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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 64 63
Rank change year-on-year -68 -1 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,111 1,249 1,297
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.81% 3.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.45% 4.21% 3.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 622 706 806
10th Percentile £175 £184 £329
25th Percentile £200 £352 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £492 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.56% -10.55% -
75th Percentile £620 £650 £688
90th Percentile £755 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £413 £525
% change year-on-year -7.88% -21.43% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 49 63
10th Percentile £25.23 £25.00 £20.34
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.75
Median hourly rate £72.50 £54.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.03% +3.81% -12.50%
75th Percentile £87.37 £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% -5.32%

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 45,377 29,691 33,202
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.71% 90.48% 85.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,881 18,495 21,183
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% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,839 1,731 1,775
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.38 £17.30 £18.15
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% +0.61%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £42.50
% change year-on-year +88.67% -45.18% +18.88%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -51 1,018 £460 -8.09% 2,545
UK excluding London -54 595 £380 -7.88% 1,136
London -62 442 £525 -9.09% 1,668
Work from Home -85 251 £500 - 884
South East -13 240 £363 -14.71% 297
North of England -52 147 £403 -3.30% 213
Midlands -49 93 £253 -27.86% 122
Yorkshire -11 76 £450 +26.40% 53
West Midlands -54 64 £275 -11.29% 67
North West -59 61 £425 -10.63% 106
East of England -29 51 £215 -52.22% 199
South West -75 30 £477 +130.99% 112
East Midlands -25 28 £253 -43.51% 55
Scotland -57 25 £380 -20.00% 137
North East -33 11 £195 -57.84% 57
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 39
Wales -24 4 £530 +14.59% 28

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 39 (3.51%) Confluence
2 31 (2.79%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.16%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.35%) 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 47 (4.23%) 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 11 (0.99%) 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%) Finacle
6 1 (0.090%) Maximo
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.090%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 305 (27.45%) Azure
2 194 (17.46%) AWS
3 111 (9.99%) GCP
4 75 (6.75%) Power Platform
5 65 (5.85%) Entra ID
6 61 (5.49%) Microsoft 365
7 52 (4.68%) SaaS
8 46 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
8 46 (4.14%) GitHub
9 36 (3.24%) Snowflake
10 33 (2.97%) Serverless
11 22 (1.98%) PowerApps
12 19 (1.71%) GitHub Actions
13 17 (1.53%) 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 AKS
17 13 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 44 (3.96%) Firewall
2 41 (3.69%) DNS
3 34 (3.06%) VPN
4 33 (2.97%) Network Security
5 27 (2.43%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.71%) DHCP
6 19 (1.71%) WAN
7 15 (1.35%) LAN
7 15 (1.35%) SSH
8 14 (1.26%) Wireless
9 11 (0.99%) BGP
9 11 (0.99%) VLAN
10 9 (0.81%) HTTP
11 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
11 8 (0.72%) MPLS
11 8 (0.72%) OSPF
11 8 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
11 8 (0.72%) Wireshark
12 7 (0.63%) 3GPP
12 7 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.58%) Power BI
2 57 (5.13%) Relational Database
3 47 (4.23%) SQL Server
4 45 (4.05%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (3.06%) Metadata
6 32 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.25%) MongoDB
8 24 (2.16%) NoSQL
9 23 (2.07%) Big Data
10 17 (1.53%) Tableau
11 14 (1.26%) Data Mining
11 14 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
11 14 (1.26%) MySQL
12 13 (1.17%) Redis
13 11 (0.99%) Oracle Database
14 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.81%) Data Lake
15 9 (0.81%) Snowflake Schema
16 8 (0.72%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 96 (8.64%) Git
2 50 (4.50%) JIRA
3 39 (3.51%) Jenkins
4 35 (3.15%) 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
1 458 (41.22%) Social Skills
2 257 (23.13%) Analytical Skills
3 234 (21.06%) Finance
4 89 (8.01%) Banking
5 65 (5.85%) Public Sector
6 62 (5.58%) Aerospace
7 47 (4.23%) Documentation Skills
8 37 (3.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 36 (3.24%) Organisational Skills
9 36 (3.24%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
11 28 (2.52%) Front Office
11 28 (2.52%) Manufacturing
12 27 (2.43%) Legal
13 24 (2.16%) Marketing
14 18 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
15 17 (1.53%) Law
16 15 (1.35%) Military
16 15 (1.35%) Retail
17 13 (1.17%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 134 (12.06%) Developer
2 110 (9.90%) Senior
3 91 (8.19%) Architect
4 83 (7.47%) Lead
5 77 (6.93%) Analyst
