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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 70 59
Rank change year-on-year -76 -11 +26
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,052 1,178 1,308
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.58% 3.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 3.95% 3.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 587 651 801
10th Percentile £177 £184 £330
25th Percentile £201 £354 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £476 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.21% -13.45% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £684
90th Percentile £760 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -10.59% -19.05% +1.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 54 47
10th Percentile £23.40 £26.85 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.50 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £52.00 £34.25 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.82% -31.50% -19.35%
75th Percentile £82.37 £67.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £87.43 £82.10 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £33.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +101.49% -37.67% -10.42%

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 46,183 29,816 32,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 90.52% 85.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,080 18,531 20,147
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
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 3,092 1,799 1,460
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.25 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.42 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.68 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +84.31% -47.37% +5.81%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -66 952 £475 -3.06% 4,477
UK excluding London -65 538 £380 -10.59% 1,790
London -71 437 £535 -2.73% 3,005
Work from Home -77 249 £505 +5.21% 1,369
South East -16 205 £431 +7.81% 508
North of England -60 137 £475 +5.44% 294
Midlands -59 85 £225 -49.66% 206
Yorkshire -29 67 £450 +14.50% 63
North West -46 59 £523 +11.22% 178
West Midlands -60 56 £225 -50.00% 118
East of England -35 48 £400 -20.79% 272
East Midlands -15 28 £230 -48.55% 88
Scotland -61 28 £380 -15.56% 188
South West -74 27 £260 +40.54% 198
North East -35 12 £195 -57.84% 54
Northern Ireland +6 6 £175 - 92
Wales -19 4 £530 +14.59% 42

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 39 (3.71%) Confluence
2 33 (3.14%) SharePoint
3 24 (2.28%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.81%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.62%) Apache
6 10 (0.95%) IIS
7 9 (0.86%) Camunda
8 8 (0.76%) 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%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) CICS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) nginx
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 40 (3.80%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.24%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.95%) 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%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.29%) Primavera
4 3 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.29%) Workfront
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.095%) Finacle
6 1 (0.095%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.095%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.095%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 298 (28.33%) Azure
2 194 (18.44%) AWS
3 114 (10.84%) GCP
4 68 (6.46%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.89%) Microsoft 365
6 61 (5.80%) Entra ID
7 56 (5.32%) GitHub
8 50 (4.75%) Azure DevOps
9 48 (4.56%) SaaS
10 36 (3.42%) Serverless
11 30 (2.85%) Snowflake
12 23 (2.19%) PowerApps
13 21 (2.00%) Microsoft Copilot
13 21 (2.00%) OpenShift
14 20 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
14 20 (1.90%) GitHub Actions
15 17 (1.62%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
16 16 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
17 15 (1.43%) Copilot Studio
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.18%) Firewall
2 43 (4.09%) DNS
3 35 (3.33%) Network Security
4 33 (3.14%) VPN
5 26 (2.47%) TCP/IP
