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 5 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 78 67 79
Rank change year-on-year -11 +12 +53
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,185 1,162 1,220
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.25% 3.22% 2.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.65% 3.68% 3.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 750 687 819
10th Percentile £173 £350 £337
25th Percentile £313 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £554 £550
Median % change year-on-year -14.70% +0.73% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £700 £697
90th Percentile £750 £838 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £509 £500
% change year-on-year -21.34% +1.70% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 29 33
10th Percentile £26.40 £27.60 £32.32
25th Percentile £29.00 £41.25 £50.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.19% -12.50% +10.60%
75th Percentile £66.75 £68.75 £68.00
90th Percentile £81.20 £70.25 £79.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £50.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year -33.00% -13.04% +26.03%

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 32,500 31,582 39,830
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.05% 87.42% 88.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,460 19,152 26,649
10th Percentile £300 £310 £312
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,092 1,104 1,551
10th Percentile £14.54 £15.25 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.23 £18.95
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.21% -22.94% +21.43%
75th Percentile £45.53 £63.51 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.93 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.71% -23.53% +30.77%

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 5 December 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 5 December 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 5 December 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 -9 1,038 £475 -17.39% 1,884
UK excluding London +5 570 £400 -21.34% 1,758
London -25 510 £533 -11.25% 348
Work from Home -10 310 £475 -14.41% 2,164
North of England +10 188 £375 -28.91% 349
South East +27 131 £365 -27.00% 563
Midlands -9 102 £475 -13.64% 267
Yorkshire +23 93 £450 -14.29% 137
North West +6 92 £358 -32.83% 187
West Midlands -15 69 £500 -13.04% 136
South West +1 52 £413 -41.07% 188
Scotland +12 48 £450 -4.51% 85
East of England -19 48 £450 -5.26% 277
East Midlands +3 33 £447 +25.56% 111
Wales +1 13 £160 -60.00% 38
North East -9 4 £333 -35.07% 26
Northern Ireland -7 3 - - 32

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 53 (4.47%) Confluence
2 45 (3.80%) SharePoint
3 33 (2.78%) Apache Spark
4 26 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
5 12 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
6 10 (0.84%) Apache
7 8 (0.68%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.59%) nginx
9 6 (0.51%) IIS
10 5 (0.42%) SAS
10 5 (0.42%) Skype for Business
10 5 (0.42%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.34%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.25%) Ethereum
12 3 (0.25%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.25%) Luigi
12 3 (0.25%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 2 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 60 (5.06%) Microsoft Office
2 28 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.51%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.42%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.42%) Simulink
6 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.084%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.084%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.084%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 25 (2.11%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.51%) Workday HCM
4 5 (0.42%) SAP PLM
5 4 (0.34%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.34%) SAP ERP
5 4 (0.34%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.25%) Bloomberg AIM
6 3 (0.25%) FLEXCUBE
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.25%) SAP VC
6 3 (0.25%) Temenos T24
7 2 (0.17%) Endur
7 2 (0.17%) Maximo
7 2 (0.17%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.17%) SAP CX
7 2 (0.17%) SAP FS
