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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 66 61
Rank change year-on-year -67 -5 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,098 1,231 1,290
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 3.76% 3.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 4.16% 3.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 612 696 800
10th Percentile £175 £184 £330
25th Percentile £200 £352 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £492 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.93% -10.55% -
75th Percentile £619 £650 £689
90th Percentile £760 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £377 £416 £525
% change year-on-year -9.43% -20.71% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 120 46 60
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.00 £20.12
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £40.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £56.00 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.00% +8.74% -16.94%
75th Percentile £87.37 £68.44 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £79.96 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +19.34% +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 45,365 29,616 33,160
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.47% 85.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,789 18,444 20,998
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 2,884 1,758 1,700
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.87
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.56 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.23% -38.57% -3.67%
75th Percentile £67.99 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -53 1,004 £457 -8.68% 723
UK excluding London -48 584 £377 -9.43% 546
London -64 440 £525 -8.70% 341
Work from Home -88 246 £500 - 241
South East -12 234 £381 -10.29% 160
North of England -43 145 £447 +13.74% 94
Midlands -63 92 £230 -38.67% 70
Yorkshire -9 75 £450 +27.12% 21
West Midlands -44 63 £225 -32.84% 30
North West -45 60 £447 -4.94% 49
East of England -28 49 £200 -55.56% 63
South West -70 29 £469 +127.12% 132
East Midlands -28 28 £253 -43.51% 40
Scotland -55 26 £359 -24.47% 17
North East -34 11 £195 -57.84% 25
Northern Ireland +8 7 £350 - 8
Wales -23 4 £530 +14.59% 13

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 (3.73%) Confluence
2 31 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.09%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.82%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.37%) Apache
6 9 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) Camunda
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) OpenStack
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.27%) CMS
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%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.091%) nginx
12 1 (0.091%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.10%) Microsoft Office
2 29 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.46%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.09%) 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 (0.36%) 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 11 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
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%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.091%) Maximo
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.091%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.091%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 300 (27.32%) Azure
2 193 (17.58%) AWS
3 111 (10.11%) GCP
4 74 (6.74%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.65%) Entra ID
6 60 (5.46%) Microsoft 365
7 51 (4.64%) SaaS
8 45 (4.10%) Azure DevOps
8 45 (4.10%) GitHub
9 35 (3.19%) Snowflake
10 32 (2.91%) Serverless
11 22 (2.00%) PowerApps
12 18 (1.64%) GitHub Actions
13 17 (1.55%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (1.55%) Microsoft Copilot
13 17 (1.55%) OpenShift
14 15 (1.37%) Power Automate
15 14 (1.28%) Azure Data Factory
15 14 (1.28%) dbt
16 13 (1.18%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.92%) DNS
2 41 (3.73%) Firewall
3 34 (3.10%) VPN
