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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 63 62
Rank change year-on-year -70 -1 +24
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,109 1,260 1,297
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.81% 3.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.45% 4.21% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 618 715 809
10th Percentile £175 £184 £329
25th Percentile £200 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £492 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.54% -10.55% -
75th Percentile £614 £650 £688
90th Percentile £757 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £407 £520
% change year-on-year -7.92% -21.68% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 49 63
10th Percentile £25.53 £25.00 £20.34
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.75
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 45,350 29,954 33,125
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.75% 90.50% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,857 18,668 21,203
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £424 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.31%
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 2,845 1,726 1,796
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.03
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.23
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.97
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -38.61% -1.28%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 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 17 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 17 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 -52 1,017 £452 -9.70% 2,596
UK excluding London -49 597 £375 -7.92% 1,149
London -65 440 £525 -8.70% 1,700
Work from Home -85 251 £500 - 890
South East -9 245 £363 -14.71% 295
North of England -51 145 £402 -3.42% 223
Midlands -53 93 £230 -30.04% 131
Yorkshire -6 77 £450 +27.12% 58
West Midlands -52 64 £225 -25.00% 71
North West -51 58 £391 -17.63% 111
East of England -23 50 £215 -52.22% 202
South West -71 30 £477 +130.99% 110
East Midlands -24 28 £253 -41.75% 60
Scotland -53 25 £380 -20.00% 132
North East -37 11 £195 -57.84% 57
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 39
Wales -23 4 £530 +14.59% 29

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 34 (3.07%) Confluence
2 30 (2.71%) SharePoint
3 25 (2.25%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.53%) 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%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.27%) Camunda
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.090%) nginx
12 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.06%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.35%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.17%) 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 3 (0.27%) Windchill
8 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.18%) Sketch
9 1 (0.090%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 12 (1.08%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
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%) Maximo
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.090%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 302 (27.23%) Azure
2 189 (17.04%) AWS
3 111 (10.01%) GCP
4 76 (6.85%) Power Platform
5 66 (5.95%) Entra ID
6 61 (5.50%) Microsoft 365
7 53 (4.78%) SaaS
8 45 (4.06%) GitHub
9 42 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.25%) Snowflake
11 31 (2.80%) Serverless
12 22 (1.98%) PowerApps
13 18 (1.62%) GitHub Actions
14 16 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
14 16 (1.44%) Azure Data Factory
14 16 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.35%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.26%) dbt
17 13 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 13 (1.17%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.88%) Firewall
2 41 (3.70%) DNS
3 34 (3.07%) VPN
4 32 (2.89%) Network Security
5 27 (2.43%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.71%) DHCP
6 19 (1.71%) WAN
7 15 (1.35%) LAN
7 15 (1.35%) SSH
8 14 (1.26%) Wireless
9 11 (0.99%) BGP
9 11 (0.99%) VLAN
10 9 (0.81%) HTTP
11 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
11 8 (0.72%) MPLS
11 8 (0.72%) OSPF
11 8 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (0.72%) Wireshark
12 7 (0.63%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.68%) Power BI
2 56 (5.05%) Relational Database
3 46 (4.15%) SQL Server
4 45 (4.06%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (2.89%) Metadata
6 25 (2.25%) MongoDB
7 24 (2.16%) Big Data
7 24 (2.16%) NoSQL
8 18 (1.62%) Tableau
9 15 (1.35%) Data Mining
10 14 (1.26%) MySQL
11 13 (1.17%) Redis
12 11 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (0.99%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.81%) Data Lake
14 9 (0.81%) Snowflake Schema
15 8 (0.72%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 92 (8.30%) Git
2 45 (4.06%) JIRA
3 38 (3.43%) Jenkins
4 37 (3.34%) GitLab
5 32 (2.89%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.53%) Selenium
7 11 (0.99%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.90%) JUnit
9 9 (0.81%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.72%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.72%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.63%) Gradle
11 7 (0.63%) Maven
11 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.54%) Postman
12 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.54%) Visual Studio
13 5 (0.45%) MLflow
General
1 454 (40.94%) Social Skills
2 254 (22.90%) Analytical Skills
3 230 (20.74%) Finance
4 87 (7.84%) Banking
5 66 (5.95%) Public Sector
6 64 (5.77%) Aerospace
7 47 (4.24%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 36 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (3.25%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (2.61%) Manufacturing
12 28 (2.52%) Front Office
13 27 (2.43%) Legal
14 25 (2.25%) Marketing
15 17 (1.53%) Law
15 17 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (1.44%) Military
