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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,708 2,264 3,390
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.87% 9.33% 8.99%
As % of the General category 17.27% 14.70% 15.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,632 1,521 2,251
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 81 159
10th Percentile £16.17 £15.25 £13.73
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.09 £24.00 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.97% - +20.00%
75th Percentile £25.50 £34.46 £58.24
90th Percentile £60.15 £62.24 £70.86
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.60 £21.00
% change year-on-year -6.78% +12.38% +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 21,474 15,403 22,070
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.18% 63.48% 58.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,551 10,052 14,391
10th Percentile £303 £300 £272
25th Percentile £406 £410 £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 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,350 606 1,679
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.95 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.78 £15.21
Median hourly rate £25.38 £30.21 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.97% +16.17% -25.71%
75th Percentile £60.41 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £78.78 £75.13 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.12 £29.15 £26.00
% change year-on-year -13.83% +12.12% -25.71%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 1,604 £520 -0.95% 363
North of England -2 642 £450 -4.26% 228
South East -1 460 £500 -7.62% 200
Midlands +6 403 £500 +5.71% 117
North West -2 321 £450 -10.00% 90
West Midlands 0 297 £500 +8.11% 89
South West -3 270 £525 -4.55% 87
Yorkshire +8 207 £500 +17.65% 76
North East -2 119 £446 +4.94% 62
East of England +21 114 £388 +10.71% 44
East Midlands +13 101 £500 +2.56% 28
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
1 133 (3.59%) Confluence
2 102 (2.75%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.65%) SAS
5 16 (0.43%) Apache
5 16 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.40%) Apache Spark
6 15 (0.40%) CMS
7 13 (0.35%) nginx
8 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 5 (0.13%) Camunda
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.13%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.11%) Skype for Business
12 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.081%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
Applications
1 91 (2.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 85 (2.29%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.081%) InVision
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
14 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 14 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 6 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.16%) SystmOne
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 685 (18.47%) AWS
2 650 (17.53%) Azure
3 211 (5.69%) Power Platform
4 171 (4.61%) Serverless
5 159 (4.29%) GitHub
5 159 (4.29%) Microsoft 365
6 154 (4.15%) Azure DevOps
7 142 (3.83%) GCP
8 104 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
9 94 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 92 (2.48%) Amazon S3
11 91 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
12 70 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
13 66 (1.78%) Power Automate
14 65 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
14 65 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
16 59 (1.59%) PowerApps
17 56 (1.51%) OCI
18 55 (1.48%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 94 (2.54%) Firewall
2 57 (1.54%) VPN
3 55 (1.48%) Network Security
4 52 (1.40%) WAN
5 47 (1.27%) DNS
6 44 (1.19%) LAN
7 33 (0.89%) Wireless
8 31 (0.84%) BGP
9 26 (0.70%) TCP/IP
9 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 24 (0.65%) OSPF
11 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.51%) DHCP
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 13 (0.35%) VLAN
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
16 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.30%) IPsec
17 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (4.42%) Power BI
2 80 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
3 59 (1.59%) SQL Server
4 57 (1.54%) Metadata
5 53 (1.43%) MongoDB
6 50 (1.35%) Data Warehouse
7 46 (1.24%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
9 40 (1.08%) Data Lake
10 34 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
11 28 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
11 28 (0.76%) Relational Database
11 28 (0.76%) Tableau
12 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
13 23 (0.62%) DynamoDB
14 19 (0.51%) MySQL
14 19 (0.51%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.46%) Redis
16 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 214 (5.77%) JIRA
2 180 (4.85%) Git
3 122 (3.29%) Jenkins
4 121 (3.26%) GitLab
5 45 (1.21%) Selenium
6 43 (1.16%) Postman
7 36 (0.97%) JUnit
8 31 (0.84%) Mockito
9 23 (0.62%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.62%) SonarQube
10 22 (0.59%) JMeter
11 21 (0.57%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.38%) Maven
13 12 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 12 (0.32%) Mocha
13 12 (0.32%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.30%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,006 (27.13%) Social Skills
2 550 (14.83%) Finance
3 367 (9.90%) Analytical Skills
4 168 (4.53%) Telecoms
5 160 (4.31%) Military
6 159 (4.29%) Local Government
7 137 (3.69%) Marketing
8 135 (3.64%) Manufacturing
9 115 (3.10%) Electronics
10 87 (2.35%) Legal
11 78 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
12 73 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
13 68 (1.83%) Organisational Skills
14 56 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 55 (1.48%) Banking
16 50 (1.35%) Police
17 48 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (1.16%) Law
19 35 (0.94%) Billing
20 33 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 463 (12.49%) Architect
1 463 (12.49%) Developer
2 407 (10.98%) Senior
3 381 (10.28%) Analyst
4 306 (8.25%) Lead
5 186 (5.02%) Consultant
6 170 (4.58%) Business Analyst
7 145 (3.91%) Designer
8 120 (3.24%) DevOps Engineer
9 116 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
10 114 (3.07%) Project Manager
11 111 (2.99%) Data Engineer
12 103 (2.78%) Technical Architect
13 88 (2.37%) Java Developer
14 84 (2.27%) User Researcher
15 79 (2.13%) Senior Developer
16 76 (2.05%) Delivery Manager
17 66 (1.78%) Service Designer
18 57 (1.54%) Full-Stack Developer
19 56 (1.51%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 149 (4.02%) REST
2 120 (3.24%) Node.js
3 108 (2.91%) React
4 103 (2.78%) Spring
5 96 (2.59%) RESTful
6 91 (2.45%) Spring Boot
7 76 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
8 75 (2.02%) .NET
9 73 (1.97%) AngularJS
10 72 (1.94%) HTML
11 66 (1.78%) CSS
11 66 (1.78%) Web Services
12 60 (1.62%) SOAP
13 57 (1.54%) Kafka
14 52 (1.40%) JSON
15 36 (0.97%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.94%) Middleware
16 35 (0.94%) XML
17 34 (0.92%) Playwright
18 27 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 155 (4.18%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.53%) Onboarding
3 130 (3.51%) Product Ownership
4 126 (3.40%) NHS
5 83 (2.24%) Data Centre
6 80 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.86%) Management Information System
8 56 (1.51%) Public Cloud
9 45 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
10 40 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
11 37 (1.00%) Data Structures
12 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
14 29 (0.78%) CMDB
14 29 (0.78%) Security Posture
15 26 (0.70%) Replication
16 23 (0.62%) Analytical Mindset
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) AI Agents
18 19 (0.51%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 206 (5.56%) Windows
2 156 (4.21%) Linux
3 57 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 43 (1.16%) Windows 10
5 41 (1.11%) Android
6 38 (1.02%) Unix
7 35 (0.94%) Mac OS
8 24 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 19 (0.51%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.24%) VMS
13 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.16%) Solaris
14 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
17 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 957 (25.81%) Agile
2 521 (14.05%) CI/CD
3 519 (14.00%) DevOps
4 461 (12.43%) Problem-Solving
5 449 (12.11%) Stakeholder Management
6 414 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 371 (10.01%) Migration
8 361 (9.74%) Continuous Improvement
9 337 (9.09%) Roadmaps
10 300 (8.09%) Business Intelligence
11 289 (7.79%) Analytics
12 274 (7.39%) Decision-Making
13 241 (6.50%) Test Automation
14 238 (6.42%) Containerisation
15 232 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
16 227 (6.12%) Data Modelling
16 227 (6.12%) Microservices
17 214 (5.77%) AI
17 214 (5.77%) Workshop Facilitation
18 213 (5.74%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 406 (10.95%) Python
2 339 (9.14%) SQL
3 259 (6.98%) Java
4 196 (5.29%) JavaScript
5 117 (3.16%) PowerShell
6 115 (3.10%) TypeScript
7 86 (2.32%) C#
8 59 (1.59%) Bash
9 45 (1.21%) Ruby
10 36 (0.97%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.65%) Go
13 23 (0.62%) Shell Script
14 22 (0.59%) R
15 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
16 18 (0.49%) Bicep
17 13 (0.35%) PHP
18 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
19 11 (0.30%) Scala
20 10 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 2,161 (58.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,399 (37.73%) SC Cleared
3 183 (4.94%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.75%) Degree
5 96 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.40%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.19%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.16%) CISSP
9 36 (0.97%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 33 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
12 30 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
12 30 (0.81%) PMP
13 26 (0.70%) PMI Certification
14 25 (0.67%) CISM
15 24 (0.65%) ISEB
16 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
17 15 (0.40%) CCNP
18 14 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (5.31%) Accessibility
2 157 (4.23%) QA
3 149 (4.02%) Data Quality
4 113 (3.05%) GDPR
5 87 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 76 (2.05%) WCAG
7 69 (1.86%) NIST
8 65 (1.75%) PMO
9 64 (1.73%) NCSC
10 43 (1.16%) SLA
11 29 (0.78%) GRC
12 21 (0.57%) COBIT
13 20 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
14 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 17 (0.46%) PCI DSS
16 16 (0.43%) HL7
17 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
18 11 (0.30%) HIPAA
18 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 255 (6.88%) Docker
2 135 (3.64%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.57%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.40%) vSphere
8 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.19%) Postfix
10 4 (0.11%) NFS
10 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.081%) RACF
12 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.054%) SRDF
13 1 (0.027%) GPFS
13 1 (0.027%) IAG
13 1 (0.027%) RHEV
13 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 293 (7.90%) Terraform
2 269 (7.25%) Kubernetes
3 71 (1.91%) Ansible
4 67 (1.81%) Grafana
5 47 (1.27%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 25 (0.67%) SCCM
9 13 (0.35%) Argo
10 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.32%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.27%) Packer
12 8 (0.22%) Consul
12 8 (0.22%) Kibana
12 8 (0.22%) vRealize
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 424 (11.43%) Microsoft
2 255 (6.88%) SAP
3 220 (5.93%) Oracle
4 122 (3.29%) Cisco
5 118 (3.18%) Salesforce
6 111 (2.99%) ServiceNow
7 98 (2.64%) VMware
8 78 (2.10%) Databricks
9 72 (1.94%) Google
10 48 (1.29%) Splunk
11 42 (1.13%) Aruba
12 36 (0.97%) Virgin Media
13 34 (0.92%) IBM
14 32 (0.86%) Atlassian
15 31 (0.84%) MuleSoft
15 31 (0.84%) Red Hat
16 30 (0.81%) Juniper
16 30 (0.81%) Palo Alto
17 29 (0.78%) Dell
18 25 (0.67%) HP