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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 146 67 59
Rank change year-on-year -79 -8 +23
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,056 1,188 1,332
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.92% 3.59% 3.48%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.28% 3.97% 4.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 601 668 810
10th Percentile £175 £184 £340
25th Percentile £200 £334 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -13.64% -
75th Percentile £600 £636 £687
90th Percentile £750 £750 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £421 £523
% change year-on-year -10.98% -19.38% +3.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 54 44
10th Percentile £23.00 £26.40 £20.12
25th Percentile £28.38 £29.00 £26.28
Median hourly rate £45.20 £34.25 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year +31.97% -31.84% -16.94%
75th Percentile £79.40 £67.00 £63.88
90th Percentile £87.16 £82.10 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.75 £33.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year +78.36% -40.44% -6.25%

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 46,293 29,942 32,892
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,017 18,609 19,950
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,198 1,849 1,396
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.32 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £66.00 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.22
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.78% -47.67% +1.18%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 -68 960 £475 -0.11% 4,326
UK excluding London -62 548 £375 -10.98% 1,839
London -66 435 £535 -1.61% 2,803
Work from Home -82 242 £519 +9.26% 1,388
South East -25 205 £438 +21.53% 502
North of England -55 143 £450 +7.14% 315
Midlands -58 88 £221 -50.56% 214
Yorkshire -20 75 £431 +12.30% 87
West Midlands -52 57 £217 -51.78% 132
North West -54 57 £525 +20.00% 178
East of England -45 47 £413 -8.33% 279
East Midlands -24 30 £230 -48.55% 82
South West -65 30 £198 -4.36% 209
Scotland -61 28 £400 -11.11% 177
North East -34 12 £195 -56.67% 51
Northern Ireland +2 5 £175 - 113
Wales -16 4 £530 +14.59% 43

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 (3.98%) Confluence
2 32 (3.03%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.18%) Apache Spark
4 17 (1.61%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.52%) Apache
6 12 (1.14%) IIS
7 10 (0.95%) Camunda
8 7 (0.66%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
9 6 (0.57%) CMS
10 5 (0.47%) SAS
11 4 (0.38%) OpenStack
11 4 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 3 (0.28%) CICS
13 2 (0.19%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
13 2 (0.19%) Jupyter
13 2 (0.19%) nginx
13 2 (0.19%) Oracle Service Bus
14 1 (0.095%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 41 (3.88%) Microsoft Office
2 24 (2.27%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.14%) MS Visio
4 9 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 4 (0.38%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.38%) Trello
6 4 (0.38%) Windchill
7 2 (0.19%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.19%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.19%) Sketch
8 1 (0.095%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 8 (0.76%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.47%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.38%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Actimize
5 2 (0.19%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.19%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.19%) Workfront
6 1 (0.095%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.095%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.095%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.095%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.095%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.095%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.095%) SAP PLM
Cloud Services
1 297 (28.13%) Azure
2 192 (18.18%) AWS
3 114 (10.80%) GCP
4 67 (6.34%) Power Platform
5 63 (5.97%) Entra ID
6 59 (5.59%) Microsoft 365
7 55 (5.21%) GitHub
8 54 (5.11%) Azure DevOps
9 45 (4.26%) SaaS
10 38 (3.60%) Serverless
11 29 (2.75%) Snowflake
12 24 (2.27%) PowerApps
13 22 (2.08%) AWS Lambda
14 21 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
14 21 (1.99%) Microsoft Copilot
14 21 (1.99%) OpenShift
15 18 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
15 18 (1.70%) Power Automate
16 16 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
