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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 23 19
Rank change year-on-year -1 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,935 2,232 2,678
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.62% 8.10% 8.04%
As % of the General category 15.58% 12.58% 13.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,750 1,532 1,818
10th Percentile £362 £325 £313
25th Percentile £428 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £520
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -1.44% -3.26%
75th Percentile £615 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 92 112
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £14.46
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £16.36
Median hourly rate £21.50 £21.70 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.92% -14.90% +27.50%
75th Percentile £52.38 £30.88 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.25 £65.10 £74.71
UK median hourly rate £22.15 £20.57 £23.00
% change year-on-year +7.68% -10.57% +17.95%

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 25,253 17,743 19,196
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.30% 64.39% 57.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,038 11,277 12,244
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £420 £400 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £538
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -5.67% -2.18%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £656
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,021 969 1,167
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.25 £14.27
25th Percentile £17.73 £16.50 £17.16
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%
75th Percentile £60.00 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £36.50
% change year-on-year +25.25% -31.10% +32.73%

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 21 August 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 21 August 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 21 August 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 1,709 £540 +2.86% 359
North of England +1 703 £475 -1.04% 247
Midlands +10 481 £495 +4.21% 134
South East 0 471 £510 -2.86% 182
West Midlands +6 401 £492 +3.58% 104
South West -4 354 £525 -4.55% 166
Yorkshire +9 263 £470 -3.84% 94
North West -11 259 £510 +8.51% 105
North East -2 193 £450 -11.76% 51
East Midlands +19 73 £600 +46.34% 30
East of England +3 58 £450 -10.00% 32
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
1 160 (4.07%) Confluence
2 108 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 52 (1.32%) Microsoft Exchange
4 51 (1.30%) SAS
5 46 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
6 42 (1.07%) Apache Spark
7 38 (0.97%) Apache
8 24 (0.61%) CMS
9 20 (0.51%) Jupyter
10 15 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.28%) WordPress
12 9 (0.23%) nginx
13 7 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
14 5 (0.13%) Drupal
14 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.10%) IIS
16 3 (0.076%) Camunda
16 3 (0.076%) Tomcat
17 2 (0.051%) Mendix
Applications
1 74 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.22%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
3 26 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
4 16 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
5 8 (0.20%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.15%) Trello
7 5 (0.13%) Sketch
8 3 (0.076%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.051%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.051%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.025%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
10 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
10 1 (0.025%) Revit
10 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 53 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 41 (1.04%) Oracle ERP
4 25 (0.64%) Oracle EBS
5 23 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
6 14 (0.36%) Workday HCM
7 12 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
8 11 (0.28%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
9 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
9 10 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Payroll
10 9 (0.23%) SAP FI
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 8 (0.20%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.20%) SAP Hybris
12 7 (0.18%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 817 (20.76%) AWS
2 788 (20.03%) Azure
3 235 (5.97%) Power Platform
4 191 (4.85%) Azure DevOps
5 177 (4.50%) Microsoft 365
6 158 (4.02%) GCP
7 154 (3.91%) GitHub
8 147 (3.74%) Serverless
9 135 (3.43%) Entra ID
10 120 (3.05%) Amazon S3
11 109 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
12 104 (2.64%) SaaS
13 91 (2.31%) OCI
14 90 (2.29%) AWS Lambda
15 84 (2.13%) Power Automate
16 78 (1.98%) Dynamics 365
17 70 (1.78%) PowerApps
18 68 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 67 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
20 61 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 112 (2.85%) Firewall
2 72 (1.83%) DNS
3 56 (1.42%) WAN
4 49 (1.25%) LAN
5 45 (1.14%) Network Security
6 39 (0.99%) VPN
7 34 (0.86%) DHCP
8 30 (0.76%) BGP
8 30 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
9 29 (0.74%) OSPF
9 29 (0.74%) TCP/IP
10 22 (0.56%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.48%) WLAN
