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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 64 62
Rank change year-on-year -60 -2 +40
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,023 1,118 1,391
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 3.77% 3.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 4.15% 3.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 584 621 829
10th Percentile £178 £250 £315
25th Percentile £219 £380 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.47% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £760 £775 £782
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £475 £515
% change year-on-year -15.79% -7.72% -1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 39 103
10th Percentile £27.20 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £41.71 £28.71 £38.75
Median hourly rate £75.00 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +100.00% -31.82% -
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.13 £65.00
90th Percentile - £83.97 £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 42,574 26,968 37,058
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 91.03% 85.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,549 17,103 23,600
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £506 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -3.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,556 1,231 2,598
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.01
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.32 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.02% -29.21% +6.23%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +76.94% -34.02% +17.29%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 -55 912 £475 -8.65% 1,174
UK excluding London -54 548 £400 -15.79% 757
London -61 397 £550 -8.33% 561
Work from Home -68 225 £500 -9.09% 419
South East -10 218 £215 -55.84% 250
North of England -33 132 £400 -18.70% 128
Yorkshire -5 80 £525 +22.38% 22
Midlands -76 68 £473 +57.50% 101
West Midlands -67 52 £450 +50.00% 57
North West -48 51 £350 -31.17% 76
Scotland -28 41 £640 +21.90% 48
East of England -37 39 £400 -38.46% 106
South West -55 37 £477 +98.75% 75
East Midlands -39 15 £545 +74.12% 44
Northern Ireland +9 8 £350 -41.67% 61
Wales -31 8 £530 +82.76% 11
North East -36 2 £125 -73.68% 30

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 46 (4.50%) Confluence
2 35 (3.42%) Apache Spark
3 25 (2.44%) SharePoint
4 21 (2.05%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (1.96%) Apache
6 9 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.59%) IIS
8 5 (0.49%) SAS
9 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.29%) Camunda
10 3 (0.29%) CMS
10 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.20%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.20%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.20%) nginx
11 2 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.20%) WebSphere
12 1 (0.098%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.098%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 32 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 17 (1.66%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.20%) Simulink
8 2 (0.20%) Trello
9 1 (0.098%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.098%) Sketch
9 1 (0.098%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (2.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.39%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.39%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.20%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.20%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.20%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.20%) Workfront
5 1 (0.098%) Actimize
5 1 (0.098%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.098%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.098%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.098%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.098%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.098%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 298 (29.13%) Azure
2 188 (18.38%) AWS
3 84 (8.21%) GCP
4 69 (6.74%) Power Platform
5 52 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (4.79%) Entra ID
6 49 (4.79%) SaaS
7 46 (4.50%) GitHub
8 40 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
9 23 (2.25%) Snowflake
10 22 (2.15%) GitHub Actions
10 22 (2.15%) Serverless
11 20 (1.96%) PowerApps
