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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 63 67
Rank change year-on-year -47 +4 +42
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,034 1,046 1,301
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.17% 3.61% 3.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.58% 3.97% 3.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 607 591 790
10th Percentile £178 £250 £319
25th Percentile £260 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -2.33% -6.52%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £653
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -20.78% -4.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 29 95
10th Percentile £29.89 £26.00 £22.60
25th Percentile £51.25 £29.07 £41.75
Median hourly rate £81.75 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +118.00% -31.82% +1.97%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.39 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +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 40,111 26,361 36,876
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.33% 90.96% 86.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,183 16,941 23,723
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% -1.71% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +2.71% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,380 1,073 2,431
10th Percentile £14.89 £14.41 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.38 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.60 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +48.60% -21.64% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.78 £38.00
% change year-on-year +74.59% -32.17% +8.57%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -39 921 £463 -11.90% 848
UK excluding London -47 541 £380 -20.78% 574
London -53 405 £530 -11.70% 359
Work from Home -67 226 £500 -9.09% 375
South East -10 203 £215 -56.94% 220
North of England -22 133 £387 -28.84% 107
Yorkshire -7 75 £507 +10.94% 27
Midlands -67 73 £450 +68.54% 88
North West -25 57 £352 -36.12% 51
West Midlands -60 56 £426 +50.00% 54
South West -48 41 £469 +26.76% 57
East of England -39 40 £248 -61.92% 66
Scotland -8 37 £620 +15.35% 35
East Midlands -36 16 £525 +110.00% 34
Wales -30 10 £160 -44.83% 13
Northern Ireland +6 7 £350 -41.67% 4
North East -22 2 £125 -78.26% 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 49 (4.74%) Confluence
2 40 (3.87%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.32%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.13%) Apache
5 17 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.39%) CMS
7 4 (0.39%) IIS
7 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.29%) SAS
9 2 (0.19%) nginx
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.097%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.097%) Oracle Service Bus
10 1 (0.097%) Tomcat
Applications
1 34 (3.29%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.84%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 22 (2.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.48%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.097%) Maximo
6 1 (0.097%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.097%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.097%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 294 (28.43%) Azure
2 186 (17.99%) AWS
3 78 (7.54%) GCP
4 57 (5.51%) Power Platform
5 53 (5.13%) Microsoft 365
5 53 (5.13%) SaaS
6 51 (4.93%) GitHub
7 40 (3.87%) Entra ID
8 37 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
9 22 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
10 20 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
10 20 (1.93%) Serverless
10 20 (1.93%) Snowflake
11 19 (1.84%) IaaS
12 17 (1.64%) Azure AKS
12 17 (1.64%) Azure Data Factory
13 13 (1.26%) Azure Machine Learning
13 13 (1.26%) Azure Service Bus
13 13 (1.26%) PaaS
14 12 (1.16%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 39 (3.77%) Firewall
2 29 (2.80%) TCP/IP
3 27 (2.61%) DNS
4 20 (1.93%) Network Security
5 16 (1.55%) WAN
6 14 (1.35%) BGP
7 13 (1.26%) LAN
8 11 (1.06%) OSPF
8 11 (1.06%) SSH
