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 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 150 70 60
Rank change year-on-year -80 -10 +20
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,056 1,212 1,296
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.94% 3.65% 3.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.29% 4.04% 3.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 613 703 785
10th Percentile £178 £178 £347
25th Percentile £200 £314 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £688
90th Percentile £732 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £413 £513
% change year-on-year -9.09% -19.51% +2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 86 54 40
10th Percentile £20.13 £26.40 £20.12
25th Percentile £26.88 £29.00 £34.13
Median hourly rate £41.71 £33.50 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +24.51% -34.95% -14.52%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.50 £70.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.10 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.63% -44.17% -

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 46,102 30,004 32,672
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.46% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,718 18,629 19,703
10th Percentile £325 £294 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,326 1,885 1,303
10th Percentile £13.58 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -8.31%
75th Percentile £65.00 £43.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.52 £65.00 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £41.25
% change year-on-year +68.43% -46.02% -2.94%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 -65 959 £470 -1.05% 4,652
UK excluding London -67 547 £375 -9.09% 1,853
London -69 436 £535 -0.33% 3,055
Work from Home -91 249 £522 +9.79% 1,515
South East -24 200 £470 +42.42% 517
North of England -62 147 £425 +4.62% 327
Midlands -53 88 £217 -53.83% 211
Yorkshire -26 78 £344 -23.61% 96
West Midlands -54 57 £200 -61.90% 139
North West -68 57 £525 +44.83% 163
East of England -43 44 £449 +5.53% 283
South West -53 33 £195 -0.38% 166
East Midlands -29 30 £230 -48.55% 72
Scotland -56 29 £400 -11.11% 211
North East -32 13 £195 -57.84% 69
Northern Ireland +7 4 - - 123
Wales -16 4 £530 +14.59% 39

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 (4.55%) Confluence
2 31 (2.94%) SharePoint
3 22 (2.08%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.70%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.61%) Apache
6 13 (1.23%) IIS
7 10 (0.95%) Camunda
7 10 (0.95%) CMS
8 8 (0.76%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 6 (0.57%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.47%) SAS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.28%) CICS
12 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.28%) nginx
12 3 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 37 (3.50%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.42%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.57%) Navisworks
5 6 (0.57%) Revit
6 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.38%) Trello
7 4 (0.38%) Windchill
8 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.19%) Simulink
9 2 (0.19%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 9 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
2 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (0.38%) Workday HCM
2 4 (0.38%) Workfront
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.095%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.095%) Finacle
5 1 (0.095%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.095%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.095%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.095%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.095%) SAP CAR
5 1 (0.095%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.095%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.095%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 303 (28.69%) Azure
2 192 (18.18%) AWS
3 118 (11.17%) GCP
4 63 (5.97%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.87%) Power Platform
6 58 (5.49%) Azure DevOps
7 53 (5.02%) GitHub
8 52 (4.92%) Microsoft 365
9 44 (4.17%) SaaS
10 39 (3.69%) Serverless
11 28 (2.65%) Snowflake
12 22 (2.08%) AWS Lambda
13 21 (1.99%) OpenShift
13 21 (1.99%) PowerApps
14 20 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
15 19 (1.80%) Amazon EKS
16 17 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
