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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 66 61
Rank change year-on-year -63 -5 +28
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,109 1,233 1,309
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.08% 3.75% 3.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.45% 4.15% 3.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 618 695 804
10th Percentile £177 £184 £325
25th Percentile £201 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £453 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.40% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £600 £650 £688
90th Percentile £757 £775 £813
UK excluding London median daily rate £370 £413 £513
% change year-on-year -10.42% -19.51% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 49 67
10th Percentile £25.74 £25.00 £20.80
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £38.75
Median hourly rate £72.50 £54.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.03% +3.81% -13.93%
75th Percentile £87.16 £68.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.75 £67.00 £55.63
% change year-on-year +20.52% +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 45,324 29,743 33,722
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.43% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,013 18,657 21,666
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.60% -4.76% -4.55%
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 2,761 1,640 1,941
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.32 £17.80
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 £82.25 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.94
% change year-on-year +86.55% -42.44% +2.35%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -52 1,010 £450 -10.00% 1,482
UK excluding London -50 600 £370 -10.42% 706
London -63 437 £525 -12.50% 903
South East -4 249 £350 -24.32% 219
Work from Home -84 246 £500 -8.26% 550
North of England -44 141 £400 -10.51% 125
Midlands -61 89 £275 -12.14% 104
Yorkshire -8 76 £450 +25.70% 32
West Midlands -63 60 £384 +78.49% 49
North West -62 54 £292 -38.53% 62
East of England -23 49 £215 -57.43% 110
South West -71 33 £469 +110.08% 63
East Midlands -24 28 £253 -41.75% 55
Scotland -48 28 £400 -15.79% 33
North East -33 12 £195 -57.84% 32
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 28
Wales -19 6 £530 +17.78% 38

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 38 (3.43%) Confluence
2 30 (2.71%) Apache Spark
2 30 (2.71%) SharePoint
3 21 (1.89%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (1.71%) Apache
5 9 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
6 6 (0.54%) IIS
7 5 (0.45%) SAS
8 4 (0.36%) CMS
9 3 (0.27%) Camunda
9 3 (0.27%) Jupyter
10 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.18%) nginx
10 2 (0.18%) OpenStack
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.090%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.090%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.090%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 45 (4.06%) Microsoft Office
2 33 (2.98%) Microsoft Excel
3 14 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (1.26%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.63%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.63%) Revit
5 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.54%) Trello
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
7 2 (0.18%) Sketch
8 1 (0.090%) Simulink
8 1 (0.090%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 13 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.36%) Workday HCM
4 3 (0.27%) Infor M3
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%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.18%) Workfront
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
6 1 (0.090%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.090%) Temenos T24
Cloud Services
1 313 (28.22%) Azure
2 196 (17.67%) AWS
3 109 (9.83%) GCP
4 78 (7.03%) Power Platform
5 67 (6.04%) Entra ID
6 57 (5.14%) Microsoft 365
7 52 (4.69%) GitHub
8 49 (4.42%) SaaS
9 45 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
10 34 (3.07%) Snowflake
11 29 (2.61%) Serverless
12 22 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
12 22 (1.98%) PowerApps
13 18 (1.62%) Azure AKS
14 16 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.35%) AWS Lambda
15 15 (1.35%) Azure Data Factory
