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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 148 69 60
Rank change year-on-year -79 -9 +22
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,054 1,187 1,309
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.58% 3.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.27% 3.95% 4.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 610 679 795
10th Percentile £178 £182 £347
25th Percentile £200 £332 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £471 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.84% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £633 £685
90th Percentile £738 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £424 £517
% change year-on-year -11.50% -18.04% +3.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 54 42
10th Percentile £20.70 £26.40 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.25 £29.00 £29.88
Median hourly rate £45.20 £34.25 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.97% -33.50% -14.88%
75th Percentile £77.88 £67.00 £68.56
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +56.72% -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 46,356 30,019 32,670
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.58% 85.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,940 18,640 19,751
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 £632 £625 £638
90th Percentile £736 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,287 1,869 1,348
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.17 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £38.72 £25.15 £42.27
Median % change year-on-year +53.96% -40.49% -0.55%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.02 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +74.86% -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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -67 956 £470 -1.05% 5,558
UK excluding London -63 551 £375 -11.50% 3,734
London -64 431 £539 +2.62% 3,030
Work from Home -85 247 £520 +9.47% 3,285
South East -18 204 £444 +21.58% 746
North of England -53 146 £438 +5.11% 601
Midlands -53 87 £217 -51.78% 409
Yorkshire -18 78 £400 -1.54% 195
West Midlands -43 58 £209 -60.29% 226
North West -63 57 £524 +29.94% 275
East of England -37 45 £425 -2.86% 450
South West -60 32 £195 -5.57% 336
Scotland -57 30 £400 -11.11% 712
East Midlands -27 28 £230 -48.55% 183
North East -38 12 £195 -57.84% 137
Northern Ireland +6 5 £175 - 211
Wales -18 4 £530 +14.59% 301

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 45 (4.27%) Confluence
2 32 (3.04%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.18%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.71%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.61%) Apache
6 13 (1.23%) IIS
7 10 (0.95%) Camunda
8 9 (0.85%) CMS
9 8 (0.76%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
11 5 (0.47%) SAS
12 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.28%) CICS
13 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.28%) nginx
14 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
14 2 (0.19%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 40 (3.80%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.33%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.38%) 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%) Simulink
8 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%) Actimize
4 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
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%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.095%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.095%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.095%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 298 (28.27%) Azure
2 189 (17.93%) AWS
3 117 (11.10%) GCP
4 64 (6.07%) Entra ID
4 64 (6.07%) Power Platform
5 57 (5.41%) Microsoft 365
6 55 (5.22%) Azure DevOps
7 54 (5.12%) GitHub
8 43 (4.08%) SaaS
9 40 (3.80%) Serverless
10 29 (2.75%) Snowflake
11 23 (2.18%) AWS Lambda
12 21 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
12 21 (1.99%) OpenShift
12 21 (1.99%) PowerApps
13 19 (1.80%) Amazon EKS
14 17 (1.61%) Amazon S3
14 17 (1.61%) Microsoft Copilot
14 17 (1.61%) Power Automate
15 16 (1.52%) Anthropic Claude
