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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 68 67
Rank change year-on-year -34 -1 +51
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,087 1,031 1,278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.35% 3.50% 2.93%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.77% 3.86% 3.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 642 588 786
10th Percentile £175 £250 £320
25th Percentile £314 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £661 £675 £655
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £500 £506
% change year-on-year -20.00% -1.23% -2.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 32 92
10th Percentile £26.75 £27.21 £22.39
25th Percentile £52.00 £30.78 £41.25
Median hourly rate £83.00 £43.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.71% -20.45% +1.97%
75th Percentile £88.00 £64.31 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.25 £74.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +4.76%

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 39,257 26,715 37,713
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.87% 90.74% 86.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,800 17,298 24,377
10th Percentile £316 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.41% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,340 1,040 2,418
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.75 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% -14.29% -3.59%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £58.70
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £71.88
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £28.88 £35.00
% change year-on-year +38.53% -17.50% -2.78%

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 20 April 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 20 April 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 20 April 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 -37 957 £500 -4.76% 815
UK excluding London -39 550 £400 -20.00% 575
London -34 439 £550 -8.33% 339
Work from Home -49 247 £517 -6.00% 311
South East -15 185 £400 -20.00% 221
North of England -24 138 £376 -30.50% 97
Midlands -59 80 £450 +68.54% 83
Yorkshire -17 71 £514 +33.16% 34
North West -32 64 £358 -37.28% 42
West Midlands -60 60 £450 +130.77% 50
South West -35 48 £485 +29.33% 49
East of England -24 45 £340 -47.69% 83
Scotland -11 37 £610 +16.19% 42
East Midlands -30 19 £505 +41.85% 33
Wales -21 15 £160 -44.83% 10
Northern Ireland +4 7 £350 -41.67% 9
North East -19 4 £216 -57.95% 22

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 49 (4.51%) Confluence
2 41 (3.77%) Apache Spark
3 27 (2.48%) SharePoint
4 19 (1.75%) Apache
5 18 (1.66%) Microsoft Exchange
6 17 (1.56%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (0.46%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.28%) IIS
9 3 (0.28%) SAS
10 2 (0.18%) CMS
10 2 (0.18%) nginx
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.18%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.092%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.092%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 37 (3.40%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.10%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.37%) Simulink
6 3 (0.28%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.28%) Navisworks
6 3 (0.28%) Revit
7 2 (0.18%) Trello
Business Applications
1 23 (2.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.74%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (0.28%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.092%) Actimize
6 1 (0.092%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.092%) Maximo
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.092%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.092%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 312 (28.70%) Azure
2 194 (17.85%) AWS
3 95 (8.74%) GCP
4 70 (6.44%) Power Platform
5 57 (5.24%) GitHub
6 55 (5.06%) SaaS
7 54 (4.97%) Microsoft 365
8 42 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
9 37 (3.40%) Entra ID
10 24 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
10 24 (2.21%) Serverless
11 23 (2.12%) Snowflake
12 22 (2.02%) AWS CloudFormation
12 22 (2.02%) Azure Data Factory
12 22 (2.02%) IaaS
13 19 (1.75%) PowerApps
14 18 (1.66%) Power Automate
