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 25 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,559 2,438 3,366
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.09% 9.53% 8.98%
As % of the General category 17.09% 15.22% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,501 1,520 2,232
10th Percentile £350 £309 £311
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £519 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.61% -1.19% -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 181 83 148
10th Percentile £16.50 £15.25 £13.66
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.35 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £38.88 £55.43
90th Percentile £44.94 £64.23 £69.27
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +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 20,824 16,022 22,125
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.05% 62.63% 59.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,201 9,904 14,520
10th Percentile £300 £300 £265
25th Percentile £406 £411 £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 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,294 531 1,578
10th Percentile £14.04 £15.62 £13.18
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.23 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.58 £31.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.95% +19.23% -13.33%
75th Percentile £54.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -23.33% +15.38% -8.77%

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 25 February 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 25 February 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 25 February 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 1,497 £515 -1.90% 314
North of England -2 658 £450 -5.26% 140
South East +2 420 £500 -4.76% 197
Midlands +1 371 £490 -2.00% 92
North West +2 328 £450 -10.00% 57
West Midlands +1 278 £500 - 64
South West -2 275 £525 -4.55% 73
Yorkshire -4 208 £500 +11.11% 50
North East -1 126 £450 +5.88% 33
East of England +27 112 £400 +14.29% 30
East Midlands +11 92 £425 -10.53% 27
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
1 128 (3.60%) Confluence
2 99 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 31 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.73%) SAS
5 21 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.45%) Apache
7 15 (0.42%) nginx
8 13 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.34%) CMS
10 11 (0.31%) 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 (0.084%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.084%) Documentum
14 3 (0.084%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.084%) OpenStack
Applications
1 97 (2.73%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.20%) Adobe XD
7 7 (0.20%) Trello
8 6 (0.17%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.17%) Sketch
9 3 (0.084%) InVision
10 2 (0.056%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.056%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 2 (0.056%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.028%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.028%) OmniGraffle
11 1 (0.028%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.028%) Quicktime
11 1 (0.028%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.62%) SAP PSCD
4 19 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
5 18 (0.51%) SAP BRIM
5 18 (0.51%) SAP Hybris
6 11 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.25%) iTrent
7 9 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
9 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
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 General Ledger
12 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 648 (18.21%) AWS
2 586 (16.47%) Azure
3 199 (5.59%) Power Platform
4 159 (4.47%) Serverless
5 148 (4.16%) GitHub
6 142 (3.99%) Microsoft 365
7 136 (3.82%) GCP
8 122 (3.43%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.87%) AWS Lambda
10 84 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
11 83 (2.33%) Amazon S3
12 80 (2.25%) Entra ID
13 63 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
14 62 (1.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 60 (1.69%) OCI
16 59 (1.66%) Power Automate
17 58 (1.63%) Amazon EC2
18 57 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
18 57 (1.60%) SaaS
19 54 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.56%) Firewall
