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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 105 65 69
Rank change year-on-year -40 +4 +53
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,084 1,009 1,246
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.36% 3.45% 2.83%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.77% 3.81% 3.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 650 586 772
10th Percentile £175 £250 £316
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 £655 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £788 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -20.00% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 32 90
10th Percentile £26.75 £27.21 £22.33
25th Percentile £55.00 £30.78 £41.56
Median hourly rate £83.00 £43.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.71% -20.45% +4.76%
75th Percentile £88.00 £64.31 £65.94
90th Percentile - £82.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +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 39,137 26,475 37,986
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.32% 90.62% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,793 17,183 24,611
10th Percentile £315 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.05% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,316 1,000 2,387
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £19.34 £19.25 £16.00
Median hourly rate £36.71 £31.04 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +18.27% -6.12% -8.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.28 £70.43
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.71 £29.23 £33.07
% change year-on-year +25.59% -11.60% -7.64%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -33 953 £500 -4.76% 826
UK excluding London -37 545 £400 -20.00% 618
London -42 436 £550 -8.33% 330
Work from Home -44 255 £500 -9.26% 306
South East -12 181 £400 -20.00% 227
North of England -24 146 £379 -28.67% 115
Yorkshire -9 75 £520 +25.48% 35
Midlands -61 74 £447 +67.42% 84
North West -14 68 £356 -35.39% 59
West Midlands -63 57 £426 +118.46% 51
South West -38 48 £485 +21.25% 56
East of England -33 42 £280 -56.92% 91
Scotland +3 37 £610 +16.19% 34
East Midlands -33 17 £447 +25.56% 33
Wales -20 15 £160 -42.34% 19
Northern Ireland -1 6 £350 -41.67% 9
North East -18 4 £216 -57.95% 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 52 (4.80%) Confluence
2 42 (3.87%) Apache Spark
3 25 (2.31%) SharePoint
4 18 (1.66%) Apache
5 17 (1.57%) Microsoft Exchange
6 16 (1.48%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.46%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.28%) SAS
10 2 (0.18%) CMS
10 2 (0.18%) IIS
10 2 (0.18%) nginx
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.18%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.092%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.092%) Appian
11 1 (0.092%) Camunda
Applications
1 35 (3.23%) Microsoft Office
2 17 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.11%) MS Visio
5 6 (0.55%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.37%) Simulink
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
8 1 (0.092%) Navisworks
8 1 (0.092%) Revit
Business Applications
1 23 (2.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.37%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.092%) Actimize
7 1 (0.092%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.092%) Maximo
7 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
7 1 (0.092%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.092%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.092%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 310 (28.60%) Azure
2 193 (17.80%) AWS
3 97 (8.95%) GCP
4 67 (6.18%) Power Platform
5 60 (5.54%) GitHub
6 53 (4.89%) Microsoft 365
6 53 (4.89%) SaaS
7 44 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
8 38 (3.51%) Entra ID
9 26 (2.40%) Serverless
10 24 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
11 23 (2.12%) IaaS
11 23 (2.12%) Snowflake
12 21 (1.94%) AWS CloudFormation
13 20 (1.85%) Azure Data Factory
14 18 (1.66%) Azure Machine Learning
14 18 (1.66%) Power Automate
