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 21 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 116 63 63
Rank change year-on-year -53 0 +44
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 1,030 1,054 1,324
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.13% 3.62% 3.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.53% 3.98% 3.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 607 600 799
10th Percentile £178 £250 £315
25th Percentile £220 £399 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £515 £530
Median % change year-on-year -7.77% -2.83% -7.83%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £654
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £388 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -18.42% -5.00% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 30 100
10th Percentile £28.49 £26.13 £22.33
25th Percentile £51.25 £29.07 £41.25
Median hourly rate £81.50 £41.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.78% -25.45% +3.41%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.50 £65.00
90th Percentile - £82.32 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £83.00 £37.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +121.33% -31.82% +10.00%

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 40,694 26,498 36,630
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.34% 91.04% 86.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,533 17,004 23,615
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 1,106 2,441
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -23.29% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.50 £59.98 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 21 May 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 21 May 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 21 May 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 -43 919 £475 -9.52% 866
UK excluding London -47 542 £388 -18.42% 618
London -51 402 £550 -8.33% 367
Work from Home -67 227 £500 -9.09% 415
South East -7 208 £215 -56.94% 222
North of England -32 127 £400 -25.51% 120
Yorkshire -7 76 £514 +12.47% 39
Midlands -63 73 £463 +62.85% 73
West Midlands -61 56 £450 +54.11% 43
North West -36 50 £350 -35.66% 59
South West -46 45 £425 +14.86% 65
East of England -31 39 £248 -61.92% 77
Scotland -17 37 £620 +18.10% 43
East Midlands -32 16 £525 +110.00% 29
Wales -28 9 £253 -12.93% 11
Northern Ireland +5 7 £350 -41.67% 22
North East -28 2 £125 -78.26% 24

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 49 (4.76%) Confluence
2 40 (3.88%) Apache Spark
3 25 (2.43%) SharePoint
4 21 (2.04%) Apache
5 19 (1.84%) Apache Airflow
6 12 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
7 5 (0.49%) IIS
8 4 (0.39%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 3 (0.29%) CMS
9 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.29%) SAS
10 2 (0.19%) Cloud Foundry
10 2 (0.19%) nginx
10 2 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
11 1 (0.097%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.097%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.097%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.097%) Oracle Service Bus
Applications
1 35 (3.40%) Microsoft Office
2 18 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
3 15 (1.46%) MS Visio
4 13 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.68%) Navisworks
5 7 (0.68%) Revit
6 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
7 3 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.29%) Simulink
8 2 (0.19%) Trello
9 1 (0.097%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 20 (1.94%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (0.49%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.49%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.19%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.19%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.19%) Workfront
5 1 (0.097%) Actimize
5 1 (0.097%) SAP PLM
5 1 (0.097%) SAP PM
5 1 (0.097%) SAP Retail
5 1 (0.097%) SAP SM
5 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.097%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 299 (29.03%) Azure
2 185 (17.96%) AWS
3 79 (7.67%) GCP
4 57 (5.53%) Power Platform
5 54 (5.24%) Microsoft 365
6 49 (4.76%) GitHub
6 49 (4.76%) SaaS
7 44 (4.27%) Entra ID
8 36 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 21 (2.04%) GitHub Actions
