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

6 months to
8 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 68 62
Rank change year-on-year -66 -6 +25
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,082 1,186 1,281
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.00% 3.65% 3.36%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.37% 4.04% 3.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 661 797
10th Percentile £175 £184 £337
25th Percentile £200 £356 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £480 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -12.73% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £688
90th Percentile £759 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £525
% change year-on-year -11.76% -19.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 44 47
10th Percentile £25.00 £25.98 £20.12
25th Percentile £29.77 £29.00 £32.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £56.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.79% +12.00% -19.35%
75th Percentile £83.50 £67.81 £62.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £86.50 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £66.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +1.50% +23.72% -10.42%

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 45,722 29,342 32,587
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.57% 90.39% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,938 18,213 20,366
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.23%
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 2,944 1,739 1,516
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.22 £14.77
25th Percentile £17.64 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -41.51% +3.24%
75th Percentile £67.99 £45.87 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +87.80% -47.37% +8.72%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -59 983 £473 -3.86% 4,152
UK excluding London -53 561 £375 -11.76% 1,660
London -63 446 £525 -4.55% 2,906
Work from Home -75 252 £500 +4.17% 5,104
South East -15 217 £381 -5.16% 472
North of England -51 145 £450 +6.51% 252
Midlands -60 88 £225 -49.66% 170
Yorkshire -15 72 £450 +25.70% 62
North West -52 62 £497 +6.68% 146
West Midlands -51 59 £219 -48.53% 107
East of England -27 49 £200 -60.40% 246
East Midlands -24 28 £253 -43.51% 63
Scotland -64 28 £380 -17.57% 188
South West -70 26 £400 +116.22% 221
North East -36 12 £195 -57.84% 46
Northern Ireland +6 6 £175 - 89
Wales -20 4 £530 +14.59% 35

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 (3.79%) Confluence
2 32 (2.96%) SharePoint
3 26 (2.40%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
5 16 (1.48%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Camunda
6 9 (0.83%) IIS
7 8 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (0.46%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 5 (0.46%) CMS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
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 (0.092%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.092%) nginx
Applications
1 43 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 25 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.29%) MS Visio
4 10 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.65%) Revit
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 3 (0.28%) Windchill
9 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.18%) Sketch
10 1 (0.092%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Workday HCM
3 4 (0.37%) Infor M3
3 4 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.28%) Primavera
4 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.18%) Actimize
5 2 (0.18%) Aladdin
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 (0.092%) Finacle
6 1 (0.092%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP GRC
6 1 (0.092%) SAP HCM
6 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.092%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 304 (28.10%) Azure
2 197 (18.21%) AWS
3 116 (10.72%) GCP
4 75 (6.93%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.73%) Entra ID
5 62 (5.73%) Microsoft 365
6 53 (4.90%) GitHub
7 49 (4.53%) Azure DevOps
7 49 (4.53%) SaaS
8 35 (3.23%) Serverless
9 33 (3.05%) Snowflake
10 25 (2.31%) PowerApps
11 20 (1.85%) Microsoft Copilot
12 19 (1.76%) AWS Lambda
12 19 (1.76%) GitHub Actions
12 19 (1.76%) OpenShift
