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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 72 73
Rank change year-on-year -22 +1 +49
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,153 988 1,245
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.70% 3.24% 2.80%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.13% 3.59% 3.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 720 572 778
10th Percentile £177 £319 £313
25th Percentile £313 £438 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £537 £544
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% -1.24% -7.01%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £663
90th Percentile £775 £825 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -20.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 25 80
10th Percentile £26.75 £29.07 £22.93
25th Percentile £33.50 £33.75 £41.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £43.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.98% -21.82% +4.76%
75th Percentile £84.38 £63.25 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £82.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +80.00% -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 36,846 27,490 38,514
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.38% 90.18% 86.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,348 17,263 25,101
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -2.18% -1.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,189 895 2,262
10th Percentile £14.79 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.05 £16.13
Median hourly rate £28.00 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.85% -1.52% -5.71%
75th Percentile £63.75 £63.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £31.76 £33.28
% change year-on-year -20.09% -4.57% -4.91%

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 6 March 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 6 March 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 6 March 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 -20 1,018 £475 -11.83% 815
UK excluding London -9 600 £400 -20.00% 613
London -40 443 £553 -7.83% 322
Work from Home -18 279 £500 -12.09% 333
North of England +22 192 £375 -30.68% 116
South East +4 171 £400 -20.00% 209
Yorkshire +11 100 £525 +5.00% 42
Midlands -34 91 £475 +10.14% 94
North West +18 88 £336 -41.09% 56
West Midlands -35 68 £500 - 54
South West -3 65 £518 -5.91% 65
East of England -36 40 £475 -24.00% 78
Scotland 0 36 £610 +13.49% 40
East Midlands -13 23 £447 +23.65% 39
Wales -10 15 £160 -44.35% 23
Northern Ireland -4 5 £369 -34.44% 5
North East -12 5 £207 -64.09% 20

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 66 (5.72%) Confluence
2 41 (3.56%) Apache Spark
3 35 (3.04%) SharePoint
4 21 (1.82%) Microsoft Exchange
5 18 (1.56%) Apache
6 16 (1.39%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (0.52%) Jupyter
8 5 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 5 (0.43%) Smallworld
9 4 (0.35%) GeoServer
9 4 (0.35%) IIS
9 4 (0.35%) Palantir Foundry
9 4 (0.35%) Skype for Business
10 3 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 3 (0.26%) Ethereum
10 3 (0.26%) Hyperledger
10 3 (0.26%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.17%) CMS
11 2 (0.17%) nginx
11 2 (0.17%) WebSphere
Applications
1 37 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
2 19 (1.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 9 (0.78%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.43%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.43%) Simulink
6 2 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.17%) Trello
7 1 (0.087%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 22 (1.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 9 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.43%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.35%) SAP ERP
5 3 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.17%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.17%) SAP BPC
6 2 (0.17%) SAP FS
6 2 (0.17%) SAP Travel Management
6 2 (0.17%) Workday HCM
7 1 (0.087%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.087%) IBM Planning Analytics
7 1 (0.087%) Maximo
7 1 (0.087%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.087%) SAP CO
7 1 (0.087%) SAP PM
7 1 (0.087%) SAP SM
Cloud Services
1 314 (27.23%) Azure
2 206 (17.87%) AWS
3 120 (10.41%) GCP
4 69 (5.98%) GitHub
