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 13 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,400 2,570 3,436
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.96% 9.86% 9.09%
As % of the General category 16.77% 15.76% 15.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,385 1,561 2,304
10th Percentile £342 £308 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 88 141
10th Percentile £16.25 £15.04 £13.13
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.60 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.25 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% +20.24% +5.32%
75th Percentile £25.13 £35.94 £56.40
90th Percentile £45.97 £62.99 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £21.94 £24.66 £20.85
% change year-on-year -11.05% +18.26% +4.89%

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 20,271 16,302 22,226
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.39% 62.55% 58.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,849 9,922 14,674
10th Percentile £298 £300 £263
25th Percentile £405 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,268 514 1,496
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £16.62 £19.98 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.92 £30.31 £25.37
Median % change year-on-year -24.37% +19.45% -8.08%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.00 £52.57
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £29.00 £25.25
% change year-on-year -21.21% +14.85% -2.88%

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 1,402 £521 -0.71% 330
North of England -2 647 £450 -5.26% 214
South East -3 414 £500 -4.76% 194
Midlands +2 335 £500 - 109
North West -1 331 £450 -10.00% 84
South West -3 292 £525 -4.55% 78
West Midlands -1 247 £500 - 86
Yorkshire -4 193 £500 +11.11% 84
North East 0 125 £450 +5.88% 46
East of England +26 112 £375 +7.14% 46
East Midlands +9 88 £425 -10.53% 22
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
1 127 (3.74%) Confluence
2 93 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 31 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 21 (0.62%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (0.56%) SAS
6 16 (0.47%) Apache
7 15 (0.44%) nginx
8 13 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.38%) CMS
8 13 (0.38%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.15%) Documentum
10 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
10 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.088%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.088%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.088%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.088%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.088%) Smallworld
Applications
1 99 (2.91%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (2.71%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 24 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.24%) Trello
8 7 (0.21%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.15%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.088%) InVision
12 2 (0.059%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.059%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.029%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.029%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.029%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.029%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 59 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
5 17 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 10 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.26%) iTrent
8 9 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
9 8 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.21%) Unit4 Business World
11 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.15%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
12 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 606 (17.82%) AWS
2 577 (16.97%) Azure
3 195 (5.74%) Power Platform
4 154 (4.53%) Serverless
5 151 (4.44%) GitHub
6 134 (3.94%) Microsoft 365
7 133 (3.91%) GCP
8 119 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 98 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
10 89 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
11 79 (2.32%) Amazon S3
12 72 (2.12%) Entra ID
13 60 (1.76%) AWS CloudFormation
14 58 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
15 57 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 57 (1.68%) OCI
16 55 (1.62%) Power Automate
17 54 (1.59%) SaaS
18 52 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
19 51 (1.50%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (2.59%) Firewall
2 60 (1.76%) DNS
3 56 (1.65%) VPN
4 52 (1.53%) WAN
5 50 (1.47%) Network Security
6 44 (1.29%) LAN
7 43 (1.26%) Wireless
8 35 (1.03%) TCP/IP
9 30 (0.88%) BGP
10 24 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.68%) DHCP
12 21 (0.62%) OSPF
13 16 (0.47%) SSL
14 15 (0.44%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.44%) Skype
14 15 (0.44%) VLAN
15 14 (0.41%) MPLS
15 14 (0.41%) VoIP
16 13 (0.38%) Internet
16 13 (0.38%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (4.56%) Power BI
2 78 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
3 55 (1.62%) MongoDB
4 53 (1.56%) Metadata
5 47 (1.38%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.06%) NoSQL
7 35 (1.03%) Data Lake
7 35 (1.03%) Data Warehouse
8 34 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
9 30 (0.88%) Relational Database
10 27 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.65%) MySQL
13 20 (0.59%) Tableau
14 19 (0.56%) Redis
15 18 (0.53%) BigQuery
16 16 (0.47%) DynamoDB
16 16 (0.47%) Electronic Patient Records
17 15 (0.44%) Oracle Database
18 14 (0.41%) DocumentDB
Development Applications
1 198 (5.82%) JIRA
2 160 (4.71%) Git
3 129 (3.79%) GitLab
4 118 (3.47%) Jenkins
5 50 (1.47%) Selenium
6 49 (1.44%) Postman
7 31 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.76%) Cypress.io
8 26 (0.76%) JUnit
9 25 (0.74%) Mockito
10 19 (0.56%) REST Assured
11 15 (0.44%) Bitbucket
11 15 (0.44%) Mocha
12 14 (0.41%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 13 (0.38%) JMeter
14 11 (0.32%) MSI
15 9 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
16 8 (0.24%) Gradle
16 8 (0.24%) MLflow
General
1 980 (28.82%) Social Skills
2 541 (15.91%) Finance
3 311 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
4 212 (6.24%) Telecoms
5 176 (5.18%) Marketing
6 174 (5.12%) Manufacturing
7 156 (4.59%) Electronics
8 155 (4.56%) Military
9 126 (3.71%) Local Government
10 75 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
12 70 (2.06%) Legal
13 57 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
14 48 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
15 46 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 44 (1.29%) Banking
17 37 (1.09%) Law
18 35 (1.03%) Police
19 34 (1.00%) Billing
20 32 (0.94%) Retail
Job Titles
1 406 (11.94%) Developer
2 394 (11.59%) Architect
3 362 (10.65%) Senior
4 344 (10.12%) Analyst
5 309 (9.09%) Lead
6 187 (5.50%) Consultant
7 159 (4.68%) Business Analyst
8 135 (3.97%) DevOps Engineer
9 118 (3.47%) Designer
10 106 (3.12%) Project Manager
11 97 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
12 89 (2.62%) Technical Architect
13 73 (2.15%) Data Engineer
13 73 (2.15%) Java Developer
14 71 (2.09%) User Researcher
15 69 (2.03%) Senior Developer
16 68 (2.00%) AWS Engineer
17 59 (1.74%) Service Designer
18 55 (1.62%) Product Manager
18 55 (1.62%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (4.18%) REST
2 116 (3.41%) Node.js
3 103 (3.03%) React
4 93 (2.74%) Spring
5 84 (2.47%) Spring Boot
6 83 (2.44%) RESTful
7 74 (2.18%) .NET
8 72 (2.12%) Oracle Fusion
9 69 (2.03%) HTML
10 66 (1.94%) CSS
11 61 (1.79%) AngularJS
12 60 (1.76%) Web Services
13 57 (1.68%) JSON
14 56 (1.65%) SOAP
15 53 (1.56%) Kafka
16 39 (1.15%) XML
17 36 (1.06%) Playwright
18 30 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
19 28 (0.82%) Middleware
20 27 (0.79%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 129 (3.79%) Cloud Native
2 124 (3.65%) Onboarding
3 116 (3.41%) NHS
4 108 (3.18%) Product Ownership
5 85 (2.50%) Data Centre
6 70 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
7 68 (2.00%) Management Information System
8 43 (1.26%) Public Cloud
9 33 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (0.94%) Data Structures
11 30 (0.88%) Security Posture
11 30 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
12 29 (0.85%) CMDB
13 28 (0.82%) PKI
13 28 (0.82%) Replication
14 26 (0.76%) AI Agents
14 26 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
15 25 (0.74%) Distributed Systems
16 22 (0.65%) Security Operations Centre
17 17 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 224 (6.59%) Windows
2 166 (4.88%) Linux
3 54 (1.59%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.41%) Windows 10
5 47 (1.38%) Android
6 44 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 38 (1.12%) Unix
8 21 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 17 (0.50%) VMS
11 14 (0.41%) Mac OS X
11 14 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 11 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.24%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
15 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
16 3 (0.088%) AIX
16 3 (0.088%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 834 (24.53%) Agile
2 482 (14.18%) CI/CD
3 458 (13.47%) DevOps
4 437 (12.85%) Problem-Solving
5 384 (11.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 381 (11.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 337 (9.91%) Migration
8 331 (9.74%) Business Intelligence
9 309 (9.09%) Continuous Improvement
10 283 (8.32%) Roadmaps
11 231 (6.79%) Decision-Making
12 230 (6.76%) Analytics
13 218 (6.41%) Test Automation
14 215 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
15 210 (6.18%) Microservices
16 203 (5.97%) Containerisation
17 199 (5.85%) Programme Management
18 190 (5.59%) ITIL
19 186 (5.47%) AI
20 176 (5.18%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 357 (10.50%) Python
2 286 (8.41%) SQL
3 244 (7.18%) Java
4 179 (5.26%) JavaScript
5 127 (3.74%) PowerShell
6 112 (3.29%) TypeScript
7 84 (2.47%) C#
8 59 (1.74%) Bash
9 36 (1.06%) Ruby
10 29 (0.85%) Apex Code
11 23 (0.68%) Go
12 22 (0.65%) PL/SQL
13 18 (0.53%) PHP
13 18 (0.53%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.50%) R
15 14 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 13 (0.38%) Bicep
17 11 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 10 (0.29%) Groovy
18 10 (0.29%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 2,002 (58.88%) Security Cleared
2 1,315 (38.68%) SC Cleared
3 170 (5.00%) Degree
4 166 (4.88%) DV Cleared
5 90 (2.65%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.44%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
8 41 (1.21%) AWS Certification
9 38 (1.12%) CISSP
10 34 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
10 34 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
11 28 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.71%) ISEB
13 23 (0.68%) PMP
14 22 (0.65%) CISM
15 19 (0.56%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.56%) PMI Certification
16 18 (0.53%) CCNP
17 16 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.47%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 179 (5.26%) Accessibility
2 135 (3.97%) QA
3 122 (3.59%) Data Quality
4 96 (2.82%) GDPR
5 76 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (2.03%) NIST
7 63 (1.85%) WCAG
8 56 (1.65%) PMO
9 53 (1.56%) NCSC
10 47 (1.38%) SLA
11 24 (0.71%) GRC
12 20 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.53%) COBIT
14 15 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.44%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.41%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.35%) HL7
16 12 (0.35%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 231 (6.79%) Docker
2 124 (3.65%) Active Directory
3 63 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.53%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.47%) VMware NSX
6 15 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.38%) vSphere
8 11 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.24%) Postfix
10 7 (0.21%) DFS Replication
11 6 (0.18%) Squid
11 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.15%) Dovecot
12 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.12%) NFS
14 3 (0.088%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.088%) RACF
15 2 (0.059%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.059%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 295 (8.68%) Terraform
2 254 (7.47%) Kubernetes
3 68 (2.00%) Grafana
4 67 (1.97%) Ansible
5 51 (1.50%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.94%) SCCM
7 31 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.38%) Argo
11 11 (0.32%) Packer
12 10 (0.29%) Nessus
12 10 (0.29%) Puppet
13 9 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.24%) SCOM
14 8 (0.24%) vRealize
15 7 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.21%) Consul
15 7 (0.21%) FortiGate
16 6 (0.18%) Kibana
Vendors
1 393 (11.56%) Microsoft
2 294 (8.65%) SAP
3 192 (5.65%) Oracle
4 142 (4.18%) Cisco
5 109 (3.21%) ServiceNow
6 103 (3.03%) Salesforce
7 96 (2.82%) VMware
8 62 (1.82%) Google
9 58 (1.71%) Splunk
10 57 (1.68%) Databricks
11 41 (1.21%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.18%) Aruba
13 37 (1.09%) Apple
13 37 (1.09%) Dell
14 34 (1.00%) Juniper
15 33 (0.97%) Palo Alto
16 32 (0.94%) HP
17 28 (0.82%) SolarWinds
18 27 (0.79%) Red Hat
19 25 (0.74%) MuleSoft