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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 314 342 321
Rank change year-on-year +28 -21 -104
Contract jobs citing NHS 348 174 226
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.76% 0.63% 0.68%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.26% 1.75% 2.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 127 151
10th Percentile £250 £190 £175
25th Percentile £363 £306 £262
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £450 £350
Median % change year-on-year +3.44% +28.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £517
90th Percentile £600 £590 £606
UK median daily rate £450 £415 £350
% change year-on-year +8.43% +18.57% +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 5 19
10th Percentile £17.00 £23.28 £14.39
25th Percentile £19.75 £26.32 £15.92
Median hourly rate £30.88 £30.50 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +1.25% +41.27% +7.95%
75th Percentile £34.62 £32.71 £25.66
90th Percentile £52.50 £34.62 £26.69
UK median hourly rate £30.30 £30.25 £22.10
% change year-on-year +0.17% +36.88% +13.33%

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 15,379 9,945 10,155
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.61% 35.84% 30.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,371 6,299 6,425
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £519 £550
% change year-on-year +1.20% -5.68% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 969 493 487
10th Percentile £14.59 £15.48 £13.50
25th Percentile £19.03 £18.87 £20.88
Median hourly rate £38.25 £32.71 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.94% -37.70% +16.67%
75th Percentile £68.75 £60.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £77.25 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £38.72 £29.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +31.25% -34.44% +7.54%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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 31 August 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 +8 149 £488 +11.43% 175
North of England -22 109 £475 -2.56% 184
Yorkshire -5 82 £500 - 85
North West -39 25 £350 +7.69% 88
East of England +1 24 £191 -15.87% 68
South East -63 18 £450 +28.57% 90
Midlands -43 13 £425 +21.43% 105
South West -32 12 £546 +72.86% 80
West Midlands -39 10 £500 +74.22% 64
East Midlands -12 3 £300 -25.00% 41
North East -35 2 - - 14
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 (3.16%) Palantir Foundry
2 4 (1.15%) Confluence
3 3 (0.86%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.57%) CMS
5 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.29%) nginx
5 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (1.44%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.29%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (1.44%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.57%) Cerner Millennium
2 2 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.57%) Lorenzo
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 60 (17.24%) AWS
2 46 (13.22%) Azure
3 28 (8.05%) Serverless
4 20 (5.75%) Amazon S3
5 19 (5.46%) AWS Lambda
6 16 (4.60%) Power Platform
7 14 (4.02%) GitHub
8 11 (3.16%) Amazon EC2
8 11 (3.16%) GitHub Actions
8 11 (3.16%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.01%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.72%) AWS Step Functions
10 6 (1.72%) Azure Data Factory
10 6 (1.72%) Azure Functions
10 6 (1.72%) Azure Key Vault
11 5 (1.44%) Adobe Analytics
11 5 (1.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (1.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 4 (1.15%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.01%) Firewall
1 7 (2.01%) LAN
1 7 (2.01%) WAN
2 5 (1.44%) Network Security
3 4 (1.15%) NGFW
3 4 (1.15%) Structured Cabling
3 4 (1.15%) Wireless
4 3 (0.86%) DNS
5 1 (0.29%) DHCP
5 1 (0.29%) HTTP
5 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (9.48%) Electronic Patient Records
2 17 (4.89%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (3.74%) Power BI
4 12 (3.45%) SQL Server
5 9 (2.59%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (2.30%) DynamoDB
7 6 (1.72%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.15%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.86%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.86%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.86%) OLAP
9 3 (0.86%) Relational Database
9 3 (0.86%) Tableau
10 2 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.57%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.57%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.57%) DocumentDB
10 2 (0.57%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.57%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 2 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 11 (3.16%) Git
2 6 (1.72%) JIRA
3 5 (1.44%) GitLab
4 3 (0.86%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.57%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.29%) Postman
6 1 (0.29%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.29%) Selenium
6 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 138 (39.66%) Public Sector
2 119 (34.20%) Social Skills
3 30 (8.62%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (6.32%) Finance
5 14 (4.02%) Digital Health
5 14 (4.02%) Local Government
6 13 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (2.30%) Digital Healthcare
8 7 (2.01%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.15%) Law
