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

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,454 2,524 3,443
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.99% 9.78% 9.13%
As % of the General category 16.87% 15.63% 15.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,423 1,534 2,284
10th Percentile £343 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £519 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.61% -1.19% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £670 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 88 148
10th Percentile £16.55 £15.00 £13.66
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.94 £56.93
90th Percentile £45.44 £62.99 £70.15
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +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 20,480 16,151 22,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.22% 62.56% 58.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,989 9,855 14,596
10th Percentile £300 £298 £265
25th Percentile £405 £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 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,284 513 1,528
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £16.82 £20.00 £15.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.45 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.48% +17.12% -10.34%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.00 £51.66
90th Percentile £72.35 £75.00 £67.29
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -21.34% +11.54% -3.70%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 1,443 £513 -2.38% 362
North of England -2 648 £450 -5.26% 186
South East +1 414 £500 -4.76% 213
Midlands 0 344 £496 -0.75% 103
North West 0 330 £450 -10.00% 75
South West -3 290 £525 -4.55% 95
West Midlands +1 255 £500 - 79
Yorkshire -1 194 £500 +11.11% 75
North East 0 126 £450 +5.88% 36
East of England +23 113 £375 +7.14% 44
East Midlands +11 88 £425 -10.53% 23
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
1 129 (3.73%) Confluence
2 93 (2.69%) SharePoint
3 28 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.64%) SAS
5 20 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.46%) Apache
7 15 (0.43%) nginx
8 13 (0.38%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.35%) CMS
9 12 (0.35%) Skype for Business
10 7 (0.20%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.12%) Documentum
12 4 (0.12%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.087%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.087%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.087%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.087%) OpenStack
Applications
1 99 (2.87%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.23%) Trello
8 7 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.14%) Sketch
11 3 (0.087%) InVision
11 3 (0.087%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 2 (0.058%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.058%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.058%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.029%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.029%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.029%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.029%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 59 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.64%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.52%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.52%) SAP Hybris
5 17 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.26%) iTrent
7 9 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
7 9 (0.26%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.12%) Oracle General Ledger
12 4 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 623 (18.04%) AWS
2 583 (16.88%) Azure
3 194 (5.62%) Power Platform
4 157 (4.55%) Serverless
5 153 (4.43%) GitHub
6 135 (3.91%) GCP
7 133 (3.85%) Microsoft 365
8 121 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.92%) AWS Lambda
10 88 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
11 79 (2.29%) Amazon S3
12 73 (2.11%) Entra ID
13 61 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
14 59 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 57 (1.65%) Dynamics 365
15 57 (1.65%) OCI
16 55 (1.59%) Power Automate
17 54 (1.56%) SaaS
18 53 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
19 52 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (2.55%) Firewall
2 60 (1.74%) DNS
3 57 (1.65%) VPN
4 53 (1.53%) WAN
