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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 63 62
Rank change year-on-year -62 -1 +32
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,079 1,213 1,369
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 3.73% 3.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.41% 4.13% 3.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 608 680 821
10th Percentile £178 £203 £320
25th Percentile £207 £362 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.60% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £652 £675
90th Percentile £760 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £381 £446 £517
% change year-on-year -14.69% -13.73% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 121 48 96
10th Percentile £25.75 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £40.63
Median hourly rate £69.44 £54.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.41% -0.91% -8.33%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.10 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +21.64% +21.82% -

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 44,805 29,397 36,049
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.38% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,846 18,489 23,062
10th Percentile £325 £300 £303
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,636 1,550 2,325
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.34 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.65 £61.60
90th Percentile £82.75 £70.00 £73.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.12
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.18% -4.70%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -53 970 £453 -9.40% 760
UK excluding London -52 586 £381 -14.69% 451
London -65 418 £535 -10.90% 389
Work from Home -81 246 £500 -9.09% 261
South East -8 240 £318 -33.51% 162
North of England -48 135 £397 -16.02% 74
Midlands -65 81 £384 +19.92% 69
Yorkshire -11 70 £520 +28.99% 18
North West -57 55 £364 -23.37% 31
West Midlands -66 55 £429 +46.92% 33
East of England -27 47 £308 -52.69% 69
Scotland -36 35 £481 +1.64% 8
South West -68 35 £435 +81.04% 59
East Midlands -23 25 £275 -34.52% 36
North East -32 11 £195 -57.84% 25
Wales -23 7 £530 +18.83% 6
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 20

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 (4.36%) Confluence
2 35 (3.24%) Apache Spark
3 31 (2.87%) SharePoint
4 24 (2.22%) Apache Airflow
5 23 (2.13%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.56%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) Camunda
9 4 (0.37%) CMS
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.19%) nginx
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.093%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.093%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.093%) Palantir Foundry
12 1 (0.093%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.99%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.39%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Sketch
9 1 (0.093%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 17 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.19%) Workfront
5 1 (0.093%) Maximo
5 1 (0.093%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.093%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.093%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.093%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.093%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.093%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.093%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.093%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 311 (28.82%) Azure
2 197 (18.26%) AWS
3 99 (9.18%) GCP
4 74 (6.86%) Power Platform
5 56 (5.19%) Entra ID
6 54 (5.00%) Microsoft 365
7 44 (4.08%) GitHub
7 44 (4.08%) SaaS
8 43 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
9 28 (2.59%) Serverless
9 28 (2.59%) Snowflake
10 22 (2.04%) PowerApps
11 21 (1.95%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (1.58%) Azure AKS
13 15 (1.39%) Power Automate
14 14 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
14 14 (1.30%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (1.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 14 (1.30%) Azure Data Factory
14 14 (1.30%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 32 (2.97%) Firewall
2 30 (2.78%) Network Security
3 24 (2.22%) DNS
4 22 (2.04%) VPN
5 21 (1.95%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.67%) WAN
7 15 (1.39%) LAN
8 14 (1.30%) BGP
9 12 (1.11%) SSH
10 11 (1.02%) OSPF
11 10 (0.93%) HTTPS
11 10 (0.93%) VLAN
11 10 (0.93%) Wireless
12 7 (0.65%) 3GPP
12 7 (0.65%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (0.65%) DHCP
12 7 (0.65%) MPLS
12 7 (0.65%) Wireshark
13 6 (0.56%) IPsec
14 5 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (5.56%) Power BI
2 53 (4.91%) PostgreSQL
2 53 (4.91%) SQL Server
3 52 (4.82%) Relational Database
4 35 (3.24%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (3.15%) Metadata
6 33 (3.06%) Big Data
7 29 (2.69%) MongoDB
8 25 (2.32%) NoSQL
9 19 (1.76%) MySQL
10 18 (1.67%) Data Lake
10 18 (1.67%) Hadoop
11 16 (1.48%) Tableau
12 11 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.93%) Data Mining
13 10 (0.93%) Snowflake Schema
14 9 (0.83%) Redis
15 8 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 88 (8.16%) Git
2 60 (5.56%) JIRA
3 40 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 35 (3.24%) GitLab
5 30 (2.78%) Rational DOORS
6 14 (1.30%) Selenium
7 12 (1.11%) JUnit
8 11 (1.02%) Gradle
9 9 (0.83%) MLflow
10 8 (0.74%) Maven
10 8 (0.74%) Postman
10 8 (0.74%) REST Assured
10 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
10 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
11 7 (0.65%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.56%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 442 (40.96%) Social Skills
2 243 (22.52%) Finance
3 232 (21.50%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (8.90%) Banking
5 71 (6.58%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.10%) Aerospace
6 55 (5.10%) Documentation Skills
7 38 (3.52%) Organisational Skills
8 37 (3.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 29 (2.69%) Influencing Skills
9 29 (2.69%) Marketing
9 29 (2.69%) Telecoms
