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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 64 62
Rank change year-on-year -65 -2 +41
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,012 1,117 1,396
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.01% 3.75% 3.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.37% 4.12% 3.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 576 619 831
10th Percentile £178 £250 £315
25th Percentile £218 £371 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.55% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £666 £650
90th Percentile £769 £775 £780
UK excluding London median daily rate £394 £474 £515
% change year-on-year -16.84% -8.01% -1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 107 38 104
10th Percentile £27.43 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £44.23 £28.56 £38.75
Median hourly rate £79.91 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.09% -31.82% -
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.44 £65.00
90th Percentile - £84.47 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £41.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +101.21% -25.00% +10.00%

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 42,754 27,087 37,306
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,630 17,192 23,755
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -3.79% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £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 2,570 1,249 2,608
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.87 £16.02
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.21 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.72% -29.51% +6.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +17.29%

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 18 June 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 18 June 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 18 June 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 -54 905 £475 -7.77% 1,026
UK excluding London -52 540 £394 -16.84% 687
London -59 395 £550 -8.33% 495
Work from Home -73 230 £500 -9.09% 387
South East -10 218 £215 -55.61% 220
North of England -36 130 £400 -18.70% 113
Yorkshire -8 79 £525 +22.38% 19
Midlands -70 67 £473 +57.50% 88
West Midlands -62 51 £450 +50.00% 48
North West -44 50 £350 -31.17% 69
East of England -36 38 £308 -52.69% 90
South West -52 38 £469 +95.42% 67
Scotland -33 36 £650 +23.81% 39
East Midlands -37 15 £545 +67.56% 40
Wales -29 9 £530 +82.76% 13
Northern Ireland +7 7 £350 -41.67% 75
North East -39 2 £125 -73.68% 25

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 45 (4.45%) Confluence
2 34 (3.36%) Apache Spark
3 26 (2.57%) SharePoint
4 21 (2.08%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.98%) Apache
6 9 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.59%) IIS
8 5 (0.49%) SAS
9 3 (0.30%) Camunda
9 3 (0.30%) CMS
9 3 (0.30%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.30%) OpenStack
9 3 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.20%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.20%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.20%) nginx
10 2 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.20%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.099%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.099%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 33 (3.26%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.68%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.69%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.69%) Revit
6 4 (0.40%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.20%) Simulink
8 2 (0.20%) Trello
9 1 (0.099%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.099%) Sketch
9 1 (0.099%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (2.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.40%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.20%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.20%) Workfront
5 1 (0.099%) Actimize
5 1 (0.099%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.099%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.099%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.099%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.099%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.099%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.099%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 300 (29.64%) Azure
2 186 (18.38%) AWS
3 87 (8.60%) GCP
4 69 (6.82%) Power Platform
5 53 (5.24%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (5.04%) Entra ID
