Computer Science Degree Contract Job Trends

Computer Science Degree
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Computer Science Degree qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 28 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 206 146 147
Rank change year-on-year -60 +1 +147
Contract jobs citing Computer Science Degree 590 556 723
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.33% 1.91% 1.63%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.96% 6.24% 5.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 378 355 477
10th Percentile £204 £306 £300
25th Percentile £358 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -6.36% -8.33%
75th Percentile £650 £663 £638
90th Percentile £775 £796 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% +5.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 8 36
10th Percentile £20.97 £37.44 £26.88
25th Percentile £25.99 £42.73 £38.75
Median hourly rate £41.00 £55.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.45% - -
75th Percentile £86.00 £67.81 £68.13
90th Percentile £170.38 £73.01 £83.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.75 £54.98 £56.25
% change year-on-year +8.68% -2.26% -14.12%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

Computer Science Degree falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 14,912 8,913 13,551
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.55% 30.67% 30.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,822 5,673 8,401
10th Percentile £343 £294 £300
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,092 485 1,006
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £13.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £24.18 £17.73
Median hourly rate £36.00 £42.50 £37.83
Median % change year-on-year -15.29% +12.35% -27.44%
75th Percentile £68.75 £67.50 £61.90
90th Percentile £84.90 £80.84 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -30.00% +33.33% -23.47%

Computer Science Degree
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Computer Science Degree relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Computer Science Degree job vacancy trend in the UK

Computer Science Degree
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Computer Science Degree.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Computer Science Degree

Computer Science Degree
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Computer Science Degree over the 6 months to 28 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Computer Science Degree in the UK

Computer Science Degree
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Computer Science Degree.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Computer Science Degree

Computer Science Degree
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Computer Science Degree over the 6 months to 28 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Computer Science Degree in the UK

Computer Science Degree
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Computer Science Degree within the UK over the 6 months to 28 March 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
England -61 519 £500 -4.76% 336
UK excluding London -51 275 £475 -5.00% 234
London -36 259 £505 -12.72% 145
Work from Home -33 159 £446 -14.59% 157
North of England -32 88 £402 -30.09% 40
South East -45 70 £445 -11.00% 107
Midlands -63 53 £525 +17.06% 25
Yorkshire -31 45 £525 +5.00% 12
West Midlands -45 44 £500 +11.11% 9
North West -22 43 £359 -48.16% 24
South West -20 24 £500 +29.03% 16
East of England -26 21 £550 -8.33% 42
Scotland +1 20 £601 +26.47% 5
East Midlands -33 9 £545 +21.92% 16
Wales -25 6 £358 +28.83% 10
Northern Ireland -4 3 - - 2

