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 26 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 75 68 80
Rank change year-on-year -7 +12 +50
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,219 1,160 1,235
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.38% 3.18% 2.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.78% 3.66% 3.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 764 682 826
10th Percentile £175 £350 £350
25th Percentile £314 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £561 £550
Median % change year-on-year -15.37% +2.05% -8.33%
75th Percentile £638 £700 £675
90th Percentile £750 £837 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £525 £500
% change year-on-year -23.81% +5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 29 33
10th Percentile £26.75 £25.85 £32.32
25th Percentile £29.00 £34.13 £50.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £50.50 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year -33.66% -16.53% +11.01%
75th Percentile £66.75 £68.75 £72.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £70.25 £80.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £50.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -33.00% -16.67% +31.51%

All Process and 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 32,237 31,694 40,485
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.44% 86.89% 88.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,185 19,077 27,186
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,109 1,149 1,555
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.22 £14.31
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.24 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +27.14%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.85 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -29.69% -26.97% +48.33%

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025.

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 26 November 2025. 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 -6 1,066 £475 -17.39% 1,403
UK excluding London +15 587 £400 -23.81% 1,223
London -21 521 £550 -8.33% 412
Work from Home +3 315 £485 -12.50% 631
North of England +8 192 £375 -29.44% 187
South East +34 132 £363 -27.50% 495
Midlands -12 106 £470 -18.26% 147
North West +4 96 £358 -32.83% 107
Yorkshire +17 93 £450 -14.29% 69
West Midlands -14 69 £500 -13.04% 80
South West +5 55 £400 -43.86% 132
East of England -15 52 £450 - 167
Scotland +7 50 £450 -3.74% 76
East Midlands +5 37 £447 +25.56% 62
Wales +2 12 £160 -67.81% 26
North East -12 4 £333 -35.07% 12
Northern Ireland -8 3 - - 19

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 53 (4.35%) Confluence
2 44 (3.61%) SharePoint
3 37 (3.04%) Apache Spark
4 25 (2.05%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
6 10 (0.82%) Apache
7 8 (0.66%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.57%) nginx
9 6 (0.49%) IIS
10 5 (0.41%) SAS
10 5 (0.41%) Skype for Business
10 5 (0.41%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.33%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.25%) Ethereum
12 3 (0.25%) Hyperledger
12 3 (0.25%) Luigi
12 3 (0.25%) Moodle
12 3 (0.25%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.16%) OpenStack
13 2 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 64 (5.25%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 6 (0.49%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.49%) Simulink
5 5 (0.41%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.082%) Adobe Illustrator
6 1 (0.082%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.082%) InDesign
6 1 (0.082%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.082%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.082%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.082%) Sketch
6 1 (0.082%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 27 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.49%) Workday HCM
4 5 (0.41%) SAP PLM
5 4 (0.33%) FLEXCUBE
5 4 (0.33%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.33%) SAP ERP
5 4 (0.33%) SAP MDG
6 3 (0.25%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.25%) Bloomberg AIM
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
6 3 (0.25%) SAP VC
6 3 (0.25%) Temenos T24
7 2 (0.16%) Actimize
7 2 (0.16%) Endur
7 2 (0.16%) Oracle EBS R12
7 2 (0.16%) SAP FS
7 2 (0.16%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.16%) SAP Travel Management
