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 26 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 66 61
Rank change year-on-year -68 -5 +26
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,098 1,232 1,290
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 3.77% 3.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 4.16% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 614 694 800
10th Percentile £175 £184 £330
25th Percentile £200 £354 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £491 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.37% -10.73% -
75th Percentile £622 £643 £689
90th Percentile £760 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £377 £420 £525
% change year-on-year -10.24% -20.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 46 60
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.12
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £40.00
Median hourly rate £68.75 £56.00 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.77% +8.74% -16.94%
75th Percentile £87.79 £68.44 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.46 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +15.60% +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 45,367 29,590 33,147
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.44% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,794 18,422 20,982
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,879 1,766 1,695
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 1,004 £463 -7.50% 848
UK excluding London -48 583 £377 -10.24% 473
London -69 442 £525 -8.70% 510
Work from Home -84 246 £500 - 270
South East -14 233 £381 -10.29% 108
North of England -47 145 £447 +8.36% 72
Midlands -52 92 £230 -38.67% 58
Yorkshire -9 75 £450 +27.12% 16
West Midlands -56 63 £225 -32.84% 27
North West -55 60 £447 -5.89% 41
East of England -29 49 £200 -55.56% 64
South West -73 29 £469 +127.12% 129
East Midlands -25 28 £253 -43.51% 31
Scotland -61 26 £359 -24.47% 29
North East -36 11 £195 -57.84% 16
Northern Ireland +6 7 £350 - 10
Wales -23 4 £530 +14.59% 12

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 40 (3.64%) Confluence
2 32 (2.91%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.09%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.37%) Apache
6 9 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) Camunda
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.27%) CMS
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.091%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.091%) nginx
12 1 (0.091%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.10%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.46%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.64%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.36%) Trello
8 3 (0.27%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.091%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.27%) Primavera
4 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.091%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.091%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.091%) Maximo
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.091%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 300 (27.32%) Azure
2 193 (17.58%) AWS
3 111 (10.11%) GCP
4 74 (6.74%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.65%) Entra ID
6 60 (5.46%) Microsoft 365
7 51 (4.64%) SaaS
8 47 (4.28%) GitHub
9 45 (4.10%) Azure DevOps
10 35 (3.19%) Snowflake
11 32 (2.91%) Serverless
12 22 (2.00%) PowerApps
13 18 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
14 17 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
14 17 (1.55%) Microsoft Copilot
14 17 (1.55%) OpenShift
15 15 (1.37%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
16 14 (1.28%) dbt
17 13 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.92%) DNS
2 42 (3.83%) Firewall
3 34 (3.10%) VPN
4 33 (3.01%) Network Security
5 25 (2.28%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.82%) DHCP
7 17 (1.55%) SSH
8 16 (1.46%) WAN
9 12 (1.09%) BGP
9 12 (1.09%) LAN
10 11 (1.00%) Wireless
11 10 (0.91%) HTTP
11 10 (0.91%) MPLS
12 9 (0.82%) Wireshark
13 8 (0.73%) 3GPP
13 8 (0.73%) 5G
13 8 (0.73%) HTTPS
13 8 (0.73%) OSPF
13 8 (0.73%) VLAN
14 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (5.46%) Power BI
2 56 (5.10%) Relational Database
3 49 (4.46%) SQL Server
4 45 (4.10%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (3.19%) Metadata
6 30 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.28%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.28%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.00%) Big Data
9 17 (1.55%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (1.55%) Tableau
10 16 (1.46%) MySQL
11 14 (1.28%) Data Mining
11 14 (1.28%) Redis
12 11 (1.00%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
14 9 (0.82%) Data Lake
15 8 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
16 7 (0.64%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 94 (8.56%) Git
2 51 (4.64%) JIRA
3 43 (3.92%) Jenkins
4 39 (3.55%) GitLab
5 29 (2.64%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (1.64%) Selenium
7 13 (1.18%) JUnit
8 11 (1.00%) SonarQube
9 10 (0.91%) Bitbucket
9 10 (0.91%) Gradle
9 10 (0.91%) Maven
9 10 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
10 9 (0.82%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.82%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.73%) TeamCity
12 7 (0.64%) Mockito
13 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.55%) Postman
13 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.55%) Visual Studio
General
1 447 (40.71%) Social Skills
2 248 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
3 238 (21.68%) Finance
4 91 (8.29%) Banking
5 64 (5.83%) Public Sector
6 59 (5.37%) Aerospace
7 46 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (3.64%) Telecoms
9 37 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 36 (3.28%) Organisational Skills
11 30 (2.73%) Influencing Skills
12 29 (2.64%) Manufacturing
13 28 (2.55%) Front Office
14 25 (2.28%) Legal
15 22 (2.00%) Marketing
16 17 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
17 16 (1.46%) Law
18 15 (1.37%) Military
18 15 (1.37%) Retail
19 13 (1.18%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 141 (12.84%) Developer
2 108 (9.84%) Senior
3 93 (8.47%) Architect
