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 7 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 302 299 199
Rank change year-on-year -3 -100 +2
Contract jobs citing NHS 257 220 461
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.83% 0.73% 1.20%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.30% 2.26% 3.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 181 133 366
10th Percentile £193 £160 £165
25th Percentile £338 £209 £210
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £350 £300
Median % change year-on-year +21.43% +16.67% +4.68%
75th Percentile £538 £500 £475
90th Percentile £608 £575 £600
UK median daily rate £410 £350 £300
% change year-on-year +17.14% +16.67% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 19 37
10th Percentile £6.00 £17.20 £15.88
25th Percentile £15.50 £21.35 £17.22
Median hourly rate £16.00 £24.18 £20.71
Median % change year-on-year -33.83% +16.78% +16.85%
75th Percentile £21.40 £33.75 £29.00
90th Percentile £30.28 - £32.70
UK median hourly rate £16.00 £25.60 £20.50
% change year-on-year -37.50% +24.88% +15.69%

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 11,187 9,716 12,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 36.13% 32.04% 32.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,048 5,852 8,375
10th Percentile £285 £294 £270
25th Percentile £408 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.68% - -3.51%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £748 £800 £775
UK median daily rate £503 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.51% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 568 306 460
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.82 £17.00
25th Percentile £18.24 £23.59 £21.05
Median hourly rate £27.21 £38.54 £43.92
Median % change year-on-year -29.39% -12.26% +25.49%
75th Percentile £57.63 £67.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.58 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £34.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -22.06% -20.00% +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 7 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 7 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 7 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
London -14 84 £388 +10.71% 66
North of England -17 79 £500 +25.79% 130
Yorkshire -10 59 £500 +11.11% 63
East of England +11 31 £338 +21.69% 52
South East -17 22 £400 -20.99% 114
North West -25 15 £463 +24.16% 64
Midlands -48 14 £378 -37.08% 73
West Midlands -42 9 £380 +10.14% 42
South West -13 5 £391 +30.42% 40
East Midlands -16 5 £375 -48.28% 29
North East - 5 £400 - 8
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 11 (4.28%) Confluence
2 2 (0.78%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (0.78%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.39%) Apache
3 1 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.39%) CMS
3 1 (0.39%) Umbraco
Applications
1 11 (4.28%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.56%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.17%) MS Visio
4 3 (1.17%) Trello
5 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.39%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.39%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 4 (1.56%) Cerner Millennium
2 3 (1.17%) SystmOne
3 1 (0.39%) Academy Housing
3 1 (0.39%) Lorenzo
3 1 (0.39%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.39%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 46 (17.90%) AWS
2 42 (16.34%) Azure
3 15 (5.84%) GCP
4 13 (5.06%) Power Platform
5 12 (4.67%) Microsoft 365
5 12 (4.67%) Serverless
6 11 (4.28%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (4.28%) GitHub
7 9 (3.50%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (3.11%) Amazon S3
8 8 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (2.33%) Amazon ECS
9 6 (2.33%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (2.33%) Entra ID
