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 2 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 18 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,976 2,794 3,534
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.70% 9.21% 9.17%
As % of the General category 15.40% 15.23% 15.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,080 1,683 2,512
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -
75th Percentile £594 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 100 96
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.70 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.62 £16.05 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.25 £22.50 £23.75
Median % change year-on-year -5.56% -5.26% +19.53%
75th Percentile £25.13 £33.75 £58.61
90th Percentile £46.60 £60.28 £70.25
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.00 £21.91
% change year-on-year -4.55% +0.43% +12.77%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,319 18,347 23,007
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 62.99% 60.46% 59.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,275 11,040 15,623
10th Percentile £275 £300 £290
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £627 £650 £668
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,242 670 1,035
10th Percentile £14.01 £15.25 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.92 £18.00 £17.48
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.69 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.79% -7.02% +28.35%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.20 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £71.25 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £27.50 £31.88
% change year-on-year -12.73% -13.74% +27.52%

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025.

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 2 December 2025. 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 -2 1,217 £513 -2.38% 278
North of England 0 565 £461 -3.91% 204
South East -5 338 £500 -9.75% 273
South West +2 326 £538 -5.70% 95
North West 0 290 £450 -10.00% 103
Midlands +5 289 £475 -5.00% 117
West Midlands +5 227 £475 -5.00% 79
Yorkshire +5 175 £505 +6.37% 63
North East +2 104 £450 +5.88% 40
East of England +4 80 £375 +7.14% 37
East Midlands +4 62 £423 -11.05% 36
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
1 115 (3.86%) Confluence
2 90 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.91%) SAS
5 26 (0.87%) nginx
6 25 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.50%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.47%) Apache
9 13 (0.44%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.40%) CMS
11 6 (0.20%) Anypoint
12 5 (0.17%) Documentum
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
13 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
14 3 (0.10%) IIS
14 3 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
14 3 (0.10%) Smallworld
Applications
1 91 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
2 90 (3.02%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.34%) Trello
7 9 (0.30%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.20%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.20%) Sketch
9 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.17%) InVision
10 4 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.13%) UXPin
11 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) S-PLUS
13 1 (0.034%) Stata
13 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 41 (1.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.44%) SAP BRIM
5 13 (0.44%) SAP Hybris
6 12 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) iTrent
7 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.24%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Payroll
10 5 (0.17%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 562 (18.88%) AWS
2 535 (17.98%) Azure
3 195 (6.55%) Power Platform
4 148 (4.97%) Microsoft 365
5 134 (4.50%) GitHub
6 132 (4.44%) Serverless
7 127 (4.27%) GCP
8 106 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
9 82 (2.76%) AWS Lambda
10 75 (2.52%) Amazon S3
11 72 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
12 64 (2.15%) Entra ID
13 62 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
13 62 (2.08%) SaaS
14 61 (2.05%) PowerApps
15 59 (1.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 54 (1.81%) Power Automate
17 51 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
