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

6 months to
14 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 2,852 2,722 3,595
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.43% 8.72% 9.10%
As % of the General category 14.81% 14.70% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,977 1,636 2,550
10th Percentile £314 £300 £285
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -3.30% +1.46%
75th Percentile £599 £629 £650
90th Percentile £675 £721 £730
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 95 98
10th Percentile £15.48 £15.00 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.16 £17.44
Median hourly rate £21.40 £24.18 £22.51
Median % change year-on-year -11.50% +7.44% +18.45%
75th Percentile £25.15 £40.30 £58.39
90th Percentile £50.13 £63.91 £70.72
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.21 £22.00
% change year-on-year -9.50% +5.48% +15.79%

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 19,254 18,519 23,541
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.68% 59.30% 59.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,219 11,136 16,074
10th Percentile £275 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £630 £650 £675
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 1,250 704 1,026
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.86 £17.25 £17.04
Median hourly rate £24.48 £31.97 £31.09
Median % change year-on-year -23.44% +2.84% +20.92%
75th Percentile £45.46 £59.96 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £24.09 £29.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -18.34% -1.67% +20.00%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -1 1,170 £525 - 535
North of England 0 534 £470 -1.05% 222
South West +3 335 £550 -4.35% 114
South East -8 294 £500 -9.09% 302
Midlands +4 281 £475 -5.00% 111
North West 0 265 £450 -8.86% 112
West Midlands +6 221 £475 -5.00% 74
Yorkshire +10 171 £501 +5.37% 61
North East +3 101 £450 +7.14% 49
East of England -4 75 £450 +28.57% 52
East Midlands +3 60 £415 -7.57% 35
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
1 111 (3.89%) Confluence
2 84 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.91%) nginx
5 24 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
5 24 (0.84%) SAS
6 15 (0.53%) Apache
6 15 (0.53%) Skype for Business
7 10 (0.35%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.35%) CMS
8 6 (0.21%) Anypoint
8 6 (0.21%) WebLogic
9 5 (0.18%) Documentum
9 5 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
10 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
10 4 (0.14%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2003
11 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
11 3 (0.11%) GeoServer
Applications
1 86 (3.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 84 (2.95%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
5 19 (0.67%) MS Visio
6 17 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
7 10 (0.35%) Trello
8 9 (0.32%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.21%) Photoshop
9 6 (0.21%) Sketch
10 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.18%) InVision
11 4 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
11 4 (0.14%) UXPin
12 3 (0.11%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.035%) S-PLUS
14 1 (0.035%) Stata
14 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (1.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
4 12 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 12 (0.42%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.39%) SAP BRIM
5 11 (0.39%) SAP Hybris
6 9 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
6 9 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
6 9 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 8 (0.28%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.21%) Oracle General Ledger
9 6 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
10 5 (0.18%) Primavera
10 5 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
11 4 (0.14%) iTrent
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 553 (19.39%) AWS
2 510 (17.88%) Azure
3 186 (6.52%) Power Platform
4 151 (5.29%) Microsoft 365
5 123 (4.31%) GitHub
6 116 (4.07%) GCP
7 115 (4.03%) Serverless
8 100 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (3.05%) Amazon S3
10 71 (2.49%) SaaS
11 70 (2.45%) AWS Lambda
12 65 (2.28%) Amazon EC2
13 64 (2.24%) GitHub Actions
14 62 (2.17%) PowerApps
15 58 (2.03%) Entra ID
16 57 (2.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 53 (1.86%) Power Automate
18 50 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
19 47 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
20 44 (1.54%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 108 (3.79%) Firewall
2 78 (2.73%) DNS
3 60 (2.10%) VPN
4 44 (1.54%) WAN
5 41 (1.44%) Wireless
6 38 (1.33%) Network Security
7 35 (1.23%) LAN
8 31 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.05%) BGP
10 28 (0.98%) DHCP
11 26 (0.91%) HTTP
12 22 (0.77%) SSH
12 22 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (0.74%) FTP
13 21 (0.74%) SMTP
14 20 (0.70%) SD-WAN
15 19 (0.67%) OSPF
15 19 (0.67%) SSL
16 18 (0.63%) VLAN
17 17 (0.60%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (4.38%) Power BI
2 88 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (1.72%) MongoDB
4 42 (1.47%) Amazon RDS
5 41 (1.44%) Metadata
6 38 (1.33%) SQL Server
7 31 (1.09%) Data Warehouse
7 31 (1.09%) Relational Database
8 30 (1.05%) NoSQL
8 30 (1.05%) Oracle Database
9 28 (0.98%) Data Lake
9 28 (0.98%) MySQL
10 20 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
11 19 (0.67%) Amazon Aurora
12 18 (0.63%) Redis
12 18 (0.63%) Tableau
13 15 (0.53%) BigQuery
13 15 (0.53%) Oracle Reports
14 13 (0.46%) DynamoDB
15 12 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 189 (6.63%) JIRA
2 159 (5.58%) Git
3 136 (4.77%) Jenkins
4 81 (2.84%) GitLab
5 35 (1.23%) Selenium
6 32 (1.12%) SonarQube
7 31 (1.09%) Postman
8 29 (1.02%) Cucumber
9 23 (0.81%) JUnit
9 23 (0.81%) Mockito
10 21 (0.74%) Cypress.io
10 21 (0.74%) Vagrant
11 20 (0.70%) REST Assured
12 13 (0.46%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.46%) Burp Suite
12 13 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 11 (0.39%) CircleCI
13 11 (0.39%) Maven
13 11 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
14 8 (0.28%) MSI
General
1 835 (29.28%) Social Skills
2 479 (16.80%) Finance
3 246 (8.63%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (8.20%) Telecoms
5 198 (6.94%) Manufacturing
6 192 (6.73%) Marketing
7 181 (6.35%) Electronics
8 133 (4.66%) Military
9 125 (4.38%) Local Government
10 84 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.45%) Legal
12 51 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
13 48 (1.68%) Organisational Skills
14 44 (1.54%) Law
15 37 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 37 (1.30%) Presentation Skills
15 37 (1.30%) Retail
16 32 (1.12%) Police
17 24 (0.84%) Banking
18 19 (0.67%) Billing
Job Titles
1 348 (12.20%) Developer
2 322 (11.29%) Architect
3 289 (10.13%) Analyst
4 275 (9.64%) Lead
5 272 (9.54%) Senior
6 203 (7.12%) Consultant
7 120 (4.21%) DevOps Engineer
8 115 (4.03%) Business Analyst
9 87 (3.05%) Project Manager
10 75 (2.63%) AWS Engineer
11 74 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
12 72 (2.52%) Technical Architect
13 67 (2.35%) Support Engineer
14 63 (2.21%) Designer
15 52 (1.82%) Java Developer
16 51 (1.79%) Security Engineer
17 50 (1.75%) IT Support
17 50 (1.75%) Network Engineer
17 50 (1.75%) Senior Developer
18 49 (1.72%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (3.79%) REST
2 79 (2.77%) RESTful
3 78 (2.73%) React
4 71 (2.49%) .NET
4 71 (2.49%) Node.js
5 59 (2.07%) HTML
6 58 (2.03%) Spring
6 58 (2.03%) Spring Boot
7 57 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
8 55 (1.93%) Kafka
9 53 (1.86%) SOAP
10 52 (1.82%) CSS
11 51 (1.79%) JSON
12 50 (1.75%) AngularJS
12 50 (1.75%) Web Services
13 35 (1.23%) XML
14 25 (0.88%) OAuth
15 23 (0.81%) Playwright
16 22 (0.77%) LDAP
17 18 (0.63%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 104 (3.65%) Onboarding
2 92 (3.23%) Cloud Native
3 90 (3.16%) NHS
4 73 (2.56%) Management Information System
5 72 (2.52%) Product Ownership
6 71 (2.49%) Data Centre
7 65 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
8 37 (1.30%) Replication
9 35 (1.23%) PKI
10 33 (1.16%) Security Operations Centre
11 32 (1.12%) Public Cloud
12 31 (1.09%) Security Posture
13 27 (0.95%) CMDB
14 26 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
15 24 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
16 23 (0.81%) Data Structures
16 23 (0.81%) Driving Licence
17 22 (0.77%) AI Agents
17 22 (0.77%) Analytical Mindset
18 21 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 234 (8.20%) Windows
2 158 (5.54%) Linux
3 46 (1.61%) Windows 10
3 46 (1.61%) Windows Server
4 42 (1.47%) Android
5 37 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 27 (0.95%) VMS
