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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 66 68
Rank change year-on-year -39 +2 +47
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,084 1,031 1,270
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.34% 3.50% 2.92%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.76% 3.86% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 641 588 780
10th Percentile £175 £250 £320
25th Percentile £319 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £675 £653
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -20.00% - -3.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 32 92
10th Percentile £26.75 £27.21 £22.39
25th Percentile £52.00 £30.78 £41.25
Median hourly rate £83.00 £43.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.71% -20.45% +1.85%
75th Percentile £88.00 £64.31 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.25 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +4.76%

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 39,258 26,720 37,503
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 90.74% 86.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,768 17,301 24,236
10th Percentile £318 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £484 £500
% change year-on-year +0.31% -3.30% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,351 1,041 2,413
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.80 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -14.29% -6.67%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £29.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +37.93% -17.14% -6.67%

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 21 April 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 21 April 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 21 April 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 -36 955 £500 -4.76% 810
UK excluding London -41 549 £400 -20.00% 575
London -38 438 £550 -8.33% 341
Work from Home -52 244 £514 -6.55% 289
South East -14 185 £400 -20.00% 218
North of England -23 138 £376 -30.50% 94
Midlands -54 80 £450 +68.54% 81
Yorkshire -23 71 £514 +33.16% 29
North West -34 64 £358 -37.28% 46
West Midlands -59 60 £450 +130.77% 46
South West -36 48 £485 +29.33% 51
East of England -24 44 £340 -47.69% 76
Scotland -9 37 £610 +16.19% 34
East Midlands -34 19 £505 +41.85% 35
Wales -21 15 £160 -44.83% 9
Northern Ireland +4 7 £350 -41.67% 23
North East -16 4 £216 -57.95% 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 49 (4.52%) Confluence
2 41 (3.78%) Apache Spark
3 27 (2.49%) SharePoint
4 19 (1.75%) Apache
5 18 (1.66%) Microsoft Exchange
6 17 (1.57%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.28%) IIS
8 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.28%) SAS
9 2 (0.18%) CMS
9 2 (0.18%) nginx
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.18%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
10 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 37 (3.41%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.11%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.37%) Simulink
6 3 (0.28%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.28%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.28%) Revit
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
Business Applications
1 23 (2.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.092%) Actimize
6 1 (0.092%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.092%) Maximo
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.092%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.092%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 311 (28.69%) Azure
2 194 (17.90%) AWS
3 94 (8.67%) GCP
4 70 (6.46%) Power Platform
5 57 (5.26%) GitHub
6 54 (4.98%) Microsoft 365
7 53 (4.89%) SaaS
8 41 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
9 37 (3.41%) Entra ID
10 24 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
10 24 (2.21%) Serverless
11 23 (2.12%) Snowflake
12 22 (2.03%) AWS CloudFormation
12 22 (2.03%) Azure Data Factory
12 22 (2.03%) IaaS
13 19 (1.75%) PowerApps
14 17 (1.57%) Azure AKS
14 17 (1.57%) Azure Machine Learning
14 17 (1.57%) Power Automate
15 13 (1.20%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 50 (4.61%) Firewall
2 30 (2.77%) DNS
3 29 (2.68%) TCP/IP
4 22 (2.03%) Network Security
