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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 68 62
Rank change year-on-year -72 -6 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,075 1,186 1,271
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 3.67% 3.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.37% 4.06% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 600 661 789
10th Percentile £175 £184 £334
25th Percentile £199 £354 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £480 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.88% -12.73% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £688
90th Percentile £760 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £370 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -13.06% -19.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 45 51
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.12
25th Percentile £30.40 £29.00 £39.25
Median hourly rate £56.25 £54.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.21% +7.92% -18.55%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £66.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +2.27% +20.00% -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 45,398 29,222 32,553
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,773 18,158 20,413
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £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 2,911 1,744 1,558
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.72 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £46.01 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.18 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +87.80% -47.37% +12.13%

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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -64 977 £470 -4.28% 4,124
UK excluding London -51 558 £370 -13.06% 1,665
London -68 443 £525 -4.55% 2,885
Work from Home -81 249 £500 +4.17% 1,509
South East -11 214 £375 -6.25% 466
North of England -46 145 £450 +7.14% 255
Midlands -56 88 £225 -47.06% 165
Yorkshire -18 72 £450 +25.70% 59
North West -45 62 £497 +6.68% 151
West Midlands -51 59 £219 -43.55% 101
East of England -23 49 £200 -60.40% 243
East Midlands -32 28 £253 -43.51% 64
Scotland -57 28 £380 -17.57% 189
South West -73 26 £400 +93.70% 231
North East -31 12 £195 -57.84% 47
Northern Ireland +7 6 £175 - 96
Wales -20 4 £530 +14.59% 33

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 41 (3.81%) Confluence
2 32 (2.98%) SharePoint
3 26 (2.42%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.86%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.49%) Apache
6 9 (0.84%) Camunda
7 8 (0.74%) IIS
7 8 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.47%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.47%) CMS
8 5 (0.47%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.093%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.093%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.19%) Sketch
10 1 (0.093%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.093%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.093%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.093%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.093%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.093%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.093%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 302 (28.09%) Azure
2 194 (18.05%) AWS
3 114 (10.60%) GCP
4 75 (6.98%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.77%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.77%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (4.84%) GitHub
7 49 (4.56%) Azure DevOps
8 48 (4.47%) SaaS
9 34 (3.16%) Serverless
10 33 (3.07%) Snowflake
11 25 (2.33%) PowerApps
12 20 (1.86%) Microsoft Copilot
13 19 (1.77%) GitHub Actions
13 19 (1.77%) OpenShift
13 19 (1.77%) Power Automate
14 18 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
15 15 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
16 14 (1.30%) Amazon EKS
16 14 (1.30%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 43 (4.00%) Firewall
2 42 (3.91%) DNS
3 34 (3.16%) Network Security
3 34 (3.16%) VPN
4 25 (2.33%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.95%) DHCP
6 17 (1.58%) SSH
7 15 (1.40%) WAN
8 12 (1.12%) LAN
8 12 (1.12%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.02%) BGP
9 11 (1.02%) Wireless
10 10 (0.93%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.93%) 5G
10 10 (0.93%) HTTP
10 10 (0.93%) MPLS
11 9 (0.84%) VLAN
12 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.74%) OSPF
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (5.49%) Power BI
2 53 (4.93%) Relational Database
3 52 (4.84%) SQL Server
4 47 (4.37%) PostgreSQL
5 40 (3.72%) Metadata
6 27 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
7 24 (2.23%) MongoDB
7 24 (2.23%) NoSQL
8 23 (2.14%) Big Data
9 19 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
10 18 (1.67%) MySQL
11 15 (1.40%) Data Mining
11 15 (1.40%) Tableau
12 13 (1.21%) Redis
13 12 (1.12%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (1.02%) Oracle Database
15 10 (0.93%) Data Lake
16 8 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
17 7 (0.65%) Hadoop
17 7 (0.65%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 94 (8.74%) Git
2 52 (4.84%) JIRA
3 45 (4.19%) Jenkins
4 43 (4.00%) GitLab
5 18 (1.67%) JUnit
6 17 (1.58%) Selenium
7 15 (1.40%) Gradle
7 15 (1.40%) Maven
7 15 (1.40%) SonarQube
8 14 (1.30%) Rational DOORS
9 13 (1.21%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.12%) REST Assured
11 11 (1.02%) Mockito
12 10 (0.93%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.84%) SpecFlow
14 8 (0.74%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.65%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
16 6 (0.56%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 447 (41.58%) Social Skills
2 244 (22.70%) Analytical Skills
3 233 (21.67%) Finance
4 89 (8.28%) Banking
5 64 (5.95%) Public Sector
6 54 (5.02%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (4.28%) Aerospace
8 43 (4.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 42 (3.91%) Telecoms
10 34 (3.16%) Organisational Skills
11 32 (2.98%) Manufacturing
12 27 (2.51%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (2.42%) Front Office
13 26 (2.42%) Marketing