12 19 (1.76%) Power Automate
13 16 (1.48%) Dynamics 365
14 14 (1.29%) Amazon EKS
14 14 (1.29%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.97%) Firewall
2 42 (3.88%) DNS
3 34 (3.14%) Network Security
3 34 (3.14%) VPN
4 25 (2.31%) TCP/IP
5 21 (1.94%) DHCP
6 17 (1.57%) SSH
7 15 (1.39%) WAN
8 12 (1.11%) LAN
8 12 (1.11%) Wireshark
9 11 (1.02%) BGP
9 11 (1.02%) Wireless
10 10 (0.92%) 3GPP
10 10 (0.92%) 5G
10 10 (0.92%) HTTP
10 10 (0.92%) MPLS
11 9 (0.83%) VLAN
12 8 (0.74%) HTTPS
12 8 (0.74%) OSPF
13 7 (0.65%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (5.45%) Power BI
2 54 (4.99%) Relational Database
3 53 (4.90%) SQL Server
4 48 (4.44%) PostgreSQL
5 41 (3.79%) Metadata
6 27 (2.50%) Data Warehouse
7 25 (2.31%) MongoDB
7 25 (2.31%) NoSQL
8 22 (2.03%) Big Data
9 19 (1.76%) Elasticsearch
9 19 (1.76%) MySQL
10 15 (1.39%) Data Mining
10 15 (1.39%) Tableau
11 13 (1.20%) Redis
12 12 (1.11%) Azure SQL Database
13 11 (1.02%) Oracle Database
14 10 (0.92%) Data Lake
15 8 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
16 7 (0.65%) Hadoop
16 7 (0.65%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 96 (8.87%) Git
2 52 (4.81%) JIRA
3 46 (4.25%) Jenkins
4 44 (4.07%) GitLab
5 18 (1.66%) JUnit
6 17 (1.57%) Selenium
7 15 (1.39%) Gradle
7 15 (1.39%) Maven
7 15 (1.39%) SonarQube
8 13 (1.20%) Rational DOORS
8 13 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
9 12 (1.11%) REST Assured
10 11 (1.02%) Mockito
11 10 (0.92%) Bitbucket
12 9 (0.83%) SpecFlow
13 8 (0.74%) Bitbucket Server
13 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
14 7 (0.65%) Cucumber
15 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
15 6 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 451 (41.68%) Social Skills
2 245 (22.64%) Analytical Skills
3 236 (21.81%) Finance
4 91 (8.41%) Banking
5 63 (5.82%) Public Sector
6 54 (4.99%) Documentation Skills
7 47 (4.34%) Aerospace
8 43 (3.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 41 (3.79%) Telecoms
10 34 (3.14%) Organisational Skills
11 32 (2.96%) Manufacturing
12 27 (2.50%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (2.40%) Front Office
13 26 (2.40%) Marketing
14 24 (2.22%) Legal
15 20 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
16 18 (1.66%) Military
17 16 (1.48%) Retail
18 14 (1.29%) Law
19 13 (1.20%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 149 (13.77%) Developer
2 107 (9.89%) Senior
3 91 (8.41%) Architect
4 80 (7.39%) Analyst
5 75 (6.93%) Lead
6 39 (3.60%) Data Engineer
7 30 (2.77%) Software Engineer
8 29 (2.68%) Java Developer
9 27 (2.50%) IT Support
10 25 (2.31%) Senior Developer
11 23 (2.13%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 23 (2.13%) Full-Stack Developer
11 23 (2.13%) Junior
11 23 (2.13%) Security Engineer
11 23 (2.13%) Solutions Architect
12 22 (2.03%) Data Scientist
12 22 (2.03%) Python Developer
13 21 (1.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 20 (1.85%) C# Developer
14 20 (1.85%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (8.78%) REST
2 61 (5.64%) Terraform
3 60 (5.55%) React
4 58 (5.36%) .NET
5 53 (4.90%) HTML
6 52 (4.81%) Kafka
7 50 (4.62%) CSS
8 42 (3.88%) RESTful
9 33 (3.05%) Spring
10 32 (2.96%) Spring Boot
11 31 (2.87%) OAuth
12 26 (2.40%) OAuth2
12 26 (2.40%) Web Services
13 24 (2.22%) OpenID
14 23 (2.13%) JSON
14 23 (2.13%) Middleware
14 23 (2.13%) SOAP
15 22 (2.03%) SAML
16 21 (1.94%) AngularJS
17 19 (1.76%) .NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 113 (10.44%) Management Information System
2 80 (7.39%) Algorithms
3 75 (6.93%) Cloud Native
4 72 (6.65%) Onboarding
5 63 (5.82%) Product Ownership
6 61 (5.64%) Data Structures
7 52 (4.81%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.87%) AI Agents
9 26 (2.40%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 25 (2.31%) Virtual Team
11 24 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
12 23 (2.13%) Enterprise Software
13 22 (2.03%) Self-Motivation
14 20 (1.85%) Data Centre
14 20 (1.85%) Derivative
15 17 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
16 14 (1.29%) Fixed Income
16 14 (1.29%) Operational Technology
17 13 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
17 13 (1.20%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 125 (11.55%) Windows
2 111 (10.26%) Linux
3 31 (2.87%) Unix
4 30 (2.77%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.85%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (1.29%) Android
