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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 13 25
Rank change year-on-year -7 +12 +1
Contract jobs citing Python 245 174 162
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 8.08% 10.24% 7.42%
As % of the Programming Languages category 44.95% 40.09% 32.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 106 109
10th Percentile £360 £352 £363
25th Percentile £450 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £541 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £602 £565 £638
90th Percentile £757 £600 £650
South East median daily rate £541 £500 £518
% change year-on-year +8.25% -3.38% -1.43%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 0 1
10th Percentile £43.81 - -
25th Percentile £51.25 - £27.75
Median hourly rate £68.11 - £28.50
75th Percentile £77.50 - £29.25
90th Percentile £83.88 - -
South East median hourly rate £67.47 £57.50 £29.00
% change year-on-year +17.34% +98.28% -55.38%

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 545 434 498
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 17.98% 25.54% 22.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 365 269 331
10th Percentile £328 £325 £375
25th Percentile £417 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -13.64% +3.00%
75th Percentile £595 £550 £638
90th Percentile £675 £600 £663
South East median daily rate £515 £490 £514
% change year-on-year +5.10% -4.67% -2.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 1 10
10th Percentile £33.70 - £34.80
25th Percentile £43.81 £18.75 £55.87
Median hourly rate £67.00 £19.50 £58.49
Median % change year-on-year +243.59% -66.66% +20.85%
75th Percentile £77.50 £20.25 £73.57
90th Percentile £83.62 - £88.13
South East median hourly rate £60.00 £55.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% -21.43% +27.27%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 -4 173 £525 +5.00% 180
Oxfordshire +4 47 £650 +44.44% 220
Buckinghamshire -29 25 £525 +16.67% 71
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 (5.71%) OpenStack
2 7 (2.86%) Confluence
3 3 (1.22%) Apache Spark
3 3 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.82%) Apache
4 2 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.82%) Apache Superset
4 2 (0.82%) JBoss
4 2 (0.82%) WebSphere
4 2 (0.82%) WebSphere Application Server
5 1 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 6 (2.45%) CPLEX
2 5 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.82%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.41%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.41%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.41%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 125 (51.02%) Azure
2 76 (31.02%) AWS
3 37 (15.10%) GCP
4 35 (14.29%) Entra ID
5 25 (10.20%) Azure DevOps
6 24 (9.80%) OpenShift
7 13 (5.31%) Azure Monitor
8 12 (4.90%) GitHub
8 12 (4.90%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (4.49%) Azure AKS
9 11 (4.49%) Power Platform
10 10 (4.08%) Azure App Service
10 10 (4.08%) Azure Key Vault
10 10 (4.08%) Serverless
11 8 (3.27%) AWS CloudFormation
11 8 (3.27%) SaaS
12 7 (2.86%) Amazon Bedrock
12 7 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (2.86%) Snowflake
13 6 (2.45%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 18 (7.35%) DNS
2 17 (6.94%) TCP/IP
3 16 (6.53%) BGP
3 16 (6.53%) Firewall
4 11 (4.49%) DHCP
4 11 (4.49%) WAN
5 10 (4.08%) MPLS
5 10 (4.08%) VPN
6 9 (3.67%) LAN
6 9 (3.67%) Network Security
7 7 (2.86%) Radio Access Network
8 6 (2.45%) 5G
8 6 (2.45%) Diameter Protocol
8 6 (2.45%) DNSSEC
8 6 (2.45%) LTE
8 6 (2.45%) VoLTE
8 6 (2.45%) VoWiFi
8 6 (2.45%) VXLAN
8 6 (2.45%) Wireshark
9 5 (2.04%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (8.98%) SQL Server
2 17 (6.94%) NoSQL
3 11 (4.49%) Power BI
4 10 (4.08%) Azure SQL Database
4 10 (4.08%) PostgreSQL
5 7 (2.86%) MongoDB
6 6 (2.45%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (1.63%) MySQL
7 4 (1.63%) Parquet
8 3 (1.22%) Big Data
8 3 (1.22%) GIS
8 3 (1.22%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.22%) Spark SQL
8 3 (1.22%) Tableau
9 2 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.82%) Metadata
9 2 (0.82%) Oracle Database
10 1 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.41%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 27 (11.02%) Git
2 15 (6.12%) Jenkins
3 9 (3.67%) GitLab
4 7 (2.86%) JIRA
5 2 (0.82%) JMeter
5 2 (0.82%) MLflow
5 2 (0.82%) Sonatype Nexus
6 1 (0.41%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.41%) Jaeger
6 1 (0.41%) LoadRunner
6 1 (0.41%) NeoLoad
6 1 (0.41%) Oracle Developer 2000
6 1 (0.41%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.41%) Selenium
General
1 78 (31.84%) Social Skills
2 58 (23.67%) Analytical Skills
3 35 (14.29%) Documentation Skills
4 33 (13.47%) Public Sector
5 24 (9.80%) Aerospace
6 13 (5.31%) Telecoms
7 12 (4.90%) Military
8 6 (2.45%) Finance
9 5 (2.04%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (2.04%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.82%) Banking
11 2 (0.82%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.82%) Marketing
11 2 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.41%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 39 (15.92%) Developer
