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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 339 340 311
Rank change year-on-year +1 -29 -84
Contract jobs citing NHS 333 180 228
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.72% 0.64% 0.70%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.10% 1.77% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 124 137
10th Percentile £221 £161 £164
25th Percentile £322 £313 £273
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £457 £455 £350
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% +30.00% +12.00%
75th Percentile £521 £550 £519
90th Percentile £591 £600 £643
UK median daily rate £450 £429 £350
% change year-on-year +4.90% +22.57% +14.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 9 16
10th Percentile £14.05 - £15.92
25th Percentile £15.56 £15.50 £17.59
Median hourly rate £17.20 £21.30 £22.10
Median % change year-on-year -19.25% -3.62% +10.50%
75th Percentile £28.51 £30.16 £25.49
90th Percentile £33.60 £31.14 £31.94
UK median hourly rate £17.10 £21.28 £23.60
% change year-on-year -19.62% -9.85% +18.00%

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 15,836 10,154 10,035
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.34% 36.36% 30.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,511 6,358 6,064
10th Percentile £325 £300 £294
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year - -3.27% -1.32%
75th Percentile £644 £645 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £825
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £527
% change year-on-year +0.96% -1.28% -4.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,155 528 372
10th Percentile £13.95 £15.13 £15.75
25th Percentile £17.57 £18.87 £24.18
Median hourly rate £33.99 £30.00 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +13.30% -47.69% +24.59%
75th Percentile £67.77 £56.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.32 £73.75 £75.16
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £28.13 £49.75
% change year-on-year +28.00% -43.47% +11.17%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 -13 142 £470 +10.65% 365
North of England -17 111 £450 -10.00% 267
Yorkshire +5 81 £481 -3.75% 116
North West -31 28 £350 -11.39% 119
East of England -13 25 £180 -29.31% 90
South East -48 23 £425 +21.43% 161
Midlands -33 15 £450 +20.00% 165
West Midlands -41 11 £459 +31.14% 105
South West -33 6 £474 +113.40% 78
East Midlands -8 4 £350 -12.50% 60
North East -37 2 - - 33
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 (2.40%) Palantir Foundry
2 4 (1.20%) Confluence
3 2 (0.60%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.30%) nginx
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 8 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.10%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.90%) Oracle Assets
1 3 (0.90%) Oracle General Ledger
1 3 (0.90%) Oracle Payables
1 3 (0.90%) Oracle Receivables
1 3 (0.90%) SystmOne
2 2 (0.60%) Cerner Millennium
2 2 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.60%) 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 48 (14.41%) AWS
2 42 (12.61%) Azure
3 24 (7.21%) Serverless
4 19 (5.71%) Amazon S3
5 16 (4.80%) Power Platform
6 15 (4.50%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
8 13 (3.90%) GitHub
9 12 (3.60%) Amazon EC2
10 10 (3.00%) GitHub Actions
11 8 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
12 7 (2.10%) Azure Key Vault
12 7 (2.10%) Entra ID
13 6 (1.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 6 (1.80%) Azure Data Factory
13 6 (1.80%) Azure Functions
13 6 (1.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 5 (1.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 4 (1.20%) Power Automate
16 3 (0.90%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.40%) Firewall
1 8 (2.40%) LAN
1 8 (2.40%) WAN
2 6 (1.80%) Network Security
3 4 (1.20%) DNS
3 4 (1.20%) NGFW
3 4 (1.20%) Structured Cabling
3 4 (1.20%) 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 (5.41%) Electronic Patient Records
2 16 (4.80%) Data Warehouse
3 13 (3.90%) Power BI
4 9 (2.70%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (2.40%) SQL Server
6 5 (1.50%) DynamoDB
7 3 (0.90%) Amazon Athena
7 3 (0.90%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.90%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.90%) Tableau
8 2 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.60%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (0.60%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.60%) DocumentDB
8 2 (0.60%) OLAP
8 2 (0.60%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 2 (0.60%) Oracle Reports
8 2 (0.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (0.30%) Data Mart
Development Applications
1 9 (2.70%) Git
2 6 (1.80%) JIRA
3 4 (1.20%) GitLab
3 4 (1.20%) 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
1 129 (38.74%) Public Sector
2 125 (37.54%) Social Skills
3 32 (9.61%) Finance
4 28 (8.41%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (4.20%) Digital Health
6 13 (3.90%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (3.60%) Local Government
