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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 64 64
Rank change year-on-year -53 0 +44
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,046 1,045 1,343
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.15% 3.66% 3.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.54% 4.02% 3.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 609 592 816
10th Percentile £178 £250 £313
25th Percentile £218 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £509 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.63% -3.10% -8.30%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -18.42% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 29 103
10th Percentile £26.98 £26.00 £21.35
25th Percentile £41.71 £29.07 £38.75
Median hourly rate £81.50 £52.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.24% -4.55% +1.04%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile - £83.97 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £45.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +84.44% -18.18% +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 41,181 26,010 36,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 91.03% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,765 16,696 23,578
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,462 1,066 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -43 937 £463 -11.90% 1,004
UK excluding London -44 559 £388 -18.42% 640
London -57 405 £550 -8.33% 472
Work from Home -64 229 £500 -9.09% 418
South East -2 218 £215 -55.26% 219
North of England -26 132 £400 -23.81% 121
Yorkshire -6 78 £514 +12.47% 32
Midlands -74 73 £456 +60.65% 74
West Midlands -64 56 £450 +54.11% 47
North West -36 53 £350 -35.66% 67
South West -41 48 £447 +20.81% 74
Scotland -14 38 £620 +15.35% 44
East of England -32 38 £280 -56.92% 86
East Midlands -37 16 £525 +110.00% 27
Northern Ireland +9 8 £350 -41.67% 26
Wales -36 7 £345 +18.97% 11
North East -27 2 £125 -73.68% 24

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 52 (4.97%) Confluence
2 39 (3.73%) Apache Spark
3 27 (2.58%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.10%) Apache
5 20 (1.91%) Apache Airflow
6 11 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) Camunda
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.096%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.096%) Appian
Applications
1 34 (3.25%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.53%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.096%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.096%) Sketch
9 1 (0.096%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 23 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
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 (0.096%) Actimize
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.096%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.096%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.096%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 301 (28.78%) Azure
2 187 (17.88%) AWS
3 78 (7.46%) GCP
4 62 (5.93%) Power Platform
5 54 (5.16%) Microsoft 365
6 48 (4.59%) SaaS
7 46 (4.40%) GitHub
8 44 (4.21%) Entra ID
9 34 (3.25%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (2.01%) Snowflake
11 19 (1.82%) AWS CloudFormation
11 19 (1.82%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (1.63%) Azure AKS
12 17 (1.63%) IaaS
13 16 (1.53%) PowerApps
13 16 (1.53%) Serverless
14 13 (1.24%) Azure Data Factory
14 13 (1.24%) Azure Service Bus
14 13 (1.24%) PaaS
15 11 (1.05%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 38 (3.63%) Firewall
2 30 (2.87%) TCP/IP
3 29 (2.77%) DNS
4 26 (2.49%) Network Security
5 16 (1.53%) WAN
6 14 (1.34%) BGP
7 13 (1.24%) LAN
8 11 (1.05%) OSPF
8 11 (1.05%) SSH
9 9 (0.86%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.76%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.76%) VPN
10 8 (0.76%) Wireless
11 7 (0.67%) SAN
11 7 (0.67%) VLAN
12 6 (0.57%) DHCP
12 6 (0.57%) LTE
13 5 (0.48%) RTP
13 5 (0.48%) Wireshark
