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 3 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 20 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,679 2,130 3,288
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.09% 8.74% 8.86%
As % of the General category 16.55% 13.65% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,589 1,461 2,198
10th Percentile £350 £349 £311
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.53%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £518
% change year-on-year - -3.47% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 85 166
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.62 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.57 £22.50 £21.62
Median % change year-on-year +0.30% +4.09% +6.69%
75th Percentile £27.41 £33.00 £54.89
90th Percentile £61.50 £64.90 £70.39
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year - +7.14% +5.00%

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 22,225 15,607 21,625
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.91% 64.03% 58.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,883 10,135 13,933
10th Percentile £305 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.90% -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 1,450 667 1,792
10th Percentile £14.24 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.22 £17.00 £15.49
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.50 £30.14
Median % change year-on-year +10.91% -8.76% -9.72%
75th Percentile £61.88 £55.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.06 £75.00 £65.70
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -12.56%

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 3 May 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 3 May 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 3 May 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 +2 1,648 £525 - 387
North of England -1 648 £452 -4.85% 244
South East -3 435 £500 -6.98% 207
Midlands +6 383 £500 +8.11% 124
North West -1 318 £465 -7.00% 112
West Midlands +4 298 £488 +7.62% 98
South West -7 254 £525 -4.55% 109
Yorkshire +6 221 £450 -2.70% 71
North East -3 115 £450 -2.96% 61
East of England +14 94 £425 +21.43% 63
East Midlands +10 80 £525 +5.00% 25
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
1 142 (3.86%) Confluence
2 105 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 19 (0.52%) CMS
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.41%) Apache
8 8 (0.22%) nginx
8 8 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
9 7 (0.19%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.14%) Camunda
12 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.082%) Anypoint
12 3 (0.082%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.082%) Drupal
12 3 (0.082%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.082%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 87 (2.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 29 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.22%) Trello
7 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
7 5 (0.14%) Sketch
8 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
9 3 (0.082%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.054%) InVision
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
11 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SystmOne
8 9 (0.24%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
10 7 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.14%) SAP HR
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 4 (0.11%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 682 (18.54%) AWS
2 645 (17.53%) Azure
3 198 (5.38%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.38%) Serverless
5 157 (4.27%) Microsoft 365
6 145 (3.94%) GitHub
7 133 (3.62%) GCP
8 131 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.77%) Entra ID
10 95 (2.58%) AWS Lambda
11 94 (2.56%) Amazon S3
12 84 (2.28%) GitHub Actions
13 83 (2.26%) SaaS
14 66 (1.79%) Amazon EC2
14 66 (1.79%) Dynamics 365
15 64 (1.74%) AWS CloudFormation
16 62 (1.69%) OCI
17 61 (1.66%) Power Automate
18 60 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
19 58 (1.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 96 (2.61%) Firewall
2 57 (1.55%) WAN
3 55 (1.49%) DNS
4 53 (1.44%) Network Security
5 52 (1.41%) VPN
6 46 (1.25%) LAN
7 34 (0.92%) BGP
8 30 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
9 29 (0.79%) OSPF
10 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
11 23 (0.63%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.54%) DHCP
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 15 (0.41%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.38%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.38%) Internet
15 14 (0.38%) VLAN
16 13 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
16 13 (0.35%) Wireless
17 12 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (3.97%) Power BI
2 75 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
3 68 (1.85%) SQL Server
4 64 (1.74%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.49%) Metadata
6 52 (1.41%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.22%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
9 36 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.87%) Data Lake
11 29 (0.79%) Tableau
12 28 (0.76%) Relational Database
13 27 (0.73%) DynamoDB
14 26 (0.71%) Oracle Database
15 23 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
16 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
17 19 (0.52%) Pentaho
18 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
19 16 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
19 16 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 220 (5.98%) JIRA
2 177 (4.81%) Git
3 130 (3.53%) GitLab
4 115 (3.13%) Jenkins
5 41 (1.11%) JUnit
6 39 (1.06%) Selenium
7 36 (0.98%) Postman
8 35 (0.95%) Mockito
9 31 (0.84%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.65%) JMeter
11 20 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.52%) Maven
13 17 (0.46%) CircleCI
14 16 (0.43%) Cucumber
15 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
16 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
16 11 (0.30%) jMock
17 10 (0.27%) Mocha
18 9 (0.24%) Bitbucket
18 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 939 (25.52%) Social Skills
2 478 (12.99%) Finance
3 358 (9.73%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (5.03%) Military
5 170 (4.62%) Local Government
6 113 (3.07%) Telecoms
7 87 (2.36%) Marketing
7 87 (2.36%) Organisational Skills
8 80 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
