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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 113 65 68
Rank change year-on-year -48 +3 +45
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,049 1,053 1,296
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.20% 3.59% 3.00%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.61% 3.95% 3.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 622 594 793
10th Percentile £178 £250 £319
25th Percentile £301 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £487 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.19% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -18.37% -2.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 32 95
10th Percentile £29.21 £26.26 £22.60
25th Percentile £51.25 £29.07 £41.75
Median hourly rate £83.00 £40.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +107.50% -27.27% +3.41%
75th Percentile £88.00 £64.31 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.25 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -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 40,206 26,654 37,276
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.43% 90.92% 86.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,270 17,186 24,018
10th Percentile £320 £307 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £482 £500
% change year-on-year +1.09% -3.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,411 1,084 2,441
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.64 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.88 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.95
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -19.33% +0.42%
75th Percentile £67.25 £61.69 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £27.70 £37.50
% change year-on-year +58.84% -26.13% +7.14%

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 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 6 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 6 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 -37 928 £475 -9.52% 881
UK excluding London -43 541 £400 -18.37% 596
London -43 418 £525 -12.50% 381
Work from Home -57 233 £500 -9.09% 393
South East -8 194 £285 -43.00% 219
North of England -17 134 £390 -26.55% 116
Yorkshire -13 75 £520 +34.59% 42
Midlands -71 74 £463 +85.00% 87
North West -31 57 £356 -35.39% 51
West Midlands -58 56 £450 +87.89% 46
East of England -30 44 £400 -38.46% 64
Scotland -13 40 £610 +16.19% 40
South West -53 40 £469 +26.76% 62
East Midlands -32 17 £525 +110.00% 39
Wales -31 11 £160 -44.83% 13
Northern Ireland +4 7 £350 -41.67% 6
North East -23 3 £170 -70.39% 25

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 46 (4.39%) Confluence
2 40 (3.81%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.29%) SharePoint
4 20 (1.91%) Apache
5 18 (1.72%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 4 (0.38%) CMS
8 4 (0.38%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.095%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.095%) Appian
11 1 (0.095%) Camunda
Applications
1 34 (3.24%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 14 (1.33%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.38%) Simulink
7 2 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.19%) Trello
Business Applications
1 22 (2.10%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.48%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
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 (0.095%) Actimize
6 1 (0.095%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.095%) Maximo
6 1 (0.095%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.095%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.095%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 304 (28.98%) Azure
2 188 (17.92%) AWS
3 83 (7.91%) GCP
4 63 (6.01%) Power Platform
5 56 (5.34%) SaaS
6 53 (5.05%) Microsoft 365
7 52 (4.96%) GitHub
8 40 (3.81%) Azure DevOps
9 38 (3.62%) Entra ID
10 23 (2.19%) AWS CloudFormation
11 22 (2.10%) GitHub Actions
11 22 (2.10%) IaaS
12 21 (2.00%) Serverless
13 20 (1.91%) Azure Data Factory
13 20 (1.91%) Snowflake
14 17 (1.62%) Azure AKS
15 14 (1.33%) Azure Machine Learning
16 13 (1.24%) Amazon S3
16 13 (1.24%) PaaS
16 13 (1.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 41 (3.91%) Firewall
2 28 (2.67%) TCP/IP
3 27 (2.57%) DNS
4 20 (1.91%) Network Security
