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 18 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 272 280 202
Rank change year-on-year +8 -78 -21
Contract jobs citing NHS 331 224 450
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.96% 0.87% 1.19%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.80% 2.60% 3.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 245 135 320
10th Percentile £200 £163 £163
25th Percentile £313 £205 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £415 £350 £280
Median % change year-on-year +18.57% +25.00% -
75th Percentile £515 £488 £404
90th Percentile £600 £571 £550
UK median daily rate £413 £360 £293
% change year-on-year +14.58% +22.97% +2.72%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 20 75
10th Percentile £6.00 £15.22 £11.40
25th Percentile £15.50 £17.76 £12.86
Median hourly rate £16.00 £23.89 £16.94
Median % change year-on-year -33.03% +41.07% -19.40%
75th Percentile £23.75 £33.75 £24.63
90th Percentile £24.75 - £36.70
UK median hourly rate £16.00 £24.00 £15.99
% change year-on-year -33.33% +50.14% -23.88%

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 11,823 8,615 11,700
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.19% 33.37% 31.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,531 5,270 7,654
10th Percentile £275 £275 £257
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £626 £663 £661
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £531
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.13% -3.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 588 249 756
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.18 £17.00
Median hourly rate £33.09 £37.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.58% +13.85% +44.44%
75th Percentile £64.06 £66.50 £58.75
90th Percentile £75.30 £83.20 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.50 £34.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -11.59% +6.15% +44.54%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 -14 105 £405 +15.79% 51
North of England -20 94 £500 +28.53% 66
Yorkshire -10 71 £500 +11.11% 35
East of England +28 61 £278 +2.78% 29
South East -33 28 £400 +44.14% 54
North West -38 18 £450 +28.57% 23
Midlands -71 16 £400 -20.00% 43
West Midlands -62 13 £400 -2.44% 22
South West -17 7 £400 +33.33% 33
North East - 5 £400 - 9
East Midlands -24 3 £338 -53.45% 21
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 9 (2.72%) Confluence
1 9 (2.72%) SharePoint
2 3 (0.91%) CMS
3 2 (0.60%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
4 1 (0.30%) Umbraco
Applications
1 17 (5.14%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (3.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (1.81%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (1.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (1.21%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.30%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.30%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (3.63%) SystmOne
2 3 (0.91%) Lorenzo
3 2 (0.60%) Cerner Millennium
3 2 (0.60%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.30%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 48 (14.50%) Azure
2 45 (13.60%) AWS
3 17 (5.14%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (4.83%) Serverless
5 14 (4.23%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (3.93%) GitHub
7 12 (3.63%) AWS Lambda
7 12 (3.63%) GCP
7 12 (3.63%) Power Platform
8 11 (3.32%) Amazon S3
9 8 (2.42%) Entra ID
9 8 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
10 7 (2.11%) Amazon ECS
10 7 (2.11%) AWS CloudFormation
11 4 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
11 4 (1.21%) Miro
12 3 (0.91%) Azure AKS
12 3 (0.91%) Azure Functions
