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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 22 19
Rank change year-on-year -2 -3 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,899 2,262 2,729
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.55% 8.26% 8.25%
As % of the General category 15.44% 12.84% 14.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,691 1,568 1,782
10th Percentile £363 £321 £313
25th Percentile £431 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £502 £520
Median % change year-on-year +4.58% -3.46% -3.70%
75th Percentile £619 £600 £627
90th Percentile £700 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 92 115
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.48 £14.52
25th Percentile £16.64 £18.13 £16.13
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.95 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% -9.22% +20.30%
75th Percentile £50.50 £33.19 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.25 £67.05 £74.22
UK median hourly rate £21.50 £21.00 £23.00
% change year-on-year +2.38% -8.70% +15.00%

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 25,258 17,619 19,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.39% 64.34% 57.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,971 11,187 11,994
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £423 £400 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £651
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 2,059 984 1,072
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.50 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.25 £16.23 £18.00
Median hourly rate £31.56 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +25.47% -34.02% +38.62%
75th Percentile £57.50 £50.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.85 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £31.10 £25.15 £36.50
% change year-on-year +23.66% -31.10% +32.73%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 1,693 £550 +6.80% 1,532
North of England -1 698 £475 -1.04% 555
Midlands +9 490 £495 +4.21% 280
South East -3 453 £505 -3.81% 293
West Midlands +6 417 £495 +4.21% 212
South West -3 367 £525 -2.33% 363
Yorkshire +6 263 £475 -3.06% 175
North West -14 253 £525 +12.90% 301
North East -1 191 £450 -10.00% 86
East Midlands +16 66 £500 +19.76% 68
East of England -10 54 £450 -10.00% 124
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
1 158 (4.05%) Confluence
2 102 (2.62%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.28%) SAS
4 48 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
5 46 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
6 44 (1.13%) Apache Spark
7 41 (1.05%) Apache
8 29 (0.74%) CMS
9 20 (0.51%) Jupyter
10 16 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.28%) WordPress
12 9 (0.23%) nginx
13 7 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 5 (0.13%) Drupal
14 5 (0.13%) Headless CMS
14 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.10%) IIS
16 3 (0.077%) Camunda
16 3 (0.077%) Tomcat
Applications
1 76 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
4 26 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.15%) MS Visio
8 5 (0.13%) Trello
9 4 (0.10%) Sketch
10 3 (0.077%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.051%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.051%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.051%) Navisworks
11 2 (0.051%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.051%) Revit
12 1 (0.026%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.026%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.026%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.026%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 45 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
1 45 (1.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (1.10%) Oracle ERP
3 23 (0.59%) SAP PSCD
4 22 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.36%) Workday HCM
6 13 (0.33%) NetSuite
7 12 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
8 11 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
9 10 (0.26%) ContrOCC
9 10 (0.26%) Oracle Payroll
9 10 (0.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
10 9 (0.23%) SAP FI
11 8 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 8 (0.21%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.21%) SAP Hybris
12 7 (0.18%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 818 (20.98%) AWS
2 768 (19.70%) Azure
3 237 (6.08%) Power Platform
4 187 (4.80%) Azure DevOps
5 172 (4.41%) Microsoft 365
6 155 (3.98%) GitHub
7 152 (3.90%) GCP
8 150 (3.85%) Serverless
9 131 (3.36%) Entra ID
10 117 (3.00%) Amazon S3
11 110 (2.82%) SaaS
