NHS Contract Job Trends in England

National Health Service (NHS)
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term NHS in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited NHS over the 6 months leading up to 24 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 294 306 218
Rank change year-on-year +12 -88 -24
Contract jobs citing NHS 270 213 414
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.85% 0.74% 1.13%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.40% 2.28% 3.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 128 317
10th Percentile £206 £160 £164
25th Percentile £341 £212 £206
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £363 £290
Median % change year-on-year +17.24% +25.00% +1.75%
75th Percentile £537 £500 £443
90th Percentile £596 £575 £600
UK median daily rate £423 £363 £290
% change year-on-year +16.55% +25.00% +1.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 17 41
10th Percentile £6.00 £16.97 £16.25
25th Percentile £15.50 £20.30 £17.25
Median hourly rate £16.00 £30.09 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.83% +36.77% +24.15%
75th Percentile £21.30 £33.75 £31.04
90th Percentile £28.75 - £36.50
UK median hourly rate £16.00 £25.60 £21.35
% change year-on-year -37.50% +19.89% +20.50%

All Generic Skills
England

NHS falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 11,230 9,348 11,643
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 35.54% 32.47% 31.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,083 5,656 7,867
10th Percentile £282 £281 £263
25th Percentile £408 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.37% - -3.51%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £533 £550
% change year-on-year -5.25% -3.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 562 276 464
10th Percentile £14.25 £17.08 £16.56
25th Percentile £18.25 £23.60 £20.51
Median hourly rate £27.86 £37.25 £43.63
Median % change year-on-year -25.22% -14.61% +24.45%
75th Percentile £61.55 £67.27 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.25 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £27.00 £33.54 £42.50
% change year-on-year -19.50% -21.08% +21.43%

NHS
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NHS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

NHS job vacancy trend in England

NHS
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing NHS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing NHS

NHS
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NHS in England over the 6 months to 24 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for NHS in England

NHS
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing NHS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing NHS

NHS
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing NHS in England over the 6 months to 24 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for NHS in England

NHS
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NHS within the England region over the 6 months to 24 December 2025. 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
North of England -16 89 £500 +11.11% 113
London -18 85 £388 +10.71% 77
Yorkshire +1 67 £500 +9.89% 62
East of England +12 34 £338 +21.69% 46
South East -12 21 £400 +6.67% 60
North West -37 17 £450 +20.81% 53
Midlands -61 12 £378 -38.37% 75
West Midlands -42 8 £390 -27.44% 34
South West -2 6 £400 +33.33% 45
North East - 5 £400 - 3
East Midlands -16 4 £338 -53.45% 40
NHS
UK

