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

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,346 2,557 3,465
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.96% 9.89% 9.08%
As % of the General category 16.74% 15.82% 15.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,343 1,540 2,327
10th Percentile £340 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £671 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 88 143
10th Percentile £16.42 £15.04 £13.28
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.60 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.11 £38.81 £55.70
90th Percentile £45.44 £64.73 £69.75
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £25.00 £20.35
% change year-on-year -12.80% +22.84% +2.40%

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 19,984 16,166 22,432
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.50% 62.55% 58.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,709 9,759 14,822
10th Percentile £294 £297 £264
25th Percentile £404 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,251 512 1,503
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.50 £13.07
25th Percentile £16.62 £19.94 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.85 £30.31 £25.25
Median % change year-on-year -24.60% +20.02% -6.48%
75th Percentile £50.00 £59.06 £52.64
90th Percentile £71.50 £75.00 £67.35
UK median hourly rate £22.83 £29.00 £25.22
% change year-on-year -21.28% +15.01% -3.02%

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 10 February 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 10 February 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 10 February 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 -4 1,375 £521 -0.71% 338
North of England -2 636 £450 -5.26% 210
South East -5 404 £500 -4.76% 199
Midlands +2 333 £500 - 100
North West 0 326 £450 -10.00% 80
South West -3 294 £525 -4.55% 80
West Midlands -2 246 £500 - 79
Yorkshire -4 188 £500 +11.11% 85
North East 0 124 £450 +5.88% 46
East of England +28 110 £375 +7.14% 44
East Midlands +7 87 £425 -10.53% 20
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
1 120 (3.59%) Confluence
2 91 (2.72%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.66%) Apache Airflow
5 21 (0.63%) SAS
6 16 (0.48%) Apache
7 15 (0.45%) nginx
8 13 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.39%) CMS
8 13 (0.39%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.15%) Documentum
10 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
10 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.090%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.090%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.090%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.090%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.090%) SharePoint Server
11 3 (0.090%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 98 (2.93%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.48%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.27%) Trello
8 7 (0.21%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.15%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.090%) InVision
12 2 (0.060%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.060%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.060%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.060%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.030%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.030%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.030%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.030%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 58 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.66%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.54%) Oracle ERP
4 18 (0.54%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.54%) SAP Hybris
5 11 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
5 11 (0.33%) SAP Payroll
6 10 (0.30%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.27%) iTrent
7 9 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.21%) Unit4 Business World
10 6 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
10 6 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
10 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.15%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 591 (17.66%) AWS
2 573 (17.12%) Azure
3 190 (5.68%) Power Platform
4 150 (4.48%) GitHub
4 150 (4.48%) Serverless
5 138 (4.12%) Microsoft 365
6 132 (3.95%) GCP
7 116 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
8 94 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
