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

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 69 61
Rank change year-on-year -83 -8 +21
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,058 1,192 1,282
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 3.63% 3.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.29% 4.01% 3.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 612 686 776
10th Percentile £178 £178 £343
25th Percentile £200 £315 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.05% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £688
90th Percentile £738 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £370 £409 £513
% change year-on-year -9.60% -20.24% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 55 41
10th Percentile £21.28 £26.45 £20.12
25th Percentile £27.25 £29.00 £27.75
Median hourly rate £45.10 £33.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.63% -33.66% -16.53%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.85 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +45.82% -44.17% -

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 46,176 29,707 32,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.53% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,774 18,450 19,527
10th Percentile £325 £297 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,315 1,863 1,324
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.14 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.50 £25.15 £41.08
Median % change year-on-year +53.08% -38.77% -3.91%
75th Percentile £65.41 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.40 £65.00 £74.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.72 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +73.52% -47.49% -

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 6 October 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 6 October 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 6 October 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 -62 959 £460 -3.16% 4,683
UK excluding London -66 550 £370 -9.60% 2,259
London -64 435 £536 +2.14% 2,822
Work from Home -90 248 £520 +9.75% 1,852
South East -24 201 £444 +32.46% 598
North of England -56 148 £431 +11.00% 408
Midlands -50 87 £211 -53.11% 267
Yorkshire -19 79 £381 -4.69% 131
West Midlands -48 57 £200 -59.18% 159
North West -63 57 £524 +39.73% 198
East of England -40 44 £425 - 331
South West -60 33 £195 -5.57% 217
Scotland -56 30 £400 -11.11% 272
East Midlands -20 29 £230 -48.55% 108
North East -29 13 £195 -57.84% 82
Northern Ireland +8 5 £175 - 111
Wales -20 4 £530 +14.59% 82

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 46 (4.35%) Confluence
2 31 (2.93%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.17%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.70%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.61%) Apache
6 13 (1.23%) IIS
7 10 (0.95%) Camunda
7 10 (0.95%) CMS
8 8 (0.76%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.47%) SAS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.28%) CICS
12 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.28%) nginx
12 3 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 40 (3.78%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.42%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.57%) Navisworks
5 6 (0.57%) Revit
6 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.38%) Trello
7 4 (0.38%) Windchill
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 9 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
2 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (0.38%) Workday HCM
2 4 (0.38%) Workfront
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.19%) Actimize
4 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.095%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.095%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.095%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.095%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.095%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.095%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.095%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.095%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.095%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 300 (28.36%) Azure
2 190 (17.96%) AWS
3 118 (11.15%) GCP
4 63 (5.95%) Entra ID
4 63 (5.95%) Power Platform
5 56 (5.29%) Azure DevOps
6 55 (5.20%) Microsoft 365
7 53 (5.01%) GitHub
8 44 (4.16%) SaaS
9 39 (3.69%) Serverless
10 28 (2.65%) Snowflake
11 22 (2.08%) AWS Lambda
12 21 (1.98%) OpenShift
12 21 (1.98%) PowerApps
13 20 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
14 19 (1.80%) Amazon EKS
