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

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 23 19
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,930 1,998 3,044
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.95% 7.66% 8.14%
As % of the General category 16.28% 11.98% 14.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,740 1,337 2,029
10th Percentile £358 £342 £313
25th Percentile £425 £419 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £694 £700 £715
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £504
% change year-on-year +2.50% -0.86% -3.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 86 159
10th Percentile £13.75 £15.48 £14.18
25th Percentile £16.85 £18.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £22.50 £25.08 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.27% -3.56% +23.81%
75th Percentile £41.00 £33.86 £58.60
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.00 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £22.64 £22.95 £23.99
% change year-on-year -1.37% -4.34% +19.35%

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 24,136 16,682 21,401
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.96% 63.93% 57.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,582 10,711 13,679
10th Percentile £313 £282 £300
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £519 £535
Median % change year-on-year +1.25% -3.08% -2.73%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £763 £775
UK median daily rate £519 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.60% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,746 830 1,776
10th Percentile £14.24 £13.37 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.75 £16.58 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.50 £27.39 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.67% -16.74% +9.65%
75th Percentile £63.75 £51.23 £53.75
90th Percentile £81.05 £73.88 £68.82
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £27.31 £31.76
% change year-on-year +17.19% -14.01% +4.11%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 1,732 £525 - 530
North of England +2 687 £470 -1.05% 241
South East +5 497 £500 -5.66% 249
Midlands +10 457 £500 +8.11% 150
West Midlands +6 369 £500 +6.67% 101
North West -2 292 £500 +7.53% 107
South West -5 289 £525 -4.55% 132
Yorkshire +11 241 £460 -3.16% 79
North East -3 163 £450 -3.23% 57
East Midlands +21 81 £500 +23.46% 49
East of England +16 68 £475 -9.52% 41
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
1 147 (3.74%) Confluence
2 111 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 47 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
4 45 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
4 45 (1.15%) SAS
5 35 (0.89%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.84%) Apache
7 21 (0.53%) CMS
8 20 (0.51%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
10 12 (0.31%) nginx
11 10 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.18%) Tomcat
12 7 (0.18%) WordPress
13 5 (0.13%) Camunda
13 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 4 (0.10%) Drupal
15 3 (0.076%) IIS
Applications
1 73 (1.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.076%) Sketch
8 3 (0.076%) Trello
9 2 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.051%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.051%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.051%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 67 (1.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 38 (0.97%) Oracle ERP
4 27 (0.69%) SAP PSCD
5 19 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.31%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.31%) SAP Hybris
6 12 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 11 (0.28%) Workday HCM
8 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
9 9 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 9 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.23%) SystmOne
10 8 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 7 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
12 6 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
12 6 (0.15%) SAP ERP
12 6 (0.15%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 771 (19.62%) AWS
2 700 (17.81%) Azure
3 209 (5.32%) Power Platform
4 176 (4.48%) Microsoft 365
5 151 (3.84%) Serverless
6 149 (3.79%) GitHub
7 148 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
8 145 (3.69%) GCP
9 125 (3.18%) Amazon S3
10 117 (2.98%) Entra ID
11 102 (2.60%) SaaS
12 100 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
13 96 (2.44%) AWS Lambda
14 81 (2.06%) OCI
