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 22 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 194 146 151
Rank change year-on-year -48 +5 +143
Contract jobs citing Computer Science Degree 604 573 721
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.48% 1.86% 1.62%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.36% 6.28% 5.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 392 346 488
10th Percentile £206 £309 £300
25th Percentile £358 £425 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £645
90th Percentile £750 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 6 34
10th Percentile £24.27 £34.46 £30.08
25th Percentile - £42.18 £38.75
Median hourly rate £33.50 £47.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.84% -13.18% -
75th Percentile £36.88 £53.75 £71.88
90th Percentile £82.20 £56.25 £83.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £27.00 £57.29
% change year-on-year +24.07% -52.87% -12.54%

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 13,861 9,128 13,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.00% 29.69% 30.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,140 5,598 8,327
10th Percentile £326 £294 £290
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £615 £630 £650
90th Percentile £719 £715 £730
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £510 £530
% change year-on-year -1.96% -3.77% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,019 438 970
10th Percentile £16.01 £20.08 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.24 £24.18 £20.98
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.25 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.52% -10.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £63.88 £67.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £82.15 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £45.88
% change year-on-year -45.54% +0.65% +1.96%

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 22 February 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 22 February 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 22 February 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 -34 536 £500 -4.76% 287
UK excluding London -29 307 £475 -5.00% 215
London -45 242 £522 -2.88% 120
Work from Home -21 166 £427 -18.67% 187
North of England -4 101 £450 -20.07% 27
South East +1 81 £425 -15.00% 90
Yorkshire -18 58 £525 +5.00% 7
Midlands -45 56 £525 +16.67% 35
West Midlands -57 45 £525 -8.70% 22
North West -6 43 £363 -47.02% 13
South West -2 31 £625 +0.40% 23
Scotland -5 23 £592 +18.30% 14
East of England -32 21 £600 +33.33% 27
East Midlands -25 11 £505 +41.85% 13
Wales -13 6 £358 +28.83% 2
Northern Ireland -6 1 - - 4

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 34 (5.63%) Confluence
2 22 (3.64%) SharePoint
3 19 (3.15%) Apache Spark
4 11 (1.82%) Apache
5 6 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.83%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 4 (0.66%) GeoServer
7 4 (0.66%) Smallworld
8 3 (0.50%) Ethereum
8 3 (0.50%) Hyperledger
8 3 (0.50%) IIS
8 3 (0.50%) SAS
9 2 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.33%) OpenStack
9 2 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.33%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.17%) CMS
10 1 (0.17%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 17 (2.81%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (1.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (0.83%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.17%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.17%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (1.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.83%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.50%) SAP ERP
3 3 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.33%) SAP Travel Management
4 2 (0.33%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.17%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.17%) FLEXCUBE
5 1 (0.17%) Maximo
5 1 (0.17%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle HRMS
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 208 (34.44%) Azure
2 170 (28.15%) AWS
3 100 (16.56%) GCP
