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

6 months to
19 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 64 61
Rank change year-on-year -60 -3 +31
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,088 1,215 1,380
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 3.71% 3.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.41% 4.10% 3.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 613 677 831
10th Percentile £178 £203 £325
25th Percentile £204 £359 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £760 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £381 £435 £517
% change year-on-year -12.43% -15.96% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 48 94
10th Percentile £25.73 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £69.72 £54.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.93% -0.91% -11.29%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.10 £65.94
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.00 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +19.40% +21.82% -8.33%

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 45,064 29,610 35,929
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.35% 85.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,992 18,619 23,013
10th Percentile £325 £300 £305
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.54%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,660 1,563 2,287
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.40 £16.71
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -9.24%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.14 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.38 £70.00 £73.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £38.12
% change year-on-year +84.92% -36.16% -6.05%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -54 979 £453 -9.40% 769
UK excluding London -49 593 £381 -12.43% 458
London -60 420 £535 -10.86% 394
Work from Home -80 247 £500 -9.09% 262
South East -7 243 £350 -26.70% 168
North of England -42 137 £394 -16.68% 71
Midlands -62 82 £375 +18.48% 71
Yorkshire -17 70 £520 +28.99% 18
North West -60 56 £292 -38.53% 30
West Midlands -66 56 £416 +46.30% 35
East of England -25 48 £215 -66.92% 69
Scotland -40 35 £481 +1.64% 9
South West -61 35 £435 +81.04% 58
East Midlands -23 25 £275 -34.52% 36
North East -30 12 £195 -57.84% 23
Wales -24 7 £530 +18.83% 7
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 21

