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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 65 63
Rank change year-on-year -52 -2 +44
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,047 1,047 1,337
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.14% 3.65% 3.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.54% 4.01% 3.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 607 591 813
10th Percentile £178 £240 £313
25th Percentile £218 £384 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.94% -3.81% -8.30%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -18.42% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 31 103
10th Percentile £27.09 £25.00 £21.35
25th Percentile £41.71 £28.71 £38.75
Median hourly rate £80.71 £44.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +81.36% -19.09% +1.04%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.13 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.96 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £41.25 £55.00
% change year-on-year +101.21% -25.00% +10.00%

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 41,286 26,078 36,653
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.54% 91.02% 85.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,818 16,706 23,627
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.19% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,472 1,084 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.08 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.28 £27.52 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.64% -23.57% -1.09%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.84 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.19 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -32.93% +7.14%

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 28 May 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 28 May 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 28 May 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 -42 938 £465 -11.05% 929
UK excluding London -45 557 £388 -18.42% 603
London -53 408 £550 -8.33% 436
Work from Home -65 229 £500 -9.09% 365
South East -8 217 £215 -55.26% 210
North of England -29 132 £400 -21.95% 111
Yorkshire -10 78 £514 +24.15% 26
Midlands -65 73 £456 +60.65% 69
West Midlands -63 56 £450 +54.11% 43
North West -34 53 £350 -35.66% 63
South West -37 47 £469 +26.76% 69
Scotland -17 39 £610 +13.49% 37
East of England -34 38 £280 -56.92% 84
East Midlands -34 16 £525 +110.00% 26
Northern Ireland +10 8 £350 -41.67% 26
Wales -36 6 £358 +23.28% 11
North East -31 2 £125 -73.68% 23

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 52 (4.97%) Confluence
2 39 (3.72%) Apache Spark
3 27 (2.58%) SharePoint
4 23 (2.20%) Apache
5 20 (1.91%) Apache Airflow
6 10 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) Camunda
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.096%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.096%) Apache Solr
Applications
1 33 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.53%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.19%) Simulink
7 2 (0.19%) Trello
8 1 (0.096%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.096%) Sketch
8 1 (0.096%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 23 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.096%) Actimize
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.096%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.096%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.096%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 299 (28.56%) Azure
2 189 (18.05%) AWS
3 79 (7.55%) GCP
4 63 (6.02%) Power Platform
5 53 (5.06%) Microsoft 365
6 48 (4.58%) SaaS
7 47 (4.49%) GitHub
8 44 (4.20%) Entra ID
9 35 (3.34%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (2.01%) Snowflake
11 20 (1.91%) GitHub Actions
12 19 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
13 17 (1.62%) Azure AKS
13 17 (1.62%) IaaS
13 17 (1.62%) Serverless
14 16 (1.53%) PowerApps
15 13 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
15 13 (1.24%) Azure Service Bus
15 13 (1.24%) PaaS
16 11 (1.05%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.53%) Firewall
