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

6 months to
13 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 258 307 199
Rank change year-on-year +49 -108 -26
Contract jobs citing NHS 379 179 429
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.97% 0.73% 1.15%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.95% 2.15% 3.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 292 125 287
10th Percentile £243 £178 £163
25th Percentile £338 £213 £204
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £445 £388 £275
Median % change year-on-year +14.84% +40.91% -5.17%
75th Percentile £525 £488 £400
90th Percentile £600 £550 £550
UK median daily rate £440 £375 £296
% change year-on-year +17.33% +26.90% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 17 77
10th Percentile £9.80 £13.08 £11.25
25th Percentile £15.79 £15.22 £12.70
Median hourly rate £20.00 £18.13 £15.99
Median % change year-on-year +10.31% +13.42% -27.34%
75th Percentile £23.75 £33.75 £25.83
90th Percentile £34.62 £33.91 £39.00
UK median hourly rate £20.00 £23.84 £15.75
% change year-on-year -16.09% +51.33% -27.12%

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 12,866 8,310 11,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.76% 34.09% 31.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,164 5,462 7,566
10th Percentile £300 £300 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £547 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.35% -0.50% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £675
90th Percentile £749 £788 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 654 313 821
10th Percentile £16.01 £16.67 £12.28
25th Percentile £20.82 £22.72 £15.17
Median hourly rate £45.46 £35.00 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.89% +25.00% +24.44%
75th Percentile £70.00 £66.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £85.85 £85.00 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £32.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +38.46% +18.18% +22.30%

