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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 23 19
Rank change year-on-year +2 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,030 2,159 2,680
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.85% 7.77% 7.99%
As % of the General category 15.97% 12.16% 13.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,800 1,481 1,832
10th Percentile £358 £338 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £513 £515
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -0.49% -4.19%
75th Percentile £602 £600 £625
90th Percentile £694 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 81 115
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £15.10
25th Percentile £16.70 £18.13 £18.03
Median hourly rate £25.38 £21.90 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.89% -18.89% +29.68%
75th Percentile £53.75 £30.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.33 £63.75 £72.88
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £20.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year +26.90% -13.04% +14.43%

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 25,227 17,762 19,252
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.40% 63.96% 57.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,098 11,336 12,441
10th Percentile £313 £281 £300
25th Percentile £416 £402 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £659
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 1,923 944 1,263
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.25 £14.06
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.35 £18.00
Median hourly rate £33.50 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +33.20% -34.02% +32.59%
75th Percentile £63.75 £50.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.75 £70.39
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +27.07%

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 2 August 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 2 August 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 2 August 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 1,784 £525 - 615
North of England 0 706 £463 -2.63% 285
South East +7 503 £500 -4.76% 199
Midlands +8 480 £500 +8.11% 167
West Midlands +6 394 £492 +3.58% 140
South West -7 310 £525 -4.55% 227
North West -4 281 £500 +7.53% 153
Yorkshire +12 260 £470 -1.05% 92
North East -3 176 £450 -10.00% 41
East Midlands +25 78 £538 +31.10% 25
East of England +9 61 £463 -7.50% 32
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
1 164 (4.07%) Confluence
2 116 (2.88%) SharePoint
3 49 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 49 (1.22%) SAS
4 45 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
5 37 (0.92%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.84%) Apache
7 24 (0.60%) CMS
8 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.32%) nginx
9 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 11 (0.27%) WordPress
11 9 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.17%) Tomcat
13 6 (0.15%) Drupal
14 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
14 5 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.074%) ArcGIS
15 3 (0.074%) IIS
Applications
1 84 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.25%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.15%) Sketch
8 6 (0.15%) Trello
9 3 (0.074%) Adobe XD
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.025%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 47 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 43 (1.07%) Oracle ERP
4 26 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
5 24 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
6 16 (0.40%) Workday HCM
7 13 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.27%) NetSuite
9 11 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
10 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
10 10 (0.25%) NEC Housing
10 10 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 9 (0.22%) Oracle General Ledger
11 9 (0.22%) SAP BRIM
11 9 (0.22%) SAP FI
11 9 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
11 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 8 (0.20%) SystmOne
13 6 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 817 (20.27%) AWS
2 775 (19.23%) Azure
3 238 (5.91%) Power Platform
4 184 (4.57%) Azure DevOps
5 182 (4.52%) Microsoft 365
6 157 (3.90%) GCP
7 156 (3.87%) GitHub
8 148 (3.67%) Serverless
9 130 (3.23%) Amazon S3
10 129 (3.20%) Entra ID
11 106 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
11 106 (2.63%) SaaS
12 90 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
13 88 (2.18%) OCI