5 16 (1.53%) WAN
6 14 (1.33%) BGP
7 13 (1.24%) LAN
8 11 (1.05%) OSPF
9 9 (0.86%) HTTP
9 9 (0.86%) HTTPS
9 9 (0.86%) SSH
10 8 (0.76%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.76%) VPN
11 7 (0.67%) SAN
11 7 (0.67%) VLAN
11 7 (0.67%) Wireless
12 6 (0.57%) Cisco IOS
12 6 (0.57%) DHCP
12 6 (0.57%) IPv4
12 6 (0.57%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (5.05%) Relational Database
2 50 (4.77%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (4.67%) SQL Server
4 46 (4.39%) Power BI
5 39 (3.72%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (3.53%) Big Data
7 28 (2.67%) MySQL
8 26 (2.48%) NoSQL
9 25 (2.38%) Metadata
10 21 (2.00%) Hadoop
11 20 (1.91%) MongoDB
12 16 (1.53%) Tableau
13 14 (1.33%) Data Lake
13 14 (1.33%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (1.14%) Redis
15 11 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 10 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
17 9 (0.86%) Snowflake Schema
18 8 (0.76%) Power Query
19 7 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 81 (7.72%) Git
2 66 (6.29%) JIRA
3 39 (3.72%) GitLab
4 35 (3.34%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.67%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.14%) MLflow
7 11 (1.05%) Selenium
8 9 (0.86%) Gradle
8 9 (0.86%) Jaeger
8 9 (0.86%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.67%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.67%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.67%) JUnit
9 7 (0.67%) Postman
10 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.48%) Bitbucket
10 5 (0.48%) Maven
10 5 (0.48%) SonarQube
11 4 (0.38%) Visual Studio
12 3 (0.29%) ERwin
General
1 431 (41.09%) Social Skills
2 248 (23.64%) Finance
3 216 (20.59%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (9.15%) Banking
5 68 (6.48%) Public Sector
6 53 (5.05%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (4.86%) Aerospace
8 42 (4.00%) Marketing
9 35 (3.34%) Presentation Skills
9 35 (3.34%) Telecoms
10 31 (2.96%) Legal
11 26 (2.48%) Organisational Skills
12 24 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 22 (2.10%) Front Office
14 21 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
15 19 (1.81%) Electronics
16 18 (1.72%) Investment Banking
17 17 (1.62%) Manufacturing
18 16 (1.53%) Financial Institution
19 15 (1.43%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 116 (11.06%) Developer
2 114 (10.87%) Architect
3 86 (8.20%) Lead
4 81 (7.72%) Analyst
5 76 (7.24%) Senior
6 39 (3.72%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.53%) Delivery Manager
7 37 (3.53%) Solutions Architect
8 35 (3.34%) Data Scientist
8 35 (3.34%) Product Manager
9 32 (3.05%) Technical Support
10 29 (2.76%) Data Engineer
11 28 (2.67%) Product Delivery Manager
12 24 (2.29%) Python Developer
13 23 (2.19%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 22 (2.10%) Project Manager
14 22 (2.10%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.10%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.10%) Systems Manager
15 21 (2.00%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (8.20%) REST
2 57 (5.43%) .NET
3 54 (5.15%) React
4 44 (4.19%) Middleware
5 43 (4.10%) Kafka
6 41 (3.91%) RESTful
7 34 (3.24%) Spring Boot
8 32 (3.05%) PyTorch
9 30 (2.86%) Spring
10 26 (2.48%) JSON
10 26 (2.48%) OAuth
10 26 (2.48%) SOAP
10 26 (2.48%) XML
11 24 (2.29%) TensorFlow
12 21 (2.00%) Elastic Stack
13 20 (1.91%) HTML
13 20 (1.91%) LangChain
14 18 (1.72%) AngularJS
14 18 (1.72%) Pandas
15 15 (1.43%) CSS
Miscellaneous
1 106 (10.10%) Management Information System
2 78 (7.44%) Product Ownership
3 75 (7.15%) Onboarding
4 74 (7.05%) Algorithms
5 70 (6.67%) Cloud Native
6 54 (5.15%) Data Structures
7 46 (4.39%) Distributed Systems
8 32 (3.05%) Virtual Team
9 25 (2.38%) AI Agents
10 24 (2.29%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (2.00%) Taxonomies
12 20 (1.91%) Equities
13 19 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
13 19 (1.81%) Derivative
13 19 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
14 18 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
15 17 (1.62%) Cyberattack
15 17 (1.62%) Security Operations Centre
16 16 (1.53%) Robotics
17 15 (1.43%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 140 (13.35%) Linux
2 128 (12.20%) Windows
3 43 (4.10%) Unix
4 24 (2.29%) Android
5 18 (1.72%) Mac OS
