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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,284 2,604 3,434
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.94% 9.80% 9.11%
As % of the General category 16.60% 15.67% 15.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,316 1,559 2,326
10th Percentile £341 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -2.34% -0.93%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £649
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 94 132
10th Percentile £16.40 £15.00 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.54 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £20.85
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +22.29% +4.89%
75th Percentile £25.00 £37.81 £55.35
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.74 £69.88
UK median hourly rate £21.40 £25.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -14.40% +25.00% +2.96%

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 19,785 16,616 22,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.90% 62.53% 58.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,582 10,011 14,723
10th Percentile £290 £300 £263
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,222 539 1,404
10th Percentile £14.02 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.10 £15.09
Median hourly rate £22.81 £30.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.97% +15.38% +1.13%
75th Percentile £47.38 £57.50 £55.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.89 £67.87
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £28.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -18.54% +7.69% +4.00%

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 30 January 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 30 January 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 30 January 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 -3 1,327 £516 -1.67% 313
North of England -1 647 £455 -4.32% 201
South East -5 386 £500 -4.76% 265
North West +2 330 £450 -10.00% 76
Midlands +2 323 £500 - 129
South West -3 308 £525 -4.55% 87
West Midlands +2 247 £500 - 90
Yorkshire -1 195 £500 +11.11% 87
North East -1 126 £450 +5.88% 40
East of England +26 106 £375 +7.14% 68
East Midlands +6 76 £419 -11.84% 37
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
1 123 (3.75%) Confluence
2 93 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 35 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.82%) SAS
5 24 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.64%) nginx
7 16 (0.49%) Apache
8 15 (0.46%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.40%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.40%) CMS
10 5 (0.15%) Documentum
11 4 (0.12%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 3 (0.091%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.091%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.091%) Oracle Workflow
12 3 (0.091%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 99 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 87 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.49%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.27%) Trello
8 7 (0.21%) Adobe XD
8 7 (0.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.091%) InVision
12 2 (0.061%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.061%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.061%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.061%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.030%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.030%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.030%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.030%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 58 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.64%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.52%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.52%) SAP Hybris
5 16 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.27%) iTrent
8 9 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 599 (18.24%) AWS
2 569 (17.33%) Azure
3 193 (5.88%) Power Platform
4 151 (4.60%) Serverless
5 150 (4.57%) GitHub
6 147 (4.48%) Microsoft 365
7 142 (4.32%) GCP
8 117 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
9 95 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
10 84 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
11 69 (2.10%) Amazon S3
12 67 (2.04%) Entra ID
13 66 (2.01%) Power Automate
14 61 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
