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

6 months to
6 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +4
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,134 2,649 3,353
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.93% 9.70% 9.32%
As % of the General category 16.29% 15.66% 15.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,202 1,616 2,317
10th Percentile £331 £306 £303
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £716 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 91 98
10th Percentile £16.53 £14.70 £14.47
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.88 £15.65
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.27 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% +6.05% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.11 £29.75 £56.53
90th Percentile £47.00 £62.24 £70.15
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.27 £21.00
% change year-on-year -5.70% +6.05% +5.79%

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 19,236 16,920 21,299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.97% 61.97% 59.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,239 10,219 14,333
10th Percentile £285 £300 £275
25th Percentile £402 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £656
90th Percentile £738 £775 £753
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £543
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.31% -1.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,200 572 1,019
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.54 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.00 £18.37 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.58 £30.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.42% -9.09% +27.86%
75th Percentile £47.13 £57.62 £58.75
90th Percentile £71.55 £74.99 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £23.58 £27.50 £32.32
% change year-on-year -14.27% -14.91% +29.28%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 -1 1,304 £525 - 280
North of England -1 611 £450 -5.26% 169
South East -5 344 £500 -9.09% 203
South West +1 316 £525 -4.55% 88
North West -1 314 £450 -10.00% 61
Midlands +1 290 £480 -4.00% 94
West Midlands +1 226 £488 -2.50% 69
Yorkshire +2 193 £500 +11.11% 72
North East 0 107 £450 +5.88% 37
East of England +14 95 £375 +7.14% 66
East Midlands +4 64 £425 -10.53% 25
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
1 119 (3.80%) Confluence
2 92 (2.94%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.83%) SAS
5 24 (0.77%) nginx
6 23 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.45%) Apache
9 12 (0.38%) Apache Spark
10 10 (0.32%) CMS
11 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.16%) Anypoint
12 5 (0.16%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
14 3 (0.096%) IIS
14 3 (0.096%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.096%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.096%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.096%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 104 (3.32%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 44 (1.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.61%) MS Visio
5 19 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.38%) Trello
7 9 (0.29%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.19%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.19%) Sketch
9 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
10 4 (0.13%) InVision
10 4 (0.13%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.064%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.064%) OmniGraffle
11 2 (0.064%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.064%) UXPin
12 1 (0.032%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.032%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 45 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.48%) SAP ERP
5 14 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
5 14 (0.45%) SAP BRIM
5 14 (0.45%) SAP Hybris
6 13 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.29%) iTrent
9 8 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.26%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.22%) SAP HR
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
13 4 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 582 (18.57%) AWS
2 567 (18.09%) Azure
3 205 (6.54%) Power Platform
4 152 (4.85%) Microsoft 365
5 139 (4.44%) Serverless
6 137 (4.37%) GitHub
7 134 (4.28%) GCP
8 118 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
10 77 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (2.14%) Amazon S3
11 67 (2.14%) Entra ID
11 67 (2.14%) Power Automate
12 61 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
