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

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 66 66
Rank change year-on-year -50 0 +42
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,036 1,044 1,307
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.16% 3.58% 3.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.56% 3.94% 3.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 596 792
10th Percentile £178 £250 £319
25th Percentile £256 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £525 £544
Median % change year-on-year -9.52% -3.45% -5.43%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £661
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £381 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -20.73% -4.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 29 98
10th Percentile £29.89 £26.00 £22.33
25th Percentile £51.25 £29.07 £41.25
Median hourly rate £81.75 £37.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +118.00% -31.82% +1.97%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.39 £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 40,526 26,506 36,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.38% 90.99% 86.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,448 17,044 23,613
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £626 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.58% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,394 1,081 2,430
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.30 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.20 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.41 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +49.60% -21.13% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.49 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.43 £37.50
% change year-on-year +76.96% -32.19% +7.14%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 -40 924 £465 -11.43% 885
UK excluding London -42 539 £381 -20.73% 605
London -54 410 £545 -9.17% 371
Work from Home -57 229 £500 -9.09% 1,587
South East -16 204 £215 -56.94% 230
North of England -25 131 £387 -27.91% 117
Yorkshire -10 74 £500 +20.77% 34
Midlands -67 72 £450 +68.54% 88
North West -24 56 £354 -35.75% 52
West Midlands -65 55 £450 +58.45% 51
East of England -32 41 £248 -61.92% 73
South West -55 41 £469 +26.76% 59
Scotland -16 37 £620 +15.35% 38
East Midlands -31 16 £525 +110.00% 35
Wales -29 9 £253 -12.93% 13
Northern Ireland +8 7 £350 -41.67% 4
North East -26 2 £125 -78.26% 33

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 49 (4.73%) Confluence
2 40 (3.86%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.32%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.12%) Apache
5 17 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 4 (0.39%) CMS
8 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.097%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.097%) Appian
11 1 (0.097%) Camunda
Applications
1 33 (3.19%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 22 (2.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.48%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.097%) Actimize
6 1 (0.097%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.097%) Maximo
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.097%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.097%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 296 (28.57%) Azure
2 188 (18.15%) AWS
3 77 (7.43%) GCP
4 58 (5.60%) Power Platform
5 53 (5.12%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (5.02%) SaaS
7 51 (4.92%) GitHub
8 40 (3.86%) Entra ID
9 37 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
10 22 (2.12%) GitHub Actions
11 20 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
11 20 (1.93%) Serverless
11 20 (1.93%) Snowflake
12 19 (1.83%) IaaS
13 17 (1.64%) Azure AKS
13 17 (1.64%) Azure Data Factory
14 13 (1.25%) Azure Machine Learning
14 13 (1.25%) Azure Service Bus
14 13 (1.25%) PaaS
15 12 (1.16%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 38 (3.67%) Firewall
2 29 (2.80%) TCP/IP
3 26 (2.51%) DNS
4 20 (1.93%) Network Security
5 16 (1.54%) WAN
6 14 (1.35%) BGP
7 13 (1.25%) LAN
8 11 (1.06%) OSPF
8 11 (1.06%) SSH
9 9 (0.87%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.77%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.77%) Wireless