4 50 (8.28%) Serverless
5 46 (7.62%) GitHub
6 37 (6.13%) Power Platform
7 36 (5.96%) Microsoft 365
8 31 (5.13%) Azure DevOps
9 29 (4.80%) SaaS
10 22 (3.64%) GitHub Actions
11 21 (3.48%) IaaS
12 17 (2.81%) AWS CloudFormation
13 14 (2.32%) Amazon S3
14 13 (2.15%) Azure AKS
15 12 (1.99%) Amazon ECS
15 12 (1.99%) Apigee
15 12 (1.99%) AWS KMS
15 12 (1.99%) Azure Logic Apps
15 12 (1.99%) Azure Service Bus
15 12 (1.99%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (3.48%) DNS
2 20 (3.31%) TCP/IP
3 19 (3.15%) Firewall
4 15 (2.48%) Network Security
5 11 (1.82%) HTTP
6 9 (1.49%) VoIP
7 8 (1.32%) SSH
7 8 (1.32%) Wireless
8 7 (1.16%) HTTPS
9 6 (0.99%) LAN
9 6 (0.99%) VPN
9 6 (0.99%) WAN
10 5 (0.83%) CTI
11 4 (0.66%) SAN
11 4 (0.66%) SSL
11 4 (0.66%) Telepresence
12 3 (0.50%) Internet
13 2 (0.33%) NAS
13 2 (0.33%) S/MIME
13 2 (0.33%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (9.44%) PostgreSQL
2 49 (8.11%) NoSQL
3 31 (5.13%) Data Warehouse
4 29 (4.80%) SQL Server
5 28 (4.64%) MySQL
6 27 (4.47%) Relational Database
7 25 (4.14%) Power BI
8 24 (3.97%) Big Data
9 20 (3.31%) Elasticsearch
10 14 (2.32%) Tableau
11 11 (1.82%) MongoDB
12 10 (1.66%) Metadata
13 8 (1.32%) Hadoop
13 8 (1.32%) Redis
13 8 (1.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 7 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
14 7 (1.16%) Apache Cassandra
14 7 (1.16%) Azure SQL Database
15 6 (0.99%) Couchbase
15 6 (0.99%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 68 (11.26%) Git
2 56 (9.27%) GitLab
3 55 (9.11%) Jenkins
4 51 (8.44%) JIRA
5 22 (3.64%) Liquibase
6 12 (1.99%) Postman
6 12 (1.99%) Selenium
7 8 (1.32%) CircleCI
7 8 (1.32%) Gradle
8 6 (0.99%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.99%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.99%) JUnit
9 5 (0.83%) MLflow
10 4 (0.66%) Artifactory
10 4 (0.66%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.66%) Hardhat
11 3 (0.50%) ERwin
11 3 (0.50%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.50%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.50%) TeamCity
General
1 311 (51.49%) Social Skills
2 180 (29.80%) Finance
3 149 (24.67%) Analytical Skills
4 85 (14.07%) Banking
5 36 (5.96%) Public Sector
6 28 (4.64%) Presentation Skills
7 25 (4.14%) Organisational Skills
8 22 (3.64%) Financial Institution
9 21 (3.48%) Marketing
10 16 (2.65%) Documentation Skills
11 13 (2.15%) Legal
12 12 (1.99%) Front Office
13 10 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 10 (1.66%) Investment Banking
13 10 (1.66%) Telecoms
14 9 (1.49%) Influencing Skills
15 8 (1.32%) Manufacturing
15 8 (1.32%) Retail
16 7 (1.16%) Law
17 6 (0.99%) Military
Job Titles
1 106 (17.55%) Developer
2 74 (12.25%) Architect
3 57 (9.44%) Analyst
3 57 (9.44%) Senior
4 55 (9.11%) Lead
5 41 (6.79%) Software Engineer
6 32 (5.30%) Solutions Architect
7 30 (4.97%) Technical Support
8 23 (3.81%) Site Reliability Engineer
9 22 (3.64%) Cloud Engineer
9 22 (3.64%) Site Engineer
10 18 (2.98%) AWS Engineer
11 17 (2.81%) Consultant
12 16 (2.65%) Cloud Architect
12 16 (2.65%) Data Engineer
12 16 (2.65%) Senior Software Engineer
12 16 (2.65%) SOC Analyst
13 15 (2.48%) Senior Developer
14 14 (2.32%) Java Developer
14 14 (2.32%) Splunk Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (15.23%) REST
2 60 (9.93%) RESTful
3 48 (7.95%) Elastic Stack
4 39 (6.46%) .NET
4 39 (6.46%) React
5 29 (4.80%) HTML
6 27 (4.47%) JSON
6 27 (4.47%) Spring
7 26 (4.30%) Middleware
8 25 (4.14%) SOAP
9 24 (3.97%) OAuth
10 23 (3.81%) CSS
11 22 (3.64%) Node.js
11 22 (3.64%) XML
12 19 (3.15%) Kafka
13 17 (2.81%) Spring Boot
14 16 (2.65%) AngularJS
15 15 (2.48%) JWT
16 14 (2.32%) PyTorch
17 13 (2.15%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 78 (12.91%) Management Information System
2 69 (11.42%) Cloud Native
3 45 (7.45%) Distributed Systems
4 29 (4.80%) Public Cloud
5 27 (4.47%) Product Ownership
6 24 (3.97%) Algorithms
6 24 (3.97%) Onboarding
7 22 (3.64%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (3.15%) Data Structures
8 19 (3.15%) Security Posture
9 18 (2.98%) Enterprise Software
10 17 (2.81%) Virtual Team
11 15 (2.48%) AI Agents
11 15 (2.48%) Cyberattack
11 15 (2.48%) Security Operations Centre
