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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 62 62
Rank change year-on-year -60 0 +39
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,042 1,065 1,340
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.13% 3.70% 3.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.52% 4.07% 3.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 606 594 812
10th Percentile £178 £243 £313
25th Percentile £218 £384 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% -4.76% -7.08%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £650
90th Percentile £775 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -15.79% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 102 34 103
10th Percentile £28.50 £25.38 £21.25
25th Percentile £47.56 £29.00 £38.75
Median hourly rate £81.50 £41.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.78% -25.45% +1.04%
75th Percentile £88.00 £68.44 £65.00
90th Percentile - £86.49 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +7.32%

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 41,363 26,184 36,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.68% 91.01% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,810 16,717 23,641
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,496 1,118 2,535
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.85 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.27% -23.70% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.19 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.14 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 June 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 June 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 June 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 -44 934 £475 -8.57% 1,232
UK excluding London -47 556 £400 -15.79% 748
London -58 404 £550 -8.33% 600
Work from Home -63 226 £500 -9.09% 735
South East -6 216 £215 -55.26% 247
North of England -29 137 £400 -20.00% 137
Yorkshire -6 81 £525 +22.38% 28
Midlands -67 69 £450 +53.06% 89
North West -33 55 £350 -33.33% 80
West Midlands -63 53 £450 +54.11% 52
South West -41 47 £469 +42.12% 80
East of England -36 38 £280 -56.92% 106
Scotland -19 37 £640 +21.90% 51
East Midlands -40 15 £525 +74.71% 37
Northern Ireland +11 8 £350 -41.67% 40
Wales -34 7 £450 +55.17% 15
North East -33 2 £125 -73.68% 29

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 52 (4.99%) Confluence
2 39 (3.74%) Apache Spark
3 26 (2.50%) SharePoint
4 23 (2.21%) Apache
5 21 (2.02%) Apache Airflow
6 10 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.58%) IIS
8 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 4 (0.38%) SAS
9 3 (0.29%) Camunda
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) OpenStack
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 (0.096%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.096%) Appian
Applications
1 32 (3.07%) Microsoft Office
2 22 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.54%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.67%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.67%) Revit
6 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.19%) Simulink
7 2 (0.19%) Trello
8 1 (0.096%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.096%) Sketch
8 1 (0.096%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 23 (2.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.48%) Payment Gateway
3 4 (0.38%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.096%) Actimize
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.096%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.096%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.096%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.096%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 303 (29.08%) Azure
2 191 (18.33%) AWS
3 83 (7.97%) GCP
4 61 (5.85%) Power Platform
5 53 (5.09%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (4.70%) SaaS
7 46 (4.41%) GitHub
8 44 (4.22%) Entra ID
9 34 (3.26%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (2.02%) Snowflake
11 20 (1.92%) GitHub Actions
12 17 (1.63%) Azure AKS
12 17 (1.63%) Serverless
13 16 (1.54%) AWS CloudFormation
13 16 (1.54%) IaaS
14 15 (1.44%) PowerApps
15 13 (1.25%) Azure Data Factory
15 13 (1.25%) PaaS
