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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 66 63
Rank change year-on-year -70 -3 +21
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,089 1,235 1,287
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.03% 3.77% 3.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.40% 4.17% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 609 698 799
10th Percentile £175 £184 £334
25th Percentile £200 £354 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £490 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.61% -10.91% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £688
90th Percentile £760 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £376 £420 £525
% change year-on-year -10.48% -20.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 114 46 58
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.91
25th Percentile £34.25 £29.00 £41.50
Median hourly rate £67.50 £56.00 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.54% +8.74% -16.94%
75th Percentile £87.16 £68.44 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £75.00 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +11.94% +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 45,399 29,629 33,143
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.55% 90.46% 85.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,782 18,436 20,950
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% -3.67%
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 2,881 1,773 1,687
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.87 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.84 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +6.25%

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 27 August 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 27 August 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 27 August 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 -59 997 £464 -6.03% 2,425
UK excluding London -54 573 £376 -10.48% 1,042
London -61 442 £525 -8.70% 1,665
Work from Home -86 249 £500 - 808
South East -14 228 £375 -11.76% 238
North of England -41 145 £447 +7.39% 173
Midlands -55 91 £230 -38.67% 104
Yorkshire -19 74 £450 +27.12% 39
West Midlands -50 62 £225 -32.84% 54
North West -51 61 £447 -5.89% 100
East of England -28 49 £200 -55.56% 162
East Midlands -25 28 £253 -43.51% 50
South West -72 28 £469 +127.12% 192
Scotland -56 26 £359 -24.23% 123
North East -36 11 £195 -57.84% 36
Northern Ireland +3 4 £175 - 35
Wales -22 4 £530 +14.59% 27

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 41 (3.76%) Confluence
2 31 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.11%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.84%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.38%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
7 7 (0.64%) Camunda
8 6 (0.55%) IIS
9 5 (0.46%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.46%) SAS
10 4 (0.37%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.28%) CMS
12 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
12 2 (0.18%) Oracle Service Bus
12 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
13 1 (0.092%) nginx
13 1 (0.092%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.95%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.48%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.38%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.64%) 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 10 (0.92%) 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%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.092%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.092%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 300 (27.55%) Azure
2 195 (17.91%) AWS
3 112 (10.28%) GCP
4 76 (6.98%) Power Platform
5 61 (5.60%) Entra ID
5 61 (5.60%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (4.50%) SaaS
7 48 (4.41%) GitHub
8 46 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
9 35 (3.21%) Snowflake
10 32 (2.94%) Serverless
11 22 (2.02%) PowerApps
12 19 (1.74%) OpenShift
13 18 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
13 18 (1.65%) Microsoft Copilot
14 17 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
15 16 (1.47%) Power Automate
16 15 (1.38%) Azure Data Factory
17 14 (1.29%) dbt
18 13 (1.19%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.86%) DNS
1 42 (3.86%) Firewall
2 34 (3.12%) VPN
3 33 (3.03%) Network Security
4 24 (2.20%) TCP/IP
5 20 (1.84%) DHCP
6 17 (1.56%) SSH
7 16 (1.47%) WAN
8 12 (1.10%) BGP
8 12 (1.10%) LAN
9 11 (1.01%) Wireless
10 10 (0.92%) HTTP
10 10 (0.92%) MPLS
10 10 (0.92%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.83%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.83%) 5G
12 8 (0.73%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.73%) OSPF
12 8 (0.73%) VLAN
13 7 (0.64%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (5.60%) Power BI
2 57 (5.23%) Relational Database
3 50 (4.59%) SQL Server
4 46 (4.22%) PostgreSQL
5 36 (3.31%) Metadata
6 30 (2.75%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.30%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.30%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.02%) Big Data
9 17 (1.56%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (1.56%) MySQL
9 17 (1.56%) Tableau
10 14 (1.29%) Data Mining
10 14 (1.29%) Redis
11 11 (1.01%) Oracle Database
12 10 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
13 9 (0.83%) Data Lake
14 8 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
15 7 (0.64%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 96 (8.82%) Git
2 52 (4.78%) JIRA
3 45 (4.13%) Jenkins
4 41 (3.76%) GitLab
5 26 (2.39%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.56%) Selenium
7 15 (1.38%) JUnit
8 13 (1.19%) SonarQube
9 12 (1.10%) Gradle
9 12 (1.10%) Maven
10 11 (1.01%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (0.92%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.92%) REST Assured
12 8 (0.73%) Mockito
12 8 (0.73%) SpecFlow
12 8 (0.73%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.55%) Cucumber
13 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.55%) Visual Studio
General
1 443 (40.68%) Social Skills
2 246 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
3 239 (21.95%) Finance
4 92 (8.45%) Banking
5 64 (5.88%) Public Sector
6 56 (5.14%) Aerospace
7 46 (4.22%) Documentation Skills
8 41 (3.76%) Telecoms
9 37 (3.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 35 (3.21%) Organisational Skills
