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

6 months to
3 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 69 62
Rank change year-on-year -70 -7 +24
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,082 1,197 1,271
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.02% 3.68% 3.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 4.07% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 602 669 791
10th Percentile £175 £184 £335
25th Percentile £200 £350 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £476 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.63% -13.45% -
75th Percentile £614 £638 £689
90th Percentile £760 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £370 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -13.06% -19.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 45 53
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.34
25th Percentile £31.77 £29.00 £42.25
Median hourly rate £58.50 £54.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +7.34% +3.81% -15.32%
75th Percentile £84.00 £67.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.75 £66.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +1.88% +20.91% -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 45,377 29,398 32,720
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.63% 90.44% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,769 18,279 20,543
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.49%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,906 1,760 1,592
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.73 £17.30 £18.69
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.03 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.58 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +88.14% -47.37% +14.67%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -61 984 £472 -3.67% 4,073
UK excluding London -54 561 £370 -13.06% 1,660
London -65 447 £525 -4.55% 2,852
Work from Home -78 248 £500 +3.63% 1,451
South East -14 215 £363 -9.83% 461
North of England -35 145 £450 +5.88% 248
Midlands -57 89 £225 -46.75% 165
Yorkshire -15 72 £450 +25.70% 57
North West -46 62 £497 +5.60% 145
West Midlands -51 60 £225 -41.94% 98
East of England -26 49 £200 -60.40% 236
East Midlands -31 28 £253 -43.51% 67
Scotland -58 28 £380 -17.57% 191
South West -68 27 £400 +93.70% 226
North East -36 12 £195 -57.84% 48
Northern Ireland +7 6 £175 - 113
Wales -22 4 £530 +14.59% 33

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 42 (3.88%) Confluence
2 33 (3.05%) SharePoint
3 25 (2.31%) Apache Spark
4 19 (1.76%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.39%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Camunda
7 8 (0.74%) IIS
7 8 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.46%) CMS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.092%) nginx
Applications
1 43 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.092%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.092%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.092%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.092%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 305 (28.19%) Azure
2 197 (18.21%) AWS
3 114 (10.54%) GCP
4 78 (7.21%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.73%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.73%) Microsoft 365
6 52 (4.81%) GitHub
7 50 (4.62%) Azure DevOps
8 48 (4.44%) SaaS
9 36 (3.33%) Snowflake
10 35 (3.23%) Serverless
11 25 (2.31%) PowerApps
12 20 (1.85%) Microsoft Copilot
13 19 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
13 19 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
13 19 (1.76%) OpenShift
13 19 (1.76%) Power Automate
14 15 (1.39%) Dynamics 365
15 14 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
15 14 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.97%) Firewall
2 42 (3.88%) DNS
3 34 (3.14%) Network Security
3 34 (3.14%) VPN
4 25 (2.31%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.94%) DHCP
6 17 (1.57%) SSH
7 15 (1.39%) WAN
8 12 (1.11%) LAN
9 11 (1.02%) BGP
9 11 (1.02%) Wireless
9 11 (1.02%) Wireshark
10 10 (0.92%) HTTP
10 10 (0.92%) MPLS
11 9 (0.83%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.83%) 5G
11 9 (0.83%) VLAN
12 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.74%) OSPF
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.73%) Power BI
2 53 (4.90%) Relational Database
3 52 (4.81%) SQL Server
4 47 (4.34%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (3.60%) Metadata
6 28 (2.59%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.31%) NoSQL
8 24 (2.22%) MongoDB
9 23 (2.13%) Big Data
10 19 (1.76%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (1.66%) MySQL
12 16 (1.48%) Tableau
13 15 (1.39%) Data Mining
14 13 (1.20%) Redis
15 12 (1.11%) Azure SQL Database
16 11 (1.02%) Oracle Database
17 10 (0.92%) Data Lake
18 9 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
19 8 (0.74%) Snowflake Schema
20 7 (0.65%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 95 (8.78%) Git
2 53 (4.90%) JIRA
3 45 (4.16%) Jenkins
4 43 (3.97%) GitLab
5 18 (1.66%) JUnit
6 17 (1.57%) Selenium
7 15 (1.39%) Gradle
7 15 (1.39%) Maven
7 15 (1.39%) Rational DOORS
7 15 (1.39%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
9 12 (1.11%) REST Assured
10 11 (1.02%) Mockito
11 10 (0.92%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.83%) SpecFlow
13 8 (0.74%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.65%) Cucumber
15 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
15 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 451 (41.68%) Social Skills
2 244 (22.55%) Analytical Skills
3 235 (21.72%) Finance
4 92 (8.50%) Banking
5 64 (5.91%) Public Sector
6 53 (4.90%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (4.34%) Aerospace
8 42 (3.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 41 (3.79%) Telecoms
10 35 (3.23%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.87%) Manufacturing
12 29 (2.68%) Influencing Skills
13 28 (2.59%) Front Office
14 25 (2.31%) Marketing