2 30 (2.87%) TCP/IP
3 29 (2.77%) DNS
4 26 (2.48%) Network Security
5 15 (1.43%) WAN
6 13 (1.24%) BGP
7 12 (1.15%) LAN
8 11 (1.05%) SSH
9 10 (0.96%) OSPF
10 9 (0.86%) 3GPP
11 8 (0.76%) HTTPS
11 8 (0.76%) VPN
11 8 (0.76%) Wireless
12 7 (0.67%) SAN
12 7 (0.67%) VLAN
13 6 (0.57%) DHCP
13 6 (0.57%) LTE
14 5 (0.48%) RTP
14 5 (0.48%) Wireshark
15 4 (0.38%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (4.87%) Power BI
1 51 (4.87%) SQL Server
2 49 (4.68%) Relational Database
3 46 (4.39%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (3.72%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (3.25%) Big Data
6 27 (2.58%) Metadata
6 27 (2.58%) NoSQL
7 23 (2.20%) MongoDB
7 23 (2.20%) MySQL
8 21 (2.01%) Hadoop
9 19 (1.81%) Tableau
10 15 (1.43%) Elasticsearch
11 14 (1.34%) Data Lake
12 10 (0.96%) Redis
12 10 (0.96%) Snowflake Schema
12 10 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
13 8 (0.76%) Power Query
14 7 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 74 (7.07%) Git
2 66 (6.30%) JIRA
3 35 (3.34%) GitLab
4 34 (3.25%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.67%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.15%) Gradle
7 11 (1.05%) JUnit
7 11 (1.05%) Selenium
8 10 (0.96%) MLflow
8 10 (0.96%) TeamCity
9 9 (0.86%) Jaeger
10 7 (0.67%) CircleCI
10 7 (0.67%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.67%) Maven
10 7 (0.67%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.57%) Postman
12 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.48%) Flyway
13 4 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.38%) REST Assured
General
1 420 (40.11%) Social Skills
2 238 (22.73%) Finance
3 209 (19.96%) Analytical Skills
4 93 (8.88%) Banking
5 58 (5.54%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.25%) Aerospace
7 49 (4.68%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (3.06%) Marketing
8 32 (3.06%) Telecoms
9 31 (2.96%) Presentation Skills
10 28 (2.67%) Legal
10 28 (2.67%) Organisational Skills
11 26 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 25 (2.39%) Front Office
13 24 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
14 18 (1.72%) Manufacturing
15 16 (1.53%) Investment Banking
15 16 (1.53%) Publishing
16 15 (1.43%) Financial Institution
17 14 (1.34%) Retail
Job Titles
1 109 (10.41%) Architect
2 106 (10.12%) Developer
3 90 (8.60%) Analyst
4 85 (8.12%) Senior
5 84 (8.02%) Lead
6 41 (3.92%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.53%) Delivery Manager
8 35 (3.34%) Product Manager
9 33 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
10 31 (2.96%) Technical Support
11 30 (2.87%) Data Scientist
12 29 (2.77%) Data Engineer
13 28 (2.67%) Product Delivery Manager
14 24 (2.29%) Python Developer
15 23 (2.20%) Full-Stack Engineer
15 23 (2.20%) Junior
16 22 (2.10%) Security Engineer
16 22 (2.10%) Systems Delivery Manager
16 22 (2.10%) Systems Manager
17 18 (1.72%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (8.40%) REST
2 57 (5.44%) React
3 55 (5.25%) .NET
4 46 (4.39%) Kafka
5 44 (4.20%) Middleware
6 35 (3.34%) RESTful
7 34 (3.25%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.77%) Spring
9 28 (2.67%) PyTorch
10 23 (2.20%) AngularJS
11 22 (2.10%) OAuth
12 21 (2.01%) SOAP
12 21 (2.01%) TensorFlow
13 20 (1.91%) Elastic Stack
14 19 (1.81%) JSON
15 18 (1.72%) CSS
15 18 (1.72%) HTML
15 18 (1.72%) XML
16 17 (1.62%) Pandas
17 16 (1.53%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (9.46%) Management Information System
2 79 (7.55%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.26%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.78%) Algorithms
5 67 (6.40%) Cloud Native
6 52 (4.97%) Data Structures
7 50 (4.78%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.96%) Virtual Team
9 26 (2.48%) Derivative
10 25 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
11 21 (2.01%) Equities
12 20 (1.91%) AI Agents
12 20 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
12 20 (1.91%) Taxonomies
13 19 (1.81%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 18 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (1.72%) Security Operations Centre
15 17 (1.62%) Cyberattack
16 16 (1.53%) Robotics
