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 8 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 64 61
Rank change year-on-year -66 -3 +37
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,062 1,185 1,402
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 3.71% 3.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.39% 4.09% 3.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 597 666 844
10th Percentile £177 £240 £316
25th Percentile £204 £363 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -7.06% -2.18%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £761 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £384 £450 £517
% change year-on-year -14.67% -12.96% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 117 37 104
10th Percentile £26.00 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £28.41 £38.75
Median hourly rate £69.44 £30.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +127.67% -44.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £87.16 £67.50 £66.25
90th Percentile £88.00 £84.98 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £30.16 £55.00
% change year-on-year +170.23% -45.16% -

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 44,398 28,953 36,844
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.10% 90.63% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,615 18,257 23,517
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.28% -3.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,640 1,439 2,494
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.70 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% -6.25%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.66 £38.12
% change year-on-year +80.45% -35.31% +1.65%

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 8 July 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 8 July 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 8 July 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 -50 950 £453 -9.40% 945
UK excluding London -50 575 £384 -14.67% 615
London -70 415 £525 -12.50% 458
Work from Home -77 240 £500 -9.09% 855
South East -14 231 £220 -55.07% 197
North of England -44 137 £400 -15.79% 117
Yorkshire +3 76 £525 +25.00% 28
Midlands -66 75 £438 +42.90% 90
North West -56 54 £220 -53.68% 58
West Midlands -63 54 £450 +54.11% 46
East of England -29 42 £308 -52.69% 79
Scotland -36 39 £630 +26.00% 27
South West -57 38 £469 +95.42% 70
East Midlands -25 20 £300 -14.83% 43
Wales -28 9 £530 +28.48% 10
North East -35 8 £195 -57.84% 31
Northern Ireland +11 7 £350 -41.67% 39

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 (4.52%) Confluence
2 37 (3.48%) Apache Spark
3 28 (2.64%) SharePoint
4 24 (2.26%) Apache
4 24 (2.26%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.56%) IIS
7 5 (0.47%) SAS
8 4 (0.38%) CMS
9 3 (0.28%) Camunda
9 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
11 1 (0.094%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.094%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.094%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.094%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.094%) Tomcat
Applications
1 40 (3.77%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 18 (1.69%) MS Visio
4 14 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.094%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.094%) Sketch
9 1 (0.094%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 18 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.38%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
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 (0.094%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.094%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.094%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.094%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.094%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.094%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.094%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.094%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.094%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.094%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 316 (29.76%) Azure
2 197 (18.55%) AWS
3 99 (9.32%) GCP
4 73 (6.87%) Power Platform
5 59 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (4.90%) Entra ID
7 47 (4.43%) Azure DevOps
7 47 (4.43%) GitHub
8 41 (3.86%) SaaS
9 28 (2.64%) Serverless
9 28 (2.64%) Snowflake
10 22 (2.07%) GitHub Actions
