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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 69 61
Rank change year-on-year -69 -8 +24
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,085 1,196 1,303
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.99% 3.62% 3.38%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.35% 4.00% 3.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 607 667 806
10th Percentile £175 £184 £336
25th Percentile £196 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £480 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.25% -12.73% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £688
90th Percentile £754 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -11.76% -19.05% +0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 48 47
10th Percentile £24.40 £25.88 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £48.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.25% -3.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £83.00 £67.13 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £63.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +6.30% +18.14% -10.42%

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 46,202 29,871 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.62% 90.47% 85.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,118 18,549 20,447
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,059 1,786 1,512
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.71
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.09
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.76% -47.37% +8.72%

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 11 September 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 11 September 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 11 September 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 -58 986 £473 -3.86% 1,749
UK excluding London -54 563 £375 -11.76% 833
London -72 447 £525 -4.55% 1,107
Work from Home -81 252 £500 +4.44% 750
South East -9 216 £400 -0.50% 274
North of England -49 144 £450 +5.88% 126
Midlands -59 89 £225 -49.66% 98
Yorkshire -20 71 £450 +17.19% 33
North West -42 62 £497 +7.02% 69
West Midlands -57 58 £215 -49.47% 54
East of England -31 51 £200 -60.40% 106
East Midlands -21 30 £230 -48.55% 44
Scotland -52 28 £380 -17.57% 57
South West -75 27 £338 +72.41% 132
North East -40 12 £195 -57.84% 25
Northern Ireland +5 6 £175 - 28
Wales -20 4 £530 +14.59% 21

