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 29 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 66 68
Rank change year-on-year -38 +2 +46
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,067 1,041 1,286
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.27% 3.57% 2.97%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.68% 3.93% 3.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 627 584 791
10th Percentile £177 £250 £320
25th Percentile £316 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £656 £675 £650
90th Percentile £780 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £400 £500 £513
% change year-on-year -20.00% -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 32 94
10th Percentile £28.75 £27.21 £22.53
25th Percentile £53.50 £30.78 £41.50
Median hourly rate £83.00 £43.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +89.71% -20.45% +2.10%
75th Percentile £88.00 £64.31 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.25 £74.63
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +7.32%

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 39,818 26,498 37,391
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.82% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,090 17,105 24,099
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.52% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,069 2,428
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.82 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.66 £29.07 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.87% -16.94% -6.17%
75th Percentile £65.88 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.25 £28.00 £36.02
% change year-on-year +50.89% -22.27% +0.06%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 -35 942 £495 -5.71% 641
UK excluding London -44 552 £400 -20.00% 451
London -50 424 £540 -10.03% 273
Work from Home -55 240 £512 -6.91% 233
South East -13 189 £375 -25.00% 180
North of England -24 140 £375 -30.68% 76
Midlands -56 78 £495 +98.00% 62
Yorkshire -14 76 £507 +31.35% 23
North West -23 62 £356 -35.39% 36
West Midlands -55 60 £463 +93.11% 37
South West -40 45 £500 +35.14% 45
East of England -30 43 £400 -38.46% 53
Scotland -9 39 £610 +16.19% 21
East Midlands -40 17 £525 +110.00% 25
Wales -24 15 £160 -44.83% 6
Northern Ireland +5 7 £350 -41.67% 19
North East -19 3 £170 -70.39% 18

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 47 (4.40%) Confluence
2 40 (3.75%) Apache Spark
3 24 (2.25%) SharePoint
4 20 (1.87%) Apache
5 18 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
6 17 (1.59%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 4 (0.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 3 (0.28%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 3 (0.28%) CMS
8 3 (0.28%) IIS
8 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.28%) SAS
9 2 (0.19%) nginx
9 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
10 1 (0.094%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.094%) Appian
10 1 (0.094%) Camunda
Applications
1 39 (3.66%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 12 (1.12%) MS Visio
5 7 (0.66%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.66%) Revit
6 4 (0.37%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
6 4 (0.37%) Simulink
7 2 (0.19%) Trello
Business Applications
1 23 (2.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.47%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.47%) Payment Gateway
4 3 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.28%) 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%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.094%) Actimize
6 1 (0.094%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.094%) Maximo
6 1 (0.094%) Oracle HRMS
6 1 (0.094%) SAP PM
6 1 (0.094%) SAP SM
6 1 (0.094%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 304 (28.49%) Azure
2 183 (17.15%) AWS
3 85 (7.97%) GCP
4 66 (6.19%) Power Platform
5 58 (5.44%) Microsoft 365
6 56 (5.25%) GitHub
6 56 (5.25%) SaaS
7 42 (3.94%) Azure DevOps
7 42 (3.94%) Entra ID
8 23 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
8 23 (2.16%) Serverless
9 22 (2.06%) Azure Data Factory
9 22 (2.06%) GitHub Actions
9 22 (2.06%) IaaS
10 20 (1.87%) Snowflake
