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 23 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 63 64
Rank change year-on-year -53 +1 +42
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,039 1,041 1,327
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.14% 3.64% 3.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.53% 4.00% 3.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 609 589 805
10th Percentile £178 £250 £313
25th Percentile £220 £388 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.94% -3.81% -8.70%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £795
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -18.42% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 28 99
10th Percentile £26.86 £25.88 £22.33
25th Percentile £42.97 £29.07 £41.25
Median hourly rate £81.50 £48.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.18% -11.36% +3.41%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.81 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.46 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £41.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +101.21% -25.00% +10.00%

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 41,015 26,042 36,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 91.03% 86.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,698 16,721 23,544
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £497 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.59% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,419 1,056 2,449
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +51.98% -22.42% -2.58%
75th Percentile £67.50 £58.70 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -33.82% +8.57%

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 23 May 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 23 May 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 23 May 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 -43 928 £467 -11.05% 992
UK excluding London -46 549 £388 -18.42% 682
London -57 404 £550 -8.33% 434
Work from Home -63 229 £500 -9.09% 400
South East -13 211 £215 -55.61% 237
North of England -33 129 £400 -23.81% 133
Yorkshire -12 78 £514 +12.47% 39
Midlands -71 73 £463 +73.22% 77
West Midlands -66 56 £450 +58.45% 47
North West -36 50 £350 -35.66% 66
South West -42 47 £425 +14.86% 71
East of England -35 39 £280 -56.92% 85
Scotland -15 37 £620 +15.35% 53
East Midlands -37 16 £525 +110.00% 29
Northern Ireland +8 8 £350 -41.67% 31
Wales -32 8 £345 +18.97% 10
North East -29 2 £125 -73.68% 30

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 49 (4.72%) Confluence
2 40 (3.85%) Apache Spark
3 26 (2.50%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.12%) Apache
5 20 (1.92%) Apache Airflow
6 11 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.096%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.096%) Appian
11 1 (0.096%) Camunda
Applications
1 34 (3.27%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.44%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.096%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (2.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.19%) Workfront
5 1 (0.096%) Actimize
5 1 (0.096%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.096%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.096%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.096%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.096%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 298 (28.68%) Azure
2 185 (17.81%) AWS
3 78 (7.51%) GCP
4 58 (5.58%) Power Platform
5 54 (5.20%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (4.72%) GitHub
6 49 (4.72%) SaaS
7 44 (4.23%) Entra ID
8 36 (3.46%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (2.02%) GitHub Actions
9 21 (2.02%) Snowflake
10 19 (1.83%) AWS CloudFormation
11 18 (1.73%) Serverless
12 17 (1.64%) Azure AKS
12 17 (1.64%) IaaS
13 16 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
14 13 (1.25%) Azure Machine Learning
14 13 (1.25%) Azure Service Bus
14 13 (1.25%) PaaS
15 12 (1.15%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.56%) Firewall
2 30 (2.89%) TCP/IP
3 28 (2.69%) DNS
4 25 (2.41%) Network Security
5 16 (1.54%) WAN
6 14 (1.35%) BGP
7 13 (1.25%) LAN
8 11 (1.06%) OSPF
8 11 (1.06%) SSH
