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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 70 58
Rank change year-on-year -79 -12 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,049 1,200 1,331
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.63% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 4.01% 4.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 599 675 812
10th Percentile £175 £182 £341
25th Percentile £200 £334 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £630 £688
90th Percentile £738 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £423 £517
% change year-on-year -11.24% -18.28% +3.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 53 43
10th Percentile £21.28 £26.35 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.25 £29.00 £24.81
Median hourly rate £47.10 £33.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year +40.60% -33.66% -17.55%
75th Percentile £78.83 £67.00 £65.25
90th Percentile £87.26 £82.40 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £33.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +56.72% -40.44% -6.25%

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 46,089 29,922 32,856
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.33% 90.54% 85.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 18,587 19,900
10th Percentile £325 £295 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,201 1,858 1,386
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.29 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.06% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.88 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.78% -47.67% +1.18%

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 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 27 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 27 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 -67 953 £470 -1.05% 3,463
UK excluding London -63 549 £375 -11.24% 1,612
London -68 427 £535 - 2,136
Work from Home -82 241 £517 +8.74% 1,151
South East -23 204 £438 +19.86% 441
North of England -50 143 £448 +6.73% 286
Midlands -45 90 £215 -52.12% 192
Yorkshire -23 75 £425 +10.68% 78
West Midlands -47 59 £213 -56.63% 119
North West -60 57 £525 +20.00% 158
East of England -32 46 £425 -5.56% 207
South West -62 31 £195 -5.57% 194
East Midlands -23 30 £230 -48.55% 73
Scotland -61 28 £400 -11.11% 158
North East -32 12 £195 -56.67% 52
Northern Ireland +4 5 £175 - 109
Wales -18 4 £530 +14.59% 40

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 (4.00%) Confluence
2 31 (2.96%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.19%) Apache Spark
4 17 (1.62%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.53%) Apache
6 12 (1.14%) IIS
7 10 (0.95%) Camunda
8 8 (0.76%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 7 (0.67%) CMS
10 6 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.48%) SAS
12 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.29%) CICS
14 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.19%) Jupyter
14 2 (0.19%) nginx
14 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
15 1 (0.095%) Appian
Applications
1 41 (3.91%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.14%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.38%) Trello
6 4 (0.38%) Windchill
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.19%) Sketch
8 1 (0.095%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 8 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.29%) Primavera
4 3 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.095%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.095%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.095%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.095%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.095%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.095%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 296 (28.22%) Azure
2 189 (18.02%) AWS
3 114 (10.87%) GCP
4 66 (6.29%) Power Platform
5 63 (6.01%) Entra ID
6 58 (5.53%) Microsoft 365
7 55 (5.24%) GitHub
8 54 (5.15%) Azure DevOps
9 45 (4.29%) SaaS
10 38 (3.62%) Serverless
11 29 (2.76%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.19%) PowerApps
13 22 (2.10%) AWS Lambda
14 21 (2.00%) GitHub Actions
14 21 (2.00%) OpenShift
15 20 (1.91%) Microsoft Copilot
16 18 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
16 18 (1.72%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
18 15 (1.43%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.19%) Firewall
2 40 (3.81%) DNS