11 7 (0.68%) SAN
11 7 (0.68%) VLAN
11 7 (0.68%) VPN
12 6 (0.58%) HTTP
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 4 (0.39%) IPsec
13 4 (0.39%) MPLS
13 4 (0.39%) TETRA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (4.92%) Relational Database
2 47 (4.54%) PostgreSQL
2 47 (4.54%) SQL Server
3 46 (4.44%) Power BI
4 39 (3.76%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (3.57%) Big Data
6 26 (2.51%) MySQL
6 26 (2.51%) NoSQL
7 25 (2.41%) Metadata
8 21 (2.03%) Hadoop
8 21 (2.03%) MongoDB
9 17 (1.64%) Tableau
10 14 (1.35%) Data Lake
10 14 (1.35%) Elasticsearch
11 11 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 10 (0.97%) Redis
13 9 (0.87%) Snowflake Schema
14 8 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
14 8 (0.77%) Power Query
15 7 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 74 (7.14%) Git
2 67 (6.47%) JIRA
3 36 (3.47%) GitLab
4 33 (3.19%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.70%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.16%) MLflow
7 11 (1.06%) Gradle
7 11 (1.06%) Selenium
8 9 (0.87%) Jaeger
8 9 (0.87%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.68%) JUnit
9 7 (0.68%) SonarQube
10 6 (0.58%) Maven
10 6 (0.58%) Postman
11 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
12 4 (0.39%) Bitbucket
13 3 (0.29%) REST Assured
13 3 (0.29%) Snyk
General
1 425 (41.02%) Social Skills
2 239 (23.07%) Finance
3 211 (20.37%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (8.88%) Banking
5 65 (6.27%) Public Sector
6 52 (5.02%) Aerospace
7 51 (4.92%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (3.57%) Marketing
9 35 (3.38%) Telecoms
10 32 (3.09%) Presentation Skills
11 28 (2.70%) Legal
12 27 (2.61%) Organisational Skills
13 24 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 23 (2.22%) Front Office
15 21 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
16 17 (1.64%) Investment Banking
16 17 (1.64%) Manufacturing
17 16 (1.54%) Electronics
17 16 (1.54%) Publishing
18 15 (1.45%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 111 (10.71%) Developer
2 108 (10.42%) Architect
3 88 (8.49%) Analyst
4 81 (7.82%) Lead
5 79 (7.63%) Senior
6 37 (3.57%) Delivery Manager
6 37 (3.57%) Software Engineer
7 35 (3.38%) Product Manager
7 35 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (2.99%) Data Scientist
8 31 (2.99%) Technical Support
9 29 (2.80%) Data Engineer
10 28 (2.70%) Product Delivery Manager
11 24 (2.32%) Python Developer
12 23 (2.22%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 22 (2.12%) Security Engineer
13 22 (2.12%) Systems Delivery Manager
13 22 (2.12%) Systems Manager
14 21 (2.03%) Java Developer
14 21 (2.03%) Junior
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (8.40%) REST
2 55 (5.31%) .NET
2 55 (5.31%) React
3 46 (4.44%) Middleware
4 43 (4.15%) Kafka
5 39 (3.76%) RESTful
6 34 (3.28%) Spring Boot
7 31 (2.99%) PyTorch
8 30 (2.90%) Spring
9 26 (2.51%) SOAP
10 23 (2.22%) JSON
10 23 (2.22%) OAuth
10 23 (2.22%) TensorFlow
10 23 (2.22%) XML
11 21 (2.03%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (1.93%) AngularJS
12 20 (1.93%) HTML
13 17 (1.64%) CSS
13 17 (1.64%) LangChain
13 17 (1.64%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 103 (9.94%) Management Information System
2 76 (7.34%) Onboarding
2 76 (7.34%) Product Ownership
3 71 (6.85%) Algorithms
4 64 (6.18%) Cloud Native
5 53 (5.12%) Data Structures
6 50 (4.83%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.90%) Virtual Team
8 23 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (2.12%) AI Agents
10 21 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
10 21 (2.03%) Taxonomies
11 20 (1.93%) Derivative
11 20 (1.93%) Equities
12 17 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
12 17 (1.64%) Cyberattack
12 17 (1.64%) Security Operations Centre
13 16 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
13 16 (1.54%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 16 (1.54%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 135 (13.03%) Linux
2 128 (12.36%) Windows
3 45 (4.34%) Unix
4 25 (2.41%) Android
5 18 (1.74%) Windows 10
6 16 (1.54%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.54%) Windows Server
