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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 324 346 304
Rank change year-on-year +22 -42 -75
Contract jobs citing NHS 349 172 230
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.75% 0.62% 0.71%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.20% 1.71% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 259 117 138
10th Percentile £220 £160 £166
25th Percentile £325 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £450 £350
Median % change year-on-year +2.22% +28.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £524 £550 £525
90th Percentile £592 £600 £650
UK median daily rate £450 £425 £350
% change year-on-year +5.88% +21.43% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 8 16
10th Percentile £14.48 £15.50 £15.34
25th Percentile £17.00 £19.81 £15.92
Median hourly rate £20.00 £24.40 £20.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.03% +20.23% +2.76%
75th Percentile £30.30 £30.31 £23.21
90th Percentile £39.46 £31.34 £25.49
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £24.40 £21.59
% change year-on-year -18.03% +13.02% +11.63%

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 15,839 10,043 10,068
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.00% 36.09% 30.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,567 6,300 6,153
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £649 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £515 £538
% change year-on-year +1.92% -4.26% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,092 509 395
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.43 £15.27
25th Percentile £17.97 £18.87 £24.17
Median hourly rate £37.50 £31.36 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +19.58% -45.32% +25.08%
75th Percentile £69.75 £56.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £74.00 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £29.17 £50.00
% change year-on-year +28.56% -41.66% +12.36%

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 September 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 24 September 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 24 September 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 -1 150 £475 +11.76% 347
North of England -11 116 £454 -9.20% 270
Yorkshire +9 87 £475 -5.00% 137
East of England -14 29 £170 -25.21% 105
North West -39 27 £350 -11.39% 112
South East -56 21 £450 +28.57% 142
Midlands -39 13 £400 +6.67% 143
West Midlands -38 10 £450 +28.57% 89
South West -34 6 £474 +113.40% 98
East Midlands -17 3 £300 -25.00% 54
North East -43 2 - - 26
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 (2.87%) Palantir Foundry
2 3 (0.86%) Confluence
2 3 (0.86%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.29%) nginx
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 7 (2.01%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (1.43%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.57%) Cerner Millennium
2 2 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.57%) Lorenzo
2 2 (0.57%) Oracle Assets
2 2 (0.57%) Oracle General Ledger
2 2 (0.57%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.29%) SAP HCM
3 1 (0.29%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 57 (16.33%) AWS
2 46 (13.18%) Azure
3 28 (8.02%) Serverless
4 21 (6.02%) Amazon S3
5 19 (5.44%) AWS Lambda
5 19 (5.44%) Power Platform
6 14 (4.01%) GitHub
6 14 (4.01%) Microsoft 365
7 12 (3.44%) Amazon EC2
8 10 (2.87%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.01%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 6 (1.72%) Azure Data Factory
10 6 (1.72%) Azure Functions
10 6 (1.72%) Azure Key Vault
10 6 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (1.43%) Adobe Analytics
11 5 (1.43%) AWS Step Functions
11 5 (1.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.29%) Firewall
1 8 (2.29%) LAN
1 8 (2.29%) WAN
2 6 (1.72%) Network Security
3 4 (1.15%) DNS
3 4 (1.15%) NGFW
3 4 (1.15%) Structured Cabling
3 4 (1.15%) Wireless
4 2 (0.57%) DHCP
4 2 (0.57%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.29%) HTTP
5 1 (0.29%) VPN
5 1 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.02%) Electronic Patient Records
2 17 (4.87%) Data Warehouse
3 16 (4.58%) Power BI
4 11 (3.15%) SQL Server
5 10 (2.87%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (2.29%) DynamoDB
7 6 (1.72%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.15%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.86%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.86%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.86%) OLAP
9 3 (0.86%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.86%) Tableau
10 2 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.57%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.57%) DocumentDB
10 2 (0.57%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 2 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.29%) Data Mart
Development Applications
1 10 (2.87%) Git
2 5 (1.43%) GitLab
2 5 (1.43%) JIRA
3 4 (1.15%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.29%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.29%) JMeter
4 1 (0.29%) Postman
4 1 (0.29%) Rational Rhapsody
4 1 (0.29%) Selenium
4 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 136 (38.97%) Public Sector
2 128 (36.68%) Social Skills
3 30 (8.60%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (8.02%) Finance
5 13 (3.72%) Local Government
6 12 (3.44%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (3.15%) Digital Health
8 9 (2.58%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (2.01%) Digital Healthcare
