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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 63 62
Rank change year-on-year -63 -1 +37
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,043 1,162 1,397
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 3.72% 3.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 4.09% 3.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 594 653 840
10th Percentile £178 £240 £315
25th Percentile £218 £363 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -6.59% -2.68%
75th Percentile £639 £663 £672
90th Percentile £771 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £390 £450 £517
% change year-on-year -13.33% -12.96% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 37 103
10th Percentile £26.05 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £28.41 £38.75
Median hourly rate £69.44 £30.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +127.67% -44.55% -
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £65.63
90th Percentile - £84.98 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £30.16 £55.00
% change year-on-year +170.23% -45.16% -

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 43,799 28,390 37,058
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.78% 85.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,227 17,909 23,638
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £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 2,638 1,396 2,532
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.21 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.50 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.26% -35.31% +8.91%

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 3 July 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 3 July 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 3 July 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 -55 932 £470 -6.93% 1,112
UK excluding London -51 566 £390 -13.33% 648
London -65 404 £535 -10.83% 574
Work from Home -74 238 £500 -9.09% 437
South East -8 228 £220 -55.07% 206
North of England -43 134 £400 -15.79% 123
Yorkshire -7 76 £525 +29.15% 20
Midlands -70 72 £450 +46.82% 101
North West -48 53 £350 -26.32% 72
West Midlands -68 53 £450 +54.11% 54
East of England -27 42 £308 -52.69% 86
Scotland -28 39 £630 +22.93% 34
South West -49 38 £469 +95.42% 76
East Midlands -28 18 £447 +26.90% 47
Wales -31 9 £530 +50.89% 13
Northern Ireland +9 7 £350 -41.67% 23
North East -37 6 £195 -57.84% 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 47 (4.51%) Confluence
2 36 (3.45%) Apache Spark
3 28 (2.68%) SharePoint
4 23 (2.21%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (2.11%) Apache
6 9 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.58%) IIS
8 5 (0.48%) SAS
9 3 (0.29%) Camunda
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
11 1 (0.096%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.096%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.096%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.096%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.096%) Tomcat
Applications
1 37 (3.55%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.73%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.096%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.096%) Sketch
9 1 (0.096%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.38%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
3 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
3 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
3 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.19%) Workfront
4 1 (0.096%) Actimize
4 1 (0.096%) Misys Equation
4 1 (0.096%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.096%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.096%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.096%) SAP PLM
4 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
4 1 (0.096%) SAP Retail
4 1 (0.096%) SAP SM
4 1 (0.096%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.096%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 317 (30.39%) Azure
2 199 (19.08%) AWS
3 97 (9.30%) GCP
4 72 (6.90%) Power Platform
5 58 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (4.89%) Entra ID
7 46 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
8 44 (4.22%) GitHub
9 42 (4.03%) SaaS
10 28 (2.68%) Snowflake
