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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 68 68
Rank change year-on-year -48 0 +42
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,028 1,049 1,307
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.16% 3.57% 3.04%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.56% 3.92% 3.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 589 795
10th Percentile £178 £250 £319
25th Percentile £269 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -2.33% -6.52%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £651
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £484 £500
% change year-on-year -19.94% -3.20% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 95 30 95
10th Percentile £29.66 £26.13 £22.60
25th Percentile £51.25 £29.07 £41.75
Median hourly rate £82.00 £40.25 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.73% -26.82% +1.97%
75th Percentile £88.00 £66.44 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.32 £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 40,197 26,741 37,098
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.41% 90.94% 86.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,242 17,210 23,886
10th Percentile £320 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £479 £500
% change year-on-year +2.30% -4.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,406 1,094 2,440
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.44 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.13 £28.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +46.52% -21.23% +0.69%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £27.00 £38.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -28.95% +8.57%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -42 913 £467 -11.05% 874
UK excluding London -42 537 £388 -19.94% 576
London -47 403 £525 -12.50% 382
Work from Home -61 223 £500 -9.09% 388
South East -12 200 £275 -45.00% 232
North of England -25 132 £394 -26.68% 106
Yorkshire -9 74 £514 +24.15% 27
Midlands -71 72 £450 +80.00% 88
North West -32 57 £352 -36.12% 54
West Midlands -62 55 £450 +87.89% 50
South West -53 41 £469 +26.76% 57
East of England -34 40 £248 -61.92% 62
Scotland -9 38 £610 +13.49% 32
East Midlands -38 16 £525 +110.00% 36
Wales -30 10 £160 -44.83% 9
Northern Ireland +7 7 £350 -41.67% 3
North East -22 2 £125 -78.26% 27

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 48 (4.67%) Confluence
2 40 (3.89%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.33%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.14%) Apache
5 17 (1.65%) Apache Airflow
6 13 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.39%) CMS
7 4 (0.39%) IIS
7 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.29%) SAS
9 2 (0.19%) nginx
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.097%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.097%) Appian
10 1 (0.097%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 34 (3.31%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (1.36%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.68%) Revit
5 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.29%) Simulink
7 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.19%) Trello
Business Applications
1 21 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.49%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.097%) Actimize
6 1 (0.097%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.097%) Maximo
6 1 (0.097%) Oracle FAH
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.097%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 295 (28.70%) Azure
2 187 (18.19%) AWS
3 79 (7.68%) GCP
4 58 (5.64%) Power Platform
5 54 (5.25%) SaaS
6 52 (5.06%) Microsoft 365
7 51 (4.96%) GitHub
8 39 (3.79%) Entra ID
9 37 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
10 22 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
11 21 (2.04%) Serverless
12 20 (1.95%) AWS CloudFormation
12 20 (1.95%) Snowflake
13 19 (1.85%) Azure Data Factory
13 19 (1.85%) IaaS
14 17 (1.65%) Azure AKS
15 14 (1.36%) Azure Machine Learning
16 13 (1.26%) Azure Service Bus
16 13 (1.26%) PaaS
16 13 (1.26%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 39 (3.79%) Firewall
2 29 (2.82%) TCP/IP
3 26 (2.53%) DNS
4 19 (1.85%) Network Security
5 16 (1.56%) WAN
6 14 (1.36%) BGP