12 109 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
13 94 (2.41%) OCI
14 91 (2.33%) AWS Lambda
15 86 (2.21%) Power Automate
16 78 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
17 72 (1.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 69 (1.77%) PowerApps
19 65 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
20 58 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 105 (2.69%) Firewall
2 68 (1.74%) DNS
3 55 (1.41%) WAN
4 47 (1.21%) LAN
5 42 (1.08%) Network Security
6 34 (0.87%) DHCP
7 30 (0.77%) BGP
7 30 (0.77%) VPN
8 29 (0.74%) OSPF
8 29 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
9 27 (0.69%) TCP/IP
10 22 (0.56%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.49%) WLAN
12 16 (0.41%) VXLAN
13 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
14 14 (0.36%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 14 (0.36%) Wireless
15 13 (0.33%) VLAN
16 12 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (3.98%) Power BI
2 104 (2.67%) Data Warehouse
3 100 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
4 86 (2.21%) Metadata
5 71 (1.82%) Relational Database
5 71 (1.82%) SQL Server
6 57 (1.46%) MongoDB
7 54 (1.38%) Oracle Database
8 50 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
9 49 (1.26%) Data Lake
9 49 (1.26%) NoSQL
10 32 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
11 30 (0.77%) Amazon Redshift
11 30 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
12 28 (0.72%) MySQL
12 28 (0.72%) Tableau
13 27 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
14 25 (0.64%) Pentaho
15 24 (0.62%) DynamoDB
16 20 (0.51%) Redis
Development Applications
1 234 (6.00%) JIRA
2 190 (4.87%) Git
3 161 (4.13%) GitLab
4 124 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 43 (1.10%) Selenium
6 36 (0.92%) Cucumber
7 32 (0.82%) JUnit
8 29 (0.74%) Postman
9 27 (0.69%) Mockito
10 25 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 25 (0.64%) SonarQube
11 22 (0.56%) Maven
12 20 (0.51%) JMeter
13 19 (0.49%) REST Assured
14 17 (0.44%) WebDriver
15 13 (0.33%) Gatling
16 12 (0.31%) MSI
16 12 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
17 10 (0.26%) fastlane
17 10 (0.26%) Gradle
General
1 1,168 (29.96%) Social Skills
2 425 (10.90%) Finance
3 404 (10.36%) Analytical Skills
4 253 (6.49%) Military
5 221 (5.67%) Local Government
6 163 (4.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 147 (3.77%) Influencing Skills
8 105 (2.69%) Organisational Skills
9 98 (2.51%) Legal
10 83 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
11 82 (2.10%) Police
12 60 (1.54%) Law
13 50 (1.28%) Telecoms
14 41 (1.05%) Marketing
15 34 (0.87%) Banking
15 34 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
16 27 (0.69%) Retail
17 23 (0.59%) Billing
18 19 (0.49%) Manufacturing
18 19 (0.49%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 541 (13.88%) Architect
2 519 (13.31%) Developer
2 519 (13.31%) Senior
3 467 (11.98%) Lead
4 340 (8.72%) Analyst
5 167 (4.28%) Consultant
6 146 (3.74%) Data Engineer
7 138 (3.54%) Designer
8 133 (3.41%) Business Analyst
9 131 (3.36%) DevOps Engineer
10 122 (3.13%) Delivery Manager
11 120 (3.08%) Data Architect
12 115 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
13 110 (2.82%) Technical Architect
14 108 (2.77%) Senior Developer
15 93 (2.39%) Project Manager
16 85 (2.18%) User Researcher
17 84 (2.15%) Java Developer
17 84 (2.15%) Senior Manager
18 73 (1.87%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 353 (9.05%) Terraform
2 158 (4.05%) REST
3 108 (2.77%) RESTful
4 100 (2.56%) React
5 95 (2.44%) Spring
6 88 (2.26%) Node.js
7 84 (2.15%) Spring Boot
8 80 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (1.90%) HTML
9 74 (1.90%) Kafka
10 73 (1.87%) SOAP
11 68 (1.74%) Django
12 66 (1.69%) CSS
13 65 (1.67%) Web Services
14 63 (1.62%) .NET
15 57 (1.46%) OAuth
16 51 (1.31%) JSON
17 49 (1.26%) PySpark
18 47 (1.21%) AngularJS
18 47 (1.21%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 236 (6.05%) Cloud Native
2 162 (4.15%) Product Ownership
3 157 (4.03%) Onboarding
4 138 (3.54%) NHS
5 113 (2.90%) Legacy Systems
6 107 (2.74%) Management Information System
7 75 (1.92%) Enterprise Software
8 55 (1.41%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.23%) Data Centre
10 47 (1.21%) Data Structures
11 42 (1.08%) Analytical Mindset
11 42 (1.08%) CMDB
12 41 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
13 38 (0.97%) Freedom of Information
14 37 (0.95%) Hybrid Cloud
15 32 (0.82%) Low-Code
15 32 (0.82%) Security Operations Centre
16 31 (0.80%) Virtual Team
17 30 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
18 28 (0.72%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 134 (3.44%) Windows
2 122 (3.13%) Linux