15 17 (1.56%) Azure AKS
15 17 (1.56%) Azure Machine Learning
16 13 (1.20%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 51 (4.69%) Firewall
2 31 (2.85%) DNS
3 29 (2.67%) TCP/IP
4 21 (1.93%) Network Security
5 19 (1.75%) BGP
5 19 (1.75%) WAN
6 16 (1.47%) LAN
7 14 (1.29%) HTTP
8 13 (1.20%) OSPF
8 13 (1.20%) VLAN
9 11 (1.01%) Wireless
10 10 (0.92%) Cisco IOS
10 10 (0.92%) IPv4
10 10 (0.92%) VPN
11 9 (0.83%) HTTPS
11 9 (0.83%) SSH
12 8 (0.74%) DHCP
12 8 (0.74%) Skype
12 8 (0.74%) Software-Defined Networking
13 7 (0.64%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (5.15%) PostgreSQL
2 51 (4.69%) Relational Database
2 51 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 50 (4.60%) Power BI
4 43 (3.96%) Data Warehouse
5 38 (3.50%) Big Data
6 31 (2.85%) NoSQL
7 30 (2.76%) MySQL
8 23 (2.12%) Metadata
9 22 (2.02%) Hadoop
10 21 (1.93%) Tableau
11 20 (1.84%) MongoDB
12 15 (1.38%) Data Lake
13 14 (1.29%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (1.10%) Redis
14 12 (1.10%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.83%) Star Schema
17 7 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 87 (8.00%) Git
2 71 (6.53%) JIRA
3 42 (3.86%) Jenkins
4 37 (3.40%) GitLab
5 28 (2.58%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.10%) MLflow
6 12 (1.10%) Selenium
7 10 (0.92%) Postman
8 9 (0.83%) Jaeger
9 8 (0.74%) Gradle
10 7 (0.64%) CircleCI
10 7 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.64%) JUnit
10 7 (0.64%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.55%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.46%) Artifactory
13 4 (0.37%) Maven
13 4 (0.37%) SonarQube
13 4 (0.37%) Subversion
13 4 (0.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 455 (41.86%) Social Skills
2 257 (23.64%) Finance
3 238 (21.90%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (8.83%) Banking
5 71 (6.53%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.78%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (4.69%) Aerospace
8 46 (4.23%) Marketing
9 36 (3.31%) Telecoms
10 35 (3.22%) Influencing Skills
10 35 (3.22%) Legal
10 35 (3.22%) Presentation Skills
11 26 (2.39%) Organisational Skills
12 25 (2.30%) Electronics
12 25 (2.30%) Front Office
13 24 (2.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 24 (2.21%) Manufacturing
14 21 (1.93%) Investment Banking
15 19 (1.75%) Financial Institution
16 17 (1.56%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 137 (12.60%) Developer
2 113 (10.40%) Architect
3 91 (8.37%) Lead
4 82 (7.54%) Analyst
5 79 (7.27%) Senior
6 40 (3.68%) Software Engineer
6 40 (3.68%) Solutions Architect
7 39 (3.59%) Data Scientist
8 38 (3.50%) Delivery Manager
9 35 (3.22%) Product Manager
10 30 (2.76%) Technical Support
11 28 (2.58%) Product Delivery Manager
12 27 (2.48%) Data Engineer
13 26 (2.39%) Python Developer
14 24 (2.21%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 24 (2.21%) Java Developer
15 23 (2.12%) Consultant
15 23 (2.12%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 22 (2.02%) Project Manager
16 22 (2.02%) Systems Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (8.00%) REST
2 59 (5.43%) .NET
3 52 (4.78%) React
4 46 (4.23%) Kafka
5 44 (4.05%) RESTful
6 39 (3.59%) Middleware
7 35 (3.22%) PyTorch
7 35 (3.22%) Spring Boot
8 32 (2.94%) JSON
9 31 (2.85%) Spring
10 30 (2.76%) XML
11 29 (2.67%) TensorFlow
12 26 (2.39%) OAuth
12 26 (2.39%) SOAP
13 22 (2.02%) Elastic Stack
13 22 (2.02%) HTML
14 21 (1.93%) LangChain
14 21 (1.93%) Pandas
15 16 (1.47%) AngularJS
15 16 (1.47%) JWT
Miscellaneous
1 114 (10.49%) Management Information System
2 88 (8.10%) Algorithms
3 79 (7.27%) Product Ownership
4 74 (6.81%) Cloud Native
5 67 (6.16%) Onboarding
6 63 (5.80%) Data Structures
7 46 (4.23%) Distributed Systems
8 33 (3.04%) Virtual Team
9 28 (2.58%) Equities
10 25 (2.30%) Data Protection Act
11 23 (2.12%) AI Agents
11 23 (2.12%) Data Centre
12 21 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
13 20 (1.84%) Derivative
13 20 (1.84%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.84%) Taxonomies
14 19 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
14 19 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.56%) Cyberattack
15 17 (1.56%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 144 (13.25%) Linux
2 129 (11.87%) Windows
3 47 (4.32%) Unix
4 24 (2.21%) Android
5 23 (2.12%) Mac OS
