Computer Science Contract Job Trends

Computer Science
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Computer Science skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 63 62
Rank change year-on-year -66 -1 +29
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,084 1,214 1,356
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 3.73% 3.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 4.12% 3.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 607 676 829
10th Percentile £178 £203 £324
25th Percentile £204 £360 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £652 £675
90th Percentile £752 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £379 £435 £513
% change year-on-year -12.89% -15.22% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 48 83
10th Percentile £25.73 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £54.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.44% -0.91% -11.29%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.10 £66.88
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.75 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +20.52% +21.82% -8.33%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Computer Science falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 44,806 29,445 35,310
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.36% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,768 18,486 22,647
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,649 1,571 2,189
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £13.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.86
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.55 £50.88 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £73.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +87.50% -40.00% -1.45%

Computer Science
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Computer Science job vacancy trend in the UK

Computer Science
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Computer Science
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Computer Science over the 6 months to 21 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Computer Science in the UK

Computer Science
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Computer Science
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Computer Science over the 6 months to 21 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Computer Science in the UK

Computer Science
Top 17 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 within the UK over the 6 months to 21 July 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 -53 975 £450 -10.00% 1,119
UK excluding London -47 591 £379 -12.89% 580
London -61 418 £530 -11.70% 645
South East -8 244 £336 -29.58% 192
Work from Home -84 244 £500 -9.09% 436
North of England -47 137 £381 -19.48% 104
Midlands -57 82 £375 +18.48% 91
Yorkshire -20 71 £520 +28.99% 23
West Midlands -60 56 £416 +46.30% 50
North West -55 55 £292 -38.53% 49
East of England -30 47 £215 -66.92% 78
South West -61 35 £435 +81.04% 60
Scotland -40 34 £481 +1.64% 25
East Midlands -22 25 £275 -34.52% 41
North East -36 12 £195 -57.84% 32
Wales -26 7 £530 +18.83% 11
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 34

