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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 64 62
Rank change year-on-year -73 -2 +24
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,084 1,200 1,280
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 3.69% 3.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.39% 4.08% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 671 795
10th Percentile £175 £184 £336
25th Percentile £200 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.84% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £605 £638 £700
90th Percentile £760 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -11.76% -19.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 45 54
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.46
25th Percentile £31.77 £29.00 £41.50
Median hourly rate £67.00 £54.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +22.94% +5.83% -16.94%
75th Percentile £85.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £66.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +5.26% +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 45,329 29,411 32,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.42% 85.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,714 18,306 20,733
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% -3.54%
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 2,913 1,754 1,602
10th Percentile £14.07 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.30 £18.79
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.09 £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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 September 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 -59 989 £471 -2.89% 4,133
UK excluding London -57 564 £375 -11.76% 1,659
London -66 447 £525 -4.55% 2,907
Work from Home -82 247 £500 +3.63% 1,395
South East -15 218 £363 -14.71% 455
North of England -51 146 £450 +6.51% 255
Midlands -59 90 £228 -45.83% 167
Yorkshire -14 73 £450 +25.70% 63
North West -50 62 £497 +5.60% 145
West Midlands -48 61 £225 -40.00% 101
East of England -28 49 £200 -60.40% 239
East Midlands -26 28 £253 -43.51% 66
Scotland -60 28 £380 -17.57% 188
South West -69 27 £400 +93.70% 232
North East -39 12 £195 -57.84% 49
Northern Ireland +5 4 £175 - 104
Wales -22 4 £530 +14.59% 32

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 (3.87%) Confluence
2 33 (3.04%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.21%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.75%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.38%) Apache
6 8 (0.74%) Camunda
6 8 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
7 7 (0.65%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.46%) CMS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) nginx
12 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.38%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (1.01%) 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 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.092%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.092%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.092%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 303 (27.95%) Azure
2 198 (18.27%) AWS
3 114 (10.52%) GCP
4 76 (7.01%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.72%) Microsoft 365
6 60 (5.54%) Entra ID
7 50 (4.61%) GitHub
8 49 (4.52%) Azure DevOps
9 48 (4.43%) SaaS
10 36 (3.32%) Serverless
11 35 (3.23%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.12%) PowerApps
13 19 (1.75%) AWS Lambda
13 19 (1.75%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.66%) Microsoft Copilot
14 18 (1.66%) OpenShift
15 17 (1.57%) Power Automate
16 15 (1.38%) Dynamics 365
17 14 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
17 14 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.97%) Firewall
2 42 (3.87%) DNS
3 34 (3.14%) Network Security
3 34 (3.14%) VPN
4 25 (2.31%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.94%) DHCP
6 17 (1.57%) SSH
7 15 (1.38%) WAN
8 12 (1.11%) LAN
9 11 (1.01%) BGP
9 11 (1.01%) Wireless
9 11 (1.01%) Wireshark
10 10 (0.92%) HTTP
10 10 (0.92%) MPLS
11 9 (0.83%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.83%) 5G
11 9 (0.83%) VLAN
12 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.74%) OSPF
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (5.54%) Power BI
2 56 (5.17%) Relational Database
3 53 (4.89%) SQL Server
4 48 (4.43%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (3.60%) Metadata
6 29 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.31%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.31%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.03%) Big Data
9 18 (1.66%) Elasticsearch
9 18 (1.66%) MySQL
10 16 (1.48%) Tableau
11 15 (1.38%) Data Mining
12 14 (1.29%) Redis
13 11 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (1.01%) Oracle Database
14 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.92%) Data Lake
15 8 (0.74%) Snowflake Schema
16 7 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 96 (8.86%) Git
2 51 (4.70%) JIRA
3 46 (4.24%) Jenkins
4 43 (3.97%) GitLab
5 18 (1.66%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.57%) JUnit
6 17 (1.57%) Selenium
7 14 (1.29%) Gradle
7 14 (1.29%) Maven
7 14 (1.29%) SonarQube
8 12 (1.11%) Sonatype Nexus
9 11 (1.01%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.92%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.92%) Mockito
11 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
12 7 (0.65%) Bitbucket Server
12 7 (0.65%) Cucumber
13 6 (0.55%) Postman
13 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 451 (41.61%) Social Skills
2 247 (22.79%) Analytical Skills
3 237 (21.86%) Finance
4 91 (8.39%) Banking
5 64 (5.90%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.80%) Documentation Skills
7 50 (4.61%) Aerospace
8 41 (3.78%) Telecoms
9 40 (3.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 35 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.86%) Manufacturing
12 30 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
13 28 (2.58%) Front Office
14 25 (2.31%) Marketing
15 24 (2.21%) Legal
