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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 69 58
Rank change year-on-year -80 -11 +26
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,044 1,165 1,298
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.59% 3.40%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.27% 3.97% 3.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 585 640 796
10th Percentile £175 £184 £345
25th Percentile £201 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £476 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.11% -13.55% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £676
90th Percentile £760 £775 £823
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -10.59% -19.05% +1.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 90 52 47
10th Percentile £22.43 £26.45 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £48.75 £39.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.20% -21.50% -19.35%
75th Percentile £82.47 £67.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £87.55 £82.70 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.75 £33.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +78.36% -37.67% -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 45,945 29,375 32,666
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.44% 90.50% 85.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,954 18,237 20,159
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
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 3,063 1,777 1,475
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.42 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.70 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.13% -47.67% +6.17%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -67 944 £475 -3.06% 5,233
UK excluding London -67 532 £380 -10.59% 2,117
London -69 436 £530 -3.67% 3,517
Work from Home -84 246 £503 +4.69% 1,702
South East -18 198 £438 +12.90% 572
North of England -49 137 £487 +8.95% 363
Midlands -56 86 £225 -49.66% 239
Yorkshire -14 67 £450 +15.83% 92
North West -48 59 £523 +12.35% 213
West Midlands -60 57 £221 -49.49% 146
East of England -34 48 £400 -20.79% 319
East Midlands -19 28 £230 -48.55% 93
Scotland -54 28 £380 -15.56% 236
South West -76 27 £260 +40.54% 249
North East -32 12 £195 -57.84% 62
Northern Ireland +7 6 £175 - 105
Wales -18 4 £530 +14.59% 45

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 39 (3.74%) Confluence
2 33 (3.16%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.20%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.63%) Apache
6 10 (0.96%) IIS
7 9 (0.86%) Camunda
8 8 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.48%) CMS
9 5 (0.48%) SAS
10 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
12 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.19%) CICS
12 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.19%) nginx
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 40 (3.83%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.15%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 5 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.48%) 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%) Sketch
9 1 (0.096%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 9 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.29%) Primavera
4 3 (0.29%) 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 (0.096%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.096%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.096%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.096%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 296 (28.35%) Azure
2 194 (18.58%) AWS
3 113 (10.82%) GCP
4 69 (6.61%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.94%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (5.75%) Entra ID
7 54 (5.17%) GitHub
8 48 (4.60%) SaaS
9 47 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.45%) Serverless
11 30 (2.87%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.20%) PowerApps
13 21 (2.01%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.92%) Microsoft Copilot
15 19 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
16 17 (1.63%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.53%) Amazon EKS
17 16 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
18 14 (1.34%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.21%) Firewall
2 42 (4.02%) DNS
3 35 (3.35%) Network Security
4 33 (3.16%) VPN
5 25 (2.39%) TCP/IP
6 21 (2.01%) DHCP
7 17 (1.63%) SSH
8 14 (1.34%) WAN
9 13 (1.25%) Wireshark
10 12 (1.15%) LAN
11 11 (1.05%) Wireless
12 10 (0.96%) 3GPP
12 10 (0.96%) 5G
12 10 (0.96%) HTTP
13 9 (0.86%) BGP
13 9 (0.86%) MPLS
13 9 (0.86%) VLAN
14 8 (0.77%) HTTPS
14 8 (0.77%) Intrusion Detection
15 7 (0.67%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (5.36%) Relational Database
2 54 (5.17%) PostgreSQL
2 54 (5.17%) SQL Server
3 53 (5.08%) Power BI
4 41 (3.93%) Metadata
5 28 (2.68%) MongoDB
6 26 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (2.30%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.11%) Elasticsearch
8 22 (2.11%) MySQL
9 18 (1.72%) Big Data
10 15 (1.44%) Data Mining
11 13 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (1.25%) Redis
11 13 (1.25%) Tableau
12 10 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (0.96%) Data Lake
12 10 (0.96%) Oracle Database
13 7 (0.67%) Power Query
14 6 (0.57%) Flink
Development Applications
1 96 (9.20%) Git
2 51 (4.89%) JIRA
3 48 (4.60%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.21%) GitLab
5 20 (1.92%) JUnit
5 20 (1.92%) Maven
6 19 (1.82%) Gradle
7 18 (1.72%) Selenium
8 17 (1.63%) SonarQube
9 13 (1.25%) Mockito
9 13 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.15%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.96%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.96%) Cucumber
11 10 (0.96%) SpecFlow
12 8 (0.77%) Bitbucket Server
12 8 (0.77%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.57%) Postman
13 6 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 446 (42.72%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.61%) Finance
3 233 (22.32%) Analytical Skills
4 95 (9.10%) Banking
5 66 (6.32%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.98%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (4.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 39 (3.74%) Aerospace
9 37 (3.54%) Manufacturing
10 35 (3.35%) Telecoms
11 33 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
12 29 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
13 23 (2.20%) Front Office
13 23 (2.20%) Marketing
14 20 (1.92%) Legal
15 18 (1.72%) Military
