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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 309 337 273
Rank change year-on-year +28 -64 -74
Contract jobs citing NHS 354 164 321
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.79% 0.60% 0.89%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.38% 1.73% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 280 114 208
10th Percentile £250 £200 £164
25th Percentile £398 £266 £206
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £344
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% +30.81% +9.47%
75th Percentile £535 £525 £500
90th Percentile £600 £575 £590
UK median daily rate £463 £420 £350
% change year-on-year +10.12% +20.00% +14.01%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 11 49
10th Percentile £18.90 £13.08 £11.08
25th Percentile £21.25 £14.87 £12.25
Median hourly rate £24.61 £21.25 £13.06
Median % change year-on-year +15.81% +62.71% -34.70%
75th Percentile £34.62 £31.73 £22.40
90th Percentile £52.50 £34.15 £27.70
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.79 £13.06
% change year-on-year -5.40% +82.12% -31.91%

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 14,875 9,488 11,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.21% 34.87% 30.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,238 6,018 7,226
10th Percentile £317 £306 £290
25th Percentile £420 £409 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £653 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 798 471 743
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.50
25th Percentile £21.00 £18.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £33.05 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.01% -17.38% +14.29%
75th Percentile £72.50 £61.12 £65.00
90th Percentile £87.97 £80.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £30.25 £37.50
% change year-on-year +45.32% -19.33% +25.00%

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 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 17 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 17 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 +10.47% 86
North of England -11 119 £493 +3.68% 68
Yorkshire +7 93 £500 - 41
North West -35 26 £350 +62.79% 23
East of England -3 22 £262 +15.15% 25
South East -70 22 £450 +28.57% 60
South West -30 13 £546 +33.23% 24
Midlands -54 12 £400 +14.29% 34
West Midlands -55 11 £400 +39.37% 23
East Midlands -15 1 - - 11
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 (3.11%) Palantir Foundry
2 9 (2.54%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.41%) Confluence
4 3 (0.85%) CMS
5 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.28%) nginx
6 1 (0.28%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.41%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.13%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.56%) Trello
4 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.69%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.56%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.28%) Cerner Millennium
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 53 (14.97%) AWS
2 40 (11.30%) Azure
3 24 (6.78%) Serverless
4 19 (5.37%) Amazon S3
4 19 (5.37%) AWS Lambda
5 14 (3.95%) Power Platform
6 13 (3.67%) GitHub
7 11 (3.11%) Amazon EC2
8 9 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
9 8 (2.26%) Microsoft 365
10 7 (1.98%) Azure Data Factory
11 6 (1.69%) Amazon SQS
11 6 (1.69%) AWS Step Functions
12 5 (1.41%) Adobe Analytics
12 5 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (1.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 5 (1.41%) Entra ID
12 5 (1.41%) GCP
13 4 (1.13%) Amazon ECR
13 4 (1.13%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.11%) LAN
1 11 (3.11%) WAN
2 8 (2.26%) DNS
3 6 (1.69%) Firewall
3 6 (1.69%) TCP/IP
4 5 (1.41%) NGFW
5 4 (1.13%) Structured Cabling
5 4 (1.13%) Wireless
6 1 (0.28%) DHCP
6 1 (0.28%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (11.02%) Electronic Patient Records
2 16 (4.52%) SQL Server
3 15 (4.24%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (3.67%) Power BI
5 8 (2.26%) Amazon RDS
6 7 (1.98%) DynamoDB
7 6 (1.69%) Amazon Athena
7 6 (1.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (1.13%) DocumentDB
8 4 (1.13%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.85%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.85%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.85%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.85%) OLAP
9 3 (0.85%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.56%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.56%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 2 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.56%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 8 (2.26%) Git
1 8 (2.26%) GitLab
2 5 (1.41%) JIRA
3 2 (0.56%) Cypress.io
3 2 (0.56%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.28%) JUnit
4 1 (0.28%) Postman
4 1 (0.28%) Selenium
4 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
General
1 142 (40.11%) Public Sector
2 103 (29.10%) Social Skills
3 31 (8.76%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (4.80%) Digital Health
4 17 (4.80%) Finance
5 12 (3.39%) Local Government
6 11 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
