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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 69 64
Rank change year-on-year -78 -5 +18
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,092 1,199 1,269
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.97% 3.61% 3.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.33% 3.99% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 646 707 771
10th Percentile £178 £178 £340
25th Percentile £200 £314 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £457 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.89% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £633 £688
90th Percentile £726 £750 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £356 £413 £517
% change year-on-year -13.64% -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% -12.50%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £87.16 £86.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +24.51% -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 46,870 30,047 32,387
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.76% 90.49% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,156 18,700 19,515
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% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,444 1,888 1,247
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.94 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.18 £65.25 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -8.14%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -63 989 £450 -5.26% 501
UK excluding London -56 567 £356 -13.64% 393
London -65 448 £535 +0.47% 185
Work from Home -80 259 £520 +10.04% 356
South East -20 208 £460 +42.64% 125
North of England -65 150 £401 -3.66% 80
Midlands -51 93 £217 -53.83% 54
Yorkshire -31 79 £344 -23.61% 24
West Midlands -50 60 £205 -60.95% 33
North West -65 58 £521 +44.64% 31
East of England -41 45 £425 - 58
South West -56 33 £195 -5.57% 64
East Midlands -19 32 £230 -48.55% 21
Scotland -44 32 £420 -6.67% 18
North East -27 14 £195 -57.84% 26
Northern Ireland +4 4 - - 2
Wales -18 4 £530 +14.59% 12

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 (4.49%) Confluence
2 31 (2.84%) SharePoint
3 22 (2.01%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.65%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.56%) Apache
6 13 (1.19%) IIS
7 11 (1.01%) CMS
8 10 (0.92%) Camunda
9 8 (0.73%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 7 (0.64%) SAS
11 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
12 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
12 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 4 (0.37%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.27%) CICS
13 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.27%) nginx
14 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
14 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
14 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 35 (3.21%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.20%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.37%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.46%) Navisworks
5 5 (0.46%) Revit
6 4 (0.37%) Trello
6 4 (0.37%) Windchill
7 3 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.18%) Simulink
8 2 (0.18%) Sketch
9 1 (0.092%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (0.82%) 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 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.27%) Primavera
3 3 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.18%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.092%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.092%) Finacle
5 1 (0.092%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.092%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.092%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.092%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.092%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 310 (28.39%) Azure
2 191 (17.49%) AWS
3 120 (10.99%) GCP
4 64 (5.86%) Entra ID
5 63 (5.77%) Power Platform
6 61 (5.59%) Azure DevOps
7 60 (5.49%) GitHub
8 53 (4.85%) Microsoft 365
9 44 (4.03%) SaaS
10 39 (3.57%) Serverless
11 28 (2.56%) Snowflake
12 27 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
13 23 (2.11%) OpenShift
14 22 (2.01%) AWS Lambda
15 21 (1.92%) PowerApps
16 19 (1.74%) Amazon EKS
17 17 (1.56%) Microsoft Copilot
17 17 (1.56%) Power Automate
18 16 (1.47%) Anthropic Claude
18 16 (1.47%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.30%) Firewall
