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

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 68 61
Rank change year-on-year -81 -7 +19
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,064 1,203 1,290
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.95% 3.64% 3.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.31% 4.02% 3.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 617 697 784
10th Percentile £178 £178 £347
25th Percentile £200 £315 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £688
90th Percentile £735 £750 £834
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £416 £513
% change year-on-year -9.91% -18.78% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 55 40
10th Percentile £20.70 £26.45 £20.12
25th Percentile £27.00 £29.00 £34.13
Median hourly rate £41.71 £33.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +24.51% -34.95% -14.52%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.00 £70.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.20 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.93% -44.17% -

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 46,126 29,916 32,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.50% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,740 18,573 19,640
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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,322 1,863 1,307
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.63% -7.56%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.21 £65.00
90th Percentile £77.95 £65.23 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.32 £42.50
% change year-on-year +68.05% -47.49% -

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 8 October 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 8 October 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 8 October 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 -66 967 £470 -1.05% 4,053
UK excluding London -64 556 £375 -9.91% 1,697
London -71 435 £535 +1.90% 2,624
Work from Home -88 252 £520 +9.75% 1,358
South East -18 205 £470 +35.25% 497
North of England -59 149 £425 +3.03% 304
Midlands -54 89 £211 -53.11% 191
Yorkshire -25 80 £344 -20.70% 95
West Midlands -49 58 £199 -62.14% 124
North West -61 57 £525 +40.00% 149
East of England -47 45 £425 - 230
South West -63 33 £195 -5.57% 156
East Midlands -22 30 £230 -48.55% 67
Scotland -50 29 £400 -11.11% 187
North East -31 13 £195 -57.84% 61
Northern Ireland +10 4 - - 112
Wales -13 4 £530 +14.59% 43

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 (4.51%) Confluence
2 31 (2.91%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.16%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.60%) Apache
6 13 (1.22%) IIS
7 10 (0.94%) Camunda
7 10 (0.94%) CMS
8 8 (0.75%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.47%) SAS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.28%) CICS
12 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.28%) nginx
12 3 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 37 (3.48%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.56%) Navisworks
5 6 (0.56%) Revit
6 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.38%) Trello
7 4 (0.38%) Windchill
8 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.19%) Simulink
9 2 (0.19%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 9 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
2 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (0.38%) Workday HCM
2 4 (0.38%) Workfront
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.094%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.094%) Finacle
5 1 (0.094%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.094%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.094%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.094%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.094%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.094%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.094%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.094%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 304 (28.57%) Azure
2 192 (18.05%) AWS
3 118 (11.09%) GCP
4 64 (6.02%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.83%) Power Platform
6 58 (5.45%) Azure DevOps
7 53 (4.98%) GitHub
8 52 (4.89%) Microsoft 365
9 44 (4.14%) SaaS
10 39 (3.67%) Serverless
11 28 (2.63%) Snowflake
12 22 (2.07%) AWS Lambda
13 21 (1.97%) OpenShift
13 21 (1.97%) PowerApps
14 20 (1.88%) GitHub Actions
