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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 67 71
Rank change year-on-year -38 +4 +49
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,086 1,002 1,240
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.37% 3.43% 2.82%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.78% 3.78% 3.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 655 584 770
10th Percentile £175 £256 £315
25th Percentile £320 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £655 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £788 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -20.00% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 32 89
10th Percentile £26.75 £27.21 £22.33
25th Percentile £55.56 £30.78 £41.25
Median hourly rate £83.00 £43.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.71% -20.45% +4.76%
75th Percentile £88.00 £64.31 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.25 £74.00
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 39,074 26,483 37,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.36% 90.62% 86.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,751 17,195 24,633
10th Percentile £315 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,316 997 2,379
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.79
25th Percentile £19.34 £20.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £36.70 £31.64 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +15.99% -4.31% -8.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.91
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.80 £70.41
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £30.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year +22.37% -9.09% -8.08%

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 9 April 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 9 April 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 9 April 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 -36 954 £500 -4.76% 826
UK excluding London -36 544 £400 -20.00% 618
London -40 438 £550 -8.33% 330
Work from Home -45 254 £507 -7.90% 306
South East -11 179 £400 -20.00% 227
North of England -24 145 £379 -28.67% 115
Yorkshire -11 75 £520 +25.48% 35
Midlands -61 75 £447 +67.42% 84
North West -17 67 £356 -35.39% 59
West Midlands -59 58 £426 +118.46% 51
South West -31 49 £477 -6.93% 56
East of England -31 42 £280 -56.92% 91
Scotland +6 37 £610 +16.19% 34
East Midlands -33 17 £447 +25.56% 33
Wales -21 15 £160 -42.34% 19
Northern Ireland 0 6 £350 -41.67% 9
North East -17 4 £216 -57.95% 21

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 53 (4.88%) Confluence
2 42 (3.87%) Apache Spark
3 25 (2.30%) SharePoint
4 18 (1.66%) Apache
5 16 (1.47%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.47%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.46%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.28%) SAS
9 2 (0.18%) CMS
9 2 (0.18%) IIS
9 2 (0.18%) nginx
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.18%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.092%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.092%) Appian
10 1 (0.092%) Camunda
Applications
1 34 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.10%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.55%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.37%) Simulink
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
8 1 (0.092%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.092%) Revit
Business Applications
1 23 (2.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.37%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.092%) Actimize
7 1 (0.092%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.092%) Maximo
7 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.092%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.092%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.092%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 308 (28.36%) Azure
2 191 (17.59%) AWS
3 97 (8.93%) GCP
4 67 (6.17%) Power Platform
5 60 (5.52%) GitHub
6 53 (4.88%) Microsoft 365
6 53 (4.88%) SaaS
7 43 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
8 38 (3.50%) Entra ID
9 26 (2.39%) Serverless
10 24 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
11 23 (2.12%) IaaS
11 23 (2.12%) Snowflake
12 21 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
13 20 (1.84%) Azure Data Factory
14 18 (1.66%) Azure Machine Learning
14 18 (1.66%) Power Automate
