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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 289 344 256
Rank change year-on-year +55 -88 -53
Contract jobs citing NHS 367 163 349
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.83% 0.61% 0.94%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.51% 1.77% 3.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 292 115 220
10th Percentile £227 £202 £164
25th Percentile £359 £260 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £468 £450 £332
Median % change year-on-year +3.94% +35.75% +2.09%
75th Percentile £527 £528 £500
90th Percentile £625 £575 £595
UK median daily rate £451 £425 £350
% change year-on-year +6.00% +21.43% +13.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 11 60
10th Percentile £17.12 £13.08 £11.17
25th Percentile £21.25 £14.87 £12.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £21.25 £13.24
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +60.50% -36.95%
75th Percentile £34.62 £31.73 £19.22
90th Percentile £51.00 £34.15 £25.87
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.79 £12.96
% change year-on-year -5.40% +83.53% -35.20%

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 14,612 9,228 11,422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.93% 34.73% 30.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,072 5,886 7,346
10th Percentile £313 £304 £281
25th Percentile £415 £408 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £660 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £825
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 787 441 822
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.24
25th Percentile £21.08 £18.90 £15.39
Median hourly rate £43.96 £32.89 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.66% -12.29% +36.36%
75th Percentile £71.00 £59.30 £63.75
90th Percentile £87.16 £80.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £30.81 £36.02
% change year-on-year +41.21% -14.48% +38.55%

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 7 July 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 7 July 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 7 July 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 0 144 £475 +7.95% 106
North of England -4 116 £488 +1.30% 91
Yorkshire +3 91 £500 - 51
East of England +6 37 £245 +7.78% 20
North West -29 25 £363 +74.70% 37
South East -75 22 £456 +47.77% 58
South West -21 13 £546 +33.23% 24
Midlands -54 13 £425 +13.33% 31
West Midlands -56 12 £425 +21.43% 19
East Midlands -16 1 - - 12
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 (3.00%) Palantir Foundry
1 11 (3.00%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.36%) Confluence
3 3 (0.82%) CMS
4 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.27%) nginx
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 7 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.09%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.54%) Trello
4 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 7 (1.91%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.27%) Cerner Millennium
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 54 (14.71%) AWS
2 42 (11.44%) Azure
3 25 (6.81%) Serverless
4 20 (5.45%) Amazon S3
4 20 (5.45%) AWS Lambda
5 14 (3.81%) GitHub
5 14 (3.81%) Power Platform
6 12 (3.27%) Amazon EC2
7 11 (3.00%) Microsoft 365
8 10 (2.72%) GitHub Actions
9 7 (1.91%) Azure Data Factory
9 7 (1.91%) GCP
10 6 (1.63%) Amazon SQS
10 6 (1.63%) AWS Step Functions
11 5 (1.36%) Azure DevOps
11 5 (1.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (1.36%) Entra ID
12 4 (1.09%) Adobe Analytics
12 4 (1.09%) Apigee
12 4 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.72%) LAN
1 10 (2.72%) WAN
2 8 (2.18%) DNS
3 6 (1.63%) TCP/IP
4 5 (1.36%) Firewall
5 3 (0.82%) Network Security
5 3 (0.82%) NGFW
5 3 (0.82%) Wireless
6 2 (0.54%) Structured Cabling
7 1 (0.27%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (11.17%) Electronic Patient Records
2 16 (4.36%) Data Warehouse
2 16 (4.36%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.54%) Power BI
4 9 (2.45%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.91%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.63%) Amazon Athena
6 6 (1.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (1.09%) DocumentDB
7 4 (1.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 3 (0.82%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.82%) Data Lake
8 3 (0.82%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (0.82%) OLAP
8 3 (0.82%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.54%) Azure SQL Database
9 2 (0.54%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.54%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.54%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (2.45%) GitLab
2 7 (1.91%) Git
3 5 (1.36%) JIRA
4 3 (0.82%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.27%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.27%) JUnit
5 1 (0.27%) Postman
5 1 (0.27%) Selenium
5 1 (0.27%) SonarQube
General
1 145 (39.51%) Public Sector
2 110 (29.97%) Social Skills
3 31 (8.45%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (5.18%) Digital Health
5 17 (4.63%) Finance
6 15 (4.09%) Organisational Skills
7 12 (3.27%) Local Government
8 11 (3.00%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.91%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.36%) Law