14 24 (2.23%) Legal
15 20 (1.86%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (1.67%) Military
17 16 (1.49%) Retail
18 14 (1.30%) Law
19 13 (1.21%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 146 (13.58%) Developer
2 107 (9.95%) Senior
3 91 (8.47%) Architect
4 79 (7.35%) Analyst
5 75 (6.98%) Lead
6 38 (3.53%) Data Engineer
7 30 (2.79%) Software Engineer
8 29 (2.70%) Java Developer
9 27 (2.51%) IT Support
10 25 (2.33%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.23%) Solutions Architect
12 23 (2.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 23 (2.14%) Junior
13 22 (2.05%) Data Scientist
13 22 (2.05%) Full-Stack Developer
13 22 (2.05%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.05%) Security Engineer
14 21 (1.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (1.86%) C# Developer
15 20 (1.86%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.74%) REST
2 60 (5.58%) Terraform
3 59 (5.49%) React
4 57 (5.30%) .NET
5 51 (4.74%) HTML
5 51 (4.74%) Kafka
6 48 (4.47%) CSS
7 41 (3.81%) RESTful
8 33 (3.07%) Spring
9 32 (2.98%) Spring Boot
10 31 (2.88%) OAuth
11 26 (2.42%) OAuth2
11 26 (2.42%) Web Services
12 24 (2.23%) OpenID
13 23 (2.14%) JSON
13 23 (2.14%) Middleware
13 23 (2.14%) SOAP
14 22 (2.05%) SAML
15 21 (1.95%) AngularJS
16 19 (1.77%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 112 (10.42%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.44%) Algorithms
3 73 (6.79%) Onboarding
4 72 (6.70%) Cloud Native
5 62 (5.77%) Data Structures
5 62 (5.77%) Product Ownership
6 52 (4.84%) Distributed Systems
7 31 (2.88%) AI Agents
8 26 (2.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 24 (2.23%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
11 22 (2.05%) Self-Motivation
12 20 (1.86%) Derivative
13 19 (1.77%) Data Centre
14 17 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.30%) Fixed Income
15 14 (1.30%) Operational Technology
16 13 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.21%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 124 (11.53%) Windows
2 110 (10.23%) Linux
3 31 (2.88%) Unix
4 29 (2.70%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.86%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.30%) Android
8 10 (0.93%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.56%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) zOS
14 1 (0.093%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.093%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 332 (30.88%) Problem-Solving
2 265 (24.65%) Agile
3 230 (21.40%) AI
4 214 (19.91%) CI/CD
5 189 (17.58%) Software Engineering
6 185 (17.21%) Continuous Improvement
7 176 (16.37%) DevOps
8 160 (14.88%) Stakeholder Management
9 153 (14.23%) Analytics
10 116 (10.79%) ITIL
11 112 (10.42%) Cybersecurity
12 105 (9.77%) Mathematics
13 103 (9.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 98 (9.12%) Roadmaps
15 97 (9.02%) Machine Learning
16 93 (8.65%) Test Automation
17 91 (8.47%) Scrum
17 91 (8.47%) Validation
18 87 (8.09%) Mentoring
19 82 (7.63%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 290 (26.98%) Python
2 214 (19.91%) SQL
3 141 (13.12%) Java
4 87 (8.09%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.35%) PowerShell
6 69 (6.42%) C#
7 44 (4.09%) Bash
8 38 (3.53%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.79%) C++
10 17 (1.58%) Bicep
11 14 (1.30%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.12%) R
13 11 (1.02%) C
14 9 (0.84%) Scala
15 8 (0.74%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.65%) Go
17 6 (0.56%) Perl
17 6 (0.56%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 821 (76.37%) Degree
2 495 (46.05%) Computer Science Degree
3 189 (17.58%) Security Cleared
4 133 (12.37%) SC Cleared
5 113 (10.51%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.74%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.47%) CISSP
8 47 (4.37%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.53%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.35%) PhD
11 30 (2.79%) CISM
12 29 (2.70%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.60%) DV Cleared
14 23 (2.14%) PMI Certification
14 23 (2.14%) PMP
15 22 (2.05%) Cisco Certification
15 22 (2.05%) TOGAF Certification
16 19 (1.77%) BPSS Clearance
16 19 (1.77%) CISA
17 15 (1.40%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.42%) Data Quality
2 63 (5.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.30%) QA
4 53 (4.93%) NIST
5 27 (2.51%) GDPR
6 17 (1.58%) SLA
7 16 (1.49%) Accessibility
8 15 (1.40%) GRC
9 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
9 11 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (0.93%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 8 (0.74%) NCSC
11 8 (0.74%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.65%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.47%) ITGC
14 4 (0.37%) COBIT
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
15 3 (0.28%) HL7
15 3 (0.28%) ISO 9001
15 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 87 (8.09%) Docker
2 76 (7.07%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.74%) Firmware
7 6 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.093%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.093%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.093%) KVM
Systems Management
1 102 (9.49%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.63%) Ansible
3 28 (2.60%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (2.33%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.95%) Grafana
6 14 (1.30%) SCCM
7 12 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.47%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) Control-M
9 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) CASB
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) Consul
11 2 (0.19%) QRadar
Vendors
1 212 (19.72%) Microsoft
2 70 (6.51%) Oracle
3 48 (4.47%) Google
4 40 (3.72%) Databricks
5 39 (3.63%) IBM
6 37 (3.44%) VMware
7 36 (3.35%) ServiceNow
8 31 (2.88%) SAP
9 27 (2.51%) Cisco
10 23 (2.14%) Splunk
11 20 (1.86%) CyberArk
12 19 (1.77%) Salesforce
13 18 (1.67%) BeyondTrust
14 13 (1.21%) Adobe
14 13 (1.21%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.02%) OpenAI
16 10 (0.93%) Citrix
16 10 (0.93%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.93%) Foundry
17 9 (0.84%) Veracode