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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 20 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,690 2,174 3,311
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.23% 8.89% 8.89%
As % of the General category 16.71% 13.87% 15.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,613 1,489 2,209
10th Percentile £350 £338 £310
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £600 £608 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £518
% change year-on-year - -3.47% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 174 89 166
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.28 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £23.25 £22.27 £22.12
Median % change year-on-year +4.40% +0.70% +10.58%
75th Percentile £27.23 £33.00 £54.89
90th Percentile £55.00 £62.74 £70.44
UK median hourly rate £22.64 £22.39 £21.50
% change year-on-year +1.12% +4.12% +7.50%

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 22,084 15,674 21,735
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.27% 64.06% 58.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,833 10,196 14,043
10th Percentile £305 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,432 674 1,773
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.08 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.26 £17.44 £15.39
Median hourly rate £30.08 £28.18 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.72% -6.07% -13.82%
75th Percentile £61.31 £58.71 £51.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £28.17 £28.50
% change year-on-year +2.96% -1.18% -18.57%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 1,645 £525 - 251
North of England -2 657 £454 -4.42% 219
South East -3 445 £500 -6.98% 182
Midlands +2 384 £500 +8.11% 93
North West 0 321 £467 -8.43% 93
West Midlands 0 293 £494 +8.91% 81
South West -6 248 £525 -4.55% 76
Yorkshire +4 227 £475 +2.98% 59
North East -3 114 £450 -2.17% 67
East of England +18 95 £425 +9.68% 43
East Midlands +6 86 £513 +2.50% 12
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
1 145 (3.93%) Confluence
2 111 (3.01%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 23 (0.62%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) CMS
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 15 (0.41%) Apache
9 14 (0.38%) nginx
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.14%) Camunda
12 5 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
13 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.081%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.081%) Drupal
14 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
14 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 88 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.49%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.14%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.49%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
7 9 (0.24%) SystmOne
8 8 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
9 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.16%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
11 5 (0.14%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.14%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 691 (18.73%) AWS
2 638 (17.29%) Azure
3 195 (5.28%) Power Platform
4 166 (4.50%) Serverless
5 155 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
6 148 (4.01%) GitHub
7 138 (3.74%) GCP
8 137 (3.71%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.76%) Entra ID
10 98 (2.66%) AWS Lambda
11 93 (2.52%) Amazon S3
12 87 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
13 81 (2.20%) SaaS
14 70 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
15 65 (1.76%) Amazon EC2
15 65 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
16 64 (1.73%) Power Automate
17 60 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
18 59 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 54 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 89 (2.41%) Firewall
2 56 (1.52%) DNS
3 54 (1.46%) Network Security
4 53 (1.44%) WAN
5 52 (1.41%) VPN
6 46 (1.25%) LAN
7 27 (0.73%) BGP
8 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
9 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
10 22 (0.60%) OSPF
11 20 (0.54%) DHCP
12 18 (0.49%) SD-WAN
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 15 (0.41%) VLAN
15 14 (0.38%) Internet
16 12 (0.33%) VoIP
16 12 (0.33%) Wireless
17 11 (0.30%) MPLS
18 10 (0.27%) DKIM
18 10 (0.27%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (3.93%) Power BI
2 79 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
3 70 (1.90%) SQL Server
4 62 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
5 58 (1.57%) Metadata
6 53 (1.44%) MongoDB
7 46 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.84%) Data Lake
11 29 (0.79%) Relational Database
11 29 (0.79%) Tableau
12 28 (0.76%) DynamoDB
13 24 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 23 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
15 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
16 20 (0.54%) MySQL
17 19 (0.51%) Pentaho
18 18 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
18 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 227 (6.15%) JIRA
2 185 (5.01%) Git
3 123 (3.33%) GitLab
4 115 (3.12%) Jenkins
5 41 (1.11%) Selenium
6 40 (1.08%) JUnit
7 36 (0.98%) Postman
8 34 (0.92%) Mockito
9 31 (0.84%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.65%) JMeter
11 20 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.51%) Cucumber
12 19 (0.51%) Maven
13 15 (0.41%) CircleCI
14 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
15 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
15 11 (0.30%) jMock
16 10 (0.27%) Bitbucket
16 10 (0.27%) Mocha
16 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 953 (25.83%) Social Skills
2 488 (13.22%) Finance
3 359 (9.73%) Analytical Skills
4 182 (4.93%) Military
5 165 (4.47%) Local Government
6 125 (3.39%) Telecoms
7 97 (2.63%) Marketing
8 85 (2.30%) Legal
8 85 (2.30%) Manufacturing
9 83 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
10 79 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