15 15 (1.35%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.26%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 13 (1.17%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 43 (3.88%) Firewall
2 32 (2.89%) DNS
2 32 (2.89%) Network Security
3 30 (2.71%) VPN
4 21 (1.89%) TCP/IP
5 18 (1.62%) WAN
6 15 (1.35%) DHCP
6 15 (1.35%) SSH
7 14 (1.26%) LAN
8 12 (1.08%) Wireless
9 11 (0.99%) BGP
10 10 (0.90%) VLAN
11 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
11 8 (0.72%) OSPF
11 8 (0.72%) Wireshark
12 7 (0.63%) 3GPP
12 7 (0.63%) Cisco ASA
12 7 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
12 7 (0.63%) MPLS
12 7 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (5.68%) Power BI
2 53 (4.78%) Relational Database
3 52 (4.69%) SQL Server
4 51 (4.60%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (3.07%) Data Warehouse
6 32 (2.89%) Metadata
7 29 (2.61%) Big Data
8 27 (2.43%) MongoDB
9 25 (2.25%) NoSQL
10 17 (1.53%) Tableau
11 15 (1.35%) MySQL
12 14 (1.26%) Data Mining
12 14 (1.26%) Hadoop
13 13 (1.17%) Data Lake
14 11 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
14 11 (0.99%) Elasticsearch
15 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.90%) Redis
15 10 (0.90%) Snowflake Schema
16 9 (0.81%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 86 (7.75%) Git
2 52 (4.69%) JIRA
3 40 (3.61%) Jenkins
4 35 (3.16%) GitLab
5 32 (2.89%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.17%) Selenium
7 12 (1.08%) JUnit
8 11 (0.99%) Bitbucket
8 11 (0.99%) Gradle
9 9 (0.81%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.72%) Maven
10 8 (0.72%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.54%) MLflow
12 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.54%) SonarQube
12 6 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (0.45%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.45%) Visual Studio
General
1 444 (40.04%) Social Skills
2 239 (21.55%) Analytical Skills
3 233 (21.01%) Finance
4 91 (8.21%) Banking
5 67 (6.04%) Public Sector
6 60 (5.41%) Aerospace
7 50 (4.51%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (3.43%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 30 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
11 29 (2.61%) Telecoms
12 27 (2.43%) Legal
12 27 (2.43%) Marketing
13 26 (2.34%) Manufacturing
14 24 (2.16%) Front Office
15 20 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
16 16 (1.44%) Law
16 16 (1.44%) Military
17 15 (1.35%) Retail
18 12 (1.08%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 128 (11.54%) Developer
2 113 (10.19%) Senior
3 107 (9.65%) Architect
4 81 (7.30%) Lead
5 78 (7.03%) Analyst
6 39 (3.52%) Data Engineer
6 39 (3.52%) Product Manager
6 39 (3.52%) Software Engineer
7 35 (3.16%) Delivery Manager
8 31 (2.80%) Data Scientist
9 30 (2.71%) Product Delivery Manager
10 26 (2.34%) Java Developer
10 26 (2.34%) Junior
10 26 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
11 24 (2.16%) IT Support
12 23 (2.07%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 23 (2.07%) Security Engineer
12 23 (2.07%) Senior Developer
13 22 (1.98%) Python Developer
13 22 (1.98%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 86 (7.75%) REST
2 62 (5.59%) React
3 54 (4.87%) .NET
4 43 (3.88%) Kafka
5 38 (3.43%) Spring
6 34 (3.07%) RESTful
7 31 (2.80%) Spring Boot
8 29 (2.61%) OAuth
9 26 (2.34%) AngularJS
10 24 (2.16%) CSS
10 24 (2.16%) PyTorch
11 23 (2.07%) HTML
11 23 (2.07%) Middleware
11 23 (2.07%) SAML
12 22 (1.98%) OAuth2
13 21 (1.89%) JSON
13 21 (1.89%) OpenID
13 21 (1.89%) Web Services
14 19 (1.71%) TensorFlow
15 17 (1.53%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 100 (9.02%) Management Information System
2 90 (8.12%) Product Ownership
3 87 (7.84%) Algorithms
4 84 (7.57%) Onboarding
5 73 (6.58%) Cloud Native
6 66 (5.95%) Data Structures
7 52 (4.69%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (2.80%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.43%) Virtual Team
10 26 (2.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 25 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
12 23 (2.07%) Derivative
13 18 (1.62%) Enterprise Software
14 17 (1.53%) Fixed Income
14 17 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
15 15 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (1.35%) Data Centre
15 15 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
15 15 (1.35%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 129 (11.63%) Windows
2 104 (9.38%) Linux
3 32 (2.89%) Unix
4 26 (2.34%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.89%) Android