6 38 (3.42%) Data Engineer
6 38 (3.42%) Product Manager
7 33 (2.97%) Delivery Manager
8 32 (2.88%) Software Engineer
9 29 (2.61%) Product Delivery Manager
10 27 (2.43%) IT Support
11 25 (2.25%) Junior
11 25 (2.25%) Senior Developer
12 24 (2.16%) Data Scientist
13 23 (2.07%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 23 (2.07%) Java Developer
14 22 (1.98%) Python Developer
14 22 (1.98%) Security Engineer
14 22 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
15 21 (1.89%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.46%) REST
2 56 (5.04%) .NET
3 55 (4.95%) React
4 43 (3.87%) Kafka
5 40 (3.60%) RESTful
6 34 (3.06%) HTML
7 33 (2.97%) CSS
7 33 (2.97%) OAuth
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%) SAML
12 23 (2.07%) JSON
12 23 (2.07%) SOAP
12 23 (2.07%) Spring Boot
13 22 (1.98%) Middleware
14 20 (1.80%) AngularJS
15 18 (1.62%) PyTorch
15 18 (1.62%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 103 (9.27%) Management Information System
2 87 (7.83%) Product Ownership
3 86 (7.74%) Algorithms
4 76 (6.84%) Onboarding
5 71 (6.39%) Data Structures
6 70 (6.30%) Cloud Native
7 53 (4.77%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.70%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 25 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
10 25 (2.25%) Virtual Team
11 23 (2.07%) Derivative
11 23 (2.07%) 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%) Data Centre
15 15 (1.35%) Operational Technology
15 15 (1.35%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.34%) Windows
2 108 (9.72%) Linux
3 31 (2.79%) Unix
4 24 (2.16%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.80%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.35%) Android
8 10 (0.90%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.72%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.54%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.36%) 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 (0.090%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 344 (30.96%) Problem-Solving
2 277 (24.93%) Agile
3 228 (20.52%) AI
4 206 (18.54%) CI/CD
5 200 (18.00%) Continuous Improvement
6 187 (16.83%) Software Engineering
7 169 (15.21%) DevOps
8 159 (14.31%) Stakeholder Management
9 146 (13.14%) Analytics
10 122 (10.98%) ITIL
11 119 (10.71%) Cybersecurity
12 114 (10.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 110 (9.90%) Mathematics
14 100 (9.00%) Machine Learning
15 93 (8.37%) Roadmaps
15 93 (8.37%) Validation
16 89 (8.01%) Scrum
17 88 (7.92%) Decision-Making
18 87 (7.83%) Data Science
19 86 (7.74%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 299 (26.91%) Python
2 212 (19.08%) SQL
3 137 (12.33%) Java
4 75 (6.75%) PowerShell
5 74 (6.66%) JavaScript
6 68 (6.12%) C#
7 39 (3.51%) Bash
7 39 (3.51%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.61%) C++
9 15 (1.35%) Bicep
10 14 (1.26%) R
11 12 (1.08%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.90%) C
13 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 7 (0.63%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.63%) Go
15 6 (0.54%) Perl
15 6 (0.54%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.54%) Scala
Qualifications
1 849 (76.42%) Degree
2 496 (44.64%) Computer Science Degree
3 216 (19.44%) Security Cleared
4 136 (12.24%) SC Cleared
5 122 (10.98%) Master's Degree
6 49 (4.41%) CISSP
7 46 (4.14%) Azure Certification
8 44 (3.96%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.51%) DBS Check
10 34 (3.06%) PhD
11 30 (2.70%) 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 21 (1.89%) CISA
16 21 (1.89%) TOGAF Certification
17 16 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
18 15 (1.35%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.39%) Data Quality
2 66 (5.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.13%) QA
4 56 (5.04%) NIST
5 27 (2.43%) GDPR
6 18 (1.62%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.35%) SLA
8 14 (1.26%) GRC
9 12 (1.08%) NCSC
9 12 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.81%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
14 5 (0.45%) DO-254
14 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.45%) ITGC
15 4 (0.36%) ISO 26262
System Software
1 87 (7.83%) Docker
2 79 (7.11%) 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 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 57 (5.13%) Terraform
3 39 (3.51%) Ansible
4 31 (2.79%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.25%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.89%) Grafana
7 13 (1.17%) SCCM
7 13 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.54%) Argo
9 4 (0.36%) Control-M
9 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Foglight
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.27%) Puppet
10 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.18%) SolarWinds Orion
Vendors
1 209 (18.81%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.94%) Oracle
3 46 (4.14%) Databricks
3 46 (4.14%) IBM
4 45 (4.05%) Google
5 40 (3.60%) ServiceNow
6 36 (3.24%) VMware
7 30 (2.70%) SAP
8 24 (2.16%) Cisco
9 22 (1.98%) Splunk
10 20 (1.80%) CyberArk
11 18 (1.62%) BeyondTrust
12 17 (1.53%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
14 10 (0.90%) Citrix
14 10 (0.90%) Dynatrace
15 9 (0.81%) Adobe
15 9 (0.81%) Apple
15 9 (0.81%) Foundry
15 9 (0.81%) Red Hat