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

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 324 364 309
Rank change year-on-year +40 -55 -91
Contract jobs citing NHS 343 156 236
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.75% 0.57% 0.71%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.22% 1.59% 2.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 113 158
10th Percentile £263 £202 £171
25th Percentile £363 £313 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £350
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% +31.43% +8.62%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £511
90th Percentile £606 £593 £616
UK median daily rate £452 £450 £350
% change year-on-year +0.50% +28.57% +12.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 6 19
10th Percentile £18.22 £17.16 £14.39
25th Percentile £26.72 £22.52 £15.92
Median hourly rate £31.47 £28.41 £21.80
Median % change year-on-year +10.75% +30.32% +9.00%
75th Percentile £34.62 £32.22 £25.83
90th Percentile £55.50 £34.30 £26.69
UK median hourly rate £31.47 £30.00 £23.20
% change year-on-year +4.88% +29.34% +20.93%

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 15,428 9,829 10,218
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.63% 35.62% 30.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,456 6,204 6,582
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £425 £408 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £681
90th Percentile £750 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £550
% change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 943 495 511
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.48 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £18.87 £19.06
Median hourly rate £42.50 £32.71 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +29.93% -34.58% +14.06%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £78.73 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £30.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +41.67% -33.33% +10.31%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +4 148 £481 +10.00% 186
North of England -9 111 £475 -5.00% 216
Yorkshire +5 85 £500 - 97
North West -36 24 £350 +62.79% 105
East of England -9 19 £218 -4.32% 76
South East -64 19 £450 +28.57% 120
Midlands -43 13 £425 +21.43% 134
South West -30 12 £546 +33.23% 96
West Midlands -42 10 £500 +74.22% 86
East Midlands -16 3 £300 -25.00% 48
North East -42 2 - - 17
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 (3.21%) Palantir Foundry
2 4 (1.17%) Confluence
2 4 (1.17%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.58%) CMS
3 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.29%) nginx
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 4 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.87%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.58%) Trello
4 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (1.46%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.58%) Lorenzo
2 2 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.29%) Cerner Millennium
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
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 58 (16.91%) AWS
2 47 (13.70%) Azure
3 28 (8.16%) Serverless
4 20 (5.83%) Amazon S3
5 19 (5.54%) AWS Lambda
6 15 (4.37%) Power Platform
7 13 (3.79%) GitHub
8 11 (3.21%) Amazon EC2
8 11 (3.21%) GitHub Actions
8 11 (3.21%) Microsoft 365
9 7 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.04%) Entra ID
10 6 (1.75%) AWS Step Functions
10 6 (1.75%) Azure Data Factory
10 6 (1.75%) Azure Functions
10 6 (1.75%) Azure Key Vault
11 5 (1.46%) Adobe Analytics
11 5 (1.46%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 5 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 4 (1.17%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.33%) Firewall
2 7 (2.04%) LAN
2 7 (2.04%) WAN
3 5 (1.46%) Network Security
3 5 (1.46%) NGFW
4 4 (1.17%) Structured Cabling
4 4 (1.17%) Wireless
5 3 (0.87%) DNS
6 1 (0.29%) DHCP
6 1 (0.29%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (9.33%) Electronic Patient Records
2 16 (4.66%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (3.79%) SQL Server
4 12 (3.50%) Power BI
5 9 (2.62%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (2.33%) DynamoDB
7 6 (1.75%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 3 (0.87%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (0.87%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.87%) OLAP
9 3 (0.87%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.58%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.58%) DocumentDB
10 2 (0.58%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.58%) Oracle BI Publisher
10 2 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.58%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 11 (3.21%) Git
2 6 (1.75%) JIRA
3 5 (1.46%) GitLab
4 3 (0.87%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.58%) Cypress.io
6 1 (0.29%) Postman
6 1 (0.29%) Rational Rhapsody
6 1 (0.29%) Selenium
6 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
General
1 137 (39.94%) Public Sector
2 114 (33.24%) Social Skills
3 27 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (6.71%) Finance
5 14 (4.08%) Digital Health
6 13 (3.79%) Local Government
7 12 (3.50%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.04%) Digital Healthcare
9 6 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.46%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.17%) Law
