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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 143 70 60
Rank change year-on-year -73 -10 +23
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,060 1,153 1,330
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.93% 3.50% 3.49%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.29% 3.86% 4.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 602 642 811
10th Percentile £175 £186 £350
25th Percentile £200 £351 £427
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £685
90th Percentile £750 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £523
% change year-on-year -11.76% -18.66% +2.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 54 44
10th Percentile £23.40 £26.85 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.25 £29.00 £26.28
Median hourly rate £45.20 £34.25 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year +31.97% -31.84% -17.96%
75th Percentile £80.55 £67.00 £63.88
90th Percentile £87.43 £82.10 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £33.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +56.72% -40.44% -6.25%

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 46,342 29,835 32,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.41% 90.50% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,074 18,533 19,873
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,192 1,836 1,405
10th Percentile £13.74 £14.31 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.32 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 -63 961 £475 -1.45% 3,979
UK excluding London -60 549 £375 -11.76% 1,630
London -61 434 £535 -0.47% 2,647
Work from Home -84 247 £520 +9.47% 1,244
South East -14 206 £438 +18.24% 446
North of England -40 143 £448 +2.81% 279
Midlands -50 88 £221 -50.89% 199
Yorkshire -11 75 £431 +11.00% 74
West Midlands -50 57 £217 -57.24% 125
North West -53 57 £524 +12.93% 162
East of England -39 47 £425 -10.99% 218
East Midlands -22 30 £230 -48.55% 74
South West -67 30 £198 +6.76% 198
Scotland -60 28 £400 -11.11% 147
North East -38 12 £195 -57.84% 45
Northern Ireland +6 5 £175 - 116
Wales -17 4 £530 +14.59% 38

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 40 (3.77%) Confluence
2 32 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.17%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.70%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.51%) Apache
6 12 (1.13%) IIS
7 9 (0.85%) Camunda
8 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.47%) CMS
10 5 (0.47%) SAS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.28%) CICS
12 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) nginx
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
14 1 (0.094%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 42 (3.96%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.13%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.38%) Trello
6 4 (0.38%) Windchill
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.19%) Sketch
8 1 (0.094%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 8 (0.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.094%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.094%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.094%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.094%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.094%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.094%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.094%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.094%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 299 (28.21%) Azure
2 197 (18.58%) AWS
3 117 (11.04%) GCP
4 68 (6.42%) Power Platform
5 63 (5.94%) Entra ID
6 60 (5.66%) Microsoft 365
7 54 (5.09%) GitHub
8 53 (5.00%) Azure DevOps
9 45 (4.25%) SaaS
10 38 (3.58%) Serverless
11 29 (2.74%) Snowflake
12 24 (2.26%) PowerApps
13 22 (2.08%) AWS Lambda
14 21 (1.98%) Microsoft Copilot
15 20 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
15 20 (1.89%) OpenShift
16 18 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
16 18 (1.70%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
18 15 (1.42%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.25%) Firewall
2 41 (3.87%) DNS
3 35 (3.30%) Network Security
4 33 (3.11%) VPN
5 26 (2.45%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.98%) DHCP
7 16 (1.51%) SSH
8 13 (1.23%) WAN
8 13 (1.23%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.04%) 5G
9 11 (1.04%) HTTP
9 11 (1.04%) LAN
9 11 (1.04%) Wireless
10 10 (0.94%) 3GPP
11 8 (0.75%) BGP
11 8 (0.75%) Intrusion Detection
11 8 (0.75%) MPLS
11 8 (0.75%) VLAN
12 6 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.19%) PostgreSQL
2 52 (4.91%) Power BI
2 52 (4.91%) Relational Database
2 52 (4.91%) SQL Server
3 41 (3.87%) Metadata
4 28 (2.64%) MongoDB
5 26 (2.45%) MySQL
5 26 (2.45%) NoSQL
6 24 (2.26%) Data Warehouse
7 23 (2.17%) Elasticsearch
8 16 (1.51%) Big Data
9 15 (1.42%) Data Mining
10 14 (1.32%) Redis
11 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
12 12 (1.13%) Tableau
13 11 (1.04%) Data Lake
13 11 (1.04%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.57%) Flink
14 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 100 (9.43%) Git
2 50 (4.72%) Jenkins
3 49 (4.62%) JIRA
4 44 (4.15%) GitLab
5 22 (2.08%) JUnit
6 21 (1.98%) Gradle
6 21 (1.98%) Maven
7 19 (1.79%) Selenium
8 18 (1.70%) SonarQube
9 15 (1.42%) Mockito
10 13 (1.23%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (1.13%) Cucumber
12 11 (1.04%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.94%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.94%) SpecFlow
14 8 (0.75%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.75%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.75%) Visual Studio
15 7 (0.66%) Postman
16 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
General
1 459 (43.30%) Social Skills
2 238 (22.45%) Analytical Skills
3 235 (22.17%) Finance
4 97 (9.15%) Banking
5 67 (6.32%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.81%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (4.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 44 (4.15%) Aerospace
9 40 (3.77%) Manufacturing
10 35 (3.30%) Telecoms
11 34 (3.21%) Organisational Skills
12 32 (3.02%) Influencing Skills
13 24 (2.26%) Marketing
14 22 (2.08%) Front Office
15 20 (1.89%) Legal
16 19 (1.79%) Military
17 18 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (1.42%) Law
19 14 (1.32%) Retail
20 13 (1.23%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 161 (15.19%) Developer