15 80 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
16 69 (1.76%) Power Automate
17 64 (1.63%) Dynamics 365
18 63 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 62 (1.58%) Amazon EKS
20 58 (1.48%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 96 (2.44%) Firewall
2 59 (1.50%) Network Security
3 57 (1.45%) DNS
4 54 (1.37%) WAN
5 43 (1.09%) LAN
6 40 (1.02%) VPN
7 33 (0.84%) BGP
8 28 (0.71%) OSPF
9 26 (0.66%) DHCP
10 24 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (0.56%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.53%) TCP/IP
13 19 (0.48%) BIG-IP
14 18 (0.46%) VXLAN
15 16 (0.41%) Ethernet VPN
15 16 (0.41%) WLAN
16 15 (0.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 12 (0.31%) DKIM
18 11 (0.28%) VoIP
19 10 (0.25%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (3.61%) Power BI
2 92 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
3 86 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
4 75 (1.91%) SQL Server
5 54 (1.37%) MongoDB
6 53 (1.35%) Metadata
7 49 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
8 48 (1.22%) Data Lake
9 46 (1.17%) Oracle Database
10 44 (1.12%) NoSQL
10 44 (1.12%) Relational Database
11 39 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
12 34 (0.87%) Amazon Redshift
12 34 (0.87%) DynamoDB
13 32 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
14 31 (0.79%) Tableau
15 22 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
15 22 (0.56%) Pentaho
16 19 (0.48%) Delta Lake
16 19 (0.48%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 217 (5.52%) JIRA
2 162 (4.12%) GitLab
3 157 (3.99%) Git
4 134 (3.41%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.22%) Selenium
6 40 (1.02%) JUnit
7 38 (0.97%) Mockito
8 30 (0.76%) Cucumber
8 30 (0.76%) SonarQube
9 29 (0.74%) Postman
10 28 (0.71%) JMeter
11 23 (0.59%) Cypress.io
12 22 (0.56%) Maven
13 19 (0.48%) REST Assured
14 15 (0.38%) WebDriver
15 14 (0.36%) CircleCI
15 14 (0.36%) DbUnit
16 13 (0.33%) Gatling
16 13 (0.33%) jMock
17 11 (0.28%) Artifactory
General
1 1,028 (26.16%) Social Skills
2 476 (12.11%) Finance
3 373 (9.49%) Analytical Skills
4 217 (5.52%) Military
5 203 (5.17%) Local Government
6 110 (2.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 101 (2.57%) Influencing Skills
7 101 (2.57%) Legal
8 86 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
9 84 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
10 83 (2.11%) Police
11 54 (1.37%) Telecoms
12 50 (1.27%) Banking
13 47 (1.20%) Law
14 39 (0.99%) Marketing
15 33 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
16 31 (0.79%) Billing
17 25 (0.64%) Retail
18 17 (0.43%) General Ledger
19 14 (0.36%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 527 (13.41%) Architect
2 520 (13.23%) Developer
3 479 (12.19%) Senior
4 390 (9.92%) Lead
5 362 (9.21%) Analyst
6 164 (4.17%) Designer
7 162 (4.12%) Consultant
8 146 (3.72%) Business Analyst
9 145 (3.69%) Data Engineer
10 142 (3.61%) DevOps Engineer
11 124 (3.16%) Solutions Architect
12 117 (2.98%) Technical Architect
13 111 (2.82%) Java Developer
14 102 (2.60%) Project Manager
15 98 (2.49%) Delivery Manager
15 98 (2.49%) Senior Developer
16 87 (2.21%) User Researcher
17 75 (1.91%) Data Architect
17 75 (1.91%) Service Designer
18 72 (1.83%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (3.54%) REST
2 114 (2.90%) Spring
3 113 (2.88%) Node.js
4 98 (2.49%) RESTful
5 96 (2.44%) Spring Boot
6 92 (2.34%) React
7 77 (1.96%) Kafka
8 76 (1.93%) Oracle Fusion
9 69 (1.76%) SOAP
10 64 (1.63%) .NET
11 60 (1.53%) Web Services
12 58 (1.48%) AngularJS
13 51 (1.30%) HTML
14 45 (1.15%) OAuth
15 43 (1.09%) PySpark
16 42 (1.07%) CSS
17 40 (1.02%) JSON
17 40 (1.02%) Middleware
18 39 (0.99%) Lightning Web Components
19 38 (0.97%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 218 (5.55%) Cloud Native
2 159 (4.05%) Product Ownership
3 148 (3.77%) Onboarding
4 143 (3.64%) NHS
5 96 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
6 88 (2.24%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.78%) Data Centre
8 63 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
9 56 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
10 52 (1.32%) Public Cloud
11 48 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
12 45 (1.15%) Data Structures
12 45 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
13 37 (0.94%) CMDB
14 32 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
15 30 (0.76%) Virtual Team
16 28 (0.71%) Security Posture
17 25 (0.64%) PKI
18 24 (0.61%) Freedom of Information
18 24 (0.61%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 171 (4.35%) Windows
2 153 (3.89%) Linux
