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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 142 69 59
Rank change year-on-year -73 -10 +24
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,040 1,175 1,313
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.59% 3.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 3.97% 3.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 650 810
10th Percentile £175 £184 £340
25th Percentile £200 £351 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £478 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.52% -13.18% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £687
90th Percentile £760 £764 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -10.59% -19.05% +1.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 50 47
10th Percentile £22.43 £26.13 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £48.75 £43.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.07% -13.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £82.47 £67.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £87.55 £83.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.75 £35.00 £53.75
% change year-on-year +70.71% -34.88% -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 45,698 29,594 32,877
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.53% 85.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,784 18,388 20,318
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
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 £726 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,048 1,782 1,485
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
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% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.95 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -47.67% +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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -64 942 £475 -3.06% 4,579
UK excluding London -61 530 £380 -10.59% 1,829
London -69 436 £535 -2.76% 3,128
Work from Home -85 245 £500 +4.17% 4,648
South East -14 199 £438 +9.38% 516
North of England -53 137 £487 +8.95% 313
Midlands -57 85 £225 -49.66% 199
Yorkshire -17 67 £450 +15.83% 85
North West -55 59 £523 +12.35% 176
West Midlands -56 56 £217 -50.40% 120
East of England -35 48 £300 -40.59% 274
East Midlands -24 28 £230 -48.55% 78
Scotland -59 28 £380 -17.57% 201
South West -75 25 £200 +2.17% 214
North East -33 12 £195 -57.84% 56
Northern Ireland +7 6 £175 - 84
Wales -18 4 £530 +14.59% 39

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 39 (3.75%) Confluence
2 33 (3.17%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.21%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.83%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.54%) Apache
6 10 (0.96%) IIS
7 9 (0.87%) Camunda
8 8 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.48%) CMS
9 5 (0.48%) SAS
10 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
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 (0.096%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 40 (3.85%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.15%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 5 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.38%) Trello
8 3 (0.29%) Windchill
9 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.19%) Sketch
10 1 (0.096%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 9 (0.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.29%) Primavera
4 3 (0.29%) 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 (0.096%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.096%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.096%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.096%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 297 (28.56%) Azure
2 194 (18.65%) AWS
3 114 (10.96%) GCP
4 69 (6.63%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.96%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (5.77%) Entra ID
7 54 (5.19%) GitHub
8 48 (4.62%) SaaS
9 47 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.46%) Serverless
11 30 (2.88%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.21%) PowerApps
13 21 (2.02%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.92%) Microsoft Copilot
15 19 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
16 17 (1.63%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
18 15 (1.44%) Amazon EKS
19 14 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 43 (4.13%) Firewall
2 42 (4.04%) DNS
3 34 (3.27%) Network Security
4 33 (3.17%) VPN
5 25 (2.40%) TCP/IP
6 21 (2.02%) DHCP
7 17 (1.63%) SSH
8 14 (1.35%) WAN
9 13 (1.25%) Wireshark
10 12 (1.15%) LAN
11 11 (1.06%) Wireless
12 10 (0.96%) 3GPP
12 10 (0.96%) 5G
12 10 (0.96%) HTTP
13 9 (0.87%) BGP
13 9 (0.87%) MPLS
13 9 (0.87%) VLAN
14 8 (0.77%) HTTPS
15 7 (0.67%) Intrusion Detection
15 7 (0.67%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.19%) Relational Database
2 53 (5.10%) Power BI
2 53 (5.10%) SQL Server
3 52 (5.00%) PostgreSQL
4 41 (3.94%) Metadata
5 28 (2.69%) MongoDB
6 26 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (2.31%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.12%) Elasticsearch
9 21 (2.02%) MySQL
10 18 (1.73%) Big Data
11 15 (1.44%) Data Mining
12 13 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
12 13 (1.25%) Redis
12 13 (1.25%) Tableau
13 10 (0.96%) Data Lake
13 10 (0.96%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.87%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.67%) Power Query
16 6 (0.58%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 93 (8.94%) Git
2 50 (4.81%) JIRA
3 46 (4.42%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.23%) GitLab
5 20 (1.92%) JUnit
6 18 (1.73%) Gradle
6 18 (1.73%) Maven
7 17 (1.63%) Selenium
8 16 (1.54%) SonarQube
9 13 (1.25%) Mockito
9 13 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.15%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.96%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.96%) SpecFlow
12 9 (0.87%) Cucumber
13 8 (0.77%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.77%) TeamCity
14 6 (0.58%) Cypress.io
14 6 (0.58%) Postman
14 6 (0.58%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 441 (42.40%) Social Skills
2 232 (22.31%) Finance
3 229 (22.02%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (8.85%) Banking
5 66 (6.35%) Public Sector
6 52 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 40 (3.85%) Aerospace
9 37 (3.56%) Manufacturing
10 36 (3.46%) Telecoms
11 33 (3.17%) Organisational Skills
12 29 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (2.21%) Front Office
13 23 (2.21%) Marketing
14 20 (1.92%) Legal
15 18 (1.73%) Military
16 16 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
17 15 (1.44%) Law
17 15 (1.44%) Retail