9 6 (2.33%) Miro
10 4 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
11 3 (1.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 3 (1.17%) Azure AKS
11 3 (1.17%) Figma
11 3 (1.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 15 (5.84%) LAN
2 13 (5.06%) TCP/IP
3 9 (3.50%) WAN
4 8 (3.11%) VPN
4 8 (3.11%) Wireless
5 7 (2.72%) DNS
5 7 (2.72%) Firewall
6 6 (2.33%) Structured Cabling
7 5 (1.95%) Network Security
8 4 (1.56%) DHCP
8 4 (1.56%) VLAN
9 2 (0.78%) BGP
9 2 (0.78%) Intranet
9 2 (0.78%) Junos
9 2 (0.78%) OSPF
9 2 (0.78%) VoIP
10 1 (0.39%) Remote Desktop
10 1 (0.39%) RS-232
10 1 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
10 1 (0.39%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (13.62%) Electronic Patient Records
2 11 (4.28%) Power BI
3 10 (3.89%) SQL Server
4 8 (3.11%) Oracle Database
5 6 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.56%) Metadata
6 4 (1.56%) NoSQL
6 4 (1.56%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.56%) Tableau
7 3 (1.17%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (1.17%) Data Lake
7 3 (1.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 2 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.78%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.78%) EDMS
8 2 (0.78%) ImageNet
8 2 (0.78%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.78%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.78%) Riak
Development Applications
1 12 (4.67%) JIRA
2 9 (3.50%) Jenkins
3 7 (2.72%) ERwin
4 5 (1.95%) CircleCI
5 3 (1.17%) GitLab
6 2 (0.78%) MSI
6 2 (0.78%) Rational Rhapsody
7 1 (0.39%) Android Studio
7 1 (0.39%) Gradle
7 1 (0.39%) Postman
7 1 (0.39%) Selenium
7 1 (0.39%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.39%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.39%) Xcode
General
1 102 (39.69%) Social Skills
2 97 (37.74%) Public Sector
3 32 (12.45%) Analytical Skills
4 29 (11.28%) Finance
5 15 (5.84%) Telecoms
6 13 (5.06%) Digital Health
7 12 (4.67%) Health Technology
7 12 (4.67%) Marketing
8 11 (4.28%) Electronics
8 11 (4.28%) Legal
8 11 (4.28%) Manufacturing
9 9 (3.50%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (3.50%) Local Government
9 9 (3.50%) Organisational Skills
10 7 (2.72%) Influencing Skills
11 5 (1.95%) Digital Healthcare
11 5 (1.95%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.39%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 44 (17.12%) Analyst
2 29 (11.28%) Architect
3 23 (8.95%) Lead
4 19 (7.39%) Developer
5 18 (7.00%) Senior
6 17 (6.61%) Support Analyst
7 15 (5.84%) Technical Analyst
7 15 (5.84%) Technical Support
7 15 (5.84%) Technical Support Analyst
8 14 (5.45%) AWS Engineer
9 13 (5.06%) Project Manager
10 11 (4.28%) Consultant
11 10 (3.89%) 2nd Line Support
12 9 (3.50%) Platform Engineer
12 9 (3.50%) Solutions Architect
13 8 (3.11%) Data Architect
13 8 (3.11%) DevOps Engineer
13 8 (3.11%) Integration Developer
14 7 (2.72%) AWS DevOps
14 7 (2.72%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (9.34%) FHIR
2 11 (4.28%) .NET
3 10 (3.89%) RESTful
4 7 (2.72%) React
5 5 (1.95%) Kafka
6 4 (1.56%) .NET Core
6 4 (1.56%) Spring
6 4 (1.56%) Spring Boot
6 4 (1.56%) Vue
7 3 (1.17%) RabbitMQ
7 3 (1.17%) Spring Cloud
8 2 (0.78%) ADO
8 2 (0.78%) AngularJS
8 2 (0.78%) Django
8 2 (0.78%) Flask
8 2 (0.78%) REST
8 2 (0.78%) Swagger
8 2 (0.78%) Web Services
8 2 (0.78%) XML
8 2 (0.78%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (5.84%) Management Information System
2 13 (5.06%) LIMS
3 11 (4.28%) Cloud Native
4 8 (3.11%) Onboarding
4 8 (3.11%) PACS
5 7 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.72%) Product Ownership
6 6 (2.33%) CMDB
6 6 (2.33%) Driving Licence
7 5 (1.95%) Security Posture
8 3 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.17%) IoT
8 3 (1.17%) Smartcard
9 2 (0.78%) Client/Server
