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 16 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 18 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,708 2,220 3,316
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.44% 9.10% 8.88%
As % of the General category 16.93% 14.23% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,627 1,514 2,199
10th Percentile £350 £335 £304
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £594 £611 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 178 87 165
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.27 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.70 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.50 £22.90 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.75% +1.78% +12.22%
75th Percentile £25.77 £33.58 £55.11
90th Percentile £55.00 £63.25 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.00 £22.12
% change year-on-year -2.17% +4.00% +10.58%

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 21,908 15,598 21,814
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.80% 63.92% 58.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,766 10,146 14,117
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £412 £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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,401 649 1,757
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.61 £15.39
Median hourly rate £29.00 £28.75 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.87% +2.68% -20.00%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -21.43%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 1,631 £525 - 278
North of England -3 647 £450 -5.26% 218
South East -3 450 £500 -7.24% 197
Midlands +3 398 £500 +6.38% 76
North West -1 315 £460 -8.00% 103
West Midlands +1 303 £500 +8.11% 67
South West -3 258 £525 -3.67% 89
Yorkshire +5 218 £478 +3.80% 61
North East -3 119 £450 -2.17% 55
East of England +16 101 £425 +9.68% 31
East Midlands +13 90 £500 - 9
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
1 139 (3.75%) Confluence
2 106 (2.86%) SharePoint
3 39 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.81%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) Apache
5 18 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Spark
6 17 (0.46%) CMS
7 14 (0.38%) nginx
8 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
10 5 (0.13%) Camunda
10 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.081%) Drupal
12 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 89 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 74 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.46%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 10 (0.27%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SystmOne
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 698 (18.82%) AWS
2 631 (17.02%) Azure
3 199 (5.37%) Power Platform
4 169 (4.56%) Serverless
5 154 (4.15%) Microsoft 365
6 152 (4.10%) GitHub
7 142 (3.83%) GCP
8 139 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
9 103 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.51%) Amazon S3
11 92 (2.48%) Entra ID
12 87 (2.35%) GitHub Actions
13 72 (1.94%) SaaS
14 70 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
15 65 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
16 64 (1.73%) Amazon EC2
17 61 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
18 60 (1.62%) Power Automate
19 59 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 55 (1.48%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.45%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) Network Security
3 55 (1.48%) VPN
3 55 (1.48%) WAN
4 53 (1.43%) DNS
5 48 (1.29%) LAN
6 29 (0.78%) BGP
7 25 (0.67%) TCP/IP
7 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (0.65%) OSPF
9 22 (0.59%) Wireless
10 20 (0.54%) DHCP
11 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 15 (0.40%) SSL
13 15 (0.40%) VLAN
14 12 (0.32%) MPLS
15 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
15 11 (0.30%) IPsec
15 11 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (4.07%) Power BI
2 81 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
3 73 (1.97%) SQL Server
4 61 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (1.59%) Metadata
6 55 (1.48%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 42 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.86%) Tableau
11 31 (0.84%) Data Lake
12 29 (0.78%) DynamoDB
13 28 (0.76%) Relational Database
14 26 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 25 (0.67%) Oracle Database
16 22 (0.59%) Electronic Patient Records
17 20 (0.54%) MySQL
17 20 (0.54%) Pentaho
18 19 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
18 19 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 227 (6.12%) JIRA
2 182 (4.91%) Git
3 122 (3.29%) GitLab
4 117 (3.16%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.19%) Selenium
6 43 (1.16%) Postman
7 39 (1.05%) JUnit
8 33 (0.89%) Mockito
9 29 (0.78%) SonarQube
10 25 (0.67%) JMeter
11 18 (0.49%) Cypress.io
11 18 (0.49%) Maven
12 17 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
14 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.30%) REST Assured
16 10 (0.27%) DbUnit
16 10 (0.27%) jMock
16 10 (0.27%) Mocha
General
1 971 (26.19%) Social Skills
2 509 (13.73%) Finance
3 368 (9.92%) Analytical Skills
4 176 (4.75%) Military
5 164 (4.42%) Local Government
6 139 (3.75%) Telecoms
7 115 (3.10%) Marketing
8 108 (2.91%) Manufacturing
9 89 (2.40%) Electronics
10 84 (2.27%) Legal
11 82 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
12 74 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
14 62 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 57 (1.54%) Banking
16 55 (1.48%) Police
17 46 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (1.16%) Law