5 18 (1.72%) Windows Server
6 15 (1.43%) Windows 10
7 14 (1.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 11 (1.05%) Apple iOS
9 6 (0.57%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.48%) Debian
10 5 (0.48%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.095%) CentOS
13 1 (0.095%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.095%) MVS
13 1 (0.095%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (31.55%) Problem-Solving
2 275 (26.22%) Agile
3 246 (23.45%) AI
4 209 (19.92%) CI/CD
5 197 (18.78%) DevOps
6 179 (17.06%) Software Engineering
7 162 (15.44%) Continuous Improvement
8 125 (11.92%) Analytics
9 121 (11.53%) Microservices
10 117 (11.15%) Cybersecurity
11 112 (10.68%) Stakeholder Management
12 107 (10.20%) Machine Learning
13 101 (9.63%) Containerisation
14 99 (9.44%) Technical Leadership
15 98 (9.34%) Decision-Making
16 96 (9.15%) Data Modelling
17 95 (9.06%) Data Science
17 95 (9.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 90 (8.58%) Data Governance
19 88 (8.39%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 296 (28.22%) Python
2 205 (19.54%) SQL
3 133 (12.68%) Java
4 67 (6.39%) JavaScript
5 62 (5.91%) C#
6 51 (4.86%) PowerShell
7 37 (3.53%) TypeScript
8 35 (3.34%) Bash
9 31 (2.96%) C++
10 23 (2.19%) R
11 15 (1.43%) Go
12 14 (1.33%) Perl
13 12 (1.14%) Rust
14 10 (0.95%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.95%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 8 (0.76%) Scala
17 6 (0.57%) C
18 5 (0.48%) Tcl
19 4 (0.38%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 856 (81.60%) Degree
2 538 (51.29%) Computer Science Degree
3 194 (18.49%) Security Cleared
4 151 (14.39%) Master's Degree
5 115 (10.96%) SC Cleared
6 55 (5.24%) CISSP
7 38 (3.62%) CISM
8 36 (3.43%) PhD
9 34 (3.24%) PMI Certification
10 33 (3.15%) Azure Certification
11 32 (3.05%) TOGAF Certification
12 31 (2.96%) Microsoft Certification
13 29 (2.76%) PMP
14 27 (2.57%) DV Cleared
15 25 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (2.10%) AWS Certification
16 22 (2.10%) CompTIA Security+
17 21 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
18 19 (1.81%) CISA
19 17 (1.62%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (6.01%) QA
2 57 (5.43%) NIST
3 56 (5.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 48 (4.58%) Data Quality
5 40 (3.81%) GDPR
6 18 (1.72%) Accessibility
6 18 (1.72%) PCI DSS
7 14 (1.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 11 (1.05%) GRC
9 10 (0.95%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.76%) NCSC
10 8 (0.76%) SLA
11 7 (0.67%) COBIT
11 7 (0.67%) DO-254
11 7 (0.67%) PSD2
12 6 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.57%) HIPAA
12 6 (0.57%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.57%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 115 (10.96%) Docker
2 70 (6.67%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.33%) Firmware
5 7 (0.67%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.19%) Ceph
8 2 (0.19%) KVM
8 2 (0.19%) Squid
8 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.095%) ACF2
9 1 (0.095%) HDFS
9 1 (0.095%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.095%) RACF
9 1 (0.095%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 129 (12.30%) Kubernetes
2 67 (6.39%) Terraform
3 52 (4.96%) Ansible
4 34 (3.24%) Grafana
5 28 (2.67%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.29%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (1.43%) Puppet
9 10 (0.95%) Kibana
10 9 (0.86%) Kiali
11 6 (0.57%) SCCM
12 5 (0.48%) Kubeflow
13 4 (0.38%) Control-M
13 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
14 3 (0.29%) Foglight
14 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.29%) SCOM
14 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
15 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
15 2 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 190 (18.11%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.29%) Oracle
3 51 (4.86%) Splunk
4 49 (4.67%) Databricks
5 39 (3.72%) SAP
6 38 (3.62%) Google
7 34 (3.24%) IBM
8 32 (3.05%) ServiceNow
9 24 (2.29%) VMware
10 22 (2.10%) Cisco
11 18 (1.72%) BiZZdesign
11 18 (1.72%) Salesforce
12 16 (1.53%) Informatica
13 15 (1.43%) Okta
14 14 (1.33%) Palo Alto
15 13 (1.24%) CheckPoint
15 13 (1.24%) CyberArk
15 13 (1.24%) MuleSoft
16 12 (1.14%) Software AG
17 11 (1.05%) Foundry