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

6 months to
30 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 278 288 204
Rank change year-on-year +10 -84 -27
Contract jobs citing NHS 355 194 444
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.94% 0.79% 1.18%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.81% 2.33% 3.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 274 135 296
10th Percentile £243 £175 £163
25th Percentile £338 £211 £204
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £375 £288
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% +30.10% -3.92%
75th Percentile £525 £488 £400
90th Percentile £600 £550 £538
UK median daily rate £438 £375 £298
% change year-on-year +16.67% +25.94% -0.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 19 76
10th Percentile £6.00 £13.08 £11.25
25th Percentile £15.50 £15.94 £12.59
Median hourly rate £19.00 £26.32 £15.99
Median % change year-on-year -27.81% +64.65% -27.34%
75th Percentile £23.75 £33.75 £25.83
90th Percentile £34.62 £33.83 £39.55
UK median hourly rate £19.00 £26.00 £15.80
% change year-on-year -26.92% +64.53% -27.24%

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 12,648 8,336 11,600
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.35% 34.09% 30.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,026 5,465 7,578
10th Percentile £300 £300 £262
25th Percentile £412 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.96% -0.91% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £670 £670
90th Percentile £749 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.71% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 637 315 802
10th Percentile £15.77 £16.70 £12.49
25th Percentile £19.75 £22.61 £15.17
Median hourly rate £44.50 £34.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +28.99% +25.45% +22.22%
75th Percentile £70.00 £67.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.70 £84.60 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £32.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +30.77% +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 30 March 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 30 March 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 30 March 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 -16 109 £431 +0.88% 54
North of England -22 98 £500 +25.00% 94
Yorkshire -18 78 £500 +8.70% 64
East of England +23 61 £278 +2.78% 20
South East -61 28 £425 +54.55% 34
Midlands -58 21 £400 +78.57% 51
West Midlands -49 18 £425 +89.73% 32
North West -46 15 £450 +109.30% 29
South West -17 14 £573 +61.27% 24
North East - 5 £400 - 5
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 10 (2.82%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.97%) Confluence
3 5 (1.41%) CMS
4 2 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
5 1 (0.28%) Umbraco
Applications
1 16 (4.51%) Microsoft Office
2 11 (3.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.56%) Trello
Business Applications
1 14 (3.94%) SystmOne
2 3 (0.85%) Lorenzo
3 2 (0.56%) Cerner Millennium
3 2 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 45 (12.68%) AWS
1 45 (12.68%) Azure
2 17 (4.79%) Serverless
3 16 (4.51%) Microsoft 365
4 13 (3.66%) AWS Lambda
4 13 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
4 13 (3.66%) GitHub
5 11 (3.10%) Amazon S3
6 10 (2.82%) GCP
7 9 (2.54%) Power Platform
8 7 (1.97%) Amazon ECS
9 6 (1.69%) Amazon EC2
9 6 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (1.69%) Entra ID
9 6 (1.69%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (1.13%) Amazon SQS
11 3 (0.85%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.85%) Azure Functions
11 3 (0.85%) Miro
11 3 (0.85%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.66%) DNS
2 12 (3.38%) TCP/IP
3 11 (3.10%) LAN
3 11 (3.10%) WAN
4 10 (2.82%) Firewall
5 8 (2.25%) VPN
6 7 (1.97%) Wireless
7 4 (1.13%) DHCP
7 4 (1.13%) Network Security
7 4 (1.13%) Structured Cabling
8 3 (0.85%) BGP
8 3 (0.85%) Junos
8 3 (0.85%) OSPF
9 2 (0.56%) VLAN
10 1 (0.28%) Ethernet VPN
10 1 (0.28%) Internet
10 1 (0.28%) NGN
10 1 (0.28%) Remote Desktop
10 1 (0.28%) SD-WAN
10 1 (0.28%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (17.75%) Electronic Patient Records
2 12 (3.38%) SQL Server
3 11 (3.10%) Data Warehouse
4 7 (1.97%) Power BI
5 5 (1.41%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.41%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 4 (1.13%) Data Lake
6 4 (1.13%) DynamoDB
6 4 (1.13%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.85%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (0.85%) EDMS
7 3 (0.85%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
8 2 (0.56%) ImageNet
8 2 (0.56%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.56%) QlikView
8 2 (0.56%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.25%) GitLab
2 7 (1.97%) JIRA
3 5 (1.41%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.13%) Git
5 2 (0.56%) ERwin
5 2 (0.56%) MSI
6 1 (0.28%) Android Studio
6 1 (0.28%) Appium
6 1 (0.28%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.28%) JUnit
6 1 (0.28%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.28%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 129 (36.34%) Public Sector
2 118 (33.24%) Social Skills
3 39 (10.99%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (7.32%) Finance
4 26 (7.32%) Organisational Skills
5 20 (5.63%) Digital Health
