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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 71 62
Rank change year-on-year -76 -9 +19
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,096 1,199 1,267
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.98% 3.60% 3.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.34% 3.98% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 645 711 771
10th Percentile £178 £178 £340
25th Percentile £200 £314 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £628 £688
90th Percentile £719 £750 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £409 £513
% change year-on-year -14.37% -20.24% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 54 36
10th Percentile £17.39 £26.40 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.75 £29.00 £26.28
Median hourly rate £41.71 £33.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +24.51% -36.19% -12.50%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +24.51% -44.17% +2.13%

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 46,911 30,121 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.54% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,189 18,721 19,488
10th Percentile £325 £296 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,476 1,911 1,239
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.24 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.07% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.24 £22.27 £40.00
% change year-on-year +67.26% -44.34% -8.88%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -59 991 £450 -5.26% 504
UK excluding London -60 569 £350 -14.37% 390
London -67 449 £525 -1.41% 191
Work from Home -85 261 £520 +10.87% 353
South East -19 211 £450 +39.53% 123
North of England -61 151 £400 -3.03% 81
Midlands -57 90 £217 -53.83% 53
Yorkshire -30 79 £344 -23.61% 24
West Midlands -53 59 £211 -59.81% 32
North West -62 59 £519 +43.22% 32
East of England -41 43 £425 - 54
South West -54 34 £195 -5.57% 66
Scotland -47 33 £420 -6.67% 17
East Midlands -16 30 £217 -51.45% 21
North East -28 14 £195 -57.84% 26
Northern Ireland +5 4 - - 2
Wales -18 4 £530 +14.59% 12

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 50 (4.56%) Confluence
2 31 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 22 (2.01%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.46%) Apache
6 12 (1.09%) IIS
7 11 (1.00%) CMS
8 10 (0.91%) Camunda
9 8 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.64%) SAS
11 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
12 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.36%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.27%) CICS
13 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.27%) nginx
14 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 35 (3.19%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.37%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.46%) Navisworks
5 5 (0.46%) Revit
6 4 (0.36%) Trello
6 4 (0.36%) Windchill
7 3 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.18%) Simulink
8 2 (0.18%) Sketch
9 1 (0.091%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
2 4 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
2 4 (0.36%) Workfront
3 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.27%) Primavera
3 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.18%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.091%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.091%) Finacle
5 1 (0.091%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.091%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.091%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.091%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.091%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.091%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.091%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 306 (27.92%) Azure
2 189 (17.24%) AWS
3 120 (10.95%) GCP
4 64 (5.84%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.66%) GitHub
6 61 (5.57%) Azure DevOps
6 61 (5.57%) Power Platform
7 53 (4.84%) Microsoft 365
8 44 (4.01%) SaaS
9 37 (3.38%) Serverless
10 29 (2.65%) GitHub Actions
11 28 (2.55%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.10%) OpenShift
13 21 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.82%) PowerApps
