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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 65 61
Rank change year-on-year -69 -4 +26
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,099 1,225 1,283
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.04% 3.74% 3.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 4.14% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 613 691 797
10th Percentile £175 £184 £337
25th Percentile £200 £354 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £484 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.44% -12.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £689
90th Percentile £760 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -10.59% -19.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 115 46 57
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.80
25th Percentile £34.50 £29.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £56.00 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.54% +10.89% -18.55%
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 45,469 29,582 33,102
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.43% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,813 18,412 20,921
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 2,891 1,754 1,674
10th Percentile £14.10 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.85 £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 £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.92 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.80% -46.07% +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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -58 1,006 £464 -5.74% 3,632
UK excluding London -52 578 £380 -10.59% 1,412
London -69 448 £525 -8.70% 2,578
Work from Home -82 250 £500 - 1,183
South East -12 230 £388 -8.82% 386
North of England -45 146 £436 +3.81% 240
Midlands -55 91 £230 -42.50% 140
Yorkshire -12 75 £450 +26.40% 61
West Midlands -53 62 £225 -35.71% 78
North West -50 61 £447 -5.89% 133
East of England -24 50 £200 -58.12% 207
East Midlands -28 28 £253 -43.51% 62
South West -56 28 £469 +127.12% 210
Scotland -52 27 £359 -23.99% 154
North East -34 11 £195 -57.84% 48
Northern Ireland +6 4 £175 - 55
Wales -25 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 (3.82%) Confluence
2 32 (2.91%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.09%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.36%) Apache
6 9 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
7 8 (0.73%) Camunda
8 6 (0.55%) IIS
9 5 (0.45%) OpenStack
9 5 (0.45%) SAS
10 4 (0.36%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 4 (0.36%) CMS
10 4 (0.36%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
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 (0.091%) nginx
12 1 (0.091%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (3.91%) Microsoft Office
2 27 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.36%) MS Visio
4 11 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.64%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.64%) Revit
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.36%) Trello
8 3 (0.27%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.091%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 10 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.45%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.27%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.27%) Primavera
4 3 (0.27%) 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 (0.091%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.091%) Finacle
6 1 (0.091%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.091%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.091%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 303 (27.57%) Azure
2 196 (17.83%) AWS
3 113 (10.28%) GCP
4 77 (7.01%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.64%) Microsoft 365
6 61 (5.55%) Entra ID
7 49 (4.46%) SaaS
8 48 (4.37%) GitHub
9 46 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
10 35 (3.18%) Snowflake
11 32 (2.91%) Serverless
12 22 (2.00%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.91%) OpenShift
14 18 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.64%) Microsoft Copilot
15 17 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
16 16 (1.46%) Power Automate
17 15 (1.36%) Azure Data Factory