7 2 (0.17%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.17%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 274 (23.12%) Azure
2 227 (19.16%) AWS
3 131 (11.05%) GCP
4 71 (5.99%) Power Platform
5 70 (5.91%) GitHub
6 69 (5.82%) Serverless
7 53 (4.47%) Microsoft 365
8 42 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
9 36 (3.04%) SaaS
10 28 (2.36%) Entra ID
11 27 (2.28%) GitHub Actions
12 23 (1.94%) Cloud Computing
13 19 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
13 19 (1.60%) Azure Data Factory
13 19 (1.60%) Power Automate
13 19 (1.60%) PowerApps
14 18 (1.52%) Amazon S3
14 18 (1.52%) Snowflake
15 17 (1.43%) Amazon ECS
15 17 (1.43%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 44 (3.71%) Firewall
2 42 (3.54%) DNS
3 28 (2.36%) DHCP
4 21 (1.77%) HTTP
5 20 (1.69%) Network Security
6 19 (1.60%) Wireless
7 18 (1.52%) VPN
8 17 (1.43%) Cisco IOS
9 15 (1.27%) SSH
10 14 (1.18%) VoIP
11 13 (1.10%) Skype
11 13 (1.10%) TCP/IP
12 12 (1.01%) WAN
13 10 (0.84%) Internet
13 10 (0.84%) LAN
14 9 (0.76%) BGP
14 9 (0.76%) VLAN
15 8 (0.68%) PuTTY
15 8 (0.68%) WLAN
16 7 (0.59%) IPv4
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (6.41%) PostgreSQL
2 70 (5.91%) NoSQL
3 59 (4.98%) Relational Database
4 53 (4.47%) Power BI
5 42 (3.54%) Data Warehouse
6 40 (3.38%) SQL Server
7 31 (2.62%) Big Data
8 30 (2.53%) Tableau
9 29 (2.45%) MySQL
10 17 (1.43%) Redis
11 13 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
11 13 (1.10%) MongoDB
12 12 (1.01%) Hadoop
12 12 (1.01%) RDBMS
13 11 (0.93%) Data Lake
13 11 (0.93%) Metadata
14 9 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
14 9 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 7 (0.59%) Apache Cassandra
15 7 (0.59%) KDB
Development Applications
1 110 (9.28%) JIRA
2 96 (8.10%) Git
3 95 (8.02%) Jenkins
4 83 (7.00%) GitLab
5 29 (2.45%) Liquibase
6 23 (1.94%) Postman
7 17 (1.43%) Artifactory
8 15 (1.27%) Selenium
8 15 (1.27%) Visual Studio
9 11 (0.93%) Bitbucket
10 9 (0.76%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.76%) MLflow
11 8 (0.68%) JUnit
12 7 (0.59%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.51%) Appium
13 6 (0.51%) CircleCI
13 6 (0.51%) IntelliJ
13 6 (0.51%) PyCharm
14 5 (0.42%) SonarQube
14 5 (0.42%) webpack
General
1 567 (47.85%) Social Skills
2 322 (27.17%) Finance
3 261 (22.03%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (10.80%) Banking
5 64 (5.40%) Public Sector
6 43 (3.63%) Financial Institution
6 43 (3.63%) Marketing
7 41 (3.46%) Organisational Skills
8 39 (3.29%) Front Office
9 34 (2.87%) Manufacturing
10 32 (2.70%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (2.62%) Investment Banking
12 30 (2.53%) Legal
12 30 (2.53%) Telecoms
13 25 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
14 23 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
15 22 (1.86%) Electronics
16 18 (1.52%) Retail
17 15 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 12 (1.01%) Military
Job Titles
1 231 (19.49%) Developer
2 109 (9.20%) Analyst
3 95 (8.02%) Architect
4 88 (7.43%) Senior
5 75 (6.33%) Lead
6 63 (5.32%) Software Engineer
7 39 (3.29%) Java Developer
8 38 (3.21%) Data Scientist
9 35 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
10 32 (2.70%) Senior Developer
11 31 (2.62%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 30 (2.53%) Business Analyst
12 30 (2.53%) Consultant
12 30 (2.53%) Python Engineer
13 27 (2.28%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.11%) IT Support
14 25 (2.11%) Python Developer
15 23 (1.94%) Full-Stack Developer
16 21 (1.77%) AWS Engineer
16 21 (1.77%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 128 (10.80%) REST
2 84 (7.09%) RESTful
3 69 (5.82%) .NET
4 64 (5.40%) HTML
5 52 (4.39%) React
6 49 (4.14%) CSS
7 45 (3.80%) Kafka
8 44 (3.71%) Elastic Stack
8 44 (3.71%) Node.js
9 40 (3.38%) JSON
10 39 (3.29%) SOAP
11 38 (3.21%) OAuth
12 36 (3.04%) Middleware
13 35 (2.95%) TensorFlow
13 35 (2.95%) XML
14 33 (2.78%) PyTorch
14 33 (2.78%) Web Services
15 30 (2.53%) AngularJS
15 30 (2.53%) LangChain
15 30 (2.53%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 113 (9.54%) Management Information System
2 99 (8.35%) Algorithms
3 86 (7.26%) Cloud Native
4 62 (5.23%) Distributed Systems
5 59 (4.98%) Data Structures
6 54 (4.56%) Product Ownership
7 41 (3.46%) Public Cloud
8 36 (3.04%) Data Protection Act
9 28 (2.36%) Mobile App
9 28 (2.36%) Security Posture
10 27 (2.28%) Virtual Team