NHS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 10 (3.70%) Confluence
2 3 (1.11%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.74%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.74%) CMS
3 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.37%) Umbraco
Applications
1 13 (4.81%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.48%) MS Visio
4 4 (1.48%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (1.11%) Trello
6 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.37%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 5 (1.85%) SystmOne
2 3 (1.11%) Cerner Millennium
3 1 (0.37%) Lorenzo
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.37%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 49 (18.15%) AWS
2 46 (17.04%) Azure
3 14 (5.19%) Azure DevOps
3 14 (5.19%) GitHub
3 14 (5.19%) Serverless
4 13 (4.81%) Microsoft 365
4 13 (4.81%) Power Platform
5 12 (4.44%) GCP
6 9 (3.33%) Amazon S3
6 9 (3.33%) AWS Lambda
6 9 (3.33%) GitHub Actions
7 7 (2.59%) Amazon ECS
7 7 (2.59%) AWS CloudFormation
8 6 (2.22%) Entra ID
8 6 (2.22%) Miro
9 4 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
9 4 (1.48%) Azure AKS
9 4 (1.48%) Azure Functions
10 3 (1.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 3 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (5.56%) LAN
2 13 (4.81%) TCP/IP
3 9 (3.33%) VPN
3 9 (3.33%) WAN
4 8 (2.96%) Firewall
4 8 (2.96%) Wireless
5 7 (2.59%) DNS
6 6 (2.22%) Structured Cabling
7 4 (1.48%) DHCP
7 4 (1.48%) Network Security
7 4 (1.48%) VLAN
8 3 (1.11%) BGP
8 3 (1.11%) Junos
8 3 (1.11%) OSPF
9 2 (0.74%) Intranet
9 2 (0.74%) VoIP
10 1 (0.37%) Internet
10 1 (0.37%) NGN
10 1 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
10 1 (0.37%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (13.70%) Electronic Patient Records
2 13 (4.81%) SQL Server
3 10 (3.70%) Power BI
4 9 (3.33%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (2.96%) Oracle Database
6 6 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (1.85%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.85%) Tableau
8 4 (1.48%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.48%) Metadata
8 4 (1.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (1.11%) BusinessObjects
10 2 (0.74%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.74%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.74%) DynamoDB
10 2 (0.74%) EDMS
10 2 (0.74%) ImageNet
10 2 (0.74%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.74%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.74%) Riak
Development Applications
1 11 (4.07%) JIRA
2 9 (3.33%) Jenkins
3 7 (2.59%) ERwin
4 5 (1.85%) CircleCI
5 3 (1.11%) GitLab
6 2 (0.74%) Android Studio
6 2 (0.74%) MSI
6 2 (0.74%) Rational Rhapsody
6 2 (0.74%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.37%) Appium
7 1 (0.37%) Git
7 1 (0.37%) Gradle
7 1 (0.37%) Postman
7 1 (0.37%) Selenium
7 1 (0.37%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.37%) Xcode
General
1 107 (39.63%) Social Skills
2 101 (37.41%) Public Sector
3 33 (12.22%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (11.48%) Finance
5 16 (5.93%) Telecoms
6 13 (4.81%) Digital Health
6 13 (4.81%) Health Technology
6 13 (4.81%) Marketing
7 12 (4.44%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (4.44%) Electronics
7 12 (4.44%) Manufacturing
8 11 (4.07%) Legal
9 10 (3.70%) Organisational Skills
10 8 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
10 8 (2.96%) Local Government
11 7 (2.59%) Digital Healthcare
12 5 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
13 2 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 43 (15.93%) Analyst
2 28 (10.37%) Architect
3 24 (8.89%) Developer
4 22 (8.15%) Lead
4 22 (8.15%) Senior
5 17 (6.30%) Support Analyst
6 15 (5.56%) Project Manager
6 15 (5.56%) Technical Analyst
6 15 (5.56%) Technical Support
6 15 (5.56%) Technical Support Analyst
7 14 (5.19%) AWS Engineer
8 11 (4.07%) Designer
9 10 (3.70%) Business Analyst
9 10 (3.70%) Consultant
10 9 (3.33%) 2nd Line Support
10 9 (3.33%) Data Architect
10 9 (3.33%) Platform Engineer
10 9 (3.33%) Solutions Architect
11 8 (2.96%) DevOps Engineer
11 8 (2.96%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.89%) FHIR
2 16 (5.93%) .NET
3 11 (4.07%) RESTful
4 9 (3.33%) React
5 5 (1.85%) .NET Core
5 5 (1.85%) Vue
6 4 (1.48%) Spring
6 4 (1.48%) Spring Boot
7 3 (1.11%) AngularJS
7 3 (1.11%) Django
7 3 (1.11%) FastAPI
7 3 (1.11%) Flask
7 3 (1.11%) Kafka
7 3 (1.11%) RabbitMQ