15 19 (1.79%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
16 17 (1.60%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.50%) Anthropic Claude
17 16 (1.50%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.42%) Firewall
2 42 (3.95%) DNS
3 38 (3.57%) Network Security
4 32 (3.01%) VPN
5 27 (2.54%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.97%) DHCP
7 17 (1.60%) SSH
8 13 (1.22%) WAN
9 12 (1.13%) Wireshark
10 11 (1.03%) 5G
10 11 (1.03%) HTTP
10 11 (1.03%) Wireless
11 10 (0.94%) LAN
11 10 (0.94%) VLAN
12 9 (0.85%) 3GPP
13 8 (0.75%) BGP
13 8 (0.75%) Intrusion Detection
14 7 (0.66%) MPLS
14 7 (0.66%) OSPF
14 7 (0.66%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.08%) PostgreSQL
1 54 (5.08%) SQL Server
2 49 (4.61%) Power BI
3 47 (4.42%) Relational Database
4 38 (3.57%) Metadata
5 30 (2.82%) MongoDB
6 27 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
6 27 (2.54%) MySQL
6 27 (2.54%) NoSQL
7 24 (2.26%) Elasticsearch
8 19 (1.79%) Big Data
9 14 (1.32%) Redis
10 13 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (1.22%) Data Mining
11 12 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (1.13%) Tableau
12 11 (1.03%) Data Lake
12 11 (1.03%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.56%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 102 (9.59%) Git
2 52 (4.89%) JIRA
3 50 (4.70%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.14%) GitLab
5 23 (2.16%) JUnit
6 22 (2.07%) Gradle
6 22 (2.07%) Maven
7 19 (1.79%) SonarQube
8 18 (1.69%) Selenium
9 17 (1.60%) Mockito
10 14 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (1.22%) Cucumber
12 12 (1.13%) REST Assured
13 11 (1.03%) Bitbucket
13 11 (1.03%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.85%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (0.75%) Postman
15 8 (0.75%) Visual Studio
16 7 (0.66%) TeamCity
17 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
General
1 451 (42.39%) Social Skills
2 238 (22.37%) Finance
3 236 (22.18%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (9.21%) Banking
5 69 (6.48%) Public Sector
6 53 (4.98%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (4.42%) Aerospace
8 45 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 40 (3.76%) Manufacturing
10 32 (3.01%) Marketing
10 32 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
11 30 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
11 30 (2.82%) Telecoms
12 22 (2.07%) Front Office
13 21 (1.97%) Military
14 18 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
15 17 (1.60%) Retail
16 16 (1.50%) Legal
17 14 (1.32%) Electronics
17 14 (1.32%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 164 (15.41%) Developer
2 108 (10.15%) Senior
3 88 (8.27%) Architect
4 72 (6.77%) Analyst
4 72 (6.77%) Lead
5 35 (3.29%) Data Engineer
6 34 (3.20%) Java Developer
7 26 (2.44%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 25 (2.35%) Senior Developer
8 25 (2.35%) Software Engineer
9 24 (2.26%) IT Support
9 24 (2.26%) Security Engineer
10 23 (2.16%) Data Scientist
10 23 (2.16%) Full-Stack Developer
10 23 (2.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 23 (2.16%) Python Developer
11 21 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
12 20 (1.88%) C# Developer
12 20 (1.88%) Consultant
13 18 (1.69%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (9.02%) REST
2 68 (6.39%) Terraform
3 67 (6.30%) React
4 64 (6.02%) HTML
5 62 (5.83%) CSS
6 56 (5.26%) Kafka
7 52 (4.89%) .NET
7 52 (4.89%) RESTful
8 38 (3.57%) OAuth
8 38 (3.57%) Spring Boot
9 36 (3.38%) Spring
10 31 (2.91%) OAuth2
10 31 (2.91%) SOAP
10 31 (2.91%) Web Services
11 29 (2.73%) Middleware
11 29 (2.73%) OpenID
12 28 (2.63%) SAML
13 23 (2.16%) .NET Core
13 23 (2.16%) AngularJS
13 23 (2.16%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 122 (11.47%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.52%) Cloud Native
3 65 (6.11%) Algorithms
4 62 (5.83%) Onboarding
5 57 (5.36%) Product Ownership
6 53 (4.98%) Data Structures
7 51 (4.79%) Distributed Systems
8 34 (3.20%) AI Agents
9 28 (2.63%) Enterprise Software
10 24 (2.26%) Virtual Team
11 23 (2.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 22 (2.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 21 (1.97%) Data Centre
14 19 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.60%) Derivative
16 15 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
16 15 (1.41%) Replication
17 13 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
17 13 (1.22%) Equities
