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

6 months to
15 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 63 60
Rank change year-on-year -73 -3 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,113 1,256 1,305
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.81% 3.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.44% 4.21% 3.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 621 712 813
10th Percentile £175 £184 £329
25th Percentile £200 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £492 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.54% -10.55% -
75th Percentile £619 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £377 £413 £523
% change year-on-year -8.61% -21.05% -0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 49 64
10th Percentile £25.53 £25.00 £20.46
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £42.00
Median hourly rate £75.00 £54.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +37.61% +3.81% -15.32%
75th Percentile £87.16 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £55.63
% change year-on-year +21.64% +20.45% -7.29%

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 45,525 29,831 33,211
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.86% 90.51% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,003 18,596 21,236
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £424 £403 £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 2,834 1,716 1,828
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.30 £18.35
Median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +67.00% -39.40% -1.19%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.71 £68.00 £74.91
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 15 August 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 15 August 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 15 August 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 -54 1,018 £452 -9.70% 3,301
UK excluding London -48 600 £377 -8.61% 1,139
London -62 439 £530 -7.86% 2,356
Work from Home -82 250 £500 - 974
South East -5 247 £381 -10.29% 330
North of England -46 144 £402 -4.29% 193
Midlands -50 93 £230 -30.04% 126
Yorkshire -13 76 £450 +26.40% 47
West Midlands -46 64 £225 -25.00% 72
North West -63 58 £391 -17.63% 90
East of England -21 51 £215 -52.22% 219
South West -80 30 £477 +130.99% 101
East Midlands -23 28 £253 -41.75% 54
Scotland -56 26 £380 -20.00% 115
North East -38 11 £195 -57.84% 57
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 42
Wales -22 4 £530 +14.59% 25

