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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 63 60
Rank change year-on-year -70 -3 +28
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,106 1,256 1,304
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.82% 3.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.44% 4.22% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 620 713 812
10th Percentile £175 £184 £328
25th Percentile £200 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £492 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.54% -10.55% -
75th Percentile £605 £650 £688
90th Percentile £751 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £413 £523
% change year-on-year -9.09% -21.05% -0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 49 65
10th Percentile £25.53 £25.00 £20.57
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £42.25
Median hourly rate £75.00 £54.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +37.61% +3.81% -15.32%
75th Percentile £87.16 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £56.25
% change year-on-year +21.64% +19.11% -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 45,278 29,786 33,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 90.49% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,840 18,586 21,275
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,823 1,710 1,832
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.46
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £74.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 -53 1,013 £450 -10.00% 1,794
UK excluding London -51 597 £375 -9.09% 746
London -64 437 £530 -9.80% 1,152
Work from Home -85 247 £500 - 576
South East -10 245 £375 -11.76% 241
North of England -40 145 £401 -5.09% 132
Midlands -50 93 £230 -27.33% 101
Yorkshire -7 76 £450 +25.70% 30
West Midlands -53 64 £225 -22.95% 51
North West -52 59 £381 -19.89% 63
East of England -25 49 £215 -54.97% 117
South West -77 30 £477 +130.99% 76
East Midlands -27 28 £253 -41.75% 50
Scotland -51 26 £380 -22.05% 50
North East -38 11 £195 -57.84% 40
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 21
Wales -24 4 £530 +14.59% 18

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 35 (3.16%) Confluence
2 30 (2.71%) SharePoint
3 25 (2.26%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.54%) Apache
6 9 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.54%) IIS
8 5 (0.45%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
9 4 (0.36%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.27%) Camunda
10 3 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.090%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.090%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.090%) nginx
12 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.07%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.80%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.36%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.63%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.63%) Revit
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.45%) Trello
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.18%) Sketch
8 1 (0.090%) Simulink
8 1 (0.090%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 13 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.27%) Primavera
4 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.090%) Finacle
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.090%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 300 (27.12%) Azure
2 190 (17.18%) AWS
3 108 (9.76%) GCP
4 76 (6.87%) Power Platform
5 66 (5.97%) Entra ID
6 59 (5.33%) Microsoft 365
7 54 (4.88%) SaaS
8 45 (4.07%) GitHub
9 42 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.25%) Snowflake
11 31 (2.80%) Serverless
12 22 (1.99%) PowerApps
13 18 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
14 16 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
14 16 (1.45%) Azure Data Factory
14 16 (1.45%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.36%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.27%) dbt
17 13 (1.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 13 (1.18%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.89%) Firewall
2 40 (3.62%) DNS
3 33 (2.98%) VPN
4 31 (2.80%) Network Security
5 26 (2.35%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.72%) WAN
7 18 (1.63%) DHCP
8 15 (1.36%) LAN
8 15 (1.36%) SSH
9 13 (1.18%) Wireless
10 11 (0.99%) BGP
10 11 (0.99%) VLAN
11 9 (0.81%) HTTP
12 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.72%) MPLS
12 8 (0.72%) OSPF
12 8 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (0.72%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.63%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.70%) Power BI
2 55 (4.97%) Relational Database
3 46 (4.16%) SQL Server
4 45 (4.07%) PostgreSQL
5 32 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
5 32 (2.89%) Metadata
6 26 (2.35%) MongoDB
7 24 (2.17%) Big Data
7 24 (2.17%) NoSQL
8 18 (1.63%) Tableau
9 15 (1.36%) Data Mining
10 14 (1.27%) MySQL
11 13 (1.18%) Redis
12 11 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (0.99%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.81%) Data Lake
14 9 (0.81%) Snowflake Schema
15 8 (0.72%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 92 (8.32%) Git
2 46 (4.16%) JIRA
3 38 (3.44%) Jenkins
4 37 (3.35%) GitLab
5 32 (2.89%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.54%) Selenium
7 11 (0.99%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.90%) JUnit
9 9 (0.81%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.72%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.72%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.63%) Gradle
11 7 (0.63%) Maven
11 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.54%) Postman
12 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.54%) Visual Studio
13 5 (0.45%) MLflow
General
1 451 (40.78%) Social Skills
2 253 (22.88%) Analytical Skills
3 231 (20.89%) Finance
4 89 (8.05%) Banking
5 64 (5.79%) Aerospace
5 64 (5.79%) Public Sector
6 46 (4.16%) Documentation Skills
7 36 (3.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 36 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
7 36 (3.25%) Telecoms
8 31 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
9 29 (2.62%) Manufacturing
10 27 (2.44%) Front Office
10 27 (2.44%) Legal
10 27 (2.44%) Marketing