12 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.23%) LAN
1 14 (4.23%) WAN
2 13 (3.93%) DNS
2 13 (3.93%) TCP/IP
3 9 (2.72%) Firewall
3 9 (2.72%) VPN
3 9 (2.72%) Wireless
4 6 (1.81%) Network Security
4 6 (1.81%) Structured Cabling
5 4 (1.21%) DHCP
5 4 (1.21%) VLAN
6 3 (0.91%) BGP
6 3 (0.91%) Junos
6 3 (0.91%) OSPF
7 1 (0.30%) Ethernet VPN
7 1 (0.30%) NGN
7 1 (0.30%) Remote Desktop
7 1 (0.30%) RS-232
7 1 (0.30%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.30%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 51 (15.41%) Electronic Patient Records
2 11 (3.32%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (2.72%) Power BI
3 9 (2.72%) SQL Server
4 5 (1.51%) PostgreSQL
4 5 (1.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 4 (1.21%) Data Lake
5 4 (1.21%) Tableau
6 3 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (0.91%) BusinessObjects
6 3 (0.91%) Geospatial Data
6 3 (0.91%) Metadata
6 3 (0.91%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 2 (0.60%) EDMS
7 2 (0.60%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.60%) Oracle Database
7 2 (0.60%) QlikView
7 2 (0.60%) Relational Database
7 2 (0.60%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 10 (3.02%) JIRA
2 8 (2.42%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.81%) GitLab
4 3 (0.91%) CircleCI
5 2 (0.60%) Android Studio
5 2 (0.60%) ERwin
5 2 (0.60%) MSI
5 2 (0.60%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.30%) Appium
6 1 (0.30%) Git
6 1 (0.30%) Gradle
6 1 (0.30%) JUnit
6 1 (0.30%) Postman
6 1 (0.30%) Selenium
6 1 (0.30%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.30%) Xcode
General
1 126 (38.07%) Social Skills
2 125 (37.76%) Public Sector
3 38 (11.48%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (9.37%) Finance
5 26 (7.85%) Organisational Skills
6 18 (5.44%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (5.14%) Digital Health
7 17 (5.14%) Telecoms
8 15 (4.53%) Marketing
9 14 (4.23%) Electronics
9 14 (4.23%) Legal
9 14 (4.23%) Manufacturing
10 12 (3.63%) Health Technology
11 8 (2.42%) Influencing Skills
12 7 (2.11%) Digital Healthcare
13 6 (1.81%) Local Government
14 4 (1.21%) Publishing
15 3 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
16 2 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
17 1 (0.30%) Social Science
Job Titles
1 51 (15.41%) Analyst
2 34 (10.27%) Lead
3 25 (7.55%) Architect
3 25 (7.55%) Developer
4 23 (6.95%) Senior
5 20 (6.04%) Project Manager
6 18 (5.44%) Business Analyst
7 15 (4.53%) Consultant
7 15 (4.53%) Technical Analyst
7 15 (4.53%) Technical Support
7 15 (4.53%) Technical Support Analyst
8 14 (4.23%) AWS Engineer
9 12 (3.63%) 2nd Line Support
9 12 (3.63%) Designer
9 12 (3.63%) Support Analyst
10 10 (3.02%) Administrator
10 10 (3.02%) IT Support
11 9 (2.72%) NHS Business Analyst
11 9 (2.72%) NHS Project Manager
11 9 (2.72%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (9.37%) FHIR
2 16 (4.83%) .NET
3 12 (3.63%) RESTful
4 8 (2.42%) React
5 5 (1.51%) Spring
5 5 (1.51%) Spring Boot
5 5 (1.51%) Vue
6 4 (1.21%) .NET Core
7 3 (0.91%) AngularJS
7 3 (0.91%) Django
7 3 (0.91%) FastAPI
7 3 (0.91%) Flask
7 3 (0.91%) GeoJSON
7 3 (0.91%) Kafka
7 3 (0.91%) RabbitMQ
7 3 (0.91%) Spring Cloud
8 2 (0.60%) Matplotlib
8 2 (0.60%) Node.js
8 2 (0.60%) Pandas
8 2 (0.60%) Polars
Miscellaneous
1 20 (6.04%) Management Information System
2 13 (3.93%) LIMS
3 12 (3.63%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.63%) Product Ownership
4 11 (3.32%) Onboarding
5 9 (2.72%) PACS
6 8 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.81%) CMDB
7 6 (1.81%) Driving Licence
8 5 (1.51%) Security Posture
9 4 (1.21%) Freedom of Information
10 3 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.91%) IoT
10 3 (0.91%) Life Science
11 2 (0.60%) Cybercrime
11 2 (0.60%) Data Structures