10 22 (2.07%) PowerApps
11 18 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (1.60%) Azure AKS
13 16 (1.51%) Azure Data Factory
14 15 (1.41%) Power Automate
15 14 (1.32%) AWS Lambda
16 13 (1.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 12 (1.13%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 33 (3.11%) Firewall
2 32 (3.01%) Network Security
3 26 (2.45%) DNS
4 25 (2.35%) TCP/IP
5 20 (1.88%) VPN
6 17 (1.60%) WAN
7 15 (1.41%) BGP
8 14 (1.32%) LAN
9 12 (1.13%) OSPF
9 12 (1.13%) SSH
10 10 (0.94%) HTTPS
10 10 (0.94%) VLAN
11 9 (0.85%) Wireless
12 7 (0.66%) 3GPP
12 7 (0.66%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (0.66%) MPLS
13 6 (0.56%) Cisco Nexus
13 6 (0.56%) DHCP
13 6 (0.56%) IPsec
13 6 (0.56%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (5.56%) Power BI
2 52 (4.90%) PostgreSQL
2 52 (4.90%) SQL Server
3 50 (4.71%) Relational Database
4 36 (3.39%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (3.20%) Big Data
5 34 (3.20%) Metadata
6 28 (2.64%) NoSQL
7 27 (2.54%) MongoDB
8 23 (2.17%) MySQL
9 19 (1.79%) Data Lake
9 19 (1.79%) Hadoop
10 18 (1.69%) Tableau
11 10 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
11 10 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
11 10 (0.94%) Snowflake Schema
12 9 (0.85%) Data Mining
12 9 (0.85%) Elasticsearch
13 8 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 8 (0.75%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 85 (8.00%) Git
2 59 (5.56%) JIRA
3 41 (3.86%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.20%) GitLab
5 29 (2.73%) Rational DOORS
6 14 (1.32%) Selenium
7 11 (1.04%) JUnit
8 10 (0.94%) Gradle
9 9 (0.85%) MLflow
10 8 (0.75%) Postman
10 8 (0.75%) TeamCity
11 7 (0.66%) Maven
11 7 (0.66%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.56%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
13 5 (0.47%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.47%) Flyway
13 5 (0.47%) SonarQube
13 5 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (0.47%) SpecFlow
General
1 432 (40.68%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.22%) Finance
3 222 (20.90%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (8.38%) Banking
5 67 (6.31%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.18%) Aerospace
7 52 (4.90%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (3.30%) Organisational Skills
9 32 (3.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (2.92%) Marketing
11 30 (2.82%) Telecoms
12 28 (2.64%) Influencing Skills
13 25 (2.35%) Front Office
14 23 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
15 21 (1.98%) Manufacturing
16 20 (1.88%) Legal
17 16 (1.51%) Retail
18 15 (1.41%) Law
18 15 (1.41%) Publishing
19 13 (1.22%) Military
Job Titles
1 124 (11.68%) Developer
2 112 (10.55%) Architect
3 94 (8.85%) Senior
4 82 (7.72%) Analyst
5 81 (7.63%) Lead
6 37 (3.48%) Product Manager
6 37 (3.48%) Software Engineer
7 34 (3.20%) Data Engineer
7 34 (3.20%) Delivery Manager
8 31 (2.92%) Data Scientist
9 30 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
10 28 (2.64%) Product Delivery Manager
11 25 (2.35%) Python Developer
11 25 (2.35%) Technical Support
12 24 (2.26%) Junior
12 24 (2.26%) Security Engineer
13 23 (2.17%) IT Support
14 22 (2.07%) Java Developer
14 22 (2.07%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.07%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 82 (7.72%) REST
2 61 (5.74%) React
3 57 (5.37%) .NET
4 43 (4.05%) Kafka
5 39 (3.67%) RESTful
6 34 (3.20%) Spring
7 33 (3.11%) Spring Boot
8 32 (3.01%) Middleware
9 26 (2.45%) OAuth
10 24 (2.26%) AngularJS
11 23 (2.17%) PyTorch
12 21 (1.98%) HTML
12 21 (1.98%) JSON
13 19 (1.79%) CSS
13 19 (1.79%) SAML
14 18 (1.69%) SOAP
14 18 (1.69%) Web Services
15 17 (1.60%) OAuth2
15 17 (1.60%) OpenID
15 17 (1.60%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 98 (9.23%) Management Information System
2 85 (8.00%) Product Ownership
3 82 (7.72%) Onboarding
4 74 (6.97%) Algorithms
4 74 (6.97%) Cloud Native
5 51 (4.80%) Data Structures
6 48 (4.52%) Distributed Systems
7 25 (2.35%) AI Agents
7 25 (2.35%) Derivative
7 25 (2.35%) Virtual Team
8 24 (2.26%) Self-Motivation
9 23 (2.17%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 19 (1.79%) Enterprise Software
10 19 (1.79%) Equities
11 17 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (1.51%) Fixed Income
13 15 (1.41%) Data Centre
13 15 (1.41%) Security Posture
13 15 (1.41%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 130 (12.24%) Windows