5 20 (5.63%) Documentation Skills
6 16 (4.51%) Legal
7 14 (3.94%) Telecoms
8 13 (3.66%) Health Technology
8 13 (3.66%) Marketing
9 12 (3.38%) Electronics
9 12 (3.38%) Manufacturing
10 10 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
11 8 (2.25%) Local Government
12 7 (1.97%) Digital Healthcare
13 4 (1.13%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (1.13%) Publishing
14 3 (0.85%) Law
15 2 (0.56%) Military
Job Titles
1 54 (15.21%) Analyst
2 33 (9.30%) Lead
3 28 (7.89%) Developer
3 28 (7.89%) Senior
4 26 (7.32%) Project Manager
5 24 (6.76%) Architect
5 24 (6.76%) Business Analyst
6 18 (5.07%) Consultant
7 14 (3.94%) Designer
8 13 (3.66%) Administrator
8 13 (3.66%) Technical Analyst
8 13 (3.66%) Technical Support
8 13 (3.66%) Technical Support Analyst
8 13 (3.66%) User Researcher
9 12 (3.38%) AWS Engineer
10 11 (3.10%) 2nd Line Support
10 11 (3.10%) NHS Business Analyst
10 11 (3.10%) NHS Project Manager
11 10 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
11 10 (2.82%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (11.27%) FHIR
2 15 (4.23%) .NET
3 12 (3.38%) RESTful
4 11 (3.10%) React
5 6 (1.69%) Spring
5 6 (1.69%) Spring Boot
5 6 (1.69%) Vue
6 5 (1.41%) Kafka
7 4 (1.13%) .NET Core
8 3 (0.85%) Django
8 3 (0.85%) FastAPI
8 3 (0.85%) Flask
8 3 (0.85%) GeoJSON
8 3 (0.85%) Middleware
8 3 (0.85%) OpenAPI
8 3 (0.85%) RabbitMQ
8 3 (0.85%) Spring Cloud
8 3 (0.85%) Swagger
9 2 (0.56%) ADO
9 2 (0.56%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.07%) Onboarding
2 15 (4.23%) Management Information System
3 14 (3.94%) LIMS
4 12 (3.38%) Cloud Native
4 12 (3.38%) Product Ownership
5 10 (2.82%) PACS
6 9 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.69%) Data Structures
8 4 (1.13%) CMDB
8 4 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.13%) Driving Licence
8 4 (1.13%) Security Posture
9 3 (0.85%) Freedom of Information
9 3 (0.85%) Life Science
9 3 (0.85%) Replication
10 2 (0.56%) IoT
10 2 (0.56%) Reference Data
10 2 (0.56%) SystemC
Operating Systems
1 31 (8.73%) Windows
2 16 (4.51%) Windows Server
3 8 (2.25%) Linux
4 5 (1.41%) Windows Server 2003
4 5 (1.41%) Windows Server 2012
5 3 (0.85%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Android
6 1 (0.28%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (25.63%) Agile
2 49 (13.80%) Stakeholder Management
3 46 (12.96%) Problem-Solving
4 45 (12.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 40 (11.27%) CI/CD
6 36 (10.14%) Information Governance
7 34 (9.58%) Analytics
8 33 (9.30%) Digital Transformation Programme
9 32 (9.01%) DevOps
10 30 (8.45%) Data Governance
11 29 (8.17%) User Research
12 28 (7.89%) Continuous Improvement
12 28 (7.89%) Infrastructure as Code
12 28 (7.89%) Migration
13 27 (7.61%) Business Intelligence
14 24 (6.76%) Project Management
15 23 (6.48%) Decision-Making
16 22 (6.20%) Programme Management
16 22 (6.20%) Project Delivery
16 22 (6.20%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 34 (9.58%) Python
2 31 (8.73%) SQL
3 13 (3.66%) Java
4 11 (3.10%) TypeScript
5 10 (2.82%) C#
6 9 (2.54%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.13%) Bash
7 4 (1.13%) PowerShell
8 3 (0.85%) PHP
8 3 (0.85%) PL/SQL
8 3 (0.85%) T-SQL
9 2 (0.56%) Ruby
10 1 (0.28%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 25 (7.04%) Degree
1 25 (7.04%) Security Cleared
2 22 (6.20%) SC Cleared
3 14 (3.94%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (1.69%) HND
5 5 (1.41%) ECDL
5 5 (1.41%) HNC
5 5 (1.41%) MCSE
5 5 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
5 5 (1.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 4 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
6 4 (1.13%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
6 4 (1.13%) JNCIA
6 4 (1.13%) JNCIP
6 4 (1.13%) JNCIS
7 3 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (0.85%) TOGAF Certification
8 2 (0.56%) CISSP
8 2 (0.56%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.56%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (10.99%) HL7
2 21 (5.92%) Data Quality
3 17 (4.79%) Accessibility
4 13 (3.66%) GDPR
5 11 (3.10%) QA
6 10 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (1.97%) PMO
8 6 (1.69%) NCSC
9 5 (1.41%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (1.13%) DICOM
10 4 (1.13%) SNOMED CT
10 4 (1.13%) WCAG
11 3 (0.85%) NIST
12 2 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.56%) GRC
13 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
13 1 (0.28%) SLA
13 1 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 23 (6.48%) Active Directory
2 21 (5.92%) Docker
3 4 (1.13%) Hyper-V
3 4 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.56%) Xen
5 1 (0.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 30 (8.45%) Terraform
2 18 (5.07%) Kubernetes
3 10 (2.82%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.85%) Grafana
5 2 (0.56%) Ansible
5 2 (0.56%) Nessus
5 2 (0.56%) SCCM
5 2 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.28%) Argo
6 1 (0.28%) Packer
Vendors
1 41 (11.55%) Microsoft
2 14 (3.94%) Oracle
3 12 (3.38%) SAP
4 11 (3.10%) Brio
4 11 (3.10%) Cerner
5 6 (1.69%) Cisco
6 5 (1.41%) Juniper
6 5 (1.41%) Palantir
7 4 (1.13%) Databricks
7 4 (1.13%) Splunk
7 4 (1.13%) VMware
8 3 (0.85%) InterSystems
9 2 (0.56%) Cribl.io
9 2 (0.56%) Fortinet
9 2 (0.56%) OneLogin
9 2 (0.56%) Rapid7
9 2 (0.56%) Tenable
10 1 (0.28%) accuRx
10 1 (0.28%) BiZZdesign
10 1 (0.28%) Datix
272 NHS jobs in England