Public Sector Contract Job Trends in England

Public Sector
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Sector in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Sector over the 6 months leading up to 11 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,672 2,295 3,395
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.11% 9.30% 8.91%
As % of the General category 17.46% 14.73% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,593 1,508 2,260
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £418 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.78%
75th Percentile £590 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £501 £525
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 78 144
10th Percentile £16.51 £15.19 £13.36
25th Percentile £17.72 £18.28 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.04 £23.80 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year -7.41% +12.00% +6.25%
75th Percentile £25.38 £33.56 £55.43
90th Percentile £45.70 £62.99 £69.28
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% +5.00%

All General Skills
England

Public Sector falls under the General Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring general skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 21,036 15,583 22,326
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.94% 63.13% 58.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,303 9,978 14,581
10th Percentile £300 £300 £266
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £758
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,312 558 1,673
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.04 £13.05
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.00 £15.29
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.43 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.83% +17.02% -20.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £61.31 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.98 £75.08 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.06 £29.52 £25.90
% change year-on-year -18.48% +13.98% -20.32%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Public Sector relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Public Sector job vacancy trend in England

Public Sector
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Public Sector.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Sector in England over the 6 months to 11 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in England

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Public Sector.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Public Sector in England over the 6 months to 11 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Public Sector in England

Public Sector
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 Public Sector within the England region over the 6 months to 11 March 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 +1 1,563 £525 - 292
North of England -2 654 £450 -5.26% 248
South East 0 449 £500 -7.24% 296
Midlands +2 391 £500 +5.26% 144
North West +3 323 £450 -10.00% 105
West Midlands +1 289 £500 +5.49% 87
South West +1 275 £525 -4.55% 118
Yorkshire -2 209 £500 +11.11% 90
North East 0 127 £450 +4.65% 54
East of England +29 119 £425 +21.43% 82
East Midlands +10 99 £450 -7.69% 55
Public Sector
UK