11 27 (2.59%) Serverless
12 22 (2.11%) PowerApps
13 20 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.73%) AWS CloudFormation
15 16 (1.53%) Azure AKS
15 16 (1.53%) Azure Data Factory
16 15 (1.44%) Power Automate
17 14 (1.34%) AWS Lambda
18 13 (1.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
19 12 (1.15%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 33 (3.16%) Firewall
2 32 (3.07%) Network Security
3 26 (2.49%) DNS
4 25 (2.40%) TCP/IP
5 19 (1.82%) VPN
6 16 (1.53%) WAN
7 15 (1.44%) BGP
8 13 (1.25%) LAN
9 12 (1.15%) OSPF
9 12 (1.15%) SSH
10 10 (0.96%) HTTPS
10 10 (0.96%) VLAN
10 10 (0.96%) Wireless
11 8 (0.77%) 3GPP
12 7 (0.67%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (0.67%) MPLS
13 6 (0.58%) Cisco Nexus
13 6 (0.58%) DHCP
13 6 (0.58%) IPsec
14 5 (0.48%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (5.66%) Power BI
2 52 (4.99%) SQL Server
3 51 (4.89%) PostgreSQL
4 50 (4.79%) Relational Database
5 36 (3.45%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (3.16%) Big Data
6 33 (3.16%) Metadata
7 28 (2.68%) NoSQL
8 27 (2.59%) MongoDB
9 23 (2.21%) MySQL
10 20 (1.92%) Hadoop
11 19 (1.82%) Data Lake
12 18 (1.73%) Tableau
13 10 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.96%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.96%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.96%) Snowflake Schema
14 8 (0.77%) Data Mining
14 8 (0.77%) Redis
14 8 (0.77%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 82 (7.86%) Git
2 58 (5.56%) JIRA
3 40 (3.84%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.26%) GitLab
5 28 (2.68%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.25%) Selenium
7 10 (0.96%) JUnit
8 9 (0.86%) Gradle
8 9 (0.86%) MLflow
9 8 (0.77%) Postman
9 8 (0.77%) TeamCity
10 7 (0.67%) Maven
10 7 (0.67%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.58%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.58%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.58%) Visual Studio
12 5 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.48%) Flyway
12 5 (0.48%) SonarQube
12 5 (0.48%) SpecFlow
General
1 421 (40.36%) Social Skills
2 238 (22.82%) Finance
3 220 (21.09%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (8.53%) Banking
5 67 (6.42%) Public Sector
6 56 (5.37%) Aerospace
7 52 (4.99%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
9 31 (2.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 31 (2.97%) Telecoms
10 30 (2.88%) Marketing
11 28 (2.68%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (2.40%) Front Office
12 25 (2.40%) Presentation Skills
13 21 (2.01%) Manufacturing
14 20 (1.92%) Legal
15 16 (1.53%) Retail
16 15 (1.44%) Law
17 13 (1.25%) Publishing
18 12 (1.15%) Military
Job Titles
1 118 (11.31%) Developer
2 111 (10.64%) Architect
3 88 (8.44%) Senior
4 81 (7.77%) Lead
5 80 (7.67%) Analyst
6 37 (3.55%) Product Manager
6 37 (3.55%) Software Engineer
7 34 (3.26%) Data Engineer
7 34 (3.26%) Delivery Manager
8 31 (2.97%) Data Scientist
8 31 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
9 28 (2.68%) Product Delivery Manager
10 25 (2.40%) Technical Support
11 24 (2.30%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.21%) Junior
13 22 (2.11%) IT Support
13 22 (2.11%) Systems Delivery Manager
13 22 (2.11%) Systems Manager
14 21 (2.01%) Java Developer
14 21 (2.01%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (7.77%) REST
2 62 (5.94%) React
3 55 (5.27%) .NET
4 42 (4.03%) Kafka
5 38 (3.64%) RESTful
6 34 (3.26%) Spring
7 33 (3.16%) Middleware
7 33 (3.16%) Spring Boot
8 27 (2.59%) OAuth
9 24 (2.30%) AngularJS
10 21 (2.01%) HTML
10 21 (2.01%) JSON
11 19 (1.82%) CSS
11 19 (1.82%) PyTorch
11 19 (1.82%) SAML
12 18 (1.73%) SOAP
12 18 (1.73%) Web Services
13 17 (1.63%) OAuth2
13 17 (1.63%) OpenID
14 16 (1.53%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 98 (9.40%) Management Information System
2 84 (8.05%) Product Ownership
3 81 (7.77%) Onboarding
4 72 (6.90%) Algorithms
4 72 (6.90%) Cloud Native
5 52 (4.99%) Data Structures
6 48 (4.60%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.40%) Derivative
7 25 (2.40%) Virtual Team
8 22 (2.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 21 (2.01%) AI Agents
9 21 (2.01%) Self-Motivation
10 19 (1.82%) Equities
11 17 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
12 16 (1.53%) Data Centre
12 16 (1.53%) Fixed Income
13 15 (1.44%) Security Posture