15 19 (1.73%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (1.55%) Microsoft Copilot
16 17 (1.55%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.46%) Anthropic Claude
17 16 (1.46%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 48 (4.38%) Firewall
2 42 (3.83%) DNS
3 36 (3.28%) Network Security
4 33 (3.01%) VPN
5 27 (2.46%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.92%) DHCP
7 16 (1.46%) SSH
8 14 (1.28%) WAN
9 12 (1.09%) VLAN
9 12 (1.09%) Wireless
10 11 (1.00%) 5G
10 11 (1.00%) HTTP
10 11 (1.00%) LAN
10 11 (1.00%) Wireshark
11 8 (0.73%) 3GPP
11 8 (0.73%) BGP
11 8 (0.73%) MPLS
12 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
12 7 (0.64%) OSPF
12 7 (0.64%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.02%) PostgreSQL
2 49 (4.47%) Power BI
3 48 (4.38%) SQL Server
4 47 (4.29%) Relational Database
5 36 (3.28%) Metadata
6 30 (2.74%) MongoDB
7 28 (2.55%) MySQL
8 27 (2.46%) NoSQL
9 26 (2.37%) Data Warehouse
10 24 (2.19%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (1.64%) Big Data
12 13 (1.19%) Data Mining
12 13 (1.19%) Redis
13 12 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
13 12 (1.09%) Azure SQL Database
13 12 (1.09%) Tableau
14 11 (1.00%) Data Lake
15 10 (0.91%) Oracle Database
16 6 (0.55%) Pinecone
16 6 (0.55%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 102 (9.31%) Git
2 54 (4.93%) JIRA
3 53 (4.84%) Jenkins
4 43 (3.92%) GitLab
5 30 (2.74%) Gradle
6 27 (2.46%) JUnit
7 23 (2.10%) Maven
8 20 (1.82%) SonarQube
9 19 (1.73%) Selenium
10 18 (1.64%) Mockito
11 14 (1.28%) Cucumber
11 14 (1.28%) Sonatype Nexus
12 12 (1.09%) REST Assured
13 11 (1.00%) Bitbucket
13 11 (1.00%) Postman
13 11 (1.00%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.82%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.82%) CircleCI
15 8 (0.73%) Visual Studio
16 7 (0.64%) Cypress.io
General
1 456 (41.61%) Social Skills
2 243 (22.17%) Finance
3 236 (21.53%) Analytical Skills
4 97 (8.85%) Banking
5 66 (6.02%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.65%) Aerospace
7 49 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
8 43 (3.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 42 (3.83%) Manufacturing
10 36 (3.28%) Organisational Skills
11 33 (3.01%) Marketing
12 31 (2.83%) Influencing Skills
13 29 (2.65%) Telecoms
14 21 (1.92%) Front Office
15 20 (1.82%) Military
16 18 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (1.64%) Retail
17 16 (1.46%) Electronics
17 16 (1.46%) Legal
17 16 (1.46%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 166 (15.15%) Developer
2 113 (10.31%) Senior
3 85 (7.76%) Architect
4 76 (6.93%) Lead
5 73 (6.66%) Analyst
6 35 (3.19%) Java Developer
7 34 (3.10%) Data Engineer
8 31 (2.83%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.46%) Senior Developer
10 26 (2.37%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 25 (2.28%) IT Support
12 23 (2.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 23 (2.10%) Python Developer
12 23 (2.10%) Security Engineer
13 22 (2.01%) Data Scientist
13 22 (2.01%) Full-Stack Developer
14 21 (1.92%) Consultant
14 21 (1.92%) Engineering Manager
15 19 (1.73%) Delivery Manager
15 19 (1.73%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (9.22%) REST
2 69 (6.30%) Terraform
3 66 (6.02%) HTML
4 64 (5.84%) CSS
5 62 (5.66%) React
6 57 (5.20%) Kafka
7 55 (5.02%) RESTful
8 49 (4.47%) .NET
9 39 (3.56%) Spring
10 38 (3.47%) OAuth
10 38 (3.47%) Spring Boot
11 35 (3.19%) SOAP
12 33 (3.01%) Web Services
13 31 (2.83%) OAuth2
14 29 (2.65%) Middleware
14 29 (2.65%) OpenID
15 28 (2.55%) SAML
16 26 (2.37%) JSON
17 24 (2.19%) XML
18 23 (2.10%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 123 (11.22%) Management Information System
2 82 (7.48%) Cloud Native
3 64 (5.84%) Algorithms
4 62 (5.66%) Onboarding
5 61 (5.57%) Product Ownership
6 55 (5.02%) Distributed Systems
7 50 (4.56%) Data Structures
8 36 (3.28%) AI Agents
8 36 (3.28%) Enterprise Software
9 28 (2.55%) Virtual Team
10 21 (1.92%) Data Centre
10 21 (1.92%) Hybrid Cloud
11 20 (1.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 20 (1.82%) Mobile App
12 18 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
13 16 (1.46%) Derivative
13 16 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
13 16 (1.46%) Operational Technology
14 15 (1.37%) Replication
