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

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,264 2,616 3,411
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.93% 9.83% 9.16%
As % of the General category 16.57% 15.73% 15.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,300 1,571 2,311
10th Percentile £340 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -2.34% -0.93%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £647
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 97 128
10th Percentile £16.40 £15.00 £13.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.63 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.00 £56.44
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.74 £70.15
UK median hourly rate £21.40 £24.83 £20.35
% change year-on-year -13.81% +22.00% +4.77%

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 19,695 16,635 21,918
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.93% 62.53% 58.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,540 10,022 14,558
10th Percentile £290 £300 £263
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £541
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.91% -1.68%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,212 542 1,356
10th Percentile £14.05 £15.62 £13.30
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.26 £15.17
Median hourly rate £22.85 £29.90 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.58% +15.00% +1.13%
75th Percentile £47.99 £57.50 £55.04
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.99 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £27.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -16.91% +5.77% +4.00%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 -3 1,324 £515 -1.90% 316
North of England -1 639 £455 -4.21% 213
South East -6 379 £500 -4.76% 272
North West +1 327 £450 -10.00% 79
Midlands +2 321 £500 - 133
South West -1 309 £525 -4.55% 88
West Midlands +2 244 £500 - 95
Yorkshire -1 191 £500 +11.11% 87
North East -1 125 £450 +5.88% 49
East of England +27 106 £375 +7.14% 64
East Midlands +7 77 £423 -11.05% 36
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
1 121 (3.71%) Confluence
2 92 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.83%) SAS
5 24 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.64%) nginx
7 17 (0.52%) Apache
8 15 (0.46%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.40%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.40%) CMS
10 5 (0.15%) Documentum
11 4 (0.12%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
12 3 (0.092%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.092%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.092%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.092%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 98 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (2.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 36 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 15 (0.46%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.28%) Trello
8 7 (0.21%) Adobe XD
8 7 (0.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.092%) InVision
12 2 (0.061%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.061%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.061%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.061%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.031%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.031%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.031%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.031%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 58 (1.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.64%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.52%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.52%) SAP Hybris
5 16 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.28%) iTrent
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 593 (18.17%) AWS
2 571 (17.49%) Azure
3 195 (5.97%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.56%) Serverless
5 147 (4.50%) GitHub
6 146 (4.47%) Microsoft 365
7 143 (4.38%) GCP
8 115 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
9 93 (2.85%) AWS Lambda
10 82 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
11 69 (2.11%) Amazon S3
12 68 (2.08%) Entra ID
12 68 (2.08%) Power Automate
13 60 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
14 59 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