19 32 (0.86%) Billing
20 27 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 482 (13.00%) Developer
2 470 (12.68%) Architect
3 404 (10.90%) Senior
4 383 (10.33%) Analyst
5 307 (8.28%) Lead
6 172 (4.64%) Business Analyst
7 160 (4.31%) Consultant
8 154 (4.15%) Designer
9 125 (3.37%) Data Engineer
10 116 (3.13%) DevOps Engineer
11 113 (3.05%) Project Manager
12 107 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
13 105 (2.83%) Technical Architect
14 97 (2.62%) Java Developer
15 89 (2.40%) Senior Developer
16 83 (2.24%) User Researcher
17 82 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
18 71 (1.91%) Service Designer
19 63 (1.70%) Data Analyst
20 61 (1.65%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (3.86%) REST
2 119 (3.21%) Node.js
3 111 (2.99%) Spring
4 102 (2.75%) React
5 97 (2.62%) Spring Boot
6 95 (2.56%) RESTful
7 79 (2.13%) .NET
8 77 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
9 75 (2.02%) AngularJS
10 67 (1.81%) Web Services
11 66 (1.78%) HTML
12 63 (1.70%) SOAP
13 60 (1.62%) Kafka
14 56 (1.51%) CSS
15 46 (1.24%) JSON
16 41 (1.11%) Lightning Web Components
17 35 (0.94%) Middleware
18 34 (0.92%) Playwright
18 34 (0.92%) XML
19 31 (0.84%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 167 (4.50%) Cloud Native
2 140 (3.78%) NHS
3 131 (3.53%) Product Ownership
4 129 (3.48%) Onboarding
5 82 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
6 76 (2.05%) Management Information System
7 73 (1.97%) Data Centre
8 58 (1.56%) Public Cloud
9 47 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
11 41 (1.11%) Data Structures
12 37 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 30 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
14 28 (0.76%) CMDB
15 26 (0.70%) Replication
16 24 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
16 24 (0.65%) Security Posture
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
19 17 (0.46%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 200 (5.39%) Windows
2 157 (4.23%) Linux
3 60 (1.62%) Windows Server
4 46 (1.24%) Unix
5 42 (1.13%) Windows 10
6 35 (0.94%) Android
7 25 (0.67%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 9 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 964 (26.00%) Agile
2 523 (14.10%) CI/CD
3 515 (13.89%) DevOps
4 464 (12.51%) Stakeholder Management
5 433 (11.68%) Problem-Solving
6 415 (11.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 383 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
8 378 (10.19%) Migration
9 333 (8.98%) Roadmaps
10 310 (8.36%) Analytics
11 289 (7.79%) Decision-Making
12 262 (7.07%) Business Intelligence
13 245 (6.61%) Test Automation
14 242 (6.53%) Containerisation
15 232 (6.26%) Data Modelling
16 225 (6.07%) Microservices
17 224 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
18 222 (5.99%) AI
19 209 (5.64%) Workshop Facilitation
20 208 (5.61%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 410 (11.06%) Python
2 342 (9.22%) SQL
3 267 (7.20%) Java
4 192 (5.18%) JavaScript
5 114 (3.07%) TypeScript
6 111 (2.99%) PowerShell
7 92 (2.48%) C#
8 50 (1.35%) Bash
9 45 (1.21%) Ruby
10 41 (1.11%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.59%) Bicep
12 22 (0.59%) Go
12 22 (0.59%) R
12 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
13 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.35%) PHP
14 13 (0.35%) T-SQL
15 12 (0.32%) Scala
16 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,099 (56.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,388 (37.43%) SC Cleared
3 186 (5.02%) DV Cleared
4 173 (4.67%) Degree
5 106 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.13%) AWS Certification
7 42 (1.13%) CISSP
8 38 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
10 30 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.78%) PMP
12 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.65%) CISM
14 23 (0.62%) ISEB
15 19 (0.51%) CCNP
16 17 (0.46%) ISTQB
17 14 (0.38%) APMP
17 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (5.34%) Accessibility
2 159 (4.29%) Data Quality
3 158 (4.26%) QA
4 107 (2.89%) GDPR
5 87 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 78 (2.10%) WCAG
7 69 (1.86%) NCSC
8 67 (1.81%) PMO
9 61 (1.65%) NIST
10 36 (0.97%) SLA
11 33 (0.89%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) COBIT
14 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 18 (0.49%) PCI DSS
16 16 (0.43%) HL7
17 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
18 14 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 10 (0.27%) NIST 800
20 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 264 (7.12%) Docker
2 141 (3.80%) Active Directory
3 56 (1.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.57%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 9 (0.24%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 294 (7.93%) Terraform
2 271 (7.31%) Kubernetes
3 70 (1.89%) Grafana
4 66 (1.78%) Ansible
5 50 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 11 (0.30%) Argo
10 11 (0.30%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.30%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.27%) Kibana
12 9 (0.24%) Packer
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
13 8 (0.22%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 418 (11.27%) Microsoft
2 232 (6.26%) Oracle
3 228 (6.15%) SAP
4 122 (3.29%) Salesforce
5 112 (3.02%) ServiceNow
6 99 (2.67%) Cisco
7 90 (2.43%) VMware
8 85 (2.29%) Google
9 83 (2.24%) Databricks
10 44 (1.19%) Splunk
11 34 (0.92%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.86%) IBM
12 32 (0.86%) Virgin Media
13 31 (0.84%) Aruba
14 28 (0.76%) Talend
15 27 (0.73%) MuleSoft
15 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
16 26 (0.70%) Juniper
17 24 (0.65%) Dynatrace
18 23 (0.62%) Palo Alto