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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 120 63 65
Rank change year-on-year -57 +2 +43
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,026 1,058 1,316
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.14% 3.62% 3.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.53% 3.98% 3.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 606 601 793
10th Percentile £178 £250 £315
25th Percentile £221 £399 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £515 £530
Median % change year-on-year -8.35% -2.83% -7.83%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £656
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £476 £500
% change year-on-year -20.16% -4.75% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 30 100
10th Percentile £29.89 £26.13 £22.33
25th Percentile £51.25 £29.07 £41.25
Median hourly rate £81.75 £41.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +99.39% -25.45% +3.41%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.32 £75.00
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 40,493 26,571 36,681
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.28% 90.99% 86.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,428 17,064 23,633
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.00% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,382 1,097 2,442
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.40 £28.18 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +50.46% -21.77% +0.06%
75th Percentile £67.25 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.39% -32.73% +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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -40 916 £463 -11.90% 865
UK excluding London -46 538 £380 -20.16% 607
London -55 403 £535 -10.90% 361
Work from Home -68 224 £500 -9.09% 398
South East -11 208 £215 -56.94% 228
North of England -31 126 £400 -26.40% 108
Yorkshire -12 73 £507 +10.94% 34
Midlands -65 71 £450 +58.45% 90
West Midlands -62 54 £450 +54.11% 53
North West -35 52 £350 -36.48% 48
South West -39 44 £447 +20.81% 59
East of England -35 39 £248 -61.92% 78
Scotland -19 37 £620 +18.10% 41
East Midlands -36 16 £525 +110.00% 35
Wales -30 9 £253 -12.93% 14
Northern Ireland +5 7 £350 -41.67% 7
North East -26 2 £125 -78.26% 28

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 48 (4.68%) Confluence
2 41 (4.00%) Apache Spark
3 25 (2.44%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.14%) Apache
5 17 (1.66%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.49%) IIS
8 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.097%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.097%) Appian
11 1 (0.097%) Camunda
Applications
1 35 (3.41%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.46%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (2.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.49%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.49%) 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 (0.097%) Actimize
6 1 (0.097%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.097%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.097%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.097%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 296 (28.85%) Azure
2 185 (18.03%) AWS
3 78 (7.60%) GCP
4 58 (5.65%) Power Platform
5 54 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
6 50 (4.87%) SaaS
7 47 (4.58%) GitHub
8 41 (4.00%) Entra ID
9 36 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (2.05%) GitHub Actions
11 20 (1.95%) Snowflake
12 19 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
13 18 (1.75%) IaaS
13 18 (1.75%) Serverless
14 17 (1.66%) Azure AKS
14 17 (1.66%) Azure Data Factory
15 13 (1.27%) Azure Machine Learning
15 13 (1.27%) Azure Service Bus
15 13 (1.27%) PaaS
16 12 (1.17%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.61%) Firewall
2 29 (2.83%) TCP/IP
3 26 (2.53%) DNS
4 21 (2.05%) Network Security
5 16 (1.56%) WAN
6 14 (1.36%) BGP
7 13 (1.27%) LAN
8 11 (1.07%) OSPF
8 11 (1.07%) SSH
9 9 (0.88%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.78%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.78%) Wireless