2 108 (10.19%) Senior
3 88 (8.30%) Architect
4 75 (7.08%) Lead
5 73 (6.89%) Analyst
6 35 (3.30%) Data Engineer
7 34 (3.21%) Java Developer
8 29 (2.74%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.55%) IT Support
10 26 (2.45%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 25 (2.36%) Security Engineer
12 24 (2.26%) Senior Developer
13 23 (2.17%) Data Scientist
13 23 (2.17%) Full-Stack Developer
14 22 (2.08%) C# Developer
15 21 (1.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 21 (1.98%) Python Developer
15 21 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
16 19 (1.79%) Python Engineer
16 19 (1.79%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (9.43%) REST
2 67 (6.32%) React
3 66 (6.23%) Terraform
4 61 (5.75%) HTML
5 58 (5.47%) CSS
6 55 (5.19%) .NET
7 53 (5.00%) Kafka
8 52 (4.91%) RESTful
9 37 (3.49%) OAuth
9 37 (3.49%) Spring Boot
10 36 (3.40%) Spring
11 33 (3.11%) Web Services
12 31 (2.92%) OAuth2
12 31 (2.92%) SOAP
13 29 (2.74%) OpenID
14 28 (2.64%) Middleware
15 27 (2.55%) SAML
16 24 (2.26%) .NET Core
16 24 (2.26%) JSON
17 22 (2.08%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 119 (11.23%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.55%) Cloud Native
3 70 (6.60%) Algorithms
4 65 (6.13%) Onboarding
5 55 (5.19%) Product Ownership
6 53 (5.00%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (4.81%) Data Structures
8 35 (3.30%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.36%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (2.36%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 23 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
11 21 (1.98%) Data Centre
12 20 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.60%) Derivative
14 15 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
15 13 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 13 (1.23%) Replication
15 13 (1.23%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 128 (12.08%) Windows
2 115 (10.85%) Linux
3 35 (3.30%) Unix
4 32 (3.02%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.98%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (1.23%) Android
8 9 (0.85%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.57%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.47%) zOS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Solaris
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) Debian
13 2 (0.19%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Rocky
14 1 (0.094%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 330 (31.13%) Problem-Solving
2 267 (25.19%) Agile
3 223 (21.04%) CI/CD
4 219 (20.66%) AI
5 195 (18.40%) DevOps
6 192 (18.11%) Software Engineering
7 180 (16.98%) Continuous Improvement
8 179 (16.89%) Stakeholder Management
9 149 (14.06%) Analytics
10 123 (11.60%) ITIL
11 113 (10.66%) Cybersecurity
12 110 (10.38%) Mathematics
13 109 (10.28%) Roadmaps
14 105 (9.91%) Scrum
15 104 (9.81%) Test Automation
16 99 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 98 (9.25%) Validation
18 95 (8.96%) Machine Learning
19 88 (8.30%) Change Management
20 85 (8.02%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 283 (26.70%) Python
2 203 (19.15%) SQL
3 138 (13.02%) Java
4 96 (9.06%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.45%) PowerShell
6 68 (6.42%) C#
7 46 (4.34%) Bash
8 40 (3.77%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.45%) C++
10 17 (1.60%) Bicep
11 14 (1.32%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.04%) R
12 11 (1.04%) Scala
13 10 (0.94%) C
13 10 (0.94%) Go
14 9 (0.85%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.85%) Perl
15 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
16 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 809 (76.32%) Degree
2 490 (46.23%) Computer Science Degree
3 186 (17.55%) Security Cleared
4 142 (13.40%) SC Cleared
5 109 (10.28%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.91%) CISSP
7 51 (4.81%) Azure Certification
8 49 (4.62%) DBS Check
9 44 (4.15%) Microsoft Certification
10 38 (3.58%) PhD
11 37 (3.49%) CISM
12 34 (3.21%) AWS Certification
13 29 (2.74%) DV Cleared
14 28 (2.64%) Cisco Certification
15 23 (2.17%) PMI Certification
15 23 (2.17%) PMP
15 23 (2.17%) TOGAF Certification
16 21 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
17 18 (1.70%) CISA
18 15 (1.42%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.42%) Data Quality
2 66 (6.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (5.94%) QA
4 51 (4.81%) NIST
5 27 (2.55%) GDPR
6 17 (1.60%) SLA
7 16 (1.51%) GRC
8 15 (1.42%) HIPAA
9 14 (1.32%) Accessibility
10 11 (1.04%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 9 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.75%) NCSC
14 7 (0.66%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.47%) ISO 31000
15 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 5 (0.47%) NIST 800
15 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
16 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
16 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 88 (8.30%) Docker
2 74 (6.98%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Firmware
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.66%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.57%) RACF
8 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.47%) vSphere
9 4 (0.38%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.28%) ACF2
10 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.19%) NFS
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.094%) KVM
12 1 (0.094%) Squid
Systems Management
1 104 (9.81%) Kubernetes
2 37 (3.49%) Ansible
3 27 (2.55%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (2.17%) Prometheus
5 19 (1.79%) Grafana
6 14 (1.32%) SCCM
7 10 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.57%) CASB
9 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.38%) Puppet
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.28%) Control-M
11 3 (0.28%) Istio
11 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.19%) HP Fortify
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 210 (19.81%) Microsoft
2 74 (6.98%) Oracle
3 54 (5.09%) Google
4 40 (3.77%) ServiceNow
5 35 (3.30%) Databricks
6 34 (3.21%) IBM
6 34 (3.21%) VMware
7 30 (2.83%) Cisco
7 30 (2.83%) SAP
8 26 (2.45%) Splunk
9 22 (2.08%) Salesforce
10 20 (1.89%) CyberArk
11 18 (1.70%) BeyondTrust
12 16 (1.51%) OpenAI
13 14 (1.32%) Adobe
14 13 (1.23%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.04%) Dynatrace
15 11 (1.04%) Foundry
16 10 (0.94%) F5
17 9 (0.85%) Zscaler