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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 18 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,708 2,219 3,316
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.42% 9.08% 8.88%
As % of the General category 16.91% 14.20% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,631 1,515 2,201
10th Percentile £350 £336 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £594 £612 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £503 £525
% change year-on-year -0.50% -4.29% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 87 166
10th Percentile £15.53 £15.27 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.72 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.57 £22.90 £23.25
Median % change year-on-year -1.45% -1.51% +15.96%
75th Percentile £25.77 £33.58 £55.08
90th Percentile £55.00 £63.25 £70.44
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.00 £22.12
% change year-on-year -2.17% +4.00% +10.58%

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 21,934 15,624 21,807
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.74% 63.93% 58.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,790 10,170 14,102
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,401 650 1,764
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.05 £17.66 £15.38
Median hourly rate £30.00 £28.75 £27.51
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +4.52% -21.41%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £27.80 £28.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -3.30% +4.55% -21.43%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 0 1,637 £525 - 328
North of England -3 652 £452 -4.85% 241
South East -4 446 £500 -7.32% 205
Midlands +2 398 £500 +6.38% 81
North West -1 318 £460 -8.00% 114
West Midlands 0 303 £500 +8.11% 72
South West -3 256 £525 -4.11% 102
Yorkshire +6 220 £480 +6.67% 69
North East -3 119 £450 -2.17% 59
East of England +24 100 £425 +9.68% 35
East Midlands +14 90 £500 - 9
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
1 141 (3.80%) Confluence
2 106 (2.86%) SharePoint
3 40 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.81%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) Apache
5 18 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (0.49%) Apache Spark
6 17 (0.46%) CMS
7 14 (0.38%) nginx
8 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
10 5 (0.13%) Camunda
10 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.081%) Drupal
12 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 86 (2.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 73 (1.97%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.46%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 10 (0.27%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SystmOne
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 695 (18.74%) AWS
2 636 (17.15%) Azure
3 199 (5.37%) Power Platform
4 168 (4.53%) Serverless
5 157 (4.23%) Microsoft 365
6 151 (4.07%) GitHub
7 141 (3.80%) GCP
8 139 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.75%) AWS Lambda
10 95 (2.56%) Amazon S3
11 92 (2.48%) Entra ID
12 88 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
13 75 (2.02%) SaaS
14 71 (1.91%) AWS CloudFormation
15 65 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
15 65 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
16 60 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
16 60 (1.62%) Power Automate
17 59 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 53 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 90 (2.43%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) Network Security
3 55 (1.48%) WAN
4 54 (1.46%) DNS
4 54 (1.46%) VPN
5 48 (1.29%) LAN
6 29 (0.78%) BGP
7 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (0.65%) OSPF
8 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
9 22 (0.59%) Wireless
10 20 (0.54%) DHCP
11 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.43%) Internet
12 16 (0.43%) VLAN
13 15 (0.40%) SSL
14 12 (0.32%) MPLS
15 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
15 11 (0.30%) IPsec
15 11 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (4.05%) Power BI
2 82 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
3 73 (1.97%) SQL Server
4 60 (1.62%) Metadata
5 59 (1.59%) Data Warehouse
6 55 (1.48%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.86%) Data Lake
11 31 (0.84%) Tableau
12 29 (0.78%) DynamoDB
13 28 (0.76%) Relational Database
14 26 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 25 (0.67%) Oracle Database
16 23 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
17 20 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
17 20 (0.54%) MySQL
17 20 (0.54%) Pentaho
18 19 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 232 (6.26%) JIRA
2 188 (5.07%) Git
3 122 (3.29%) GitLab
4 118 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 45 (1.21%) Selenium
6 41 (1.11%) Postman
7 40 (1.08%) JUnit
8 34 (0.92%) Mockito
9 30 (0.81%) SonarQube
10 25 (0.67%) JMeter
11 19 (0.51%) Maven
12 18 (0.49%) Cypress.io
13 17 (0.46%) Cucumber
14 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
14 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
15 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
16 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
16 11 (0.30%) jMock
16 11 (0.30%) REST Assured
17 10 (0.27%) Mocha
General
1 964 (26.00%) Social Skills
2 499 (13.46%) Finance
3 367 (9.90%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (4.83%) Military
5 165 (4.45%) Local Government
6 135 (3.64%) Telecoms
7 111 (2.99%) Marketing
8 104 (2.80%) Manufacturing
9 85 (2.29%) Electronics
10 83 (2.24%) Legal
11 82 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
12 73 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
