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

6 months to
9 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 19 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,753 2,209 3,337
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.60% 9.07% 8.91%
As % of the General category 17.03% 14.25% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,667 1,496 2,212
10th Percentile £350 £325 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £590 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £709 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 82 163
10th Percentile £15.38 £15.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.28 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.50 £22.39 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.51% -6.73% +20.00%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.86 £58.24
90th Percentile £54.88 £64.50 £70.48
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.00 £21.73
% change year-on-year -2.17% +5.84% +8.65%

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 22,040 15,500 21,854
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.35% 63.64% 58.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,893 10,103 14,163
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £413 £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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,403 632 1,738
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.22 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £15.38
Median hourly rate £27.50 £29.04 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.29% +5.58% -21.43%
75th Percentile £61.18 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £26.28 £29.00 £27.00
% change year-on-year -9.40% +7.41% -22.86%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 1,634 £523 -0.38% 363
North of England -2 656 £451 -5.00% 228
South East -3 459 £500 -8.26% 200
Midlands +4 406 £500 +6.38% 117
North West -1 323 £460 -8.00% 90
West Midlands +2 306 £500 +10.21% 89
South West -3 267 £525 -1.87% 87
Yorkshire +4 223 £480 +5.49% 76
North East -3 115 £446 +0.51% 62
East of England +25 111 £375 +15.38% 44
East Midlands +15 95 £500 - 28
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
1 133 (3.54%) Confluence
2 106 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.77%) SAS
5 19 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.45%) Apache
6 17 (0.45%) CMS
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.37%) nginx
9 9 (0.24%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.13%) Camunda
11 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.080%) Drupal
13 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.080%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 94 (2.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 79 (2.10%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.21%) Trello
8 5 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.13%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.053%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.053%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.053%) InVision
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
11 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.56%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 14 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.27%) iTrent
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.21%) SystmOne
8 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 702 (18.71%) AWS
2 642 (17.11%) Azure
3 207 (5.52%) Power Platform
4 172 (4.58%) Serverless
5 155 (4.13%) Microsoft 365
6 151 (4.02%) GitHub
7 142 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 138 (3.68%) GCP
9 106 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
10 95 (2.53%) Entra ID
11 93 (2.48%) Amazon S3
12 87 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
13 73 (1.95%) AWS CloudFormation
14 67 (1.79%) SaaS
15 66 (1.76%) Amazon EC2
16 65 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
17 64 (1.71%) Power Automate
18 62 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
19 57 (1.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 56 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.48%) Firewall
2 57 (1.52%) VPN
2 57 (1.52%) WAN
3 56 (1.49%) Network Security
4 49 (1.31%) LAN
5 48 (1.28%) DNS
6 28 (0.75%) BGP
7 26 (0.69%) TCP/IP
7 26 (0.69%) Wireless
8 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
9 23 (0.61%) OSPF
10 20 (0.53%) DHCP
10 20 (0.53%) SD-WAN
11 16 (0.43%) Internet
11 16 (0.43%) SSL
12 13 (0.35%) VLAN
13 12 (0.32%) MPLS
14 11 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
14 11 (0.29%) IPsec
14 11 (0.29%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (4.29%) Power BI
2 80 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
3 70 (1.87%) SQL Server
4 60 (1.60%) Metadata
5 59 (1.57%) Data Warehouse
6 54 (1.44%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 40 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 31 (0.83%) Tableau
12 29 (0.77%) Relational Database
13 27 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
13 27 (0.72%) DynamoDB
13 27 (0.72%) Electronic Patient Records
14 24 (0.64%) Oracle Database
15 20 (0.53%) MySQL
16 19 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
17 18 (0.48%) Amazon Athena
18 17 (0.45%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 215 (5.73%) JIRA
2 181 (4.82%) Git
3 122 (3.25%) GitLab
4 116 (3.09%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.17%) Selenium
6 41 (1.09%) Postman
7 37 (0.99%) JUnit
8 32 (0.85%) Mockito
9 26 (0.69%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.64%) JMeter
11 19 (0.51%) Cypress.io
12 18 (0.48%) Cucumber
13 15 (0.40%) Maven
14 13 (0.35%) Artifactory
14 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
14 13 (0.35%) REST Assured
15 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.32%) Mocha
16 9 (0.24%) DbUnit
16 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 990 (26.38%) Social Skills
2 536 (14.28%) Finance
3 368 (9.81%) Analytical Skills
4 175 (4.66%) Military
5 169 (4.50%) Local Government
6 155 (4.13%) Telecoms
7 125 (3.33%) Marketing
8 120 (3.20%) Manufacturing
9 100 (2.66%) Electronics
10 87 (2.32%) Legal
11 81 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
12 78 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
13 72 (1.92%) Organisational Skills