7 47 (4.64%) SaaS
8 42 (4.15%) GitHub
9 39 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
10 22 (2.17%) Snowflake
11 21 (2.08%) Serverless
12 20 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
12 20 (1.98%) PowerApps
13 16 (1.58%) AWS CloudFormation
14 14 (1.38%) Azure AKS
14 14 (1.38%) Power Automate
15 13 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
16 12 (1.19%) IaaS
17 11 (1.09%) AWS Lambda
17 11 (1.09%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 33 (3.26%) Firewall
2 32 (3.16%) Network Security
3 24 (2.37%) DNS
3 24 (2.37%) TCP/IP
4 13 (1.28%) WAN
5 12 (1.19%) BGP
5 12 (1.19%) SSH
6 10 (0.99%) HTTPS
6 10 (0.99%) LAN
7 9 (0.89%) 3GPP
7 9 (0.89%) OSPF
7 9 (0.89%) VPN
8 8 (0.79%) Wireless
9 7 (0.69%) VLAN
10 6 (0.59%) DHCP
10 6 (0.59%) LTE
11 5 (0.49%) RTP
11 5 (0.49%) SAN
11 5 (0.49%) Wireshark
12 4 (0.40%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (5.63%) Power BI
2 49 (4.84%) SQL Server
3 48 (4.74%) Relational Database
4 45 (4.45%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (3.66%) Data Warehouse
6 32 (3.16%) Big Data
7 29 (2.87%) Metadata
8 24 (2.37%) NoSQL
9 23 (2.27%) MongoDB
10 21 (2.08%) Hadoop
10 21 (2.08%) MySQL
11 19 (1.88%) Tableau
12 16 (1.58%) Data Lake
13 11 (1.09%) Elasticsearch
13 11 (1.09%) Snowflake Schema
14 10 (0.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 9 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
15 9 (0.89%) Redis
16 8 (0.79%) Data Mining
16 8 (0.79%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 73 (7.21%) Git
2 57 (5.63%) JIRA
3 38 (3.75%) Jenkins
4 33 (3.26%) GitLab
5 28 (2.77%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.19%) Selenium
7 11 (1.09%) Gradle
8 9 (0.89%) JUnit
9 8 (0.79%) MLflow
9 8 (0.79%) TeamCity
10 7 (0.69%) Maven
10 7 (0.69%) Postman
11 6 (0.59%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.59%) CircleCI
11 6 (0.59%) Cucumber
11 6 (0.59%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.59%) Jaeger
11 6 (0.59%) REST Assured
12 5 (0.49%) Flyway
12 5 (0.49%) SonarQube
General
1 409 (40.42%) Social Skills
2 234 (23.12%) Finance
3 213 (21.05%) Analytical Skills
4 87 (8.60%) Banking
5 63 (6.23%) Public Sector
6 57 (5.63%) Aerospace
7 53 (5.24%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (3.36%) Marketing
9 31 (3.06%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.96%) Organisational Skills
11 28 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 27 (2.67%) Presentation Skills
13 26 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
14 25 (2.47%) Front Office
14 25 (2.47%) Legal
15 18 (1.78%) Manufacturing
16 17 (1.68%) Publishing
17 16 (1.58%) Retail
18 15 (1.48%) Law
19 12 (1.19%) Military
Job Titles
1 110 (10.87%) Developer
2 109 (10.77%) Architect
3 85 (8.40%) Analyst
4 83 (8.20%) Senior
5 80 (7.91%) Lead
6 37 (3.66%) Software Engineer
7 36 (3.56%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.36%) Delivery Manager
9 33 (3.26%) Solutions Architect
10 31 (3.06%) Data Scientist
11 28 (2.77%) Product Delivery Manager
12 27 (2.67%) Technical Support
13 26 (2.57%) Data Engineer
14 22 (2.17%) Python Developer
14 22 (2.17%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.17%) Systems Manager
15 21 (2.08%) Junior
15 21 (2.08%) Project Manager
15 21 (2.08%) Security Engineer
16 20 (1.98%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (8.40%) REST
2 57 (5.63%) React
3 50 (4.94%) .NET
4 43 (4.25%) Kafka
5 41 (4.05%) Middleware
6 33 (3.26%) RESTful
7 31 (3.06%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.87%) Spring
9 28 (2.77%) OAuth
10 22 (2.17%) AngularJS
11 20 (1.98%) JSON
12 19 (1.88%) HTML
12 19 (1.88%) PyTorch
12 19 (1.88%) SOAP
13 18 (1.78%) SAML
14 17 (1.68%) CSS
15 16 (1.58%) OAuth2
15 16 (1.58%) OpenID
15 16 (1.58%) Web Services
15 16 (1.58%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 101 (9.98%) Management Information System
2 82 (8.10%) Product Ownership
3 81 (8.00%) Onboarding
4 70 (6.92%) Algorithms
5 63 (6.23%) Cloud Native
6 53 (5.24%) Data Structures
7 51 (5.04%) Distributed Systems
8 26 (2.57%) Derivative
8 26 (2.57%) Virtual Team
9 23 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
10 22 (2.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 21 (2.08%) AI Agents
11 21 (2.08%) Equities
12 20 (1.98%) Taxonomies
13 19 (1.88%) Data Protection Act
14 18 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
15 16 (1.58%) Fixed Income
16 15 (1.48%) Security Posture
17 14 (1.38%) Data Centre
17 14 (1.38%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 127 (12.55%) Windows
2 116 (11.46%) Linux
3 42 (4.15%) Unix
4 22 (2.17%) Android