Public Sector
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
1 133 (3.62%) Confluence
2 103 (2.81%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 22 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.35%) nginx
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 8 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.082%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.082%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.082%) Smallworld
Applications
1 93 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 92 (2.51%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.25%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.082%) InVision
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
14 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 68 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 24 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
4 20 (0.54%) SAP BRIM
4 20 (0.54%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.25%) iTrent
9 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
10 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 676 (18.41%) AWS
2 621 (16.91%) Azure
3 211 (5.75%) Power Platform
4 166 (4.52%) Serverless
5 157 (4.28%) GitHub
6 156 (4.25%) Microsoft 365
7 144 (3.92%) GCP
8 136 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
9 104 (2.83%) AWS Lambda
10 89 (2.42%) Entra ID
10 89 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
11 87 (2.37%) Amazon S3
12 65 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
13 64 (1.74%) Power Automate
14 61 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
16 59 (1.61%) PowerApps
17 58 (1.58%) Amazon EC2
18 55 (1.50%) OCI
19 54 (1.47%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 90 (2.45%) Firewall
2 57 (1.55%) VPN
3 53 (1.44%) Network Security
4 52 (1.42%) WAN
5 50 (1.36%) DNS
6 42 (1.14%) LAN
7 41 (1.12%) Wireless
8 32 (0.87%) TCP/IP
9 30 (0.82%) BGP
10 25 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.63%) OSPF
12 21 (0.57%) DHCP
13 19 (0.52%) SD-WAN
14 16 (0.44%) SSL
15 15 (0.41%) Internet
16 13 (0.35%) MPLS
17 12 (0.33%) VLAN
18 11 (0.30%) IPsec
19 10 (0.27%) HTTP
19 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (4.49%) Power BI
2 78 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
3 61 (1.66%) SQL Server
4 53 (1.44%) MongoDB
5 52 (1.42%) Metadata
6 44 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.12%) Data Lake
7 41 (1.12%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
9 32 (0.87%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.84%) Relational Database
11 29 (0.79%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (0.63%) Tableau
13 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
13 22 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 21 (0.57%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.52%) Redis
16 18 (0.49%) MySQL
17 16 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
17 16 (0.44%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 207 (5.64%) JIRA
2 167 (4.55%) Git
3 130 (3.54%) GitLab
4 123 (3.35%) Jenkins
5 47 (1.28%) Selenium
6 43 (1.17%) Postman
7 32 (0.87%) JUnit
8 27 (0.74%) Mockito
9 25 (0.68%) Cucumber
9 25 (0.68%) Cypress.io
10 21 (0.57%) JMeter
10 21 (0.57%) SonarQube
11 15 (0.41%) REST Assured
12 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
12 14 (0.38%) Mocha
13 12 (0.33%) Maven
14 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
14 10 (0.27%) MSI
15 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,018 (27.72%) Social Skills
2 555 (15.11%) Finance
3 341 (9.29%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (5.04%) Telecoms
5 156 (4.25%) Military
6 154 (4.19%) Manufacturing
6 154 (4.19%) Marketing
7 141 (3.84%) Local Government
8 132 (3.59%) Electronics
9 80 (2.18%) Legal
10 74 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
12 70 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
13 51 (1.39%) Banking
14 49 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 49 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
15 43 (1.17%) Police
16 39 (1.06%) Law
17 38 (1.03%) Billing
18 32 (0.87%) Retail
Job Titles
1 447 (12.17%) Developer
2 445 (12.12%) Architect
3 390 (10.62%) Senior
4 365 (9.94%) Analyst
5 317 (8.63%) Lead
6 193 (5.26%) Consultant
7 170 (4.63%) Business Analyst
8 136 (3.70%) Designer
9 124 (3.38%) DevOps Engineer
10 110 (3.00%) Data Engineer
11 109 (2.97%) Project Manager
12 108 (2.94%) Solutions Architect
13 100 (2.72%) Technical Architect
14 86 (2.34%) Java Developer
15 81 (2.21%) User Researcher
16 68 (1.85%) Delivery Manager
16 68 (1.85%) Senior Developer
17 64 (1.74%) AWS Engineer
18 62 (1.69%) Service Designer
19 57 (1.55%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.08%) REST
2 129 (3.51%) Node.js
3 104 (2.83%) React
4 103 (2.81%) Spring
5 91 (2.48%) Spring Boot
6 86 (2.34%) RESTful
7 74 (2.02%) .NET
8 73 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
9 72 (1.96%) HTML
10 71 (1.93%) AngularJS
11 67 (1.82%) CSS
12 65 (1.77%) Web Services
13 58 (1.58%) SOAP
14 53 (1.44%) Kafka
15 50 (1.36%) JSON
16 36 (0.98%) Playwright
17 35 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
17 35 (0.95%) XML
18 33 (0.90%) Middleware
