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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 65 63
Rank change year-on-year -67 -2 +22
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,109 1,244 1,296
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.07% 3.79% 3.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.45% 4.19% 3.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 622 706 807
10th Percentile £175 £184 £329
25th Percentile £200 £355 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £452 £498 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.25% -9.55% -
75th Percentile £620 £650 £688
90th Percentile £755 £775 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £377 £420 £525
% change year-on-year -10.24% -20.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 48 63
10th Percentile £25.08 £25.00 £20.34
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.75
Median hourly rate £70.00 £53.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.84% +1.90% -12.50%
75th Percentile £87.16 £67.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £70.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.00 £67.00 £55.63
% change year-on-year +19.40% +20.45% -5.32%

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 45,331 29,700 33,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.46% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,838 18,524 21,130
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% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,836 1,729 1,767
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.14
Median hourly rate £41.63 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.54% -38.57% -0.24%
75th Percentile £67.99 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -43.53% +17.65%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -54 1,016 £455 -9.04% 824
UK excluding London -51 593 £377 -10.24% 507
London -63 443 £525 -9.09% 405
Work from Home -89 249 £500 - 282
South East -8 238 £363 -14.71% 164
North of England -34 147 £403 -4.17% 93
Midlands -56 93 £253 -32.67% 70
Yorkshire -10 76 £450 +25.70% 21
West Midlands -52 64 £275 -17.91% 30
North West -42 61 £425 -10.63% 41
East of England -23 50 £208 -53.89% 79
South West -69 30 £477 +130.99% 65
East Midlands -27 28 £253 -43.51% 40
Scotland -56 26 £359 -24.47% 23
North East -33 11 £195 -57.84% 32
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 12
Wales -24 4 £530 +14.59% 11

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 39 (3.52%) Confluence
2 31 (2.80%) SharePoint
3 23 (2.07%) Apache Spark
4 20 (1.80%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (1.35%) Apache
6 9 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.54%) IIS
8 5 (0.45%) SAS
9 4 (0.36%) CMS
9 4 (0.36%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.36%) OpenStack
9 4 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 3 (0.27%) Camunda
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 (0.090%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.090%) nginx
12 1 (0.090%) Tomcat
Applications
1 46 (4.15%) Microsoft Office
2 30 (2.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 16 (1.44%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.63%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.63%) Revit
6 5 (0.45%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.45%) Trello
7 3 (0.27%) Windchill
8 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.18%) CPLEX
8 2 (0.18%) Sketch
9 1 (0.090%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.45%) 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 (0.090%) Maximo
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Equation
6 1 (0.090%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.090%) SAP Retail
6 1 (0.090%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.090%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 302 (27.23%) Azure
2 192 (17.31%) AWS
3 111 (10.01%) GCP
4 75 (6.76%) Power Platform
5 64 (5.77%) Entra ID
6 60 (5.41%) Microsoft 365
7 52 (4.69%) SaaS
8 46 (4.15%) Azure DevOps
8 46 (4.15%) GitHub
9 36 (3.25%) Snowflake
10 32 (2.89%) Serverless
11 22 (1.98%) PowerApps
12 19 (1.71%) GitHub Actions
13 17 (1.53%) AWS Lambda
14 16 (1.44%) Azure Data Factory
14 16 (1.44%) Microsoft Copilot