11 7 (0.68%) SAN
11 7 (0.68%) VLAN
11 7 (0.68%) VPN
12 6 (0.58%) HTTP
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 4 (0.39%) Reverse Proxy
13 4 (0.39%) Unified Communications
13 4 (0.39%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (4.68%) Relational Database
2 46 (4.48%) Power BI
2 46 (4.48%) SQL Server
3 44 (4.29%) PostgreSQL
4 40 (3.90%) Data Warehouse
5 38 (3.70%) Big Data
6 28 (2.73%) NoSQL
7 24 (2.34%) Metadata
7 24 (2.34%) MySQL
8 21 (2.05%) Hadoop
8 21 (2.05%) MongoDB
9 17 (1.66%) Tableau
10 15 (1.46%) Elasticsearch
11 14 (1.36%) Data Lake
12 12 (1.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 10 (0.97%) Redis
13 10 (0.97%) Snowflake Schema
14 8 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
14 8 (0.78%) Power Query
15 7 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 72 (7.02%) Git
2 65 (6.34%) JIRA
3 34 (3.31%) GitLab
4 32 (3.12%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.73%) Rational DOORS
6 11 (1.07%) Gradle
6 11 (1.07%) MLflow
6 11 (1.07%) Selenium
7 9 (0.88%) Jaeger
7 9 (0.88%) TeamCity
8 8 (0.78%) JUnit
9 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
10 6 (0.58%) Maven
10 6 (0.58%) Postman
10 6 (0.58%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.49%) Artifactory
12 3 (0.29%) Android Studio
12 3 (0.29%) Flyway
12 3 (0.29%) Snyk
General
1 421 (41.03%) Social Skills
2 234 (22.81%) Finance
3 208 (20.27%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (8.67%) Banking
5 62 (6.04%) Public Sector
6 52 (5.07%) Aerospace
7 47 (4.58%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (3.41%) Marketing
9 34 (3.31%) Telecoms
10 32 (3.12%) Presentation Skills
11 28 (2.73%) Legal
12 27 (2.63%) Organisational Skills
13 24 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 22 (2.14%) Front Office
15 21 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
16 16 (1.56%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.56%) Manufacturing
17 15 (1.46%) Electronics
17 15 (1.46%) Financial Institution
17 15 (1.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 111 (10.82%) Developer
2 106 (10.33%) Architect
3 86 (8.38%) Analyst
4 82 (7.99%) Lead
5 81 (7.89%) Senior
6 37 (3.61%) Delivery Manager
7 36 (3.51%) Software Engineer
8 35 (3.41%) Product Manager
9 34 (3.31%) Solutions Architect
10 31 (3.02%) Data Scientist
10 31 (3.02%) Technical Support
11 28 (2.73%) Data Engineer
11 28 (2.73%) Product Delivery Manager
12 25 (2.44%) Python Developer
13 23 (2.24%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 22 (2.14%) Junior
14 22 (2.14%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.14%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.14%) Systems Manager
15 19 (1.85%) Integration Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (8.28%) REST
2 55 (5.36%) .NET
3 53 (5.17%) React
4 46 (4.48%) Middleware
5 44 (4.29%) Kafka
6 36 (3.51%) RESTful
7 33 (3.22%) Spring Boot
8 30 (2.92%) PyTorch
9 29 (2.83%) Spring
10 23 (2.24%) SOAP
11 22 (2.14%) JSON
11 22 (2.14%) TensorFlow
12 21 (2.05%) Elastic Stack
12 21 (2.05%) OAuth
12 21 (2.05%) XML
13 20 (1.95%) AngularJS
14 18 (1.75%) Pandas
15 17 (1.66%) HTML
16 15 (1.46%) CSS
16 15 (1.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 100 (9.75%) Management Information System
2 78 (7.60%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.41%) Onboarding
4 72 (7.02%) Algorithms
5 63 (6.14%) Cloud Native
6 52 (5.07%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.78%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (3.02%) Virtual Team
9 22 (2.14%) Derivative
9 22 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
10 21 (2.05%) AI Agents
10 21 (2.05%) Data Protection Act
11 20 (1.95%) Equities
11 20 (1.95%) Taxonomies
12 17 (1.66%) Cyberattack
12 17 (1.66%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 17 (1.66%) Security Operations Centre
13 16 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
13 16 (1.56%) Robotics
14 14 (1.36%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 133 (12.96%) Linux
2 129 (12.57%) Windows
3 45 (4.39%) Unix
4 25 (2.44%) Android
5 19 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 16 (1.56%) Mac OS
6 16 (1.56%) Windows Server
