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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 69 60
Rank change year-on-year -75 -9 +23
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,057 1,146 1,311
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.93% 3.51% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 3.87% 4.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 598 636 802
10th Percentile £175 £185 £341
25th Percentile £200 £353 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £685
90th Percentile £750 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £425 £520
% change year-on-year -10.59% -18.27% +1.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 54 44
10th Percentile £23.00 £26.85 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £26.28
Median hourly rate £48.50 £34.25 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year +41.61% -31.84% -17.96%
75th Percentile £79.40 £67.00 £63.88
90th Percentile £87.50 £82.10 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £33.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +56.72% -40.44% -6.25%

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 46,309 29,588 32,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.42% 90.49% 85.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,063 18,372 19,750
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 £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £731 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,189 1,818 1,403
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.25 £15.00
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% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -59 959 £475 -1.96% 3,371
UK excluding London -58 546 £380 -10.59% 1,564
London -63 434 £535 -0.47% 2,075
Work from Home -83 247 £520 +9.37% 1,085
South East -14 205 £444 +10.94% 439
North of England -53 142 £450 +3.21% 274
Midlands -54 87 £225 -50.00% 198
Yorkshire -23 74 £438 +12.61% 67
North West -52 57 £524 +12.93% 164
West Midlands -47 56 £221 -56.45% 121
East of England -38 47 £425 -15.84% 194
South West -64 31 £198 +6.76% 197
East Midlands -24 30 £230 -48.55% 77
Scotland -58 27 £400 -11.11% 138
North East -32 12 £195 -57.84% 44
Northern Ireland +6 5 £175 - 95
Wales -18 4 £530 +14.59% 38

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 (3.69%) Confluence
2 32 (3.03%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.27%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.51%) Apache
6 12 (1.14%) IIS
7 9 (0.85%) Camunda
8 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.47%) CMS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.38%) SAS
12 3 (0.28%) CICS
12 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) nginx
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
14 1 (0.095%) Appian
Applications
1 42 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.14%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.47%) 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 (0.095%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 8 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.095%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.095%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.095%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 297 (28.10%) Azure
2 197 (18.64%) AWS
3 118 (11.16%) GCP
4 68 (6.43%) Power Platform
5 63 (5.96%) Entra ID
6 60 (5.68%) Microsoft 365
7 55 (5.20%) GitHub
8 52 (4.92%) Azure DevOps
9 45 (4.26%) SaaS
10 38 (3.60%) Serverless
11 29 (2.74%) Snowflake
12 24 (2.27%) PowerApps
13 22 (2.08%) AWS Lambda
14 21 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
14 21 (1.99%) Microsoft Copilot
15 20 (1.89%) OpenShift
16 18 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
16 18 (1.70%) Power Automate
17 16 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
18 15 (1.42%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.26%) Firewall
2 41 (3.88%) DNS
3 35 (3.31%) Network Security
4 33 (3.12%) VPN
5 26 (2.46%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.99%) DHCP
7 16 (1.51%) SSH
8 13 (1.23%) WAN
8 13 (1.23%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.04%) 5G
9 11 (1.04%) HTTP
9 11 (1.04%) LAN
9 11 (1.04%) Wireless
10 10 (0.95%) 3GPP
11 8 (0.76%) BGP
11 8 (0.76%) Intrusion Detection
11 8 (0.76%) MPLS
11 8 (0.76%) VLAN
12 6 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
12 6 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.20%) PostgreSQL
2 54 (5.11%) Relational Database
3 52 (4.92%) Power BI
3 52 (4.92%) SQL Server
4 41 (3.88%) Metadata
5 28 (2.65%) MongoDB
6 26 (2.46%) MySQL
6 26 (2.46%) NoSQL
7 24 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
8 23 (2.18%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (1.61%) Big Data
10 15 (1.42%) Data Mining
11 14 (1.32%) Redis
12 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
13 12 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
13 12 (1.14%) Tableau
14 11 (1.04%) Data Lake
14 11 (1.04%) Oracle Database
15 6 (0.57%) Flink
15 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 100 (9.46%) Git
2 51 (4.82%) Jenkins
3 49 (4.64%) JIRA
4 45 (4.26%) GitLab
5 22 (2.08%) JUnit
6 21 (1.99%) Gradle
6 21 (1.99%) Maven
7 19 (1.80%) Selenium
8 18 (1.70%) SonarQube
9 15 (1.42%) Mockito
10 13 (1.23%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (1.14%) Cucumber
12 11 (1.04%) REST Assured
13 10 (0.95%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.95%) SpecFlow
14 8 (0.76%) Bitbucket Server
14 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
14 8 (0.76%) Visual Studio
15 7 (0.66%) Postman
16 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
General
1 458 (43.33%) Social Skills
2 239 (22.61%) Analytical Skills
3 235 (22.23%) Finance
4 96 (9.08%) Banking
5 67 (6.34%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.82%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (4.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 43 (4.07%) Aerospace
9 39 (3.69%) Manufacturing
10 35 (3.31%) Telecoms
11 34 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
12 32 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
13 24 (2.27%) Marketing
14 22 (2.08%) Front Office
15 20 (1.89%) Legal
16 19 (1.80%) Military
17 17 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
18 15 (1.42%) Law
19 14 (1.32%) Retail
20 12 (1.14%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 160 (15.14%) Developer
2 108 (10.22%) Senior
3 88 (8.33%) Architect
