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 20 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 18 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,905 2,728 3,536
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.53% 8.78% 9.06%
As % of the General category 14.97% 14.79% 15.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,018 1,631 2,507
10th Percentile £315 £300 £290
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -
75th Percentile £594 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 98 93
10th Percentile £15.48 £15.00 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.29 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.30 £24.09 £21.31
Median % change year-on-year -11.56% +13.02% +12.16%
75th Percentile £25.15 £40.23 £59.00
90th Percentile £53.55 £63.30 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.00 £21.31
% change year-on-year -8.70% +7.93% +12.16%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,401 18,445 23,273
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.66% 59.39% 59.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,294 11,086 15,855
10th Percentile £275 £300 £294
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £627 £650 £670
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,275 685 1,021
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £17.50 £17.25
Median hourly rate £24.61 £31.97 £32.32
Median % change year-on-year -23.02% -1.08% +25.71%
75th Percentile £45.46 £59.95 £59.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £71.25 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £24.09 £29.00 £31.71
% change year-on-year -16.93% -8.55% +26.84%

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 20 November 2025.

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 20 November 2025.

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 20 November 2025. 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 0 1,199 £513 -2.38% 567
North of England 0 541 £470 -1.05% 224
South West +2 331 £550 -4.35% 124
South East -8 308 £500 -9.09% 322
Midlands +5 279 £475 -5.00% 120
North West 0 272 £450 -5.96% 108
West Midlands +3 220 £478 -4.50% 76
Yorkshire +8 171 £501 +5.37% 71
North East +2 101 £450 +6.51% 46
East of England -3 78 £375 +7.14% 57
East Midlands +2 59 £415 -7.78% 41
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
1 114 (3.92%) Confluence
2 89 (3.06%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.90%) nginx
5 25 (0.86%) SAS
6 24 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.52%) Apache
7 15 (0.52%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.45%) CMS
9 10 (0.34%) Apache Spark
10 6 (0.21%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.17%) Documentum
11 5 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
13 3 (0.10%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.10%) Jupyter
Applications
1 93 (3.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 87 (2.99%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.62%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.34%) Trello
7 9 (0.31%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.21%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.21%) Sketch
9 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.17%) InVision
10 4 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.14%) UXPin
11 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.069%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) S-PLUS
13 1 (0.034%) Stata
13 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.52%) SAP PSCD
4 12 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
4 12 (0.41%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.38%) SAP BRIM
5 11 (0.38%) SAP Hybris
6 9 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.28%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
9 6 (0.21%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
11 4 (0.14%) iTrent
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 551 (18.97%) AWS
2 522 (17.97%) Azure
3 195 (6.71%) Power Platform
4 150 (5.16%) Microsoft 365
5 123 (4.23%) GitHub
6 122 (4.20%) GCP
7 119 (4.10%) Serverless
8 100 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
9 80 (2.75%) Amazon S3
10 74 (2.55%) AWS Lambda
11 65 (2.24%) SaaS
12 62 (2.13%) GitHub Actions
12 62 (2.13%) PowerApps
13 57 (1.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 57 (1.96%) Entra ID
14 56 (1.93%) Amazon EC2
15 53 (1.82%) AWS CloudFormation
15 53 (1.82%) Power Automate
16 48 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