10 4 (1.15%) Legal
11 3 (0.86%) Billing
11 3 (0.86%) Health Technology
11 3 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.86%) Marketing
11 3 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.86%) Social Housing
12 2 (0.57%) Military
Job Titles
1 46 (13.22%) Developer
2 40 (11.49%) Senior
3 36 (10.34%) Analyst
4 31 (8.91%) Architect
5 22 (6.32%) Designer
6 19 (5.46%) Data Engineer
6 19 (5.46%) Lead
7 17 (4.89%) Business Analyst
7 17 (4.89%) Project Manager
8 12 (3.45%) Delivery Manager
9 11 (3.16%) Consultant
9 11 (3.16%) Data Architect
9 11 (3.16%) Service Designer
9 11 (3.16%) User Researcher
10 9 (2.59%) Python Developer
10 9 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
11 8 (2.30%) Full-Stack Developer
11 8 (2.30%) Performance Analyst
12 7 (2.01%) AWS Engineer
12 7 (2.01%) ServiceNow Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (9.77%) Terraform
2 24 (6.90%) FHIR
3 14 (4.02%) REST
4 11 (3.16%) PySpark
4 11 (3.16%) RESTful
5 10 (2.87%) React
6 7 (2.01%) Node.js
7 6 (1.72%) Vue
8 5 (1.44%) .NET
8 5 (1.44%) CSS
8 5 (1.44%) HTML
8 5 (1.44%) JSON
8 5 (1.44%) OpenID
8 5 (1.44%) Playwright
9 4 (1.15%) ARM Templates
9 4 (1.15%) Django
9 4 (1.15%) OAuth
9 4 (1.15%) OAuth2
10 3 (0.86%) Flask
10 3 (0.86%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (7.18%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.46%) Product Ownership
3 16 (4.60%) Onboarding
4 11 (3.16%) Data Structures
5 8 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (1.72%) Driving Licence
6 6 (1.72%) IoT
6 6 (1.72%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.72%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.15%) LIMS
8 4 (1.15%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.15%) Replication
9 3 (0.86%) Cloud Security Posture
9 3 (0.86%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.57%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.57%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (0.57%) Freedom of Information
10 2 (0.57%) PACS
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.30%) Windows
2 4 (1.15%) Windows Server
3 3 (0.86%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.57%) Android
4 2 (0.57%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.57%) Linux
4 2 (0.57%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.29%) CentOS
5 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.29%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (34.77%) Agile
2 80 (22.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 57 (16.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 54 (15.52%) CI/CD
5 47 (13.51%) Continuous Improvement
6 45 (12.93%) Problem-Solving
7 41 (11.78%) Analytics
8 39 (11.21%) Decision-Making
9 38 (10.92%) Infrastructure as Code
10 35 (10.06%) DevOps
11 34 (9.77%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 33 (9.48%) AI
13 32 (9.20%) Migration
14 31 (8.91%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 31 (8.91%) Validation
15 26 (7.47%) Information Governance
15 26 (7.47%) User Research
16 25 (7.18%) Workshop Facilitation
17 24 (6.90%) Data Protection
18 23 (6.61%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 39 (11.21%) SQL
2 37 (10.63%) Python
3 16 (4.60%) JavaScript
3 16 (4.60%) TypeScript
4 8 (2.30%) Java
5 7 (2.01%) C#
6 5 (1.44%) Bicep
6 5 (1.44%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.15%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.57%) Bash
9 1 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 33 (9.48%) Security Cleared
2 26 (7.47%) SC Cleared
3 19 (5.46%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (2.59%) Degree
5 5 (1.44%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.15%) JNCIP
6 4 (1.15%) JNCIS
6 4 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (0.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (0.86%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.57%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.57%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (0.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 1 (0.29%) CRISC
9 1 (0.29%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.29%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.29%) NVQ Level 3
9 1 (0.29%) PMP
9 1 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (6.90%) HL7
2 22 (6.32%) Data Quality
2 22 (6.32%) QA
3 21 (6.03%) Accessibility
4 19 (5.46%) GDPR
5 16 (4.60%) WCAG
6 11 (3.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.72%) SNOMED CT
8 4 (1.15%) DICOM
8 4 (1.15%) NCSC
8 4 (1.15%) PMO
9 3 (0.86%) IEC 62304
10 2 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.57%) ISO 13485
11 1 (0.29%) GRC
11 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.29%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (4.02%) Docker
2 8 (2.30%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (3.45%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.57%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.29%) Ansible
3 1 (0.29%) Grafana
3 1 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 40 (11.49%) Microsoft
2 17 (4.89%) Palantir
3 15 (4.31%) Foundry
4 11 (3.16%) Databricks
4 11 (3.16%) ServiceNow
5 9 (2.59%) Oracle
6 8 (2.30%) Brio
6 8 (2.30%) Cerner
7 5 (1.44%) Adobe
7 5 (1.44%) Splunk
7 5 (1.44%) VMware
8 4 (1.15%) Google
8 4 (1.15%) Juniper
8 4 (1.15%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.86%) Cisco
9 3 (0.86%) Citrix
9 3 (0.86%) InterSystems
10 2 (0.57%) BMC
10 2 (0.57%) MEDITECH
10 2 (0.57%) Zscaler
659 NHS jobs in England