12 11 (1.82%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
13 10 (1.66%) Derivative
13 10 (1.66%) Distributed Computing
14 9 (1.49%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 111 (18.38%) Linux
2 92 (15.23%) Windows
3 47 (7.78%) Unix
4 10 (1.66%) Android
5 8 (1.32%) Mac OS
5 8 (1.32%) Windows 10
5 8 (1.32%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.99%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.83%) VMS
8 4 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.33%) Debian
9 2 (0.33%) Rocky
9 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.17%) Kali Linux
10 1 (0.17%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 597 (98.84%) Computer Science
2 258 (42.72%) Problem-Solving
3 213 (35.26%) Agile
4 198 (32.78%) DevOps
5 183 (30.30%) CI/CD
6 122 (20.20%) Microservices
7 115 (19.04%) Containerisation
8 110 (18.21%) Software Engineering
9 99 (16.39%) AI
10 86 (14.24%) Infrastructure as Code
11 80 (13.25%) Analytics
12 68 (11.26%) Data Modelling
12 68 (11.26%) Migration
13 67 (11.09%) Stakeholder Management
14 66 (10.93%) Cybersecurity
15 63 (10.43%) Change Management
16 61 (10.10%) Validation
17 58 (9.60%) Incident Response
18 57 (9.44%) Test Automation
19 56 (9.27%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 223 (36.92%) Python
2 122 (20.20%) SQL
3 104 (17.22%) Java
4 75 (12.42%) JavaScript
5 52 (8.61%) Go
6 43 (7.12%) TypeScript
7 33 (5.46%) C#
8 29 (4.80%) Bash
9 22 (3.64%) PowerShell
10 18 (2.98%) Perl
11 17 (2.81%) C++
12 14 (2.32%) Shell Script
13 8 (1.32%) Kotlin
13 8 (1.32%) R
14 7 (1.16%) Bicep
14 7 (1.16%) Ruby
15 6 (0.99%) Scala
16 4 (0.66%) Rust
16 4 (0.66%) Solidity
17 3 (0.50%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 604 (100.00%) Degree
2 142 (23.51%) Master's Degree
3 85 (14.07%) Security Cleared
4 59 (9.77%) SC Cleared
5 29 (4.80%) Azure Certification
5 29 (4.80%) BPSS Clearance
6 28 (4.64%) CISSP
7 25 (4.14%) AWS Certification
8 23 (3.81%) Microsoft Certification
9 19 (3.15%) CISM
9 19 (3.15%) PMI Certification
10 18 (2.98%) CompTIA Security+
10 18 (2.98%) DV Cleared
11 16 (2.65%) PMP
11 16 (2.65%) TOGAF Certification
12 15 (2.48%) CompTIA CySA+
13 13 (2.15%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (1.66%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
15 7 (1.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 7 (1.16%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (8.61%) QA
2 37 (6.13%) GDPR
3 30 (4.97%) Data Quality
4 24 (3.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (2.48%) PCI DSS
6 14 (2.32%) NIST
7 13 (2.15%) GRC
8 11 (1.82%) Def Stans
9 9 (1.49%) HIPAA
10 6 (0.99%) Accessibility
10 6 (0.99%) PSD2
11 4 (0.66%) ISO 20022
12 3 (0.50%) Basel III
12 3 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.50%) GAAP
12 3 (0.50%) ISO 8583
12 3 (0.50%) NIST 800
12 3 (0.50%) PMO
12 3 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 129 (21.36%) Docker
2 30 (4.97%) Active Directory
3 6 (0.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.66%) Firmware
5 2 (0.33%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.17%) HDFS
6 1 (0.17%) PowerHA
6 1 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 139 (23.01%) Kubernetes
2 83 (13.74%) Terraform
3 60 (9.93%) Ansible
4 41 (6.79%) Grafana
5 35 (5.79%) Prometheus
6 19 (3.15%) Puppet
7 16 (2.65%) Kibana
7 16 (2.65%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (1.16%) Argo
9 5 (0.83%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.50%) Control-M
10 3 (0.50%) SCCM
11 2 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.33%) logstash
11 2 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.17%) Istio
12 1 (0.17%) linkerd
12 1 (0.17%) Packer
12 1 (0.17%) QRadar
12 1 (0.17%) RSA Archer
Vendors
1 121 (20.03%) Microsoft
2 71 (11.75%) Splunk
3 48 (7.95%) Oracle
4 37 (6.13%) Google
5 20 (3.31%) Databricks
5 20 (3.31%) Salesforce
5 20 (3.31%) SAP
6 15 (2.48%) IBM
6 15 (2.48%) ServiceNow
7 13 (2.15%) Software AG
8 12 (1.99%) Cisco
8 12 (1.99%) MuleSoft
8 12 (1.99%) Red Hat
9 11 (1.82%) Informatica
10 9 (1.49%) Atlassian
10 9 (1.49%) VMware
11 7 (1.16%) Foundry
12 6 (0.99%) Gemalto
12 6 (0.99%) Thales
12 6 (0.99%) Workday