18 14 (1.27%) dbt
19 13 (1.18%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.91%) DNS
1 43 (3.91%) Firewall
2 35 (3.18%) VPN
3 33 (3.00%) Network Security
4 25 (2.27%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.91%) DHCP
6 17 (1.55%) SSH
7 16 (1.46%) WAN
8 12 (1.09%) BGP
8 12 (1.09%) LAN
9 11 (1.00%) Wireless
10 10 (0.91%) HTTP
10 10 (0.91%) MPLS
10 10 (0.91%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.82%) 3GPP
11 9 (0.82%) 5G
11 9 (0.82%) VLAN
12 8 (0.73%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.73%) OSPF
13 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (5.55%) Power BI
2 57 (5.19%) Relational Database
3 51 (4.64%) SQL Server
4 46 (4.19%) PostgreSQL
5 37 (3.37%) Metadata
6 30 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.27%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.27%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.00%) Big Data
9 17 (1.55%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (1.55%) MySQL
9 17 (1.55%) Tableau
10 14 (1.27%) Data Mining
10 14 (1.27%) Redis
11 11 (1.00%) Oracle Database
12 10 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
13 9 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
13 9 (0.82%) Data Lake
14 8 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
15 7 (0.64%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 96 (8.74%) Git
2 53 (4.82%) JIRA
3 46 (4.19%) Jenkins
4 42 (3.82%) GitLab
5 25 (2.27%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.55%) Selenium
7 16 (1.46%) JUnit
8 14 (1.27%) SonarQube
9 13 (1.18%) Gradle
9 13 (1.18%) Maven
10 12 (1.09%) Sonatype Nexus
11 11 (1.00%) REST Assured
12 10 (0.91%) Bitbucket
13 9 (0.82%) Mockito
14 8 (0.73%) SpecFlow
14 8 (0.73%) TeamCity
15 7 (0.64%) Bitbucket Server
16 6 (0.55%) Cucumber
16 6 (0.55%) Postman
16 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 450 (40.95%) Social Skills
2 248 (22.57%) Analytical Skills
3 242 (22.02%) Finance
4 94 (8.55%) Banking
5 63 (5.73%) Public Sector
6 58 (5.28%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.55%) Documentation Skills
8 41 (3.73%) Telecoms
9 38 (3.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 35 (3.18%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
11 31 (2.82%) Manufacturing
12 28 (2.55%) Front Office
13 26 (2.37%) Marketing
14 25 (2.27%) Legal
15 16 (1.46%) Law
15 16 (1.46%) Military
15 16 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
16 15 (1.36%) Retail
17 13 (1.18%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 145 (13.19%) Developer
2 108 (9.83%) Senior
3 95 (8.64%) Architect
4 80 (7.28%) Lead
5 77 (7.01%) Analyst
6 36 (3.28%) Data Engineer
7 31 (2.82%) Product Manager
7 31 (2.82%) Software Engineer
8 29 (2.64%) Delivery Manager
9 27 (2.46%) IT Support
9 27 (2.46%) Java Developer
10 25 (2.27%) Junior
10 25 (2.27%) Product Delivery Manager
10 25 (2.27%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.18%) Python Developer
11 24 (2.18%) Solutions Architect
12 22 (2.00%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 22 (2.00%) Data Scientist
12 22 (2.00%) Full-Stack Developer
13 21 (1.91%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 94 (8.55%) REST
2 60 (5.46%) React
3 59 (5.37%) Terraform
4 57 (5.19%) .NET
5 49 (4.46%) HTML
6 48 (4.37%) Kafka
7 47 (4.28%) CSS
8 41 (3.73%) RESTful
9 32 (2.91%) Spring
10 31 (2.82%) OAuth
11 30 (2.73%) Spring Boot
12 26 (2.37%) OAuth2
12 26 (2.37%) Web Services
13 25 (2.27%) OpenID
14 23 (2.09%) JSON
14 23 (2.09%) SOAP
15 22 (2.00%) AngularJS
15 22 (2.00%) Middleware
15 22 (2.00%) SAML
16 18 (1.64%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 106 (9.65%) Management Information System
2 82 (7.46%) Algorithms
3 81 (7.37%) Product Ownership
4 72 (6.55%) Data Structures
5 71 (6.46%) Cloud Native
5 71 (6.46%) Onboarding
6 53 (4.82%) Distributed Systems
7 29 (2.64%) AI Agents
8 25 (2.27%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 24 (2.18%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.09%) Derivative
10 23 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
11 22 (2.00%) Hybrid Cloud
11 22 (2.00%) Self-Motivation
12 19 (1.73%) Data Centre
13 17 (1.55%) Fixed Income
13 17 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.46%) Equities
15 14 (1.27%) Operational Technology
16 13 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 122 (11.10%) Windows