12 16 (1.56%) AWS CloudFormation
13 14 (1.37%) Azure AKS
13 14 (1.37%) Azure Data Factory
13 14 (1.37%) Power Automate
14 12 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
14 12 (1.17%) IaaS
15 11 (1.08%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 34 (3.32%) Firewall
2 31 (3.03%) Network Security
3 30 (2.93%) DNS
3 30 (2.93%) TCP/IP
4 13 (1.27%) SSH
4 13 (1.27%) WAN
5 12 (1.17%) BGP
6 10 (0.98%) HTTPS
6 10 (0.98%) LAN
7 9 (0.88%) 3GPP
7 9 (0.88%) OSPF
7 9 (0.88%) VPN
8 8 (0.78%) Wireless
9 7 (0.68%) VLAN
10 6 (0.59%) DHCP
10 6 (0.59%) LTE
11 5 (0.49%) RTP
11 5 (0.49%) SAN
11 5 (0.49%) Wireshark
12 4 (0.39%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (5.57%) Power BI
2 48 (4.69%) Relational Database
2 48 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 44 (4.30%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (3.71%) Data Warehouse
5 33 (3.23%) Big Data
6 29 (2.83%) Metadata
7 24 (2.35%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.15%) MongoDB
9 21 (2.05%) Hadoop
9 21 (2.05%) MySQL
10 19 (1.86%) Tableau
11 16 (1.56%) Data Lake
12 12 (1.17%) Elasticsearch
13 11 (1.08%) Snowflake Schema
14 10 (0.98%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 9 (0.88%) Amazon RDS
15 9 (0.88%) Redis
16 8 (0.78%) Star Schema
17 7 (0.68%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 73 (7.14%) Git
2 58 (5.67%) JIRA
3 38 (3.71%) Jenkins
4 33 (3.23%) GitLab
5 28 (2.74%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.17%) Gradle
6 12 (1.17%) Selenium
7 10 (0.98%) JUnit
8 8 (0.78%) MLflow
8 8 (0.78%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.68%) Maven
9 7 (0.68%) Postman
10 6 (0.59%) Bitbucket
10 6 (0.59%) Cucumber
10 6 (0.59%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.59%) Jaeger
10 6 (0.59%) REST Assured
11 5 (0.49%) Flyway
11 5 (0.49%) SonarQube
General
1 413 (40.37%) Social Skills
2 234 (22.87%) Finance
3 214 (20.92%) Analytical Skills
4 88 (8.60%) Banking
5 65 (6.35%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.38%) Aerospace
7 53 (5.18%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (3.32%) Marketing
9 31 (3.03%) Telecoms
10 29 (2.83%) Organisational Skills
11 28 (2.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 28 (2.74%) Presentation Skills
12 26 (2.54%) Legal
13 25 (2.44%) Influencing Skills
14 23 (2.25%) Front Office
15 19 (1.86%) Manufacturing
16 17 (1.66%) Publishing
17 16 (1.56%) Retail
18 15 (1.47%) Law
19 12 (1.17%) Military
Job Titles
1 111 (10.85%) Architect
2 108 (10.56%) Developer
3 91 (8.90%) Analyst
4 85 (8.31%) Lead
5 83 (8.11%) Senior
6 38 (3.71%) Software Engineer
7 36 (3.52%) Product Manager
8 35 (3.42%) Delivery Manager
8 35 (3.42%) Solutions Architect
9 30 (2.93%) Data Scientist
10 28 (2.74%) Product Delivery Manager
11 27 (2.64%) Technical Support
12 26 (2.54%) Data Engineer
13 24 (2.35%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.15%) Python Developer
14 22 (2.15%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.15%) Systems Manager
15 21 (2.05%) Junior
15 21 (2.05%) Project Manager
16 20 (1.96%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (8.41%) REST
2 56 (5.47%) React
3 51 (4.99%) .NET
4 43 (4.20%) Kafka
4 43 (4.20%) Middleware
5 33 (3.23%) RESTful
6 31 (3.03%) Spring Boot
7 29 (2.83%) Spring
8 27 (2.64%) OAuth
9 23 (2.25%) AngularJS
10 21 (2.05%) JSON
11 19 (1.86%) HTML
11 19 (1.86%) PyTorch
11 19 (1.86%) SOAP
12 18 (1.76%) Elastic Stack
13 17 (1.66%) CSS
13 17 (1.66%) SAML
13 17 (1.66%) XML
14 16 (1.56%) OAuth2
14 16 (1.56%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 101 (9.87%) Management Information System
2 81 (7.92%) Onboarding
3 80 (7.82%) Product Ownership
4 70 (6.84%) Algorithms
5 63 (6.16%) Cloud Native
6 53 (5.18%) Data Structures
7 50 (4.89%) Distributed Systems
8 27 (2.64%) Virtual Team
9 25 (2.44%) Derivative
10 24 (2.35%) Self-Motivation
11 21 (2.05%) Equities
11 21 (2.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 20 (1.96%) AI Agents
12 20 (1.96%) Taxonomies
13 19 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
14 18 (1.76%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (1.76%) Security Operations Centre
15 17 (1.66%) Cyberattack
16 15 (1.47%) Robotics
16 15 (1.47%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 132 (12.90%) Windows
2 124 (12.12%) Linux
3 43 (4.20%) Unix
4 23 (2.25%) Android
5 19 (1.86%) Windows 10
5 19 (1.86%) Windows Server
6 17 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.37%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.17%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.39%) Debian