6 21 (2.00%) DHCP
7 18 (1.71%) SSH
8 14 (1.33%) WAN
9 13 (1.24%) Wireshark
10 12 (1.14%) LAN
11 11 (1.05%) 5G
11 11 (1.05%) HTTP
11 11 (1.05%) Wireless
12 10 (0.95%) 3GPP
13 9 (0.86%) BGP
13 9 (0.86%) MPLS
13 9 (0.86%) VLAN
14 8 (0.76%) HTTPS
14 8 (0.76%) Intrusion Detection
15 7 (0.67%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.23%) PostgreSQL
2 54 (5.13%) Relational Database
3 53 (5.04%) SQL Server
4 52 (4.94%) Power BI
5 42 (3.99%) Metadata
6 29 (2.76%) MongoDB
7 26 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
8 25 (2.38%) NoSQL
9 23 (2.19%) MySQL
10 22 (2.09%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (1.71%) Big Data
12 15 (1.43%) Data Mining
13 14 (1.33%) Redis
14 13 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
15 12 (1.14%) Tableau
16 10 (0.95%) Amazon RDS
16 10 (0.95%) Data Lake
16 10 (0.95%) Oracle Database
17 6 (0.57%) Flink
17 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 97 (9.22%) Git
2 51 (4.85%) JIRA
3 48 (4.56%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.18%) GitLab
5 20 (1.90%) JUnit
5 20 (1.90%) Maven
6 19 (1.81%) Gradle
6 19 (1.81%) Selenium
7 17 (1.62%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.24%) Mockito
8 13 (1.24%) Sonatype Nexus
9 11 (1.05%) REST Assured
10 10 (0.95%) Bitbucket
10 10 (0.95%) Cucumber
10 10 (0.95%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.76%) Bitbucket Server
11 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.57%) Postman
12 6 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 451 (42.87%) Social Skills
2 238 (22.62%) Analytical Skills
3 237 (22.53%) Finance
4 95 (9.03%) Banking
5 66 (6.27%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.94%) Documentation Skills
7 44 (4.18%) Aerospace
7 44 (4.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 38 (3.61%) Manufacturing
9 36 (3.42%) Telecoms
10 34 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
11 30 (2.85%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (2.38%) Marketing
13 23 (2.19%) Front Office
14 20 (1.90%) Legal
15 18 (1.71%) 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 (14.92%) Developer
2 112 (10.65%) Senior
3 91 (8.65%) Architect
4 78 (7.41%) Lead
5 73 (6.94%) Analyst
6 38 (3.61%) Data Engineer
7 33 (3.14%) Java Developer
8 31 (2.95%) Software Engineer
9 27 (2.57%) IT Support
10 26 (2.47%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 25 (2.38%) Senior Developer
12 24 (2.28%) Full-Stack Developer
12 24 (2.28%) Security Engineer
13 23 (2.19%) Solutions Architect
14 21 (2.00%) C# Developer
14 21 (2.00%) Data Scientist
14 21 (2.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 21 (2.00%) Python Developer
15 20 (1.90%) Junior
16 19 (1.81%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 105 (9.98%) REST
2 62 (5.89%) React
2 62 (5.89%) Terraform
3 59 (5.61%) HTML
4 57 (5.42%) .NET
5 56 (5.32%) CSS
6 54 (5.13%) Kafka
7 47 (4.47%) RESTful
8 37 (3.52%) Spring Boot
9 36 (3.42%) Spring
10 33 (3.14%) OAuth
11 30 (2.85%) SOAP
12 29 (2.76%) Web Services
13 28 (2.66%) OAuth2
14 26 (2.47%) OpenID
15 25 (2.38%) JSON
16 24 (2.28%) Middleware
17 23 (2.19%) SAML
18 22 (2.09%) .NET Core
18 22 (2.09%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 118 (11.22%) Management Information System
2 77 (7.32%) Cloud Native
3 71 (6.75%) Algorithms
4 67 (6.37%) Onboarding
5 60 (5.70%) Product Ownership
6 52 (4.94%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (4.85%) Data Structures
8 34 (3.23%) AI Agents
9 28 (2.66%) Virtual Team
10 26 (2.47%) Enterprise Software
11 23 (2.19%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 23 (2.19%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.90%) Self-Motivation
13 19 (1.81%) Data Centre
14 18 (1.71%) Derivative
15 15 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
16 13 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.24%) Fixed Income
16 13 (1.24%) Operational Technology
16 13 (1.24%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.98%) Windows
2 116 (11.03%) Linux
3 33 (3.14%) Unix
4 32 (3.04%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.90%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.33%) Android
8 10 (0.95%) Ubuntu
9 9 (0.86%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.67%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) zOS