15 60 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
16 58 (1.77%) PowerApps
17 57 (1.74%) SaaS
18 56 (1.71%) OCI
19 55 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 53 (1.61%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 98 (2.98%) Firewall
2 66 (2.01%) DNS
3 65 (1.98%) VPN
4 57 (1.74%) WAN
5 49 (1.49%) Network Security
6 44 (1.34%) Wireless
7 43 (1.31%) LAN
8 39 (1.19%) TCP/IP
9 33 (1.00%) BGP
10 28 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
11 24 (0.73%) DHCP
12 22 (0.67%) OSPF
13 20 (0.61%) SSL
14 18 (0.55%) Skype
15 17 (0.52%) MPLS
15 17 (0.52%) VLAN
16 16 (0.49%) HTTP
16 16 (0.49%) IPsec
17 15 (0.46%) Internet
17 15 (0.46%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (4.32%) Power BI
2 82 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
3 54 (1.64%) MongoDB
4 53 (1.61%) Metadata
5 41 (1.25%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.13%) NoSQL
7 36 (1.10%) Relational Database
8 32 (0.97%) Data Lake
9 30 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
9 30 (0.91%) Data Warehouse
10 27 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
11 24 (0.73%) MySQL
12 23 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.67%) Redis
14 20 (0.61%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
16 16 (0.49%) Tableau
17 15 (0.46%) DynamoDB
18 14 (0.43%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 201 (6.12%) JIRA
2 169 (5.15%) Git
3 127 (3.87%) Jenkins
4 122 (3.71%) GitLab
5 52 (1.58%) Postman
6 48 (1.46%) Selenium
7 31 (0.94%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.79%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.70%) JUnit
10 18 (0.55%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.52%) Mockito
12 15 (0.46%) CircleCI
12 15 (0.46%) Mocha
13 14 (0.43%) Bitbucket
14 13 (0.40%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.33%) JMeter
15 11 (0.33%) MSI
15 11 (0.33%) Vagrant
16 10 (0.30%) Gradle
17 9 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
General
1 964 (29.35%) Social Skills
2 519 (15.80%) Finance
3 303 (9.23%) Analytical Skills
4 227 (6.91%) Telecoms
5 190 (5.79%) Marketing
6 189 (5.76%) Manufacturing
7 169 (5.15%) Electronics
8 149 (4.54%) Military
9 120 (3.65%) Local Government
10 74 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (2.16%) Organisational Skills
12 65 (1.98%) Legal
13 52 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
14 48 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 39 (1.19%) Law
17 38 (1.16%) Banking
18 34 (1.04%) Retail
19 32 (0.97%) Police
20 31 (0.94%) Billing
Job Titles
1 397 (12.09%) Developer
2 372 (11.33%) Architect
3 331 (10.08%) Senior
4 323 (9.84%) Analyst
5 296 (9.01%) Lead
6 199 (6.06%) Consultant
7 147 (4.48%) Business Analyst
8 131 (3.99%) DevOps Engineer
9 102 (3.11%) Designer
10 99 (3.01%) Project Manager
11 87 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
12 84 (2.56%) Technical Architect
13 75 (2.28%) AWS Engineer
14 69 (2.10%) Data Engineer
15 66 (2.01%) Senior Developer
16 63 (1.92%) Java Developer
17 62 (1.89%) User Researcher
18 54 (1.64%) Test Engineer
19 53 (1.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
19 53 (1.61%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (4.45%) REST
2 107 (3.26%) React
3 105 (3.20%) Node.js
4 93 (2.83%) RESTful
5 90 (2.74%) Spring
6 85 (2.59%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.19%) .NET
8 71 (2.16%) HTML
9 70 (2.13%) Oracle Fusion
10 63 (1.92%) CSS
11 62 (1.89%) JSON
12 59 (1.80%) AngularJS
13 56 (1.71%) SOAP
13 56 (1.71%) Web Services
14 53 (1.61%) Kafka
15 44 (1.34%) XML
16 37 (1.13%) Playwright
17 30 (0.91%) OAuth
18 29 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
19 26 (0.79%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 122 (3.71%) Cloud Native
2 117 (3.56%) Onboarding
3 115 (3.50%) NHS
4 104 (3.17%) Product Ownership
5 85 (2.59%) Data Centre
6 70 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
7 63 (1.92%) Management Information System
8 42 (1.28%) Public Cloud
9 32 (0.97%) PKI
9 32 (0.97%) Replication
10 31 (0.94%) Security Posture
11 30 (0.91%) CMDB
11 30 (0.91%) Data Structures
12 28 (0.85%) Enterprise Software
13 27 (0.82%) AI Agents
14 26 (0.79%) Distributed Systems
14 26 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
15 22 (0.67%) Security Operations Centre
16 21 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
16 21 (0.64%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 216 (6.58%) Windows
2 150 (4.57%) Linux
3 51 (1.55%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.40%) Android