3 35 (3.34%) Network Security
4 31 (2.96%) VPN
5 24 (2.29%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.91%) DHCP
7 16 (1.53%) SSH
8 13 (1.24%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.05%) 5G
9 11 (1.05%) HTTP
9 11 (1.05%) WAN
9 11 (1.05%) Wireless
10 10 (0.95%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.95%) LAN
11 8 (0.76%) Intrusion Detection
11 8 (0.76%) VLAN
12 7 (0.67%) MPLS
13 6 (0.57%) BGP
13 6 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
13 6 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.15%) PostgreSQL
2 53 (5.05%) SQL Server
3 51 (4.86%) Power BI
4 48 (4.58%) Relational Database
5 40 (3.81%) Metadata
6 28 (2.67%) MongoDB
7 26 (2.48%) MySQL
7 26 (2.48%) NoSQL
8 24 (2.29%) Data Warehouse
9 23 (2.19%) Elasticsearch
10 17 (1.62%) Big Data
11 14 (1.33%) Redis
12 13 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
12 13 (1.24%) Data Mining
13 12 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
13 12 (1.14%) Tableau
14 11 (1.05%) Data Lake
14 11 (1.05%) Oracle Database
15 6 (0.57%) Flink
15 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 100 (9.53%) Git
2 51 (4.86%) Jenkins
3 49 (4.67%) JIRA
4 46 (4.39%) GitLab
5 23 (2.19%) JUnit
6 22 (2.10%) Gradle
6 22 (2.10%) Maven
7 19 (1.81%) Selenium
7 19 (1.81%) SonarQube
8 16 (1.53%) Mockito
9 14 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.14%) Cucumber
10 12 (1.14%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.95%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.95%) SpecFlow
12 9 (0.86%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.76%) Visual Studio
14 7 (0.67%) Postman
15 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
General
1 453 (43.18%) Social Skills
2 235 (22.40%) Analytical Skills
3 233 (22.21%) Finance
4 96 (9.15%) Banking
5 67 (6.39%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.96%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (4.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 42 (4.00%) Aerospace
9 39 (3.72%) Manufacturing
10 35 (3.34%) Organisational Skills
11 33 (3.15%) Telecoms
12 32 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (2.38%) Marketing
14 22 (2.10%) Front Office
15 20 (1.91%) Legal
16 19 (1.81%) Military
17 17 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (1.43%) Law
19 13 (1.24%) Retail
20 12 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 162 (15.44%) Developer
2 110 (10.49%) Senior
3 82 (7.82%) Architect
4 71 (6.77%) Lead
5 70 (6.67%) Analyst
6 36 (3.43%) Data Engineer
7 34 (3.24%) Java Developer
8 28 (2.67%) Software Engineer
9 26 (2.48%) IT Support
10 25 (2.38%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 25 (2.38%) Security Engineer
10 25 (2.38%) Senior Developer
11 23 (2.19%) Data Scientist
11 23 (2.19%) Full-Stack Developer
12 21 (2.00%) C# Developer
12 21 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 21 (2.00%) Python Developer
13 20 (1.91%) Solutions Architect
14 19 (1.81%) Python Engineer
15 18 (1.72%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (9.06%) REST
2 68 (6.48%) React
3 65 (6.20%) Terraform
4 63 (6.01%) HTML
5 61 (5.82%) CSS
6 55 (5.24%) .NET
7 54 (5.15%) Kafka
8 49 (4.67%) RESTful
9 38 (3.62%) Spring Boot
10 37 (3.53%) OAuth
11 36 (3.43%) Spring
12 31 (2.96%) OAuth2
12 31 (2.96%) SOAP
13 29 (2.76%) OpenID
13 29 (2.76%) Web Services
14 28 (2.67%) Middleware
15 27 (2.57%) SAML
16 24 (2.29%) .NET Core
17 23 (2.19%) JSON
18 22 (2.10%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 115 (10.96%) Management Information System
2 79 (7.53%) Cloud Native
3 68 (6.48%) Algorithms
4 65 (6.20%) Onboarding
5 52 (4.96%) Distributed Systems
5 52 (4.96%) Product Ownership
6 51 (4.86%) Data Structures
7 34 (3.24%) AI Agents
8 25 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
9 24 (2.29%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 22 (2.10%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.91%) Data Centre
12 20 (1.91%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.62%) Derivative
14 15 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.33%) Replication
16 13 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.24%) Equities
16 13 (1.24%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 126 (12.01%) Windows
2 116 (11.06%) Linux
3 37 (3.53%) Unix
4 32 (3.05%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.91%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (1.05%) Android
