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 19 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 279 310 227
Rank change year-on-year +31 -83 -27
Contract jobs citing NHS 344 170 366
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.84% 0.70% 1.00%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.63% 2.05% 3.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 272 121 231
10th Percentile £243 £195 £175
25th Percentile £325 £250 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £425 £307
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +38.66% +2.17%
75th Percentile £519 £500 £450
90th Percentile £600 £575 £568
UK median daily rate £450 £415 £315
% change year-on-year +8.43% +31.75% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 15 68
10th Percentile £15.79 £13.08 £11.23
25th Percentile £16.09 £15.22 £12.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £18.13 £14.83
Median % change year-on-year +24.10% +22.27% -29.41%
75th Percentile £28.62 £33.75 £24.08
90th Percentile £42.24 £33.99 £43.00
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £18.13 £13.24
% change year-on-year +24.10% +36.93% -35.41%

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 13,103 8,301 11,172
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.93% 34.12% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,284 5,429 7,323
10th Percentile £313 £300 £267
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.19% -2.27% -3.93%
75th Percentile £626 £673 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £800
UK median daily rate £510 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 657 335 817
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.67 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.00 £20.88 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.00 £34.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.35% - +51.21%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £84.30 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £32.05 £31.50
% change year-on-year +30.86% +1.75% +41.51%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 19 May 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 +2 122 £439 -2.50% 79
North of England -15 103 £475 +3.26% 82
Yorkshire -11 79 £500 - 55
East of England +16 47 £278 -0.89% 18
North West -31 24 £400 +86.05% 23
South East -75 21 £450 +62.90% 65
Midlands -58 17 £470 +34.48% 47
West Midlands -53 16 £470 +34.48% 33
South West -15 13 £570 +60.56% 32
East Midlands - 1 - - 14
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 12 (3.49%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.45%) CMS
2 5 (1.45%) Confluence
2 5 (1.45%) Palantir Foundry
3 1 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.29%) Umbraco
Applications
1 11 (3.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.58%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.58%) Trello
6 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 13 (3.78%) SystmOne
2 3 (0.87%) Lorenzo
3 2 (0.58%) Cerner Millennium
3 2 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 47 (13.66%) AWS
2 41 (11.92%) Azure
3 22 (6.40%) Serverless
4 17 (4.94%) AWS Lambda
5 13 (3.78%) Amazon S3
5 13 (3.78%) GitHub
6 12 (3.49%) Power Platform
7 10 (2.91%) Azure DevOps
7 10 (2.91%) GCP
8 9 (2.62%) Amazon EC2
9 8 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (2.03%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (1.74%) Amazon SQS
12 5 (1.45%) AWS Step Functions
13 4 (1.16%) Amazon ECR
13 4 (1.16%) Amazon ECS
13 4 (1.16%) Amazon EKS
13 4 (1.16%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (1.16%) Azure Functions
14 3 (0.87%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.03%) DNS
2 6 (1.74%) LAN
2 6 (1.74%) TCP/IP
2 6 (1.74%) WAN
3 3 (0.87%) Firewall
3 3 (0.87%) Network Security
4 1 (0.29%) BGP
4 1 (0.29%) DHCP
4 1 (0.29%) Ethernet VPN
4 1 (0.29%) Junos
4 1 (0.29%) NGFW
4 1 (0.29%) OSPF
4 1 (0.29%) VPN
4 1 (0.29%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (15.12%) Electronic Patient Records
2 20 (5.81%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (4.94%) SQL Server
4 10 (2.91%) Power BI
5 8 (2.33%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 6 (1.74%) Amazon RDS
6 6 (1.74%) DynamoDB
7 5 (1.45%) BusinessObjects
8 4 (1.16%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.16%) DocumentDB
8 4 (1.16%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (1.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.87%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.87%) OLAP
9 3 (0.87%) Tableau
10 2 (0.58%) ImageNet
10 2 (0.58%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.58%) QlikView
10 2 (0.58%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 1 (0.29%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 11 (3.20%) GitLab
2 6 (1.74%) Git
3 5 (1.45%) Jenkins
3 5 (1.45%) JIRA
4 1 (0.29%) Android Studio
4 1 (0.29%) Appium
4 1 (0.29%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.29%) JUnit
4 1 (0.29%) Postman
4 1 (0.29%) Selenium
4 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.29%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 124 (36.05%) Public Sector
2 98 (28.49%) Social Skills
3 38 (11.05%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (5.52%) Digital Health
4 19 (5.52%) Organisational Skills
5 17 (4.94%) Finance