18 50 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
19 49 (1.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.80%) Firewall
2 81 (2.72%) DNS
3 63 (2.12%) VPN
4 50 (1.68%) WAN
5 44 (1.48%) Wireless
6 41 (1.38%) Network Security
7 40 (1.34%) LAN
8 33 (1.11%) BGP
8 33 (1.11%) TCP/IP
9 29 (0.97%) DHCP
10 26 (0.87%) HTTP
11 25 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
12 23 (0.77%) SD-WAN
13 22 (0.74%) OSPF
14 21 (0.71%) SSH
14 21 (0.71%) SSL
15 20 (0.67%) FTP
15 20 (0.67%) Internet
15 20 (0.67%) SMTP
16 18 (0.60%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.47%) Power BI
2 85 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
3 50 (1.68%) MongoDB
4 44 (1.48%) Metadata
5 37 (1.24%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.21%) Amazon RDS
6 36 (1.21%) Relational Database
7 32 (1.08%) NoSQL
8 29 (0.97%) Data Lake
8 29 (0.97%) Data Warehouse
9 28 (0.94%) Oracle Database
10 25 (0.84%) MySQL
11 24 (0.81%) Redis
12 23 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
13 19 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
14 17 (0.57%) BigQuery
14 17 (0.57%) Tableau
15 14 (0.47%) Big Data
16 13 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
16 13 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 198 (6.65%) JIRA
2 166 (5.58%) Git
3 138 (4.64%) Jenkins
4 89 (2.99%) GitLab
5 36 (1.21%) Postman
6 34 (1.14%) Selenium
7 27 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 22 (0.74%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.67%) Vagrant
10 19 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 19 (0.64%) Mockito
10 19 (0.64%) REST Assured
11 18 (0.60%) JUnit
12 15 (0.50%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
14 10 (0.34%) MSI
15 9 (0.30%) CircleCI
16 8 (0.27%) JMeter
17 7 (0.24%) Metasploit
17 7 (0.24%) Mocha
General
1 873 (29.33%) Social Skills
2 489 (16.43%) Finance
3 265 (8.90%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (8.00%) Telecoms
5 199 (6.69%) Manufacturing
6 191 (6.42%) Marketing
7 180 (6.05%) Electronics
8 134 (4.50%) Military
9 118 (3.97%) Local Government
10 70 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
11 68 (2.28%) Legal
12 53 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
13 45 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
15 40 (1.34%) Retail
16 37 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (1.24%) Law
17 26 (0.87%) Banking
17 26 (0.87%) Police
18 23 (0.77%) Billing
Job Titles
1 359 (12.06%) Developer
2 344 (11.56%) Architect
3 309 (10.38%) Analyst
4 296 (9.95%) Senior
5 278 (9.34%) Lead
6 198 (6.65%) Consultant
7 127 (4.27%) Business Analyst
8 125 (4.20%) DevOps Engineer
9 86 (2.89%) Project Manager
10 79 (2.65%) AWS Engineer
10 79 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
11 73 (2.45%) Technical Architect
12 72 (2.42%) Designer
13 64 (2.15%) Support Engineer
14 55 (1.85%) Network Engineer
15 54 (1.81%) Java Developer
16 52 (1.75%) Data Engineer
16 52 (1.75%) Senior Developer
17 49 (1.65%) IT Support
18 47 (1.58%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (3.90%) REST
2 85 (2.86%) React
2 85 (2.86%) RESTful
3 81 (2.72%) Node.js
4 75 (2.52%) .NET
5 62 (2.08%) Kafka
5 62 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
5 62 (2.08%) Spring Boot
6 60 (2.02%) HTML
6 60 (2.02%) Spring
7 57 (1.92%) JSON
8 52 (1.75%) CSS
9 51 (1.71%) AngularJS
10 50 (1.68%) SOAP
11 46 (1.55%) Web Services
12 38 (1.28%) XML
13 27 (0.91%) OAuth
14 24 (0.81%) Playwright
15 22 (0.74%) LDAP
16 21 (0.71%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 107 (3.60%) Cloud Native
2 100 (3.36%) Onboarding
3 99 (3.33%) NHS
4 78 (2.62%) Product Ownership
5 74 (2.49%) Data Centre
6 67 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
7 65 (2.18%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.28%) Replication
9 32 (1.08%) PKI
9 32 (1.08%) Public Cloud
10 31 (1.04%) Security Posture
11 29 (0.97%) CMDB
12 26 (0.87%) Data Structures
13 25 (0.84%) Distributed Systems
13 25 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
14 24 (0.81%) AI Agents
15 23 (0.77%) Analytical Mindset
16 22 (0.74%) Driving Licence
16 22 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
17 21 (0.71%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 241 (8.10%) Windows
2 155 (5.21%) Linux
3 52 (1.75%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.55%) Windows Server
5 44 (1.48%) Android
6 40 (1.34%) Mac OS