2 54 (1.52%) DNS
3 52 (1.46%) WAN
4 51 (1.43%) Network Security
4 51 (1.43%) VPN
5 44 (1.24%) Wireless
6 40 (1.12%) LAN
7 36 (1.01%) TCP/IP
8 31 (0.87%) BGP
9 25 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 24 (0.67%) DHCP
11 23 (0.65%) OSPF
12 17 (0.48%) SSL
13 15 (0.42%) SD-WAN
14 14 (0.39%) IPsec
14 14 (0.39%) MPLS
14 14 (0.39%) VLAN
15 13 (0.37%) Internet
16 12 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
16 12 (0.34%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (4.38%) Power BI
2 82 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
3 55 (1.55%) SQL Server
4 54 (1.52%) MongoDB
5 52 (1.46%) Metadata
6 40 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
7 38 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
7 38 (1.07%) Data Lake
8 36 (1.01%) NoSQL
9 31 (0.87%) Oracle Reports
9 31 (0.87%) Relational Database
10 25 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.62%) Tableau
12 21 (0.59%) MySQL
13 20 (0.56%) DynamoDB
13 20 (0.56%) Oracle Database
13 20 (0.56%) Redis
14 19 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 18 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
16 15 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 199 (5.59%) JIRA
2 166 (4.66%) Git
3 126 (3.54%) GitLab
4 125 (3.51%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.35%) Postman
5 48 (1.35%) Selenium
6 33 (0.93%) JUnit
7 29 (0.81%) Cucumber
7 29 (0.81%) Mockito
8 27 (0.76%) Cypress.io
9 19 (0.53%) SonarQube
10 18 (0.51%) REST Assured
11 14 (0.39%) JMeter
11 14 (0.39%) Mocha
12 13 (0.37%) CircleCI
13 12 (0.34%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.34%) Maven
14 10 (0.28%) MSI
15 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
16 8 (0.22%) Gradle
General
1 1,009 (28.35%) Social Skills
2 539 (15.14%) Finance
3 325 (9.13%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (5.48%) Telecoms
5 163 (4.58%) Marketing
6 161 (4.52%) Manufacturing
7 159 (4.47%) Military
8 140 (3.93%) Electronics
9 127 (3.57%) Local Government
10 76 (2.14%) Legal
11 72 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
12 71 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
13 64 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
14 48 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (1.32%) Banking
16 45 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 39 (1.10%) Law
17 39 (1.10%) Police
18 34 (0.96%) Billing
19 30 (0.84%) Retail
Job Titles
1 432 (12.14%) Developer
2 415 (11.66%) Architect
3 381 (10.71%) Senior
4 347 (9.75%) Analyst
5 306 (8.60%) Lead
6 187 (5.25%) Consultant
7 163 (4.58%) Business Analyst
8 136 (3.82%) Designer
9 130 (3.65%) DevOps Engineer
10 108 (3.03%) Project Manager
11 98 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
12 95 (2.67%) Data Engineer
13 93 (2.61%) Technical Architect
14 87 (2.44%) Java Developer
15 80 (2.25%) User Researcher
16 70 (1.97%) AWS Engineer
17 69 (1.94%) Senior Developer
18 67 (1.88%) Service Designer
19 60 (1.69%) Delivery Manager
20 57 (1.60%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (4.16%) REST
2 124 (3.48%) Node.js
3 107 (3.01%) React
4 102 (2.87%) Spring
5 91 (2.56%) Spring Boot
6 86 (2.42%) RESTful
7 76 (2.14%) .NET
8 75 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (2.08%) HTML
10 71 (1.99%) AngularJS
11 68 (1.91%) CSS
12 65 (1.83%) Web Services
13 60 (1.69%) SOAP
14 53 (1.49%) JSON
15 50 (1.40%) Kafka
16 38 (1.07%) Playwright
17 35 (0.98%) XML
18 32 (0.90%) Middleware
19 30 (0.84%) Lightning Web Components
20 26 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 135 (3.79%) Cloud Native
2 130 (3.65%) Onboarding
3 120 (3.37%) NHS
3 120 (3.37%) Product Ownership
4 88 (2.47%) Data Centre
5 72 (2.02%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.91%) Management Information System
7 46 (1.29%) Public Cloud
8 33 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
9 31 (0.87%) Security Posture
10 30 (0.84%) Distributed Systems
10 30 (0.84%) PKI
11 29 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
11 29 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
12 28 (0.79%) Data Structures
13 27 (0.76%) CMDB
14 24 (0.67%) AI Agents
14 24 (0.67%) Replication
15 22 (0.62%) Security Operations Centre
16 18 (0.51%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 214 (6.01%) Windows
2 172 (4.83%) Linux
3 55 (1.55%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.38%) Android
5 42 (1.18%) Mac OS
6 41 (1.15%) Unix
7 40 (1.12%) Windows 10