5 19 (1.75%) BGP
5 19 (1.75%) WAN
6 16 (1.48%) LAN
7 14 (1.29%) HTTP
8 13 (1.20%) OSPF
8 13 (1.20%) VLAN
9 11 (1.01%) Wireless
10 10 (0.92%) Cisco IOS
10 10 (0.92%) VPN
11 9 (0.83%) HTTPS
11 9 (0.83%) IPv4
11 9 (0.83%) SSH
12 8 (0.74%) Skype
12 8 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
13 7 (0.65%) SAN
13 7 (0.65%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (5.17%) PostgreSQL
2 51 (4.70%) SQL Server
3 50 (4.61%) Power BI
3 50 (4.61%) Relational Database
4 43 (3.97%) Data Warehouse
5 38 (3.51%) Big Data
6 31 (2.86%) NoSQL
7 29 (2.68%) MySQL
8 23 (2.12%) Metadata
9 22 (2.03%) Hadoop
10 21 (1.94%) Tableau
11 20 (1.85%) MongoDB
12 15 (1.38%) Data Lake
13 14 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (1.11%) Redis
14 12 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.83%) Star Schema
17 7 (0.65%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 86 (7.93%) Git
2 71 (6.55%) JIRA
3 42 (3.87%) Jenkins
4 38 (3.51%) GitLab
5 28 (2.58%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.11%) MLflow
6 12 (1.11%) Selenium
7 10 (0.92%) Postman
8 9 (0.83%) Jaeger
9 8 (0.74%) Gradle
10 7 (0.65%) CircleCI
10 7 (0.65%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.65%) JUnit
10 7 (0.65%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.55%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.46%) Artifactory
13 4 (0.37%) Maven
13 4 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 4 (0.37%) Subversion
13 4 (0.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 454 (41.88%) Social Skills
2 259 (23.89%) Finance
3 238 (21.96%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (9.04%) Banking
5 71 (6.55%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.70%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.61%) Documentation Skills
8 46 (4.24%) Marketing
9 36 (3.32%) Telecoms
10 35 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (3.23%) Legal
10 35 (3.23%) Presentation Skills
11 26 (2.40%) Organisational Skills
12 25 (2.31%) Electronics
12 25 (2.31%) Front Office
13 24 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 24 (2.21%) Manufacturing
14 21 (1.94%) Investment Banking
15 19 (1.75%) Financial Institution
16 17 (1.57%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 135 (12.45%) Developer
2 113 (10.42%) Architect
3 92 (8.49%) Lead
4 82 (7.56%) Analyst
5 79 (7.29%) Senior
6 40 (3.69%) Software Engineer
6 40 (3.69%) Solutions Architect
7 38 (3.51%) Data Scientist
7 38 (3.51%) Delivery Manager
8 35 (3.23%) Product Manager
9 29 (2.68%) Technical Support
10 28 (2.58%) Product Delivery Manager
11 27 (2.49%) Data Engineer
12 25 (2.31%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 25 (2.31%) Python Developer
13 24 (2.21%) Java Developer
14 23 (2.12%) Consultant
14 23 (2.12%) Full-Stack Engineer
15 22 (2.03%) Project Manager
15 22 (2.03%) Systems Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (7.93%) REST
2 59 (5.44%) .NET
3 52 (4.80%) React
4 46 (4.24%) Kafka
5 44 (4.06%) RESTful
6 39 (3.60%) Middleware
7 35 (3.23%) PyTorch
7 35 (3.23%) Spring Boot
8 32 (2.95%) JSON
9 31 (2.86%) Spring
10 30 (2.77%) XML
11 29 (2.68%) TensorFlow
12 26 (2.40%) OAuth
13 25 (2.31%) SOAP
14 22 (2.03%) Elastic Stack
14 22 (2.03%) HTML
15 21 (1.94%) LangChain
16 20 (1.85%) Pandas
17 16 (1.48%) AngularJS
17 16 (1.48%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 114 (10.52%) Management Information System
2 84 (7.75%) Algorithms
3 79 (7.29%) Product Ownership
4 74 (6.83%) Cloud Native
5 68 (6.27%) Onboarding
6 60 (5.54%) Data Structures
7 46 (4.24%) Distributed Systems
8 33 (3.04%) Virtual Team
9 27 (2.49%) Equities
10 25 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
11 23 (2.12%) AI Agents
12 22 (2.03%) Data Centre
13 21 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
14 20 (1.85%) Derivative
14 20 (1.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 20 (1.85%) Taxonomies
15 19 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
15 19 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
16 17 (1.57%) Distributed Computing
16 17 (1.57%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 143 (13.19%) Linux
2 127 (11.72%) Windows
3 46 (4.24%) Unix
4 23 (2.12%) Android
4 23 (2.12%) Mac OS
5 21 (1.94%) Windows Server
6 14 (1.29%) Windows 10