10 5 (1.36%) Legal
10 5 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.09%) Health Technology
11 4 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.09%) Telecoms
12 3 (0.82%) Billing
12 3 (0.82%) Digital Healthcare
12 3 (0.82%) Marketing
12 3 (0.82%) Publishing
13 2 (0.54%) Military
Job Titles
1 38 (10.35%) Analyst
1 38 (10.35%) Architect
2 33 (8.99%) Developer
2 33 (8.99%) Senior
3 24 (6.54%) Lead
4 22 (5.99%) Data Engineer
4 22 (5.99%) Designer
5 19 (5.18%) Project Manager
6 18 (4.90%) Business Analyst
7 16 (4.36%) User Researcher
8 14 (3.81%) Consultant
9 13 (3.54%) Solutions Architect
10 12 (3.27%) Data Architect
11 11 (3.00%) Delivery Manager
12 9 (2.45%) Administrator
12 9 (2.45%) NHS Project Manager
12 9 (2.45%) Senior User Researcher
12 9 (2.45%) Service Designer
13 7 (1.91%) Content Designer
13 7 (1.91%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (7.90%) FHIR
2 11 (3.00%) PySpark
3 9 (2.45%) React
4 8 (2.18%) Node.js
5 7 (1.91%) REST
5 7 (1.91%) RESTful
6 6 (1.63%) .NET
7 4 (1.09%) Middleware
7 4 (1.09%) Playwright
8 3 (0.82%) GeoJSON
8 3 (0.82%) JSON
8 3 (0.82%) Spring
8 3 (0.82%) Spring Boot
9 2 (0.54%) Kafka
9 2 (0.54%) Matplotlib
9 2 (0.54%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.54%) Pandas
9 2 (0.54%) scikit-learn
9 2 (0.54%) XML
9 2 (0.54%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 23 (6.27%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.18%) Onboarding
3 18 (4.90%) Product Ownership
4 7 (1.91%) Data Structures
5 5 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (1.36%) LIMS
5 5 (1.36%) Management Information System
6 4 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.09%) IoT
6 4 (1.09%) Mobile App
6 4 (1.09%) PACS
6 4 (1.09%) Replication
6 4 (1.09%) Security Posture
7 3 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (0.82%) Life Science
8 2 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.54%) Cyber Threat
8 2 (0.54%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (0.54%) Freedom of Information
8 2 (0.54%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.09%) Windows
2 8 (2.18%) Windows Server
3 3 (0.82%) Linux
4 2 (0.54%) Android
4 2 (0.54%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.54%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.27%) CentOS
5 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (29.70%) Agile
2 69 (18.80%) Stakeholder Management
3 50 (13.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 46 (12.53%) CI/CD
5 42 (11.44%) Analytics
6 38 (10.35%) Decision-Making
7 36 (9.81%) User Research
8 35 (9.54%) DevOps
9 33 (8.99%) Continuous Improvement
10 32 (8.72%) Information Governance
10 32 (8.72%) Migration
11 30 (8.17%) Infrastructure as Code
12 28 (7.63%) Problem-Solving
13 27 (7.36%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 27 (7.36%) Validation
14 25 (6.81%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 25 (6.81%) Roadmaps
15 24 (6.54%) Data Protection
15 24 (6.54%) Risk Management
15 24 (6.54%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 39 (10.63%) SQL
2 34 (9.26%) Python
3 15 (4.09%) TypeScript
4 11 (3.00%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.45%) Java
6 7 (1.91%) T-SQL
7 6 (1.63%) C#
8 3 (0.82%) Bicep
9 2 (0.54%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.27%) Bash
10 1 (0.27%) R
Qualifications
1 30 (8.17%) Security Cleared
2 24 (6.54%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.72%) BPSS Clearance
4 17 (4.63%) Degree
5 4 (1.09%) AWS Certification
6 3 (0.82%) JNCIP
6 3 (0.82%) JNCIS
7 2 (0.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.54%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.54%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.54%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (0.27%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.27%) IIBA
8 1 (0.27%) ISEB
8 1 (0.27%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.27%) NVQ Level 3
8 1 (0.27%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.27%) PMP
8 1 (0.27%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (8.72%) HL7
2 24 (6.54%) Accessibility
3 23 (6.27%) Data Quality
4 14 (3.81%) GDPR
4 14 (3.81%) QA
5 12 (3.27%) WCAG
6 8 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (1.91%) PMO
8 5 (1.36%) DICOM
8 5 (1.36%) NCSC
9 4 (1.09%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (1.09%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (1.09%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.54%) NIST
11 1 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.27%) GRC
11 1 (0.27%) IEC 62304
11 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.27%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (3.00%) Docker
2 9 (2.45%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 27 (7.36%) Terraform
2 13 (3.54%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.18%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.54%) Jamf Pro
4 2 (0.54%) Nessus
5 1 (0.27%) Ansible
5 1 (0.27%) Argo
5 1 (0.27%) Puppet
Vendors
1 37 (10.08%) Microsoft
2 18 (4.90%) Palantir
3 15 (4.09%) Foundry
4 11 (3.00%) Databricks
5 9 (2.45%) Oracle
6 8 (2.18%) Brio
7 4 (1.09%) Adobe
7 4 (1.09%) Google
7 4 (1.09%) Splunk
8 3 (0.82%) Cerner
8 3 (0.82%) InterSystems
8 3 (0.82%) Juniper
8 3 (0.82%) Tenable
9 2 (0.54%) Cisco
9 2 (0.54%) Informatica
9 2 (0.54%) OneLogin
9 2 (0.54%) Palo Alto
9 2 (0.54%) Rapid7
9 2 (0.54%) VMware
9 2 (0.54%) Zscaler