7 25 (0.88%) Unix
8 22 (0.77%) Amazon Linux
9 21 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 17 (0.60%) Apple iOS
11 13 (0.46%) Ubuntu
12 10 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.25%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
13 7 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
15 4 (0.14%) CentOS
16 3 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 716 (25.11%) Agile
2 414 (14.52%) DevOps
3 403 (14.13%) CI/CD
4 377 (13.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 359 (12.59%) Problem-Solving
6 333 (11.68%) Business Intelligence
7 290 (10.17%) Stakeholder Management
8 270 (9.47%) Migration
9 243 (8.52%) Continuous Improvement
10 215 (7.54%) Roadmaps
11 206 (7.22%) Programme Management
12 185 (6.49%) Infrastructure as Code
13 180 (6.31%) Digital Marketing
14 178 (6.24%) Microservices
15 170 (5.96%) Analytics
16 166 (5.82%) ITIL
17 161 (5.65%) Decision-Making
18 153 (5.36%) AI
19 152 (5.33%) Test Automation
20 145 (5.08%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 339 (11.89%) Python
2 253 (8.87%) SQL
3 242 (8.49%) Java
4 129 (4.52%) JavaScript
5 120 (4.21%) PowerShell
6 82 (2.88%) Bash
7 74 (2.59%) TypeScript
8 70 (2.45%) C#
9 31 (1.09%) Go
10 27 (0.95%) PL/SQL
11 25 (0.88%) Groovy
12 24 (0.84%) C++
12 24 (0.84%) Perl
13 21 (0.74%) Ruby
14 19 (0.67%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.60%) Apex Code
16 14 (0.49%) C
17 13 (0.46%) PHP
18 11 (0.39%) Bicep
18 11 (0.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,746 (61.22%) Security Cleared
2 1,233 (43.23%) SC Cleared
3 156 (5.47%) DV Cleared
4 112 (3.93%) Degree
5 68 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
6 53 (1.86%) CISSP
7 45 (1.58%) Microsoft Certification
8 37 (1.30%) Azure Certification
9 35 (1.23%) AWS Certification
10 33 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
11 32 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
12 25 (0.88%) CISM
13 23 (0.81%) CCNP
14 22 (0.77%) OSCP
15 20 (0.70%) CREST Certified
15 20 (0.70%) ISTQB
16 18 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
17 15 (0.53%) CCNA
18 14 (0.49%) MCSE
19 13 (0.46%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (4.24%) Accessibility
2 114 (4.00%) QA
3 86 (3.02%) GDPR
4 78 (2.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 75 (2.63%) Data Quality
6 69 (2.42%) NIST
7 58 (2.03%) NCSC
8 44 (1.54%) SLA
9 40 (1.40%) PMO
10 38 (1.33%) WCAG
11 23 (0.81%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.63%) GRC
13 17 (0.60%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.56%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.42%) COBIT
16 11 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 10 (0.35%) PCI DSS
18 9 (0.32%) HL7
18 9 (0.32%) RMADS
System Software
1 206 (7.22%) Docker
2 124 (4.35%) Active Directory
3 55 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.74%) DFS Replication
5 15 (0.53%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (0.53%) vSphere
6 14 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (0.46%) Postfix
8 11 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.32%) Dovecot
9 9 (0.32%) Squid
10 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.18%) UAG
10 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.14%) Firmware
12 3 (0.11%) Brightmail
12 3 (0.11%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.070%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 269 (9.43%) Terraform
2 207 (7.26%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.73%) Ansible
4 73 (2.56%) Grafana
5 60 (2.10%) Prometheus
6 38 (1.33%) SCCM
7 36 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (0.67%) Packer
8 19 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.49%) Nmap
9 14 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.42%) Argo
10 12 (0.42%) Nessus
11 11 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.39%) SCOM
12 9 (0.32%) Consul
12 9 (0.32%) Proxmox
13 7 (0.25%) vRealize
14 6 (0.21%) QRadar
Vendors
1 397 (13.92%) Microsoft
2 293 (10.27%) SAP
3 180 (6.31%) Oracle
4 144 (5.05%) Cisco
5 106 (3.72%) ServiceNow
6 79 (2.77%) VMware
7 61 (2.14%) Splunk
8 59 (2.07%) Salesforce
9 51 (1.79%) Google
10 48 (1.68%) Juniper
11 39 (1.37%) HP
12 38 (1.33%) Aruba
13 36 (1.26%) Dell
14 35 (1.23%) Apple
15 32 (1.12%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.12%) Virgin Media
16 30 (1.05%) SolarWinds
17 26 (0.91%) Fortinet
18 25 (0.88%) F5
18 25 (0.88%) Red Hat