11 73 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
12 70 (1.90%) Electronics
12 70 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 56 (1.52%) Police
14 55 (1.49%) Banking
15 47 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
16 46 (1.25%) Law
17 31 (0.84%) Billing
18 26 (0.70%) Retail
Job Titles
1 490 (13.28%) Developer
2 466 (12.63%) Architect
3 395 (10.70%) Senior
4 374 (10.14%) Analyst
5 309 (8.37%) Lead
6 164 (4.44%) Business Analyst
7 159 (4.31%) Designer
8 153 (4.15%) Consultant
9 123 (3.33%) DevOps Engineer
10 119 (3.22%) Data Engineer
11 116 (3.14%) Project Manager
12 107 (2.90%) Java Developer
12 107 (2.90%) Technical Architect
13 101 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
14 89 (2.41%) Senior Developer
15 82 (2.22%) User Researcher
16 81 (2.20%) Delivery Manager
17 71 (1.92%) Service Designer
18 64 (1.73%) Administrator
19 63 (1.71%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 140 (3.79%) REST
2 118 (3.20%) Node.js
3 116 (3.14%) Spring
4 103 (2.79%) React
5 102 (2.76%) Spring Boot
6 96 (2.60%) RESTful
7 78 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
8 74 (2.01%) .NET
9 73 (1.98%) AngularJS
10 71 (1.92%) Web Services
11 66 (1.79%) HTML
12 61 (1.65%) SOAP
13 60 (1.63%) Kafka
14 54 (1.46%) CSS
15 44 (1.19%) Lightning Web Components
16 37 (1.00%) JSON
17 36 (0.98%) OAuth
18 34 (0.92%) Middleware
18 34 (0.92%) Playwright
19 31 (0.84%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 173 (4.69%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.71%) NHS
3 133 (3.60%) Product Ownership
4 130 (3.52%) Onboarding
5 83 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
6 80 (2.17%) Management Information System
7 64 (1.73%) Data Centre
8 53 (1.44%) Public Cloud
9 47 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
10 43 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.08%) Data Structures
12 39 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
13 27 (0.73%) CMDB
13 27 (0.73%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
15 24 (0.65%) Replication
16 21 (0.57%) PKI
16 21 (0.57%) Security Posture
17 20 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
18 18 (0.49%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 196 (5.31%) Windows
2 156 (4.23%) Linux
3 61 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.30%) Unix
5 40 (1.08%) Windows 10
6 27 (0.73%) Android
7 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.57%) Mac OS
9 20 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
13 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
17 2 (0.054%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 960 (26.02%) Agile
2 522 (14.15%) CI/CD
3 516 (13.98%) DevOps
4 456 (12.36%) Stakeholder Management
5 416 (11.27%) Problem-Solving
6 400 (10.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 382 (10.35%) Continuous Improvement
8 373 (10.11%) Migration
9 315 (8.54%) Roadmaps
10 313 (8.48%) Analytics
11 292 (7.91%) Decision-Making
12 245 (6.64%) Containerisation
13 237 (6.42%) Business Intelligence
13 237 (6.42%) Test Automation
14 236 (6.40%) Data Modelling
15 227 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
16 225 (6.10%) Microservices
17 220 (5.96%) AI
18 210 (5.69%) User Research
19 204 (5.53%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 400 (10.84%) Python
2 339 (9.19%) SQL
3 275 (7.45%) Java
4 191 (5.18%) JavaScript
5 118 (3.20%) PowerShell
6 115 (3.12%) TypeScript
7 87 (2.36%) C#
8 50 (1.36%) Bash
9 44 (1.19%) Apex Code
10 43 (1.17%) Ruby
11 30 (0.81%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.62%) Bicep
13 22 (0.60%) Go
14 21 (0.57%) Shell Script
15 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
15 20 (0.54%) R
16 15 (0.41%) Scala
17 13 (0.35%) PHP
18 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
19 10 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,053 (55.64%) Security Cleared
2 1,370 (37.13%) SC Cleared
3 186 (5.04%) DV Cleared
4 178 (4.82%) Degree
5 115 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.41%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.11%) AWS Certification
8 38 (1.03%) CISSP
9 37 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
10 33 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
11 31 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (0.79%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (0.79%) PMP
13 25 (0.68%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.62%) ISEB
15 22 (0.60%) CISM
16 18 (0.49%) CCNP
17 15 (0.41%) ISTQB
18 14 (0.38%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 210 (5.69%) Accessibility
2 160 (4.34%) Data Quality
3 158 (4.28%) QA
4 105 (2.85%) GDPR
5 88 (2.38%) WCAG
6 82 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 66 (1.79%) PMO
8 64 (1.73%) NCSC
9 59 (1.60%) NIST
10 34 (0.92%) SLA
11 30 (0.81%) GRC
12 22 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) COBIT
14 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 15 (0.41%) HL7
15 15 (0.41%) PCI DSS
16 13 (0.35%) JSP 440
17 12 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 9 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 263 (7.13%) Docker
2 156 (4.23%) Active Directory
3 55 (1.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.57%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 293 (7.94%) Terraform
2 271 (7.34%) Kubernetes
3 74 (2.01%) Grafana
4 66 (1.79%) Ansible
5 54 (1.46%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.11%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.30%) Argo
11 11 (0.30%) Kibana
12 10 (0.27%) Consul
12 10 (0.27%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.27%) Packer
13 8 (0.22%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Istio
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 433 (11.73%) Microsoft
2 222 (6.02%) Oracle
3 208 (5.64%) SAP
4 123 (3.33%) Salesforce
5 108 (2.93%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.52%) Google
7 88 (2.38%) VMware
8 80 (2.17%) Databricks
9 76 (2.06%) Cisco
10 42 (1.14%) Splunk
11 34 (0.92%) Atlassian
12 30 (0.81%) Virgin Media
13 29 (0.79%) IBM
13 29 (0.79%) MuleSoft
14 26 (0.70%) Red Hat
14 26 (0.70%) Talend
15 25 (0.68%) Dynatrace
16 24 (0.65%) Juniper
17 21 (0.57%) Aruba
17 21 (0.57%) Palo Alto