17 43 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 112 (3.86%) Firewall
2 79 (2.72%) DNS
3 60 (2.07%) VPN
4 47 (1.62%) WAN
5 43 (1.48%) Wireless
6 40 (1.38%) Network Security
7 38 (1.31%) LAN
8 31 (1.07%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.03%) BGP
10 28 (0.96%) DHCP
11 27 (0.93%) HTTP
12 24 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.79%) SD-WAN
14 22 (0.76%) SSH
15 21 (0.72%) FTP
15 21 (0.72%) SMTP
16 19 (0.65%) Internet
16 19 (0.65%) OSPF
16 19 (0.65%) SSL
17 18 (0.62%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 134 (4.61%) Power BI
2 87 (2.99%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (1.69%) MongoDB
4 39 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
4 39 (1.34%) Metadata
5 36 (1.24%) SQL Server
6 34 (1.17%) Relational Database
7 31 (1.07%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.00%) Data Lake
8 29 (1.00%) Oracle Database
9 28 (0.96%) MySQL
10 27 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
11 20 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (0.65%) Redis
13 18 (0.62%) Tableau
14 17 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
15 16 (0.55%) Amazon Aurora
15 16 (0.55%) BigQuery
16 13 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
16 13 (0.45%) GIS
Development Applications
1 195 (6.71%) JIRA
2 160 (5.51%) Git
3 134 (4.61%) Jenkins
4 80 (2.75%) GitLab
5 35 (1.20%) Postman
6 34 (1.17%) Selenium
7 30 (1.03%) SonarQube
8 28 (0.96%) Cucumber
9 21 (0.72%) Mockito
9 21 (0.72%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.69%) Cypress.io
11 19 (0.65%) JUnit
11 19 (0.65%) REST Assured
12 13 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.45%) Burp Suite
12 13 (0.45%) Metasploit
13 11 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 11 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
14 8 (0.28%) MSI
15 7 (0.24%) JMeter
General
1 854 (29.40%) Social Skills
2 483 (16.63%) Finance
3 255 (8.78%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (8.06%) Telecoms
5 199 (6.85%) Manufacturing
6 192 (6.61%) Marketing
7 181 (6.23%) Electronics
8 131 (4.51%) Military
9 129 (4.44%) Local Government
10 79 (2.72%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.41%) Legal
12 51 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
13 44 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.38%) Law
15 39 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
16 38 (1.31%) Retail
17 35 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 31 (1.07%) Police
19 26 (0.90%) Banking
20 19 (0.65%) Billing
Job Titles
1 349 (12.01%) Developer
2 321 (11.05%) Architect
3 310 (10.67%) Analyst
4 282 (9.71%) Senior
5 277 (9.54%) Lead
6 200 (6.88%) Consultant
7 127 (4.37%) Business Analyst
8 118 (4.06%) DevOps Engineer
9 90 (3.10%) Project Manager
10 75 (2.58%) AWS Engineer
11 74 (2.55%) Solutions Architect
12 72 (2.48%) Technical Architect
13 67 (2.31%) Designer
14 66 (2.27%) Support Engineer
15 53 (1.82%) Network Engineer
16 52 (1.79%) Java Developer
16 52 (1.79%) Senior Developer
17 51 (1.76%) Data Engineer
18 49 (1.69%) IT Support
18 49 (1.69%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (3.75%) REST
2 83 (2.86%) RESTful
3 80 (2.75%) React
4 73 (2.51%) Node.js
5 71 (2.44%) .NET
6 60 (2.07%) Spring Boot
7 59 (2.03%) HTML
8 58 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
8 58 (2.00%) Spring
9 55 (1.89%) Kafka
10 54 (1.86%) JSON
11 53 (1.82%) CSS
12 52 (1.79%) SOAP
12 52 (1.79%) Web Services
13 50 (1.72%) AngularJS
14 37 (1.27%) XML
15 27 (0.93%) OAuth
16 23 (0.79%) Playwright
17 22 (0.76%) LDAP
18 19 (0.65%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 99 (3.41%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.30%) Cloud Native
3 95 (3.27%) NHS
4 76 (2.62%) Product Ownership
5 74 (2.55%) Data Centre
6 71 (2.44%) Management Information System
7 68 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
8 38 (1.31%) Replication
9 34 (1.17%) PKI
10 33 (1.14%) Public Cloud
11 30 (1.03%) Security Posture
12 27 (0.93%) CMDB
13 25 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
14 24 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
14 24 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
15 23 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
15 23 (0.79%) Data Structures
16 22 (0.76%) AI Agents
16 22 (0.76%) Driving Licence
17 20 (0.69%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 244 (8.40%) Windows
2 156 (5.37%) Linux
3 49 (1.69%) Windows 10
4 47 (1.62%) Windows Server
5 46 (1.58%) Android
6 41 (1.41%) Mac OS
7 28 (0.96%) VMS
