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 28 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 65 60
Rank change year-on-year -63 -5 +29
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,098 1,223 1,337
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.08% 3.73% 3.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.45% 4.13% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 615 681 817
10th Percentile £177 £190 £325
25th Percentile £202 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.40% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £621 £650 £688
90th Percentile £753 £775 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £365 £425 £517
% change year-on-year -14.12% -17.79% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 126 48 77
10th Percentile £25.74 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £72.50 £54.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.03% -0.91% -11.29%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.10 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.75 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +20.52% +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 44,902 29,618 34,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.94% 90.44% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,798 18,592 22,057
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,679 1,619 2,026
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.20 £13.56
25th Percentile £20.06 £17.33 £17.55
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.39 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +87.06% -41.25% -

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 -50 996 £450 -10.00% 1,140
UK excluding London -47 594 £365 -14.12% 564
London -61 432 £525 -12.50% 677
Work from Home -82 248 £500 -9.09% 377
South East -11 244 £350 -26.32% 189
North of England -45 140 £379 -15.83% 100
Midlands -61 86 £312 -1.26% 86
Yorkshire -7 74 £475 +22.27% 21
West Midlands -55 59 £402 +86.98% 47
North West -58 54 £220 -53.68% 53
East of England -28 48 £215 -66.92% 87
South West -64 34 £435 +94.62% 58
Scotland -47 31 £423 -11.05% 21
East Midlands -23 26 £275 -38.48% 39
North East -34 13 £195 -57.84% 26
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 25
Wales -24 6 £530 +17.78% 11

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 38 (3.46%) Confluence
2 32 (2.91%) Apache Spark
3 31 (2.82%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.00%) Apache Airflow
5 21 (1.91%) Apache
6 10 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) Camunda
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
10 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.091%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.091%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.091%) Palantir Foundry
12 1 (0.091%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (3.83%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (1.18%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.64%) Revit
5 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Trello
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.18%) Sketch
8 1 (0.091%) Simulink
8 1 (0.091%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 16 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.27%) Primavera
4 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Infor M3
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%) Finacle
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.091%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.091%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.091%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.091%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 313 (28.51%) Azure
2 196 (17.85%) AWS
3 108 (9.84%) GCP
4 77 (7.01%) Power Platform
5 67 (6.10%) Entra ID
6 57 (5.19%) Microsoft 365
7 49 (4.46%) SaaS
8 47 (4.28%) GitHub
9 44 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
10 31 (2.82%) Snowflake
11 29 (2.64%) Serverless
12 22 (2.00%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.91%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.64%) Azure AKS
15 16 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
16 15 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
16 15 (1.37%) Power Automate
17 14 (1.28%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 14 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 40 (3.64%) Firewall
2 30 (2.73%) Network Security
3 28 (2.55%) DNS
4 27 (2.46%) VPN
5 21 (1.91%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.46%) WAN
7 15 (1.37%) SSH
8 13 (1.18%) LAN
9 12 (1.09%) BGP
9 12 (1.09%) DHCP
10 10 (0.91%) VLAN
10 10 (0.91%) Wireless
11 9 (0.82%) HTTPS
11 9 (0.82%) OSPF
12 8 (0.73%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.64%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.64%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
13 7 (0.64%) MPLS
14 6 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.65%) Power BI
2 54 (4.92%) SQL Server
3 53 (4.83%) Relational Database
4 51 (4.64%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (3.19%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (3.01%) Metadata
7 31 (2.82%) Big Data
8 27 (2.46%) MongoDB
9 24 (2.19%) NoSQL
10 17 (1.55%) Tableau
11 16 (1.46%) MySQL
12 15 (1.37%) Data Lake
12 15 (1.37%) Hadoop
13 12 (1.09%) Data Mining
14 11 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
15 10 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.91%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.82%) Redis
17 8 (0.73%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 86 (7.83%) Git
2 51 (4.64%) JIRA
3 40 (3.64%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.10%) GitLab
5 31 (2.82%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.18%) Selenium
7 12 (1.09%) JUnit
8 11 (1.00%) Gradle
9 10 (0.91%) Bitbucket
10 8 (0.73%) Maven
10 8 (0.73%) MLflow
10 8 (0.73%) SpecFlow
10 8 (0.73%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.55%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.55%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
12 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.46%) Visual Studio
General
1 439 (39.98%) Social Skills
2 235 (21.40%) Analytical Skills
3 231 (21.04%) Finance
4 95 (8.65%) Banking
5 68 (6.19%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.01%) Aerospace
6 55 (5.01%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (3.64%) Organisational Skills
8 37 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 32 (2.91%) Influencing Skills
10 29 (2.64%) Telecoms
11 28 (2.55%) Marketing
12 25 (2.28%) Legal
13 24 (2.19%) Manufacturing
