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

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 66 62
Rank change year-on-year -71 -4 +22
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,082 1,214 1,281
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 3.71% 3.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 4.10% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 603 683 795
10th Percentile £175 £184 £336
25th Percentile £199 £351 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £478 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.78% -13.18% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £700
90th Percentile £760 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £364 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -14.35% -19.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 45 54
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.46
25th Percentile £34.00 £29.00 £41.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £54.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.85% +5.83% -16.94%
75th Percentile £85.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.50 £66.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +9.02% +20.91% -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 45,369 29,617 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.56% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,730 18,446 20,728
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,902 1,758 1,607
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.78 £17.30 £18.82
Median hourly rate £41.09 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.39% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.88 £47.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -62 986 £469 -4.29% 3,799
UK excluding London -54 567 £364 -14.35% 1,523
London -65 441 £525 -4.55% 2,671
Work from Home -77 247 £500 +1.63% 1,272
South East -14 220 £350 -17.65% 403
North of England -41 145 £450 +5.88% 247
Midlands -58 90 £228 -45.83% 152
Yorkshire -10 73 £450 +25.70% 62
West Midlands -51 61 £225 -40.00% 97
North West -59 61 £474 -0.21% 142
East of England -28 50 £200 -60.40% 221
East Midlands -25 28 £253 -43.51% 55
Scotland -61 28 £380 -17.57% 170
South West -65 28 £435 +110.41% 228
North East -39 12 £195 -57.84% 45
Northern Ireland +6 4 £175 - 83
Wales -21 4 £530 +14.59% 31

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 (3.88%) Confluence
2 32 (2.96%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.13%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.76%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.39%) Apache
6 8 (0.74%) Camunda
6 8 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.46%) CMS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.092%) nginx
12 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.39%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.092%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.092%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.092%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 300 (27.73%) Azure
2 195 (18.02%) AWS
3 112 (10.35%) GCP
4 77 (7.12%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.73%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (5.55%) Entra ID
7 49 (4.53%) GitHub
8 48 (4.44%) SaaS
9 47 (4.34%) Azure DevOps
10 34 (3.14%) Serverless
10 34 (3.14%) Snowflake
11 23 (2.13%) PowerApps
12 18 (1.66%) GitHub Actions
12 18 (1.66%) Microsoft Copilot
12 18 (1.66%) OpenShift
13 17 (1.57%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (1.57%) Power Automate
14 15 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
15 14 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
16 13 (1.20%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.88%) DNS
1 42 (3.88%) Firewall
2 34 (3.14%) VPN
3 33 (3.05%) Network Security
4 25 (2.31%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.94%) DHCP
6 17 (1.57%) SSH
7 15 (1.39%) WAN
8 12 (1.11%) LAN
9 11 (1.02%) BGP
9 11 (1.02%) Wireless
10 10 (0.92%) HTTP
10 10 (0.92%) MPLS
10 10 (0.92%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.83%) VLAN
12 8 (0.74%) 3GPP
12 8 (0.74%) 5G
12 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.74%) OSPF
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (5.64%) Power BI
2 55 (5.08%) Relational Database
3 52 (4.81%) SQL Server
4 46 (4.25%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (3.60%) Metadata
6 29 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (2.22%) MongoDB
7 24 (2.22%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.03%) Big Data
9 18 (1.66%) MySQL
10 17 (1.57%) Elasticsearch
11 16 (1.48%) Tableau
12 14 (1.29%) Data Mining
12 14 (1.29%) Redis
13 11 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (1.02%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
14 9 (0.83%) Data Lake
15 8 (0.74%) Snowflake Schema
16 7 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 93 (8.60%) Git
2 51 (4.71%) JIRA
3 45 (4.16%) Jenkins
4 42 (3.88%) GitLab
5 19 (1.76%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.57%) Selenium
7 16 (1.48%) JUnit
8 14 (1.29%) SonarQube
9 13 (1.20%) Gradle
9 13 (1.20%) Maven
10 12 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (1.02%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.92%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.83%) Mockito
14 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
14 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.65%) Bitbucket Server
16 6 (0.55%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.55%) Postman
16 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 450 (41.59%) Social Skills
2 246 (22.74%) Analytical Skills
3 234 (21.63%) Finance
4 90 (8.32%) Banking
5 63 (5.82%) Public Sector
6 53 (4.90%) Aerospace
7 51 (4.71%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (3.70%) Telecoms
9 38 (3.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 35 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.87%) Manufacturing
12 29 (2.68%) Influencing Skills
13 28 (2.59%) Front Office
14 26 (2.40%) Marketing