15 58 (1.78%) PowerApps
16 55 (1.69%) SaaS
17 54 (1.65%) OCI
18 52 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 51 (1.56%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 98 (3.00%) Firewall
2 66 (2.02%) DNS
3 63 (1.93%) VPN
4 56 (1.72%) WAN
5 46 (1.41%) Network Security
6 44 (1.35%) Wireless
7 42 (1.29%) LAN
8 39 (1.19%) TCP/IP
9 33 (1.01%) BGP
10 27 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 24 (0.74%) DHCP
12 22 (0.67%) OSPF
13 20 (0.61%) SSL
14 18 (0.55%) Skype
15 17 (0.52%) MPLS
15 17 (0.52%) VLAN
16 16 (0.49%) HTTP
16 16 (0.49%) IPsec
17 15 (0.46%) Internet
17 15 (0.46%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (4.41%) Power BI
2 83 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.62%) Metadata
3 53 (1.62%) MongoDB
4 40 (1.23%) SQL Server
5 37 (1.13%) NoSQL
6 36 (1.10%) Relational Database
7 32 (0.98%) Data Lake
8 30 (0.92%) Data Warehouse
9 29 (0.89%) Amazon RDS
10 27 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
11 24 (0.74%) MySQL
12 23 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.67%) Oracle Database
14 21 (0.64%) Redis
15 20 (0.61%) BigQuery
16 17 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
17 16 (0.49%) Tableau
18 14 (0.43%) DynamoDB
18 14 (0.43%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 197 (6.04%) JIRA
2 166 (5.09%) Git
3 124 (3.80%) Jenkins
4 119 (3.65%) GitLab
5 52 (1.59%) Postman
6 48 (1.47%) Selenium
7 31 (0.95%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.80%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.70%) JUnit
10 18 (0.55%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.52%) Mockito
12 15 (0.46%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.43%) Mocha
14 13 (0.40%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.34%) JMeter
15 11 (0.34%) MSI
15 11 (0.34%) Vagrant
16 10 (0.31%) Gradle
17 9 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
General
1 955 (29.26%) Social Skills
2 517 (15.84%) Finance
3 295 (9.04%) Analytical Skills
4 226 (6.92%) Telecoms
5 190 (5.82%) Manufacturing
5 190 (5.82%) Marketing
6 169 (5.18%) Electronics
7 148 (4.53%) Military
8 121 (3.71%) Local Government
9 73 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
10 69 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
11 65 (1.99%) Legal
12 51 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
13 48 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
14 47 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 37 (1.13%) Law
16 36 (1.10%) Banking
17 34 (1.04%) Retail
18 31 (0.95%) Billing
18 31 (0.95%) Police
Job Titles
1 398 (12.19%) Developer
2 372 (11.40%) Architect
3 327 (10.02%) Senior
4 317 (9.71%) Analyst
5 297 (9.10%) Lead
6 199 (6.10%) Consultant
7 145 (4.44%) Business Analyst
8 129 (3.95%) DevOps Engineer
9 102 (3.13%) Designer
10 100 (3.06%) Project Manager
11 88 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
12 83 (2.54%) Technical Architect
13 74 (2.27%) AWS Engineer
14 69 (2.11%) Data Engineer
15 66 (2.02%) Senior Developer
16 63 (1.93%) User Researcher
17 62 (1.90%) Java Developer
18 54 (1.65%) Test Engineer
19 53 (1.62%) Support Engineer
20 52 (1.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (4.47%) REST
2 107 (3.28%) React
3 102 (3.13%) Node.js
4 94 (2.88%) RESTful
5 89 (2.73%) Spring
6 84 (2.57%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.21%) .NET
7 72 (2.21%) HTML
8 71 (2.18%) Oracle Fusion
9 64 (1.96%) CSS
10 61 (1.87%) JSON
11 59 (1.81%) AngularJS
12 56 (1.72%) SOAP
13 55 (1.69%) Web Services
14 53 (1.62%) Kafka
15 44 (1.35%) XML
16 37 (1.13%) Playwright
17 31 (0.95%) OAuth
18 29 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
19 25 (0.77%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 121 (3.71%) Cloud Native
2 114 (3.49%) NHS
2 114 (3.49%) Onboarding
3 107 (3.28%) Product Ownership
4 85 (2.60%) Data Centre
5 69 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
6 63 (1.93%) Management Information System
7 41 (1.26%) Public Cloud
8 33 (1.01%) PKI
9 32 (0.98%) Replication
10 31 (0.95%) Security Posture
11 30 (0.92%) CMDB
12 28 (0.86%) Data Structures
13 27 (0.83%) AI Agents
13 27 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
14 26 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
14 26 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
15 22 (0.67%) Security Operations Centre
16 21 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
16 21 (0.64%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 214 (6.56%) Windows