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 35 (3.14%) Confluence
2 30 (2.70%) SharePoint
3 25 (2.25%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.53%) Apache
6 9 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.54%) IIS
8 5 (0.45%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
9 4 (0.36%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.27%) Camunda
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.090%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.090%) nginx
12 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.04%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.35%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.63%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.63%) Revit
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.45%) Trello
7 3 (0.27%) Windchill
8 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.18%) Sketch
9 1 (0.090%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 13 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.27%) Primavera
4 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.090%) Maximo
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.090%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 302 (27.13%) Azure
2 192 (17.25%) AWS
3 110 (9.88%) GCP
4 76 (6.83%) Power Platform
5 66 (5.93%) Entra ID
6 59 (5.30%) Microsoft 365
7 54 (4.85%) SaaS
8 45 (4.04%) GitHub
9 42 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
10 36 (3.23%) Snowflake
11 31 (2.79%) Serverless
12 22 (1.98%) PowerApps
13 18 (1.62%) GitHub Actions
14 16 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
14 16 (1.44%) Azure Data Factory
14 16 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.35%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.26%) dbt
17 13 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 13 (1.17%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.86%) Firewall
2 40 (3.59%) DNS
3 33 (2.96%) VPN
4 31 (2.79%) Network Security
5 26 (2.34%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.71%) WAN
7 18 (1.62%) DHCP
8 15 (1.35%) LAN
8 15 (1.35%) SSH
9 13 (1.17%) Wireless
10 11 (0.99%) BGP
10 11 (0.99%) VLAN
11 9 (0.81%) HTTP
12 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.72%) MPLS
12 8 (0.72%) OSPF
12 8 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (0.72%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.63%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.66%) Power BI
2 56 (5.03%) Relational Database
3 46 (4.13%) PostgreSQL
3 46 (4.13%) SQL Server
4 32 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
4 32 (2.88%) Metadata
5 26 (2.34%) MongoDB
6 24 (2.16%) Big Data
6 24 (2.16%) NoSQL
7 18 (1.62%) Tableau
8 15 (1.35%) Data Mining
9 14 (1.26%) MySQL
10 13 (1.17%) Redis
11 11 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
11 11 (0.99%) Oracle Database
12 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
12 10 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.81%) Data Lake
13 9 (0.81%) Snowflake Schema
14 8 (0.72%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 93 (8.36%) Git
2 46 (4.13%) JIRA
3 38 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 37 (3.32%) GitLab
5 32 (2.88%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.53%) Selenium
7 11 (0.99%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.90%) JUnit
9 9 (0.81%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.72%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.72%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.63%) Gradle
11 7 (0.63%) Maven
11 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.54%) Postman
12 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.54%) Visual Studio
13 5 (0.45%) MLflow
General
1 456 (40.97%) Social Skills
2 255 (22.91%) Analytical Skills
3 233 (20.93%) Finance
4 91 (8.18%) Banking
5 67 (6.02%) Public Sector
6 64 (5.75%) Aerospace
7 47 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (3.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 36 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (3.23%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (2.61%) Manufacturing
12 27 (2.43%) Front Office
12 27 (2.43%) Legal
12 27 (2.43%) Marketing
13 19 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (1.53%) Law
15 16 (1.44%) Military
16 15 (1.35%) Retail
17 13 (1.17%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 130 (11.68%) Developer
2 110 (9.88%) Senior
3 95 (8.54%) Architect
4 83 (7.46%) Lead
5 76 (6.83%) Analyst
6 41 (3.68%) Product Manager
7 39 (3.50%) Data Engineer
8 35 (3.14%) Delivery Manager
9 33 (2.96%) Software Engineer
10 31 (2.79%) Product Delivery Manager
11 26 (2.34%) IT Support
12 25 (2.25%) Data Scientist
12 25 (2.25%) Junior
13 24 (2.16%) Senior Developer
13 24 (2.16%) Solutions Architect
14 23 (2.07%) Java Developer
15 22 (1.98%) Python Developer
15 22 (1.98%) Security Engineer
15 22 (1.98%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 22 (1.98%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (8.18%) REST
2 56 (5.03%) .NET
3 53 (4.76%) React
4 43 (3.86%) Kafka
5 39 (3.50%) RESTful
6 33 (2.96%) OAuth
7 31 (2.79%) CSS
7 31 (2.79%) HTML
8 28 (2.52%) Spring
9 26 (2.34%) OAuth2
9 26 (2.34%) OpenID
10 25 (2.25%) Web Services
11 24 (2.16%) Middleware
11 24 (2.16%) SAML
12 23 (2.07%) Spring Boot
13 22 (1.98%) JSON
13 22 (1.98%) SOAP
14 21 (1.89%) AngularJS
15 19 (1.71%) PyTorch
16 18 (1.62%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 98 (8.81%) Management Information System
2 88 (7.91%) Product Ownership
3 86 (7.73%) Algorithms
4 76 (6.83%) Onboarding
5 68 (6.11%) Cloud Native
5 68 (6.11%) Data Structures
6 51 (4.58%) Distributed Systems
7 31 (2.79%) AI Agents
8 26 (2.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 26 (2.34%) Self-Motivation
9 25 (2.25%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.07%) Derivative
11 21 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
12 20 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
13 17 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.53%) Fixed Income
13 17 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.44%) Operational Technology
15 15 (1.35%) Data Centre
16 14 (1.26%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 125 (11.23%) Windows
2 107 (9.61%) Linux
3 31 (2.79%) Unix
4 24 (2.16%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 19 (1.71%) Windows 10
6 15 (1.35%) Android
7 11 (0.99%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.72%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.63%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.36%) Debian
10 4 (0.36%) Rocky
11 3 (0.27%) VMS
12 2 (0.18%) CentOS
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.090%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 340 (30.55%) Problem-Solving
2 275 (24.71%) Agile
3 228 (20.49%) AI
4 204 (18.33%) Continuous Improvement
5 202 (18.15%) CI/CD
6 187 (16.80%) Software Engineering
7 168 (15.09%) DevOps
8 154 (13.84%) Stakeholder Management
9 146 (13.12%) Analytics
10 123 (11.05%) Cybersecurity
11 122 (10.96%) ITIL
12 115 (10.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 111 (9.97%) Mathematics
14 102 (9.16%) Machine Learning
15 98 (8.81%) Roadmaps
16 93 (8.36%) Validation
17 89 (8.00%) Data Science
17 89 (8.00%) Decision-Making
18 86 (7.73%) Mentoring
19 84 (7.55%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 298 (26.77%) Python
2 206 (18.51%) SQL
3 135 (12.13%) Java
4 72 (6.47%) PowerShell
5 71 (6.38%) JavaScript
6 67 (6.02%) C#
7 37 (3.32%) Bash
7 37 (3.32%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.61%) C++
9 15 (1.35%) R
10 13 (1.17%) Bicep
11 11 (0.99%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.90%) C
13 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.72%) Go
13 8 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 6 (0.54%) Apex Code
14 6 (0.54%) Perl
14 6 (0.54%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.54%) Scala
Qualifications
1 849 (76.28%) Degree
2 493 (44.29%) Computer Science Degree
3 217 (19.50%) Security Cleared
4 135 (12.13%) SC Cleared
5 122 (10.96%) Master's Degree
6 50 (4.49%) CISSP
7 48 (4.31%) Azure Certification
8 44 (3.95%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.50%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.14%) PhD
11 32 (2.88%) CISM
12 28 (2.52%) PMI Certification
13 27 (2.43%) DV Cleared
13 27 (2.43%) PMP
14 26 (2.34%) AWS Certification
15 25 (2.25%) Cisco Certification
16 23 (2.07%) TOGAF Certification
17 22 (1.98%) CISA
18 17 (1.53%) CEH
19 16 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.38%) Data Quality
2 67 (6.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.12%) NIST
3 57 (5.12%) QA
4 28 (2.52%) GDPR
5 18 (1.62%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.35%) GRC
6 15 (1.35%) SLA
7 12 (1.08%) NCSC
7 12 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.81%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 5 (0.45%) COBIT
12 5 (0.45%) DO-254
12 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.45%) ITGC
13 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 86 (7.73%) Docker
2 78 (7.01%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.90%) Firmware
5 9 (0.81%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.45%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) ACF2
8 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.27%) RACF
8 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 101 (9.07%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.03%) Terraform
3 40 (3.59%) Ansible
4 30 (2.70%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.25%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.80%) Grafana
7 14 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (1.08%) SCCM
9 6 (0.54%) Argo
10 4 (0.36%) Control-M
10 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.27%) Foglight
11 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
11 3 (0.27%) Puppet
11 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.18%) CASB
12 2 (0.18%) Istio
12 2 (0.18%) QRadar
12 2 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 207 (18.60%) Microsoft
2 65 (5.84%) Oracle
3 46 (4.13%) Databricks
3 46 (4.13%) IBM
4 44 (3.95%) Google
5 40 (3.59%) ServiceNow
6 36 (3.23%) VMware
7 32 (2.88%) SAP
8 24 (2.16%) Cisco
9 20 (1.80%) CyberArk
9 20 (1.80%) Splunk
10 17 (1.53%) BeyondTrust
11 16 (1.44%) Salesforce
12 11 (0.99%) Citrix
12 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
13 10 (0.90%) Dynatrace
13 10 (0.90%) Okta
14 9 (0.81%) Adobe
14 9 (0.81%) Red Hat
14 9 (0.81%) UiPath