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

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 62 63
Rank change year-on-year -63 +1 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,107 1,243 1,313
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.08% 3.78% 3.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.45% 4.18% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 624 702 809
10th Percentile £178 £184 £325
25th Percentile £201 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £492 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.08% -10.55% -
75th Percentile £622 £650 £688
90th Percentile £759 £775 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £381 £416 £513
% change year-on-year -8.59% -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 45,167 29,748 33,534
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.41% 85.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 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 2,759 1,659 1,873
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.47 £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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -56 1,012 £460 -8.09% 1,941
UK excluding London -54 597 £381 -8.59% 867
London -62 439 £530 -11.31% 1,201
South East -7 250 £381 -15.28% 260
Work from Home -87 244 £500 -4.76% 726
North of England -46 138 £401 -5.65% 149
Midlands -64 91 £275 -16.35% 122
Yorkshire -12 76 £450 +25.70% 43
West Midlands -59 62 £375 +28.42% 59
North West -65 52 £377 -20.63% 72
East of England -19 51 £215 -54.97% 148
South West -78 31 £477 +112.00% 93
East Midlands -18 28 £253 -41.75% 63
Scotland -49 26 £400 -15.52% 46
North East -34 11 £195 -57.84% 35
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 37
Wales -20 5 £530 +17.78% 22

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 (3.34%) Confluence
2 30 (2.71%) SharePoint
3 27 (2.44%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.72%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.54%) Apache
6 9 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.54%) IIS
8 5 (0.45%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
9 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
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%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.090%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.090%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.07%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.89%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.36%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.63%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.63%) Revit
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.45%) Trello
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.18%) Sketch
8 1 (0.090%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 13 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) 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 (0.090%) Finacle
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.090%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.090%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 307 (27.73%) Azure
2 193 (17.43%) AWS
3 103 (9.30%) GCP
4 78 (7.05%) Power Platform
5 68 (6.14%) Entra ID
6 57 (5.15%) Microsoft 365
7 53 (4.79%) GitHub
8 49 (4.43%) SaaS
9 44 (3.97%) Azure DevOps
10 35 (3.16%) Snowflake
11 29 (2.62%) Serverless
12 22 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
12 22 (1.99%) PowerApps
13 17 (1.54%) Azure AKS
14 16 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
14 16 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.36%) AWS Lambda
15 15 (1.36%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.26%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 13 (1.17%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.88%) Firewall
2 36 (3.25%) DNS
3 32 (2.89%) Network Security
4 31 (2.80%) VPN
5 25 (2.26%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.63%) SSH
6 18 (1.63%) WAN
7 16 (1.45%) DHCP
8 14 (1.26%) LAN
9 12 (1.08%) Wireless
10 11 (0.99%) BGP
11 10 (0.90%) VLAN
12 8 (0.72%) HTTP
12 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.72%) MPLS
12 8 (0.72%) OSPF
12 8 (0.72%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.63%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.63%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.69%) Power BI
2 54 (4.88%) Relational Database
3 49 (4.43%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (4.43%) SQL Server
4 32 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
5 31 (2.80%) Metadata
6 30 (2.71%) MongoDB
7 29 (2.62%) NoSQL
8 26 (2.35%) Big Data
9 16 (1.45%) Tableau
10 14 (1.26%) Data Mining
10 14 (1.26%) MySQL
11 13 (1.17%) Redis
12 11 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.90%) Data Lake
13 10 (0.90%) Hadoop
13 10 (0.90%) Snowflake Schema
14 9 (0.81%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 91 (8.22%) Git
2 50 (4.52%) JIRA
3 43 (3.88%) Jenkins
4 40 (3.61%) GitLab
5 32 (2.89%) Rational DOORS
6 15 (1.36%) Selenium
7 12 (1.08%) JUnit
8 11 (0.99%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.99%) Gradle
9 9 (0.81%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.72%) Maven
10 8 (0.72%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.54%) MLflow
12 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.54%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (0.45%) Flyway
13 5 (0.45%) Visual Studio
General
1 448 (40.47%) Social Skills
2 243 (21.95%) Analytical Skills
3 232 (20.96%) Finance
4 91 (8.22%) Banking
5 66 (5.96%) Public Sector
6 62 (5.60%) Aerospace
7 49 (4.43%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (3.52%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 33 (2.98%) Telecoms
11 32 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (2.44%) Manufacturing
12 27 (2.44%) Marketing
13 26 (2.35%) Legal
14 24 (2.17%) Front Office
15 19 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (1.45%) Law
16 16 (1.45%) Military
17 15 (1.36%) Retail
18 12 (1.08%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 129 (11.65%) Developer
