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

6 months to
19 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 321 349 297
Rank change year-on-year +28 -52 -74
Contract jobs citing NHS 335 158 238
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.73% 0.57% 0.72%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.18% 1.62% 2.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 113 160
10th Percentile £283 £208 £174
25th Percentile £391 £313 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £350
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% +31.43% +9.38%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £507
90th Percentile £620 £593 £609
UK median daily rate £463 £450 £350
% change year-on-year +2.78% +28.57% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 7 21
10th Percentile £20.60 £13.08 £14.17
25th Percentile £26.72 £17.16 £15.50
Median hourly rate £31.47 £26.32 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.55% +38.53% -5.00%
75th Percentile £39.81 £31.73 £25.83
90th Percentile £60.00 £33.98 -
UK median hourly rate £30.88 £28.16 £22.10
% change year-on-year +9.67% +27.42% +15.22%

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 15,362 9,774 10,243
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.60% 35.43% 30.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,425 6,154 6,623
10th Percentile £325 £306 £300
25th Percentile £425 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £687
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 923 499 523
10th Percentile £14.89 £15.45 £12.55
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £41.00 £31.36 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.74% -33.98% +8.36%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.63 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.96 £29.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +42.24% -34.44% +10.86%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +7 149 £488 +11.43% 138
North of England -22 108 £475 -5.00% 163
Yorkshire 0 82 £500 - 64
North West -39 24 £350 +62.79% 87
South East -71 19 £450 +12.50% 94
Midlands -34 13 £425 +21.43% 96
East of England -22 12 £223 -1.90% 67
South West -32 12 £546 +33.23% 84
West Midlands -50 10 £500 +74.22% 59
East Midlands -14 3 £300 -25.00% 37
North East -37 2 - - 12
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 (3.28%) Palantir Foundry
2 4 (1.19%) Confluence
2 4 (1.19%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.60%) CMS
3 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.30%) nginx
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
1 3 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
2 2 (0.60%) Trello
3 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (1.19%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.60%) Lorenzo
2 2 (0.60%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.30%) Cerner Millennium
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 57 (17.01%) AWS
2 49 (14.63%) Azure
3 27 (8.06%) Serverless
4 19 (5.67%) Amazon S3
5 18 (5.37%) AWS Lambda
6 14 (4.18%) GitHub
6 14 (4.18%) Power Platform
7 11 (3.28%) Amazon EC2
7 11 (3.28%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.39%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (2.09%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.09%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.79%) AWS Step Functions
10 6 (1.79%) Azure Data Factory
10 6 (1.79%) Azure Functions
10 6 (1.79%) Azure Key Vault
11 5 (1.49%) Adobe Analytics
11 5 (1.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 4 (1.19%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.39%) Firewall
2 7 (2.09%) LAN
2 7 (2.09%) WAN
3 5 (1.49%) Network Security
3 5 (1.49%) NGFW
4 4 (1.19%) Structured Cabling
4 4 (1.19%) Wireless
5 3 (0.90%) DNS
6 1 (0.30%) DHCP
6 1 (0.30%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.30%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (10.15%) Electronic Patient Records
2 15 (4.48%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (3.88%) SQL Server
4 11 (3.28%) Power BI
5 8 (2.39%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (2.39%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.79%) Amazon Athena
7 4 (1.19%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.90%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.90%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.90%) OLAP
8 3 (0.90%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.60%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.60%) DocumentDB
9 2 (0.60%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.60%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 11 (3.28%) Git
2 6 (1.79%) GitLab
3 5 (1.49%) JIRA
4 3 (0.90%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.60%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.30%) Postman
6 1 (0.30%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.30%) Selenium
6 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
General
1 137 (40.90%) Public Sector
2 110 (32.84%) Social Skills
3 26 (7.76%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.57%) Finance
5 14 (4.18%) Digital Health
6 13 (3.88%) Local Government
7 11 (3.28%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.09%) Digital Healthcare
9 6 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.79%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.19%) Law
10 4 (1.19%) Legal
11 3 (0.90%) Billing
11 3 (0.90%) Health Technology