9 2 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.78%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (0.78%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.78%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.78%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 33 (12.84%) Windows
2 20 (7.78%) Windows Server
3 10 (3.89%) Linux
4 6 (2.33%) Windows Server 2012
5 5 (1.95%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.95%) Windows Server 2003
6 2 (0.78%) VMS
7 1 (0.39%) Amazon Linux
7 1 (0.39%) Android
7 1 (0.39%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.39%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (21.01%) Agile
2 50 (19.46%) Problem-Solving
3 44 (17.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 32 (12.45%) DevOps
4 32 (12.45%) Stakeholder Management
5 28 (10.89%) CI/CD
5 28 (10.89%) Infrastructure as Code
6 27 (10.51%) Digital Transformation Programme
7 25 (9.73%) Business Intelligence
8 23 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (8.17%) Analytics
9 21 (8.17%) Data Governance
10 20 (7.78%) ITIL
11 19 (7.39%) Mentoring
11 19 (7.39%) Service Design
12 18 (7.00%) Data Modelling
13 17 (6.61%) Information Governance
13 17 (6.61%) Migration
14 15 (5.84%) Cybersecurity
14 15 (5.84%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 33 (12.84%) Python
2 20 (7.78%) SQL
3 10 (3.89%) C#
4 9 (3.50%) Bash
4 9 (3.50%) Java
5 8 (3.11%) PL/SQL
6 7 (2.72%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.72%) TypeScript
7 4 (1.56%) C++
8 3 (1.17%) PHP
8 3 (1.17%) PowerShell
8 3 (1.17%) R
9 2 (0.78%) Ruby
9 2 (0.78%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.39%) Bicep
10 1 (0.39%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.39%) Swift
10 1 (0.39%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 23 (8.95%) Degree
2 20 (7.78%) SC Cleared
2 20 (7.78%) Security Cleared
3 11 (4.28%) HND
3 11 (4.28%) Microsoft Certification
4 10 (3.89%) HNC
4 10 (3.89%) MCP
4 10 (3.89%) MCSE
5 8 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (2.72%) ECDL
7 6 (2.33%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (1.95%) CISSP
9 4 (1.56%) CISM
9 4 (1.56%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
10 2 (0.78%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.78%) CCNP
10 2 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.78%) ISEB
10 2 (0.78%) JNCIA
10 2 (0.78%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (7.78%) HL7
2 13 (5.06%) Accessibility
2 13 (5.06%) Data Quality
2 13 (5.06%) GDPR
2 13 (5.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 6 (2.33%) NCSC
3 6 (2.33%) QA
4 5 (1.95%) Cyber Essentials
4 5 (1.95%) NIST
5 4 (1.56%) PMO
6 3 (1.17%) WCAG
7 2 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.78%) GRC
7 2 (0.78%) SLA
8 1 (0.39%) DICOM
8 1 (0.39%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.39%) ISO 9001
8 1 (0.39%) Section 508
8 1 (0.39%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 27 (10.51%) Active Directory
2 13 (5.06%) Docker
3 6 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.95%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.78%) Xen
7 1 (0.39%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 37 (14.40%) Terraform
2 13 (5.06%) Kubernetes
3 8 (3.11%) Grafana
4 5 (1.95%) Prometheus
4 5 (1.95%) SCCM
5 3 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.78%) Ansible
6 2 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
7 1 (0.39%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.39%) Packer
Vendors
1 34 (13.23%) Microsoft
2 15 (5.84%) Oracle
3 12 (4.67%) SAP
4 10 (3.89%) Brio
5 8 (3.11%) Cerner
5 8 (3.11%) Cisco
6 7 (2.72%) VMware
7 6 (2.33%) Databricks
7 6 (2.33%) Google
8 5 (1.95%) Citrix
9 4 (1.56%) Splunk
10 3 (1.17%) Juniper
10 3 (1.17%) OneLogin
11 2 (0.78%) Aruba
11 2 (0.78%) Cribl.io
11 2 (0.78%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.78%) MEDITECH
11 2 (0.78%) MuleSoft
11 2 (0.78%) NEC
11 2 (0.78%) Palantir