16 17 (1.61%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.52%) Anthropic Claude
17 16 (1.52%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 46 (4.36%) Firewall
2 42 (3.98%) DNS
3 38 (3.60%) Network Security
4 32 (3.03%) VPN
5 27 (2.56%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.99%) DHCP
7 16 (1.52%) SSH
8 12 (1.14%) WAN
8 12 (1.14%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.04%) 5G
9 11 (1.04%) HTTP
9 11 (1.04%) Wireless
10 10 (0.95%) VLAN
11 9 (0.85%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.85%) LAN
12 7 (0.66%) BGP
12 7 (0.66%) Intrusion Detection
12 7 (0.66%) MPLS
12 7 (0.66%) Reverse Proxy
13 6 (0.57%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.11%) PostgreSQL
2 50 (4.73%) SQL Server
3 49 (4.64%) Power BI
4 46 (4.36%) Relational Database
5 38 (3.60%) Metadata
6 30 (2.84%) MongoDB
7 27 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
7 27 (2.56%) MySQL
7 27 (2.56%) NoSQL
8 24 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
9 19 (1.80%) Big Data
10 14 (1.33%) Redis
11 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (1.23%) Data Mining
12 12 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
12 12 (1.14%) Tableau
13 11 (1.04%) Data Lake
13 11 (1.04%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.57%) Pinecone
14 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 102 (9.66%) Git
2 52 (4.92%) JIRA
3 50 (4.73%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.17%) GitLab
5 23 (2.18%) Gradle
5 23 (2.18%) JUnit
6 22 (2.08%) Maven
7 19 (1.80%) SonarQube
8 18 (1.70%) Selenium
9 17 (1.61%) Mockito
10 14 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
11 13 (1.23%) Cucumber
12 12 (1.14%) REST Assured
13 11 (1.04%) Bitbucket
13 11 (1.04%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.85%) Bitbucket Server
14 9 (0.85%) Postman
15 8 (0.76%) Visual Studio
16 7 (0.66%) TeamCity
17 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
General
1 451 (42.71%) Social Skills
2 237 (22.44%) Finance
3 235 (22.25%) Analytical Skills
4 97 (9.19%) Banking
5 66 (6.25%) Public Sector
6 50 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (4.45%) Aerospace
8 45 (4.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 40 (3.79%) Manufacturing
10 32 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.94%) Marketing
12 30 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (2.84%) Telecoms
13 22 (2.08%) Front Office
14 20 (1.89%) Military
15 18 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.61%) Retail
17 16 (1.52%) Legal
18 14 (1.33%) Electronics
18 14 (1.33%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 164 (15.53%) Developer
2 109 (10.32%) Senior
3 88 (8.33%) Architect
4 72 (6.82%) Analyst
4 72 (6.82%) Lead
5 35 (3.31%) Data Engineer
6 34 (3.22%) Java Developer
7 26 (2.46%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 25 (2.37%) Senior Developer
8 25 (2.37%) Software Engineer
9 24 (2.27%) IT Support
9 24 (2.27%) Security Engineer
10 23 (2.18%) Full-Stack Developer
10 23 (2.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 23 (2.18%) Python Developer
11 22 (2.08%) Data Scientist
12 21 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
13 20 (1.89%) C# Developer
13 20 (1.89%) Consultant
14 18 (1.70%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (9.09%) REST
2 68 (6.44%) Terraform
3 67 (6.34%) React
4 64 (6.06%) HTML
5 62 (5.87%) CSS
6 56 (5.30%) Kafka
7 53 (5.02%) RESTful
8 52 (4.92%) .NET
9 38 (3.60%) OAuth
9 38 (3.60%) Spring Boot
10 36 (3.41%) Spring
11 31 (2.94%) OAuth2
11 31 (2.94%) SOAP
11 31 (2.94%) Web Services
12 29 (2.75%) Middleware
12 29 (2.75%) OpenID
13 28 (2.65%) SAML
14 23 (2.18%) .NET Core
14 23 (2.18%) AngularJS
14 23 (2.18%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 119 (11.27%) Management Information System
2 81 (7.67%) Cloud Native
3 63 (5.97%) Algorithms
4 58 (5.49%) Onboarding
4 58 (5.49%) Product Ownership
5 53 (5.02%) Data Structures
6 52 (4.92%) Distributed Systems
7 34 (3.22%) AI Agents
8 28 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
9 24 (2.27%) Virtual Team
10 22 (2.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 22 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
11 20 (1.89%) Data Centre
12 19 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.61%) Derivative
14 16 (1.52%) Legacy Systems
15 15 (1.42%) Replication
16 13 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.23%) Equities
16 13 (1.23%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 119 (11.27%) Linux
1 119 (11.27%) Windows
2 37 (3.50%) Unix
3 33 (3.13%) Windows Server
