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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 274 335 238
Rank change year-on-year +61 -97 -47
Contract jobs citing NHS 357 153 368
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.85% 0.63% 1.00%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.61% 1.85% 3.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 281 109 233
10th Percentile £243 £200 £169
25th Percentile £338 £257 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £438 £315
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +38.89% +4.13%
75th Percentile £525 £500 £488
90th Percentile £600 £575 £585
UK median daily rate £450 £428 £315
% change year-on-year +5.26% +35.71% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 11 66
10th Percentile £15.79 £13.08 £11.22
25th Percentile £16.70 £14.15 £12.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £17.16 £14.49
Median % change year-on-year +31.16% +18.43% -31.02%
75th Percentile £31.34 £22.23 £22.51
90th Percentile £46.50 £34.15 £43.50
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £17.64 £12.96
% change year-on-year +27.53% +36.13% -35.20%

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 13,661 8,283 11,291
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.39% 34.26% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,565 5,349 7,316
10th Percentile £313 £300 £273
25th Percentile £413 £409 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £527 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.38% -4.18% -3.08%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £800
UK median daily rate £515 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.90% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 722 354 840
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.84 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.04 £20.73 £15.35
Median hourly rate £44.23 £34.13 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.61% -6.51% +62.33%
75th Percentile £70.17 £63.75 £62.81
90th Percentile £85.95 £83.14 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £33.05 £35.50
% change year-on-year +28.59% -6.90% +61.36%

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 6 June 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 6 June 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 6 June 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 -5 125 £469 +4.17% 85
North of England -5 113 £475 - 115
Yorkshire -11 88 £500 +2.04% 60
East of England - 45 £262 - 22
North West -26 25 £350 +62.79% 46
South East -68 23 £450 +62.16% 56
Midlands -51 16 £470 +34.48% 53
West Midlands -54 15 £470 +34.48% 34
South West -12 14 £570 +39.02% 28
East Midlands - 1 - - 19
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 (3.36%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.68%) Palantir Foundry
3 5 (1.40%) Confluence
4 4 (1.12%) CMS
5 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 9 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.24%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.12%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.56%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.56%) Trello
5 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 12 (3.36%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.56%) Lorenzo
2 2 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.28%) Cerner Millennium
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 49 (13.73%) AWS
2 39 (10.92%) Azure
3 21 (5.88%) Serverless
4 17 (4.76%) AWS Lambda
5 14 (3.92%) Amazon S3
5 14 (3.92%) Power Platform
6 12 (3.36%) GitHub
6 12 (3.36%) Microsoft 365
7 10 (2.80%) Amazon EC2
8 7 (1.96%) GCP
9 6 (1.68%) Amazon SQS
9 6 (1.68%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (1.68%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (1.40%) AWS Step Functions
10 5 (1.40%) Azure Data Factory
11 4 (1.12%) Amazon ECR
11 4 (1.12%) Miro
11 4 (1.12%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 3 (0.84%) Azure Machine Learning
12 3 (0.84%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.96%) DNS
2 6 (1.68%) LAN
2 6 (1.68%) TCP/IP
2 6 (1.68%) WAN
3 4 (1.12%) Firewall
4 3 (0.84%) Network Security
5 1 (0.28%) BGP
5 1 (0.28%) DHCP
5 1 (0.28%) Ethernet VPN
5 1 (0.28%) Junos
5 1 (0.28%) NGFW
5 1 (0.28%) OSPF
5 1 (0.28%) VPN
5 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (15.13%) Electronic Patient Records
2 18 (5.04%) Data Warehouse
3 17 (4.76%) SQL Server
4 12 (3.36%) Power BI
5 7 (1.96%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 6 (1.68%) DynamoDB
7 5 (1.40%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.12%) DocumentDB
8 4 (1.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.84%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.84%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.84%) OLAP
9 3 (0.84%) Tableau
10 2 (0.56%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.56%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.56%) QlikView
10 2 (0.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 1 (0.28%) Data Mart
11 1 (0.28%) EDRMS
Development Applications
1 9 (2.52%) GitLab
2 6 (1.68%) Git
3 5 (1.40%) JIRA
4 3 (0.84%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.28%) Android Studio
5 1 (0.28%) Appium
5 1 (0.28%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.28%) JUnit
5 1 (0.28%) Postman
5 1 (0.28%) Selenium
5 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 132 (36.97%) Public Sector
2 104 (29.13%) Social Skills