9 88 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
10 73 (2.18%) Entra ID
11 69 (2.06%) Amazon S3
12 61 (1.82%) Power Automate
13 59 (1.76%) AWS CloudFormation
14 58 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
15 57 (1.70%) OCI
16 54 (1.61%) SaaS
17 53 (1.58%) PowerApps
18 50 (1.49%) Amazon ECS
19 49 (1.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 90 (2.69%) Firewall
2 60 (1.79%) DNS
3 57 (1.70%) VPN
4 54 (1.61%) WAN
5 49 (1.46%) Network Security
6 44 (1.32%) LAN
7 43 (1.29%) Wireless
8 36 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 31 (0.93%) BGP
10 25 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.69%) DHCP
12 21 (0.63%) OSPF
13 16 (0.48%) SSL
13 16 (0.48%) VLAN
14 15 (0.45%) MPLS
14 15 (0.45%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.45%) Skype
15 14 (0.42%) IPsec
15 14 (0.42%) VoIP
16 13 (0.39%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (4.33%) Power BI
2 75 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.58%) Metadata
4 51 (1.52%) MongoDB
5 44 (1.32%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.08%) Data Lake
7 35 (1.05%) NoSQL
8 34 (1.02%) Data Warehouse
9 30 (0.90%) Relational Database
10 29 (0.87%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.66%) MySQL
14 21 (0.63%) Oracle Database
15 20 (0.60%) Redis
16 18 (0.54%) BigQuery
17 17 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
18 15 (0.45%) DocumentDB
18 15 (0.45%) Tableau
19 14 (0.42%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 193 (5.77%) JIRA
2 155 (4.63%) Git
3 125 (3.74%) GitLab
4 115 (3.44%) Jenkins
5 51 (1.52%) Selenium
6 50 (1.49%) Postman
7 32 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 24 (0.72%) JUnit
10 19 (0.57%) Mockito
10 19 (0.57%) REST Assured
11 15 (0.45%) Mocha
12 14 (0.42%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.42%) CircleCI
13 13 (0.39%) JMeter
13 13 (0.39%) SonarQube
14 11 (0.33%) MSI
15 9 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
16 8 (0.24%) Gradle
16 8 (0.24%) MLflow
General
1 975 (29.14%) Social Skills
2 539 (16.11%) Finance
3 299 (8.94%) Analytical Skills
4 216 (6.46%) Telecoms
5 180 (5.38%) Marketing
6 178 (5.32%) Manufacturing
7 160 (4.78%) Electronics
8 151 (4.51%) Military
9 124 (3.71%) Local Government
10 74 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
12 67 (2.00%) Legal
13 57 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
16 44 (1.32%) Banking
17 37 (1.11%) Law
18 34 (1.02%) Police
19 33 (0.99%) Billing
20 32 (0.96%) Retail
Job Titles
1 398 (11.89%) Developer
2 385 (11.51%) Architect
3 341 (10.19%) Senior
4 335 (10.01%) Analyst
5 304 (9.09%) Lead
6 191 (5.71%) Consultant
7 153 (4.57%) Business Analyst
8 134 (4.00%) DevOps Engineer
9 114 (3.41%) Designer
10 102 (3.05%) Project Manager
11 95 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
12 86 (2.57%) Technical Architect
13 71 (2.12%) User Researcher
14 70 (2.09%) AWS Engineer
15 68 (2.03%) Data Engineer
16 62 (1.85%) Java Developer
17 60 (1.79%) Senior Developer
18 57 (1.70%) Service Designer
19 56 (1.67%) Test Engineer
20 55 (1.64%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (4.27%) REST
2 112 (3.35%) Node.js
3 104 (3.11%) React
4 91 (2.72%) Spring
5 83 (2.48%) Spring Boot
6 81 (2.42%) RESTful
7 72 (2.15%) .NET
7 72 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
8 69 (2.06%) HTML
9 64 (1.91%) CSS
10 59 (1.76%) AngularJS
11 58 (1.73%) Web Services
12 56 (1.67%) JSON
13 55 (1.64%) SOAP
14 49 (1.46%) Kafka
15 38 (1.14%) XML
16 37 (1.11%) Playwright
17 30 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
18 29 (0.87%) Middleware
19 27 (0.81%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 125 (3.74%) Cloud Native
2 122 (3.65%) Onboarding
3 117 (3.50%) NHS
4 108 (3.23%) Product Ownership
5 87 (2.60%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.03%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (2.03%) Management Information System
7 42 (1.26%) Public Cloud
8 33 (0.99%) Data Structures
9 32 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (0.90%) CMDB
10 30 (0.90%) Security Posture
11 29 (0.87%) PKI
12 28 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
13 26 (0.78%) AI Agents
13 26 (0.78%) Replication
14 25 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
15 24 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
16 23 (0.69%) Security Operations Centre
17 18 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 223 (6.66%) Windows
2 155 (4.63%) Linux
3 52 (1.55%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.46%) Windows 10
5 48 (1.43%) Android
