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 5 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,668 2,379 3,355
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.10% 9.38% 8.96%
As % of the General category 17.24% 14.92% 15.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,584 1,510 2,231
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £420
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 £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 80 144
10th Percentile £16.56 £15.23 £13.36
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.59 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% +17.10% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £33.19 £56.44
90th Percentile £44.94 £62.49 £69.97
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.09 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.68% +14.71% +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 21,281 15,947 22,043
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.60% 62.87% 58.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,458 10,008 14,438
10th Percentile £300 £300 £265
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £753
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,317 547 1,616
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.25 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.00 £15.29
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.45 £25.90
Median % change year-on-year -21.18% +17.59% -20.32%
75th Percentile £55.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £30.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -20.58% +17.65% -19.28%

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 5 March 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 5 March 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 5 March 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 -1 1,555 £520 -0.95% 364
North of England -2 665 £450 -5.26% 207
South East +3 436 £500 -6.45% 211
Midlands +3 386 £500 +5.26% 129
North West +3 330 £450 -10.00% 94
West Midlands 0 285 £500 +5.26% 79
South West -1 278 £525 -4.55% 91
Yorkshire -3 211 £500 +11.11% 81
North East 0 129 £450 +4.65% 32
East of England +32 115 £413 +17.86% 62
East Midlands +10 99 £447 -8.33% 48
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
1 130 (3.54%) Confluence
2 101 (2.75%) SharePoint
3 34 (0.93%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.71%) SAS
5 22 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.44%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) nginx
8 13 (0.35%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 10 (0.27%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.082%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.082%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.082%) OpenStack
Applications
1 96 (2.62%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.082%) InVision
12 2 (0.055%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.055%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.055%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.027%) Mozilla Thunderbird
13 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 70 (1.91%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.49%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.49%) SAP Hybris
5 17 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.25%) iTrent
8 9 (0.25%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
12 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
13 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 673 (18.35%) AWS
2 615 (16.77%) Azure
3 209 (5.70%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.39%) Serverless
5 154 (4.20%) GitHub
6 149 (4.06%) Microsoft 365
7 144 (3.93%) GCP
8 131 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
10 89 (2.43%) GitHub Actions
11 87 (2.37%) Amazon S3
11 87 (2.37%) Entra ID
12 66 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
13 63 (1.72%) Power Automate
14 61 (1.66%) Amazon EC2
15 59 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 59 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
16 57 (1.55%) Amazon EKS
16 57 (1.55%) OCI
17 56 (1.53%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.54%) Firewall
2 57 (1.55%) VPN
3 54 (1.47%) DNS
4 51 (1.39%) Network Security
4 51 (1.39%) WAN
5 44 (1.20%) Wireless
6 41 (1.12%) LAN
7 34 (0.93%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.79%) BGP
9 25 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (0.60%) DHCP
10 22 (0.60%) OSPF
11 16 (0.44%) SD-WAN
11 16 (0.44%) SSL
12 14 (0.38%) Internet
13 13 (0.35%) MPLS
13 13 (0.35%) VLAN
14 12 (0.33%) IPsec
15 11 (0.30%) Skype
15 11 (0.30%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (4.44%) Power BI
2 84 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.64%) SQL Server
4 55 (1.50%) MongoDB
5 52 (1.42%) Metadata
6 47 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 39 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
9 38 (1.04%) NoSQL
10 31 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
11 30 (0.82%) Relational Database
12 27 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.60%) Tableau
14 21 (0.57%) MySQL
14 21 (0.57%) Oracle Database
15 20 (0.55%) DynamoDB
16 19 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
16 19 (0.52%) Redis
17 18 (0.49%) BigQuery
18 17 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 208 (5.67%) JIRA
2 170 (4.63%) Git
3 131 (3.57%) Jenkins
4 129 (3.52%) GitLab
5 47 (1.28%) Selenium
6 44 (1.20%) Postman
7 33 (0.90%) JUnit
8 28 (0.76%) Mockito
9 27 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 27 (0.74%) Cypress.io
10 22 (0.60%) SonarQube
11 17 (0.46%) JMeter
12 16 (0.44%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.38%) Mocha
14 12 (0.33%) Maven
15 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,025 (27.94%) Social Skills
2 555 (15.13%) Finance
3 334 (9.11%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (5.23%) Telecoms
5 158 (4.31%) Marketing
6 157 (4.28%) Military
7 156 (4.25%) Manufacturing
8 135 (3.68%) Electronics
9 132 (3.60%) Local Government
10 78 (2.13%) Legal
11 73 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
12 72 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
13 65 (1.77%) Influencing Skills
14 50 (1.36%) Banking
15 49 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
16 48 (1.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 43 (1.17%) Police
18 40 (1.09%) Law
19 36 (0.98%) Billing
