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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 67 61
Rank change year-on-year -73 -6 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,077 1,200 1,292
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.98% 3.64% 3.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.34% 4.02% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 598 671 801
10th Percentile £175 £184 £340
25th Percentile £198 £356 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £480 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -12.73% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -11.76% -19.05% +0.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 101 46 47
10th Percentile £25.00 £26.63 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £53.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.87% +7.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.38 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £64.75 £53.75
% change year-on-year +4.25% +20.47% -10.42%

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 46,112 29,840 32,750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.46% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,098 18,520 20,299
10th Percentile £325 £300 £312
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,038 1,780 1,507
10th Percentile £13.87 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.38 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.89% -47.37% +8.65%

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 10 September 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 10 September 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 10 September 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 -61 977 £472 -4.07% 3,681
UK excluding London -57 559 £375 -11.76% 1,478
London -70 442 £525 -4.55% 2,565
Work from Home -81 254 £500 +4.44% 1,192
South East -14 216 £388 -3.61% 426
North of England -47 145 £450 +3.21% 227
Midlands -69 86 £225 -49.66% 156
Yorkshire -23 72 £450 +15.83% 58
North West -54 62 £497 +7.02% 128
West Midlands -53 57 £213 -50.00% 94
East of England -30 50 £200 -60.40% 219
East Midlands -27 28 £253 -43.51% 62
Scotland -74 28 £380 -17.57% 160
South West -71 26 £400 +104.34% 204
North East -40 12 £195 -57.84% 43
Northern Ireland +7 6 £175 - 66
Wales -17 4 £530 +14.59% 32

