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

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 69 60
Rank change year-on-year -76 -9 +22
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,064 1,192 1,271
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.95% 3.62% 3.37%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.30% 4.00% 3.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 622 699 774
10th Percentile £178 £178 £342
25th Percentile £200 £315 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.37% -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £633 £688
90th Percentile £725 £750 £838
UK excluding London median daily rate £370 £413 £517
% change year-on-year -10.42% -20.21% +3.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 54 36
10th Percentile £21.28 £26.40 £20.12
25th Percentile £27.13 £29.00 £26.28
Median hourly rate £43.36 £33.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.42% -36.19% -12.86%
75th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £69.00
90th Percentile £87.26 £86.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £33.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.33% -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 46,186 29,793 32,494
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.48% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,729 18,525 19,586
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% -2.78%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £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 3,368 1,885 1,263
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -9.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.21 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.83%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 -63 965 £453 -4.63% 2,782
UK excluding London -61 550 £370 -10.42% 1,161
London -72 440 £535 - 1,821
Work from Home -83 247 £523 +10.11% 1,000
South East -20 200 £475 +46.15% 338
North of England -62 146 £414 -0.66% 204
Midlands -49 90 £217 -53.83% 128
Yorkshire -28 78 £325 -27.78% 60
West Midlands -53 58 £200 -61.90% 84
North West -64 56 £525 +44.83% 97
East of England -38 45 £425 - 148
South West -52 33 £195 -5.57% 119
East Midlands -22 31 £230 -48.55% 44
Scotland -47 30 £400 -11.11% 124
North East -31 13 £195 -57.84% 48
Northern Ireland +5 4 - - 92
Wales -22 4 £530 +14.59% 30

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 48 (4.51%) Confluence
2 30 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 22 (2.07%) Apache Spark
4 18 (1.69%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (1.60%) Apache
6 13 (1.22%) IIS
7 10 (0.94%) Camunda
7 10 (0.94%) CMS
8 8 (0.75%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 5 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.47%) SAS
10 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
10 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.28%) CICS
11 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.28%) nginx
11 3 (0.28%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 36 (3.38%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.47%) Chatbot
5 5 (0.47%) Navisworks
5 5 (0.47%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Trello
6 4 (0.38%) Windchill
7 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
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%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.094%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.094%) Finacle
5 1 (0.094%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.094%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.094%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.094%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.094%) SAP CAR
5 1 (0.094%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.094%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.094%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 304 (28.57%) Azure
2 192 (18.05%) AWS
3 120 (11.28%) GCP
4 63 (5.92%) Entra ID
5 61 (5.73%) Power Platform
6 57 (5.36%) Azure DevOps
7 54 (5.08%) GitHub
8 52 (4.89%) Microsoft 365
9 44 (4.14%) SaaS
10 39 (3.67%) Serverless
11 28 (2.63%) Snowflake
12 22 (2.07%) AWS Lambda
12 22 (2.07%) OpenShift
13 21 (1.97%) GitHub Actions
13 21 (1.97%) PowerApps
14 19 (1.79%) Amazon EKS
15 17 (1.60%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (1.60%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.50%) Anthropic Claude