2 108 (10.17%) Linux
3 41 (3.86%) Unix
4 21 (1.98%) Android
5 20 (1.88%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 18 (1.69%) Windows Server
7 14 (1.32%) Apple iOS
8 12 (1.13%) Mac OS
9 7 (0.66%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.47%) VMS
11 4 (0.38%) Debian
11 4 (0.38%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.094%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.094%) MVS
13 1 (0.094%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.094%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 315 (29.66%) Problem-Solving
2 276 (25.99%) Agile
3 242 (22.79%) AI
4 197 (18.55%) CI/CD
5 178 (16.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 178 (16.76%) Software Engineering
6 174 (16.38%) DevOps
7 146 (13.75%) Analytics
8 122 (11.49%) Cybersecurity
9 118 (11.11%) Stakeholder Management
10 113 (10.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 112 (10.55%) Machine Learning
12 109 (10.26%) ITIL
13 104 (9.79%) Mathematics
14 102 (9.60%) Microservices
15 99 (9.32%) Data Science
16 95 (8.95%) Decision-Making
17 91 (8.57%) Containerisation
18 90 (8.47%) Roadmaps
19 87 (8.19%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 297 (27.97%) Python
2 214 (20.15%) SQL
3 134 (12.62%) Java
4 69 (6.50%) JavaScript
5 60 (5.65%) C#
6 48 (4.52%) PowerShell
7 34 (3.20%) TypeScript
8 23 (2.17%) Bash
9 22 (2.07%) C++
10 20 (1.88%) R
11 13 (1.22%) Go
12 12 (1.13%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.85%) Perl
14 8 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.75%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.66%) Bicep
16 6 (0.56%) Scala
17 5 (0.47%) C
17 5 (0.47%) Rust
18 4 (0.38%) Ada
Qualifications
1 835 (78.63%) Degree
2 499 (46.99%) Computer Science Degree
3 201 (18.93%) Security Cleared
4 138 (12.99%) Master's Degree
5 124 (11.68%) SC Cleared
6 57 (5.37%) CISSP
7 38 (3.58%) Azure Certification
8 37 (3.48%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (3.39%) CISM
10 34 (3.20%) PhD
11 28 (2.64%) AWS Certification
11 28 (2.64%) TOGAF Certification
12 26 (2.45%) DBS Check
12 26 (2.45%) PMI Certification
13 25 (2.35%) DV Cleared
14 24 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
14 24 (2.26%) PMP
15 21 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
16 19 (1.79%) CISA
17 16 (1.51%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 64 (6.03%) NIST
3 63 (5.93%) Data Quality
4 52 (4.90%) QA
5 36 (3.39%) GDPR
6 20 (1.88%) PCI DSS
7 17 (1.60%) GRC
8 16 (1.51%) Accessibility
9 14 (1.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (1.13%) NCSC
10 12 (1.13%) SLA
11 11 (1.04%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (0.94%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.66%) COBIT
13 7 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 6 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.47%) DO-254
15 5 (0.47%) Government Security Classifications
15 5 (0.47%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 96 (9.04%) Docker
2 78 (7.34%) Active Directory
3 18 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (0.75%) Firmware
4 8 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.66%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.38%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.094%) ACF2
10 1 (0.094%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.094%) HDFS
10 1 (0.094%) RACF
Systems Management
1 120 (11.30%) Kubernetes
2 58 (5.46%) Terraform
3 37 (3.48%) Ansible
4 27 (2.54%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.45%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.35%) Grafana
7 14 (1.32%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
8 4 (0.38%) Puppet
9 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.28%) Foglight
9 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.28%) Kiali
9 3 (0.28%) Kibana
9 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.19%) Argo
10 2 (0.19%) CASB
10 2 (0.19%) vRealize
10 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 187 (17.61%) Microsoft
2 67 (6.31%) Oracle
3 52 (4.90%) Databricks
4 43 (4.05%) Google
5 36 (3.39%) IBM
6 35 (3.30%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.92%) SAP
8 27 (2.54%) Splunk
9 24 (2.26%) VMware
10 20 (1.88%) Cisco
11 16 (1.51%) CyberArk
12 15 (1.41%) BeyondTrust
12 15 (1.41%) Okta
12 15 (1.41%) Palo Alto
13 14 (1.32%) BiZZdesign
13 14 (1.32%) Informatica
14 13 (1.22%) Salesforce
15 11 (1.04%) CheckPoint
15 11 (1.04%) Foundry
16 9 (0.85%) Citrix