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.27%) Firewall
2 41 (3.89%) DNS
3 37 (3.51%) Network Security
4 31 (2.94%) VPN
5 25 (2.37%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.90%) DHCP
7 16 (1.52%) SSH
8 13 (1.23%) Wireshark
9 12 (1.14%) WAN
10 11 (1.04%) 5G
10 11 (1.04%) HTTP
10 11 (1.04%) Wireless
11 10 (0.95%) 3GPP
11 10 (0.95%) LAN
12 9 (0.85%) VLAN
13 8 (0.76%) Intrusion Detection
14 7 (0.66%) BGP
14 7 (0.66%) MPLS
14 7 (0.66%) Reverse Proxy
15 6 (0.57%) Cisco Nexus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.12%) SQL Server
2 53 (5.03%) PostgreSQL
3 51 (4.84%) Power BI
4 47 (4.46%) Relational Database
5 39 (3.70%) Metadata
6 28 (2.66%) MongoDB
7 26 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
7 26 (2.47%) MySQL
7 26 (2.47%) NoSQL
8 24 (2.28%) Elasticsearch
9 19 (1.80%) Big Data
10 14 (1.33%) Redis
11 13 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
11 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (1.23%) Data Mining
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
1 101 (9.58%) Git
2 52 (4.93%) JIRA
3 51 (4.84%) Jenkins
4 45 (4.27%) GitLab
5 23 (2.18%) JUnit
6 21 (1.99%) Gradle
6 21 (1.99%) Maven
7 19 (1.80%) Selenium
8 18 (1.71%) SonarQube
9 16 (1.52%) Mockito
10 14 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (1.14%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.14%) REST Assured
12 11 (1.04%) Bitbucket
13 10 (0.95%) SpecFlow
14 9 (0.85%) Bitbucket Server
15 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
15 8 (0.76%) Visual Studio
16 7 (0.66%) Postman
17 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
General
1 448 (42.50%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.39%) Finance
3 234 (22.20%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (9.30%) Banking
5 69 (6.55%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.84%) Documentation Skills
7 45 (4.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 44 (4.17%) Aerospace
9 40 (3.80%) Manufacturing
10 34 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
11 32 (3.04%) Telecoms
12 30 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (2.85%) Marketing
13 22 (2.09%) Front Office
14 20 (1.90%) Military
15 18 (1.71%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.61%) Retail
17 16 (1.52%) Legal
18 13 (1.23%) Investment Banking
18 13 (1.23%) Law
Job Titles
1 163 (15.46%) Developer
2 107 (10.15%) Senior
3 87 (8.25%) Architect
4 71 (6.74%) Lead
5 70 (6.64%) Analyst
6 35 (3.32%) Data Engineer
7 34 (3.23%) Java Developer
8 26 (2.47%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 26 (2.47%) Software Engineer
9 25 (2.37%) IT Support
9 25 (2.37%) Senior Developer
10 24 (2.28%) Security Engineer
11 23 (2.18%) Data Scientist
11 23 (2.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 22 (2.09%) Full-Stack Developer
12 22 (2.09%) Python Developer
13 21 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
14 20 (1.90%) C# Developer
15 19 (1.80%) Consultant
16 18 (1.71%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.92%) REST
2 67 (6.36%) React
2 67 (6.36%) Terraform
3 63 (5.98%) HTML
4 61 (5.79%) CSS
5 55 (5.22%) Kafka
6 53 (5.03%) .NET
7 51 (4.84%) RESTful
8 37 (3.51%) OAuth
8 37 (3.51%) Spring Boot
9 35 (3.32%) Spring
10 31 (2.94%) OAuth2
11 30 (2.85%) SOAP
11 30 (2.85%) Web Services
12 29 (2.75%) Middleware
12 29 (2.75%) OpenID
13 27 (2.56%) SAML
14 24 (2.28%) .NET Core
15 23 (2.18%) AngularJS
15 23 (2.18%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 118 (11.20%) Management Information System
2 81 (7.69%) Cloud Native
3 66 (6.26%) Algorithms
4 62 (5.88%) Onboarding
5 53 (5.03%) Data Structures
6 51 (4.84%) Distributed Systems
6 51 (4.84%) Product Ownership
7 34 (3.23%) AI Agents
8 26 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (2.37%) Virtual Team
10 22 (2.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 22 (2.09%) Hybrid Cloud
11 21 (1.99%) Data Centre
12 20 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.61%) Derivative
14 15 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
14 15 (1.42%) Replication
15 13 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (1.23%) Fixed Income
15 13 (1.23%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.95%) Windows
2 120 (11.39%) Linux
3 39 (3.70%) Unix