7 3 (1.11%) Spring Cloud
8 2 (0.74%) ADO
8 2 (0.74%) HTML
8 2 (0.74%) OpenAPI
8 2 (0.74%) Swagger
8 2 (0.74%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (6.67%) Management Information System
2 11 (4.07%) Cloud Native
3 10 (3.70%) LIMS
4 9 (3.33%) Onboarding
5 7 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.59%) PACS
5 7 (2.59%) Product Ownership
6 6 (2.22%) CMDB
6 6 (2.22%) Driving Licence
7 4 (1.48%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.11%) IoT
8 3 (1.11%) Smartcard
9 2 (0.74%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.74%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.74%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (0.74%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.74%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.74%) Reference Data
9 2 (0.74%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 32 (11.85%) Windows
2 20 (7.41%) Windows Server
3 12 (4.44%) Linux
4 6 (2.22%) Windows Server 2012
5 5 (1.85%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.85%) Windows Server 2003
6 2 (0.74%) Android
6 2 (0.74%) VMS
7 1 (0.37%) Amazon Linux
7 1 (0.37%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (22.96%) Agile
2 54 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
3 46 (17.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 36 (13.33%) DevOps
5 34 (12.59%) CI/CD
5 34 (12.59%) Stakeholder Management
6 31 (11.48%) Digital Transformation Programme
7 29 (10.74%) Infrastructure as Code
8 26 (9.63%) Business Intelligence
8 26 (9.63%) Continuous Improvement
9 23 (8.52%) Analytics
9 23 (8.52%) Data Governance
9 23 (8.52%) Service Design
10 22 (8.15%) Mentoring
11 20 (7.41%) Information Governance
12 19 (7.04%) ITIL
13 18 (6.67%) Data Modelling
14 17 (6.30%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 16 (5.93%) Project Delivery
15 16 (5.93%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 36 (13.33%) Python
2 22 (8.15%) SQL
3 12 (4.44%) C#
4 11 (4.07%) Java
5 9 (3.33%) Bash
5 9 (3.33%) PL/SQL
6 8 (2.96%) JavaScript
6 8 (2.96%) TypeScript
7 4 (1.48%) C++
8 3 (1.11%) PHP
8 3 (1.11%) PowerShell
8 3 (1.11%) R
9 2 (0.74%) Ruby
9 2 (0.74%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.37%) Bicep
10 1 (0.37%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.37%) Swift
10 1 (0.37%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 22 (8.15%) Degree
2 20 (7.41%) SC Cleared
2 20 (7.41%) Security Cleared
3 12 (4.44%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (4.07%) HND
4 11 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (3.70%) HNC
5 10 (3.70%) MCP
5 10 (3.70%) MCSE
6 7 (2.59%) ECDL
7 6 (2.22%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (1.85%) CISSP
9 4 (1.48%) CISM
9 4 (1.48%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 3 (1.11%) JNCIA
10 3 (1.11%) JNCIP
10 3 (1.11%) JNCIS
10 3 (1.11%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.74%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.78%) HL7
2 15 (5.56%) Data Quality
3 14 (5.19%) Accessibility
4 13 (4.81%) GDPR
5 11 (4.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (2.59%) QA
7 6 (2.22%) NCSC
8 4 (1.48%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (1.48%) NIST
9 3 (1.11%) PMO
10 2 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.74%) GRC
10 2 (0.74%) SLA
10 2 (0.74%) WCAG
11 1 (0.37%) DICOM
11 1 (0.37%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.37%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 27 (10.00%) Active Directory
2 17 (6.30%) Docker
3 6 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.85%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.74%) Xen
7 1 (0.37%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 38 (14.07%) Terraform
2 16 (5.93%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.96%) Grafana
4 5 (1.85%) Prometheus
4 5 (1.85%) SCCM
5 3 (1.11%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.74%) Ansible
6 2 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.37%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.37%) Packer
Vendors
1 37 (13.70%) Microsoft
2 18 (6.67%) Oracle
3 13 (4.81%) SAP
4 11 (4.07%) Brio
5 9 (3.33%) Cisco
6 8 (2.96%) Cerner
7 7 (2.59%) VMware
8 6 (2.22%) Databricks
9 5 (1.85%) Citrix
10 4 (1.48%) Juniper
10 4 (1.48%) Splunk
11 3 (1.11%) Google
11 3 (1.11%) OneLogin
12 2 (0.74%) Aruba
12 2 (0.74%) Cribl.io
12 2 (0.74%) Fortinet
12 2 (0.74%) MEDITECH
12 2 (0.74%) Palantir
13 1 (0.37%) Foundry
13 1 (0.37%) Meraki