4 33 (3.01%) Network Security
5 25 (2.28%) TCP/IP
6 20 (1.82%) DHCP
7 17 (1.55%) SSH
8 16 (1.46%) WAN
9 12 (1.09%) BGP
9 12 (1.09%) LAN
10 11 (1.00%) Wireless
11 10 (0.91%) HTTP
11 10 (0.91%) MPLS
12 9 (0.82%) Wireshark
13 8 (0.73%) 3GPP
13 8 (0.73%) 5G
13 8 (0.73%) HTTPS
13 8 (0.73%) OSPF
13 8 (0.73%) VLAN
14 7 (0.64%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (5.46%) Power BI
2 55 (5.01%) Relational Database
3 47 (4.28%) SQL Server
4 45 (4.10%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (3.10%) Metadata
6 30 (2.73%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.28%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.28%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.00%) Big Data
9 17 (1.55%) Elasticsearch
9 17 (1.55%) Tableau
10 16 (1.46%) MySQL
11 14 (1.28%) Data Mining
11 14 (1.28%) Redis
12 11 (1.00%) Oracle Database
13 10 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
14 9 (0.82%) Amazon RDS
14 9 (0.82%) Data Lake
15 8 (0.73%) Snowflake Schema
16 7 (0.64%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 94 (8.56%) Git
2 52 (4.74%) JIRA
3 43 (3.92%) Jenkins
4 39 (3.55%) GitLab
5 29 (2.64%) Rational DOORS
6 18 (1.64%) Selenium
7 13 (1.18%) JUnit
8 11 (1.00%) Bitbucket
8 11 (1.00%) SonarQube
9 10 (0.91%) Gradle
9 10 (0.91%) Maven
9 10 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
10 9 (0.82%) REST Assured
10 9 (0.82%) SpecFlow
11 8 (0.73%) TeamCity
12 7 (0.64%) Mockito
13 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
13 6 (0.55%) Postman
13 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
13 6 (0.55%) Visual Studio
General
1 448 (40.80%) Social Skills
2 248 (22.59%) Analytical Skills
3 238 (21.68%) Finance
4 91 (8.29%) Banking
5 64 (5.83%) Public Sector
6 60 (5.46%) Aerospace
7 46 (4.19%) Documentation Skills
8 40 (3.64%) Telecoms
9 37 (3.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 36 (3.28%) Organisational Skills
11 30 (2.73%) Influencing Skills
11 30 (2.73%) Manufacturing
12 28 (2.55%) Front Office
13 25 (2.28%) Legal
14 23 (2.09%) Marketing
15 17 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (1.46%) Law
17 15 (1.37%) Military
17 15 (1.37%) Retail
18 13 (1.18%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 140 (12.75%) Developer
2 108 (9.84%) Senior
3 92 (8.38%) Architect
4 81 (7.38%) Lead
5 78 (7.10%) Analyst
6 36 (3.28%) Data Engineer
6 36 (3.28%) Product Manager
7 32 (2.91%) Delivery Manager
7 32 (2.91%) Software Engineer
8 28 (2.55%) Product Delivery Manager
9 27 (2.46%) IT Support
10 25 (2.28%) Junior
10 25 (2.28%) Senior Developer
11 24 (2.19%) Python Developer
12 23 (2.09%) Data Scientist
12 23 (2.09%) Java Developer
12 23 (2.09%) Solutions Architect
13 22 (2.00%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 21 (1.91%) Systems Delivery Manager
14 21 (1.91%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (8.65%) REST
2 57 (5.19%) React
2 57 (5.19%) Terraform
3 56 (5.10%) .NET
4 44 (4.01%) Kafka
5 40 (3.64%) HTML
5 40 (3.64%) RESTful
6 38 (3.46%) CSS
7 32 (2.91%) OAuth
8 27 (2.46%) Spring
9 26 (2.37%) OAuth2
10 25 (2.28%) OpenID
10 25 (2.28%) Spring Boot
10 25 (2.28%) Web Services
11 23 (2.09%) JSON
11 23 (2.09%) SAML
11 23 (2.09%) SOAP
12 22 (2.00%) Middleware
13 19 (1.73%) AngularJS
14 18 (1.64%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 101 (9.20%) Management Information System
2 86 (7.83%) Product Ownership
3 83 (7.56%) Algorithms
4 74 (6.74%) Onboarding
5 73 (6.65%) Data Structures
6 69 (6.28%) Cloud Native
7 52 (4.74%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.73%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 25 (2.28%) Virtual Team
10 24 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
11 23 (2.09%) Derivative
12 22 (2.00%) Enterprise Software
13 20 (1.82%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.55%) Fixed Income
14 17 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
15 16 (1.46%) Data Centre
16 15 (1.37%) Equities
17 14 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
17 14 (1.28%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 123 (11.20%) Windows
2 111 (10.11%) Linux
3 31 (2.82%) Unix
