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

6 months to
7 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 68 61
Rank change year-on-year -78 -7 +20
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,066 1,203 1,281
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 3.64% 3.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.30% 4.02% 3.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 616 693 776
10th Percentile £178 £178 £343
25th Percentile £200 £315 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.84% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £688
90th Percentile £738 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £413 £513
% change year-on-year -9.09% -19.51% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 55 40
10th Percentile £20.70 £26.45 £20.12
25th Percentile £27.25 £29.00 £34.13
Median hourly rate £45.00 £33.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.33% -34.95% -14.88%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.00 £70.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.20 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.93% -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 46,438 29,893 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.54% 85.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,948 18,567 19,512
10th Percentile £325 £295 £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 £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,331 1,864 1,314
10th Percentile £13.65 £14.35 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.08 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.87 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.56% -39.40% -2.92%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.20 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.00 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.13 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +70.85% -48.10% +1.18%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -64 967 £470 -1.05% 4,335
UK excluding London -65 557 £375 -9.09% 1,827
London -67 436 £535 +1.90% 2,793
Work from Home -85 251 £520 +10.45% 1,412
South East -20 207 £450 +34.33% 529
North of England -54 148 £425 +8.14% 319
Midlands -50 88 £217 -51.78% 204
Yorkshire -20 80 £363 -10.77% 97
West Midlands -49 57 £200 -60.78% 133
North West -58 56 £524 +39.73% 161
East of England -37 44 £425 - 271
South West -65 33 £195 -5.57% 165
East Midlands -28 30 £230 -48.55% 71
Scotland -56 30 £400 -11.11% 200
North East -31 13 £195 -57.84% 62
Northern Ireland +8 5 £175 - 117
Wales -17 4 £530 +14.59% 44

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 (4.32%) Confluence
2 31 (2.91%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.16%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.59%) Apache
6 13 (1.22%) IIS
7 10 (0.94%) Camunda
7 10 (0.94%) CMS
8 8 (0.75%) 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 39 (3.66%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.56%) Navisworks
5 6 (0.56%) 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 (0.84%) 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 (0.094%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.094%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.094%) Finacle
5 1 (0.094%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.094%) SAP CAR
5 1 (0.094%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.094%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.094%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.094%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 306 (28.71%) Azure
2 193 (18.11%) AWS
3 118 (11.07%) GCP
4 64 (6.00%) Entra ID
5 63 (5.91%) Power Platform
6 58 (5.44%) Azure DevOps
7 54 (5.07%) Microsoft 365
8 53 (4.97%) GitHub
9 44 (4.13%) SaaS
10 39 (3.66%) Serverless
11 28 (2.63%) Snowflake
12 22 (2.06%) AWS Lambda
13 21 (1.97%) OpenShift
13 21 (1.97%) PowerApps
14 20 (1.88%) GitHub Actions
15 19 (1.78%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (1.59%) Microsoft Copilot
16 17 (1.59%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.50%) Anthropic Claude
17 16 (1.50%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.41%) Firewall
2 42 (3.94%) DNS
3 38 (3.56%) Network Security
4 32 (3.00%) VPN
5 27 (2.53%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.97%) DHCP
7 17 (1.59%) SSH
8 13 (1.22%) WAN
8 13 (1.22%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.03%) 5G
9 11 (1.03%) HTTP
9 11 (1.03%) Wireless
10 10 (0.94%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.94%) LAN
10 10 (0.94%) VLAN
11 8 (0.75%) BGP
11 8 (0.75%) Intrusion Detection
12 7 (0.66%) MPLS
12 7 (0.66%) OSPF
12 7 (0.66%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.07%) PostgreSQL
1 54 (5.07%) SQL Server
2 50 (4.69%) Power BI
3 48 (4.50%) Relational Database
4 38 (3.56%) Metadata
5 30 (2.81%) MongoDB
6 27 (2.53%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (2.53%) MySQL
6 27 (2.53%) NoSQL
7 24 (2.25%) Elasticsearch
8 19 (1.78%) Big Data
9 14 (1.31%) Redis
10 13 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (1.22%) Data Mining
11 12 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (1.13%) Tableau
12 11 (1.03%) Data Lake
12 11 (1.03%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.56%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 103 (9.66%) Git
2 52 (4.88%) JIRA
3 50 (4.69%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.13%) GitLab
5 23 (2.16%) JUnit
6 22 (2.06%) Gradle
6 22 (2.06%) Maven
7 19 (1.78%) SonarQube
8 18 (1.69%) Selenium
9 17 (1.59%) Mockito
10 14 (1.31%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (1.22%) Cucumber
12 12 (1.13%) REST Assured
13 11 (1.03%) Bitbucket
13 11 (1.03%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.84%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (0.75%) Postman
15 8 (0.75%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.75%) Visual Studio
16 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
General
1 453 (42.50%) Social Skills
2 238 (22.33%) Finance
3 236 (22.14%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (9.29%) Banking
5 69 (6.47%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (4.32%) Aerospace
8 45 (4.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (3.66%) Manufacturing
10 34 (3.19%) Organisational Skills
11 32 (3.00%) Marketing
12 31 (2.91%) Telecoms
13 30 (2.81%) Influencing Skills
14 22 (2.06%) Front Office