Cloud Services
1 277 (22.72%) Azure
2 234 (19.20%) AWS
3 133 (10.91%) GCP
4 73 (5.99%) GitHub
5 69 (5.66%) Power Platform
6 68 (5.58%) Serverless
7 52 (4.27%) Microsoft 365
8 43 (3.53%) Azure DevOps
9 42 (3.45%) SaaS
10 28 (2.30%) Entra ID
11 27 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
12 24 (1.97%) Cloud Computing
13 21 (1.72%) Amazon S3
14 19 (1.56%) Amazon ECS
14 19 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
14 19 (1.56%) Azure Data Factory
15 18 (1.48%) Snowflake
16 17 (1.39%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.31%) Azure Logic Apps
17 16 (1.31%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 48 (3.94%) Firewall
2 46 (3.77%) DNS
3 32 (2.63%) DHCP
4 24 (1.97%) Wireless
5 23 (1.89%) Network Security
6 21 (1.72%) VPN
7 20 (1.64%) Cisco IOS
7 20 (1.64%) HTTP
8 17 (1.39%) TCP/IP
9 15 (1.23%) SSH
9 15 (1.23%) VoIP
9 15 (1.23%) WAN
10 12 (0.98%) LAN
10 12 (0.98%) PuTTY
10 12 (0.98%) Skype
11 11 (0.90%) VLAN
11 11 (0.90%) WLAN
12 10 (0.82%) BGP
12 10 (0.82%) Internet
13 7 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (6.23%) PostgreSQL
2 72 (5.91%) NoSQL
3 60 (4.92%) Relational Database
4 52 (4.27%) Power BI
5 45 (3.69%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (3.04%) SQL Server
7 32 (2.63%) Big Data
8 29 (2.38%) MySQL
9 28 (2.30%) Tableau
10 17 (1.39%) Redis
11 15 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
11 15 (1.23%) Hadoop
12 14 (1.15%) Data Lake
13 13 (1.07%) MongoDB
14 12 (0.98%) RDBMS
15 11 (0.90%) Metadata
16 10 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
17 8 (0.66%) KDB
17 8 (0.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 7 (0.57%) Apache Cassandra
Development Applications
1 108 (8.86%) JIRA
2 96 (7.88%) Git
2 96 (7.88%) Jenkins
3 87 (7.14%) GitLab
4 29 (2.38%) Liquibase
5 23 (1.89%) Postman
6 17 (1.39%) Artifactory
7 15 (1.23%) Selenium
7 15 (1.23%) Visual Studio
8 11 (0.90%) Bitbucket
9 9 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 9 (0.74%) JUnit
10 8 (0.66%) MLflow
11 7 (0.57%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.57%) IntelliJ
12 6 (0.49%) Appium
12 6 (0.49%) CircleCI
12 6 (0.49%) PyCharm
13 5 (0.41%) SonarQube
13 5 (0.41%) webpack
General
1 579 (47.50%) Social Skills
2 334 (27.40%) Finance
3 273 (22.40%) Analytical Skills
4 134 (10.99%) Banking
5 61 (5.00%) Public Sector
6 49 (4.02%) Organisational Skills
7 44 (3.61%) Financial Institution
7 44 (3.61%) Front Office
8 43 (3.53%) Marketing
9 36 (2.95%) Investment Banking
9 36 (2.95%) Manufacturing
10 33 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
11 32 (2.63%) Legal
12 28 (2.30%) Telecoms
13 27 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
14 26 (2.13%) Presentation Skills
15 21 (1.72%) Electronics
16 20 (1.64%) Retail
17 15 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 13 (1.07%) Military
Job Titles
1 242 (19.85%) Developer
2 114 (9.35%) Analyst
3 95 (7.79%) Architect
4 93 (7.63%) Senior
5 81 (6.64%) Lead
6 64 (5.25%) Software Engineer
7 42 (3.45%) Java Developer
8 35 (2.87%) Data Scientist
8 35 (2.87%) Senior Developer
9 34 (2.79%) Consultant
10 33 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
11 30 (2.46%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 30 (2.46%) Business Analyst
11 30 (2.46%) Python Developer
11 30 (2.46%) Python Engineer
12 29 (2.38%) Data Engineer
13 24 (1.97%) IT Support
14 23 (1.89%) Full-Stack Developer
15 21 (1.72%) AWS Engineer
15 21 (1.72%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 130 (10.66%) REST
2 84 (6.89%) RESTful
3 67 (5.50%) .NET
3 67 (5.50%) HTML
4 52 (4.27%) CSS
5 51 (4.18%) React
6 48 (3.94%) Kafka
7 45 (3.69%) Node.js
8 42 (3.45%) Elastic Stack
9 40 (3.28%) JSON
9 40 (3.28%) Middleware
10 38 (3.12%) SOAP
11 36 (2.95%) OAuth
12 35 (2.87%) XML
13 34 (2.79%) Web Services
14 33 (2.71%) TensorFlow
15 31 (2.54%) Spring
16 30 (2.46%) AngularJS
17 29 (2.38%) PyTorch
18 27 (2.21%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 121 (9.93%) Management Information System
2 105 (8.61%) Algorithms
3 82 (6.73%) Cloud Native
4 65 (5.33%) Data Structures
5 63 (5.17%) Distributed Systems
6 57 (4.68%) Product Ownership
7 42 (3.45%) Public Cloud
8 39 (3.20%) Data Protection Act
9 32 (2.63%) Virtual Team
10 28 (2.30%) Derivative
10 28 (2.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 28 (2.30%) Mobile App
11 27 (2.21%) Equities
11 27 (2.21%) Security Posture
