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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 65 63
Rank change year-on-year -54 -2 +43
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,044 1,048 1,340
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.13% 3.64% 3.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.52% 4.00% 3.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 605 589 813
10th Percentile £178 £248 £313
25th Percentile £218 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -7.12%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £394 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -17.11% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 32 103
10th Percentile £27.09 £25.13 £21.35
25th Percentile £41.71 £28.85 £38.75
Median hourly rate £80.71 £41.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +96.84% -25.45% +1.04%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.81 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.89 £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 41,377 26,173 36,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 91.02% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,864 16,755 23,656
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,474 1,096 2,500
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.34% -24.42% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.65 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.76 £74.38 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -44 934 £475 -8.70% 927
UK excluding London -39 559 £394 -17.11% 601
London -55 403 £550 -8.33% 436
Work from Home -62 227 £500 -9.09% 371
South East -4 215 £215 -54.91% 210
North of England -22 135 £400 -20.00% 112
Yorkshire -2 80 £525 +26.81% 26
Midlands -64 73 £456 +58.42% 69
West Midlands -62 56 £450 +54.11% 41
North West -29 54 £350 -34.82% 64
South West -42 47 £469 +34.00% 67
Scotland -18 39 £610 +16.19% 37
East of England -34 38 £280 -56.92% 83
East Midlands -36 16 £525 +82.29% 28
Northern Ireland +10 8 £350 -41.67% 27
Wales -34 7 £370 +27.59% 11
North East -30 2 £125 -73.68% 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 52 (4.98%) Confluence
2 39 (3.74%) Apache Spark
3 27 (2.59%) SharePoint
4 23 (2.20%) Apache
5 20 (1.92%) Apache Airflow
6 10 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) Camunda
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.096%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.096%) Appian
Applications
1 33 (3.16%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.53%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.19%) Simulink
7 2 (0.19%) Trello
8 1 (0.096%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.096%) Sketch
8 1 (0.096%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 23 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.38%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
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 (0.096%) Actimize
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.096%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.096%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.096%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 296 (28.35%) Azure
2 188 (18.01%) AWS
3 79 (7.57%) GCP
4 62 (5.94%) Power Platform
5 54 (5.17%) Microsoft 365
6 48 (4.60%) SaaS
7 47 (4.50%) GitHub
8 45 (4.31%) Entra ID
9 33 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
10 20 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
10 20 (1.92%) Snowflake
11 19 (1.82%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (1.63%) Azure AKS
12 17 (1.63%) IaaS
12 17 (1.63%) Serverless
13 16 (1.53%) PowerApps
14 13 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
14 13 (1.25%) PaaS
15 12 (1.15%) Azure Service Bus
16 11 (1.05%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.54%) Firewall
2 30 (2.87%) TCP/IP
3 29 (2.78%) DNS
4 28 (2.68%) Network Security
5 15 (1.44%) WAN
6 13 (1.25%) BGP
7 12 (1.15%) LAN
8 11 (1.05%) SSH
9 10 (0.96%) OSPF
10 9 (0.86%) 3GPP
10 9 (0.86%) VPN
10 9 (0.86%) Wireless
11 8 (0.77%) HTTPS
12 7 (0.67%) SAN
12 7 (0.67%) VLAN
13 6 (0.57%) DHCP
