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

6 months to
14 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 322 366 298
Rank change year-on-year +44 -68 -77
Contract jobs citing NHS 338 150 244
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.74% 0.54% 0.73%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.21% 1.53% 2.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 265 106 165
10th Percentile £293 £208 £175
25th Percentile £400 £313 £273
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £350
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% +28.57% +8.62%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £513
90th Percentile £612 £575 £606
UK median daily rate £463 £436 £350
% change year-on-year +6.20% +24.43% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 7 22
10th Percentile £19.92 £13.08 £14.24
25th Percentile £26.72 £17.16 £15.61
Median hourly rate £31.47 £26.32 £18.64
Median % change year-on-year +19.55% +41.24% +10.59%
75th Percentile £45.00 £31.73 £25.74
90th Percentile £60.00 £33.98 £25.83
UK median hourly rate £29.09 £28.16 £21.80
% change year-on-year +3.31% +29.17% +13.66%

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 15,266 9,798 10,257
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.48% 35.45% 30.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,367 6,191 6,654
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 £679
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 900 492 537
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.48 £12.90
25th Percentile £19.49 £18.87 £19.38
Median hourly rate £43.53 £31.50 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.21% -34.39% +12.28%
75th Percentile £70.00 £61.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £29.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +47.46% -34.44% +11.23%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 +13 149 £488 +11.43% 183
North of England -8 109 £475 -5.00% 181
Yorkshire +2 83 £500 - 78
North West -29 24 £350 +62.79% 81
South East -69 20 £456 +14.06% 91
East of England -14 12 £223 -1.90% 81
South West -36 12 £546 +33.23% 96
Midlands -43 12 £400 +14.29% 100
West Midlands -49 9 £450 +56.79% 53
East Midlands -19 3 £300 -25.00% 47
North East -42 2 - - 25
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 (3.25%) Palantir Foundry
2 5 (1.48%) Confluence
3 4 (1.18%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.59%) CMS
4 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.30%) nginx
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (0.89%) Microsoft Office
1 3 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
2 2 (0.59%) Trello
3 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (1.18%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.59%) Lorenzo
2 2 (0.59%) 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 ERP
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 55 (16.27%) AWS
2 49 (14.50%) Azure
3 27 (7.99%) Serverless
4 19 (5.62%) Amazon S3
5 18 (5.33%) AWS Lambda
6 15 (4.44%) GitHub
6 15 (4.44%) Power Platform
7 11 (3.25%) Amazon EC2
7 11 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (2.37%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (2.07%) Azure Data Factory
9 7 (2.07%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.07%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.78%) AWS Step Functions
10 6 (1.78%) Azure Functions
10 6 (1.78%) Azure Key Vault
11 5 (1.48%) Adobe Analytics
11 5 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 4 (1.18%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.37%) Firewall
2 7 (2.07%) LAN
2 7 (2.07%) WAN
3 5 (1.48%) NGFW
4 4 (1.18%) Network Security
4 4 (1.18%) Structured Cabling
4 4 (1.18%) Wireless
5 3 (0.89%) DNS
6 1 (0.30%) DHCP
6 1 (0.30%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.30%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (10.95%) Electronic Patient Records
2 14 (4.14%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (3.85%) SQL Server
4 12 (3.55%) Power BI
5 8 (2.37%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (2.37%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.78%) Amazon Athena
7 4 (1.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 3 (0.89%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.89%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.89%) OLAP
8 3 (0.89%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.59%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.59%) DocumentDB
9 2 (0.59%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (0.59%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.59%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 11 (3.25%) Git
2 6 (1.78%) GitLab
2 6 (1.78%) JIRA
3 3 (0.89%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.59%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.30%) Postman
5 1 (0.30%) Selenium
5 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
General
1 138 (40.83%) Public Sector
2 107 (31.66%) Social Skills
3 28 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (6.21%) Finance
5 14 (4.14%) Digital Health
6 13 (3.85%) Local Government
7 10 (2.96%) Influencing Skills
8 6 (1.78%) Digital Healthcare
8 6 (1.78%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
9 4 (1.18%) Health Technology
9 4 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.18%) Law
