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

6 months to
9 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 3,313 2,573 3,478
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.95% 9.89% 9.09%
As % of the General category 16.75% 15.80% 15.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,319 1,549 2,338
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% +2.43%

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 19,783 16,285 22,486
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.44% 62.60% 58.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,575 9,830 14,866
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 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,243 520 1,508
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.47 £13.13
25th Percentile £16.59 £19.94 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.85 £30.41 £25.37
Median % change year-on-year -24.85% +19.85% -6.04%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £70.57 £75.00 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £25.25
% change year-on-year -21.34% +14.85% -2.88%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 1,361 £525 - 345
North of England -2 634 £450 -5.26% 199
South East -3 399 £500 -4.76% 207
Midlands +2 326 £500 - 97
North West 0 324 £450 -10.00% 78
South West -3 291 £525 -4.55% 78
West Midlands -2 241 £500 - 76
Yorkshire -4 188 £500 +11.11% 79
North East 0 124 £450 +5.88% 44
East of England +28 110 £375 +7.14% 49
East Midlands +7 85 £424 -10.66% 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 (3.62%) Confluence
2 91 (2.75%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.97%) 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 (0.091%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.091%) SharePoint Server
11 3 (0.091%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.091%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 96 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
2 83 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (1.06%) 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 (0.091%) 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%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.030%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.030%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.00%) 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%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 587 (17.72%) AWS
2 567 (17.11%) Azure
3 189 (5.70%) Power Platform
4 150 (4.53%) Serverless
5 149 (4.50%) GitHub
6 138 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
7 132 (3.98%) GCP
8 114 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
9 94 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
10 87 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
11 71 (2.14%) Entra ID
12 68 (2.05%) Amazon S3
13 61 (1.84%) Power Automate
14 59 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
15 57 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
15 57 (1.72%) OCI
16 54 (1.63%) SaaS
17 53 (1.60%) PowerApps
18 50 (1.51%) Amazon ECS
19 49 (1.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 89 (2.69%) Firewall
2 60 (1.81%) DNS
3 56 (1.69%) VPN
4 54 (1.63%) WAN
5 48 (1.45%) Network Security
6 44 (1.33%) LAN
7 43 (1.30%) Wireless
8 36 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 30 (0.91%) 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%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.45%) Skype
15 14 (0.42%) IPsec
15 14 (0.42%) MPLS
15 14 (0.42%) VoIP
16 13 (0.39%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (4.35%) Power BI
2 75 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (1.57%) Metadata
4 51 (1.54%) MongoDB
5 41 (1.24%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.09%) Data Lake
7 35 (1.06%) NoSQL
8 32 (0.97%) Data Warehouse
9 30 (0.91%) Relational Database
10 29 (0.88%) 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
1 193 (5.83%) JIRA
2 155 (4.68%) Git
3 125 (3.77%) GitLab
4 116 (3.50%) Jenkins
5 51 (1.54%) Selenium
6 50 (1.51%) Postman
7 32 (0.97%) 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
17 7 (0.21%) Artifactory
General
1 969 (29.25%) Social Skills
2 536 (16.18%) Finance
3 293 (8.84%) Analytical Skills
4 216 (6.52%) Telecoms
5 180 (5.43%) Marketing
6 178 (5.37%) Manufacturing
7 160 (4.83%) Electronics
8 150 (4.53%) Military
9 122 (3.68%) Local Government
10 73 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
12 66 (1.99%) Legal
13 57 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
16 44 (1.33%) Banking
17 37 (1.12%) Law
18 34 (1.03%) Police
19 33 (1.00%) Billing
20 32 (0.97%) Retail
Job Titles
1 393 (11.86%) Developer
2 376 (11.35%) Architect
3 337 (10.17%) Senior
4 330 (9.96%) Analyst
5 303 (9.15%) Lead
6 191 (5.77%) Consultant
7 150 (4.53%) Business Analyst
8 132 (3.98%) DevOps Engineer
