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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 64 62
Rank change year-on-year -63 -2 +42
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,027 1,104 1,387
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 3.75% 3.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 4.12% 3.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 589 614 830
10th Percentile £178 £250 £315
25th Percentile £220 £381 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.34% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £761 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £475 £513
% change year-on-year -15.79% -7.32% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 37 103
10th Percentile £28.50 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £48.38 £29.00 £38.75
Median hourly rate £79.91 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.09% -31.82% -
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile - £84.98 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £41.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +101.21% -25.00% +7.32%

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 42,365 26,787 37,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.77% 91.01% 85.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,429 17,005 23,768
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,540 1,187 2,585
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.21 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.56% -25.45% +4.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +15.02%

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 12 June 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 12 June 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 12 June 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 -52 916 £475 -9.13% 631
UK excluding London -45 549 £400 -15.79% 526
London -56 399 £550 -8.33% 229
Work from Home -75 228 £500 -9.09% 328
South East -12 217 £215 -56.06% 201
North of England -34 135 £400 -18.70% 94
Yorkshire -1 81 £525 +22.38% 21
Midlands -76 68 £473 +57.50% 68
North West -37 53 £350 -31.17% 53
West Midlands -67 52 £450 +50.00% 34
Scotland -28 40 £640 +21.90% 24
East of England -31 38 £280 -56.92% 55
South West -48 38 £469 +95.42% 75
East Midlands -38 15 £545 +74.12% 34
Northern Ireland +9 8 £350 -41.67% 18
Wales -31 8 £530 +50.89% 11
North East -37 2 £125 -73.68% 20

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 (4.77%) Confluence
2 36 (3.51%) Apache Spark
3 25 (2.43%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.95%) Apache
6 9 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.58%) IIS
8 5 (0.49%) SAS
9 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.29%) Camunda
10 3 (0.29%) CMS
10 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.19%) nginx
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
12 1 (0.097%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.097%) Tomcat
Applications
1 32 (3.12%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.56%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.097%) Sketch
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 22 (2.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.39%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.097%) Actimize
6 1 (0.097%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.097%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.097%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.097%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 300 (29.21%) Azure
2 188 (18.31%) AWS
3 84 (8.18%) GCP
4 67 (6.52%) Power Platform
5 52 (5.06%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (4.77%) SaaS
7 48 (4.67%) Entra ID
8 45 (4.38%) GitHub
9 39 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
10 22 (2.14%) Snowflake
11 21 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
11 21 (2.04%) Serverless
12 20 (1.95%) PowerApps
13 16 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
14 14 (1.36%) Azure AKS
14 14 (1.36%) Power Automate
15 13 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
16 12 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