12 61 (1.95%) PowerApps
13 59 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
14 55 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
15 54 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 51 (1.63%) SaaS
17 46 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 107 (3.41%) Firewall
2 72 (2.30%) DNS
3 60 (1.91%) VPN
4 54 (1.72%) WAN
5 45 (1.44%) Wireless
6 44 (1.40%) Network Security
7 41 (1.31%) LAN
8 37 (1.18%) TCP/IP
9 32 (1.02%) BGP
10 30 (0.96%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.83%) DHCP
12 23 (0.73%) OSPF
12 23 (0.73%) SSL
13 21 (0.67%) HTTP
14 19 (0.61%) SD-WAN
15 18 (0.57%) Internet
15 18 (0.57%) Skype
16 17 (0.54%) SSH
16 17 (0.54%) VLAN
17 15 (0.48%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (4.69%) Power BI
2 81 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (1.56%) Metadata
3 49 (1.56%) MongoDB
4 39 (1.24%) Relational Database
5 38 (1.21%) SQL Server
6 33 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
7 31 (0.99%) Data Lake
8 29 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
8 29 (0.93%) NoSQL
9 26 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
10 25 (0.80%) Oracle Database
11 24 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
11 24 (0.77%) Redis
12 22 (0.70%) MySQL
13 19 (0.61%) BigQuery
14 18 (0.57%) Tableau
15 17 (0.54%) Electronic Patient Records
16 14 (0.45%) Big Data
16 14 (0.45%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 208 (6.64%) JIRA
2 169 (5.39%) Git
3 130 (4.15%) Jenkins
4 101 (3.22%) GitLab
5 48 (1.53%) Postman
6 45 (1.44%) Selenium
7 30 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 22 (0.70%) Cypress.io
9 21 (0.67%) JUnit
10 20 (0.64%) REST Assured
11 18 (0.57%) Mockito
12 16 (0.51%) SonarQube
13 15 (0.48%) Bitbucket
13 15 (0.48%) Vagrant
14 14 (0.45%) CircleCI
15 12 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
16 11 (0.35%) MSI
17 10 (0.32%) Gradle
17 10 (0.32%) Mocha
18 9 (0.29%) JMeter
General
1 948 (30.25%) Social Skills
2 502 (16.02%) Finance
3 283 (9.03%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (7.56%) Telecoms
5 201 (6.41%) Manufacturing
5 201 (6.41%) Marketing
6 180 (5.74%) Electronics
7 138 (4.40%) Military
8 117 (3.73%) Local Government
9 73 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
11 66 (2.11%) Legal
12 54 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
13 47 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
14 43 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 39 (1.24%) Retail
16 35 (1.12%) Law
17 33 (1.05%) Banking
18 25 (0.80%) Billing
19 24 (0.77%) Police
Job Titles
1 377 (12.03%) Developer
2 369 (11.77%) Architect
3 325 (10.37%) Senior
4 320 (10.21%) Analyst
5 294 (9.38%) Lead
6 194 (6.19%) Consultant
7 143 (4.56%) Business Analyst
8 128 (4.08%) DevOps Engineer
9 100 (3.19%) Project Manager
10 92 (2.94%) Designer
11 87 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
12 80 (2.55%) Technical Architect
13 75 (2.39%) AWS Engineer
14 60 (1.91%) Senior Developer
15 59 (1.88%) Java Developer
16 57 (1.82%) Data Engineer
16 57 (1.82%) Support Engineer
17 56 (1.79%) Network Engineer
18 55 (1.75%) Senior Analyst
19 54 (1.72%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (4.28%) REST
2 99 (3.16%) React
3 88 (2.81%) RESTful
4 87 (2.78%) Node.js
5 77 (2.46%) .NET
6 74 (2.36%) HTML
7 70 (2.23%) Spring Boot
8 68 (2.17%) Spring
9 67 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
10 65 (2.07%) CSS
11 62 (1.98%) JSON
12 56 (1.79%) AngularJS
12 56 (1.79%) Kafka
13 55 (1.75%) SOAP
14 53 (1.69%) Web Services
15 40 (1.28%) XML
16 30 (0.96%) Playwright
17 28 (0.89%) OAuth
18 27 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
19 23 (0.73%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 119 (3.80%) Cloud Native
2 112 (3.57%) Onboarding
3 108 (3.45%) NHS
4 97 (3.10%) Product Ownership
5 82 (2.62%) Data Centre
6 66 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
7 60 (1.91%) Management Information System
8 35 (1.12%) Replication
9 32 (1.02%) PKI
10 30 (0.96%) CMDB
10 30 (0.96%) Public Cloud
10 30 (0.96%) Security Posture
11 27 (0.86%) AI Agents
12 25 (0.80%) Data Structures
12 25 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
13 24 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
13 24 (0.77%) Enterprise Software
13 24 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
14 23 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
15 19 (0.61%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 216 (6.89%) Windows
2 147 (4.69%) Linux
3 51 (1.63%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.44%) Android
5 41 (1.31%) Mac OS
6 39 (1.24%) Windows Server
7 26 (0.83%) VMS
8 25 (0.80%) Unix
9 18 (0.57%) Apple iOS
