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 26 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 64 63
Rank change year-on-year -55 -1 +45
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,035 1,044 1,344
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.13% 3.65% 3.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.52% 4.01% 3.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 605 591 816
10th Percentile £178 £250 £313
25th Percentile £218 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -7.89%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -18.42% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 29 104
10th Percentile £26.86 £26.00 £21.39
25th Percentile £42.97 £29.07 £38.75
Median hourly rate £81.50 £52.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.24% -4.55% +1.04%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile - £83.97 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £45.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +84.44% -18.18% +10.00%

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 40,998 26,034 36,602
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.45% 91.02% 85.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,676 16,714 23,582
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.74% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,430 1,064 2,485
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.12 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.28 £27.45 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +54.01% -23.75% -3.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.01 £74.63 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.35 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +76.32% -32.93% +7.14%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 May 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 -45 927 £463 -11.06% 986
UK excluding London -40 554 £388 -18.42% 632
London -60 399 £550 -8.33% 461
Work from Home -62 224 £500 -9.09% 396
South East -7 218 £215 -55.26% 212
North of England -28 129 £400 -23.81% 115
Yorkshire -8 77 £514 +12.47% 29
Midlands -64 73 £456 +70.88% 69
West Midlands -64 56 £450 +58.45% 44
North West -34 51 £350 -35.66% 66
South West -42 47 £447 +20.81% 80
East of England -39 38 £280 -56.92% 87
Scotland -17 37 £620 +15.35% 44
East Midlands -36 16 £525 +110.00% 25
Northern Ireland +9 8 £350 -41.67% 27
Wales -32 7 £345 +18.97% 12
North East -25 2 £125 -73.68% 22

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 (4.73%) Confluence
2 39 (3.77%) Apache Spark
3 26 (2.51%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.13%) Apache
5 20 (1.93%) Apache Airflow
6 11 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.48%) IIS
8 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.097%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.097%) Oracle Service Bus
11 1 (0.097%) Tomcat
Applications
1 34 (3.29%) Microsoft Office
2 20 (1.93%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.45%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.19%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.097%) Sketch
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 22 (2.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.19%) Workfront
5 1 (0.097%) Actimize
5 1 (0.097%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.097%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.097%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.097%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 298 (28.79%) Azure
2 186 (17.97%) AWS
3 79 (7.63%) GCP
4 59 (5.70%) Power Platform
5 54 (5.22%) Microsoft 365
6 48 (4.64%) SaaS
7 46 (4.44%) GitHub
8 44 (4.25%) Entra ID
9 34 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (2.03%) Snowflake
11 19 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
11 19 (1.84%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (1.64%) Azure AKS
12 17 (1.64%) IaaS
12 17 (1.64%) Serverless
13 14 (1.35%) Azure Data Factory
14 13 (1.26%) Azure Service Bus
14 13 (1.26%) PaaS
14 13 (1.26%) PowerApps
15 11 (1.06%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 38 (3.67%) Firewall
2 30 (2.90%) TCP/IP
3 28 (2.71%) DNS