18 12 (1.15%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 151 (14.52%) Developer
2 111 (10.67%) Senior
3 89 (8.56%) Architect
4 76 (7.31%) Lead
5 74 (7.12%) Analyst
6 37 (3.56%) Data Engineer
7 32 (3.08%) Java Developer
8 31 (2.98%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.60%) IT Support
10 25 (2.40%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.31%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 24 (2.31%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.21%) Full-Stack Developer
12 23 (2.21%) Solutions Architect
13 21 (2.02%) C# Developer
13 21 (2.02%) Data Scientist
13 21 (2.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 21 (2.02%) Junior
14 20 (1.92%) Python Developer
15 19 (1.83%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (9.42%) REST
2 63 (6.06%) Terraform
3 62 (5.96%) React
4 58 (5.58%) .NET
5 56 (5.38%) HTML
6 55 (5.29%) Kafka
7 53 (5.10%) CSS
8 44 (4.23%) RESTful
9 36 (3.46%) Spring Boot
10 35 (3.37%) Spring
11 31 (2.98%) OAuth
12 28 (2.69%) Web Services
13 26 (2.50%) OAuth2
13 26 (2.50%) SOAP
14 24 (2.31%) JSON
14 24 (2.31%) OpenID
15 22 (2.12%) .NET Core
15 22 (2.12%) AngularJS
15 22 (2.12%) SAML
16 21 (2.02%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 115 (11.06%) Management Information System
2 74 (7.12%) Cloud Native
3 71 (6.83%) Algorithms
4 67 (6.44%) Onboarding
5 58 (5.58%) Product Ownership
6 52 (5.00%) Data Structures
7 51 (4.90%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (3.08%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.60%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
10 25 (2.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 23 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (1.73%) Data Centre
13 18 (1.73%) Derivative
14 15 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
15 13 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.25%) Fixed Income
15 13 (1.25%) Operational Technology
16 12 (1.15%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 126 (12.12%) Windows
2 114 (10.96%) Linux
3 32 (3.08%) Unix
3 32 (3.08%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
5 19 (1.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.35%) Android
7 10 (0.96%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.77%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.67%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 3 (0.29%) Debian
11 3 (0.29%) Rocky
11 3 (0.29%) 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 (0.096%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.096%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 326 (31.35%) Problem-Solving
2 258 (24.81%) Agile
3 225 (21.63%) AI
4 212 (20.38%) CI/CD
5 188 (18.08%) Software Engineering
6 178 (17.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 178 (17.12%) DevOps
7 163 (15.67%) Stakeholder Management
8 148 (14.23%) Analytics
9 120 (11.54%) ITIL
10 111 (10.67%) Cybersecurity
11 103 (9.90%) Mathematics
11 103 (9.90%) Roadmaps
12 98 (9.42%) Scrum
13 97 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 96 (9.23%) Machine Learning
14 96 (9.23%) Test Automation
15 92 (8.85%) Validation
16 87 (8.37%) Mentoring
17 79 (7.60%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 279 (26.83%) Python
2 206 (19.81%) SQL
3 142 (13.65%) Java
4 93 (8.94%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.60%) PowerShell
6 69 (6.63%) C#
7 45 (4.33%) Bash
8 40 (3.85%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.79%) C++
10 17 (1.63%) Bicep
11 14 (1.35%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.06%) C
13 10 (0.96%) R
14 9 (0.87%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.87%) Scala
15 7 (0.67%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.67%) Go
15 7 (0.67%) Perl
16 6 (0.58%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 798 (76.73%) Degree
2 486 (46.73%) Computer Science Degree
3 182 (17.50%) Security Cleared
4 136 (13.08%) SC Cleared
5 110 (10.58%) Master's Degree
6 50 (4.81%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.62%) CISSP
8 47 (4.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.65%) DBS Check
10 37 (3.56%) PhD
11 32 (3.08%) CISM
12 28 (2.69%) AWS Certification
12 28 (2.69%) DV Cleared
13 24 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (2.31%) TOGAF Certification
14 22 (2.12%) PMI Certification
14 22 (2.12%) PMP
15 20 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
16 19 (1.83%) CISA
17 15 (1.44%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.54%) Data Quality
2 61 (5.87%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 59 (5.67%) QA
4 50 (4.81%) NIST
5 24 (2.31%) GDPR
6 16 (1.54%) Accessibility
6 16 (1.54%) GRC
6 16 (1.54%) SLA
7 11 (1.06%) HIPAA
8 10 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 10 (0.96%) PCI DSS
8 10 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.87%) NCSC
10 6 (0.58%) NIST 800
11 5 (0.48%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.48%) PMO
12 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
12 4 (0.38%) ITGC
13 3 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
13 3 (0.29%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 87 (8.37%) Docker
2 76 (7.31%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.06%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.87%) Firmware
5 9 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.58%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.38%) RACF
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 3 (0.29%) ACF2
8 3 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.29%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.29%) 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 (0.096%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.096%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 101 (9.71%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.75%) Ansible
3 28 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (2.12%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.73%) Grafana
6 14 (1.35%) SCCM
7 10 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.48%) Argo
8 5 (0.48%) CASB
9 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.29%) Control-M
10 3 (0.29%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.29%) Istio
10 3 (0.29%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.29%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) QRadar
11 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 209 (20.10%) Microsoft
2 73 (7.02%) Oracle
3 47 (4.52%) Google
4 37 (3.56%) VMware
5 35 (3.37%) ServiceNow
6 34 (3.27%) Databricks
7 32 (3.08%) IBM
7 32 (3.08%) SAP
8 28 (2.69%) Cisco
9 24 (2.31%) Splunk
10 20 (1.92%) CyberArk
10 20 (1.92%) Salesforce
11 18 (1.73%) BeyondTrust
12 14 (1.35%) Red Hat
13 13 (1.25%) Adobe
13 13 (1.25%) OpenAI
14 10 (0.96%) Citrix
14 10 (0.96%) Dynatrace
14 10 (0.96%) Foundry
15 9 (0.87%) F5