11 30 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
11 30 (2.75%) Manufacturing
12 28 (2.57%) Front Office
13 25 (2.30%) Legal
14 22 (2.02%) Marketing
15 16 (1.47%) Law
15 16 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
16 15 (1.38%) Military
16 15 (1.38%) Retail
17 13 (1.19%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 142 (13.04%) Developer
2 106 (9.73%) Senior
3 94 (8.63%) Architect
4 80 (7.35%) Lead
5 76 (6.98%) Analyst
6 36 (3.31%) Data Engineer
7 31 (2.85%) Product Manager
7 31 (2.85%) Software Engineer
8 29 (2.66%) Delivery Manager
9 27 (2.48%) IT Support
10 26 (2.39%) Java Developer
11 25 (2.30%) Junior
11 25 (2.30%) Product Delivery Manager
11 25 (2.30%) Senior Developer
12 24 (2.20%) Python Developer
12 24 (2.20%) Solutions Architect
13 22 (2.02%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 22 (2.02%) Data Scientist
14 21 (1.93%) Full-Stack Developer
15 20 (1.84%) IT Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (8.72%) REST
2 59 (5.42%) React
3 58 (5.33%) Terraform
4 56 (5.14%) .NET
5 47 (4.32%) Kafka
6 44 (4.04%) HTML
7 42 (3.86%) CSS
8 41 (3.76%) RESTful
9 32 (2.94%) OAuth
10 31 (2.85%) Spring
11 29 (2.66%) Spring Boot
12 26 (2.39%) OAuth2
12 26 (2.39%) Web Services
13 25 (2.30%) OpenID
14 24 (2.20%) SOAP
15 23 (2.11%) JSON
15 23 (2.11%) Middleware
15 23 (2.11%) SAML
16 22 (2.02%) AngularJS
17 18 (1.65%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 101 (9.27%) Management Information System
2 82 (7.53%) Algorithms
2 82 (7.53%) Product Ownership
3 72 (6.61%) Data Structures
4 71 (6.52%) Onboarding
5 69 (6.34%) Cloud Native
6 52 (4.78%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.75%) AI Agents
8 25 (2.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 23 (2.11%) Derivative
9 23 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
9 23 (2.11%) Virtual Team
10 22 (2.02%) Self-Motivation
11 21 (1.93%) Hybrid Cloud
12 17 (1.56%) Fixed Income
12 17 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
13 16 (1.47%) Data Centre
13 16 (1.47%) Equities
14 14 (1.29%) Operational Technology
15 12 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 119 (10.93%) Windows
2 109 (10.01%) Linux
3 31 (2.85%) Unix
4 24 (2.20%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.84%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.29%) Android
8 10 (0.92%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.73%) 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
1 331 (30.39%) Problem-Solving
2 279 (25.62%) Agile
3 231 (21.21%) AI
4 211 (19.38%) CI/CD
5 195 (17.91%) Continuous Improvement
6 189 (17.36%) Software Engineering
7 173 (15.89%) DevOps
8 159 (14.60%) Stakeholder Management
9 143 (13.13%) Analytics
10 116 (10.65%) ITIL
11 114 (10.47%) Cybersecurity
12 112 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 107 (9.83%) Mathematics
14 97 (8.91%) Machine Learning
15 95 (8.72%) Roadmaps
16 93 (8.54%) Scrum
17 91 (8.36%) Validation
18 88 (8.08%) Test Automation
19 86 (7.90%) Mentoring
20 83 (7.62%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 297 (27.27%) Python
2 216 (19.83%) SQL
3 140 (12.86%) Java
4 80 (7.35%) JavaScript
5 72 (6.61%) PowerShell
6 67 (6.15%) C#
7 42 (3.86%) Bash
8 40 (3.67%) TypeScript
9 31 (2.85%) C++
10 15 (1.38%) Bicep
11 14 (1.29%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.10%) R
13 11 (1.01%) C
14 7 (0.64%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (0.64%) Go
14 7 (0.64%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.55%) Perl
15 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 831 (76.31%) Degree
2 491 (45.09%) Computer Science Degree
3 205 (18.82%) Security Cleared
4 130 (11.94%) SC Cleared
5 121 (11.11%) Master's Degree
6 48 (4.41%) Azure Certification
7 46 (4.22%) CISSP
8 45 (4.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.49%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.21%) PhD
11 29 (2.66%) CISM
12 27 (2.48%) DV Cleared
13 26 (2.39%) AWS Certification
13 26 (2.39%) PMI Certification
14 25 (2.30%) PMP
15 22 (2.02%) Cisco Certification
16 21 (1.93%) TOGAF Certification
17 18 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
17 18 (1.65%) CISA
18 15 (1.38%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (6.15%) Data Quality
2 64 (5.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 55 (5.05%) QA
4 54 (4.96%) NIST
5 25 (2.30%) GDPR
6 17 (1.56%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.38%) SLA
8 13 (1.19%) GRC
9 11 (1.01%) HIPAA
9 11 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 11 (1.01%) NCSC
9 11 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 8 (0.73%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 7 (0.64%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.46%) ITGC
13 4 (0.37%) COBIT
13 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
14 3 (0.28%) PMO
System Software
1 88 (8.08%) Docker
2 76 (6.98%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.83%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.55%) Firmware
5 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (0.46%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.46%) vSphere
7 3 (0.28%) ACF2
7 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
7 3 (0.28%) RACF
7 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
8 2 (0.18%) Ceph
8 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 1 (0.092%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 1 (0.092%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.092%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.092%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 102 (9.37%) Kubernetes
2 41 (3.76%) Ansible
3 28 (2.57%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (2.39%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.02%) Grafana
6 13 (1.19%) SCCM
7 12 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.55%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) Control-M
9 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) CASB
11 2 (0.18%) Istio
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 208 (19.10%) Microsoft
2 69 (6.34%) Oracle
3 49 (4.50%) IBM
4 45 (4.13%) Google
5 43 (3.95%) Databricks
6 37 (3.40%) ServiceNow
7 36 (3.31%) VMware
8 29 (2.66%) SAP
9 26 (2.39%) Cisco
10 22 (2.02%) Splunk
11 20 (1.84%) CyberArk
12 19 (1.74%) Salesforce
13 18 (1.65%) BeyondTrust
14 11 (1.01%) Red Hat
15 10 (0.92%) Citrix
15 10 (0.92%) Dynatrace
15 10 (0.92%) OpenAI
16 9 (0.83%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) Nokia
16 9 (0.83%) UiPath