11 4 (1.17%) Legal
12 3 (0.87%) Billing
12 3 (0.87%) Health Technology
12 3 (0.87%) Marketing
12 3 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.87%) Social Housing
13 2 (0.58%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 45 (13.12%) Developer
2 40 (11.66%) Senior
3 31 (9.04%) Architect
4 29 (8.45%) Analyst
5 22 (6.41%) Designer
6 20 (5.83%) Lead
7 19 (5.54%) Data Engineer
8 18 (5.25%) Project Manager
9 16 (4.66%) Business Analyst
10 13 (3.79%) Consultant
10 13 (3.79%) Delivery Manager
10 13 (3.79%) User Researcher
11 11 (3.21%) Data Architect
11 11 (3.21%) Service Designer
12 9 (2.62%) Python Developer
12 9 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
13 8 (2.33%) Full-Stack Developer
14 7 (2.04%) NHS Project Manager
14 7 (2.04%) ServiceNow Developer
14 7 (2.04%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (9.91%) Terraform
2 23 (6.71%) FHIR
3 13 (3.79%) REST
4 11 (3.21%) PySpark
5 10 (2.92%) RESTful
6 9 (2.62%) React
7 6 (1.75%) Node.js
7 6 (1.75%) Vue
8 5 (1.46%) .NET
8 5 (1.46%) CSS
8 5 (1.46%) HTML
8 5 (1.46%) OpenID
8 5 (1.46%) Playwright
9 4 (1.17%) ARM Templates
9 4 (1.17%) JSON
9 4 (1.17%) OAuth
9 4 (1.17%) OAuth2
10 3 (0.87%) Django
10 3 (0.87%) Flask
10 3 (0.87%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (7.29%) Cloud Native
2 20 (5.83%) Product Ownership
3 14 (4.08%) Onboarding
4 9 (2.62%) Data Structures
5 7 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (1.75%) Driving Licence
6 6 (1.75%) IoT
6 6 (1.75%) Management Information System
6 6 (1.75%) Security Posture
7 5 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.17%) LIMS
8 4 (1.17%) Mobile App
8 4 (1.17%) Replication
9 3 (0.87%) Cloud Security Posture
9 3 (0.87%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.58%) Analytical Mindset
10 2 (0.58%) CMDB
10 2 (0.58%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
10 2 (0.58%) Housing Association
Operating Systems
1 7 (2.04%) Windows
2 4 (1.17%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.58%) Android
3 2 (0.58%) Apple iOS
3 2 (0.58%) Linux
3 2 (0.58%) Mac OS
3 2 (0.58%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.29%) CentOS
4 1 (0.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.29%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 122 (35.57%) Agile
2 74 (21.57%) Stakeholder Management
3 58 (16.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 53 (15.45%) CI/CD
5 46 (13.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 45 (13.12%) Problem-Solving
7 41 (11.95%) Analytics
8 38 (11.08%) Infrastructure as Code
9 35 (10.20%) Decision-Making
9 35 (10.20%) DevOps
10 34 (9.91%) Migration
11 33 (9.62%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 32 (9.33%) AI
13 31 (9.04%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 30 (8.75%) User Research
15 29 (8.45%) Validation
16 26 (7.58%) Information Governance
16 26 (7.58%) Workshop Facilitation
17 25 (7.29%) Service Design
18 24 (7.00%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 38 (11.08%) SQL
2 36 (10.50%) Python
3 16 (4.66%) JavaScript
4 15 (4.37%) TypeScript
5 8 (2.33%) Java
6 7 (2.04%) C#
7 5 (1.46%) Bicep
7 5 (1.46%) PowerShell
7 5 (1.46%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.58%) Bash
9 1 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.29%) R
Qualifications
1 34 (9.91%) Security Cleared
2 27 (7.87%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.25%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.33%) Degree
5 5 (1.46%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.17%) JNCIP
6 4 (1.17%) JNCIS
6 4 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (0.87%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (0.87%) Azure Certification
8 2 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.58%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.58%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (0.29%) CCSP
9 1 (0.29%) CISSP
9 1 (0.29%) CRISC
9 1 (0.29%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.29%) NVQ Level 3
9 1 (0.29%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (7.00%) HL7
2 21 (6.12%) Accessibility
2 21 (6.12%) Data Quality
3 20 (5.83%) QA
4 19 (5.54%) GDPR
5 15 (4.37%) WCAG
6 12 (3.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.75%) SNOMED CT
8 5 (1.46%) NCSC
8 5 (1.46%) PMO
9 4 (1.17%) DICOM
10 3 (0.87%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.87%) IEC 62304
11 2 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.58%) ISO 13485
12 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 1 (0.29%) NIST
12 1 (0.29%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.29%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (4.08%) Docker
2 8 (2.33%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.29%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 12 (3.50%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.58%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.29%) Ansible
3 1 (0.29%) Grafana
3 1 (0.29%) Puppet
Vendors
1 40 (11.66%) Microsoft
2 17 (4.96%) Palantir
3 15 (4.37%) Foundry
4 11 (3.21%) Databricks
4 11 (3.21%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.33%) Brio
5 8 (2.33%) Oracle
6 6 (1.75%) Cerner
7 5 (1.46%) Adobe
7 5 (1.46%) VMware
8 4 (1.17%) Google
8 4 (1.17%) Juniper
8 4 (1.17%) Palo Alto
8 4 (1.17%) Splunk
9 3 (0.87%) Cisco
9 3 (0.87%) Citrix
9 3 (0.87%) InterSystems
10 2 (0.58%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.58%) BMC
10 2 (0.58%) MEDITECH