5 64 (5.55%) Power Platform
6 54 (4.68%) Microsoft 365
7 48 (4.16%) SaaS
7 48 (4.16%) Serverless
8 44 (3.82%) Azure DevOps
9 40 (3.47%) Entra ID
10 31 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
11 22 (1.91%) IaaS
12 20 (1.73%) Azure Data Factory
13 19 (1.65%) Snowflake
14 17 (1.47%) AWS CloudFormation
14 17 (1.47%) Cloud Computing
15 16 (1.39%) Azure Machine Learning
15 16 (1.39%) Power Automate
15 16 (1.39%) PowerApps
16 14 (1.21%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 50 (4.34%) Firewall
2 34 (2.95%) DNS
3 27 (2.34%) TCP/IP
4 23 (1.99%) Network Security
5 18 (1.56%) HTTP
6 15 (1.30%) WAN
7 14 (1.21%) LAN
7 14 (1.21%) Wireless
8 13 (1.13%) BGP
8 13 (1.13%) DHCP
8 13 (1.13%) SSH
8 13 (1.13%) VLAN
9 12 (1.04%) Skype
10 10 (0.87%) VPN
11 9 (0.78%) Cisco IOS
11 9 (0.78%) OSPF
12 8 (0.69%) VoIP
13 7 (0.61%) HTTPS
13 7 (0.61%) Internet
13 7 (0.61%) IPv4
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (7.03%) PostgreSQL
2 56 (4.86%) NoSQL
3 46 (3.99%) Relational Database
4 45 (3.90%) Power BI
5 44 (3.82%) Data Warehouse
6 43 (3.73%) SQL Server
7 36 (3.12%) Big Data
7 36 (3.12%) MySQL
8 23 (1.99%) Tableau
9 21 (1.82%) Hadoop
10 19 (1.65%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (1.56%) Metadata
11 18 (1.56%) MongoDB
12 16 (1.39%) Data Lake
13 12 (1.04%) Redis
14 10 (0.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
15 8 (0.69%) RDBMS
15 8 (0.69%) Snowflake Schema
16 7 (0.61%) Tick Data
Development Applications
1 93 (8.07%) Git
2 89 (7.72%) JIRA
3 67 (5.81%) Jenkins
4 60 (5.20%) GitLab
5 17 (1.47%) Rational DOORS
6 15 (1.30%) Liquibase
7 14 (1.21%) Postman
8 11 (0.95%) Selenium
9 9 (0.78%) Jaeger
9 9 (0.78%) MLflow
10 8 (0.69%) Bitbucket
10 8 (0.69%) CircleCI
10 8 (0.69%) Gradle
11 7 (0.61%) JUnit
12 6 (0.52%) Cypress.io
13 5 (0.43%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.43%) PyCharm
13 5 (0.43%) Visual Studio
14 4 (0.35%) Appium
14 4 (0.35%) Artifactory
General
1 525 (45.53%) Social Skills
2 295 (25.59%) Finance
3 251 (21.77%) Analytical Skills
4 116 (10.06%) Banking
5 77 (6.68%) Public Sector
6 46 (3.99%) Marketing
7 43 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (3.12%) Financial Institution
8 36 (3.12%) Influencing Skills
8 36 (3.12%) Legal
9 35 (3.04%) Organisational Skills
9 35 (3.04%) Presentation Skills
10 31 (2.69%) Aerospace
11 27 (2.34%) Front Office
12 26 (2.25%) Electronics
13 25 (2.17%) Telecoms
14 23 (1.99%) Manufacturing
15 21 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 19 (1.65%) Investment Banking
17 16 (1.39%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 170 (14.74%) Developer
2 112 (9.71%) Architect
3 91 (7.89%) Lead
4 89 (7.72%) Analyst
5 88 (7.63%) Senior
6 50 (4.34%) Software Engineer
7 43 (3.73%) Solutions Architect
8 37 (3.21%) Data Scientist
9 31 (2.69%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 28 (2.43%) Delivery Manager
10 28 (2.43%) Technical Support
11 27 (2.34%) Python Developer
12 26 (2.25%) Consultant
13 25 (2.17%) Business Analyst
14 24 (2.08%) Java Developer
15 23 (1.99%) Cloud Engineer
15 23 (1.99%) Data Engineer
15 23 (1.99%) Product Manager
16 22 (1.91%) Site Reliability Engineer
17 21 (1.82%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 107 (9.28%) REST
2 64 (5.55%) RESTful
3 59 (5.12%) React
4 53 (4.60%) .NET
5 46 (3.99%) Kafka
6 41 (3.56%) Elastic Stack
6 41 (3.56%) Middleware
7 36 (3.12%) HTML
8 35 (3.04%) PyTorch
9 34 (2.95%) OAuth
9 34 (2.95%) TensorFlow
10 32 (2.78%) JSON
11 31 (2.69%) XML
12 30 (2.60%) Spring
13 29 (2.52%) Node.js
13 29 (2.52%) Spring Boot
14 28 (2.43%) CSS
14 28 (2.43%) SOAP
15 24 (2.08%) LangChain
16 22 (1.91%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 130 (11.27%) Management Information System
2 93 (8.07%) Algorithms
3 91 (7.89%) Cloud Native
4 70 (6.07%) Product Ownership
5 59 (5.12%) Data Structures
6 58 (5.03%) Distributed Systems
7 49 (4.25%) Onboarding
8 31 (2.69%) Equities
9 30 (2.60%) Virtual Team
10 29 (2.52%) Security Posture
11 28 (2.43%) Data Protection Act
12 24 (2.08%) AI Agents
12 24 (2.08%) Public Cloud
13 23 (1.99%) Derivative
13 23 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
14 22 (1.91%) Analytical Mindset
14 22 (1.91%) Distributed Computing
14 22 (1.91%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 20 (1.73%) Data Centre
16 19 (1.65%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 159 (13.79%) Linux
2 131 (11.36%) Windows