17 14 (1.34%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 133 (12.70%) Linux
2 132 (12.61%) Windows
3 45 (4.30%) Unix
4 23 (2.20%) Android
5 20 (1.91%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.72%) Windows Server
7 16 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (1.34%) Apple iOS
8 14 (1.34%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.48%) VMS
10 4 (0.38%) Debian
10 4 (0.38%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.096%) CentOS
12 1 (0.096%) MVS
12 1 (0.096%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 314 (29.99%) Problem-Solving
2 265 (25.31%) Agile
3 225 (21.49%) AI
4 194 (18.53%) CI/CD
5 182 (17.38%) DevOps
6 179 (17.10%) Software Engineering
7 168 (16.05%) Continuous Improvement
8 128 (12.23%) Analytics
9 121 (11.56%) Cybersecurity
10 115 (10.98%) Microservices
11 101 (9.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 99 (9.46%) Stakeholder Management
13 96 (9.17%) Decision-Making
13 96 (9.17%) Machine Learning
14 93 (8.88%) Technical Leadership
15 91 (8.69%) Containerisation
16 90 (8.60%) Mathematics
17 88 (8.40%) Data Modelling
17 88 (8.40%) Data Science
18 87 (8.31%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 285 (27.22%) Python
2 214 (20.44%) SQL
3 135 (12.89%) Java
4 68 (6.49%) JavaScript
5 59 (5.64%) C#
6 47 (4.49%) PowerShell
7 34 (3.25%) TypeScript
8 30 (2.87%) Bash
9 29 (2.77%) C++
10 21 (2.01%) R
11 14 (1.34%) Go
11 14 (1.34%) Perl
12 12 (1.15%) Rust
13 11 (1.05%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.96%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.57%) Scala
17 5 (0.48%) C
18 4 (0.38%) Ada
19 3 (0.29%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 836 (79.85%) Degree
2 505 (48.23%) Computer Science Degree
3 189 (18.05%) Security Cleared
4 143 (13.66%) Master's Degree
5 112 (10.70%) SC Cleared
6 56 (5.35%) CISSP
7 38 (3.63%) CISM
8 35 (3.34%) PhD
9 33 (3.15%) Azure Certification
10 31 (2.96%) TOGAF Certification
11 29 (2.77%) DV Cleared
12 28 (2.67%) Microsoft Certification
13 26 (2.48%) PMI Certification
14 23 (2.20%) PMP
15 22 (2.10%) CompTIA Security+
16 21 (2.01%) AWS Certification
16 21 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
17 20 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
18 19 (1.81%) CISA
18 19 (1.81%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (5.44%) QA
2 56 (5.35%) Data Quality
2 56 (5.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (5.35%) NIST
3 37 (3.53%) GDPR
4 20 (1.91%) PCI DSS
5 19 (1.81%) Accessibility
6 13 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 12 (1.15%) GRC
8 10 (0.96%) NIST 800
8 10 (0.96%) SLA
9 8 (0.76%) NCSC
10 7 (0.67%) COBIT
10 7 (0.67%) HIPAA
10 7 (0.67%) PSD2
11 6 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (0.57%) ISO 19650
11 6 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 5 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 107 (10.22%) Docker
2 68 (6.49%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.15%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.38%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) KVM
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.096%) ACF2
11 1 (0.096%) HDFS
11 1 (0.096%) RACF
Systems Management
1 127 (12.13%) Kubernetes
2 63 (6.02%) Terraform
3 48 (4.58%) Ansible
4 32 (3.06%) Grafana
5 30 (2.87%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.96%) Puppet
9 9 (0.86%) Kiali
9 9 (0.86%) Kibana
10 4 (0.38%) Control-M
10 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Foglight
11 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.29%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.19%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 177 (16.91%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.30%) Oracle
3 49 (4.68%) Splunk
4 48 (4.58%) Databricks
5 36 (3.44%) Google
6 35 (3.34%) SAP
7 33 (3.15%) IBM
8 28 (2.67%) ServiceNow
9 24 (2.29%) VMware
10 18 (1.72%) Cisco
11 16 (1.53%) BiZZdesign
11 16 (1.53%) Informatica
11 16 (1.53%) Okta
12 13 (1.24%) Palo Alto
12 13 (1.24%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.15%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.05%) CyberArk
15 10 (0.96%) MuleSoft
15 10 (0.96%) Software AG
16 9 (0.86%) BeyondTrust