3 43 (1.10%) Unix
3 43 (1.10%) Windows Server
4 21 (0.54%) Android
5 19 (0.49%) Windows 10
6 18 (0.46%) Apple iOS
7 16 (0.41%) Mac OS
7 16 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.13%) AIX
8 5 (0.13%) Amazon Linux
9 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.077%) Solaris
11 2 (0.051%) CentOS
11 2 (0.051%) VMS
11 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.026%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.026%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.026%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,251 (32.09%) Agile
2 808 (20.72%) Stakeholder Management
3 672 (17.24%) CI/CD
4 671 (17.21%) Continuous Improvement
5 659 (16.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 644 (16.52%) DevOps
7 481 (12.34%) Problem-Solving
8 452 (11.59%) Decision-Making
9 410 (10.52%) Analytics
10 367 (9.41%) Migration
11 353 (9.05%) Roadmaps
12 347 (8.90%) AI
12 347 (8.90%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 343 (8.80%) Infrastructure as Code
14 307 (7.87%) Data Modelling
15 292 (7.49%) Technical Leadership
16 280 (7.18%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 266 (6.82%) Mentoring
18 259 (6.64%) Containerisation
19 253 (6.49%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 478 (12.26%) Python
2 388 (9.95%) SQL
3 243 (6.23%) Java
4 216 (5.54%) JavaScript
5 112 (2.87%) TypeScript
6 110 (2.82%) PowerShell
7 81 (2.08%) C#
8 60 (1.54%) Bash
9 52 (1.33%) PL/SQL
10 47 (1.21%) Bicep
11 35 (0.90%) Scala
12 32 (0.82%) Apex Code
13 26 (0.67%) Kotlin
13 26 (0.67%) Ruby
14 25 (0.64%) R
15 24 (0.62%) Groovy
16 22 (0.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 14 (0.36%) ABAP
17 14 (0.36%) Shell Script
18 12 (0.31%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,995 (51.17%) Security Cleared
2 1,612 (41.34%) SC Cleared
3 260 (6.67%) BPSS Clearance
4 240 (6.16%) DV Cleared
5 171 (4.39%) Degree
6 67 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 61 (1.56%) AWS Certification
8 59 (1.51%) Azure Certification
9 46 (1.18%) CISSP
10 42 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
11 32 (0.82%) CISM
12 28 (0.72%) CCNP
13 27 (0.69%) PMI Certification
14 25 (0.64%) ISTQB
14 25 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
15 22 (0.56%) Master's Degree
16 18 (0.46%) Computer Science Degree
17 17 (0.44%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 16 (0.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 15 (0.38%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 315 (8.08%) Accessibility
2 236 (6.05%) Data Quality
3 226 (5.80%) QA
4 139 (3.57%) WCAG
5 127 (3.26%) GDPR
6 94 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 78 (2.00%) PMO
8 77 (1.97%) NCSC
9 75 (1.92%) NIST
10 36 (0.92%) GRC
11 29 (0.74%) SLA
12 26 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 12 (0.31%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.28%) NIST 800
17 10 (0.26%) HL7
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 297 (7.62%) Docker
2 141 (3.62%) Active Directory
3 37 (0.95%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.49%) VMware NSX
5 17 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.26%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (0.26%) vSphere
7 8 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 6 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
10 5 (0.13%) Postfix
11 1 (0.026%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.026%) Ceph
11 1 (0.026%) etcd
11 1 (0.026%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.026%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.026%) Squid
11 1 (0.026%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 265 (6.80%) Kubernetes
2 87 (2.23%) Grafana
3 74 (1.90%) Ansible
4 60 (1.54%) Prometheus
5 41 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
6 36 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 24 (0.62%) Argo
8 21 (0.54%) SCCM
9 16 (0.41%) Kibana
10 9 (0.23%) Data Guard
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle RMAN
11 8 (0.21%) VxRail
12 7 (0.18%) Puppet
13 6 (0.15%) Istio
14 5 (0.13%) QRadar
14 5 (0.13%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 4 (0.10%) Consul
15 4 (0.10%) Packer
15 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 524 (13.44%) Microsoft
2 321 (8.23%) Oracle
3 155 (3.98%) ServiceNow
4 120 (3.08%) Google
5 114 (2.92%) SAP
6 103 (2.64%) Salesforce
7 86 (2.21%) Databricks
8 48 (1.23%) Cisco
8 48 (1.23%) VMware
9 37 (0.95%) Palo Alto
10 30 (0.77%) Dynatrace
10 30 (0.77%) Splunk
10 30 (0.77%) Talend
11 28 (0.72%) Foundry
12 26 (0.67%) Informatica
13 24 (0.62%) Palantir
14 23 (0.59%) Workday
15 21 (0.54%) CyberArk
15 21 (0.54%) Red Hat
16 20 (0.51%) Blue Prism