15 17 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (1.61%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.51%) Amazon S3
16 16 (1.51%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 46 (4.35%) Firewall
2 41 (3.88%) DNS
3 37 (3.50%) Network Security
4 31 (2.93%) VPN
5 26 (2.46%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.89%) DHCP
7 16 (1.51%) SSH
8 13 (1.23%) WAN
8 13 (1.23%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.04%) 5G
9 11 (1.04%) HTTP
9 11 (1.04%) Wireless
10 10 (0.95%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.95%) LAN
10 10 (0.95%) VLAN
11 8 (0.76%) BGP
11 8 (0.76%) Intrusion Detection
12 7 (0.66%) MPLS
12 7 (0.66%) OSPF
12 7 (0.66%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.10%) PostgreSQL
1 54 (5.10%) SQL Server
2 50 (4.73%) Power BI
3 48 (4.54%) Relational Database
4 38 (3.59%) Metadata
5 30 (2.84%) MongoDB
6 27 (2.55%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (2.55%) MySQL
6 27 (2.55%) NoSQL
7 24 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
8 19 (1.80%) Big Data
9 14 (1.32%) Redis
10 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (1.23%) Data Mining
11 12 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (1.13%) Tableau
12 11 (1.04%) Data Lake
12 11 (1.04%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.57%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 103 (9.74%) Git
2 52 (4.91%) JIRA
3 50 (4.73%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.16%) GitLab
5 23 (2.17%) JUnit
6 22 (2.08%) Gradle
6 22 (2.08%) Maven
7 19 (1.80%) SonarQube
8 17 (1.61%) Mockito
8 17 (1.61%) Selenium
9 14 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
10 13 (1.23%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.13%) REST Assured
12 11 (1.04%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.95%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.85%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.76%) Visual Studio
16 7 (0.66%) Postman
17 5 (0.47%) Claude Code
General
1 451 (42.63%) Social Skills
2 237 (22.40%) Finance
3 236 (22.31%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (9.36%) Banking
5 69 (6.52%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.91%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (4.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 43 (4.06%) Aerospace
9 39 (3.69%) Manufacturing
10 34 (3.21%) Organisational Skills
11 32 (3.02%) Marketing
11 32 (3.02%) Telecoms
12 30 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
13 22 (2.08%) Front Office
14 21 (1.98%) Military
15 18 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.61%) Retail
17 16 (1.51%) Legal
18 14 (1.32%) Investment Banking
19 13 (1.23%) Law
Job Titles
1 165 (15.60%) Developer
2 106 (10.02%) Senior
3 85 (8.03%) Architect
4 72 (6.81%) Analyst
5 71 (6.71%) Lead
6 35 (3.31%) Data Engineer
6 35 (3.31%) Java Developer
7 26 (2.46%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 26 (2.46%) Software Engineer
8 25 (2.36%) IT Support
8 25 (2.36%) Senior Developer
9 24 (2.27%) Security Engineer
10 23 (2.17%) Data Scientist
10 23 (2.17%) Full-Stack Developer
10 23 (2.17%) Python Developer
11 22 (2.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 21 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
13 20 (1.89%) C# Developer
14 19 (1.80%) Consultant
15 18 (1.70%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.88%) REST
2 67 (6.33%) React
3 66 (6.24%) Terraform
4 64 (6.05%) HTML
5 62 (5.86%) CSS
6 56 (5.29%) Kafka
7 53 (5.01%) .NET
8 52 (4.91%) RESTful
9 38 (3.59%) Spring Boot
10 37 (3.50%) OAuth
11 36 (3.40%) Spring
12 31 (2.93%) OAuth2
12 31 (2.93%) SOAP
12 31 (2.93%) Web Services
13 29 (2.74%) Middleware
13 29 (2.74%) OpenID
14 27 (2.55%) SAML
15 24 (2.27%) .NET Core
16 23 (2.17%) AngularJS
16 23 (2.17%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 119 (11.25%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.56%) Cloud Native
3 65 (6.14%) Algorithms
4 62 (5.86%) Onboarding
5 54 (5.10%) Data Structures
6 52 (4.91%) Product Ownership
7 51 (4.82%) Distributed Systems
8 34 (3.21%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.55%) Enterprise Software
10 24 (2.27%) Virtual Team
11 22 (2.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 22 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.98%) Data Centre
13 19 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
14 17 (1.61%) Derivative
15 15 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
15 15 (1.42%) Replication
16 13 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.23%) Equities
16 13 (1.23%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 124 (11.72%) Windows
2 122 (11.53%) Linux
3 40 (3.78%) Unix
