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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 335 339 300
Rank change year-on-year +4 -39 -81
Contract jobs citing NHS 340 175 226
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.73% 0.63% 0.70%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.13% 1.74% 2.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 120 136
10th Percentile £219 £160 £166
25th Percentile £322 £322 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £455 £350
Median % change year-on-year +1.04% +30.00% +9.38%
75th Percentile £513 £550 £525
90th Percentile £588 £600 £650
UK median daily rate £450 £425 £350
% change year-on-year +5.88% +21.43% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 8 16
10th Percentile £14.05 £15.50 £15.71
25th Percentile £16.83 £19.81 £17.11
Median hourly rate £20.00 £24.40 £21.70
Median % change year-on-year -18.03% +12.47% +8.48%
75th Percentile £28.51 £30.31 £24.51
90th Percentile £33.60 £31.34 £27.81
UK median hourly rate £18.60 £21.30 £22.40
% change year-on-year -12.68% -4.91% +12.00%

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 15,933 10,040 9,926
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.23% 36.18% 30.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,602 6,300 6,006
10th Percentile £325 £300 £294
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £535
% change year-on-year +0.96% -2.80% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,124 510 375
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.13 £15.55
25th Percentile £17.85 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £35.00 £30.05 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +16.46% -47.60% +25.00%
75th Percentile £68.11 £56.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.81 £73.88 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £29.27 £50.00
% change year-on-year +22.99% -41.46% +11.73%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 -7 147 £475 +11.76% 331
North of England -29 114 £454 -9.20% 258
Yorkshire -1 85 £475 -5.00% 112
North West -37 27 £350 -11.39% 124
East of England -14 26 £170 -33.24% 95
South East -53 20 £425 +21.43% 146
Midlands -30 15 £450 +20.00% 143
West Midlands -39 11 £459 +31.14% 85
South West -35 6 £474 +113.40% 98
East Midlands -15 4 £350 -12.50% 58
North East -38 2 - - 26
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 (2.94%) Palantir Foundry
2 3 (0.88%) Confluence
2 3 (0.88%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (0.29%) nginx
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 8 (2.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.06%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.88%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (1.18%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.59%) Cerner Millennium
2 2 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.59%) Lorenzo
2 2 (0.59%) Oracle Assets
2 2 (0.59%) Oracle General Ledger
2 2 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.59%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.29%) SAP HCM
3 1 (0.29%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 55 (16.18%) AWS
2 42 (12.35%) Azure
3 27 (7.94%) Serverless
4 21 (6.18%) Amazon S3
5 19 (5.59%) Power Platform
6 18 (5.29%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (4.12%) Microsoft 365
8 13 (3.82%) GitHub
9 12 (3.53%) Amazon EC2
10 10 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (2.06%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.76%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (1.76%) Azure Functions
12 6 (1.76%) Azure Key Vault
12 6 (1.76%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 5 (1.47%) Adobe Analytics
13 5 (1.47%) AWS Step Functions
13 5 (1.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.35%) Firewall
1 8 (2.35%) LAN
1 8 (2.35%) WAN
2 6 (1.76%) Network Security
3 4 (1.18%) NGFW
3 4 (1.18%) Structured Cabling
3 4 (1.18%) Wireless
4 3 (0.88%) DNS
5 1 (0.29%) DHCP
5 1 (0.29%) HTTP
5 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.29%) VPN
5 1 (0.29%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (5.59%) Electronic Patient Records
2 17 (5.00%) Data Warehouse
3 16 (4.71%) Power BI
4 10 (2.94%) Amazon RDS
5 9 (2.65%) SQL Server
6 7 (2.06%) DynamoDB
7 6 (1.76%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.18%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.88%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.88%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.88%) OLAP
9 3 (0.88%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.88%) Tableau
10 2 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.59%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.59%) DocumentDB
10 2 (0.59%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 2 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
11 1 (0.29%) Data Mart
Development Applications
1 9 (2.65%) Git
2 5 (1.47%) JIRA
3 4 (1.18%) GitLab
3 4 (1.18%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.29%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.29%) JMeter
4 1 (0.29%) Postman
4 1 (0.29%) Rational Rhapsody
4 1 (0.29%) Selenium
4 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 132 (38.82%) Public Sector
2 125 (36.76%) Social Skills
3 31 (9.12%) Finance
4 28 (8.24%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (3.82%) Local Government
6 11 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (2.94%) Digital Health
8 9 (2.65%) Organisational Skills