4 24 (2.19%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.82%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.37%) 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%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.091%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (30.33%) Problem-Solving
2 280 (25.50%) Agile
3 227 (20.67%) AI
4 210 (19.13%) CI/CD
5 198 (18.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 191 (17.40%) Software Engineering
7 170 (15.48%) DevOps
8 159 (14.48%) Stakeholder Management
9 144 (13.11%) Analytics
10 117 (10.66%) ITIL
11 116 (10.56%) Cybersecurity
11 116 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 108 (9.84%) Mathematics
13 98 (8.93%) Machine Learning
14 97 (8.83%) Roadmaps
15 94 (8.56%) Validation
16 93 (8.47%) Scrum
17 89 (8.11%) Test Automation
18 84 (7.65%) Data Science
18 84 (7.65%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 297 (27.05%) Python
2 217 (19.76%) SQL
3 138 (12.57%) Java
4 76 (6.92%) JavaScript
5 73 (6.65%) PowerShell
6 68 (6.19%) C#
7 41 (3.73%) Bash
8 38 (3.46%) TypeScript
9 32 (2.91%) C++
10 15 (1.37%) Bicep
11 14 (1.28%) Shell Script
12 13 (1.18%) R
13 11 (1.00%) C
14 8 (0.73%) Kotlin
15 7 (0.64%) Apex Code
15 7 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 7 (0.64%) Go
16 6 (0.55%) Perl
16 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.55%) Scala
Qualifications
1 839 (76.41%) Degree
2 490 (44.63%) Computer Science Degree
3 210 (19.13%) Security Cleared
4 130 (11.84%) SC Cleared
5 121 (11.02%) Master's Degree
6 47 (4.28%) Azure Certification
7 46 (4.19%) CISSP
8 44 (4.01%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.55%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.19%) PhD
11 29 (2.64%) CISM
12 27 (2.46%) DV Cleared
13 26 (2.37%) AWS Certification
13 26 (2.37%) PMI Certification
14 25 (2.28%) PMP
15 22 (2.00%) Cisco Certification
16 21 (1.91%) TOGAF Certification
17 18 (1.64%) CISA
18 17 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
19 15 (1.37%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.38%) Data Quality
2 65 (5.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.19%) QA
4 55 (5.01%) NIST
5 26 (2.37%) GDPR
6 17 (1.55%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.37%) SLA
8 13 (1.18%) GRC
9 12 (1.09%) NCSC
10 11 (1.00%) HIPAA
10 11 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 11 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 9 (0.82%) NIST 800
12 8 (0.73%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.46%) ITGC
15 4 (0.36%) COBIT
15 4 (0.36%) ISO 19650
16 3 (0.27%) PMO
System Software
1 86 (7.83%) Docker
2 77 (7.01%) Active Directory
3 24 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.82%) Hyper-V
4 9 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.73%) Firmware
6 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 5 (0.46%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.46%) 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
10 1 (0.091%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.091%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.091%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.091%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 100 (9.11%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.64%) Ansible
3 29 (2.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 26 (2.37%) Prometheus
5 22 (2.00%) Grafana
6 13 (1.18%) SCCM
6 13 (1.18%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.55%) Argo
8 4 (0.36%) Control-M
8 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
8 4 (0.36%) Puppet
9 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.27%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.27%) SolarWinds Orion
10 2 (0.18%) CASB
10 2 (0.18%) Consul
10 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
10 2 (0.18%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 206 (18.76%) Microsoft
2 66 (6.01%) Oracle
3 49 (4.46%) IBM
4 44 (4.01%) Databricks
4 44 (4.01%) Google
5 36 (3.28%) ServiceNow
6 35 (3.19%) VMware
7 30 (2.73%) SAP
8 26 (2.37%) Cisco
9 23 (2.09%) Splunk
10 20 (1.82%) CyberArk
11 19 (1.73%) Salesforce
12 18 (1.64%) BeyondTrust
13 10 (0.91%) Citrix
13 10 (0.91%) Dynatrace
13 10 (0.91%) OpenAI
13 10 (0.91%) Red Hat
14 9 (0.82%) Foundry
14 9 (0.82%) Nokia
14 9 (0.82%) Okta