14 18 (1.66%) PowerApps
15 16 (1.48%) Azure AKS
16 14 (1.29%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 51 (4.70%) Firewall
2 32 (2.95%) DNS
3 29 (2.68%) TCP/IP
4 20 (1.85%) Network Security
5 19 (1.75%) BGP
5 19 (1.75%) WAN
6 16 (1.48%) LAN
7 15 (1.38%) HTTP
8 13 (1.20%) OSPF
8 13 (1.20%) VLAN
9 11 (1.01%) VPN
9 11 (1.01%) Wireless
10 10 (0.92%) Cisco IOS
10 10 (0.92%) IPv4
11 9 (0.83%) HTTPS
11 9 (0.83%) SSH
12 8 (0.74%) DHCP
12 8 (0.74%) Skype
12 8 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
13 7 (0.65%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (5.63%) PostgreSQL
2 55 (5.07%) Relational Database
3 50 (4.61%) SQL Server
4 48 (4.43%) Power BI
5 43 (3.97%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (3.51%) Big Data
7 35 (3.23%) NoSQL
8 34 (3.14%) MySQL
9 22 (2.03%) Hadoop
10 21 (1.94%) Tableau
11 20 (1.85%) Metadata
11 20 (1.85%) MongoDB
12 16 (1.48%) 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 8 (0.74%) Star Schema
17 7 (0.65%) KDB
Development Applications
1 86 (7.93%) Git
2 74 (6.83%) JIRA
3 46 (4.24%) Jenkins
4 36 (3.32%) GitLab
5 28 (2.58%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.11%) MLflow
6 12 (1.11%) Selenium
7 11 (1.01%) 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
11 6 (0.55%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.55%) TeamCity
12 5 (0.46%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.46%) PyCharm
13 4 (0.37%) REST Assured
13 4 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 4 (0.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 458 (42.25%) Social Skills
2 263 (24.26%) Finance
3 242 (22.32%) Analytical Skills
4 101 (9.32%) Banking
5 74 (6.83%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.70%) Aerospace
6 51 (4.70%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (4.34%) Marketing
8 36 (3.32%) Legal
8 36 (3.32%) Telecoms
9 35 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
9 35 (3.23%) Presentation Skills
10 26 (2.40%) Electronics
11 25 (2.31%) Front Office
11 25 (2.31%) Organisational Skills
12 24 (2.21%) Manufacturing
13 22 (2.03%) Financial Institution
13 22 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 21 (1.94%) Investment Banking
15 18 (1.66%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 140 (12.92%) Developer
2 108 (9.96%) Architect
3 90 (8.30%) Lead
4 86 (7.93%) Analyst
5 78 (7.20%) Senior
6 40 (3.69%) Software Engineer
7 39 (3.60%) Data Scientist
8 38 (3.51%) Delivery Manager
8 38 (3.51%) Solutions Architect
9 35 (3.23%) Product Manager
10 29 (2.68%) Technical Support
11 28 (2.58%) Product Delivery Manager
12 27 (2.49%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 26 (2.40%) Data Engineer
13 26 (2.40%) Python Developer
14 24 (2.21%) Consultant
14 24 (2.21%) Java Developer
15 23 (2.12%) Business Analyst
16 22 (2.03%) Project Manager
16 22 (2.03%) Systems Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (8.21%) REST
2 59 (5.44%) .NET
3 48 (4.43%) React
4 47 (4.34%) RESTful
5 45 (4.15%) Kafka
6 40 (3.69%) Middleware
7 35 (3.23%) PyTorch
8 34 (3.14%) Spring Boot
9 32 (2.95%) JSON
9 32 (2.95%) TensorFlow
10 31 (2.86%) XML
11 30 (2.77%) Spring
12 26 (2.40%) OAuth
12 26 (2.40%) SOAP
13 23 (2.12%) Elastic Stack
13 23 (2.12%) HTML
13 23 (2.12%) Pandas
14 20 (1.85%) LangChain
15 17 (1.57%) CSS
15 17 (1.57%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 114 (10.52%) Management Information System
2 90 (8.30%) Algorithms
3 79 (7.29%) Product Ownership
4 73 (6.73%) Cloud Native
5 67 (6.18%) Onboarding
6 64 (5.90%) Data Structures
7 46 (4.24%) Distributed Systems
8 34 (3.14%) Virtual Team
9 29 (2.68%) Equities
10 25 (2.31%) Data Protection Act
11 22 (2.03%) AI Agents
11 22 (2.03%) Data Centre
11 22 (2.03%) Derivative
11 22 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
12 21 (1.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.85%) Taxonomies
14 19 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
14 19 (1.75%) Distributed Computing
14 19 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.57%) Cyberattack
Operating Systems
1 143 (13.19%) Linux
2 127 (11.72%) Windows
3 47 (4.34%) Unix
4 25 (2.31%) Android
