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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 21 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,961 2,320 2,717
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.54% 8.34% 8.24%
As % of the General category 15.31% 12.94% 14.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,716 1,612 1,719
10th Percentile £363 £325 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £523
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.31% -3.24%
75th Percentile £615 £600 £627
90th Percentile £700 £680 £700
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 94 113
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.48 £14.46
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £16.25
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.02 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year -3.02% -8.95% +17.78%
75th Percentile £50.00 £34.04 £57.25
90th Percentile £77.25 £66.65 £74.54
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.91% +12.80%

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 25,864 17,935 19,148
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.75% 64.46% 58.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,270 11,341 11,818
10th Percentile £313 £276 £300
25th Percentile £423 £400 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,164 1,008 1,016
10th Percentile £13.67 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.08 £16.17 £18.00
Median hourly rate £31.13 £25.15 £38.31
Median % change year-on-year +23.77% -34.35% +39.31%
75th Percentile £56.25 £49.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £29.98 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +19.20% -32.93% +36.36%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 1,719 £540 +5.37% 998
North of England 0 717 £475 - 315
Midlands +10 510 £490 +3.16% 205
South East -2 445 £505 -3.81% 283
West Midlands +6 436 £490 +3.16% 138
South West -4 369 £525 -2.33% 222
Yorkshire +2 274 £475 -3.06% 105
North West -14 251 £525 +16.67% 138
North East -1 203 £450 -10.00% 77
East Midlands +18 68 £450 +5.88% 67
East of England -20 51 £450 -10.00% 85
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
1 161 (4.06%) Confluence
2 107 (2.70%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.26%) SAS
4 48 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
4 48 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
5 43 (1.09%) Apache Spark
6 40 (1.01%) Apache
7 31 (0.78%) CMS
8 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
9 15 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
10 11 (0.28%) WordPress
11 9 (0.23%) nginx
12 7 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.13%) Drupal
13 5 (0.13%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
14 3 (0.076%) IIS
14 3 (0.076%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.050%) WebLogic
Applications
1 80 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 50 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
4 26 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.15%) MS Visio
8 5 (0.13%) Trello
9 4 (0.10%) Sketch
10 3 (0.076%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.050%) Navisworks
11 2 (0.050%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.050%) Revit
12 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 50 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
2 45 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
3 44 (1.11%) Oracle ERP
4 26 (0.66%) SAP PSCD
5 23 (0.58%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.35%) Workday HCM
7 13 (0.33%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
7 13 (0.33%) SAP Payroll
8 11 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.28%) SAP BRIM
8 11 (0.28%) SAP Hybris
9 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
10 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
10 9 (0.23%) SAP HR
10 9 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 8 (0.20%) SAP FI
12 7 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 812 (20.50%) AWS
2 760 (19.19%) Azure
3 243 (6.13%) Power Platform
4 184 (4.65%) Azure DevOps
5 171 (4.32%) Microsoft 365
6 154 (3.89%) GitHub
6 154 (3.89%) Serverless
7 151 (3.81%) GCP
8 131 (3.31%) Entra ID
9 118 (2.98%) Amazon S3
10 114 (2.88%) SaaS
11 111 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
12 96 (2.42%) OCI
13 91 (2.30%) AWS Lambda
14 87 (2.20%) Power Automate
15 81 (2.04%) Dynamics 365
16 74 (1.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 66 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
