Computer Science Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Computer Science
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Computer Science skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 44 47
Rank change year-on-year -49 +3 +69
Contract jobs citing Computer Science 66 49 70
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 2.29% 3.64% 3.56%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.72% 4.06% 4.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 41 25 48
10th Percentile £173 £141 £360
25th Percentile £293 £160 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £195 £525
Median % change year-on-year +143.59% -62.86% -
75th Percentile £538 £515 £626
90th Percentile £738 £573 £645
England median daily rate £475 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -9.52% -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 8
10th Percentile £21.98 - -
25th Percentile £22.70 - £22.33
Median hourly rate £24.51 - £56.25
75th Percentile £26.95 - £68.75
90th Percentile £28.03 - £72.50
England median hourly rate £83.00 £53.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +55.14% -2.73% +4.76%

All Process & Methodology Skills
West Midlands

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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,425 1,208 1,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.29% 89.68% 84.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,617 809 1,106
10th Percentile £305 £200 £269
25th Percentile £402 £393 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £663 £688 £709
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 54 119
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.36 £11.11
25th Percentile £16.10 £14.70 £14.06
Median hourly rate £24.29 £18.07 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.45% -19.71% +26.98%
75th Percentile £30.00 £24.21 £40.25
90th Percentile £60.08 £34.63 £58.75
England median hourly rate £32.50 £34.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -4.41% +4.62% -13.33%

Computer Science
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Computer Science relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Computer Science job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Computer Science
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Computer Science.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Computer Science

Computer Science
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Computer Science in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 22 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Computer Science in the West Midlands

Computer Science
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Computer Science.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Computer Science

Computer Science
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

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 West Midlands region over the 6 months to 22 March 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
Birmingham -5 30 £525 +169.23% 19
Coventry -12 13 £295 - 4
Warwickshire -17 9 £725 +45.00% 9
Worcestershire -13 5 - - 3
Staffordshire -5 4 £300 +106.90% 7
Solihull - 2 £397 -
Shropshire - 1 - - 4
Computer Science
England