7 13 (1.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.46%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.46%) VMS
10 4 (0.37%) Debian
11 3 (0.28%) Rocky
12 2 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.092%) CentOS
13 1 (0.092%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.092%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.092%) MVS
13 1 (0.092%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 351 (32.38%) Problem-Solving
2 291 (26.85%) Agile
3 255 (23.52%) AI
4 210 (19.37%) CI/CD
5 203 (18.73%) DevOps
6 181 (16.70%) Software Engineering
7 163 (15.04%) Continuous Improvement
8 132 (12.18%) Analytics
9 126 (11.62%) Microservices
10 123 (11.35%) Cybersecurity
11 119 (10.98%) Machine Learning
11 119 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
12 107 (9.87%) Data Science
12 107 (9.87%) Mathematics
13 104 (9.59%) Containerisation
14 101 (9.32%) Data Governance
15 100 (9.23%) Data Modelling
16 99 (9.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 98 (9.04%) Decision-Making
18 94 (8.67%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 308 (28.41%) Python
2 203 (18.73%) SQL
3 134 (12.36%) Java
4 65 (6.00%) JavaScript
5 60 (5.54%) C#
6 55 (5.07%) PowerShell
7 40 (3.69%) TypeScript
8 39 (3.60%) Bash
9 33 (3.04%) C++
10 22 (2.03%) R
11 18 (1.66%) Go
12 14 (1.29%) Perl
13 13 (1.20%) Rust
14 11 (1.01%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.92%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.74%) Scala
17 7 (0.65%) C
17 7 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 5 (0.46%) Tcl
19 4 (0.37%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 898 (82.84%) Degree
2 551 (50.83%) Computer Science Degree
3 198 (18.27%) Security Cleared
4 170 (15.68%) Master's Degree
5 121 (11.16%) SC Cleared
6 63 (5.81%) CISSP
7 42 (3.87%) PhD
8 39 (3.60%) Azure Certification
8 39 (3.60%) CISM
9 34 (3.14%) PMI Certification
10 30 (2.77%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (2.68%) PMP
12 28 (2.58%) AWS Certification
13 27 (2.49%) TOGAF Certification
14 25 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
14 25 (2.31%) CompTIA Security+
15 24 (2.21%) DV Cleared
16 23 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
16 23 (2.12%) DBS Check
17 19 (1.75%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (5.81%) QA
2 55 (5.07%) NIST
3 52 (4.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 51 (4.70%) Data Quality
5 44 (4.06%) GDPR
6 20 (1.85%) PCI DSS
7 18 (1.66%) Accessibility
8 12 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.92%) GRC
9 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.74%) NCSC
10 8 (0.74%) SLA
11 7 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.65%) COBIT
11 7 (0.65%) DO-254
11 7 (0.65%) PSD2
12 6 (0.55%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 5 (0.46%) ISO 19650
13 5 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 121 (11.16%) Docker
2 70 (6.46%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.29%) Firmware
5 8 (0.74%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 2 (0.18%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.18%) Ceph
8 2 (0.18%) KVM
8 2 (0.18%) Squid
8 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.092%) ACF2
9 1 (0.092%) HDFS
9 1 (0.092%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.092%) RACF
9 1 (0.092%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 130 (11.99%) Kubernetes
2 73 (6.73%) Terraform
3 52 (4.80%) Ansible
4 35 (3.23%) Grafana
5 29 (2.68%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (1.29%) Puppet
8 13 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.92%) Kibana
10 9 (0.83%) Kiali
11 6 (0.55%) SCCM
12 4 (0.37%) Control-M
12 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.28%) Foglight
13 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.28%) SCOM
13 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.18%) logstash
Vendors
1 190 (17.53%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.63%) Oracle
3 51 (4.70%) Splunk
4 47 (4.34%) Databricks
5 46 (4.24%) SAP
6 41 (3.78%) Google
7 34 (3.14%) IBM
8 29 (2.68%) ServiceNow
9 27 (2.49%) VMware
10 23 (2.12%) Cisco
11 18 (1.66%) BiZZdesign
12 17 (1.57%) Informatica
12 17 (1.57%) Palo Alto
13 16 (1.48%) Okta
14 15 (1.38%) Salesforce
15 13 (1.20%) CheckPoint
15 13 (1.20%) CyberArk
16 12 (1.11%) Foundry
16 12 (1.11%) Software AG
17 11 (1.01%) MuleSoft