18 65 (1.64%) PowerApps
19 60 (1.51%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 103 (2.60%) Firewall
2 65 (1.64%) DNS
3 52 (1.31%) WAN
4 44 (1.11%) LAN
5 38 (0.96%) Network Security
6 32 (0.81%) DHCP
7 29 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
8 28 (0.71%) BGP
9 27 (0.68%) OSPF
10 26 (0.66%) TCP/IP
10 26 (0.66%) VPN
11 19 (0.48%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.48%) WLAN
12 16 (0.40%) VXLAN
13 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
14 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 14 (0.35%) Wireless
15 13 (0.33%) VLAN
16 12 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (3.91%) Power BI
2 105 (2.65%) Data Warehouse
3 104 (2.63%) PostgreSQL
4 88 (2.22%) Metadata
5 73 (1.84%) Relational Database
6 71 (1.79%) SQL Server
7 63 (1.59%) MongoDB
8 54 (1.36%) Oracle Database
9 51 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
10 49 (1.24%) Data Lake
11 47 (1.19%) NoSQL
12 33 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
13 30 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
13 30 (0.76%) Tableau
14 28 (0.71%) Amazon Aurora
14 28 (0.71%) MySQL
15 25 (0.63%) Pentaho
16 24 (0.61%) DynamoDB
17 18 (0.45%) Redis
Development Applications
1 238 (6.01%) JIRA
2 199 (5.02%) Git
3 159 (4.01%) GitLab
4 126 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.11%) Selenium
6 39 (0.98%) Cucumber
7 36 (0.91%) JUnit
8 30 (0.76%) Mockito
9 28 (0.71%) Postman
9 28 (0.71%) SonarQube
10 26 (0.66%) Maven
11 25 (0.63%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 17 (0.43%) JMeter
13 17 (0.43%) WebDriver
14 13 (0.33%) MSI
15 12 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
16 11 (0.28%) Gatling
17 10 (0.25%) fastlane
17 10 (0.25%) Gradle
General
1 1,219 (30.78%) Social Skills
2 439 (11.08%) Finance
3 426 (10.75%) Analytical Skills
4 271 (6.84%) Military
5 219 (5.53%) Local Government
6 173 (4.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 148 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
8 115 (2.90%) Organisational Skills
9 106 (2.68%) Legal
10 90 (2.27%) Police
11 84 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
12 62 (1.57%) Law
13 55 (1.39%) Telecoms
14 42 (1.06%) Marketing
15 37 (0.93%) Banking
15 37 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
16 28 (0.71%) Retail
17 25 (0.63%) Billing
18 20 (0.50%) Manufacturing
19 19 (0.48%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 549 (13.86%) Architect
2 536 (13.53%) Developer
2 536 (13.53%) Senior
3 481 (12.14%) Lead
4 352 (8.89%) Analyst
5 175 (4.42%) Consultant
6 148 (3.74%) Designer
7 142 (3.58%) Data Engineer
8 138 (3.48%) Business Analyst
9 131 (3.31%) DevOps Engineer
10 123 (3.11%) Data Architect
10 123 (3.11%) Delivery Manager
11 119 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
12 115 (2.90%) Senior Developer
13 109 (2.75%) Technical Architect
14 90 (2.27%) Project Manager
15 88 (2.22%) User Researcher
16 87 (2.20%) Java Developer
17 86 (2.17%) Senior Manager
18 74 (1.87%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 356 (8.99%) Terraform
2 163 (4.12%) REST
3 111 (2.80%) RESTful
4 99 (2.50%) React
5 98 (2.47%) Spring
6 93 (2.35%) Node.js
7 87 (2.20%) Spring Boot
8 85 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
9 77 (1.94%) SOAP
10 76 (1.92%) HTML
11 72 (1.82%) Kafka
12 68 (1.72%) Django
12 68 (1.72%) Web Services
13 67 (1.69%) CSS
14 62 (1.57%) .NET
15 57 (1.44%) OAuth
16 54 (1.36%) JSON
17 50 (1.26%) AngularJS
18 48 (1.21%) OpenID
19 47 (1.19%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 238 (6.01%) Cloud Native
2 165 (4.17%) Product Ownership
3 159 (4.01%) Onboarding
4 135 (3.41%) NHS
5 125 (3.16%) Management Information System
6 108 (2.73%) Legacy Systems
7 78 (1.97%) Enterprise Software
8 55 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.21%) Data Centre
10 46 (1.16%) Data Structures
11 44 (1.11%) Freedom of Information
12 43 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
13 42 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
14 41 (1.04%) CMDB
15 36 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
16 35 (0.88%) Virtual Team
17 32 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
17 32 (0.81%) Security Operations Centre
18 31 (0.78%) Low-Code
19 29 (0.73%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 130 (3.28%) Windows
2 125 (3.16%) Linux
3 46 (1.16%) Unix
4 42 (1.06%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.53%) Android
6 18 (0.45%) Apple iOS
7 17 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.40%) Mac OS