4 75 (7.10%) Lead
5 73 (6.91%) Analyst
6 36 (3.41%) Data Engineer
7 34 (3.22%) Java Developer
8 30 (2.84%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.55%) IT Support
10 26 (2.46%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 25 (2.37%) Security Engineer
12 24 (2.27%) Senior Developer
13 23 (2.18%) Data Scientist
13 23 (2.18%) Full-Stack Developer
14 22 (2.08%) C# Developer
15 21 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 21 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
16 20 (1.89%) Engineering Manager
16 20 (1.89%) Python Developer
17 19 (1.80%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 103 (9.74%) REST
2 67 (6.34%) React
2 67 (6.34%) Terraform
3 61 (5.77%) HTML
4 58 (5.49%) CSS
5 56 (5.30%) .NET
6 54 (5.11%) Kafka
7 52 (4.92%) RESTful
8 38 (3.60%) Spring Boot
9 37 (3.50%) OAuth
9 37 (3.50%) Spring
10 33 (3.12%) Web Services
11 31 (2.93%) OAuth2
11 31 (2.93%) SOAP
12 29 (2.74%) OpenID
13 28 (2.65%) Middleware
14 27 (2.55%) SAML
15 25 (2.37%) JSON
16 24 (2.27%) .NET Core
17 22 (2.08%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 119 (11.26%) Management Information System
2 81 (7.66%) Cloud Native
3 70 (6.62%) Algorithms
4 65 (6.15%) Onboarding
5 55 (5.20%) Product Ownership
6 53 (5.01%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (4.82%) Data Structures
8 35 (3.31%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (2.37%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 23 (2.18%) Hybrid Cloud
11 21 (1.99%) Data Centre
12 20 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.61%) Derivative
14 15 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
15 13 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.23%) Operational Technology
15 13 (1.23%) Replication
15 13 (1.23%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 128 (12.11%) Windows
2 113 (10.69%) Linux
3 34 (3.22%) Unix
4 32 (3.03%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.99%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (1.23%) Android
8 9 (0.85%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.57%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.47%) zOS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Solaris
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) Debian
13 2 (0.19%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Rocky
14 1 (0.095%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 331 (31.32%) Problem-Solving
2 268 (25.35%) Agile
3 223 (21.10%) CI/CD
4 221 (20.91%) AI
5 193 (18.26%) DevOps
6 192 (18.16%) Software Engineering
7 179 (16.93%) Continuous Improvement
7 179 (16.93%) Stakeholder Management
8 149 (14.10%) Analytics
9 122 (11.54%) ITIL
10 113 (10.69%) Cybersecurity
11 108 (10.22%) Roadmaps
12 107 (10.12%) Mathematics
13 105 (9.93%) Scrum
14 104 (9.84%) Test Automation
15 98 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 97 (9.18%) Validation
17 96 (9.08%) Machine Learning
18 86 (8.14%) Change Management
18 86 (8.14%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 283 (26.77%) Python
2 204 (19.30%) SQL
3 139 (13.15%) Java
4 96 (9.08%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.47%) PowerShell
6 69 (6.53%) C#
7 45 (4.26%) Bash
8 40 (3.78%) TypeScript
9 27 (2.55%) C++
10 17 (1.61%) Bicep
11 14 (1.32%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.04%) C
12 11 (1.04%) R
12 11 (1.04%) Scala
13 10 (0.95%) Go
14 9 (0.85%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.76%) Perl
16 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 6 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 809 (76.54%) Degree
2 490 (46.36%) Computer Science Degree
3 185 (17.50%) Security Cleared
4 140 (13.25%) SC Cleared
5 110 (10.41%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.92%) CISSP
7 51 (4.82%) Azure Certification
8 46 (4.35%) DBS Check
9 44 (4.16%) Microsoft Certification
10 38 (3.60%) PhD
11 37 (3.50%) CISM
12 34 (3.22%) AWS Certification
13 30 (2.84%) DV Cleared
14 28 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
15 23 (2.18%) PMI Certification
15 23 (2.18%) PMP
15 23 (2.18%) TOGAF Certification
16 21 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
17 18 (1.70%) CISA
18 15 (1.42%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.53%) Data Quality
2 66 (6.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (5.96%) QA
4 51 (4.82%) NIST
5 27 (2.55%) GDPR
6 16 (1.51%) GRC
6 16 (1.51%) SLA
7 15 (1.42%) HIPAA
8 14 (1.32%) Accessibility
9 11 (1.04%) PCI DSS
10 10 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 9 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 8 (0.76%) NCSC
13 7 (0.66%) ISO 9001
14 5 (0.47%) ISO 31000
14 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 5 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 5 (0.47%) PMO
14 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
15 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 89 (8.42%) Docker
2 74 (7.00%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Firmware
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.76%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.66%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.57%) RACF
8 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.47%) vSphere
9 4 (0.38%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.28%) ACF2
10 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.095%) KVM
12 1 (0.095%) NFS
12 1 (0.095%) Squid
Systems Management
1 105 (9.93%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.60%) Ansible
3 27 (2.55%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.27%) Prometheus
5 20 (1.89%) Grafana
6 14 (1.32%) SCCM
7 10 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.57%) CASB
9 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.38%) Puppet
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.28%) Istio
11 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.19%) QRadar
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 209 (19.77%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.10%) Oracle
3 55 (5.20%) Google
4 40 (3.78%) ServiceNow
5 35 (3.31%) Databricks
6 34 (3.22%) VMware
7 33 (3.12%) IBM
8 30 (2.84%) Cisco
8 30 (2.84%) SAP
9 26 (2.46%) Splunk
10 22 (2.08%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.89%) CyberArk
12 18 (1.70%) BeyondTrust
13 16 (1.51%) OpenAI
14 14 (1.32%) Adobe
15 13 (1.23%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.04%) Dynatrace
16 11 (1.04%) Foundry
17 10 (0.95%) F5
18 9 (0.85%) Zscaler