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

6 months to
8 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,325 2,585 3,477
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.96% 9.87% 9.07%
As % of the General category 16.74% 15.77% 15.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,329 1,558 2,339
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 £673 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 91 144
10th Percentile £16.39 £15.00 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.57 £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 £39.65 £55.35
90th Percentile £45.61 £64.75 £69.63
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £25.00 £20.35
% change year-on-year -12.80% +22.84% +2.48%

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 19,860 16,395 22,557
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.49% 62.60% 58.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,626 9,905 14,931
10th Percentile £293 £297 £265
25th Percentile £403 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £528
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,244 523 1,505
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.51 £13.16
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.25 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.85 £30.21 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.36% +18.47% -5.08%
75th Percentile £49.81 £59.38 £53.75
90th Percentile £70.50 £75.00 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £25.44
% change year-on-year -21.34% +13.99% -1.24%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 -3 1,367 £525 - 418
North of England -2 639 £450 -5.26% 211
South East -4 397 £500 -4.76% 213
North West 0 327 £450 -10.00% 88
Midlands +3 326 £500 - 101
South West -3 293 £525 -4.55% 86
West Midlands -2 241 £500 - 79
Yorkshire -1 190 £500 +11.11% 80
North East 0 124 £450 +5.88% 45
East of England +28 110 £375 +7.14% 52
East Midlands +9 85 £424 -10.66% 21
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 (3.61%) Confluence
2 92 (2.77%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 21 (0.63%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (0.60%) 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%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.090%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.090%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.090%) SharePoint Server
11 3 (0.090%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 97 (2.92%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
3 36 (1.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.69%) 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 57 (1.71%) 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%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.12%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 589 (17.71%) AWS
2 570 (17.14%) Azure
3 194 (5.83%) Power Platform
4 150 (4.51%) Serverless
5 149 (4.48%) GitHub
6 144 (4.33%) Microsoft 365
7 134 (4.03%) GCP
8 116 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
9 94 (2.83%) AWS Lambda
10 87 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
11 71 (2.14%) Entra ID
12 68 (2.05%) Amazon S3
13 66 (1.98%) Power Automate
14 60 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
15 58 (1.74%) PowerApps
16 57 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
16 57 (1.71%) OCI
17 54 (1.62%) SaaS
18 50 (1.50%) Amazon ECS
19 49 (1.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 90 (2.71%) Firewall
2 60 (1.80%) DNS
3 57 (1.71%) VPN
4 55 (1.65%) WAN
5 48 (1.44%) Network Security
6 45 (1.35%) LAN
7 43 (1.29%) Wireless
8 36 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 30 (0.90%) BGP
10 26 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.69%) DHCP
12 21 (0.63%) OSPF
13 16 (0.48%) SD-WAN
13 16 (0.48%) SSL
13 16 (0.48%) VLAN
14 15 (0.45%) Skype
15 14 (0.42%) Internet
15 14 (0.42%) IPsec
15 14 (0.42%) MPLS
15 14 (0.42%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (4.33%) Power BI
2 75 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (1.56%) Metadata
4 51 (1.53%) MongoDB
5 41 (1.23%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.08%) Data Lake
7 35 (1.05%) NoSQL
8 32 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
9 30 (0.90%) Relational Database
10 28 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.66%) MySQL
14 20 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.60%) Redis
15 18 (0.54%) BigQuery
16 17 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
17 15 (0.45%) DocumentDB
17 15 (0.45%) Tableau
18 14 (0.42%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 194 (5.83%) JIRA
2 155 (4.66%) Git
3 126 (3.79%) GitLab
4 117 (3.52%) Jenkins
5 52 (1.56%) Selenium
6 51 (1.53%) Postman
7 33 (0.99%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 25 (0.75%) JUnit
10 20 (0.60%) REST Assured
11 19 (0.57%) Mockito
12 15 (0.45%) Mocha
13 14 (0.42%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.42%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.42%) JMeter
14 13 (0.39%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.33%) MSI
16 9 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.24%) Gradle
18 7 (0.21%) Artifactory
General
1 973 (29.26%) Social Skills
2 534 (16.06%) Finance
3 293 (8.81%) Analytical Skills
4 216 (6.50%) Telecoms
5 180 (5.41%) Marketing
6 178 (5.35%) Manufacturing
7 160 (4.81%) Electronics
8 152 (4.57%) Military
9 121 (3.64%) Local Government
10 74 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
12 65 (1.95%) Legal
13 57 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (1.38%) 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 (11.97%) Developer
2 377 (11.34%) Architect
3 337 (10.14%) Senior
4 330 (9.92%) Analyst
5 304 (9.14%) Lead
6 191 (5.74%) Consultant
7 150 (4.51%) Business Analyst
8 133 (4.00%) DevOps Engineer
9 111 (3.34%) Designer
