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

6 months to
13 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 144 69 62
Rank change year-on-year -75 -7 +20
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,074 1,192 1,263
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.96% 3.62% 3.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.31% 4.00% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 631 699 769
10th Percentile £178 £178 £339
25th Percentile £200 £315 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £633 £688
90th Percentile £725 £750 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £370 £413 £517
% change year-on-year -10.42% -20.21% +3.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 54 36
10th Percentile £20.70 £26.40 £20.12
25th Percentile £27.00 £29.00 £26.28
Median hourly rate £41.71 £33.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +24.51% -36.19% -12.86%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.36 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +29.42% -44.17% +2.13%

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 46,512 29,792 32,258
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.69% 90.47% 86.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,938 18,529 19,417
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 £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,382 1,881 1,250
10th Percentile £13.63 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.03
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.54 £65.14 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.83%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -64 975 £450 -5.26% 3,175
UK excluding London -60 556 £370 -10.42% 1,296
London -66 444 £535 - 2,093
Work from Home -84 253 £520 +9.47% 1,120
South East -19 204 £470 +44.62% 385
North of England -59 148 £414 -0.66% 236
Midlands -50 90 £217 -53.83% 133
Yorkshire -28 79 £344 -23.61% 67
West Midlands -59 58 £200 -61.90% 91
North West -68 56 £524 +44.55% 119
East of England -39 45 £425 - 169
South West -52 33 £195 -5.57% 122
East Midlands -21 31 £230 -48.55% 42
Scotland -52 30 £400 -11.11% 147
North East -32 14 £195 -57.84% 51
Northern Ireland +5 4 - - 93
Wales -21 4 £530 +14.59% 35

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 49 (4.56%) Confluence
2 31 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 22 (2.05%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.68%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.58%) Apache
6 13 (1.21%) IIS
7 11 (1.02%) CMS
8 10 (0.93%) Camunda
9 8 (0.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.47%) SAS
11 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 4 (0.37%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.28%) CICS
12 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.28%) nginx
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 35 (3.26%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.23%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.40%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.47%) Navisworks
5 5 (0.47%) Revit
6 4 (0.37%) Trello
6 4 (0.37%) Windchill
7 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 9 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
2 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
2 4 (0.37%) Workday HCM
2 4 (0.37%) 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 (0.093%) Finacle
5 1 (0.093%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.093%) Maximo
5 1 (0.093%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.093%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.093%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.093%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.093%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.093%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.093%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 306 (28.49%) Azure
2 192 (17.88%) AWS
3 120 (11.17%) GCP
4 64 (5.96%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.77%) Power Platform
6 57 (5.31%) Azure DevOps
6 57 (5.31%) GitHub
7 52 (4.84%) Microsoft 365
8 44 (4.10%) SaaS
9 39 (3.63%) Serverless
10 28 (2.61%) Snowflake
11 24 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
12 22 (2.05%) AWS Lambda
12 22 (2.05%) OpenShift
13 21 (1.96%) PowerApps
