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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 68 60
Rank change year-on-year -72 -8 +24
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,060 1,193 1,310
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 3.61% 3.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.30% 3.99% 3.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 593 662 808
10th Percentile £176 £184 £337
25th Percentile £201 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £479 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.78% -12.95% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £688
90th Percentile £760 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £394 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -7.35% -19.05% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 49 47
10th Percentile £23.00 £26.00 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £49.00 £44.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.11% -11.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £82.75 £67.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.00 £62.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +7.20% +16.28% -10.42%

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 46,152 29,871 33,024
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.49% 85.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,085 18,553 20,430
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,056 1,793 1,507
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.44 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.92%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.78 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.58 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.32% -47.50% +7.50%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 -72 961 £475 -3.06% 2,678
UK excluding London -65 539 £394 -7.35% 1,120
London -68 446 £530 -3.67% 1,789
Work from Home -77 253 £500 +4.71% 4,421
South East -18 203 £438 +8.83% 365
North of England -53 140 £487 +14.59% 169
Midlands -65 85 £225 -49.66% 129
Yorkshire -26 70 £450 +17.19% 44
North West -48 59 £523 +12.72% 93
West Midlands -59 56 £217 -51.78% 69
East of England -26 48 £300 -40.59% 149
East Midlands -27 28 £230 -48.55% 60
Scotland -61 28 £380 -17.57% 97
South West -71 27 £275 +40.49% 147
North East -39 12 £195 -57.84% 33
Northern Ireland +6 6 £175 - 47
Wales -22 4 £530 +14.59% 27

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 42 (3.96%) Confluence
2 33 (3.11%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.26%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.89%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.51%) Apache
6 10 (0.94%) IIS
7 9 (0.85%) Camunda
8 8 (0.75%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.47%) CMS
9 5 (0.47%) SAS
10 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.19%) nginx
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.094%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 42 (3.96%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.38%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.19%) Sketch
10 1 (0.094%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 9 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.094%) Finacle
6 1 (0.094%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.094%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.094%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.094%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.094%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 302 (28.49%) Azure
2 200 (18.87%) AWS
3 115 (10.85%) GCP
4 73 (6.89%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.85%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (5.66%) Entra ID
7 55 (5.19%) GitHub
8 48 (4.53%) SaaS
9 47 (4.43%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.40%) Serverless
11 31 (2.92%) Snowflake
12 25 (2.36%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.98%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.89%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
14 20 (1.89%) Microsoft Copilot
15 19 (1.79%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
17 15 (1.42%) Amazon EKS
18 14 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 43 (4.06%) Firewall
2 42 (3.96%) DNS
3 34 (3.21%) Network Security
4 33 (3.11%) VPN
5 25 (2.36%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.98%) DHCP
7 17 (1.60%) SSH
8 14 (1.32%) WAN
9 13 (1.23%) Wireshark
10 12 (1.13%) LAN
11 11 (1.04%) 3GPP
11 11 (1.04%) 5G
11 11 (1.04%) HTTP
11 11 (1.04%) Wireless
12 10 (0.94%) BGP
12 10 (0.94%) MPLS
13 9 (0.85%) VLAN
14 8 (0.75%) HTTPS
14 8 (0.75%) OSPF
15 7 (0.66%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (5.38%) Power BI
2 55 (5.19%) Relational Database
3 54 (5.09%) SQL Server
4 52 (4.91%) PostgreSQL
5 42 (3.96%) Metadata
6 28 (2.64%) MongoDB
7 27 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
8 24 (2.26%) NoSQL
9 22 (2.08%) Elasticsearch
10 21 (1.98%) MySQL
11 19 (1.79%) Big Data
12 15 (1.42%) Data Mining
13 14 (1.32%) Tableau
14 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
14 13 (1.23%) Redis
15 11 (1.04%) Oracle Database
16 10 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.94%) Data Lake
17 7 (0.66%) Power Query
18 6 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 95 (8.96%) Git
2 52 (4.91%) JIRA
3 48 (4.53%) Jenkins
4 46 (4.34%) GitLab
5 20 (1.89%) JUnit
6 18 (1.70%) Gradle
6 18 (1.70%) Maven
7 17 (1.60%) Selenium
8 16 (1.51%) SonarQube
9 13 (1.23%) Mockito
9 13 (1.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.13%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.94%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.94%) SpecFlow
12 9 (0.85%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.75%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.75%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.57%) Postman
14 6 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
14 6 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 447 (42.17%) Social Skills
2 238 (22.45%) Analytical Skills
3 237 (22.36%) Finance
4 93 (8.77%) Banking
5 66 (6.23%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.91%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (4.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 41 (3.87%) Aerospace
9 38 (3.58%) Telecoms
10 37 (3.49%) Manufacturing
11 33 (3.11%) Organisational Skills
12 29 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (2.36%) Marketing
14 24 (2.26%) Front Office
15 21 (1.98%) Legal
16 18 (1.70%) Military
