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 4 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 62 63
Rank change year-on-year -69 +1 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,097 1,243 1,313
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.08% 3.78% 3.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.44% 4.18% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 618 702 809
10th Percentile £178 £184 £325
25th Percentile £201 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £492 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.74% -10.55% -
75th Percentile £622 £650 £688
90th Percentile £757 £775 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £377 £416 £513
% change year-on-year -9.43% -18.78% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 127 49 66
10th Percentile £25.43 £25.00 £20.68
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £37.50
Median hourly rate £75.00 £54.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +37.61% +3.81% -15.32%
75th Percentile £87.16 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £55.63
% change year-on-year +21.64% +20.45% -7.29%

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 44,879 29,748 33,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.93% 90.41% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,704 18,653 21,488
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
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 2,741 1,659 1,873
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £18.14
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.05 £40.94
% change year-on-year +90.72% -43.70% +3.38%

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 4 August 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 4 August 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 4 August 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 1,003 £455 -9.04% 1,874
UK excluding London -51 587 £377 -9.43% 806
London -63 439 £530 -11.31% 1,169
South East -7 246 £350 -22.22% 238
Work from Home -91 243 £500 -4.76% 723
North of England -40 138 £401 -5.65% 144
Midlands -58 91 £275 -16.35% 123
Yorkshire -11 76 £450 +25.70% 44
West Midlands -59 62 £375 +28.42% 59
North West -65 52 £377 -20.63% 69
East of England -23 48 £215 -54.97% 134
South West -77 29 £477 +112.00% 83
East Midlands -17 28 £253 -41.75% 64
Scotland -52 25 £400 -15.52% 45
North East -35 11 £195 -57.84% 32
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 30
Wales -22 5 £530 +17.78% 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 37 (3.37%) Confluence
2 30 (2.73%) SharePoint
3 27 (2.46%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.46%) Apache
6 9 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
10 3 (0.27%) Camunda
10 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.091%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.091%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.091%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.091%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 45 (4.10%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.92%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (1.28%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.64%) Revit
5 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.46%) Trello
6 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
6 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.18%) Sketch
7 1 (0.091%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 13 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.27%) Infor M3
4 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.27%) Primavera
4 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.091%) Finacle
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.091%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.091%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.091%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.091%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.091%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 305 (27.80%) Azure
2 191 (17.41%) AWS
3 102 (9.30%) GCP
4 78 (7.11%) Power Platform
5 68 (6.20%) Entra ID
6 57 (5.20%) Microsoft 365
7 52 (4.74%) GitHub
8 49 (4.47%) SaaS
9 44 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
10 34 (3.10%) Snowflake
11 29 (2.64%) Serverless
12 22 (2.01%) GitHub Actions
12 22 (2.01%) PowerApps
13 17 (1.55%) Azure AKS
14 16 (1.46%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.37%) AWS Lambda
15 15 (1.37%) Azure Data Factory