4 34 (3.21%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.70%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.13%) Android
8 9 (0.85%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.76%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.47%) zOS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Mac OS
12 3 (0.28%) Mac OS X
12 3 (0.28%) Solaris
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) Debian
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Rocky
14 1 (0.095%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.095%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (31.00%) Problem-Solving
2 275 (25.99%) Agile
3 228 (21.55%) CI/CD
4 215 (20.32%) AI
5 196 (18.53%) DevOps
6 191 (18.05%) Software Engineering
7 185 (17.49%) Stakeholder Management
8 177 (16.73%) Continuous Improvement
9 154 (14.56%) Analytics
10 122 (11.53%) ITIL
11 115 (10.87%) Mathematics
12 111 (10.49%) Roadmaps
13 109 (10.30%) Scrum
14 107 (10.11%) Cybersecurity
15 106 (10.02%) Test Automation
16 97 (9.17%) Machine Learning
17 95 (8.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 95 (8.98%) Validation
18 90 (8.51%) Change Management
19 81 (7.66%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 273 (25.80%) Python
2 203 (19.19%) SQL
3 136 (12.85%) Java
4 97 (9.17%) JavaScript
5 80 (7.56%) PowerShell
6 64 (6.05%) C#
7 48 (4.54%) Bash
8 38 (3.59%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.46%) C++
10 18 (1.70%) Bicep
11 16 (1.51%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.04%) R
12 11 (1.04%) Scala
13 10 (0.95%) Go
14 9 (0.85%) C
14 9 (0.85%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.85%) Perl
15 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
16 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 803 (75.90%) Degree
2 491 (46.41%) Computer Science Degree
3 187 (17.67%) Security Cleared
4 143 (13.52%) SC Cleared
5 111 (10.49%) Master's Degree
6 54 (5.10%) DBS Check
7 51 (4.82%) Azure Certification
7 51 (4.82%) CISSP
8 42 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
9 37 (3.50%) CISM
10 36 (3.40%) PhD
11 30 (2.84%) AWS Certification
11 30 (2.84%) DV Cleared
12 29 (2.74%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (2.27%) PMI Certification
13 24 (2.27%) PMP
13 24 (2.27%) TOGAF Certification
14 22 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
15 18 (1.70%) CISA
16 15 (1.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.43%) Data Quality
2 64 (6.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (6.05%) QA
3 50 (4.73%) NIST
4 27 (2.55%) GDPR
5 16 (1.51%) GRC
6 15 (1.42%) HIPAA
6 15 (1.42%) SLA
7 13 (1.23%) Accessibility
7 13 (1.23%) PCI DSS
8 9 (0.85%) NCSC
9 8 (0.76%) ISO 9001
9 8 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 8 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.57%) ISO 31000
10 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
12 4 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
12 4 (0.38%) EU AI Act
12 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 91 (8.60%) Docker
2 70 (6.62%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.76%) Firmware
5 8 (0.76%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.66%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.57%) RACF
8 5 (0.47%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.47%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) NFS
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.095%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.095%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 108 (10.21%) Kubernetes
2 35 (3.31%) Ansible
3 26 (2.46%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.27%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.98%) Grafana
6 13 (1.23%) SCCM
7 9 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.66%) CASB
9 5 (0.47%) Argo
9 5 (0.47%) Control-M
9 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.38%) Puppet
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.28%) Istio
11 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.19%) Consul
12 2 (0.19%) QRadar
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 203 (19.19%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.09%) Oracle
3 60 (5.67%) Google
4 42 (3.97%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.40%) Databricks
6 35 (3.31%) IBM
7 33 (3.12%) VMware
8 31 (2.93%) SAP
9 29 (2.74%) Cisco
10 28 (2.65%) Splunk
11 24 (2.27%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.89%) CyberArk
13 18 (1.70%) Adobe
13 18 (1.70%) BeyondTrust
13 18 (1.70%) OpenAI
14 14 (1.32%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.04%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.95%) CrowdStrike
16 10 (0.95%) F5
16 10 (0.95%) Veracode