14 18 (1.66%) PowerApps
15 16 (1.47%) Azure AKS
16 14 (1.29%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 51 (4.70%) Firewall
2 32 (2.95%) DNS
3 29 (2.67%) TCP/IP
4 19 (1.75%) BGP
4 19 (1.75%) Network Security
4 19 (1.75%) WAN
5 16 (1.47%) LAN
6 15 (1.38%) HTTP
7 13 (1.20%) OSPF
7 13 (1.20%) VLAN
8 11 (1.01%) VPN
8 11 (1.01%) Wireless
9 10 (0.92%) Cisco IOS
9 10 (0.92%) IPv4
10 9 (0.83%) HTTPS
10 9 (0.83%) SSH
11 8 (0.74%) DHCP
11 8 (0.74%) Skype
11 8 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
12 7 (0.64%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (5.62%) PostgreSQL
2 55 (5.06%) Relational Database
3 49 (4.51%) SQL Server
4 48 (4.42%) Power BI
5 43 (3.96%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (3.50%) Big Data
7 34 (3.13%) MySQL
7 34 (3.13%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.03%) Hadoop
9 21 (1.93%) Tableau
10 20 (1.84%) Metadata
10 20 (1.84%) MongoDB
11 16 (1.47%) Data Lake
12 15 (1.38%) Elasticsearch
13 12 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 11 (1.01%) Redis
15 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
16 8 (0.74%) Star Schema
17 7 (0.64%) KDB
Development Applications
1 84 (7.73%) Git
2 75 (6.91%) JIRA
3 46 (4.24%) Jenkins
4 37 (3.41%) GitLab
5 28 (2.58%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.10%) MLflow
6 12 (1.10%) Selenium
7 11 (1.01%) Postman
8 9 (0.83%) Jaeger
9 8 (0.74%) Gradle
10 7 (0.64%) CircleCI
10 7 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.64%) JUnit
11 6 (0.55%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.46%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.46%) PyCharm
12 5 (0.46%) TeamCity
12 5 (0.46%) Visual Studio
13 4 (0.37%) Maven
13 4 (0.37%) Subversion
General
1 457 (42.08%) Social Skills
2 265 (24.40%) Finance
3 242 (22.28%) Analytical Skills
4 101 (9.30%) Banking
5 73 (6.72%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.70%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.60%) Documentation Skills
8 47 (4.33%) Marketing
9 36 (3.31%) Legal
9 36 (3.31%) Telecoms
10 35 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (3.22%) Presentation Skills
11 26 (2.39%) Electronics
11 26 (2.39%) Front Office
12 24 (2.21%) Manufacturing
12 24 (2.21%) Organisational Skills
13 22 (2.03%) Financial Institution
13 22 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 21 (1.93%) Investment Banking
15 18 (1.66%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 142 (13.08%) Developer
2 108 (9.94%) Architect
3 91 (8.38%) Lead
4 87 (8.01%) Analyst
5 79 (7.27%) Senior
6 40 (3.68%) Software Engineer
7 39 (3.59%) Data Scientist
7 39 (3.59%) Solutions Architect
8 38 (3.50%) Delivery Manager
9 35 (3.22%) Product Manager
10 29 (2.67%) Technical Support
11 28 (2.58%) Product Delivery Manager
11 28 (2.58%) Python Developer
12 27 (2.49%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 26 (2.39%) Data Engineer
14 25 (2.30%) Business Analyst
15 24 (2.21%) Consultant
15 24 (2.21%) Java Developer
16 22 (2.03%) Systems Delivery Manager
16 22 (2.03%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (8.20%) REST
2 57 (5.25%) .NET
3 49 (4.51%) React
4 47 (4.33%) RESTful
5 44 (4.05%) Kafka
6 40 (3.68%) Middleware
7 35 (3.22%) PyTorch
8 34 (3.13%) Spring Boot
9 32 (2.95%) JSON
9 32 (2.95%) TensorFlow
10 31 (2.85%) XML
11 30 (2.76%) Spring
12 26 (2.39%) OAuth
12 26 (2.39%) SOAP
13 24 (2.21%) Elastic Stack
14 23 (2.12%) HTML
14 23 (2.12%) Pandas
15 20 (1.84%) LangChain
16 19 (1.75%) Node.js
17 17 (1.57%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 114 (10.50%) Management Information System
2 91 (8.38%) Algorithms
3 80 (7.37%) Product Ownership
4 74 (6.81%) Cloud Native
5 66 (6.08%) Onboarding
6 64 (5.89%) Data Structures
7 46 (4.24%) Distributed Systems
8 34 (3.13%) Virtual Team
9 30 (2.76%) Equities
10 25 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
11 22 (2.03%) AI Agents
11 22 (2.03%) Data Centre
11 22 (2.03%) Derivative
11 22 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
12 20 (1.84%) Distributed Computing
12 20 (1.84%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 20 (1.84%) Taxonomies
13 19 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (1.66%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.57%) Cyberattack
Operating Systems
1 143 (13.17%) Linux
2 126 (11.60%) Windows
3 47 (4.33%) Unix
4 25 (2.30%) Android
5 23 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 20 (1.84%) Windows Server
