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

6 months to
12 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 20 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,053 2,432 2,705
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.76% 8.71% 8.40%
As % of the General category 15.48% 13.63% 14.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,791 1,686 1,650
10th Percentile £363 £313 £305
25th Percentile £445 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -6.36%
75th Percentile £620 £588 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 119 91
10th Percentile £15.26 £15.48 £15.06
25th Percentile £16.63 £18.05 £16.95
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.03 £23.99
Median % change year-on-year -3.09% -8.17% +12.58%
75th Percentile £35.53 £28.65 £40.15
90th Percentile £75.04 £65.05 £62.69
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.67% +7.14%

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 26,186 17,847 18,992
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.61% 63.94% 58.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,232 11,332 11,400
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £738 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,452 1,069 816
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.68 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.30 £17.39
Median hourly rate £29.00 £25.08 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.65% -28.36% +16.67%
75th Percentile £56.21 £45.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.68 £70.38 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £32.14
% change year-on-year +10.00% -22.22% +8.95%

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 12 October 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 12 October 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 12 October 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 -1 1,799 £550 +10.00% 1,497
North of England -1 740 £476 +0.21% 665
Midlands +6 532 £490 +3.16% 279
West Midlands +8 451 £490 +3.16% 202
South East +1 438 £505 -1.46% 335
South West -4 361 £535 -2.73% 226
Yorkshire +4 271 £475 -5.00% 200
North West -12 265 £570 +26.67% 335
North East +2 223 £450 -10.00% 130
East Midlands +11 77 £450 +9.42% 77
East of England -22 51 £450 -5.26% 106
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
1 166 (4.10%) Confluence
2 103 (2.54%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.21%) SAS
5 44 (1.09%) Apache Airflow
5 44 (1.09%) Apache Spark
6 43 (1.06%) Apache
7 26 (0.64%) CMS
8 20 (0.49%) Jupyter
9 12 (0.30%) nginx
9 12 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 10 (0.25%) WordPress
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.17%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.099%) IIS
15 3 (0.074%) Drupal
15 3 (0.074%) SAP Portal
15 3 (0.074%) Tomcat
Applications
1 77 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 53 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
4 22 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.12%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.12%) Sketch
6 5 (0.12%) Trello
7 4 (0.099%) Adobe After Effects
7 4 (0.099%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.049%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.049%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.049%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.049%) ProjectWise
8 2 (0.049%) Revit
9 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.025%) Gliffy
9 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
9 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 51 (1.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 49 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 46 (1.13%) Oracle ERP
4 31 (0.76%) SAP PSCD
5 23 (0.57%) Oracle EBS
6 22 (0.54%) SAP Payroll
7 17 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 16 (0.39%) SAP BRIM
9 15 (0.37%) NetSuite
9 15 (0.37%) SAP HR
10 14 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.35%) SAP FI
11 13 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
12 12 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
12 12 (0.30%) SAP HCM
13 11 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
14 10 (0.25%) NEC Housing
14 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
15 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
16 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
Cloud Services
1 789 (19.47%) AWS
2 754 (18.60%) Azure
3 247 (6.09%) Power Platform
4 197 (4.86%) Azure DevOps
5 167 (4.12%) Microsoft 365
6 160 (3.95%) GitHub
7 155 (3.82%) GCP
8 144 (3.55%) Entra ID