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 41 (3.81%) Confluence
2 32 (2.97%) SharePoint
3 26 (2.41%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.86%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.49%) Apache
6 9 (0.84%) Camunda
6 9 (0.84%) IIS
7 8 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.46%) CMS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.093%) CICS
12 1 (0.093%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.99%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.19%) Sketch
10 1 (0.093%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.093%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.093%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.093%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.093%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.093%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.093%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 303 (28.13%) Azure
2 198 (18.38%) AWS
3 115 (10.68%) GCP
4 74 (6.87%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.76%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.76%) Microsoft 365
6 54 (5.01%) GitHub
7 50 (4.64%) SaaS
8 47 (4.36%) Azure DevOps
9 36 (3.34%) Serverless
10 33 (3.06%) Snowflake
11 25 (2.32%) PowerApps
12 20 (1.86%) AWS Lambda
12 20 (1.86%) GitHub Actions
12 20 (1.86%) Microsoft Copilot
12 20 (1.86%) OpenShift
13 19 (1.76%) Power Automate
14 16 (1.49%) Dynamics 365
15 15 (1.39%) Amazon EKS
16 14 (1.30%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.09%) Firewall
2 43 (3.99%) DNS
3 34 (3.16%) Network Security
3 34 (3.16%) VPN
4 26 (2.41%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.95%) DHCP
6 17 (1.58%) SSH
7 15 (1.39%) WAN
8 12 (1.11%) LAN
8 12 (1.11%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.02%) BGP
9 11 (1.02%) HTTP
9 11 (1.02%) Wireless
10 10 (0.93%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.93%) 5G
10 10 (0.93%) MPLS
11 9 (0.84%) VLAN
12 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.74%) OSPF
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (5.39%) Power BI
2 54 (5.01%) SQL Server
3 53 (4.92%) Relational Database
4 50 (4.64%) PostgreSQL
5 41 (3.81%) Metadata
6 27 (2.51%) MongoDB
7 26 (2.41%) Data Warehouse
8 24 (2.23%) NoSQL
9 21 (1.95%) Elasticsearch
10 20 (1.86%) Big Data
10 20 (1.86%) MySQL
11 15 (1.39%) Data Mining
11 15 (1.39%) Tableau
12 13 (1.21%) Azure SQL Database
12 13 (1.21%) Redis
13 11 (1.02%) Oracle Database
14 10 (0.93%) Data Lake
15 9 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
16 7 (0.65%) Hadoop
16 7 (0.65%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 95 (8.82%) Git
2 51 (4.74%) JIRA
3 46 (4.27%) GitLab
3 46 (4.27%) Jenkins
4 19 (1.76%) JUnit
5 17 (1.58%) Selenium
6 16 (1.49%) Gradle
6 16 (1.49%) Maven
7 15 (1.39%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.21%) Sonatype Nexus
9 12 (1.11%) Mockito
9 12 (1.11%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.93%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.93%) Rational DOORS
10 10 (0.93%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.74%) Bitbucket Server
11 8 (0.74%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.56%) Postman
12 6 (0.56%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 452 (41.97%) Social Skills
2 240 (22.28%) Analytical Skills
3 234 (21.73%) Finance
4 92 (8.54%) Banking
5 63 (5.85%) Public Sector
6 53 (4.92%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (4.18%) Aerospace
8 44 (4.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 39 (3.62%) Telecoms
10 36 (3.34%) Manufacturing
11 34 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
12 28 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (2.32%) Marketing
14 24 (2.23%) Front Office
15 22 (2.04%) Legal
16 19 (1.76%) Military
17 18 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
18 16 (1.49%) Retail
19 14 (1.30%) Law
20 13 (1.21%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 149 (13.83%) Developer
2 107 (9.94%) Senior
3 87 (8.08%) Architect
4 79 (7.34%) Analyst
5 78 (7.24%) Lead
6 39 (3.62%) Data Engineer
7 30 (2.79%) Java Developer
8 29 (2.69%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.51%) IT Support
10 25 (2.32%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.23%) Full-Stack Developer
11 24 (2.23%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 23 (2.14%) Data Scientist
13 22 (2.04%) Junior
14 21 (1.95%) C# Developer
14 21 (1.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 21 (1.95%) Python Developer
14 21 (1.95%) Solutions Architect
15 20 (1.86%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (9.01%) REST
2 62 (5.76%) Terraform
3 61 (5.66%) React
4 58 (5.39%) .NET
5 54 (5.01%) HTML
5 54 (5.01%) Kafka
6 51 (4.74%) CSS
7 44 (4.09%) RESTful
8 33 (3.06%) Spring Boot
9 32 (2.97%) Spring
10 31 (2.88%) OAuth
11 26 (2.41%) OAuth2
11 26 (2.41%) Web Services
12 24 (2.23%) OpenID
13 23 (2.14%) JSON
13 23 (2.14%) SOAP
14 22 (2.04%) SAML
15 21 (1.95%) AngularJS
15 21 (1.95%) Middleware
16 20 (1.86%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 116 (10.77%) Management Information System
2 81 (7.52%) Algorithms
3 75 (6.96%) Cloud Native
4 72 (6.69%) Onboarding
5 61 (5.66%) Product Ownership
6 58 (5.39%) Data Structures
7 50 (4.64%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (2.97%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.32%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (2.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 25 (2.32%) Virtual Team
10 24 (2.23%) Hybrid Cloud
11 22 (2.04%) Self-Motivation
12 18 (1.67%) Data Centre
12 18 (1.67%) Derivative
13 16 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
14 14 (1.30%) Fixed Income
14 14 (1.30%) Operational Technology
15 13 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.21%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 127 (11.79%) Windows
2 112 (10.40%) Linux
3 31 (2.88%) Windows Server
4 30 (2.79%) Unix
5 20 (1.86%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.30%) Android
8 10 (0.93%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.65%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
12 3 (0.28%) zOS
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.093%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.093%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (30.73%) Problem-Solving
2 267 (24.79%) Agile
3 226 (20.98%) AI
4 214 (19.87%) CI/CD
5 185 (17.18%) Software Engineering
6 184 (17.08%) Continuous Improvement
7 180 (16.71%) DevOps
8 166 (15.41%) Stakeholder Management
9 151 (14.02%) Analytics
10 120 (11.14%) ITIL
11 114 (10.58%) Cybersecurity
12 106 (9.84%) Mathematics
13 102 (9.47%) Roadmaps
13 102 (9.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 98 (9.10%) Scrum
15 97 (9.01%) Machine Learning
16 94 (8.73%) Test Automation
16 94 (8.73%) Validation
17 88 (8.17%) Mentoring
18 81 (7.52%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 289 (26.83%) Python
2 213 (19.78%) SQL
3 138 (12.81%) Java
4 91 (8.45%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.34%) PowerShell
6 70 (6.50%) C#
7 44 (4.09%) Bash
8 40 (3.71%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.79%) C++
10 17 (1.58%) Bicep
11 14 (1.30%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.11%) R
13 11 (1.02%) C
14 10 (0.93%) Scala
15 9 (0.84%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.65%) Go
17 6 (0.56%) Perl
17 6 (0.56%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 824 (76.51%) Degree
2 493 (45.78%) Computer Science Degree
3 188 (17.46%) Security Cleared
4 136 (12.63%) SC Cleared
5 112 (10.40%) Master's Degree
6 50 (4.64%) Azure Certification
7 49 (4.55%) CISSP
8 47 (4.36%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.53%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.34%) PhD
11 31 (2.88%) CISM
12 29 (2.69%) DV Cleared
13 28 (2.60%) AWS Certification
14 25 (2.32%) PMI Certification
14 25 (2.32%) PMP
15 23 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
15 23 (2.14%) TOGAF Certification
16 20 (1.86%) CISA
17 19 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
18 15 (1.39%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.59%) Data Quality
2 62 (5.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 60 (5.57%) QA
4 52 (4.83%) NIST
5 25 (2.32%) GDPR
6 17 (1.58%) SLA
7 16 (1.49%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.49%) GRC
8 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
8 11 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 9 (0.84%) NCSC
10 9 (0.84%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.74%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.46%) ITGC
12 5 (0.46%) PMO
13 4 (0.37%) COBIT
13 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
13 4 (0.37%) ISO 9001
14 3 (0.28%) HL7
System Software
1 86 (7.99%) Docker
2 76 (7.06%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.84%) Firmware
5 9 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.37%) RACF
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) ACF2
8 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.093%) KVM
10 1 (0.093%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 100 (9.29%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.71%) Ansible
3 28 (2.60%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (2.14%) Prometheus
5 19 (1.76%) Grafana
6 14 (1.30%) SCCM
7 12 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) CASB
9 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) Control-M
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) Consul
11 2 (0.19%) QRadar
Vendors
1 214 (19.87%) Microsoft
2 73 (6.78%) Oracle
3 45 (4.18%) Google
4 39 (3.62%) Databricks
5 37 (3.44%) VMware
6 36 (3.34%) IBM
6 36 (3.34%) ServiceNow
7 33 (3.06%) SAP
8 28 (2.60%) Cisco
9 24 (2.23%) Splunk
10 20 (1.86%) CyberArk
10 20 (1.86%) Salesforce
11 18 (1.67%) BeyondTrust
12 13 (1.21%) Adobe
12 13 (1.21%) Red Hat
13 12 (1.11%) OpenAI
14 10 (0.93%) Citrix
14 10 (0.93%) Dynatrace
14 10 (0.93%) Foundry
15 9 (0.84%) F5