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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 67 60
Rank change year-on-year -67 -7 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,094 1,223 1,281
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 3.71% 3.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.41% 4.10% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 610 690 795
10th Percentile £175 £184 £336
25th Percentile £200 £352 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £480 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.39% -12.73% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £700
90th Percentile £760 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £379 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -10.94% -19.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 45 54
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.46
25th Percentile £34.00 £29.00 £41.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £54.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.85% +5.83% -16.94%
75th Percentile £85.25 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.00 £66.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +12.78% +20.91% -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 45,455 29,807 32,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.45% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,783 18,569 20,737
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 2,905 1,767 1,609
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.30 £18.89
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +3.56%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.31 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 31 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 31 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 31 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 -56 1,001 £465 -5.30% 1,795
UK excluding London -53 575 £379 -10.94% 788
London -64 447 £525 -4.55% 1,213
Work from Home -81 249 £500 +1.01% 561
South East -11 227 £394 -7.35% 240
North of England -48 146 £436 +2.59% 128
Midlands -53 92 £230 -43.90% 89
Yorkshire -17 75 £450 +25.70% 31
West Midlands -46 63 £225 -37.93% 51
North West -54 61 £447 -5.89% 70
East of England -20 50 £200 -60.40% 95
East Midlands -24 28 £253 -43.51% 38
Scotland -60 27 £359 -22.18% 49
South West -69 27 £435 +110.41% 151
North East -31 11 £195 -57.84% 28
Northern Ireland +5 4 £175 - 29
Wales -21 4 £530 +14.59% 17

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 42 (3.84%) Confluence
2 31 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.10%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.74%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.37%) Apache
6 8 (0.73%) Camunda
6 8 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (0.37%) CMS
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
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 (0.091%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.091%) nginx
Applications
1 43 (3.93%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.37%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.64%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.27%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.091%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
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 (0.091%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.091%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.091%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.091%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 303 (27.70%) Azure
2 196 (17.92%) AWS
3 113 (10.33%) GCP
4 76 (6.95%) Power Platform
5 61 (5.58%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (5.48%) Entra ID
7 49 (4.48%) GitHub
8 48 (4.39%) SaaS
9 47 (4.30%) Azure DevOps
10 35 (3.20%) Snowflake
11 33 (3.02%) Serverless
12 22 (2.01%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.92%) OpenShift
14 18 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.65%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
16 16 (1.46%) Power Automate
17 14 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
18 13 (1.19%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.93%) DNS
1 43 (3.93%) Firewall
2 35 (3.20%) VPN
3 33 (3.02%) Network Security
4 25 (2.29%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.92%) DHCP
6 17 (1.55%) SSH
7 16 (1.46%) WAN
8 12 (1.10%) BGP
8 12 (1.10%) LAN
9 11 (1.01%) Wireless
10 10 (0.91%) HTTP
10 10 (0.91%) MPLS
10 10 (0.91%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.82%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.82%) 5G
11 9 (0.82%) VLAN
12 8 (0.73%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.73%) OSPF
13 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (5.48%) Power BI
2 55 (5.03%) Relational Database
3 51 (4.66%) SQL Server
4 47 (4.30%) PostgreSQL
5 38 (3.47%) Metadata
6 29 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.29%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.29%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.01%) Big Data
9 18 (1.65%) MySQL
10 17 (1.55%) Elasticsearch
11 16 (1.46%) Tableau
12 14 (1.28%) Data Mining
12 14 (1.28%) Redis
13 11 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (1.01%) Oracle Database
14 9 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
14 9 (0.82%) Data Lake
15 8 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
16 6 (0.55%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 96 (8.78%) Git
2 53 (4.84%) JIRA
3 46 (4.20%) Jenkins
4 42 (3.84%) GitLab
5 21 (1.92%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.55%) Selenium
7 16 (1.46%) JUnit
8 14 (1.28%) SonarQube
9 13 (1.19%) Gradle
9 13 (1.19%) Maven
10 12 (1.10%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (1.01%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.91%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.82%) Mockito
14 8 (0.73%) SpecFlow
14 8 (0.73%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.64%) Bitbucket Server
16 6 (0.55%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.55%) Postman
16 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 450 (41.13%) Social Skills
2 247 (22.58%) Analytical Skills
3 240 (21.94%) Finance
4 93 (8.50%) Banking
5 64 (5.85%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.03%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.57%) Documentation Skills
8 41 (3.75%) Telecoms
9 38 (3.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 35 (3.20%) Organisational Skills
11 32 (2.93%) Influencing Skills
12 31 (2.83%) Manufacturing
13 28 (2.56%) Front Office
