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

6 months to
6 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 19 33
Rank change year-on-year +3 +14 -2
Contract jobs citing Python 220 173 141
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 10.46% 9.49% 5.94%
As % of the Programming Languages category 50.69% 35.23% 27.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 101 104
10th Percentile £335 £400 £333
25th Percentile £409 £480 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% - -
75th Percentile £550 £638 £638
90th Percentile £613 £650 £700
South East median daily rate £485 £539 £525
% change year-on-year -9.98% +2.62% -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% +45.95%

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 434 491 512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 20.64% 26.93% 21.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 304 310 372
10th Percentile £333 £380 £350
25th Percentile £407 £416 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £476 £548 £525
Median % change year-on-year -13.01% +4.29% -
75th Percentile £565 £638 £615
90th Percentile £624 £671 £675
South East median daily rate £485 £501 £525
% change year-on-year -3.10% -4.67% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 8 18
10th Percentile £39.25 £45.08 £29.41
25th Percentile £70.00 £55.03 £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 £68.39 £68.25
South East median hourly rate £55.00 £56.75 £58.25
% change year-on-year -3.08% -2.58% -2.92%

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 6 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 6 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 +2 176 £478 -13.18% 231
Buckinghamshire +10 32 £488 -11.36% 36
Oxfordshire -4 12 £525 +23.53% 69
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 (5.45%) OpenStack
2 5 (2.27%) Apache Spark
3 4 (1.82%) Apache
4 2 (0.91%) Appian
4 2 (0.91%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.45%) Confluence
5 1 (0.45%) nginx
Applications
1 3 (1.36%) MS Visio
2 2 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.45%) CPLEX
Cloud Services
1 93 (42.27%) Azure
2 92 (41.82%) AWS
3 47 (21.36%) GCP
4 20 (9.09%) OpenShift
5 19 (8.64%) GitHub
6 15 (6.82%) Azure DevOps
7 14 (6.36%) Serverless
8 11 (5.00%) AWS CloudFormation
9 10 (4.55%) AWS Lambda
9 10 (4.55%) GitHub Actions
9 10 (4.55%) IaaS
10 9 (4.09%) Power Platform
11 7 (3.18%) Azure AKS
12 6 (2.73%) Azure Functions
13 5 (2.27%) Azure Machine Learning
13 5 (2.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 5 (2.27%) Datadog
13 5 (2.27%) Entra ID
13 5 (2.27%) OCI
14 4 (1.82%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 16 (7.27%) Network Security
2 14 (6.36%) BGP
2 14 (6.36%) DNS
2 14 (6.36%) MPLS
2 14 (6.36%) WAN
3 12 (5.45%) LAN
4 11 (5.00%) Firewall
5 8 (3.64%) SNMP
5 8 (3.64%) TACACS
5 8 (3.64%) TCP/IP
6 7 (3.18%) Wireshark
7 6 (2.73%) OSPF
7 6 (2.73%) Wireless
8 4 (1.82%) DHCP
9 3 (1.36%) 2G
9 3 (1.36%) 5G
9 3 (1.36%) SSL
9 3 (1.36%) VoIP
10 2 (0.91%) LTE
10 2 (0.91%) Mobile Backhaul
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (8.64%) Relational Database
2 13 (5.91%) NoSQL
3 12 (5.45%) MySQL
4 9 (4.09%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (4.09%) Power BI
5 8 (3.64%) Big Data
6 7 (3.18%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (2.73%) Amazon RDS
7 6 (2.73%) Amazon Redshift
7 6 (2.73%) Data Lake
7 6 (2.73%) Hadoop
7 6 (2.73%) MongoDB
8 5 (2.27%) Couchbase
8 5 (2.27%) SQL Server
8 5 (2.27%) Tableau
9 2 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.91%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.91%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.91%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.91%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 19 (8.64%) Jenkins
2 17 (7.73%) Git
3 7 (3.18%) Burp Suite
3 7 (3.18%) JIRA
3 7 (3.18%) Metasploit
4 6 (2.73%) GitLab
5 2 (0.91%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.91%) Cucumber
5 2 (0.91%) Robot Framework
5 2 (0.91%) Selenium
5 2 (0.91%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.45%) Artifactory
6 1 (0.45%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.45%) MLflow
6 1 (0.45%) Mocha
6 1 (0.45%) Visual Studio
General
1 110 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 50 (22.73%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (11.82%) Documentation Skills
4 19 (8.64%) Public Sector
5 8 (3.64%) Finance
5 8 (3.64%) Telecoms
6 5 (2.27%) Legal
7 3 (1.36%) Billing
8 2 (0.91%) Banking
8 2 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.91%) Retail
9 1 (0.45%) Aerospace
9 1 (0.45%) Digital Healthcare
9 1 (0.45%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 29 (13.18%) Senior
2 19 (8.64%) SIEM Engineer
3 17 (7.73%) Architect
3 17 (7.73%) Developer
4 16 (7.27%) Data Engineer
4 16 (7.27%) DevOps Engineer
5 13 (5.91%) Analyst
6 10 (4.55%) Cloud Engineer
7 9 (4.09%) Azure Engineer
