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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 274 201
Rank change year-on-year -2 -73 -26
Contract jobs citing NHS 323 223 447
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.91% 0.87% 1.18%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.70% 2.61% 3.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 135 310
10th Percentile £211 £163 £163
25th Percentile £313 £205 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £425 £350 £278
Median % change year-on-year +21.43% +26.13% -3.48%
75th Percentile £510 £488 £408
90th Percentile £600 £558 £538
UK median daily rate £425 £360 £290
% change year-on-year +18.06% +24.14% +0.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 21 74
10th Percentile £6.00 £13.08 £11.39
25th Percentile £15.50 £16.67 £12.86
Median hourly rate £16.00 £23.60 £15.99
Median % change year-on-year -32.20% +47.64% -26.88%
75th Percentile £23.75 £33.75 £23.31
90th Percentile £24.75 - £36.51
UK median hourly rate £16.00 £23.80 £15.80
% change year-on-year -32.77% +50.61% -25.65%

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 11,982 8,540 11,760
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.84% 33.45% 30.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,622 5,321 7,684
10th Percentile £288 £275 £256
25th Percentile £410 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £545 £545
Median % change year-on-year -5.96% - -5.22%
75th Percentile £626 £670 £656
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £527
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.28% -4.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 592 271 772
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.95 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £23.60 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £35.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year -5.63% +17.71% +34.04%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £79.82 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +3.08% +8.33% +33.42%

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 1 March 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 1 March 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 1 March 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 -13 105 £413 +25.00% 56
North of England -25 93 £500 +26.58% 88
Yorkshire -23 75 £500 +9.89% 49
East of England +25 61 £278 +2.78% 41
South East -46 27 £400 +44.14% 89
Midlands -65 16 £400 -20.00% 68
North West -51 13 £450 +28.57% 27
West Midlands -61 13 £400 -2.44% 38
South West -24 5 £488 +62.50% 42
North East - 5 £400 - 14
East Midlands -25 3 £338 -53.45% 28
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 (3.10%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.86%) Confluence
3 3 (0.93%) CMS
4 2 (0.62%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
5 1 (0.31%) Umbraco
Applications
1 17 (5.26%) Microsoft Office
2 10 (3.10%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (1.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.55%) Spreadsheet
4 4 (1.24%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.31%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (3.72%) SystmOne
2 3 (0.93%) Lorenzo
3 2 (0.62%) Cerner Millennium
3 2 (0.62%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.31%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 45 (13.93%) Azure
2 41 (12.69%) AWS
3 17 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (4.95%) Serverless
5 14 (4.33%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (4.33%) GitHub
6 12 (3.72%) AWS Lambda
7 11 (3.41%) Amazon S3
8 10 (3.10%) GCP
9 9 (2.79%) Power Platform
10 8 (2.48%) Entra ID
10 8 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (2.17%) Amazon EC2
11 7 (2.17%) Amazon ECS
12 6 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