4 17 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (1.52%) Windows 10
6 12 (1.14%) Android
7 10 (0.95%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.76%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.38%) VMS
9 4 (0.38%) zOS
10 3 (0.28%) Mac OS X
10 3 (0.28%) Solaris
10 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.19%) Debian
11 2 (0.19%) Mac OS
11 2 (0.19%) Rocky
12 1 (0.095%) CentOS
12 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (31.06%) Problem-Solving
2 277 (26.23%) Agile
3 233 (22.06%) CI/CD
4 212 (20.08%) AI
5 199 (18.84%) DevOps
6 192 (18.18%) Software Engineering
7 191 (18.09%) Stakeholder Management
8 181 (17.14%) Continuous Improvement
9 153 (14.49%) Analytics
10 120 (11.36%) Mathematics
11 119 (11.27%) ITIL
12 113 (10.70%) Scrum
13 112 (10.61%) Roadmaps
14 108 (10.23%) Test Automation
15 106 (10.04%) Cybersecurity
16 96 (9.09%) Machine Learning
16 96 (9.09%) Validation
17 94 (8.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 89 (8.43%) Change Management
19 82 (7.77%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 267 (25.28%) Python
2 201 (19.03%) SQL
3 136 (12.88%) Java
4 98 (9.28%) JavaScript
5 78 (7.39%) PowerShell
6 64 (6.06%) C#
7 50 (4.73%) Bash
8 39 (3.69%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.46%) C++
10 19 (1.80%) Bicep
11 16 (1.52%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.14%) Scala
13 11 (1.04%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.95%) Go
14 10 (0.95%) R
15 9 (0.85%) C
15 9 (0.85%) Perl
16 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.57%) COBOL
17 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 801 (75.85%) Degree
2 492 (46.59%) Computer Science Degree
3 191 (18.09%) Security Cleared
4 146 (13.83%) SC Cleared
5 110 (10.42%) Master's Degree
6 56 (5.30%) DBS Check
7 55 (5.21%) Azure Certification
7 55 (5.21%) CISSP
8 40 (3.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.69%) CISM
10 35 (3.31%) PhD
11 33 (3.13%) AWS Certification
11 33 (3.13%) DV Cleared
12 28 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
13 27 (2.56%) TOGAF Certification
14 23 (2.18%) PMI Certification
14 23 (2.18%) PMP
15 21 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
16 18 (1.70%) CISA
17 15 (1.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.44%) Data Quality
1 68 (6.44%) QA
2 60 (5.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 47 (4.45%) NIST
4 27 (2.56%) GDPR
5 16 (1.52%) GRC
6 15 (1.42%) HIPAA
7 14 (1.33%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.23%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.23%) SLA
9 9 (0.85%) NCSC
10 8 (0.76%) ISO 9001
10 8 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 7 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 6 (0.57%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
13 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.38%) EU AI Act
14 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 91 (8.62%) Docker
2 64 (6.06%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.76%) Firmware
5 8 (0.76%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.57%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.47%) ISA Server
7 5 (0.47%) RACF
7 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.47%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) ACF2
9 2 (0.19%) NFS
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.095%) KVM
10 1 (0.095%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 109 (10.32%) Kubernetes
2 36 (3.41%) Ansible
3 26 (2.46%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.27%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.99%) Grafana
6 14 (1.33%) SCCM
7 10 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.66%) CASB
9 6 (0.57%) Control-M
10 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.38%) Puppet
12 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
12 3 (0.28%) Istio
12 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
13 2 (0.19%) SCOM
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 205 (19.41%) Microsoft
2 72 (6.82%) Oracle
3 60 (5.68%) Google
4 41 (3.88%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.41%) Databricks
6 34 (3.22%) IBM
7 33 (3.13%) VMware
8 31 (2.94%) SAP
9 29 (2.75%) Splunk
10 27 (2.56%) Cisco
11 24 (2.27%) Salesforce
12 18 (1.70%) Adobe
12 18 (1.70%) OpenAI
13 16 (1.52%) CyberArk
14 14 (1.33%) BeyondTrust
14 14 (1.33%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.04%) CrowdStrike
15 11 (1.04%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.95%) Veracode
17 9 (0.85%) Zscaler