6 22 (2.02%) Windows Server
7 14 (1.29%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 9 (0.83%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.46%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.46%) VMS
11 4 (0.37%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
13 2 (0.18%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.092%) CentOS
14 1 (0.092%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.092%) Kali Linux
14 1 (0.092%) MVS
14 1 (0.092%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 351 (32.29%) Problem-Solving
2 292 (26.86%) Agile
3 253 (23.28%) AI
4 211 (19.41%) CI/CD
5 204 (18.77%) DevOps
6 181 (16.65%) Software Engineering
7 162 (14.90%) Continuous Improvement
8 132 (12.14%) Analytics
9 126 (11.59%) Microservices
10 122 (11.22%) Cybersecurity
11 121 (11.13%) Machine Learning
12 119 (10.95%) Stakeholder Management
13 109 (10.03%) Data Science
14 106 (9.75%) Mathematics
15 103 (9.48%) Containerisation
16 102 (9.38%) Data Modelling
17 101 (9.29%) Data Governance
18 98 (9.02%) Decision-Making
18 98 (9.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 94 (8.65%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 311 (28.61%) Python
2 205 (18.86%) SQL
3 135 (12.42%) Java
4 67 (6.16%) JavaScript
5 60 (5.52%) C#
6 56 (5.15%) PowerShell
7 40 (3.68%) TypeScript
8 39 (3.59%) Bash
9 34 (3.13%) C++
10 22 (2.02%) R
11 18 (1.66%) Go
12 15 (1.38%) Perl
13 13 (1.20%) Rust
14 11 (1.01%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.92%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.74%) Scala
17 7 (0.64%) C
17 7 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 5 (0.46%) Tcl
19 4 (0.37%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 900 (82.80%) Degree
2 552 (50.78%) Computer Science Degree
3 198 (18.22%) Security Cleared
4 170 (15.64%) Master's Degree
5 120 (11.04%) SC Cleared
6 62 (5.70%) CISSP
7 42 (3.86%) PhD
8 39 (3.59%) Azure Certification
8 39 (3.59%) CISM
9 34 (3.13%) PMI Certification
10 30 (2.76%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (2.67%) PMP
12 28 (2.58%) AWS Certification
13 27 (2.48%) TOGAF Certification
14 25 (2.30%) CompTIA Security+
15 24 (2.21%) Cisco Certification
15 24 (2.21%) DV Cleared
16 23 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
16 23 (2.12%) DBS Check
17 19 (1.75%) CISA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (5.89%) QA
2 54 (4.97%) NIST
3 51 (4.69%) Data Quality
3 51 (4.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 44 (4.05%) GDPR
5 20 (1.84%) PCI DSS
6 18 (1.66%) Accessibility
7 12 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 10 (0.92%) GRC
8 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
9 8 (0.74%) NCSC
9 8 (0.74%) SLA
10 7 (0.64%) Actionable Recommendations
10 7 (0.64%) COBIT
10 7 (0.64%) DO-254
10 7 (0.64%) PSD2
11 6 (0.55%) ISO 20022
11 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.46%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 121 (11.13%) Docker
2 71 (6.53%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.29%) Firmware
5 8 (0.74%) VMware NSX
6 6 (0.55%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 2 (0.18%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.18%) Ceph
8 2 (0.18%) KVM
8 2 (0.18%) Squid
8 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.092%) ACF2
9 1 (0.092%) HDFS
9 1 (0.092%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.092%) RACF
9 1 (0.092%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 129 (11.87%) Kubernetes
2 73 (6.72%) Terraform
3 51 (4.69%) Ansible
4 35 (3.22%) Grafana
5 29 (2.67%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (1.29%) Puppet
8 13 (1.20%) Single Sign-On
9 10 (0.92%) Kibana
10 9 (0.83%) Kiali
11 7 (0.64%) SCCM
12 4 (0.37%) Control-M
12 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
12 4 (0.37%) SCOM
13 3 (0.28%) Foglight
13 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.18%) AirWatch
Vendors
1 191 (17.57%) Microsoft
2 62 (5.70%) Oracle
3 50 (4.60%) Splunk
4 47 (4.32%) Databricks
4 47 (4.32%) SAP
5 42 (3.86%) Google
6 34 (3.13%) IBM
7 30 (2.76%) ServiceNow
8 27 (2.48%) VMware
9 23 (2.12%) Cisco
10 18 (1.66%) BiZZdesign
11 17 (1.56%) Informatica
11 17 (1.56%) Palo Alto
12 16 (1.47%) Okta
12 16 (1.47%) Salesforce
13 13 (1.20%) CheckPoint
13 13 (1.20%) CyberArk
14 12 (1.10%) Foundry
14 12 (1.10%) MuleSoft
14 12 (1.10%) Software AG