9 9 (0.87%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.77%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.77%) VPN
10 8 (0.77%) Wireless
11 7 (0.67%) SAN
11 7 (0.67%) VLAN
12 6 (0.58%) DHCP
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 5 (0.48%) HTTP
14 4 (0.38%) MPLS
14 4 (0.38%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (4.62%) SQL Server
2 47 (4.52%) Power BI
2 47 (4.52%) Relational Database
3 46 (4.43%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (3.75%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (3.56%) Big Data
6 27 (2.60%) NoSQL
7 25 (2.41%) Metadata
8 23 (2.21%) MySQL
9 22 (2.12%) MongoDB
10 21 (2.02%) Hadoop
11 18 (1.73%) Tableau
12 15 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
13 14 (1.35%) Data Lake
14 11 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 10 (0.96%) Redis
15 10 (0.96%) Snowflake Schema
16 8 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
16 8 (0.77%) Power Query
17 7 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 74 (7.12%) Git
2 66 (6.35%) JIRA
3 35 (3.37%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.27%) GitLab
5 28 (2.69%) Rational DOORS
6 11 (1.06%) Gradle
6 11 (1.06%) MLflow
6 11 (1.06%) Selenium
7 10 (0.96%) JUnit
8 9 (0.87%) Jaeger
8 9 (0.87%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.67%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.67%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.58%) Maven
10 6 (0.58%) Postman
10 6 (0.58%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
11 5 (0.48%) Flyway
12 4 (0.38%) Cucumber
13 3 (0.29%) Bitbucket
General
1 420 (40.42%) Social Skills
2 234 (22.52%) Finance
3 207 (19.92%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (8.76%) Banking
5 60 (5.77%) Public Sector
6 53 (5.10%) Aerospace
7 47 (4.52%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.18%) Marketing
8 33 (3.18%) Telecoms
9 31 (2.98%) Presentation Skills
10 28 (2.69%) Legal
11 27 (2.60%) Organisational Skills
12 25 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 24 (2.31%) Influencing Skills
14 23 (2.21%) Front Office
15 17 (1.64%) Manufacturing
16 16 (1.54%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.54%) Publishing
17 15 (1.44%) Financial Institution
18 14 (1.35%) Retail
Job Titles
1 108 (10.39%) Developer
2 107 (10.30%) Architect
3 86 (8.28%) Analyst
4 85 (8.18%) Lead
5 84 (8.08%) Senior
6 37 (3.56%) Delivery Manager
6 37 (3.56%) Software Engineer
7 35 (3.37%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.27%) Solutions Architect
9 31 (2.98%) Data Scientist
9 31 (2.98%) Technical Support
10 29 (2.79%) Data Engineer
11 28 (2.69%) Product Delivery Manager
12 24 (2.31%) Python Developer
13 23 (2.21%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 23 (2.21%) Junior
14 22 (2.12%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.12%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.12%) Systems Manager
15 20 (1.92%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (8.47%) REST
2 54 (5.20%) .NET
2 54 (5.20%) React
3 46 (4.43%) Middleware
4 44 (4.23%) Kafka
5 36 (3.46%) RESTful
6 34 (3.27%) Spring Boot
7 30 (2.89%) PyTorch
7 30 (2.89%) Spring
8 23 (2.21%) OAuth
9 22 (2.12%) SOAP
9 22 (2.12%) TensorFlow
10 21 (2.02%) Elastic Stack
10 21 (2.02%) JSON
10 21 (2.02%) XML
11 20 (1.92%) AngularJS
12 18 (1.73%) HTML
12 18 (1.73%) Pandas
13 17 (1.64%) CSS
14 15 (1.44%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 102 (9.82%) Management Information System
2 79 (7.60%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.31%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.83%) Algorithms
5 64 (6.16%) Cloud Native
6 50 (4.81%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.72%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.89%) Virtual Team
9 23 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
10 22 (2.12%) Derivative
11 21 (2.02%) AI Agents
11 21 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
12 20 (1.92%) Equities
12 20 (1.92%) Taxonomies
13 18 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.64%) Cyberattack
14 17 (1.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 17 (1.64%) Security Operations Centre
15 16 (1.54%) Robotics
16 14 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 134 (12.90%) Linux