16 16 (1.50%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 46 (4.32%) Firewall
2 42 (3.95%) DNS
3 37 (3.48%) Network Security
4 32 (3.01%) VPN
5 27 (2.54%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.97%) DHCP
7 16 (1.50%) SSH
8 12 (1.13%) WAN
9 11 (1.03%) 5G
9 11 (1.03%) HTTP
9 11 (1.03%) Wireless
9 11 (1.03%) Wireshark
10 10 (0.94%) VLAN
11 9 (0.85%) LAN
12 8 (0.75%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.66%) BGP
13 7 (0.66%) Intrusion Detection
13 7 (0.66%) MPLS
13 7 (0.66%) Reverse Proxy
14 6 (0.56%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (5.17%) PostgreSQL
2 49 (4.61%) SQL Server
3 48 (4.51%) Power BI
4 47 (4.42%) Relational Database
5 37 (3.48%) Metadata
6 31 (2.91%) MongoDB
7 28 (2.63%) MySQL
8 27 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
8 27 (2.54%) NoSQL
9 24 (2.26%) Elasticsearch
10 19 (1.79%) Big Data
11 13 (1.22%) Azure SQL Database
11 13 (1.22%) Data Mining
11 13 (1.22%) Redis
12 12 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
12 12 (1.13%) Tableau
13 11 (1.03%) Data Lake
13 11 (1.03%) Oracle Database
14 6 (0.56%) Pinecone
14 6 (0.56%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 102 (9.59%) Git
2 52 (4.89%) JIRA
3 51 (4.79%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.14%) GitLab
5 26 (2.44%) Gradle
6 25 (2.35%) JUnit
7 23 (2.16%) Maven
8 20 (1.88%) SonarQube
9 18 (1.69%) Mockito
9 18 (1.69%) Selenium
10 14 (1.32%) Cucumber
10 14 (1.32%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (1.13%) REST Assured
12 11 (1.03%) Bitbucket
12 11 (1.03%) SpecFlow
13 9 (0.85%) Bitbucket Server
13 9 (0.85%) Postman
14 8 (0.75%) Visual Studio
15 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
15 6 (0.56%) TeamCity
General
1 452 (42.48%) Social Skills
2 239 (22.46%) Finance
3 234 (21.99%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (9.21%) Banking
5 65 (6.11%) Public Sector
6 49 (4.61%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (4.42%) Aerospace
8 45 (4.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 40 (3.76%) Manufacturing
10 32 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.91%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (2.91%) Marketing
12 30 (2.82%) Telecoms
13 22 (2.07%) Front Office
14 20 (1.88%) Military
15 18 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
16 17 (1.60%) Retail
17 16 (1.50%) Legal
18 15 (1.41%) Electronics
19 14 (1.32%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 165 (15.51%) Developer
2 111 (10.43%) Senior
3 88 (8.27%) Architect
4 73 (6.86%) Lead
5 71 (6.67%) Analyst
6 35 (3.29%) Java Developer
7 34 (3.20%) Data Engineer
8 26 (2.44%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 26 (2.44%) Senior Developer
9 25 (2.35%) Software Engineer
10 24 (2.26%) IT Support
10 24 (2.26%) Security Engineer
11 23 (2.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 23 (2.16%) Python Developer
12 22 (2.07%) Data Scientist
12 22 (2.07%) Full-Stack Developer
13 21 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
14 20 (1.88%) C# Developer
14 20 (1.88%) Consultant
15 19 (1.79%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (9.02%) REST
2 68 (6.39%) Terraform
3 66 (6.20%) React
4 64 (6.02%) HTML
5 62 (5.83%) CSS
6 56 (5.26%) Kafka
7 55 (5.17%) RESTful
8 50 (4.70%) .NET
9 39 (3.67%) Spring Boot
10 38 (3.57%) OAuth
11 37 (3.48%) Spring
12 32 (3.01%) SOAP
12 32 (3.01%) Web Services
13 31 (2.91%) OAuth2
14 29 (2.73%) Middleware
14 29 (2.73%) OpenID
15 28 (2.63%) SAML
16 23 (2.16%) AngularJS
16 23 (2.16%) JSON
16 23 (2.16%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 117 (11.00%) Management Information System
2 83 (7.80%) Cloud Native
3 64 (6.02%) Algorithms
4 58 (5.45%) Onboarding
5 57 (5.36%) Product Ownership
6 54 (5.08%) Distributed Systems
7 52 (4.89%) Data Structures
8 35 (3.29%) AI Agents
9 29 (2.73%) Enterprise Software
10 24 (2.26%) Virtual Team
11 22 (2.07%) Hybrid Cloud
12 21 (1.97%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 20 (1.88%) Data Centre
14 18 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
15 17 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
16 16 (1.50%) Derivative
17 15 (1.41%) Mobile App
17 15 (1.41%) Replication
18 14 (1.32%) Operational Technology
19 13 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 119 (11.18%) Linux
2 118 (11.09%) Windows
3 37 (3.48%) Unix
4 32 (3.01%) Windows Server
5 18 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (1.50%) Windows 10