11 3 (0.90%) Marketing
11 3 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.90%) Social Housing
12 2 (0.60%) Military
12 2 (0.60%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 41 (12.24%) Developer
1 41 (12.24%) Senior
2 32 (9.55%) Architect
3 25 (7.46%) Analyst
4 22 (6.57%) Designer
5 20 (5.97%) Data Engineer
5 20 (5.97%) Lead
6 17 (5.07%) Project Manager
7 14 (4.18%) Business Analyst
7 14 (4.18%) User Researcher
8 13 (3.88%) Consultant
8 13 (3.88%) Delivery Manager
9 11 (3.28%) Data Architect
9 11 (3.28%) Service Designer
10 10 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (2.69%) Python Developer
12 8 (2.39%) Full-Stack Developer
13 7 (2.09%) NHS Project Manager
13 7 (2.09%) Senior User Researcher
13 7 (2.09%) ServiceNow Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (7.16%) FHIR
2 13 (3.88%) REST
3 11 (3.28%) PySpark
4 10 (2.99%) RESTful
5 9 (2.69%) React
6 6 (1.79%) Node.js
6 6 (1.79%) Vue
7 5 (1.49%) .NET
7 5 (1.49%) CSS
7 5 (1.49%) HTML
7 5 (1.49%) OpenID
7 5 (1.49%) Playwright
8 4 (1.19%) ARM Templates
8 4 (1.19%) JSON
8 4 (1.19%) OAuth
8 4 (1.19%) OAuth2
9 3 (0.90%) Django
9 3 (0.90%) Flask
9 3 (0.90%) XML
10 2 (0.60%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 26 (7.76%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.67%) Product Ownership
3 16 (4.78%) Onboarding
4 8 (2.39%) Data Structures
5 7 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (1.79%) IoT
6 6 (1.79%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.79%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.49%) Data Protection Act
7 5 (1.49%) Driving Licence
8 4 (1.19%) LIMS
8 4 (1.19%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.19%) Replication
9 3 (0.90%) Cloud Security Posture
9 3 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.60%) CMDB
10 2 (0.60%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.60%) Freedom of Information
10 2 (0.60%) Housing Association
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.49%) Windows
2 4 (1.19%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.60%) Android
3 2 (0.60%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.60%) Linux
3 2 (0.60%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.30%) CentOS
4 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.30%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (36.12%) Agile
2 74 (22.09%) Stakeholder Management
3 57 (17.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 52 (15.52%) CI/CD
5 45 (13.43%) Continuous Improvement
6 42 (12.54%) Analytics
7 40 (11.94%) Problem-Solving
8 37 (11.04%) Infrastructure as Code
9 35 (10.45%) Decision-Making
9 35 (10.45%) DevOps
10 34 (10.15%) Migration
11 33 (9.85%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 32 (9.55%) AI
12 32 (9.55%) User Research
13 31 (9.25%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 29 (8.66%) Validation
15 25 (7.46%) Data Protection
15 25 (7.46%) Information Governance
15 25 (7.46%) Workshop Facilitation
16 24 (7.16%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 37 (11.04%) Python
2 36 (10.75%) SQL
3 16 (4.78%) JavaScript
4 14 (4.18%) TypeScript
5 8 (2.39%) Java
6 7 (2.09%) C#
7 5 (1.49%) Bicep
7 5 (1.49%) PowerShell
7 5 (1.49%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.60%) Bash
9 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 34 (10.15%) Security Cleared
2 27 (8.06%) SC Cleared
3 19 (5.67%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (2.09%) Degree
5 5 (1.49%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.19%) JNCIP
6 4 (1.19%) JNCIS
6 4 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (0.90%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (0.90%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.60%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.60%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (0.30%) CCSP
9 1 (0.30%) CISSP
9 1 (0.30%) CRISC
9 1 (0.30%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.30%) NVQ Level 3
9 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.30%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (7.46%) HL7
2 22 (6.57%) Data Quality
3 21 (6.27%) Accessibility
4 20 (5.97%) QA
5 19 (5.67%) GDPR
6 15 (4.48%) WCAG
7 12 (3.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 6 (1.79%) SNOMED CT
9 5 (1.49%) NCSC
9 5 (1.49%) PMO
10 4 (1.19%) DICOM
11 3 (0.90%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.90%) IEC 62304
12 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.60%) ISO 13485
13 1 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 1 (0.30%) NIST
13 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
13 1 (0.30%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (4.18%) Docker
2 7 (2.09%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 34 (10.15%) Terraform
2 12 (3.58%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
4 1 (0.30%) Ansible
4 1 (0.30%) Grafana
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 37 (11.04%) Microsoft
2 18 (5.37%) Palantir
3 15 (4.48%) Foundry
4 11 (3.28%) Databricks
4 11 (3.28%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.39%) Brio
6 7 (2.09%) Oracle
7 5 (1.49%) Adobe
7 5 (1.49%) VMware
8 4 (1.19%) Cerner
8 4 (1.19%) Google
8 4 (1.19%) Juniper
8 4 (1.19%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.19%) Splunk
9 3 (0.90%) Cisco
9 3 (0.90%) InterSystems
10 2 (0.60%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.60%) BMC
10 2 (0.60%) Citrix
10 2 (0.60%) MEDITECH