17 13 (1.22%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 123 (11.56%) Linux
1 123 (11.56%) Windows
2 41 (3.85%) Unix
3 36 (3.38%) Windows Server
4 17 (1.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (1.50%) Windows 10
6 11 (1.03%) Android
7 9 (0.85%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.75%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.47%) zOS
10 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.28%) Solaris
11 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.19%) Debian
12 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.19%) MVS
12 2 (0.19%) Rocky
13 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 326 (30.64%) Problem-Solving
2 276 (25.94%) Agile
3 231 (21.71%) CI/CD
4 211 (19.83%) AI
5 199 (18.70%) DevOps
6 193 (18.14%) Software Engineering
7 191 (17.95%) Stakeholder Management
8 181 (17.01%) Continuous Improvement
9 153 (14.38%) Analytics
10 121 (11.37%) Mathematics
11 120 (11.28%) ITIL
12 113 (10.62%) Roadmaps
13 112 (10.53%) Scrum
14 109 (10.24%) Cybersecurity
15 106 (9.96%) Test Automation
16 97 (9.12%) Machine Learning
16 97 (9.12%) Validation
17 94 (8.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 89 (8.36%) Change Management
19 81 (7.61%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 273 (25.66%) Python
2 202 (18.98%) SQL
3 135 (12.69%) Java
4 97 (9.12%) JavaScript
5 82 (7.71%) PowerShell
6 64 (6.02%) C#
7 50 (4.70%) Bash
8 38 (3.57%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.44%) C++
10 19 (1.79%) Bicep
11 16 (1.50%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.03%) R
12 11 (1.03%) Scala
13 10 (0.94%) Go
14 9 (0.85%) C
14 9 (0.85%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.85%) Perl
15 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
16 6 (0.56%) COBOL
16 6 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 807 (75.85%) Degree
2 493 (46.33%) Computer Science Degree
3 194 (18.23%) Security Cleared
4 149 (14.00%) SC Cleared
5 110 (10.34%) Master's Degree
6 55 (5.17%) Azure Certification
6 55 (5.17%) CISSP
6 55 (5.17%) DBS Check
7 40 (3.76%) Microsoft Certification
8 39 (3.67%) CISM
9 36 (3.38%) PhD
10 33 (3.10%) AWS Certification
10 33 (3.10%) DV Cleared
11 29 (2.73%) Cisco Certification
12 27 (2.54%) TOGAF Certification
13 23 (2.16%) PMI Certification
13 23 (2.16%) PMP
14 22 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
15 18 (1.69%) CISA
16 15 (1.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.39%) Data Quality
2 67 (6.30%) QA
3 64 (6.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 51 (4.79%) NIST
5 27 (2.54%) GDPR
6 16 (1.50%) GRC
7 15 (1.41%) HIPAA
8 13 (1.22%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.22%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.22%) SLA
9 9 (0.85%) NCSC
10 8 (0.75%) ISO 9001
10 8 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.38%) EU AI Act
14 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 90 (8.46%) Docker
2 68 (6.39%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.75%) Firmware
5 8 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.66%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.56%) RACF
8 5 (0.47%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.47%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) NFS
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.094%) KVM
11 1 (0.094%) Squid
Systems Management
1 108 (10.15%) Kubernetes
2 36 (3.38%) Ansible
3 26 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.26%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.97%) Grafana
6 14 (1.32%) SCCM
7 10 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.66%) CASB
9 6 (0.56%) Control-M
10 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.38%) Puppet
12 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
12 3 (0.28%) Istio
12 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
13 2 (0.19%) Consul
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 205 (19.27%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.05%) Oracle
3 60 (5.64%) Google
4 41 (3.85%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.38%) Databricks
6 35 (3.29%) IBM
7 34 (3.20%) VMware
8 31 (2.91%) SAP
9 28 (2.63%) Cisco
9 28 (2.63%) Splunk
10 24 (2.26%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.88%) CyberArk
12 18 (1.69%) Adobe
12 18 (1.69%) BeyondTrust
12 18 (1.69%) OpenAI
13 14 (1.32%) Red Hat
14 11 (1.03%) CrowdStrike
14 11 (1.03%) Dynatrace
15 10 (0.94%) F5
15 10 (0.94%) Veracode