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

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 65 62
Rank change year-on-year -67 -3 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,111 1,252 1,303
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.81% 3.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.44% 4.21% 3.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 620 708 810
10th Percentile £178 £184 £325
25th Percentile £200 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £494 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.81% -10.27% -
75th Percentile £622 £650 £688
90th Percentile £751 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £420 £515
% change year-on-year -9.52% -18.41% -1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 47 65
10th Percentile £25.50 £25.00 £20.57
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £75.00 £52.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +42.86% - -15.32%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.46 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £55.63
% change year-on-year +21.64% +20.45% -7.29%

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 45,557 29,755 33,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.46% 85.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,078 18,625 21,348
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £726 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,814 1,660 1,859
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.22 £17.32 £18.22
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £64.25
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.10 £41.25
% change year-on-year +90.30% -44.00% +7.56%

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 8 August 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 8 August 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 8 August 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 -55 1,014 £450 -10.00% 1,851
UK excluding London -47 602 £380 -9.52% 772
London -68 437 £525 -12.50% 1,173
South East -3 251 £375 -16.67% 231
Work from Home -93 241 £500 - 576
North of England -52 141 £401 -5.65% 138
Midlands -52 92 £275 -16.35% 105
Yorkshire -9 78 £450 +25.70% 37
West Midlands -55 63 £350 +19.86% 53
North West -60 53 £377 -20.63% 64
East of England -23 50 £215 -52.22% 143
South West -76 31 £477 +121.09% 76
East Midlands -21 28 £253 -41.75% 52
Scotland -49 27 £400 -15.79% 51
North East -38 11 £195 -57.84% 38
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 21
Wales -21 5 £530 +14.59% 18