5 23 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 21 (1.94%) Windows Server
7 12 (1.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.11%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.92%) 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
1 353 (32.56%) Problem-Solving
2 294 (27.12%) Agile
3 246 (22.69%) AI
4 211 (19.46%) CI/CD
5 209 (19.28%) DevOps
6 184 (16.97%) Software Engineering
7 160 (14.76%) Continuous Improvement
8 133 (12.27%) Analytics
9 130 (11.99%) Microservices
10 126 (11.62%) Cybersecurity
11 123 (11.35%) Machine Learning
12 116 (10.70%) Stakeholder Management
13 112 (10.33%) Data Science
14 109 (10.06%) Data Modelling
15 105 (9.69%) Containerisation
15 105 (9.69%) Mathematics
16 100 (9.23%) Decision-Making
17 99 (9.13%) Data Governance
18 97 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 91 (8.39%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 317 (29.24%) Python
2 209 (19.28%) SQL
3 136 (12.55%) Java
4 70 (6.46%) JavaScript
5 59 (5.44%) C#
6 57 (5.26%) PowerShell
7 41 (3.78%) TypeScript
8 37 (3.41%) Bash
9 36 (3.32%) C++
10 22 (2.03%) R
11 20 (1.85%) Go
12 16 (1.48%) Perl
13 14 (1.29%) Rust
14 12 (1.11%) Shell Script
15 11 (1.01%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.74%) C
16 8 (0.74%) Scala
17 7 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 5 (0.46%) Bicep
18 5 (0.46%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 910 (83.95%) Degree
2 555 (51.20%) Computer Science Degree
3 202 (18.63%) Security Cleared
4 176 (16.24%) Master's Degree
5 120 (11.07%) SC Cleared
6 65 (6.00%) CISSP
7 45 (4.15%) PhD
8 42 (3.87%) CISM
9 38 (3.51%) Azure Certification
10 33 (3.04%) PMI Certification
11 29 (2.68%) AWS Certification
11 29 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
12 28 (2.58%) PMP
13 26 (2.40%) CompTIA Security+
13 26 (2.40%) DV Cleared
13 26 (2.40%) TOGAF Certification
14 25 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
14 25 (2.31%) DBS Check
15 24 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
16 19 (1.75%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (6.00%) QA
2 55 (5.07%) NIST
3 53 (4.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 52 (4.80%) Data Quality
5 46 (4.24%) GDPR
6 20 (1.85%) PCI DSS
7 16 (1.48%) Accessibility
8 12 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 11 (1.01%) GRC
10 10 (0.92%) NCSC
10 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
11 8 (0.74%) SLA
12 7 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.65%) COBIT
12 7 (0.65%) DO-254
12 7 (0.65%) PSD2
13 6 (0.55%) ISO 20022
14 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.46%) HIPAA
14 5 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 123 (11.35%) Docker
2 68 (6.27%) Active Directory
3 21 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.20%) Firmware
5 7 (0.65%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.18%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.18%) Ceph
8 2 (0.18%) KVM
8 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.18%) vSphere
9 1 (0.092%) ACF2
9 1 (0.092%) HDFS
9 1 (0.092%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.092%) RACF
9 1 (0.092%) Squid
9 1 (0.092%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 131 (12.08%) Kubernetes
2 74 (6.83%) Terraform
3 48 (4.43%) Ansible
4 36 (3.32%) Grafana
5 30 (2.77%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
8 13 (1.20%) Puppet
9 10 (0.92%) Kibana
10 9 (0.83%) Kiali
11 7 (0.65%) SCCM
12 4 (0.37%) Control-M
12 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.37%) SCOM
13 3 (0.28%) Foglight
13 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.18%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 187 (17.25%) Microsoft
2 62 (5.72%) Oracle
3 52 (4.80%) Splunk
4 48 (4.43%) SAP
5 45 (4.15%) Databricks
6 44 (4.06%) Google
7 35 (3.23%) IBM
8 30 (2.77%) ServiceNow
9 25 (2.31%) VMware
10 23 (2.12%) Cisco
11 19 (1.75%) BiZZdesign
12 17 (1.57%) Informatica
12 17 (1.57%) Palo Alto
13 16 (1.48%) Okta
13 16 (1.48%) Salesforce
14 13 (1.20%) CheckPoint
14 13 (1.20%) Foundry
15 12 (1.11%) CyberArk
15 12 (1.11%) MuleSoft
15 12 (1.11%) Software AG