9 7 (2.06%) Digital Healthcare
10 6 (1.76%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.88%) Billing
12 3 (0.88%) General Ledger
12 3 (0.88%) Health Technology
12 3 (0.88%) Legal
12 3 (0.88%) Marketing
12 3 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.88%) Social Housing
13 2 (0.59%) Banking
Job Titles
1 41 (12.06%) Developer
2 36 (10.59%) Analyst
2 36 (10.59%) Senior
3 26 (7.65%) Architect
4 20 (5.88%) Project Manager
5 19 (5.59%) Designer
5 19 (5.59%) Lead
6 18 (5.29%) Data Engineer
7 15 (4.41%) Business Analyst
8 11 (3.24%) Service Designer
9 10 (2.94%) Consultant
9 10 (2.94%) Data Architect
10 9 (2.65%) Administrator
10 9 (2.65%) Delivery Manager
10 9 (2.65%) User Researcher
11 8 (2.35%) Python Developer
12 7 (2.06%) Data Warehouse Developer
12 7 (2.06%) Performance Analyst
12 7 (2.06%) Service Analyst
12 7 (2.06%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (9.41%) Terraform
2 16 (4.71%) FHIR
3 13 (3.82%) REST
4 11 (3.24%) PySpark
5 10 (2.94%) RESTful
6 8 (2.35%) React
7 7 (2.06%) Node.js
8 6 (1.76%) CSS
8 6 (1.76%) HTML
9 5 (1.47%) OpenID
9 5 (1.47%) Vue
10 4 (1.18%) .NET
10 4 (1.18%) ARM Templates
10 4 (1.18%) Django
10 4 (1.18%) JSON
10 4 (1.18%) OAuth
10 4 (1.18%) OAuth2
10 4 (1.18%) Playwright
11 3 (0.88%) Flask
11 3 (0.88%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.47%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.59%) Product Ownership
3 13 (3.82%) Onboarding
4 10 (2.94%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.65%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.76%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.76%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.47%) IoT
9 4 (1.18%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.88%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.88%) Freedom of Information
10 3 (0.88%) LIMS
10 3 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
11 2 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.59%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (0.59%) Greenfield Project
11 2 (0.59%) Housing Association
11 2 (0.59%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.94%) Windows
2 5 (1.47%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.18%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.59%) Android
4 2 (0.59%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.29%) CentOS
5 1 (0.29%) Linux
5 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.29%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (30.29%) Agile
2 90 (26.47%) Stakeholder Management
3 53 (15.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 51 (15.00%) Problem-Solving
5 50 (14.71%) CI/CD
6 44 (12.94%) Continuous Improvement
7 39 (11.47%) Decision-Making
8 38 (11.18%) AI
9 37 (10.88%) Analytics
9 37 (10.88%) Infrastructure as Code
10 35 (10.29%) DevOps
11 33 (9.71%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 31 (9.12%) Migration
13 30 (8.82%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 28 (8.24%) Data Protection
14 28 (8.24%) Validation
15 27 (7.94%) Information Governance
16 26 (7.65%) Workshop Facilitation
17 23 (6.76%) Data Pipeline
17 23 (6.76%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 37 (10.88%) SQL
2 34 (10.00%) Python
3 15 (4.41%) JavaScript
3 15 (4.41%) TypeScript
4 7 (2.06%) Java
5 6 (1.76%) C#
6 5 (1.47%) Bicep
6 5 (1.47%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.18%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.59%) Bash
8 2 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 26 (7.65%) Security Cleared
2 20 (5.88%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.29%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (2.65%) Degree
5 4 (1.18%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.18%) JNCIP
5 4 (1.18%) JNCIS
5 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (0.88%) Azure Certification
6 3 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (0.59%) AAT
7 2 (0.59%) ACCA
7 2 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.59%) CIMA
7 2 (0.59%) CISSP
8 1 (0.29%) CRISC
8 1 (0.29%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.29%) NVQ Level 3
8 1 (0.29%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.76%) Accessibility
1 23 (6.76%) Data Quality
2 22 (6.47%) QA
3 20 (5.88%) GDPR
4 15 (4.41%) HL7
5 14 (4.12%) WCAG
6 10 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.18%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (1.18%) NCSC
7 4 (1.18%) PMO
8 3 (0.88%) IEC 62304
8 3 (0.88%) SNOMED CT
9 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.59%) ISO 13485
10 1 (0.29%) DICOM
10 1 (0.29%) GRC
10 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.29%) NIST
10 1 (0.29%) SLA
System Software
1 13 (3.82%) Docker
2 10 (2.94%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.29%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (3.53%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.59%) Grafana
2 2 (0.59%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.29%) Ansible
3 1 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 48 (14.12%) Microsoft
2 16 (4.71%) Palantir
3 14 (4.12%) Foundry
4 11 (3.24%) Databricks
4 11 (3.24%) ServiceNow
5 10 (2.94%) Oracle
6 8 (2.35%) Cerner
7 7 (2.06%) Brio
8 5 (1.47%) Adobe
8 5 (1.47%) Splunk
8 5 (1.47%) VMware
9 4 (1.18%) Juniper
9 4 (1.18%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.88%) Cisco
10 3 (0.88%) Citrix
10 3 (0.88%) Google
11 2 (0.59%) BMC
11 2 (0.59%) MEDITECH
11 2 (0.59%) Meraki
11 2 (0.59%) SAP
1,076 NHS jobs in England