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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 276 311 212
Rank change year-on-year +35 -99 -41
Contract jobs citing NHS 359 179 413
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.90% 0.73% 1.11%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.77% 2.14% 3.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 279 128 277
10th Percentile £243 £192 £163
25th Percentile £338 £229 £205
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £400 £280
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% +42.86% -6.67%
75th Percentile £525 £488 £400
90th Percentile £600 £554 £550
UK median daily rate £450 £395 £298
% change year-on-year +13.92% +32.66% -0.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 17 73
10th Percentile - £13.08 £11.25
25th Percentile £15.79 £15.22 £12.27
Median hourly rate £21.30 £18.13 £15.86
Median % change year-on-year +17.48% +14.35% -27.93%
75th Percentile £23.75 £33.75 £25.83
90th Percentile £34.62 £33.91 £41.17
UK median hourly rate £21.15 £23.84 £14.49
% change year-on-year -11.26% +64.55% -32.97%

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 12,951 8,370 11,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.62% 34.06% 30.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,203 5,478 7,558
10th Percentile £304 £300 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £548 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.44% -0.41% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £788 £800
UK median daily rate £501 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.53% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 662 320 819
10th Percentile £16.10 £16.64 £12.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £22.02 £15.13
Median hourly rate £45.46 £35.45 £28.25
Median % change year-on-year +28.26% +25.47% +25.56%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £85.49 £85.00 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £28.00
% change year-on-year +39.88% +16.07% +24.44%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 +5 122 £438 -2.78% 52
North of England -8 108 £500 +11.11% 65
Yorkshire +3 87 £500 +5.26% 36
East of England +22 51 £278 -0.89% 12
South East -61 26 £450 +80.00% 40
North West -36 19 £425 +97.67% 25
Midlands -53 19 £450 +100.89% 38
West Midlands -53 18 £450 +100.89% 27
South West -21 13 £570 +60.56% 24
North East -18 2 - - 5
East Midlands - 1 £300 - 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 12 (3.34%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.67%) Confluence
3 5 (1.39%) CMS
3 5 (1.39%) Palantir Foundry
4 2 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.28%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.28%) Umbraco
Applications
1 11 (3.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.84%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.84%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.56%) Trello
6 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 14 (3.90%) SystmOne
2 3 (0.84%) Lorenzo
3 2 (0.56%) Cerner Millennium
3 2 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 51 (14.21%) AWS
2 43 (11.98%) Azure
3 21 (5.85%) Serverless
4 15 (4.18%) AWS Lambda
4 15 (4.18%) GitHub
5 13 (3.62%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (3.62%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (3.62%) Power Platform
6 11 (3.06%) Amazon S3
6 11 (3.06%) GCP
7 8 (2.23%) Amazon ECS
7 8 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
8 5 (1.39%) AWS Step Functions
9 4 (1.11%) Amazon EC2
9 4 (1.11%) Amazon EKS
9 4 (1.11%) Amazon SQS
9 4 (1.11%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (1.11%) Azure AKS
9 4 (1.11%) Azure Functions
9 4 (1.11%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.79%) DNS
2 7 (1.95%) Firewall
2 7 (1.95%) TCP/IP
2 7 (1.95%) WAN
3 6 (1.67%) LAN
4 5 (1.39%) Network Security
5 4 (1.11%) VPN
6 3 (0.84%) Wireless
7 2 (0.56%) BGP
7 2 (0.56%) DHCP
7 2 (0.56%) Junos
7 2 (0.56%) OSPF
7 2 (0.56%) VLAN
8 1 (0.28%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (0.28%) Internet
8 1 (0.28%) NGFW
8 1 (0.28%) NGN
8 1 (0.28%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (16.16%) Electronic Patient Records
2 17 (4.74%) SQL Server
3 15 (4.18%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (3.06%) Power BI
5 8 (2.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 7 (1.95%) DynamoDB
7 5 (1.39%) BusinessObjects
7 5 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
8 4 (1.11%) Amazon Athena
8 4 (1.11%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 3 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.84%) Geospatial Data
9 3 (0.84%) OLAP
9 3 (0.84%) Tableau
10 2 (0.56%) ImageNet
10 2 (0.56%) Metadata
10 2 (0.56%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.56%) QlikView
10 2 (0.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 9 (2.51%) GitLab
2 6 (1.67%) Jenkins
2 6 (1.67%) JIRA
3 5 (1.39%) Git
4 2 (0.56%) MSI
5 1 (0.28%) Android Studio
5 1 (0.28%) Appium
5 1 (0.28%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.28%) JUnit
5 1 (0.28%) Rational Rhapsody
5 1 (0.28%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 138 (38.44%) Public Sector
2 114 (31.75%) Social Skills
3 41 (11.42%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (6.69%) Finance
5 22 (6.13%) Organisational Skills
6 21 (5.85%) Digital Health
7 17 (4.74%) Documentation Skills
8 12 (3.34%) Health Technology
8 12 (3.34%) Legal
9 11 (3.06%) Telecoms