14 83 (2.06%) Power Automate
15 79 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
16 74 (1.84%) Amazon EC2
17 69 (1.71%) PowerApps
18 66 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 66 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 114 (2.83%) Firewall
2 71 (1.76%) DNS
3 59 (1.46%) WAN
4 52 (1.29%) LAN
5 48 (1.19%) Network Security
6 38 (0.94%) VPN
7 35 (0.87%) DHCP
8 31 (0.77%) BGP
9 30 (0.74%) OSPF
9 30 (0.74%) TCP/IP
10 28 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (0.55%) SD-WAN
12 18 (0.45%) BIG-IP
12 18 (0.45%) VXLAN
12 18 (0.45%) WLAN
13 16 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
14 15 (0.37%) Wireless
15 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 13 (0.32%) NGFW
16 13 (0.32%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (4.07%) Power BI
2 109 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
3 95 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (1.96%) SQL Server
5 59 (1.46%) Relational Database
6 53 (1.32%) Metadata
7 52 (1.29%) Data Lake
8 50 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
9 49 (1.22%) MongoDB
9 49 (1.22%) Oracle Database
10 47 (1.17%) NoSQL
11 36 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
12 32 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
13 31 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
13 31 (0.77%) DynamoDB
14 30 (0.74%) Tableau
15 28 (0.69%) Pentaho
16 25 (0.62%) Delta Lake
17 22 (0.55%) Amazon Aurora
17 22 (0.55%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 240 (5.96%) JIRA
2 178 (4.42%) Git
3 154 (3.82%) GitLab
4 141 (3.50%) Jenkins
5 46 (1.14%) Selenium
6 40 (0.99%) JUnit
6 40 (0.99%) Mockito
7 34 (0.84%) Cucumber
8 33 (0.82%) SonarQube
9 29 (0.72%) Postman
10 27 (0.67%) JMeter
11 26 (0.65%) Maven
12 24 (0.60%) Cypress.io
13 19 (0.47%) REST Assured
14 17 (0.42%) WebDriver
15 15 (0.37%) Gatling
16 14 (0.35%) DbUnit
17 13 (0.32%) jMock
18 11 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
18 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,103 (27.37%) Social Skills
2 483 (11.99%) Finance
3 401 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (5.88%) Military
5 215 (5.33%) Local Government
6 139 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 130 (3.23%) Influencing Skills
8 107 (2.66%) Legal
9 90 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
10 87 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
11 83 (2.06%) Police
12 50 (1.24%) Law
13 49 (1.22%) Telecoms
14 44 (1.09%) Marketing
15 43 (1.07%) Banking
16 39 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
17 28 (0.69%) Billing
18 22 (0.55%) Retail
19 18 (0.45%) General Ledger
20 17 (0.42%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 546 (13.55%) Architect
2 543 (13.47%) Developer
3 530 (13.15%) Senior
4 450 (11.17%) Lead
5 373 (9.26%) Analyst
6 160 (3.97%) Consultant
7 158 (3.92%) Data Engineer
8 157 (3.90%) Designer
9 152 (3.77%) Business Analyst
10 138 (3.42%) DevOps Engineer
11 127 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
12 121 (3.00%) Delivery Manager
13 114 (2.83%) Java Developer
14 109 (2.70%) Senior Developer
15 108 (2.68%) Technical Architect
16 97 (2.41%) Project Manager
17 93 (2.31%) Data Architect
18 88 (2.18%) User Researcher
19 73 (1.81%) Senior Manager
20 70 (1.74%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (3.75%) REST
2 110 (2.73%) Node.js
3 105 (2.61%) RESTful
4 103 (2.56%) Spring
5 101 (2.51%) React
6 92 (2.28%) Spring Boot
7 80 (1.99%) Kafka
7 80 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
8 77 (1.91%) SOAP
9 70 (1.74%) HTML
10 64 (1.59%) .NET
11 62 (1.54%) Web Services
12 61 (1.51%) AngularJS
13 59 (1.46%) CSS
14 54 (1.34%) OAuth
15 51 (1.27%) Django
16 50 (1.24%) JSON
17 45 (1.12%) PySpark
18 41 (1.02%) OpenID
19 37 (0.92%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 229 (5.68%) Cloud Native
2 171 (4.24%) Product Ownership
3 167 (4.14%) Onboarding
4 140 (3.47%) NHS
5 107 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
6 99 (2.46%) Management Information System
7 66 (1.64%) Data Centre
7 66 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
8 63 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (1.22%) Data Structures
10 46 (1.14%) Hybrid Cloud
10 46 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
11 42 (1.04%) Public Cloud
12 35 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
13 33 (0.82%) CMDB
14 31 (0.77%) Virtual Team
15 28 (0.69%) Low-Code
16 26 (0.65%) PKI
17 25 (0.62%) Freedom of Information
17 25 (0.62%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 159 (3.95%) Windows
2 157 (3.90%) Linux
3 59 (1.46%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.44%) Unix
