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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 20 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,026 2,375 2,682
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.65% 8.50% 8.19%
As % of the General category 15.42% 13.25% 13.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,757 1,653 1,652
10th Percentile £363 £319 £313
25th Percentile £436 £413 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £615 £600 £626
90th Percentile £700 £675 £706
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 192 110 97
10th Percentile £15.01 £15.48 £14.41
25th Percentile £16.65 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.02 £23.99
Median % change year-on-year -3.02% -8.23% +14.24%
75th Percentile £41.77 £27.58 £44.08
90th Percentile £75.36 £63.90 £73.90
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.53
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.79% +7.29%

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 26,112 17,927 19,170
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.09% 64.16% 58.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,307 11,369 11,549
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,307 1,031 924
10th Percentile £13.51 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.77 £16.17 £17.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £37.75
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% -33.38% +32.46%
75th Percentile £56.25 £46.47 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £29.01 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +15.35% -28.14% +27.27%

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 26 September 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 26 September 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 26 September 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 1,767 £550 +7.32% 1,733
North of England +1 729 £475 - 702
Midlands +8 519 £490 +3.16% 282
West Midlands +7 445 £490 +3.16% 208
South East 0 445 £511 -0.73% 401
South West -4 365 £535 -2.73% 325
Yorkshire +2 283 £470 -6.00% 209
North West -14 247 £550 +22.22% 371
North East 0 211 £450 -10.00% 124
East Midlands +11 70 £450 +9.76% 74
East of England -26 50 £450 -10.00% 118
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
1 162 (4.02%) Confluence
2 105 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.32%) SAS
4 49 (1.22%) Apache Airflow
5 47 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
6 44 (1.09%) Apache Spark
7 43 (1.07%) Apache
8 30 (0.75%) CMS
9 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
10 16 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.27%) nginx
11 11 (0.27%) WordPress
12 8 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 7 (0.17%) Headless CMS
14 5 (0.12%) Drupal
14 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
15 3 (0.075%) IIS
16 2 (0.050%) Tomcat
16 2 (0.050%) WebLogic
Applications
1 80 (1.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 50 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 22 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.12%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.12%) Sketch
7 5 (0.12%) Trello
8 4 (0.099%) Adobe After Effects
8 4 (0.099%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.050%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.050%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.050%) Revit
10 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.025%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.025%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 53 (1.32%) Dynamics CRM
2 48 (1.19%) SAP S/4HANA
3 45 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
4 29 (0.72%) SAP PSCD
5 21 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
6 20 (0.50%) SAP Payroll
7 16 (0.40%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.35%) NetSuite
8 14 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
9 13 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
9 13 (0.32%) SAP HR
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
10 12 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
11 11 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
12 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
13 9 (0.22%) NEC Housing
13 9 (0.22%) SAP FI
13 9 (0.22%) SAP HCM
13 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
14 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
Cloud Services
1 803 (19.95%) AWS
2 741 (18.41%) Azure
3 246 (6.11%) Power Platform
4 180 (4.47%) Azure DevOps
5 165 (4.10%) Microsoft 365
6 154 (3.83%) GCP
7 148 (3.68%) Serverless