7 15 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (1.36%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.49%) VMS
10 4 (0.39%) Debian
10 4 (0.39%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.097%) CentOS
12 1 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.097%) Solaris
12 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 317 (30.90%) Problem-Solving
2 252 (24.56%) Agile
3 224 (21.83%) AI
4 191 (18.62%) CI/CD
5 183 (17.84%) DevOps
6 170 (16.57%) Software Engineering
7 161 (15.69%) Continuous Improvement
8 122 (11.89%) Analytics
9 119 (11.60%) Microservices
10 117 (11.40%) Cybersecurity
11 99 (9.65%) Stakeholder Management
12 96 (9.36%) Containerisation
12 96 (9.36%) Machine Learning
13 94 (9.16%) Data Modelling
13 94 (9.16%) Decision-Making
14 92 (8.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 91 (8.87%) Technical Leadership
16 90 (8.77%) Mathematics
17 86 (8.38%) Data Governance
17 86 (8.38%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 287 (27.97%) Python
2 204 (19.88%) SQL
3 133 (12.96%) Java
4 64 (6.24%) JavaScript
5 58 (5.65%) C#
6 49 (4.78%) PowerShell
7 34 (3.31%) TypeScript
8 31 (3.02%) Bash
8 31 (3.02%) C++
9 22 (2.14%) R
10 14 (1.36%) Go
10 14 (1.36%) Perl
11 12 (1.17%) Rust
12 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
12 10 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 6 (0.58%) C
14 6 (0.58%) Scala
15 4 (0.39%) Tcl
16 3 (0.29%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 821 (80.02%) Degree
2 500 (48.73%) Computer Science Degree
3 188 (18.32%) Security Cleared
4 144 (14.04%) Master's Degree
5 112 (10.92%) SC Cleared
6 53 (5.17%) CISSP
7 36 (3.51%) CISM
7 36 (3.51%) PhD
8 33 (3.22%) Azure Certification
9 31 (3.02%) TOGAF Certification
10 28 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
10 28 (2.73%) PMI Certification
11 27 (2.63%) DV Cleared
12 25 (2.44%) PMP
13 24 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
14 22 (2.14%) AWS Certification
14 22 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
14 22 (2.14%) CompTIA Security+
15 19 (1.85%) CISA
16 17 (1.66%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (5.75%) QA
2 57 (5.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 57 (5.56%) NIST
3 53 (5.17%) Data Quality
4 38 (3.70%) GDPR
5 19 (1.85%) PCI DSS
6 18 (1.75%) Accessibility
7 13 (1.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (1.17%) GRC
9 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.88%) SLA
11 8 (0.78%) NCSC
12 7 (0.68%) COBIT
12 7 (0.68%) HIPAA
12 7 (0.68%) PSD2
13 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
13 6 (0.58%) DO-254
13 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
13 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
13 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 110 (10.72%) Docker
2 68 (6.63%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.27%) Firmware
5 8 (0.78%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.39%) 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
8 2 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
9 1 (0.097%) ACF2
9 1 (0.097%) HDFS
9 1 (0.097%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.097%) RACF
Systems Management
1 128 (12.48%) Kubernetes
2 61 (5.95%) Terraform
3 48 (4.68%) Ansible
4 30 (2.92%) Grafana
5 28 (2.73%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.56%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (1.07%) Puppet
9 10 (0.97%) Kibana
10 9 (0.88%) Kiali
11 4 (0.39%) Control-M
11 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.29%) Foglight
12 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.29%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.19%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 179 (17.45%) Microsoft
2 64 (6.24%) Oracle
3 51 (4.97%) Splunk
4 46 (4.48%) Databricks
5 35 (3.41%) IBM
6 34 (3.31%) Google
6 34 (3.31%) SAP
7 29 (2.83%) ServiceNow
8 24 (2.34%) VMware
9 21 (2.05%) Cisco
10 16 (1.56%) BiZZdesign
10 16 (1.56%) Informatica
11 15 (1.46%) Okta
12 14 (1.36%) Palo Alto
12 14 (1.36%) Salesforce
13 13 (1.27%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.07%) CyberArk
14 11 (1.07%) Software AG
15 10 (0.97%) MuleSoft
15 10 (0.97%) OpenAI