7 12 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.10%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.92%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.46%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.46%) VMS
10 4 (0.37%) Debian
11 3 (0.28%) Rocky
12 2 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.092%) CentOS
13 1 (0.092%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.092%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.092%) MVS
13 1 (0.092%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 351 (32.32%) Problem-Solving
2 292 (26.89%) Agile
3 244 (22.47%) AI
4 211 (19.43%) CI/CD
5 209 (19.24%) DevOps
6 186 (17.13%) Software Engineering
7 160 (14.73%) Continuous Improvement
8 133 (12.25%) Analytics
9 130 (11.97%) Microservices
10 125 (11.51%) Cybersecurity
11 123 (11.33%) Machine Learning
12 115 (10.59%) Stakeholder Management
13 112 (10.31%) Data Science
14 110 (10.13%) Data Modelling
15 106 (9.76%) Containerisation
15 106 (9.76%) Mathematics
16 100 (9.21%) Data Governance
16 100 (9.21%) Decision-Making
17 96 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 91 (8.38%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 318 (29.28%) Python
2 207 (19.06%) SQL
3 136 (12.52%) Java
4 71 (6.54%) JavaScript
5 57 (5.25%) C#
6 56 (5.16%) PowerShell
7 42 (3.87%) TypeScript
8 38 (3.50%) Bash
8 38 (3.50%) C++
9 22 (2.03%) R
10 21 (1.93%) Go
11 16 (1.47%) Perl
12 14 (1.29%) Rust
13 12 (1.10%) Shell Script
14 11 (1.01%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.74%) C
15 8 (0.74%) Scala
16 7 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 5 (0.46%) Bicep
17 5 (0.46%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 910 (83.79%) Degree
2 554 (51.01%) Computer Science Degree
3 201 (18.51%) Security Cleared
4 178 (16.39%) Master's Degree
5 119 (10.96%) SC Cleared
6 65 (5.99%) CISSP
7 47 (4.33%) PhD
8 43 (3.96%) CISM
9 38 (3.50%) Azure Certification
10 33 (3.04%) PMI Certification
11 29 (2.67%) AWS Certification
11 29 (2.67%) Microsoft Certification
12 28 (2.58%) PMP
13 27 (2.49%) TOGAF Certification
14 26 (2.39%) CompTIA Security+
14 26 (2.39%) DV Cleared
15 25 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
15 25 (2.30%) DBS Check
16 24 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
17 18 (1.66%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (6.08%) QA
2 53 (4.88%) NIST
3 52 (4.79%) Data Quality
4 50 (4.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 46 (4.24%) GDPR
6 20 (1.84%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.57%) Accessibility
8 11 (1.01%) GRC
8 11 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.92%) NCSC
9 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.83%) SLA
11 7 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.64%) DO-254
11 7 (0.64%) PSD2
12 6 (0.55%) COBIT
12 6 (0.55%) ISO 20022
13 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
13 5 (0.46%) HIPAA
13 5 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 123 (11.33%) Docker
2 66 (6.08%) Active Directory
3 21 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.20%) Firmware
5 7 (0.64%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.18%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.18%) Ceph
8 2 (0.18%) KVM
8 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.18%) vSphere
9 1 (0.092%) ACF2
9 1 (0.092%) HDFS
9 1 (0.092%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.092%) RACF
9 1 (0.092%) Squid
9 1 (0.092%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 132 (12.15%) Kubernetes
2 74 (6.81%) Terraform
3 49 (4.51%) Ansible
4 37 (3.41%) Grafana
5 30 (2.76%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (1.29%) Puppet
7 14 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (1.01%) Kibana
9 9 (0.83%) Kiali
10 7 (0.64%) SCCM
11 4 (0.37%) Control-M
11 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.37%) SCOM
12 3 (0.28%) Foglight
12 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
12 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.18%) logstash
Vendors
1 186 (17.13%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.62%) Oracle
3 53 (4.88%) Splunk
4 47 (4.33%) SAP
5 45 (4.14%) Databricks
6 44 (4.05%) Google
7 35 (3.22%) IBM
8 30 (2.76%) ServiceNow
9 25 (2.30%) VMware
10 23 (2.12%) Cisco
11 20 (1.84%) BiZZdesign
12 18 (1.66%) Salesforce
13 17 (1.57%) Informatica
13 17 (1.57%) Palo Alto
14 16 (1.47%) Okta
15 13 (1.20%) CheckPoint
15 13 (1.20%) Foundry
16 12 (1.10%) CyberArk
16 12 (1.10%) MuleSoft
16 12 (1.10%) Software AG