5 20 (1.98%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.88%) Windows Server
7 17 (1.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (1.38%) Apple iOS
9 12 (1.19%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.40%) Debian
11 4 (0.40%) Rocky
11 4 (0.40%) VMS
12 2 (0.20%) Solaris
12 2 (0.20%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.099%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.099%) MVS
13 1 (0.099%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.099%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 300 (29.64%) Problem-Solving
2 261 (25.79%) Agile
3 223 (22.04%) AI
4 182 (17.98%) CI/CD
5 172 (17.00%) Continuous Improvement
6 168 (16.60%) DevOps
7 165 (16.30%) Software Engineering
8 133 (13.14%) Analytics
9 116 (11.46%) Cybersecurity
10 108 (10.67%) Microservices
10 108 (10.67%) Stakeholder Management
11 102 (10.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 96 (9.49%) Machine Learning
13 93 (9.19%) Mathematics
14 90 (8.89%) Decision-Making
14 90 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
15 89 (8.79%) Data Science
16 88 (8.70%) ITIL
17 86 (8.50%) Data Governance
18 85 (8.40%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 279 (27.57%) Python
2 206 (20.36%) SQL
3 124 (12.25%) Java
4 67 (6.62%) JavaScript
5 54 (5.34%) C#
6 44 (4.35%) PowerShell
7 28 (2.77%) TypeScript
8 22 (2.17%) Bash
8 22 (2.17%) C++
9 20 (1.98%) R
10 13 (1.28%) Go
11 11 (1.09%) Perl
11 11 (1.09%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.99%) Rust
13 9 (0.89%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.59%) Scala
16 5 (0.49%) C
17 4 (0.40%) Ada
18 3 (0.30%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 798 (78.85%) Degree
2 475 (46.94%) Computer Science Degree
3 188 (18.58%) Security Cleared
4 129 (12.75%) Master's Degree
5 118 (11.66%) SC Cleared
6 57 (5.63%) CISSP
7 36 (3.56%) CISM
8 32 (3.16%) Microsoft Certification
9 30 (2.96%) Azure Certification
10 29 (2.87%) PhD
11 28 (2.77%) PMI Certification
11 28 (2.77%) TOGAF Certification
12 25 (2.47%) PMP
13 24 (2.37%) AWS Certification
14 23 (2.27%) DV Cleared
15 22 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
16 19 (1.88%) CISA
16 19 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
16 19 (1.88%) DBS Check
17 15 (1.48%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (6.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 63 (6.23%) NIST
3 58 (5.73%) Data Quality
4 47 (4.64%) QA
5 38 (3.75%) GDPR
6 20 (1.98%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.68%) Accessibility
8 15 (1.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 14 (1.38%) GRC
10 11 (1.09%) SLA
11 10 (0.99%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.89%) HIPAA
12 9 (0.89%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 8 (0.79%) NCSC
14 7 (0.69%) COBIT
15 6 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
16 5 (0.49%) DO-254
16 5 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
16 5 (0.49%) ISO 20022
16 5 (0.49%) PSD2
System Software
1 93 (9.19%) Docker
2 75 (7.41%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.98%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.99%) Firmware
5 9 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.40%) vSphere
9 3 (0.30%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.20%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.20%) Ceph
10 2 (0.20%) KVM
10 2 (0.20%) Squid
10 2 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.099%) ACF2
11 1 (0.099%) HDFS
11 1 (0.099%) RACF
Systems Management
1 114 (11.26%) Kubernetes
2 51 (5.04%) Terraform
3 39 (3.85%) Ansible
4 30 (2.96%) Prometheus
5 28 (2.77%) Grafana
6 27 (2.67%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (1.68%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.59%) Kiali
8 6 (0.59%) Puppet
9 5 (0.49%) Kibana
10 4 (0.40%) Control-M
10 4 (0.40%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.30%) Foglight
11 3 (0.30%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.30%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.20%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.20%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.20%) vRealize
12 2 (0.20%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 171 (16.90%) Microsoft
2 67 (6.62%) Oracle
3 46 (4.55%) Databricks
4 34 (3.36%) Google
4 34 (3.36%) IBM
4 34 (3.36%) Splunk
5 33 (3.26%) SAP
6 29 (2.87%) ServiceNow
7 24 (2.37%) VMware
8 18 (1.78%) Okta
9 15 (1.48%) Cisco
9 15 (1.48%) Informatica
10 14 (1.38%) BiZZdesign
10 14 (1.38%) CyberArk
11 13 (1.28%) BeyondTrust
11 13 (1.28%) Salesforce
12 12 (1.19%) Palo Alto
13 11 (1.09%) CheckPoint
13 11 (1.09%) MuleSoft
14 9 (0.89%) Citrix