4 34 (3.23%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.80%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.14%) Android
8 10 (0.95%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.76%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.47%) zOS
11 4 (0.38%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Solaris
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
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%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.095%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 326 (30.93%) Problem-Solving
2 273 (25.90%) Agile
3 227 (21.54%) CI/CD
4 216 (20.49%) AI
5 194 (18.41%) DevOps
6 192 (18.22%) Software Engineering
7 184 (17.46%) Stakeholder Management
8 178 (16.89%) Continuous Improvement
9 154 (14.61%) Analytics
10 121 (11.48%) ITIL
11 112 (10.63%) Mathematics
12 110 (10.44%) Roadmaps
13 109 (10.34%) Cybersecurity
13 109 (10.34%) Scrum
14 105 (9.96%) Test Automation
15 97 (9.20%) Machine Learning
16 96 (9.11%) Validation
17 94 (8.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 89 (8.44%) Change Management
19 83 (7.87%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 274 (26.00%) Python
2 203 (19.26%) SQL
3 137 (13.00%) Java
4 97 (9.20%) JavaScript
5 81 (7.69%) PowerShell
6 64 (6.07%) C#
7 48 (4.55%) Bash
8 38 (3.61%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.47%) C++
10 18 (1.71%) Bicep
11 15 (1.42%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.04%) R
12 11 (1.04%) Scala
13 10 (0.95%) Go
14 9 (0.85%) C
14 9 (0.85%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.85%) Perl
15 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
16 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 803 (76.19%) Degree
2 488 (46.30%) Computer Science Degree
3 187 (17.74%) Security Cleared
4 143 (13.57%) SC Cleared
5 110 (10.44%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.93%) DBS Check
7 51 (4.84%) Azure Certification
7 51 (4.84%) CISSP
8 42 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
9 37 (3.51%) CISM
10 36 (3.42%) PhD
11 30 (2.85%) AWS Certification
12 29 (2.75%) Cisco Certification
12 29 (2.75%) DV Cleared
13 25 (2.37%) TOGAF Certification
14 24 (2.28%) PMI Certification
14 24 (2.28%) PMP
15 22 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
16 18 (1.71%) CISA
17 15 (1.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (6.36%) Data Quality
2 64 (6.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (6.07%) QA
3 50 (4.74%) NIST
4 27 (2.56%) GDPR
5 16 (1.52%) GRC
6 15 (1.42%) HIPAA
6 15 (1.42%) SLA
7 14 (1.33%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.23%) PCI DSS
9 9 (0.85%) NCSC
10 8 (0.76%) ISO 9001
10 8 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 8 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.57%) ISO 31000
11 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
13 4 (0.38%) EU AI Act
13 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
13 4 (0.38%) NIST 800
System Software
1 90 (8.54%) Docker
2 71 (6.74%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.76%) Firmware
5 8 (0.76%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.66%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.57%) RACF
8 5 (0.47%) ISA Server
8 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.47%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) NFS
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.095%) KVM
11 1 (0.095%) Squid
Systems Management
1 107 (10.15%) Kubernetes
2 35 (3.32%) Ansible
3 27 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.28%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.99%) Grafana
6 14 (1.33%) SCCM
7 9 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.66%) CASB
9 5 (0.47%) Argo
9 5 (0.47%) Control-M
9 5 (0.47%) 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
Vendors
1 205 (19.45%) Microsoft
2 75 (7.12%) Oracle
3 59 (5.60%) Google
4 41 (3.89%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.42%) Databricks
6 35 (3.32%) IBM
7 34 (3.23%) VMware
8 31 (2.94%) SAP
9 29 (2.75%) Cisco
10 28 (2.66%) Splunk
11 24 (2.28%) Salesforce
12 20 (1.90%) CyberArk
13 18 (1.71%) Adobe
13 18 (1.71%) BeyondTrust
13 18 (1.71%) OpenAI
14 14 (1.33%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.04%) Dynatrace
16 10 (0.95%) CrowdStrike
16 10 (0.95%) F5
16 10 (0.95%) Veracode