9 15 (0.38%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.13%) Amazon Linux
11 4 (0.10%) AIX
11 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.076%) Solaris
13 2 (0.050%) CentOS
13 2 (0.050%) VMS
13 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2008
13 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
14 1 (0.025%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
14 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,289 (32.54%) Agile
2 857 (21.64%) Stakeholder Management
3 686 (17.32%) Continuous Improvement
4 679 (17.14%) CI/CD
5 669 (16.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 640 (16.16%) DevOps
7 497 (12.55%) Problem-Solving
8 471 (11.89%) Decision-Making
9 416 (10.50%) Analytics
10 370 (9.34%) Migration
11 365 (9.21%) Roadmaps
12 356 (8.99%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 354 (8.94%) AI
14 340 (8.58%) Infrastructure as Code
15 308 (7.78%) Data Modelling
16 293 (7.40%) Technical Leadership
17 289 (7.30%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 269 (6.79%) Mentoring
19 260 (6.56%) Containerisation
20 259 (6.54%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 468 (11.82%) Python
2 391 (9.87%) SQL
3 247 (6.24%) Java
4 224 (5.66%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.05%) TypeScript
6 112 (2.83%) PowerShell
7 85 (2.15%) C#
8 60 (1.51%) Bash
9 53 (1.34%) PL/SQL
10 47 (1.19%) Bicep
11 39 (0.98%) Scala
12 29 (0.73%) Apex Code
13 26 (0.66%) Kotlin
13 26 (0.66%) R
13 26 (0.66%) Ruby
14 24 (0.61%) Groovy
15 22 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 16 (0.40%) ABAP
17 14 (0.35%) Shell Script
18 11 (0.28%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,025 (51.12%) Security Cleared
2 1,645 (41.53%) SC Cleared
3 279 (7.04%) BPSS Clearance
4 240 (6.06%) DV Cleared
5 177 (4.47%) Degree
6 72 (1.82%) Microsoft Certification
7 60 (1.51%) AWS Certification
8 59 (1.49%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.16%) CISSP
10 41 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
11 32 (0.81%) CISM
12 28 (0.71%) CCNP
12 28 (0.71%) PMI Certification
13 25 (0.63%) ISTQB
14 24 (0.61%) ITIL Certification
15 23 (0.58%) Master's Degree
16 18 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
17 17 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 17 (0.43%) DBS Check
17 17 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 322 (8.13%) Accessibility
2 240 (6.06%) Data Quality
3 238 (6.01%) QA
4 145 (3.66%) WCAG
5 133 (3.36%) GDPR
6 92 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 79 (1.99%) PMO
8 78 (1.97%) NCSC
9 75 (1.89%) NIST
10 36 (0.91%) GRC
11 29 (0.73%) SLA
12 26 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 12 (0.30%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.28%) NIST 800
17 10 (0.25%) HL7
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 299 (7.55%) Docker
2 139 (3.51%) Active Directory
3 36 (0.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.48%) VMware NSX
5 17 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.25%) vSphere
7 9 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
8 7 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.13%) Postfix
9 5 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.050%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.025%) Ceph
11 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.025%) Squid
11 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 268 (6.77%) Kubernetes
2 91 (2.30%) Grafana
3 71 (1.79%) Ansible
4 62 (1.57%) Prometheus
5 39 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
6 38 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
7 23 (0.58%) Argo
8 22 (0.56%) SCCM
9 15 (0.38%) Kibana
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle RMAN
11 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
11 8 (0.20%) VxRail
12 7 (0.18%) Puppet
13 5 (0.13%) Istio
13 5 (0.13%) QRadar
13 5 (0.13%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (0.10%) Consul
14 4 (0.10%) Packer
14 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 527 (13.30%) Microsoft
2 330 (8.33%) Oracle
3 155 (3.91%) ServiceNow
4 124 (3.13%) Google
5 114 (2.88%) SAP
6 99 (2.50%) Salesforce
7 81 (2.04%) Databricks
8 47 (1.19%) Cisco
9 46 (1.16%) VMware
10 37 (0.93%) Palo Alto
11 31 (0.78%) Splunk
12 30 (0.76%) Talend
13 28 (0.71%) Dynatrace
14 27 (0.68%) Foundry
15 25 (0.63%) Informatica
16 23 (0.58%) Palantir
16 23 (0.58%) Workday
17 22 (0.56%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.50%) Red Hat
19 18 (0.45%) Atlassian