14 26 (2.38%) Marketing
15 24 (2.19%) Legal
16 17 (1.55%) Military
17 16 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (1.37%) Law
18 15 (1.37%) Retail
19 13 (1.19%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 144 (13.16%) Developer
2 108 (9.87%) Senior
3 95 (8.68%) Architect
4 80 (7.31%) Lead
5 77 (7.04%) Analyst
6 36 (3.29%) Data Engineer
7 31 (2.83%) Software Engineer
8 28 (2.56%) Product Manager
9 27 (2.47%) IT Support
9 27 (2.47%) Java Developer
10 26 (2.38%) Delivery Manager
11 25 (2.29%) Senior Developer
12 24 (2.19%) Junior
12 24 (2.19%) Python Developer
12 24 (2.19%) Solutions Architect
13 23 (2.10%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 22 (2.01%) Data Scientist
14 22 (2.01%) Product Delivery Manager
15 21 (1.92%) Full-Stack Developer
15 21 (1.92%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 93 (8.50%) REST
2 61 (5.58%) Terraform
3 59 (5.39%) React
4 55 (5.03%) .NET
5 49 (4.48%) HTML
6 48 (4.39%) Kafka
7 47 (4.30%) CSS
8 40 (3.66%) RESTful
9 32 (2.93%) Spring
10 31 (2.83%) OAuth
11 30 (2.74%) Spring Boot
12 26 (2.38%) OAuth2
12 26 (2.38%) Web Services
13 25 (2.29%) OpenID
14 23 (2.10%) JSON
14 23 (2.10%) SOAP
15 22 (2.01%) AngularJS
15 22 (2.01%) Middleware
15 22 (2.01%) SAML
16 18 (1.65%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 106 (9.69%) Management Information System
2 81 (7.40%) Algorithms
3 76 (6.95%) Product Ownership
4 73 (6.67%) Cloud Native
5 71 (6.49%) Onboarding
6 68 (6.22%) Data Structures
7 52 (4.75%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.83%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.29%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 25 (2.29%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.10%) Derivative
11 22 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
11 22 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
11 22 (2.01%) Self-Motivation
12 19 (1.74%) Data Centre
13 17 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.46%) Equities
14 16 (1.46%) Fixed Income
15 14 (1.28%) Operational Technology
16 13 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 122 (11.15%) Windows
2 110 (10.05%) Linux
3 31 (2.83%) Unix
4 27 (2.47%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.83%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.28%) Android
8 10 (0.91%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.73%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.55%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.27%) Debian
12 3 (0.27%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.091%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 334 (30.53%) Problem-Solving
2 280 (25.59%) Agile
3 235 (21.48%) AI
4 214 (19.56%) CI/CD
5 195 (17.82%) Continuous Improvement
6 190 (17.37%) Software Engineering
7 176 (16.09%) DevOps
8 163 (14.90%) Stakeholder Management
9 148 (13.53%) Analytics
10 119 (10.88%) ITIL
11 116 (10.60%) Cybersecurity
12 110 (10.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 107 (9.78%) Mathematics
14 98 (8.96%) Roadmaps
15 97 (8.87%) Machine Learning
16 94 (8.59%) Scrum
17 93 (8.50%) Validation
18 91 (8.32%) Test Automation
19 85 (7.77%) Mentoring
20 82 (7.50%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 297 (27.15%) Python
2 216 (19.74%) SQL
3 141 (12.89%) Java
4 85 (7.77%) JavaScript
5 76 (6.95%) PowerShell
6 67 (6.12%) C#
7 43 (3.93%) Bash
8 40 (3.66%) TypeScript
9 31 (2.83%) C++
10 16 (1.46%) Bicep
11 15 (1.37%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.01%) C
12 11 (1.01%) R
13 7 (0.64%) Apex Code
13 7 (0.64%) Go
13 7 (0.64%) Kotlin
14 6 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 6 (0.55%) Perl
14 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 6 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 838 (76.60%) Degree
2 498 (45.52%) Computer Science Degree
3 205 (18.74%) Security Cleared
4 134 (12.25%) SC Cleared
5 119 (10.88%) Master's Degree
6 49 (4.48%) Azure Certification
7 47 (4.30%) CISSP
8 45 (4.11%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.56%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.20%) PhD
11 30 (2.74%) CISM
12 29 (2.65%) DV Cleared
13 26 (2.38%) AWS Certification
13 26 (2.38%) PMI Certification
14 25 (2.29%) PMP
15 22 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
15 22 (2.01%) TOGAF Certification
16 19 (1.74%) CISA
17 18 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
18 15 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.22%) Data Quality
2 65 (5.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 55 (5.03%) NIST
3 55 (5.03%) QA
4 26 (2.38%) GDPR
5 17 (1.55%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.37%) SLA
7 13 (1.19%) GRC
8 12 (1.10%) NCSC
9 11 (1.01%) HIPAA
9 11 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 11 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (0.82%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 7 (0.64%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.46%) ITGC
13 4 (0.37%) COBIT
13 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
14 3 (0.27%) PMO
System Software
1 89 (8.14%) Docker
2 76 (6.95%) Active Directory
3 27 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 10 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.73%) Firmware
7 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.46%) vSphere
9 3 (0.27%) ACF2
9 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.27%) RACF
9 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.091%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.091%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.091%) KVM
Systems Management
1 105 (9.60%) Kubernetes
2 42 (3.84%) Ansible
3 28 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (2.38%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.01%) Grafana
6 14 (1.28%) SCCM
7 12 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.55%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) Control-M
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) Istio
10 3 (0.27%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.27%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) CASB
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 210 (19.20%) Microsoft
2 70 (6.40%) Oracle
3 47 (4.30%) Google
4 45 (4.11%) IBM
5 43 (3.93%) Databricks
6 38 (3.47%) VMware
7 36 (3.29%) ServiceNow
8 29 (2.65%) SAP
9 26 (2.38%) Cisco
10 22 (2.01%) Splunk
11 20 (1.83%) CyberArk
12 19 (1.74%) Salesforce
13 18 (1.65%) BeyondTrust
14 12 (1.10%) Adobe
14 12 (1.10%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.01%) OpenAI
16 10 (0.91%) Citrix
16 10 (0.91%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.91%) Foundry
17 9 (0.82%) Nokia