9 21 (2.04%) Snowflake
10 19 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
11 17 (1.65%) Azure AKS
11 17 (1.65%) IaaS
11 17 (1.65%) Serverless
12 16 (1.55%) Azure Data Factory
13 13 (1.26%) Azure Machine Learning
13 13 (1.26%) Azure Service Bus
13 13 (1.26%) PaaS
14 11 (1.07%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.59%) Firewall
2 30 (2.91%) TCP/IP
3 27 (2.62%) DNS
4 24 (2.33%) Network Security
5 16 (1.55%) WAN
6 14 (1.36%) BGP
7 13 (1.26%) LAN
8 11 (1.07%) OSPF
8 11 (1.07%) SSH
9 9 (0.87%) HTTPS
10 8 (0.78%) 3GPP
10 8 (0.78%) VPN
10 8 (0.78%) Wireless
11 7 (0.68%) SAN
11 7 (0.68%) VLAN
12 6 (0.58%) LTE
13 5 (0.49%) DHCP
13 5 (0.49%) HTTP
14 4 (0.39%) Ethernet
14 4 (0.39%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (4.66%) Relational Database
2 46 (4.47%) PostgreSQL
2 46 (4.47%) SQL Server
3 45 (4.37%) Power BI
4 38 (3.69%) Data Warehouse
5 37 (3.59%) Big Data
6 28 (2.72%) NoSQL
7 25 (2.43%) Metadata
8 24 (2.33%) MySQL
9 21 (2.04%) Hadoop
9 21 (2.04%) MongoDB
10 17 (1.65%) Tableau
11 15 (1.46%) Elasticsearch
12 14 (1.36%) Data Lake
13 11 (1.07%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 10 (0.97%) Redis
14 10 (0.97%) Snowflake Schema
15 8 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
15 8 (0.78%) Power Query
16 7 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 74 (7.18%) Git
2 66 (6.41%) JIRA
3 35 (3.40%) GitLab
3 35 (3.40%) Jenkins
4 28 (2.72%) Rational DOORS
5 11 (1.07%) Gradle
5 11 (1.07%) MLflow
5 11 (1.07%) Selenium
6 10 (0.97%) JUnit
7 9 (0.87%) Jaeger
7 9 (0.87%) TeamCity
8 7 (0.68%) CircleCI
8 7 (0.68%) Cypress.io
9 6 (0.58%) Maven
9 6 (0.58%) Postman
9 6 (0.58%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.49%) Artifactory
10 5 (0.49%) Flyway
11 4 (0.39%) Cucumber
12 3 (0.29%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 417 (40.49%) Social Skills
2 234 (22.72%) Finance
3 206 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (8.83%) Banking
5 63 (6.12%) Public Sector
6 53 (5.15%) Aerospace
7 47 (4.56%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (3.30%) Marketing
8 34 (3.30%) Telecoms
9 31 (3.01%) Presentation Skills
10 28 (2.72%) Legal
11 27 (2.62%) Organisational Skills
12 26 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 23 (2.23%) Influencing Skills
14 22 (2.14%) Front Office
15 17 (1.65%) Manufacturing
16 16 (1.55%) Investment Banking
17 15 (1.46%) Electronics
17 15 (1.46%) Financial Institution
17 15 (1.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 108 (10.49%) Architect
1 108 (10.49%) Developer
2 86 (8.35%) Analyst
3 84 (8.16%) Lead
3 84 (8.16%) Senior
4 37 (3.59%) Delivery Manager
5 36 (3.50%) Software Engineer
6 35 (3.40%) Product Manager
7 34 (3.30%) Solutions Architect
8 31 (3.01%) Data Scientist
8 31 (3.01%) Technical Support
9 28 (2.72%) Data Engineer
9 28 (2.72%) Product Delivery Manager
10 24 (2.33%) Python Developer
11 23 (2.23%) Full-Stack Engineer
12 22 (2.14%) Junior
12 22 (2.14%) Security Engineer
12 22 (2.14%) Systems Delivery Manager
12 22 (2.14%) Systems Manager
13 21 (2.04%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 87 (8.45%) REST
2 54 (5.24%) .NET
3 53 (5.15%) React
4 46 (4.47%) Middleware
5 44 (4.27%) Kafka
6 37 (3.59%) RESTful
7 35 (3.40%) Spring Boot
8 31 (3.01%) Spring
9 30 (2.91%) PyTorch
10 23 (2.23%) OAuth
10 23 (2.23%) SOAP
11 22 (2.14%) TensorFlow
12 21 (2.04%) Elastic Stack
12 21 (2.04%) JSON
12 21 (2.04%) XML
13 20 (1.94%) AngularJS
14 18 (1.75%) Pandas
15 16 (1.55%) HTML
16 15 (1.46%) CSS
16 15 (1.46%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 101 (9.81%) Management Information System
2 79 (7.67%) Product Ownership
3 76 (7.38%) Onboarding
4 71 (6.89%) Algorithms
5 65 (6.31%) Cloud Native
6 51 (4.95%) Data Structures
7 49 (4.76%) Distributed Systems
8 31 (3.01%) Virtual Team
9 22 (2.14%) Derivative
9 22 (2.14%) Self-Motivation
10 21 (2.04%) AI Agents
10 21 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
11 20 (1.94%) Taxonomies
12 19 (1.84%) Equities
13 18 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.65%) Cyberattack
14 17 (1.65%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 17 (1.65%) Security Operations Centre
15 16 (1.55%) Robotics
16 14 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 133 (12.91%) Linux
2 130 (12.62%) Windows
3 46 (4.47%) Unix
4 25 (2.43%) Android
5 19 (1.84%) Windows 10
6 17 (1.65%) Windows Server
