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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 64 60
Rank change year-on-year -62 -4 +33
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,083 1,215 1,373
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 3.70% 3.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.41% 4.10% 3.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 610 677 834
10th Percentile £178 £203 £325
25th Percentile £204 £359 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.10% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £760 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £381 £435 £515
% change year-on-year -12.43% -15.59% -1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 123 48 92
10th Percentile £25.73 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £54.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.44% -0.91% -11.29%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.10 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.75 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +20.52% +21.82% -8.33%

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 44,857 29,633 35,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.35% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,817 18,625 22,863
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.02%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,658 1,571 2,253
10th Percentile £14.84 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.82
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.05 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.41 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +87.50% -37.04% -6.09%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 -53 974 £453 -9.40% 786
UK excluding London -49 589 £381 -12.43% 467
London -64 418 £535 -10.90% 405
Work from Home -78 248 £500 -9.09% 279
South East -9 242 £350 -26.70% 170
North of England -45 136 £387 -18.08% 77
Midlands -55 82 £375 +18.48% 71
Yorkshire -21 70 £520 +28.99% 18
West Midlands -66 56 £416 +46.30% 34
North West -58 55 £220 -53.68% 32
East of England -25 47 £215 -66.92% 68
South West -58 35 £435 +81.04% 57
Scotland -41 34 £481 +1.64% 8
East Midlands -23 25 £275 -34.52% 37
North East -30 12 £195 -57.84% 27
Wales -26 7 £530 +18.83% 8
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 25

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 44 (4.06%) Confluence
2 35 (3.23%) Apache Spark
3 31 (2.86%) SharePoint
4 24 (2.22%) Apache Airflow
5 23 (2.12%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) Camunda
9 4 (0.37%) CMS
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
12 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (3.88%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.37%) Trello
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Simulink
10 1 (0.092%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 17 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.28%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.18%) Workfront
5 1 (0.092%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.092%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.092%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.092%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.092%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 314 (28.99%) Azure
2 197 (18.19%) AWS
3 100 (9.23%) GCP
4 76 (7.02%) Power Platform
5 59 (5.45%) Entra ID
6 54 (4.99%) Microsoft 365
7 45 (4.16%) GitHub
7 45 (4.16%) SaaS
8 43 (3.97%) Azure DevOps
9 30 (2.77%) Snowflake
10 27 (2.49%) Serverless
11 22 (2.03%) PowerApps
12 21 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
13 18 (1.66%) Azure AKS
14 15 (1.39%) Power Automate
15 14 (1.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 14 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
15 14 (1.29%) Microsoft Copilot
16 13 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
16 13 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 34 (3.14%) Firewall
2 30 (2.77%) Network Security
3 26 (2.40%) DNS
4 24 (2.22%) VPN
5 23 (2.12%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.66%) WAN
7 15 (1.39%) LAN
8 14 (1.29%) BGP
8 14 (1.29%) SSH
9 11 (1.02%) OSPF
10 10 (0.92%) HTTPS
10 10 (0.92%) VLAN
10 10 (0.92%) Wireless
11 9 (0.83%) DHCP
12 8 (0.74%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.65%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.65%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (0.65%) MPLS
14 6 (0.55%) IPsec
15 5 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.72%) Power BI
2 53 (4.89%) SQL Server
3 52 (4.80%) Relational Database
4 51 (4.71%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (3.42%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (3.32%) Metadata
7 33 (3.05%) Big Data
8 27 (2.49%) MongoDB
9 25 (2.31%) NoSQL
10 19 (1.75%) MySQL
11 18 (1.66%) Data Lake
11 18 (1.66%) Hadoop
11 18 (1.66%) Tableau
12 12 (1.11%) Data Mining
13 11 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
15 8 (0.74%) Redis
15 8 (0.74%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 88 (8.13%) Git
2 57 (5.26%) JIRA
3 40 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 35 (3.23%) GitLab
5 31 (2.86%) Rational DOORS
6 14 (1.29%) Selenium
7 12 (1.11%) JUnit
8 11 (1.02%) Gradle
9 9 (0.83%) MLflow
10 8 (0.74%) Maven
10 8 (0.74%) Postman
10 8 (0.74%) REST Assured
10 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
10 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
11 7 (0.65%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.55%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 438 (40.44%) Social Skills
2 239 (22.07%) Finance
3 234 (21.61%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (8.86%) Banking
5 70 (6.46%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.08%) Aerospace
6 55 (5.08%) Documentation Skills
7 39 (3.60%) Organisational Skills
8 37 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 30 (2.77%) Marketing
10 29 (2.68%) Influencing Skills
10 29 (2.68%) Telecoms
11 24 (2.22%) Manufacturing
12 23 (2.12%) Front Office
13 22 (2.03%) Legal
14 21 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
15 16 (1.48%) Law
15 16 (1.48%) Military
16 15 (1.39%) Retail
17 13 (1.20%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 128 (11.82%) Developer
