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 26 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 66 62
Rank change year-on-year -65 -4 +26
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,101 1,227 1,345
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.73% 3.33%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.44% 4.12% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 617 684 823
10th Percentile £176 £194 £325
25th Percentile £203 £356 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £686
90th Percentile £757 £775 £810
UK excluding London median daily rate £371 £425 £515
% change year-on-year -12.82% -17.44% -1.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 48 78
10th Percentile £25.73 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.50
Median hourly rate £70.00 £54.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.44% -0.91% -11.29%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.10 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +21.64% +21.82% -8.33%

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 45,137 29,773 34,561
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.05% 90.43% 85.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,973 18,705 22,228
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.14%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,675 1,607 2,050
10th Percentile £14.81 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.33 £17.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.80 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.00
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.09% -

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 26 July 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 -55 996 £453 -9.40% 1,092
UK excluding London -53 590 £371 -12.82% 554
London -64 438 £535 -10.86% 635
Work from Home -71 248 £500 -9.09% 352
South East -8 242 £350 -26.32% 200
North of England -50 140 £379 -15.83% 94
Midlands -58 83 £325 +2.69% 81
Yorkshire -12 75 £475 +22.27% 25
West Midlands -59 56 £416 +93.26% 46
North West -60 54 £220 -53.68% 45
East of England -32 47 £215 -66.92% 83
South West -66 34 £435 +94.62% 59
Scotland -43 33 £425 -10.53% 20
East Midlands -24 26 £275 -38.48% 35
North East -37 12 £195 -57.84% 24
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 20
Wales -25 6 £530 +17.78% 11

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 38 (3.45%) Confluence
2 34 (3.09%) Apache Spark
3 31 (2.82%) SharePoint
4 23 (2.09%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (2.00%) Apache
6 10 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.54%) IIS
8 5 (0.45%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) Camunda
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
10 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.27%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.091%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.091%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.091%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.091%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 42 (3.81%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.91%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (1.18%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.64%) Revit
5 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.45%) Trello
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.18%) Sketch
8 1 (0.091%) Simulink
8 1 (0.091%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 16 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.27%) Primavera
3 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.27%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.18%) Infor M3
4 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.18%) Workfront
5 1 (0.091%) Finacle
5 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.091%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.091%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.091%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.091%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.091%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 312 (28.34%) Azure
2 198 (17.98%) AWS
3 107 (9.72%) GCP
4 75 (6.81%) Power Platform
5 64 (5.81%) Entra ID
6 56 (5.09%) Microsoft 365
7 48 (4.36%) SaaS
8 46 (4.18%) GitHub
9 43 (3.91%) Azure DevOps
10 31 (2.82%) Snowflake
11 30 (2.72%) Serverless
12 22 (2.00%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.91%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.63%) Azure AKS
15 16 (1.45%) AWS Lambda
16 15 (1.36%) Microsoft Copilot