7 16 (1.55%) Mac OS
8 15 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (1.36%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.49%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.49%) VMS
11 4 (0.39%) Debian
11 4 (0.39%) Rocky
12 2 (0.19%) Robot Operating System
12 2 (0.19%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.097%) CentOS
13 1 (0.097%) Embedded Linux
13 1 (0.097%) MVS
13 1 (0.097%) Windows Server 2012
13 1 (0.097%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 315 (30.58%) Problem-Solving
2 253 (24.56%) Agile
3 224 (21.75%) AI
4 197 (19.13%) CI/CD
5 186 (18.06%) DevOps
6 169 (16.41%) Software Engineering
7 163 (15.83%) Continuous Improvement
8 122 (11.84%) Analytics
9 121 (11.75%) Cybersecurity
10 119 (11.55%) Microservices
11 100 (9.71%) Stakeholder Management
12 98 (9.51%) Containerisation
13 97 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 95 (9.22%) Machine Learning
15 94 (9.13%) Decision-Making
16 93 (9.03%) Data Modelling
17 92 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
18 88 (8.54%) Mathematics
19 87 (8.45%) Data Governance
20 84 (8.16%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 284 (27.57%) Python
2 206 (20.00%) SQL
3 135 (13.11%) Java
4 62 (6.02%) JavaScript
5 56 (5.44%) C#
6 48 (4.66%) PowerShell
7 32 (3.11%) Bash
7 32 (3.11%) TypeScript
8 29 (2.82%) C++
9 21 (2.04%) R
10 14 (1.36%) Go
10 14 (1.36%) Perl
11 12 (1.17%) Rust
12 10 (0.97%) Kotlin
12 10 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 9 (0.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 6 (0.58%) Scala
15 5 (0.49%) C
16 4 (0.39%) Tcl
17 3 (0.29%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 826 (80.19%) Degree
2 503 (48.83%) Computer Science Degree
3 190 (18.45%) Security Cleared
4 141 (13.69%) Master's Degree
5 115 (11.17%) SC Cleared
6 56 (5.44%) CISSP
7 38 (3.69%) CISM
8 35 (3.40%) PhD
9 34 (3.30%) Azure Certification
10 31 (3.01%) TOGAF Certification
11 28 (2.72%) Microsoft Certification
12 27 (2.62%) PMI Certification
13 26 (2.52%) DV Cleared
14 24 (2.33%) PMP
15 23 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
16 22 (2.14%) AWS Certification
16 22 (2.14%) Cisco Certification
16 22 (2.14%) CompTIA Security+
17 19 (1.84%) CISA
18 18 (1.75%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (5.73%) QA
2 57 (5.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 57 (5.53%) NIST
3 53 (5.15%) Data Quality
4 38 (3.69%) GDPR
5 19 (1.84%) PCI DSS
6 18 (1.75%) Accessibility
7 13 (1.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 12 (1.17%) GRC
9 10 (0.97%) NIST 800
10 9 (0.87%) SLA
11 8 (0.78%) NCSC
12 7 (0.68%) COBIT
12 7 (0.68%) HIPAA
12 7 (0.68%) PSD2
13 6 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
13 6 (0.58%) DO-254
13 6 (0.58%) ISO 19650
13 6 (0.58%) ISO 20022
13 6 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 112 (10.87%) Docker
2 69 (6.70%) Active Directory
3 20 (1.94%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.26%) Firmware
5 9 (0.87%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
7 5 (0.49%) VMware NSX
8 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.39%) vSphere
9 2 (0.19%) BitLocker
9 2 (0.19%) Ceph
9 2 (0.19%) KVM
9 2 (0.19%) Squid
9 2 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.097%) ACF2
10 1 (0.097%) HDFS
10 1 (0.097%) RACF
Systems Management
1 133 (12.91%) Kubernetes
2 61 (5.92%) Terraform
3 50 (4.85%) Ansible
4 32 (3.11%) Grafana
5 30 (2.91%) Prometheus
6 25 (2.43%) Microsoft Intune
7 16 (1.55%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (1.07%) Puppet
9 10 (0.97%) Kibana
10 9 (0.87%) Kiali
11 4 (0.39%) Control-M
11 4 (0.39%) Kubeflow
12 3 (0.29%) Cisco CUCM
12 3 (0.29%) Foglight
12 3 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.29%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.29%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.19%) HP ALM
13 2 (0.19%) Knative
13 2 (0.19%) vRealize Orchestrator
Vendors
1 180 (17.48%) Microsoft
2 65 (6.31%) Oracle
3 51 (4.95%) Splunk
4 48 (4.66%) Databricks
5 35 (3.40%) Google
6 34 (3.30%) IBM
7 33 (3.20%) SAP
8 29 (2.82%) ServiceNow
9 24 (2.33%) VMware
10 21 (2.04%) Cisco
11 16 (1.55%) BiZZdesign
11 16 (1.55%) Informatica
11 16 (1.55%) Okta
12 14 (1.36%) Palo Alto
12 14 (1.36%) Salesforce
13 13 (1.26%) CheckPoint
14 11 (1.07%) CyberArk
14 11 (1.07%) Software AG
15 10 (0.97%) MuleSoft
15 10 (0.97%) OpenAI