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 4 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,631 2,370 3,371
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.10% 9.42% 8.95%
As % of the General category 17.22% 14.97% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,560 1,505 2,240
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £415 £420
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 £673 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 81 144
10th Percentile £16.54 £15.25 £13.36
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £33.75 £56.44
90th Percentile £44.94 £62.24 £69.97
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +5.00%

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 21,081 15,828 22,158
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.63% 62.88% 58.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,341 9,929 14,508
10th Percentile £300 £297 £265
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £751
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,310 541 1,616
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.25 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.24 £20.00 £15.29
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £25.90
Median % change year-on-year -21.76% +17.59% -20.32%
75th Percentile £55.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.30 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £30.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -20.58% +17.65% -20.20%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 0 1,536 £520 -0.95% 389
North of England -3 660 £450 -5.26% 251
South East +3 432 £500 -5.66% 297
Midlands +3 384 £500 +5.26% 154
North West +2 329 £450 -10.00% 113
West Midlands 0 284 £500 +5.26% 85
South West -2 276 £525 -4.55% 138
Yorkshire -1 207 £500 +11.11% 99
North East -1 128 £450 +4.65% 39
East of England +31 114 £400 +14.29% 114
East Midlands +11 98 £444 -8.97% 66
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
1 129 (3.55%) Confluence
2 101 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 34 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.72%) SAS
5 22 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.44%) Apache
7 14 (0.39%) nginx
8 13 (0.36%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 10 (0.28%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.083%) Documentum
14 3 (0.083%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.083%) Smallworld
Applications
1 96 (2.64%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.17%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.083%) InVision
12 2 (0.055%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.055%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.055%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.028%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.028%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.028%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.028%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.028%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.028%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 69 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.61%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
4 18 (0.50%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.50%) SAP Hybris
5 13 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.25%) iTrent
7 9 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
12 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 668 (18.40%) AWS
2 606 (16.69%) Azure
3 207 (5.70%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.43%) Serverless
5 152 (4.19%) GitHub
6 149 (4.10%) Microsoft 365
7 143 (3.94%) GCP
8 127 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
10 87 (2.40%) Entra ID
10 87 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
11 85 (2.34%) Amazon S3
12 65 (1.79%) AWS CloudFormation
13 61 (1.68%) Power Automate
14 59 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 59 (1.62%) Amazon EC2
15 58 (1.60%) OCI
16 57 (1.57%) Amazon EKS
16 57 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
17 55 (1.51%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 90 (2.48%) Firewall
2 54 (1.49%) DNS
2 54 (1.49%) VPN
3 51 (1.40%) Network Security
3 51 (1.40%) WAN
4 44 (1.21%) Wireless
5 41 (1.13%) LAN
6 34 (0.94%) TCP/IP
7 29 (0.80%) BGP
8 25 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
9 22 (0.61%) DHCP
9 22 (0.61%) OSPF
10 16 (0.44%) SD-WAN
10 16 (0.44%) SSL
11 14 (0.39%) Internet
12 13 (0.36%) MPLS
12 13 (0.36%) VLAN
13 12 (0.33%) IPsec
14 11 (0.30%) HTTP
14 11 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (4.49%) Power BI
2 84 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.65%) SQL Server
4 55 (1.51%) MongoDB
5 52 (1.43%) Metadata
6 46 (1.27%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.13%) Data Lake
8 38 (1.05%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
10 31 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
11 30 (0.83%) Relational Database
12 27 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.61%) Tableau
14 21 (0.58%) MySQL
14 21 (0.58%) Oracle Database
15 20 (0.55%) DynamoDB
16 19 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
16 19 (0.52%) Redis
17 18 (0.50%) BigQuery
18 17 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 207 (5.70%) JIRA
2 169 (4.65%) Git
3 129 (3.55%) GitLab
4 128 (3.53%) Jenkins
5 46 (1.27%) Selenium
6 45 (1.24%) Postman
7 33 (0.91%) JUnit
8 28 (0.77%) Mockito
9 27 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 27 (0.74%) Cypress.io
10 20 (0.55%) SonarQube
11 17 (0.47%) JMeter
12 16 (0.44%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.39%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.39%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.39%) Mocha
14 12 (0.33%) Maven
15 10 (0.28%) MSI
16 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.22%) ERwin
General
1 1,020 (28.09%) Social Skills
2 546 (15.04%) Finance
3 333 (9.17%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (5.26%) Telecoms
5 158 (4.35%) Marketing
6 156 (4.30%) Manufacturing
7 155 (4.27%) Military
8 135 (3.72%) Electronics
9 132 (3.64%) Local Government
10 78 (2.15%) Legal
11 73 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
12 71 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
14 50 (1.38%) Banking
15 49 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
16 48 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 43 (1.18%) Police