10 17 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 15 (0.48%) Amazon Linux
12 12 (0.38%) Ubuntu
13 9 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.26%) Mac OS X
15 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
16 5 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.096%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.096%) Windows Server 2008
18 2 (0.064%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 796 (25.40%) Agile
2 447 (14.26%) CI/CD
2 447 (14.26%) DevOps
3 424 (13.53%) Problem-Solving
4 398 (12.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 354 (11.30%) Business Intelligence
6 332 (10.59%) Stakeholder Management
7 313 (9.99%) Migration
8 276 (8.81%) Continuous Improvement
9 256 (8.17%) Roadmaps
10 223 (7.12%) Programme Management
11 198 (6.32%) Test Automation
12 195 (6.22%) Decision-Making
13 194 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
14 192 (6.13%) Microservices
15 189 (6.03%) Analytics
16 185 (5.90%) Containerisation
17 184 (5.87%) AI
18 180 (5.74%) Digital Marketing
19 176 (5.62%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 359 (11.46%) Python
2 270 (8.62%) SQL
3 234 (7.47%) Java
4 167 (5.33%) JavaScript
5 126 (4.02%) PowerShell
6 95 (3.03%) TypeScript
7 76 (2.43%) C#
8 65 (2.07%) Bash
9 33 (1.05%) Go
10 30 (0.96%) Ruby
11 26 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.80%) Apex Code
13 19 (0.61%) Groovy
14 18 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.48%) Perl
15 15 (0.48%) PHP
16 14 (0.45%) C++
16 14 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 14 (0.45%) R
17 13 (0.41%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 1,895 (60.47%) Security Cleared
2 1,278 (40.78%) SC Cleared
3 160 (5.11%) DV Cleared
4 152 (4.85%) Degree
5 79 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.50%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.40%) CISSP
8 43 (1.37%) AWS Certification
9 41 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
11 32 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
13 25 (0.80%) CISM
14 23 (0.73%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.73%) PMP
15 19 (0.61%) CCNP
15 19 (0.61%) ISEB
15 19 (0.61%) ISTQB
16 15 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 14 (0.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 151 (4.82%) Accessibility
2 131 (4.18%) QA
3 103 (3.29%) Data Quality
4 88 (2.81%) GDPR
5 73 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 66 (2.11%) NIST
7 53 (1.69%) NCSC
8 52 (1.66%) WCAG
9 46 (1.47%) PMO
9 46 (1.47%) SLA
10 22 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
11 21 (0.67%) GRC
12 17 (0.54%) COBIT
12 17 (0.54%) JSP 440
13 15 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 14 (0.45%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.35%) HL7
16 10 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
17 9 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 6 (0.19%) NIST 800
System Software
1 218 (6.96%) Docker
2 118 (3.77%) Active Directory
3 57 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.64%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (0.54%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.48%) DFS Replication
6 15 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.45%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.41%) vSphere
9 10 (0.32%) Squid
9 10 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 9 (0.29%) Dovecot
10 9 (0.29%) Postfix
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.096%) NFS
15 2 (0.064%) Brightmail
15 2 (0.064%) SRDF
15 2 (0.064%) UAG
Systems Management
1 285 (9.09%) Terraform
2 230 (7.34%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.49%) Ansible
4 67 (2.14%) Grafana
5 55 (1.75%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.18%) SCCM
7 33 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
8 23 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.45%) Packer
9 14 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.38%) Nessus
11 10 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.32%) Argo
11 10 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.32%) Proxmox
12 9 (0.29%) vRealize
13 8 (0.26%) SCOM
14 7 (0.22%) Consul
14 7 (0.22%) Puppet
15 6 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 416 (13.27%) Microsoft
2 306 (9.76%) SAP
3 190 (6.06%) Oracle
4 145 (4.63%) Cisco
5 109 (3.48%) ServiceNow
6 90 (2.87%) Salesforce
7 86 (2.74%) VMware
8 60 (1.91%) Splunk
9 56 (1.79%) Google
10 42 (1.34%) Juniper
11 41 (1.31%) Databricks
12 40 (1.28%) Aruba
13 39 (1.24%) Palo Alto
14 38 (1.21%) Virgin Media
15 36 (1.15%) Apple
15 36 (1.15%) Dell
15 36 (1.15%) HP
16 27 (0.86%) SolarWinds
17 26 (0.83%) Fortinet
18 24 (0.77%) F5