13 72 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
14 64 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 55 (1.48%) Banking
15 55 (1.48%) Police
16 47 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (1.16%) Law
18 32 (0.86%) Billing
19 27 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 485 (13.08%) Developer
2 470 (12.68%) Architect
3 405 (10.92%) Senior
4 381 (10.28%) Analyst
5 307 (8.28%) Lead
6 171 (4.61%) Business Analyst
7 160 (4.31%) Consultant
8 154 (4.15%) Designer
9 125 (3.37%) Data Engineer
10 115 (3.10%) DevOps Engineer
11 113 (3.05%) Project Manager
12 106 (2.86%) Technical Architect
13 105 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
14 101 (2.72%) Java Developer
15 89 (2.40%) Senior Developer
16 84 (2.27%) User Researcher
17 83 (2.24%) Delivery Manager
18 70 (1.89%) Service Designer
19 62 (1.67%) Full-Stack Developer
20 61 (1.65%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (3.83%) REST
2 120 (3.24%) Node.js
3 113 (3.05%) Spring
4 104 (2.80%) React
5 99 (2.67%) Spring Boot
6 97 (2.62%) RESTful
7 79 (2.13%) .NET
8 76 (2.05%) AngularJS
9 75 (2.02%) Oracle Fusion
10 67 (1.81%) Web Services
11 66 (1.78%) HTML
12 62 (1.67%) SOAP
13 61 (1.65%) Kafka
14 56 (1.51%) CSS
15 43 (1.16%) JSON
15 43 (1.16%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.94%) Middleware
17 34 (0.92%) Playwright
18 33 (0.89%) XML
19 32 (0.86%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 171 (4.61%) Cloud Native
2 139 (3.75%) NHS
3 133 (3.59%) Product Ownership
4 131 (3.53%) Onboarding
5 83 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
6 76 (2.05%) Management Information System
7 72 (1.94%) Data Centre
8 57 (1.54%) Public Cloud
9 49 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.08%) Data Structures
12 37 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 30 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.70%) CMDB
14 26 (0.70%) Replication
15 24 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
15 24 (0.65%) Security Posture
16 22 (0.59%) PKI
17 19 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
18 17 (0.46%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 198 (5.34%) Windows
2 156 (4.21%) Linux
3 60 (1.62%) Windows Server
4 46 (1.24%) Unix
5 41 (1.11%) Windows 10
6 34 (0.92%) Android
7 25 (0.67%) Mac OS
8 22 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 9 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 970 (26.16%) Agile
2 527 (14.21%) CI/CD
3 516 (13.92%) DevOps
4 466 (12.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 432 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
6 414 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 385 (10.38%) Continuous Improvement
8 379 (10.22%) Migration
9 331 (8.93%) Roadmaps
10 311 (8.39%) Analytics
11 288 (7.77%) Decision-Making
12 257 (6.93%) Business Intelligence
13 246 (6.63%) Test Automation
14 243 (6.55%) Containerisation
15 233 (6.28%) Data Modelling
16 227 (6.12%) Microservices
17 225 (6.07%) Infrastructure as Code
18 219 (5.91%) AI
19 208 (5.61%) User Research
20 205 (5.53%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 406 (10.95%) Python
2 344 (9.28%) SQL
3 273 (7.36%) Java
4 195 (5.26%) JavaScript
5 114 (3.07%) TypeScript
6 109 (2.94%) PowerShell
7 91 (2.45%) C#
8 47 (1.27%) Bash
9 44 (1.19%) Ruby
10 43 (1.16%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.62%) Bicep
13 22 (0.59%) Go
13 22 (0.59%) R
13 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.35%) PHP
15 13 (0.35%) T-SQL
16 12 (0.32%) Scala
17 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,097 (56.55%) Security Cleared
2 1,390 (37.49%) SC Cleared
3 182 (4.91%) DV Cleared
4 172 (4.64%) Degree
5 106 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.38%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.13%) AWS Certification
7 42 (1.13%) CISSP
8 38 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
10 30 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.78%) PMP
12 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.65%) CISM
14 23 (0.62%) ISEB
15 19 (0.51%) CCNP
16 17 (0.46%) ISTQB
17 14 (0.38%) APMP
17 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (5.31%) Accessibility
2 159 (4.29%) QA
3 158 (4.26%) Data Quality
4 107 (2.89%) GDPR
5 87 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 78 (2.10%) WCAG
7 69 (1.86%) NCSC
8 66 (1.78%) PMO
9 61 (1.65%) NIST
10 36 (0.97%) SLA
11 33 (0.89%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) COBIT
14 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 18 (0.49%) PCI DSS
16 16 (0.43%) HL7
17 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
18 14 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 10 (0.27%) NIST 800
20 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 262 (7.07%) Docker
2 144 (3.88%) Active Directory
3 55 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) etcd
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 292 (7.87%) Terraform
2 271 (7.31%) Kubernetes
3 71 (1.91%) Grafana
4 65 (1.75%) Ansible
5 50 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.30%) Argo
11 11 (0.30%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.27%) Kibana
13 9 (0.24%) Packer
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
14 8 (0.22%) vRealize
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 418 (11.27%) Microsoft
2 230 (6.20%) Oracle
3 224 (6.04%) SAP
4 124 (3.34%) Salesforce
5 111 (2.99%) ServiceNow
6 96 (2.59%) Cisco
7 89 (2.40%) Google
8 88 (2.37%) VMware
9 85 (2.29%) Databricks
10 44 (1.19%) Splunk
11 35 (0.94%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.86%) Virgin Media
13 31 (0.84%) IBM
14 30 (0.81%) Aruba
15 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft
15 28 (0.76%) Talend
16 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
17 26 (0.70%) Juniper
18 24 (0.65%) Dynatrace
19 23 (0.62%) CyberArk