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 44 (4.04%) Confluence
2 35 (3.22%) Apache Spark
3 31 (2.85%) SharePoint
4 24 (2.21%) Apache Airflow
5 23 (2.11%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) Camunda
9 4 (0.37%) CMS
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.092%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (3.86%) Microsoft Office
2 31 (2.85%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.64%) Revit
6 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.37%) Trello
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) Simulink
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 17 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.18%) Workfront
5 1 (0.092%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.092%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.092%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.092%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.092%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 314 (28.86%) Azure
2 198 (18.20%) AWS
3 100 (9.19%) GCP
4 74 (6.80%) Power Platform
5 59 (5.42%) Entra ID
6 54 (4.96%) Microsoft 365
7 46 (4.23%) GitHub
8 45 (4.14%) SaaS
9 43 (3.95%) Azure DevOps
10 28 (2.57%) Serverless
10 28 (2.57%) Snowflake
11 22 (2.02%) GitHub Actions
11 22 (2.02%) PowerApps
12 18 (1.65%) Azure AKS
13 15 (1.38%) Power Automate
14 14 (1.29%) AWS CloudFormation
14 14 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (1.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 14 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
14 14 (1.29%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 34 (3.13%) Firewall
2 30 (2.76%) Network Security
3 26 (2.39%) DNS
4 24 (2.21%) VPN
5 23 (2.11%) TCP/IP
6 18 (1.65%) WAN
7 15 (1.38%) LAN
8 14 (1.29%) BGP
8 14 (1.29%) SSH
9 11 (1.01%) OSPF
10 10 (0.92%) HTTPS
10 10 (0.92%) VLAN
10 10 (0.92%) Wireless
11 9 (0.83%) DHCP
12 8 (0.74%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.64%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.64%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (0.64%) MPLS
14 6 (0.55%) IPsec
15 5 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (5.51%) Power BI
2 53 (4.87%) PostgreSQL
2 53 (4.87%) SQL Server
3 52 (4.78%) Relational Database
4 36 (3.31%) Metadata
5 35 (3.22%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (3.03%) Big Data
7 29 (2.67%) MongoDB
8 25 (2.30%) NoSQL
9 19 (1.75%) MySQL
10 18 (1.65%) Data Lake
10 18 (1.65%) Hadoop
11 16 (1.47%) Tableau
12 12 (1.10%) Data Mining
13 11 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (1.01%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
15 9 (0.83%) Redis
16 8 (0.74%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 89 (8.18%) Git
2 57 (5.24%) JIRA
3 40 (3.68%) Jenkins
4 35 (3.22%) GitLab
5 31 (2.85%) Rational DOORS
6 14 (1.29%) Selenium
7 12 (1.10%) JUnit
8 11 (1.01%) Gradle
9 9 (0.83%) MLflow
10 8 (0.74%) Maven
10 8 (0.74%) Postman
10 8 (0.74%) REST Assured
10 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
10 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
11 7 (0.64%) Bitbucket
12 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.55%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (0.46%) Flyway
13 5 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 441 (40.53%) Social Skills
2 241 (22.15%) Finance
3 234 (21.51%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (8.82%) Banking
5 71 (6.53%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.06%) Aerospace
6 55 (5.06%) Documentation Skills
7 39 (3.58%) Organisational Skills
8 37 (3.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 30 (2.76%) Marketing
10 29 (2.67%) Influencing Skills
10 29 (2.67%) Telecoms
11 24 (2.21%) Front Office
11 24 (2.21%) Manufacturing
12 22 (2.02%) Legal
13 21 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
14 16 (1.47%) Law
14 16 (1.47%) Military
15 15 (1.38%) Retail
16 13 (1.19%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 133 (12.22%) Developer
2 114 (10.48%) Architect
3 105 (9.65%) Senior
4 83 (7.63%) Analyst
5 80 (7.35%) Lead
6 38 (3.49%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.40%) Data Engineer
7 37 (3.40%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.13%) Delivery Manager
9 31 (2.85%) Data Scientist
10 30 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
11 28 (2.57%) Product Delivery Manager
12 26 (2.39%) Junior
13 25 (2.30%) Python Developer
14 24 (2.21%) Java Developer
15 23 (2.11%) Full-Stack Developer
16 22 (2.02%) IT Support
16 22 (2.02%) Systems Delivery Manager
16 22 (2.02%) Systems Manager
17 21 (1.93%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (8.18%) REST
2 65 (5.97%) React
3 55 (5.06%) .NET
4 43 (3.95%) Kafka
5 40 (3.68%) RESTful
6 37 (3.40%) Spring
7 33 (3.03%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.67%) Middleware
9 28 (2.57%) OAuth
10 26 (2.39%) AngularJS
11 24 (2.21%) PyTorch
12 23 (2.11%) HTML
13 22 (2.02%) CSS
14 21 (1.93%) JSON
15 20 (1.84%) SAML
15 20 (1.84%) Web Services
16 19 (1.75%) OAuth2
16 19 (1.75%) OpenID
17 18 (1.65%) LDAP
17 18 (1.65%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 104 (9.56%) Management Information System
2 88 (8.09%) Product Ownership
3 80 (7.35%) Onboarding
4 78 (7.17%) Algorithms
5 75 (6.89%) Cloud Native
6 58 (5.33%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.50%) Distributed Systems
8 29 (2.67%) Virtual Team
9 27 (2.48%) AI Agents
10 26 (2.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 26 (2.39%) Self-Motivation
11 24 (2.21%) Derivative
12 21 (1.93%) Enterprise Software
13 18 (1.65%) Equities
14 17 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
14 17 (1.56%) Fixed Income
15 16 (1.47%) Data Centre
15 16 (1.47%) Operational Technology
16 15 (1.38%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 125 (11.49%) Windows
2 104 (9.56%) Linux
3 36 (3.31%) Unix
4 22 (2.02%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.93%) Android
6 18 (1.65%) Windows 10
7 17 (1.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 14 (1.29%) Apple iOS
9 11 (1.01%) Mac OS
10 8 (0.74%) Ubuntu
11 6 (0.55%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.092%) CentOS
14 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (29.60%) Problem-Solving
2 279 (25.64%) Agile
3 239 (21.97%) AI
4 196 (18.01%) CI/CD
5 187 (17.19%) Continuous Improvement
5 187 (17.19%) Software Engineering
6 167 (15.35%) DevOps
7 149 (13.69%) Analytics
8 126 (11.58%) Stakeholder Management
9 122 (11.21%) Cybersecurity
10 119 (10.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 113 (10.39%) Machine Learning
12 110 (10.11%) ITIL
13 106 (9.74%) Mathematics
14 99 (9.10%) Decision-Making
15 97 (8.92%) Data Science
15 97 (8.92%) Microservices
16 92 (8.46%) Roadmaps
17 85 (7.81%) Data Governance
18 84 (7.72%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 293 (26.93%) Python
2 212 (19.49%) SQL
3 137 (12.59%) Java
4 68 (6.25%) JavaScript
5 59 (5.42%) C#
6 57 (5.24%) PowerShell
7 37 (3.40%) TypeScript
8 25 (2.30%) Bash
9 22 (2.02%) C++
10 19 (1.75%) R
11 12 (1.10%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.01%) Go
13 10 (0.92%) Bicep
13 10 (0.92%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.83%) C
15 8 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.64%) Perl
17 6 (0.55%) Scala
18 4 (0.37%) Ada
18 4 (0.37%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 841 (77.30%) Degree
2 485 (44.58%) Computer Science Degree
3 209 (19.21%) Security Cleared
4 140 (12.87%) Master's Degree
5 128 (11.76%) SC Cleared
6 51 (4.69%) CISSP
7 45 (4.14%) Azure Certification
8 39 (3.58%) Microsoft Certification
9 34 (3.13%) CISM
10 33 (3.03%) DBS Check
10 33 (3.03%) PhD
11 29 (2.67%) AWS Certification
12 27 (2.48%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.48%) PMI Certification
13 26 (2.39%) PMP
13 26 (2.39%) TOGAF Certification
14 23 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
15 22 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
16 20 (1.84%) CISA
17 15 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 66 (6.07%) Data Quality
3 61 (5.61%) NIST
4 56 (5.15%) QA
5 34 (3.13%) GDPR
6 19 (1.75%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.47%) PCI DSS
8 15 (1.38%) GRC
9 13 (1.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 12 (1.10%) NCSC
10 12 (1.10%) SLA
11 11 (1.01%) HIPAA
12 10 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
13 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 6 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
15 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
15 5 (0.46%) ISO 20022
15 5 (0.46%) ITGC
15 5 (0.46%) PSD2
System Software
1 90 (8.27%) Docker
2 77 (7.08%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.92%) Firmware
5 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.64%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) BitLocker
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.092%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.092%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 110 (10.11%) Kubernetes
2 55 (5.06%) Terraform
3 35 (3.22%) Ansible
4 26 (2.39%) Prometheus
5 25 (2.30%) Microsoft Intune
6 23 (2.11%) Grafana
7 14 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.46%) SCCM
9 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Foglight
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
10 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.18%) CASB
11 2 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.18%) Puppet
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize
11 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 198 (18.20%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.07%) Oracle
3 51 (4.69%) Databricks
4 42 (3.86%) IBM
5 41 (3.77%) Google
6 36 (3.31%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.85%) SAP
8 29 (2.67%) VMware
9 21 (1.93%) Cisco
10 20 (1.84%) Splunk
11 19 (1.75%) CyberArk
12 17 (1.56%) BeyondTrust
13 14 (1.29%) Informatica
13 14 (1.29%) Palo Alto
13 14 (1.29%) Salesforce
14 12 (1.10%) Okta
15 10 (0.92%) CheckPoint
15 10 (0.92%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) Apple
16 9 (0.83%) Citrix