15 23 (2.13%) Legal
16 19 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (1.66%) Military
18 15 (1.39%) Retail
19 14 (1.29%) Law
20 13 (1.20%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 144 (13.31%) Developer
2 107 (9.89%) Senior
3 94 (8.69%) Architect
4 79 (7.30%) Analyst
5 78 (7.21%) Lead
6 36 (3.33%) Data Engineer
7 31 (2.87%) Software Engineer
8 27 (2.50%) IT Support
8 27 (2.50%) Java Developer
9 26 (2.40%) Product Manager
10 25 (2.31%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
11 24 (2.22%) Junior
11 24 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
12 23 (2.13%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.03%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 22 (2.03%) Data Scientist
14 21 (1.94%) Full-Stack Developer
14 21 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 21 (1.94%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.69%) REST
2 59 (5.45%) React
2 59 (5.45%) Terraform
3 55 (5.08%) .NET
4 50 (4.62%) HTML
5 48 (4.44%) CSS
6 47 (4.34%) Kafka
7 40 (3.70%) RESTful
8 32 (2.96%) Spring
9 31 (2.87%) OAuth
10 30 (2.77%) Spring Boot
11 26 (2.40%) OAuth2
11 26 (2.40%) Web Services
12 24 (2.22%) OpenID
13 23 (2.13%) JSON
13 23 (2.13%) SOAP
14 22 (2.03%) AngularJS
14 22 (2.03%) Middleware
14 22 (2.03%) SAML
15 18 (1.66%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 108 (9.98%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.39%) Algorithms
3 72 (6.65%) Cloud Native
3 72 (6.65%) Onboarding
4 69 (6.38%) Product Ownership
5 65 (6.01%) Data Structures
6 50 (4.62%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.77%) AI Agents
8 26 (2.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 25 (2.31%) Virtual Team
10 22 (2.03%) Derivative
10 22 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
10 22 (2.03%) Hybrid Cloud
10 22 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
11 18 (1.66%) Data Centre
12 17 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
13 16 (1.48%) Fixed Income
14 15 (1.39%) Equities
15 14 (1.29%) Operational Technology
16 13 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 121 (11.18%) Windows
2 108 (9.98%) Linux
3 31 (2.87%) Unix
4 27 (2.50%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.29%) Android
8 10 (0.92%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.55%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 332 (30.68%) Problem-Solving
2 274 (25.32%) Agile
3 230 (21.26%) AI
4 212 (19.59%) CI/CD
5 191 (17.65%) Continuous Improvement
5 191 (17.65%) Software Engineering
6 176 (16.27%) DevOps
7 159 (14.70%) Stakeholder Management
8 151 (13.96%) Analytics
9 116 (10.72%) Cybersecurity
10 114 (10.54%) ITIL
11 107 (9.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 105 (9.70%) Mathematics
13 100 (9.24%) Roadmaps
14 96 (8.87%) Machine Learning
15 93 (8.60%) Validation
16 92 (8.50%) Scrum
16 92 (8.50%) Test Automation
17 86 (7.95%) Mentoring
18 82 (7.58%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 293 (27.08%) Python
2 215 (19.87%) SQL
3 139 (12.85%) Java
4 86 (7.95%) JavaScript
5 76 (7.02%) PowerShell
6 67 (6.19%) C#
7 43 (3.97%) Bash
8 40 (3.70%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.77%) C++
10 16 (1.48%) Bicep
11 14 (1.29%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.02%) C
12 11 (1.02%) R
13 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
13 7 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 7 (0.65%) Go
13 7 (0.65%) Kotlin
14 6 (0.55%) Perl
14 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 827 (76.43%) Degree
2 499 (46.12%) Computer Science Degree
3 197 (18.21%) Security Cleared
4 131 (12.11%) SC Cleared
5 114 (10.54%) Master's Degree
6 48 (4.44%) Azure Certification
7 47 (4.34%) CISSP
8 45 (4.16%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.60%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.23%) PhD
11 30 (2.77%) CISM
12 28 (2.59%) AWS Certification
12 28 (2.59%) DV Cleared
13 23 (2.13%) PMI Certification
13 23 (2.13%) PMP
14 22 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
14 22 (2.03%) TOGAF Certification
15 19 (1.76%) CISA
16 18 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
17 15 (1.39%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.38%) Data Quality
2 65 (6.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 55 (5.08%) NIST
3 55 (5.08%) QA
4 26 (2.40%) GDPR
5 16 (1.48%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.39%) SLA
7 12 (1.11%) GRC
8 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
8 11 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 11 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.83%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.74%) NCSC
11 7 (0.65%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.46%) ITGC
13 4 (0.37%) COBIT
13 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
14 3 (0.28%) HL7
14 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 3 (0.28%) PMO
System Software
1 86 (7.95%) Docker
2 76 (7.02%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.74%) Firmware
7 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.092%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.092%) KVM
11 1 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 102 (9.43%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.60%) Ansible
3 28 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.22%) Prometheus
5 20 (1.85%) Grafana
6 14 (1.29%) SCCM
7 12 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) Control-M
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) CASB
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) Foglight
Vendors
1 211 (19.50%) Microsoft
2 70 (6.47%) Oracle
3 47 (4.34%) Google
4 43 (3.97%) IBM
5 42 (3.88%) Databricks
6 37 (3.42%) VMware
7 35 (3.23%) ServiceNow
8 29 (2.68%) SAP
9 26 (2.40%) Cisco
10 22 (2.03%) Splunk
11 20 (1.85%) CyberArk
12 19 (1.76%) Salesforce
13 18 (1.66%) BeyondTrust
14 13 (1.20%) Adobe
15 12 (1.11%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.02%) OpenAI
17 10 (0.92%) Citrix
17 10 (0.92%) Dynatrace
17 10 (0.92%) Foundry
18 9 (0.83%) Apple