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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 307 341 252
Rank change year-on-year +34 -89 -48
Contract jobs citing NHS 365 166 334
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.81% 0.61% 0.91%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.46% 1.75% 2.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 293 116 214
10th Percentile £237 £200 £167
25th Percentile £363 £272 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £344
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% +30.81% +5.85%
75th Percentile £530 £526 £500
90th Percentile £624 £575 £593
UK median daily rate £460 £425 £350
% change year-on-year +8.24% +21.43% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 11 55
10th Percentile £18.90 £13.08 £10.75
25th Percentile £21.25 £14.87 £12.13
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 £21.15
90th Percentile £52.50 £34.15 £26.08
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.79 £12.96
% change year-on-year -5.40% +83.53% -32.43%

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 14,822 9,485 11,314
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.06% 34.76% 30.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,215 6,041 7,273
10th Percentile £316 £305 £288
25th Percentile £419 £408 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -0.24%
75th Percentile £638 £656 £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 794 462 790
10th Percentile £16.01 £15.50 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.14 £18.92 £15.62
Median hourly rate £43.96 £33.05 £39.25
Median % change year-on-year +33.01% -15.80% +22.66%
75th Percentile £71.87 £61.68 £63.75
90th Percentile £87.82 £80.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £31.50 £36.50
% change year-on-year +39.58% -13.71% +32.25%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +15 146 £475 +10.47% 141
North of England -15 118 £498 +4.74% 86
Yorkshire -2 94 £500 - 48
East of England +6 31 £246 +8.22% 21
North West -41 24 £350 +62.79% 28
South East -80 22 £450 +34.83% 62
South West -20 13 £546 +33.23% 35
Midlands -46 13 £425 +13.33% 45
West Midlands -61 12 £425 +21.43% 24
East Midlands -15 1 - - 21
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 (3.01%) Palantir Foundry
2 10 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 5 (1.37%) Confluence
4 3 (0.82%) CMS
5 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.27%) nginx
6 1 (0.27%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 7 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
1 7 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.10%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.55%) Trello
4 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.64%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.55%) 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 56 (15.34%) AWS
2 42 (11.51%) Azure
3 25 (6.85%) Serverless
4 20 (5.48%) Amazon S3
4 20 (5.48%) AWS Lambda
5 14 (3.84%) GitHub
5 14 (3.84%) Power Platform
6 12 (3.29%) Amazon EC2
7 10 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
7 10 (2.74%) Microsoft 365
8 7 (1.92%) Azure Data Factory
8 7 (1.92%) GCP
9 6 (1.64%) Amazon SQS
9 6 (1.64%) AWS Step Functions
10 5 (1.37%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (1.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 5 (1.37%) Entra ID
11 4 (1.10%) Apigee
11 4 (1.10%) Azure Functions
11 4 (1.10%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 11 (3.01%) LAN
1 11 (3.01%) WAN
2 8 (2.19%) DNS
3 6 (1.64%) Firewall
3 6 (1.64%) TCP/IP
4 5 (1.37%) NGFW
5 4 (1.10%) Structured Cabling
5 4 (1.10%) Wireless
6 3 (0.82%) Network Security
7 1 (0.27%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (11.23%) Electronic Patient Records
2 16 (4.38%) Data Warehouse
2 16 (4.38%) SQL Server
3 13 (3.56%) Power BI
4 9 (2.47%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.92%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.64%) Amazon Athena
6 6 (1.64%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (1.10%) DocumentDB
7 4 (1.10%) 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 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.55%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.55%) Oracle BI Publisher
9 2 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
9 2 (0.55%) QlikView
Development Applications
1 9 (2.47%) GitLab
2 7 (1.92%) Git
3 5 (1.37%) 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
1 144 (39.45%) Public Sector
2 110 (30.14%) Social Skills
3 31 (8.49%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (5.21%) Digital Health
5 17 (4.66%) Finance
6 15 (4.11%) Organisational Skills
7 12 (3.29%) Local Government
8 11 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.37%) Law
10 5 (1.37%) Legal
10 5 (1.37%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.10%) Health Technology
11 4 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.10%) Telecoms
12 3 (0.82%) Billing
12 3 (0.82%) Digital Healthcare