14 4 (0.38%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (4.88%) SQL Server
2 50 (4.78%) Power BI
3 49 (4.68%) Relational Database
4 46 (4.40%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (3.73%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (3.25%) Big Data
7 27 (2.58%) Metadata
8 26 (2.49%) NoSQL
9 23 (2.20%) MongoDB
9 23 (2.20%) MySQL
10 21 (2.01%) Hadoop
11 18 (1.72%) Tableau
12 14 (1.34%) Data Lake
12 14 (1.34%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.96%) Snowflake Schema
13 10 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 9 (0.86%) Redis
15 8 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
15 8 (0.76%) Power Query
16 7 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 73 (6.98%) Git
2 66 (6.31%) JIRA
3 35 (3.35%) GitLab
4 33 (3.15%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.68%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.15%) Gradle
7 11 (1.05%) JUnit
7 11 (1.05%) Selenium
8 10 (0.96%) MLflow
8 10 (0.96%) TeamCity
9 9 (0.86%) Jaeger
10 7 (0.67%) CircleCI
10 7 (0.67%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.67%) Maven
10 7 (0.67%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.57%) Postman
12 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.48%) Flyway
13 4 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.38%) Cucumber
General
1 421 (40.25%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.56%) Finance
3 209 (19.98%) Analytical Skills
4 93 (8.89%) Banking
5 60 (5.74%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.26%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.78%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.15%) Telecoms
9 31 (2.96%) Marketing
10 30 (2.87%) Presentation Skills
11 29 (2.77%) Legal
12 28 (2.68%) Organisational Skills
13 26 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 24 (2.29%) Front Office
14 24 (2.29%) Influencing Skills
15 19 (1.82%) Manufacturing
16 16 (1.53%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.53%) Publishing
17 15 (1.43%) Financial Institution
18 14 (1.34%) Retail
Job Titles
1 109 (10.42%) Architect
2 105 (10.04%) Developer
3 88 (8.41%) Analyst
4 84 (8.03%) Lead
4 84 (8.03%) Senior
5 40 (3.82%) Software Engineer
6 37 (3.54%) Delivery Manager
7 35 (3.35%) Product Manager
8 33 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
9 31 (2.96%) Data Scientist
9 31 (2.96%) Technical Support
10 29 (2.77%) Data Engineer
11 28 (2.68%) Product Delivery Manager
12 23 (2.20%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 23 (2.20%) Junior
12 23 (2.20%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.10%) Security Engineer
13 22 (2.10%) Systems Delivery Manager
13 22 (2.10%) Systems Manager
14 18 (1.72%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (8.32%) REST
2 56 (5.35%) React
3 54 (5.16%) .NET
4 44 (4.21%) Kafka
4 44 (4.21%) Middleware
5 34 (3.25%) RESTful
6 33 (3.15%) Spring Boot
7 29 (2.77%) PyTorch
8 28 (2.68%) Spring
9 22 (2.10%) AngularJS
9 22 (2.10%) TensorFlow
10 21 (2.01%) OAuth
10 21 (2.01%) SOAP
11 20 (1.91%) Elastic Stack
12 19 (1.82%) JSON
13 18 (1.72%) CSS
13 18 (1.72%) HTML
13 18 (1.72%) Pandas
13 18 (1.72%) XML
14 15 (1.43%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (9.46%) Management Information System
2 79 (7.55%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.27%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.79%) Algorithms
5 66 (6.31%) Cloud Native
6 51 (4.88%) Data Structures
7 50 (4.78%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.87%) Virtual Team
9 24 (2.29%) Derivative
9 24 (2.29%) Self-Motivation
10 21 (2.01%) AI Agents
10 21 (2.01%) Equities
11 20 (1.91%) Data Protection Act
11 20 (1.91%) Taxonomies
12 18 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 18 (1.72%) Security Operations Centre
13 17 (1.63%) Cyberattack
14 16 (1.53%) Robotics
15 15 (1.43%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 133 (12.72%) Linux
1 133 (12.72%) Windows
2 45 (4.30%) Unix
3 24 (2.29%) Android
4 20 (1.91%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.72%) Windows Server