14 23 (2.09%) Front Office
15 21 (1.91%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.55%) Military
17 16 (1.46%) Law
18 15 (1.37%) Retail
19 13 (1.18%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 125 (11.38%) Developer
2 110 (10.02%) Architect
2 110 (10.02%) Senior
3 83 (7.56%) Lead
4 78 (7.10%) Analyst
5 39 (3.55%) Data Engineer
5 39 (3.55%) Software Engineer
6 37 (3.37%) Product Manager
7 33 (3.01%) Delivery Manager
8 32 (2.91%) Data Scientist
9 28 (2.55%) Product Delivery Manager
10 27 (2.46%) Junior
11 26 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
12 24 (2.19%) IT Support
12 24 (2.19%) Java Developer
13 23 (2.09%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 23 (2.09%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.00%) Python Developer
14 22 (2.00%) Senior Developer
14 22 (2.00%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (8.01%) REST
2 62 (5.65%) React
3 55 (5.01%) .NET
4 44 (4.01%) Kafka
5 37 (3.37%) Spring
6 34 (3.10%) RESTful
7 31 (2.82%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.64%) OAuth
9 25 (2.28%) AngularJS
9 25 (2.28%) Middleware
9 25 (2.28%) PyTorch
10 24 (2.19%) CSS
11 23 (2.09%) HTML
11 23 (2.09%) SAML
12 22 (2.00%) JSON
12 22 (2.00%) OAuth2
12 22 (2.00%) Web Services
13 21 (1.91%) OpenID
14 19 (1.73%) TensorFlow
15 18 (1.64%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 102 (9.29%) Management Information System
2 88 (8.01%) Product Ownership
3 86 (7.83%) Algorithms
3 86 (7.83%) Onboarding
4 73 (6.65%) Cloud Native
5 64 (5.83%) Data Structures
6 53 (4.83%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.73%) AI Agents
8 28 (2.55%) Virtual Team
9 26 (2.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 26 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
10 23 (2.09%) Derivative
11 20 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.55%) Fixed Income
13 16 (1.46%) Data Centre
13 16 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
14 15 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
14 15 (1.37%) Operational Technology
14 15 (1.37%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 127 (11.57%) Windows
2 102 (9.29%) Linux
3 32 (2.91%) Unix
4 25 (2.28%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.91%) Android
6 19 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (1.46%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.09%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.82%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.82%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.46%) VMS
11 3 (0.27%) Debian
11 3 (0.27%) Rocky
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.091%) CentOS
13 1 (0.091%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 321 (29.23%) Problem-Solving
2 270 (24.59%) Agile
3 240 (21.86%) AI
4 201 (18.31%) CI/CD
5 189 (17.21%) Continuous Improvement
6 187 (17.03%) Software Engineering
7 163 (14.85%) DevOps
8 153 (13.93%) Analytics
9 129 (11.75%) Stakeholder Management
10 127 (11.57%) Cybersecurity
11 117 (10.66%) Machine Learning
12 115 (10.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 113 (10.29%) ITIL
14 111 (10.11%) Mathematics
15 101 (9.20%) Data Science
16 98 (8.93%) Decision-Making
17 92 (8.38%) Roadmaps
18 89 (8.11%) Microservices
19 85 (7.74%) Containerisation
20 84 (7.65%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 297 (27.05%) Python
2 211 (19.22%) SQL
3 134 (12.20%) Java
4 69 (6.28%) JavaScript
5 66 (6.01%) PowerShell
6 62 (5.65%) C#
7 39 (3.55%) TypeScript
8 30 (2.73%) Bash
9 22 (2.00%) C++
10 19 (1.73%) R
11 13 (1.18%) Bicep
12 11 (1.00%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.91%) C
13 10 (0.91%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.64%) Go
16 6 (0.55%) Perl
17 5 (0.46%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.46%) Scala
18 4 (0.36%) Ada
Qualifications
1 842 (76.68%) Degree
2 479 (43.62%) Computer Science Degree
3 210 (19.13%) Security Cleared
4 130 (11.84%) Master's Degree
5 128 (11.66%) SC Cleared
6 51 (4.64%) CISSP
7 43 (3.92%) Azure Certification
8 41 (3.73%) Microsoft Certification
9 40 (3.64%) PhD
10 37 (3.37%) DBS Check
11 33 (3.01%) CISM
12 29 (2.64%) PMI Certification
13 28 (2.55%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.55%) DV Cleared
13 28 (2.55%) PMP
14 24 (2.19%) TOGAF Certification
15 23 (2.09%) Cisco Certification
16 21 (1.91%) CISA
17 19 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
18 17 (1.55%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.19%) Data Quality
1 68 (6.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 60 (5.46%) NIST
3 54 (4.92%) QA
4 32 (2.91%) GDPR
5 18 (1.64%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.37%) GRC
7 13 (1.18%) PCI DSS
7 13 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 13 (1.18%) SLA
8 11 (1.00%) HIPAA
8 11 (1.00%) NCSC
9 10 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 10 (0.91%) NIST 800
10 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 6 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.46%) COBIT
12 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.46%) ISO 20022
12 5 (0.46%) ITGC
System Software
1 87 (7.92%) Docker
2 81 (7.38%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.91%) Firmware
5 9 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.64%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.36%) vSphere
9 3 (0.27%) ACF2
9 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.27%) RACF
9 3 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.091%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.091%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.091%) HDFS
11 1 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 108 (9.84%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.10%) Terraform
3 37 (3.37%) Ansible
4 28 (2.55%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.28%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.91%) Grafana
7 15 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.64%) SCCM
9 4 (0.36%) Argo
9 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Foglight
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.18%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize
Vendors
1 200 (18.21%) Microsoft
2 64 (5.83%) Oracle
3 49 (4.46%) Databricks
4 40 (3.64%) Google
4 40 (3.64%) IBM
5 37 (3.37%) ServiceNow
6 32 (2.91%) SAP
7 29 (2.64%) VMware
8 23 (2.09%) CyberArk
9 21 (1.91%) Cisco
10 19 (1.73%) BeyondTrust
11 18 (1.64%) Splunk
12 13 (1.18%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.09%) Palo Alto
14 11 (1.00%) Informatica
14 11 (1.00%) Okta
15 10 (0.91%) Citrix
15 10 (0.91%) Foundry
15 10 (0.91%) Solace
16 9 (0.82%) UiPath