17 15 (1.35%) Retail
18 13 (1.17%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 130 (11.72%) Developer
2 109 (9.83%) Senior
3 90 (8.12%) Architect
4 83 (7.48%) Lead
5 77 (6.94%) Analyst
6 41 (3.70%) Product Manager
7 38 (3.43%) Data Engineer
8 35 (3.16%) Delivery Manager
9 33 (2.98%) Software Engineer
10 31 (2.80%) Product Delivery Manager
11 27 (2.43%) IT Support
12 25 (2.25%) Data Scientist
12 25 (2.25%) Junior
13 24 (2.16%) Senior Developer
14 23 (2.07%) Java Developer
15 22 (1.98%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 22 (1.98%) Python Developer
15 22 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
15 22 (1.98%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 22 (1.98%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (8.21%) REST
2 55 (4.96%) .NET
3 52 (4.69%) React
4 42 (3.79%) Kafka
5 39 (3.52%) RESTful
6 33 (2.98%) OAuth
7 31 (2.80%) CSS
7 31 (2.80%) HTML
8 28 (2.52%) Spring
9 26 (2.34%) OAuth2
9 26 (2.34%) OpenID
10 25 (2.25%) Web Services
11 24 (2.16%) SAML
12 23 (2.07%) Spring Boot
13 22 (1.98%) JSON
13 22 (1.98%) Middleware
13 22 (1.98%) SOAP
14 20 (1.80%) AngularJS
15 19 (1.71%) PyTorch
16 18 (1.62%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 99 (8.93%) Management Information System
2 88 (7.94%) Algorithms
3 87 (7.84%) Product Ownership
4 76 (6.85%) Onboarding
5 70 (6.31%) Data Structures
6 68 (6.13%) Cloud Native
7 52 (4.69%) Distributed Systems
8 29 (2.61%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 25 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
10 25 (2.25%) Virtual Team
11 23 (2.07%) Derivative
12 21 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
13 20 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.53%) Fixed Income
14 17 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
15 16 (1.44%) Operational Technology
16 15 (1.35%) Data Centre
17 14 (1.26%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.36%) Windows
2 106 (9.56%) Linux
3 31 (2.80%) Unix
4 24 (2.16%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.80%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.35%) Android
8 11 (0.99%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.72%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.54%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.36%) Debian
11 4 (0.36%) Rocky
12 3 (0.27%) VMS
13 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 339 (30.57%) Problem-Solving
2 272 (24.53%) Agile
3 224 (20.20%) AI
4 203 (18.30%) Continuous Improvement
5 201 (18.12%) CI/CD
6 186 (16.77%) Software Engineering
7 165 (14.88%) DevOps
8 156 (14.07%) Stakeholder Management
9 146 (13.17%) Analytics
10 123 (11.09%) ITIL
11 122 (11.00%) Cybersecurity
12 114 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 110 (9.92%) Mathematics
14 101 (9.11%) Machine Learning
15 96 (8.66%) Roadmaps
16 93 (8.39%) Validation
17 88 (7.94%) Data Science
17 88 (7.94%) Decision-Making
18 86 (7.75%) Mentoring
19 83 (7.48%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 295 (26.60%) Python
2 207 (18.67%) SQL
3 132 (11.90%) Java
4 72 (6.49%) JavaScript
4 72 (6.49%) PowerShell
5 66 (5.95%) C#
6 37 (3.34%) Bash
7 36 (3.25%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.61%) C++
9 15 (1.35%) R
10 13 (1.17%) Bicep
11 11 (0.99%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.90%) C
13 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.72%) Go
13 8 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 6 (0.54%) Apex Code
14 6 (0.54%) Perl
14 6 (0.54%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.54%) Scala
Qualifications
1 845 (76.19%) Degree
2 491 (44.27%) Computer Science Degree
3 216 (19.48%) Security Cleared
4 135 (12.17%) SC Cleared
5 121 (10.91%) Master's Degree
6 49 (4.42%) CISSP
7 46 (4.15%) Azure Certification
8 44 (3.97%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.52%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.16%) PhD
11 31 (2.80%) CISM
12 28 (2.52%) PMI Certification
13 27 (2.43%) DV Cleared
13 27 (2.43%) PMP
14 25 (2.25%) AWS Certification
14 25 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
15 22 (1.98%) CISA
16 21 (1.89%) TOGAF Certification
17 16 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
17 16 (1.44%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.40%) Data Quality
2 67 (6.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.14%) NIST
3 57 (5.14%) QA
4 27 (2.43%) GDPR
5 18 (1.62%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.35%) GRC
6 15 (1.35%) SLA
7 12 (1.08%) NCSC
7 12 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.81%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 5 (0.45%) COBIT
12 5 (0.45%) DO-254
12 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.45%) ITGC
13 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 85 (7.66%) Docker
2 79 (7.12%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.90%) Firmware
5 9 (0.81%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.45%) vSphere
9 3 (0.27%) ACF2
9 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.27%) RACF
9 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 100 (9.02%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.05%) Terraform
3 40 (3.61%) Ansible
4 31 (2.80%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.25%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.80%) Grafana
7 14 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (1.17%) SCCM
9 6 (0.54%) Argo
10 4 (0.36%) Control-M
10 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.27%) Foglight
11 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.27%) Puppet
11 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.18%) CASB
12 2 (0.18%) Consul
12 2 (0.18%) Istio
12 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 206 (18.58%) Microsoft
2 65 (5.86%) Oracle
3 46 (4.15%) Databricks
3 46 (4.15%) IBM
4 44 (3.97%) Google
5 40 (3.61%) ServiceNow
6 36 (3.25%) VMware
7 31 (2.80%) SAP
8 24 (2.16%) Cisco
9 20 (1.80%) CyberArk
9 20 (1.80%) Splunk
10 18 (1.62%) BeyondTrust
11 16 (1.44%) Salesforce
12 11 (0.99%) Citrix
12 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
13 10 (0.90%) Dynatrace
13 10 (0.90%) Okta
14 9 (0.81%) Adobe
14 9 (0.81%) Red Hat
14 9 (0.81%) UiPath