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 30 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 72 66 83
Rank change year-on-year -6 +17 +50
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,212 1,201 1,272
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.54% 3.27% 2.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.92% 3.80% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 736 723 873
10th Percentile £173 £346 £350
25th Percentile £313 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -13.64% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £632 £700 £700
90th Percentile £750 £838 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £502 £500
% change year-on-year -20.24% +0.30% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 34 33
10th Percentile £26.40 £20.12 £28.46
25th Percentile £29.00 £23.33 £50.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £51.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.95% -14.17% +12.15%
75th Percentile £67.00 £69.50 £72.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £70.25 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £52.50 £58.75
% change year-on-year -36.19% -10.64% +84.92%

All Process and 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 30,907 31,617 41,640
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.31% 86.14% 88.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,274 19,024 28,148
10th Percentile £295 £310 £313
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,982 1,134 1,597
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.08 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year -30.30% -17.73% +25.31%
75th Percentile £42.79 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £65.93 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.32 £35.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -36.24% -17.65% +53.26%

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 30 October 2025.

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 30 October 2025.

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 30 October 2025. 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 -3 1,062 £475 -13.64% 1,828
UK excluding London +12 586 £400 -20.24% 1,375
London -17 518 £530 -8.62% 889
Work from Home -17 301 £460 -17.13% 747
North of England -1 172 £400 -23.81% 162
South East +45 139 £335 -26.37% 791
Midlands -3 110 £458 -20.43% 118
North West -8 88 £360 -32.03% 101
Yorkshire +4 82 £450 -16.28% 25
West Midlands -14 70 £495 -13.91% 70
East of England -5 60 £425 -5.56% 146
South West +15 57 £220 -68.57% 81
Scotland +12 53 £450 -5.26% 56
East Midlands +11 40 £447 +25.56% 48
Wales -7 7 £413 -30.56% 23
Northern Ireland -9 3 - - 21
North East -14 3 £450 +5.88% 36

