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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 63 62
Rank change year-on-year -63 -1 +36
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,057 1,181 1,402
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.03% 3.71% 3.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.39% 4.09% 3.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 597 665 844
10th Percentile £178 £240 £316
25th Percentile £208 £363 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -7.06% -2.18%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £769 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £450 £517
% change year-on-year -13.89% -12.96% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 116 37 104
10th Percentile £26.00 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £28.41 £38.75
Median hourly rate £69.22 £30.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +126.95% -44.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £87.37 £67.50 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.98 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £30.16 £55.00
% change year-on-year +170.23% -45.16% -

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 44,261 28,859 36,923
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.68% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,507 18,191 23,560
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.28% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,650 1,433 2,509
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £17.50 £16.12
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -3.85%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.83 £38.12
% change year-on-year +77.04% -34.86% +8.82%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 -54 944 £460 -8.09% 1,047
UK excluding London -50 570 £388 -13.89% 754
London -67 414 £525 -12.50% 452
Work from Home -83 238 £500 -9.09% 652
South East -12 227 £225 -54.08% 238
North of England -35 137 £400 -15.79% 137
Yorkshire -4 76 £525 +25.00% 33
Midlands -64 74 £447 +45.84% 113
North West -47 54 £220 -53.68% 68
West Midlands -67 53 £450 +54.11% 56
East of England -33 42 £308 -52.69% 94
Scotland -38 39 £630 +26.00% 45
South West -57 38 £469 +95.42% 81
East Midlands -27 20 £300 -14.83% 57
Wales -30 9 £530 +50.89% 20
North East -35 8 £195 -57.84% 36
Northern Ireland +11 7 £350 -41.67% 41

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 47 (4.45%) Confluence
2 36 (3.41%) Apache Spark
3 28 (2.65%) SharePoint
4 23 (2.18%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (2.08%) Apache
6 9 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.57%) IIS
8 5 (0.47%) SAS
9 4 (0.38%) CMS
10 3 (0.28%) Camunda
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.19%) nginx
12 1 (0.095%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.095%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.095%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.095%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.095%) Tomcat
Applications
1 38 (3.60%) Microsoft Office
2 26 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.70%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.095%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.095%) Sketch
9 1 (0.095%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (1.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.38%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.095%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.095%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.095%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.095%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.095%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.095%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.095%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 316 (29.90%) Azure
2 196 (18.54%) AWS
3 98 (9.27%) GCP
4 73 (6.91%) Power Platform
5 59 (5.58%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (4.92%) Entra ID
7 47 (4.45%) Azure DevOps
7 47 (4.45%) GitHub
8 42 (3.97%) SaaS
9 28 (2.65%) Serverless
9 28 (2.65%) Snowflake
10 22 (2.08%) GitHub Actions
10 22 (2.08%) PowerApps
11 18 (1.70%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (1.61%) Azure AKS
13 16 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (1.42%) Power Automate
15 14 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
