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

6 months to
8 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,665 2,360 3,394
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.14% 9.37% 8.93%
As % of the General category 17.39% 14.85% 15.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,591 1,513 2,256
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.89% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 79 145
10th Percentile £16.50 £15.21 £13.43
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.36 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £24.00 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.02% +11.63% +7.50%
75th Percentile £25.38 £33.38 £56.40
90th Percentile £44.94 £62.74 £69.20
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.30 £21.00
% change year-on-year -5.58% +10.95% +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 21,071 15,894 22,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.31% 63.10% 58.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,334 10,038 14,554
10th Percentile £300 £300 £266
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,315 572 1,666
10th Percentile £14.11 £15.01 £13.05
25th Percentile £17.50 £19.75 £15.29
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.31 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.51% +16.56% -20.00%
75th Percentile £57.13 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £29.07 £25.50
% change year-on-year -17.44% +14.00% -20.31%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +1 1,564 £521 -0.71% 360
North of England -3 656 £450 -5.26% 178
South East -1 440 £500 -6.45% 211
Midlands -1 385 £500 +4.71% 97
North West +1 324 £450 -10.00% 79
West Midlands 0 284 £500 +4.71% 67
South West -1 277 £525 -4.55% 68
Yorkshire -2 208 £500 +11.11% 60
North East 0 129 £450 +4.65% 39
East of England +28 116 £413 +17.86% 29
East Midlands +15 99 £447 -8.33% 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 (3.63%) Confluence
2 104 (2.84%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 22 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.35%) nginx
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 9 (0.25%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.16%) 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 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.082%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.082%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.082%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 95 (2.59%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.25%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.082%) InVision
12 2 (0.055%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.055%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.055%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 68 (1.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.49%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.49%) SAP Hybris
5 16 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.25%) iTrent
9 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.19%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 676 (18.44%) AWS
2 621 (16.94%) Azure
3 211 (5.76%) Power Platform
4 164 (4.47%) Serverless
5 154 (4.20%) GitHub
6 152 (4.15%) Microsoft 365
7 147 (4.01%) GCP
8 131 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
10 88 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
11 85 (2.32%) Entra ID
12 84 (2.29%) Amazon S3
13 65 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
13 65 (1.77%) Power Automate
14 62 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
16 59 (1.61%) PowerApps
17 58 (1.58%) Amazon EC2
18 56 (1.53%) OCI
19 54 (1.47%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (2.40%) Firewall
2 57 (1.56%) VPN
3 50 (1.36%) Network Security
3 50 (1.36%) WAN
4 49 (1.34%) DNS
5 42 (1.15%) Wireless
6 40 (1.09%) LAN
7 32 (0.87%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.79%) BGP
9 25 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (0.60%) OSPF
11 21 (0.57%) DHCP
12 16 (0.44%) SD-WAN
13 15 (0.41%) SSL
14 14 (0.38%) Internet
15 13 (0.35%) MPLS
16 12 (0.33%) IPsec
16 12 (0.33%) VLAN
17 10 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
17 10 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (4.45%) Power BI
2 81 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.64%) SQL Server
4 54 (1.47%) MongoDB
5 53 (1.45%) Metadata
6 45 (1.23%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 39 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 31 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.85%) Relational Database
11 26 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (0.63%) Tableau
13 21 (0.57%) Electronic Patient Records
13 21 (0.57%) MySQL
13 21 (0.57%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.55%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.52%) Redis
16 18 (0.49%) BigQuery
17 17 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 205 (5.59%) JIRA
2 168 (4.58%) Git
3 130 (3.55%) GitLab
4 126 (3.44%) Jenkins
5 47 (1.28%) Selenium
6 45 (1.23%) Postman
7 33 (0.90%) JUnit
8 28 (0.76%) Mockito
9 27 (0.74%) Cypress.io
10 26 (0.71%) Cucumber
11 21 (0.57%) SonarQube
12 19 (0.52%) JMeter
13 16 (0.44%) REST Assured
14 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
14 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
14 14 (0.38%) Mocha
15 12 (0.33%) Maven
16 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
16 10 (0.27%) MSI
17 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,020 (27.83%) Social Skills
2 547 (14.92%) Finance
3 333 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (5.05%) Telecoms
5 156 (4.26%) Marketing
6 155 (4.23%) Military
7 154 (4.20%) Manufacturing
8 137 (3.74%) Local Government
9 133 (3.63%) Electronics
10 77 (2.10%) Legal
11 74 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
12 72 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
13 68 (1.86%) Influencing Skills
14 51 (1.39%) Banking
15 49 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 49 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
16 43 (1.17%) Police
17 40 (1.09%) Law
18 35 (0.95%) Billing
19 32 (0.87%) Retail
Job Titles
1 453 (12.36%) Developer
2 443 (12.09%) Architect
3 389 (10.61%) Senior
