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 17 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 18 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,821 2,708 3,619
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.44% 8.77% 9.08%
As % of the General category 14.84% 14.78% 15.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,959 1,615 2,562
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £422
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% +0.47%
75th Percentile £597 £634 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £731
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 95 97
10th Percentile £15.48 £15.00 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.16 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.40 £24.18 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.50% +12.47% +13.16%
75th Percentile £25.15 £40.30 £59.00
90th Percentile £50.13 £63.91 £70.80
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.00 £21.31
% change year-on-year -8.70% +7.93% +12.16%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,014 18,324 23,771
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.64% 59.31% 59.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,041 10,991 16,205
10th Percentile £275 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £630 £650 £673
90th Percentile £738 £775 £772
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,246 687 1,043
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.04 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.77 £17.44 £17.23
Median hourly rate £24.34 £31.97 £32.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.87% -0.09% +24.47%
75th Percentile £45.35 £60.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.25 £70.41
UK median hourly rate £24.09 £29.50 £30.83
% change year-on-year -18.34% -4.30% +23.30%

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 17 November 2025.

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 17 November 2025.

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 17 November 2025. 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 1,152 £513 -2.38% 548
North of England 0 530 £473 -0.53% 211
South West +2 323 £550 -4.35% 118
South East -7 300 £500 -9.09% 301
Midlands +4 274 £475 -5.00% 118
North West -2 263 £450 -6.25% 107
West Midlands +3 216 £475 -5.00% 74
Yorkshire +8 170 £501 +5.37% 60
North East +2 100 £450 +6.51% 44
East of England 0 76 £374 +6.79% 51
East Midlands +2 58 £415 -7.78% 42
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
1 112 (3.97%) Confluence
2 84 (2.98%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.92%) nginx
5 24 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
5 24 (0.85%) SAS
6 15 (0.53%) Apache
6 15 (0.53%) Skype for Business
7 10 (0.35%) Apache Spark
7 10 (0.35%) CMS
8 6 (0.21%) Anypoint
9 5 (0.18%) Documentum
9 5 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
9 5 (0.18%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
11 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2003
11 3 (0.11%) Exchange Server 2010
11 3 (0.11%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.11%) Jupyter
Applications
1 86 (3.05%) Microsoft Excel
1 86 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
2 37 (1.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 20 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
4 18 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.64%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.35%) Trello
6 9 (0.32%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 6 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
7 6 (0.21%) Photoshop
7 6 (0.21%) Sketch
8 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.18%) InVision
9 4 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
9 4 (0.14%) UXPin
10 3 (0.11%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.035%) S-PLUS
12 1 (0.035%) Stata
12 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (1.49%) SAP S/4HANA
2 27 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
4 12 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.43%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
5 11 (0.39%) SAP BRIM
5 11 (0.39%) SAP Hybris
6 9 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.28%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
9 6 (0.21%) Primavera
10 5 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
10 5 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
11 4 (0.14%) iTrent
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 540 (19.14%) AWS
2 510 (18.08%) Azure
3 186 (6.59%) Power Platform
4 147 (5.21%) Microsoft 365
5 120 (4.25%) GCP
5 120 (4.25%) GitHub
6 114 (4.04%) Serverless