2 132 (12.70%) Windows
3 46 (4.43%) Unix
4 24 (2.31%) Android
5 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.73%) Windows Server
7 16 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (1.44%) Mac OS
9 14 (1.35%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.48%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) Debian
11 4 (0.38%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.096%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.096%) MVS
13 1 (0.096%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 315 (30.32%) Problem-Solving
2 255 (24.54%) Agile
3 224 (21.56%) AI
4 195 (18.77%) CI/CD
5 184 (17.71%) DevOps
6 170 (16.36%) Software Engineering
7 164 (15.78%) Continuous Improvement
8 123 (11.84%) Analytics
9 121 (11.65%) Cybersecurity
10 118 (11.36%) Microservices
11 100 (9.62%) Stakeholder Management
12 97 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 96 (9.24%) Containerisation
14 95 (9.14%) Decision-Making
14 95 (9.14%) Machine Learning
15 92 (8.85%) Data Modelling
15 92 (8.85%) Technical Leadership
16 88 (8.47%) Mathematics
17 86 (8.28%) Data Governance
18 85 (8.18%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 287 (27.62%) Python
2 209 (20.12%) SQL
3 135 (12.99%) Java
4 63 (6.06%) JavaScript
5 56 (5.39%) C#
6 48 (4.62%) PowerShell
7 32 (3.08%) TypeScript
8 31 (2.98%) Bash
9 29 (2.79%) C++
10 21 (2.02%) R
11 14 (1.35%) Go
11 14 (1.35%) Perl
12 12 (1.15%) Rust
13 11 (1.06%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.96%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.58%) Scala
17 5 (0.48%) C
18 3 (0.29%) PHP
18 3 (0.29%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 829 (79.79%) Degree
2 505 (48.60%) Computer Science Degree
3 188 (18.09%) Security Cleared
4 142 (13.67%) Master's Degree
5 114 (10.97%) SC Cleared
6 56 (5.39%) CISSP
7 38 (3.66%) CISM
8 35 (3.37%) PhD
9 32 (3.08%) Azure Certification
10 31 (2.98%) TOGAF Certification
11 28 (2.69%) Microsoft Certification
12 27 (2.60%) PMI Certification
13 26 (2.50%) DV Cleared
14 24 (2.31%) PMP
15 23 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
16 22 (2.12%) CompTIA Security+
17 21 (2.02%) AWS Certification
18 19 (1.83%) CISA
18 19 (1.83%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (5.68%) QA
2 57 (5.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 57 (5.49%) NIST
3 54 (5.20%) Data Quality
4 37 (3.56%) GDPR
5 19 (1.83%) PCI DSS
6 18 (1.73%) Accessibility
7 13 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (1.15%) GRC
9 10 (0.96%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.87%) SLA
11 8 (0.77%) NCSC
12 7 (0.67%) COBIT
12 7 (0.67%) HIPAA
12 7 (0.67%) PSD2
13 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
13 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
13 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
13 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 5 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 110 (10.59%) Docker
2 69 (6.64%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.15%) Firmware
5 9 (0.87%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.38%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) KVM
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.096%) ACF2
11 1 (0.096%) HDFS
11 1 (0.096%) RACF
Systems Management
1 131 (12.61%) Kubernetes
2 62 (5.97%) Terraform
3 50 (4.81%) Ansible
4 32 (3.08%) Grafana
5 30 (2.89%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (1.06%) Puppet
9 10 (0.96%) Kibana
10 9 (0.87%) Kiali
11 4 (0.38%) Control-M
11 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.29%) Foglight
12 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.29%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.19%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 179 (17.23%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.26%) Oracle
3 51 (4.91%) Splunk
4 49 (4.72%) Databricks
5 35 (3.37%) Google
6 34 (3.27%) IBM
7 33 (3.18%) SAP
8 29 (2.79%) ServiceNow
9 24 (2.31%) VMware
10 20 (1.92%) Cisco
11 16 (1.54%) BiZZdesign
11 16 (1.54%) Informatica
11 16 (1.54%) Okta
12 14 (1.35%) Palo Alto
12 14 (1.35%) Salesforce
13 13 (1.25%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.06%) CyberArk
14 11 (1.06%) Software AG
15 10 (0.96%) MuleSoft
15 10 (0.96%) OpenAI