6 11 (3.11%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.41%) Pharmaceutical
9 4 (1.13%) Health Technology
9 4 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.13%) Law
9 4 (1.13%) Legal
10 3 (0.85%) Billing
10 3 (0.85%) Digital Healthcare
10 3 (0.85%) Marketing
10 3 (0.85%) Publishing
11 2 (0.56%) Military
11 2 (0.56%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 37 (10.45%) Analyst
1 37 (10.45%) Senior
2 36 (10.17%) Architect
3 33 (9.32%) Developer
4 22 (6.21%) Data Engineer
4 22 (6.21%) Designer
4 22 (6.21%) Lead
5 18 (5.08%) Business Analyst
6 17 (4.80%) Project Manager
7 16 (4.52%) User Researcher
8 15 (4.24%) Consultant
9 13 (3.67%) Solutions Architect
10 12 (3.39%) Delivery Manager
11 11 (3.11%) Data Architect
12 9 (2.54%) Administrator
12 9 (2.54%) NHS Project Manager
12 9 (2.54%) Senior User Researcher
12 9 (2.54%) Service Designer
13 8 (2.26%) AWS Engineer
14 7 (1.98%) Performance Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (7.34%) FHIR
2 11 (3.11%) PySpark
3 9 (2.54%) React
4 8 (2.26%) Node.js
4 8 (2.26%) RESTful
5 7 (1.98%) REST
6 5 (1.41%) .NET
6 5 (1.41%) Playwright
7 4 (1.13%) Middleware
8 3 (0.85%) GeoJSON
8 3 (0.85%) JSON
8 3 (0.85%) Spring
8 3 (0.85%) Spring Boot
8 3 (0.85%) Vue
9 2 (0.56%) .NET Core
9 2 (0.56%) ASP.NET Core
9 2 (0.56%) Matplotlib
9 2 (0.56%) Next.js
9 2 (0.56%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.56%) Polars
Miscellaneous
1 23 (6.50%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.37%) Onboarding
3 17 (4.80%) Product Ownership
4 7 (1.98%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.69%) IoT
6 5 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.41%) LIMS
6 5 (1.41%) Management Information System
7 4 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.13%) Driving Licence
7 4 (1.13%) Mobile App
7 4 (1.13%) PACS
7 4 (1.13%) Replication
7 4 (1.13%) Security Posture
8 3 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.56%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.56%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.56%) Life Science
9 2 (0.56%) Virtual Team
10 1 (0.28%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.24%) Windows
2 8 (2.26%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.56%) Android
3 2 (0.56%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.56%) Linux
3 2 (0.56%) Mac OS
4 1 (0.28%) CentOS
4 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (31.64%) Agile
2 70 (19.77%) Stakeholder Management
3 49 (13.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 44 (12.43%) CI/CD
5 39 (11.02%) Analytics
6 37 (10.45%) Decision-Making
7 36 (10.17%) User Research
8 35 (9.89%) Continuous Improvement
8 35 (9.89%) DevOps
9 31 (8.76%) Problem-Solving
10 30 (8.47%) Infrastructure as Code
10 30 (8.47%) Migration
11 28 (7.91%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 26 (7.34%) Information Governance
12 26 (7.34%) Validation
13 25 (7.06%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 25 (7.06%) Roadmaps
14 24 (6.78%) Service Design
15 23 (6.50%) ETL
15 23 (6.50%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 39 (11.02%) SQL
2 35 (9.89%) Python
3 15 (4.24%) TypeScript
4 12 (3.39%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.54%) Java
6 7 (1.98%) T-SQL
7 6 (1.69%) C#
8 3 (0.85%) Bicep
9 2 (0.56%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.28%) Bash
10 1 (0.28%) R
Qualifications
1 30 (8.47%) Security Cleared
2 25 (7.06%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.93%) BPSS Clearance
4 14 (3.95%) Degree
5 4 (1.13%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.13%) JNCIP
5 4 (1.13%) JNCIS
6 2 (0.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (0.56%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 1 (0.28%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.28%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.28%) IIBA
7 1 (0.28%) NVQ Level 3
7 1 (0.28%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.28%) PMP
7 1 (0.28%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (8.47%) HL7
2 25 (7.06%) Accessibility
3 22 (6.21%) Data Quality
4 14 (3.95%) QA
5 13 (3.67%) GDPR
5 13 (3.67%) WCAG
6 9 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (2.26%) PMO
8 5 (1.41%) DICOM
9 4 (1.13%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (1.13%) SNOMED CT
10 3 (0.85%) NCSC
11 2 (0.56%) NIST
12 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
12 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.28%) GRC
12 1 (0.28%) IEC 62304
12 1 (0.28%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 11 (3.11%) Docker
2 9 (2.54%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (7.91%) Terraform
2 11 (3.11%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.56%) Jamf Pro
4 2 (0.56%) Nessus
5 1 (0.28%) Ansible
5 1 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 34 (9.60%) Microsoft
2 18 (5.08%) Palantir
3 15 (4.24%) Foundry
4 11 (3.11%) Databricks
5 8 (2.26%) Brio
5 8 (2.26%) Oracle
6 5 (1.41%) Adobe
7 4 (1.13%) Google
7 4 (1.13%) Juniper
7 4 (1.13%) Palo Alto
7 4 (1.13%) Splunk
8 3 (0.85%) InterSystems
8 3 (0.85%) Tenable
9 2 (0.56%) Cerner
9 2 (0.56%) Cisco
9 2 (0.56%) Informatica
9 2 (0.56%) OneLogin
9 2 (0.56%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.56%) VMware
9 2 (0.56%) Zscaler