11 17 (1.59%) Azure AKS
11 17 (1.59%) Azure Machine Learning
12 15 (1.41%) PowerApps
13 14 (1.31%) Power Automate
14 13 (1.22%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 42 (3.94%) Firewall
2 28 (2.62%) TCP/IP
3 27 (2.53%) DNS
4 20 (1.87%) Network Security
5 16 (1.50%) WAN
6 13 (1.22%) BGP
6 13 (1.22%) HTTP
6 13 (1.22%) LAN
7 10 (0.94%) Cisco IOS
7 10 (0.94%) OSPF
8 9 (0.84%) HTTPS
8 9 (0.84%) SSH
9 8 (0.75%) 3GPP
9 8 (0.75%) Skype
10 7 (0.66%) SAN
10 7 (0.66%) VLAN
10 7 (0.66%) VPN
10 7 (0.66%) Wireless
11 6 (0.56%) IPv4
11 6 (0.56%) LTE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (4.97%) PostgreSQL
2 50 (4.69%) Relational Database
2 50 (4.69%) SQL Server
3 48 (4.50%) Power BI
4 40 (3.75%) Data Warehouse
5 36 (3.37%) Big Data
6 29 (2.72%) MySQL
7 28 (2.62%) NoSQL
8 26 (2.44%) Metadata
9 21 (1.97%) Hadoop
10 20 (1.87%) MongoDB
11 19 (1.78%) Tableau
12 15 (1.41%) Data Lake
13 14 (1.31%) Elasticsearch
14 12 (1.12%) Redis
14 12 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 10 (0.94%) Amazon RDS
16 9 (0.84%) Snowflake Schema
17 8 (0.75%) Star Schema
18 7 (0.66%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 86 (8.06%) Git
2 69 (6.47%) JIRA
3 39 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 37 (3.47%) GitLab
5 28 (2.62%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.22%) MLflow
7 12 (1.12%) Selenium
8 10 (0.94%) Postman
9 9 (0.84%) Jaeger
9 9 (0.84%) TeamCity
10 8 (0.75%) Gradle
11 7 (0.66%) CircleCI
11 7 (0.66%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.66%) JUnit
12 6 (0.56%) Bitbucket
13 5 (0.47%) Artifactory
14 4 (0.37%) Maven
14 4 (0.37%) REST Assured
14 4 (0.37%) SonarQube
14 4 (0.37%) Visual Studio
General
1 439 (41.14%) Social Skills
2 254 (23.81%) Finance
3 228 (21.37%) Analytical Skills
4 97 (9.09%) Banking
5 72 (6.75%) Public Sector
6 52 (4.87%) Documentation Skills
7 51 (4.78%) Aerospace
8 48 (4.50%) Marketing
9 38 (3.56%) Telecoms
10 34 (3.19%) Presentation Skills
11 33 (3.09%) Legal
12 31 (2.91%) Influencing Skills
13 26 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
14 24 (2.25%) Electronics
14 24 (2.25%) Front Office
15 23 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 22 (2.06%) Manufacturing
17 20 (1.87%) Investment Banking
18 17 (1.59%) Financial Institution
19 16 (1.50%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 125 (11.72%) Developer
2 112 (10.50%) Architect
3 89 (8.34%) Lead
4 82 (7.69%) Analyst
5 75 (7.03%) Senior
6 40 (3.75%) Software Engineer
7 37 (3.47%) Delivery Manager
7 37 (3.47%) Solutions Architect
8 36 (3.37%) Data Scientist
9 35 (3.28%) Product Manager
10 30 (2.81%) Technical Support
11 29 (2.72%) Data Engineer
12 28 (2.62%) Product Delivery Manager
13 24 (2.25%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 24 (2.25%) Java Developer
13 24 (2.25%) Python Developer
14 23 (2.16%) Full-Stack Engineer
15 22 (2.06%) Security Engineer
15 22 (2.06%) Systems Delivery Manager
15 22 (2.06%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (7.78%) REST
2 60 (5.62%) .NET
3 53 (4.97%) React
4 44 (4.12%) Kafka
5 43 (4.03%) Middleware
5 43 (4.03%) RESTful
6 35 (3.28%) Spring Boot
7 33 (3.09%) PyTorch
8 31 (2.91%) OAuth
8 31 (2.91%) Spring
9 30 (2.81%) JSON
10 29 (2.72%) XML
11 27 (2.53%) TensorFlow
12 26 (2.44%) SOAP
13 21 (1.97%) Elastic Stack
13 21 (1.97%) LangChain
14 20 (1.87%) Pandas
15 19 (1.78%) HTML
16 17 (1.59%) AngularJS
16 17 (1.59%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 114 (10.68%) Management Information System
2 78 (7.31%) Algorithms
2 78 (7.31%) Product Ownership
3 72 (6.75%) Onboarding
4 70 (6.56%) Cloud Native
5 56 (5.25%) Data Structures
6 45 (4.22%) Distributed Systems
7 33 (3.09%) Virtual Team
8 26 (2.44%) AI Agents
9 25 (2.34%) Data Protection Act
9 25 (2.34%) Equities
10 21 (1.97%) Taxonomies
11 20 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
12 19 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (1.78%) Derivative
12 19 (1.78%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 19 (1.78%) Self-Motivation
13 17 (1.59%) Cyberattack
13 17 (1.59%) Security Operations Centre
14 16 (1.50%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 140 (13.12%) Linux
2 129 (12.09%) Windows
3 45 (4.22%) Unix
4 26 (2.44%) Android
