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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 70 60
Rank change year-on-year -77 -10 +23
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,041 1,172 1,330
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.91% 3.56% 3.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.27% 3.93% 4.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 584 647 813
10th Percentile £176 £185 £336
25th Percentile £200 £354 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £476 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% -13.45% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £688
90th Percentile £760 £755 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -10.59% -19.05% +1.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 55 47
10th Percentile £23.20 £27.05 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £50.50 £35.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.29% -30.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £81.00 £67.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £87.47 £81.80 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.25 £33.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +100.75% -37.67% -11.89%

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 45,960 29,830 33,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.47% 90.53% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,897 18,534 20,247
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
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 £625 £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 3,123 1,812 1,459
10th Percentile £13.84 £14.23 £14.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.56 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.69% -47.67% +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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -67 943 £475 -3.06% 3,827
UK excluding London -58 535 £380 -10.59% 1,507
London -74 430 £536 -2.50% 2,589
Work from Home -79 246 £514 +7.64% 1,164
South East -13 203 £425 +6.25% 436
North of England -50 138 £474 +5.69% 248
Midlands -56 85 £225 -49.66% 182
Yorkshire -17 68 £450 +15.83% 54
North West -52 59 £523 +11.22% 147
West Midlands -55 56 £221 -52.98% 103
East of England -37 48 £400 -20.79% 211
East Midlands -22 28 £230 -48.55% 79
Scotland -61 28 £380 -15.56% 145
South West -67 26 £260 +40.54% 178
North East -40 12 £195 -57.84% 48
Northern Ireland +5 5 £175 - 80
Wales -19 4 £530 +14.59% 37

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 39 (3.75%) Confluence
2 31 (2.98%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.31%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.83%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.54%) Apache
6 10 (0.96%) IIS
7 9 (0.86%) Camunda
8 7 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.58%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.48%) CMS
10 5 (0.48%) SAS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) CICS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) nginx
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
14 1 (0.096%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 40 (3.84%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 5 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.38%) Trello
7 4 (0.38%) Windchill
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.19%) Sketch
9 1 (0.096%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 9 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.29%) Primavera
4 3 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.29%) Workfront
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.096%) Finacle
6 1 (0.096%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.096%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.096%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 295 (28.34%) Azure
2 193 (18.54%) AWS
3 115 (11.05%) GCP
4 68 (6.53%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.96%) Entra ID
6 61 (5.86%) Microsoft 365
7 54 (5.19%) GitHub
8 50 (4.80%) Azure DevOps
9 46 (4.42%) SaaS
10 36 (3.46%) Serverless
11 30 (2.88%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.21%) PowerApps
13 21 (2.02%) Microsoft Copilot
13 21 (2.02%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
15 17 (1.63%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.54%) Amazon EKS
16 16 (1.54%) Dynamics 365
17 15 (1.44%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.23%) Firewall
2 43 (4.13%) DNS
3 35 (3.36%) Network Security
4 33 (3.17%) VPN