4 364 (9.93%) Analyst
5 316 (8.62%) Lead
6 190 (5.18%) Consultant
7 170 (4.64%) Business Analyst
8 143 (3.90%) Designer
9 126 (3.44%) DevOps Engineer
10 109 (2.97%) Project Manager
11 107 (2.92%) Solutions Architect
12 103 (2.81%) Data Engineer
13 100 (2.73%) Technical Architect
14 85 (2.32%) Java Developer
15 84 (2.29%) User Researcher
16 69 (1.88%) Senior Developer
17 68 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
18 67 (1.83%) Service Designer
19 64 (1.75%) AWS Engineer
20 57 (1.56%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.09%) REST
2 132 (3.60%) Node.js
3 110 (3.00%) React
4 103 (2.81%) Spring
5 91 (2.48%) Spring Boot
6 87 (2.37%) RESTful
7 78 (2.13%) .NET
8 75 (2.05%) HTML
9 72 (1.96%) AngularJS
9 72 (1.96%) Oracle Fusion
10 69 (1.88%) CSS
11 68 (1.86%) Web Services
12 62 (1.69%) SOAP
13 51 (1.39%) JSON
13 51 (1.39%) Kafka
14 37 (1.01%) Playwright
15 35 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
15 35 (0.95%) Middleware
16 34 (0.93%) XML
17 27 (0.74%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 142 (3.87%) Cloud Native
2 134 (3.66%) Onboarding
3 122 (3.33%) Product Ownership
4 121 (3.30%) NHS
5 89 (2.43%) Data Centre
6 78 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.88%) Management Information System
8 54 (1.47%) Public Cloud
9 35 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 34 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
11 32 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
11 32 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
12 31 (0.85%) Security Posture
13 30 (0.82%) Data Structures
14 28 (0.76%) PKI
15 26 (0.71%) CMDB
16 25 (0.68%) AI Agents
17 22 (0.60%) Replication
18 21 (0.57%) Security Operations Centre
19 18 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 217 (5.92%) Windows
2 164 (4.47%) Linux
3 58 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.34%) Android
5 44 (1.20%) Windows 10
6 43 (1.17%) Mac OS
7 37 (1.01%) Unix
8 25 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.57%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
11 10 (0.27%) VMS
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.25%) Ubuntu
13 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.19%) Solaris
15 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) AIX
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 915 (24.97%) Agile
2 517 (14.11%) CI/CD
3 501 (13.67%) DevOps
4 455 (12.41%) Problem-Solving
5 441 (12.03%) Stakeholder Management
6 403 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 358 (9.77%) Migration
8 342 (9.33%) Continuous Improvement
9 328 (8.95%) Roadmaps
10 320 (8.73%) Business Intelligence
11 267 (7.29%) Analytics
12 252 (6.88%) Decision-Making
13 226 (6.17%) Containerisation
14 225 (6.14%) Infrastructure as Code
14 225 (6.14%) Test Automation
15 220 (6.00%) Microservices
16 209 (5.70%) Workshop Facilitation
17 208 (5.68%) User Research
18 206 (5.62%) AI
19 205 (5.59%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 389 (10.61%) Python
2 328 (8.95%) SQL
3 260 (7.09%) Java
4 198 (5.40%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.30%) TypeScript
6 117 (3.19%) PowerShell
7 88 (2.40%) C#
8 65 (1.77%) Bash
9 39 (1.06%) Ruby
10 34 (0.93%) Apex Code
11 30 (0.82%) PL/SQL
12 26 (0.71%) Go
13 25 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.52%) R
15 17 (0.46%) Kotlin
15 17 (0.46%) PHP
16 14 (0.38%) Bicep
17 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
19 11 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,148 (58.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,399 (38.17%) SC Cleared
3 178 (4.86%) Degree
4 176 (4.80%) DV Cleared
5 100 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.36%) Azure Certification
7 45 (1.23%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.20%) CISSP
9 40 (1.09%) ITIL Certification
10 39 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
12 31 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (0.71%) CISM
14 25 (0.68%) PMP
15 22 (0.60%) ISEB
16 21 (0.57%) PMI Certification
17 17 (0.46%) CCNP
18 16 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.44%) ISTQB
18 16 (0.44%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 192 (5.24%) Accessibility
2 151 (4.12%) QA
3 139 (3.79%) Data Quality
4 109 (2.97%) GDPR
5 81 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.83%) WCAG
7 66 (1.80%) NIST
8 62 (1.69%) PMO
9 59 (1.61%) NCSC
10 46 (1.26%) SLA
11 26 (0.71%) GRC
12 19 (0.52%) COBIT
13 17 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.35%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.30%) HL7
16 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 250 (6.82%) Docker
2 132 (3.60%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
4 19 (0.52%) VMware NSX
5 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
6 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.38%) vSphere
7 10 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.16%) Postfix
9 5 (0.14%) NFS
10 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.082%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.082%) RACF
12 2 (0.055%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.055%) SRDF
13 1 (0.027%) GPFS
13 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 299 (8.16%) Terraform
2 271 (7.39%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.05%) Ansible
4 73 (1.99%) Grafana
5 49 (1.34%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
7 27 (0.74%) SCCM
7 27 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 15 (0.41%) Argo
9 13 (0.35%) Puppet
9 13 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.30%) Packer
12 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.25%) Kibana
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.19%) vRealize
16 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 418 (11.41%) Microsoft
2 282 (7.69%) SAP
3 207 (5.65%) Oracle
4 135 (3.68%) Cisco
5 114 (3.11%) Salesforce
6 109 (2.97%) ServiceNow
7 96 (2.62%) VMware
8 69 (1.88%) Google
9 66 (1.80%) Databricks
10 57 (1.56%) Splunk
11 44 (1.20%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.15%) Aruba
13 35 (0.95%) Dell
13 35 (0.95%) Red Hat
14 34 (0.93%) Apple
14 34 (0.93%) Juniper
15 31 (0.85%) HP
16 30 (0.82%) Atlassian
16 30 (0.82%) Palo Alto
17 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft