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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 64 65
Rank change year-on-year -50 +1 +45
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,030 1,060 1,316
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.15% 3.61% 3.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.55% 3.96% 3.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 603 604 793
10th Percentile £178 £250 £315
25th Percentile £223 £400 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -1.84% -7.83%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £656
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £380 £478 £500
% change year-on-year -20.42% -4.50% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 96 30 100
10th Percentile £29.89 £26.13 £22.33
25th Percentile £51.25 £29.07 £41.25
Median hourly rate £81.75 £41.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +99.39% -25.45% +3.41%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.32 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +10.00%

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 40,423 26,734 36,712
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.29% 90.97% 86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,371 17,185 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,395 1,096 2,442
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.22 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.18 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +50.82% -21.77% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.39% -32.73% +7.14%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 -37 919 £463 -11.90% 910
UK excluding London -46 540 £380 -20.42% 631
London -52 404 £545 -9.17% 380
Work from Home -66 226 £500 -9.09% 553
South East -9 209 £215 -56.94% 233
North of England -32 128 £400 -26.40% 121
Yorkshire -14 74 £500 +9.41% 38
Midlands -63 72 £450 +58.45% 97
West Midlands -60 55 £450 +54.11% 57
North West -32 53 £350 -36.48% 56
South West -39 41 £469 +26.76% 60
East of England -32 40 £248 -61.92% 78
Scotland -14 37 £620 +18.10% 37
East Midlands -33 16 £525 +110.00% 38
Wales -29 9 £253 -12.93% 16
Northern Ireland +8 7 £350 -41.67% 5
North East -25 2 £125 -78.26% 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 48 (4.66%) Confluence
2 39 (3.79%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.33%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.14%) Apache
5 17 (1.65%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.49%) IIS
8 4 (0.39%) CMS
8 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.097%) Appian
11 1 (0.097%) Camunda
11 1 (0.097%) Cloud Foundry
Applications
1 33 (3.20%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.46%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 21 (2.04%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.49%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
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 (0.097%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.097%) Maximo
6 1 (0.097%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
6 1 (0.097%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 294 (28.54%) Azure
2 185 (17.96%) AWS
3 77 (7.48%) GCP
4 58 (5.63%) Power Platform
5 53 (5.15%) Microsoft 365
6 51 (4.95%) SaaS
7 47 (4.56%) GitHub
8 40 (3.88%) Entra ID
9 37 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
10 21 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
11 20 (1.94%) AWS CloudFormation
11 20 (1.94%) Snowflake
12 19 (1.84%) IaaS
13 18 (1.75%) Serverless
14 17 (1.65%) Azure AKS
14 17 (1.65%) Azure Data Factory
15 13 (1.26%) Azure Machine Learning
15 13 (1.26%) Azure Service Bus
15 13 (1.26%) PaaS
16 12 (1.17%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.59%) Firewall
2 29 (2.82%) TCP/IP
3 25 (2.43%) DNS
4 20 (1.94%) Network Security
5 16 (1.55%) WAN
6 14 (1.36%) BGP
7 13 (1.26%) LAN
8 11 (1.07%) OSPF
8 11 (1.07%) SSH
9 9 (0.87%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.78%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.78%) Wireless
11 7 (0.68%) SAN
11 7 (0.68%) VLAN
11 7 (0.68%) VPN
12 6 (0.58%) HTTP
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 4 (0.39%) MPLS
13 4 (0.39%) Software-Defined Networking
13 4 (0.39%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 49 (4.76%) Relational Database
2 47 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 46 (4.47%) Power BI
4 45 (4.37%) PostgreSQL
5 39 (3.79%) Data Warehouse
6 36 (3.50%) Big Data
7 26 (2.52%) NoSQL
8 25 (2.43%) Metadata
9 24 (2.33%) MySQL
10 21 (2.04%) Hadoop
10 21 (2.04%) MongoDB
11 17 (1.65%) Tableau
12 14 (1.36%) Data Lake
12 14 (1.36%) Elasticsearch
13 11 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 10 (0.97%) Redis
15 9 (0.87%) Snowflake Schema
16 8 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
16 8 (0.78%) Power Query
17 7 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 72 (6.99%) Git
2 65 (6.31%) JIRA
3 34 (3.30%) GitLab
4 32 (3.11%) Jenkins
5 28 (2.72%) Rational DOORS
6 12 (1.17%) MLflow
7 11 (1.07%) Gradle
7 11 (1.07%) Selenium
8 9 (0.87%) Jaeger
8 9 (0.87%) TeamCity
9 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
9 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
9 7 (0.68%) JUnit
10 6 (0.58%) Maven
10 6 (0.58%) Postman
10 6 (0.58%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.49%) Artifactory
12 3 (0.29%) Android Studio
12 3 (0.29%) Bitbucket
12 3 (0.29%) Flyway
General
1 421 (40.87%) Social Skills
2 234 (22.72%) Finance
3 208 (20.19%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (8.74%) Banking
5 62 (6.02%) Public Sector
6 52 (5.05%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.85%) Documentation Skills
8 36 (3.50%) Marketing
9 34 (3.30%) Telecoms
10 32 (3.11%) Presentation Skills
11 28 (2.72%) Legal
12 27 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
13 24 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 23 (2.23%) Front Office
15 21 (2.04%) Influencing Skills
16 16 (1.55%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.55%) Manufacturing
16 16 (1.55%) Publishing
17 15 (1.46%) Electronics
17 15 (1.46%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 109 (10.58%) Developer
2 107 (10.39%) Architect
3 87 (8.45%) Analyst
4 81 (7.86%) Lead
5 79 (7.67%) Senior
6 37 (3.59%) Delivery Manager
6 37 (3.59%) Software Engineer
7 35 (3.40%) Product Manager
8 34 (3.30%) Solutions Architect
9 31 (3.01%) Data Scientist
9 31 (3.01%) Technical Support
10 29 (2.82%) Data Engineer
11 28 (2.72%) Product Delivery Manager
12 24 (2.33%) Python Developer
13 23 (2.23%) Full-Stack Engineer
14 22 (2.14%) Security Engineer
14 22 (2.14%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 22 (2.14%) Systems Manager
15 21 (2.04%) Junior
16 19 (1.84%) Integration Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (8.35%) REST
2 55 (5.34%) .NET
2 55 (5.34%) React
3 46 (4.47%) Middleware
4 42 (4.08%) Kafka
5 37 (3.59%) RESTful
6 32 (3.11%) Spring Boot
7 30 (2.91%) PyTorch
8 28 (2.72%) Spring
9 25 (2.43%) SOAP
10 22 (2.14%) JSON
10 22 (2.14%) OAuth
10 22 (2.14%) TensorFlow
10 22 (2.14%) XML
11 21 (2.04%) Elastic Stack
12 20 (1.94%) AngularJS
12 20 (1.94%) HTML
13 17 (1.65%) CSS
13 17 (1.65%) Pandas
14 16 (1.55%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 101 (9.81%) Management Information System
2 76 (7.38%) Onboarding
2 76 (7.38%) Product Ownership
3 71 (6.89%) Algorithms
4 63 (6.12%) Cloud Native
5 53 (5.15%) Data Structures
6 49 (4.76%) Distributed Systems
7 30 (2.91%) Virtual Team
8 23 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
9 21 (2.04%) AI Agents
9 21 (2.04%) Self-Motivation
9 21 (2.04%) Taxonomies
10 20 (1.94%) Derivative
10 20 (1.94%) Equities
11 17 (1.65%) Cyberattack
11 17 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
12 16 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (1.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 16 (1.55%) Robotics
13 14 (1.36%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 135 (13.11%) Linux
2 126 (12.23%) Windows
3 45 (4.37%) Unix
4 25 (2.43%) Android
5 18 (1.75%) Windows 10
6 16 (1.55%) Mac OS
7 15 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.46%) Windows Server
8 14 (1.36%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.49%) VMS
10 4 (0.39%) Debian
10 4 (0.39%) Rocky