5 26 (2.50%) TCP/IP
6 21 (2.02%) DHCP
7 18 (1.73%) SSH
8 13 (1.25%) WAN
8 13 (1.25%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.06%) 5G
9 11 (1.06%) HTTP
9 11 (1.06%) LAN
9 11 (1.06%) Wireless
10 10 (0.96%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.86%) BGP
11 9 (0.86%) MPLS
12 8 (0.77%) Intrusion Detection
12 8 (0.77%) VLAN
13 7 (0.67%) OSPF
13 7 (0.67%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.19%) Relational Database
2 53 (5.09%) PostgreSQL
2 53 (5.09%) SQL Server
3 52 (5.00%) Power BI
4 41 (3.94%) Metadata
5 28 (2.69%) MongoDB
6 26 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.40%) NoSQL
8 23 (2.21%) MySQL
9 22 (2.11%) Elasticsearch
10 18 (1.73%) Big Data
11 15 (1.44%) Data Mining
12 14 (1.34%) Redis
13 13 (1.25%) Azure SQL Database
14 12 (1.15%) Tableau
15 10 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.96%) Data Lake
15 10 (0.96%) Oracle Database
16 6 (0.58%) Flink
16 6 (0.58%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 94 (9.03%) Git
2 50 (4.80%) JIRA
3 48 (4.61%) Jenkins
4 43 (4.13%) GitLab
5 20 (1.92%) JUnit
6 19 (1.83%) Gradle
6 19 (1.83%) Maven
6 19 (1.83%) Selenium
7 17 (1.63%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.25%) Mockito
8 13 (1.25%) Sonatype Nexus
9 11 (1.06%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.96%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.96%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.96%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.77%) Bitbucket Server
11 8 (0.77%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.58%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.58%) Postman
12 6 (0.58%) Visual Studio
General
1 447 (42.94%) Social Skills
2 239 (22.96%) Analytical Skills
3 235 (22.57%) Finance
4 95 (9.13%) Banking
5 65 (6.24%) Public Sector
6 52 (5.00%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 43 (4.13%) Aerospace
9 38 (3.65%) Manufacturing
10 36 (3.46%) Telecoms
11 34 (3.27%) Organisational Skills
12 30 (2.88%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (2.40%) Marketing
14 22 (2.11%) Front Office
15 20 (1.92%) Legal
16 18 (1.73%) Military
17 16 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (1.44%) Law
19 14 (1.34%) Retail
20 12 (1.15%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 154 (14.79%) Developer
2 109 (10.47%) Senior
3 90 (8.65%) Architect
4 75 (7.20%) Lead
5 73 (7.01%) Analyst
6 36 (3.46%) Data Engineer
7 32 (3.07%) Java Developer
8 30 (2.88%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.59%) IT Support
10 26 (2.50%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 24 (2.31%) Security Engineer
11 24 (2.31%) Senior Developer
12 23 (2.21%) Full-Stack Developer
13 22 (2.11%) Solutions Architect
14 21 (2.02%) Data Scientist
14 21 (2.02%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 20 (1.92%) C# Developer
15 20 (1.92%) Python Developer
16 19 (1.83%) Junior
16 19 (1.83%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (10.09%) REST
2 63 (6.05%) React
3 62 (5.96%) Terraform
4 59 (5.67%) HTML
5 56 (5.38%) CSS
6 55 (5.28%) .NET
7 53 (5.09%) Kafka
8 47 (4.51%) RESTful
9 36 (3.46%) Spring Boot
10 35 (3.36%) Spring
11 34 (3.27%) OAuth
12 30 (2.88%) SOAP
13 29 (2.79%) OAuth2
13 29 (2.79%) Web Services
14 27 (2.59%) OpenID
15 25 (2.40%) JSON
15 25 (2.40%) Middleware
16 24 (2.31%) SAML
17 22 (2.11%) .NET Core
18 21 (2.02%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 117 (11.24%) Management Information System
2 78 (7.49%) Cloud Native
3 70 (6.72%) Algorithms
4 67 (6.44%) Onboarding
5 56 (5.38%) Product Ownership
6 51 (4.90%) Distributed Systems
7 50 (4.80%) Data Structures
8 34 (3.27%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.50%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.40%) Enterprise Software
11 23 (2.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 23 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.92%) Self-Motivation
13 19 (1.83%) Data Centre
14 17 (1.63%) Derivative
15 15 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
16 13 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.25%) Equities
16 13 (1.25%) Operational Technology
16 13 (1.25%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 125 (12.01%) Windows
2 114 (10.95%) Linux
3 33 (3.17%) Unix
4 31 (2.98%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (1.25%) Android
8 9 (0.86%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.86%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.67%) Mac OS
10 4 (0.38%) VMS
10 4 (0.38%) zOS
11 2 (0.19%) CentOS