5 51 (1.48%) Network Security
6 44 (1.27%) LAN
6 44 (1.27%) Wireless
7 34 (0.98%) TCP/IP
8 32 (0.93%) BGP
9 25 (0.72%) DHCP
10 24 (0.69%) OSPF
10 24 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 16 (0.46%) SD-WAN
11 16 (0.46%) SSL
12 14 (0.41%) IPsec
12 14 (0.41%) MPLS
12 14 (0.41%) VLAN
13 13 (0.38%) Internet
13 13 (0.38%) Skype
13 13 (0.38%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (4.46%) Power BI
2 79 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (1.62%) MongoDB
4 53 (1.53%) Metadata
5 49 (1.42%) SQL Server
6 39 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
7 38 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 36 (1.04%) NoSQL
9 34 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 30 (0.87%) Relational Database
11 29 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
12 26 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.64%) MySQL
14 21 (0.61%) Tableau
15 20 (0.58%) Redis
16 18 (0.52%) BigQuery
16 18 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
17 17 (0.49%) DynamoDB
17 17 (0.49%) Oracle Database
18 14 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 199 (5.76%) JIRA
2 158 (4.57%) Git
3 128 (3.71%) GitLab
4 119 (3.45%) Jenkins
5 49 (1.42%) Selenium
6 48 (1.39%) Postman
7 30 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 29 (0.84%) JUnit
9 27 (0.78%) Cypress.io
10 26 (0.75%) Mockito
11 18 (0.52%) REST Assured
12 15 (0.43%) SonarQube
13 14 (0.41%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.41%) JMeter
13 14 (0.41%) Mocha
14 13 (0.38%) CircleCI
15 11 (0.32%) MSI
16 9 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.23%) Gradle
17 8 (0.23%) Maven
General
1 994 (28.78%) Social Skills
2 536 (15.52%) Finance
3 322 (9.32%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (5.96%) Telecoms
5 169 (4.89%) Marketing
6 168 (4.86%) Manufacturing
7 158 (4.57%) Military
8 149 (4.31%) Electronics
9 130 (3.76%) Local Government
10 74 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
11 73 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
12 72 (2.08%) Legal
13 59 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.36%) Banking
15 46 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
16 37 (1.07%) Law
17 36 (1.04%) Police
18 34 (0.98%) Billing
19 31 (0.90%) Retail
Job Titles
1 410 (11.87%) Developer
2 402 (11.64%) Architect
3 366 (10.60%) Senior
4 354 (10.25%) Analyst
5 312 (9.03%) Lead
6 185 (5.36%) Consultant
7 166 (4.81%) Business Analyst
8 134 (3.88%) DevOps Engineer
9 118 (3.42%) Designer
10 106 (3.07%) Project Manager
11 97 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
12 89 (2.58%) Technical Architect
13 81 (2.35%) Data Engineer
14 77 (2.23%) Java Developer
15 75 (2.17%) User Researcher
16 68 (1.97%) AWS Engineer
17 65 (1.88%) Senior Developer
18 59 (1.71%) Service Designer
19 56 (1.62%) Product Manager
19 56 (1.62%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (4.11%) REST
2 117 (3.39%) Node.js
3 104 (3.01%) React
4 100 (2.90%) Spring
5 89 (2.58%) Spring Boot
6 82 (2.37%) RESTful
7 74 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (2.06%) .NET
9 68 (1.97%) HTML
10 65 (1.88%) CSS
11 62 (1.80%) AngularJS
11 62 (1.80%) Web Services
12 56 (1.62%) SOAP
13 55 (1.59%) JSON
14 53 (1.53%) Kafka
15 37 (1.07%) Playwright
15 37 (1.07%) XML
16 30 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
16 30 (0.87%) Middleware
17 27 (0.78%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 130 (3.76%) Cloud Native
2 127 (3.68%) Onboarding
3 125 (3.62%) NHS
4 114 (3.30%) Product Ownership
5 88 (2.55%) Data Centre
6 71 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
7 68 (1.97%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.27%) Public Cloud
9 33 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (0.93%) Security Posture
11 31 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
12 30 (0.87%) Data Structures
13 29 (0.84%) PKI
14 28 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
15 27 (0.78%) CMDB
16 26 (0.75%) AI Agents
16 26 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
17 25 (0.72%) Replication
18 22 (0.64%) Security Operations Centre
19 17 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 223 (6.46%) Windows
2 167 (4.83%) Linux
3 55 (1.59%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.42%) Android
5 47 (1.36%) Windows 10
6 45 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 38 (1.10%) Unix
8 23 (0.67%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 15 (0.43%) Mac OS X