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 52 (4.29%) Confluence
2 41 (3.38%) Apache Spark
2 41 (3.38%) SharePoint
3 19 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 13 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
5 11 (0.91%) Apache
6 7 (0.58%) Jupyter
6 7 (0.58%) nginx
7 6 (0.50%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.41%) IIS
8 5 (0.41%) Skype for Business
8 5 (0.41%) Smallworld
9 4 (0.33%) CMS
9 4 (0.33%) GeoServer
9 4 (0.33%) SAS
10 3 (0.25%) Ethereum
10 3 (0.25%) Hyperledger
10 3 (0.25%) Luigi
10 3 (0.25%) Moodle
10 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 57 (4.70%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 8 (0.66%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.58%) Simulink
5 6 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.33%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
8 1 (0.083%) Adobe Illustrator
8 1 (0.083%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.083%) CANalyzer
8 1 (0.083%) InDesign
8 1 (0.083%) Oracle Smart View
8 1 (0.083%) Photoshop
8 1 (0.083%) Sketch
8 1 (0.083%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.083%) Stateflow
Business Applications
1 28 (2.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.74%) FLEXCUBE
2 9 (0.74%) Oracle BPM
3 6 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.50%) SAP PLM
3 6 (0.50%) Workday HCM
4 5 (0.41%) SAP MDG
5 4 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.33%) SAP VC
6 3 (0.25%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.25%) Bloomberg AIM
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.17%) Actimize
7 2 (0.17%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.17%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.17%) SAP FS
7 2 (0.17%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.17%) SAP Travel Management
7 2 (0.17%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 258 (21.29%) Azure
2 236 (19.47%) AWS
3 123 (10.15%) GCP
4 70 (5.78%) Serverless
5 66 (5.45%) GitHub
6 60 (4.95%) Power Platform
7 45 (3.71%) Microsoft 365
8 40 (3.30%) Azure DevOps
9 39 (3.22%) SaaS
10 30 (2.48%) Cloud Computing
11 25 (2.06%) AWS Lambda
11 25 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
12 24 (1.98%) Amazon S3
12 24 (1.98%) Entra ID
13 18 (1.49%) Snowflake
14 17 (1.40%) OpenShift
15 14 (1.16%) Amazon ECS
16 13 (1.07%) PowerApps
17 12 (0.99%) Azure Logic Apps
17 12 (0.99%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 57 (4.70%) Firewall
2 52 (4.29%) DNS
3 29 (2.39%) DHCP
4 28 (2.31%) Wireless
5 27 (2.23%) VPN
6 26 (2.15%) Network Security
7 24 (1.98%) TCP/IP
8 17 (1.40%) BGP
9 16 (1.32%) HTTP
9 16 (1.32%) VLAN
9 16 (1.32%) WAN
10 15 (1.24%) SSH
10 15 (1.24%) VoIP
11 14 (1.16%) Cisco IOS
11 14 (1.16%) OSPF
12 13 (1.07%) LAN
13 12 (0.99%) PuTTY
13 12 (0.99%) WLAN
14 11 (0.91%) Internet
15 10 (0.83%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 75 (6.19%) NoSQL
2 72 (5.94%) PostgreSQL
3 61 (5.03%) Relational Database
4 50 (4.13%) Power BI
5 49 (4.04%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (3.14%) SQL Server
7 30 (2.48%) Big Data
8 29 (2.39%) Tableau
9 21 (1.73%) MySQL
10 17 (1.40%) Redis
11 16 (1.32%) Hadoop
12 13 (1.07%) Data Lake
12 13 (1.07%) MongoDB
12 13 (1.07%) RDBMS
13 12 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
14 11 (0.91%) Metadata
15 10 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
15 10 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
16 8 (0.66%) Oracle Database
16 8 (0.66%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 111 (9.16%) JIRA
2 102 (8.42%) Jenkins
3 87 (7.18%) Git
4 83 (6.85%) GitLab
5 29 (2.39%) Liquibase
6 21 (1.73%) Postman
7 19 (1.57%) Artifactory
8 14 (1.16%) Visual Studio
9 13 (1.07%) JUnit
9 13 (1.07%) Selenium
10 11 (0.91%) Bitbucket
11 9 (0.74%) Cucumber
11 9 (0.74%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.66%) IntelliJ
13 7 (0.58%) Cypress.io
13 7 (0.58%) Gradle
13 7 (0.58%) MLflow
13 7 (0.58%) Subversion
14 6 (0.50%) Appium
14 6 (0.50%) webpack
General
1 578 (47.69%) Social Skills
2 327 (26.98%) Finance
3 268 (22.11%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (11.47%) Banking
5 66 (5.45%) Organisational Skills
6 50 (4.13%) Front Office
7 47 (3.88%) Public Sector
8 43 (3.55%) Financial Institution
9 38 (3.14%) Investment Banking
10 34 (2.81%) Marketing
11 31 (2.56%) Legal
12 29 (2.39%) Manufacturing
13 26 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
14 24 (1.98%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.98%) Telecoms
15 23 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 21 (1.73%) Retail
17 20 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
17 20 (1.65%) Military
18 18 (1.49%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 245 (20.21%) Developer
2 114 (9.41%) Analyst
3 100 (8.25%) Senior
4 88 (7.26%) Architect
5 72 (5.94%) Lead
6 62 (5.12%) Software Engineer
7 41 (3.38%) Java Developer
8 36 (2.97%) Senior Developer
9 32 (2.64%) Data Engineer
10 31 (2.56%) Consultant
11 30 (2.48%) Python Developer
12 29 (2.39%) Data Scientist
13 28 (2.31%) Python Engineer
14 27 (2.23%) Business Analyst
15 26 (2.15%) Solutions Architect
16 24 (1.98%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 24 (1.98%) Full-Stack Developer
17 22 (1.82%) AWS Engineer
18 20 (1.65%) Cloud Engineer