13 15 (1.44%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 129 (12.37%) Windows
2 109 (10.45%) Linux
3 41 (3.93%) Unix
4 20 (1.92%) Android
4 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 18 (1.73%) Windows Server
6 14 (1.34%) Apple iOS
7 12 (1.15%) Mac OS
8 7 (0.67%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.48%) VMS
10 4 (0.38%) Debian
10 4 (0.38%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.096%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.096%) MVS
12 1 (0.096%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.096%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 307 (29.43%) Problem-Solving
2 274 (26.27%) Agile
3 235 (22.53%) AI
4 193 (18.50%) CI/CD
5 178 (17.07%) Continuous Improvement
6 175 (16.78%) DevOps
7 173 (16.59%) Software Engineering
8 142 (13.61%) Analytics
9 122 (11.70%) Cybersecurity
10 115 (11.03%) Stakeholder Management
11 113 (10.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 106 (10.16%) ITIL
13 104 (9.97%) Machine Learning
13 104 (9.97%) Microservices
14 102 (9.78%) Mathematics
15 97 (9.30%) Data Science
15 97 (9.30%) Decision-Making
16 89 (8.53%) Containerisation
17 88 (8.44%) Data Governance
17 88 (8.44%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 289 (27.71%) Python
2 213 (20.42%) SQL
3 128 (12.27%) Java
4 69 (6.62%) JavaScript
5 58 (5.56%) C#
6 48 (4.60%) PowerShell
7 34 (3.26%) TypeScript
8 23 (2.21%) Bash
9 22 (2.11%) C++
10 20 (1.92%) R
11 13 (1.25%) Go
12 12 (1.15%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.86%) Perl
14 8 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.67%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.67%) Scala
16 6 (0.58%) Bicep
16 6 (0.58%) Rust
17 4 (0.38%) Ada
17 4 (0.38%) C
Qualifications
1 821 (78.72%) Degree
2 491 (47.08%) Computer Science Degree
3 199 (19.08%) Security Cleared
4 131 (12.56%) Master's Degree
5 123 (11.79%) SC Cleared
6 57 (5.47%) CISSP
7 37 (3.55%) Azure Certification
7 37 (3.55%) Microsoft Certification
8 36 (3.45%) CISM
9 32 (3.07%) PhD
10 28 (2.68%) AWS Certification
10 28 (2.68%) TOGAF Certification
11 25 (2.40%) DV Cleared
12 24 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (2.30%) PMI Certification
13 23 (2.21%) DBS Check
14 22 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
14 22 (2.11%) PMP
15 19 (1.82%) CISA
16 16 (1.53%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (6.14%) NIST
3 63 (6.04%) Data Quality
4 52 (4.99%) QA
5 36 (3.45%) GDPR
6 20 (1.92%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.63%) GRC
8 16 (1.53%) Accessibility
9 14 (1.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (1.15%) NCSC
10 12 (1.15%) SLA
11 11 (1.05%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (0.96%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.67%) COBIT
13 7 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.48%) DO-254
15 5 (0.48%) ITGC
15 5 (0.48%) PSD2
System Software
1 94 (9.01%) Docker
2 78 (7.48%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.86%) Firmware
5 8 (0.77%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.58%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.096%) ACF2
10 1 (0.096%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.096%) HDFS
10 1 (0.096%) KVM
10 1 (0.096%) RACF
Systems Management
1 117 (11.22%) Kubernetes
2 58 (5.56%) Terraform
3 38 (3.64%) Ansible
4 27 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (2.59%) Prometheus
5 26 (2.49%) Grafana
6 14 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
7 4 (0.38%) Puppet
8 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (0.29%) Foglight
8 3 (0.29%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.29%) Kiali
8 3 (0.29%) Kibana
8 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.19%) CASB
9 2 (0.19%) Consul
9 2 (0.19%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 2 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 184 (17.64%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.33%) Oracle
3 51 (4.89%) Databricks
4 40 (3.84%) Google
5 35 (3.36%) IBM
6 33 (3.16%) ServiceNow
7 29 (2.78%) SAP
8 27 (2.59%) Splunk
9 24 (2.30%) VMware
10 20 (1.92%) Cisco
11 16 (1.53%) CyberArk
12 15 (1.44%) BeyondTrust
12 15 (1.44%) Okta
12 15 (1.44%) Palo Alto
13 14 (1.34%) BiZZdesign
13 14 (1.34%) Informatica
14 12 (1.15%) Salesforce
15 11 (1.05%) CheckPoint
16 9 (0.86%) Citrix
16 9 (0.86%) Foundry