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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 64 63
Rank change year-on-year -68 -1 +33
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,032 1,133 1,380
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 3.74% 3.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 4.10% 3.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 589 630 824
10th Percentile £178 £240 £315
25th Percentile £218 £363 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -5.66% -3.64%
75th Percentile £644 £663 £661
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £397 £450 £517
% change year-on-year -11.81% -12.96% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 38 105
10th Percentile £26.25 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £38.50 £28.56 £38.75
Median hourly rate £75.00 £30.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +145.90% -44.55% -
75th Percentile £88.00 £66.44 £65.00
90th Percentile - £84.47 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.75 £30.32 £55.00
% change year-on-year +169.62% -44.87% +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 43,335 27,616 36,962
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 91.08% 85.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,981 17,460 23,548
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.98% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,593 1,327 2,546
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.72
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.77 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.83 £38.12
% change year-on-year +79.22% -34.86% +8.91%

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 27 June 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 27 June 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 27 June 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 -55 922 £475 -6.63% 731
UK excluding London -53 556 £397 -11.81% 489
London -59 401 £550 -8.33% 340
Work from Home -78 235 £500 -9.09% 268
South East -9 227 £215 -55.26% 171
North of England -30 132 £400 -15.79% 92
Yorkshire +8 78 £525 +22.38% 17
Midlands -76 67 £450 +46.82% 89
North West -54 52 £350 -26.32% 48
West Midlands -70 52 £450 +50.00% 49
East of England -33 41 £308 -52.69% 53
Scotland -27 38 £630 +26.00% 16
South West -58 38 £469 +95.42% 57
East Midlands -29 14 £528 +56.30% 40
Wales -30 9 £530 +82.76% 9
Northern Ireland +7 7 £350 -41.67% 24
North East -38 3 £160 -66.32% 27

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 47 (4.55%) Confluence
2 36 (3.49%) Apache Spark
3 28 (2.71%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.13%) Apache Airflow
5 21 (2.03%) Apache
6 9 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.58%) IIS
8 5 (0.48%) SAS
9 3 (0.29%) Camunda
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.097%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.097%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.097%) WebSphere
Applications
1 36 (3.49%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.74%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.097%) Sketch
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 19 (1.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.39%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.19%) Workfront
5 1 (0.097%) Actimize
5 1 (0.097%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.097%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.097%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.097%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.097%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.097%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.097%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.097%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.097%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 311 (30.14%) Azure
2 193 (18.70%) AWS
3 95 (9.21%) GCP
4 70 (6.78%) Power Platform
5 57 (5.52%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (5.04%) Entra ID
7 44 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
7 44 (4.26%) GitHub
7 44 (4.26%) SaaS
8 25 (2.42%) Snowflake
9 24 (2.33%) Serverless
10 22 (2.13%) PowerApps
11 21 (2.03%) GitHub Actions
12 18 (1.74%) AWS CloudFormation
13 16 (1.55%) Azure AKS