8 23 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 16 (0.45%) Mac OS X
11 13 (0.37%) VMS
12 11 (0.31%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
15 7 (0.20%) Solaris
15 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 896 (25.18%) Agile
2 503 (14.13%) CI/CD
3 482 (13.54%) DevOps
4 447 (12.56%) Problem-Solving
5 411 (11.55%) Stakeholder Management
6 385 (10.82%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 348 (9.78%) Migration
8 327 (9.19%) Continuous Improvement
9 319 (8.96%) Business Intelligence
10 304 (8.54%) Roadmaps
11 249 (7.00%) Analytics
12 241 (6.77%) Decision-Making
13 223 (6.27%) Infrastructure as Code
13 223 (6.27%) Test Automation
14 217 (6.10%) Containerisation
14 217 (6.10%) Microservices
15 197 (5.54%) User Research
16 196 (5.51%) AI
17 192 (5.39%) Data Modelling
18 190 (5.34%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 379 (10.65%) Python
2 320 (8.99%) SQL
3 260 (7.31%) Java
4 191 (5.37%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.37%) TypeScript
6 117 (3.29%) PowerShell
7 88 (2.47%) C#
8 67 (1.88%) Bash
9 38 (1.07%) Ruby
10 30 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 29 (0.81%) Apex Code
12 25 (0.70%) Go
13 21 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.51%) PHP
15 17 (0.48%) R
16 14 (0.39%) Bicep
17 12 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.31%) Kotlin
19 10 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
20 9 (0.25%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,101 (59.03%) Security Cleared
2 1,385 (38.92%) SC Cleared
3 176 (4.95%) Degree
4 168 (4.72%) DV Cleared
5 102 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.26%) AWS Certification
6 45 (1.26%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.24%) CISSP
8 40 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
8 40 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
9 35 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
10 33 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
11 26 (0.73%) CISM
12 24 (0.67%) ISEB
12 24 (0.67%) PMP
13 20 (0.56%) PMI Certification
14 18 (0.51%) CCNP
15 17 (0.48%) ISTQB
16 16 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.45%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 187 (5.25%) Accessibility
2 141 (3.96%) QA
3 129 (3.62%) Data Quality
4 103 (2.89%) GDPR
5 77 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.88%) NIST
7 65 (1.83%) WCAG
8 57 (1.60%) PMO
9 56 (1.57%) NCSC
10 47 (1.32%) SLA
11 22 (0.62%) GRC
12 19 (0.53%) COBIT
12 19 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.45%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.39%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.37%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.31%) HL7
18 10 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 8 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 247 (6.94%) Docker
2 118 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 65 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
4 18 (0.51%) VMware NSX
5 17 (0.48%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.37%) vSphere
8 10 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.22%) Postfix
10 6 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.084%) DFS Replication
13 3 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.084%) RACF
13 3 (0.084%) Squid
14 2 (0.056%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.056%) Dovecot
14 2 (0.056%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 302 (8.49%) Terraform
2 262 (7.36%) Kubernetes
3 72 (2.02%) Ansible
4 71 (1.99%) Grafana
5 50 (1.40%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.81%) SCCM
8 22 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.37%) Argo
11 12 (0.34%) Packer
11 12 (0.34%) Puppet
12 11 (0.31%) FortiGate
13 10 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.20%) Kibana
15 7 (0.20%) Nessus
16 6 (0.17%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.17%) SCOM
16 6 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 400 (11.24%) Microsoft
2 277 (7.78%) SAP
3 210 (5.90%) Oracle
4 143 (4.02%) Cisco
5 106 (2.98%) ServiceNow
6 105 (2.95%) Salesforce
7 99 (2.78%) VMware
8 67 (1.88%) Google
9 61 (1.71%) Splunk
10 60 (1.69%) Databricks
11 42 (1.18%) Aruba
12 41 (1.15%) Virgin Media
13 37 (1.04%) Juniper
14 36 (1.01%) Palo Alto
15 35 (0.98%) Dell
16 34 (0.96%) Apple
17 33 (0.93%) Red Hat
18 31 (0.87%) HP
19 27 (0.76%) Atlassian
19 27 (0.76%) SolarWinds