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

6 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,162 2,575 3,405
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.90% 9.73% 9.25%
As % of the General category 16.37% 15.61% 15.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,221 1,548 2,322
10th Percentile £338 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 96 114
10th Percentile £16.25 £14.85 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.60 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.25 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% +26.25% +0.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.94 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.74 £68.30
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £24.18 £20.00
% change year-on-year -13.15% +20.90% +5.26%

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 19,319 16,497 21,712
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.48% 62.30% 58.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,325 9,934 14,490
10th Percentile £286 £300 £270
25th Percentile £402 £413 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £534 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.37% -2.91% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,196 552 1,222
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £16.62 £19.00 £15.34
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £28.42
Median % change year-on-year -23.33% +5.56% +9.31%
75th Percentile £46.00 £57.53 £56.49
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.65 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £27.50 £28.25
% change year-on-year -16.36% -2.65% +13.00%

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 January 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 20 January 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 20 January 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 -3 1,298 £525 - 259
North of England -1 614 £455 -4.32% 221
South East -5 361 £500 -4.76% 282
North West -1 312 £450 -10.00% 78
South West 0 307 £525 -4.55% 109
Midlands +2 305 £488 -2.50% 129
West Midlands +2 230 £500 - 79
Yorkshire -1 190 £500 +9.59% 96
North East -1 116 £450 +6.51% 50
East of England +20 101 £375 +7.14% 81
East Midlands +3 75 £423 -11.05% 48
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
1 121 (3.83%) Confluence
2 95 (3.00%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.85%) SAS
5 23 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.70%) nginx
7 18 (0.57%) Apache
8 15 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.41%) Apache Spark
10 11 (0.35%) CMS
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
11 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.13%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
13 3 (0.095%) IIS
13 3 (0.095%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.095%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.095%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.095%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 99 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 39 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
7 11 (0.35%) Trello
8 8 (0.25%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 7 (0.22%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.16%) Sketch
11 3 (0.095%) InVision
12 2 (0.063%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.063%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.063%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.063%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.032%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.032%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.032%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.032%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 55 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.66%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.54%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.54%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.41%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.28%) iTrent
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.25%) SAP HR
9 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.16%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.13%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 584 (18.47%) AWS
2 559 (17.68%) Azure
3 192 (6.07%) Power Platform
4 150 (4.74%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (4.62%) Serverless
6 145 (4.59%) GCP
7 140 (4.43%) GitHub
8 115 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
9 90 (2.85%) AWS Lambda
10 80 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
11 68 (2.15%) Amazon S3
12 66 (2.09%) Entra ID
12 66 (2.09%) Power Automate