9 4 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (0.89%) Billing
10 3 (0.89%) Legal
10 3 (0.89%) Marketing
10 3 (0.89%) Social Housing
11 2 (0.59%) Military
11 2 (0.59%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 41 (12.13%) Developer
1 41 (12.13%) Senior
2 35 (10.36%) Architect
3 25 (7.40%) Analyst
4 23 (6.80%) Designer
5 22 (6.51%) Lead
6 21 (6.21%) Data Engineer
7 16 (4.73%) User Researcher
8 15 (4.44%) Business Analyst
8 15 (4.44%) Project Manager
9 13 (3.85%) Delivery Manager
10 12 (3.55%) Consultant
10 12 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
11 11 (3.25%) Data Architect
11 11 (3.25%) Service Designer
12 9 (2.66%) Python Developer
12 9 (2.66%) Senior User Researcher
13 8 (2.37%) Full-Stack Developer
14 7 (2.07%) NHS Project Manager
14 7 (2.07%) Performance Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (7.69%) FHIR
2 13 (3.85%) REST
3 11 (3.25%) PySpark
4 9 (2.66%) React
4 9 (2.66%) RESTful
5 6 (1.78%) Node.js
5 6 (1.78%) Vue
6 5 (1.48%) .NET
6 5 (1.48%) CSS
6 5 (1.48%) HTML
6 5 (1.48%) OpenID
6 5 (1.48%) Playwright
7 4 (1.18%) ARM Templates
7 4 (1.18%) JSON
7 4 (1.18%) OAuth
7 4 (1.18%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.89%) Flask
8 3 (0.89%) XML
9 2 (0.59%) Middleware
9 2 (0.59%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 26 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.62%) Product Ownership
3 17 (5.03%) Onboarding
4 7 (2.07%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.78%) IoT
5 6 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.48%) Driving Licence
6 5 (1.48%) Management Information System
6 5 (1.48%) Security Posture
7 4 (1.18%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.18%) LIMS
7 4 (1.18%) Mobile App
7 4 (1.18%) Replication
8 3 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (0.89%) Life Science
9 2 (0.59%) Cloud Security Posture
9 2 (0.59%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.59%) Enterprise Software
9 2 (0.59%) PACS
Operating Systems
1 6 (1.78%) Windows
2 4 (1.18%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.59%) Android
3 2 (0.59%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.59%) Linux
3 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.30%) CentOS
4 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.30%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (35.50%) Agile
2 72 (21.30%) Stakeholder Management
3 55 (16.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 50 (14.79%) CI/CD
5 43 (12.72%) Analytics
6 42 (12.43%) Continuous Improvement
7 38 (11.24%) Problem-Solving
8 37 (10.95%) User Research
9 36 (10.65%) Decision-Making
10 35 (10.36%) DevOps
10 35 (10.36%) Infrastructure as Code
11 32 (9.47%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 31 (9.17%) Migration
13 30 (8.88%) AI
13 30 (8.88%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 27 (7.99%) Validation
15 26 (7.69%) Service Design
16 25 (7.40%) Workshop Facilitation
17 22 (6.51%) Information Governance
17 22 (6.51%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 37 (10.95%) Python
1 37 (10.95%) SQL
2 16 (4.73%) JavaScript
3 15 (4.44%) TypeScript
4 8 (2.37%) C#
4 8 (2.37%) Java
5 5 (1.48%) Bicep
5 5 (1.48%) PowerShell
5 5 (1.48%) T-SQL
6 2 (0.59%) Bash
7 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
7 1 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 34 (10.06%) Security Cleared
2 28 (8.28%) SC Cleared
3 23 (6.80%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.37%) Degree
5 5 (1.48%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.18%) JNCIP
6 4 (1.18%) JNCIS
6 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (0.89%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (0.89%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.59%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.30%) CCNA
9 1 (0.30%) CCSP
9 1 (0.30%) CISM
9 1 (0.30%) CISSP
9 1 (0.30%) MCSE
9 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.30%) PMP
9 1 (0.30%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (7.99%) HL7
2 24 (7.10%) Accessibility
2 24 (7.10%) Data Quality
3 20 (5.92%) QA
4 17 (5.03%) GDPR
5 15 (4.44%) WCAG
6 11 (3.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.78%) SNOMED CT
8 5 (1.48%) NCSC
8 5 (1.48%) PMO
9 4 (1.18%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (1.18%) DICOM
10 3 (0.89%) IEC 62304
11 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.59%) ISO 13485
12 1 (0.30%) GRC
12 1 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.30%) NIST
12 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 14 (4.14%) Docker
2 7 (2.07%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 33 (9.76%) Terraform
2 11 (3.25%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.59%) Jamf Pro
3 2 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.30%) Ansible
4 1 (0.30%) Grafana
4 1 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 36 (10.65%) Microsoft
2 18 (5.33%) Palantir
3 15 (4.44%) Foundry
4 11 (3.25%) Databricks
5 8 (2.37%) Brio
5 8 (2.37%) Oracle
5 8 (2.37%) ServiceNow
6 5 (1.48%) Adobe
6 5 (1.48%) VMware
7 4 (1.18%) Google
7 4 (1.18%) Juniper
7 4 (1.18%) Palo Alto
7 4 (1.18%) Splunk
8 3 (0.89%) Cerner
8 3 (0.89%) Cisco
8 3 (0.89%) InterSystems
9 2 (0.59%) Citrix
9 2 (0.59%) MEDITECH
9 2 (0.59%) OneLogin
9 2 (0.59%) Zscaler
700 NHS jobs in England