16 15 (1.36%) Power Automate
17 14 (1.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 14 (1.27%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (1.18%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 40 (3.63%) Firewall
2 30 (2.72%) Network Security
3 29 (2.63%) DNS
4 27 (2.45%) VPN
5 22 (2.00%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.45%) WAN
7 14 (1.27%) SSH
8 13 (1.18%) LAN
9 12 (1.09%) BGP
9 12 (1.09%) DHCP
10 10 (0.91%) VLAN
10 10 (0.91%) Wireless
11 9 (0.82%) HTTPS
11 9 (0.82%) OSPF
12 8 (0.73%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.64%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.64%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (0.64%) MPLS
14 6 (0.54%) Intrusion Detection
14 6 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (5.45%) Power BI
2 54 (4.90%) SQL Server
3 52 (4.72%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (4.72%) Relational Database
4 35 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (3.09%) Metadata
6 32 (2.91%) Big Data
7 28 (2.54%) MongoDB
8 24 (2.18%) NoSQL
9 17 (1.54%) MySQL
10 16 (1.45%) Data Lake
10 16 (1.45%) Hadoop
10 16 (1.45%) Tableau
11 12 (1.09%) Data Mining
12 11 (1.00%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (1.00%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
13 10 (0.91%) Redis
13 10 (0.91%) Snowflake Schema
14 8 (0.73%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 87 (7.90%) Git
2 51 (4.63%) JIRA
3 39 (3.54%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.09%) GitLab
5 31 (2.82%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.18%) Selenium
7 12 (1.09%) JUnit
8 11 (1.00%) Gradle
9 10 (0.91%) Bitbucket
10 8 (0.73%) Maven
10 8 (0.73%) MLflow
10 8 (0.73%) SpecFlow
10 8 (0.73%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.54%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
12 5 (0.45%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.45%) Flyway
12 5 (0.45%) Postman
General
1 439 (39.87%) Social Skills
2 237 (21.53%) Finance
3 233 (21.16%) Analytical Skills
4 95 (8.63%) Banking
5 66 (5.99%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.00%) Aerospace
7 53 (4.81%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (3.54%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (3.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (2.63%) Telecoms
12 28 (2.54%) Marketing
13 25 (2.27%) Legal
14 23 (2.09%) Manufacturing
15 22 (2.00%) Front Office
16 20 (1.82%) Presentation Skills
17 16 (1.45%) Law
18 15 (1.36%) Military
18 15 (1.36%) Retail
19 13 (1.18%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 129 (11.72%) Developer
2 113 (10.26%) Architect
3 111 (10.08%) Senior
4 83 (7.54%) Lead
5 77 (6.99%) Analyst
6 39 (3.54%) Software Engineer
7 38 (3.45%) Data Engineer
8 37 (3.36%) Product Manager
9 34 (3.09%) Delivery Manager
10 33 (3.00%) Data Scientist
11 28 (2.54%) Product Delivery Manager
11 28 (2.54%) Solutions Architect
12 26 (2.36%) Junior
13 25 (2.27%) Java Developer
14 24 (2.18%) IT Support
15 23 (2.09%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 23 (2.09%) Python Developer
16 22 (2.00%) Security Engineer
16 22 (2.00%) Systems Delivery Manager
16 22 (2.00%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (8.08%) REST
2 62 (5.63%) React
3 54 (4.90%) .NET
4 45 (4.09%) Kafka
5 37 (3.36%) Spring
6 36 (3.27%) RESTful
7 32 (2.91%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.63%) OAuth
9 27 (2.45%) Middleware
10 25 (2.27%) AngularJS
10 25 (2.27%) PyTorch
11 23 (2.09%) CSS
12 22 (2.00%) HTML
12 22 (2.00%) JSON
12 22 (2.00%) SAML
13 21 (1.91%) OAuth2
13 21 (1.91%) Web Services
14 20 (1.82%) OpenID
15 19 (1.73%) TensorFlow
16 18 (1.63%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 99 (8.99%) Management Information System
2 88 (7.99%) Algorithms
2 88 (7.99%) Product Ownership
3 83 (7.54%) Onboarding
4 73 (6.63%) Cloud Native
5 65 (5.90%) Data Structures
6 54 (4.90%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.72%) AI Agents
8 27 (2.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 27 (2.45%) Virtual Team
9 25 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
10 23 (2.09%) Derivative
11 20 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.54%) Fixed Income
13 16 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
14 15 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
14 15 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
14 15 (1.36%) Operational Technology
14 15 (1.36%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.44%) Windows
2 105 (9.54%) Linux
3 32 (2.91%) Unix