12 25 (2.05%) Fixed Income
13 23 (1.89%) Data Centre
13 23 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
14 22 (1.80%) Distributed Computing
15 21 (1.72%) Onboarding
16 19 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 152 (12.47%) Linux
2 103 (8.45%) Windows
3 55 (4.51%) Unix
4 25 (2.05%) Android
5 24 (1.97%) Windows Server
6 22 (1.80%) Mac OS
7 17 (1.39%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.66%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.25%) VMS
11 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.082%) CentOS
12 1 (0.082%) Debian
12 1 (0.082%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 403 (33.06%) Problem-Solving
2 367 (30.11%) Agile
3 240 (19.69%) DevOps
4 217 (17.80%) CI/CD
5 199 (16.32%) Software Engineering
6 165 (13.54%) AI
7 145 (11.89%) Microservices
8 138 (11.32%) Analytics
8 138 (11.32%) Containerisation
9 131 (10.75%) Machine Learning
10 118 (9.68%) Data Science
10 118 (9.68%) Mathematics
11 116 (9.52%) Cybersecurity
12 115 (9.43%) Stakeholder Management
13 108 (8.86%) ITIL
14 102 (8.37%) Change Management
15 100 (8.20%) Continuous Improvement
16 97 (7.96%) Decision-Making
17 96 (7.88%) Migration
18 93 (7.63%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 410 (33.63%) Python
2 222 (18.21%) SQL
3 187 (15.34%) Java
4 127 (10.42%) JavaScript
5 66 (5.41%) C#
6 62 (5.09%) TypeScript
7 61 (5.00%) PowerShell
8 59 (4.84%) Go
9 55 (4.51%) C++
10 45 (3.69%) Bash
11 25 (2.05%) R
12 21 (1.72%) Perl
13 19 (1.56%) Ruby
14 14 (1.15%) Kotlin
14 14 (1.15%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.90%) C
15 11 (0.90%) MATLAB
16 10 (0.82%) ABAP
17 9 (0.74%) Apex Code
17 9 (0.74%) PHP
Qualifications
1 984 (80.72%) Degree
2 646 (52.99%) Computer Science Degree
3 232 (19.03%) Master's Degree
4 124 (10.17%) Security Cleared
5 93 (7.63%) SC Cleared
6 75 (6.15%) DBS Check
7 57 (4.68%) CISSP
8 52 (4.27%) PhD
9 45 (3.69%) AWS Certification
10 44 (3.61%) Cisco Certification
11 37 (3.04%) Azure Certification
11 37 (3.04%) Microsoft Certification
12 35 (2.87%) CISM
13 30 (2.46%) PMI Certification
14 27 (2.21%) PMP
15 26 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
15 26 (2.13%) CCNA
16 25 (2.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 25 (2.05%) CCNP
17 22 (1.80%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (5.99%) QA
2 67 (5.50%) GDPR
3 66 (5.41%) Data Quality
4 43 (3.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 28 (2.30%) NIST
6 20 (1.64%) GRC
7 17 (1.39%) Accessibility
8 12 (0.98%) PCI DSS
8 12 (0.98%) SLA
9 11 (0.90%) Def Stans
10 9 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 8 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
12 7 (0.57%) COBIT
12 7 (0.57%) HIPAA
12 7 (0.57%) PMO
13 6 (0.49%) DO-254
14 5 (0.41%) NCSC
14 5 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 5 (0.41%) SEPA
15 4 (0.33%) MiFID
System Software
1 149 (12.22%) Docker
2 49 (4.02%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.57%) VMware NSX
5 6 (0.49%) Firmware
6 5 (0.41%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 5 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
7 4 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.33%) vSphere
8 2 (0.16%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.082%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.082%) HDFS
9 1 (0.082%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.082%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 140 (11.48%) Kubernetes
2 91 (7.47%) Terraform
3 71 (5.82%) Ansible
4 53 (4.35%) Grafana
5 42 (3.45%) Prometheus
6 16 (1.31%) SCCM
7 15 (1.23%) Puppet
8 9 (0.74%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.57%) Argo
9 7 (0.57%) CSIRT
9 7 (0.57%) Kibana
9 7 (0.57%) QRadar
10 6 (0.49%) WSUS
11 5 (0.41%) SCOM
12 4 (0.33%) Kustomize
12 4 (0.33%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.33%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.25%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.25%) vRealize
Vendors
1 198 (16.24%) Microsoft
2 72 (5.91%) Splunk
3 68 (5.58%) Google
4 54 (4.43%) SAP
5 51 (4.18%) Cisco
6 48 (3.94%) Oracle
7 46 (3.77%) ServiceNow
8 36 (2.95%) Salesforce
9 32 (2.63%) IBM
10 31 (2.54%) VMware
11 28 (2.30%) Databricks
12 15 (1.23%) Red Hat
13 13 (1.07%) Foundry
13 13 (1.07%) Palo Alto
14 11 (0.90%) BiZZdesign
15 10 (0.82%) Atlassian
15 10 (0.82%) Fortinet
15 10 (0.82%) Informatica
16 9 (0.74%) Citrix
16 9 (0.74%) Pega