13 6 (0.57%) LTE
14 5 (0.48%) RTP
14 5 (0.48%) Wireshark
15 4 (0.38%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (4.89%) Power BI
2 50 (4.79%) SQL Server
3 48 (4.60%) Relational Database
4 46 (4.41%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (3.74%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (3.26%) Big Data
7 27 (2.59%) Metadata
8 26 (2.49%) NoSQL
9 23 (2.20%) MongoDB
10 22 (2.11%) MySQL
11 21 (2.01%) Hadoop
12 19 (1.82%) Tableau
13 15 (1.44%) Elasticsearch
14 14 (1.34%) Data Lake
15 10 (0.96%) Redis
15 10 (0.96%) Snowflake Schema
15 10 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 8 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
16 8 (0.77%) Power Query
17 7 (0.67%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 73 (6.99%) Git
2 66 (6.32%) JIRA
3 35 (3.35%) GitLab
4 34 (3.26%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.68%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.15%) Gradle
7 11 (1.05%) JUnit
7 11 (1.05%) Selenium
8 10 (0.96%) TeamCity
9 9 (0.86%) Jaeger
9 9 (0.86%) MLflow
10 7 (0.67%) CircleCI
10 7 (0.67%) Maven
10 7 (0.67%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.57%) Postman
12 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
12 5 (0.48%) Flyway
13 4 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.38%) REST Assured
General
1 421 (40.33%) Social Skills
2 235 (22.51%) Finance
3 210 (20.11%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (8.81%) Banking
5 58 (5.56%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.27%) Aerospace
7 49 (4.69%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (3.07%) Marketing
8 32 (3.07%) Telecoms
9 31 (2.97%) Presentation Skills
10 28 (2.68%) Legal
10 28 (2.68%) Organisational Skills
11 25 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 24 (2.30%) Front Office
12 24 (2.30%) Influencing Skills
13 19 (1.82%) Manufacturing
14 16 (1.53%) Investment Banking
14 16 (1.53%) Publishing
15 15 (1.44%) Financial Institution
15 15 (1.44%) Retail
Job Titles
1 108 (10.34%) Architect
2 106 (10.15%) Developer
3 91 (8.72%) Analyst
4 85 (8.14%) Lead
5 84 (8.05%) Senior
6 41 (3.93%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.54%) Delivery Manager
8 35 (3.35%) Product Manager
9 32 (3.07%) Solutions Architect
10 31 (2.97%) Data Scientist
11 30 (2.87%) Technical Support
12 28 (2.68%) Data Engineer
12 28 (2.68%) Product Delivery Manager
13 24 (2.30%) Python Developer
14 23 (2.20%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 23 (2.20%) Junior
14 23 (2.20%) Security Engineer
15 22 (2.11%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 22 (2.11%) Systems Manager
16 19 (1.82%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (8.33%) REST
2 56 (5.36%) React
3 52 (4.98%) .NET
4 46 (4.41%) Kafka
5 44 (4.21%) Middleware
6 34 (3.26%) RESTful
6 34 (3.26%) Spring Boot
7 29 (2.78%) Spring
8 27 (2.59%) PyTorch
9 23 (2.20%) AngularJS
10 22 (2.11%) OAuth
11 21 (2.01%) TensorFlow
12 20 (1.92%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (1.92%) SOAP
13 19 (1.82%) JSON
14 18 (1.72%) HTML
14 18 (1.72%) XML
15 17 (1.63%) CSS
15 17 (1.63%) Pandas
16 16 (1.53%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (9.48%) Management Information System
2 78 (7.47%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.28%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.80%) Algorithms
5 65 (6.23%) Cloud Native
6 52 (4.98%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.69%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.87%) Virtual Team
9 26 (2.49%) Derivative
10 25 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
11 21 (2.01%) Equities
12 20 (1.92%) Data Protection Act
12 20 (1.92%) Taxonomies
13 19 (1.82%) AI Agents
13 19 (1.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 18 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (1.72%) Security Operations Centre
15 17 (1.63%) Cyberattack
16 16 (1.53%) Robotics
17 14 (1.34%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 132 (12.64%) Linux
1 132 (12.64%) Windows
2 44 (4.21%) Unix
3 24 (2.30%) Android
4 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.72%) Windows Server