11 19 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
12 17 (1.54%) Law
13 16 (1.45%) Military
14 15 (1.36%) Retail
15 13 (1.18%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 128 (11.57%) Developer
2 108 (9.76%) Senior
3 94 (8.50%) Architect
4 82 (7.41%) Lead
5 76 (6.87%) Analyst
6 41 (3.71%) Product Manager
7 39 (3.53%) Data Engineer
8 35 (3.16%) Delivery Manager
9 33 (2.98%) Software Engineer
10 31 (2.80%) Product Delivery Manager
11 26 (2.35%) IT Support
12 25 (2.26%) Data Scientist
12 25 (2.26%) Junior
13 24 (2.17%) Senior Developer
13 24 (2.17%) Solutions Architect
14 22 (1.99%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 22 (1.99%) Python Developer
14 22 (1.99%) Security Engineer
14 22 (1.99%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (1.99%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (8.14%) REST
2 56 (5.06%) .NET
3 52 (4.70%) React
4 43 (3.89%) Kafka
5 38 (3.44%) RESTful
6 31 (2.80%) OAuth
7 30 (2.71%) CSS
7 30 (2.71%) HTML
8 28 (2.53%) Spring
9 25 (2.26%) OpenID
10 24 (2.17%) Middleware
10 24 (2.17%) OAuth2
10 24 (2.17%) SAML
10 24 (2.17%) Web Services
11 23 (2.08%) Spring Boot
12 21 (1.90%) AngularJS
12 21 (1.90%) JSON
12 21 (1.90%) SOAP
13 19 (1.72%) PyTorch
14 17 (1.54%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 97 (8.77%) Management Information System
2 88 (7.96%) Product Ownership
3 86 (7.78%) Algorithms
4 75 (6.78%) Onboarding
5 68 (6.15%) Data Structures
6 67 (6.06%) Cloud Native
7 51 (4.61%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.80%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 26 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
10 25 (2.26%) Virtual Team
11 23 (2.08%) Derivative
12 19 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
13 17 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
13 17 (1.54%) Fixed Income
13 17 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.45%) Operational Technology
15 15 (1.36%) Data Centre
16 14 (1.27%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 124 (11.21%) Windows
2 104 (9.40%) Linux
3 31 (2.80%) Unix
4 24 (2.17%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.72%) Windows 10
6 15 (1.36%) Android
7 11 (0.99%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.72%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.63%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.36%) Debian
10 4 (0.36%) Rocky
11 3 (0.27%) VMS
12 2 (0.18%) CentOS
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (30.11%) Problem-Solving
2 270 (24.41%) Agile
3 228 (20.61%) AI
4 204 (18.44%) Continuous Improvement
5 199 (17.99%) CI/CD
6 187 (16.91%) Software Engineering
7 164 (14.83%) DevOps
8 151 (13.65%) Stakeholder Management
9 145 (13.11%) Analytics
10 122 (11.03%) Cybersecurity
10 122 (11.03%) ITIL
11 115 (10.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 111 (10.04%) Mathematics
13 102 (9.22%) Machine Learning
14 98 (8.86%) Roadmaps
15 93 (8.41%) Validation
16 89 (8.05%) Data Science
16 89 (8.05%) Decision-Making
17 85 (7.69%) Mentoring
18 82 (7.41%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 297 (26.85%) Python
2 206 (18.63%) SQL
3 131 (11.84%) Java
4 72 (6.51%) PowerShell
5 70 (6.33%) JavaScript
6 65 (5.88%) C#
7 37 (3.35%) Bash
7 37 (3.35%) TypeScript
8 27 (2.44%) C++
9 15 (1.36%) R
10 13 (1.18%) Bicep
11 11 (0.99%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.90%) C
13 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.72%) Go
13 8 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 6 (0.54%) Apex Code
14 6 (0.54%) Perl
14 6 (0.54%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.54%) Scala
Qualifications
1 841 (76.04%) Degree
2 487 (44.03%) Computer Science Degree
3 212 (19.17%) Security Cleared
4 130 (11.75%) SC Cleared
5 120 (10.85%) Master's Degree
6 50 (4.52%) CISSP
7 48 (4.34%) Azure Certification
8 44 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.53%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.16%) PhD
11 32 (2.89%) CISM
12 28 (2.53%) PMI Certification
13 27 (2.44%) DV Cleared
13 27 (2.44%) PMP
14 26 (2.35%) AWS Certification
15 25 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
16 23 (2.08%) TOGAF Certification
17 22 (1.99%) CISA
18 17 (1.54%) CEH
19 16 (1.45%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.42%) Data Quality
2 66 (5.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.15%) NIST
4 56 (5.06%) QA
5 28 (2.53%) GDPR
6 17 (1.54%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.36%) GRC
7 15 (1.36%) SLA
8 12 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
9 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 11 (0.99%) NCSC
10 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
11 9 (0.81%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 5 (0.45%) COBIT
13 5 (0.45%) DO-254
13 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
13 5 (0.45%) ITGC
14 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 85 (7.69%) Docker
2 78 (7.05%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.90%) Firmware
5 9 (0.81%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.45%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) ACF2
8 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.27%) RACF
8 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 100 (9.04%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.06%) Terraform
3 40 (3.62%) Ansible
4 30 (2.71%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.26%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.81%) Grafana
7 14 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (1.08%) SCCM
9 6 (0.54%) Argo
10 4 (0.36%) Control-M
10 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.27%) Foglight
11 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.27%) Puppet
11 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.18%) Consul
12 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
12 2 (0.18%) QRadar
12 2 (0.18%) vRealize
Vendors
1 206 (18.63%) Microsoft
2 63 (5.70%) Oracle
3 46 (4.16%) Databricks
3 46 (4.16%) IBM
4 43 (3.89%) Google
5 40 (3.62%) ServiceNow
6 36 (3.25%) VMware
7 32 (2.89%) SAP
8 24 (2.17%) Cisco
9 20 (1.81%) Splunk
10 19 (1.72%) CyberArk
11 17 (1.54%) BeyondTrust
12 16 (1.45%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.99%) Citrix
13 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
14 10 (0.90%) Dynatrace
14 10 (0.90%) Okta
15 9 (0.81%) Adobe
15 9 (0.81%) Red Hat
15 9 (0.81%) UiPath