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

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,729 2,258 3,391
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.94% 9.30% 8.99%
As % of the General category 17.35% 14.63% 15.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,644 1,513 2,252
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £615 £638
90th Percentile £675 £715 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 81 157
10th Percentile £16.31 £15.25 £13.58
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £25.00 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -11.70% +15.05% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.38 £35.00 £58.00
90th Percentile £57.90 £62.24 £71.23
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 21,489 15,430 22,076
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.29% 63.56% 58.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,570 10,055 14,384
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.57% -3.03%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,348 597 1,678
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.96 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £19.00 £15.19
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.78 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.29% +18.38% -25.71%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £77.88 £76.25 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -16.67% +15.38% -25.71%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 0 1,606 £520 -0.95% 354
North of England -2 644 £450 -5.26% 222
South East -1 465 £500 -7.41% 200
Midlands +5 410 £500 +5.26% 117
North West -1 324 £450 -10.00% 91
West Midlands +4 301 £500 +7.53% 89
South West -2 271 £525 -4.55% 85
Yorkshire +6 206 £500 +17.65% 74
North East -2 119 £446 +4.94% 57
East of England +21 115 £400 +14.29% 47
East Midlands +13 104 £500 +2.56% 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
1 136 (3.65%) Confluence
2 102 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.64%) SAS
5 16 (0.43%) Apache
5 16 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.40%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.40%) CMS
7 13 (0.35%) nginx
8 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.13%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.11%) Camunda
11 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.11%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.080%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
Applications
1 92 (2.47%) Microsoft Excel
1 92 (2.47%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 29 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.21%) Trello
7 7 (0.19%) Sketch
8 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.13%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.080%) InVision
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 6 (0.16%) SystmOne
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
10 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 686 (18.40%) AWS
2 653 (17.51%) Azure
3 215 (5.77%) Power Platform
4 172 (4.61%) Serverless
5 165 (4.42%) Microsoft 365
6 160 (4.29%) GitHub
7 154 (4.13%) Azure DevOps
8 143 (3.83%) GCP
9 105 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
10 94 (2.52%) Entra ID
11 93 (2.49%) Amazon S3
12 89 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
13 69 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
14 66 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
14 66 (1.77%) Power Automate
15 65 (1.74%) Amazon EC2
16 60 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
17 59 (1.58%) PowerApps
18 57 (1.53%) SaaS
19 56 (1.50%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.49%) Firewall
2 57 (1.53%) VPN
3 55 (1.47%) Network Security
4 52 (1.39%) WAN
5 47 (1.26%) DNS
6 44 (1.18%) LAN
7 40 (1.07%) Wireless
8 30 (0.80%) BGP
9 26 (0.70%) TCP/IP
9 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 23 (0.62%) OSPF
11 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.51%) DHCP
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 13 (0.35%) VLAN
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
16 11 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.29%) IPsec
17 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 168 (4.51%) Power BI
2 84 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
3 59 (1.58%) SQL Server
4 57 (1.53%) Metadata
5 53 (1.42%) MongoDB
6 50 (1.34%) Data Warehouse
7 46 (1.23%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
9 41 (1.10%) Data Lake
10 36 (0.97%) Oracle Reports
11 30 (0.80%) Relational Database
12 28 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
12 28 (0.75%) Tableau
13 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
14 23 (0.62%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 19 (0.51%) MySQL
17 18 (0.48%) Redis
18 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
19 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 218 (5.85%) JIRA
2 181 (4.85%) Git
3 121 (3.24%) GitLab
3 121 (3.24%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.21%) Selenium
5 43 (1.15%) Postman
6 36 (0.97%) JUnit
7 31 (0.83%) Mockito
8 25 (0.67%) Cypress.io
9 22 (0.59%) JMeter
9 22 (0.59%) SonarQube
10 21 (0.56%) Cucumber
11 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
11 14 (0.38%) Maven
12 12 (0.32%) Mocha
12 12 (0.32%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.29%) Artifactory
13 11 (0.29%) CircleCI
14 10 (0.27%) MSI
15 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,021 (27.38%) Social Skills
2 559 (14.99%) Finance
3 370 (9.92%) Analytical Skills
4 175 (4.69%) Telecoms
5 160 (4.29%) Local Government
5 160 (4.29%) Military
6 145 (3.89%) Marketing
7 143 (3.83%) Manufacturing
8 123 (3.30%) Electronics
9 86 (2.31%) Legal
10 78 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
11 73 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
12 68 (1.82%) Organisational Skills
13 56 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 55 (1.47%) Banking
15 50 (1.34%) Police
16 48 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (1.15%) Law