15 15 (1.37%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.28%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 13 (1.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.92%) Firewall
2 33 (3.01%) DNS
3 32 (2.92%) Network Security
4 31 (2.83%) VPN
5 22 (2.01%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.64%) WAN
7 16 (1.46%) DHCP
8 15 (1.37%) SSH
9 14 (1.28%) LAN
10 12 (1.09%) Wireless
11 11 (1.00%) BGP
12 10 (0.91%) VLAN
13 8 (0.73%) HTTPS
13 8 (0.73%) OSPF
13 8 (0.73%) Wireshark
14 7 (0.64%) 3GPP
14 7 (0.64%) Cisco ASA
14 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
14 7 (0.64%) MPLS
14 7 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.74%) Power BI
2 52 (4.74%) Relational Database
3 49 (4.47%) SQL Server
4 46 (4.19%) PostgreSQL
5 31 (2.83%) Data Warehouse
6 30 (2.73%) Metadata
7 27 (2.46%) MongoDB
8 26 (2.37%) Big Data
8 26 (2.37%) NoSQL
9 16 (1.46%) Tableau
10 14 (1.28%) Data Mining
11 11 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
11 11 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
11 11 (1.00%) MySQL
12 10 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (0.91%) Data Lake
12 10 (0.91%) Hadoop
12 10 (0.91%) Redis
12 10 (0.91%) Snowflake Schema
13 9 (0.82%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 85 (7.75%) Git
2 50 (4.56%) JIRA
3 40 (3.65%) Jenkins
4 36 (3.28%) GitLab
5 32 (2.92%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.19%) Selenium
7 12 (1.09%) JUnit
8 11 (1.00%) Bitbucket
8 11 (1.00%) Gradle
9 9 (0.82%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.73%) Maven
10 8 (0.73%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.64%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.55%) MLflow
12 6 (0.55%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.55%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.46%) Flyway
General
1 443 (40.38%) Social Skills
2 238 (21.70%) Analytical Skills
3 232 (21.15%) Finance
4 91 (8.30%) Banking
5 66 (6.02%) Public Sector
6 61 (5.56%) Aerospace
7 49 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (3.56%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 32 (2.92%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (2.64%) Telecoms
12 27 (2.46%) Marketing
13 26 (2.37%) Legal
13 26 (2.37%) Manufacturing
14 24 (2.19%) Front Office
15 19 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (1.46%) Law
16 16 (1.46%) Military
17 15 (1.37%) Retail
18 12 (1.09%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 126 (11.49%) Developer
2 114 (10.39%) Senior
3 104 (9.48%) Architect
4 82 (7.47%) Lead
5 75 (6.84%) Analyst
6 39 (3.56%) Product Manager
7 38 (3.46%) Data Engineer
8 37 (3.37%) Software Engineer
9 33 (3.01%) Delivery Manager
10 30 (2.73%) Data Scientist
10 30 (2.73%) Product Delivery Manager
11 26 (2.37%) Junior
11 26 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
12 24 (2.19%) IT Support
12 24 (2.19%) Java Developer
12 24 (2.19%) Senior Developer
13 23 (2.10%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 23 (2.10%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.01%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.01%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (8.02%) REST
2 58 (5.29%) React
3 55 (5.01%) .NET
4 39 (3.56%) Kafka
5 36 (3.28%) Spring
6 35 (3.19%) RESTful
7 29 (2.64%) Spring Boot
8 28 (2.55%) OAuth
9 25 (2.28%) CSS
10 24 (2.19%) AngularJS
10 24 (2.19%) HTML
10 24 (2.19%) Middleware
10 24 (2.19%) PyTorch
11 23 (2.10%) SAML
12 21 (1.91%) JSON
12 21 (1.91%) OAuth2
12 21 (1.91%) OpenID
12 21 (1.91%) Web Services
13 19 (1.73%) TensorFlow
14 18 (1.64%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 98 (8.93%) Management Information System
2 90 (8.20%) Product Ownership
3 85 (7.75%) Algorithms
4 82 (7.47%) Onboarding
5 71 (6.47%) Cloud Native
6 66 (6.02%) Data Structures
7 51 (4.65%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.83%) AI Agents
9 28 (2.55%) Virtual Team
10 26 (2.37%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 24 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
12 23 (2.10%) Derivative
13 18 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
13 18 (1.64%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.55%) Fixed Income
14 17 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
15 15 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (1.37%) Data Centre
15 15 (1.37%) Operational Technology
16 14 (1.28%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 129 (11.76%) Windows
2 106 (9.66%) Linux