19 28 (0.76%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 146 (3.98%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.76%) Onboarding
3 122 (3.32%) NHS
4 119 (3.24%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.42%) Data Centre
6 78 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
7 68 (1.85%) Management Information System
8 54 (1.47%) Public Cloud
9 35 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 34 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
11 33 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
12 32 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
13 31 (0.84%) Data Structures
13 31 (0.84%) Security Posture
14 29 (0.79%) CMDB
15 26 (0.71%) AI Agents
16 24 (0.65%) PKI
17 22 (0.60%) Replication
18 20 (0.54%) Security Operations Centre
19 18 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 216 (5.88%) Windows
2 161 (4.38%) Linux
3 56 (1.53%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.31%) Android
5 46 (1.25%) Windows 10
6 44 (1.20%) Mac OS
7 37 (1.01%) Unix
8 24 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 20 (0.54%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.25%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.25%) VMS
13 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.19%) Solaris
15 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) AIX
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 903 (24.59%) Agile
2 516 (14.05%) CI/CD
3 506 (13.78%) DevOps
4 457 (12.45%) Problem-Solving
5 440 (11.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 402 (10.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 360 (9.80%) Migration
8 340 (9.26%) Continuous Improvement
9 324 (8.82%) Roadmaps
10 321 (8.74%) Business Intelligence
11 277 (7.54%) Analytics
12 252 (6.86%) Decision-Making
13 228 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
14 224 (6.10%) Containerisation
15 223 (6.07%) Test Automation
16 218 (5.94%) Microservices
17 212 (5.77%) Data Modelling
18 211 (5.75%) AI
19 209 (5.69%) Workshop Facilitation
20 205 (5.58%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 395 (10.76%) Python
2 331 (9.01%) SQL
3 259 (7.05%) Java
4 192 (5.23%) JavaScript
5 118 (3.21%) TypeScript
6 115 (3.13%) PowerShell
7 83 (2.26%) C#
8 64 (1.74%) Bash
9 38 (1.03%) Ruby
10 34 (0.93%) Apex Code
11 30 (0.82%) PL/SQL
12 26 (0.71%) Go
13 25 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.52%) R
15 18 (0.49%) Kotlin
16 15 (0.41%) Bicep
16 15 (0.41%) PHP
17 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
19 10 (0.27%) C
Qualifications
1 2,151 (58.58%) Security Cleared
2 1,397 (38.04%) SC Cleared
3 177 (4.82%) Degree
3 177 (4.82%) DV Cleared
4 104 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
5 50 (1.36%) Azure Certification
6 44 (1.20%) AWS Certification
7 42 (1.14%) CISSP
8 40 (1.09%) ITIL Certification
9 36 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
9 36 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
10 31 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
11 25 (0.68%) CISM
11 25 (0.68%) PMP
12 22 (0.60%) ISEB
13 21 (0.57%) PMI Certification
14 16 (0.44%) CCNP
14 16 (0.44%) ISTQB
15 15 (0.41%) CCNA
15 15 (0.41%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 187 (5.09%) Accessibility
2 148 (4.03%) QA
3 142 (3.87%) Data Quality
4 110 (3.00%) GDPR
5 81 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 66 (1.80%) WCAG
7 65 (1.77%) NIST
8 61 (1.66%) PMO
9 59 (1.61%) NCSC
10 44 (1.20%) SLA
11 27 (0.74%) GRC
12 19 (0.52%) COBIT
13 17 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
16 12 (0.33%) HIPAA
17 11 (0.30%) HL7
17 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 249 (6.78%) Docker
2 134 (3.65%) Active Directory
3 60 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
4 18 (0.49%) VMware NSX
5 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.38%) vSphere
7 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.16%) Postfix
9 5 (0.14%) NFS
10 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.082%) RACF
11 3 (0.082%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.054%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 2 (0.054%) SRDF
13 1 (0.027%) GPFS
13 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 298 (8.12%) Terraform
2 271 (7.38%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.04%) Ansible
4 73 (1.99%) Grafana
5 50 (1.36%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
8 26 (0.71%) SCCM
9 15 (0.41%) Argo
10 13 (0.35%) Puppet
11 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 11 (0.30%) Packer
13 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.25%) Kibana
15 8 (0.22%) Consul
16 7 (0.19%) Istio
16 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.19%) vRealize
17 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 418 (11.38%) Microsoft
2 285 (7.76%) SAP
3 211 (5.75%) Oracle
4 132 (3.59%) Cisco
5 113 (3.08%) Salesforce
6 111 (3.02%) ServiceNow
7 94 (2.56%) VMware
8 71 (1.93%) Databricks
9 67 (1.82%) Google
10 58 (1.58%) Splunk
11 44 (1.20%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.14%) Aruba
13 35 (0.95%) Dell
14 34 (0.93%) Apple
14 34 (0.93%) Red Hat
15 32 (0.87%) Juniper
16 31 (0.84%) HP
17 30 (0.82%) Atlassian
18 29 (0.79%) IBM
19 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft