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 3 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 341 342 303
Rank change year-on-year +1 -39 -82
Contract jobs citing NHS 338 180 229
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.73% 0.64% 0.71%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.12% 1.77% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 246 124 138
10th Percentile £217 £161 £164
25th Percentile £325 £313 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £457 £455 £350
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% +30.00% +12.00%
75th Percentile £518 £550 £523
90th Percentile £589 £600 £650
UK median daily rate £450 £425 £350
% change year-on-year +5.88% +21.43% +12.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 9 17
10th Percentile £14.05 - £15.75
25th Percentile £15.56 £15.50 £17.50
Median hourly rate £17.20 £21.30 £21.80
Median % change year-on-year -19.25% -2.29% +9.00%
75th Percentile £28.51 £30.16 £25.49
90th Percentile £33.60 £31.14 £31.58
UK median hourly rate £17.10 £21.28 £23.00
% change year-on-year -19.62% -7.50% +15.00%

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 15,979 10,178 10,066
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.35% 36.32% 31.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,607 6,378 6,094
10th Percentile £325 £300 £294
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £645 £649 £675
90th Percentile £750 £771 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £531
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.98% -3.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,157 523 375
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.15 £15.62
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £35.00 £30.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -47.69% +24.19%
75th Percentile £67.84 £56.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £73.75 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £28.00 £49.75
% change year-on-year +33.93% -43.72% +10.56%

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 3 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 -2 143 £475 +11.76% 385
North of England -19 114 £450 -10.00% 302
Yorkshire +2 84 £475 -5.00% 132
North West -37 28 £350 -11.39% 138
East of England -13 26 £170 -33.24% 104
South East -53 22 £431 +23.21% 167
Midlands -40 15 £450 +20.00% 163
West Midlands -33 11 £459 +31.14% 104
South West -33 6 £474 +113.40% 105
East Midlands -15 4 £350 -12.50% 59
North East -44 2 - - 37
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 8 (2.37%) Palantir Foundry
2 4 (1.18%) Confluence
3 2 (0.59%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.30%) nginx
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 8 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.07%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.89%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.89%) Oracle Assets
1 3 (0.89%) Oracle General Ledger
1 3 (0.89%) Oracle Payables
1 3 (0.89%) Oracle Receivables
1 3 (0.89%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.59%) Cerner Millennium
2 2 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.59%) Lorenzo
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.30%) SAP HCM
3 1 (0.30%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 52 (15.38%) AWS
2 42 (12.43%) Azure
3 24 (7.10%) Serverless
4 19 (5.62%) Amazon S3
4 19 (5.62%) Power Platform
5 15 (4.44%) AWS Lambda
6 14 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
7 13 (3.85%) GitHub
8 12 (3.55%) Amazon EC2
9 10 (2.96%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (2.37%) Azure DevOps
11 7 (2.07%) Azure Key Vault
11 7 (2.07%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 6 (1.78%) Azure Data Factory
12 6 (1.78%) Azure Functions
12 6 (1.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 5 (1.48%) Adobe Analytics
13 5 (1.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 4 (1.18%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.37%) Firewall
1 8 (2.37%) LAN
1 8 (2.37%) WAN
2 6 (1.78%) Network Security
3 4 (1.18%) DNS
3 4 (1.18%) NGFW
3 4 (1.18%) Structured Cabling
3 4 (1.18%) Wireless
4 1 (0.30%) DHCP
4 1 (0.30%) HTTP
4 1 (0.30%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.30%) VPN
4 1 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (5.33%) Electronic Patient Records
2 16 (4.73%) Data Warehouse
2 16 (4.73%) Power BI
3 9 (2.66%) Amazon RDS
4 8 (2.37%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.78%) Amazon Athena
6 5 (1.48%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.89%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.89%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.89%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 3 (0.89%) Tableau
8 2 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.59%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (0.59%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.59%) DocumentDB
8 2 (0.59%) OLAP
8 2 (0.59%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 2 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (0.30%) Redis
Development Applications
1 9 (2.66%) Git
2 6 (1.78%) JIRA
3 4 (1.18%) GitLab
3 4 (1.18%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.30%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.30%) JMeter
4 1 (0.30%) Postman
4 1 (0.30%) Rational Rhapsody
4 1 (0.30%) Selenium
4 1 (0.30%) SonarQube
General
1 131 (38.76%) Public Sector
2 124 (36.69%) Social Skills
3 32 (9.47%) Finance
4 28 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (3.85%) Digital Health
5 13 (3.85%) Influencing Skills
