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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 17 16
Rank change year-on-year +1 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,215 2,621 3,381
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.93% 9.77% 9.23%
As % of the General category 16.46% 15.65% 15.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,263 1,585 2,306
10th Percentile £340 £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 £717 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 96 114
10th Percentile £16.36 £14.85 £12.83
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 19,538 16,743 21,574
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.34% 62.40% 58.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,460 10,106 14,375
10th Percentile £288 £300 £270
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £533 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.19% -3.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,219 560 1,261
10th Percentile £14.11 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.59 £19.29 £15.25
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.33% +9.09% +6.96%
75th Percentile £46.50 £57.53 £56.40
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.88 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £22.99 £27.84 £27.50
% change year-on-year -17.41% +1.22% +10.00%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 1,320 £525 - 280
North of England -2 625 £455 -4.21% 226
South East -6 369 £500 -4.76% 287
North West -1 323 £450 -10.00% 77
Midlands +2 310 £488 -2.50% 140
South West -1 308 £525 -4.55% 113
West Midlands +2 232 £500 - 87
Yorkshire -2 189 £500 +9.59% 99
North East 0 117 £450 +5.88% 53
East of England +21 105 £375 +7.14% 90
East Midlands +9 78 £424 -10.79% 51
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
1 123 (3.83%) Confluence
2 93 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.84%) SAS
5 23 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.68%) nginx
7 18 (0.56%) Apache
8 15 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 14 (0.44%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.37%) CMS
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
11 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.12%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.093%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.093%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.093%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.093%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 97 (3.02%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 16 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.34%) Trello
7 8 (0.25%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 7 (0.22%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.16%) Sketch
10 3 (0.093%) InVision
11 2 (0.062%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.062%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.062%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.062%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.031%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.031%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.031%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.031%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.28%) iTrent
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.22%) SAP HR
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 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 592 (18.41%) AWS
2 563 (17.51%) Azure
3 196 (6.10%) Power Platform
4 151 (4.70%) Microsoft 365
5 146 (4.54%) Serverless
6 145 (4.51%) GCP
7 142 (4.42%) GitHub
8 114 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
9 90 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
10 81 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
11 69 (2.15%) Amazon S3
12 67 (2.08%) Power Automate
13 65 (2.02%) Entra ID
14 61 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
15 59 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
16 57 (1.77%) PowerApps
16 57 (1.77%) SaaS
17 54 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 53 (1.65%) Amazon ECS
19 51 (1.59%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 104 (3.23%) Firewall
2 69 (2.15%) DNS
3 61 (1.90%) VPN
4 56 (1.74%) WAN
5 46 (1.43%) Wireless
6 45 (1.40%) Network Security
7 43 (1.34%) LAN
8 39 (1.21%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.00%) BGP
10 27 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (0.78%) DHCP
12 23 (0.72%) OSPF
13 21 (0.65%) SSL
14 18 (0.56%) HTTP
14 18 (0.56%) Skype
15 17 (0.53%) VLAN
16 16 (0.50%) SD-WAN
17 15 (0.47%) Internet
17 15 (0.47%) MPLS
17 15 (0.47%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (4.45%) Power BI
2 82 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.65%) MongoDB
4 50 (1.56%) Metadata
5 37 (1.15%) NoSQL
5 37 (1.15%) Relational Database
5 37 (1.15%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
6 32 (1.00%) Data Lake
7 29 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
8 26 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
9 25 (0.78%) Oracle Database
10 23 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
10 23 (0.72%) MySQL
11 21 (0.65%) Redis
12 20 (0.62%) BigQuery
13 16 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
14 15 (0.47%) Power Query
14 15 (0.47%) Tableau
15 14 (0.44%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 202 (6.28%) JIRA
2 168 (5.23%) Git
3 128 (3.98%) Jenkins
4 115 (3.58%) GitLab
5 49 (1.52%) Postman
6 47 (1.46%) Selenium
7 31 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.75%) Cypress.io
9 22 (0.68%) JUnit
10 18 (0.56%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.53%) Mockito
12 14 (0.44%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.44%) CircleCI
13 13 (0.40%) Mocha
13 13 (0.40%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.40%) Vagrant
14 11 (0.34%) MSI
15 10 (0.31%) Gradle
15 10 (0.31%) Oracle Forms
16 9 (0.28%) JMeter
General
1 945 (29.39%) Social Skills
2 511 (15.89%) Finance
3 294 (9.14%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (7.12%) Telecoms
5 193 (6.00%) Manufacturing
6 192 (5.97%) Marketing
7 172 (5.35%) Electronics
8 147 (4.57%) Military
9 120 (3.73%) Local Government
10 71 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
11 66 (2.05%) Organisational Skills
12 65 (2.02%) Legal
13 51 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