7 13 (1.22%) Android
8 10 (0.94%) Apple iOS
9 8 (0.75%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.56%) macOS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) zOS
12 3 (0.28%) Solaris
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) Debian
13 2 (0.19%) Rocky
14 1 (0.094%) MVS
14 1 (0.094%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2016
14 1 (0.094%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 329 (30.92%) Problem-Solving
2 274 (25.75%) Agile
3 236 (22.18%) CI/CD
4 210 (19.74%) AI
5 198 (18.61%) DevOps
6 195 (18.33%) Software Engineering
7 189 (17.76%) Stakeholder Management
8 181 (17.01%) Continuous Improvement
9 154 (14.47%) Analytics
10 121 (11.37%) Mathematics
11 118 (11.09%) ITIL
12 115 (10.81%) Roadmaps
13 112 (10.53%) Scrum
14 109 (10.24%) Test Automation
15 107 (10.06%) Cybersecurity
16 97 (9.12%) Machine Learning
17 96 (9.02%) Validation
18 95 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 87 (8.18%) Change Management
20 83 (7.80%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 266 (25.00%) Python
2 201 (18.89%) SQL
3 139 (13.06%) Java
4 98 (9.21%) JavaScript
5 77 (7.24%) PowerShell
6 62 (5.83%) C#
7 50 (4.70%) Bash
8 39 (3.67%) TypeScript
9 26 (2.44%) C++
10 20 (1.88%) Bicep
11 16 (1.50%) Shell Script
12 14 (1.32%) Scala
13 13 (1.22%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.94%) Go
14 10 (0.94%) Perl
14 10 (0.94%) R
15 9 (0.85%) C
16 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.56%) COBOL
17 6 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 801 (75.28%) Degree
2 493 (46.33%) Computer Science Degree
3 194 (18.23%) Security Cleared
4 146 (13.72%) SC Cleared
5 111 (10.43%) Master's Degree
6 60 (5.64%) DBS Check
7 55 (5.17%) Azure Certification
8 54 (5.08%) CISSP
9 40 (3.76%) Microsoft Certification
10 39 (3.67%) CISM
11 36 (3.38%) DV Cleared
12 35 (3.29%) PhD
13 33 (3.10%) AWS Certification
14 28 (2.63%) Cisco Certification
15 26 (2.44%) TOGAF Certification
16 23 (2.16%) PMI Certification
16 23 (2.16%) PMP
17 21 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
18 17 (1.60%) CISA
19 15 (1.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.58%) QA
2 67 (6.30%) Data Quality
3 57 (5.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 45 (4.23%) NIST
5 27 (2.54%) GDPR
6 16 (1.50%) GRC
7 15 (1.41%) HIPAA
8 13 (1.22%) Accessibility
8 13 (1.22%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.22%) SLA
9 9 (0.85%) NCSC
10 8 (0.75%) ISO 9001
11 7 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 31000
12 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27005
12 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
14 4 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
14 4 (0.38%) EU AI Act
14 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 93 (8.74%) Docker
2 62 (5.83%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.16%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.75%) Firmware
5 8 (0.75%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.47%) ISA Server
7 5 (0.47%) RACF
7 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.47%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.28%) NFS
8 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) ACF2
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.094%) KVM
10 1 (0.094%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 112 (10.53%) Kubernetes
2 36 (3.38%) Ansible
3 26 (2.44%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.26%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.97%) Grafana
6 14 (1.32%) SCCM
7 10 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.66%) CASB
9 6 (0.56%) Control-M
10 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 5 (0.47%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.38%) Puppet
12 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
12 3 (0.28%) Istio
12 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
13 2 (0.19%) Consul
13 2 (0.19%) QRadar
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 206 (19.36%) Microsoft
2 71 (6.67%) Oracle
3 63 (5.92%) Google
4 41 (3.85%) ServiceNow
5 36 (3.38%) Databricks
6 35 (3.29%) IBM
7 33 (3.10%) VMware
8 30 (2.82%) SAP
9 29 (2.73%) Splunk
10 27 (2.54%) Cisco
11 24 (2.26%) Salesforce
12 19 (1.79%) OpenAI
13 18 (1.69%) Adobe
14 15 (1.41%) CyberArk
15 14 (1.32%) Red Hat
16 13 (1.22%) BeyondTrust
17 11 (1.03%) CrowdStrike
17 11 (1.03%) Dynatrace
18 10 (0.94%) Progress
18 10 (0.94%) Veracode