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

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,250 2,605 3,445
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.91% 9.85% 9.18%
As % of the General category 16.53% 15.74% 15.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,294 1,564 2,333
10th Percentile £342 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% -0.46%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £717 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 172 97 129
10th Percentile £16.37 £15.00 £13.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.63 £15.16
Median hourly rate £21.97 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.85% +21.43% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.00 £56.40
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.74 £70.10
UK median hourly rate £21.30 £24.83 £20.00
% change year-on-year -14.22% +24.15% +5.26%

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 19,659 16,550 22,080
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.93% 62.55% 58.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,521 9,965 14,661
10th Percentile £289 £300 £263
25th Percentile £403 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,209 541 1,366
10th Percentile £14.04 £15.62 £13.30
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.25 £15.17
Median hourly rate £22.85 £29.23 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.83% +12.42% +1.13%
75th Percentile £47.50 £57.50 £55.11
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.87 £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 28 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 28 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 28 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 1,321 £523 -0.48% 311
North of England -1 633 £460 -3.16% 209
South East -5 378 £500 -4.76% 285
North West +1 323 £450 -10.00% 77
Midlands +3 319 £500 - 135
South West 0 310 £525 -4.55% 97
West Midlands +3 241 £500 - 91
Yorkshire -3 190 £500 +11.11% 91
North East -1 124 £450 +5.88% 43
East of England +26 105 £375 +7.14% 81
East Midlands +3 78 £424 -10.79% 42
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
1 119 (3.66%) Confluence
2 90 (2.77%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.83%) SAS
5 23 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.65%) 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%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.092%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.092%) Smallworld
12 3 (0.092%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 97 (2.98%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 36 (1.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 15 (0.46%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.28%) Trello
8 7 (0.22%) Adobe XD
8 7 (0.22%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.092%) InVision
12 2 (0.062%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.062%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.062%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.062%) 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 33 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.65%) 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 11 (0.34%) SAP Payroll
8 10 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
9 9 (0.28%) iTrent
9 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
11 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
11 7 (0.22%) SAP HR
12 6 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
12 6 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
12 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
13 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
14 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 593 (18.25%) AWS
2 566 (17.42%) Azure
3 194 (5.97%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.58%) Serverless
5 146 (4.49%) GitHub
6 144 (4.43%) GCP
7 143 (4.40%) Microsoft 365
8 115 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
9 93 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
10 82 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
11 69 (2.12%) Amazon S3
12 67 (2.06%) Entra ID
13 66 (2.03%) Power Automate
14 60 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
15 59 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
16 56 (1.72%) PowerApps
17 55 (1.69%) SaaS
18 52 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 52 (1.60%) OCI
19 51 (1.57%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 98 (3.02%) Firewall
2 66 (2.03%) DNS
3 60 (1.85%) VPN
4 55 (1.69%) WAN
5 44 (1.35%) Wireless
6 43 (1.32%) Network Security
7 41 (1.26%) LAN
8 39 (1.20%) TCP/IP
9 31 (0.95%) BGP
10 27 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (0.77%) DHCP
12 22 (0.68%) OSPF
13 20 (0.62%) SSL
14 18 (0.55%) Skype
15 17 (0.52%) VLAN
16 16 (0.49%) HTTP
16 16 (0.49%) IPsec
17 15 (0.46%) Internet
17 15 (0.46%) MPLS
17 15 (0.46%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (4.40%) Power BI
2 83 (2.55%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.63%) MongoDB
4 52 (1.60%) Metadata
5 39 (1.20%) SQL Server
6 38 (1.17%) NoSQL
7 37 (1.14%) Relational Database
8 32 (0.98%) Data Lake
9 30 (0.92%) Amazon RDS
9 30 (0.92%) Data Warehouse
10 27 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
11 24 (0.74%) MySQL
12 23 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.68%) Oracle Database
14 21 (0.65%) Redis
15 20 (0.62%) 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
1 195 (6.00%) JIRA
2 167 (5.14%) Git
3 124 (3.82%) Jenkins
4 119 (3.66%) GitLab
5 52 (1.60%) Postman
6 47 (1.45%) Selenium
7 31 (0.95%) Cucumber
8 25 (0.77%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.71%) 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%) MSI
15 11 (0.34%) Vagrant
16 10 (0.31%) Gradle
16 10 (0.31%) JMeter
17 9 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
General
1 952 (29.29%) Social Skills
2 522 (16.06%) Finance
3 290 (8.92%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (7.05%) Telecoms
5 193 (5.94%) Manufacturing
6 192 (5.91%) Marketing
7 172 (5.29%) Electronics
8 148 (4.55%) Military
9 121 (3.72%) Local Government
10 73 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
11 69 (2.12%) Organisational Skills
12 66 (2.03%) Legal