7 28 (0.94%) VMS
8 25 (0.84%) Unix
9 20 (0.67%) Amazon Linux
9 20 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 18 (0.60%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 10 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.27%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.10%) CentOS
15 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 742 (24.93%) Agile
2 425 (14.28%) CI/CD
2 425 (14.28%) DevOps
3 400 (13.44%) Problem-Solving
4 389 (13.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 340 (11.42%) Business Intelligence
6 297 (9.98%) Stakeholder Management
7 288 (9.68%) Migration
8 262 (8.80%) Continuous Improvement
9 222 (7.46%) Roadmaps
10 207 (6.96%) Programme Management
11 193 (6.49%) Microservices
12 190 (6.38%) ITIL
13 188 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
14 181 (6.08%) Analytics
15 179 (6.01%) Digital Marketing
16 173 (5.81%) Decision-Making
17 167 (5.61%) AI
18 164 (5.51%) Test Automation
19 163 (5.48%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 351 (11.79%) Python
2 252 (8.47%) SQL
3 241 (8.10%) Java
4 141 (4.74%) JavaScript
5 122 (4.10%) PowerShell
6 80 (2.69%) TypeScript
7 72 (2.42%) Bash
8 70 (2.35%) C#
9 33 (1.11%) Go
10 24 (0.81%) Groovy
11 23 (0.77%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.74%) C++
13 21 (0.71%) Perl
14 20 (0.67%) Ruby
15 19 (0.64%) Apex Code
15 19 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.50%) C
17 14 (0.47%) Bicep
17 14 (0.47%) PHP
18 12 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,821 (61.19%) Security Cleared
2 1,242 (41.73%) SC Cleared
3 175 (5.88%) DV Cleared
4 124 (4.17%) Degree
5 76 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.75%) CISSP
7 42 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 41 (1.38%) AWS Certification
8 41 (1.38%) Azure Certification
9 38 (1.28%) ITIL Certification
10 34 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
11 27 (0.91%) CISM
12 26 (0.87%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (0.81%) CCNP
14 20 (0.67%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.64%) ISEB
16 16 (0.54%) CCNA
17 15 (0.50%) OSCP
18 14 (0.47%) Master's Degree
18 14 (0.47%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 121 (4.07%) Accessibility
2 119 (4.00%) QA
3 91 (3.06%) GDPR
4 85 (2.86%) Data Quality
5 81 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 68 (2.28%) NIST
7 55 (1.85%) NCSC
8 43 (1.44%) PMO
9 42 (1.41%) SLA
10 39 (1.31%) WCAG
11 23 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.67%) GRC
13 17 (0.57%) COBIT
13 17 (0.57%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.54%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.40%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.34%) HL7
18 9 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 8 (0.27%) RMADS
System Software
1 218 (7.33%) Docker
2 128 (4.30%) Active Directory
3 62 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.67%) DFS Replication
5 17 (0.57%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.47%) vSphere
9 12 (0.40%) VMware NSX
10 10 (0.34%) Postfix
11 9 (0.30%) Dovecot
11 9 (0.30%) Squid
12 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 5 (0.17%) UAG
14 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
15 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
15 3 (0.10%) Firmware
15 3 (0.10%) NFS
Systems Management
1 281 (9.44%) Terraform
2 220 (7.39%) Kubernetes
3 79 (2.65%) Ansible
4 68 (2.28%) Grafana
5 55 (1.85%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.31%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (1.31%) SCCM
7 20 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (0.64%) Packer
9 16 (0.54%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.40%) Nessus
11 11 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.37%) Argo
12 10 (0.34%) SCOM
13 9 (0.30%) Consul
13 9 (0.30%) Proxmox
14 8 (0.27%) Nmap
14 8 (0.27%) Puppet
14 8 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 411 (13.81%) Microsoft
2 298 (10.01%) SAP
3 180 (6.05%) Oracle
4 150 (5.04%) Cisco
5 111 (3.73%) ServiceNow
6 89 (2.99%) VMware
7 65 (2.18%) Salesforce
8 58 (1.95%) Google
9 56 (1.88%) Splunk
10 50 (1.68%) Juniper
11 40 (1.34%) Aruba
12 37 (1.24%) Dell
12 37 (1.24%) HP
13 36 (1.21%) Apple
14 35 (1.18%) Palo Alto
15 34 (1.14%) Virgin Media
16 32 (1.08%) Databricks
17 28 (0.94%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.87%) F5
18 26 (0.87%) Red Hat