17 15 (1.42%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.17%) Firewall
2 41 (3.88%) DNS
3 35 (3.31%) Network Security
4 32 (3.03%) VPN
5 25 (2.37%) TCP/IP
6 21 (1.99%) DHCP
7 16 (1.52%) SSH
8 13 (1.23%) Wireshark
9 12 (1.14%) WAN
10 11 (1.04%) 5G
10 11 (1.04%) HTTP
10 11 (1.04%) LAN
10 11 (1.04%) Wireless
11 10 (0.95%) 3GPP
12 8 (0.76%) Intrusion Detection
12 8 (0.76%) MPLS
12 8 (0.76%) VLAN
13 7 (0.66%) BGP
14 6 (0.57%) OSPF
14 6 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (5.11%) PostgreSQL
2 53 (5.02%) SQL Server
3 51 (4.83%) Power BI
3 51 (4.83%) Relational Database
4 40 (3.79%) Metadata
5 28 (2.65%) MongoDB
6 26 (2.46%) MySQL
6 26 (2.46%) NoSQL
7 24 (2.27%) Data Warehouse
8 23 (2.18%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (1.61%) Big Data
10 15 (1.42%) Data Mining
11 14 (1.33%) Redis
12 13 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
13 12 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
13 12 (1.14%) Tableau
14 11 (1.04%) Data Lake
14 11 (1.04%) Oracle Database
15 6 (0.57%) Flink
15 6 (0.57%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 99 (9.38%) Git
2 51 (4.83%) Jenkins
3 49 (4.64%) JIRA
4 46 (4.36%) GitLab
5 23 (2.18%) JUnit
6 22 (2.08%) Gradle
6 22 (2.08%) Maven
7 19 (1.80%) Selenium
7 19 (1.80%) SonarQube
8 16 (1.52%) Mockito
9 14 (1.33%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.14%) Cucumber
10 12 (1.14%) REST Assured
11 10 (0.95%) Bitbucket
11 10 (0.95%) SpecFlow
12 9 (0.85%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.76%) TeamCity
13 8 (0.76%) Visual Studio
14 7 (0.66%) Postman
15 6 (0.57%) Cypress.io
General
1 456 (43.18%) Social Skills
2 236 (22.35%) Analytical Skills
3 235 (22.25%) Finance
4 97 (9.19%) Banking
5 67 (6.34%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.92%) Documentation Skills
7 46 (4.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 43 (4.07%) Aerospace
9 40 (3.79%) Manufacturing
10 34 (3.22%) Organisational Skills
10 34 (3.22%) Telecoms
11 32 (3.03%) Influencing Skills
12 25 (2.37%) Marketing
13 22 (2.08%) Front Office
14 20 (1.89%) Legal
15 19 (1.80%) Military
16 17 (1.61%) Presentation Skills
17 15 (1.42%) Law
18 14 (1.33%) Retail
19 12 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 162 (15.34%) Developer
2 109 (10.32%) Senior
3 86 (8.14%) Architect
4 73 (6.91%) Lead
5 71 (6.72%) Analyst
6 36 (3.41%) Data Engineer
7 34 (3.22%) Java Developer
8 29 (2.75%) Software Engineer
9 26 (2.46%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
9 26 (2.46%) IT Support
10 25 (2.37%) Security Engineer
11 24 (2.27%) Senior Developer
12 23 (2.18%) Data Scientist
12 23 (2.18%) Full-Stack Developer
13 21 (1.99%) C# Developer
13 21 (1.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 21 (1.99%) Python Developer
13 21 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
14 19 (1.80%) Python Engineer
15 18 (1.70%) Engineering Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 99 (9.38%) REST
2 67 (6.34%) React
3 65 (6.16%) Terraform
4 62 (5.87%) HTML
5 60 (5.68%) CSS
6 55 (5.21%) .NET
7 54 (5.11%) Kafka
8 51 (4.83%) RESTful
9 38 (3.60%) Spring Boot
10 37 (3.50%) OAuth
11 36 (3.41%) Spring
12 32 (3.03%) Web Services
13 31 (2.94%) OAuth2
13 31 (2.94%) SOAP
14 29 (2.75%) OpenID
15 28 (2.65%) Middleware
16 27 (2.56%) SAML
17 24 (2.27%) .NET Core
18 23 (2.18%) JSON
19 22 (2.08%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 118 (11.17%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.58%) Cloud Native
3 68 (6.44%) Algorithms
4 65 (6.16%) Onboarding
5 54 (5.11%) Product Ownership
6 53 (5.02%) Distributed Systems
7 51 (4.83%) Data Structures
8 35 (3.31%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.46%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.37%) Enterprise Software
11 23 (2.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 23 (2.18%) Hybrid Cloud
12 20 (1.89%) Data Centre
12 20 (1.89%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.61%) Derivative
14 15 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
15 14 (1.33%) Replication
16 13 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 13 (1.23%) Equities
16 13 (1.23%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 127 (12.03%) Windows
2 118 (11.17%) Linux
3 37 (3.50%) Unix
4 32 (3.03%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.89%) Windows 10
6 18 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (1.23%) Android
8 9 (0.85%) Apple iOS
8 9 (0.85%) Ubuntu
9 6 (0.57%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.47%) zOS
11 4 (0.38%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Solaris
12 3 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.19%) CentOS