12 3 (0.29%) Debian
12 3 (0.29%) Rocky
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Solaris
13 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.095%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.095%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 332 (31.56%) Problem-Solving
2 267 (25.38%) Agile
3 224 (21.29%) AI
4 220 (20.91%) CI/CD
5 193 (18.35%) Software Engineering
6 190 (18.06%) DevOps
7 181 (17.21%) Continuous Improvement
8 173 (16.44%) Stakeholder Management
9 150 (14.26%) Analytics
10 119 (11.31%) ITIL
11 112 (10.65%) Cybersecurity
12 111 (10.55%) Roadmaps
13 103 (9.79%) Scrum
14 102 (9.70%) Mathematics
15 99 (9.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 99 (9.41%) Test Automation
16 96 (9.13%) Validation
17 95 (9.03%) Machine Learning
18 88 (8.37%) Mentoring
19 85 (8.08%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 283 (26.90%) Python
2 209 (19.87%) SQL
3 144 (13.69%) Java
4 97 (9.22%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.51%) PowerShell
6 68 (6.46%) C#
7 46 (4.37%) Bash
8 40 (3.80%) TypeScript
9 29 (2.76%) C++
10 17 (1.62%) Bicep
11 15 (1.43%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.05%) C
13 10 (0.95%) Scala
14 9 (0.86%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.86%) R
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
1 814 (77.38%) Degree
2 494 (46.96%) Computer Science Degree
3 187 (17.78%) Security Cleared
4 139 (13.21%) SC Cleared
5 111 (10.55%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.94%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.56%) CISSP
8 45 (4.28%) Microsoft Certification
9 40 (3.80%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.42%) PhD
11 32 (3.04%) CISM
12 31 (2.95%) DV Cleared
13 29 (2.76%) AWS Certification
14 24 (2.28%) Cisco Certification
14 24 (2.28%) TOGAF Certification
15 23 (2.19%) PMI Certification
15 23 (2.19%) PMP
16 20 (1.90%) BPSS Clearance
17 19 (1.81%) CISA
18 15 (1.43%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.56%) Data Quality
2 62 (5.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 62 (5.89%) QA
3 50 (4.75%) NIST
4 24 (2.28%) GDPR
5 16 (1.52%) GRC
6 15 (1.43%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.43%) SLA
7 12 (1.14%) HIPAA
8 10 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 10 (0.95%) PCI DSS
8 10 (0.95%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.86%) NCSC
10 6 (0.57%) NIST 800
11 5 (0.48%) ISO 9001
11 5 (0.48%) PMO
12 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
12 4 (0.38%) ITGC
13 3 (0.29%) ISO 31000
13 3 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 90 (8.56%) Docker
2 76 (7.22%) Active Directory
3 27 (2.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.05%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.86%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.67%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.48%) RACF
7 5 (0.48%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.48%) vSphere
8 3 (0.29%) ACF2
8 3 (0.29%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.29%) ISA Server
8 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) Time Sharing Option
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.095%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 102 (9.70%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.80%) Ansible
3 28 (2.66%) 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 5 (0.48%) Argo
8 5 (0.48%) CASB
9 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.38%) Puppet
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.29%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.29%) Control-M
10 3 (0.29%) Istio
10 3 (0.29%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.29%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.19%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.19%) SCOM
Vendors
1 211 (20.06%) Microsoft
2 77 (7.32%) Oracle
3 47 (4.47%) Google
4 38 (3.61%) VMware
5 36 (3.42%) ServiceNow
6 34 (3.23%) Databricks
7 32 (3.04%) IBM
7 32 (3.04%) SAP
8 29 (2.76%) Cisco
9 25 (2.38%) Splunk
10 22 (2.09%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.90%) CyberArk
12 18 (1.71%) BeyondTrust
13 15 (1.43%) Adobe
14 14 (1.33%) OpenAI
14 14 (1.33%) Red Hat
15 11 (1.05%) Dynatrace
15 11 (1.05%) Foundry
16 9 (0.86%) Citrix
16 9 (0.86%) F5