18 35 (0.94%) Billing
19 33 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 464 (12.44%) Architect
1 464 (12.44%) Developer
2 409 (10.97%) Senior
3 384 (10.30%) Analyst
4 309 (8.29%) Lead
5 185 (4.96%) Consultant
6 171 (4.59%) Business Analyst
7 145 (3.89%) Designer
8 118 (3.16%) DevOps Engineer
9 115 (3.08%) Solutions Architect
10 114 (3.06%) Project Manager
11 110 (2.95%) Data Engineer
12 106 (2.84%) Technical Architect
13 88 (2.36%) Java Developer
14 84 (2.25%) User Researcher
15 78 (2.09%) Senior Developer
16 75 (2.01%) Delivery Manager
17 66 (1.77%) Service Designer
18 60 (1.61%) Full-Stack Developer
19 58 (1.56%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (3.97%) REST
2 126 (3.38%) Node.js
3 112 (3.00%) React
4 104 (2.79%) Spring
5 97 (2.60%) RESTful
6 90 (2.41%) Spring Boot
7 78 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
8 75 (2.01%) .NET
8 75 (2.01%) AngularJS
9 74 (1.98%) HTML
10 69 (1.85%) CSS
11 66 (1.77%) Web Services
12 59 (1.58%) SOAP
13 56 (1.50%) Kafka
14 51 (1.37%) JSON
15 36 (0.97%) Lightning Web Components
15 36 (0.97%) Middleware
16 35 (0.94%) XML
17 34 (0.91%) Playwright
18 27 (0.72%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 157 (4.21%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.51%) Onboarding
3 130 (3.49%) Product Ownership
4 127 (3.41%) NHS
5 89 (2.39%) Data Centre
6 80 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
7 70 (1.88%) Management Information System
8 56 (1.50%) Public Cloud
9 44 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
10 40 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
11 37 (0.99%) Data Structures
12 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
13 33 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
14 29 (0.78%) Security Posture
15 28 (0.75%) CMDB
16 26 (0.70%) Replication
17 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) AI Agents
18 19 (0.51%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 207 (5.55%) Windows
2 156 (4.18%) Linux
3 57 (1.53%) Windows Server
4 47 (1.26%) Android
5 43 (1.15%) Windows 10
6 41 (1.10%) Mac OS
7 38 (1.02%) Unix
8 24 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 19 (0.51%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.29%) Mac OS X
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.24%) VMS
13 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.19%) Solaris
15 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) AIX
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
18 3 (0.080%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 957 (25.66%) Agile
2 522 (14.00%) CI/CD
3 519 (13.92%) DevOps
4 469 (12.58%) Problem-Solving
5 454 (12.17%) Stakeholder Management
6 416 (11.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 374 (10.03%) Migration
8 362 (9.71%) Continuous Improvement
9 339 (9.09%) Roadmaps
10 313 (8.39%) Business Intelligence
11 291 (7.80%) Analytics
12 276 (7.40%) Decision-Making
13 240 (6.44%) Test Automation
14 237 (6.36%) Containerisation
15 229 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
15 229 (6.14%) Microservices
16 228 (6.11%) Data Modelling
17 215 (5.77%) Workshop Facilitation
18 213 (5.71%) AI
19 212 (5.69%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 406 (10.89%) Python
2 341 (9.14%) SQL
3 262 (7.03%) Java
4 198 (5.31%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.22%) TypeScript
6 119 (3.19%) PowerShell
7 86 (2.31%) C#
8 60 (1.61%) Bash
9 47 (1.26%) Ruby
10 36 (0.97%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
13 21 (0.56%) R
13 21 (0.56%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
15 18 (0.48%) Bicep
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,176 (58.35%) Security Cleared
2 1,409 (37.78%) SC Cleared
3 185 (4.96%) DV Cleared
4 180 (4.83%) Degree
5 96 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.18%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.15%) CISSP
9 36 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
9 36 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 30 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
12 29 (0.78%) PMP
13 25 (0.67%) CISM
13 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.64%) ISEB
15 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
16 15 (0.40%) CCNP
17 14 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (5.28%) Accessibility
2 156 (4.18%) QA
3 149 (4.00%) Data Quality
4 112 (3.00%) GDPR
5 87 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 76 (2.04%) WCAG
7 69 (1.85%) NIST
8 66 (1.77%) PMO
9 64 (1.72%) NCSC
10 43 (1.15%) SLA
11 29 (0.78%) GRC
12 21 (0.56%) COBIT
13 20 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 17 (0.46%) PCI DSS
16 16 (0.43%) HL7
17 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
18 11 (0.29%) HIPAA
18 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 255 (6.84%) Docker
2 135 (3.62%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.56%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.40%) vSphere
8 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.19%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) NFS
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.080%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 292 (7.83%) Terraform
2 269 (7.21%) Kubernetes
3 70 (1.88%) Ansible
4 66 (1.77%) Grafana
5 46 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 25 (0.67%) SCCM
9 16 (0.43%) Argo
10 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.32%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.27%) Packer
12 8 (0.21%) Consul
12 8 (0.21%) Kibana
12 8 (0.21%) vRealize
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 426 (11.42%) Microsoft
2 264 (7.08%) SAP
3 224 (6.01%) Oracle
4 128 (3.43%) Cisco
5 118 (3.16%) Salesforce
6 110 (2.95%) ServiceNow
7 98 (2.63%) VMware
8 77 (2.06%) Databricks
9 72 (1.93%) Google
10 49 (1.31%) Splunk
11 42 (1.13%) Aruba
12 36 (0.97%) Virgin Media
13 35 (0.94%) Dell
14 34 (0.91%) Red Hat
15 33 (0.88%) IBM
16 32 (0.86%) Atlassian
17 31 (0.83%) Apple
17 31 (0.83%) HP
18 30 (0.80%) Juniper
18 30 (0.80%) MuleSoft