16 16 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
17 15 (1.44%) Law
18 14 (1.34%) Retail
19 12 (1.15%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 153 (14.66%) Developer
2 111 (10.63%) Senior
3 89 (8.52%) Architect
4 77 (7.38%) Lead
5 74 (7.09%) Analyst
6 37 (3.54%) Data Engineer
7 33 (3.16%) Java Developer
8 31 (2.97%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.59%) IT Support
10 25 (2.39%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 25 (2.39%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.30%) Full-Stack Developer
11 24 (2.30%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
13 21 (2.01%) C# Developer
13 21 (2.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 21 (2.01%) Junior
14 20 (1.92%) Data Scientist
14 20 (1.92%) Python Developer
15 19 (1.82%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (9.67%) REST
2 63 (6.03%) React
3 62 (5.94%) Terraform
4 58 (5.56%) .NET
5 57 (5.46%) HTML
6 55 (5.27%) Kafka
7 54 (5.17%) CSS
8 45 (4.31%) RESTful
9 39 (3.74%) Spring Boot
10 38 (3.64%) Spring
11 31 (2.97%) OAuth
12 28 (2.68%) SOAP
12 28 (2.68%) Web Services
13 26 (2.49%) OAuth2
14 24 (2.30%) JSON
14 24 (2.30%) OpenID
15 23 (2.20%) AngularJS
16 22 (2.11%) .NET Core
16 22 (2.11%) SAML
17 21 (2.01%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 116 (11.11%) Management Information System
2 75 (7.18%) Cloud Native
3 71 (6.80%) Algorithms
4 67 (6.42%) Onboarding
5 58 (5.56%) Product Ownership
6 52 (4.98%) Data Structures
6 52 (4.98%) Distributed Systems
7 32 (3.07%) AI Agents
8 27 (2.59%) Virtual Team
9 26 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
10 25 (2.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 23 (2.20%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (1.72%) Data Centre
13 18 (1.72%) Derivative
14 15 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
15 13 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.25%) Equities
15 13 (1.25%) Fixed Income
15 13 (1.25%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 126 (12.07%) Windows
2 115 (11.02%) Linux
3 33 (3.16%) Unix
4 32 (3.07%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.34%) Android
8 10 (0.96%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.77%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.67%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) zOS
12 3 (0.29%) Debian
12 3 (0.29%) Rocky
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.096%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.096%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 332 (31.80%) Problem-Solving
2 263 (25.19%) Agile
3 225 (21.55%) AI
4 216 (20.69%) CI/CD
5 189 (18.10%) Software Engineering
6 182 (17.43%) DevOps
7 179 (17.15%) Continuous Improvement
8 167 (16.00%) Stakeholder Management
9 148 (14.18%) Analytics
10 120 (11.49%) ITIL
11 111 (10.63%) Cybersecurity
12 103 (9.87%) Roadmaps
13 101 (9.67%) Mathematics
14 100 (9.58%) Scrum
15 97 (9.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 97 (9.29%) Test Automation
16 95 (9.10%) Machine Learning
17 93 (8.91%) Validation
18 87 (8.33%) Mentoring
19 80 (7.66%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 278 (26.63%) Python
2 208 (19.92%) SQL
3 145 (13.89%) Java
4 95 (9.10%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.57%) PowerShell
6 69 (6.61%) C#
7 45 (4.31%) Bash
8 41 (3.93%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.78%) C++
10 17 (1.63%) Bicep
11 14 (1.34%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.05%) C
13 10 (0.96%) R
14 9 (0.86%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.86%) Scala
15 7 (0.67%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.67%) Go
15 7 (0.67%) Perl
16 6 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 803 (76.92%) Degree
2 490 (46.93%) Computer Science Degree
3 183 (17.53%) Security Cleared
4 137 (13.12%) SC Cleared
5 110 (10.54%) Master's Degree
6 50 (4.79%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.60%) CISSP
8 47 (4.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.74%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.45%) PhD
11 32 (3.07%) CISM
12 29 (2.78%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.68%) DV Cleared
14 24 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
14 24 (2.30%) TOGAF Certification
15 22 (2.11%) PMI Certification
15 22 (2.11%) PMP
16 20 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
17 19 (1.82%) CISA
18 15 (1.44%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (6.42%) Data Quality
2 61 (5.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 61 (5.84%) QA
3 50 (4.79%) NIST
4 24 (2.30%) GDPR
5 16 (1.53%) Accessibility
5 16 (1.53%) GRC
5 16 (1.53%) SLA
6 11 (1.05%) HIPAA
7 10 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 10 (0.96%) PCI DSS
7 10 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 9 (0.86%) NCSC
9 6 (0.57%) NIST 800
10 5 (0.48%) ISO 9001
10 5 (0.48%) PMO
11 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
11 4 (0.38%) ITGC
12 3 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
12 3 (0.29%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 89 (8.52%) Docker
2 76 (7.28%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.86%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.57%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.48%) RACF
8 4 (0.38%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) ACF2
9 3 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.29%) ISA Server
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Time Sharing Option
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.096%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 102 (9.77%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.83%) Ansible
3 28 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (2.11%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.72%) Grafana
6 14 (1.34%) SCCM
7 10 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.48%) Argo
8 5 (0.48%) CASB
9 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.29%) Control-M
10 3 (0.29%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.29%) Istio
10 3 (0.29%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.29%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 209 (20.02%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.18%) Oracle
3 47 (4.50%) Google
4 37 (3.54%) VMware
5 35 (3.35%) ServiceNow
6 34 (3.26%) Databricks
7 32 (3.07%) IBM
7 32 (3.07%) SAP
8 29 (2.78%) Cisco
9 24 (2.30%) Splunk
10 20 (1.92%) CyberArk
10 20 (1.92%) Salesforce
11 18 (1.72%) BeyondTrust
12 14 (1.34%) Red Hat
13 13 (1.25%) Adobe
13 13 (1.25%) OpenAI
14 10 (0.96%) Citrix
14 10 (0.96%) Dynatrace
14 10 (0.96%) Foundry
15 9 (0.86%) F5