5 13 (3.85%) Local Government
6 12 (3.55%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (1.78%) Digital Healthcare
8 6 (1.78%) Pharmaceutical
9 4 (1.18%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.18%) General Ledger
9 4 (1.18%) Health Technology
10 3 (0.89%) Billing
10 3 (0.89%) Legal
10 3 (0.89%) Marketing
10 3 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (0.89%) Social Housing
11 2 (0.59%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 39 (11.54%) Developer
2 37 (10.95%) Analyst
2 37 (10.95%) Senior
3 20 (5.92%) Architect
3 20 (5.92%) Designer
3 20 (5.92%) Project Manager
4 18 (5.33%) Lead
5 16 (4.73%) Business Analyst
6 15 (4.44%) Data Engineer
7 12 (3.55%) Administrator
7 12 (3.55%) Service Designer
8 11 (3.25%) Consultant
9 10 (2.96%) User Researcher
10 9 (2.66%) Delivery Manager
11 7 (2.07%) Data Architect
11 7 (2.07%) Full-Stack Developer
11 7 (2.07%) Performance Analyst
11 7 (2.07%) Python Developer
11 7 (2.07%) Service Analyst
11 7 (2.07%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (9.47%) Terraform
2 14 (4.14%) FHIR
3 13 (3.85%) REST
4 11 (3.25%) RESTful
5 10 (2.96%) PySpark
6 7 (2.07%) CSS
6 7 (2.07%) HTML
6 7 (2.07%) React
7 6 (1.78%) OpenID
8 5 (1.48%) .NET
8 5 (1.48%) Node.js
8 5 (1.48%) Vue
9 4 (1.18%) ARM Templates
9 4 (1.18%) CSS3
9 4 (1.18%) Django
9 4 (1.18%) HTML5
9 4 (1.18%) JSON
9 4 (1.18%) OAuth
9 4 (1.18%) OAuth2
9 4 (1.18%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.51%) Cloud Native
2 20 (5.92%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.55%) Onboarding
4 10 (2.96%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.66%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.78%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.78%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.48%) IoT
9 4 (1.18%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.89%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.89%) Freedom of Information
10 3 (0.89%) Life Science
10 3 (0.89%) LIMS
11 2 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.59%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (0.59%) Housing Association
11 2 (0.59%) Online Banking
11 2 (0.59%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.96%) Windows
2 5 (1.48%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.18%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.59%) Android
4 2 (0.59%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.59%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.30%) CentOS
5 1 (0.30%) Linux
5 1 (0.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.30%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (30.47%) Agile
2 92 (27.22%) Stakeholder Management
3 54 (15.98%) Problem-Solving
3 54 (15.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 50 (14.79%) CI/CD
5 45 (13.31%) Continuous Improvement
6 40 (11.83%) AI
7 36 (10.65%) Infrastructure as Code
8 35 (10.36%) Analytics
8 35 (10.36%) Decision-Making
8 35 (10.36%) DevOps
8 35 (10.36%) Digital Transformation Programme
9 33 (9.76%) Migration
10 30 (8.88%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
11 28 (8.28%) Data Protection
11 28 (8.28%) Validation
12 27 (7.99%) Workshop Facilitation
13 26 (7.69%) Information Governance
13 26 (7.69%) User Research
14 23 (6.80%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 36 (10.65%) SQL
2 33 (9.76%) Python
3 15 (4.44%) JavaScript
3 15 (4.44%) TypeScript
4 7 (2.07%) C#
5 6 (1.78%) Bicep
5 6 (1.78%) Java
6 5 (1.48%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.89%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.59%) Bash
8 2 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 27 (7.99%) Security Cleared
2 21 (6.21%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.33%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.37%) Degree
5 4 (1.18%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.18%) JNCIP
5 4 (1.18%) JNCIS
5 4 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (0.89%) Azure Certification
6 3 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (0.59%) AAT
7 2 (0.59%) ACCA
7 2 (0.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.59%) CIMA
7 2 (0.59%) CISSP
8 1 (0.30%) CRISC
8 1 (0.30%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.30%) NVQ Level 3
8 1 (0.30%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (7.10%) Accessibility
2 23 (6.80%) QA
3 22 (6.51%) Data Quality
4 20 (5.92%) GDPR
5 14 (4.14%) HL7
5 14 (4.14%) WCAG
6 10 (2.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.18%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (1.18%) NCSC
7 4 (1.18%) PMO
8 3 (0.89%) IEC 62304
8 3 (0.89%) SNOMED CT
9 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.59%) ISO 13485
10 1 (0.30%) DICOM
10 1 (0.30%) GRC
10 1 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 1 (0.30%) NIST
10 1 (0.30%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 13 (3.85%) Docker
2 10 (2.96%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (3.55%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.59%) Grafana
2 2 (0.59%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.30%) Ansible
3 1 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 51 (15.09%) Microsoft
2 14 (4.14%) Palantir
3 11 (3.25%) Oracle
3 11 (3.25%) ServiceNow
4 10 (2.96%) Brio
5 9 (2.66%) Databricks
5 9 (2.66%) Foundry
6 8 (2.37%) Cerner
7 5 (1.48%) Adobe
7 5 (1.48%) Splunk
7 5 (1.48%) VMware
8 4 (1.18%) Juniper
8 4 (1.18%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.89%) Cisco
9 3 (0.89%) Citrix
10 2 (0.59%) BMC
10 2 (0.59%) Google
10 2 (0.59%) MEDITECH
10 2 (0.59%) Meraki
10 2 (0.59%) SAP
1,217 NHS jobs in England