8 80 (2.17%) Legal
9 74 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 74 (2.01%) Manufacturing
10 73 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
11 60 (1.63%) Police
12 59 (1.60%) Electronics
13 52 (1.41%) Banking
14 51 (1.39%) Law
15 45 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
16 30 (0.82%) Billing
17 27 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 492 (13.37%) Developer
2 455 (12.37%) Architect
3 409 (11.12%) Senior
4 367 (9.98%) Analyst
5 309 (8.40%) Lead
6 162 (4.40%) Designer
7 160 (4.35%) Business Analyst
8 148 (4.02%) Consultant
9 125 (3.40%) Data Engineer
10 118 (3.21%) Project Manager
11 117 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
12 110 (2.99%) Java Developer
13 103 (2.80%) Technical Architect
14 97 (2.64%) Solutions Architect
15 91 (2.47%) Senior Developer
16 81 (2.20%) Delivery Manager
16 81 (2.20%) User Researcher
17 72 (1.96%) Service Designer
18 65 (1.77%) Administrator
19 64 (1.74%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (3.67%) REST
2 120 (3.26%) Node.js
3 118 (3.21%) Spring
4 103 (2.80%) Spring Boot
5 97 (2.64%) React
6 96 (2.61%) RESTful
7 76 (2.07%) Oracle Fusion
8 72 (1.96%) .NET
9 71 (1.93%) AngularJS
10 68 (1.85%) Web Services
11 62 (1.69%) HTML
12 61 (1.66%) Kafka
13 57 (1.55%) SOAP
14 51 (1.39%) CSS
15 43 (1.17%) Lightning Web Components
16 38 (1.03%) OAuth
17 36 (0.98%) JSON
18 34 (0.92%) Middleware
18 34 (0.92%) Playwright
19 27 (0.73%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 171 (4.65%) Cloud Native
2 135 (3.67%) Product Ownership
3 132 (3.59%) NHS
4 130 (3.53%) Onboarding
5 86 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
6 84 (2.28%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.90%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.47%) Public Cloud
9 48 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
11 41 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
12 38 (1.03%) Data Structures
13 32 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
14 26 (0.71%) CMDB
15 23 (0.63%) Replication
16 21 (0.57%) PKI
17 20 (0.54%) Freedom of Information
18 19 (0.52%) Data Protection Act
19 18 (0.49%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 189 (5.14%) Windows
2 149 (4.05%) Linux
3 60 (1.63%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.33%) Unix
5 37 (1.01%) Windows 10
6 26 (0.71%) Android
7 22 (0.60%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.57%) Mac OS
9 20 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 3 (0.082%) Windows 7
17 2 (0.054%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 948 (25.77%) Agile
2 522 (14.19%) CI/CD
3 511 (13.89%) DevOps
4 461 (12.53%) Stakeholder Management
5 406 (11.04%) Problem-Solving
6 387 (10.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 385 (10.46%) Continuous Improvement
8 364 (9.89%) Migration
9 313 (8.51%) Analytics
10 307 (8.34%) Roadmaps
11 294 (7.99%) Decision-Making
12 246 (6.69%) Containerisation
13 232 (6.31%) Data Modelling
13 232 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
14 231 (6.28%) Test Automation
15 226 (6.14%) Business Intelligence
16 225 (6.12%) Microservices
17 222 (6.03%) AI
18 216 (5.87%) User Research
19 197 (5.35%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 401 (10.90%) Python
2 338 (9.19%) SQL
3 273 (7.42%) Java
4 180 (4.89%) JavaScript
5 115 (3.13%) PowerShell
6 113 (3.07%) TypeScript
7 85 (2.31%) C#
8 49 (1.33%) Bash
9 45 (1.22%) Ruby
10 43 (1.17%) Apex Code
11 35 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.65%) Bicep
13 22 (0.60%) Go
13 22 (0.60%) R
14 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
14 21 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.41%) Scala
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 2,021 (54.93%) Security Cleared
2 1,349 (36.67%) SC Cleared
3 195 (5.30%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.78%) Degree
5 116 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.36%) Azure Certification
7 39 (1.06%) AWS Certification
8 37 (1.01%) CISSP
9 35 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
10 32 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
12 28 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
12 28 (0.76%) PMP
13 25 (0.68%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.63%) CISM
15 18 (0.49%) CCNP
16 17 (0.46%) ISEB
17 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.38%) APMP
19 13 (0.35%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (6.06%) Accessibility
2 161 (4.38%) Data Quality
3 159 (4.32%) QA
4 98 (2.66%) GDPR
5 90 (2.45%) WCAG
6 82 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 70 (1.90%) PMO
8 63 (1.71%) NCSC
9 56 (1.52%) NIST
10 34 (0.92%) SLA
11 28 (0.76%) GRC
12 25 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.43%) COBIT
15 15 (0.41%) PCI DSS
16 14 (0.38%) HL7
17 10 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 8 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
18 8 (0.22%) IFRS
18 8 (0.22%) JSP 440
System Software
1 259 (7.04%) Docker
2 153 (4.16%) Active Directory
3 53 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 18 (0.49%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.30%) vSphere
10 10 (0.27%) Postfix
11 7 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.082%) RACF
14 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.054%) SRDF
15 1 (0.027%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) IAG
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
15 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 285 (7.75%) Terraform
2 268 (7.28%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.04%) Grafana
4 73 (1.98%) Ansible
5 56 (1.52%) Prometheus
6 43 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 32 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
8 20 (0.54%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 13 (0.35%) Argo
11 12 (0.33%) Kibana
11 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.27%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.19%) vRealize
15 6 (0.16%) Consul
15 6 (0.16%) Istio
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
16 5 (0.14%) Packer
Vendors
1 435 (11.82%) Microsoft
2 223 (6.06%) Oracle
3 199 (5.41%) SAP
4 121 (3.29%) Salesforce
5 107 (2.91%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.53%) Google
7 85 (2.31%) VMware
8 78 (2.12%) Databricks
9 64 (1.74%) Cisco
10 38 (1.03%) Splunk
11 33 (0.90%) Atlassian
12 30 (0.82%) Virgin Media
13 29 (0.79%) IBM
13 29 (0.79%) Palo Alto
14 28 (0.76%) Red Hat
15 26 (0.71%) MuleSoft
15 26 (0.71%) Talend
16 25 (0.68%) Dynatrace
17 24 (0.65%) Juniper
18 23 (0.63%) F5