4 80 (7.29%) Lead
5 78 (7.10%) Analyst
6 36 (3.28%) Data Engineer
6 36 (3.28%) Product Manager
7 32 (2.91%) Delivery Manager
8 31 (2.82%) Software Engineer
9 28 (2.55%) Product Delivery Manager
10 27 (2.46%) IT Support
11 26 (2.37%) Senior Developer
12 25 (2.28%) Junior
13 24 (2.19%) Java Developer
13 24 (2.19%) Python Developer
13 24 (2.19%) Solutions Architect
14 22 (2.00%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 22 (2.00%) Data Scientist
15 21 (1.91%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 21 (1.91%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (8.65%) REST
2 57 (5.19%) React
2 57 (5.19%) Terraform
3 56 (5.10%) .NET
4 46 (4.19%) Kafka
5 42 (3.83%) HTML
6 40 (3.64%) CSS
6 40 (3.64%) RESTful
7 32 (2.91%) OAuth
8 29 (2.64%) Spring
9 27 (2.46%) Spring Boot
10 26 (2.37%) OAuth2
11 25 (2.28%) OpenID
11 25 (2.28%) Web Services
12 23 (2.09%) JSON
12 23 (2.09%) Middleware
12 23 (2.09%) SAML
12 23 (2.09%) SOAP
13 21 (1.91%) AngularJS
14 18 (1.64%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 101 (9.20%) Management Information System
2 85 (7.74%) Product Ownership
3 82 (7.47%) Algorithms
4 74 (6.74%) Onboarding
5 73 (6.65%) Data Structures
6 69 (6.28%) Cloud Native
7 52 (4.74%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.73%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 24 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
10 24 (2.19%) Virtual Team
11 23 (2.09%) Derivative
11 23 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
12 20 (1.82%) Hybrid Cloud
13 17 (1.55%) Fixed Income
13 17 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.46%) Data Centre
14 16 (1.46%) Equities
15 14 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (1.28%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 122 (11.11%) Windows
2 110 (10.02%) Linux
3 31 (2.82%) Unix
4 24 (2.19%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.82%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.37%) Android
8 10 (0.91%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.73%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.55%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.36%) VMS
12 3 (0.27%) Debian
12 3 (0.27%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.091%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (30.33%) Problem-Solving
2 282 (25.68%) Agile
3 228 (20.77%) AI
4 210 (19.13%) CI/CD
5 199 (18.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 190 (17.30%) Software Engineering
7 171 (15.57%) DevOps
8 158 (14.39%) Stakeholder Management
9 143 (13.02%) Analytics
10 117 (10.66%) ITIL
11 116 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 115 (10.47%) Cybersecurity
13 107 (9.74%) Mathematics
14 97 (8.83%) Machine Learning
14 97 (8.83%) Roadmaps
15 94 (8.56%) Scrum
16 93 (8.47%) Validation
17 89 (8.11%) Test Automation
18 87 (7.92%) Mentoring
19 83 (7.56%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 296 (26.96%) Python
2 216 (19.67%) SQL
3 139 (12.66%) Java
4 78 (7.10%) JavaScript
5 73 (6.65%) PowerShell
6 68 (6.19%) C#
7 41 (3.73%) Bash
8 40 (3.64%) TypeScript
9 31 (2.82%) C++
10 15 (1.37%) Bicep
11 14 (1.28%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.09%) R
13 11 (1.00%) C
14 8 (0.73%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.64%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.64%) Go
16 6 (0.55%) Perl
16 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 839 (76.41%) Degree
2 493 (44.90%) Computer Science Degree
3 208 (18.94%) Security Cleared
4 129 (11.75%) SC Cleared
5 121 (11.02%) Master's Degree
6 47 (4.28%) Azure Certification
7 46 (4.19%) CISSP
8 44 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.55%) DBS Check
10 34 (3.10%) PhD
11 29 (2.64%) CISM
12 27 (2.46%) DV Cleared
13 26 (2.37%) AWS Certification
13 26 (2.37%) PMI Certification
14 25 (2.28%) PMP
15 22 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
16 21 (1.91%) TOGAF Certification
17 18 (1.64%) CISA
18 17 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
19 15 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.38%) Data Quality
2 64 (5.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.19%) QA
4 54 (4.92%) NIST
5 26 (2.37%) GDPR
6 17 (1.55%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.37%) SLA
8 13 (1.18%) GRC
9 12 (1.09%) NCSC
10 11 (1.00%) HIPAA
10 11 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 11 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (0.73%) NIST 800
11 8 (0.73%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
13 5 (0.46%) ITGC
14 4 (0.36%) COBIT
14 4 (0.36%) ISO 19650
15 3 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 86 (7.83%) Docker
2 77 (7.01%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.82%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.73%) Firmware
6 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.46%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.46%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) ACF2
8 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.27%) RACF
8 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 1 (0.091%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.091%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.091%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 100 (9.11%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.64%) Ansible
3 29 (2.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (2.37%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.00%) Grafana
6 13 (1.18%) SCCM
6 13 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.55%) Argo
8 4 (0.36%) Control-M
8 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
8 4 (0.36%) Puppet
9 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.27%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.27%) SolarWinds Orion
10 2 (0.18%) CASB
10 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
10 2 (0.18%) Istio
10 2 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 208 (18.94%) Microsoft
2 68 (6.19%) Oracle
3 51 (4.64%) IBM
4 44 (4.01%) Google
5 43 (3.92%) Databricks
6 36 (3.28%) ServiceNow
7 35 (3.19%) VMware
8 30 (2.73%) SAP
9 26 (2.37%) Cisco
10 23 (2.09%) Splunk
11 20 (1.82%) CyberArk
12 19 (1.73%) Salesforce
13 18 (1.64%) BeyondTrust
14 10 (0.91%) Citrix
14 10 (0.91%) Dynatrace
14 10 (0.91%) OpenAI
14 10 (0.91%) Red Hat
15 9 (0.82%) Foundry
15 9 (0.82%) Nokia
15 9 (0.82%) Okta