16 13 (1.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 12 (1.14%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 33 (3.12%) Firewall
2 32 (3.03%) Network Security
3 26 (2.46%) DNS
4 25 (2.37%) TCP/IP
5 20 (1.89%) VPN
6 17 (1.61%) WAN
7 15 (1.42%) BGP
8 14 (1.32%) LAN
9 12 (1.14%) OSPF
9 12 (1.14%) SSH
10 10 (0.95%) HTTPS
10 10 (0.95%) VLAN
11 9 (0.85%) Wireless
12 7 (0.66%) 3GPP
12 7 (0.66%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (0.66%) MPLS
13 6 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
13 6 (0.57%) DHCP
13 6 (0.57%) IPsec
13 6 (0.57%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (5.58%) Power BI
2 52 (4.92%) PostgreSQL
2 52 (4.92%) SQL Server
3 50 (4.73%) Relational Database
4 36 (3.41%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (3.22%) Metadata
6 33 (3.12%) Big Data
7 28 (2.65%) NoSQL
8 27 (2.55%) MongoDB
9 23 (2.18%) MySQL
10 20 (1.89%) Hadoop
11 19 (1.80%) Data Lake
12 18 (1.70%) Tableau
13 10 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.95%) Azure SQL Database
13 10 (0.95%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.95%) Snowflake Schema
14 9 (0.85%) Data Mining
15 8 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 8 (0.76%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 85 (8.04%) Git
2 58 (5.49%) JIRA
3 41 (3.88%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.22%) GitLab
5 29 (2.74%) Rational DOORS
6 14 (1.32%) Selenium
7 11 (1.04%) JUnit
8 10 (0.95%) Gradle
9 9 (0.85%) MLflow
10 8 (0.76%) Postman
10 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
11 7 (0.66%) Maven
11 7 (0.66%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.57%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
13 5 (0.47%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.47%) Flyway
13 5 (0.47%) SonarQube
13 5 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (0.47%) SpecFlow
General
1 432 (40.87%) Social Skills
2 237 (22.42%) Finance
3 222 (21.00%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (8.51%) Banking
5 67 (6.34%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.20%) Aerospace
7 52 (4.92%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (3.31%) Organisational Skills
9 31 (2.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 30 (2.84%) Marketing
10 30 (2.84%) Telecoms
11 28 (2.65%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (2.37%) Front Office
13 24 (2.27%) Presentation Skills
14 21 (1.99%) Manufacturing
15 20 (1.89%) Legal
16 16 (1.51%) Retail
17 15 (1.42%) Law
17 15 (1.42%) Publishing
18 13 (1.23%) Military
Job Titles
1 124 (11.73%) Developer
2 112 (10.60%) Architect
3 93 (8.80%) Senior
4 81 (7.66%) Analyst
4 81 (7.66%) Lead
5 37 (3.50%) Product Manager
5 37 (3.50%) Software Engineer
6 34 (3.22%) Data Engineer
6 34 (3.22%) Delivery Manager
7 31 (2.93%) Data Scientist
7 31 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
8 28 (2.65%) Product Delivery Manager
9 25 (2.37%) Python Developer
9 25 (2.37%) Technical Support
10 24 (2.27%) Junior
10 24 (2.27%) Security Engineer
11 23 (2.18%) IT Support
12 22 (2.08%) Java Developer
12 22 (2.08%) Systems Delivery Manager
12 22 (2.08%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (7.76%) REST
2 61 (5.77%) React
3 57 (5.39%) .NET
4 41 (3.88%) Kafka
5 39 (3.69%) RESTful
6 34 (3.22%) Spring
7 33 (3.12%) Middleware
7 33 (3.12%) Spring Boot
8 26 (2.46%) OAuth
9 24 (2.27%) AngularJS
10 22 (2.08%) PyTorch
11 21 (1.99%) HTML
11 21 (1.99%) JSON
12 19 (1.80%) CSS
12 19 (1.80%) SAML
13 18 (1.70%) SOAP
13 18 (1.70%) Web Services
14 17 (1.61%) OAuth2
14 17 (1.61%) OpenID
15 16 (1.51%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 98 (9.27%) Management Information System
2 84 (7.95%) Product Ownership
3 82 (7.76%) Onboarding
4 74 (7.00%) Algorithms
5 72 (6.81%) Cloud Native
6 51 (4.82%) Data Structures
7 48 (4.54%) Distributed Systems
8 25 (2.37%) Derivative
8 25 (2.37%) Virtual Team
9 24 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
10 23 (2.18%) AI Agents
10 23 (2.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 19 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
11 19 (1.80%) Equities
12 17 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
12 17 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
13 16 (1.51%) Fixed Income
14 15 (1.42%) Data Centre
14 15 (1.42%) Security Posture
14 15 (1.42%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 130 (12.30%) Windows
