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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 69 60
Rank change year-on-year -80 -9 +21
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,050 1,162 1,332
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.53% 3.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 3.90% 4.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 594 642 814
10th Percentile £175 £186 £350
25th Percentile £200 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £477 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.37% -13.32% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £685
90th Percentile £750 £761 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £376 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -11.53% -19.05% +1.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 55 46
10th Percentile £23.00 £27.05 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £29.88
Median hourly rate £49.00 £35.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.00% -30.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £79.40 £67.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £87.50 £81.80 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.00 £33.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +100.00% -36.19% -13.93%

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 46,068 29,787 33,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.40% 90.53% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,926 18,499 20,227
10th Percentile £325 £300 £309
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 £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,164 1,816 1,455
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.90
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% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.48 £44.05 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -66 954 £475 -3.36% 4,204
UK excluding London -60 541 £376 -11.53% 1,618
London -72 433 £535 -2.73% 2,884
Work from Home -87 245 £514 +7.64% 1,267
South East -10 204 £438 +12.90% 460
North of England -51 140 £450 +0.33% 256
Midlands -59 86 £225 -50.00% 188
Yorkshire -25 71 £438 +12.61% 57
North West -50 58 £523 +11.22% 153
West Midlands -57 56 £221 -56.45% 113
East of England -34 48 £425 -15.84% 250
South West -61 30 £198 +6.76% 185
East Midlands -23 29 £230 -48.55% 75
Scotland -61 26 £380 -15.56% 173
North East -36 12 £195 -57.84% 47
Northern Ireland +7 5 £175 - 78
Wales -17 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 38 (3.62%) Confluence
2 31 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.29%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.52%) Apache
6 11 (1.05%) IIS
7 9 (0.86%) Camunda
8 7 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.57%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 5 (0.48%) CMS
10 5 (0.48%) SAS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.29%) CICS
12 3 (0.29%) 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%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 42 (4.00%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.29%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.14%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 5 (0.48%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.48%) 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 9 (0.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.29%) Primavera
4 3 (0.29%) 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%) Workfront
6 1 (0.095%) Finacle
6 1 (0.095%) Maximo
6 1 (0.095%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.095%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.095%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.095%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 295 (28.10%) Azure
2 193 (18.38%) AWS
3 114 (10.86%) GCP
4 68 (6.48%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.90%) Entra ID
6 60 (5.71%) Microsoft 365
7 55 (5.24%) GitHub
8 52 (4.95%) Azure DevOps
9 46 (4.38%) SaaS
10 37 (3.52%) Serverless
11 30 (2.86%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.19%) PowerApps
13 21 (2.00%) AWS Lambda
13 21 (2.00%) GitHub Actions
13 21 (2.00%) Microsoft Copilot
14 20 (1.90%) OpenShift
15 17 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
15 17 (1.62%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
17 15 (1.43%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.19%) Firewall
2 41 (3.90%) DNS