2 111 (10.10%) Linux
3 31 (2.82%) Unix
4 26 (2.37%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.82%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.27%) Android
8 10 (0.91%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.73%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.55%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.36%) VMS
12 3 (0.27%) Debian
12 3 (0.27%) 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 (0.091%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.091%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 334 (30.39%) Problem-Solving
2 282 (25.66%) Agile
3 235 (21.38%) AI
4 213 (19.38%) CI/CD
5 197 (17.93%) Continuous Improvement
6 189 (17.20%) Software Engineering
7 174 (15.83%) DevOps
8 163 (14.83%) Stakeholder Management
9 149 (13.56%) Analytics
10 118 (10.74%) ITIL
11 116 (10.56%) Cybersecurity
12 113 (10.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 107 (9.74%) Mathematics
14 98 (8.92%) Roadmaps
15 97 (8.83%) Machine Learning
16 94 (8.55%) Scrum
17 93 (8.46%) Validation
18 90 (8.19%) Test Automation
19 85 (7.73%) Mentoring
20 83 (7.55%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 299 (27.21%) Python
2 217 (19.75%) SQL
3 141 (12.83%) Java
4 84 (7.64%) JavaScript
5 75 (6.82%) PowerShell
6 68 (6.19%) C#
7 43 (3.91%) Bash
8 40 (3.64%) TypeScript
9 31 (2.82%) C++
10 16 (1.46%) Bicep
11 14 (1.27%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.09%) R
13 11 (1.00%) 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
1 842 (76.62%) Degree
2 499 (45.40%) Computer Science Degree
3 207 (18.84%) Security Cleared
4 133 (12.10%) SC Cleared
5 120 (10.92%) Master's Degree
6 49 (4.46%) Azure Certification
7 47 (4.28%) CISSP
8 46 (4.19%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.46%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.18%) PhD
11 30 (2.73%) CISM
12 29 (2.64%) DV Cleared
13 26 (2.37%) AWS Certification
13 26 (2.37%) PMI Certification
14 25 (2.27%) PMP
15 22 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
16 21 (1.91%) TOGAF Certification
17 19 (1.73%) CISA
18 18 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
19 15 (1.36%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.19%) Data Quality
2 65 (5.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 55 (5.00%) NIST
3 55 (5.00%) QA
4 26 (2.37%) GDPR
5 17 (1.55%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.36%) SLA
7 13 (1.18%) GRC
8 12 (1.09%) NCSC
9 11 (1.00%) HIPAA
9 11 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 11 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 9 (0.82%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 7 (0.64%) PCI DSS
12 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.45%) ITGC
13 4 (0.36%) COBIT
13 4 (0.36%) ISO 19650
14 3 (0.27%) PMO
System Software
1 88 (8.01%) Docker
2 76 (6.92%) Active Directory
3 28 (2.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.00%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.73%) Firmware
7 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.55%) vSphere
8 3 (0.27%) ACF2
8 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
8 3 (0.27%) RACF
8 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.091%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.091%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 103 (9.37%) Kubernetes
2 43 (3.91%) Ansible
3 28 (2.55%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (2.37%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.00%) Grafana
6 14 (1.27%) SCCM
7 12 (1.09%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.55%) Argo
9 4 (0.36%) Control-M
9 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
9 4 (0.36%) Puppet
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) Istio
10 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.27%) SolarWinds Orion
10 3 (0.27%) vRealize
10 3 (0.27%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 2 (0.18%) CASB
Vendors
1 211 (19.20%) Microsoft
2 69 (6.28%) Oracle
3 49 (4.46%) IBM
4 46 (4.19%) Google
5 43 (3.91%) Databricks
6 39 (3.55%) VMware
7 36 (3.28%) ServiceNow
8 29 (2.64%) SAP
9 26 (2.37%) Cisco
10 22 (2.00%) Splunk
11 20 (1.82%) CyberArk
12 19 (1.73%) Salesforce
13 18 (1.64%) BeyondTrust
14 12 (1.09%) Adobe
14 12 (1.09%) Red Hat
15 10 (0.91%) Citrix
15 10 (0.91%) Dynatrace
15 10 (0.91%) OpenAI
16 9 (0.82%) Nokia
16 9 (0.82%) UiPath