6 13 (3.78%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (2.91%) Local Government
8 9 (2.62%) Legal
9 8 (2.33%) Influencing Skills
10 7 (2.03%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.74%) Health Technology
11 6 (1.74%) Marketing
12 5 (1.45%) Digital Healthcare
12 5 (1.45%) Electronics
12 5 (1.45%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.16%) Law
13 4 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (1.16%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 45 (13.08%) Analyst
2 39 (11.34%) Developer
3 32 (9.30%) Senior
4 31 (9.01%) Architect
5 27 (7.85%) Lead
6 24 (6.98%) Business Analyst
7 20 (5.81%) Designer
8 18 (5.23%) Project Manager
9 17 (4.94%) Consultant
10 13 (3.78%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.49%) NHS Business Analyst
12 11 (3.20%) User Researcher
13 10 (2.91%) Administrator
13 10 (2.91%) Data Architect
13 10 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
14 9 (2.62%) Delivery Manager
14 9 (2.62%) Service Designer
15 8 (2.33%) Data Analyst
15 8 (2.33%) Senior User Researcher
15 8 (2.33%) Trainer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (9.59%) FHIR
2 11 (3.20%) .NET
2 11 (3.20%) React
3 10 (2.91%) RESTful
4 8 (2.33%) Node.js
5 7 (2.03%) Spring
5 7 (2.03%) Spring Boot
6 5 (1.45%) Kafka
7 4 (1.16%) Middleware
7 4 (1.16%) Playwright
7 4 (1.16%) REST
7 4 (1.16%) Vue
8 3 (0.87%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.87%) GeoJSON
8 3 (0.87%) JSON
8 3 (0.87%) OpenAPI
8 3 (0.87%) RabbitMQ
8 3 (0.87%) Spring Cloud
8 3 (0.87%) Swagger
9 2 (0.58%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.65%) Cloud Native
1 16 (4.65%) Product Ownership
2 14 (4.07%) Onboarding
3 9 (2.62%) Management Information System
4 8 (2.33%) Data Structures
4 8 (2.33%) LIMS
5 7 (2.03%) PACS
6 6 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
6 6 (1.74%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.16%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.16%) Replication
9 3 (0.87%) Life Science
10 2 (0.58%) Cybercrime
10 2 (0.58%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.58%) Freedom of Information
10 2 (0.58%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.58%) Security Posture
11 1 (0.29%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.29%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.36%) Windows
2 7 (2.03%) Windows Server
3 6 (1.74%) Linux
4 2 (0.58%) Android
5 1 (0.29%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.29%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (24.71%) Agile
2 43 (12.50%) Stakeholder Management
3 39 (11.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 37 (10.76%) CI/CD
5 36 (10.47%) Information Governance
6 34 (9.88%) Analytics
7 33 (9.59%) DevOps
8 29 (8.43%) User Research
9 28 (8.14%) Problem-Solving
10 27 (7.85%) Data Protection
10 27 (7.85%) Decision-Making
11 26 (7.56%) Continuous Improvement
11 26 (7.56%) Migration
12 25 (7.27%) Business Intelligence
13 23 (6.69%) Roadmaps
14 22 (6.40%) Data Governance
14 22 (6.40%) Infrastructure as Code
15 21 (6.10%) Digital Transformation Programme
16 20 (5.81%) Service Design
16 20 (5.81%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 38 (11.05%) SQL
2 22 (6.40%) Python
3 16 (4.65%) Java
4 14 (4.07%) TypeScript
5 9 (2.62%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.03%) C#
7 6 (1.74%) T-SQL
8 3 (0.87%) PHP
9 2 (0.58%) Bash
10 1 (0.29%) Bicep
10 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.29%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 20 (5.81%) Security Cleared
2 17 (4.94%) Degree
3 16 (4.65%) SC Cleared
4 14 (4.07%) BPSS Clearance
5 2 (0.58%) DBS Check
5 2 (0.58%) DV Cleared
5 2 (0.58%) JNCIA
5 2 (0.58%) JNCIP
5 2 (0.58%) JNCIS
5 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (0.58%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
5 2 (0.58%) TOGAF Certification
6 1 (0.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (0.29%) ECDL
6 1 (0.29%) ISEB
6 1 (0.29%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
6 1 (0.29%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
6 1 (0.29%) Master's Degree
6 1 (0.29%) PMI Certification
6 1 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (9.88%) HL7
2 17 (4.94%) Accessibility
2 17 (4.94%) Data Quality
3 13 (3.78%) GDPR
4 9 (2.62%) QA
4 9 (2.62%) WCAG
5 7 (2.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (1.74%) NCSC
6 6 (1.74%) PMO
7 5 (1.45%) DICOM
8 3 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.87%) NIST
8 3 (0.87%) SNOMED CT
9 2 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.29%) IEC 62304
10 1 (0.29%) SLA
10 1 (0.29%) SOC 2
System Software
1 17 (4.94%) Docker
2 9 (2.62%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.58%) Xen
4 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 20 (5.81%) Terraform
2 17 (4.94%) Kubernetes
3 9 (2.62%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.58%) Ansible
4 2 (0.58%) Nessus
5 1 (0.29%) Argo
5 1 (0.29%) Grafana
Vendors
1 34 (9.88%) Microsoft
2 13 (3.78%) Oracle
3 9 (2.62%) Brio
3 9 (2.62%) Cerner
3 9 (2.62%) Foundry
4 8 (2.33%) Palantir
5 5 (1.45%) SAP
6 4 (1.16%) Databricks
6 4 (1.16%) Splunk
7 3 (0.87%) Google
7 3 (0.87%) InterSystems
8 2 (0.58%) Adobe
8 2 (0.58%) Juniper
8 2 (0.58%) OneLogin
8 2 (0.58%) Rapid7
8 2 (0.58%) Tenable
9 1 (0.29%) accuRx
9 1 (0.29%) BiZZdesign
9 1 (0.29%) Datix
9 1 (0.29%) OpenAI