13 61 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
14 59 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
15 56 (1.77%) PowerApps
15 56 (1.77%) SaaS
16 54 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 53 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
18 49 (1.55%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 103 (3.26%) Firewall
2 68 (2.15%) DNS
3 61 (1.93%) VPN
4 54 (1.71%) WAN
5 46 (1.45%) Network Security
5 46 (1.45%) Wireless
6 42 (1.33%) LAN
7 38 (1.20%) TCP/IP
8 31 (0.98%) BGP
9 27 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 25 (0.79%) DHCP
11 23 (0.73%) OSPF
12 21 (0.66%) SSL
13 18 (0.57%) HTTP
13 18 (0.57%) Skype
14 17 (0.54%) SD-WAN
14 17 (0.54%) VLAN
15 15 (0.47%) Internet
15 15 (0.47%) SSH
16 14 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (4.43%) Power BI
2 82 (2.59%) PostgreSQL
3 51 (1.61%) MongoDB
4 48 (1.52%) Metadata
5 37 (1.17%) Relational Database
5 37 (1.17%) SQL Server
6 34 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 32 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
8 29 (0.92%) Data Lake
9 27 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
10 25 (0.79%) Oracle Database
10 25 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
11 23 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
11 23 (0.73%) MySQL
12 22 (0.70%) Redis
13 20 (0.63%) BigQuery
14 16 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
14 16 (0.51%) Tableau
15 14 (0.44%) Data Hub
15 14 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 200 (6.33%) JIRA
2 166 (5.25%) Git
3 128 (4.05%) Jenkins
4 112 (3.54%) GitLab
5 49 (1.55%) Postman
6 47 (1.49%) Selenium
7 31 (0.98%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.76%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.73%) JUnit
10 18 (0.57%) Mockito
10 18 (0.57%) REST Assured
11 14 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 14 (0.44%) CircleCI
12 13 (0.41%) Mocha
12 13 (0.41%) SonarQube
12 13 (0.41%) Vagrant
13 11 (0.35%) MSI
14 10 (0.32%) Gradle
14 10 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
15 9 (0.28%) JMeter
General
1 936 (29.60%) Social Skills
2 504 (15.94%) Finance
3 283 (8.95%) Analytical Skills
4 230 (7.27%) Telecoms
5 194 (6.14%) Marketing
6 193 (6.10%) Manufacturing
7 173 (5.47%) Electronics
8 143 (4.52%) Military
9 120 (3.80%) Local Government
10 68 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
11 66 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 61 (1.93%) Legal
13 50 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
14 45 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
15 44 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 35 (1.11%) Law
17 34 (1.08%) Banking
17 34 (1.08%) Retail
18 29 (0.92%) Billing
19 25 (0.79%) Police
Job Titles
1 380 (12.02%) Developer
2 368 (11.64%) Architect
3 327 (10.34%) Senior
4 315 (9.96%) Analyst
5 299 (9.46%) Lead
6 195 (6.17%) Consultant
7 141 (4.46%) Business Analyst
8 130 (4.11%) DevOps Engineer
9 97 (3.07%) Project Manager
10 91 (2.88%) Designer
11 89 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
12 82 (2.59%) Technical Architect
13 74 (2.34%) AWS Engineer
14 65 (2.06%) Data Engineer
15 62 (1.96%) Senior Developer
16 61 (1.93%) Java Developer
17 54 (1.71%) Support Engineer
17 54 (1.71%) Test Engineer
17 54 (1.71%) User Researcher
18 53 (1.68%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (4.40%) REST
2 102 (3.23%) React
3 96 (3.04%) Node.js
4 88 (2.78%) RESTful
5 84 (2.66%) Spring
6 77 (2.44%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.28%) HTML
8 71 (2.25%) .NET
9 65 (2.06%) Oracle Fusion
10 62 (1.96%) CSS
11 61 (1.93%) JSON
12 56 (1.77%) SOAP
13 55 (1.74%) AngularJS
13 55 (1.74%) Kafka
14 54 (1.71%) Web Services
15 43 (1.36%) XML
16 37 (1.17%) Playwright
17 29 (0.92%) OAuth
18 27 (0.85%) Lightning Web Components
19 24 (0.76%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 120 (3.80%) Cloud Native
2 113 (3.57%) Onboarding
3 110 (3.48%) NHS
4 104 (3.29%) Product Ownership
5 81 (2.56%) Data Centre
6 65 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
7 64 (2.02%) Management Information System
8 42 (1.33%) Public Cloud
9 34 (1.08%) Replication
10 31 (0.98%) PKI
11 30 (0.95%) CMDB
12 29 (0.92%) Security Posture
13 27 (0.85%) AI Agents
14 26 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
14 26 (0.82%) Enterprise Software
14 26 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
15 25 (0.79%) Data Structures
16 24 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
17 22 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
18 21 (0.66%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 209 (6.61%) Windows
2 151 (4.78%) Linux
3 51 (1.61%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.42%) Android
5 43 (1.36%) Windows Server