16 12 (1.15%) Azure Service Bus
17 11 (1.06%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 36 (3.45%) Firewall
2 30 (2.88%) TCP/IP
3 29 (2.78%) DNS
4 28 (2.69%) Network Security
5 15 (1.44%) WAN
6 13 (1.25%) BGP
7 12 (1.15%) LAN
7 12 (1.15%) SSH
8 10 (0.96%) OSPF
9 9 (0.86%) 3GPP
9 9 (0.86%) HTTPS
9 9 (0.86%) VPN
9 9 (0.86%) Wireless
10 7 (0.67%) SAN
10 7 (0.67%) VLAN
11 6 (0.58%) DHCP
11 6 (0.58%) LTE
12 5 (0.48%) RTP
12 5 (0.48%) Wireshark
13 4 (0.38%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (4.70%) Power BI
1 49 (4.70%) Relational Database
2 47 (4.51%) SQL Server
3 44 (4.22%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (3.74%) Data Warehouse
5 34 (3.26%) Big Data
6 28 (2.69%) Metadata
7 25 (2.40%) NoSQL
8 23 (2.21%) MongoDB
9 22 (2.11%) MySQL
10 21 (2.02%) Hadoop
11 17 (1.63%) Tableau
12 14 (1.34%) Data Lake
13 13 (1.25%) Elasticsearch
14 10 (0.96%) Snowflake Schema
14 10 (0.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 9 (0.86%) Redis
16 8 (0.77%) Amazon RDS
17 7 (0.67%) Power Query
17 7 (0.67%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 72 (6.91%) Git
2 65 (6.24%) JIRA
3 36 (3.45%) GitLab
4 35 (3.36%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.69%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.15%) Gradle
7 11 (1.06%) JUnit
7 11 (1.06%) Selenium
8 10 (0.96%) TeamCity
9 9 (0.86%) Jaeger
10 8 (0.77%) MLflow
11 7 (0.67%) CircleCI
11 7 (0.67%) Maven
11 7 (0.67%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.58%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.58%) Postman
13 5 (0.48%) Artifactory
13 5 (0.48%) Flyway
14 4 (0.38%) Bitbucket
14 4 (0.38%) REST Assured
General
1 421 (40.40%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.65%) Finance
3 209 (20.06%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (9.02%) Banking
5 60 (5.76%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.28%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.80%) Documentation Skills
8 32 (3.07%) Marketing
8 32 (3.07%) Telecoms
9 31 (2.98%) Presentation Skills
10 29 (2.78%) Legal
10 29 (2.78%) Organisational Skills
11 28 (2.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 25 (2.40%) Front Office
12 25 (2.40%) Influencing Skills
13 19 (1.82%) Manufacturing
14 16 (1.54%) Investment Banking
14 16 (1.54%) Publishing
15 15 (1.44%) Retail
16 14 (1.34%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 111 (10.65%) Architect
2 106 (10.17%) Developer
3 90 (8.64%) Analyst
4 86 (8.25%) Lead
5 85 (8.16%) Senior
6 41 (3.93%) Software Engineer
7 35 (3.36%) Delivery Manager
7 35 (3.36%) Product Manager
8 32 (3.07%) Solutions Architect
9 30 (2.88%) Data Scientist
9 30 (2.88%) Technical Support
10 28 (2.69%) Data Engineer
10 28 (2.69%) Product Delivery Manager
11 23 (2.21%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 23 (2.21%) Junior
11 23 (2.21%) Python Developer
11 23 (2.21%) Security Engineer
12 22 (2.11%) Systems Delivery Manager
12 22 (2.11%) Systems Manager
13 20 (1.92%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 90 (8.64%) REST
2 56 (5.37%) React
3 52 (4.99%) .NET
4 46 (4.41%) Kafka
5 44 (4.22%) Middleware
6 35 (3.36%) RESTful
7 34 (3.26%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.78%) Spring
9 26 (2.50%) PyTorch
10 23 (2.21%) AngularJS
10 23 (2.21%) OAuth
11 21 (2.02%) SOAP
11 21 (2.02%) TensorFlow
12 20 (1.92%) JSON
13 18 (1.73%) Elastic Stack
13 18 (1.73%) HTML
13 18 (1.73%) XML
14 17 (1.63%) CSS
14 17 (1.63%) Pandas
15 16 (1.54%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 99 (9.50%) Management Information System
2 79 (7.58%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.29%) Onboarding
4 70 (6.72%) Algorithms
5 67 (6.43%) Cloud Native
6 51 (4.89%) Data Structures
6 51 (4.89%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.88%) Virtual Team
8 25 (2.40%) Derivative
8 25 (2.40%) Self-Motivation
9 21 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
9 21 (2.02%) Equities
10 20 (1.92%) AI Agents
10 20 (1.92%) Taxonomies
11 19 (1.82%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 18 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (1.73%) Security Operations Centre
13 17 (1.63%) Cyberattack
14 16 (1.54%) Robotics
15 14 (1.34%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 133 (12.76%) Windows
2 126 (12.09%) Linux
3 42 (4.03%) Unix