9 112 (3.38%) Designer
10 102 (3.08%) Project Manager
11 91 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
12 84 (2.54%) Technical Architect
13 70 (2.11%) AWS Engineer
14 68 (2.05%) Data Engineer
14 68 (2.05%) User Researcher
15 62 (1.87%) Java Developer
16 60 (1.81%) Senior Developer
17 56 (1.69%) Service Designer
17 56 (1.69%) Test Engineer
18 55 (1.66%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (4.32%) REST
2 112 (3.38%) Node.js
3 104 (3.14%) React
4 91 (2.75%) Spring
5 83 (2.51%) Spring Boot
6 80 (2.41%) RESTful
7 72 (2.17%) .NET
7 72 (2.17%) Oracle Fusion
8 69 (2.08%) HTML
9 64 (1.93%) CSS
10 59 (1.78%) AngularJS
11 58 (1.75%) Web Services
12 56 (1.69%) JSON
13 55 (1.66%) SOAP
14 49 (1.48%) Kafka
15 38 (1.15%) XML
16 36 (1.09%) Playwright
17 30 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
18 28 (0.85%) Middleware
19 27 (0.81%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 121 (3.65%) Cloud Native
2 119 (3.59%) Onboarding
3 117 (3.53%) NHS
4 107 (3.23%) Product Ownership
5 87 (2.63%) Data Centre
6 66 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
6 66 (1.99%) Management Information System
7 41 (1.24%) Public Cloud
8 32 (0.97%) Data Structures
8 32 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
9 30 (0.91%) CMDB
9 30 (0.91%) Security Posture
10 28 (0.85%) PKI
10 28 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
11 27 (0.81%) AI Agents
12 26 (0.78%) Replication
13 25 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (0.69%) Security Operations Centre
15 22 (0.66%) Distributed Systems
16 18 (0.54%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 220 (6.64%) Windows
2 151 (4.56%) Linux
3 49 (1.48%) Windows 10
3 49 (1.48%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.45%) Android
5 43 (1.30%) 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 (0.091%) AIX
15 3 (0.091%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 802 (24.21%) Agile
2 465 (14.04%) CI/CD
3 447 (13.49%) DevOps
4 426 (12.86%) Problem-Solving
5 384 (11.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 375 (11.32%) Stakeholder Management
7 329 (9.93%) Migration
8 326 (9.84%) Business Intelligence
9 297 (8.96%) Continuous Improvement
10 278 (8.39%) Roadmaps
11 221 (6.67%) Analytics
12 218 (6.58%) Decision-Making
13 207 (6.25%) Test Automation
14 203 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
15 202 (6.10%) Programme Management
16 195 (5.89%) Microservices
17 189 (5.70%) Containerisation
18 186 (5.61%) ITIL
19 183 (5.52%) AI
20 174 (5.25%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 334 (10.08%) Python
2 274 (8.27%) SQL
3 231 (6.97%) Java
4 175 (5.28%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.65%) PowerShell
6 109 (3.29%) TypeScript
7 81 (2.44%) C#
8 57 (1.72%) Bash
9 37 (1.12%) Ruby
10 29 (0.88%) 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%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.36%) Bicep
17 10 (0.30%) C
17 10 (0.30%) Kotlin
17 10 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 1,949 (58.83%) Security Cleared
2 1,280 (38.64%) SC Cleared
3 161 (4.86%) Degree
4 158 (4.77%) DV Cleared
5 83 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.45%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.24%) AWS Certification
7 41 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
8 37 (1.12%) CISSP
9 35 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (1.00%) 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
1 167 (5.04%) Accessibility
2 134 (4.04%) QA
3 113 (3.41%) Data Quality
4 94 (2.84%) GDPR
5 71 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 63 (1.90%) NIST
7 55 (1.66%) WCAG
8 51 (1.54%) NCSC
9 48 (1.45%) PMO
10 45 (1.36%) 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
1 218 (6.58%) Docker
2 121 (3.65%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.84%) 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 (0.091%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.091%) RACF
13 2 (0.060%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.060%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 280 (8.45%) Terraform
2 246 (7.43%) Kubernetes
3 67 (2.02%) Ansible
4 66 (1.99%) Grafana
5 51 (1.54%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.97%) SCCM
7 30 (0.91%) 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%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 399 (12.04%) Microsoft
2 296 (8.93%) SAP
3 193 (5.83%) Oracle
4 142 (4.29%) Cisco
5 106 (3.20%) ServiceNow
6 100 (3.02%) Salesforce
7 93 (2.81%) VMware
8 62 (1.87%) Google
9 58 (1.75%) Splunk
10 53 (1.60%) Databricks
11 42 (1.27%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.21%) Aruba
13 38 (1.15%) Dell
14 37 (1.12%) Apple
15 35 (1.06%) Juniper
16 34 (1.03%) Palo Alto
17 33 (1.00%) HP
18 27 (0.81%) Red Hat
18 27 (0.81%) SolarWinds
19 25 (0.75%) MuleSoft