7 9 (4.09%) Site Engineer
7 9 (4.09%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 8 (3.64%) Data Scientist
8 8 (3.64%) IP Specialist
8 8 (3.64%) Platform Engineer
8 8 (3.64%) Python Developer
9 7 (3.18%) AWS Engineer
9 7 (3.18%) Penetration Tester
9 7 (3.18%) SOC Analyst
9 7 (3.18%) Technical Support
9 7 (3.18%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (8.64%) LDAP
2 18 (8.18%) REST
3 10 (4.55%) NETCONF
3 10 (4.55%) scikit-learn
4 9 (4.09%) GraphQL
4 9 (4.09%) OAuth
4 9 (4.09%) PySpark
4 9 (4.09%) YANG
5 8 (3.64%) .NET
5 8 (3.64%) Kafka
5 8 (3.64%) Loki
5 8 (3.64%) Pandas
6 7 (3.18%) NumPy
7 6 (2.73%) .NET Core
7 6 (2.73%) Node.js
7 6 (2.73%) OAuth2
7 6 (2.73%) PyTorch
7 6 (2.73%) TensorFlow
8 5 (2.27%) OpenID
9 4 (1.82%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 24 (10.91%) Cloud Native
2 16 (7.27%) Onboarding
3 15 (6.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 14 (6.36%) Algorithms
5 12 (5.45%) Cyber Security Posture
6 9 (4.09%) Data Centre
7 8 (3.64%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (3.64%) Virtual Team
8 7 (3.18%) PKI
9 6 (2.73%) Analytical Mindset
9 6 (2.73%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (2.73%) Replication
9 6 (2.73%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (2.27%) Management Information System
10 5 (2.27%) Operational Technology
11 4 (1.82%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (1.82%) Linux Command Line
11 4 (1.82%) Security Posture
12 3 (1.36%) Distributed Computing
12 3 (1.36%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 59 (26.82%) Linux
2 23 (10.45%) Windows
3 16 (7.27%) Unix
4 8 (3.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (3.18%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.45%) Debian
6 1 (0.45%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.45%) VMS
6 1 (0.45%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (44.55%) CI/CD
2 77 (35.00%) DevOps
3 74 (33.64%) Problem-Solving
4 58 (26.36%) SIEM
5 51 (23.18%) Cybersecurity
6 33 (15.00%) Infrastructure as Code
7 30 (13.64%) Agile
8 29 (13.18%) DevSecOps
9 26 (11.82%) Containerisation
10 24 (10.91%) Computer Science
11 22 (10.00%) Analytical Thinking
11 22 (10.00%) High Availability
11 22 (10.00%) Incident Response
11 22 (10.00%) Machine Learning
12 21 (9.55%) Data Modelling
13 20 (9.09%) AI
14 19 (8.64%) Test Automation
14 19 (8.64%) Visualisation
15 18 (8.18%) Threat Detection
15 18 (8.18%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 85 (38.64%) PowerShell
2 50 (22.73%) SQL
3 47 (21.36%) Bash
4 23 (10.45%) Java
5 21 (9.55%) JavaScript
6 14 (6.36%) Shell Script
7 13 (5.91%) Kusto Query Language
8 8 (3.64%) R
9 7 (3.18%) C#
9 7 (3.18%) Perl
10 6 (2.73%) Go
10 6 (2.73%) PHP
11 4 (1.82%) Search Processing Language
12 2 (0.91%) Rust
13 1 (0.45%) C
13 1 (0.45%) C++
13 1 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.45%) Ruby
13 1 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 89 (40.45%) Security Cleared
2 74 (33.64%) SC Cleared
3 39 (17.73%) CISSP
4 25 (11.36%) Degree
5 22 (10.00%) CEH
6 19 (8.64%) AWS Certification
6 19 (8.64%) Computer Science Degree
6 19 (8.64%) GIAC
7 18 (8.18%) CISM
8 16 (7.27%) Cisco Certification
9 15 (6.82%) CCIE
10 14 (6.36%) JNCIE
11 7 (3.18%) GCFA
11 7 (3.18%) GCIA
11 7 (3.18%) GCIH
11 7 (3.18%) GPEN
11 7 (3.18%) OSCP
12 6 (2.73%) CFCE
12 6 (2.73%) DV Cleared
13 4 (1.82%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (13.64%) NIST
2 29 (13.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 28 (12.73%) GDPR
4 10 (4.55%) Data Quality
5 9 (4.09%) HIPAA
5 9 (4.09%) QA
6 4 (1.82%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.45%) EU AI Act
System Software
1 33 (15.00%) Docker
2 29 (13.18%) Active Directory
3 23 (10.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (6.82%) vSphere
5 13 (5.91%) VMware NSX
6 4 (1.82%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.45%) NDS
8 1 (0.45%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 49 (22.27%) Kubernetes
2 42 (19.09%) Terraform
3 40 (18.18%) Ansible
4 16 (7.27%) Grafana
5 15 (6.82%) Argo
5 15 (6.82%) Prometheus
6 11 (5.00%) Kibana
7 8 (3.64%) Kustomize
8 7 (3.18%) Nmap
9 6 (2.73%) vCenter Server
10 4 (1.82%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 4 (1.82%) QRadar
11 3 (1.36%) Podman
11 3 (1.36%) Proxmox
11 3 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
12 2 (0.91%) logstash
13 1 (0.45%) Cisco CUCM
13 1 (0.45%) Puppet
13 1 (0.45%) vRealize
13 1 (0.45%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 30 (13.64%) Microsoft
2 26 (11.82%) VMware
3 21 (9.55%) Splunk
4 19 (8.64%) BeyondTrust
4 19 (8.64%) CyberArk
5 17 (7.73%) Red Hat
6 14 (6.36%) Databricks
7 11 (5.00%) Cisco
7 11 (5.00%) Tanium
8 10 (4.55%) ArcSight
8 10 (4.55%) FireEye
9 9 (4.09%) Oracle
10 8 (3.64%) F5
10 8 (3.64%) Fortinet
10 8 (3.64%) Juniper
11 7 (3.18%) LogRhythm
12 6 (2.73%) Google
12 6 (2.73%) Pure Storage
13 5 (2.27%) Confluent
13 5 (2.27%) CrowdStrike