4 24 (2.30%) Android
5 20 (1.92%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.73%) Windows Server
7 16 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (1.44%) Apple iOS
9 14 (1.34%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.48%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.38%) Debian
11 4 (0.38%) Rocky
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.096%) CentOS
13 1 (0.096%) MVS
13 1 (0.096%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 310 (29.75%) Problem-Solving
2 261 (25.05%) Agile
3 225 (21.59%) AI
4 190 (18.23%) CI/CD
5 179 (17.18%) DevOps
6 176 (16.89%) Software Engineering
7 168 (16.12%) Continuous Improvement
8 128 (12.28%) Analytics
9 121 (11.61%) Cybersecurity
10 116 (11.13%) Microservices
11 102 (9.79%) Stakeholder Management
12 101 (9.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 98 (9.40%) Machine Learning
14 96 (9.21%) Technical Leadership
15 94 (9.02%) Decision-Making
16 91 (8.73%) Mathematics
17 89 (8.54%) Containerisation
17 89 (8.54%) Data Science
18 87 (8.35%) Data Governance
19 85 (8.16%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 282 (27.06%) Python
2 205 (19.67%) SQL
3 135 (12.96%) Java
4 67 (6.43%) JavaScript
5 56 (5.37%) C#
6 43 (4.13%) PowerShell
7 32 (3.07%) TypeScript
8 27 (2.59%) C++
9 25 (2.40%) Bash
10 19 (1.82%) R
11 14 (1.34%) Go
12 13 (1.25%) Perl
13 12 (1.15%) Rust
14 11 (1.06%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.96%) Kotlin
16 8 (0.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 6 (0.58%) Scala
18 5 (0.48%) C
19 4 (0.38%) Ada
20 3 (0.29%) PHP
Qualifications
1 831 (79.75%) Degree
2 505 (48.46%) Computer Science Degree
3 190 (18.23%) Security Cleared
4 141 (13.53%) Master's Degree
5 113 (10.84%) SC Cleared
6 55 (5.28%) CISSP
7 38 (3.65%) CISM
8 32 (3.07%) Azure Certification
8 32 (3.07%) PhD
9 30 (2.88%) TOGAF Certification
10 29 (2.78%) DV Cleared
11 27 (2.59%) Microsoft Certification
11 27 (2.59%) PMI Certification
12 24 (2.30%) PMP
13 23 (2.21%) AWS Certification
14 21 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
14 21 (2.02%) CompTIA Security+
15 20 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
16 19 (1.82%) CISA
16 19 (1.82%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (5.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 56 (5.37%) NIST
3 55 (5.28%) QA
4 53 (5.09%) Data Quality
5 37 (3.55%) GDPR
6 21 (2.02%) PCI DSS
7 19 (1.82%) Accessibility
8 14 (1.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 13 (1.25%) GRC
10 10 (0.96%) NIST 800
10 10 (0.96%) SLA
11 8 (0.77%) HIPAA
11 8 (0.77%) NCSC
12 7 (0.67%) COBIT
12 7 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 7 (0.67%) PSD2
13 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
13 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
14 5 (0.48%) DO-254
14 5 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 103 (9.88%) Docker
2 67 (6.43%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 12 (1.15%) Firmware
5 9 (0.86%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.48%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.38%) 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 (0.096%) ACF2
11 1 (0.096%) HDFS
11 1 (0.096%) RACF
Systems Management
1 125 (12.00%) Kubernetes
2 58 (5.57%) Terraform
3 44 (4.22%) Ansible
4 31 (2.98%) Grafana
4 31 (2.98%) Prometheus
5 26 (2.50%) Microsoft Intune
6 16 (1.54%) Single Sign-On
7 9 (0.86%) Kiali
8 8 (0.77%) Puppet
9 7 (0.67%) Kibana
10 4 (0.38%) Control-M
10 4 (0.38%) Kubeflow
11 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.29%) Foglight
11 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
11 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.19%) Network Intrusion Detection System
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize
12 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 176 (16.89%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.24%) Oracle
3 49 (4.70%) Databricks
4 46 (4.41%) Splunk
5 36 (3.45%) SAP
6 35 (3.36%) Google
7 34 (3.26%) IBM
8 29 (2.78%) ServiceNow
9 24 (2.30%) VMware
10 18 (1.73%) Cisco
11 16 (1.54%) Okta
12 15 (1.44%) BiZZdesign
12 15 (1.44%) Informatica
13 13 (1.25%) Palo Alto
14 12 (1.15%) CheckPoint
14 12 (1.15%) Salesforce
15 10 (0.96%) CyberArk
15 10 (0.96%) MuleSoft
15 10 (0.96%) Software AG
16 9 (0.86%) BeyondTrust