16 12 (1.17%) IaaS
17 11 (1.07%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 33 (3.21%) Firewall
2 30 (2.92%) TCP/IP
3 29 (2.82%) DNS
3 29 (2.82%) Network Security
4 14 (1.36%) WAN
5 13 (1.27%) BGP
5 13 (1.27%) SSH
6 11 (1.07%) LAN
7 10 (0.97%) HTTPS
7 10 (0.97%) OSPF
8 9 (0.88%) 3GPP
9 8 (0.78%) VPN
10 7 (0.68%) VLAN
10 7 (0.68%) Wireless
11 6 (0.58%) DHCP
11 6 (0.58%) LTE
12 5 (0.49%) RTP
12 5 (0.49%) SAN
12 5 (0.49%) Wireshark
13 4 (0.39%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.36%) Power BI
2 49 (4.77%) SQL Server
3 48 (4.67%) Relational Database
4 44 (4.28%) PostgreSQL
5 38 (3.70%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (3.21%) Big Data
7 28 (2.73%) Metadata
8 24 (2.34%) NoSQL
9 22 (2.14%) MongoDB
10 21 (2.04%) Hadoop
10 21 (2.04%) MySQL
11 18 (1.75%) Tableau
12 14 (1.36%) Data Lake
13 12 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.97%) Snowflake Schema
14 10 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 9 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
15 9 (0.88%) Redis
16 7 (0.68%) Power Query
16 7 (0.68%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 73 (7.11%) Git
2 60 (5.84%) JIRA
3 38 (3.70%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.31%) GitLab
5 28 (2.73%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.17%) Gradle
6 12 (1.17%) Selenium
7 11 (1.07%) JUnit
8 8 (0.78%) MLflow
8 8 (0.78%) Postman
8 8 (0.78%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.68%) Jaeger
9 7 (0.68%) Maven
10 6 (0.58%) Cucumber
10 6 (0.58%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.58%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.49%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.49%) Flyway
11 5 (0.49%) SonarQube
General
1 414 (40.31%) Social Skills
2 234 (22.78%) Finance
3 213 (20.74%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (8.76%) Banking
5 64 (6.23%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.36%) Aerospace
7 54 (5.26%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.21%) Marketing
9 31 (3.02%) Telecoms
10 29 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 29 (2.82%) Organisational Skills
11 28 (2.73%) Presentation Skills
12 26 (2.53%) Influencing Skills
12 26 (2.53%) Legal
13 23 (2.24%) Front Office
14 20 (1.95%) Manufacturing
15 17 (1.66%) Publishing
16 16 (1.56%) Retail
17 15 (1.46%) Law
18 12 (1.17%) Military
Job Titles
1 110 (10.71%) Architect
1 110 (10.71%) Developer
2 91 (8.86%) Analyst
3 87 (8.47%) Lead
4 85 (8.28%) Senior
5 40 (3.89%) Software Engineer
6 35 (3.41%) Delivery Manager
6 35 (3.41%) Product Manager
7 33 (3.21%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (3.02%) Data Scientist
9 28 (2.73%) Product Delivery Manager
10 27 (2.63%) Technical Support
11 26 (2.53%) Data Engineer
12 24 (2.34%) Security Engineer
13 22 (2.14%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.14%) Systems Delivery Manager
13 22 (2.14%) Systems Manager
14 21 (2.04%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 21 (2.04%) Junior
14 21 (2.04%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (8.57%) REST
2 56 (5.45%) React
3 52 (5.06%) .NET
4 43 (4.19%) Kafka
4 43 (4.19%) Middleware
5 33 (3.21%) RESTful
6 32 (3.12%) Spring Boot
7 29 (2.82%) Spring
8 26 (2.53%) OAuth
9 24 (2.34%) AngularJS
10 22 (2.14%) JSON
11 20 (1.95%) PyTorch
11 20 (1.95%) SOAP
12 19 (1.85%) HTML
13 18 (1.75%) Elastic Stack
13 18 (1.75%) XML
14 17 (1.66%) CSS
15 16 (1.56%) SAML
15 16 (1.56%) Web Services
16 15 (1.46%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 100 (9.74%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.79%) Onboarding
3 79 (7.69%) Product Ownership
4 70 (6.82%) Algorithms
5 63 (6.13%) Cloud Native
6 52 (5.06%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.77%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.73%) Virtual Team
9 25 (2.43%) Derivative
10 24 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
11 21 (2.04%) Equities
11 21 (2.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 20 (1.95%) AI Agents
12 20 (1.95%) Taxonomies
13 19 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