8 10 (0.92%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.74%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.55%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.37%) VMS
12 3 (0.28%) Debian
12 3 (0.28%) Rocky
12 3 (0.28%) zOS
13 2 (0.18%) CentOS
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
14 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 335 (30.96%) Problem-Solving
2 270 (24.95%) Agile
3 231 (21.35%) AI
4 216 (19.96%) CI/CD
5 190 (17.56%) Software Engineering
6 186 (17.19%) Continuous Improvement
7 179 (16.54%) DevOps
8 162 (14.97%) Stakeholder Management
9 154 (14.23%) Analytics
10 119 (11.00%) ITIL
11 113 (10.44%) Cybersecurity
12 106 (9.80%) Mathematics
13 103 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 101 (9.33%) Roadmaps
15 98 (9.06%) Machine Learning
16 93 (8.60%) Scrum
16 93 (8.60%) Test Automation
17 91 (8.41%) Validation
18 88 (8.13%) Mentoring
19 82 (7.58%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 291 (26.89%) Python
2 217 (20.06%) SQL
3 141 (13.03%) Java
4 89 (8.23%) JavaScript
5 79 (7.30%) PowerShell
6 70 (6.47%) C#
7 44 (4.07%) Bash
8 39 (3.60%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.77%) C++
10 17 (1.57%) Bicep
11 14 (1.29%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.11%) R
13 11 (1.02%) C
14 9 (0.83%) Scala
15 8 (0.74%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.65%) Apex Code
16 7 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.65%) Go
17 6 (0.55%) Perl
17 6 (0.55%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 828 (76.52%) Degree
2 498 (46.03%) Computer Science Degree
3 190 (17.56%) Security Cleared
4 135 (12.48%) SC Cleared
5 115 (10.63%) Master's Degree
6 51 (4.71%) Azure Certification
7 49 (4.53%) CISSP
8 47 (4.34%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (3.51%) DBS Check
10 36 (3.33%) PhD
11 31 (2.87%) CISM
12 30 (2.77%) AWS Certification
13 28 (2.59%) DV Cleared
14 23 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
14 23 (2.13%) PMI Certification
14 23 (2.13%) PMP
14 23 (2.13%) TOGAF Certification
15 20 (1.85%) CISA
16 19 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
17 15 (1.39%) A+ Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.47%) Data Quality
2 63 (5.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 58 (5.36%) QA
4 53 (4.90%) NIST
5 27 (2.50%) GDPR
6 17 (1.57%) SLA
7 16 (1.48%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.48%) GRC
8 11 (1.02%) HIPAA
8 11 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 9 (0.83%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.74%) NCSC
12 7 (0.65%) NIST 800
13 5 (0.46%) ITGC
14 4 (0.37%) COBIT
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 19650
14 4 (0.37%) ISO 9001
15 3 (0.28%) HL7
15 3 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 87 (8.04%) Docker
2 76 (7.02%) Active Directory
3 26 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (1.02%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.74%) Firmware
7 6 (0.55%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.37%) RACF
8 4 (0.37%) vSphere
9 3 (0.28%) ACF2
9 3 (0.28%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) ISA Server
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.092%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.092%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 102 (9.43%) Kubernetes
2 40 (3.70%) Ansible
3 28 (2.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 24 (2.22%) Prometheus
5 20 (1.85%) Grafana
6 14 (1.29%) SCCM
7 12 (1.11%) Single Sign-On
8 5 (0.46%) Argo
9 4 (0.37%) CASB
9 4 (0.37%) Control-M
9 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.37%) Puppet
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco Prime
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) Istio
10 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) SolarWinds Orion
11 2 (0.18%) HP Fortify
11 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 214 (19.78%) Microsoft
2 70 (6.47%) Oracle
3 48 (4.44%) Google
4 40 (3.70%) Databricks
5 39 (3.60%) IBM
6 37 (3.42%) VMware
7 36 (3.33%) ServiceNow
8 31 (2.87%) SAP
9 28 (2.59%) Cisco
10 24 (2.22%) Splunk
11 20 (1.85%) CyberArk
11 20 (1.85%) Salesforce
12 18 (1.66%) BeyondTrust
13 13 (1.20%) Adobe
13 13 (1.20%) Red Hat
14 11 (1.02%) OpenAI
15 10 (0.92%) Citrix
15 10 (0.92%) Dynatrace
15 10 (0.92%) Foundry
16 9 (0.83%) F5