14 19 (1.77%) Amazon EKS
15 17 (1.58%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (1.58%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.49%) Anthropic Claude
16 16 (1.49%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.38%) Firewall
2 42 (3.91%) DNS
3 37 (3.45%) Network Security
4 33 (3.07%) VPN
5 27 (2.51%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.96%) DHCP
7 16 (1.49%) SSH
8 13 (1.21%) WAN
9 12 (1.12%) Wireless
10 11 (1.02%) 5G
10 11 (1.02%) HTTP
10 11 (1.02%) VLAN
10 11 (1.02%) Wireshark
11 10 (0.93%) LAN
12 8 (0.74%) 3GPP
12 8 (0.74%) BGP
12 8 (0.74%) MPLS
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
13 7 (0.65%) OSPF
13 7 (0.65%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.12%) PostgreSQL
2 49 (4.56%) Power BI
2 49 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 47 (4.38%) Relational Database
4 37 (3.45%) Metadata
5 31 (2.89%) MongoDB
6 28 (2.61%) MySQL
7 27 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
7 27 (2.51%) NoSQL
8 24 (2.23%) Elasticsearch
9 19 (1.77%) Big Data
10 13 (1.21%) Azure SQL Database
10 13 (1.21%) Data Mining
10 13 (1.21%) Redis
11 12 (1.12%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (1.12%) Tableau
12 11 (1.02%) Data Lake
12 11 (1.02%) Oracle Database
13 6 (0.56%) Pinecone
13 6 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 102 (9.50%) Git
2 53 (4.93%) JIRA
3 51 (4.75%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.10%) GitLab
5 29 (2.70%) Gradle
6 26 (2.42%) JUnit
7 23 (2.14%) Maven
8 20 (1.86%) SonarQube
9 18 (1.68%) Mockito
9 18 (1.68%) Selenium
10 14 (1.30%) Cucumber
10 14 (1.30%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (1.12%) REST Assured
12 11 (1.02%) Bitbucket
12 11 (1.02%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.84%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.84%) Postman
14 8 (0.74%) Visual Studio
15 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
15 6 (0.56%) TeamCity
General
1 451 (41.99%) Social Skills
2 240 (22.35%) Finance
3 233 (21.69%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (9.12%) Banking
5 65 (6.05%) Public Sector
6 49 (4.56%) Documentation Skills
7 48 (4.47%) Aerospace
8 45 (4.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 41 (3.82%) Manufacturing
10 32 (2.98%) Marketing
10 32 (2.98%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.89%) Influencing Skills
12 29 (2.70%) Telecoms
13 22 (2.05%) Front Office
14 20 (1.86%) Military
15 18 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
15 18 (1.68%) Retail
16 16 (1.49%) Legal
17 15 (1.40%) Electronics
18 14 (1.30%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 165 (15.36%) Developer
2 111 (10.34%) Senior
3 89 (8.29%) Architect
4 76 (7.08%) Lead
5 70 (6.52%) Analyst
6 35 (3.26%) Java Developer
7 34 (3.17%) Data Engineer
8 26 (2.42%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 26 (2.42%) Senior Developer
9 25 (2.33%) Software Engineer
10 24 (2.23%) IT Support
10 24 (2.23%) Security Engineer
11 23 (2.14%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 23 (2.14%) Python Developer
12 22 (2.05%) Data Scientist
12 22 (2.05%) Full-Stack Developer
13 21 (1.96%) Solutions Architect
14 20 (1.86%) C# Developer
14 20 (1.86%) Consultant
14 20 (1.86%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (9.03%) REST
2 69 (6.42%) Terraform
3 66 (6.15%) React
4 64 (5.96%) HTML
5 62 (5.77%) CSS
6 56 (5.21%) Kafka
7 55 (5.12%) RESTful
8 51 (4.75%) .NET
9 39 (3.63%) OAuth
9 39 (3.63%) Spring
9 39 (3.63%) Spring Boot
10 32 (2.98%) SOAP
10 32 (2.98%) Web Services
11 31 (2.89%) OAuth2
12 29 (2.70%) Middleware
12 29 (2.70%) OpenID
12 29 (2.70%) SAML
13 23 (2.14%) AngularJS
13 23 (2.14%) JSON
13 23 (2.14%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 118 (10.99%) Management Information System
2 83 (7.73%) Cloud Native
3 65 (6.05%) Algorithms
4 58 (5.40%) Onboarding
5 57 (5.31%) Product Ownership
6 54 (5.03%) Distributed Systems
7 52 (4.84%) Data Structures
8 35 (3.26%) AI Agents
9 31 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
10 25 (2.33%) Virtual Team
11 22 (2.05%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.86%) Data Centre
14 18 (1.68%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.58%) Legacy Systems
16 16 (1.49%) Derivative
16 16 (1.49%) Mobile App
17 15 (1.40%) Operational Technology