6 16 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.43%) Mac OS
8 14 (1.34%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.48%) VMS
10 4 (0.38%) Debian
10 4 (0.38%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.096%) CentOS
12 1 (0.096%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.096%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 314 (30.02%) Problem-Solving
2 262 (25.05%) Agile
3 228 (21.80%) AI
4 192 (18.36%) CI/CD
5 181 (17.30%) DevOps
6 176 (16.83%) Software Engineering
7 169 (16.16%) Continuous Improvement
8 127 (12.14%) Analytics
9 121 (11.57%) Cybersecurity
10 114 (10.90%) Microservices
11 101 (9.66%) Stakeholder Management
12 100 (9.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 97 (9.27%) Machine Learning
14 94 (8.99%) Decision-Making
15 93 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
16 91 (8.70%) Containerisation
17 90 (8.60%) Mathematics
18 88 (8.41%) Data Modelling
18 88 (8.41%) Data Science
19 87 (8.32%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 286 (27.34%) Python
2 213 (20.36%) SQL
3 134 (12.81%) Java
4 67 (6.41%) JavaScript
5 58 (5.54%) C#
6 47 (4.49%) PowerShell
7 31 (2.96%) TypeScript
8 30 (2.87%) Bash
9 29 (2.77%) C++
10 21 (2.01%) R
11 14 (1.34%) Go
11 14 (1.34%) Perl
12 12 (1.15%) Rust
13 11 (1.05%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.96%) Kotlin
15 9 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.57%) Scala
17 5 (0.48%) C
18 4 (0.38%) Ada
19 3 (0.29%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 834 (79.73%) Degree
2 502 (47.99%) Computer Science Degree
3 191 (18.26%) Security Cleared
4 142 (13.58%) Master's Degree
5 114 (10.90%) SC Cleared
6 56 (5.35%) CISSP
7 38 (3.63%) CISM
8 36 (3.44%) PhD
9 33 (3.15%) Azure Certification
10 31 (2.96%) TOGAF Certification
11 29 (2.77%) DV Cleared
12 28 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
13 27 (2.58%) PMI Certification
14 24 (2.29%) PMP
15 22 (2.10%) Cisco Certification
15 22 (2.10%) CompTIA Security+
16 21 (2.01%) AWS Certification
17 20 (1.91%) BPSS Clearance
18 19 (1.82%) CISA
18 19 (1.82%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (5.64%) QA
2 56 (5.35%) Data Quality
2 56 (5.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (5.35%) NIST
3 37 (3.54%) GDPR
4 20 (1.91%) PCI DSS
5 19 (1.82%) Accessibility
6 13 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 12 (1.15%) GRC
8 10 (0.96%) NIST 800
9 9 (0.86%) SLA
10 8 (0.76%) NCSC
11 7 (0.67%) COBIT
11 7 (0.67%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.67%) PSD2
12 6 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.57%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.57%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 5 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 105 (10.04%) Docker
2 69 (6.60%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.15%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.38%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) KVM
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.096%) ACF2
11 1 (0.096%) HDFS
11 1 (0.096%) RACF
Systems Management
1 125 (11.95%) Kubernetes
2 61 (5.83%) Terraform
3 48 (4.59%) Ansible
4 32 (3.06%) Grafana
5 30 (2.87%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.96%) Puppet
9 9 (0.86%) Kiali
9 9 (0.86%) Kibana
10 4 (0.38%) Control-M
10 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Foglight
11 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.29%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.19%) logstash
12 2 (0.19%) SCCM
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 178 (17.02%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.21%) Oracle
3 49 (4.68%) Databricks
3 49 (4.68%) Splunk
4 36 (3.44%) SAP
5 35 (3.35%) Google
6 33 (3.15%) IBM
7 29 (2.77%) ServiceNow
8 24 (2.29%) VMware
9 20 (1.91%) Cisco
10 16 (1.53%) BiZZdesign
10 16 (1.53%) Informatica
10 16 (1.53%) Okta
11 14 (1.34%) Palo Alto
12 13 (1.24%) CheckPoint
12 13 (1.24%) Salesforce
13 11 (1.05%) CyberArk
14 10 (0.96%) MuleSoft
14 10 (0.96%) Software AG
15 9 (0.86%) BeyondTrust