2 114 (10.30%) Senior
3 104 (9.39%) Architect
4 82 (7.41%) Lead
5 75 (6.78%) Analyst
6 41 (3.70%) Data Engineer
7 40 (3.61%) Product Manager
8 38 (3.43%) Software Engineer
9 34 (3.07%) Delivery Manager
10 31 (2.80%) Product Delivery Manager
11 30 (2.71%) Data Scientist
12 26 (2.35%) Junior
12 26 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
13 24 (2.17%) IT Support
13 24 (2.17%) Java Developer
13 24 (2.17%) Senior Developer
14 23 (2.08%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 23 (2.08%) Python Developer
14 23 (2.08%) Security Engineer
15 22 (1.99%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (8.22%) REST
2 58 (5.24%) React
3 55 (4.97%) .NET
4 41 (3.70%) Kafka
5 38 (3.43%) RESTful
6 36 (3.25%) Spring
7 29 (2.62%) Spring Boot
8 28 (2.53%) CSS
8 28 (2.53%) OAuth
9 27 (2.44%) HTML
10 24 (2.17%) AngularJS
10 24 (2.17%) Middleware
10 24 (2.17%) PyTorch
11 23 (2.08%) SAML
12 21 (1.90%) JSON
12 21 (1.90%) OAuth2
12 21 (1.90%) OpenID
12 21 (1.90%) Web Services
13 19 (1.72%) TensorFlow
14 18 (1.63%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 100 (9.03%) Management Information System
2 91 (8.22%) Product Ownership
3 85 (7.68%) Algorithms
4 82 (7.41%) Onboarding
5 71 (6.41%) Cloud Native
6 68 (6.14%) Data Structures
7 51 (4.61%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.80%) AI Agents
9 28 (2.53%) Virtual Team
10 26 (2.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 25 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
12 23 (2.08%) Derivative
13 18 (1.63%) Enterprise Software
13 18 (1.63%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.54%) Fixed Income
14 17 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
15 16 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
15 16 (1.45%) Operational Technology
16 15 (1.36%) Data Centre
17 14 (1.26%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 129 (11.65%) Windows
2 110 (9.94%) Linux
3 32 (2.89%) Unix
4 27 (2.44%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.90%) Android
6 20 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (1.54%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.08%) Apple iOS
9 10 (0.90%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.72%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.36%) Debian
11 4 (0.36%) Rocky
11 4 (0.36%) VMS
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.090%) CentOS
13 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (29.63%) Problem-Solving
2 271 (24.48%) Agile
3 240 (21.68%) AI
4 208 (18.79%) CI/CD
5 195 (17.62%) Continuous Improvement
6 191 (17.25%) Software Engineering
7 169 (15.27%) DevOps
8 151 (13.64%) Analytics
9 140 (12.65%) Stakeholder Management
10 128 (11.56%) Cybersecurity
11 118 (10.66%) ITIL
12 117 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 110 (9.94%) Mathematics
14 107 (9.67%) Machine Learning
15 97 (8.76%) Decision-Making
16 92 (8.31%) Roadmaps
17 91 (8.22%) Data Science
18 90 (8.13%) Validation
19 83 (7.50%) Mentoring
20 82 (7.41%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 303 (27.37%) Python
2 211 (19.06%) SQL
3 136 (12.29%) Java
4 73 (6.59%) PowerShell
5 68 (6.14%) JavaScript
6 63 (5.69%) C#
7 39 (3.52%) TypeScript
8 36 (3.25%) Bash
9 24 (2.17%) C++
10 17 (1.54%) R
11 13 (1.17%) Bicep
12 12 (1.08%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.90%) C
13 10 (0.90%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.72%) Go
15 7 (0.63%) Scala
16 5 (0.45%) Apex Code
16 5 (0.45%) Perl
17 4 (0.36%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 845 (76.33%) Degree
2 491 (44.35%) Computer Science Degree
3 212 (19.15%) Security Cleared
4 128 (11.56%) SC Cleared
5 117 (10.57%) Master's Degree
6 53 (4.79%) CISSP
7 45 (4.07%) Azure Certification
8 42 (3.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.43%) DBS Check
9 38 (3.43%) PhD
10 35 (3.16%) CISM
11 27 (2.44%) DV Cleared
11 27 (2.44%) PMI Certification
12 26 (2.35%) AWS Certification
12 26 (2.35%) PMP
13 25 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
13 25 (2.26%) TOGAF Certification
14 22 (1.99%) CISA
15 20 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
16 18 (1.63%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.23%) Data Quality
1 69 (6.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 62 (5.60%) NIST
3 53 (4.79%) QA
4 31 (2.80%) GDPR
5 18 (1.63%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.36%) GRC
7 14 (1.26%) SLA
8 13 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
9 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 11 (0.99%) NCSC
9 11 (0.99%) PCI DSS
10 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 5 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.45%) COBIT
12 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.45%) ITGC
13 4 (0.36%) IEC 61508
System Software
1 87 (7.86%) Docker
2 81 (7.32%) Active Directory
3 22 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.81%) Firmware
4 9 (0.81%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.45%) 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 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.090%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 106 (9.58%) Kubernetes
2 55 (4.97%) Terraform
3 39 (3.52%) Ansible
4 30 (2.71%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.26%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.81%) Grafana
7 14 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.90%) SCCM
9 5 (0.45%) 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%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.18%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 207 (18.70%) Microsoft
2 60 (5.42%) Oracle
3 50 (4.52%) Databricks
4 42 (3.79%) IBM
5 39 (3.52%) Google
6 38 (3.43%) ServiceNow
7 32 (2.89%) VMware
8 28 (2.53%) SAP
9 23 (2.08%) Cisco
9 23 (2.08%) CyberArk
10 20 (1.81%) BeyondTrust
11 17 (1.54%) Splunk
12 14 (1.26%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.99%) Citrix
13 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
14 10 (0.90%) Foundry
14 10 (0.90%) Okta
14 10 (0.90%) Red Hat
14 10 (0.90%) Solace
15 9 (0.81%) Apple