Computer Science Degree
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 33 (5.59%) Confluence
2 23 (3.90%) SharePoint
3 19 (3.22%) Apache Spark
4 13 (2.20%) Apache
5 7 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
6 4 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (0.68%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 3 (0.51%) Adobe Experience Manager
7 3 (0.51%) Ethereum
7 3 (0.51%) Hyperledger
7 3 (0.51%) SAS
8 2 (0.34%) CMS
8 2 (0.34%) IIS
8 2 (0.34%) OpenStack
8 2 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.34%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.17%) Apache Pulsar
9 1 (0.17%) Camunda
9 1 (0.17%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.17%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 15 (2.54%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (1.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 10 (1.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (1.02%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.34%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.34%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.85%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.68%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.51%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.34%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.17%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.17%) Maximo
6 1 (0.17%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.17%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle HRMS
6 1 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.17%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.17%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 212 (35.93%) Azure
2 160 (27.12%) AWS
3 87 (14.75%) GCP
4 40 (6.78%) Power Platform
5 39 (6.61%) GitHub
5 39 (6.61%) Serverless
6 38 (6.44%) Microsoft 365
7 34 (5.76%) Azure DevOps
8 30 (5.08%) SaaS
9 23 (3.90%) IaaS
10 19 (3.22%) AWS CloudFormation
11 18 (3.05%) GitHub Actions
12 16 (2.71%) Azure AKS
12 16 (2.71%) Azure Data Factory
13 15 (2.54%) Entra ID
14 14 (2.37%) PaaS
14 14 (2.37%) Snowflake
15 13 (2.20%) Amazon S3
15 13 (2.20%) Azure Service Bus
16 12 (2.03%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 27 (4.58%) TCP/IP
2 22 (3.73%) Firewall
3 21 (3.56%) DNS
4 12 (2.03%) WAN
5 10 (1.69%) HTTP
5 10 (1.69%) Network Security
6 9 (1.53%) LAN
6 9 (1.53%) VPN
7 7 (1.19%) BGP
7 7 (1.19%) HTTPS
7 7 (1.19%) Wireless
8 6 (1.02%) DMZ
8 6 (1.02%) VoIP
9 5 (0.85%) CTI
9 5 (0.85%) SAN
9 5 (0.85%) VLAN
10 4 (0.68%) OSPF
10 4 (0.68%) SSH
11 3 (0.51%) IGMP
11 3 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (8.47%) PostgreSQL
2 40 (6.78%) NoSQL
3 34 (5.76%) Relational Database
4 33 (5.59%) SQL Server
5 31 (5.25%) Data Warehouse
5 31 (5.25%) Power BI
6 24 (4.07%) Big Data
6 24 (4.07%) MySQL
7 16 (2.71%) Elasticsearch
8 15 (2.54%) Tableau
9 11 (1.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 10 (1.69%) Amazon RDS
10 10 (1.69%) Hadoop
11 9 (1.53%) Metadata
11 9 (1.53%) MongoDB
12 8 (1.36%) Redis
12 8 (1.36%) Snowflake Schema
13 7 (1.19%) Star Schema
14 6 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (1.02%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 67 (11.36%) Git
2 51 (8.64%) Jenkins
2 51 (8.64%) JIRA
3 49 (8.31%) GitLab
4 11 (1.86%) Postman
4 11 (1.86%) Selenium
5 10 (1.69%) Liquibase
6 8 (1.36%) Gradle
7 7 (1.19%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.19%) CircleCI
8 6 (1.02%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.85%) JUnit
10 4 (0.68%) Artifactory
10 4 (0.68%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.68%) Hardhat
10 4 (0.68%) MLflow
10 4 (0.68%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.68%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.51%) Flyway
11 3 (0.51%) Vite
General
1 284 (48.14%) Social Skills
2 167 (28.31%) Finance
3 144 (24.41%) Analytical Skills
4 81 (13.73%) Banking
5 37 (6.27%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.75%) Presentation Skills
7 23 (3.90%) Marketing
8 19 (3.22%) Front Office
9 18 (3.05%) Legal
10 17 (2.88%) Investment Banking
11 16 (2.71%) Financial Institution
12 15 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
12 15 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (2.37%) Telecoms
14 11 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (1.53%) Law
16 8 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 6 (1.02%) Retail
18 5 (0.85%) Manufacturing
18 5 (0.85%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 90 (15.25%) Developer
2 76 (12.88%) Architect
3 58 (9.83%) Lead
4 57 (9.66%) Analyst
5 47 (7.97%) Senior
6 30 (5.08%) Solutions Architect
7 29 (4.92%) Software Engineer
7 29 (4.92%) Technical Support
8 22 (3.73%) Cloud Engineer
9 19 (3.22%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 18 (3.05%) Consultant
10 18 (3.05%) Site Engineer
11 16 (2.71%) AWS Engineer
11 16 (2.71%) Cloud Architect
11 16 (2.71%) SOC Analyst
12 15 (2.54%) Business Analyst
12 15 (2.54%) Data Engineer
12 15 (2.54%) Java Developer
13 14 (2.37%) Project Manager
13 14 (2.37%) Support Specialist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (14.58%) REST