9 9 (0.87%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.77%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.77%) Wireless
11 7 (0.68%) HTTP
11 7 (0.68%) SAN
11 7 (0.68%) VLAN
11 7 (0.68%) VPN
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 5 (0.48%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.48%) DHCP
13 5 (0.48%) IPv4
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (4.93%) Relational Database
2 46 (4.45%) PostgreSQL
3 45 (4.35%) Power BI
3 45 (4.35%) SQL Server
4 38 (3.68%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (3.58%) Big Data
6 26 (2.51%) MySQL
6 26 (2.51%) NoSQL
7 25 (2.42%) Metadata
8 21 (2.03%) Hadoop
9 20 (1.93%) MongoDB
10 16 (1.55%) Tableau
11 14 (1.35%) Data Lake
11 14 (1.35%) Elasticsearch
12 10 (0.97%) Redis
12 10 (0.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 9 (0.87%) Snowflake Schema
14 8 (0.77%) Power Query
15 7 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 75 (7.25%) Git
2 68 (6.58%) JIRA
3 36 (3.48%) GitLab
4 34 (3.29%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.71%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.16%) MLflow
7 11 (1.06%) Gradle
7 11 (1.06%) Selenium
8 9 (0.87%) Jaeger
8 9 (0.87%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.68%) JUnit
9 7 (0.68%) Postman
9 7 (0.68%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.58%) Maven
11 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.39%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.39%) Visual Studio
13 3 (0.29%) Eclipse
General
1 421 (40.72%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.82%) Finance
3 208 (20.12%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (8.90%) Banking
5 67 (6.48%) Public Sector
6 52 (5.03%) Aerospace
6 52 (5.03%) Documentation Skills
7 38 (3.68%) Marketing
8 36 (3.48%) Telecoms
9 32 (3.09%) Presentation Skills
10 29 (2.80%) Legal
11 27 (2.61%) Organisational Skills
12 24 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 21 (2.03%) Front Office
13 21 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
14 18 (1.74%) Manufacturing
15 17 (1.64%) Electronics
15 17 (1.64%) Investment Banking
16 15 (1.45%) Financial Institution
16 15 (1.45%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 109 (10.54%) Developer
2 108 (10.44%) Architect
3 87 (8.41%) Analyst
4 82 (7.93%) Lead
5 78 (7.54%) Senior
6 37 (3.58%) Delivery Manager
6 37 (3.58%) Software Engineer
7 35 (3.38%) Product Manager
7 35 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (3.00%) Technical Support
9 30 (2.90%) Data Scientist
10 29 (2.80%) Data Engineer
11 28 (2.71%) Product Delivery Manager
12 23 (2.22%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 23 (2.22%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.13%) Java Developer
13 22 (2.13%) Security Engineer
13 22 (2.13%) Systems Delivery Manager
13 22 (2.13%) Systems Manager
14 21 (2.03%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (8.12%) REST
2 55 (5.32%) React
3 54 (5.22%) .NET
4 46 (4.45%) Middleware
5 43 (4.16%) Kafka
6 40 (3.87%) RESTful
7 35 (3.38%) Spring Boot
8 31 (3.00%) PyTorch
8 31 (3.00%) Spring
9 26 (2.51%) SOAP
10 24 (2.32%) OAuth
10 24 (2.32%) XML
11 23 (2.22%) JSON
11 23 (2.22%) TensorFlow
12 21 (2.03%) Elastic Stack
13 19 (1.84%) AngularJS
13 19 (1.84%) HTML
14 17 (1.64%) LangChain
14 17 (1.64%) Pandas
15 16 (1.55%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 103 (9.96%) Management Information System
2 75 (7.25%) Onboarding
2 75 (7.25%) Product Ownership
3 70 (6.77%) Algorithms
4 64 (6.19%) Cloud Native
5 53 (5.13%) Data Structures
6 50 (4.84%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.90%) Virtual Team
8 23 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (2.13%) AI Agents
10 21 (2.03%) Taxonomies
11 19 (1.84%) Derivative
11 19 (1.84%) Self-Motivation
12 18 (1.74%) Equities
13 17 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.64%) Cyberattack
13 17 (1.64%) Security Operations Centre
14 16 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
14 16 (1.55%) Robotics
15 15 (1.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 136 (13.15%) Linux
2 129 (12.48%) Windows
3 45 (4.35%) Unix
4 25 (2.42%) Android
5 18 (1.74%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.64%) Mac OS