10 103 (3.10%) Project Manager
11 91 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
12 84 (2.53%) Technical Architect
13 70 (2.11%) AWS Engineer
14 68 (2.05%) Data Engineer
14 68 (2.05%) User Researcher
15 63 (1.89%) Java Developer
16 61 (1.83%) Senior Developer
17 57 (1.71%) Test Engineer
18 55 (1.65%) Product Manager
18 55 (1.65%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (4.33%) REST
2 112 (3.37%) Node.js
3 105 (3.16%) React
4 92 (2.77%) Spring
5 84 (2.53%) Spring Boot
6 81 (2.44%) RESTful
7 72 (2.17%) .NET
7 72 (2.17%) Oracle Fusion
8 69 (2.08%) HTML
9 64 (1.92%) CSS
10 60 (1.80%) AngularJS
11 58 (1.74%) Web Services
12 57 (1.71%) JSON
13 55 (1.65%) SOAP
14 49 (1.47%) Kafka
15 38 (1.14%) XML
16 36 (1.08%) Playwright
17 30 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
18 28 (0.84%) Middleware
19 27 (0.81%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 122 (3.67%) Cloud Native
2 121 (3.64%) Onboarding
3 116 (3.49%) NHS
4 107 (3.22%) Product Ownership
5 87 (2.62%) Data Centre
6 66 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
7 65 (1.95%) Management Information System
8 41 (1.23%) Public Cloud
9 31 (0.93%) Data Structures
9 31 (0.93%) Security Posture
10 30 (0.90%) CMDB
10 30 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
11 28 (0.84%) PKI
12 27 (0.81%) AI Agents
13 26 (0.78%) Replication
13 26 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
14 25 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
15 23 (0.69%) Distributed Systems
16 22 (0.66%) Security Operations Centre
17 18 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 220 (6.62%) Windows
2 152 (4.57%) Linux
3 49 (1.47%) Windows 10
3 49 (1.47%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.44%) Android
5 43 (1.29%) Mac OS
6 27 (0.81%) Unix
7 22 (0.66%) Apple iOS
8 17 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 17 (0.51%) VMS
9 11 (0.33%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.27%) Mac OS X
12 7 (0.21%) Amazon Linux
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.090%) AIX
15 3 (0.090%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 809 (24.33%) Agile
2 468 (14.08%) CI/CD
3 451 (13.56%) DevOps
4 431 (12.96%) Problem-Solving
5 384 (11.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 377 (11.34%) Stakeholder Management
7 329 (9.89%) Migration
8 326 (9.80%) Business Intelligence
9 299 (8.99%) Continuous Improvement
10 278 (8.36%) Roadmaps
11 221 (6.65%) Analytics
12 219 (6.59%) Decision-Making
13 209 (6.29%) Test Automation
14 205 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
15 202 (6.08%) Programme Management
16 196 (5.89%) Microservices
17 190 (5.71%) Containerisation
18 186 (5.59%) ITIL
19 184 (5.53%) AI
20 175 (5.26%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 336 (10.11%) Python
2 275 (8.27%) SQL
3 234 (7.04%) Java
4 175 (5.26%) JavaScript
5 122 (3.67%) PowerShell
6 109 (3.28%) TypeScript
7 81 (2.44%) C#
8 58 (1.74%) Bash
9 37 (1.11%) Ruby
10 29 (0.87%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.75%) PL/SQL
12 21 (0.63%) Go
13 17 (0.51%) PHP
13 17 (0.51%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.48%) R
15 13 (0.39%) Bicep
15 13 (0.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 10 (0.30%) Groovy
16 10 (0.30%) Kotlin
16 10 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,958 (58.89%) Security Cleared
2 1,286 (38.68%) SC Cleared
3 162 (4.87%) Degree
4 159 (4.78%) DV Cleared
5 83 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.44%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.23%) AWS Certification
7 41 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
8 37 (1.11%) CISSP
9 36 (1.08%) 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
1 168 (5.05%) Accessibility
2 135 (4.06%) QA
3 113 (3.40%) Data Quality
4 95 (2.86%) GDPR
5 72 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 64 (1.92%) NIST
7 55 (1.65%) WCAG
8 52 (1.56%) NCSC
9 49 (1.47%) PMO
10 46 (1.38%) SLA
11 24 (0.72%) GRC
12 18 (0.54%) COBIT
12 18 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.45%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.42%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.36%) HL7
15 12 (0.36%) PCI DSS
16 9 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 7 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 219 (6.59%) Docker
2 121 (3.64%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
5 15 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
5 15 (0.45%) VMware NSX
6 13 (0.39%) vSphere
7 11 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.21%) DFS Replication
8 7 (0.21%) Postfix
9 6 (0.18%) Squid
9 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.15%) Dovecot
10 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (0.12%) NFS
12 3 (0.090%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.090%) RACF
13 2 (0.060%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.060%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 281 (8.45%) Terraform
2 247 (7.43%) Kubernetes
3 68 (2.05%) Ansible
4 66 (1.98%) Grafana
5 51 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.96%) SCCM
7 29 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.36%) Argo
11 11 (0.33%) Packer
12 10 (0.30%) Puppet
13 9 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.24%) Nessus
14 8 (0.24%) SCOM
14 8 (0.24%) vRealize
15 7 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.21%) Consul
15 7 (0.21%) FortiGate
16 6 (0.18%) Kibana
Vendors
1 405 (12.18%) Microsoft
2 296 (8.90%) SAP
3 194 (5.83%) Oracle
4 143 (4.30%) Cisco
5 106 (3.19%) ServiceNow
6 100 (3.01%) Salesforce
7 93 (2.80%) VMware
8 63 (1.89%) Google
9 58 (1.74%) Splunk
10 53 (1.59%) Databricks
11 43 (1.29%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.20%) Aruba
13 38 (1.14%) Dell
14 37 (1.11%) Apple
15 36 (1.08%) Juniper
16 35 (1.05%) Palo Alto
17 33 (0.99%) HP
18 27 (0.81%) Red Hat
18 27 (0.81%) SolarWinds
19 25 (0.75%) MuleSoft