13 4 (1.24%) Amazon EKS
14 3 (0.93%) Azure AKS
14 3 (0.93%) Azure Functions
14 3 (0.93%) Microsoft Purview
14 3 (0.93%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 13 (4.02%) LAN
1 13 (4.02%) TCP/IP
1 13 (4.02%) WAN
2 12 (3.72%) DNS
3 9 (2.79%) Firewall
3 9 (2.79%) Wireless
4 8 (2.48%) VPN
5 6 (1.86%) Structured Cabling
6 4 (1.24%) Network Security
7 3 (0.93%) BGP
7 3 (0.93%) DHCP
7 3 (0.93%) Junos
7 3 (0.93%) OSPF
7 3 (0.93%) VLAN
8 1 (0.31%) Internet
8 1 (0.31%) NGN
8 1 (0.31%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.31%) RS-232
8 1 (0.31%) VoIP
8 1 (0.31%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (16.41%) Electronic Patient Records
2 10 (3.10%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (2.79%) SQL Server
4 7 (2.17%) Power BI
5 5 (1.55%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.55%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 4 (1.24%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (0.93%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (0.93%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.93%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (0.62%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.62%) EDMS
8 2 (0.62%) ImageNet
8 2 (0.62%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.62%) QlikView
8 2 (0.62%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.62%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.62%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 8 (2.48%) Jenkins
2 7 (2.17%) GitLab
2 7 (2.17%) JIRA
3 3 (0.93%) CircleCI
4 2 (0.62%) Android Studio
4 2 (0.62%) ERwin
4 2 (0.62%) MSI
5 1 (0.31%) Appium
5 1 (0.31%) Git
5 1 (0.31%) Gradle
5 1 (0.31%) JUnit
5 1 (0.31%) Postman
5 1 (0.31%) Rational Rhapsody
5 1 (0.31%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
5 1 (0.31%) Xcode
General
1 116 (35.91%) Public Sector
2 115 (35.60%) Social Skills
3 35 (10.84%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (8.36%) Organisational Skills
5 26 (8.05%) Finance
6 19 (5.88%) Digital Health
6 19 (5.88%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (4.64%) Telecoms
8 14 (4.33%) Legal
9 13 (4.02%) Health Technology
9 13 (4.02%) Marketing
10 12 (3.72%) Electronics
10 12 (3.72%) Manufacturing
11 7 (2.17%) Digital Healthcare
11 7 (2.17%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.86%) Local Government
13 4 (1.24%) Publishing
14 2 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
15 1 (0.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 52 (16.10%) Analyst
2 32 (9.91%) Lead
3 25 (7.74%) Senior
4 24 (7.43%) Developer
5 21 (6.50%) Project Manager
6 20 (6.19%) Business Analyst
7 19 (5.88%) Architect
8 17 (5.26%) Consultant
9 15 (4.64%) Technical Analyst
9 15 (4.64%) Technical Support
9 15 (4.64%) Technical Support Analyst
10 14 (4.33%) AWS Engineer
11 13 (4.02%) 2nd Line Support
12 12 (3.72%) Support Analyst
13 10 (3.10%) Administrator
13 10 (3.10%) Designer
13 10 (3.10%) NHS Project Manager
14 9 (2.79%) IT Support
14 9 (2.79%) NHS Business Analyst
14 9 (2.79%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (9.91%) FHIR
2 15 (4.64%) .NET
3 12 (3.72%) RESTful
4 8 (2.48%) React
5 5 (1.55%) Spring
5 5 (1.55%) Spring Boot
5 5 (1.55%) Vue
6 4 (1.24%) .NET Core
7 3 (0.93%) Django
7 3 (0.93%) FastAPI
7 3 (0.93%) Flask
7 3 (0.93%) GeoJSON
7 3 (0.93%) Kafka
7 3 (0.93%) RabbitMQ
7 3 (0.93%) Spring Cloud
8 2 (0.62%) AngularJS
8 2 (0.62%) Matplotlib
8 2 (0.62%) Node.js
8 2 (0.62%) Pandas
8 2 (0.62%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.57%) Management Information System
2 14 (4.33%) Onboarding
3 13 (4.02%) LIMS
3 13 (4.02%) Product Ownership
4 12 (3.72%) Cloud Native
5 9 (2.79%) PACS
6 8 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.86%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.86%) CMDB