9 7 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.43%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.86%) Billing
12 3 (0.86%) Health Technology
12 3 (0.86%) Law
12 3 (0.86%) Legal
12 3 (0.86%) Marketing
12 3 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.86%) Social Housing
13 2 (0.57%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 44 (12.61%) Developer
2 38 (10.89%) Senior
3 37 (10.60%) Analyst
4 26 (7.45%) Architect
5 20 (5.73%) Project Manager
6 19 (5.44%) Data Engineer
6 19 (5.44%) Designer
6 19 (5.44%) Lead
7 16 (4.58%) Business Analyst
8 11 (3.15%) Consultant
8 11 (3.15%) Service Designer
9 10 (2.87%) Administrator
9 10 (2.87%) Data Architect
9 10 (2.87%) Delivery Manager
9 10 (2.87%) User Researcher
10 8 (2.29%) Full-Stack Developer
10 8 (2.29%) Python Developer
11 7 (2.01%) AWS Engineer
11 7 (2.01%) NHS Project Manager
11 7 (2.01%) ServiceNow Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (9.46%) Terraform
2 18 (5.16%) FHIR
3 14 (4.01%) REST
4 11 (3.15%) PySpark
5 10 (2.87%) RESTful
6 9 (2.58%) React
7 7 (2.01%) Node.js
8 6 (1.72%) Vue
9 5 (1.43%) .NET
9 5 (1.43%) CSS
9 5 (1.43%) HTML
9 5 (1.43%) JSON
9 5 (1.43%) OpenID
9 5 (1.43%) Playwright
10 4 (1.15%) ARM Templates
10 4 (1.15%) Django
10 4 (1.15%) OAuth
10 4 (1.15%) OAuth2
11 3 (0.86%) Flask
11 3 (0.86%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.30%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.44%) Product Ownership
3 13 (3.72%) Onboarding
4 10 (2.87%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.58%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.72%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.72%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.43%) IoT
9 4 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.15%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.86%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.86%) Distributed Systems
10 3 (0.86%) Freedom of Information
10 3 (0.86%) LIMS
11 2 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.57%) Greenfield Project
11 2 (0.57%) Housing Association
11 2 (0.57%) Life Science
11 2 (0.57%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 11 (3.15%) Windows
2 5 (1.43%) Windows 10
2 5 (1.43%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.57%) Android
3 2 (0.57%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.57%) Linux
3 2 (0.57%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.29%) CentOS
4 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.29%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (32.09%) Agile
2 90 (25.79%) Stakeholder Management
3 56 (16.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 52 (14.90%) CI/CD
5 51 (14.61%) Problem-Solving
6 47 (13.47%) Continuous Improvement
7 40 (11.46%) Decision-Making
8 38 (10.89%) Analytics
9 37 (10.60%) AI
10 36 (10.32%) Digital Transformation Programme
10 36 (10.32%) Infrastructure as Code
11 35 (10.03%) DevOps
12 32 (9.17%) Migration
13 30 (8.60%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 29 (8.31%) Data Protection
14 29 (8.31%) Information Governance
14 29 (8.31%) Validation
15 28 (8.02%) Workshop Facilitation
16 24 (6.88%) Business Intelligence
17 23 (6.59%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 37 (10.60%) SQL
2 36 (10.32%) Python
3 15 (4.30%) JavaScript
3 15 (4.30%) TypeScript
4 7 (2.01%) C#
4 7 (2.01%) Java
5 5 (1.43%) Bicep
5 5 (1.43%) PowerShell
6 4 (1.15%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.57%) Bash
7 2 (0.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 29 (8.31%) Security Cleared
2 23 (6.59%) SC Cleared
3 17 (4.87%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (2.58%) Degree
5 4 (1.15%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.15%) JNCIP
5 4 (1.15%) JNCIS
5 4 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (0.86%) Azure Certification
6 3 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (0.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.57%) CISSP
7 2 (0.57%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.57%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (0.29%) AAT
8 1 (0.29%) CCNA
8 1 (0.29%) CCSP
8 1 (0.29%) CRISC
8 1 (0.29%) NVQ Level 3
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (6.30%) Data Quality
2 21 (6.02%) Accessibility
2 21 (6.02%) GDPR
2 21 (6.02%) QA
3 17 (4.87%) HL7
4 14 (4.01%) WCAG
5 11 (3.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.43%) PMO
7 4 (1.15%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (1.15%) NCSC
8 3 (0.86%) IEC 62304
8 3 (0.86%) SNOMED CT
9 2 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.57%) ISO 13485
10 1 (0.29%) DICOM
10 1 (0.29%) GRC
10 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.29%) NIST
10 1 (0.29%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (4.01%) Docker
2 10 (2.87%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.57%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.29%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (3.44%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.57%) Grafana
2 2 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.29%) Ansible
3 1 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 50 (14.33%) Microsoft
2 16 (4.58%) Palantir
3 14 (4.01%) Foundry
4 11 (3.15%) Databricks
4 11 (3.15%) ServiceNow
5 10 (2.87%) Oracle
6 8 (2.29%) Brio
6 8 (2.29%) Cerner
7 6 (1.72%) VMware
8 5 (1.43%) Adobe
8 5 (1.43%) Splunk
9 4 (1.15%) Google
9 4 (1.15%) Juniper
9 4 (1.15%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.86%) Cisco
10 3 (0.86%) Citrix
11 2 (0.57%) BMC
11 2 (0.57%) MEDITECH
11 2 (0.57%) Meraki
11 2 (0.57%) SAP
1,084 NHS jobs in England