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 13 April 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 13 April 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 13 April 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 0 125 £438 +1.74% 54
North of England -12 109 £500 +25.00% 80
Yorkshire -2 88 £500 +5.26% 39
East of England +15 58 £278 -0.89% 15
South East -58 29 £450 +80.00% 32
Midlands -53 24 £400 +78.57% 44
West Midlands -57 21 £450 +100.89% 25
North West -38 18 £425 +97.67% 29
South West -18 14 £573 +61.27% 19
North East -14 3 - - 12
East Midlands - 3 £338 - 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 11 (2.90%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.85%) Confluence
3 5 (1.32%) CMS
3 5 (1.32%) Palantir Foundry
4 2 (0.53%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.26%) Umbraco
Applications
1 14 (3.69%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.53%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (3.96%) SystmOne
2 3 (0.79%) Lorenzo
3 2 (0.53%) Cerner Millennium
3 2 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.26%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 52 (13.72%) AWS
2 46 (12.14%) Azure
3 20 (5.28%) Serverless
4 16 (4.22%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (3.96%) AWS Lambda
5 15 (3.96%) GitHub
6 13 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (3.17%) Power Platform
8 11 (2.90%) Amazon S3
9 10 (2.64%) GCP
10 8 (2.11%) Amazon ECS
10 8 (2.11%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.32%) AWS Step Functions
11 5 (1.32%) Entra ID
12 4 (1.06%) Amazon EC2
12 4 (1.06%) Amazon EKS
12 4 (1.06%) Amazon SQS
12 4 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
12 4 (1.06%) Azure AKS
13 3 (0.79%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.43%) DNS
2 9 (2.37%) Firewall
2 9 (2.37%) TCP/IP
2 9 (2.37%) WAN
3 8 (2.11%) LAN
4 7 (1.85%) VPN
5 5 (1.32%) Network Security
5 5 (1.32%) Wireless
6 4 (1.06%) DHCP
7 2 (0.53%) BGP
7 2 (0.53%) Junos
7 2 (0.53%) OSPF
7 2 (0.53%) Structured Cabling
7 2 (0.53%) VLAN
8 1 (0.26%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (0.26%) Internet
8 1 (0.26%) NGFW
8 1 (0.26%) NGN
8 1 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.26%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (17.15%) Electronic Patient Records
2 16 (4.22%) SQL Server
3 15 (3.96%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (2.64%) Power BI
5 8 (2.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 7 (1.85%) DynamoDB
7 5 (1.32%) BusinessObjects
7 5 (1.32%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (1.06%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.06%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.79%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.79%) EDMS
9 3 (0.79%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.79%) OLAP
10 2 (0.53%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.53%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.53%) QlikView
10 2 (0.53%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 2 (0.53%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (2.37%) GitLab
2 7 (1.85%) JIRA
3 6 (1.58%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.06%) Git
5 2 (0.53%) MSI
6 1 (0.26%) Android Studio
6 1 (0.26%) Appium
6 1 (0.26%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.26%) JUnit
6 1 (0.26%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.26%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.26%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 144 (37.99%) Public Sector
2 125 (32.98%) Social Skills
3 42 (11.08%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (6.60%) Finance
5 24 (6.33%) Digital Health
5 24 (6.33%) Organisational Skills
6 18 (4.75%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (3.96%) Legal
8 13 (3.43%) Health Technology
8 13 (3.43%) Telecoms
9 12 (3.17%) Marketing
10 11 (2.90%) Electronics
10 11 (2.90%) Manufacturing
11 10 (2.64%) Influencing Skills
11 10 (2.64%) Local Government
12 7 (1.85%) Digital Healthcare
13 4 (1.06%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (1.06%) Publishing
14 3 (0.79%) Law
15 2 (0.53%) Military
Job Titles
1 54 (14.25%) Analyst
2 34 (8.97%) Developer
2 34 (8.97%) Lead
3 31 (8.18%) Architect
4 30 (7.92%) Senior
5 27 (7.12%) Project Manager
6 26 (6.86%) Business Analyst
7 17 (4.49%) Consultant
8 14 (3.69%) Data Engineer
8 14 (3.69%) Designer
9 13 (3.43%) Administrator
10 12 (3.17%) NHS Business Analyst
10 12 (3.17%) NHS Project Manager
10 12 (3.17%) User Researcher
11 10 (2.64%) AWS Engineer
11 10 (2.64%) Data Architect
11 10 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
12 9 (2.37%) 2nd Line Support
12 9 (2.37%) IT Manager
12 9 (2.37%) Technical Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (11.08%) FHIR
2 15 (3.96%) .NET
3 14 (3.69%) React
4 12 (3.17%) RESTful
5 7 (1.85%) Spring
5 7 (1.85%) Spring Boot
6 6 (1.58%) Node.js
6 6 (1.58%) Vue
7 5 (1.32%) Kafka
8 4 (1.06%) .NET Core
8 4 (1.06%) Middleware
9 3 (0.79%) AngularJS
9 3 (0.79%) FastAPI
9 3 (0.79%) Flask
9 3 (0.79%) GeoJSON
9 3 (0.79%) OpenAPI
9 3 (0.79%) RabbitMQ
9 3 (0.79%) REST
9 3 (0.79%) Spring Cloud
9 3 (0.79%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.49%) Onboarding
2 14 (3.69%) Cloud Native
2 14 (3.69%) LIMS
3 13 (3.43%) Management Information System
3 13 (3.43%) Product Ownership
4 11 (2.90%) PACS
5 9 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (1.85%) Data Structures
7 6 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.32%) Security Posture
9 4 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.06%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.06%) Replication
10 3 (0.79%) Freedom of Information
10 3 (0.79%) Life Science
11 2 (0.53%) CMDB
11 2 (0.53%) Distributed Architecture
11 2 (0.53%) IoT
11 2 (0.53%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.53%) SystemC
Operating Systems
1 27 (7.12%) Windows
2 13 (3.43%) Windows Server
3 8 (2.11%) Linux
4 3 (0.79%) Windows 10
4 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2003
4 3 (0.79%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.26%) Amazon Linux
5 1 (0.26%) Android
5 1 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (26.39%) Agile
2 57 (15.04%) Stakeholder Management
3 51 (13.46%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 47 (12.40%) Problem-Solving
5 41 (10.82%) CI/CD
6 39 (10.29%) Information Governance
7 38 (10.03%) Analytics
8 36 (9.50%) DevOps
9 34 (8.97%) Continuous Improvement
10 32 (8.44%) Digital Transformation Programme
11 30 (7.92%) Data Governance
11 30 (7.92%) Decision-Making
11 30 (7.92%) Migration
12 29 (7.65%) Business Intelligence
13 28 (7.39%) Infrastructure as Code
13 28 (7.39%) User Research
14 25 (6.60%) Project Management
15 24 (6.33%) Data Protection
15 24 (6.33%) Roadmaps
16 22 (5.80%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 37 (9.76%) Python
1 37 (9.76%) SQL
2 15 (3.96%) Java
3 14 (3.69%) TypeScript
4 12 (3.17%) JavaScript
5 10 (2.64%) C#
6 6 (1.58%) T-SQL
7 4 (1.06%) Bash
7 4 (1.06%) PowerShell
8 3 (0.79%) PHP
8 3 (0.79%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.53%) Ruby
10 1 (0.26%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 28 (7.39%) Security Cleared
2 26 (6.86%) Degree
3 24 (6.33%) SC Cleared
4 15 (3.96%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (1.06%) HND
5 4 (1.06%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 3 (0.79%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (0.79%) ECDL
6 3 (0.79%) HNC
6 3 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
6 3 (0.79%) JNCIA
6 3 (0.79%) JNCIP
6 3 (0.79%) JNCIS
6 3 (0.79%) MCSE
6 3 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (0.79%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 3 (0.79%) TOGAF Certification
7 2 (0.53%) CISM
7 2 (0.53%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.53%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (10.82%) HL7
2 23 (6.07%) Data Quality
3 16 (4.22%) Accessibility
4 12 (3.17%) GDPR
4 12 (3.17%) QA
5 10 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.85%) NCSC
6 7 (1.85%) PMO
7 5 (1.32%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.32%) DICOM
8 4 (1.06%) SNOMED CT
8 4 (1.06%) WCAG
9 3 (0.79%) NIST
10 2 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.53%) GRC
11 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.26%) IEC 62304
11 1 (0.26%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.26%) SLA
11 1 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 22 (5.80%) Docker
2 20 (5.28%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.06%) Hyper-V
3 4 (1.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.53%) Xen
5 1 (0.26%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 30 (7.92%) Terraform
2 19 (5.01%) Kubernetes
3 10 (2.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.79%) Grafana
5 2 (0.53%) Ansible
5 2 (0.53%) Nessus
5 2 (0.53%) SCCM
5 2 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.26%) Argo
6 1 (0.26%) Packer
Vendors
1 45 (11.87%) Microsoft
2 14 (3.69%) Oracle
3 11 (2.90%) Brio
3 11 (2.90%) Cerner
3 11 (2.90%) SAP
4 9 (2.37%) Foundry
5 8 (2.11%) Palantir
6 7 (1.85%) Splunk
7 6 (1.58%) Databricks
8 5 (1.32%) Cisco
9 4 (1.06%) Juniper
9 4 (1.06%) VMware
10 3 (0.79%) InterSystems
11 2 (0.53%) Adobe
11 2 (0.53%) CheckPoint
11 2 (0.53%) Cribl.io
11 2 (0.53%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.53%) Google
11 2 (0.53%) OneLogin
11 2 (0.53%) Rapid7