3 32 (2.92%) Unix
4 27 (2.46%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.91%) Android
6 19 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (1.55%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.09%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.82%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.73%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.36%) VMS
12 3 (0.27%) Debian
12 3 (0.27%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.091%) CentOS
14 1 (0.091%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (29.35%) Problem-Solving
2 267 (24.34%) Agile
3 238 (21.70%) AI
4 203 (18.51%) CI/CD
5 191 (17.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 187 (17.05%) Software Engineering
7 163 (14.86%) DevOps
8 147 (13.40%) Analytics
9 139 (12.67%) Stakeholder Management
10 128 (11.67%) Cybersecurity
11 117 (10.67%) ITIL
12 114 (10.39%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 108 (9.85%) Mathematics
14 107 (9.75%) Machine Learning
15 96 (8.75%) Decision-Making
16 91 (8.30%) Data Science
16 91 (8.30%) Roadmaps
17 84 (7.66%) Validation
18 82 (7.47%) Mentoring
18 82 (7.47%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 297 (27.07%) Python
2 205 (18.69%) SQL
3 136 (12.40%) Java
4 73 (6.65%) PowerShell
5 68 (6.20%) JavaScript
6 63 (5.74%) C#
7 39 (3.56%) TypeScript
8 33 (3.01%) Bash
9 24 (2.19%) C++
10 17 (1.55%) R
11 13 (1.19%) Bicep
12 12 (1.09%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.91%) C
14 8 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.64%) Go
15 7 (0.64%) Scala
15 7 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 5 (0.46%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.46%) Perl
17 4 (0.36%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 835 (76.12%) Degree
2 484 (44.12%) Computer Science Degree
3 207 (18.87%) Security Cleared
4 125 (11.39%) SC Cleared
5 117 (10.67%) Master's Degree
6 53 (4.83%) CISSP
7 45 (4.10%) Azure Certification
8 42 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.46%) DBS Check
9 38 (3.46%) PhD
10 35 (3.19%) CISM
11 27 (2.46%) DV Cleared
11 27 (2.46%) PMI Certification
12 26 (2.37%) AWS Certification
12 26 (2.37%) PMP
13 25 (2.28%) TOGAF Certification
14 24 (2.19%) Cisco Certification
15 22 (2.01%) CISA
16 20 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
17 18 (1.64%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 65 (5.93%) Data Quality
3 62 (5.65%) NIST
4 50 (4.56%) QA
5 31 (2.83%) GDPR
6 18 (1.64%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.37%) GRC
8 14 (1.28%) SLA
9 13 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (1.00%) HIPAA
10 11 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 11 (1.00%) NCSC
10 11 (1.00%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.91%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 5 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.46%) COBIT
13 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
13 5 (0.46%) ITGC
14 4 (0.36%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 83 (7.57%) Docker
2 81 (7.38%) Active Directory
3 22 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.82%) Firmware
4 9 (0.82%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.46%) vSphere
7 3 (0.27%) ACF2
7 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.27%) RACF
7 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
8 2 (0.18%) Ceph
8 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.18%) Squid
8 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.091%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.091%) HDFS
9 1 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 105 (9.57%) Kubernetes
2 55 (5.01%) Terraform
3 39 (3.56%) Ansible
4 30 (2.73%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (2.10%) Prometheus
6 18 (1.64%) Grafana
7 14 (1.28%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.91%) SCCM
9 5 (0.46%) Argo
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Foglight
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) Puppet
10 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 205 (18.69%) Microsoft
2 60 (5.47%) Oracle
3 49 (4.47%) Databricks
4 42 (3.83%) IBM
5 38 (3.46%) Google
5 38 (3.46%) ServiceNow
6 32 (2.92%) VMware
7 28 (2.55%) SAP
8 23 (2.10%) CyberArk
9 22 (2.01%) Cisco
10 20 (1.82%) BeyondTrust
11 17 (1.55%) Splunk
12 14 (1.28%) Salesforce
13 11 (1.00%) Citrix
13 11 (1.00%) Palo Alto
14 10 (0.91%) Foundry
14 10 (0.91%) Okta
14 10 (0.91%) Red Hat
14 10 (0.91%) Solace
15 9 (0.82%) Apple