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 16 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 335 327 310
Rank change year-on-year -8 -17 -79
Contract jobs citing NHS 353 191 236
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.75% 0.68% 0.74%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.17% 1.85% 2.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 253 128 143
10th Percentile £222 £163 £161
25th Percentile £325 £337 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £454 £450 £350
Median % change year-on-year +0.89% +28.57% +7.78%
75th Percentile £511 £541 £519
90th Percentile £575 £602 £594
UK median daily rate £450 £425 £350
% change year-on-year +5.88% +21.43% +14.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 12 17
10th Percentile £13.93 - £15.92
25th Percentile £15.78 £15.50 £17.63
Median hourly rate £20.00 £20.13 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year -0.62% -10.16% +10.62%
75th Percentile £29.14 £29.10 £25.49
90th Percentile £36.74 £30.69 £33.75
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £19.00 £23.99
% change year-on-year +5.26% -20.80% +19.95%

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 16,246 10,305 9,994
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.70% 36.53% 31.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,758 6,445 6,012
10th Percentile £322 £300 £294
25th Percentile £425 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year - -3.23% -1.36%
75th Percentile £645 £644 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £820
UK median daily rate £525 £515 £528
% change year-on-year +1.94% -2.37% -4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,239 548 350
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.91 £17.08
25th Percentile £17.42 £18.51 £24.63
Median hourly rate £33.60 £29.50 £53.25
Median % change year-on-year +13.90% -44.60% +15.31%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £73.75 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £27.33 £47.37
% change year-on-year +28.06% -42.31% +5.27%

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 16 October 2026.

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 16 October 2026.