4 25 (2.42%) Network Security
5 16 (1.55%) WAN
6 14 (1.35%) BGP
7 13 (1.26%) LAN
8 11 (1.06%) OSPF
8 11 (1.06%) SSH
9 9 (0.87%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.77%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.77%) VPN
10 8 (0.77%) Wireless
11 7 (0.68%) SAN
11 7 (0.68%) VLAN
12 6 (0.58%) DHCP
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 5 (0.48%) HTTP
14 4 (0.39%) MPLS
14 4 (0.39%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (4.73%) Power BI
2 48 (4.64%) Relational Database
2 48 (4.64%) SQL Server
3 46 (4.44%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (3.77%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (3.29%) Big Data
6 27 (2.61%) Metadata
7 26 (2.51%) NoSQL
8 23 (2.22%) MySQL
9 22 (2.13%) MongoDB
10 21 (2.03%) Hadoop
11 18 (1.74%) Tableau
12 14 (1.35%) Data Lake
12 14 (1.35%) Elasticsearch
13 11 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 10 (0.97%) Snowflake Schema
15 9 (0.87%) Redis
16 8 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
16 8 (0.77%) Power Query
17 7 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 73 (7.05%) Git
2 63 (6.09%) JIRA
3 33 (3.19%) GitLab
3 33 (3.19%) Jenkins
4 28 (2.71%) Rational DOORS
5 11 (1.06%) Gradle
6 10 (0.97%) JUnit
6 10 (0.97%) MLflow
6 10 (0.97%) Selenium
7 9 (0.87%) Jaeger
7 9 (0.87%) TeamCity
8 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
8 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.58%) Maven
9 6 (0.58%) Postman
9 6 (0.58%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.48%) Flyway
11 3 (0.29%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.29%) Snyk
General
1 413 (39.90%) Social Skills
2 231 (22.32%) Finance
3 204 (19.71%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (8.70%) Banking
5 60 (5.80%) Public Sector
6 54 (5.22%) Aerospace
7 49 (4.73%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (3.19%) Telecoms
9 32 (3.09%) Marketing
10 30 (2.90%) Presentation Skills
11 29 (2.80%) Legal
12 27 (2.61%) Organisational Skills
13 26 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 24 (2.32%) Influencing Skills
15 23 (2.22%) Front Office
16 18 (1.74%) Manufacturing
17 16 (1.55%) Investment Banking
17 16 (1.55%) Publishing
18 15 (1.45%) Financial Institution
19 14 (1.35%) Retail
Job Titles
1 107 (10.34%) Architect
2 103 (9.95%) Developer
3 86 (8.31%) Analyst
4 84 (8.12%) Lead
5 83 (8.02%) Senior
6 38 (3.67%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.57%) Delivery Manager
8 35 (3.38%) Product Manager
9 33 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
10 31 (3.00%) Data Scientist
10 31 (3.00%) Technical Support
11 29 (2.80%) Data Engineer
12 28 (2.71%) Product Delivery Manager
13 23 (2.22%) Full-Stack Engineer
13 23 (2.22%) Python Developer
14 22 (2.13%) Junior
14 22 (2.13%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.13%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.13%) Systems Manager
15 19 (1.84%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (8.41%) REST
2 55 (5.31%) React
3 52 (5.02%) .NET
4 44 (4.25%) Middleware
5 43 (4.15%) Kafka
6 35 (3.38%) RESTful
7 33 (3.19%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.80%) PyTorch
8 29 (2.80%) Spring
9 23 (2.22%) OAuth
10 22 (2.13%) AngularJS
10 22 (2.13%) TensorFlow
11 21 (2.03%) JSON
11 21 (2.03%) SOAP
12 20 (1.93%) Elastic Stack
13 19 (1.84%) XML
14 18 (1.74%) HTML
14 18 (1.74%) Pandas
15 17 (1.64%) CSS
16 15 (1.45%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (9.57%) Management Information System
2 79 (7.63%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.34%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.86%) Algorithms
5 65 (6.28%) Cloud Native
6 49 (4.73%) Data Structures
6 49 (4.73%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.90%) Virtual Team
8 23 (2.22%) Derivative
8 23 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
9 21 (2.03%) AI Agents
10 20 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
10 20 (1.93%) Equities
10 20 (1.93%) Taxonomies
11 18 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
11 18 (1.74%) Security Operations Centre
12 17 (1.64%) Cyberattack
12 17 (1.64%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 15 (1.45%) Data Centre