8 9 (0.86%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.76%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.48%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.48%) zOS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 3 (0.29%) Solaris
12 3 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) Debian
13 2 (0.19%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Rocky
14 1 (0.095%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 325 (30.98%) Problem-Solving
2 266 (25.36%) Agile
3 226 (21.54%) CI/CD
4 216 (20.59%) AI
5 191 (18.21%) DevOps
6 188 (17.92%) Software Engineering
7 179 (17.06%) Stakeholder Management
8 177 (16.87%) Continuous Improvement
9 151 (14.39%) Analytics
10 121 (11.53%) ITIL
11 112 (10.68%) Mathematics
12 111 (10.58%) Cybersecurity
13 106 (10.10%) Scrum
13 106 (10.10%) Test Automation
14 105 (10.01%) Roadmaps
15 96 (9.15%) Validation
16 94 (8.96%) Machine Learning
17 93 (8.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 88 (8.39%) Change Management
19 83 (7.91%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 275 (26.22%) Python
2 203 (19.35%) SQL
3 138 (13.16%) Java
4 98 (9.34%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.53%) PowerShell
6 67 (6.39%) C#
7 47 (4.48%) Bash
8 40 (3.81%) TypeScript
9 25 (2.38%) C++
10 18 (1.72%) Bicep
11 14 (1.33%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.05%) R
12 11 (1.05%) Scala
13 10 (0.95%) Go
14 9 (0.86%) Perl
15 8 (0.76%) C
15 8 (0.76%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.67%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.57%) COBOL
17 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 795 (75.79%) Degree
2 483 (46.04%) Computer Science Degree
3 183 (17.45%) Security Cleared
4 140 (13.35%) SC Cleared
5 105 (10.01%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.86%) Azure Certification
6 51 (4.86%) CISSP
7 49 (4.67%) DBS Check
8 43 (4.10%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (3.43%) CISM
9 36 (3.43%) PhD
10 30 (2.86%) AWS Certification
11 29 (2.76%) DV Cleared
12 28 (2.67%) Cisco Certification
13 23 (2.19%) PMI Certification
13 23 (2.19%) PMP
13 23 (2.19%) TOGAF Certification
14 21 (2.00%) BPSS Clearance
15 18 (1.72%) CISA
16 14 (1.33%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.48%) Data Quality
2 64 (6.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (6.01%) QA
4 49 (4.67%) NIST
5 26 (2.48%) GDPR
6 16 (1.53%) GRC
7 15 (1.43%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.43%) HIPAA
7 15 (1.43%) SLA
8 11 (1.05%) PCI DSS
9 10 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 9 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (0.76%) NCSC
12 7 (0.67%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.48%) ISO 31000
13 5 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 5 (0.48%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
14 4 (0.38%) NIST 800
14 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 89 (8.48%) Docker
2 72 (6.86%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.76%) Firmware
5 8 (0.76%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.67%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.57%) RACF
8 5 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.48%) vSphere
9 4 (0.38%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.29%) ACF2
10 3 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.29%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.19%) NFS
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.095%) KVM
12 1 (0.095%) Squid
Systems Management
1 105 (10.01%) Kubernetes
2 34 (3.24%) Ansible
3 27 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (2.10%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.72%) Grafana
6 14 (1.33%) SCCM
7 10 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.57%) CASB
9 5 (0.48%) Argo
10 4 (0.38%) Control-M
10 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.38%) Puppet
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.29%) Istio
11 3 (0.29%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.19%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.19%) QRadar
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 205 (19.54%) Microsoft
2 74 (7.05%) Oracle
3 55 (5.24%) Google
4 40 (3.81%) ServiceNow
5 35 (3.34%) Databricks
5 35 (3.34%) IBM
6 34 (3.24%) VMware
7 30 (2.86%) SAP
8 28 (2.67%) Cisco
9 26 (2.48%) Splunk
10 22 (2.10%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.91%) CyberArk
12 18 (1.72%) BeyondTrust
13 17 (1.62%) OpenAI
14 16 (1.53%) Adobe
15 13 (1.24%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.05%) Dynatrace
17 10 (0.95%) Foundry
17 10 (0.95%) Veracode
18 9 (0.86%) F5