12 3 (0.82%) Marketing
12 3 (0.82%) Publishing
13 2 (0.55%) Military
Job Titles
1 38 (10.41%) Architect
2 37 (10.14%) Analyst
3 35 (9.59%) Senior
4 33 (9.04%) Developer
5 25 (6.85%) Lead
6 22 (6.03%) Data Engineer
6 22 (6.03%) Designer
7 18 (4.93%) Business Analyst
8 17 (4.66%) Project Manager
9 16 (4.38%) User Researcher
10 15 (4.11%) Consultant
11 13 (3.56%) Solutions Architect
12 12 (3.29%) Data Architect
13 11 (3.01%) Delivery Manager
14 9 (2.47%) Administrator
14 9 (2.47%) NHS Project Manager
14 9 (2.47%) Senior User Researcher
14 9 (2.47%) Service Designer
15 8 (2.19%) AWS Engineer
15 8 (2.19%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (7.95%) FHIR
2 11 (3.01%) PySpark
3 9 (2.47%) React
4 8 (2.19%) Node.js
5 7 (1.92%) REST
5 7 (1.92%) RESTful
6 6 (1.64%) .NET
7 4 (1.10%) Middleware
7 4 (1.10%) Playwright
8 3 (0.82%) GeoJSON
8 3 (0.82%) JSON
8 3 (0.82%) Spring
8 3 (0.82%) Spring Boot
9 2 (0.55%) ASP.NET
9 2 (0.55%) Kafka
9 2 (0.55%) Matplotlib
9 2 (0.55%) Oracle Fusion
9 2 (0.55%) Pandas
9 2 (0.55%) XML
9 2 (0.55%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 25 (6.85%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.21%) Onboarding
3 18 (4.93%) Product Ownership
4 7 (1.92%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.64%) IoT
6 5 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.37%) LIMS
6 5 (1.37%) Management Information System
7 4 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.10%) Driving Licence
7 4 (1.10%) Mobile App
7 4 (1.10%) PACS
7 4 (1.10%) Replication
7 4 (1.10%) Security Posture
8 3 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
8 3 (0.82%) Life Science
9 2 (0.55%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (0.55%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.55%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.55%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.11%) Windows
2 8 (2.19%) Windows Server
3 3 (0.82%) Linux
4 2 (0.55%) Android
4 2 (0.55%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.55%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.27%) CentOS
5 1 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (30.14%) Agile
2 70 (19.18%) Stakeholder Management
3 50 (13.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 46 (12.60%) CI/CD
5 43 (11.78%) Analytics
6 38 (10.41%) Decision-Making
7 36 (9.86%) User Research
8 35 (9.59%) DevOps
9 33 (9.04%) Continuous Improvement
9 33 (9.04%) Migration
10 32 (8.77%) Infrastructure as Code
11 30 (8.22%) Information Governance
11 30 (8.22%) Problem-Solving
12 27 (7.40%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
12 27 (7.40%) Validation
13 25 (6.85%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 25 (6.85%) Roadmaps
14 24 (6.58%) Data Protection
14 24 (6.58%) Service Design
15 23 (6.30%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 39 (10.68%) SQL
2 36 (9.86%) Python
3 15 (4.11%) TypeScript
4 11 (3.01%) JavaScript
5 9 (2.47%) Java
6 7 (1.92%) T-SQL
7 6 (1.64%) C#
8 3 (0.82%) Bicep
9 2 (0.55%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.27%) Bash
10 1 (0.27%) R
Qualifications
1 30 (8.22%) Security Cleared
2 25 (6.85%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.75%) BPSS Clearance
4 17 (4.66%) Degree
5 4 (1.10%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.10%) JNCIP
5 4 (1.10%) JNCIS
6 2 (0.55%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 2 (0.55%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.55%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
7 1 (0.27%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.27%) CCNA
7 1 (0.27%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.27%) IIBA
7 1 (0.27%) ISEB
7 1 (0.27%) NVQ Level 3
7 1 (0.27%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.27%) PMP
7 1 (0.27%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (8.77%) HL7
2 24 (6.58%) Accessibility
3 23 (6.30%) Data Quality
4 14 (3.84%) GDPR
4 14 (3.84%) QA
5 12 (3.29%) WCAG
6 10 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 8 (2.19%) PMO
8 5 (1.37%) DICOM
8 5 (1.37%) NCSC
9 4 (1.10%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (1.10%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.55%) 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 (3.01%) Docker
2 9 (2.47%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.27%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 29 (7.95%) Terraform
2 13 (3.56%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.55%) Jamf Pro
4 2 (0.55%) Nessus
5 1 (0.27%) Ansible
5 1 (0.27%) Argo
5 1 (0.27%) Puppet
Vendors
1 37 (10.14%) Microsoft
2 18 (4.93%) Palantir
3 15 (4.11%) Foundry
4 11 (3.01%) Databricks
5 9 (2.47%) Oracle
6 8 (2.19%) Brio
7 4 (1.10%) Adobe
7 4 (1.10%) Google
7 4 (1.10%) Juniper
7 4 (1.10%) Palo Alto
7 4 (1.10%) Splunk
8 3 (0.82%) Cerner
8 3 (0.82%) InterSystems
8 3 (0.82%) Tenable
9 2 (0.55%) Cisco
9 2 (0.55%) Informatica
9 2 (0.55%) OneLogin
9 2 (0.55%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.55%) VMware
9 2 (0.55%) Zscaler