15 21 (1.97%) Military
16 18 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
17 17 (1.59%) Retail
18 16 (1.50%) Legal
19 14 (1.31%) Investment Banking
20 13 (1.22%) Law
Job Titles
1 165 (15.48%) Developer
2 108 (10.13%) Senior
3 88 (8.26%) Architect
4 72 (6.75%) Analyst
4 72 (6.75%) Lead
5 35 (3.28%) Data Engineer
5 35 (3.28%) Java Developer
6 26 (2.44%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
6 26 (2.44%) Software Engineer
7 25 (2.35%) Senior Developer
8 24 (2.25%) IT Support
8 24 (2.25%) Security Engineer
9 23 (2.16%) Data Scientist
9 23 (2.16%) Full-Stack Developer
9 23 (2.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 23 (2.16%) Python Developer
10 21 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
11 20 (1.88%) C# Developer
12 19 (1.78%) Consultant
13 18 (1.69%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (9.01%) REST
2 67 (6.29%) React
2 67 (6.29%) Terraform
3 64 (6.00%) HTML
4 62 (5.82%) CSS
5 56 (5.25%) Kafka
6 53 (4.97%) .NET
7 52 (4.88%) RESTful
8 38 (3.56%) Spring Boot
9 37 (3.47%) OAuth
10 36 (3.38%) Spring
11 31 (2.91%) OAuth2
11 31 (2.91%) SOAP
11 31 (2.91%) Web Services
12 29 (2.72%) Middleware
12 29 (2.72%) OpenID
13 27 (2.53%) SAML
14 24 (2.25%) .NET Core
15 23 (2.16%) AngularJS
15 23 (2.16%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 122 (11.44%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.50%) Cloud Native
3 65 (6.10%) Algorithms
4 63 (5.91%) Onboarding
5 56 (5.25%) Product Ownership
6 54 (5.07%) Data Structures
7 51 (4.78%) Distributed Systems
8 34 (3.19%) AI Agents
9 28 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
10 24 (2.25%) Virtual Team
11 23 (2.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 22 (2.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 21 (1.97%) Data Centre
14 19 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.59%) Derivative
16 15 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
16 15 (1.41%) Replication
17 13 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
17 13 (1.22%) Equities
17 13 (1.22%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 125 (11.73%) Windows
2 124 (11.63%) Linux
3 40 (3.75%) Unix
4 36 (3.38%) Windows Server
5 17 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 17 (1.59%) Windows 10
6 12 (1.13%) Android
7 9 (0.84%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.75%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.47%) zOS
10 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Mac OS
11 3 (0.28%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.28%) Solaris
11 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.19%) Debian
12 2 (0.19%) MVS
12 2 (0.19%) Rocky
13 1 (0.094%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.094%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (30.86%) Problem-Solving
2 276 (25.89%) Agile
3 232 (21.76%) CI/CD
4 215 (20.17%) AI
5 200 (18.76%) DevOps
6 192 (18.01%) Software Engineering
7 189 (17.73%) Stakeholder Management
8 181 (16.98%) Continuous Improvement
9 155 (14.54%) Analytics
10 122 (11.44%) ITIL
11 119 (11.16%) Mathematics
12 112 (10.51%) Roadmaps
13 110 (10.32%) Scrum
14 109 (10.23%) Cybersecurity
15 107 (10.04%) Test Automation
16 98 (9.19%) Validation
17 97 (9.10%) Machine Learning
18 95 (8.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 91 (8.54%) Change Management
20 81 (7.60%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 273 (25.61%) Python
2 203 (19.04%) SQL
3 136 (12.76%) Java
4 97 (9.10%) JavaScript
5 82 (7.69%) PowerShell
6 65 (6.10%) C#
7 49 (4.60%) Bash
8 38 (3.56%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.44%) C++
10 19 (1.78%) Bicep
11 16 (1.50%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.03%) R
12 11 (1.03%) Scala
13 10 (0.94%) Go
14 9 (0.84%) C
14 9 (0.84%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.84%) Perl
15 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
16 6 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.56%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 810 (75.98%) Degree
2 494 (46.34%) Computer Science Degree
3 194 (18.20%) Security Cleared
4 149 (13.98%) SC Cleared
5 111 (10.41%) Master's Degree
6 55 (5.16%) Azure Certification
7 54 (5.07%) CISSP
7 54 (5.07%) DBS Check
8 41 (3.85%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.56%) CISM
10 36 (3.38%) PhD
11 33 (3.10%) AWS Certification
11 33 (3.10%) DV Cleared
12 29 (2.72%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (2.44%) TOGAF Certification
14 24 (2.25%) PMI Certification
14 24 (2.25%) PMP
15 22 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
16 18 (1.69%) CISA
17 15 (1.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.38%) Data Quality
2 67 (6.29%) QA
3 65 (6.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 51 (4.78%) NIST
5 27 (2.53%) GDPR
6 16 (1.50%) GRC
7 15 (1.41%) HIPAA
7 15 (1.41%) SLA
8 13 (1.22%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.22%) PCI DSS
9 9 (0.84%) NCSC
10 8 (0.75%) ISO 9001
10 8 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 8 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
13 4 (0.38%) EU AI Act
13 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 91 (8.54%) Docker
2 71 (6.66%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.75%) Firmware
5 8 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.66%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.56%) 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 (0.094%) KVM
11 1 (0.094%) Squid
Systems Management
1 108 (10.13%) Kubernetes
2 36 (3.38%) Ansible
3 27 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.25%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.97%) Grafana
6 14 (1.31%) SCCM
7 9 (0.84%) 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%) HP Fortify
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 208 (19.51%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.04%) Oracle
3 60 (5.63%) Google
4 42 (3.94%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.38%) Databricks
6 35 (3.28%) IBM
7 34 (3.19%) VMware
8 31 (2.91%) SAP
9 29 (2.72%) Cisco
10 28 (2.63%) Splunk
11 24 (2.25%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.88%) CyberArk
13 18 (1.69%) Adobe
13 18 (1.69%) BeyondTrust
13 18 (1.69%) OpenAI
14 14 (1.31%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.03%) CrowdStrike
15 11 (1.03%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.94%) F5
16 10 (0.94%) Veracode