15 13 (1.19%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 120 (10.95%) Linux
2 118 (10.77%) Windows
3 40 (3.65%) Unix
4 34 (3.10%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 17 (1.55%) Android
7 16 (1.46%) Windows 10
8 15 (1.37%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.55%) macOS
11 4 (0.36%) VMS
11 4 (0.36%) zOS
12 3 (0.27%) Solaris
12 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) Debian
13 2 (0.18%) Rocky
14 1 (0.091%) CentOS
14 1 (0.091%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 335 (30.57%) Problem-Solving
2 282 (25.73%) Agile
3 242 (22.08%) CI/CD
4 211 (19.25%) AI
5 204 (18.61%) Software Engineering
6 202 (18.43%) DevOps
7 194 (17.70%) Stakeholder Management
8 188 (17.15%) Continuous Improvement
9 152 (13.87%) Analytics
10 125 (11.41%) Mathematics
11 120 (10.95%) Roadmaps
12 118 (10.77%) ITIL
13 117 (10.68%) Test Automation
14 114 (10.40%) Cybersecurity
15 113 (10.31%) Scrum
16 101 (9.22%) Validation
17 96 (8.76%) Machine Learning
18 94 (8.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 86 (7.85%) Change Management
19 86 (7.85%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 272 (24.82%) Python
2 203 (18.52%) SQL
3 143 (13.05%) Java
4 98 (8.94%) JavaScript
5 77 (7.03%) PowerShell
6 59 (5.38%) C#
7 49 (4.47%) Bash
8 38 (3.47%) TypeScript
9 27 (2.46%) C++
10 20 (1.82%) Bicep
11 19 (1.73%) Kotlin
12 16 (1.46%) Shell Script
13 14 (1.28%) Scala
14 12 (1.09%) Perl
15 11 (1.00%) R
16 10 (0.91%) Go
17 9 (0.82%) C
18 7 (0.64%) Apex Code
18 7 (0.64%) Swift
19 6 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 826 (75.36%) Degree
2 510 (46.53%) Computer Science Degree
3 201 (18.34%) Security Cleared
4 151 (13.78%) SC Cleared
5 109 (9.95%) Master's Degree
6 67 (6.11%) DBS Check
7 56 (5.11%) Azure Certification
8 54 (4.93%) CISSP
9 40 (3.65%) CISM
10 39 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (3.28%) DV Cleared
12 35 (3.19%) PhD
13 33 (3.01%) AWS Certification
14 28 (2.55%) Cisco Certification
15 27 (2.46%) TOGAF Certification
16 22 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (2.01%) PMI Certification
16 22 (2.01%) PMP
17 17 (1.55%) CISA
18 15 (1.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (6.93%) QA
2 72 (6.57%) Data Quality
3 59 (5.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 47 (4.29%) NIST
5 27 (2.46%) GDPR
6 16 (1.46%) GRC
7 15 (1.37%) HIPAA
8 13 (1.19%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.19%) SLA
9 12 (1.09%) Accessibility
10 9 (0.82%) NCSC
11 8 (0.73%) ISO 9001
12 7 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 6 (0.55%) ISO 31000
13 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 5 (0.46%) SOC 2
15 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
15 4 (0.36%) EU AI Act
15 4 (0.36%) PMO
System Software
1 96 (8.76%) Docker
2 61 (5.57%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (0.82%) Firmware
5 9 (0.82%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.46%) ISA Server
7 5 (0.46%) RACF
7 5 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.46%) vSphere
8 4 (0.36%) NFS
9 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
9 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) ACF2
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.091%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.091%) KVM
Systems Management
1 114 (10.40%) Kubernetes
2 34 (3.10%) Ansible
3 27 (2.46%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.19%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.01%) Grafana
6 15 (1.37%) SCCM
7 11 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.64%) CASB
8 7 (0.64%) Control-M
9 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 5 (0.46%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.27%) Istio
10 3 (0.27%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) Puppet
10 3 (0.27%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.18%) SCOM
Vendors
1 211 (19.25%) Microsoft
2 70 (6.39%) Oracle
3 65 (5.93%) Google
4 43 (3.92%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.28%) IBM
6 35 (3.19%) Databricks
7 33 (3.01%) VMware
8 30 (2.74%) SAP
9 29 (2.65%) Splunk
10 28 (2.55%) Cisco
11 25 (2.28%) Salesforce
12 19 (1.73%) OpenAI
13 18 (1.64%) Adobe
14 15 (1.37%) Red Hat
15 14 (1.28%) CyberArk
16 13 (1.19%) BeyondTrust
17 11 (1.00%) CrowdStrike
17 11 (1.00%) Dynatrace
18 10 (0.91%) Progress
18 10 (0.91%) Veracode