3 35 (3.33%) Network Security
4 33 (3.14%) VPN
5 26 (2.48%) TCP/IP
6 21 (2.00%) DHCP
7 16 (1.52%) SSH
8 13 (1.24%) WAN
8 13 (1.24%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.05%) 5G
9 11 (1.05%) HTTP
9 11 (1.05%) LAN
9 11 (1.05%) 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%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.24%) Relational Database
2 53 (5.05%) SQL Server
3 52 (4.95%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (4.95%) Power BI
4 41 (3.90%) Metadata
5 27 (2.57%) MongoDB
6 26 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
6 26 (2.48%) NoSQL
7 23 (2.19%) Elasticsearch
7 23 (2.19%) MySQL
8 18 (1.71%) Big Data
9 15 (1.43%) Data Mining
10 14 (1.33%) Redis
11 13 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
12 12 (1.14%) Tableau
13 11 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.95%) Data Lake
14 10 (0.95%) Oracle Database
15 6 (0.57%) Flink
15 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 98 (9.33%) Git
2 49 (4.67%) Jenkins
2 49 (4.67%) JIRA
3 44 (4.19%) GitLab
4 21 (2.00%) JUnit
5 20 (1.90%) Gradle
5 20 (1.90%) Maven
6 19 (1.81%) Selenium
7 17 (1.62%) SonarQube
8 14 (1.33%) Mockito
9 13 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
10 11 (1.05%) Cucumber
10 11 (1.05%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.95%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.95%) SpecFlow
12 8 (0.76%) Bitbucket Server
12 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
12 8 (0.76%) Visual Studio
13 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.57%) Postman
General
1 455 (43.33%) Social Skills
2 239 (22.76%) Analytical Skills
3 235 (22.38%) Finance
4 95 (9.05%) Banking
5 66 (6.29%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.95%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (4.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 43 (4.10%) Aerospace
9 38 (3.62%) Manufacturing
10 35 (3.33%) Organisational Skills
10 35 (3.33%) Telecoms
11 32 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
12 24 (2.29%) Marketing
13 22 (2.10%) Front Office
14 20 (1.90%) Legal
15 19 (1.81%) Military
16 16 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
17 15 (1.43%) Law
18 14 (1.33%) Retail
19 12 (1.14%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 157 (14.95%) Developer
2 108 (10.29%) Senior
3 88 (8.38%) Architect
4 75 (7.14%) Lead
5 74 (7.05%) Analyst
6 36 (3.43%) Data Engineer
7 33 (3.14%) Java Developer
8 30 (2.86%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.57%) IT Support
10 26 (2.48%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 25 (2.38%) Security Engineer
12 24 (2.29%) Senior Developer
13 23 (2.19%) Full-Stack Developer
14 22 (2.10%) C# Developer
14 22 (2.10%) Data Scientist
15 21 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 21 (2.00%) Solutions Architect
16 20 (1.90%) Python Developer
17 19 (1.81%) Junior
17 19 (1.81%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (9.90%) REST
2 64 (6.10%) React
2 64 (6.10%) Terraform
3 59 (5.62%) HTML
4 56 (5.33%) .NET
4 56 (5.33%) CSS
5 53 (5.05%) Kafka
6 49 (4.67%) RESTful
7 37 (3.52%) Spring Boot
8 36 (3.43%) Spring
9 34 (3.24%) OAuth
10 31 (2.95%) Web Services
11 30 (2.86%) SOAP
12 29 (2.76%) OAuth2
13 27 (2.57%) OpenID
14 26 (2.48%) Middleware
15 25 (2.38%) JSON
16 24 (2.29%) .NET Core
16 24 (2.29%) SAML
17 21 (2.00%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 118 (11.24%) Management Information System
2 78 (7.43%) Cloud Native
3 69 (6.57%) Algorithms
4 67 (6.38%) Onboarding
5 55 (5.24%) Product Ownership
6 51 (4.86%) Distributed Systems
7 50 (4.76%) Data Structures
8 35 (3.33%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.38%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (2.38%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 23 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
11 20 (1.90%) Data Centre
11 20 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
12 17 (1.62%) Derivative
13 15 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
14 13 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
14 13 (1.24%) Equities
14 13 (1.24%) Operational Technology
14 13 (1.24%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 128 (12.19%) Windows
2 111 (10.57%) Linux
3 33 (3.14%) Unix
4 32 (3.05%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.90%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (1.24%) Android