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 (3.42%) Confluence
2 29 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 26 (2.34%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.71%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.53%) Apache
6 9 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.54%) IIS
8 5 (0.45%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
9 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.27%) Camunda
10 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.090%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.05%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.88%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.35%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.63%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.63%) Revit
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.45%) Trello
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.18%) Sketch
8 1 (0.090%) Simulink
8 1 (0.090%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 13 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.27%) Primavera
4 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.090%) Finacle
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.090%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 302 (27.18%) Azure
2 192 (17.28%) AWS
3 103 (9.27%) GCP
4 78 (7.02%) Power Platform
5 68 (6.12%) Entra ID
6 59 (5.31%) Microsoft 365
7 54 (4.86%) GitHub
8 50 (4.50%) SaaS
9 44 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
10 35 (3.15%) Snowflake
11 29 (2.61%) Serverless
12 22 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
12 22 (1.98%) PowerApps
13 16 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
13 16 (1.44%) Azure Data Factory
13 16 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
14 15 (1.35%) Power Automate
15 13 (1.17%) Azure AKS
15 13 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 13 (1.17%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 44 (3.96%) Firewall
2 38 (3.42%) DNS
3 33 (2.97%) Network Security
4 32 (2.88%) VPN
5 26 (2.34%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.62%) SSH
6 18 (1.62%) WAN
7 17 (1.53%) DHCP
8 14 (1.26%) LAN
9 13 (1.17%) Wireless
10 11 (0.99%) BGP
11 10 (0.90%) VLAN
12 9 (0.81%) HTTP
13 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
13 8 (0.72%) MPLS
13 8 (0.72%) OSPF
13 8 (0.72%) Wireshark
14 7 (0.63%) 3GPP
14 7 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
14 7 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.67%) Power BI
2 54 (4.86%) Relational Database
3 49 (4.41%) SQL Server
4 47 (4.23%) PostgreSQL
5 31 (2.79%) Data Warehouse
5 31 (2.79%) Metadata
6 28 (2.52%) MongoDB
7 27 (2.43%) NoSQL
8 25 (2.25%) Big Data
9 16 (1.44%) Tableau
10 15 (1.35%) Data Mining
11 14 (1.26%) MySQL
12 13 (1.17%) Redis
13 11 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.90%) Data Lake
15 9 (0.81%) Hadoop
15 9 (0.81%) Oracle Database
15 9 (0.81%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 90 (8.10%) Git
2 51 (4.59%) JIRA
3 41 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 39 (3.51%) GitLab
5 32 (2.88%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.53%) Selenium
7 12 (1.08%) Bitbucket
7 12 (1.08%) JUnit
8 11 (0.99%) Gradle
9 9 (0.81%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.72%) Maven
10 8 (0.72%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.54%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.54%) Visual Studio
13 5 (0.45%) Flyway
13 5 (0.45%) MLflow
General
1 450 (40.50%) Social Skills
2 248 (22.32%) Analytical Skills
3 232 (20.88%) Finance
4 90 (8.10%) Banking
5 67 (6.03%) Public Sector
6 63 (5.67%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.50%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (3.51%) Organisational Skills
9 38 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 34 (3.06%) Telecoms
11 31 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
12 28 (2.52%) Manufacturing
13 27 (2.43%) Legal
13 27 (2.43%) Marketing
14 25 (2.25%) Front Office
15 19 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.53%) Law
17 16 (1.44%) Military
17 16 (1.44%) Retail
18 13 (1.17%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 127 (11.43%) Developer
2 109 (9.81%) Senior
3 102 (9.18%) Architect
4 78 (7.02%) Lead
5 76 (6.84%) Analyst
6 40 (3.60%) Product Manager
7 38 (3.42%) Data Engineer
8 36 (3.24%) Software Engineer
9 34 (3.06%) Delivery Manager
10 31 (2.79%) Product Delivery Manager
11 28 (2.52%) Data Scientist
12 26 (2.34%) Junior
13 25 (2.25%) IT Support
14 24 (2.16%) Solutions Architect
15 23 (2.07%) Python Developer
15 23 (2.07%) Security Engineer
15 23 (2.07%) Senior Developer
16 22 (1.98%) Systems Delivery Manager
16 22 (1.98%) Systems Manager
17 21 (1.89%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 92 (8.28%) REST
2 56 (5.04%) React
3 55 (4.95%) .NET
4 39 (3.51%) RESTful
5 38 (3.42%) Kafka
6 31 (2.79%) OAuth
7 30 (2.70%) Spring
8 29 (2.61%) CSS
9 27 (2.43%) HTML
10 24 (2.16%) OAuth2
10 24 (2.16%) SAML
11 23 (2.07%) AngularJS
11 23 (2.07%) Middleware
11 23 (2.07%) OpenID
11 23 (2.07%) Spring Boot
12 22 (1.98%) JSON
12 22 (1.98%) PyTorch
12 22 (1.98%) Web Services
13 19 (1.71%) SOAP
14 18 (1.62%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 100 (9.00%) Management Information System
2 91 (8.19%) Product Ownership
3 85 (7.65%) Algorithms
4 82 (7.38%) Onboarding
5 68 (6.12%) Cloud Native
6 66 (5.94%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.41%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.70%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.43%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
11 24 (2.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 23 (2.07%) Derivative
13 18 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
13 18 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.53%) Fixed Income
14 17 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
15 16 (1.44%) Operational Technology
16 15 (1.35%) Data Centre
16 15 (1.35%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 130 (11.70%) Windows
2 108 (9.72%) Linux
3 33 (2.97%) Unix
4 27 (2.43%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.80%) Android
5 20 (1.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.62%) Windows 10
7 11 (0.99%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.90%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.72%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.36%) Debian
10 4 (0.36%) Rocky
11 3 (0.27%) VMS
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (29.97%) Problem-Solving
2 272 (24.48%) Agile
3 237 (21.33%) AI
4 204 (18.36%) CI/CD
5 199 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 190 (17.10%) Software Engineering
7 167 (15.03%) DevOps
8 148 (13.32%) Analytics
9 143 (12.87%) Stakeholder Management
10 129 (11.61%) Cybersecurity
11 119 (10.71%) ITIL
12 116 (10.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 111 (9.99%) Mathematics
14 107 (9.63%) Machine Learning
15 92 (8.28%) Decision-Making
16 91 (8.19%) Roadmaps
16 91 (8.19%) Validation
17 90 (8.10%) Data Science
18 84 (7.56%) Mentoring
19 79 (7.11%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 304 (27.36%) Python
2 209 (18.81%) SQL
3 131 (11.79%) Java
4 74 (6.66%) PowerShell
5 68 (6.12%) JavaScript
6 66 (5.94%) C#
7 37 (3.33%) TypeScript
8 36 (3.24%) Bash
9 25 (2.25%) C++
10 16 (1.44%) R
11 13 (1.17%) Bicep
12 12 (1.08%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.90%) C
13 10 (0.90%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.63%) Go
15 7 (0.63%) Scala
16 6 (0.54%) Perl
16 6 (0.54%) PL/SQL
17 5 (0.45%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 846 (76.15%) Degree
2 494 (44.46%) Computer Science Degree
3 212 (19.08%) Security Cleared
4 129 (11.61%) SC Cleared
5 115 (10.35%) Master's Degree
6 54 (4.86%) CISSP
7 45 (4.05%) Azure Certification
8 42 (3.78%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.42%) DBS Check
10 37 (3.33%) PhD
11 36 (3.24%) CISM
12 28 (2.52%) PMI Certification
13 27 (2.43%) DV Cleared
13 27 (2.43%) PMP
14 26 (2.34%) AWS Certification
15 25 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
15 25 (2.25%) TOGAF Certification
16 22 (1.98%) CISA
17 19 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
18 18 (1.62%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 69 (6.21%) Data Quality
3 63 (5.67%) NIST
4 56 (5.04%) QA
5 29 (2.61%) GDPR
6 17 (1.53%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.35%) GRC
8 14 (1.26%) SLA
9 13 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (1.08%) NCSC
11 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
11 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
12 10 (0.90%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.45%) COBIT
14 5 (0.45%) DO-254
14 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.45%) ITGC
15 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 85 (7.65%) Docker
2 82 (7.38%) Active Directory
3 22 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.90%) Firmware
5 9 (0.81%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.45%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) ACF2
8 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.27%) RACF
8 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.090%) HDFS
10 1 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 101 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.04%) Terraform
3 39 (3.51%) Ansible
4 31 (2.79%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (2.16%) Prometheus
6 19 (1.71%) Grafana
7 14 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (0.99%) SCCM
9 6 (0.54%) Argo
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Foglight
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) Puppet
10 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Cisco Prime
11 2 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 205 (18.45%) Microsoft
2 62 (5.58%) Oracle
3 49 (4.41%) Databricks
4 41 (3.69%) IBM
5 39 (3.51%) Google
6 37 (3.33%) ServiceNow
7 33 (2.97%) VMware
8 28 (2.52%) SAP
9 23 (2.07%) Cisco
9 23 (2.07%) CyberArk
10 21 (1.89%) BeyondTrust
11 18 (1.62%) Splunk
12 14 (1.26%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.99%) Citrix
13 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
14 10 (0.90%) Foundry
14 10 (0.90%) Okta
14 10 (0.90%) Red Hat
15 9 (0.81%) Apple
15 9 (0.81%) UiPath