2 42 (3.85%) DNS
3 37 (3.39%) Network Security
4 33 (3.02%) VPN
5 27 (2.47%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.92%) DHCP
7 16 (1.47%) SSH
8 13 (1.19%) WAN
9 12 (1.10%) Wireless
10 11 (1.01%) 5G
10 11 (1.01%) HTTP
10 11 (1.01%) VLAN
10 11 (1.01%) Wireshark
11 10 (0.92%) LAN
12 8 (0.73%) 3GPP
12 8 (0.73%) BGP
12 8 (0.73%) MPLS
13 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
13 7 (0.64%) OSPF
13 7 (0.64%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.04%) PostgreSQL
2 50 (4.58%) Power BI
3 49 (4.49%) SQL Server
4 47 (4.30%) Relational Database
5 37 (3.39%) Metadata
6 31 (2.84%) MongoDB
7 28 (2.56%) MySQL
8 27 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
8 27 (2.47%) NoSQL
9 24 (2.20%) Elasticsearch
10 19 (1.74%) Big Data
11 13 (1.19%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (1.19%) Data Mining
11 13 (1.19%) Redis
11 13 (1.19%) Tableau
12 12 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
13 11 (1.01%) Data Lake
13 11 (1.01%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.55%) Pinecone
14 6 (0.55%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 102 (9.34%) Git
2 53 (4.85%) JIRA
3 52 (4.76%) Jenkins
4 43 (3.94%) GitLab
5 29 (2.66%) Gradle
6 27 (2.47%) JUnit
7 23 (2.11%) Maven
8 20 (1.83%) SonarQube
9 18 (1.65%) Mockito
9 18 (1.65%) Selenium
10 14 (1.28%) Cucumber
10 14 (1.28%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (1.10%) REST Assured
12 11 (1.01%) Bitbucket
12 11 (1.01%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.82%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.82%) Postman
14 8 (0.73%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.73%) Visual Studio
15 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
General
1 459 (42.03%) Social Skills
2 246 (22.53%) Finance
3 236 (21.61%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (8.97%) Banking
5 66 (6.04%) Public Sector
6 51 (4.67%) Aerospace
7 49 (4.49%) Documentation Skills
8 44 (4.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 41 (3.75%) Manufacturing
10 35 (3.21%) Organisational Skills
11 32 (2.93%) Marketing
12 31 (2.84%) Influencing Skills
13 29 (2.66%) Telecoms
14 22 (2.01%) Front Office
15 20 (1.83%) Military
16 18 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (1.65%) Retail
17 16 (1.47%) Electronics
17 16 (1.47%) Legal
18 15 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 168 (15.38%) Developer
2 112 (10.26%) Senior
3 89 (8.15%) Architect
4 76 (6.96%) Lead
5 71 (6.50%) Analyst
6 35 (3.21%) Java Developer
7 34 (3.11%) Data Engineer
8 28 (2.56%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.47%) Senior Developer
10 26 (2.38%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 24 (2.20%) IT Support
11 24 (2.20%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 23 (2.11%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.01%) Data Scientist
13 22 (2.01%) Full-Stack Developer
14 21 (1.92%) Solutions Architect
15 20 (1.83%) C# Developer
15 20 (1.83%) Consultant
15 20 (1.83%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (9.25%) REST
2 69 (6.32%) Terraform
3 66 (6.04%) HTML
4 65 (5.95%) React
5 64 (5.86%) CSS
6 57 (5.22%) Kafka
7 55 (5.04%) RESTful
8 51 (4.67%) .NET
9 39 (3.57%) OAuth
9 39 (3.57%) Spring
9 39 (3.57%) Spring Boot
10 33 (3.02%) SOAP
10 33 (3.02%) Web Services
11 31 (2.84%) OAuth2
12 29 (2.66%) Middleware
12 29 (2.66%) OpenID
12 29 (2.66%) SAML
13 24 (2.20%) JSON
13 24 (2.20%) XML
14 23 (2.11%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 121 (11.08%) Management Information System
2 82 (7.51%) Cloud Native
3 65 (5.95%) Algorithms
4 62 (5.68%) Onboarding
5 61 (5.59%) Product Ownership
6 54 (4.95%) Distributed Systems
7 52 (4.76%) Data Structures
8 35 (3.21%) AI Agents
9 31 (2.84%) Enterprise Software
10 28 (2.56%) Virtual Team
11 22 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.92%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.83%) Data Centre
14 19 (1.74%) Mobile App
15 18 (1.65%) Self-Motivation
16 17 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
17 16 (1.47%) Derivative
18 15 (1.37%) Operational Technology
18 15 (1.37%) Replication
19 13 (1.19%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 120 (10.99%) Linux
2 119 (10.90%) Windows
3 39 (3.57%) Unix
4 33 (3.02%) Windows Server
5 19 (1.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (1.47%) Android
7 15 (1.37%) Windows 10
8 14 (1.28%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.73%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.55%) macOS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
