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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 143 70 59
Rank change year-on-year -73 -11 +26
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,043 1,178 1,308
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.58% 3.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 3.95% 3.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 580 651 801
10th Percentile £175 £184 £330
25th Percentile £200 £354 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £476 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% -13.45% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £684
90th Percentile £760 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £377 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -11.29% -19.05% +1.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 54 47
10th Percentile £23.20 £26.85 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £50.50 £34.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +47.45% -31.50% -19.35%
75th Percentile £82.40 £67.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £87.47 £82.10 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.25 £33.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +100.75% -37.67% -10.42%

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 45,839 29,816 32,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.46% 90.52% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,855 18,531 20,147
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
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 £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,070 1,799 1,460
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.25 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.68 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +83.63% -47.37% +5.81%

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 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 16 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 16 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 -62 943 £475 -3.06% 5,386
UK excluding London -59 532 £377 -11.29% 2,183
London -72 435 £535 -2.73% 3,604
Work from Home -77 247 £503 +4.69% 1,726
South East -15 201 £425 +6.25% 598
North of England -55 136 £474 +5.33% 373
Midlands -52 84 £225 -49.66% 251
Yorkshire -29 66 £450 +14.50% 93
North West -49 59 £523 +11.22% 218
West Midlands -60 55 £221 -50.89% 156
East of England -28 48 £400 -20.79% 321
East Midlands -18 28 £230 -48.55% 95
Scotland -60 28 £380 -15.56% 241
South West -77 27 £260 +40.54% 249
North East -33 12 £195 -57.84% 66
Northern Ireland +7 6 £175 - 117
Wales -17 4 £530 +14.59% 46