17 15 (1.40%) Replication
18 13 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 119 (11.08%) Linux
2 118 (10.99%) Windows
3 37 (3.45%) Unix
4 32 (2.98%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (1.40%) Android
6 15 (1.40%) Windows 10
7 12 (1.12%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.74%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.56%) macOS
10 4 (0.37%) VMS
10 4 (0.37%) zOS
11 3 (0.28%) Solaris
11 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.19%) Debian
12 2 (0.19%) Rocky
13 1 (0.093%) MVS
13 1 (0.093%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.093%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 330 (30.73%) Problem-Solving
2 278 (25.88%) Agile
3 239 (22.25%) CI/CD
4 210 (19.55%) AI
5 199 (18.53%) DevOps
6 198 (18.44%) Software Engineering
7 193 (17.97%) Stakeholder Management
8 182 (16.95%) Continuous Improvement
9 154 (14.34%) Analytics
10 121 (11.27%) Mathematics
11 118 (10.99%) ITIL
11 118 (10.99%) Roadmaps
12 114 (10.61%) Scrum
13 111 (10.34%) Test Automation
14 110 (10.24%) Cybersecurity
15 97 (9.03%) Machine Learning
15 97 (9.03%) Validation
16 95 (8.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 87 (8.10%) Change Management
18 83 (7.73%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 266 (24.77%) Python
2 201 (18.72%) SQL
3 141 (13.13%) Java
4 98 (9.12%) JavaScript
5 78 (7.26%) PowerShell
6 62 (5.77%) C#
7 50 (4.66%) Bash
8 39 (3.63%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.42%) C++
10 20 (1.86%) Bicep
11 16 (1.49%) Kotlin
11 16 (1.49%) Shell Script
12 14 (1.30%) Scala
13 10 (0.93%) Go
13 10 (0.93%) Perl
13 10 (0.93%) R
14 9 (0.84%) C
15 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
16 6 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.56%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 810 (75.42%) Degree
2 497 (46.28%) Computer Science Degree
3 195 (18.16%) Security Cleared
4 146 (13.59%) SC Cleared
5 111 (10.34%) Master's Degree
6 61 (5.68%) DBS Check
7 55 (5.12%) Azure Certification
7 55 (5.12%) CISSP
8 40 (3.72%) CISM
9 39 (3.63%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (3.35%) DV Cleared
11 35 (3.26%) PhD
12 33 (3.07%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.61%) Cisco Certification
14 27 (2.51%) TOGAF Certification
15 23 (2.14%) PMI Certification
15 23 (2.14%) PMP
16 21 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
17 17 (1.58%) CISA
18 15 (1.40%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.52%) QA
2 68 (6.33%) Data Quality
3 58 (5.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 46 (4.28%) NIST
5 27 (2.51%) GDPR
6 16 (1.49%) GRC
7 15 (1.40%) HIPAA
8 13 (1.21%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.21%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.21%) SLA
9 9 (0.84%) NCSC
10 8 (0.74%) ISO 9001
11 7 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.37%) EU AI Act
14 4 (0.37%) PMO
System Software
1 93 (8.66%) Docker
2 61 (5.68%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.74%) Firmware
5 8 (0.74%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.56%) 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%) NFS
8 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) ACF2
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.093%) KVM
10 1 (0.093%) Squid
Systems Management
1 112 (10.43%) Kubernetes
2 36 (3.35%) Ansible
3 27 (2.51%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.23%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.96%) Grafana
6 14 (1.30%) SCCM
7 11 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.65%) CASB
9 6 (0.56%) Control-M
10 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.37%) 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%) HP Fortify
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
13 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 206 (19.18%) Microsoft
2 71 (6.61%) Oracle
3 63 (5.87%) Google
4 42 (3.91%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.35%) Databricks
6 35 (3.26%) IBM
7 33 (3.07%) VMware
8 30 (2.79%) SAP
9 29 (2.70%) Splunk
10 28 (2.61%) Cisco
11 24 (2.23%) Salesforce
12 19 (1.77%) OpenAI
13 18 (1.68%) Adobe
14 15 (1.40%) CyberArk
15 14 (1.30%) Red Hat
16 13 (1.21%) BeyondTrust
17 11 (1.02%) CrowdStrike
17 11 (1.02%) Dynatrace
18 10 (0.93%) Progress
18 10 (0.93%) Veracode