6 19 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (1.53%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.08%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.81%) Ubuntu
10 8 (0.72%) Mac OS
11 4 (0.36%) VMS
12 3 (0.27%) Debian
12 3 (0.27%) Rocky
13 2 (0.18%) MVS
13 2 (0.18%) Solaris
13 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.18%) zOS
14 1 (0.090%) CentOS
14 1 (0.090%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 326 (29.40%) Problem-Solving
2 273 (24.62%) Agile
3 242 (21.82%) AI
4 205 (18.49%) CI/CD
5 192 (17.31%) Continuous Improvement
6 191 (17.22%) Software Engineering
7 164 (14.79%) DevOps
8 152 (13.71%) Analytics
9 139 (12.53%) Stakeholder Management
10 128 (11.54%) Cybersecurity
11 117 (10.55%) ITIL
12 113 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 112 (10.10%) Machine Learning
14 110 (9.92%) Mathematics
15 99 (8.93%) Decision-Making
16 97 (8.75%) Data Science
17 90 (8.12%) Roadmaps
18 88 (7.94%) Microservices
19 85 (7.66%) Validation
20 84 (7.57%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 302 (27.23%) Python
2 212 (19.12%) SQL
3 138 (12.44%) Java
4 71 (6.40%) PowerShell
5 70 (6.31%) JavaScript
6 62 (5.59%) C#
7 39 (3.52%) TypeScript
8 30 (2.71%) Bash
9 24 (2.16%) C++
10 18 (1.62%) R
11 13 (1.17%) Bicep
12 12 (1.08%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.90%) C
14 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (0.72%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.63%) Go
15 7 (0.63%) Scala
16 6 (0.54%) Perl
17 4 (0.36%) PL/SQL
17 4 (0.36%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 846 (76.28%) Degree
2 487 (43.91%) Computer Science Degree
3 212 (19.12%) Security Cleared
4 130 (11.72%) SC Cleared
5 124 (11.18%) Master's Degree
6 52 (4.69%) CISSP
7 44 (3.97%) Azure Certification
8 41 (3.70%) Microsoft Certification
9 40 (3.61%) DBS Check
10 39 (3.52%) PhD
11 33 (2.98%) CISM
12 30 (2.71%) PMI Certification
13 29 (2.61%) PMP
14 28 (2.52%) AWS Certification
15 27 (2.43%) DV Cleared
16 24 (2.16%) Cisco Certification
16 24 (2.16%) TOGAF Certification
17 21 (1.89%) CISA
18 20 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
19 18 (1.62%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (6.22%) Data Quality
1 69 (6.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 62 (5.59%) NIST
3 53 (4.78%) QA
4 32 (2.89%) GDPR
5 18 (1.62%) Accessibility
6 15 (1.35%) GRC
7 14 (1.26%) SLA
8 13 (1.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 12 (1.08%) PCI DSS
10 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 11 (0.99%) NCSC
11 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
12 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
13 5 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.45%) COBIT
13 5 (0.45%) DO-254
13 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
13 5 (0.45%) ITGC
System Software
1 87 (7.84%) Docker
2 81 (7.30%) Active Directory
3 21 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.90%) Firmware
5 9 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (0.72%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.45%) vSphere
9 3 (0.27%) ACF2
9 3 (0.27%) Embedded Firmware
9 3 (0.27%) RACF
9 3 (0.27%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.18%) Ceph
10 2 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
10 2 (0.18%) Squid
10 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
11 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.090%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 107 (9.65%) Kubernetes
2 57 (5.14%) Terraform
3 37 (3.34%) Ansible
4 29 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (2.34%) Prometheus
6 21 (1.89%) Grafana
7 14 (1.26%) Single Sign-On
8 10 (0.90%) SCCM
9 5 (0.45%) Argo
10 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.27%) Foglight
10 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.27%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Control-M
11 2 (0.18%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize Orchestrator
11 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 204 (18.39%) Microsoft
2 64 (5.77%) Oracle
3 50 (4.51%) Databricks
4 42 (3.79%) IBM
5 40 (3.61%) Google
6 39 (3.52%) ServiceNow
7 31 (2.80%) VMware
8 28 (2.52%) SAP
9 23 (2.07%) CyberArk
10 22 (1.98%) Cisco
11 20 (1.80%) BeyondTrust
12 18 (1.62%) Splunk
13 12 (1.08%) Salesforce
14 11 (0.99%) Citrix
14 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
15 10 (0.90%) Foundry
15 10 (0.90%) Okta
15 10 (0.90%) Solace
16 9 (0.81%) Apple
16 9 (0.81%) Red Hat