11 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
11 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.097%) CentOS
12 1 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
12 1 (0.097%) MVS
12 1 (0.097%) Solaris
12 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 318 (30.87%) Problem-Solving
2 254 (24.66%) Agile
3 226 (21.94%) AI
4 193 (18.74%) CI/CD
5 186 (18.06%) DevOps
6 171 (16.60%) Software Engineering
7 158 (15.34%) Continuous Improvement
8 122 (11.84%) Analytics
9 118 (11.46%) Microservices
10 116 (11.26%) Cybersecurity
11 102 (9.90%) Stakeholder Management
12 98 (9.51%) Machine Learning
13 96 (9.32%) Containerisation
14 94 (9.13%) Data Modelling
14 94 (9.13%) Decision-Making
15 92 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 92 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
16 89 (8.64%) Mathematics
17 86 (8.35%) Data Governance
18 85 (8.25%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 287 (27.86%) Python
2 203 (19.71%) SQL
3 132 (12.82%) Java
4 67 (6.50%) JavaScript
5 58 (5.63%) C#
6 49 (4.76%) PowerShell
7 34 (3.30%) TypeScript
8 32 (3.11%) Bash
9 29 (2.82%) C++
10 22 (2.14%) R
11 14 (1.36%) Go
11 14 (1.36%) Perl
12 12 (1.17%) Rust
13 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.97%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.68%) Scala
16 5 (0.49%) C
17 4 (0.39%) Tcl
18 3 (0.29%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 822 (79.81%) Degree
2 505 (49.03%) Computer Science Degree
3 190 (18.45%) Security Cleared
4 143 (13.88%) Master's Degree
5 113 (10.97%) SC Cleared
6 53 (5.15%) CISSP
7 36 (3.50%) CISM
8 34 (3.30%) PhD
9 33 (3.20%) Azure Certification
10 31 (3.01%) TOGAF Certification
11 28 (2.72%) PMI Certification
12 27 (2.62%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.62%) Microsoft Certification
13 25 (2.43%) PMP
14 23 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
15 22 (2.14%) AWS Certification
15 22 (2.14%) CompTIA Security+
16 21 (2.04%) Cisco Certification
17 19 (1.84%) CISA
18 17 (1.65%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (5.83%) QA
2 57 (5.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 57 (5.53%) NIST
3 53 (5.15%) Data Quality
4 38 (3.69%) GDPR
5 19 (1.84%) PCI DSS
6 18 (1.75%) Accessibility
7 13 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (1.17%) GRC
9 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.78%) NCSC
10 8 (0.78%) SLA
11 7 (0.68%) COBIT
11 7 (0.68%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.68%) PSD2
12 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.58%) DO-254
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 109 (10.58%) Docker
2 66 (6.41%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.26%) Firmware
5 7 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.39%) vSphere
8 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 2 (0.19%) Ceph
8 2 (0.19%) KVM
8 2 (0.19%) Squid
8 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.097%) ACF2
9 1 (0.097%) HDFS
9 1 (0.097%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.097%) RACF
9 1 (0.097%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 126 (12.23%) Kubernetes
2 62 (6.02%) Terraform
3 49 (4.76%) Ansible
4 31 (3.01%) Grafana
5 28 (2.72%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
8 12 (1.17%) Puppet
9 10 (0.97%) Kibana
10 9 (0.87%) Kiali
11 4 (0.39%) Control-M
11 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.39%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.29%) Foglight
12 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.19%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.19%) Network Intrusion Detection System
13 2 (0.19%) PowerCLI
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize
Vendors
1 178 (17.28%) Microsoft
2 63 (6.12%) Oracle
3 51 (4.95%) Splunk
4 47 (4.56%) Databricks
5 36 (3.50%) IBM
6 35 (3.40%) SAP
7 34 (3.30%) Google
8 30 (2.91%) ServiceNow
9 23 (2.23%) VMware
10 20 (1.94%) Cisco
11 16 (1.55%) BiZZdesign
11 16 (1.55%) Informatica
12 15 (1.46%) Okta
12 15 (1.46%) Salesforce
13 14 (1.36%) Palo Alto
14 13 (1.26%) CheckPoint
15 12 (1.17%) MuleSoft
16 11 (1.07%) CyberArk
16 11 (1.07%) Software AG
17 10 (0.97%) OpenAI