Computer Science
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 2 (3.03%) OpenStack
2 1 (1.52%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 1 (1.52%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (1.52%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (1.52%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 15 (22.73%) GCP
2 13 (19.70%) AWS
3 12 (18.18%) Azure
4 10 (15.15%) Serverless
5 6 (9.09%) Power Platform
6 5 (7.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 4 (6.06%) AWS KMS
7 4 (6.06%) Azure Machine Learning
8 3 (4.55%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 3 (4.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 2 (3.03%) AWS Direct Connect
9 2 (3.03%) IaaS
9 2 (3.03%) PaaS
10 1 (1.52%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (1.52%) Azure Logic Apps
10 1 (1.52%) Azure Service Bus
10 1 (1.52%) Entra ID
10 1 (1.52%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (1.52%) OCI
10 1 (1.52%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (7.58%) LAN
1 5 (7.58%) WAN
2 3 (4.55%) BGP
2 3 (4.55%) Cisco ASA
2 3 (4.55%) DHCP
2 3 (4.55%) DNS
2 3 (4.55%) EIGRP
2 3 (4.55%) Firewall
2 3 (4.55%) IPv4
2 3 (4.55%) IPv6
2 3 (4.55%) MPLS
2 3 (4.55%) OSPF
2 3 (4.55%) SD-WAN
2 3 (4.55%) VLAN
2 3 (4.55%) VPN
2 3 (4.55%) VXLAN
2 3 (4.55%) Wireless
2 3 (4.55%) WLAN
3 2 (3.03%) Cisco ISE
3 2 (3.03%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (18.18%) Elasticsearch
2 11 (16.67%) NoSQL
3 10 (15.15%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (7.58%) Power BI
5 2 (3.03%) Data Warehouse
5 2 (3.03%) Relational Database
6 1 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
6 1 (1.52%) Data Mining
6 1 (1.52%) MySQL
6 1 (1.52%) Power Query
6 1 (1.52%) RDBMS
6 1 (1.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 11 (16.67%) GitLab
1 11 (16.67%) Jenkins
2 6 (9.09%) Liquibase
3 5 (7.58%) JIRA
4 4 (6.06%) MLflow
5 1 (1.52%) AdminStudio
5 1 (1.52%) InstallShield
5 1 (1.52%) MSI
5 1 (1.52%) REST Assured
5 1 (1.52%) Selenium
5 1 (1.52%) SoapUI
General
1 35 (53.03%) Social Skills
2 17 (25.76%) Analytical Skills
2 17 (25.76%) Finance
3 8 (12.12%) Banking
3 8 (12.12%) Financial Institution
4 6 (9.09%) Public Sector
5 3 (4.55%) Influencing Skills
5 3 (4.55%) Legal
6 2 (3.03%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (3.03%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.52%) German Language
Job Titles
1 11 (16.67%) Senior
2 10 (15.15%) Cloud Engineer
2 10 (15.15%) Site Engineer
2 10 (15.15%) Site Reliability Engineer
2 10 (15.15%) Splunk Engineer
3 9 (13.64%) GCP Engineer
4 6 (9.09%) Analyst
5 5 (7.58%) AWS Engineer
5 5 (7.58%) Software Engineer
6 4 (6.06%) Architect
6 4 (6.06%) AWS Software Engineer
6 4 (6.06%) Cloud Software Engineer
6 4 (6.06%) Senior Analyst
7 3 (4.55%) Delivery Manager
7 3 (4.55%) GCP Software Engineer
7 3 (4.55%) IT Analyst
7 3 (4.55%) Network Architect
7 3 (4.55%) Senior Software Engineer
7 3 (4.55%) Solutions Architect
8 2 (3.03%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (33.33%) Elastic Stack
2 12 (18.18%) REST
3 10 (15.15%) RESTful
4 1 (1.52%) .NET
4 1 (1.52%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (1.52%) Matplotlib
4 1 (1.52%) Middleware
4 1 (1.52%) NumPy
4 1 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
4 1 (1.52%) Pandas
4 1 (1.52%) Seaborn
4 1 (1.52%) Software Packaging
Miscellaneous
1 12 (18.18%) Management Information System
2 11 (16.67%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (15.15%) Public Cloud
4 6 (9.09%) Cloud Native
5 3 (4.55%) Data Centre
5 3 (4.55%) Product Ownership
6 2 (3.03%) Security Posture
7 1 (1.52%) Algorithms
7 1 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (1.52%) CMDB
7 1 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.52%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 20 (30.30%) Linux
2 10 (15.15%) Unix
3 3 (4.55%) Windows
3 3 (4.55%) Windows 10
4 1 (1.52%) Apple iOS
4 1 (1.52%) Mac OS
4 1 (1.52%) Windows 7
4 1 (1.52%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 27 (40.91%) DevOps
2 26 (39.39%) Containerisation
3 25 (37.88%) Agile
4 19 (28.79%) Problem-Solving
5 17 (25.76%) CI/CD
6 16 (24.24%) Change Management
7 15 (22.73%) Incident Response
8 13 (19.70%) Cybersecurity
8 13 (19.70%) Migration
9 12 (18.18%) Data Modelling
9 12 (18.18%) Infrastructure as Code
9 12 (18.18%) Knowledge Transfer
9 12 (18.18%) Validation
10 11 (16.67%) Dashboard Development
10 11 (16.67%) Performance Metrics
10 11 (16.67%) Root Cause Analysis
10 11 (16.67%) Site Reliability Engineering
10 11 (16.67%) Software Engineering
11 10 (15.15%) Cryptography
11 10 (15.15%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 32 (48.48%) Python
2 12 (18.18%) SQL
3 11 (16.67%) Bash
3 11 (16.67%) Go
4 3 (4.55%) PowerShell
5 1 (1.52%) C#
5 1 (1.52%) C++
5 1 (1.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 1 (1.52%) JavaScript
5 1 (1.52%) TypeScript
5 1 (1.52%) VB
5 1 (1.52%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 55 (83.33%) Degree
2 41 (62.12%) Computer Science Degree
3 23 (34.85%) Master's Degree
4 6 (9.09%) Security Cleared
5 5 (7.58%) AWS Certification
6 4 (6.06%) Azure Certification
6 4 (6.06%) DBS Check
6 4 (6.06%) PhD
6 4 (6.06%) PRINCE2 Certification
7 3 (4.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 3 (4.55%) CCIE
7 3 (4.55%) CCIE Security
7 3 (4.55%) CCNP
7 3 (4.55%) CCSP
7 3 (4.55%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (4.55%) CISSP
8 2 (3.03%) JNCIE
8 2 (3.03%) JNCIP
8 2 (3.03%) PMI Certification
8 2 (3.03%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (7.58%) Data Quality
2 3 (4.55%) GDPR
2 3 (4.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 3 (4.55%) NIST
2 3 (4.55%) PCI DSS
3 2 (3.03%) ISO 19650
3 2 (3.03%) QA
4 1 (1.52%) GAAP
4 1 (1.52%) IFRS
4 1 (1.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 23 (34.85%) Docker
2 5 (7.58%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (4.55%) VMware NSX
4 2 (3.03%) Active Directory
5 1 (1.52%) BitLocker
5 1 (1.52%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 27 (40.91%) Kubernetes
2 24 (36.36%) Ansible
3 16 (24.24%) Terraform
4 12 (18.18%) Kibana
5 10 (15.15%) Grafana
5 10 (15.15%) Prometheus
5 10 (15.15%) Puppet
6 2 (3.03%) logstash
6 2 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (3.03%) SCCM
7 1 (1.52%) AirWatch
7 1 (1.52%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (1.52%) WSUS
Vendors
1 20 (30.30%) Splunk
2 11 (16.67%) Microsoft
3 8 (12.12%) Google
4 5 (7.58%) VMware
5 3 (4.55%) Cisco
5 3 (4.55%) Databricks
5 3 (4.55%) F5
5 3 (4.55%) Fortinet
5 3 (4.55%) Meraki
5 3 (4.55%) Palo Alto
5 3 (4.55%) SolarWinds
6 2 (3.03%) Forcepoint
6 2 (3.03%) JD Edwards
6 2 (3.03%) Juniper
6 2 (3.03%) SAP
7 1 (1.52%) Atlassian
7 1 (1.52%) CheckPoint
7 1 (1.52%) IBM
7 1 (1.52%) MobileIron
7 1 (1.52%) Oracle