9 140 (3.45%) Serverless
10 113 (2.79%) Amazon S3
10 113 (2.79%) GitHub Actions
11 110 (2.71%) SaaS
12 100 (2.47%) OCI
13 85 (2.10%) Power Automate
14 79 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
15 78 (1.92%) AWS Lambda
16 74 (1.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 70 (1.73%) Amazon EKS
18 63 (1.55%) PowerApps
19 54 (1.33%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 94 (2.32%) Firewall
2 68 (1.68%) DNS
3 49 (1.21%) WAN
4 42 (1.04%) LAN
5 41 (1.01%) Network Security
6 33 (0.81%) TCP/IP
7 32 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
8 31 (0.76%) DHCP
9 29 (0.72%) VPN
10 27 (0.67%) BGP
11 26 (0.64%) OSPF
12 19 (0.47%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.47%) Wireless
13 15 (0.37%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.35%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.35%) WLAN
15 13 (0.32%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 13 (0.32%) NGFW
15 13 (0.32%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (3.97%) Power BI
2 102 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
3 99 (2.44%) Metadata
4 96 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
5 70 (1.73%) Relational Database
6 65 (1.60%) MongoDB
7 64 (1.58%) SQL Server
8 55 (1.36%) Oracle Database
9 53 (1.31%) Data Lake
10 51 (1.26%) Amazon RDS
11 38 (0.94%) NoSQL
12 28 (0.69%) Amazon Athena
12 28 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
12 28 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
13 27 (0.67%) MySQL
13 27 (0.67%) Pentaho
14 25 (0.62%) Tableau
15 24 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
16 19 (0.47%) DynamoDB
17 18 (0.44%) Redis
Development Applications
1 239 (5.90%) JIRA
2 180 (4.44%) Git
3 170 (4.19%) GitLab
4 130 (3.21%) Jenkins
5 60 (1.48%) Selenium
6 53 (1.31%) Cucumber
7 39 (0.96%) JUnit
8 34 (0.84%) Postman
9 29 (0.72%) Cypress.io
10 25 (0.62%) Maven
11 24 (0.59%) Mockito
12 23 (0.57%) Gatling
13 22 (0.54%) REST Assured
13 22 (0.54%) SonarQube
14 21 (0.52%) JMeter
15 19 (0.47%) WebDriver
16 15 (0.37%) MSI
17 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
17 11 (0.27%) TestNG
18 8 (0.20%) Gradle
General
1 1,345 (33.19%) Social Skills
2 455 (11.23%) Finance
3 433 (10.68%) Analytical Skills
4 285 (7.03%) Military
5 227 (5.60%) Local Government
6 186 (4.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 173 (4.27%) Influencing Skills
8 124 (3.06%) Legal
9 117 (2.89%) Organisational Skills
10 95 (2.34%) Police
11 90 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
12 63 (1.55%) Law
13 54 (1.33%) Telecoms
14 48 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
15 40 (0.99%) Marketing
16 34 (0.84%) Banking
16 34 (0.84%) Billing
17 25 (0.62%) Retail
18 21 (0.52%) Publishing
19 20 (0.49%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 583 (14.38%) Senior
2 567 (13.99%) Architect
3 489 (12.07%) Developer
4 483 (11.92%) Lead
5 356 (8.78%) Analyst
6 202 (4.98%) Consultant
7 151 (3.73%) Data Engineer
8 149 (3.68%) Designer
9 148 (3.65%) Business Analyst
10 136 (3.36%) DevOps Engineer
11 129 (3.18%) Data Architect
12 128 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
13 116 (2.86%) Delivery Manager
14 111 (2.74%) User Researcher
15 108 (2.66%) Technical Architect
16 101 (2.49%) Senior Developer
17 86 (2.12%) Java Developer
17 86 (2.12%) Senior Manager
18 82 (2.02%) Project Manager
19 79 (1.95%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 356 (8.78%) Terraform
2 175 (4.32%) REST
3 108 (2.66%) RESTful
4 96 (2.37%) Spring
5 92 (2.27%) Node.js
5 92 (2.27%) React
6 86 (2.12%) Spring Boot
7 84 (2.07%) Oracle Fusion
8 76 (1.88%) SOAP
9 69 (1.70%) HTML
9 69 (1.70%) Web Services
10 68 (1.68%) Kafka
11 64 (1.58%) CSS
12 63 (1.55%) OAuth
13 61 (1.51%) Django
14 60 (1.48%) JSON
15 57 (1.41%) .NET
16 53 (1.31%) OpenID
17 44 (1.09%) PySpark
18 43 (1.06%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 245 (6.04%) Cloud Native
2 178 (4.39%) Product Ownership
3 169 (4.17%) Onboarding
4 139 (3.43%) Management Information System
5 127 (3.13%) NHS
6 106 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
7 89 (2.20%) Enterprise Software
8 51 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.16%) Data Structures
10 46 (1.13%) Data Centre
11 43 (1.06%) Freedom of Information
12 42 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
13 41 (1.01%) AI Agents
13 41 (1.01%) CMDB
13 41 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
14 36 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
15 35 (0.86%) Taxonomies
16 33 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
17 32 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