6 41 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 25 (0.79%) Unix
8 24 (0.76%) VMS
9 19 (0.60%) Apple iOS
10 18 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 13 (0.41%) Amazon Linux
12 12 (0.38%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
15 7 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
16 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
16 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
17 4 (0.13%) Windows 7
18 3 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
19 1 (0.032%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 776 (24.54%) Agile
2 456 (14.42%) CI/CD
3 441 (13.95%) DevOps
4 414 (13.09%) Problem-Solving
5 386 (12.21%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 349 (11.04%) Stakeholder Management
7 342 (10.82%) Business Intelligence
8 308 (9.74%) Migration
9 282 (8.92%) Continuous Improvement
10 259 (8.19%) Roadmaps
11 216 (6.83%) Programme Management
12 207 (6.55%) Test Automation
13 206 (6.51%) Analytics
14 199 (6.29%) Infrastructure as Code
15 194 (6.14%) Microservices
16 193 (6.10%) Containerisation
16 193 (6.10%) Decision-Making
17 186 (5.88%) AI
18 180 (5.69%) ITIL
19 173 (5.47%) Digital Marketing
Programming Languages
1 362 (11.45%) Python
2 261 (8.25%) SQL
3 241 (7.62%) Java
4 172 (5.44%) JavaScript
5 124 (3.92%) PowerShell
6 104 (3.29%) TypeScript
7 75 (2.37%) C#
8 62 (1.96%) Bash
9 34 (1.08%) Ruby
10 29 (0.92%) Go
11 28 (0.89%) PL/SQL
12 26 (0.82%) Apex Code
13 19 (0.60%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.51%) Groovy
15 15 (0.47%) PHP
16 14 (0.44%) C++
16 14 (0.44%) R
17 13 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 13 (0.41%) Perl
18 12 (0.38%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,918 (60.66%) Security Cleared
2 1,282 (40.54%) SC Cleared
3 166 (5.25%) DV Cleared
4 154 (4.87%) Degree
5 82 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.45%) Azure Certification
7 43 (1.36%) CISSP
8 42 (1.33%) AWS Certification
9 39 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
10 34 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
10 34 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
11 26 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
12 23 (0.73%) CISM
12 23 (0.73%) PMP
13 22 (0.70%) ISEB
14 20 (0.63%) PMI Certification
15 19 (0.60%) CCNP
16 18 (0.57%) ISTQB
17 16 (0.51%) Master's Degree
18 15 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (4.65%) Accessibility
2 127 (4.02%) QA
3 109 (3.45%) Data Quality
4 95 (3.00%) GDPR
5 77 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 64 (2.02%) NIST
7 56 (1.77%) NCSC
8 49 (1.55%) WCAG
9 47 (1.49%) SLA
10 46 (1.45%) PMO
11 23 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
12 22 (0.70%) GRC
13 16 (0.51%) COBIT
13 16 (0.51%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.44%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.38%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.35%) HL7
18 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 6 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 233 (7.37%) Docker
2 118 (3.73%) Active Directory
3 59 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.57%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.44%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.41%) DFS Replication
7 13 (0.41%) vSphere
8 10 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 9 (0.28%) Squid
10 8 (0.25%) Dovecot
10 8 (0.25%) Postfix
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.095%) NFS
15 2 (0.063%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.063%) Brightmail
15 2 (0.063%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 289 (9.14%) Terraform
2 245 (7.75%) Kubernetes
3 80 (2.53%) Ansible
4 64 (2.02%) Grafana
5 52 (1.64%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.98%) SCCM
7 26 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.41%) Packer
11 12 (0.38%) Nessus
12 11 (0.35%) Argo
13 10 (0.32%) Puppet
14 9 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.28%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.28%) vRealize
15 8 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 8 (0.25%) SCOM
16 7 (0.22%) Consul
17 6 (0.19%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 399 (12.62%) Microsoft
2 311 (9.84%) SAP
3 189 (5.98%) Oracle
4 147 (4.65%) Cisco
5 108 (3.42%) ServiceNow
6 90 (2.85%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.81%) VMware
8 60 (1.90%) Google
9 58 (1.83%) Splunk
10 44 (1.39%) Databricks
11 40 (1.27%) Aruba
11 40 (1.27%) Juniper
12 39 (1.23%) Virgin Media
13 38 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 37 (1.17%) Dell
15 36 (1.14%) Apple
16 34 (1.08%) HP
17 27 (0.85%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.82%) Fortinet
19 25 (0.79%) Red Hat