20 34 (0.93%) Retail
Job Titles
1 449 (12.24%) Developer
2 437 (11.91%) Architect
3 391 (10.66%) Senior
4 364 (9.92%) Analyst
5 314 (8.56%) Lead
6 193 (5.26%) Consultant
7 169 (4.61%) Business Analyst
8 143 (3.90%) Designer
9 133 (3.63%) DevOps Engineer
10 107 (2.92%) Project Manager
10 107 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
11 102 (2.78%) Data Engineer
12 97 (2.64%) Technical Architect
13 87 (2.37%) Java Developer
14 84 (2.29%) User Researcher
15 69 (1.88%) AWS Engineer
15 69 (1.88%) Senior Developer
15 69 (1.88%) Service Designer
16 66 (1.80%) Delivery Manager
17 57 (1.55%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.09%) REST
2 131 (3.57%) Node.js
3 111 (3.03%) React
4 103 (2.81%) Spring
5 91 (2.48%) Spring Boot
6 86 (2.34%) RESTful
7 76 (2.07%) .NET
8 75 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (2.02%) HTML
10 72 (1.96%) AngularJS
11 68 (1.85%) Web Services
12 67 (1.83%) CSS
13 63 (1.72%) SOAP
14 50 (1.36%) JSON
14 50 (1.36%) Kafka
15 38 (1.04%) Playwright
16 35 (0.95%) Middleware
17 34 (0.93%) XML
18 32 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
19 26 (0.71%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 141 (3.84%) Cloud Native
2 140 (3.82%) Onboarding
3 122 (3.33%) Product Ownership
4 118 (3.22%) NHS
5 89 (2.43%) Data Centre
6 75 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
7 70 (1.91%) Management Information System
8 54 (1.47%) Public Cloud
9 34 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
10 33 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
11 32 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
12 31 (0.85%) Data Structures
12 31 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
12 31 (0.85%) Security Posture
13 30 (0.82%) PKI
14 27 (0.74%) CMDB
15 24 (0.65%) AI Agents
15 24 (0.65%) Replication
16 22 (0.60%) Security Operations Centre
17 18 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 221 (6.03%) Windows
2 167 (4.55%) Linux
3 59 (1.61%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.34%) Android
5 43 (1.17%) Mac OS
5 43 (1.17%) Windows 10
6 38 (1.04%) Unix
7 24 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 21 (0.57%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.33%) Mac OS X
9 12 (0.33%) VMS
10 10 (0.27%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.19%) Solaris
12 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
15 3 (0.082%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 911 (24.84%) Agile
2 517 (14.09%) CI/CD
3 504 (13.74%) DevOps
4 457 (12.46%) Problem-Solving
5 436 (11.89%) Stakeholder Management
6 398 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 361 (9.84%) Migration
8 339 (9.24%) Continuous Improvement
9 321 (8.75%) Business Intelligence
9 321 (8.75%) Roadmaps
10 264 (7.20%) Analytics
11 251 (6.84%) Decision-Making
12 231 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
13 226 (6.16%) Test Automation
14 221 (6.03%) Containerisation
15 218 (5.94%) Microservices
16 207 (5.64%) User Research
16 207 (5.64%) Workshop Facilitation
17 202 (5.51%) AI
18 199 (5.43%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 388 (10.58%) Python
2 327 (8.91%) SQL
3 264 (7.20%) Java
4 197 (5.37%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.27%) TypeScript
6 119 (3.24%) PowerShell
7 87 (2.37%) C#
8 67 (1.83%) Bash
9 39 (1.06%) Ruby
10 31 (0.85%) Apex Code
10 31 (0.85%) PL/SQL
11 25 (0.68%) Go
11 25 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 19 (0.52%) R
13 17 (0.46%) PHP
14 15 (0.41%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.38%) Bicep
16 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
18 10 (0.27%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,159 (58.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,408 (38.39%) SC Cleared
3 180 (4.91%) Degree
4 175 (4.77%) DV Cleared
5 102 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.36%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.20%) AWS Certification
7 44 (1.20%) CISSP
8 41 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
9 40 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
11 33 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
12 26 (0.71%) CISM
12 26 (0.71%) PMP
13 24 (0.65%) ISEB
14 22 (0.60%) PMI Certification
15 18 (0.49%) CCNP
15 18 (0.49%) ISTQB
16 17 (0.46%) CCNA
17 16 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (5.18%) Accessibility
2 153 (4.17%) QA
3 136 (3.71%) Data Quality
4 107 (2.92%) GDPR
5 81 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.83%) NIST
7 66 (1.80%) WCAG
8 64 (1.74%) PMO
9 59 (1.61%) NCSC
10 47 (1.28%) SLA
11 26 (0.71%) GRC
12 19 (0.52%) COBIT
13 17 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.38%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.30%) HL7
17 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 253 (6.90%) Docker
2 135 (3.68%) Active Directory
3 63 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.55%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.38%) vSphere
8 10 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.19%) Postfix
10 5 (0.14%) NFS
10 5 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.082%) RACF
13 2 (0.055%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.055%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.055%) Squid
13 2 (0.055%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 306 (8.34%) Terraform
2 273 (7.44%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.04%) Grafana
4 74 (2.02%) Ansible
5 52 (1.42%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (0.76%) SCCM
8 26 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.38%) Argo
9 14 (0.38%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.35%) Puppet
11 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
12 11 (0.30%) Packer
13 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
14 8 (0.22%) Kibana
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.19%) vRealize
16 6 (0.16%) Nessus
16 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 412 (11.23%) Microsoft
2 285 (7.77%) SAP
3 213 (5.81%) Oracle
4 138 (3.76%) Cisco
5 111 (3.03%) ServiceNow
6 110 (3.00%) Salesforce
7 97 (2.64%) VMware
8 69 (1.88%) Google
9 65 (1.77%) Databricks
10 59 (1.61%) Splunk
11 45 (1.23%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.15%) Aruba
13 35 (0.95%) Dell
14 34 (0.93%) Apple
14 34 (0.93%) Juniper
14 34 (0.93%) Palo Alto
14 34 (0.93%) Red Hat
15 31 (0.85%) HP
16 30 (0.82%) Atlassian
17 27 (0.74%) IBM