16 20 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (1.66%) Military
18 15 (1.38%) Retail
19 14 (1.29%) Investment Banking
19 14 (1.29%) Law
Job Titles
1 144 (13.28%) Developer
2 108 (9.96%) Senior
3 93 (8.58%) Architect
4 81 (7.47%) Analyst
5 76 (7.01%) Lead
6 36 (3.32%) Data Engineer
7 31 (2.86%) Software Engineer
8 28 (2.58%) Java Developer
9 27 (2.49%) IT Support
10 25 (2.31%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.21%) Junior
11 24 (2.21%) Product Manager
11 24 (2.21%) Solutions Architect
12 23 (2.12%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 23 (2.12%) Data Scientist
12 23 (2.12%) Delivery Manager
12 23 (2.12%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.03%) Security Engineer
14 21 (1.94%) Full-Stack Developer
14 21 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.67%) REST
2 60 (5.54%) Terraform
3 59 (5.44%) React
4 56 (5.17%) .NET
5 50 (4.61%) HTML
6 49 (4.52%) Kafka
7 48 (4.43%) CSS
8 40 (3.69%) RESTful
9 33 (3.04%) Spring
10 31 (2.86%) OAuth
10 31 (2.86%) Spring Boot
11 26 (2.40%) OAuth2
11 26 (2.40%) Web Services
12 24 (2.21%) OpenID
13 23 (2.12%) JSON
13 23 (2.12%) SOAP
14 22 (2.03%) AngularJS
14 22 (2.03%) Middleware
14 22 (2.03%) SAML
15 19 (1.75%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 110 (10.15%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.38%) Algorithms
3 75 (6.92%) Cloud Native
4 72 (6.64%) Onboarding
5 69 (6.37%) Product Ownership
6 64 (5.90%) Data Structures
7 52 (4.80%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (2.95%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 23 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (2.12%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (2.12%) Virtual Team
11 22 (2.03%) Derivative
11 22 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
12 19 (1.75%) Data Centre
13 17 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.48%) Fixed Income
15 15 (1.38%) Equities
16 14 (1.29%) Operational Technology
17 13 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 123 (11.35%) Windows
2 110 (10.15%) Linux
3 31 (2.86%) Unix
4 28 (2.58%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.29%) Android
8 10 (0.92%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.55%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (30.72%) Problem-Solving
2 276 (25.46%) Agile
3 233 (21.49%) AI
4 217 (20.02%) CI/CD
5 193 (17.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 192 (17.71%) Software Engineering
7 179 (16.51%) DevOps
8 161 (14.85%) Stakeholder Management
9 151 (13.93%) Analytics
10 116 (10.70%) ITIL
11 114 (10.52%) Cybersecurity
12 108 (9.96%) Mathematics
13 107 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 99 (9.13%) Roadmaps
15 98 (9.04%) Machine Learning
16 94 (8.67%) Scrum
16 94 (8.67%) Test Automation
17 91 (8.39%) Validation
18 88 (8.12%) Mentoring
19 83 (7.66%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 296 (27.31%) Python
2 214 (19.74%) SQL
3 140 (12.92%) Java
4 86 (7.93%) JavaScript
5 77 (7.10%) PowerShell
6 67 (6.18%) C#
7 44 (4.06%) Bash
8 40 (3.69%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.77%) C++
10 17 (1.57%) Bicep
11 14 (1.29%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.11%) R
13 11 (1.01%) C
14 8 (0.74%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.74%) Scala
15 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.65%) Go
16 6 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.55%) Perl
16 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 830 (76.57%) Degree
2 501 (46.22%) Computer Science Degree
3 194 (17.90%) Security Cleared
4 132 (12.18%) SC Cleared
5 114 (10.52%) Master's Degree
6 50 (4.61%) Azure Certification
7 49 (4.52%) CISSP
8 45 (4.15%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.60%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.32%) PhD
11 31 (2.86%) CISM
12 29 (2.68%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.58%) DV Cleared
14 23 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
14 23 (2.12%) PMI Certification
14 23 (2.12%) PMP
15 22 (2.03%) TOGAF Certification
16 20 (1.85%) CISA
17 18 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
18 15 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.46%) Data Quality
2 64 (5.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 56 (5.17%) QA
4 54 (4.98%) NIST
5 27 (2.49%) GDPR
6 16 (1.48%) Accessibility
6 16 (1.48%) SLA
7 15 (1.38%) GRC
8 11 (1.01%) HIPAA
8 11 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 11 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 8 (0.74%) NCSC
9 8 (0.74%) PCI DSS
10 7 (0.65%) NIST 800
11 5 (0.46%) ITGC
12 4 (0.37%) COBIT
12 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
13 3 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.28%) HL7
13 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 89 (8.21%) Docker
2 76 (7.01%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.01%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.74%) Firmware
7 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.28%) 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 (0.092%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.092%) KVM
11 1 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 105 (9.69%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.60%) Ansible
3 28 (2.58%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (2.31%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.94%) Grafana
6 14 (1.29%) SCCM
7 12 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) Control-M
9 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) CASB
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.18%) SCOM
Vendors
1 213 (19.65%) Microsoft
2 71 (6.55%) Oracle
3 48 (4.43%) Google
4 42 (3.87%) Databricks
4 42 (3.87%) IBM
5 37 (3.41%) VMware
6 36 (3.32%) ServiceNow
7 30 (2.77%) SAP
8 27 (2.49%) Cisco
9 23 (2.12%) Splunk
10 20 (1.85%) CyberArk
11 19 (1.75%) Salesforce
12 18 (1.66%) BeyondTrust
13 13 (1.20%) Adobe
13 13 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 12 (1.11%) OpenAI
15 10 (0.92%) Citrix
15 10 (0.92%) Dynatrace
15 10 (0.92%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) UiPath