7 12 (3.60%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.10%) Digital Healthcare
8 7 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.80%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.20%) General Ledger
10 4 (1.20%) Health Technology
11 3 (0.90%) Billing
11 3 (0.90%) Legal
11 3 (0.90%) Marketing
11 3 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.60%) Advertising
12 2 (0.60%) Banking
Job Titles
1 39 (11.71%) Developer
2 37 (11.11%) Senior
3 33 (9.91%) Analyst
4 21 (6.31%) Project Manager
5 20 (6.01%) Architect
5 20 (6.01%) Designer
6 17 (5.11%) Lead
7 15 (4.50%) Business Analyst
7 15 (4.50%) Data Engineer
8 12 (3.60%) Service Designer
9 11 (3.30%) Administrator
9 11 (3.30%) Consultant
10 10 (3.00%) User Researcher
11 9 (2.70%) Delivery Manager
12 7 (2.10%) Data Architect
12 7 (2.10%) Full-Stack Developer
12 7 (2.10%) Python Developer
12 7 (2.10%) Service Analyst
12 7 (2.10%) ServiceNow Developer
12 7 (2.10%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (9.61%) Terraform
2 14 (4.20%) FHIR
3 13 (3.90%) REST
4 11 (3.30%) RESTful
5 10 (3.00%) PySpark
6 7 (2.10%) CSS
6 7 (2.10%) HTML
6 7 (2.10%) React
7 6 (1.80%) OpenID
8 5 (1.50%) .NET
8 5 (1.50%) Vue
9 4 (1.20%) ARM Templates
9 4 (1.20%) CSS3
9 4 (1.20%) Django
9 4 (1.20%) HTML5
9 4 (1.20%) JSON
9 4 (1.20%) Node.js
9 4 (1.20%) OAuth
9 4 (1.20%) OAuth2
9 4 (1.20%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 22 (6.61%) Cloud Native
2 20 (6.01%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.60%) Onboarding
4 11 (3.30%) Management Information System
5 9 (2.70%) Data Structures
6 7 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.80%) Driving Licence
7 6 (1.80%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.50%) IoT
9 4 (1.20%) Mobile App
10 3 (0.90%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.90%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.90%) Freedom of Information
10 3 (0.90%) Life Science
10 3 (0.90%) LIMS
11 2 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.60%) CMDB
11 2 (0.60%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.60%) Online Banking
Operating Systems
1 10 (3.00%) Windows
2 5 (1.50%) Windows 10
3 4 (1.20%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.60%) Android
4 2 (0.60%) Apple iOS
4 2 (0.60%) 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
1 100 (30.03%) Agile
2 92 (27.63%) Stakeholder Management
3 55 (16.52%) Problem-Solving
4 52 (15.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 50 (15.02%) CI/CD
6 43 (12.91%) Continuous Improvement
7 39 (11.71%) AI
8 36 (10.81%) Infrastructure as Code
9 35 (10.51%) Digital Transformation Programme
10 34 (10.21%) Decision-Making
11 33 (9.91%) Analytics
11 33 (9.91%) DevOps
11 33 (9.91%) Migration
12 30 (9.01%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
13 28 (8.41%) Data Protection
13 28 (8.41%) Validation
14 27 (8.11%) Workshop Facilitation
15 26 (7.81%) Information Governance
15 26 (7.81%) User Research
16 23 (6.91%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 33 (9.91%) Python
2 32 (9.61%) SQL
3 14 (4.20%) JavaScript
3 14 (4.20%) TypeScript
4 7 (2.10%) C#
5 6 (1.80%) Bicep
5 6 (1.80%) Java
6 5 (1.50%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.90%) T-SQL
8 2 (0.60%) Bash
8 2 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.30%) R
Qualifications
1 27 (8.11%) Security Cleared
2 21 (6.31%) SC Cleared
3 18 (5.41%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.40%) Degree
5 4 (1.20%) AWS Certification
5 4 (1.20%) JNCIP
5 4 (1.20%) JNCIS
5 4 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (0.90%) Azure Certification
6 3 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (0.60%) AAT
7 2 (0.60%) ACCA
7 2 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 2 (0.60%) CIMA
7 2 (0.60%) CISSP
8 1 (0.30%) CCSP
8 1 (0.30%) CISM
8 1 (0.30%) MCSE
8 1 (0.30%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (7.21%) Accessibility
2 23 (6.91%) QA
3 22 (6.61%) Data Quality
4 20 (6.01%) GDPR
5 14 (4.20%) HL7
5 14 (4.20%) WCAG
6 10 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.20%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (1.20%) NCSC
7 4 (1.20%) PMO
8 3 (0.90%) IEC 62304
8 3 (0.90%) SNOMED CT
9 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.60%) 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 (3.90%) Docker
2 10 (3.00%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 12 (3.60%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.60%) Grafana
2 2 (0.60%) Jamf Pro
3 1 (0.30%) Ansible
3 1 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 51 (15.32%) Microsoft
2 14 (4.20%) Palantir
3 11 (3.30%) Oracle
3 11 (3.30%) ServiceNow
4 10 (3.00%) Brio
5 9 (2.70%) Databricks
5 9 (2.70%) Foundry
6 8 (2.40%) Cerner
7 5 (1.50%) VMware
8 4 (1.20%) Juniper
8 4 (1.20%) Palo Alto
9 3 (0.90%) Adobe
9 3 (0.90%) Cisco
9 3 (0.90%) Citrix
10 2 (0.60%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.60%) Dynatrace
10 2 (0.60%) MEDITECH
10 2 (0.60%) Meraki
10 2 (0.60%) Splunk
10 2 (0.60%) Zscaler
1,138 NHS jobs in England