5 23 (2.16%) Mac OS
6 18 (1.69%) Windows Server
7 16 (1.50%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.94%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.56%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.47%) Debian
11 5 (0.47%) VMS
12 4 (0.37%) Rocky
13 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
13 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.094%) CentOS
14 1 (0.094%) Embedded Linux
14 1 (0.094%) MVS
14 1 (0.094%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 347 (32.52%) Problem-Solving
2 286 (26.80%) Agile
3 254 (23.81%) AI
4 213 (19.96%) CI/CD
5 202 (18.93%) DevOps
6 180 (16.87%) Software Engineering
7 161 (15.09%) Continuous Improvement
8 136 (12.75%) Analytics
9 124 (11.62%) Microservices
10 116 (10.87%) Cybersecurity
11 115 (10.78%) Stakeholder Management
12 111 (10.40%) Machine Learning
13 106 (9.93%) Data Science
14 105 (9.84%) Mathematics
15 101 (9.47%) Containerisation
16 100 (9.37%) Data Governance
17 97 (9.09%) Data Modelling
17 97 (9.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 97 (9.09%) Technical Leadership
18 96 (9.00%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 299 (28.02%) Python
2 200 (18.74%) SQL
3 136 (12.75%) Java
4 65 (6.09%) JavaScript
5 62 (5.81%) C#
6 55 (5.15%) PowerShell
7 40 (3.75%) TypeScript
8 34 (3.19%) Bash
9 32 (3.00%) C++
10 22 (2.06%) R
11 15 (1.41%) Go
12 12 (1.12%) Perl
12 12 (1.12%) Rust
13 10 (0.94%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.75%) Scala
15 7 (0.66%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 6 (0.56%) C
17 5 (0.47%) Tcl
18 4 (0.37%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 883 (82.76%) Degree
2 549 (51.45%) Computer Science Degree
3 200 (18.74%) Security Cleared
4 161 (15.09%) Master's Degree
5 122 (11.43%) SC Cleared
6 56 (5.25%) CISSP
7 38 (3.56%) CISM
7 38 (3.56%) PhD
8 35 (3.28%) Azure Certification
9 34 (3.19%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (3.09%) PMI Certification
11 31 (2.91%) TOGAF Certification
12 28 (2.62%) PMP
13 25 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
14 24 (2.25%) CompTIA Security+
14 24 (2.25%) DV Cleared
15 23 (2.16%) AWS Certification
16 19 (1.78%) CISA
16 19 (1.78%) DBS Check
17 17 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (6.09%) QA
2 56 (5.25%) NIST
3 53 (4.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 50 (4.69%) Data Quality
5 38 (3.56%) GDPR
6 18 (1.69%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.50%) PCI DSS
8 12 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 10 (0.94%) GRC
9 10 (0.94%) NIST 800
10 8 (0.75%) NCSC
10 8 (0.75%) SLA
11 7 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.66%) COBIT
11 7 (0.66%) DO-254
11 7 (0.66%) PSD2
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 19650
12 6 (0.56%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 119 (11.15%) Docker
2 75 (7.03%) Active Directory
3 17 (1.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.31%) Firmware
5 6 (0.56%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.47%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
7 4 (0.37%) 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 (0.094%) ACF2
9 1 (0.094%) HDFS
9 1 (0.094%) PowerHA
9 1 (0.094%) RACF
9 1 (0.094%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 132 (12.37%) Kubernetes
2 67 (6.28%) Terraform
3 49 (4.59%) Ansible
4 34 (3.19%) Grafana
5 28 (2.62%) Prometheus
6 24 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (1.31%) Puppet
9 10 (0.94%) Kibana
10 9 (0.84%) Kiali
11 6 (0.56%) SCCM
12 4 (0.37%) Control-M
12 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.28%) Foglight
13 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 3 (0.28%) SCOM
13 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 2 (0.19%) logstash
Vendors
1 194 (18.18%) Microsoft
2 62 (5.81%) Oracle
3 52 (4.87%) Splunk
4 48 (4.50%) Databricks
5 46 (4.31%) SAP
6 40 (3.75%) Google
7 34 (3.19%) IBM
8 31 (2.91%) ServiceNow
9 22 (2.06%) Cisco
10 21 (1.97%) VMware
11 18 (1.69%) BiZZdesign
12 17 (1.59%) Salesforce
13 16 (1.50%) Informatica
13 16 (1.50%) Okta
14 14 (1.31%) Palo Alto
15 13 (1.22%) CheckPoint
15 13 (1.22%) CyberArk
16 12 (1.12%) Foundry
16 12 (1.12%) MuleSoft
16 12 (1.12%) Software AG