3 62 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 55 (1.40%) Unix
5 28 (0.71%) Android
6 27 (0.69%) Apple iOS
7 24 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 21 (0.53%) Windows 10
9 19 (0.48%) Mac OS
10 11 (0.28%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.25%) Mac OS X
12 8 (0.20%) Solaris
13 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
15 5 (0.13%) AIX
16 4 (0.10%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.076%) Amazon Linux
17 3 (0.076%) Windows Server 2012
18 2 (0.051%) VMS
18 2 (0.051%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,119 (28.47%) Agile
2 623 (15.85%) CI/CD
3 618 (15.73%) Stakeholder Management
4 614 (15.62%) DevOps
5 513 (13.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 498 (12.67%) Continuous Improvement
7 401 (10.20%) Problem-Solving
8 387 (9.85%) Analytics
9 377 (9.59%) Decision-Making
10 360 (9.16%) Migration
11 318 (8.09%) Roadmaps
12 295 (7.51%) Infrastructure as Code
13 278 (7.07%) Data Modelling
14 277 (7.05%) AI
15 267 (6.79%) Containerisation
16 235 (5.98%) Microservices
17 233 (5.93%) Test Automation
18 228 (5.80%) Digital Transformation Programme
19 224 (5.70%) User Research
20 222 (5.65%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
Programming Languages
1 445 (11.32%) Python
2 373 (9.49%) SQL
3 300 (7.63%) Java
4 178 (4.53%) JavaScript
5 109 (2.77%) TypeScript
6 98 (2.49%) PowerShell
7 78 (1.98%) C#
8 59 (1.50%) Bash
9 55 (1.40%) PL/SQL
10 41 (1.04%) Apex Code
11 34 (0.87%) Bicep
11 34 (0.87%) Ruby
12 28 (0.71%) Kotlin
13 23 (0.59%) R
14 18 (0.46%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (0.43%) Go
16 15 (0.38%) Scala
17 14 (0.36%) ABAP
18 12 (0.31%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 2,043 (51.98%) Security Cleared
2 1,490 (37.91%) SC Cleared
3 230 (5.85%) DV Cleared
4 183 (4.66%) Degree
5 174 (4.43%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.25%) Azure Certification
7 47 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 43 (1.09%) CISSP
9 40 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
10 37 (0.94%) AWS Certification
11 27 (0.69%) CISM
11 27 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
12 22 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
13 21 (0.53%) CCNP
14 19 (0.48%) PMI Certification
15 18 (0.46%) Master's Degree
15 18 (0.46%) PMP
16 17 (0.43%) ISTQB
17 15 (0.38%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 275 (7.00%) Accessibility
2 191 (4.86%) Data Quality
3 172 (4.38%) QA
4 126 (3.21%) GDPR
5 111 (2.82%) WCAG
6 98 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 78 (1.98%) NCSC
7 78 (1.98%) PMO
8 69 (1.76%) NIST
9 36 (0.92%) SLA
10 31 (0.79%) GRC
11 28 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
12 22 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 15 (0.38%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.31%) Government Security Classifications
15 10 (0.25%) HL7
15 10 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 7 (0.18%) COBIT
16 7 (0.18%) IFRS
System Software
1 289 (7.35%) Docker
2 159 (4.05%) Active Directory
3 44 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.53%) VMware NSX
5 15 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
6 11 (0.28%) Postfix
7 10 (0.25%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
8 9 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
8 9 (0.23%) vSphere
9 6 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.051%) NFS
10 2 (0.051%) RACF
11 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.025%) etcd
11 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.025%) GPFS
11 1 (0.025%) NLBS
11 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 330 (8.40%) Terraform
2 276 (7.02%) Kubernetes
3 89 (2.26%) Grafana
4 77 (1.96%) Ansible
5 58 (1.48%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
7 39 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
8 28 (0.71%) Argo
9 15 (0.38%) SCCM
10 14 (0.36%) Kibana
10 14 (0.36%) Puppet
11 10 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
11 10 (0.25%) vCenter Server
12 7 (0.18%) FortiGate
13 6 (0.15%) Data Guard
13 6 (0.15%) Istio
14 5 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.13%) Rancher
15 4 (0.10%) Packer
Vendors
1 472 (12.01%) Microsoft
2 291 (7.40%) Oracle
3 152 (3.87%) SAP
4 129 (3.28%) ServiceNow
5 116 (2.95%) Salesforce
6 106 (2.70%) Google
7 93 (2.37%) Databricks
8 63 (1.60%) VMware
9 47 (1.20%) Cisco
10 36 (0.92%) Atlassian
11 35 (0.89%) Red Hat
12 34 (0.87%) Palo Alto
13 30 (0.76%) Dynatrace
14 29 (0.74%) Splunk
15 28 (0.71%) Talend
16 27 (0.69%) IBM
17 25 (0.64%) CyberArk
18 24 (0.61%) F5
18 24 (0.61%) Foundry
18 24 (0.61%) Informatica