15 15 (1.35%) Power Automate
16 14 (1.26%) dbt
17 13 (1.17%) Azure Monitor
17 13 (1.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 44 (3.97%) Firewall
2 41 (3.70%) DNS
3 34 (3.07%) VPN
4 33 (2.98%) Network Security
5 27 (2.43%) TCP/IP
6 19 (1.71%) DHCP
6 19 (1.71%) WAN
7 15 (1.35%) LAN
7 15 (1.35%) SSH
8 14 (1.26%) Wireless
9 11 (0.99%) BGP
9 11 (0.99%) VLAN
10 9 (0.81%) HTTP
10 9 (0.81%) MPLS
10 9 (0.81%) Wireshark
11 8 (0.72%) 3GPP
11 8 (0.72%) HTTPS
11 8 (0.72%) OSPF
11 8 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
12 7 (0.63%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.59%) Power BI
2 57 (5.14%) Relational Database
3 47 (4.24%) SQL Server
4 46 (4.15%) PostgreSQL
5 34 (3.07%) Metadata
6 32 (2.89%) Data Warehouse
7 26 (2.34%) MongoDB
8 25 (2.25%) NoSQL
9 22 (1.98%) Big Data
10 17 (1.53%) Tableau
11 15 (1.35%) MySQL
12 14 (1.26%) Data Mining
12 14 (1.26%) Elasticsearch
12 14 (1.26%) Redis
13 11 (0.99%) Oracle Database
14 10 (0.90%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
15 9 (0.81%) Data Lake
15 9 (0.81%) Snowflake Schema
16 8 (0.72%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 97 (8.75%) Git
2 50 (4.51%) JIRA
3 40 (3.61%) Jenkins
4 36 (3.25%) GitLab
5 31 (2.80%) Rational DOORS
6 17 (1.53%) Selenium
7 11 (0.99%) Bitbucket
8 10 (0.90%) JUnit
9 9 (0.81%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.72%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.72%) SpecFlow
11 7 (0.63%) Gradle
11 7 (0.63%) Maven
11 7 (0.63%) Sonatype Nexus
12 6 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 6 (0.54%) Postman
12 6 (0.54%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (0.54%) Visual Studio
13 5 (0.45%) MLflow
General
1 457 (41.21%) Social Skills
2 257 (23.17%) Analytical Skills
3 236 (21.28%) Finance
4 89 (8.03%) Banking
5 66 (5.95%) Public Sector
6 61 (5.50%) Aerospace
7 48 (4.33%) Documentation Skills
8 39 (3.52%) Telecoms
9 37 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 36 (3.25%) Organisational Skills
11 31 (2.80%) Influencing Skills
12 29 (2.61%) Manufacturing
13 28 (2.52%) Front Office
14 26 (2.34%) Legal
15 24 (2.16%) Marketing
16 18 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
17 17 (1.53%) Law
18 15 (1.35%) Military
18 15 (1.35%) Retail
19 13 (1.17%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 136 (12.26%) Developer
2 109 (9.83%) Senior
3 92 (8.30%) Architect
4 82 (7.39%) Lead
5 77 (6.94%) Analyst
6 38 (3.43%) Data Engineer
6 38 (3.43%) Product Manager
7 33 (2.98%) Delivery Manager
8 32 (2.89%) Software Engineer
9 29 (2.61%) Product Delivery Manager
10 27 (2.43%) IT Support
11 25 (2.25%) Junior
11 25 (2.25%) Senior Developer
12 23 (2.07%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 23 (2.07%) Data Scientist
12 23 (2.07%) Java Developer
12 23 (2.07%) Python Developer
12 23 (2.07%) Solutions Architect
13 21 (1.89%) Security Engineer
13 21 (1.89%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (8.66%) REST
2 57 (5.14%) Terraform
3 56 (5.05%) .NET
4 54 (4.87%) React
5 43 (3.88%) Kafka
6 41 (3.70%) RESTful
7 35 (3.16%) HTML
8 33 (2.98%) CSS
9 32 (2.89%) OAuth
10 27 (2.43%) Spring
11 26 (2.34%) OAuth2
12 25 (2.25%) OpenID
12 25 (2.25%) Web Services
13 23 (2.07%) JSON
13 23 (2.07%) SAML
13 23 (2.07%) SOAP
14 22 (1.98%) Middleware
14 22 (1.98%) Spring Boot
15 20 (1.80%) AngularJS
16 18 (1.62%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 103 (9.29%) Management Information System
2 86 (7.75%) Product Ownership
3 85 (7.66%) Algorithms
4 76 (6.85%) Onboarding
5 71 (6.40%) Data Structures
6 69 (6.22%) Cloud Native
7 53 (4.78%) Distributed Systems
8 30 (2.71%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.25%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 25 (2.25%) Self-Motivation
9 25 (2.25%) Virtual Team
10 23 (2.07%) Derivative
11 22 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
12 20 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
13 17 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.53%) Fixed Income
13 17 (1.53%) Legacy Systems
14 16 (1.44%) Data Centre
15 15 (1.35%) Operational Technology
16 14 (1.26%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 126 (11.36%) Windows
2 109 (9.83%) Linux
3 31 (2.80%) Unix
4 24 (2.16%) Windows Server
5 20 (1.80%) Windows 10