4 24 (2.18%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.91%) Android
6 18 (1.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (1.45%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.09%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.82%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.82%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.45%) VMS
11 3 (0.27%) Debian
11 3 (0.27%) Rocky
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.091%) CentOS
13 1 (0.091%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 321 (29.16%) Problem-Solving
2 271 (24.61%) Agile
3 240 (21.80%) AI
4 202 (18.35%) CI/CD
5 190 (17.26%) Continuous Improvement
6 188 (17.08%) Software Engineering
7 164 (14.90%) DevOps
8 154 (13.99%) Analytics
9 127 (11.53%) Stakeholder Management
10 126 (11.44%) Cybersecurity
11 119 (10.81%) Machine Learning
11 119 (10.81%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 112 (10.17%) ITIL
13 111 (10.08%) Mathematics
14 102 (9.26%) Data Science
15 97 (8.81%) Decision-Making
16 94 (8.54%) Microservices
16 94 (8.54%) Roadmaps
17 85 (7.72%) Containerisation
17 85 (7.72%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 296 (26.88%) Python
2 214 (19.44%) SQL
3 138 (12.53%) Java
4 69 (6.27%) JavaScript
5 62 (5.63%) PowerShell
6 61 (5.54%) C#
7 38 (3.45%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.63%) Bash
9 22 (2.00%) C++
10 18 (1.63%) R
11 13 (1.18%) Bicep
12 11 (1.00%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.91%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.82%) C
15 8 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 8 (0.73%) Go
16 6 (0.54%) Perl
17 5 (0.45%) Apex Code
17 5 (0.45%) Scala
18 4 (0.36%) Ada
Qualifications
1 842 (76.48%) Degree
2 480 (43.60%) Computer Science Degree
3 209 (18.98%) Security Cleared
4 134 (12.17%) Master's Degree
5 127 (11.53%) SC Cleared
6 50 (4.54%) CISSP
7 44 (4.00%) Azure Certification
8 40 (3.63%) PhD
9 39 (3.54%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (3.27%) DBS Check
11 31 (2.82%) CISM
12 29 (2.63%) DV Cleared
12 29 (2.63%) PMI Certification
13 28 (2.54%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.54%) PMP
14 24 (2.18%) TOGAF Certification
15 23 (2.09%) Cisco Certification
16 20 (1.82%) CISA
17 19 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
18 16 (1.45%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.18%) Data Quality
2 66 (5.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (5.27%) NIST
4 55 (5.00%) QA
5 32 (2.91%) GDPR
6 18 (1.63%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.36%) GRC
8 13 (1.18%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 13 (1.18%) SLA
9 12 (1.09%) NCSC
10 10 (0.91%) HIPAA
10 10 (0.91%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 10 (0.91%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 6 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.45%) COBIT
13 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
13 5 (0.45%) ISO 20022
13 5 (0.45%) ITGC
System Software
1 88 (7.99%) Docker
2 79 (7.18%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.82%) Firmware
4 9 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.64%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.36%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) ACF2
8 3 (0.27%) RACF
8 3 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.091%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.091%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.091%) HDFS
10 1 (0.091%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 108 (9.81%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.09%) Terraform
3 36 (3.27%) Ansible
4 27 (2.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.36%) Prometheus
6 22 (2.00%) Grafana
7 14 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.64%) SCCM
9 4 (0.36%) Argo
9 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Foglight
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.18%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 2 (0.18%) Puppet
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize
Vendors
1 200 (18.17%) Microsoft
2 64 (5.81%) Oracle
3 49 (4.45%) Databricks
4 42 (3.81%) Google
5 41 (3.72%) IBM
6 37 (3.36%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.82%) SAP
8 29 (2.63%) VMware
9 21 (1.91%) Cisco
9 21 (1.91%) CyberArk
10 20 (1.82%) Splunk
11 18 (1.63%) BeyondTrust
12 13 (1.18%) Informatica
12 13 (1.18%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.09%) Palo Alto
14 11 (1.00%) Okta
15 10 (0.91%) Citrix
15 10 (0.91%) Foundry
15 10 (0.91%) Solace
16 9 (0.82%) Red Hat