18 40 (1.10%) Law
19 35 (0.96%) Billing
20 31 (0.85%) Retail
Job Titles
1 443 (12.20%) Developer
2 431 (11.87%) Architect
3 391 (10.77%) Senior
4 361 (9.94%) Analyst
5 311 (8.57%) Lead
6 191 (5.26%) Consultant
7 168 (4.63%) Business Analyst
8 138 (3.80%) Designer
9 130 (3.58%) DevOps Engineer
10 107 (2.95%) Project Manager
11 105 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
12 102 (2.81%) Data Engineer
13 96 (2.64%) Technical Architect
14 86 (2.37%) Java Developer
15 84 (2.31%) User Researcher
16 70 (1.93%) AWS Engineer
17 69 (1.90%) Senior Developer
18 65 (1.79%) Delivery Manager
18 65 (1.79%) Service Designer
19 57 (1.57%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (4.16%) REST
2 130 (3.58%) Node.js
3 109 (3.00%) React
4 102 (2.81%) Spring
5 90 (2.48%) Spring Boot
6 85 (2.34%) RESTful
7 76 (2.09%) .NET
7 76 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
8 73 (2.01%) HTML
9 72 (1.98%) AngularJS
10 69 (1.90%) Web Services
11 66 (1.82%) CSS
12 64 (1.76%) SOAP
13 51 (1.40%) JSON
14 48 (1.32%) Kafka
15 38 (1.05%) Playwright
16 35 (0.96%) Middleware
17 34 (0.94%) XML
18 31 (0.85%) Lightning Web Components
19 26 (0.72%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 141 (3.88%) Cloud Native
2 139 (3.83%) Onboarding
3 121 (3.33%) Product Ownership
4 118 (3.25%) NHS
5 86 (2.37%) Data Centre
6 75 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
7 68 (1.87%) Management Information System
8 53 (1.46%) Public Cloud
9 34 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
10 33 (0.91%) Distributed Systems
11 31 (0.85%) Data Structures
11 31 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
11 31 (0.85%) Security Posture
11 31 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
12 30 (0.83%) PKI
13 27 (0.74%) CMDB
14 24 (0.66%) AI Agents
14 24 (0.66%) Replication
15 22 (0.61%) Security Operations Centre
16 18 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 219 (6.03%) Windows
2 166 (4.57%) Linux
3 56 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.35%) Android
5 43 (1.18%) Mac OS
5 43 (1.18%) Windows 10
6 38 (1.05%) Unix
7 24 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 21 (0.58%) Apple iOS
9 12 (0.33%) Mac OS X
9 12 (0.33%) VMS
10 10 (0.28%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.19%) Solaris
12 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
14 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
14 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
15 3 (0.083%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 904 (24.90%) Agile
2 511 (14.07%) CI/CD
3 494 (13.61%) DevOps
4 454 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 433 (11.93%) Stakeholder Management
6 394 (10.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 358 (9.86%) Migration
8 337 (9.28%) Continuous Improvement
9 321 (8.84%) Business Intelligence
10 316 (8.70%) Roadmaps
11 261 (7.19%) Analytics
12 248 (6.83%) Decision-Making
13 228 (6.28%) Infrastructure as Code
14 223 (6.14%) Test Automation
15 220 (6.06%) Containerisation
16 218 (6.00%) Microservices
17 204 (5.62%) User Research
18 203 (5.59%) Workshop Facilitation
19 201 (5.54%) AI
20 198 (5.45%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 387 (10.66%) Python
2 324 (8.92%) SQL
3 263 (7.24%) Java
4 196 (5.40%) JavaScript
5 119 (3.28%) PowerShell
5 119 (3.28%) TypeScript
6 87 (2.40%) C#
7 67 (1.85%) Bash
8 39 (1.07%) Ruby
9 31 (0.85%) PL/SQL
10 30 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.69%) Go
12 23 (0.63%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.52%) R
14 17 (0.47%) PHP
15 15 (0.41%) Kotlin
16 14 (0.39%) Bicep
17 13 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
19 10 (0.28%) C
Qualifications
1 2,141 (58.96%) Security Cleared
2 1,398 (38.50%) SC Cleared
3 178 (4.90%) Degree
4 175 (4.82%) DV Cleared
5 100 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.38%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.21%) AWS Certification
7 44 (1.21%) CISSP
8 41 (1.13%) ITIL Certification
9 40 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
11 33 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
12 26 (0.72%) CISM
12 26 (0.72%) PMP
13 24 (0.66%) ISEB
14 22 (0.61%) PMI Certification
15 18 (0.50%) CCNP
15 18 (0.50%) ISTQB
16 17 (0.47%) CCNA
17 16 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 186 (5.12%) Accessibility
2 151 (4.16%) QA
3 135 (3.72%) Data Quality
4 104 (2.86%) GDPR
5 77 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.85%) NIST
7 65 (1.79%) WCAG
8 63 (1.74%) PMO
9 58 (1.60%) NCSC
10 45 (1.24%) SLA
11 26 (0.72%) GRC
12 19 (0.52%) COBIT
13 17 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.39%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.36%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.30%) HL7
17 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 250 (6.89%) Docker
2 132 (3.64%) Active Directory
3 64 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.55%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.39%) vSphere
8 10 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.19%) Postfix
10 5 (0.14%) NFS
10 5 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.083%) RACF
13 2 (0.055%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.055%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.055%) Squid
13 2 (0.055%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 302 (8.32%) Terraform
2 270 (7.44%) Kubernetes
3 74 (2.04%) Ansible
3 74 (2.04%) Grafana
4 51 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 34 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 28 (0.77%) SCCM
7 26 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.39%) Argo
8 14 (0.39%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.36%) Puppet
10 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.30%) Packer
12 10 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
13 8 (0.22%) Kibana
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.19%) vRealize
15 6 (0.17%) Nessus
15 6 (0.17%) SCOM
Vendors
1 410 (11.29%) Microsoft
2 282 (7.77%) SAP
3 213 (5.87%) Oracle
4 138 (3.80%) Cisco
5 111 (3.06%) ServiceNow
6 108 (2.97%) Salesforce
7 98 (2.70%) VMware
8 68 (1.87%) Google
9 64 (1.76%) Databricks
10 59 (1.62%) Splunk
11 45 (1.24%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.16%) Aruba
13 35 (0.96%) Dell
14 34 (0.94%) Apple
14 34 (0.94%) Juniper
14 34 (0.94%) Palo Alto
14 34 (0.94%) Red Hat
15 31 (0.85%) HP
16 30 (0.83%) Atlassian
17 27 (0.74%) IBM