10 24 (2.22%) Front Office
10 24 (2.22%) Manufacturing
11 21 (1.95%) Legal
11 21 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
12 16 (1.48%) Law
13 15 (1.39%) Retail
14 13 (1.20%) Military
14 13 (1.20%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 133 (12.33%) Developer
2 113 (10.47%) Architect
3 100 (9.27%) Senior
4 83 (7.69%) Analyst
5 81 (7.51%) Lead
6 38 (3.52%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.43%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.15%) Data Engineer
8 34 (3.15%) Delivery Manager
9 31 (2.87%) Data Scientist
10 30 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
11 28 (2.59%) Product Delivery Manager
12 26 (2.41%) Junior
13 25 (2.32%) Python Developer
14 24 (2.22%) Java Developer
15 23 (2.13%) Full-Stack Developer
16 22 (2.04%) IT Support
16 22 (2.04%) Systems Delivery Manager
16 22 (2.04%) Systems Manager
17 21 (1.95%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (8.25%) REST
2 65 (6.02%) React
3 55 (5.10%) .NET
4 43 (3.99%) Kafka
5 40 (3.71%) RESTful
6 37 (3.43%) Spring
7 33 (3.06%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.69%) Middleware
9 28 (2.59%) OAuth
10 26 (2.41%) AngularJS
11 24 (2.22%) PyTorch
12 23 (2.13%) HTML
13 22 (2.04%) CSS
14 21 (1.95%) JSON
15 20 (1.85%) SAML
15 20 (1.85%) Web Services
16 19 (1.76%) OAuth2
16 19 (1.76%) OpenID
17 18 (1.67%) LDAP
17 18 (1.67%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 100 (9.27%) Management Information System
2 88 (8.16%) Product Ownership
3 78 (7.23%) Algorithms
3 78 (7.23%) Onboarding
4 75 (6.95%) Cloud Native
5 58 (5.38%) Data Structures
6 49 (4.54%) Distributed Systems
7 29 (2.69%) Virtual Team
8 26 (2.41%) AI Agents
8 26 (2.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 26 (2.41%) Self-Motivation
9 24 (2.22%) Derivative
10 21 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
11 18 (1.67%) Equities
12 17 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
12 17 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
12 17 (1.58%) Fixed Income
13 16 (1.48%) Data Centre
13 16 (1.48%) Operational Technology
14 15 (1.39%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 123 (11.40%) Windows
2 102 (9.45%) Linux
3 36 (3.34%) Unix
4 21 (1.95%) Android
5 20 (1.85%) Windows Server
6 18 (1.67%) Windows 10
7 17 (1.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (1.30%) Apple iOS
9 11 (1.02%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.74%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.46%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.093%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.093%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 320 (29.66%) Problem-Solving
2 280 (25.95%) Agile
3 238 (22.06%) AI
4 193 (17.89%) CI/CD
5 189 (17.52%) Software Engineering
6 186 (17.24%) Continuous Improvement
7 165 (15.29%) DevOps
8 146 (13.53%) Analytics
9 125 (11.58%) Stakeholder Management
10 122 (11.31%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 121 (11.21%) Cybersecurity
12 112 (10.38%) Machine Learning
13 108 (10.01%) ITIL
14 105 (9.73%) Mathematics
15 98 (9.08%) Decision-Making
16 97 (8.99%) Microservices
17 96 (8.90%) Data Science
18 92 (8.53%) Roadmaps
19 85 (7.88%) Data Governance
20 83 (7.69%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 290 (26.88%) Python
2 209 (19.37%) SQL
3 136 (12.60%) Java
4 68 (6.30%) JavaScript
5 59 (5.47%) C#
6 53 (4.91%) PowerShell
7 37 (3.43%) TypeScript
8 22 (2.04%) Bash
8 22 (2.04%) C++
9 19 (1.76%) R
10 12 (1.11%) Shell Script
11 11 (1.02%) Go
12 10 (0.93%) Kotlin
13 8 (0.74%) C
13 8 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.65%) Bicep
14 7 (0.65%) Perl
15 6 (0.56%) Scala
16 4 (0.37%) Ada
16 4 (0.37%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 837 (77.57%) Degree
2 487 (45.13%) Computer Science Degree
3 205 (19.00%) Security Cleared
4 140 (12.97%) Master's Degree
5 126 (11.68%) SC Cleared
6 53 (4.91%) CISSP
7 44 (4.08%) Azure Certification
8 39 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
9 35 (3.24%) CISM
10 33 (3.06%) PhD
11 32 (2.97%) DBS Check
12 29 (2.69%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.59%) PMI Certification
13 28 (2.59%) TOGAF Certification
14 26 (2.41%) PMP
15 25 (2.32%) DV Cleared
16 22 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
17 19 (1.76%) CISA
18 15 (1.39%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 66 (6.12%) Data Quality
3 63 (5.84%) NIST
4 55 (5.10%) QA
5 34 (3.15%) GDPR
6 19 (1.76%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.48%) PCI DSS
8 15 (1.39%) GRC
9 13 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (1.11%) NCSC
10 12 (1.11%) SLA
11 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (0.93%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 6 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.46%) COBIT
15 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
15 5 (0.46%) ITGC
15 5 (0.46%) PSD2
System Software
1 88 (8.16%) Docker
2 75 (6.95%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.93%) Firmware
5 8 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.65%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.093%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.093%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 109 (10.10%) Kubernetes
2 52 (4.82%) Terraform
3 33 (3.06%) Ansible
4 26 (2.41%) Prometheus
5 23 (2.13%) Grafana
5 23 (2.13%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
8 3 (0.28%) Foglight
8 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
8 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.28%) SCCM
8 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.19%) Consul
9 2 (0.19%) Control-M
9 2 (0.19%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 2 (0.19%) PowerCLI
9 2 (0.19%) Puppet
9 2 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 196 (18.16%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.12%) Oracle
3 51 (4.73%) Databricks
4 41 (3.80%) Google
4 41 (3.80%) IBM
5 36 (3.34%) ServiceNow
6 31 (2.87%) SAP
7 28 (2.59%) VMware
8 21 (1.95%) Cisco
9 20 (1.85%) Splunk
10 19 (1.76%) CyberArk
11 17 (1.58%) BeyondTrust
12 14 (1.30%) Informatica
12 14 (1.30%) Palo Alto
12 14 (1.30%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.11%) Okta
14 11 (1.02%) BiZZdesign
15 10 (0.93%) CheckPoint
15 10 (0.93%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) Apple