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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 326 357 307
Rank change year-on-year +31 -50 -90
Contract jobs citing NHS 333 157 239
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.73% 0.56% 0.72%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.17% 1.59% 2.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 260 112 160
10th Percentile £283 £208 £174
25th Percentile £392 £322 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £468 £350
Median % change year-on-year +1.60% +33.57% +9.38%
75th Percentile £538 £541 £507
90th Percentile £621 £593 £609
UK median daily rate £464 £450 £350
% change year-on-year +3.00% +28.57% +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 15,313 9,854 10,215
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.51% 35.45% 30.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,390 6,209 6,628
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 £682
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 915 498 528
10th Percentile £14.97 £15.48 £12.68
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £31.18 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +36.31% -34.36% +11.76%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £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% +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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +6 145 £495 +10.00% 122
North of England -14 110 £475 -5.00% 159
Yorkshire +6 84 £500 - 69
North West -26 24 £350 +62.79% 69
South East -61 20 £456 +14.06% 96
East of England -15 12 £223 -1.90% 65
South West -31 12 £546 +33.23% 84
Midlands -41 12 £400 +14.29% 99
West Midlands -48 9 £450 +56.79% 58
East Midlands -15 3 £300 -25.00% 41
North East -41 2 - - 24
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 (3.30%) Palantir Foundry
2 5 (1.50%) Confluence
3 4 (1.20%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.60%) CMS
4 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.30%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.30%) nginx
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 4 (1.20%) Spreadsheet
2 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.60%) Trello
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (1.20%) 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 56 (16.82%) AWS
2 49 (14.71%) Azure
3 27 (8.11%) Serverless
4 19 (5.71%) Amazon S3
5 18 (5.41%) AWS Lambda
6 15 (4.50%) GitHub
7 14 (4.20%) Power Platform
8 11 (3.30%) Amazon EC2
8 11 (3.30%) GitHub Actions
9 8 (2.40%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
10 7 (2.10%) Entra ID
11 6 (1.80%) AWS Step Functions
11 6 (1.80%) Azure Data Factory
11 6 (1.80%) Azure Functions
11 6 (1.80%) Azure Key Vault
12 5 (1.50%) Adobe Analytics
12 5 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 5 (1.50%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 4 (1.20%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.40%) Firewall
2 7 (2.10%) LAN
2 7 (2.10%) WAN
3 5 (1.50%) Network Security
3 5 (1.50%) NGFW
4 4 (1.20%) Structured Cabling
4 4 (1.20%) 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 35 (10.51%) Electronic Patient Records
2 14 (4.20%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (3.90%) SQL Server
4 11 (3.30%) Power BI
5 8 (2.40%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (2.40%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.80%) Amazon Athena
7 4 (1.20%) 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 (3.30%) Git
2 6 (1.80%) GitLab
2 6 (1.80%) JIRA
3 3 (0.90%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.60%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.30%) Postman
5 1 (0.30%) Selenium
5 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
General
1 135 (40.54%) Public Sector
2 105 (31.53%) Social Skills
3 26 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.61%) Finance
5 15 (4.50%) Digital Health
6 13 (3.90%) Local Government
7 10 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.10%) Digital Healthcare
8 7 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (1.80%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.20%) Health Technology
10 4 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.20%) Law
10 4 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.90%) Billing
11 3 (0.90%) Legal
11 3 (0.90%) Marketing
11 3 (0.90%) Social Housing
12 2 (0.60%) Military