7 15 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (1.35%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.48%) VMS
10 4 (0.39%) Debian
10 4 (0.39%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.097%) CentOS
12 1 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.097%) Solaris
12 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 323 (31.18%) Problem-Solving
2 260 (25.10%) Agile
3 230 (22.20%) AI
4 198 (19.11%) CI/CD
5 189 (18.24%) DevOps
6 173 (16.70%) Software Engineering
7 161 (15.54%) Continuous Improvement
8 123 (11.87%) Analytics
9 121 (11.68%) Microservices
10 116 (11.20%) Cybersecurity
11 106 (10.23%) Stakeholder Management
12 100 (9.65%) Machine Learning
13 99 (9.56%) Containerisation
14 94 (9.07%) Data Modelling
14 94 (9.07%) Decision-Making
14 94 (9.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 94 (9.07%) Technical Leadership
15 89 (8.59%) Mathematics
16 87 (8.40%) Data Governance
17 86 (8.30%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 289 (27.90%) Python
2 205 (19.79%) SQL
3 135 (13.03%) Java
4 67 (6.47%) JavaScript
5 59 (5.69%) C#
6 50 (4.83%) PowerShell
7 35 (3.38%) TypeScript
8 32 (3.09%) Bash
9 30 (2.90%) C++
10 22 (2.12%) R
11 15 (1.45%) Go
12 14 (1.35%) Perl
13 12 (1.16%) Rust
14 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.97%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.68%) Scala
17 5 (0.48%) C
18 4 (0.39%) Tcl
19 3 (0.29%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 832 (80.31%) Degree
2 513 (49.52%) Computer Science Degree
3 191 (18.44%) Security Cleared
4 146 (14.09%) Master's Degree
5 113 (10.91%) SC Cleared
6 53 (5.12%) CISSP
7 36 (3.47%) CISM
8 34 (3.28%) PhD
9 33 (3.19%) Azure Certification
10 31 (2.99%) TOGAF Certification
11 30 (2.90%) PMI Certification
12 27 (2.61%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.61%) Microsoft Certification
12 27 (2.61%) PMP
13 23 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
14 22 (2.12%) AWS Certification
14 22 (2.12%) CompTIA Security+
15 21 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
16 19 (1.83%) CISA
17 17 (1.64%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (5.98%) QA
2 57 (5.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 57 (5.50%) NIST
3 53 (5.12%) Data Quality
4 38 (3.67%) GDPR
5 19 (1.83%) PCI DSS
6 18 (1.74%) Accessibility
7 13 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (1.16%) GRC
9 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.77%) NCSC
10 8 (0.77%) SLA
11 7 (0.68%) COBIT
11 7 (0.68%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.68%) PSD2
12 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.58%) DO-254
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 112 (10.81%) Docker
2 67 (6.47%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.25%) Firmware
5 7 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.39%) vSphere
8 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.19%) Ceph
8 2 (0.19%) KVM
8 2 (0.19%) Squid
8 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.097%) ACF2
9 1 (0.097%) HDFS
9 1 (0.097%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.097%) RACF
9 1 (0.097%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 128 (12.36%) Kubernetes
2 63 (6.08%) Terraform
3 49 (4.73%) Ansible
4 31 (2.99%) Grafana
5 28 (2.70%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.32%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (1.16%) Puppet
9 10 (0.97%) Kibana
10 9 (0.87%) Kiali
11 4 (0.39%) Control-M
11 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.39%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.29%) Foglight
12 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.29%) SCCM
12 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.19%) logstash
13 2 (0.19%) Network Intrusion Detection System
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 180 (17.37%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.27%) Oracle
3 51 (4.92%) Splunk
4 48 (4.63%) Databricks
5 38 (3.67%) SAP
6 36 (3.47%) IBM
7 34 (3.28%) Google
8 30 (2.90%) ServiceNow
9 23 (2.22%) VMware
10 20 (1.93%) Cisco
11 16 (1.54%) BiZZdesign
11 16 (1.54%) Informatica
11 16 (1.54%) Salesforce
12 15 (1.45%) Okta
13 14 (1.35%) Palo Alto
14 13 (1.25%) CheckPoint
14 13 (1.25%) MuleSoft
15 11 (1.06%) CyberArk
15 11 (1.06%) Software AG
16 10 (0.97%) OpenAI