18 20 (1.65%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 129 (10.64%) REST
2 76 (6.27%) RESTful
3 66 (5.45%) HTML
4 62 (5.12%) .NET
5 57 (4.70%) Kafka
6 55 (4.54%) CSS
7 50 (4.13%) React
8 44 (3.63%) Node.js
9 41 (3.38%) Elastic Stack
10 38 (3.14%) Middleware
11 35 (2.89%) SOAP
12 33 (2.72%) TensorFlow
12 33 (2.72%) Web Services
13 30 (2.48%) AngularJS
14 29 (2.39%) JSON
14 29 (2.39%) Pandas
14 29 (2.39%) PyTorch
15 28 (2.31%) Spring
16 26 (2.15%) OAuth
16 26 (2.15%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 107 (8.83%) Algorithms
1 107 (8.83%) Management Information System
2 78 (6.44%) Cloud Native
3 70 (5.78%) Data Structures
4 65 (5.36%) Distributed Systems
5 55 (4.54%) Product Ownership
6 41 (3.38%) Public Cloud
7 39 (3.22%) Data Protection Act
8 29 (2.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 28 (2.31%) Virtual Team
10 26 (2.15%) Derivative
11 24 (1.98%) Security Posture
12 23 (1.90%) Data Centre
12 23 (1.90%) Fixed Income
12 23 (1.90%) Mobile App
12 23 (1.90%) Onboarding
13 22 (1.82%) Distributed Computing
14 20 (1.65%) Equities
15 17 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
15 17 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 154 (12.71%) Linux
2 93 (7.67%) Windows
3 53 (4.37%) Unix
4 23 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 22 (1.82%) Android
6 19 (1.57%) Apple iOS
7 17 (1.40%) Mac OS
8 11 (0.91%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.33%) CentOS
10 4 (0.33%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.25%) VMS
12 1 (0.083%) AIX
12 1 (0.083%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 396 (32.67%) Problem-Solving
2 341 (28.14%) Agile
3 247 (20.38%) DevOps
4 207 (17.08%) CI/CD
5 200 (16.50%) Software Engineering
6 140 (11.55%) Microservices
7 129 (10.64%) Analytics
8 128 (10.56%) Containerisation
9 125 (10.31%) AI
10 122 (10.07%) Machine Learning
11 116 (9.57%) Cybersecurity
12 102 (8.42%) Data Science
13 101 (8.33%) Mathematics
14 97 (8.00%) ITIL
15 96 (7.92%) Change Management
15 96 (7.92%) Roadmaps
16 95 (7.84%) Decision-Making
16 95 (7.84%) Risk Management
17 94 (7.76%) Stakeholder Management
18 92 (7.59%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 399 (32.92%) Python
2 238 (19.64%) SQL
3 195 (16.09%) Java
4 125 (10.31%) JavaScript
5 62 (5.12%) Go
6 58 (4.79%) C#
6 58 (4.79%) TypeScript
7 57 (4.70%) C++
8 50 (4.13%) PowerShell
9 40 (3.30%) Bash
10 24 (1.98%) R
11 22 (1.82%) Perl
12 19 (1.57%) Ruby
13 18 (1.49%) Shell Script
14 16 (1.32%) Kotlin
15 12 (0.99%) MATLAB
15 12 (0.99%) PL/SQL
16 11 (0.91%) Apex Code
17 10 (0.83%) C
18 9 (0.74%) PHP
Qualifications
1 970 (80.03%) Degree
2 624 (51.49%) Computer Science Degree
3 221 (18.23%) Master's Degree
4 105 (8.66%) Security Cleared
5 85 (7.01%) DBS Check
6 80 (6.60%) SC Cleared
7 56 (4.62%) CISSP
8 53 (4.37%) PhD
9 47 (3.88%) AWS Certification
9 47 (3.88%) Cisco Certification
10 34 (2.81%) Azure Certification
10 34 (2.81%) CISM
11 31 (2.56%) Microsoft Certification
12 28 (2.31%) CCNA
13 27 (2.23%) CCNP
14 25 (2.06%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 23 (1.90%) PMI Certification
16 22 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (1.82%) PMP
17 18 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (6.11%) Data Quality
2 69 (5.69%) QA
3 64 (5.28%) GDPR
4 44 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 28 (2.31%) NIST
6 19 (1.57%) Accessibility
6 19 (1.57%) GRC
7 18 (1.49%) PCI DSS
8 17 (1.40%) SLA
9 11 (0.91%) Def Stans
10 9 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 8 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
11 8 (0.66%) HIPAA
11 8 (0.66%) SEPA
12 7 (0.58%) COBIT
13 6 (0.50%) DO-254
13 6 (0.50%) NCSC
13 6 (0.50%) PMO
14 4 (0.33%) MiFID
14 4 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 140 (11.55%) Docker
2 41 (3.38%) Active Directory
3 23 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.58%) Hyper-V
4 7 (0.58%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.50%) Firmware
6 5 (0.41%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 5 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
7 4 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.33%) vSphere
8 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.083%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.083%) HDFS
9 1 (0.083%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 131 (10.81%) Kubernetes
2 89 (7.34%) Terraform
3 75 (6.19%) Ansible
4 49 (4.04%) Grafana
5 42 (3.47%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.16%) SCCM
7 11 (0.91%) Puppet
7 11 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (0.66%) QRadar
10 7 (0.58%) Argo
10 7 (0.58%) CSIRT
11 6 (0.50%) Kibana
12 5 (0.41%) WSUS
13 4 (0.33%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.33%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.33%) vCenter Server
14 3 (0.25%) Kubeflow
14 3 (0.25%) vRealize
15 2 (0.17%) Amdocs OSS
Vendors
1 172 (14.19%) Microsoft
2 69 (5.69%) Splunk
3 63 (5.20%) Google
4 58 (4.79%) Oracle
5 51 (4.21%) Cisco
6 49 (4.04%) SAP
7 46 (3.80%) ServiceNow
8 36 (2.97%) Salesforce
9 32 (2.64%) VMware
10 29 (2.39%) IBM
11 23 (1.90%) Databricks
12 17 (1.40%) Palo Alto
13 16 (1.32%) Red Hat
14 14 (1.16%) Fortinet
15 11 (0.91%) Atlassian
15 11 (0.91%) F5
15 11 (0.91%) SolarWinds
16 10 (0.83%) Informatica
17 9 (0.74%) BiZZdesign
17 9 (0.74%) CrowdStrike