12 2 (0.60%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 41 (12.31%) Developer
1 41 (12.31%) Senior
2 33 (9.91%) Architect
3 26 (7.81%) Analyst
4 22 (6.61%) Designer
5 21 (6.31%) Lead
6 20 (6.01%) Data Engineer
7 15 (4.50%) Business Analyst
7 15 (4.50%) Project Manager
7 15 (4.50%) User Researcher
8 13 (3.90%) Delivery Manager
9 12 (3.60%) Consultant
10 11 (3.30%) Data Architect
10 11 (3.30%) Service Designer
10 11 (3.30%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (2.70%) Python Developer
12 8 (2.40%) Full-Stack Developer
12 8 (2.40%) Senior User Researcher
13 7 (2.10%) NHS Project Manager
13 7 (2.10%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (7.51%) FHIR
2 13 (3.90%) REST
3 11 (3.30%) PySpark
4 9 (2.70%) React
4 9 (2.70%) RESTful
5 6 (1.80%) Node.js
5 6 (1.80%) Vue
6 5 (1.50%) .NET
6 5 (1.50%) CSS
6 5 (1.50%) HTML
6 5 (1.50%) OpenID
6 5 (1.50%) Playwright
7 4 (1.20%) ARM Templates
7 4 (1.20%) JSON
7 4 (1.20%) OAuth
7 4 (1.20%) OAuth2
8 3 (0.90%) Flask
8 3 (0.90%) XML
9 2 (0.60%) Middleware
9 2 (0.60%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 26 (7.81%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.71%) Product Ownership
3 17 (5.11%) Onboarding
4 7 (2.10%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.80%) IoT
5 6 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (1.80%) Management Information System
5 6 (1.80%) Security Posture
6 5 (1.50%) Driving Licence
7 4 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.20%) LIMS
7 4 (1.20%) Mobile App
7 4 (1.20%) Replication
8 3 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (0.90%) Cloud Security Posture
8 3 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.60%) CMDB
9 2 (0.60%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.60%) Housing Association
9 2 (0.60%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 6 (1.80%) Windows
2 4 (1.20%) 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
1 118 (35.44%) Agile
2 71 (21.32%) Stakeholder Management
3 56 (16.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 51 (15.32%) CI/CD
5 42 (12.61%) Analytics
5 42 (12.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 38 (11.41%) Problem-Solving
7 36 (10.81%) Infrastructure as Code
8 35 (10.51%) DevOps
9 34 (10.21%) Decision-Making
9 34 (10.21%) User Research
10 33 (9.91%) Migration
11 32 (9.61%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 31 (9.31%) AI
13 29 (8.71%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 28 (8.41%) Validation
15 25 (7.51%) Workshop Facilitation
16 24 (7.21%) Service Design
17 23 (6.91%) Data Protection
18 22 (6.61%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 36 (10.81%) Python
2 35 (10.51%) SQL
3 16 (4.80%) JavaScript
4 15 (4.50%) TypeScript
5 8 (2.40%) C#
5 8 (2.40%) Java
6 5 (1.50%) Bicep
6 5 (1.50%) PowerShell
6 5 (1.50%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.60%) Bash
8 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 33 (9.91%) Security Cleared
2 27 (8.11%) SC Cleared
3 19 (5.71%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (2.10%) Degree
5 5 (1.50%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.20%) JNCIP
6 4 (1.20%) JNCIS
6 4 (1.20%) 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
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 26 (7.81%) HL7
2 22 (6.61%) Accessibility
2 22 (6.61%) Data Quality
3 19 (5.71%) QA
4 18 (5.41%) GDPR
5 15 (4.50%) WCAG
6 12 (3.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.80%) SNOMED CT
8 5 (1.50%) NCSC
8 5 (1.50%) PMO
9 4 (1.20%) DICOM
10 3 (0.90%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.90%) IEC 62304
11 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.60%) 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 (4.20%) Docker
2 7 (2.10%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 34 (10.21%) Terraform
2 12 (3.60%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
3 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.30%) Ansible
4 1 (0.30%) Grafana
4 1 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 37 (11.11%) Microsoft
2 18 (5.41%) Palantir
3 15 (4.50%) Foundry
4 11 (3.30%) Databricks
5 10 (3.00%) ServiceNow
6 8 (2.40%) Brio
7 7 (2.10%) Oracle
8 5 (1.50%) Adobe
8 5 (1.50%) VMware
9 4 (1.20%) Google
9 4 (1.20%) Juniper
9 4 (1.20%) Palo Alto
9 4 (1.20%) Splunk
10 3 (0.90%) Cerner
10 3 (0.90%) Cisco
10 3 (0.90%) InterSystems
11 2 (0.60%) BMC
11 2 (0.60%) Citrix
11 2 (0.60%) MEDITECH
11 2 (0.60%) Zscaler
600 NHS jobs in England