7 100 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
8 79 (2.80%) Amazon S3
9 70 (2.48%) AWS Lambda
10 66 (2.34%) SaaS
11 62 (2.20%) PowerApps
12 61 (2.16%) GitHub Actions
13 57 (2.02%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 57 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
13 57 (2.02%) Entra ID
14 53 (1.88%) Power Automate
15 50 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
16 47 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
17 43 (1.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 109 (3.86%) Firewall
2 78 (2.76%) DNS
3 60 (2.13%) VPN
4 44 (1.56%) WAN
5 41 (1.45%) Wireless
6 39 (1.38%) Network Security
7 35 (1.24%) LAN
8 31 (1.10%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.06%) BGP
10 28 (0.99%) DHCP
11 27 (0.96%) HTTP
12 22 (0.78%) SSH
12 22 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
13 21 (0.74%) FTP
13 21 (0.74%) SMTP
14 20 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 19 (0.67%) OSPF
15 19 (0.67%) SSL
16 18 (0.64%) VLAN
17 17 (0.60%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (4.43%) Power BI
2 84 (2.98%) PostgreSQL
3 47 (1.67%) MongoDB
4 39 (1.38%) Amazon RDS
4 39 (1.38%) Metadata
5 35 (1.24%) SQL Server
6 30 (1.06%) Relational Database
7 29 (1.03%) NoSQL
7 29 (1.03%) Oracle Database
8 28 (0.99%) Data Lake
9 27 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
9 27 (0.96%) MySQL
10 20 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
11 18 (0.64%) Redis
11 18 (0.64%) Tableau
12 16 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
12 16 (0.57%) Oracle Reports
13 15 (0.53%) BigQuery
14 12 (0.43%) DynamoDB
14 12 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 188 (6.66%) JIRA
2 155 (5.49%) Git
3 133 (4.71%) Jenkins
4 79 (2.80%) GitLab
5 34 (1.21%) Selenium
6 31 (1.10%) Postman
7 29 (1.03%) SonarQube
8 28 (0.99%) Cucumber
9 21 (0.74%) Vagrant
10 20 (0.71%) Cypress.io
10 20 (0.71%) Mockito
11 19 (0.67%) JUnit
11 19 (0.67%) REST Assured
12 13 (0.46%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.46%) Burp Suite
12 13 (0.46%) Metasploit
13 11 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
14 10 (0.35%) CircleCI
15 8 (0.28%) MSI
16 7 (0.25%) JMeter
General
1 831 (29.46%) Social Skills
2 476 (16.87%) Finance
3 245 (8.68%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (8.26%) Telecoms
5 197 (6.98%) Manufacturing
6 191 (6.77%) Marketing
7 180 (6.38%) Electronics
8 125 (4.43%) Local Government
8 125 (4.43%) Military
9 78 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
10 69 (2.45%) Legal
11 51 (1.81%) Influencing Skills
12 44 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
13 40 (1.42%) Law
14 37 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
15 36 (1.28%) Retail
16 35 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 31 (1.10%) Police
18 24 (0.85%) Banking
19 19 (0.67%) Billing
Job Titles
1 338 (11.98%) Developer
2 313 (11.10%) Architect
3 288 (10.21%) Analyst
4 272 (9.64%) Lead
5 268 (9.50%) Senior
6 197 (6.98%) Consultant
7 118 (4.18%) DevOps Engineer
8 112 (3.97%) Business Analyst
9 86 (3.05%) Project Manager
10 75 (2.66%) AWS Engineer
11 73 (2.59%) Solutions Architect
12 70 (2.48%) Technical Architect
13 66 (2.34%) Support Engineer
14 62 (2.20%) Designer
15 52 (1.84%) Network Engineer
16 50 (1.77%) Senior Developer
17 49 (1.74%) IT Support
17 49 (1.74%) Security Engineer
18 48 (1.70%) Data Engineer
18 48 (1.70%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (3.69%) REST
2 80 (2.84%) RESTful
3 78 (2.76%) React
4 71 (2.52%) .NET
5 70 (2.48%) Node.js
6 59 (2.09%) HTML
7 56 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
7 56 (1.99%) Spring Boot
8 54 (1.91%) Spring
9 53 (1.88%) Kafka
10 52 (1.84%) CSS
11 51 (1.81%) JSON
12 50 (1.77%) SOAP
12 50 (1.77%) Web Services
13 48 (1.70%) AngularJS
14 35 (1.24%) XML
15 26 (0.92%) OAuth
16 22 (0.78%) LDAP
16 22 (0.78%) Playwright
17 18 (0.64%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 98 (3.47%) Onboarding
2 91 (3.23%) Cloud Native
2 91 (3.23%) NHS
3 73 (2.59%) Product Ownership
4 72 (2.55%) Data Centre
5 70 (2.48%) Management Information System
6 65 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
7 37 (1.31%) Replication
8 34 (1.21%) PKI
9 32 (1.13%) Public Cloud
10 29 (1.03%) Security Posture
11 27 (0.96%) CMDB
12 26 (0.92%) Security Operations Centre
13 24 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
14 23 (0.82%) Data Structures
14 23 (0.82%) Driving Licence
14 23 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
15 22 (0.78%) AI Agents
15 22 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
16 19 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 237 (8.40%) Windows
2 155 (5.49%) Linux
