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 27 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 23 18
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,014 2,123 2,756
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.92% 7.69% 8.02%
As % of the General category 16.12% 12.07% 13.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,792 1,445 1,878
10th Percentile £358 £330 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £520
Median % change year-on-year +2.90% -3.75% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £694 £688 £713
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 80 121
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £14.41
25th Percentile £17.00 £18.13 £16.39
Median hourly rate £25.38 £21.70 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% -19.63% +28.57%
75th Percentile £50.00 £30.06 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.40 £63.90 £73.25
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £19.92 £22.56
% change year-on-year +27.44% -11.72% +11.13%

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 24,904 17,593 19,750
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.33% 63.73% 57.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,956 11,237 12,731
10th Percentile £313 £281 £300
25th Percentile £415 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -5.12% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £656
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 1,842 930 1,385
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.34 £13.88
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.37 £16.82
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.66 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +32.46% -32.69% +27.07%
75th Percentile £64.77 £50.94 £58.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.88 £70.11
UK median hourly rate £33.00 £25.32 £36.17
% change year-on-year +30.33% -29.99% +18.42%

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 1,788 £525 - 458
North of England +2 709 £463 -2.63% 258
South East +7 498 £500 -4.76% 199
Midlands +11 469 £500 +8.11% 127
West Midlands +1 381 £492 +6.43% 109
South West -7 300 £525 -4.55% 165
North West -5 286 £500 +7.53% 110
Yorkshire +12 261 £470 -1.05% 96
North East -2 173 £450 -6.25% 53
East Midlands +28 80 £525 +29.63% 18
East of England +7 61 £463 -7.50% 32
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
1 163 (4.06%) Confluence
2 118 (2.94%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (1.17%) SAS
5 45 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 37 (0.92%) Apache Spark
7 33 (0.82%) Apache
8 22 (0.55%) CMS
9 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
10 13 (0.32%) nginx
10 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
11 10 (0.25%) WordPress
12 9 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
13 7 (0.17%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.12%) Drupal
14 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
14 5 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.075%) Camunda
15 3 (0.075%) IIS
Applications
1 81 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.15%) Trello
9 5 (0.12%) Sketch
10 3 (0.075%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.025%) Revit
12 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 43 (1.07%) Oracle ERP
4 25 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
5 24 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
6 14 (0.35%) Workday HCM
7 12 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
7 12 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 11 (0.27%) NEC Housing
8 11 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
9 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
9 10 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 9 (0.22%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
10 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
11 8 (0.20%) SystmOne
12 7 (0.17%) SAP FI
13 6 (0.15%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 809 (20.15%) AWS
2 768 (19.13%) Azure
3 230 (5.73%) Power Platform
4 185 (4.61%) Microsoft 365
5 175 (4.36%) Azure DevOps
6 156 (3.89%) GCP
7 154 (3.84%) GitHub
8 150 (3.74%) Serverless
9 130 (3.24%) Amazon S3
10 127 (3.16%) Entra ID
11 104 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
12 103 (2.57%) SaaS
13 93 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
14 89 (2.22%) OCI
15 78 (1.94%) Power Automate
16 75 (1.87%) Amazon EC2
16 75 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
17 68 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 67 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