14 18 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (1.75%) Security Operations Centre
15 17 (1.66%) Cyberattack
16 16 (1.56%) Robotics
17 15 (1.46%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 132 (12.85%) Windows
2 125 (12.17%) Linux
3 43 (4.19%) Unix
4 24 (2.34%) Android
5 19 (1.85%) Windows 10
5 19 (1.85%) Windows Server
6 17 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.46%) Apple iOS
8 13 (1.27%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.39%) Debian
10 4 (0.39%) Rocky
10 4 (0.39%) VMS
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.097%) MVS
12 1 (0.097%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 306 (29.80%) Problem-Solving
2 260 (25.32%) Agile
3 225 (21.91%) AI
4 185 (18.01%) CI/CD
5 173 (16.85%) DevOps
6 170 (16.55%) Continuous Improvement
7 167 (16.26%) Software Engineering
8 130 (12.66%) Analytics
9 122 (11.88%) Cybersecurity
10 112 (10.91%) Microservices
11 107 (10.42%) Stakeholder Management
12 102 (9.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 98 (9.54%) Machine Learning
14 92 (8.96%) Decision-Making
14 92 (8.96%) Technical Leadership
15 90 (8.76%) Mathematics
16 87 (8.47%) Data Science
17 86 (8.37%) Containerisation
18 85 (8.28%) Data Governance
18 85 (8.28%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 282 (27.46%) Python
2 202 (19.67%) SQL
3 128 (12.46%) Java
4 67 (6.52%) JavaScript
5 58 (5.65%) C#
6 44 (4.28%) PowerShell
7 28 (2.73%) TypeScript
8 26 (2.53%) C++
9 25 (2.43%) Bash
10 20 (1.95%) R
11 13 (1.27%) Go
12 11 (1.07%) Perl
12 11 (1.07%) Rust
12 11 (1.07%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.58%) Scala
16 5 (0.49%) C
17 4 (0.39%) Ada
18 2 (0.19%) VB
Qualifications
1 815 (79.36%) Degree
2 488 (47.52%) Computer Science Degree
3 192 (18.70%) Security Cleared
4 134 (13.05%) Master's Degree
5 120 (11.68%) SC Cleared
6 55 (5.36%) CISSP
7 37 (3.60%) CISM
8 30 (2.92%) PhD
9 29 (2.82%) Azure Certification
9 29 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 29 (2.82%) TOGAF Certification
10 28 (2.73%) PMI Certification
11 27 (2.63%) DV Cleared
12 25 (2.43%) PMP
13 23 (2.24%) AWS Certification
14 22 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
15 21 (2.04%) CompTIA Security+
16 20 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
17 19 (1.85%) CISA
17 19 (1.85%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (6.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 63 (6.13%) NIST
3 57 (5.55%) Data Quality
4 49 (4.77%) QA
5 38 (3.70%) GDPR
6 21 (2.04%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.66%) Accessibility
8 15 (1.46%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 14 (1.36%) GRC
10 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
10 10 (0.97%) SLA
11 9 (0.88%) HIPAA
11 9 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 8 (0.78%) NCSC
13 7 (0.68%) COBIT
13 7 (0.68%) PSD2
14 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
15 5 (0.49%) DO-254
15 5 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 96 (9.35%) Docker
2 73 (7.11%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.97%) Firmware
5 9 (0.88%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.39%) 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 (0.097%) ACF2
11 1 (0.097%) HDFS
11 1 (0.097%) RACF
Systems Management
1 117 (11.39%) Kubernetes
2 53 (5.16%) Terraform
3 41 (3.99%) Ansible
4 31 (3.02%) Prometheus
5 29 (2.82%) Grafana
6 26 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.68%) Kiali
8 7 (0.68%) Puppet
9 6 (0.58%) Kibana
10 4 (0.39%) Control-M
10 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Foglight
11 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.19%) SCCM
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 171 (16.65%) Microsoft
2 68 (6.62%) Oracle
3 46 (4.48%) Databricks
4 41 (3.99%) Splunk
5 34 (3.31%) IBM
5 34 (3.31%) SAP
6 33 (3.21%) Google
7 29 (2.82%) ServiceNow
8 24 (2.34%) VMware
9 17 (1.66%) Okta
10 16 (1.56%) Cisco
11 15 (1.46%) BiZZdesign
11 15 (1.46%) Informatica
12 14 (1.36%) CyberArk
13 13 (1.27%) BeyondTrust
13 13 (1.27%) Palo Alto
13 13 (1.27%) Salesforce
14 12 (1.17%) CheckPoint
15 11 (1.07%) MuleSoft
16 9 (0.88%) Foundry