11 2 (0.60%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.60%) Reference Data
11 2 (0.60%) SystemC
Operating Systems
1 37 (11.18%) Windows
2 20 (6.04%) Windows Server
3 11 (3.32%) Linux
4 6 (1.81%) Windows Server 2012
5 5 (1.51%) Windows Server 2003
6 4 (1.21%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.60%) Android
7 2 (0.60%) VMS
8 1 (0.30%) Amazon Linux
8 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 69 (20.85%) Agile
2 49 (14.80%) Problem-Solving
3 48 (14.50%) Stakeholder Management
4 46 (13.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 40 (12.08%) CI/CD
6 37 (11.18%) DevOps
7 33 (9.97%) Information Governance
8 30 (9.06%) Analytics
8 30 (9.06%) Continuous Improvement
8 30 (9.06%) Data Governance
9 29 (8.76%) Business Intelligence
10 28 (8.46%) Digital Transformation Programme
10 28 (8.46%) Infrastructure as Code
11 25 (7.55%) Mentoring
12 24 (7.25%) Project Delivery
13 23 (6.95%) Programme Management
14 22 (6.65%) Cybersecurity
14 22 (6.65%) Data Protection
15 21 (6.34%) Migration
15 21 (6.34%) Project Management
Programming Languages
1 34 (10.27%) Python
2 28 (8.46%) SQL
3 12 (3.63%) Java
4 11 (3.32%) TypeScript
5 10 (3.02%) C#
6 8 (2.42%) JavaScript
6 8 (2.42%) PL/SQL
7 7 (2.11%) Bash
8 4 (1.21%) PowerShell
9 3 (0.91%) C++
9 3 (0.91%) PHP
10 2 (0.60%) R
10 2 (0.60%) Ruby
10 2 (0.60%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.30%) Bicep
11 1 (0.30%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.30%) Swift
11 1 (0.30%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 28 (8.46%) Degree
2 19 (5.74%) Security Cleared
3 17 (5.14%) SC Cleared
4 14 (4.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (2.11%) ECDL
6 6 (1.81%) HND
6 6 (1.81%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (1.51%) HNC
7 5 (1.51%) MCSE
7 5 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.51%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 4 (1.21%) CISM
8 4 (1.21%) CISSP
8 4 (1.21%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (1.21%) JNCIA
8 4 (1.21%) JNCIP
8 4 (1.21%) JNCIS
9 3 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.91%) ISEB
10 2 (0.60%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (8.76%) HL7
2 20 (6.04%) Data Quality
3 18 (5.44%) Accessibility
4 15 (4.53%) GDPR
5 12 (3.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (2.72%) QA
7 8 (2.42%) NCSC
8 7 (2.11%) Cyber Essentials
9 6 (1.81%) PMO
10 5 (1.51%) NIST
11 3 (0.91%) WCAG
12 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.60%) DICOM
12 2 (0.60%) GRC
12 2 (0.60%) SLA
13 1 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
13 1 (0.30%) ISO 9001
13 1 (0.30%) SNOMED CT
13 1 (0.30%) SOC 2
System Software
1 30 (9.06%) Active Directory
2 19 (5.74%) Docker
3 5 (1.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (1.21%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.91%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.60%) Xen
7 1 (0.30%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 29 (8.76%) Terraform
2 20 (6.04%) Kubernetes
3 10 (3.02%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (1.81%) Grafana
5 4 (1.21%) SCCM
6 3 (0.91%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.60%) Ansible
7 2 (0.60%) Nessus
7 2 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.30%) Argo
8 1 (0.30%) Packer
Vendors
1 41 (12.39%) Microsoft
2 16 (4.83%) Oracle
3 14 (4.23%) SAP
4 11 (3.32%) Brio
5 10 (3.02%) Cerner
6 8 (2.42%) Cisco
7 6 (1.81%) VMware
8 5 (1.51%) Juniper
9 4 (1.21%) Databricks
9 4 (1.21%) Palantir
10 3 (0.91%) Splunk
11 2 (0.60%) Aruba
11 2 (0.60%) Cribl.io
11 2 (0.60%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.60%) Rapid7
11 2 (0.60%) Tenable
12 1 (0.30%) BiZZdesign
12 1 (0.30%) Datix
12 1 (0.30%) Meraki
12 1 (0.30%) OneLogin