10 15 (0.43%) VMS
11 12 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 11 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.17%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.14%) Solaris
16 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.087%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 852 (24.67%) Agile
2 484 (14.01%) CI/CD
3 463 (13.40%) DevOps
4 438 (12.68%) Problem-Solving
5 394 (11.41%) Stakeholder Management
6 384 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 342 (9.90%) Migration
8 323 (9.35%) Business Intelligence
9 318 (9.21%) Continuous Improvement
10 282 (8.16%) Roadmaps
11 236 (6.83%) Decision-Making
12 232 (6.72%) Analytics
13 217 (6.28%) Infrastructure as Code
13 217 (6.28%) Test Automation
14 212 (6.14%) Microservices
15 209 (6.05%) Containerisation
16 191 (5.53%) AI
17 190 (5.50%) ITIL
17 190 (5.50%) Programme Management
18 181 (5.24%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 367 (10.63%) Python
2 297 (8.60%) SQL
3 252 (7.30%) Java
4 182 (5.27%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.50%) PowerShell
6 115 (3.33%) TypeScript
7 82 (2.37%) C#
8 66 (1.91%) Bash
9 37 (1.07%) Ruby
10 29 (0.84%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.78%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.69%) Go
13 19 (0.55%) PHP
13 19 (0.55%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.46%) R
15 13 (0.38%) Bicep
15 13 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.32%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
17 10 (0.29%) C
Qualifications
1 2,030 (58.77%) Security Cleared
2 1,334 (38.62%) SC Cleared
3 171 (4.95%) Degree
4 170 (4.92%) DV Cleared
5 98 (2.84%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.36%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
8 40 (1.16%) CISSP
9 39 (1.13%) AWS Certification
10 34 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
11 33 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
12 28 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (0.69%) CISM
13 24 (0.69%) ISEB
14 23 (0.67%) PMP
15 19 (0.55%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.55%) PMI Certification
16 17 (0.49%) CCNP
17 16 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (5.21%) Accessibility
2 132 (3.82%) QA
3 128 (3.71%) Data Quality
4 99 (2.87%) GDPR
5 78 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 70 (2.03%) NIST
7 63 (1.82%) WCAG
8 55 (1.59%) PMO
9 53 (1.53%) NCSC
10 47 (1.36%) SLA
11 23 (0.67%) GRC
12 20 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.52%) COBIT
14 16 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.46%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.41%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.35%) HL7
16 12 (0.35%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 238 (6.89%) Docker
2 121 (3.50%) Active Directory
3 63 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.55%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.46%) VMware NSX
6 13 (0.38%) vSphere
7 11 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.17%) Postfix
8 6 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.14%) DFS Replication
9 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 4 (0.12%) NFS
10 4 (0.12%) Squid
11 3 (0.087%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.087%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.087%) RACF
12 2 (0.058%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.058%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 300 (8.69%) Terraform
2 257 (7.44%) Kubernetes
3 70 (2.03%) Ansible
4 67 (1.94%) Grafana
5 51 (1.48%) Prometheus
6 33 (0.96%) Microsoft Intune
7 32 (0.93%) SCCM
8 22 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.41%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.38%) Argo
11 11 (0.32%) Packer
11 11 (0.32%) Puppet
12 10 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.23%) Nessus
14 7 (0.20%) Consul
14 7 (0.20%) SCOM
14 7 (0.20%) vRealize
15 6 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.17%) Istio
Vendors
1 392 (11.35%) Microsoft
2 286 (8.28%) SAP
3 199 (5.76%) Oracle
4 143 (4.14%) Cisco
5 105 (3.04%) ServiceNow
6 103 (2.98%) Salesforce
7 97 (2.81%) VMware
8 63 (1.82%) Google
9 60 (1.74%) Databricks
9 60 (1.74%) Splunk
10 42 (1.22%) Virgin Media
11 40 (1.16%) Aruba
12 37 (1.07%) Apple
12 37 (1.07%) Juniper
13 36 (1.04%) Dell
14 33 (0.96%) Palo Alto
15 32 (0.93%) HP
16 30 (0.87%) Red Hat
17 28 (0.81%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.75%) IBM