7 13 (1.26%) LAN
8 11 (1.07%) OSPF
8 11 (1.07%) SSH
9 9 (0.88%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.78%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.78%) HTTP
10 8 (0.78%) Wireless
11 7 (0.68%) SAN
11 7 (0.68%) VLAN
11 7 (0.68%) VPN
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 5 (0.49%) Cisco IOS
13 5 (0.49%) DHCP
13 5 (0.49%) IPv4
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (4.96%) Relational Database
2 46 (4.47%) PostgreSQL
2 46 (4.47%) Power BI
3 45 (4.38%) SQL Server
4 38 (3.70%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (3.60%) Big Data
6 26 (2.53%) MySQL
6 26 (2.53%) NoSQL
7 25 (2.43%) Metadata
8 21 (2.04%) Hadoop
9 20 (1.95%) MongoDB
10 16 (1.56%) Tableau
11 14 (1.36%) Data Lake
11 14 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
12 12 (1.17%) Redis
13 11 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 9 (0.88%) Snowflake Schema
15 8 (0.78%) Power Query
16 7 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
16 7 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 76 (7.39%) Git
2 67 (6.52%) JIRA
3 38 (3.70%) GitLab
4 34 (3.31%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.72%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.17%) MLflow
7 11 (1.07%) Gradle
7 11 (1.07%) Selenium
8 9 (0.88%) Jaeger
8 9 (0.88%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.68%) JUnit
9 7 (0.68%) Postman
9 7 (0.68%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.58%) Maven
11 5 (0.49%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.39%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.39%) Visual Studio
13 3 (0.29%) Eclipse
General
1 422 (41.05%) Social Skills
2 241 (23.44%) Finance
3 208 (20.23%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (9.14%) Banking
5 65 (6.32%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.96%) Aerospace
6 51 (4.96%) Documentation Skills
7 39 (3.79%) Marketing
8 35 (3.40%) Telecoms
9 33 (3.21%) Presentation Skills
10 29 (2.82%) Legal
11 26 (2.53%) Organisational Skills
12 23 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 21 (2.04%) Front Office
13 21 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
14 17 (1.65%) Electronics
14 17 (1.65%) Investment Banking
15 16 (1.56%) Manufacturing
16 15 (1.46%) Financial Institution
16 15 (1.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 110 (10.70%) Developer
2 108 (10.51%) Architect
3 85 (8.27%) Analyst
4 83 (8.07%) Lead
5 76 (7.39%) Senior
6 37 (3.60%) Delivery Manager
6 37 (3.60%) Software Engineer
7 35 (3.40%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.31%) Solutions Architect
9 31 (3.02%) Technical Support
10 29 (2.82%) Data Scientist
11 28 (2.72%) Data Engineer
11 28 (2.72%) Product Delivery Manager
12 23 (2.24%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 23 (2.24%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.14%) Java Developer
13 22 (2.14%) Security Engineer
13 22 (2.14%) Systems Delivery Manager
13 22 (2.14%) Systems Manager
14 20 (1.95%) Integration Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (8.07%) REST
2 55 (5.35%) .NET
2 55 (5.35%) React
3 45 (4.38%) Middleware
4 44 (4.28%) Kafka
5 40 (3.89%) RESTful
6 35 (3.40%) Spring Boot
7 32 (3.11%) PyTorch
8 31 (3.02%) Spring
9 25 (2.43%) OAuth
9 25 (2.43%) SOAP
10 24 (2.33%) TensorFlow
10 24 (2.33%) XML
11 23 (2.24%) JSON
12 21 (2.04%) Elastic Stack
13 20 (1.95%) HTML
14 19 (1.85%) AngularJS
15 17 (1.65%) LangChain
16 16 (1.56%) CSS
16 16 (1.56%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 103 (10.02%) Management Information System
2 76 (7.39%) Product Ownership
3 75 (7.30%) Onboarding
4 70 (6.81%) Algorithms
5 64 (6.23%) Cloud Native
6 52 (5.06%) Data Structures
7 48 (4.67%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.92%) Virtual Team
9 24 (2.33%) AI Agents
10 23 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (2.04%) Taxonomies
12 19 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
13 18 (1.75%) Derivative
13 18 (1.75%) Equities
14 17 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.65%) Cyberattack
14 17 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
15 16 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
15 16 (1.56%) Robotics
16 14 (1.36%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 136 (13.23%) Linux
2 128 (12.45%) Windows
3 45 (4.38%) Unix