17 17 (1.60%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (1.42%) Law
18 15 (1.42%) Retail
19 13 (1.23%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 152 (14.34%) Developer
2 111 (10.47%) Senior
3 90 (8.49%) Architect
4 78 (7.36%) Analyst
4 78 (7.36%) Lead
5 39 (3.68%) Data Engineer
6 32 (3.02%) Java Developer
6 32 (3.02%) Software Engineer
7 27 (2.55%) IT Support
8 25 (2.36%) Senior Developer
9 24 (2.26%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 24 (2.26%) Full-Stack Developer
9 24 (2.26%) Security Engineer
10 23 (2.17%) Solutions Architect
11 22 (2.08%) Data Scientist
11 22 (2.08%) Junior
12 21 (1.98%) C# Developer
12 21 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 21 (1.98%) Python Developer
13 20 (1.89%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (9.43%) REST
2 64 (6.04%) Terraform
3 63 (5.94%) React
4 60 (5.66%) .NET
5 56 (5.28%) HTML
6 55 (5.19%) Kafka
7 53 (5.00%) CSS
8 45 (4.25%) RESTful
9 36 (3.40%) Spring Boot
10 35 (3.30%) Spring
11 31 (2.92%) OAuth
12 28 (2.64%) Web Services
13 26 (2.45%) OAuth2
13 26 (2.45%) SOAP
14 24 (2.26%) JSON
14 24 (2.26%) OpenID
15 22 (2.08%) .NET Core
15 22 (2.08%) AngularJS
15 22 (2.08%) SAML
16 21 (1.98%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 117 (11.04%) Management Information System
2 78 (7.36%) Cloud Native
3 72 (6.79%) Algorithms
4 68 (6.42%) Onboarding
5 59 (5.57%) Product Ownership
6 53 (5.00%) Data Structures
7 51 (4.81%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (3.02%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.55%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
10 25 (2.36%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 24 (2.26%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.98%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (1.70%) Data Centre
13 18 (1.70%) Derivative
14 16 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.32%) Fixed Income
16 13 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.23%) Equities
16 13 (1.23%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.89%) Windows
2 115 (10.85%) Linux
3 32 (3.02%) Unix
3 32 (3.02%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.89%) Windows 10
5 19 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.32%) Android
7 10 (0.94%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.75%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.66%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Debian
11 3 (0.28%) Rocky
11 3 (0.28%) zOS
12 2 (0.19%) CentOS
12 2 (0.19%) MVS
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.094%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.094%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (31.42%) Problem-Solving
2 263 (24.81%) Agile
3 229 (21.60%) AI
4 215 (20.28%) CI/CD
5 190 (17.92%) Software Engineering
6 182 (17.17%) Continuous Improvement
6 182 (17.17%) DevOps
7 167 (15.75%) Stakeholder Management
8 150 (14.15%) Analytics
9 123 (11.60%) ITIL
10 112 (10.57%) Cybersecurity
11 106 (10.00%) Mathematics
12 104 (9.81%) Roadmaps
13 100 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 99 (9.34%) Machine Learning
15 98 (9.25%) Scrum
16 96 (9.06%) Test Automation
17 92 (8.68%) Validation
18 88 (8.30%) Mentoring
19 81 (7.64%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 286 (26.98%) Python
2 213 (20.09%) SQL
3 144 (13.58%) Java
4 94 (8.87%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.45%) PowerShell
6 70 (6.60%) C#
7 45 (4.25%) Bash
8 41 (3.87%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.74%) C++
10 17 (1.60%) Bicep
11 14 (1.32%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.04%) C
12 11 (1.04%) R
13 9 (0.85%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.85%) Scala
14 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.66%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.66%) Go
14 7 (0.66%) Perl
15 6 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 814 (76.79%) Degree
2 493 (46.51%) Computer Science Degree
3 186 (17.55%) Security Cleared
4 138 (13.02%) SC Cleared
5 112 (10.57%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.91%) Azure Certification
7 49 (4.62%) CISSP
8 47 (4.43%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.58%) DBS Check
10 37 (3.49%) PhD
11 32 (3.02%) CISM
12 29 (2.74%) AWS Certification
12 29 (2.74%) DV Cleared
13 24 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (2.26%) PMI Certification
13 24 (2.26%) PMP
13 24 (2.26%) TOGAF Certification
14 20 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
14 20 (1.89%) CISA
15 15 (1.42%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.60%) Data Quality
2 62 (5.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 61 (5.75%) QA
4 51 (4.81%) NIST
5 25 (2.36%) GDPR
6 17 (1.60%) SLA
7 16 (1.51%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.51%) GRC
8 11 (1.04%) HIPAA
8 11 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 10 (0.94%) PCI DSS
10 9 (0.85%) NCSC
11 6 (0.57%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.47%) ISO 9001
12 5 (0.47%) ITGC
12 5 (0.47%) PMO
13 4 (0.38%) COBIT
13 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
14 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 88 (8.30%) Docker
2 76 (7.17%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.04%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.85%) Firmware
5 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.57%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.38%) RACF
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) ACF2
8 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.28%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.094%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.094%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 102 (9.62%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.77%) Ansible
3 28 (2.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (2.08%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.70%) Grafana
6 14 (1.32%) SCCM
7 10 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.47%) Argo
8 5 (0.47%) CASB
9 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) Control-M
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.19%) SCOM
Vendors
1 214 (20.19%) Microsoft
2 74 (6.98%) Oracle
3 48 (4.53%) Google
4 37 (3.49%) Databricks
4 37 (3.49%) ServiceNow
4 37 (3.49%) VMware
5 33 (3.11%) IBM
6 32 (3.02%) SAP
7 28 (2.64%) Cisco
8 24 (2.26%) Splunk
9 20 (1.89%) CyberArk
9 20 (1.89%) Salesforce
10 18 (1.70%) BeyondTrust
11 14 (1.32%) Red Hat
12 13 (1.23%) Adobe
12 13 (1.23%) OpenAI
13 10 (0.94%) Citrix
13 10 (0.94%) Dynatrace
13 10 (0.94%) Foundry
14 9 (0.85%) F5