10 4 (0.39%) Rocky
10 4 (0.39%) VMS
11 2 (0.20%) Solaris
11 2 (0.20%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.098%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.098%) MVS
12 1 (0.098%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.098%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 307 (30.01%) Problem-Solving
2 262 (25.61%) Agile
3 225 (21.99%) AI
4 186 (18.18%) CI/CD
5 173 (16.91%) DevOps
6 171 (16.72%) Continuous Improvement
7 165 (16.13%) Software Engineering
8 132 (12.90%) Analytics
9 124 (12.12%) Cybersecurity
10 109 (10.65%) Microservices
10 109 (10.65%) Stakeholder Management
11 102 (9.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 96 (9.38%) Machine Learning
13 92 (8.99%) Decision-Making
13 92 (8.99%) Technical Leadership
14 90 (8.80%) Mathematics
15 88 (8.60%) Data Governance
16 87 (8.50%) Containerisation
16 87 (8.50%) Data Science
17 85 (8.31%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 281 (27.47%) Python
2 203 (19.84%) SQL
3 124 (12.12%) Java
4 67 (6.55%) JavaScript
5 56 (5.47%) C#
6 44 (4.30%) PowerShell
7 28 (2.74%) TypeScript
8 25 (2.44%) Bash
9 24 (2.35%) C++
10 20 (1.96%) R
11 13 (1.27%) Go
12 11 (1.08%) Perl
12 11 (1.08%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.98%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.98%) Rust
14 8 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.59%) Scala
16 5 (0.49%) C
17 4 (0.39%) Ada
18 3 (0.29%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 810 (79.18%) Degree
2 487 (47.61%) Computer Science Degree
3 192 (18.77%) Security Cleared
4 133 (13.00%) Master's Degree
5 120 (11.73%) SC Cleared
6 55 (5.38%) CISSP
7 37 (3.62%) CISM
8 31 (3.03%) Microsoft Certification
9 29 (2.83%) Azure Certification
9 29 (2.83%) PhD
10 28 (2.74%) PMI Certification
10 28 (2.74%) TOGAF Certification
11 27 (2.64%) DV Cleared
12 25 (2.44%) PMP
13 23 (2.25%) AWS Certification
14 22 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
15 21 (2.05%) CompTIA Security+
16 19 (1.86%) CISA
16 19 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
16 19 (1.86%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (6.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 63 (6.16%) NIST
3 58 (5.67%) Data Quality
4 48 (4.69%) QA
5 39 (3.81%) GDPR
6 20 (1.96%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.66%) Accessibility
8 15 (1.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 14 (1.37%) GRC
10 10 (0.98%) NIST 800
10 10 (0.98%) SLA
11 9 (0.88%) HIPAA
11 9 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 8 (0.78%) NCSC
13 7 (0.68%) COBIT
14 6 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
14 6 (0.59%) ISO 20022
14 6 (0.59%) PSD2
15 5 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
15 5 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 96 (9.38%) Docker
2 74 (7.23%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.96%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.98%) Firmware
5 9 (0.88%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.39%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.20%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.20%) Ceph
10 2 (0.20%) KVM
10 2 (0.20%) Squid
10 2 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.098%) ACF2
11 1 (0.098%) HDFS
11 1 (0.098%) RACF
Systems Management
1 117 (11.44%) Kubernetes
2 51 (4.99%) Terraform
3 40 (3.91%) Ansible
4 30 (2.93%) Prometheus
5 28 (2.74%) Grafana
6 26 (2.54%) Microsoft Intune
7 17 (1.66%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.68%) Puppet
9 6 (0.59%) Kiali
9 6 (0.59%) Kibana
10 4 (0.39%) Control-M
10 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Foglight
11 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.20%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.20%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.20%) vRealize
12 2 (0.20%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 171 (16.72%) Microsoft
2 68 (6.65%) Oracle
3 46 (4.50%) Databricks
4 41 (4.01%) Splunk
5 34 (3.32%) IBM
6 33 (3.23%) Google
6 33 (3.23%) SAP
7 29 (2.83%) ServiceNow
8 24 (2.35%) VMware
9 17 (1.66%) Okta
10 15 (1.47%) BiZZdesign
10 15 (1.47%) Cisco
10 15 (1.47%) Informatica
11 14 (1.37%) CyberArk
12 13 (1.27%) BeyondTrust
12 13 (1.27%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.17%) Palo Alto
14 11 (1.08%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.08%) MuleSoft
15 9 (0.88%) Foundry