11 4 (0.37%) zOS
12 3 (0.27%) Solaris
12 3 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) Debian
13 2 (0.18%) Rocky
14 1 (0.092%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.092%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.092%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.092%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 335 (30.68%) Problem-Solving
2 278 (25.46%) Agile
3 243 (22.25%) CI/CD
4 209 (19.14%) AI
5 203 (18.59%) Software Engineering
6 202 (18.50%) DevOps
7 194 (17.77%) Stakeholder Management
8 188 (17.22%) Continuous Improvement
9 155 (14.19%) Analytics
10 127 (11.63%) Mathematics
11 119 (10.90%) Roadmaps
12 118 (10.81%) ITIL
13 113 (10.35%) Cybersecurity
13 113 (10.35%) Scrum
14 112 (10.26%) Test Automation
15 98 (8.97%) Validation
16 97 (8.88%) Machine Learning
17 95 (8.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 87 (7.97%) Change Management
19 85 (7.78%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 271 (24.82%) Python
2 202 (18.50%) SQL
3 142 (13.00%) Java
4 99 (9.07%) JavaScript
5 78 (7.14%) PowerShell
6 62 (5.68%) C#
7 49 (4.49%) Bash
8 39 (3.57%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.38%) C++
10 20 (1.83%) Bicep
11 17 (1.56%) Kotlin
12 16 (1.47%) Shell Script
13 14 (1.28%) Scala
14 12 (1.10%) Perl
15 11 (1.01%) R
16 10 (0.92%) Go
17 9 (0.82%) C
18 7 (0.64%) Apex Code
19 6 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 6 (0.55%) Swift
Qualifications
1 822 (75.27%) Degree
2 507 (46.43%) Computer Science Degree
3 200 (18.32%) Security Cleared
4 150 (13.74%) SC Cleared
5 111 (10.16%) Master's Degree
6 65 (5.95%) DBS Check
7 58 (5.31%) Azure Certification
8 55 (5.04%) CISSP
9 40 (3.66%) CISM
10 39 (3.57%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (3.30%) DV Cleared
12 35 (3.21%) PhD
13 33 (3.02%) AWS Certification
14 28 (2.56%) Cisco Certification
15 27 (2.47%) TOGAF Certification
16 22 (2.01%) PMI Certification
16 22 (2.01%) PMP
17 21 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
18 17 (1.56%) CISA
19 15 (1.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (6.96%) QA
2 72 (6.59%) Data Quality
3 59 (5.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 47 (4.30%) NIST
5 27 (2.47%) GDPR
6 16 (1.47%) GRC
7 15 (1.37%) HIPAA
8 13 (1.19%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.19%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.19%) SLA
9 9 (0.82%) NCSC
10 8 (0.73%) ISO 9001
11 7 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.55%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 6 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 5 (0.46%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
14 4 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.37%) PMO
System Software
1 95 (8.70%) Docker
2 61 (5.59%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.73%) Firmware
5 8 (0.73%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.46%) ISA Server
7 5 (0.46%) RACF
7 5 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.46%) vSphere
8 4 (0.37%) NFS
9 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.27%) Time Sharing Option
9 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) ACF2
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.092%) GPFS
11 1 (0.092%) KVM
Systems Management
1 114 (10.44%) Kubernetes
2 35 (3.21%) Ansible
3 27 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.20%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.92%) Grafana
6 14 (1.28%) SCCM
7 11 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.64%) CASB
9 6 (0.55%) Control-M
10 5 (0.46%) Argo
10 5 (0.46%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.27%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.27%) Istio
11 3 (0.27%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.27%) Puppet
11 3 (0.27%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
12 2 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.18%) SCOM
Vendors
1 212 (19.41%) Microsoft
2 71 (6.50%) Oracle
3 64 (5.86%) Google
4 42 (3.85%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.30%) IBM
6 35 (3.21%) Databricks
7 33 (3.02%) VMware
8 30 (2.75%) SAP
9 29 (2.66%) Splunk
10 28 (2.56%) Cisco
11 24 (2.20%) Salesforce
12 19 (1.74%) OpenAI
13 18 (1.65%) Adobe
14 15 (1.37%) CyberArk
14 15 (1.37%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.19%) BeyondTrust
16 11 (1.01%) CrowdStrike
16 11 (1.01%) Dynatrace
17 10 (0.92%) Progress
17 10 (0.92%) Veracode