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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 131 66 63
Rank change year-on-year -65 -3 +26
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,080 1,228 1,315
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.06% 3.74% 3.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 4.14% 3.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 602 686 807
10th Percentile £177 £188 £325
25th Percentile £201 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.09% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £622 £650 £682
90th Percentile £760 £775 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £364 £420 £513
% change year-on-year -13.33% -18.05% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 49 67
10th Percentile £25.73 £25.00 £20.80
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £38.75
Median hourly rate £75.00 £54.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +37.61% +3.81% -15.32%
75th Percentile £87.16 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £55.63
% change year-on-year +21.64% +20.45% -7.29%

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 44,620 29,684 34,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.46% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,627 18,648 21,888
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,682 1,621 1,980
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.33 £17.74
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.35 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.33
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.56% -

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -54 983 £450 -10.00% 1,185
UK excluding London -50 583 £364 -13.33% 594
London -59 427 £525 -12.50% 696
Work from Home -88 244 £500 -9.09% 376
South East -5 243 £350 -26.32% 211
North of England -54 135 £390 -13.28% 100
Midlands -63 86 £312 -0.16% 91
Yorkshire -14 72 £450 +15.83% 24
West Midlands -63 59 £402 +86.98% 47
North West -65 52 £220 -53.68% 52
East of England -26 47 £215 -62.77% 91
South West -67 33 £469 +127.12% 62
Scotland -54 28 £400 -15.79% 24
East Midlands -23 26 £275 -36.56% 44
North East -40 12 £195 -57.84% 24
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 19
Wales -24 6 £530 +17.78% 10

