5 (2.19%) Debian
6 5 (2.19%) Ubuntu
6 5 (2.19%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.44%) CentOS
7 1 (0.44%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (43.86%) CI/CD
2 81 (35.53%) DevOps
3 80 (35.09%) Problem-Solving
4 52 (22.81%) SIEM
5 46 (20.18%) Cybersecurity
6 40 (17.54%) Agile
7 33 (14.47%) Infrastructure as Code
8 30 (13.16%) Machine Learning
9 29 (12.72%) Incident Response
10 28 (12.28%) AI
10 28 (12.28%) Containerisation
10 28 (12.28%) Data Modelling
11 27 (11.84%) DevSecOps
12 24 (10.53%) Data Engineering
12 24 (10.53%) Visualisation
13 23 (10.09%) High Availability
13 23 (10.09%) Validation
14 22 (9.65%) Computer Science
14 22 (9.65%) Data Science
15 21 (9.21%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 73 (32.02%) PowerShell
2 55 (24.12%) SQL
3 44 (19.30%) Bash
4 23 (10.09%) Java
5 18 (7.89%) JavaScript
6 14 (6.14%) Shell Script
7 12 (5.26%) R
8 6 (2.63%) C#
8 6 (2.63%) Go
8 6 (2.63%) Kusto Query Language
8 6 (2.63%) PHP
9 4 (1.75%) C
9 4 (1.75%) C++
9 4 (1.75%) Search Processing Language
10 3 (1.32%) Perl
11 1 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.44%) Ruby
11 1 (0.44%) Scala
Qualifications
1 83 (36.40%) Security Cleared
2 65 (28.51%) SC Cleared
3 36 (15.79%) CISSP
4 26 (11.40%) Degree
5 20 (8.77%) AWS Certification
6 18 (7.89%) CEH
7 17 (7.46%) CISM
8 16 (7.02%) Cisco Certification
8 16 (7.02%) Computer Science Degree
9 15 (6.58%) CCIE
9 15 (6.58%) GIAC
10 14 (6.14%) JNCIE
11 11 (4.82%) GCFA
11 11 (4.82%) GCIA
11 11 (4.82%) GCIH
12 10 (4.39%) Master's Degree
13 8 (3.51%) CFCE
14 7 (3.07%) DV Cleared
14 7 (3.07%) GPEN
14 7 (3.07%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 38 (16.67%) GDPR
2 34 (14.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 33 (14.47%) NIST
4 15 (6.58%) Data Quality
5 11 (4.82%) HIPAA
6 10 (4.39%) QA
7 5 (2.19%) EU AI Act
8 4 (1.75%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.88%) GRC
10 1 (0.44%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 30 (13.16%) Docker
2 28 (12.28%) Active Directory
3 23 (10.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (7.46%) vSphere
5 13 (5.70%) VMware NSX
6 4 (1.75%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.44%) NDS
8 1 (0.44%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 49 (21.49%) Kubernetes
2 40 (17.54%) Ansible
3 39 (17.11%) Terraform
4 15 (6.58%) Argo
5 10 (4.39%) Grafana
6 9 (3.95%) Prometheus
7 8 (3.51%) Kustomize
8 7 (3.07%) Nmap
9 6 (2.63%) Kibana
9 6 (2.63%) vCenter Server
10 5 (2.19%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
11 4 (1.75%) QRadar
12 3 (1.32%) Podman
12 3 (1.32%) Proxmox
13 2 (0.88%) logstash
13 2 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
14 1 (0.44%) Cisco CUCM
14 1 (0.44%) Cisco UCCE
14 1 (0.44%) vRealize
14 1 (0.44%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 30 (13.16%) VMware
2 29 (12.72%) Microsoft
3 21 (9.21%) Splunk
4 20 (8.77%) Red Hat
5 18 (7.89%) BeyondTrust
5 18 (7.89%) CyberArk
6 17 (7.46%) Databricks
7 12 (5.26%) ArcSight
7 12 (5.26%) Cisco
8 8 (3.51%) CrowdStrike
8 8 (3.51%) F5
8 8 (3.51%) Fortinet
8 8 (3.51%) Google
8 8 (3.51%) Juniper
8 8 (3.51%) LogRhythm
8 8 (3.51%) Virgin Media
9 6 (2.63%) FireEye
9 6 (2.63%) IBM
9 6 (2.63%) Pure Storage
9 6 (2.63%) Tanium