10 10 (2.79%) Local Government
10 10 (2.79%) Marketing
11 9 (2.51%) Electronics
11 9 (2.51%) Influencing Skills
11 9 (2.51%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.39%) Digital Healthcare
12 5 (1.39%) Pharmaceutical
13 4 (1.11%) Publishing
14 3 (0.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.84%) Law
Job Titles
1 51 (14.21%) Analyst
2 35 (9.75%) Developer
3 31 (8.64%) Architect
4 30 (8.36%) Senior
5 27 (7.52%) Lead
6 26 (7.24%) Business Analyst
7 24 (6.69%) Project Manager
8 17 (4.74%) Consultant
9 14 (3.90%) Data Engineer
9 14 (3.90%) Designer
10 12 (3.34%) Administrator
10 12 (3.34%) NHS Business Analyst
11 11 (3.06%) Data Architect
11 11 (3.06%) User Researcher
12 10 (2.79%) AWS Engineer
12 10 (2.79%) NHS Project Manager
13 9 (2.51%) IT Manager
13 9 (2.51%) IT Support
13 9 (2.51%) Solutions Architect
14 8 (2.23%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (11.14%) FHIR
2 14 (3.90%) .NET
2 14 (3.90%) React
3 12 (3.34%) RESTful
4 7 (1.95%) Spring
4 7 (1.95%) Spring Boot
5 6 (1.67%) Node.js
5 6 (1.67%) Vue
6 5 (1.39%) Kafka
7 4 (1.11%) .NET Core
7 4 (1.11%) Middleware
8 3 (0.84%) AngularJS
8 3 (0.84%) FastAPI
8 3 (0.84%) Flask
8 3 (0.84%) GeoJSON
8 3 (0.84%) OpenAPI
8 3 (0.84%) RabbitMQ
8 3 (0.84%) REST
8 3 (0.84%) Spring Cloud
8 3 (0.84%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.46%) Onboarding
2 14 (3.90%) Cloud Native
3 12 (3.34%) LIMS
3 12 (3.34%) Product Ownership
4 10 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (2.79%) Management Information System
4 10 (2.79%) PACS
5 7 (1.95%) Data Structures
6 6 (1.67%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.39%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.11%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.11%) Replication
9 3 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (0.84%) Life Science
10 2 (0.56%) Cybercrime
10 2 (0.56%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.56%) Freedom of Information
10 2 (0.56%) IoT
10 2 (0.56%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.56%) SystemC
Operating Systems
1 20 (5.57%) Windows
2 9 (2.51%) Windows Server
3 8 (2.23%) Linux
4 2 (0.56%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2003
4 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
5 1 (0.28%) Android
5 1 (0.28%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (27.02%) Agile
2 54 (15.04%) Stakeholder Management
3 44 (12.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 41 (11.42%) CI/CD
5 39 (10.86%) Problem-Solving
6 38 (10.58%) Information Governance
7 37 (10.31%) Analytics
8 36 (10.03%) DevOps
9 32 (8.91%) Continuous Improvement
10 29 (8.08%) Data Governance
10 29 (8.08%) Migration
11 28 (7.80%) Business Intelligence
11 28 (7.80%) Decision-Making
12 27 (7.52%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 27 (7.52%) Infrastructure as Code
13 25 (6.96%) User Research
14 24 (6.69%) Data Protection
15 22 (6.13%) Roadmaps
16 21 (5.85%) Project Management
17 20 (5.57%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 38 (10.58%) SQL
2 36 (10.03%) Python
3 15 (4.18%) Java
4 14 (3.90%) TypeScript
5 13 (3.62%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.79%) C#
7 6 (1.67%) T-SQL
8 3 (0.84%) PHP
8 3 (0.84%) PL/SQL
9 2 (0.56%) Bash
9 2 (0.56%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.28%) Bicep
10 1 (0.28%) R
10 1 (0.28%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 26 (7.24%) Security Cleared
2 23 (6.41%) Degree
3 22 (6.13%) SC Cleared
4 16 (4.46%) BPSS Clearance
5 3 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
5 3 (0.84%) HND
5 3 (0.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
5 3 (0.84%) JNCIA
5 3 (0.84%) JNCIP
5 3 (0.84%) JNCIS
5 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (0.84%) TOGAF Certification
6 2 (0.56%) CCNA
6 2 (0.56%) CCNP
6 2 (0.56%) CISSP
6 2 (0.56%) HNC
6 2 (0.56%) ITIL Certification
6 2 (0.56%) MCSE
6 2 (0.56%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 2 (0.56%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (11.14%) HL7
2 21 (5.85%) Data Quality
3 15 (4.18%) Accessibility
4 13 (3.62%) GDPR
5 11 (3.06%) QA
6 10 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 7 (1.95%) NCSC
7 7 (1.95%) PMO
8 5 (1.39%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (1.39%) DICOM
8 5 (1.39%) WCAG
9 4 (1.11%) SNOMED CT
10 3 (0.84%) NIST
11 2 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.56%) GRC
12 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 1 (0.28%) IEC 62304
12 1 (0.28%) ISO 9001
12 1 (0.28%) SLA
12 1 (0.28%) SOC 2
System Software
1 22 (6.13%) Docker
2 14 (3.90%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.56%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 2 (0.56%) Xen
4 1 (0.28%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 30 (8.36%) Terraform
2 19 (5.29%) Kubernetes
3 10 (2.79%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.84%) Grafana
5 2 (0.56%) Ansible
5 2 (0.56%) Nessus
5 2 (0.56%) SCCM
5 2 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.28%) Argo
6 1 (0.28%) Packer
Vendors
1 42 (11.70%) Microsoft
2 14 (3.90%) Oracle
3 10 (2.79%) Brio
3 10 (2.79%) Cerner
4 9 (2.51%) Foundry
4 9 (2.51%) SAP
5 8 (2.23%) Palantir
6 7 (1.95%) Splunk
7 6 (1.67%) Databricks
8 5 (1.39%) Cisco
9 4 (1.11%) Juniper
10 3 (0.84%) Google
10 3 (0.84%) InterSystems
11 2 (0.56%) Adobe
11 2 (0.56%) CheckPoint
11 2 (0.56%) Cribl.io
11 2 (0.56%) Fortinet
11 2 (0.56%) OneLogin
11 2 (0.56%) Rapid7
11 2 (0.56%) VMware
225 NHS jobs in England