Computer Science
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 44 (4.06%) Confluence
2 33 (3.04%) Apache Spark
3 30 (2.77%) SharePoint
4 24 (2.21%) Apache Airflow
5 23 (2.12%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) Camunda
9 4 (0.37%) CMS
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (3.87%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.20%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.37%) Trello
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Simulink
10 1 (0.092%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 17 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.28%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.18%) Workfront
5 1 (0.092%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.092%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.092%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.092%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.092%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 312 (28.78%) Azure
2 195 (17.99%) AWS
3 100 (9.23%) GCP
4 76 (7.01%) Power Platform
5 61 (5.63%) Entra ID
6 55 (5.07%) Microsoft 365
7 45 (4.15%) GitHub
7 45 (4.15%) SaaS
8 44 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
9 30 (2.77%) Snowflake
10 28 (2.58%) Serverless
11 22 (2.03%) PowerApps
12 21 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
13 18 (1.66%) Azure AKS
14 15 (1.38%) Power Automate
15 14 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
15 14 (1.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 14 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
15 14 (1.29%) Microsoft Copilot
16 13 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 39 (3.60%) Firewall
2 32 (2.95%) Network Security
3 28 (2.58%) DNS
4 26 (2.40%) VPN
5 25 (2.31%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.66%) WAN
7 15 (1.38%) LAN
7 15 (1.38%) SSH
8 14 (1.29%) BGP
9 11 (1.01%) DHCP
9 11 (1.01%) OSPF
10 10 (0.92%) HTTPS
10 10 (0.92%) VLAN
10 10 (0.92%) Wireless
11 8 (0.74%) Wireshark
12 7 (0.65%) 3GPP
12 7 (0.65%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (0.65%) MPLS
13 6 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
13 6 (0.55%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.72%) Power BI
2 53 (4.89%) SQL Server
3 52 (4.80%) Relational Database
4 50 (4.61%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
5 35 (3.23%) Metadata
6 31 (2.86%) Big Data
7 27 (2.49%) MongoDB
8 25 (2.31%) NoSQL
9 18 (1.66%) Data Lake
9 18 (1.66%) MySQL
10 17 (1.57%) Tableau
11 16 (1.48%) Hadoop
12 12 (1.11%) Data Mining
13 11 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
14 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
15 8 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.74%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 86 (7.93%) Git
2 56 (5.17%) JIRA
3 39 (3.60%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.14%) GitLab
5 31 (2.86%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.20%) Selenium
7 12 (1.11%) JUnit
8 11 (1.01%) Gradle
9 8 (0.74%) Maven
9 8 (0.74%) MLflow
9 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
9 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
10 7 (0.65%) Bitbucket
10 7 (0.65%) Postman
10 7 (0.65%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.55%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
12 5 (0.46%) Flyway
12 5 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 433 (39.94%) Social Skills
2 239 (22.05%) Finance
3 234 (21.59%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (8.86%) Banking
5 69 (6.37%) Public Sector
6 56 (5.17%) Documentation Skills
7 55 (5.07%) Aerospace
8 39 (3.60%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (3.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 30 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (2.77%) Marketing
10 30 (2.77%) Telecoms
11 24 (2.21%) Manufacturing
12 23 (2.12%) Front Office
13 22 (2.03%) Legal
14 20 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
15 16 (1.48%) Law
15 16 (1.48%) Military
16 14 (1.29%) Retail
17 13 (1.20%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 124 (11.44%) Developer
2 113 (10.42%) Architect
3 105 (9.69%) Senior
4 83 (7.66%) Analyst
5 80 (7.38%) Lead
6 38 (3.51%) Data Engineer
6 38 (3.51%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.41%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.14%) Delivery Manager
9 30 (2.77%) Data Scientist
10 29 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
11 28 (2.58%) Product Delivery Manager
12 26 (2.40%) Junior
13 24 (2.21%) Python Developer
13 24 (2.21%) Security Engineer
14 23 (2.12%) IT Support
14 23 (2.12%) Java Developer
15 22 (2.03%) Full-Stack Developer
15 22 (2.03%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 22 (2.03%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (8.12%) REST
2 62 (5.72%) React
3 55 (5.07%) .NET
4 43 (3.97%) Kafka
5 37 (3.41%) RESTful
6 36 (3.32%) Spring
7 32 (2.95%) Spring Boot
8 27 (2.49%) Middleware
9 26 (2.40%) OAuth
10 25 (2.31%) AngularJS
11 23 (2.12%) JSON
11 23 (2.12%) PyTorch
12 22 (2.03%) CSS
12 22 (2.03%) HTML
13 20 (1.85%) Web Services
14 19 (1.75%) SAML
15 18 (1.66%) LDAP
15 18 (1.66%) OAuth2
15 18 (1.66%) OpenID
15 18 (1.66%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 107 (9.87%) Management Information System
2 88 (8.12%) Product Ownership
3 83 (7.66%) Onboarding
4 78 (7.20%) Algorithms
5 74 (6.83%) Cloud Native
6 58 (5.35%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.52%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.58%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.49%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 25 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
11 23 (2.12%) Derivative
12 20 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
13 17 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.57%) Fixed Income
14 16 (1.48%) Data Centre
14 16 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
14 16 (1.48%) Equities
14 16 (1.48%) Operational Technology
14 16 (1.48%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 130 (11.99%) Windows
2 107 (9.87%) Linux
3 34 (3.14%) Unix
4 25 (2.31%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.94%) Android
6 18 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (1.57%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.11%) Apple iOS
9 10 (0.92%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.83%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.46%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.092%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 320 (29.52%) Problem-Solving
2 273 (25.18%) Agile
3 240 (22.14%) AI
4 195 (17.99%) CI/CD
5 185 (17.07%) Continuous Improvement
6 184 (16.97%) Software Engineering
7 164 (15.13%) DevOps
8 152 (14.02%) Analytics
9 129 (11.90%) Stakeholder Management
10 128 (11.81%) Cybersecurity
11 119 (10.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 114 (10.52%) Machine Learning
13 111 (10.24%) ITIL
14 107 (9.87%) Mathematics
15 97 (8.95%) Data Science
16 95 (8.76%) Decision-Making
16 95 (8.76%) Microservices
17 91 (8.39%) Roadmaps
18 85 (7.84%) Validation
19 84 (7.75%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 293 (27.03%) Python
2 211 (19.46%) SQL
3 136 (12.55%) Java
4 67 (6.18%) JavaScript
5 60 (5.54%) C#
5 60 (5.54%) PowerShell
6 37 (3.41%) TypeScript
7 29 (2.68%) Bash
8 22 (2.03%) C++
9 18 (1.66%) R
10 13 (1.20%) Bicep
11 11 (1.01%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.92%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.83%) C
13 9 (0.83%) Go
14 8 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.65%) Perl
16 5 (0.46%) Scala
17 4 (0.37%) Ada
17 4 (0.37%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 838 (77.31%) Degree
2 479 (44.19%) Computer Science Degree
3 208 (19.19%) Security Cleared
4 135 (12.45%) Master's Degree
5 126 (11.62%) SC Cleared
6 53 (4.89%) CISSP
7 44 (4.06%) Azure Certification
8 40 (3.69%) Microsoft Certification
9 35 (3.23%) CISM
9 35 (3.23%) PhD
10 32 (2.95%) DBS Check
11 29 (2.68%) AWS Certification
12 28 (2.58%) DV Cleared
13 27 (2.49%) PMI Certification
14 26 (2.40%) PMP
14 26 (2.40%) TOGAF Certification
15 23 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
16 21 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
17 20 (1.85%) CISA
18 15 (1.38%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 67 (6.18%) Data Quality
3 61 (5.63%) NIST
4 57 (5.26%) QA
5 35 (3.23%) GDPR
6 19 (1.75%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.48%) PCI DSS
8 15 (1.38%) GRC
9 13 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (1.11%) NCSC
10 12 (1.11%) SLA
11 11 (1.01%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.46%) ISO 20022
14 5 (0.46%) ITGC
14 5 (0.46%) PSD2
System Software
1 88 (8.12%) Docker
2 81 (7.47%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.83%) Firmware
4 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) ACF2
8 3 (0.28%) RACF
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.092%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.092%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.092%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 107 (9.87%) Kubernetes
2 55 (5.07%) Terraform
3 36 (3.32%) Ansible
4 27 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.31%) Prometheus
6 22 (2.03%) Grafana
7 14 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.55%) SCCM
9 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Foglight
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.18%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.18%) Puppet
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize
Vendors
1 200 (18.45%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.09%) Oracle
3 50 (4.61%) Databricks
4 41 (3.78%) Google
4 41 (3.78%) IBM
5 35 (3.23%) ServiceNow
6 33 (3.04%) SAP
7 29 (2.68%) VMware
8 22 (2.03%) Cisco
9 21 (1.94%) CyberArk
10 20 (1.85%) Splunk
11 18 (1.66%) BeyondTrust
12 14 (1.29%) Informatica
12 14 (1.29%) Palo Alto
13 13 (1.20%) Salesforce
14 11 (1.01%) Okta
15 10 (0.92%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) Apple
16 9 (0.83%) CheckPoint
16 9 (0.83%) Red Hat