6 17 (1.64%) Windows Server
7 15 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (1.26%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.58%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.48%) Debian
10 5 (0.48%) VMS
11 4 (0.39%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.097%) CentOS
13 1 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.097%) MVS
13 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 320 (30.95%) Problem-Solving
2 257 (24.85%) Agile
3 229 (22.15%) AI
4 198 (19.15%) CI/CD
5 188 (18.18%) DevOps
6 173 (16.73%) Software Engineering
7 160 (15.47%) Continuous Improvement
8 122 (11.80%) Analytics
9 121 (11.70%) Microservices
10 117 (11.32%) Cybersecurity
11 106 (10.25%) Stakeholder Management
12 98 (9.48%) Containerisation
12 98 (9.48%) Machine Learning
13 94 (9.09%) Data Modelling
13 94 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 94 (9.09%) Technical Leadership
14 93 (8.99%) Decision-Making
15 87 (8.41%) Data Governance
15 87 (8.41%) Mathematics
16 86 (8.32%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 285 (27.56%) Python
2 204 (19.73%) SQL
3 134 (12.96%) Java
4 65 (6.29%) JavaScript
5 59 (5.71%) C#
6 52 (5.03%) PowerShell
7 35 (3.38%) TypeScript
8 32 (3.09%) Bash
9 31 (3.00%) C++
10 21 (2.03%) R
11 15 (1.45%) Go
12 14 (1.35%) Perl
13 12 (1.16%) Rust
14 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.97%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.68%) Scala
17 6 (0.58%) C
18 4 (0.39%) Tcl
19 3 (0.29%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 831 (80.37%) Degree
2 513 (49.61%) Computer Science Degree
3 193 (18.67%) Security Cleared
4 146 (14.12%) Master's Degree
5 114 (11.03%) SC Cleared
6 54 (5.22%) CISSP
7 37 (3.58%) CISM
8 34 (3.29%) PhD
9 33 (3.19%) Azure Certification
10 32 (3.09%) TOGAF Certification
11 30 (2.90%) PMI Certification
12 28 (2.71%) Microsoft Certification
13 27 (2.61%) DV Cleared
13 27 (2.61%) PMP
14 23 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
15 22 (2.13%) AWS Certification
15 22 (2.13%) CompTIA Security+
16 21 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
17 19 (1.84%) CISA
18 17 (1.64%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (6.00%) QA
2 57 (5.51%) NIST
3 56 (5.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 52 (5.03%) Data Quality
5 37 (3.58%) GDPR
6 18 (1.74%) Accessibility
6 18 (1.74%) PCI DSS
7 12 (1.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (1.06%) GRC
9 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.77%) NCSC
10 8 (0.77%) SLA
11 7 (0.68%) COBIT
11 7 (0.68%) PSD2
12 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.58%) DO-254
12 6 (0.58%) HIPAA
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 112 (10.83%) Docker
2 70 (6.77%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.26%) Firmware
5 7 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.39%) vSphere
8 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.19%) Ceph
8 2 (0.19%) KVM
8 2 (0.19%) Squid
8 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.097%) ACF2
9 1 (0.097%) HDFS
9 1 (0.097%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.097%) RACF
9 1 (0.097%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (12.38%) Kubernetes
2 63 (6.09%) Terraform
3 49 (4.74%) Ansible
4 31 (3.00%) Grafana
5 28 (2.71%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.32%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (1.16%) Puppet
9 10 (0.97%) Kibana
10 9 (0.87%) Kiali
11 5 (0.48%) SCCM
12 4 (0.39%) Control-M
12 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.39%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.29%) Foglight
13 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
14 2 (0.19%) logstash
14 2 (0.19%) SCOM
Vendors
1 182 (17.60%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.29%) Oracle
3 52 (5.03%) Splunk
4 48 (4.64%) Databricks
5 38 (3.68%) SAP
6 36 (3.48%) IBM
7 34 (3.29%) Google
8 30 (2.90%) ServiceNow
9 23 (2.22%) VMware
10 21 (2.03%) Cisco
11 17 (1.64%) BiZZdesign
12 16 (1.55%) Informatica
12 16 (1.55%) Salesforce
13 15 (1.45%) Okta
14 14 (1.35%) Palo Alto
15 13 (1.26%) CheckPoint
15 13 (1.26%) MuleSoft
16 12 (1.16%) CyberArk
17 11 (1.06%) Software AG
18 9 (0.87%) Foundry