5 26 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 24 (0.60%) Android
7 23 (0.57%) Windows 10
8 21 (0.52%) Apple iOS
9 16 (0.40%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.22%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.22%) Solaris
11 7 (0.17%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.15%) AIX
12 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
13 4 (0.099%) Amazon Linux
14 3 (0.074%) VMS
14 3 (0.074%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.050%) CentOS
15 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,259 (31.24%) Agile
2 715 (17.74%) Stakeholder Management
3 666 (16.53%) CI/CD
4 662 (16.43%) DevOps
5 605 (15.01%) Continuous Improvement
6 595 (14.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 473 (11.74%) Problem-Solving
8 424 (10.52%) Analytics
9 417 (10.35%) Decision-Making
10 370 (9.18%) Migration
11 332 (8.24%) Roadmaps
12 323 (8.01%) Infrastructure as Code
13 315 (7.82%) AI
14 294 (7.30%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 292 (7.25%) Data Modelling
16 279 (6.92%) Containerisation
17 264 (6.55%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 262 (6.50%) Scrum
19 254 (6.30%) Mentoring
20 250 (6.20%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 487 (12.08%) Python
2 405 (10.05%) SQL
3 293 (7.27%) Java
4 212 (5.26%) JavaScript
5 107 (2.66%) PowerShell
5 107 (2.66%) TypeScript
6 80 (1.99%) C#
7 67 (1.66%) Bash
8 57 (1.41%) PL/SQL
9 43 (1.07%) Bicep
10 37 (0.92%) Apex Code
11 29 (0.72%) Kotlin
12 28 (0.69%) Ruby
13 24 (0.60%) R
14 23 (0.57%) Scala
15 21 (0.52%) Groovy
16 19 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 16 (0.40%) Go
17 16 (0.40%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.35%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,107 (52.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,615 (40.07%) SC Cleared
3 249 (6.18%) DV Cleared
4 231 (5.73%) BPSS Clearance
5 189 (4.69%) Degree
6 61 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
7 56 (1.39%) Azure Certification
8 45 (1.12%) CISSP
9 44 (1.09%) Cisco Certification
10 43 (1.07%) AWS Certification
11 30 (0.74%) CISM
11 30 (0.74%) PMI Certification
12 27 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
13 24 (0.60%) CCNP
13 24 (0.60%) ISTQB
14 20 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
15 19 (0.47%) PMP
16 17 (0.42%) Master's Degree
17 14 (0.35%) CCNA
17 14 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 319 (7.92%) Accessibility
2 213 (5.29%) Data Quality
3 210 (5.21%) QA
4 136 (3.37%) WCAG
5 133 (3.30%) GDPR
6 104 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 81 (2.01%) NCSC
7 81 (2.01%) PMO
8 77 (1.91%) NIST
9 36 (0.89%) SLA
10 34 (0.84%) GRC
11 29 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 16 (0.40%) Government Security Classifications
14 13 (0.32%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.20%) HL7
18 5 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 309 (7.67%) Docker
2 164 (4.07%) Active Directory
3 49 (1.22%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (0.67%) VMware NSX
5 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.37%) vSphere
7 14 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
8 12 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
9 11 (0.27%) Postfix
10 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
11 7 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
12 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.025%) Ceph
12 1 (0.025%) etcd
12 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.025%) GPFS
12 1 (0.025%) NFS
12 1 (0.025%) RACF
12 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 347 (8.61%) Terraform
2 279 (6.92%) Kubernetes
3 89 (2.21%) Grafana
4 81 (2.01%) Ansible
5 59 (1.46%) Prometheus
6 43 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
8 28 (0.69%) Argo
9 15 (0.37%) SCCM
10 13 (0.32%) Kibana
11 12 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
12 11 (0.27%) Puppet
13 9 (0.22%) Data Guard
13 9 (0.22%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.17%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.17%) Istio
14 7 (0.17%) VxRail
15 5 (0.12%) Rancher
16 4 (0.099%) Consul
16 4 (0.099%) QRadar
Vendors
1 515 (12.78%) Microsoft
2 320 (7.94%) Oracle
3 142 (3.52%) ServiceNow
4 136 (3.37%) SAP
5 120 (2.98%) Google
6 117 (2.90%) Salesforce
7 98 (2.43%) Databricks
8 65 (1.61%) VMware
9 47 (1.17%) Cisco
10 40 (0.99%) Palo Alto
11 34 (0.84%) Atlassian
12 33 (0.82%) Red Hat
13 31 (0.77%) Dynatrace
13 31 (0.77%) Talend
14 26 (0.65%) IBM
15 25 (0.62%) Informatica
15 25 (0.62%) Workday
16 24 (0.60%) CyberArk
16 24 (0.60%) Splunk
17 23 (0.57%) Foundry