5 45 (1.37%) Windows Server
6 42 (1.28%) Mac OS
7 24 (0.73%) Unix
8 21 (0.64%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.64%) VMS
9 16 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 13 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.33%) Amazon Linux
12 10 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
13 9 (0.27%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
16 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.091%) Windows Server 2008
18 1 (0.030%) pSOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 793 (24.15%) Agile
2 476 (14.49%) CI/CD
3 452 (13.76%) DevOps
4 432 (13.15%) Problem-Solving
5 393 (11.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 371 (11.30%) Stakeholder Management
7 337 (10.26%) Business Intelligence
8 326 (9.93%) Migration
9 291 (8.86%) Continuous Improvement
10 272 (8.28%) Roadmaps
11 221 (6.73%) Analytics
12 211 (6.43%) Programme Management
12 211 (6.43%) Test Automation
13 205 (6.24%) Decision-Making
14 200 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
14 200 (6.09%) Microservices
15 197 (6.00%) Containerisation
16 186 (5.66%) AI
17 185 (5.63%) ITIL
18 175 (5.33%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 359 (10.93%) Python
2 272 (8.28%) SQL
3 249 (7.58%) Java
4 174 (5.30%) JavaScript
5 126 (3.84%) PowerShell
6 110 (3.35%) TypeScript
7 81 (2.47%) C#
8 62 (1.89%) Bash
9 37 (1.13%) Ruby
10 27 (0.82%) Apex Code
11 26 (0.79%) Go
12 25 (0.76%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.58%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.52%) PHP
15 16 (0.49%) R
16 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 14 (0.43%) Groovy
17 12 (0.37%) Perl
18 11 (0.33%) ABAP
18 11 (0.33%) C
Qualifications
1 1,953 (59.47%) Security Cleared
2 1,289 (39.25%) SC Cleared
3 161 (4.90%) DV Cleared
4 160 (4.87%) Degree
5 83 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.34%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.25%) AWS Certification
8 40 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
9 38 (1.16%) CISSP
10 36 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
11 35 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (0.76%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (0.73%) ISEB
14 22 (0.67%) PMP
15 21 (0.64%) CISM
16 18 (0.55%) CCNP
16 18 (0.55%) ISTQB
16 18 (0.55%) PMI Certification
17 16 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 162 (4.93%) Accessibility
2 130 (3.96%) QA
3 112 (3.41%) Data Quality
4 92 (2.80%) GDPR
5 73 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 63 (1.92%) NIST
7 55 (1.67%) WCAG
8 53 (1.61%) NCSC
9 47 (1.43%) PMO
10 46 (1.40%) SLA
11 25 (0.76%) GRC
12 18 (0.55%) COBIT
12 18 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.49%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.43%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.37%) HL7
16 11 (0.33%) PCI DSS
17 9 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 234 (7.13%) Docker
2 119 (3.62%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.55%) Hyper-V
4 18 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 12 (0.37%) vSphere
8 11 (0.33%) DFS Replication
9 10 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.24%) Squid
11 7 (0.21%) Dovecot
11 7 (0.21%) Postfix
12 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.12%) ISA Server
14 4 (0.12%) NFS
15 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.061%) RACF
15 2 (0.061%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 288 (8.77%) Terraform
2 251 (7.64%) Kubernetes
3 73 (2.22%) Ansible
4 64 (1.95%) Grafana
5 51 (1.55%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.94%) SCCM
7 27 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.40%) Argo
11 12 (0.37%) Packer
12 11 (0.33%) Nessus
13 10 (0.30%) Puppet
14 9 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
15 8 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 8 (0.24%) Proxmox
15 8 (0.24%) SCOM
15 8 (0.24%) vRealize
16 7 (0.21%) Consul
17 6 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 405 (12.33%) Microsoft
2 306 (9.32%) SAP
3 195 (5.94%) Oracle
4 147 (4.48%) Cisco
5 103 (3.14%) ServiceNow
6 94 (2.86%) Salesforce
7 91 (2.77%) VMware
8 60 (1.83%) Google
9 55 (1.67%) Splunk
10 48 (1.46%) Databricks
11 41 (1.25%) Palo Alto
11 41 (1.25%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.22%) Aruba
13 39 (1.19%) Juniper
14 38 (1.16%) Dell
15 37 (1.13%) Apple
16 33 (1.00%) HP
17 27 (0.82%) SolarWinds
18 24 (0.73%) Fortinet
18 24 (0.73%) MuleSoft