15 24 (2.22%) Legal
16 20 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
17 18 (1.66%) Military
18 15 (1.39%) Retail
19 14 (1.29%) Investment Banking
19 14 (1.29%) Law
Job Titles
1 148 (13.68%) Developer
2 107 (9.89%) Senior
3 92 (8.50%) Architect
4 80 (7.39%) Analyst
5 76 (7.02%) Lead
6 37 (3.42%) Data Engineer
7 30 (2.77%) Software Engineer
8 29 (2.68%) Java Developer
9 27 (2.50%) IT Support
10 25 (2.31%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.22%) Junior
11 24 (2.22%) Solutions Architect
12 23 (2.13%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 23 (2.13%) Data Scientist
12 23 (2.13%) Python Developer
13 22 (2.03%) Full-Stack Developer
13 22 (2.03%) Security Engineer
14 21 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 21 (1.94%) Product Manager
15 20 (1.85%) C# Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.69%) REST
2 60 (5.55%) Terraform
3 59 (5.45%) React
4 57 (5.27%) .NET
5 51 (4.71%) HTML
6 50 (4.62%) Kafka
7 48 (4.44%) CSS
8 41 (3.79%) RESTful
9 34 (3.14%) Spring
10 32 (2.96%) Spring Boot
11 31 (2.87%) OAuth
12 26 (2.40%) OAuth2
12 26 (2.40%) Web Services
13 24 (2.22%) OpenID
14 23 (2.13%) JSON
14 23 (2.13%) Middleware
14 23 (2.13%) SOAP
15 22 (2.03%) SAML
16 21 (1.94%) AngularJS
17 19 (1.76%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 111 (10.26%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.39%) Algorithms
3 75 (6.93%) Cloud Native
4 73 (6.75%) Onboarding
5 65 (6.01%) Product Ownership
6 63 (5.82%) Data Structures
7 52 (4.81%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.87%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 23 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
10 23 (2.13%) Hybrid Cloud
10 23 (2.13%) Virtual Team
11 22 (2.03%) Derivative
11 22 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
12 19 (1.76%) Data Centre
13 17 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.48%) Fixed Income
15 15 (1.39%) Equities
16 14 (1.29%) Operational Technology
17 13 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 124 (11.46%) Windows
2 110 (10.17%) Linux
3 31 (2.87%) Unix
4 29 (2.68%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.29%) Android
8 10 (0.92%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.55%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 334 (30.87%) Problem-Solving
2 272 (25.14%) Agile
3 232 (21.44%) AI
4 220 (20.33%) CI/CD
5 191 (17.65%) Software Engineering
6 188 (17.38%) Continuous Improvement
7 181 (16.73%) DevOps
8 162 (14.97%) Stakeholder Management
9 154 (14.23%) Analytics
10 116 (10.72%) ITIL
11 113 (10.44%) Cybersecurity
12 108 (9.98%) Mathematics
13 103 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 98 (9.06%) Machine Learning
14 98 (9.06%) Roadmaps
15 96 (8.87%) Test Automation
16 94 (8.69%) Scrum
17 91 (8.41%) Validation
18 88 (8.13%) Mentoring
19 83 (7.67%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 295 (27.26%) Python
2 218 (20.15%) SQL
3 142 (13.12%) Java
4 87 (8.04%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.30%) PowerShell
6 69 (6.38%) C#
7 44 (4.07%) Bash
8 38 (3.51%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.77%) C++
10 17 (1.57%) Bicep
11 14 (1.29%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.11%) R
13 11 (1.02%) C
14 9 (0.83%) Scala
15 8 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 8 (0.74%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.65%) Go
17 6 (0.55%) Perl
17 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 828 (76.52%) Degree
2 501 (46.30%) Computer Science Degree
3 191 (17.65%) Security Cleared
4 132 (12.20%) SC Cleared
5 114 (10.54%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.71%) Azure Certification
7 48 (4.44%) CISSP
8 47 (4.34%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.60%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.33%) PhD
11 30 (2.77%) CISM
12 29 (2.68%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.59%) DV Cleared
14 23 (2.13%) PMI Certification
14 23 (2.13%) PMP
15 22 (2.03%) Cisco Certification
15 22 (2.03%) TOGAF Certification
16 19 (1.76%) CISA
17 18 (1.66%) BPSS Clearance
18 15 (1.39%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.47%) Data Quality
2 63 (5.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.27%) QA
4 53 (4.90%) NIST
5 27 (2.50%) GDPR
6 17 (1.57%) SLA
7 16 (1.48%) Accessibility
8 15 (1.39%) GRC
9 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
9 11 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 10 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 8 (0.74%) NCSC
11 8 (0.74%) PCI DSS
12 7 (0.65%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.46%) ITGC
14 4 (0.37%) COBIT
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
15 3 (0.28%) HL7
15 3 (0.28%) ISO 9001
15 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 88 (8.13%) Docker
2 76 (7.02%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.74%) Firmware
7 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.092%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.092%) ISA Server
11 1 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 104 (9.61%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.60%) Ansible
3 28 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (2.31%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.94%) Grafana
6 14 (1.29%) SCCM
7 12 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) Control-M
9 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) CASB
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) QRadar
Vendors
1 215 (19.87%) Microsoft
2 70 (6.47%) Oracle
3 48 (4.44%) Google
4 40 (3.70%) Databricks
4 40 (3.70%) IBM
5 37 (3.42%) VMware
6 36 (3.33%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.87%) SAP
8 27 (2.50%) Cisco
9 23 (2.13%) Splunk
10 20 (1.85%) CyberArk
11 19 (1.76%) Salesforce
12 18 (1.66%) BeyondTrust
13 13 (1.20%) Adobe
13 13 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 11 (1.02%) OpenAI
15 10 (0.92%) Citrix
15 10 (0.92%) Dynatrace
15 10 (0.92%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) Veracode