2 108 (10.22%) Linux
3 41 (3.88%) Unix
4 21 (1.99%) Android
5 20 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.70%) Windows Server
7 14 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.14%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.66%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.47%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) Debian
11 4 (0.38%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.095%) CentOS
13 1 (0.095%) MVS
13 1 (0.095%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.095%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 313 (29.61%) Problem-Solving
2 276 (26.11%) Agile
3 240 (22.71%) AI
4 196 (18.54%) CI/CD
5 177 (16.75%) Continuous Improvement
6 176 (16.65%) Software Engineering
7 174 (16.46%) DevOps
8 147 (13.91%) Analytics
9 122 (11.54%) Cybersecurity
10 116 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
11 113 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 110 (10.41%) Machine Learning
13 107 (10.12%) ITIL
14 104 (9.84%) Mathematics
15 103 (9.74%) Microservices
16 97 (9.18%) Data Science
17 96 (9.08%) Decision-Making
18 89 (8.42%) Containerisation
18 89 (8.42%) Roadmaps
19 88 (8.33%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 295 (27.91%) Python
2 214 (20.25%) SQL
3 134 (12.68%) Java
4 69 (6.53%) JavaScript
5 60 (5.68%) C#
6 48 (4.54%) PowerShell
7 34 (3.22%) TypeScript
8 23 (2.18%) Bash
9 22 (2.08%) C++
10 20 (1.89%) R
11 13 (1.23%) Go
12 12 (1.14%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.85%) Perl
14 8 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.76%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.66%) Bicep
15 7 (0.66%) Scala
16 5 (0.47%) C
16 5 (0.47%) Rust
17 4 (0.38%) Ada
Qualifications
1 831 (78.62%) Degree
2 499 (47.21%) Computer Science Degree
3 199 (18.83%) Security Cleared
4 137 (12.96%) Master's Degree
5 123 (11.64%) SC Cleared
6 57 (5.39%) CISSP
7 38 (3.60%) Azure Certification
8 37 (3.50%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (3.41%) CISM
10 33 (3.12%) PhD
11 28 (2.65%) AWS Certification
11 28 (2.65%) TOGAF Certification
12 26 (2.46%) DBS Check
13 25 (2.37%) DV Cleared
14 24 (2.27%) Cisco Certification
14 24 (2.27%) PMI Certification
15 22 (2.08%) PMP
16 21 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
17 19 (1.80%) CISA
18 16 (1.51%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (6.05%) NIST
3 63 (5.96%) Data Quality
4 52 (4.92%) QA
5 36 (3.41%) GDPR
6 20 (1.89%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.61%) GRC
8 16 (1.51%) Accessibility
9 14 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (1.14%) NCSC
10 12 (1.14%) SLA
11 11 (1.04%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (0.95%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.66%) COBIT
13 7 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 6 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.47%) DO-254
15 5 (0.47%) ITGC
15 5 (0.47%) PSD2
System Software
1 95 (8.99%) Docker
2 78 (7.38%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.76%) Firmware
4 8 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.57%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.095%) ACF2
10 1 (0.095%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.095%) HDFS
10 1 (0.095%) RACF
Systems Management
1 119 (11.26%) Kubernetes
2 58 (5.49%) Terraform
3 37 (3.50%) Ansible
4 27 (2.55%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.46%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.37%) Grafana
7 14 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
8 4 (0.38%) Puppet
9 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.28%) Foglight
9 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.28%) Kiali
9 3 (0.28%) Kibana
9 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
10 2 (0.19%) Control-M
10 2 (0.19%) vRealize
10 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 185 (17.50%) Microsoft
2 67 (6.34%) Oracle
3 51 (4.82%) Databricks
4 41 (3.88%) Google
5 36 (3.41%) IBM
6 33 (3.12%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.93%) SAP
8 27 (2.55%) Splunk
9 24 (2.27%) VMware
10 20 (1.89%) Cisco
11 16 (1.51%) CyberArk
12 15 (1.42%) BeyondTrust
12 15 (1.42%) Okta
12 15 (1.42%) Palo Alto
13 14 (1.32%) BiZZdesign
13 14 (1.32%) Informatica
14 12 (1.14%) Salesforce
15 11 (1.04%) CheckPoint
16 10 (0.95%) Foundry
17 9 (0.85%) Citrix