8 145 (3.60%) GitHub
9 130 (3.23%) Entra ID
10 116 (2.88%) Amazon S3
11 114 (2.83%) SaaS
12 107 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
13 95 (2.36%) OCI
14 86 (2.14%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (2.14%) Power Automate
15 80 (1.99%) Dynamics 365
16 75 (1.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 71 (1.76%) Amazon EKS
18 62 (1.54%) PowerApps
19 55 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 96 (2.38%) Firewall
2 64 (1.59%) DNS
3 52 (1.29%) WAN
4 43 (1.07%) LAN
5 38 (0.94%) Network Security
6 31 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
7 30 (0.75%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.72%) DHCP
9 28 (0.70%) VPN
10 26 (0.65%) BGP
11 25 (0.62%) OSPF
12 19 (0.47%) WLAN
13 18 (0.45%) SD-WAN
14 17 (0.42%) Wireless
15 15 (0.37%) VXLAN
16 14 (0.35%) BIG-IP
17 13 (0.32%) Ethernet VPN
17 13 (0.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 13 (0.32%) NGFW
17 13 (0.32%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (3.97%) Power BI
2 106 (2.63%) Data Warehouse
3 96 (2.38%) PostgreSQL
4 95 (2.36%) Metadata
5 74 (1.84%) SQL Server
6 70 (1.74%) Relational Database
7 65 (1.61%) MongoDB
8 57 (1.42%) Oracle Database
9 55 (1.37%) Data Lake
10 50 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
11 41 (1.02%) NoSQL
12 34 (0.84%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
14 28 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
15 27 (0.67%) MySQL
16 26 (0.65%) Pentaho
16 26 (0.65%) Tableau
17 25 (0.62%) DynamoDB
17 25 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
18 19 (0.47%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 234 (5.81%) JIRA
2 188 (4.67%) Git
3 170 (4.22%) GitLab
4 128 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 52 (1.29%) Selenium
6 49 (1.22%) Cucumber
7 38 (0.94%) JUnit
8 31 (0.77%) Postman
9 28 (0.70%) Cypress.io
10 27 (0.67%) Mockito
11 26 (0.65%) SonarQube
12 25 (0.62%) Maven
13 21 (0.52%) JMeter
13 21 (0.52%) REST Assured
14 19 (0.47%) Gatling
14 19 (0.47%) WebDriver
15 15 (0.37%) MSI
16 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
17 9 (0.22%) TestNG
18 8 (0.20%) CircleCI
General
1 1,291 (32.07%) Social Skills
2 445 (11.05%) Finance
3 424 (10.53%) Analytical Skills
4 285 (7.08%) Military
5 223 (5.54%) Local Government
6 185 (4.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 156 (3.87%) Influencing Skills
8 119 (2.96%) Legal
9 117 (2.91%) Organisational Skills
10 88 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 86 (2.14%) Police
12 62 (1.54%) Law
13 53 (1.32%) Telecoms
14 43 (1.07%) Marketing
14 43 (1.07%) Presentation Skills
15 38 (0.94%) Banking
16 28 (0.70%) Billing
17 27 (0.67%) Retail
18 20 (0.50%) Manufacturing
18 20 (0.50%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 563 (13.98%) Architect
2 556 (13.81%) Senior
3 518 (12.87%) Developer
4 494 (12.27%) Lead
5 345 (8.57%) Analyst
6 193 (4.79%) Consultant
7 151 (3.75%) Data Engineer
7 151 (3.75%) Designer
8 135 (3.35%) Business Analyst
9 133 (3.30%) Data Architect
10 131 (3.25%) DevOps Engineer
11 119 (2.96%) Delivery Manager
12 118 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
13 110 (2.73%) Senior Developer
14 106 (2.63%) Technical Architect
15 101 (2.51%) User Researcher
16 88 (2.19%) Java Developer
16 88 (2.19%) Senior Manager
17 85 (2.11%) Project Manager
18 76 (1.89%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 357 (8.87%) Terraform
2 163 (4.05%) REST
3 104 (2.58%) RESTful
4 100 (2.48%) Spring
5 96 (2.38%) Node.js
6 92 (2.29%) React
7 88 (2.19%) Spring Boot
8 83 (2.06%) Oracle Fusion
9 76 (1.89%) SOAP
10 72 (1.79%) HTML
11 69 (1.71%) Kafka
12 65 (1.61%) CSS
12 65 (1.61%) Web Services
13 62 (1.54%) .NET
13 62 (1.54%) Django
14 58 (1.44%) OAuth
15 56 (1.39%) JSON
16 47 (1.17%) OpenID
16 47 (1.17%) PySpark
17 46 (1.14%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 239 (5.94%) Cloud Native
2 173 (4.30%) Product Ownership
3 163 (4.05%) Onboarding
4 135 (3.35%) Management Information System
5 133 (3.30%) NHS
6 108 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
7 82 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
8 49 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (1.12%) Data Centre
9 45 (1.12%) Freedom of Information
10 44 (1.09%) Data Structures
11 42 (1.04%) CMDB
11 42 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
12 40 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
13 36 (0.89%) AI Agents
14 35 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
16 32 (0.79%) Data Protection Act
16 32 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