19 65 (1.62%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 112 (2.79%) Firewall
2 68 (1.69%) DNS
3 58 (1.44%) WAN
4 55 (1.37%) Network Security
5 51 (1.27%) LAN
6 43 (1.07%) VPN
7 34 (0.85%) DHCP
8 32 (0.80%) BGP
9 30 (0.75%) TCP/IP
10 29 (0.72%) OSPF
11 28 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
12 21 (0.52%) SD-WAN
13 18 (0.45%) BIG-IP
13 18 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 18 (0.45%) WLAN
14 16 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
15 15 (0.37%) Wireless
16 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 14 (0.35%) NGFW
17 13 (0.32%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (3.89%) Power BI
2 108 (2.69%) Data Warehouse
3 91 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
4 81 (2.02%) SQL Server
5 58 (1.44%) Metadata
6 56 (1.40%) Relational Database
7 54 (1.35%) Data Lake
8 51 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
9 50 (1.25%) Oracle Database
10 49 (1.22%) MongoDB
11 46 (1.15%) NoSQL
12 37 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
13 33 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
14 32 (0.80%) DynamoDB
15 31 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
16 29 (0.72%) Tableau
17 26 (0.65%) Pentaho
18 25 (0.62%) Delta Lake
19 23 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
20 21 (0.52%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 239 (5.95%) JIRA
2 170 (4.24%) Git
3 153 (3.81%) GitLab
4 138 (3.44%) Jenkins
5 45 (1.12%) Selenium
6 39 (0.97%) Mockito
7 38 (0.95%) JUnit
8 32 (0.80%) Cucumber
9 30 (0.75%) Postman
9 30 (0.75%) SonarQube
10 27 (0.67%) JMeter
11 25 (0.62%) Maven
12 23 (0.57%) Cypress.io
13 19 (0.47%) REST Assured
14 17 (0.42%) WebDriver
15 14 (0.35%) DbUnit
15 14 (0.35%) Gatling
16 13 (0.32%) jMock
17 11 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
17 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,091 (27.18%) Social Skills
2 481 (11.98%) Finance
3 396 (9.87%) Analytical Skills
4 226 (5.63%) Military
5 209 (5.21%) Local Government
6 127 (3.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 125 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
8 105 (2.62%) Legal
9 92 (2.29%) Organisational Skills
10 84 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
11 83 (2.07%) Police
12 50 (1.25%) Law
12 50 (1.25%) Telecoms
13 48 (1.20%) Banking
14 43 (1.07%) Marketing
15 37 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
16 27 (0.67%) Billing
17 23 (0.57%) Retail
18 17 (0.42%) General Ledger
19 15 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 539 (13.43%) Architect
2 534 (13.30%) Developer
3 522 (13.00%) Senior
4 438 (10.91%) Lead
5 374 (9.32%) Analyst
6 156 (3.89%) Business Analyst
6 156 (3.89%) Consultant
6 156 (3.89%) Designer
7 149 (3.71%) Data Engineer
8 142 (3.54%) DevOps Engineer
9 127 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
10 116 (2.89%) Delivery Manager
11 113 (2.82%) Java Developer
12 109 (2.72%) Technical Architect
13 104 (2.59%) Senior Developer
14 101 (2.52%) Project Manager
15 90 (2.24%) User Researcher
16 88 (2.19%) Data Architect
17 72 (1.79%) AWS Engineer
18 70 (1.74%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (3.69%) REST
2 109 (2.72%) Node.js
3 102 (2.54%) RESTful
4 101 (2.52%) Spring
5 96 (2.39%) React
6 92 (2.29%) Spring Boot
7 80 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
8 79 (1.97%) Kafka
9 75 (1.87%) SOAP
10 65 (1.62%) .NET
10 65 (1.62%) HTML
11 62 (1.54%) Web Services
12 59 (1.47%) AngularJS
13 55 (1.37%) CSS
14 51 (1.27%) OAuth
15 50 (1.25%) JSON
16 49 (1.22%) Django
17 45 (1.12%) PySpark
18 38 (0.95%) OpenID
19 35 (0.87%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 229 (5.71%) Cloud Native
2 167 (4.16%) Product Ownership
3 164 (4.09%) Onboarding
4 145 (3.61%) NHS
5 103 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
6 93 (2.32%) Management Information System
7 68 (1.69%) Data Centre
7 68 (1.69%) Distributed Systems
8 60 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
9 51 (1.27%) Data Structures
10 49 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
11 48 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
12 42 (1.05%) Public Cloud
13 33 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
14 32 (0.80%) CMDB
15 31 (0.77%) Virtual Team
16 27 (0.67%) PKI
17 26 (0.65%) Freedom of Information
17 26 (0.65%) Security Posture
18 25 (0.62%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 167 (4.16%) Windows
2 160 (3.99%) Linux
3 60 (1.49%) Windows Server
4 59 (1.47%) Unix
5 26 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 25 (0.62%) Android
7 23 (0.57%) Windows 10
8 22 (0.55%) Apple iOS
9 17 (0.42%) Mac OS