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 16 October 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
London -8 150 £466 +10.83% 51
North of England -11 114 £450 -10.00% 53
Yorkshire +9 85 £475 -5.00% 32
South East -43 29 £468 +24.67% 23
East of England -21 28 £183 -41.97% 15
North West -31 27 £363 -19.44% 18
Midlands -42 15 £400 +3.23% 35
West Midlands -40 10 £400 +6.67% 21
South West -31 6 £474 +113.40% 18
East Midlands -5 5 £363 -6.45% 14
North East -38 2 - - 4
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 6 (1.70%) Palantir Foundry
2 4 (1.13%) Confluence
3 2 (0.57%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.28%) nginx
4 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 10 (2.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.98%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (1.98%) SystmOne
2 4 (1.13%) Oracle Assets
2 4 (1.13%) Oracle General Ledger
2 4 (1.13%) Oracle Payables
2 4 (1.13%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.85%) Lorenzo
4 2 (0.57%) Cerner Millennium
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 1 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.28%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 47 (13.31%) AWS
2 46 (13.03%) Azure
3 22 (6.23%) Serverless
4 21 (5.95%) Power Platform
5 19 (5.38%) Amazon S3
6 16 (4.53%) Microsoft 365
7 14 (3.97%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (3.97%) GitHub
8 12 (3.40%) Amazon EC2
9 11 (3.12%) GitHub Actions
10 10 (2.83%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (1.98%) Azure Key Vault
11 7 (1.98%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.70%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (1.70%) Azure Functions
13 5 (1.42%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 5 (1.42%) Power Automate
13 5 (1.42%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 4 (1.13%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.83%) Firewall
2 8 (2.27%) LAN
2 8 (2.27%) WAN
3 7 (1.98%) Network Security
4 6 (1.70%) Wireless
5 4 (1.13%) DNS
5 4 (1.13%) NGFW
5 4 (1.13%) Structured Cabling
6 2 (0.57%) VLAN
7 1 (0.28%) DHCP
7 1 (0.28%) HTTP
7 1 (0.28%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.28%) VPN
7 1 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (6.80%) Electronic Patient Records
2 17 (4.82%) Power BI
3 14 (3.97%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (2.55%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.70%) SQL Server
6 4 (1.13%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
7 3 (0.85%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.85%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.85%) Tableau
8 2 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.57%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.57%) DocumentDB
8 2 (0.57%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 2 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (0.57%) Power Query
9 1 (0.28%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.28%) Data Mart
9 1 (0.28%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.28%) Redis
Development Applications
1 10 (2.83%) Git
2 6 (1.70%) JIRA
3 3 (0.85%) GitLab
3 3 (0.85%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.28%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.28%) JMeter
4 1 (0.28%) Postman
4 1 (0.28%) Rational Rhapsody
4 1 (0.28%) Selenium
General
1 136 (38.53%) Public Sector
2 126 (35.69%) Social Skills
3 41 (11.61%) Finance
4 31 (8.78%) Analytical Skills
5 15 (4.25%) Local Government
6 13 (3.68%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (3.40%) Digital Health
7 12 (3.40%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (1.98%) Digital Healthcare
8 7 (1.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (1.98%) Legal
9 6 (1.70%) General Ledger
9 6 (1.70%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.13%) Advertising
10 4 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.13%) Health Technology
10 4 (1.13%) Law
11 3 (0.85%) Marketing
11 3 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.85%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 39 (11.05%) Analyst
1 39 (11.05%) Developer
1 39 (11.05%) Senior
2 23 (6.52%) Project Manager
3 22 (6.23%) Lead
4 20 (5.67%) Designer
5 18 (5.10%) Architect
6 16 (4.53%) Business Analyst
7 13 (3.68%) Administrator
8 12 (3.40%) Data Engineer
8 12 (3.40%) Service Designer
9 11 (3.12%) Consultant
10 10 (2.83%) User Researcher
11 9 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
12 8 (2.27%) DevOps Engineer
12 8 (2.27%) Network Engineer
12 8 (2.27%) Performance Analyst
13 7 (1.98%) Senior Manager
13 7 (1.98%) ServiceNow Developer
13 7 (1.98%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (9.63%) Terraform
2 16 (4.53%) REST
3 15 (4.25%) FHIR
4 13 (3.68%) RESTful
5 9 (2.55%) PySpark
6 7 (1.98%) CSS
6 7 (1.98%) HTML
6 7 (1.98%) React
7 6 (1.70%) .NET
7 6 (1.70%) OpenID
8 5 (1.42%) Playwright
8 5 (1.42%) Vue
9 4 (1.13%) ARM Templates
9 4 (1.13%) CSS3
9 4 (1.13%) Django
9 4 (1.13%) HTML5
9 4 (1.13%) JSON
9 4 (1.13%) Node.js
9 4 (1.13%) OAuth
9 4 (1.13%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.23%) Cloud Native
2 20 (5.67%) Product Ownership
3 13 (3.68%) Onboarding
4 12 (3.40%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.55%) Data Structures
6 7 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.70%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.70%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.42%) IoT
8 5 (1.42%) Life Science
8 5 (1.42%) Security Posture
9 4 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.13%) Freedom of Information
9 4 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.85%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (0.85%) Housing Association
10 3 (0.85%) Online Banking
11 2 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.57%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.83%) Windows
2 5 (1.42%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.13%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.57%) Android
4 2 (0.57%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.57%) macOS
5 1 (0.28%) CentOS
5 1 (0.28%) Linux
5 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (28.05%) Agile
2 97 (27.48%) Stakeholder Management
3 61 (17.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 57 (16.15%) Problem-Solving
5 53 (15.01%) CI/CD
6 40 (11.33%) Continuous Improvement
7 38 (10.76%) Digital Transformation Programme
8 37 (10.48%) AI
8 37 (10.48%) Infrastructure as Code
9 36 (10.20%) Decision-Making
10 35 (9.92%) Analytics
11 34 (9.63%) DevOps
12 33 (9.35%) Migration
13 27 (7.65%) Business Intelligence
13 27 (7.65%) Data Protection
13 27 (7.65%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 26 (7.37%) User Research
14 26 (7.37%) Validation
14 26 (7.37%) Workshop Facilitation
15 25 (7.08%) Information Governance
Programming Languages
1 33 (9.35%) Python
2 32 (9.07%) SQL
3 14 (3.97%) TypeScript
4 13 (3.68%) JavaScript
5 8 (2.27%) Bicep
5 8 (2.27%) C#
6 7 (1.98%) PowerShell
7 5 (1.42%) Java
8 4 (1.13%) Bash
9 3 (0.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.57%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 28 (7.93%) Security Cleared
2 23 (6.52%) SC Cleared
3 17 (4.82%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.27%) Degree
5 5 (1.42%) Azure Certification
5 5 (1.42%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (1.13%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.13%) JNCIP
6 4 (1.13%) JNCIS
6 4 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (0.85%) AAT
7 3 (0.85%) ACCA
7 3 (0.85%) CCNA
7 3 (0.85%) CIMA
8 2 (0.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 2 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (0.57%) CCNP
8 2 (0.57%) CISSP
8 2 (0.57%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.28%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.80%) Accessibility
2 23 (6.52%) QA
3 21 (5.95%) Data Quality
3 21 (5.95%) GDPR
4 14 (3.97%) WCAG
5 13 (3.68%) HL7
5 13 (3.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (1.70%) PMO
7 5 (1.42%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.85%) NCSC
9 3 (0.85%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.57%) IEC 62304
10 2 (0.57%) ISO 13485
10 2 (0.57%) NIST
11 1 (0.28%) GRC
11 1 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.28%) SLA
System Software
1 15 (4.25%) Docker
2 11 (3.12%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.57%) Firmware
3 2 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.28%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 13 (3.68%) Kubernetes
2 4 (1.13%) Grafana
3 2 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.28%) Ansible
4 1 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 54 (15.30%) Microsoft
2 14 (3.97%) ServiceNow
3 12 (3.40%) Oracle
3 12 (3.40%) Palantir
4 10 (2.83%) Brio
5 8 (2.27%) Cerner
6 7 (1.98%) Databricks
7 6 (1.70%) Foundry
8 5 (1.42%) Cisco
8 5 (1.42%) VMware
9 4 (1.13%) Juniper
9 4 (1.13%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.85%) Adobe
10 3 (0.85%) Citrix
11 2 (0.57%) Aruba
11 2 (0.57%) BMC
11 2 (0.57%) CheckPoint
11 2 (0.57%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.57%) Google
11 2 (0.57%) SAP