13 15 (1.45%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 132 (12.75%) Linux
1 132 (12.75%) Windows
2 45 (4.35%) Unix
3 24 (2.32%) Android
4 20 (1.93%) Windows 10
5 18 (1.74%) Windows Server
6 16 (1.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.45%) Mac OS
8 14 (1.35%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.48%) VMS
10 4 (0.39%) Debian
10 4 (0.39%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Solaris
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.097%) CentOS
12 1 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 308 (29.76%) Problem-Solving
2 255 (24.64%) Agile
3 223 (21.55%) AI
4 191 (18.45%) CI/CD
5 178 (17.20%) DevOps
6 169 (16.33%) Software Engineering
7 166 (16.04%) Continuous Improvement
8 125 (12.08%) Analytics
9 121 (11.69%) Cybersecurity
10 114 (11.01%) Microservices
11 100 (9.66%) Stakeholder Management
12 98 (9.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 95 (9.18%) Machine Learning
14 94 (9.08%) Decision-Making
15 92 (8.89%) Technical Leadership
16 91 (8.79%) Containerisation
17 89 (8.60%) Data Modelling
18 88 (8.50%) Mathematics
19 87 (8.41%) Data Governance
20 86 (8.31%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 282 (27.25%) Python
2 208 (20.10%) SQL
3 132 (12.75%) Java
4 64 (6.18%) JavaScript
5 56 (5.41%) C#
6 46 (4.44%) PowerShell
7 32 (3.09%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.80%) Bash
8 29 (2.80%) C++
9 21 (2.03%) R
10 14 (1.35%) Go
10 14 (1.35%) Perl
11 12 (1.16%) Rust
12 11 (1.06%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 6 (0.58%) Scala
16 5 (0.48%) C
17 3 (0.29%) Ada
17 3 (0.29%) PHP
Qualifications
1 823 (79.52%) Degree
2 495 (47.83%) Computer Science Degree
3 190 (18.36%) Security Cleared
4 141 (13.62%) Master's Degree
5 114 (11.01%) SC Cleared
6 56 (5.41%) CISSP
7 38 (3.67%) CISM
8 35 (3.38%) PhD
9 33 (3.19%) Azure Certification
10 31 (3.00%) TOGAF Certification
11 29 (2.80%) DV Cleared
12 28 (2.71%) Microsoft Certification
13 27 (2.61%) PMI Certification
14 24 (2.32%) PMP
15 22 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
15 22 (2.13%) CompTIA Security+
16 21 (2.03%) AWS Certification
17 20 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
18 19 (1.84%) CISA
18 19 (1.84%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (5.60%) QA
2 56 (5.41%) Data Quality
2 56 (5.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (5.41%) NIST
3 37 (3.57%) GDPR
4 20 (1.93%) PCI DSS
5 19 (1.84%) Accessibility
6 13 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 12 (1.16%) GRC
8 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
9 9 (0.87%) SLA
10 8 (0.77%) NCSC
11 7 (0.68%) COBIT
11 7 (0.68%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.68%) PSD2
12 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 5 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 105 (10.14%) Docker
2 69 (6.67%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.16%) Firmware
5 9 (0.87%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.39%) vSphere
9 3 (0.29%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) KVM
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
11 1 (0.097%) ACF2
11 1 (0.097%) HDFS
11 1 (0.097%) RACF
Systems Management
1 126 (12.17%) Kubernetes
2 61 (5.89%) Terraform
3 48 (4.64%) Ansible
4 32 (3.09%) Grafana
5 30 (2.90%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.42%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.97%) Puppet
9 9 (0.87%) Kiali
9 9 (0.87%) Kibana
10 4 (0.39%) Control-M
10 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Foglight
11 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.29%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 178 (17.20%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.28%) Oracle
3 50 (4.83%) Splunk
4 48 (4.64%) Databricks
5 35 (3.38%) Google
6 34 (3.29%) SAP
7 32 (3.09%) IBM
8 29 (2.80%) ServiceNow
9 24 (2.32%) VMware
10 20 (1.93%) Cisco
11 16 (1.55%) BiZZdesign
11 16 (1.55%) Informatica
11 16 (1.55%) Okta
12 14 (1.35%) Palo Alto
13 13 (1.26%) CheckPoint
13 13 (1.26%) Salesforce
14 11 (1.06%) CyberArk
15 10 (0.97%) MuleSoft
15 10 (0.97%) Software AG
16 9 (0.87%) BeyondTrust