10 10 (0.25%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.22%) Solaris
11 9 (0.22%) Ubuntu
12 7 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.15%) AIX
13 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
14 4 (0.100%) Amazon Linux
15 3 (0.075%) VMS
15 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2016
16 2 (0.050%) CentOS
16 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,221 (30.42%) Agile
2 689 (17.16%) Stakeholder Management
3 658 (16.39%) DevOps
4 652 (16.24%) CI/CD
5 581 (14.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 572 (14.25%) Continuous Improvement
7 460 (11.46%) Problem-Solving
8 411 (10.24%) Analytics
9 406 (10.11%) Decision-Making
10 378 (9.42%) Migration
11 328 (8.17%) Roadmaps
12 325 (8.10%) Infrastructure as Code
13 304 (7.57%) AI
14 286 (7.13%) Data Modelling
15 278 (6.93%) Containerisation
16 275 (6.85%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 251 (6.25%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 250 (6.23%) Scrum
19 245 (6.10%) Mentoring
20 243 (6.05%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 480 (11.96%) Python
2 406 (10.11%) SQL
3 291 (7.25%) Java
4 198 (4.93%) JavaScript
5 107 (2.67%) PowerShell
6 105 (2.62%) TypeScript
7 81 (2.02%) C#
8 66 (1.64%) Bash
9 57 (1.42%) PL/SQL
10 43 (1.07%) Bicep
11 37 (0.92%) Apex Code
12 29 (0.72%) Kotlin
12 29 (0.72%) Ruby
13 22 (0.55%) R
14 20 (0.50%) Groovy
15 18 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 17 (0.42%) Scala
17 16 (0.40%) Go
17 16 (0.40%) Shell Script
18 13 (0.32%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,101 (52.34%) Security Cleared
2 1,596 (39.76%) SC Cleared
3 246 (6.13%) DV Cleared
4 217 (5.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 189 (4.71%) Degree
6 59 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 57 (1.42%) Azure Certification
8 44 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
9 43 (1.07%) CISSP
10 42 (1.05%) AWS Certification
11 30 (0.75%) PMI Certification
12 28 (0.70%) CISM
13 26 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
14 24 (0.60%) CCNP
15 22 (0.55%) ISTQB
16 20 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
16 20 (0.50%) PMP
17 17 (0.42%) Master's Degree
18 14 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 14 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 307 (7.65%) Accessibility
2 206 (5.13%) Data Quality
3 191 (4.76%) QA
4 132 (3.29%) GDPR
4 132 (3.29%) WCAG
5 99 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 82 (2.04%) PMO
7 81 (2.02%) NCSC
8 74 (1.84%) NIST
9 35 (0.87%) SLA
10 31 (0.77%) GRC
11 29 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 15 (0.37%) Government Security Classifications
15 14 (0.35%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.25%) HL7
17 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
18 5 (0.12%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 302 (7.52%) Docker
2 162 (4.04%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (0.62%) VMware NSX
5 15 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.32%) vSphere
8 12 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
9 11 (0.27%) Postfix
10 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
11 7 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.050%) NFS
13 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.025%) etcd
13 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
13 1 (0.025%) GPFS
13 1 (0.025%) RACF
13 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
13 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 348 (8.67%) Terraform
2 280 (6.98%) Kubernetes
3 89 (2.22%) Grafana
4 80 (1.99%) Ansible
5 59 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 43 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
8 29 (0.72%) Argo
9 13 (0.32%) Kibana
9 13 (0.32%) SCCM
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
11 11 (0.27%) Puppet
12 10 (0.25%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.22%) Data Guard
14 8 (0.20%) Istio
15 7 (0.17%) FortiGate
16 6 (0.15%) VxRail
17 5 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 5 (0.12%) Rancher
18 4 (0.100%) Packer
Vendors
1 509 (12.68%) Microsoft
2 318 (7.92%) Oracle
3 137 (3.41%) SAP
4 136 (3.39%) ServiceNow
5 119 (2.96%) Google
6 116 (2.89%) Salesforce
7 101 (2.52%) Databricks
8 64 (1.59%) VMware
9 47 (1.17%) Cisco
10 40 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 35 (0.87%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.80%) Red Hat
13 30 (0.75%) Dynatrace
14 29 (0.72%) Talend
15 26 (0.65%) IBM
16 25 (0.62%) Informatica
16 25 (0.62%) Splunk
17 24 (0.60%) CyberArk
17 24 (0.60%) Foundry
18 23 (0.57%) Workday