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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 62 61
Rank change year-on-year -68 -1 +30
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,083 1,220 1,355
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.05% 3.74% 3.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.42% 4.14% 3.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 604 680 828
10th Percentile £177 £203 £324
25th Percentile £203 £358 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.10% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £375 £425 £513
% change year-on-year -11.76% -17.07% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 125 48 83
10th Percentile £25.73 £25.00 £21.25
25th Percentile £35.00 £29.00 £41.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £54.50 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.44% -0.91% -11.29%
75th Percentile £87.16 £69.10 £66.88
90th Percentile £88.00 £88.00 £74.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £81.50 £67.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +21.64% +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 44,825 29,480 35,296
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.35% 85.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,802 18,519 22,641
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,641 1,572 2,187
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.06
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.44 £16.86
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%
75th Percentile £68.50 £50.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £68.75 £73.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.88% -39.15% -1.95%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 -53 975 £453 -9.40% 1,167
UK excluding London -44 589 £375 -11.76% 615
London -61 420 £530 -11.70% 675
South East -7 244 £323 -32.28% 210
Work from Home -78 244 £500 -8.26% 433
North of England -50 136 £377 -17.37% 112
Midlands -63 81 £350 +9.38% 91
Yorkshire -15 71 £514 +30.79% 27
West Midlands -65 55 £429 +51.06% 52
North West -59 54 £220 -53.68% 53
East of England -28 47 £215 -66.92% 83
South West -63 35 £435 +81.04% 61
Scotland -41 34 £481 +1.32% 26
East Midlands -23 25 £275 -36.56% 39
North East -30 12 £195 -57.84% 32
Wales -26 7 £530 +15.09% 12
Northern Ireland - 7 £350 - 36

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 33 (3.05%) Apache Spark
3 30 (2.77%) SharePoint
4 24 (2.22%) Apache Airflow
5 23 (2.12%) Apache
6 9 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.55%) IIS
8 5 (0.46%) SAS
9 4 (0.37%) Camunda
9 4 (0.37%) CMS
10 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.28%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.18%) Cloud Foundry
11 2 (0.18%) nginx
11 2 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.092%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 43 (3.97%) Microsoft Office
2 32 (2.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 13 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (1.20%) MS Visio
4 7 (0.65%) Navisworks
4 7 (0.65%) Revit
5 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.37%) Trello
8 2 (0.18%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.18%) Sketch
9 1 (0.092%) Simulink
9 1 (0.092%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 17 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.46%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
3 3 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.28%) Primavera
3 3 (0.28%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.28%) Workday HCM
4 2 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.18%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.18%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.18%) Workfront
5 1 (0.092%) Infor M3
5 1 (0.092%) Maximo
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Equation
5 1 (0.092%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.092%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.092%) SAP Forecasting and Replenishment
5 1 (0.092%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.092%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 314 (28.99%) Azure
2 194 (17.91%) AWS
3 101 (9.33%) GCP
4 77 (7.11%) Power Platform
5 62 (5.72%) Entra ID
6 56 (5.17%) Microsoft 365
7 47 (4.34%) SaaS
8 45 (4.16%) GitHub
9 44 (4.06%) Azure DevOps
10 31 (2.86%) Snowflake
11 28 (2.59%) Serverless
12 23 (2.12%) PowerApps
13 21 (1.94%) GitHub Actions
14 18 (1.66%) Azure AKS
15 16 (1.48%) Power Automate
16 15 (1.39%) Microsoft Copilot
17 14 (1.29%) AWS Lambda
17 14 (1.29%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 14 (1.29%) Azure Data Factory