14 63 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 56 (1.49%) Banking
16 55 (1.47%) Police
17 47 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (1.17%) Law
19 36 (0.96%) Billing
20 30 (0.80%) Retail
Job Titles
1 480 (12.79%) Developer
2 477 (12.71%) Architect
3 414 (11.03%) Senior
4 397 (10.58%) Analyst
5 309 (8.23%) Lead
6 178 (4.74%) Business Analyst
7 172 (4.58%) Consultant
8 150 (4.00%) Designer
9 121 (3.22%) Data Engineer
10 118 (3.14%) DevOps Engineer
11 115 (3.06%) Project Manager
12 108 (2.88%) Technical Architect
13 107 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
14 94 (2.50%) Java Developer
15 88 (2.34%) Senior Developer
16 83 (2.21%) User Researcher
17 82 (2.18%) Delivery Manager
18 67 (1.79%) Service Designer
19 64 (1.71%) Data Analyst
20 58 (1.55%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (3.89%) REST
2 115 (3.06%) Node.js
3 107 (2.85%) Spring
4 102 (2.72%) React
5 94 (2.50%) RESTful
5 94 (2.50%) Spring Boot
6 77 (2.05%) .NET
6 77 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
7 71 (1.89%) AngularJS
8 68 (1.81%) HTML
8 68 (1.81%) Web Services
9 62 (1.65%) SOAP
10 60 (1.60%) Kafka
11 58 (1.55%) CSS
12 47 (1.25%) JSON
13 41 (1.09%) Lightning Web Components
14 35 (0.93%) Middleware
15 34 (0.91%) XML
16 33 (0.88%) Playwright
17 29 (0.77%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 162 (4.32%) Cloud Native
2 147 (3.92%) NHS
3 132 (3.52%) Product Ownership
4 129 (3.44%) Onboarding
5 81 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
6 78 (2.08%) Data Centre
7 74 (1.97%) Management Information System
8 58 (1.55%) Public Cloud
9 46 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
10 43 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.07%) Data Structures
12 36 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
13 30 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
14 28 (0.75%) CMDB
15 26 (0.69%) Replication
16 24 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
16 24 (0.64%) Security Posture
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 20 (0.53%) Data Protection Act
19 18 (0.48%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 201 (5.36%) Windows
2 153 (4.08%) Linux
3 60 (1.60%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.17%) Unix
5 42 (1.12%) Windows 10
6 39 (1.04%) Android
7 30 (0.80%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.61%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 3 (0.080%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 972 (25.90%) Agile
2 528 (14.07%) CI/CD
3 524 (13.96%) DevOps
4 462 (12.31%) Stakeholder Management
5 447 (11.91%) Problem-Solving
6 432 (11.51%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 384 (10.23%) Continuous Improvement
8 376 (10.02%) Migration
9 343 (9.14%) Roadmaps
10 311 (8.29%) Analytics
11 290 (7.73%) Decision-Making
12 286 (7.62%) Business Intelligence
13 240 (6.39%) Test Automation
14 238 (6.34%) Containerisation
15 235 (6.26%) Data Modelling
16 231 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
17 229 (6.10%) Microservices
18 220 (5.86%) AI
19 215 (5.73%) Workshop Facilitation
20 212 (5.65%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 405 (10.79%) Python
2 340 (9.06%) SQL
3 264 (7.03%) Java
4 193 (5.14%) JavaScript
5 113 (3.01%) PowerShell
6 112 (2.98%) TypeScript
7 90 (2.40%) C#
8 52 (1.39%) Bash
9 46 (1.23%) Ruby
10 41 (1.09%) Apex Code
11 33 (0.88%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.61%) Go
13 22 (0.59%) Bicep
13 22 (0.59%) R
13 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.56%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.35%) PHP
15 13 (0.35%) Scala
15 13 (0.35%) T-SQL
16 11 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,121 (56.51%) Security Cleared
2 1,394 (37.14%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.90%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.66%) Degree
5 105 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 45 (1.20%) CISSP
8 42 (1.12%) AWS Certification
9 39 (1.04%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
11 32 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
12 31 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
13 29 (0.77%) PMP
14 26 (0.69%) CISM
15 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
16 24 (0.64%) ISEB
17 19 (0.51%) CCNP
18 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
19 14 (0.37%) APMP
19 14 (0.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (5.17%) Accessibility
2 161 (4.29%) QA
3 157 (4.18%) Data Quality
4 111 (2.96%) GDPR
5 93 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 75 (2.00%) WCAG
7 68 (1.81%) NCSC
8 66 (1.76%) PMO
9 62 (1.65%) NIST
10 39 (1.04%) SLA
11 34 (0.91%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
12 22 (0.59%) COBIT
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.48%) PCI DSS
14 16 (0.43%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.27%) NIST 800
18 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 262 (6.98%) Docker
2 139 (3.70%) Active Directory
3 57 (1.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.45%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.29%) vSphere
9 8 (0.21%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.080%) RACF
13 2 (0.053%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.053%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.053%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) KVM
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 301 (8.02%) Terraform
2 271 (7.22%) Kubernetes
3 68 (1.81%) Ansible
4 67 (1.79%) Grafana
5 48 (1.28%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.07%) Microsoft Intune
7 27 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.61%) SCCM
9 14 (0.37%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.29%) Argo
11 11 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.24%) Kibana
12 9 (0.24%) Packer
13 8 (0.21%) Consul
13 8 (0.21%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 425 (11.32%) Microsoft
2 244 (6.50%) SAP
3 229 (6.10%) Oracle
4 123 (3.28%) Salesforce
5 111 (2.96%) ServiceNow
6 109 (2.90%) Cisco
7 91 (2.42%) VMware
8 85 (2.26%) Databricks
9 78 (2.08%) Google
10 44 (1.17%) Splunk
11 35 (0.93%) Aruba
12 34 (0.91%) IBM
13 33 (0.88%) Virgin Media
14 32 (0.85%) Atlassian
15 28 (0.75%) MuleSoft
16 27 (0.72%) Juniper
16 27 (0.72%) Red Hat
17 26 (0.69%) Palo Alto
18 24 (0.64%) Talend
19 23 (0.61%) Dynatrace