3 34 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (5.88%) Digital Health
5 19 (5.32%) Organisational Skills
6 16 (4.48%) Finance
7 14 (3.92%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.36%) Local Government
9 8 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.24%) Legal
10 7 (1.96%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.68%) Health Technology
11 6 (1.68%) Marketing
12 5 (1.40%) Electronics
12 5 (1.40%) Law
12 5 (1.40%) Manufacturing
13 4 (1.12%) Digital Healthcare
13 4 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (1.12%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (1.12%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 44 (12.32%) Analyst
2 35 (9.80%) Senior
3 34 (9.52%) Architect
3 34 (9.52%) Developer
4 28 (7.84%) Lead
5 24 (6.72%) Business Analyst
6 22 (6.16%) Designer
7 20 (5.60%) Project Manager
8 16 (4.48%) Consultant
9 15 (4.20%) User Researcher
10 14 (3.92%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.36%) Data Architect
12 11 (3.08%) NHS Business Analyst
13 10 (2.80%) Administrator
13 10 (2.80%) NHS Project Manager
13 10 (2.80%) Service Designer
13 10 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
14 9 (2.52%) Delivery Manager
14 9 (2.52%) Senior User Researcher
15 8 (2.24%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (7.84%) FHIR
2 9 (2.52%) .NET
2 9 (2.52%) React
3 8 (2.24%) Node.js
4 5 (1.40%) RESTful
5 4 (1.12%) Middleware
5 4 (1.12%) Playwright
5 4 (1.12%) REST
6 3 (0.84%) GeoJSON
6 3 (0.84%) JSON
6 3 (0.84%) PySpark
6 3 (0.84%) Spring
6 3 (0.84%) Spring Boot
7 2 (0.56%) AngularJS
7 2 (0.56%) ASP.NET
7 2 (0.56%) Kafka
7 2 (0.56%) Matplotlib
7 2 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.56%) Pandas
7 2 (0.56%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.48%) Cloud Native
2 15 (4.20%) Onboarding
3 14 (3.92%) Product Ownership
4 8 (2.24%) LIMS
5 7 (1.96%) Data Structures
5 7 (1.96%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.40%) PACS
8 4 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.12%) Replication
8 4 (1.12%) Security Posture
9 3 (0.84%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (0.84%) Life Science
10 2 (0.56%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (0.56%) Cybercrime
10 2 (0.56%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.56%) Freedom of Information
11 1 (0.28%) Self-Motivation
11 1 (0.28%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.20%) Windows
2 8 (2.24%) Windows Server
3 5 (1.40%) Linux
4 3 (0.84%) Android
5 2 (0.56%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.28%) CentOS
6 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (25.21%) Agile
2 50 (14.01%) Stakeholder Management
3 47 (13.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 35 (9.80%) User Research
5 34 (9.52%) Analytics
5 34 (9.52%) CI/CD
5 34 (9.52%) Information Governance
6 32 (8.96%) Decision-Making
7 29 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
7 29 (8.12%) DevOps
8 28 (7.84%) Problem-Solving
9 27 (7.56%) Migration
10 26 (7.28%) Business Intelligence
10 26 (7.28%) Data Protection
10 26 (7.28%) Service Design
11 25 (7.00%) Roadmaps
12 23 (6.44%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 22 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
13 22 (6.16%) Risk Management
14 21 (5.88%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 39 (10.92%) SQL
2 24 (6.72%) Python
3 13 (3.64%) TypeScript
4 11 (3.08%) Java
5 9 (2.52%) JavaScript
6 6 (1.68%) C#
6 6 (1.68%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.56%) PowerShell
8 1 (0.28%) Bicep
8 1 (0.28%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 23 (6.44%) Security Cleared
2 19 (5.32%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.04%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (4.48%) Degree
5 3 (0.84%) AWS Certification
6 2 (0.56%) DBS Check
6 2 (0.56%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.56%) JNCIA
6 2 (0.56%) JNCIP
6 2 (0.56%) JNCIS
6 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
6 2 (0.56%) TOGAF Certification
7 1 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.28%) CCNA
7 1 (0.28%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
7 1 (0.28%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
7 1 (0.28%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.28%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (8.68%) HL7
2 20 (5.60%) Accessibility
3 16 (4.48%) GDPR
4 15 (4.20%) Data Quality
5 10 (2.80%) QA
5 10 (2.80%) WCAG
6 7 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.96%) PMO
7 6 (1.68%) NCSC
8 5 (1.40%) DICOM
9 4 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.84%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.84%) NIST
10 3 (0.84%) SNOMED CT
11 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.28%) GRC
11 1 (0.28%) IEC 62304
11 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (3.64%) Docker
2 8 (2.24%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 22 (6.16%) Terraform
2 14 (3.92%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.56%) Nessus
5 1 (0.28%) Ansible
5 1 (0.28%) Argo
5 1 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 34 (9.52%) Microsoft
2 12 (3.36%) Oracle
3 10 (2.80%) Foundry
4 9 (2.52%) Brio
4 9 (2.52%) Palantir
5 7 (1.96%) Cerner
6 6 (1.68%) SAP
7 4 (1.12%) Databricks
7 4 (1.12%) Splunk
8 3 (0.84%) Google
8 3 (0.84%) InterSystems
8 3 (0.84%) Tenable
9 2 (0.56%) Adobe
9 2 (0.56%) Informatica
9 2 (0.56%) Juniper
9 2 (0.56%) OneLogin
9 2 (0.56%) Rapid7
9 2 (0.56%) VMware
10 1 (0.28%) BiZZdesign
10 1 (0.28%) Datix