7 6 (1.86%) Driving Licence
8 4 (1.24%) Freedom of Information
8 4 (1.24%) Security Posture
9 3 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (0.93%) Data Structures
9 3 (0.93%) IoT
9 3 (0.93%) Life Science
10 2 (0.62%) Mobile App
10 2 (0.62%) Reference Data
10 2 (0.62%) Robotics
10 2 (0.62%) SystemC
Operating Systems
1 36 (11.15%) Windows
2 19 (5.88%) Windows Server
3 11 (3.41%) Linux
4 6 (1.86%) Windows Server 2012
5 5 (1.55%) Windows Server 2003
6 4 (1.24%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.62%) Android
7 2 (0.62%) VMS
8 1 (0.31%) Amazon Linux
8 1 (0.31%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (20.74%) Agile
2 48 (14.86%) Stakeholder Management
3 46 (14.24%) Problem-Solving
4 41 (12.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 39 (12.07%) CI/CD
6 35 (10.84%) DevOps
7 30 (9.29%) Analytics
7 30 (9.29%) Information Governance
8 28 (8.67%) Data Governance
8 28 (8.67%) Digital Transformation Programme
8 28 (8.67%) Infrastructure as Code
9 26 (8.05%) Business Intelligence
10 24 (7.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 24 (7.43%) Mentoring
11 23 (7.12%) Project Delivery
12 22 (6.81%) Migration
12 22 (6.81%) Project Management
13 21 (6.50%) Cybersecurity
13 21 (6.50%) Programme Management
13 21 (6.50%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 35 (10.84%) Python
2 25 (7.74%) SQL
3 11 (3.41%) Java
3 11 (3.41%) TypeScript
4 9 (2.79%) C#
5 8 (2.48%) JavaScript
6 7 (2.17%) Bash
7 4 (1.24%) PL/SQL
7 4 (1.24%) PowerShell
8 3 (0.93%) PHP
9 2 (0.62%) Ruby
9 2 (0.62%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.31%) Bicep
10 1 (0.31%) C++
10 1 (0.31%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.31%) R
10 1 (0.31%) Swift
Qualifications
1 28 (8.67%) Degree
2 17 (5.26%) Security Cleared
3 15 (4.64%) SC Cleared
4 13 (4.02%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (2.17%) ECDL
6 6 (1.86%) HND
6 6 (1.86%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (1.55%) HNC
7 5 (1.55%) MCSE
7 5 (1.55%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.55%) Microsoft Certified Professional
8 4 (1.24%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 4 (1.24%) JNCIA
8 4 (1.24%) JNCIP
8 4 (1.24%) JNCIS
9 3 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.93%) CISM
9 3 (0.93%) CISSP
9 3 (0.93%) ISEB
10 2 (0.62%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (8.98%) HL7
2 19 (5.88%) Data Quality
3 15 (4.64%) Accessibility
4 12 (3.72%) GDPR
5 10 (3.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 9 (2.79%) QA
7 7 (2.17%) NCSC
8 6 (1.86%) Cyber Essentials
8 6 (1.86%) PMO
9 4 (1.24%) NIST
10 2 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.62%) GRC
10 2 (0.62%) WCAG
11 1 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.31%) DICOM
11 1 (0.31%) ISO 9001
11 1 (0.31%) SLA
11 1 (0.31%) SNOMED CT
11 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 29 (8.98%) Active Directory
2 19 (5.88%) Docker
3 5 (1.55%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.93%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.62%) Xen
6 1 (0.31%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 29 (8.98%) Terraform
2 20 (6.19%) Kubernetes
3 11 (3.41%) Microsoft Intune
4 6 (1.86%) Grafana
5 4 (1.24%) SCCM
6 3 (0.93%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.62%) Ansible
7 2 (0.62%) Nessus
7 2 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.31%) Argo
8 1 (0.31%) Packer
Vendors
1 40 (12.38%) Microsoft
2 15 (4.64%) Oracle
3 12 (3.72%) SAP
4 10 (3.10%) Brio
4 10 (3.10%) Cerner
5 8 (2.48%) Cisco
6 5 (1.55%) Juniper
6 5 (1.55%) Palantir
6 5 (1.55%) VMware
7 4 (1.24%) Databricks
8 3 (0.93%) Splunk
9 2 (0.62%) Aruba
9 2 (0.62%) Cribl.io
9 2 (0.62%) Fortinet
9 2 (0.62%) Rapid7
9 2 (0.62%) Tenable
10 1 (0.31%) accuRx
10 1 (0.31%) BiZZdesign
10 1 (0.31%) Datix
10 1 (0.31%) OneLogin