2 148 (4.53%) Linux
3 51 (1.56%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.41%) Android
5 45 (1.38%) Windows Server
6 42 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 23 (0.70%) Unix
8 21 (0.64%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.64%) VMS
9 17 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 13 (0.40%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
12 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
15 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
16 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
18 1 (0.031%) pSOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 794 (24.33%) Agile
2 472 (14.46%) CI/CD
3 443 (13.57%) DevOps
4 430 (13.17%) Problem-Solving
5 389 (11.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 366 (11.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 340 (10.42%) Business Intelligence
8 318 (9.74%) Migration
9 292 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
10 270 (8.27%) Roadmaps
11 219 (6.71%) Analytics
12 211 (6.46%) Programme Management
13 208 (6.37%) Test Automation
14 206 (6.31%) Decision-Making
15 199 (6.10%) Microservices
16 195 (5.97%) Infrastructure as Code
17 194 (5.94%) Containerisation
18 185 (5.67%) AI
18 185 (5.67%) ITIL
19 171 (5.24%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 357 (10.94%) Python
2 271 (8.30%) SQL
3 249 (7.63%) Java
4 175 (5.36%) JavaScript
5 125 (3.83%) PowerShell
6 110 (3.37%) TypeScript
7 79 (2.42%) C#
8 62 (1.90%) Bash
9 37 (1.13%) Ruby
10 27 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 26 (0.80%) Go
11 26 (0.80%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.58%) Shell Script
13 17 (0.52%) PHP
14 16 (0.49%) R
15 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 14 (0.43%) Groovy
16 12 (0.37%) Perl
17 11 (0.34%) ABAP
17 11 (0.34%) C
Qualifications
1 1,940 (59.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,285 (39.37%) SC Cleared
3 162 (4.96%) DV Cleared
4 160 (4.90%) Degree
5 83 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.26%) AWS Certification
8 40 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
9 39 (1.19%) CISSP
10 35 (1.07%) Computer Science Degree
10 35 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
11 24 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
11 24 (0.74%) ISEB
12 23 (0.70%) PMP
13 22 (0.67%) CISM
14 19 (0.58%) PMI Certification
15 18 (0.55%) ISTQB
16 17 (0.52%) CCNP
17 16 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (4.93%) Accessibility
2 131 (4.01%) QA
3 110 (3.37%) Data Quality
4 95 (2.91%) GDPR
5 75 (2.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 63 (1.93%) NIST
7 55 (1.69%) WCAG
8 52 (1.59%) NCSC
9 46 (1.41%) SLA
10 45 (1.38%) PMO
11 24 (0.74%) GRC
12 20 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.55%) COBIT
14 16 (0.49%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.43%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.34%) HL7
16 11 (0.34%) PCI DSS
17 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 230 (7.05%) Docker
2 121 (3.71%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.55%) Hyper-V
4 18 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 12 (0.37%) vSphere
8 11 (0.34%) DFS Replication
9 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.25%) Squid
11 7 (0.21%) Dovecot
11 7 (0.21%) Postfix
12 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.12%) ISA Server
15 3 (0.092%) NFS
16 2 (0.061%) Brightmail
16 2 (0.061%) RACF
16 2 (0.061%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 283 (8.67%) Terraform
2 247 (7.57%) Kubernetes
3 72 (2.21%) Ansible
4 63 (1.93%) Grafana
5 51 (1.56%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.95%) SCCM
7 26 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.37%) Argo
10 12 (0.37%) Packer
11 11 (0.34%) Nessus
12 10 (0.31%) Puppet
13 8 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.25%) Proxmox
13 8 (0.25%) SCOM
13 8 (0.25%) vRealize
14 7 (0.21%) Consul
15 6 (0.18%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 404 (12.38%) Microsoft
2 306 (9.38%) SAP
3 195 (5.97%) Oracle
4 147 (4.50%) Cisco
5 103 (3.16%) ServiceNow
6 94 (2.88%) Salesforce
7 90 (2.76%) VMware
8 59 (1.81%) Google
9 56 (1.72%) Splunk
10 47 (1.44%) Databricks
11 41 (1.26%) Palo Alto
12 40 (1.23%) Aruba
12 40 (1.23%) Virgin Media
13 39 (1.19%) Juniper
14 38 (1.16%) Dell
15 37 (1.13%) Apple
16 33 (1.01%) HP
17 27 (0.83%) SolarWinds
18 25 (0.77%) Fortinet
18 25 (0.77%) Red Hat