8 25 (0.86%) Unix
9 22 (0.76%) Amazon Linux
10 21 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 20 (0.69%) Apple iOS
12 13 (0.45%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.28%) Mac OS X
15 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
16 6 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
17 4 (0.14%) CentOS
18 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
18 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 730 (25.13%) Agile
2 417 (14.35%) DevOps
3 407 (14.01%) CI/CD
4 384 (13.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 374 (12.87%) Problem-Solving
6 339 (11.67%) Business Intelligence
7 291 (10.02%) Stakeholder Management
8 273 (9.40%) Migration
9 252 (8.67%) Continuous Improvement
10 217 (7.47%) Roadmaps
11 206 (7.09%) Programme Management
12 188 (6.47%) Infrastructure as Code
13 180 (6.20%) Digital Marketing
14 179 (6.16%) Microservices
15 177 (6.09%) Analytics
16 172 (5.92%) ITIL
17 165 (5.68%) Decision-Making
18 158 (5.44%) AI
18 158 (5.44%) Test Automation
19 145 (4.99%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 340 (11.70%) Python
2 256 (8.81%) SQL
3 238 (8.19%) Java
4 132 (4.54%) JavaScript
5 119 (4.10%) PowerShell
6 80 (2.75%) Bash
7 77 (2.65%) TypeScript
8 70 (2.41%) C#
9 31 (1.07%) Go
10 25 (0.86%) Groovy
10 25 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.79%) Perl
12 22 (0.76%) C++
13 18 (0.62%) Apex Code
13 18 (0.62%) Ruby
13 18 (0.62%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.48%) C
15 13 (0.45%) PHP
16 12 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.38%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 1,772 (61.00%) Security Cleared
2 1,242 (42.75%) SC Cleared
3 172 (5.92%) DV Cleared
4 117 (4.03%) Degree
5 73 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 54 (1.86%) CISSP
7 43 (1.48%) Microsoft Certification
8 37 (1.27%) Azure Certification
8 37 (1.27%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (1.20%) AWS Certification
10 34 (1.17%) Cisco Certification
11 27 (0.93%) CISM
12 24 (0.83%) CCNP
13 22 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
14 21 (0.72%) OSCP
15 20 (0.69%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.65%) CREST Certified
17 15 (0.52%) CCNA
18 14 (0.48%) ISEB
18 14 (0.48%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (4.27%) Accessibility
2 119 (4.10%) QA
3 89 (3.06%) GDPR
4 81 (2.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 76 (2.62%) Data Quality
6 70 (2.41%) NIST
7 59 (2.03%) NCSC
8 44 (1.51%) SLA
9 41 (1.41%) PMO
10 39 (1.34%) WCAG
11 24 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.69%) GRC
13 18 (0.62%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.55%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.41%) COBIT
16 12 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 10 (0.34%) PCI DSS
18 9 (0.31%) HL7
18 9 (0.31%) RMADS
System Software
1 207 (7.13%) Docker
2 126 (4.34%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.72%) DFS Replication
5 16 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.55%) vSphere
6 15 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.45%) Postfix
8 11 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.38%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.31%) Dovecot
9 9 (0.31%) Squid
10 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.17%) UAG
12 4 (0.14%) Firmware
13 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
13 3 (0.10%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 271 (9.33%) Terraform
2 211 (7.26%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.69%) Ansible
4 69 (2.38%) Grafana
5 56 (1.93%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.38%) SCCM
7 37 (1.27%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (0.65%) Packer
8 19 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.48%) Nmap
11 12 (0.41%) Argo
11 12 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.41%) Nessus
12 11 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.38%) SCOM
13 9 (0.31%) Consul
13 9 (0.31%) Proxmox
14 7 (0.24%) vRealize
15 6 (0.21%) QRadar
Vendors
1 406 (13.98%) Microsoft
2 293 (10.09%) SAP
3 183 (6.30%) Oracle
4 148 (5.09%) Cisco
5 107 (3.68%) ServiceNow
6 82 (2.82%) VMware
7 60 (2.07%) Salesforce
8 56 (1.93%) Splunk
9 55 (1.89%) Google
10 50 (1.72%) Juniper
11 39 (1.34%) Aruba
12 38 (1.31%) HP
13 36 (1.24%) Apple
13 36 (1.24%) Dell
14 34 (1.17%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.07%) Virgin Media
16 30 (1.03%) SolarWinds
17 28 (0.96%) Databricks
18 26 (0.90%) Fortinet
19 25 (0.86%) Red Hat