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 42 (3.87%) Confluence
2 33 (3.04%) SharePoint
3 25 (2.30%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.84%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.47%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Camunda
6 9 (0.83%) IIS
7 8 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.46%) CMS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
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 (0.092%) CICS
12 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.96%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Aladdin
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 (0.092%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.092%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.092%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 303 (27.93%) Azure
2 199 (18.34%) AWS
3 116 (10.69%) GCP
4 74 (6.82%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.71%) Microsoft 365
6 61 (5.62%) Entra ID
7 55 (5.07%) GitHub
8 49 (4.52%) SaaS
9 47 (4.33%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.32%) Serverless
11 32 (2.95%) Snowflake
12 25 (2.30%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.94%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.84%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
14 20 (1.84%) Microsoft Copilot
15 19 (1.75%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.47%) Dynamics 365
17 15 (1.38%) Amazon EKS
18 14 (1.29%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.96%) DNS
1 43 (3.96%) Firewall
2 34 (3.13%) Network Security
3 33 (3.04%) VPN
4 26 (2.40%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.94%) DHCP
6 17 (1.57%) SSH
7 14 (1.29%) WAN
8 13 (1.20%) Wireshark
9 12 (1.11%) LAN
10 11 (1.01%) 3GPP
10 11 (1.01%) 5G
10 11 (1.01%) HTTP
10 11 (1.01%) Wireless
11 10 (0.92%) BGP
11 10 (0.92%) MPLS
12 9 (0.83%) VLAN
13 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
13 8 (0.74%) OSPF
14 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (5.35%) Power BI
2 54 (4.98%) Relational Database
2 54 (4.98%) SQL Server
3 51 (4.70%) PostgreSQL
4 42 (3.87%) Metadata
5 28 (2.58%) MongoDB
6 27 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (2.21%) NoSQL
8 21 (1.94%) Elasticsearch
8 21 (1.94%) MySQL
9 20 (1.84%) Big Data
10 15 (1.38%) Data Mining
10 15 (1.38%) Tableau
11 13 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (1.20%) Redis
12 11 (1.01%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.92%) Data Lake
14 9 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
15 7 (0.65%) Power Query
16 6 (0.55%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 95 (8.76%) Git
2 52 (4.79%) JIRA
3 48 (4.42%) Jenkins
4 46 (4.24%) GitLab
5 20 (1.84%) JUnit
6 17 (1.57%) Gradle
6 17 (1.57%) Maven
6 17 (1.57%) Selenium
7 16 (1.47%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.20%) Mockito
8 13 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
9 12 (1.11%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.92%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.92%) SpecFlow
11 9 (0.83%) Cucumber
12 8 (0.74%) Bitbucket Server
12 8 (0.74%) Rational DOORS
12 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.55%) Postman
13 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 453 (41.75%) Social Skills
2 239 (22.03%) Analytical Skills
3 238 (21.94%) Finance
4 93 (8.57%) Banking
5 64 (5.90%) Public Sector
6 53 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (4.15%) Aerospace
7 45 (4.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 40 (3.69%) Telecoms
9 37 (3.41%) Manufacturing
10 34 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
11 29 (2.67%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (2.30%) Marketing
13 24 (2.21%) Front Office
14 22 (2.03%) Legal
15 19 (1.75%) Military
16 18 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
17 16 (1.47%) Retail
18 14 (1.29%) Law
19 13 (1.20%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 150 (13.82%) Developer
2 111 (10.23%) Senior
3 87 (8.02%) Architect
4 80 (7.37%) Lead
5 79 (7.28%) Analyst
6 39 (3.59%) Data Engineer
7 32 (2.95%) Software Engineer
8 31 (2.86%) Java Developer
9 27 (2.49%) IT Support
10 25 (2.30%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 25 (2.30%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.21%) Full-Stack Developer
11 24 (2.21%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.12%) Data Scientist
13 22 (2.03%) Junior
13 22 (2.03%) Solutions Architect
14 21 (1.94%) C# Developer
14 21 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 21 (1.94%) Python Developer
15 20 (1.84%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 98 (9.03%) REST
2 63 (5.81%) Terraform
3 62 (5.71%) React
4 59 (5.44%) .NET
5 55 (5.07%) HTML
5 55 (5.07%) Kafka
6 52 (4.79%) CSS
7 45 (4.15%) RESTful
8 35 (3.23%) Spring Boot
9 34 (3.13%) Spring
10 31 (2.86%) OAuth
11 27 (2.49%) Web Services
12 26 (2.40%) OAuth2
13 25 (2.30%) SOAP
14 24 (2.21%) OpenID
15 23 (2.12%) JSON
16 22 (2.03%) AngularJS
16 22 (2.03%) SAML
17 21 (1.94%) .NET Core
17 21 (1.94%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 116 (10.69%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.37%) Algorithms
3 76 (7.00%) Cloud Native
4 73 (6.73%) Onboarding
5 60 (5.53%) Product Ownership
6 56 (5.16%) Data Structures
7 50 (4.61%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (2.95%) AI Agents
9 28 (2.58%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
10 25 (2.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 24 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.94%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (1.66%) Derivative
14 17 (1.57%) Data Centre
15 16 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
16 14 (1.29%) Fixed Income
17 13 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
17 13 (1.20%) Equities
17 13 (1.20%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 127 (11.71%) Windows
2 114 (10.51%) Linux
3 31 (2.86%) Unix
3 31 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 20 (1.84%) Windows 10
5 19 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.29%) Android
7 10 (0.92%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.65%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Debian
11 3 (0.28%) Rocky
11 3 (0.28%) zOS
12 2 (0.18%) CentOS
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 334 (30.78%) Problem-Solving
2 267 (24.61%) Agile
3 229 (21.11%) AI
4 215 (19.82%) CI/CD
5 188 (17.33%) Software Engineering
6 184 (16.96%) Continuous Improvement
7 182 (16.77%) DevOps
8 167 (15.39%) Stakeholder Management
9 150 (13.82%) Analytics
10 121 (11.15%) ITIL
11 114 (10.51%) Cybersecurity
12 106 (9.77%) Mathematics
13 103 (9.49%) Roadmaps
14 102 (9.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 99 (9.12%) Machine Learning
16 98 (9.03%) Scrum
17 95 (8.76%) Test Automation
18 94 (8.66%) Validation
19 89 (8.20%) Mentoring
20 81 (7.47%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 292 (26.91%) Python
2 213 (19.63%) SQL
3 143 (13.18%) Java
4 92 (8.48%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.28%) PowerShell
6 70 (6.45%) C#
7 45 (4.15%) Bash
8 40 (3.69%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.76%) C++
10 17 (1.57%) Bicep
11 14 (1.29%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.11%) R
13 11 (1.01%) C
14 9 (0.83%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.83%) Scala
15 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.65%) Go
15 7 (0.65%) Perl
16 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 826 (76.13%) Degree
2 497 (45.81%) Computer Science Degree
3 188 (17.33%) Security Cleared
4 137 (12.63%) SC Cleared
5 113 (10.41%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.70%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.42%) CISSP
8 47 (4.33%) Microsoft Certification
9 43 (3.96%) DBS Check
10 37 (3.41%) PhD
11 31 (2.86%) CISM
12 30 (2.76%) DV Cleared
13 28 (2.58%) AWS Certification
14 25 (2.30%) PMI Certification
14 25 (2.30%) PMP
15 24 (2.21%) TOGAF Certification
16 23 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
17 20 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
18 19 (1.75%) CISA
19 15 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.45%) Data Quality
2 62 (5.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 60 (5.53%) QA
4 51 (4.70%) NIST
5 24 (2.21%) GDPR
6 17 (1.57%) SLA
7 16 (1.47%) Accessibility
8 15 (1.38%) GRC
9 11 (1.01%) HIPAA
9 11 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 9 (0.83%) NCSC
11 9 (0.83%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.65%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.46%) ITGC
13 5 (0.46%) PMO
14 4 (0.37%) COBIT
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 9001
15 3 (0.28%) HL7
System Software
1 87 (8.02%) Docker
2 76 (7.00%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.83%) Firmware
5 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.37%) RACF
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) ACF2
8 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) ISA Server
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.092%) KVM
10 1 (0.092%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 102 (9.40%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.69%) Ansible
3 28 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (2.03%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.66%) Grafana
6 14 (1.29%) SCCM
7 11 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) CASB
9 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) Control-M
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) QRadar
Vendors
1 214 (19.72%) Microsoft
2 74 (6.82%) Oracle
3 47 (4.33%) Google
4 38 (3.50%) Databricks
5 37 (3.41%) VMware
6 36 (3.32%) ServiceNow
7 35 (3.23%) IBM
8 33 (3.04%) SAP
9 27 (2.49%) Cisco
10 24 (2.21%) Splunk
11 20 (1.84%) CyberArk
11 20 (1.84%) Salesforce
12 18 (1.66%) BeyondTrust
13 14 (1.29%) Red Hat
14 13 (1.20%) Adobe
15 12 (1.11%) OpenAI
16 10 (0.92%) Citrix
16 10 (0.92%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.92%) Foundry
17 9 (0.83%) Veracode