18 13 (1.20%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 39 (3.60%) Firewall
2 32 (2.95%) Network Security
3 29 (2.68%) DNS
4 27 (2.49%) VPN
5 24 (2.22%) TCP/IP
6 16 (1.48%) WAN
7 14 (1.29%) SSH
8 13 (1.20%) LAN
9 12 (1.11%) BGP
9 12 (1.11%) DHCP
10 10 (0.92%) HTTPS
10 10 (0.92%) VLAN
10 10 (0.92%) Wireless
11 9 (0.83%) OSPF
12 8 (0.74%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.65%) 3GPP
13 7 (0.65%) Cisco ASA
13 7 (0.65%) MPLS
14 6 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
14 6 (0.55%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (5.72%) Power BI
2 54 (4.99%) SQL Server
3 52 (4.80%) Relational Database
4 50 (4.62%) PostgreSQL
5 35 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
6 34 (3.14%) Metadata
7 32 (2.95%) Big Data
8 27 (2.49%) MongoDB
9 24 (2.22%) NoSQL
10 18 (1.66%) MySQL
11 17 (1.57%) Data Lake
11 17 (1.57%) Tableau
12 16 (1.48%) Hadoop
13 12 (1.11%) Data Mining
14 11 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
15 10 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
15 10 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
15 10 (0.92%) Snowflake Schema
16 8 (0.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 8 (0.74%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 86 (7.94%) Git
2 53 (4.89%) JIRA
3 39 (3.60%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.14%) GitLab
5 31 (2.86%) Rational DOORS
6 13 (1.20%) Selenium
7 12 (1.11%) JUnit
8 11 (1.02%) Gradle
9 8 (0.74%) Maven
9 8 (0.74%) MLflow
9 8 (0.74%) SpecFlow
9 8 (0.74%) TeamCity
10 7 (0.65%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.55%) Cypress.io
11 6 (0.55%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.55%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.55%) Sonatype Nexus
12 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
12 5 (0.46%) Visual Studio
General
1 433 (39.98%) Social Skills
2 237 (21.88%) Finance
3 233 (21.51%) Analytical Skills
4 93 (8.59%) Banking
5 68 (6.28%) Public Sector
6 55 (5.08%) Aerospace
7 53 (4.89%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (3.51%) Organisational Skills
9 37 (3.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 30 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
10 30 (2.77%) Telecoms
11 29 (2.68%) Marketing
12 23 (2.12%) Legal
12 23 (2.12%) Manufacturing
13 22 (2.03%) Front Office
14 20 (1.85%) Presentation Skills
15 16 (1.48%) Law
16 15 (1.39%) Military
17 14 (1.29%) Retail
18 13 (1.20%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 124 (11.45%) Developer
2 112 (10.34%) Architect
3 107 (9.88%) Senior
4 81 (7.48%) Analyst
5 80 (7.39%) Lead
6 39 (3.60%) Data Engineer
7 38 (3.51%) Software Engineer
8 37 (3.42%) Product Manager
9 34 (3.14%) Delivery Manager
10 31 (2.86%) Data Scientist
11 29 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
12 28 (2.59%) Product Delivery Manager
13 26 (2.40%) Junior
14 24 (2.22%) IT Support
14 24 (2.22%) Security Engineer
15 23 (2.12%) Java Developer
15 23 (2.12%) Python Developer
16 22 (2.03%) Full-Stack Developer
16 22 (2.03%) Systems Delivery Manager
16 22 (2.03%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (8.03%) REST
2 61 (5.63%) React
3 55 (5.08%) .NET
4 43 (3.97%) Kafka
5 36 (3.32%) RESTful
5 36 (3.32%) Spring
6 32 (2.95%) Spring Boot
7 27 (2.49%) Middleware
8 26 (2.40%) OAuth
9 25 (2.31%) AngularJS
10 23 (2.12%) PyTorch
11 22 (2.03%) CSS
12 21 (1.94%) HTML
12 21 (1.94%) JSON
13 20 (1.85%) Web Services
14 19 (1.75%) SAML
15 18 (1.66%) LDAP
15 18 (1.66%) OAuth2
15 18 (1.66%) OpenID
16 17 (1.57%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 104 (9.60%) Management Information System
2 88 (8.13%) Product Ownership
3 85 (7.85%) Onboarding
4 80 (7.39%) Algorithms
5 73 (6.74%) Cloud Native
6 58 (5.36%) Data Structures
7 48 (4.43%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (2.59%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.49%) Virtual Team
10 25 (2.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 25 (2.31%) Self-Motivation
11 22 (2.03%) Derivative
12 20 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
13 17 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.57%) Fixed Income
14 16 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
14 16 (1.48%) Operational Technology
15 15 (1.39%) Equities
15 15 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
15 15 (1.39%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 131 (12.10%) Windows
2 108 (9.97%) Linux
3 33 (3.05%) Unix
4 25 (2.31%) Windows Server
5 21 (1.94%) Android
6 18 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (1.57%) Windows 10