3 47 (1.67%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.63%) Windows Server
5 44 (1.56%) Android
6 39 (1.38%) Mac OS
7 27 (0.96%) VMS
8 24 (0.85%) Unix
9 22 (0.78%) Amazon Linux
10 21 (0.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 19 (0.67%) Apple iOS
12 13 (0.46%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
14 7 (0.25%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
15 6 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
16 4 (0.14%) CentOS
17 3 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 711 (25.20%) Agile
2 410 (14.53%) DevOps
3 398 (14.11%) CI/CD
4 372 (13.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 362 (12.83%) Problem-Solving
6 330 (11.70%) Business Intelligence
7 283 (10.03%) Stakeholder Management
8 265 (9.39%) Migration
9 244 (8.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 213 (7.55%) Roadmaps
11 205 (7.27%) Programme Management
12 184 (6.52%) Infrastructure as Code
13 179 (6.35%) Digital Marketing
14 172 (6.10%) Microservices
15 169 (5.99%) Analytics
16 167 (5.92%) ITIL
17 159 (5.64%) Decision-Making
18 151 (5.35%) Test Automation
19 150 (5.32%) AI
20 142 (5.03%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 331 (11.73%) Python
2 247 (8.76%) SQL
3 233 (8.26%) Java
4 128 (4.54%) JavaScript
5 119 (4.22%) PowerShell
6 80 (2.84%) Bash
7 73 (2.59%) TypeScript
8 70 (2.48%) C#
9 31 (1.10%) Go
10 25 (0.89%) Groovy
10 25 (0.89%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.82%) Perl
12 22 (0.78%) C++
13 18 (0.64%) Ruby
13 18 (0.64%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.60%) Apex Code
15 14 (0.50%) C
16 13 (0.46%) PHP
17 11 (0.39%) ABAP
17 11 (0.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,720 (60.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,209 (42.86%) SC Cleared
3 160 (5.67%) DV Cleared
4 113 (4.01%) Degree
5 68 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.84%) CISSP
7 43 (1.52%) Microsoft Certification
8 37 (1.31%) Azure Certification
9 36 (1.28%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (1.24%) AWS Certification
11 33 (1.17%) Cisco Certification
12 25 (0.89%) CISM
13 23 (0.82%) CCNP
14 21 (0.74%) OSCP
15 20 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
15 20 (0.71%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.67%) CREST Certified
17 15 (0.53%) CCNA
18 14 (0.50%) MCSE
19 13 (0.46%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (4.18%) Accessibility
2 112 (3.97%) QA
3 85 (3.01%) GDPR
4 78 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 72 (2.55%) Data Quality
6 69 (2.45%) NIST
7 57 (2.02%) NCSC
8 43 (1.52%) SLA
9 40 (1.42%) PMO
10 37 (1.31%) WCAG
11 23 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.64%) GRC
13 17 (0.60%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.57%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.43%) COBIT
16 11 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 10 (0.35%) PCI DSS
18 9 (0.32%) HL7
18 9 (0.32%) RMADS
System Software
1 201 (7.13%) Docker
2 123 (4.36%) Active Directory
3 56 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.74%) DFS Replication
5 15 (0.53%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (0.53%) vSphere
6 14 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (0.46%) Postfix
8 11 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.39%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.32%) Dovecot
9 9 (0.32%) Squid
10 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.18%) UAG
10 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.14%) Firmware
12 3 (0.11%) Brightmail
12 3 (0.11%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.071%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 266 (9.43%) Terraform
2 205 (7.27%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.76%) Ansible
4 69 (2.45%) Grafana
5 56 (1.99%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.38%) SCCM
7 37 (1.31%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (0.67%) Packer
8 19 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.50%) Nmap
9 14 (0.50%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.43%) Argo
10 12 (0.43%) Nessus
11 11 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.39%) SCOM
12 9 (0.32%) Consul
12 9 (0.32%) Proxmox
13 7 (0.25%) vRealize
14 6 (0.21%) QRadar
Vendors
1 398 (14.11%) Microsoft
2 292 (10.35%) SAP
3 175 (6.20%) Oracle
4 145 (5.14%) Cisco
5 103 (3.65%) ServiceNow
6 80 (2.84%) VMware
7 59 (2.09%) Salesforce
8 57 (2.02%) Splunk
9 52 (1.84%) Google
10 50 (1.77%) Juniper
11 39 (1.38%) HP
12 38 (1.35%) Aruba
13 36 (1.28%) Dell
14 35 (1.24%) Apple
15 33 (1.17%) Palo Alto
16 30 (1.06%) SolarWinds
16 30 (1.06%) Virgin Media
17 26 (0.92%) Databricks
17 26 (0.92%) Fortinet
18 25 (0.89%) Red Hat