14 15 (1.45%) Power Automate
15 14 (1.36%) Azure Data Factory
16 13 (1.26%) AWS Lambda
16 13 (1.26%) IaaS
17 12 (1.16%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 36 (3.49%) Firewall
2 31 (3.00%) Network Security
3 25 (2.42%) DNS
4 24 (2.33%) TCP/IP
5 16 (1.55%) VPN
6 15 (1.45%) BGP
6 15 (1.45%) WAN
7 12 (1.16%) LAN
7 12 (1.16%) OSPF
7 12 (1.16%) SSH
8 10 (0.97%) HTTPS
8 10 (0.97%) VLAN
9 8 (0.78%) 3GPP
9 8 (0.78%) Wireless
10 7 (0.68%) MPLS
11 6 (0.58%) Cisco ASA
11 6 (0.58%) DHCP
11 6 (0.58%) IPsec
12 5 (0.48%) Cisco Nexus
12 5 (0.48%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (5.52%) Power BI
2 51 (4.94%) SQL Server
3 49 (4.75%) PostgreSQL
4 48 (4.65%) Relational Database
5 35 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (3.20%) Big Data
7 32 (3.10%) Metadata
8 27 (2.62%) NoSQL
9 26 (2.52%) MongoDB
10 23 (2.23%) MySQL
11 21 (2.03%) Hadoop
12 18 (1.74%) Data Lake
12 18 (1.74%) Tableau
13 11 (1.07%) Snowflake Schema
14 10 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.97%) Elasticsearch
15 9 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 8 (0.78%) Data Mining
16 8 (0.78%) Redis
16 8 (0.78%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 80 (7.75%) Git
2 59 (5.72%) JIRA
3 40 (3.88%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.29%) GitLab
5 28 (2.71%) Rational DOORS
6 15 (1.45%) Selenium
7 10 (0.97%) Gradle
7 10 (0.97%) JUnit
8 8 (0.78%) MLflow
8 8 (0.78%) Postman
8 8 (0.78%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.68%) Maven
9 7 (0.68%) REST Assured
10 6 (0.58%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.58%) Cucumber
10 6 (0.58%) Visual Studio
11 5 (0.48%) Flyway
11 5 (0.48%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.48%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 420 (40.70%) Social Skills
2 238 (23.06%) Finance
3 221 (21.41%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (8.62%) Banking
5 66 (6.40%) Public Sector
6 56 (5.43%) Aerospace
7 53 (5.14%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.20%) Telecoms
9 32 (3.10%) Organisational Skills
10 31 (3.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (3.00%) Marketing
11 28 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
12 27 (2.62%) Presentation Skills
13 25 (2.42%) Front Office
14 22 (2.13%) Legal
15 20 (1.94%) Manufacturing
16 16 (1.55%) Law
16 16 (1.55%) Retail
17 14 (1.36%) Publishing
18 12 (1.16%) Military
Job Titles
1 116 (11.24%) Developer
2 111 (10.76%) Architect
3 83 (8.04%) Senior
4 82 (7.95%) Lead
5 80 (7.75%) Analyst
6 37 (3.59%) Software Engineer
7 36 (3.49%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.29%) Delivery Manager
9 32 (3.10%) Solutions Architect
10 31 (3.00%) Data Scientist
11 30 (2.91%) Data Engineer
12 28 (2.71%) Product Delivery Manager
13 26 (2.52%) Technical Support
14 24 (2.33%) Security Engineer
15 22 (2.13%) Junior
15 22 (2.13%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 22 (2.13%) Systems Manager
16 21 (2.03%) IT Support
16 21 (2.03%) Python Developer
17 20 (1.94%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 81 (7.85%) REST
2 61 (5.91%) React
3 53 (5.14%) .NET
4 42 (4.07%) Kafka
5 37 (3.59%) Middleware
6 36 (3.49%) RESTful
7 32 (3.10%) Spring
7 32 (3.10%) Spring Boot
8 27 (2.62%) OAuth
9 23 (2.23%) AngularJS
10 20 (1.94%) HTML
10 20 (1.94%) JSON
11 19 (1.84%) PyTorch
11 19 (1.84%) SAML
12 18 (1.74%) CSS
12 18 (1.74%) SOAP
12 18 (1.74%) Web Services
13 17 (1.65%) OAuth2
13 17 (1.65%) OpenID
14 16 (1.55%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 102 (9.88%) Management Information System
2 84 (8.14%) Product Ownership
3 81 (7.85%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.88%) Algorithms
5 69 (6.69%) Cloud Native
6 52 (5.04%) Data Structures
7 48 (4.65%) Distributed Systems
8 27 (2.62%) Virtual Team
9 24 (2.33%) Derivative
10 23 (2.23%) Self-Motivation
11 22 (2.13%) AI Agents
12 21 (2.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.94%) Equities
14 17 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
14 17 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
14 17 (1.65%) Taxonomies
15 16 (1.55%) Data Centre
15 16 (1.55%) Fixed Income
15 16 (1.55%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 130 (12.60%) Windows
2 114 (11.05%) Linux
3 43 (4.17%) Unix
4 21 (2.03%) Android