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 37 (3.43%) Confluence
2 30 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 29 (2.69%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (1.76%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.56%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) CMS
10 3 (0.28%) Camunda
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.19%) nginx
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.093%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.093%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.093%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (3.89%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.96%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (1.20%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.65%) Revit
5 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Trello
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.19%) Sketch
8 1 (0.093%) Simulink
8 1 (0.093%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 14 (1.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.37%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Infor M3
5 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.19%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.093%) Finacle
6 1 (0.093%) Maximo
6 1 (0.093%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.093%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.093%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.093%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.093%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 308 (28.52%) Azure
2 192 (17.78%) AWS
3 106 (9.81%) GCP
4 77 (7.13%) Power Platform
5 66 (6.11%) Entra ID
6 56 (5.19%) Microsoft 365
7 49 (4.54%) GitHub
8 48 (4.44%) SaaS
9 44 (4.07%) Azure DevOps
10 31 (2.87%) Snowflake
11 28 (2.59%) Serverless
12 22 (2.04%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.67%) Azure AKS
15 16 (1.48%) Microsoft Copilot
16 15 (1.39%) AWS Lambda
16 15 (1.39%) Power Automate
17 14 (1.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 14 (1.30%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (1.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 40 (3.70%) Firewall
2 30 (2.78%) Network Security
3 28 (2.59%) DNS
4 27 (2.50%) VPN
5 19 (1.76%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.48%) WAN
7 15 (1.39%) SSH
8 13 (1.20%) DHCP
8 13 (1.20%) LAN
9 11 (1.02%) BGP
10 10 (0.93%) Wireless
11 9 (0.83%) VLAN
12 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.74%) OSPF
12 8 (0.74%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.65%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.65%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
13 7 (0.65%) MPLS
14 6 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.74%) Power BI
2 53 (4.91%) Relational Database
3 51 (4.72%) SQL Server
4 49 (4.54%) PostgreSQL
5 33 (3.06%) Data Warehouse
6 31 (2.87%) Metadata
7 28 (2.59%) Big Data
8 27 (2.50%) MongoDB
9 23 (2.13%) NoSQL
10 17 (1.57%) Tableau
11 14 (1.30%) MySQL
12 13 (1.20%) Data Lake
12 13 (1.20%) Hadoop
13 12 (1.11%) Data Mining
14 11 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (1.02%) Elasticsearch
15 10 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.93%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.83%) Redis
17 8 (0.74%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 84 (7.78%) Git
2 50 (4.63%) JIRA
3 38 (3.52%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.15%) GitLab
5 31 (2.87%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.20%) Selenium
7 12 (1.11%) JUnit
8 11 (1.02%) Gradle
9 10 (0.93%) Bitbucket
10 8 (0.74%) Maven
10 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
10 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
11 7 (0.65%) MLflow
12 6 (0.56%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.56%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.56%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.56%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.46%) Flyway
General
1 433 (40.09%) Social Skills
2 233 (21.57%) Analytical Skills
3 228 (21.11%) Finance
4 91 (8.43%) Banking
5 67 (6.20%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.09%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.63%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (3.70%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (3.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 31 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (2.69%) Telecoms
12 26 (2.41%) Marketing
13 25 (2.31%) Legal
14 23 (2.13%) Front Office
14 23 (2.13%) Manufacturing
15 20 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (1.48%) Law
16 16 (1.48%) Military
17 15 (1.39%) Retail
18 12 (1.11%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 124 (11.48%) Developer
2 111 (10.28%) Senior
3 106 (9.81%) Architect
4 81 (7.50%) Lead
5 75 (6.94%) Analyst
6 38 (3.52%) Data Engineer
6 38 (3.52%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.43%) Product Manager
8 33 (3.06%) Delivery Manager
9 30 (2.78%) Data Scientist
10 28 (2.59%) Product Delivery Manager
11 26 (2.41%) Junior
11 26 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
12 24 (2.22%) Java Developer
13 23 (2.13%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 23 (2.13%) IT Support
13 23 (2.13%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.04%) Python Developer
14 22 (2.04%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.04%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (7.78%) REST
2 62 (5.74%) React
3 53 (4.91%) .NET
4 42 (3.89%) Kafka
5 37 (3.43%) Spring
6 33 (3.06%) RESTful
7 31 (2.87%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.69%) OAuth
9 25 (2.31%) AngularJS
10 24 (2.22%) CSS
10 24 (2.22%) PyTorch
11 23 (2.13%) HTML
11 23 (2.13%) SAML
12 22 (2.04%) Middleware
12 22 (2.04%) OAuth2
13 21 (1.94%) OpenID
13 21 (1.94%) Web Services
14 20 (1.85%) JSON
15 18 (1.67%) TensorFlow
16 17 (1.57%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 97 (8.98%) Management Information System
2 88 (8.15%) Product Ownership
3 85 (7.87%) Algorithms
3 85 (7.87%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.57%) Cloud Native
5 64 (5.93%) Data Structures
6 52 (4.81%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.78%) AI Agents
8 27 (2.50%) Virtual Team
9 26 (2.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 25 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
11 23 (2.13%) Derivative
12 18 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
13 17 (1.57%) Fixed Income
13 17 (1.57%) Hybrid Cloud
14 16 (1.48%) Legacy Systems
15 15 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (1.39%) Data Centre
15 15 (1.39%) Operational Technology
15 15 (1.39%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.67%) Windows
2 101 (9.35%) Linux
3 32 (2.96%) Unix
4 26 (2.41%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.94%) Android
6 19 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (1.48%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.11%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.83%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.83%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.46%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Debian
11 3 (0.28%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) MVS
12 2 (0.19%) Solaris
12 2 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.19%) zOS
13 1 (0.093%) CentOS
13 1 (0.093%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.093%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 316 (29.26%) Problem-Solving
2 268 (24.81%) Agile
3 237 (21.94%) AI
4 199 (18.43%) CI/CD
5 189 (17.50%) Continuous Improvement
6 185 (17.13%) Software Engineering
7 161 (14.91%) DevOps
8 149 (13.80%) Analytics
9 131 (12.13%) Stakeholder Management
10 126 (11.67%) Cybersecurity
11 114 (10.56%) ITIL
11 114 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 111 (10.28%) Machine Learning
13 109 (10.09%) Mathematics
14 97 (8.98%) Decision-Making
15 96 (8.89%) Data Science
16 89 (8.24%) Roadmaps
17 86 (7.96%) Microservices
18 83 (7.69%) Containerisation
19 82 (7.59%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 293 (27.13%) Python
2 206 (19.07%) SQL
3 132 (12.22%) Java
4 69 (6.39%) JavaScript
5 68 (6.30%) PowerShell
6 62 (5.74%) C#
7 39 (3.61%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.69%) Bash
9 21 (1.94%) C++
10 17 (1.57%) R
11 13 (1.20%) Bicep
12 11 (1.02%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.93%) C
14 8 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.74%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.56%) Go
15 6 (0.56%) Perl
16 5 (0.46%) Scala
17 4 (0.37%) Ada
17 4 (0.37%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 827 (76.57%) Degree
2 474 (43.89%) Computer Science Degree
3 206 (19.07%) Security Cleared
4 125 (11.57%) SC Cleared
5 123 (11.39%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.72%) CISSP
7 42 (3.89%) Azure Certification
8 41 (3.80%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.61%) PhD
10 37 (3.43%) DBS Check
11 33 (3.06%) CISM
12 29 (2.69%) PMI Certification
13 28 (2.59%) PMP
14 27 (2.50%) DV Cleared
15 26 (2.41%) AWS Certification
16 24 (2.22%) TOGAF Certification
17 23 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
18 21 (1.94%) CISA
19 19 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
20 17 (1.57%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 66 (6.11%) Data Quality
3 61 (5.65%) NIST
4 54 (5.00%) QA
5 32 (2.96%) GDPR
6 18 (1.67%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.39%) GRC
8 13 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 13 (1.20%) SLA
9 12 (1.11%) PCI DSS
10 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
10 11 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 11 (1.02%) NCSC
11 10 (0.93%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 5 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.46%) COBIT
13 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
13 5 (0.46%) ITGC
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
System Software
1 85 (7.87%) Docker
2 81 (7.50%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.93%) Firmware
5 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.74%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.56%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.46%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) RACF
9 3 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.19%) Ceph
10 2 (0.19%) Squid
10 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.093%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.093%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.093%) HDFS
11 1 (0.093%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 106 (9.81%) Kubernetes
2 56 (5.19%) Terraform
3 37 (3.43%) Ansible
4 29 (2.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 24 (2.22%) Prometheus
6 20 (1.85%) Grafana
7 14 (1.30%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.74%) SCCM
9 5 (0.46%) Argo
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Foglight
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.19%) CASB
11 2 (0.19%) Control-M
11 2 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.19%) Puppet
11 2 (0.19%) vRealize
11 2 (0.19%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 198 (18.33%) Microsoft
2 61 (5.65%) Oracle
3 49 (4.54%) Databricks
4 40 (3.70%) IBM
5 39 (3.61%) Google
6 37 (3.43%) ServiceNow
7 30 (2.78%) VMware
8 29 (2.69%) SAP
9 23 (2.13%) CyberArk
10 21 (1.94%) Cisco
11 19 (1.76%) BeyondTrust
12 16 (1.48%) Splunk
13 12 (1.11%) Salesforce
14 11 (1.02%) Palo Alto
15 10 (0.93%) Citrix
15 10 (0.93%) Foundry
15 10 (0.93%) Okta
15 10 (0.93%) Solace
16 9 (0.83%) Informatica
16 9 (0.83%) Red Hat