11 26 (2.19%) Equities
12 25 (2.11%) Derivative
13 24 (2.03%) Data Centre
13 24 (2.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 23 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
15 22 (1.86%) Onboarding
16 21 (1.77%) Fixed Income
17 19 (1.60%) Distributed Computing
17 19 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 157 (13.25%) Linux
2 106 (8.95%) Windows
3 58 (4.89%) Unix
4 26 (2.19%) Android
5 24 (2.03%) Windows Server
6 23 (1.94%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.43%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.68%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 4 (0.34%) VMS
11 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.084%) CentOS
12 1 (0.084%) Debian
12 1 (0.084%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 391 (33.00%) Problem-Solving
2 356 (30.04%) Agile
3 241 (20.34%) DevOps
4 222 (18.73%) CI/CD
5 193 (16.29%) Software Engineering
6 174 (14.68%) AI
7 145 (12.24%) Microservices
8 140 (11.81%) Containerisation
9 131 (11.05%) Analytics
9 131 (11.05%) Machine Learning
10 117 (9.87%) Cybersecurity
11 116 (9.79%) Data Science
12 115 (9.70%) Mathematics
13 110 (9.28%) Stakeholder Management
14 104 (8.78%) Continuous Improvement
14 104 (8.78%) ITIL
15 98 (8.27%) Change Management
16 95 (8.02%) Decision-Making
17 92 (7.76%) Migration
18 91 (7.68%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 405 (34.18%) Python
2 215 (18.14%) SQL
3 175 (14.77%) Java
4 121 (10.21%) JavaScript
5 65 (5.49%) PowerShell
6 63 (5.32%) TypeScript
7 62 (5.23%) C#
8 59 (4.98%) Go
9 51 (4.30%) Bash
10 50 (4.22%) C++
11 26 (2.19%) R
12 21 (1.77%) Perl
13 18 (1.52%) Ruby
14 14 (1.18%) Kotlin
15 13 (1.10%) Shell Script
16 10 (0.84%) ABAP
16 10 (0.84%) C
16 10 (0.84%) MATLAB
17 9 (0.76%) Apex Code
18 8 (0.68%) Swift
Qualifications
1 961 (81.10%) Degree
2 628 (53.00%) Computer Science Degree
3 233 (19.66%) Master's Degree
4 121 (10.21%) Security Cleared
5 91 (7.68%) SC Cleared
6 68 (5.74%) DBS Check
7 59 (4.98%) CISSP
8 55 (4.64%) PhD
9 42 (3.54%) AWS Certification
10 38 (3.21%) Cisco Certification
11 37 (3.12%) Azure Certification
11 37 (3.12%) Microsoft Certification
12 35 (2.95%) CISM
13 29 (2.45%) PMI Certification
14 26 (2.19%) PMP
15 25 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
16 23 (1.94%) CCNA
17 22 (1.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 21 (1.77%) CCNP
19 19 (1.60%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (6.24%) QA
2 68 (5.74%) GDPR
3 66 (5.57%) Data Quality
4 43 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 28 (2.36%) NIST
6 20 (1.69%) GRC
7 17 (1.43%) Accessibility
8 12 (1.01%) PCI DSS
8 12 (1.01%) SLA
9 11 (0.93%) Def Stans
10 9 (0.76%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 8 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
12 7 (0.59%) COBIT
12 7 (0.59%) HIPAA
13 6 (0.51%) PMO
14 5 (0.42%) DO-254
14 5 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 4 (0.34%) NCSC
15 4 (0.34%) SEPA
16 3 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 153 (12.91%) Docker
2 50 (4.22%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 5 (0.42%) Firmware
5 5 (0.42%) Microsoft Virtual Server
5 5 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
6 4 (0.34%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.34%) vSphere
7 2 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.084%) BitLocker
8 1 (0.084%) HDFS
8 1 (0.084%) PowerHA
8 1 (0.084%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 141 (11.90%) Kubernetes
2 96 (8.10%) Terraform
3 75 (6.33%) Ansible
4 54 (4.56%) Grafana
5 42 (3.54%) Prometheus
6 17 (1.43%) Puppet
7 16 (1.35%) SCCM
8 9 (0.76%) Kibana
8 9 (0.76%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.59%) Argo
9 7 (0.59%) CSIRT
9 7 (0.59%) QRadar
10 6 (0.51%) Progress Chef
10 6 (0.51%) WSUS
11 5 (0.42%) SCOM
12 4 (0.34%) Kustomize
12 4 (0.34%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.25%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 197 (16.62%) Microsoft
2 75 (6.33%) Splunk
3 71 (5.99%) Google
4 53 (4.47%) SAP
5 46 (3.88%) Cisco
6 45 (3.80%) Oracle
6 45 (3.80%) ServiceNow
7 37 (3.12%) Salesforce
8 33 (2.78%) Databricks
9 31 (2.62%) VMware
10 29 (2.45%) IBM
11 14 (1.18%) Red Hat
12 13 (1.10%) Palo Alto
13 12 (1.01%) BiZZdesign
13 12 (1.01%) OpenAI
14 11 (0.93%) Foundry
14 11 (0.93%) Informatica
15 10 (0.84%) CyberArk
16 9 (0.76%) CheckPoint
16 9 (0.76%) Workday