14 46 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 46 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
15 35 (1.09%) Law
16 34 (1.06%) Banking
16 34 (1.06%) Retail
17 30 (0.93%) Billing
18 25 (0.78%) Police
Job Titles
1 390 (12.13%) Developer
2 371 (11.54%) Architect
3 332 (10.33%) Senior
4 319 (9.92%) Analyst
5 303 (9.42%) Lead
6 197 (6.13%) Consultant
7 144 (4.48%) Business Analyst
8 130 (4.04%) DevOps Engineer
9 97 (3.02%) Designer
9 97 (3.02%) Project Manager
10 90 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
11 85 (2.64%) Technical Architect
12 75 (2.33%) AWS Engineer
13 68 (2.12%) Data Engineer
14 63 (1.96%) Java Developer
14 63 (1.96%) Senior Developer
15 58 (1.80%) User Researcher
16 55 (1.71%) Support Engineer
17 53 (1.65%) Network Engineer
17 53 (1.65%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (4.42%) REST
2 103 (3.20%) React
3 98 (3.05%) Node.js
4 91 (2.83%) RESTful
5 88 (2.74%) Spring
6 80 (2.49%) Spring Boot
7 74 (2.30%) .NET
8 73 (2.27%) HTML
9 68 (2.12%) Oracle Fusion
10 64 (1.99%) CSS
11 61 (1.90%) JSON
12 57 (1.77%) AngularJS
13 56 (1.74%) SOAP
14 54 (1.68%) Kafka
14 54 (1.68%) Web Services
15 43 (1.34%) XML
16 37 (1.15%) Playwright
17 29 (0.90%) OAuth
18 28 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
19 24 (0.75%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 122 (3.79%) Cloud Native
2 112 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 111 (3.45%) NHS
4 104 (3.23%) Product Ownership
5 84 (2.61%) Data Centre
6 66 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
7 64 (1.99%) Management Information System
8 42 (1.31%) Public Cloud
9 34 (1.06%) Replication
10 32 (1.00%) PKI
11 30 (0.93%) CMDB
12 29 (0.90%) Security Posture
13 27 (0.84%) AI Agents
13 27 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
13 27 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
14 26 (0.81%) Data Structures
15 25 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
16 24 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
17 23 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
18 21 (0.65%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 210 (6.53%) Windows
2 153 (4.76%) Linux
3 50 (1.56%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.40%) Android
4 45 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 41 (1.28%) Mac OS
6 25 (0.78%) Unix
7 24 (0.75%) VMS
8 19 (0.59%) Apple iOS
8 19 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
10 12 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
15 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
17 1 (0.031%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 792 (24.63%) Agile
2 467 (14.53%) CI/CD
3 445 (13.84%) DevOps
4 422 (13.13%) Problem-Solving
5 391 (12.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 359 (11.17%) Stakeholder Management
7 344 (10.70%) Business Intelligence
8 310 (9.64%) Migration
9 287 (8.93%) Continuous Improvement
10 262 (8.15%) Roadmaps
11 215 (6.69%) Programme Management
12 214 (6.66%) Analytics
13 207 (6.44%) Test Automation
14 198 (6.16%) Decision-Making
14 198 (6.16%) Microservices
15 197 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
16 195 (6.07%) Containerisation
17 187 (5.82%) AI
18 181 (5.63%) ITIL
19 172 (5.35%) Digital Marketing
Programming Languages
1 363 (11.29%) Python
2 268 (8.34%) SQL
3 247 (7.68%) Java
4 171 (5.32%) JavaScript
5 125 (3.89%) PowerShell
6 104 (3.23%) TypeScript
7 78 (2.43%) C#
8 62 (1.93%) Bash
9 35 (1.09%) Ruby
10 29 (0.90%) Go
11 27 (0.84%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 20 (0.62%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.50%) Groovy
14 15 (0.47%) PHP
14 15 (0.47%) R
15 14 (0.44%) C++
15 14 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 14 (0.44%) Perl
16 12 (0.37%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,935 (60.19%) Security Cleared
2 1,289 (40.09%) SC Cleared
3 167 (5.19%) DV Cleared
4 157 (4.88%) Degree
5 86 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.43%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.31%) AWS Certification
8 40 (1.24%) CISSP
8 40 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
10 34 (1.06%) Computer Science Degree
11 26 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
12 23 (0.72%) ISEB
12 23 (0.72%) PMP
13 22 (0.68%) CISM
14 20 (0.62%) PMI Certification
15 19 (0.59%) CCNP
16 17 (0.53%) ISTQB
17 16 (0.50%) Master's Degree
18 15 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 152 (4.73%) Accessibility
2 129 (4.01%) QA
3 110 (3.42%) Data Quality
4 95 (2.95%) GDPR
5 75 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 64 (1.99%) NIST
7 55 (1.71%) NCSC
8 48 (1.49%) WCAG
9 47 (1.46%) SLA
10 46 (1.43%) PMO
11 23 (0.72%) GRC
12 21 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.53%) COBIT
14 16 (0.50%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.44%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.37%) PCI DSS
18 11 (0.34%) HL7
19 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 6 (0.19%) NIST 800
System Software
1 235 (7.31%) Docker
2 117 (3.64%) Active Directory
3 59 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.56%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.44%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 13 (0.40%) vSphere
8 10 (0.31%) 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 (0.12%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.093%) NFS
15 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.062%) Brightmail
15 2 (0.062%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 288 (8.96%) Terraform
2 247 (7.68%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.43%) Ansible
4 64 (1.99%) Grafana
5 52 (1.62%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.96%) SCCM
7 26 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.40%) Packer
11 12 (0.37%) Nessus
12 11 (0.34%) Argo
13 10 (0.31%) 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
1 401 (12.47%) Microsoft
2 312 (9.70%) SAP
3 194 (6.03%) Oracle
4 147 (4.57%) Cisco
5 108 (3.36%) ServiceNow
6 92 (2.86%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.77%) VMware
8 60 (1.87%) Google
9 58 (1.80%) Splunk
10 45 (1.40%) Databricks
11 41 (1.28%) Aruba
12 40 (1.24%) Juniper
13 39 (1.21%) Palo Alto
14 38 (1.18%) Virgin Media
15 37 (1.15%) Dell
16 36 (1.12%) Apple
17 34 (1.06%) HP
18 27 (0.84%) SolarWinds
19 26 (0.81%) Fortinet
19 26 (0.81%) Red Hat