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 39 (3.74%) Confluence
2 33 (3.16%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.21%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.63%) Apache
6 10 (0.96%) IIS
7 9 (0.86%) Camunda
8 8 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.48%) CMS
9 5 (0.48%) SAS
10 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.19%) CICS
12 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.19%) nginx
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 40 (3.84%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.30%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.15%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 5 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.38%) Trello
7 4 (0.38%) Windchill
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.19%) Sketch
9 1 (0.096%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 9 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.29%) Primavera
4 3 (0.29%) 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 (0.096%) Finacle
6 1 (0.096%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.096%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.096%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 296 (28.38%) Azure
2 194 (18.60%) AWS
3 113 (10.83%) GCP
4 68 (6.52%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.94%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (5.75%) Entra ID
7 56 (5.37%) GitHub
8 50 (4.79%) Azure DevOps
9 48 (4.60%) SaaS
10 36 (3.45%) Serverless
11 30 (2.88%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.21%) PowerApps
13 21 (2.01%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
14 20 (1.92%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (1.63%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.53%) Amazon EKS
16 16 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
17 14 (1.34%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.22%) Firewall
2 43 (4.12%) DNS
3 35 (3.36%) Network Security
4 33 (3.16%) VPN
5 26 (2.49%) TCP/IP
6 21 (2.01%) DHCP
7 18 (1.73%) SSH
8 14 (1.34%) WAN
9 13 (1.25%) Wireshark
10 12 (1.15%) LAN
11 11 (1.05%) 5G
11 11 (1.05%) HTTP
11 11 (1.05%) Wireless
12 10 (0.96%) 3GPP
13 9 (0.86%) BGP
13 9 (0.86%) MPLS
13 9 (0.86%) VLAN
14 8 (0.77%) HTTPS
14 8 (0.77%) Intrusion Detection
15 7 (0.67%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.27%) PostgreSQL
2 54 (5.18%) Relational Database
3 53 (5.08%) SQL Server
4 52 (4.99%) Power BI
5 42 (4.03%) Metadata
6 29 (2.78%) MongoDB
7 26 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
8 25 (2.40%) NoSQL
9 23 (2.21%) MySQL
10 22 (2.11%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (1.73%) Big Data
12 15 (1.44%) Data Mining
13 14 (1.34%) Redis
14 13 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
15 12 (1.15%) Tableau
16 10 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.96%) Data Lake
16 10 (0.96%) Oracle Database
17 6 (0.58%) Flink
17 6 (0.58%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 96 (9.20%) Git
2 51 (4.89%) JIRA
3 48 (4.60%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.22%) GitLab
5 20 (1.92%) JUnit
5 20 (1.92%) Maven
6 19 (1.82%) Gradle
6 19 (1.82%) Selenium
7 17 (1.63%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.25%) Mockito
8 13 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
9 11 (1.05%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.96%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.96%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.96%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.77%) Bitbucket Server
11 8 (0.77%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.58%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.58%) Postman
12 6 (0.58%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 447 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.63%) Finance
3 233 (22.34%) Analytical Skills
4 95 (9.11%) Banking
5 66 (6.33%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.99%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (4.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 42 (4.03%) Aerospace
9 37 (3.55%) Manufacturing
10 36 (3.45%) Telecoms
11 34 (3.26%) Organisational Skills
12 30 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
13 24 (2.30%) Marketing
14 23 (2.21%) Front Office
15 20 (1.92%) Legal
16 18 (1.73%) Military
17 16 (1.53%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (1.44%) Law
19 14 (1.34%) Retail
20 12 (1.15%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 154 (14.77%) Developer
2 111 (10.64%) Senior
3 89 (8.53%) Architect
4 78 (7.48%) Lead
5 73 (7.00%) Analyst
6 37 (3.55%) Data Engineer
7 33 (3.16%) Java Developer
8 31 (2.97%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.59%) IT Support
10 25 (2.40%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 25 (2.40%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.30%) Full-Stack Developer
11 24 (2.30%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.21%) Solutions Architect
13 21 (2.01%) C# Developer
13 21 (2.01%) Data Scientist
13 21 (2.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 21 (2.01%) Python Developer
14 20 (1.92%) Junior
15 19 (1.82%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 102 (9.78%) REST
2 61 (5.85%) React
2 61 (5.85%) Terraform
3 58 (5.56%) HTML
4 57 (5.47%) .NET
5 55 (5.27%) CSS
6 54 (5.18%) Kafka
7 46 (4.41%) RESTful
8 37 (3.55%) Spring Boot
9 36 (3.45%) Spring
10 32 (3.07%) OAuth
11 28 (2.68%) SOAP
11 28 (2.68%) Web Services
12 27 (2.59%) OAuth2
13 25 (2.40%) OpenID
14 24 (2.30%) JSON
15 23 (2.21%) Middleware
16 22 (2.11%) .NET Core
16 22 (2.11%) AngularJS
16 22 (2.11%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 118 (11.31%) Management Information System
2 75 (7.19%) Cloud Native
3 71 (6.81%) Algorithms
4 67 (6.42%) Onboarding
5 60 (5.75%) Product Ownership
6 51 (4.89%) Data Structures
6 51 (4.89%) Distributed Systems
7 33 (3.16%) AI Agents
8 28 (2.68%) Virtual Team
9 26 (2.49%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (2.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 23 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
11 20 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
12 18 (1.73%) Data Centre
12 18 (1.73%) Derivative
13 15 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
14 13 (1.25%) Equities
14 13 (1.25%) Fixed Income
14 13 (1.25%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 126 (12.08%) Windows
2 116 (11.12%) Linux
3 33 (3.16%) Unix
4 32 (3.07%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.34%) Android
8 10 (0.96%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.86%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.67%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) zOS
12 3 (0.29%) Debian
12 3 (0.29%) Rocky
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.096%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.096%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (31.54%) Problem-Solving
2 263 (25.22%) Agile
3 222 (21.28%) AI
4 217 (20.81%) CI/CD
5 189 (18.12%) Software Engineering
6 187 (17.93%) DevOps
7 178 (17.07%) Continuous Improvement
8 169 (16.20%) Stakeholder Management
9 149 (14.29%) Analytics
10 117 (11.22%) ITIL
11 112 (10.74%) Cybersecurity
12 107 (10.26%) Roadmaps
13 102 (9.78%) Scrum
14 101 (9.68%) Mathematics
15 97 (9.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 97 (9.30%) Test Automation
16 94 (9.01%) Machine Learning
16 94 (9.01%) Validation
17 88 (8.44%) Mentoring
18 82 (7.86%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 280 (26.85%) Python
2 207 (19.85%) SQL
3 144 (13.81%) Java
4 96 (9.20%) JavaScript
5 78 (7.48%) PowerShell
6 68 (6.52%) C#
7 46 (4.41%) Bash
8 40 (3.84%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.78%) C++
10 17 (1.63%) Bicep
11 15 (1.44%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.05%) C
13 9 (0.86%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.86%) R
13 9 (0.86%) Scala
14 7 (0.67%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.67%) Go
14 7 (0.67%) Perl
15 6 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.58%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 805 (77.18%) Degree
2 488 (46.79%) Computer Science Degree
3 184 (17.64%) Security Cleared
4 137 (13.14%) SC Cleared
5 109 (10.45%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.99%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.60%) CISSP
8 45 (4.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.74%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.45%) PhD
11 32 (3.07%) CISM
12 30 (2.88%) DV Cleared
13 29 (2.78%) AWS Certification
14 24 (2.30%) Cisco Certification
14 24 (2.30%) TOGAF Certification
15 23 (2.21%) PMI Certification
15 23 (2.21%) PMP
16 20 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
17 19 (1.82%) CISA
18 15 (1.44%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.52%) Data Quality
2 62 (5.94%) QA
3 61 (5.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 50 (4.79%) NIST
5 24 (2.30%) GDPR
6 16 (1.53%) GRC
7 15 (1.44%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.44%) SLA
8 11 (1.05%) HIPAA
9 10 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 10 (0.96%) PCI DSS
9 10 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (0.86%) NCSC
11 6 (0.58%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.48%) ISO 9001
12 5 (0.48%) PMO
13 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
13 4 (0.38%) ITGC
14 3 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
14 3 (0.29%) ISO 31000
System Software
1 89 (8.53%) Docker
2 76 (7.29%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.86%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.58%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.48%) RACF
7 5 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.38%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) ACF2
9 3 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.29%) ISA Server
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Time Sharing Option
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.096%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 101 (9.68%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.84%) Ansible
3 28 (2.68%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (2.21%) Prometheus
5 19 (1.82%) Grafana
6 14 (1.34%) SCCM
7 10 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.48%) Argo
8 5 (0.48%) CASB
9 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.29%) Control-M
10 3 (0.29%) Istio
10 3 (0.29%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.29%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) HP Fortify
11 2 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 209 (20.04%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.19%) Oracle
3 46 (4.41%) Google
4 37 (3.55%) VMware
5 34 (3.26%) ServiceNow
6 33 (3.16%) Databricks
7 32 (3.07%) IBM
7 32 (3.07%) SAP
8 29 (2.78%) Cisco
9 25 (2.40%) Splunk
10 21 (2.01%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.92%) CyberArk
12 18 (1.73%) BeyondTrust
13 14 (1.34%) Adobe
13 14 (1.34%) Red Hat
14 13 (1.25%) OpenAI
15 11 (1.05%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.96%) Foundry
17 9 (0.86%) Citrix
17 9 (0.86%) F5