13 50 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
14 48 (1.48%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (1.14%) Law
17 36 (1.11%) Banking
18 34 (1.05%) Retail
19 31 (0.95%) Billing
20 30 (0.92%) Police
Job Titles
1 395 (12.15%) Developer
2 372 (11.45%) Architect
3 325 (10.00%) Senior
4 314 (9.66%) Analyst
5 299 (9.20%) Lead
6 198 (6.09%) Consultant
7 144 (4.43%) Business Analyst
8 130 (4.00%) DevOps Engineer
9 100 (3.08%) Designer
10 99 (3.05%) Project Manager
11 89 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
12 84 (2.58%) Technical Architect
13 74 (2.28%) AWS Engineer
14 69 (2.12%) Data Engineer
15 65 (2.00%) Senior Developer
16 62 (1.91%) Java Developer
16 62 (1.91%) User Researcher
17 54 (1.66%) Test Engineer
18 53 (1.63%) Support Engineer
19 52 (1.60%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (4.49%) REST
2 107 (3.29%) React
3 102 (3.14%) Node.js
4 94 (2.89%) RESTful
5 89 (2.74%) Spring
6 83 (2.55%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.22%) .NET
7 72 (2.22%) HTML
8 70 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
9 64 (1.97%) CSS
10 61 (1.88%) JSON
11 59 (1.82%) AngularJS
12 56 (1.72%) SOAP
13 55 (1.69%) Web Services
14 53 (1.63%) Kafka
15 44 (1.35%) XML
16 36 (1.11%) Playwright
17 31 (0.95%) OAuth
18 29 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
19 25 (0.77%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 123 (3.78%) Cloud Native
2 113 (3.48%) NHS
2 113 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 106 (3.26%) Product Ownership
4 85 (2.62%) Data Centre
5 69 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
6 65 (2.00%) Management Information System
7 42 (1.29%) Public Cloud
8 32 (0.98%) Replication
9 31 (0.95%) CMDB
9 31 (0.95%) PKI
10 30 (0.92%) Security Posture
11 28 (0.86%) Data Structures
12 27 (0.83%) AI Agents
12 27 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
13 26 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
14 25 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
15 22 (0.68%) Security Operations Centre
16 21 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
16 21 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 211 (6.49%) Windows
2 148 (4.55%) Linux
3 50 (1.54%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.38%) Android
4 45 (1.38%) Windows Server
5 41 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 22 (0.68%) Unix
7 21 (0.65%) VMS
8 20 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 17 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 11 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
10 11 (0.34%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
15 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
17 1 (0.031%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 791 (24.34%) Agile
2 472 (14.52%) CI/CD
3 443 (13.63%) DevOps
4 428 (13.17%) Problem-Solving
5 389 (11.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 364 (11.20%) Stakeholder Management
7 342 (10.52%) Business Intelligence
8 314 (9.66%) Migration
9 292 (8.98%) Continuous Improvement
10 268 (8.25%) Roadmaps
11 217 (6.68%) Analytics
12 214 (6.58%) Programme Management
13 208 (6.40%) Test Automation
14 204 (6.28%) Decision-Making
15 199 (6.12%) Microservices
16 196 (6.03%) Infrastructure as Code
17 194 (5.97%) Containerisation
18 186 (5.72%) ITIL
19 183 (5.63%) AI
20 172 (5.29%) Digital Marketing
Programming Languages
1 357 (10.98%) Python
2 269 (8.28%) SQL
3 248 (7.63%) Java
4 175 (5.38%) JavaScript
5 125 (3.85%) PowerShell
6 109 (3.35%) TypeScript
7 78 (2.40%) C#
8 62 (1.91%) Bash
9 36 (1.11%) Ruby
10 27 (0.83%) Apex Code
10 27 (0.83%) Go
11 26 (0.80%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.58%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.49%) R
14 15 (0.46%) PHP
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 1,934 (59.51%) Security Cleared
2 1,280 (39.38%) SC Cleared
3 160 (4.92%) DV Cleared
4 157 (4.83%) Degree
5 81 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.26%) AWS Certification
8 40 (1.23%) CISSP
8 40 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
9 35 (1.08%) Microsoft Certification
10 24 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
10 24 (0.74%) ISEB
11 23 (0.71%) CISM
11 23 (0.71%) PMP
12 19 (0.58%) PMI Certification
13 18 (0.55%) ISTQB
14 17 (0.52%) CCNP
15 16 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 157 (4.83%) Accessibility
2 130 (4.00%) QA
3 108 (3.32%) Data Quality
4 94 (2.89%) GDPR
5 74 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 62 (1.91%) NIST
7 54 (1.66%) NCSC
8 52 (1.60%) WCAG
9 46 (1.42%) SLA
10 44 (1.35%) PMO
11 24 (0.74%) GRC
12 19 (0.58%) 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 6 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 231 (7.11%) Docker
2 119 (3.66%) Active Directory
3 59 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.55%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.49%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.40%) vSphere
8 11 (0.34%) DFS Replication
9 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.25%) Squid
11 7 (0.22%) Dovecot
11 7 (0.22%) 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 (0.062%) Brightmail
16 2 (0.062%) RACF
16 2 (0.062%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 285 (8.77%) Terraform
2 248 (7.63%) Kubernetes
3 74 (2.28%) Ansible
4 64 (1.97%) Grafana
5 52 (1.60%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.95%) SCCM
7 25 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.46%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.37%) Argo
10 12 (0.37%) Packer
11 11 (0.34%) Nessus
12 10 (0.31%) Puppet
13 9 (0.28%) vRealize
14 8 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.25%) Proxmox
15 7 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.22%) SCOM
16 6 (0.18%) WSUS
Vendors
1 401 (12.34%) Microsoft
2 310 (9.54%) SAP
3 193 (5.94%) Oracle
4 145 (4.46%) Cisco
5 103 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 95 (2.92%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.74%) VMware
8 58 (1.78%) Google
9 57 (1.75%) Splunk
10 47 (1.45%) Databricks
11 40 (1.23%) Aruba
11 40 (1.23%) Palo Alto
12 39 (1.20%) Juniper
12 39 (1.20%) Virgin Media
13 38 (1.17%) Dell
14 37 (1.14%) Apple
15 33 (1.02%) HP
16 27 (0.83%) SolarWinds
17 25 (0.77%) Fortinet
17 25 (0.77%) Red Hat