18 31 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 124 (3.06%) Windows
2 112 (2.76%) Linux
3 36 (0.89%) Unix
4 33 (0.81%) Windows Server
5 22 (0.54%) Android
6 20 (0.49%) Windows 10
7 19 (0.47%) Apple iOS
8 15 (0.37%) macOS
9 14 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.12%) AIX
10 5 (0.12%) Amazon Linux
11 3 (0.074%) CentOS
11 3 (0.074%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.049%) Solaris
12 2 (0.049%) VMS
13 1 (0.025%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,310 (32.32%) Agile
2 1,016 (25.07%) Stakeholder Management
3 736 (18.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 722 (17.81%) Continuous Improvement
5 679 (16.75%) CI/CD
6 641 (15.82%) DevOps
7 521 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
8 484 (11.94%) Decision-Making
9 412 (10.17%) Analytics
10 391 (9.65%) AI
10 391 (9.65%) Roadmaps
11 388 (9.57%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 385 (9.50%) Migration
13 347 (8.56%) Infrastructure as Code
14 324 (7.99%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 322 (7.94%) Data Modelling
16 298 (7.35%) Technical Leadership
17 278 (6.86%) Mentoring
18 270 (6.66%) User Research
19 259 (6.39%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 445 (10.98%) Python
2 401 (9.89%) SQL
3 249 (6.14%) Java
4 217 (5.35%) JavaScript
5 121 (2.99%) TypeScript
6 108 (2.66%) PowerShell
7 80 (1.97%) C#
8 66 (1.63%) Bash
9 51 (1.26%) Bicep
10 49 (1.21%) PL/SQL
11 41 (1.01%) Scala
12 28 (0.69%) Groovy
12 28 (0.69%) R
13 26 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 23 (0.57%) ABAP
15 22 (0.54%) Kotlin
16 19 (0.47%) Apex Code
17 15 (0.37%) Ruby
18 14 (0.35%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.32%) Go
Qualifications
1 2,062 (50.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,714 (42.29%) SC Cleared
3 351 (8.66%) BPSS Clearance
4 231 (5.70%) DV Cleared
5 179 (4.42%) Degree
6 81 (2.00%) Microsoft Certification
7 75 (1.85%) AWS Certification
8 66 (1.63%) Azure Certification
9 47 (1.16%) CISSP
10 39 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
11 36 (0.89%) ISTQB
12 35 (0.86%) CISM
13 25 (0.62%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
15 23 (0.57%) CCNP
15 23 (0.57%) Master's Degree
16 21 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
17 19 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 15 (0.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 352 (8.68%) Accessibility
2 259 (6.39%) Data Quality
3 254 (6.27%) QA
4 138 (3.40%) WCAG
5 127 (3.13%) GDPR
6 87 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 85 (2.10%) NCSC
8 75 (1.85%) PMO
9 71 (1.75%) NIST
10 34 (0.84%) GRC
11 30 (0.74%) SLA
12 25 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 24 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 11 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
17 8 (0.20%) NIST 800
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 6 (0.15%) PCI DSS
18 6 (0.15%) PERC
System Software
1 281 (6.93%) Docker
2 137 (3.38%) Active Directory
3 31 (0.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.39%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.32%) VMware NSX
6 12 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.22%) vSphere
8 8 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.099%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.074%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.074%) Postfix
12 2 (0.049%) OpenAM
13 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.025%) Ceph
13 1 (0.025%) Squid
13 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 272 (6.71%) Kubernetes
2 98 (2.42%) Grafana
3 65 (1.60%) Ansible
4 58 (1.43%) Prometheus
5 44 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
6 41 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
7 26 (0.64%) SCCM
8 22 (0.54%) Argo
9 20 (0.49%) Kibana
10 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.20%) VxRail
11 6 (0.15%) Istio
11 6 (0.15%) QRadar
12 5 (0.12%) Consul
12 5 (0.12%) Packer
12 5 (0.12%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.099%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.099%) Karpenter
14 3 (0.074%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 559 (13.79%) Microsoft
2 342 (8.44%) Oracle
3 158 (3.90%) ServiceNow
4 127 (3.13%) Google
4 127 (3.13%) SAP
5 90 (2.22%) Salesforce
6 82 (2.02%) Databricks
7 48 (1.18%) Cisco
8 38 (0.94%) Palo Alto
9 37 (0.91%) Splunk
10 35 (0.86%) VMware
11 33 (0.81%) Informatica
12 32 (0.79%) Dynatrace
13 31 (0.76%) Talend
14 30 (0.74%) Workday
15 21 (0.52%) Foundry
15 21 (0.52%) Palantir
16 18 (0.44%) Blue Prism
16 18 (0.44%) Red Hat
17 17 (0.42%) NEC