8 9 (0.86%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.86%) Ubuntu
9 7 (0.67%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.48%) zOS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 2 (0.19%) CentOS
12 2 (0.19%) Debian
12 2 (0.19%) MVS
12 2 (0.19%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 330 (31.43%) Problem-Solving
2 263 (25.05%) Agile
3 223 (21.24%) AI
4 218 (20.76%) CI/CD
5 191 (18.19%) Software Engineering
6 189 (18.00%) DevOps
7 179 (17.05%) Continuous Improvement
8 176 (16.76%) Stakeholder Management
9 149 (14.19%) Analytics
10 120 (11.43%) ITIL
11 114 (10.86%) Cybersecurity
12 108 (10.29%) Roadmaps
13 104 (9.90%) Scrum
14 103 (9.81%) Mathematics
15 101 (9.62%) Test Automation
16 98 (9.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 96 (9.14%) Machine Learning
18 95 (9.05%) Validation
19 86 (8.19%) Mentoring
20 85 (8.10%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 277 (26.38%) Python
2 203 (19.33%) SQL
3 138 (13.14%) Java
4 94 (8.95%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.52%) PowerShell
6 69 (6.57%) C#
7 44 (4.19%) Bash
8 40 (3.81%) TypeScript
9 27 (2.57%) C++
10 17 (1.62%) Bicep
11 14 (1.33%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.05%) C
12 11 (1.05%) Scala
13 10 (0.95%) R
14 9 (0.86%) Kotlin
15 8 (0.76%) Go
16 7 (0.67%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.67%) Perl
17 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 6 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 805 (76.67%) Degree
2 487 (46.38%) Computer Science Degree
3 183 (17.43%) Security Cleared
4 138 (13.14%) SC Cleared
5 110 (10.48%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.86%) Azure Certification
6 51 (4.86%) CISSP
7 44 (4.19%) DBS Check
7 44 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
8 38 (3.62%) PhD
9 36 (3.43%) CISM
10 32 (3.05%) AWS Certification
11 29 (2.76%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
13 23 (2.19%) PMI Certification
13 23 (2.19%) PMP
14 22 (2.10%) TOGAF Certification
15 20 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
16 19 (1.81%) CISA
17 15 (1.43%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.57%) Data Quality
2 65 (6.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 61 (5.81%) QA
4 52 (4.95%) NIST
5 25 (2.38%) GDPR
6 16 (1.52%) GRC
7 15 (1.43%) SLA
8 14 (1.33%) Accessibility
9 13 (1.24%) HIPAA
10 10 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 10 (0.95%) PCI DSS
10 10 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (0.76%) NCSC
12 6 (0.57%) ISO 9001
13 5 (0.48%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.48%) PMO
14 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
14 4 (0.38%) ISO 31000
14 4 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27005
14 4 (0.38%) ITGC
System Software
1 87 (8.29%) Docker
2 75 (7.14%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.86%) Firmware
4 9 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.76%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.67%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.57%) RACF
8 5 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.48%) vSphere
9 4 (0.38%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.29%) ACF2
10 3 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.29%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.095%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.095%) KVM
12 1 (0.095%) Squid
Systems Management
1 100 (9.52%) Kubernetes
2 38 (3.62%) Ansible
3 28 (2.67%) Microsoft Intune
4 23 (2.19%) Prometheus
5 19 (1.81%) Grafana
6 14 (1.33%) SCCM
7 10 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.57%) CASB
9 5 (0.48%) Argo
10 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.38%) Puppet
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.29%) Control-M
11 3 (0.29%) Istio
11 3 (0.29%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.19%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.19%) SCOM
Vendors
1 208 (19.81%) Microsoft
2 74 (7.05%) Oracle
3 52 (4.95%) Google
4 37 (3.52%) ServiceNow
5 34 (3.24%) Databricks
5 34 (3.24%) VMware
6 33 (3.14%) IBM
7 31 (2.95%) SAP
8 30 (2.86%) Cisco
9 25 (2.38%) Splunk
10 21 (2.00%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.90%) CyberArk
12 18 (1.71%) BeyondTrust
13 16 (1.52%) OpenAI
14 14 (1.33%) Adobe
15 13 (1.24%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.05%) Dynatrace
16 11 (1.05%) Foundry
17 10 (0.95%) F5
18 9 (0.86%) Zscaler