6 19 (1.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (1.35%) Android
8 10 (0.90%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.72%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.54%) 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 (0.090%) OpenVMS
14 1 (0.090%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 342 (30.84%) Problem-Solving
2 277 (24.98%) Agile
3 229 (20.65%) AI
4 206 (18.58%) CI/CD
5 200 (18.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 188 (16.95%) Software Engineering
7 168 (15.15%) DevOps
8 159 (14.34%) Stakeholder Management
9 145 (13.07%) Analytics
10 121 (10.91%) ITIL
11 118 (10.64%) Cybersecurity
12 115 (10.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 110 (9.92%) Mathematics
14 99 (8.93%) Machine Learning
15 94 (8.48%) Validation
16 93 (8.39%) Roadmaps
17 89 (8.03%) Scrum
18 87 (7.84%) Decision-Making
19 86 (7.75%) Data Science
20 85 (7.66%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 299 (26.96%) Python
2 212 (19.12%) SQL
3 136 (12.26%) Java
4 75 (6.76%) PowerShell
5 73 (6.58%) JavaScript
6 68 (6.13%) C#
7 40 (3.61%) Bash
8 38 (3.43%) TypeScript
9 30 (2.71%) C++
10 15 (1.35%) Bicep
11 13 (1.17%) R
11 13 (1.17%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.99%) C
13 8 (0.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 8 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 7 (0.63%) Apex Code
14 7 (0.63%) Go
15 6 (0.54%) Perl
15 6 (0.54%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.54%) Scala
Qualifications
1 849 (76.56%) Degree
2 497 (44.82%) Computer Science Degree
3 213 (19.21%) Security Cleared
4 133 (11.99%) SC Cleared
5 124 (11.18%) Master's Degree
6 48 (4.33%) CISSP
7 46 (4.15%) Azure Certification
8 43 (3.88%) Microsoft Certification
9 39 (3.52%) DBS Check
10 35 (3.16%) PhD
11 30 (2.71%) CISM
12 27 (2.43%) DV Cleared
12 27 (2.43%) PMI Certification
13 26 (2.34%) AWS Certification
13 26 (2.34%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (2.34%) PMP
14 21 (1.89%) CISA
14 21 (1.89%) TOGAF Certification
15 17 (1.53%) BPSS Clearance
16 15 (1.35%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (6.40%) Data Quality
2 66 (5.95%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 57 (5.14%) QA
4 56 (5.05%) NIST
5 27 (2.43%) GDPR
6 17 (1.53%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.35%) SLA
8 14 (1.26%) GRC
9 12 (1.08%) NCSC
9 12 (1.08%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 11 (0.99%) HIPAA
10 11 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 10 (0.90%) NIST 800
12 9 (0.81%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 5 (0.45%) Government Security Classifications
14 5 (0.45%) ITGC
15 4 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
15 4 (0.36%) COBIT
15 4 (0.36%) DO-254
System Software
1 88 (7.94%) Docker
2 79 (7.12%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.90%) Firmware
5 9 (0.81%) Hyper-V
5 9 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 6 (0.54%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (0.54%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.45%) 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
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.090%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.090%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 100 (9.02%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.52%) Ansible
3 31 (2.80%) Microsoft Intune
4 25 (2.25%) Prometheus
5 21 (1.89%) Grafana
6 13 (1.17%) SCCM
6 13 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.54%) Argo
8 4 (0.36%) Control-M
8 4 (0.36%) Kubeflow
9 3 (0.27%) Cisco CUCM
9 3 (0.27%) Cisco Prime
9 3 (0.27%) Foglight
9 3 (0.27%) HP ALM
9 3 (0.27%) Progress Chef
9 3 (0.27%) Puppet
9 3 (0.27%) SolarWinds Orion
9 3 (0.27%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.18%) Consul
10 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 208 (18.76%) Microsoft
2 66 (5.95%) Oracle
3 46 (4.15%) Databricks
3 46 (4.15%) IBM
4 45 (4.06%) Google
5 39 (3.52%) ServiceNow
6 36 (3.25%) VMware
7 30 (2.71%) SAP
8 25 (2.25%) Cisco
9 22 (1.98%) Splunk
10 20 (1.80%) CyberArk
11 18 (1.62%) BeyondTrust
11 18 (1.62%) Salesforce
12 11 (0.99%) Palo Alto
13 10 (0.90%) Citrix
13 10 (0.90%) Dynatrace
14 9 (0.81%) Adobe
14 9 (0.81%) Apple
14 9 (0.81%) Foundry
14 9 (0.81%) Red Hat