6 43 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 30 (0.90%) Unix
8 22 (0.66%) Apple iOS
9 17 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 17 (0.51%) VMS
10 12 (0.36%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.27%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.21%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
16 3 (0.090%) AIX
16 3 (0.090%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 816 (24.39%) Agile
2 470 (14.05%) CI/CD
3 451 (13.48%) DevOps
4 430 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
5 387 (11.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 377 (11.27%) Stakeholder Management
7 330 (9.86%) Migration
8 327 (9.77%) Business Intelligence
9 298 (8.91%) Continuous Improvement
10 280 (8.37%) Roadmaps
11 227 (6.78%) Analytics
12 224 (6.69%) Decision-Making
13 206 (6.16%) Test Automation
14 205 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
15 202 (6.04%) Programme Management
16 198 (5.92%) Microservices
17 192 (5.74%) Containerisation
18 187 (5.59%) ITIL
19 183 (5.47%) AI
20 175 (5.23%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 342 (10.22%) Python
2 276 (8.25%) SQL
3 232 (6.93%) Java
4 175 (5.23%) JavaScript
5 124 (3.71%) PowerShell
6 110 (3.29%) TypeScript
7 81 (2.42%) C#
8 57 (1.70%) Bash
9 37 (1.11%) Ruby
10 29 (0.87%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.75%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.66%) Go
13 18 (0.54%) PHP
14 17 (0.51%) R
14 17 (0.51%) Shell Script
15 13 (0.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.36%) Bicep
17 10 (0.30%) Groovy
17 10 (0.30%) Kotlin
17 10 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,972 (58.94%) Security Cleared
2 1,296 (38.73%) SC Cleared
3 165 (4.93%) Degree
4 161 (4.81%) DV Cleared
5 85 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.43%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.23%) AWS Certification
7 41 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
8 37 (1.11%) CISSP
9 35 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
11 25 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.72%) ISEB
13 23 (0.69%) PMP
14 21 (0.63%) CISM
15 19 (0.57%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.57%) PMI Certification
16 18 (0.54%) CCNP
17 16 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (5.11%) Accessibility
2 133 (3.97%) QA
3 115 (3.44%) Data Quality
4 94 (2.81%) GDPR
5 75 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (2.00%) NIST
7 59 (1.76%) WCAG
8 51 (1.52%) NCSC
9 48 (1.43%) PMO
10 45 (1.34%) SLA
11 24 (0.72%) GRC
12 19 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.54%) COBIT
14 15 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.45%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.42%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.36%) HL7
16 12 (0.36%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 221 (6.60%) Docker
2 124 (3.71%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.45%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.39%) vSphere
8 11 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.21%) DFS Replication
9 7 (0.21%) Postfix
10 6 (0.18%) Squid
10 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.15%) Dovecot
11 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.12%) NFS
13 3 (0.090%) ISA Server
13 3 (0.090%) RACF
14 2 (0.060%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.060%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 285 (8.52%) Terraform
2 249 (7.44%) Kubernetes
3 67 (2.00%) Ansible
3 67 (2.00%) Grafana
4 51 (1.52%) Prometheus
5 32 (0.96%) SCCM
6 30 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 21 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
8 16 (0.48%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.36%) Argo
10 11 (0.33%) Packer
11 10 (0.30%) Puppet
12 9 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.24%) Nessus
13 8 (0.24%) SCOM
13 8 (0.24%) vRealize
14 7 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 7 (0.21%) Consul
14 7 (0.21%) FortiGate
15 6 (0.18%) Kibana
Vendors
1 401 (11.98%) Microsoft
2 297 (8.88%) SAP
3 197 (5.89%) Oracle
4 143 (4.27%) Cisco
5 106 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 100 (2.99%) Salesforce
7 94 (2.81%) VMware
8 63 (1.88%) Google
9 58 (1.73%) Splunk
10 56 (1.67%) Databricks
11 42 (1.26%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.20%) Aruba
13 38 (1.14%) Dell
14 37 (1.11%) Apple
15 35 (1.05%) Juniper
16 34 (1.02%) Palo Alto
17 33 (0.99%) HP
18 27 (0.81%) Red Hat
18 27 (0.81%) SolarWinds
19 25 (0.75%) MuleSoft