4 25 (2.43%) Android
5 18 (1.75%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.65%) Mac OS
6 17 (1.65%) Windows Server
7 15 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 13 (1.26%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.58%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.49%) Debian
10 5 (0.49%) VMS
11 4 (0.39%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.097%) CentOS
13 1 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.097%) MVS
13 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (31.03%) Problem-Solving
2 258 (25.10%) Agile
3 230 (22.37%) AI
4 201 (19.55%) CI/CD
5 191 (18.58%) DevOps
6 174 (16.93%) Software Engineering
7 160 (15.56%) Continuous Improvement
8 121 (11.77%) Analytics
8 121 (11.77%) Microservices
9 117 (11.38%) Cybersecurity
10 108 (10.51%) Stakeholder Management
11 101 (9.82%) Machine Learning
12 99 (9.63%) Containerisation
13 96 (9.34%) Data Modelling
14 95 (9.24%) Technical Leadership
15 93 (9.05%) Decision-Making
16 92 (8.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 89 (8.66%) Data Governance
18 87 (8.46%) Data Science
19 85 (8.27%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 285 (27.72%) Python
2 203 (19.75%) SQL
3 134 (13.04%) Java
4 66 (6.42%) JavaScript
5 60 (5.84%) C#
6 51 (4.96%) PowerShell
7 36 (3.50%) TypeScript
8 32 (3.11%) Bash
9 30 (2.92%) C++
10 22 (2.14%) R
11 15 (1.46%) Go
12 14 (1.36%) Perl
13 12 (1.17%) Rust
14 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.97%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 8 (0.78%) Scala
17 6 (0.58%) C
18 4 (0.39%) Tcl
19 3 (0.29%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 830 (80.74%) Degree
2 518 (50.39%) Computer Science Degree
3 191 (18.58%) Security Cleared
4 149 (14.49%) Master's Degree
5 113 (10.99%) SC Cleared
6 54 (5.25%) CISSP
7 37 (3.60%) CISM
8 33 (3.21%) Azure Certification
8 33 (3.21%) PhD
9 32 (3.11%) TOGAF Certification
10 30 (2.92%) PMI Certification
11 28 (2.72%) Microsoft Certification
12 27 (2.63%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.63%) PMP
13 23 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
14 22 (2.14%) AWS Certification
14 22 (2.14%) CompTIA Security+
15 21 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
16 19 (1.85%) CISA
17 17 (1.65%) CompTIA CySA+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (5.93%) QA
2 57 (5.54%) NIST
3 56 (5.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 50 (4.86%) Data Quality
5 38 (3.70%) GDPR
6 18 (1.75%) Accessibility
6 18 (1.75%) PCI DSS
7 13 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (1.07%) GRC
9 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.78%) NCSC
10 8 (0.78%) SLA
11 7 (0.68%) COBIT
11 7 (0.68%) PSD2
12 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.58%) DO-254
12 6 (0.58%) HIPAA
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 113 (10.99%) Docker
2 69 (6.71%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.26%) Firmware
5 7 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.39%) vSphere
8 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.19%) Ceph
8 2 (0.19%) KVM
8 2 (0.19%) Squid
8 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.097%) ACF2
9 1 (0.097%) HDFS
9 1 (0.097%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.097%) RACF
9 1 (0.097%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 130 (12.65%) Kubernetes
2 63 (6.13%) Terraform
3 49 (4.77%) Ansible
4 31 (3.02%) Grafana
5 28 (2.72%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (1.17%) Puppet
9 10 (0.97%) Kibana
10 9 (0.88%) Kiali
11 5 (0.49%) SCCM
12 4 (0.39%) Control-M
12 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.39%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.29%) Foglight
13 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.19%) Cisco CUCM
14 2 (0.19%) logstash
14 2 (0.19%) SCOM
Vendors
1 182 (17.70%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.32%) Oracle
3 52 (5.06%) Splunk
4 49 (4.77%) Databricks
5 37 (3.60%) SAP
6 36 (3.50%) IBM
7 34 (3.31%) Google
8 29 (2.82%) ServiceNow
9 23 (2.24%) VMware
10 21 (2.04%) Cisco
11 17 (1.65%) BiZZdesign
12 16 (1.56%) Informatica
12 16 (1.56%) Salesforce
13 15 (1.46%) Okta
14 14 (1.36%) Palo Alto
15 13 (1.26%) CheckPoint
16 12 (1.17%) CyberArk
16 12 (1.17%) MuleSoft
16 12 (1.17%) Software AG
17 9 (0.88%) BeyondTrust