8 12 (1.11%) Apple iOS
9 9 (0.83%) Mac OS
9 9 (0.83%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.46%) VMS
11 3 (0.28%) Debian
11 3 (0.28%) Rocky
12 2 (0.18%) MVS
12 2 (0.18%) Solaris
12 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.18%) zOS
13 1 (0.092%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.092%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.092%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (29.46%) Problem-Solving
2 271 (25.02%) Agile
3 240 (22.16%) AI
4 195 (18.01%) CI/CD
5 188 (17.36%) Continuous Improvement
6 184 (16.99%) Software Engineering
7 164 (15.14%) DevOps
8 152 (14.04%) Analytics
9 129 (11.91%) Cybersecurity
10 126 (11.63%) Stakeholder Management
11 119 (10.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 115 (10.62%) Machine Learning
13 113 (10.43%) ITIL
14 108 (9.97%) Mathematics
15 98 (9.05%) Data Science
16 95 (8.77%) Microservices
17 94 (8.68%) Decision-Making
18 90 (8.31%) Roadmaps
19 84 (7.76%) Containerisation
19 84 (7.76%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 292 (26.96%) Python
2 210 (19.39%) SQL
3 135 (12.47%) Java
4 67 (6.19%) JavaScript
5 61 (5.63%) C#
6 60 (5.54%) PowerShell
7 37 (3.42%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.68%) Bash
9 22 (2.03%) C++
10 18 (1.66%) R
11 13 (1.20%) Bicep
12 11 (1.02%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.92%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.83%) C
15 8 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 8 (0.74%) Go
16 7 (0.65%) Perl
17 5 (0.46%) Scala
18 4 (0.37%) Ada
18 4 (0.37%) Apex Code
Qualifications
1 835 (77.10%) Degree
2 476 (43.95%) Computer Science Degree
3 210 (19.39%) Security Cleared
4 133 (12.28%) Master's Degree
5 127 (11.73%) SC Cleared
6 52 (4.80%) CISSP
7 45 (4.16%) Azure Certification
8 41 (3.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (3.32%) PhD
10 33 (3.05%) CISM
10 33 (3.05%) DBS Check
11 29 (2.68%) PMI Certification
12 28 (2.59%) AWS Certification
12 28 (2.59%) DV Cleared
12 28 (2.59%) PMP
13 26 (2.40%) TOGAF Certification
14 23 (2.12%) Cisco Certification
15 20 (1.85%) CISA
16 19 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
17 16 (1.48%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (6.28%) Data Quality
2 67 (6.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 61 (5.63%) NIST
4 56 (5.17%) QA
5 33 (3.05%) GDPR
6 19 (1.75%) Accessibility
7 15 (1.39%) GRC
8 13 (1.20%) PCI DSS
8 13 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 13 (1.20%) SLA
9 12 (1.11%) NCSC
10 10 (0.92%) HIPAA
10 10 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 10 (0.92%) NIST 800
11 7 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 20000
12 5 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
12 5 (0.46%) COBIT
12 5 (0.46%) Government Security Classifications
12 5 (0.46%) ISO 20022
12 5 (0.46%) ITGC
System Software
1 88 (8.13%) Docker
2 81 (7.48%) Active Directory
3 19 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (0.83%) Firmware
4 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (0.65%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.55%) VMware NSX
7 4 (0.37%) vSphere
8 3 (0.28%) ACF2
8 3 (0.28%) RACF
8 3 (0.28%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.18%) Ceph
9 2 (0.18%) Embedded Firmware
9 2 (0.18%) Squid
9 2 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 1 (0.092%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.092%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.092%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 106 (9.79%) Kubernetes
2 55 (5.08%) Terraform
3 36 (3.32%) Ansible
4 27 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
5 25 (2.31%) Prometheus
6 22 (2.03%) Grafana
7 14 (1.29%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.65%) SCCM
9 4 (0.37%) Kubeflow
10 3 (0.28%) Cisco CUCM
10 3 (0.28%) Foglight
10 3 (0.28%) HP ALM
10 3 (0.28%) vCenter Server
11 2 (0.18%) Consul
11 2 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.18%) Network Intrusion Detection System
11 2 (0.18%) PowerCLI
11 2 (0.18%) Puppet
11 2 (0.18%) vRealize
11 2 (0.18%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 205 (18.93%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.00%) Oracle
3 50 (4.62%) Databricks
4 42 (3.88%) Google
5 41 (3.79%) IBM
6 37 (3.42%) ServiceNow
7 32 (2.95%) SAP
8 30 (2.77%) VMware
9 21 (1.94%) Cisco
9 21 (1.94%) CyberArk
10 20 (1.85%) Splunk
11 18 (1.66%) BeyondTrust
12 14 (1.29%) Informatica
13 13 (1.20%) Salesforce
14 12 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 11 (1.02%) Okta
16 10 (0.92%) Foundry
17 9 (0.83%) Apple
17 9 (0.83%) Citrix
17 9 (0.83%) Red Hat