2 54 (9.15%) RESTful
3 37 (6.27%) .NET
3 37 (6.27%) Elastic Stack
4 33 (5.59%) React
5 26 (4.41%) JSON
5 26 (4.41%) Spring
6 25 (4.24%) Middleware
7 23 (3.90%) OAuth
7 23 (3.90%) SOAP
8 22 (3.73%) XML
9 21 (3.56%) Spring Boot
10 19 (3.22%) Kafka
11 18 (3.05%) HTML
12 17 (2.88%) PyTorch
13 15 (2.54%) JWT
13 15 (2.54%) Node.js
14 14 (2.37%) LangChain
15 13 (2.20%) CSS
15 13 (2.20%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 65 (11.02%) Management Information System
2 55 (9.32%) Cloud Native
3 34 (5.76%) Distributed Systems
4 33 (5.59%) Product Ownership
5 32 (5.42%) Onboarding
6 25 (4.24%) Algorithms
7 19 (3.22%) Data Protection Act
7 19 (3.22%) Enterprise Software
7 19 (3.22%) Public Cloud
8 18 (3.05%) Virtual Team
9 17 (2.88%) AI Agents
9 17 (2.88%) Cyberattack
9 17 (2.88%) Security Operations Centre
10 16 (2.71%) Data Structures
11 13 (2.20%) Derivative
12 12 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
12 12 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
13 11 (1.86%) Security Posture
14 10 (1.69%) Distributed Computing
15 8 (1.36%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 95 (16.10%) Linux
2 90 (15.25%) Windows
3 36 (6.10%) Unix
4 10 (1.69%) Android
5 8 (1.36%) Mac OS
5 8 (1.36%) Windows 10
6 7 (1.19%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.85%) VMS
8 4 (0.68%) Apple iOS
8 4 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.51%) Debian
9 3 (0.51%) Rocky
9 3 (0.51%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.17%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 581 (98.47%) Computer Science
2 232 (39.32%) Problem-Solving
3 194 (32.88%) Agile
4 183 (31.02%) CI/CD
5 182 (30.85%) DevOps
6 125 (21.19%) AI
7 109 (18.47%) Software Engineering
8 106 (17.97%) Microservices
9 94 (15.93%) Containerisation
10 82 (13.90%) Infrastructure as Code
11 80 (13.56%) Analytics
12 70 (11.86%) Data Modelling
13 66 (11.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 66 (11.19%) Stakeholder Management
14 61 (10.34%) Migration
15 59 (10.00%) Cybersecurity
15 59 (10.00%) Technical Leadership
16 57 (9.66%) ETL
16 57 (9.66%) Test Automation
17 54 (9.15%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 202 (34.24%) Python
2 127 (21.53%) SQL
3 100 (16.95%) Java
4 57 (9.66%) JavaScript
5 39 (6.61%) Go
6 35 (5.93%) TypeScript
7 34 (5.76%) C#
8 29 (4.92%) PowerShell
9 25 (4.24%) Bash
10 15 (2.54%) C++
11 14 (2.37%) Perl
12 11 (1.86%) Shell Script
13 10 (1.69%) Kotlin
14 8 (1.36%) R
15 7 (1.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (1.19%) Scala
16 5 (0.85%) Bicep
17 4 (0.68%) Rust
17 4 (0.68%) Solidity
18 3 (0.51%) PHP
Qualifications
1 590 (100.00%) Degree
2 125 (21.19%) Master's Degree
3 82 (13.90%) Security Cleared
4 55 (9.32%) SC Cleared
5 28 (4.75%) Azure Certification
6 27 (4.58%) CISSP
6 27 (4.58%) Microsoft Certification
7 21 (3.56%) CompTIA Security+
8 20 (3.39%) AWS Certification
8 20 (3.39%) CISM
8 20 (3.39%) DV Cleared
8 20 (3.39%) PMI Certification
9 18 (3.05%) BPSS Clearance
10 17 (2.88%) CompTIA CySA+
10 17 (2.88%) PMP
11 14 (2.37%) Cisco Certification
12 13 (2.20%) TOGAF Certification
13 8 (1.36%) PhD
14 7 (1.19%) CCNA
14 7 (1.19%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (8.64%) QA
2 31 (5.25%) GDPR
3 22 (3.73%) Data Quality
4 18 (3.05%) NIST
5 16 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (2.54%) PCI DSS
7 7 (1.19%) PSD2
8 6 (1.02%) Accessibility
9 5 (0.85%) HIPAA
9 5 (0.85%) ISO 20022
10 3 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.51%) Basel III
10 3 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 3 (0.51%) GRC
10 3 (0.51%) IFRS
10 3 (0.51%) NCSC
10 3 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.51%) SOC 2
10 3 (0.51%) WCAG
System Software
1 110 (18.64%) Docker
2 35 (5.93%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.36%) Firmware
4 7 (1.19%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.51%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.17%) HDFS
7 1 (0.17%) PowerHA
7 1 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
7 1 (0.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 121 (20.51%) Kubernetes
2 76 (12.88%) Terraform
3 53 (8.98%) Ansible
4 40 (6.78%) Grafana
5 34 (5.76%) Prometheus
6 20 (3.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (2.54%) Puppet
8 12 (2.03%) Kibana
9 5 (0.85%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.68%) SCCM
11 3 (0.51%) Control-M
11 3 (0.51%) Foglight
11 3 (0.51%) WSUS
12 2 (0.34%) logstash
13 1 (0.17%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.17%) HP ALM
13 1 (0.17%) linkerd
13 1 (0.17%) Nessus
13 1 (0.17%) Nmap
13 1 (0.17%) Packer
Vendors
1 133 (22.54%) Microsoft
2 59 (10.00%) Splunk
3 44 (7.46%) Oracle
4 35 (5.93%) Google
5 22 (3.73%) Databricks
6 17 (2.88%) SAP
7 16 (2.71%) ServiceNow
8 15 (2.54%) Salesforce
9 12 (2.03%) Software AG
10 11 (1.86%) IBM
11 10 (1.69%) Cisco
11 10 (1.69%) MuleSoft
12 9 (1.53%) Palo Alto
12 9 (1.53%) VMware
13 8 (1.36%) Atlassian
13 8 (1.36%) Informatica
14 7 (1.19%) Citrix
15 6 (1.02%) Foundry
15 6 (1.02%) OpenAI
15 6 (1.02%) Red Hat
379 Computer Science Degree jobs Nationwide