6 16 (1.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.44%) Apple iOS
8 14 (1.34%) Mac OS
9 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.38%) Debian
10 4 (0.38%) Rocky
10 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.096%) CentOS
12 1 (0.096%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.096%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 314 (30.08%) Problem-Solving
2 260 (24.90%) Agile
3 224 (21.46%) AI
4 189 (18.10%) CI/CD
5 178 (17.05%) Software Engineering
6 177 (16.95%) DevOps
7 167 (16.00%) Continuous Improvement
8 129 (12.36%) Analytics
9 123 (11.78%) Cybersecurity
10 114 (10.92%) Microservices
11 102 (9.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 98 (9.39%) Stakeholder Management
13 96 (9.20%) Machine Learning
14 95 (9.10%) Decision-Making
15 93 (8.91%) Technical Leadership
16 91 (8.72%) Mathematics
17 90 (8.62%) Containerisation
18 89 (8.52%) Data Science
19 87 (8.33%) Data Governance
19 87 (8.33%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 285 (27.30%) Python
2 211 (20.21%) SQL
3 134 (12.84%) Java
4 67 (6.42%) JavaScript
5 57 (5.46%) C#
6 47 (4.50%) PowerShell
7 32 (3.07%) TypeScript
8 30 (2.87%) Bash
9 29 (2.78%) C++
10 21 (2.01%) R
11 14 (1.34%) Go
12 13 (1.25%) Perl
13 12 (1.15%) Rust
14 11 (1.05%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.96%) Kotlin
16 9 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 6 (0.57%) Scala
18 5 (0.48%) C
19 4 (0.38%) Ada
20 3 (0.29%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 834 (79.89%) Degree
2 503 (48.18%) Computer Science Degree
3 189 (18.10%) Security Cleared
4 142 (13.60%) Master's Degree
5 112 (10.73%) SC Cleared
6 57 (5.46%) CISSP
7 39 (3.74%) CISM
8 34 (3.26%) PhD
9 32 (3.07%) Azure Certification
10 31 (2.97%) TOGAF Certification
11 29 (2.78%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.59%) Microsoft Certification
13 26 (2.49%) PMI Certification
14 23 (2.20%) PMP
15 22 (2.11%) CompTIA Security+
16 21 (2.01%) AWS Certification
16 21 (2.01%) Cisco Certification
17 20 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
18 19 (1.82%) CISA
18 19 (1.82%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (5.36%) Data Quality
1 56 (5.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 56 (5.36%) NIST
2 54 (5.17%) QA
3 37 (3.54%) GDPR
4 20 (1.92%) PCI DSS
5 18 (1.72%) Accessibility
6 13 (1.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 12 (1.15%) GRC
8 10 (0.96%) NIST 800
8 10 (0.96%) SLA
9 8 (0.77%) NCSC
10 7 (0.67%) COBIT
10 7 (0.67%) HIPAA
10 7 (0.67%) PSD2
11 6 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (0.57%) ISO 19650
11 6 (0.57%) ISO 20022
11 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 5 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 106 (10.15%) Docker
2 68 (6.51%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.15%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.38%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) KVM
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.096%) ACF2
11 1 (0.096%) HDFS
11 1 (0.096%) RACF
Systems Management
1 126 (12.07%) Kubernetes
2 62 (5.94%) Terraform
3 48 (4.60%) Ansible
4 32 (3.07%) Grafana
5 30 (2.87%) Prometheus
6 26 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.53%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.96%) Puppet
9 9 (0.86%) Kiali
9 9 (0.86%) Kibana
10 4 (0.38%) Control-M
10 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Foglight
11 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.29%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.19%) HP ALM
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 177 (16.95%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.23%) Oracle
3 49 (4.69%) Splunk
4 48 (4.60%) Databricks
5 36 (3.45%) Google
5 36 (3.45%) SAP
6 33 (3.16%) IBM
7 29 (2.78%) ServiceNow
8 24 (2.30%) VMware
9 18 (1.72%) Cisco
10 16 (1.53%) BiZZdesign
10 16 (1.53%) Informatica
10 16 (1.53%) Okta
11 13 (1.25%) Palo Alto
11 13 (1.25%) Salesforce
12 12 (1.15%) CheckPoint
13 11 (1.05%) CyberArk
14 10 (0.96%) MuleSoft
14 10 (0.96%) Software AG
15 9 (0.86%) BeyondTrust