3 59 (5.12%) Unix
4 26 (2.25%) Android
5 23 (1.99%) Windows Server
6 19 (1.65%) Mac OS
7 14 (1.21%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.69%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.43%) VMS
11 3 (0.26%) Debian
11 3 (0.26%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.17%) Rocky
13 1 (0.087%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.087%) Kali Linux
13 1 (0.087%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 383 (33.22%) Problem-Solving
2 313 (27.15%) Agile
3 238 (20.64%) DevOps
4 235 (20.38%) AI
5 226 (19.60%) CI/CD
6 188 (16.31%) Software Engineering
7 158 (13.70%) Microservices
8 139 (12.06%) Analytics
9 138 (11.97%) Containerisation
10 135 (11.71%) Cybersecurity
10 135 (11.71%) Machine Learning
11 133 (11.54%) Continuous Improvement
12 122 (10.58%) Stakeholder Management
13 115 (9.97%) Data Science
14 112 (9.71%) Data Modelling
15 106 (9.19%) Mathematics
16 105 (9.11%) Decision-Making
17 103 (8.93%) Data Governance
18 94 (8.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 93 (8.07%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 352 (30.53%) Python
2 203 (17.61%) SQL
3 141 (12.23%) Java
4 95 (8.24%) JavaScript
5 65 (5.64%) PowerShell
6 59 (5.12%) TypeScript
7 50 (4.34%) C#
8 46 (3.99%) Go
9 42 (3.64%) Bash
10 38 (3.30%) C++
11 19 (1.65%) Perl
11 19 (1.65%) R
12 16 (1.39%) Shell Script
13 14 (1.21%) Rust
14 12 (1.04%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.69%) Bicep
16 7 (0.61%) Ruby
16 7 (0.61%) Scala
17 6 (0.52%) Tcl
18 5 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 952 (82.57%) Degree
2 600 (52.04%) Computer Science Degree
3 233 (20.21%) Master's Degree
4 191 (16.57%) Security Cleared
5 125 (10.84%) SC Cleared
6 74 (6.42%) CISSP
7 54 (4.68%) PhD
8 53 (4.60%) CISM
9 51 (4.42%) DBS Check
10 40 (3.47%) Azure Certification
11 36 (3.12%) TOGAF Certification
12 34 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
12 34 (2.95%) Microsoft Certification
13 31 (2.69%) Cisco Certification
14 30 (2.60%) PMI Certification
15 28 (2.43%) AWS Certification
16 27 (2.34%) DV Cleared
17 25 (2.17%) PMP
18 22 (1.91%) CompTIA Security+
19 20 (1.73%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.16%) QA
2 58 (5.03%) GDPR
3 54 (4.68%) Data Quality
4 50 (4.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 39 (3.38%) NIST
6 22 (1.91%) PCI DSS
7 19 (1.65%) GRC
8 17 (1.47%) Accessibility
9 11 (0.95%) Def Stans
10 10 (0.87%) NCSC
11 9 (0.78%) HIPAA
12 8 (0.69%) Actionable Recommendations
12 8 (0.69%) DO-254
12 8 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 6 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.52%) NIST 800
13 6 (0.52%) PSD2
14 5 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 4 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 4 (0.35%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 159 (13.79%) Docker
2 62 (5.38%) Active Directory
3 22 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.13%) Firmware
5 6 (0.52%) VMware NSX
6 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 4 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.26%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.17%) HDFS
8 2 (0.17%) KVM
8 2 (0.17%) vSphere
9 1 (0.087%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.087%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.087%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 164 (14.22%) Kubernetes
2 94 (8.15%) Terraform
3 63 (5.46%) Ansible
4 49 (4.25%) Grafana
5 40 (3.47%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.82%) Microsoft Intune
7 18 (1.56%) Puppet
8 15 (1.30%) Kibana
9 14 (1.21%) Single Sign-On
10 10 (0.87%) SCCM
11 9 (0.78%) Kiali
12 8 (0.69%) Argo
13 5 (0.43%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.43%) WSUS
14 4 (0.35%) SCOM
15 3 (0.26%) Control-M
15 3 (0.26%) Kubeflow
15 3 (0.26%) PowerCLI
15 3 (0.26%) vCenter Server
16 2 (0.17%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 182 (15.78%) Microsoft
2 80 (6.94%) Splunk
3 62 (5.38%) Oracle
4 59 (5.12%) Google
5 51 (4.42%) SAP
6 44 (3.82%) Databricks
7 31 (2.69%) IBM
8 30 (2.60%) ServiceNow
9 27 (2.34%) Cisco
10 25 (2.17%) BiZZdesign
11 24 (2.08%) VMware
12 23 (1.99%) Salesforce
13 22 (1.91%) Informatica
14 17 (1.47%) Palo Alto
14 17 (1.47%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.13%) CheckPoint
15 13 (1.13%) Okta
16 12 (1.04%) CyberArk
16 12 (1.04%) Foundry
16 12 (1.04%) Software AG