11 2 (0.19%) Debian
11 2 (0.19%) MVS
11 2 (0.19%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.096%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.096%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (31.51%) Problem-Solving
2 264 (25.36%) Agile
3 223 (21.42%) AI
4 218 (20.94%) CI/CD
5 190 (18.25%) DevOps
5 190 (18.25%) Software Engineering
6 180 (17.29%) Continuous Improvement
7 174 (16.71%) Stakeholder Management
8 150 (14.41%) Analytics
9 118 (11.34%) ITIL
10 112 (10.76%) Cybersecurity
11 110 (10.57%) Roadmaps
12 101 (9.70%) Scrum
13 99 (9.51%) Mathematics
13 99 (9.51%) Test Automation
14 98 (9.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 96 (9.22%) Machine Learning
15 96 (9.22%) Validation
16 88 (8.45%) Mentoring
17 85 (8.17%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 280 (26.90%) Python
2 205 (19.69%) SQL
3 138 (13.26%) Java
4 94 (9.03%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.59%) PowerShell
6 67 (6.44%) C#
7 46 (4.42%) Bash
8 39 (3.75%) TypeScript
9 27 (2.59%) C++
10 17 (1.63%) Bicep
11 14 (1.34%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.06%) C
13 10 (0.96%) Scala
14 9 (0.86%) R
15 8 (0.77%) Go
15 8 (0.77%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.67%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.67%) Perl
17 6 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 6 (0.58%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 802 (77.04%) Degree
2 489 (46.97%) Computer Science Degree
3 185 (17.77%) Security Cleared
4 139 (13.35%) SC Cleared
5 108 (10.37%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.90%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.61%) CISSP
8 44 (4.23%) Microsoft Certification
9 40 (3.84%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.46%) PhD
11 33 (3.17%) CISM
12 31 (2.98%) DV Cleared
13 30 (2.88%) AWS Certification
14 24 (2.31%) Cisco Certification
15 23 (2.21%) PMI Certification
15 23 (2.21%) PMP
15 23 (2.21%) TOGAF Certification
16 20 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
17 18 (1.73%) CISA
18 15 (1.44%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.63%) Data Quality
2 63 (6.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 60 (5.76%) QA
4 50 (4.80%) NIST
5 24 (2.31%) GDPR
6 15 (1.44%) GRC
6 15 (1.44%) SLA
7 14 (1.34%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.25%) HIPAA
9 10 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 10 (0.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (0.86%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.77%) NCSC
12 6 (0.58%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.48%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.48%) PMO
14 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
14 4 (0.38%) ITGC
15 3 (0.29%) EU AI Act
15 3 (0.29%) SOC 2
System Software
1 87 (8.36%) Docker
2 75 (7.20%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.96%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.86%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.67%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.48%) RACF
7 5 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.48%) vSphere
8 3 (0.29%) ACF2
8 3 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.29%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) Time Sharing Option
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.096%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 101 (9.70%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.84%) Ansible
3 28 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (2.21%) Prometheus
5 19 (1.83%) Grafana
6 14 (1.34%) SCCM
7 10 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.48%) Argo
8 5 (0.48%) CASB
9 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.29%) Control-M
10 3 (0.29%) Istio
10 3 (0.29%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.29%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) Consul
11 2 (0.19%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 208 (19.98%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.20%) Oracle
3 49 (4.71%) Google
4 37 (3.55%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.46%) VMware
6 34 (3.27%) Databricks
7 32 (3.07%) IBM
8 31 (2.98%) SAP
9 29 (2.79%) Cisco
10 25 (2.40%) Splunk
11 22 (2.11%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.92%) CyberArk
13 18 (1.73%) BeyondTrust
14 15 (1.44%) Adobe
14 15 (1.44%) OpenAI
15 14 (1.34%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.06%) Dynatrace
16 11 (1.06%) Foundry
17 9 (0.86%) F5
17 9 (0.86%) Zscaler