2 114 (10.53%) Architect
3 105 (9.70%) Senior
4 83 (7.66%) Analyst
5 82 (7.57%) Lead
6 38 (3.51%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.42%) Data Engineer
7 37 (3.42%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.14%) Delivery Manager
9 31 (2.86%) Data Scientist
10 30 (2.77%) Solutions Architect
11 28 (2.59%) Product Delivery Manager
12 26 (2.40%) Junior
13 24 (2.22%) Python Developer
14 23 (2.12%) Java Developer
15 22 (2.03%) Full-Stack Developer
15 22 (2.03%) IT Support
15 22 (2.03%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 22 (2.03%) Systems Manager
16 21 (1.94%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (8.13%) REST
2 62 (5.72%) React
3 55 (5.08%) .NET
4 43 (3.97%) Kafka
5 38 (3.51%) RESTful
6 36 (3.32%) Spring
7 32 (2.95%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.68%) Middleware
9 27 (2.49%) OAuth
10 25 (2.31%) AngularJS
11 24 (2.22%) PyTorch
12 22 (2.03%) CSS
12 22 (2.03%) HTML
13 21 (1.94%) JSON
14 20 (1.85%) SAML
14 20 (1.85%) Web Services
15 19 (1.75%) OAuth2
15 19 (1.75%) OpenID
16 18 (1.66%) LDAP
16 18 (1.66%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 103 (9.51%) Management Information System
2 90 (8.31%) Product Ownership
3 80 (7.39%) Onboarding
4 77 (7.11%) Algorithms
5 74 (6.83%) Cloud Native
6 58 (5.36%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.52%) Distributed Systems
8 27 (2.49%) AI Agents
8 27 (2.49%) Virtual Team
9 26 (2.40%) Self-Motivation
10 25 (2.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 23 (2.12%) Derivative
12 21 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
13 17 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.57%) Fixed Income
14 16 (1.48%) Data Centre
14 16 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
14 16 (1.48%) Equities
14 16 (1.48%) Operational Technology
15 15 (1.39%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 125 (11.54%) Windows
2 103 (9.51%) Linux
3 34 (3.14%) Unix
4 22 (2.03%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.94%) Android
6 18 (1.66%) Windows 10
7 17 (1.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (1.20%) Apple iOS
9 11 (1.02%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.74%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.55%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.092%) CentOS
14 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 323 (29.82%) Problem-Solving
2 278 (25.67%) Agile
3 238 (21.98%) AI
4 193 (17.82%) CI/CD
5 184 (16.99%) Continuous Improvement
5 184 (16.99%) Software Engineering
6 164 (15.14%) DevOps
7 150 (13.85%) Analytics
8 128 (11.82%) Stakeholder Management
9 122 (11.27%) Cybersecurity
10 119 (10.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 112 (10.34%) Machine Learning
12 109 (10.06%) ITIL
13 106 (9.79%) Mathematics
14 99 (9.14%) Data Science
14 99 (9.14%) Decision-Making
15 95 (8.77%) Microservices
16 92 (8.49%) Roadmaps
17 87 (8.03%) Data Governance
18 84 (7.76%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 293 (27.05%) Python
2 213 (19.67%) SQL
3 135 (12.47%) Java
4 67 (6.19%) JavaScript
5 59 (5.45%) C#
6 57 (5.26%) PowerShell
7 37 (3.42%) TypeScript
8 25 (2.31%) Bash
9 22 (2.03%) C++
10 19 (1.75%) R
11 11 (1.02%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.92%) Bicep
12 10 (0.92%) Go
12 10 (0.92%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.83%) C
14 8 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.65%) Perl
16 6 (0.55%) Scala
17 4 (0.37%) Ada
17 4 (0.37%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 837 (77.29%) Degree
2 482 (44.51%) Computer Science Degree
3 207 (19.11%) Security Cleared
4 138 (12.74%) Master's Degree
5 127 (11.73%) SC Cleared
6 51 (4.71%) CISSP
7 44 (4.06%) Azure Certification
8 39 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
9 34 (3.14%) CISM
10 33 (3.05%) DBS Check
10 33 (3.05%) PhD
11 28 (2.59%) AWS Certification
12 27 (2.49%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.49%) PMI Certification
13 26 (2.40%) PMP
13 26 (2.40%) TOGAF Certification
14 23 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
15 22 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
16 20 (1.85%) CISA
17 15 (1.39%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.28%) Data Quality
1 68 (6.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 61 (5.63%) NIST
3 58 (5.36%) QA
4 34 (3.14%) GDPR
5 19 (1.75%) Accessibility
6 16 (1.48%) PCI DSS
7 15 (1.39%) GRC
8 13 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (1.11%) NCSC
9 12 (1.11%) SLA
10 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
11 10 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 6 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.46%) COBIT
14 5 (0.46%) ISO 20022
14 5 (0.46%) ITGC
14 5 (0.46%) PSD2
System Software
1 87 (8.03%) Docker
2 77 (7.11%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.83%) Firmware
4 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) ACF2
8 3 (0.28%) RACF
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.092%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.092%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 108 (9.97%) Kubernetes
2 53 (4.89%) Terraform
3 34 (3.14%) Ansible
4 25 (2.31%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (2.31%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.03%) Grafana
6 14 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (0.46%) SCCM
8 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
9 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.28%) Foglight
9 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.18%) AirWatch
10 2 (0.18%) Consul
10 2 (0.18%) Network Intrusion Detection System
10 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.18%) vRealize
10 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 198 (18.28%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.09%) Oracle
3 51 (4.71%) Databricks
4 41 (3.79%) IBM
5 40 (3.69%) Google
6 36 (3.32%) ServiceNow
7 33 (3.05%) SAP
8 29 (2.68%) VMware
9 21 (1.94%) Cisco
10 20 (1.85%) Splunk
11 19 (1.75%) CyberArk
12 17 (1.57%) BeyondTrust
13 14 (1.29%) Informatica
13 14 (1.29%) Palo Alto
13 14 (1.29%) Salesforce
14 12 (1.11%) Okta
15 10 (0.92%) CheckPoint
15 10 (0.92%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) Apple
16 9 (0.83%) Citrix