13 2 (0.19%) Debian
13 2 (0.19%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.19%) MVS
13 2 (0.19%) Rocky
14 1 (0.095%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (31.06%) Problem-Solving
2 268 (25.38%) Agile
3 226 (21.40%) CI/CD
4 220 (20.83%) AI
5 195 (18.47%) DevOps
6 192 (18.18%) Software Engineering
7 179 (16.95%) Continuous Improvement
7 179 (16.95%) Stakeholder Management
8 150 (14.20%) Analytics
9 122 (11.55%) ITIL
10 113 (10.70%) Cybersecurity
11 112 (10.61%) Mathematics
12 108 (10.23%) Roadmaps
13 106 (10.04%) Scrum
13 106 (10.04%) Test Automation
14 97 (9.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 97 (9.19%) Validation
15 96 (9.09%) Machine Learning
16 88 (8.33%) Change Management
17 84 (7.95%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 278 (26.33%) Python
2 203 (19.22%) SQL
3 139 (13.16%) Java
4 97 (9.19%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.48%) PowerShell
6 67 (6.34%) C#
7 47 (4.45%) Bash
8 40 (3.79%) TypeScript
9 25 (2.37%) C++
10 18 (1.70%) Bicep
11 14 (1.33%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.04%) R
12 11 (1.04%) Scala
13 10 (0.95%) Go
14 9 (0.85%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.85%) Perl
15 8 (0.76%) C
16 7 (0.66%) Apex Code
17 6 (0.57%) COBOL
17 6 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 806 (76.33%) Degree
2 489 (46.31%) Computer Science Degree
3 186 (17.61%) Security Cleared
4 142 (13.45%) SC Cleared
5 109 (10.32%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.92%) CISSP
7 51 (4.83%) Azure Certification
8 49 (4.64%) DBS Check
9 43 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
10 38 (3.60%) PhD
11 37 (3.50%) CISM
12 33 (3.13%) AWS Certification
13 29 (2.75%) DV Cleared
14 28 (2.65%) Cisco Certification
15 23 (2.18%) PMI Certification
15 23 (2.18%) PMP
15 23 (2.18%) TOGAF Certification
16 21 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
17 18 (1.70%) CISA
18 14 (1.33%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.44%) Data Quality
2 66 (6.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 62 (5.87%) QA
4 51 (4.83%) NIST
5 27 (2.56%) GDPR
6 17 (1.61%) SLA
7 16 (1.52%) GRC
8 15 (1.42%) HIPAA
9 14 (1.33%) Accessibility
10 11 (1.04%) PCI DSS
11 10 (0.95%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 9 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 8 (0.76%) NCSC
14 7 (0.66%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.47%) ISO 31000
15 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27005
15 5 (0.47%) NIST 800
15 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
16 4 (0.38%) ISO 19650
16 4 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 89 (8.43%) Docker
2 73 (6.91%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.76%) Firmware
5 8 (0.76%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.66%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.57%) RACF
8 5 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.47%) vSphere
9 4 (0.38%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.28%) ACF2
10 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
10 3 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
10 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
11 2 (0.19%) NFS
11 2 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 2 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
12 1 (0.095%) Squid
12 1 (0.095%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 105 (9.94%) Kubernetes
2 35 (3.31%) Ansible
3 27 (2.56%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (2.08%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.70%) Grafana
6 14 (1.33%) SCCM
7 10 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.57%) CASB
9 5 (0.47%) Argo
10 4 (0.38%) Control-M
10 4 (0.38%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.38%) Puppet
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
11 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
11 3 (0.28%) Istio
11 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
12 2 (0.19%) Kubeflow
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
12 2 (0.19%) SCOM
12 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 208 (19.70%) Microsoft
2 74 (7.01%) Oracle
3 55 (5.21%) Google
4 41 (3.88%) ServiceNow
5 35 (3.31%) Databricks
5 35 (3.31%) IBM
6 34 (3.22%) VMware
7 30 (2.84%) SAP
8 29 (2.75%) Cisco
9 26 (2.46%) Splunk
10 22 (2.08%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.89%) CyberArk
12 18 (1.70%) BeyondTrust
13 17 (1.61%) OpenAI
14 15 (1.42%) Adobe
15 13 (1.23%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.04%) Dynatrace
16 11 (1.04%) Foundry
17 10 (0.95%) Veracode
18 9 (0.85%) Zscaler