2 31 (12.65%) Senior
3 25 (10.20%) Python Developer
4 24 (9.80%) Data Engineer
5 21 (8.57%) Architect
6 13 (5.31%) IAM Specialist
7 12 (4.90%) Data Scientist
7 12 (4.90%) Full-Stack Developer
7 12 (4.90%) Network Architect
8 11 (4.49%) Analyst
9 10 (4.08%) Lead
9 10 (4.08%) Systems Engineer
10 9 (3.67%) Platform Engineer
11 8 (3.27%) Senior Data Engineer
12 7 (2.86%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 6 (2.45%) Consultant
13 6 (2.45%) DevSecOps Engineer
13 6 (2.45%) React Developer
13 6 (2.45%) Technical Leader
14 5 (2.04%) Network Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (21.63%) Terraform
2 24 (9.80%) REST
3 21 (8.57%) OAuth
4 20 (8.16%) SAML
5 19 (7.76%) OpenID
6 18 (7.35%) LDAP
6 18 (7.35%) RESTful
7 16 (6.53%) .NET
8 15 (6.12%) PySpark
8 15 (6.12%) SailPoint
9 14 (5.71%) Web Services
10 13 (5.31%) ARM Templates
10 13 (5.31%) OAuth2
11 11 (4.49%) FastAPI
12 10 (4.08%) NETCONF
13 9 (3.67%) .NET Core
13 9 (3.67%) React
14 8 (3.27%) .NET Framework
14 8 (3.27%) Entity Framework
14 8 (3.27%) YANG
Miscellaneous
1 30 (12.24%) Onboarding
2 27 (11.02%) Hybrid Cloud
3 24 (9.80%) Cloud Native
4 14 (5.71%) Distributed Systems
4 14 (5.71%) Management Information System
5 12 (4.90%) Algorithms
6 11 (4.49%) AI Agents
7 9 (3.67%) Data Structures
8 8 (3.27%) Security Posture
9 7 (2.86%) Data Centre
9 7 (2.86%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 7 (2.86%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.63%) Distributed Computing
10 4 (1.63%) Greenfield Project
10 4 (1.63%) Life Science
10 4 (1.63%) Private Cloud
11 3 (1.22%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (1.22%) Enterprise Cloud
11 3 (1.22%) SCADA
11 3 (1.22%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 51 (20.82%) Linux
2 38 (15.51%) Windows
3 28 (11.43%) Unix
4 15 (6.12%) Windows Server
5 7 (2.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (31.84%) DevOps
2 74 (30.20%) CI/CD
3 59 (24.08%) Problem-Solving
4 55 (22.45%) Analytics
5 50 (20.41%) Runbook
6 46 (18.78%) Infrastructure as Code
7 37 (15.10%) Computer Science
7 37 (15.10%) SIEM
8 35 (14.29%) AI
9 34 (13.88%) Agile
9 34 (13.88%) ITSM
10 33 (13.47%) Platform Engineering
11 32 (13.06%) Change Control
12 31 (12.65%) Continuous Improvement
13 30 (12.24%) Machine Learning
14 28 (11.43%) Cybersecurity
14 28 (11.43%) Data Science
15 27 (11.02%) RBAC
16 26 (10.61%) Test Automation
17 25 (10.20%) Data Engineering
Programming Languages
1 98 (40.00%) PowerShell
2 59 (24.08%) SQL
3 40 (16.33%) Bash
4 14 (5.71%) C#
5 12 (4.90%) Bicep
5 12 (4.90%) Go
6 11 (4.49%) Java
7 5 (2.04%) JavaScript
7 5 (2.04%) Shell Script
8 3 (1.22%) PL/SQL
8 3 (1.22%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.82%) Perl
9 2 (0.82%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.41%) Groovy
10 1 (0.41%) PHP
10 1 (0.41%) R
10 1 (0.41%) Scala
Qualifications
1 114 (46.53%) Security Cleared
2 102 (41.63%) SC Cleared
3 45 (18.37%) Degree
4 21 (8.57%) Cisco Certification
5 17 (6.94%) Azure Certification
5 17 (6.94%) CISSP
6 12 (4.90%) CCIE
7 11 (4.49%) Microsoft Certification
8 10 (4.08%) AWS Certification
8 10 (4.08%) JNCIE
9 9 (3.67%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (3.67%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (2.86%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (2.45%) CEH
11 6 (2.45%) DV Cleared
12 5 (2.04%) CISM
12 5 (2.04%) RHCE
12 5 (2.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 4 (1.63%) CompTIA Security+
14 3 (1.22%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (18.37%) NIST
2 43 (17.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 24 (9.80%) Data Quality
4 8 (3.27%) GDPR
5 6 (2.45%) NCSC
5 6 (2.45%) SLA
6 5 (2.04%) QA
7 3 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (1.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.41%) GRC
8 1 (0.41%) HMG Security Policy Framework
8 1 (0.41%) JTAG
8 1 (0.41%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 50 (20.41%) Active Directory
2 24 (9.80%) Docker
3 8 (3.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (2.45%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.82%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 2 (0.82%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 59 (24.08%) Kubernetes
2 42 (17.14%) Ansible
3 6 (2.45%) Grafana
3 6 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (2.04%) QRadar
5 4 (1.63%) Istio
5 4 (1.63%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.22%) Progress Chef
6 3 (1.22%) Puppet
7 2 (0.82%) CASB
7 2 (0.82%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.41%) Amdocs OSS
8 1 (0.41%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.41%) Rancher
8 1 (0.41%) SCOM
8 1 (0.41%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 68 (27.76%) Microsoft
2 29 (11.84%) CyberArk
3 25 (10.20%) BeyondTrust
4 21 (8.57%) Databricks
5 16 (6.53%) Oracle
6 15 (6.12%) Google
7 12 (4.90%) VMware
8 11 (4.49%) Cisco
8 11 (4.49%) Red Hat
9 8 (3.27%) Nokia
9 8 (3.27%) Splunk
10 7 (2.86%) F5
11 6 (2.45%) BT
11 6 (2.45%) Ericsson
11 6 (2.45%) Huawei
11 6 (2.45%) Infoblox
12 5 (2.04%) Fortinet
12 5 (2.04%) Juniper
13 3 (1.22%) ArcSight
13 3 (1.22%) SolarWinds