5 20 (1.94%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.74%) Windows Server
7 14 (1.36%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.16%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.68%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.48%) VMS
11 4 (0.39%) Debian
11 4 (0.39%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.097%) CentOS
13 1 (0.097%) MVS
13 1 (0.097%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 307 (29.75%) Problem-Solving
2 276 (26.74%) Agile
3 232 (22.48%) AI
4 189 (18.31%) CI/CD
5 177 (17.15%) Continuous Improvement
6 174 (16.86%) DevOps
7 168 (16.28%) Software Engineering
8 138 (13.37%) Analytics
9 120 (11.63%) Cybersecurity
10 112 (10.85%) Stakeholder Management
11 109 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 104 (10.08%) Microservices
13 102 (9.88%) ITIL
14 101 (9.79%) Machine Learning
15 99 (9.59%) Mathematics
16 96 (9.30%) Decision-Making
17 95 (9.21%) Data Science
18 88 (8.53%) Containerisation
18 88 (8.53%) Data Governance
19 87 (8.43%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 288 (27.91%) Python
2 208 (20.16%) SQL
3 125 (12.11%) Java
4 70 (6.78%) JavaScript
5 58 (5.62%) C#
6 48 (4.65%) PowerShell
7 32 (3.10%) TypeScript
8 23 (2.23%) Bash
9 21 (2.03%) C++
10 19 (1.84%) R
11 13 (1.26%) Go
12 11 (1.07%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.97%) Perl
14 8 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.78%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.68%) Rust
15 7 (0.68%) Scala
16 5 (0.48%) Bicep
17 4 (0.39%) Ada
17 4 (0.39%) C
Qualifications
1 813 (78.78%) Degree
2 484 (46.90%) Computer Science Degree
3 197 (19.09%) Security Cleared
4 132 (12.79%) Master's Degree
5 123 (11.92%) SC Cleared
6 58 (5.62%) CISSP
7 37 (3.59%) CISM
8 36 (3.49%) Microsoft Certification
9 33 (3.20%) Azure Certification
10 31 (3.00%) PhD
11 28 (2.71%) TOGAF Certification
12 27 (2.62%) PMI Certification
13 26 (2.52%) AWS Certification
14 25 (2.42%) DV Cleared
15 24 (2.33%) PMP
16 22 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
17 20 (1.94%) DBS Check
18 19 (1.84%) CISA
19 15 (1.45%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (6.20%) NIST
3 61 (5.91%) Data Quality
4 52 (5.04%) QA
5 36 (3.49%) GDPR
6 20 (1.94%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.65%) Accessibility
7 17 (1.65%) GRC
8 15 (1.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (1.16%) NCSC
9 12 (1.16%) SLA
10 11 (1.07%) HIPAA
11 10 (0.97%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.68%) COBIT
12 7 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.48%) DO-254
14 5 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.48%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 95 (9.21%) Docker
2 78 (7.56%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.87%) Firmware
5 8 (0.78%) Hyper-V
5 8 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.68%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.39%) vSphere
8 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.097%) ACF2
10 1 (0.097%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.097%) HDFS
10 1 (0.097%) KVM
10 1 (0.097%) RACF
Systems Management
1 117 (11.34%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.43%) Terraform
3 39 (3.78%) Ansible
4 28 (2.71%) Prometheus
5 27 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
6 26 (2.52%) Grafana
7 15 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.48%) Puppet
9 4 (0.39%) Kiali
9 4 (0.39%) Kibana
9 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.29%) Control-M
10 3 (0.29%) Foglight
10 3 (0.29%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
10 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.19%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 2 (0.19%) SCCM
11 2 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 182 (17.64%) Microsoft
2 68 (6.59%) Oracle
3 49 (4.75%) Databricks
4 37 (3.59%) Google
5 35 (3.39%) IBM
6 33 (3.20%) ServiceNow
7 31 (3.00%) SAP
8 28 (2.71%) Splunk
9 25 (2.42%) VMware
10 18 (1.74%) Cisco
11 16 (1.55%) CyberArk
11 16 (1.55%) Okta
12 15 (1.45%) BeyondTrust
12 15 (1.45%) Informatica
12 15 (1.45%) Palo Alto
13 14 (1.36%) BiZZdesign
14 11 (1.07%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.07%) Salesforce
15 9 (0.87%) Citrix
15 9 (0.87%) Foundry