16 32 (0.79%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 129 (3.20%) Windows
2 126 (3.13%) Linux
3 48 (1.19%) Unix
4 39 (0.97%) Windows Server
5 23 (0.57%) Android
6 20 (0.50%) Apple iOS
7 18 (0.45%) Windows 10
8 17 (0.42%) Mac OS
8 17 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.12%) AIX
9 5 (0.12%) Amazon Linux
10 4 (0.099%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.075%) CentOS
11 3 (0.075%) Solaris
12 2 (0.050%) VMS
12 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.025%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,300 (32.29%) Agile
2 944 (23.45%) Stakeholder Management
3 709 (17.61%) Continuous Improvement
4 699 (17.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 680 (16.89%) CI/CD
6 630 (15.65%) DevOps
7 505 (12.54%) Problem-Solving
8 481 (11.95%) Decision-Making
9 420 (10.43%) Analytics
10 380 (9.44%) Migration
11 379 (9.41%) AI
12 368 (9.14%) Roadmaps
13 367 (9.12%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 339 (8.42%) Infrastructure as Code
15 311 (7.72%) Data Modelling
16 310 (7.70%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 303 (7.53%) Technical Leadership
18 280 (6.95%) Mentoring
19 257 (6.38%) Scrum
20 255 (6.33%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 452 (11.23%) Python
2 389 (9.66%) SQL
3 250 (6.21%) Java
4 227 (5.64%) JavaScript
5 124 (3.08%) TypeScript
6 108 (2.68%) PowerShell
7 87 (2.16%) C#
8 62 (1.54%) Bash
9 51 (1.27%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.14%) Bicep
11 42 (1.04%) Scala
12 27 (0.67%) R
13 26 (0.65%) Apex Code
14 25 (0.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 25 (0.62%) Groovy
15 23 (0.57%) Kotlin
16 22 (0.55%) ABAP
17 17 (0.42%) Ruby
18 15 (0.37%) Shell Script
19 14 (0.35%) Go
Qualifications
1 2,030 (50.42%) Security Cleared
2 1,676 (41.63%) SC Cleared
3 327 (8.12%) BPSS Clearance
4 235 (5.84%) DV Cleared
5 180 (4.47%) Degree
6 78 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
7 67 (1.66%) AWS Certification
8 64 (1.59%) Azure Certification
9 51 (1.27%) CISSP
10 43 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
11 36 (0.89%) CISM
12 31 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 28 (0.70%) CCNP
14 24 (0.60%) PMI Certification
15 23 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
15 23 (0.57%) Master's Degree
16 22 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
17 18 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 17 (0.42%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 16 (0.40%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 331 (8.22%) Accessibility
2 253 (6.28%) Data Quality
3 239 (5.94%) QA
4 140 (3.48%) WCAG
5 135 (3.35%) GDPR
6 96 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 82 (2.04%) NCSC
8 79 (1.96%) NIST
9 77 (1.91%) PMO
10 37 (0.92%) GRC
11 29 (0.72%) SLA
12 28 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 23 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 11 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.27%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.20%) PCI DSS
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 6 (0.15%) PERC
System Software
1 288 (7.15%) Docker
2 136 (3.38%) Active Directory
3 33 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
4 16 (0.40%) VMware NSX
5 11 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
6 9 (0.22%) vSphere
7 6 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (0.099%) Postfix
8 4 (0.099%) Virtual Machines
9 3 (0.075%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.025%) Ceph
10 1 (0.025%) Squid
10 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 271 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 97 (2.41%) Grafana
3 69 (1.71%) Ansible
4 64 (1.59%) Prometheus
5 42 (1.04%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
7 22 (0.55%) Argo
7 22 (0.55%) SCCM
8 19 (0.47%) Kibana
9 9 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.20%) VxRail
11 6 (0.15%) Istio
11 6 (0.15%) Puppet
12 5 (0.12%) Consul
12 5 (0.12%) Packer
12 5 (0.12%) QRadar
12 5 (0.12%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.099%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.075%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 537 (13.34%) Microsoft
2 338 (8.40%) Oracle
3 154 (3.83%) ServiceNow
4 128 (3.18%) Google
5 124 (3.08%) SAP
6 97 (2.41%) Salesforce
7 83 (2.06%) Databricks
8 47 (1.17%) Cisco
9 39 (0.97%) VMware
10 37 (0.92%) Palo Alto
10 37 (0.92%) Splunk
11 30 (0.75%) Talend
11 30 (0.75%) Workday
12 29 (0.72%) Dynatrace
13 28 (0.70%) Foundry
14 27 (0.67%) Informatica
15 25 (0.62%) Palantir
16 23 (0.57%) CyberArk
17 20 (0.50%) Red Hat
18 19 (0.47%) F5