12 16 (0.41%) VXLAN
13 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
13 15 (0.38%) Wireless
14 14 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
14 14 (0.36%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 14 (0.36%) VLAN
14 14 (0.36%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (3.86%) Power BI
2 112 (2.85%) Data Warehouse
3 106 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (2.01%) SQL Server
5 69 (1.75%) Relational Database
6 68 (1.73%) Metadata
7 57 (1.45%) MongoDB
8 53 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
9 52 (1.32%) Data Lake
9 52 (1.32%) Oracle Database
10 47 (1.19%) NoSQL
11 33 (0.84%) Amazon Redshift
12 32 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
12 32 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
13 30 (0.76%) MySQL
14 27 (0.69%) Amazon Aurora
15 26 (0.66%) DynamoDB
15 26 (0.66%) Pentaho
16 25 (0.64%) Tableau
17 20 (0.51%) Redis
Development Applications
1 242 (6.15%) JIRA
2 189 (4.80%) Git
3 159 (4.04%) GitLab
4 131 (3.33%) Jenkins
5 42 (1.07%) Selenium
6 34 (0.86%) Cucumber
7 30 (0.76%) JUnit
8 29 (0.74%) Mockito
8 29 (0.74%) Postman
9 26 (0.66%) SonarQube
10 25 (0.64%) Cypress.io
11 23 (0.58%) JMeter
12 20 (0.51%) Maven
13 18 (0.46%) REST Assured
14 17 (0.43%) WebDriver
15 14 (0.36%) Gatling
16 12 (0.30%) MSI
17 11 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
18 10 (0.25%) CircleCI
18 10 (0.25%) fastlane
General
1 1,120 (28.46%) Social Skills
2 444 (11.28%) Finance
3 386 (9.81%) Analytical Skills
4 233 (5.92%) Military
5 221 (5.62%) Local Government
6 157 (3.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 137 (3.48%) Influencing Skills
8 102 (2.59%) Legal
9 98 (2.49%) Organisational Skills
10 86 (2.19%) Police
11 85 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
12 58 (1.47%) Law
13 50 (1.27%) Telecoms
14 43 (1.09%) Marketing
15 36 (0.91%) Banking
16 35 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
17 30 (0.76%) Retail
18 25 (0.64%) Billing
19 18 (0.46%) Manufacturing
20 17 (0.43%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 543 (13.80%) Architect
2 529 (13.44%) Developer
3 519 (13.19%) Senior
4 464 (11.79%) Lead
5 339 (8.61%) Analyst
6 165 (4.19%) Consultant
7 152 (3.86%) Data Engineer
8 143 (3.63%) Designer
9 136 (3.46%) DevOps Engineer
10 133 (3.38%) Business Analyst
11 123 (3.13%) Delivery Manager
12 118 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
13 113 (2.87%) Technical Architect
14 109 (2.77%) Data Architect
15 105 (2.67%) Senior Developer
16 92 (2.34%) Project Manager
17 89 (2.26%) Java Developer
18 84 (2.13%) User Researcher
19 80 (2.03%) Senior Manager
20 77 (1.96%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 356 (9.05%) Terraform
2 156 (3.96%) REST
3 106 (2.69%) RESTful
4 103 (2.62%) React
5 96 (2.44%) Node.js
6 89 (2.26%) Spring
7 83 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
8 80 (2.03%) Spring Boot
9 77 (1.96%) HTML
10 76 (1.93%) Kafka
11 71 (1.80%) SOAP
12 69 (1.75%) Web Services
13 68 (1.73%) .NET
14 66 (1.68%) CSS
15 64 (1.63%) Django
16 60 (1.52%) OAuth
17 53 (1.35%) AngularJS
18 50 (1.27%) JSON
19 48 (1.22%) OpenID
20 47 (1.19%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 234 (5.95%) Cloud Native
2 164 (4.17%) Onboarding
3 161 (4.09%) Product Ownership
4 137 (3.48%) NHS
5 113 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
6 101 (2.57%) Management Information System
7 72 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
8 59 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
9 52 (1.32%) Data Centre
10 46 (1.17%) Data Structures
11 43 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
12 40 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
13 39 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
14 36 (0.91%) Public Cloud
15 33 (0.84%) CMDB
15 33 (0.84%) Freedom of Information
16 31 (0.79%) Virtual Team
17 30 (0.76%) Low-Code
17 30 (0.76%) Security Operations Centre
18 29 (0.74%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 143 (3.63%) Windows
2 128 (3.25%) Linux
3 45 (1.14%) Windows Server
4 44 (1.12%) Unix
5 22 (0.56%) Windows 10
6 21 (0.53%) Android
7 18 (0.46%) Apple iOS
8 17 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 14 (0.36%) Mac OS
10 5 (0.13%) AIX
10 5 (0.13%) Amazon Linux
11 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
12 3 (0.076%) Mac OS X
12 3 (0.076%) Solaris
12 3 (0.076%) Windows Server 2019
13 2 (0.051%) CentOS
13 2 (0.051%) VMS
13 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
14 1 (0.025%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
14 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,244 (31.61%) Agile
2 765 (19.44%) Stakeholder Management
3 672 (17.08%) CI/CD
4 669 (17.00%) DevOps
5 643 (16.34%) Continuous Improvement
6 634 (16.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 475 (12.07%) Problem-Solving
8 425 (10.80%) Decision-Making
9 422 (10.72%) Analytics
10 380 (9.66%) Migration
11 345 (8.77%) Infrastructure as Code
11 345 (8.77%) Roadmaps
12 330 (8.39%) AI
13 325 (8.26%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 300 (7.62%) Data Modelling
15 273 (6.94%) Technical Leadership
15 273 (6.94%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 267 (6.79%) Containerisation
17 260 (6.61%) Scrum
18 256 (6.51%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 471 (11.97%) Python
2 396 (10.06%) SQL
3 252 (6.40%) Java
4 215 (5.46%) JavaScript
5 112 (2.85%) PowerShell
6 110 (2.80%) TypeScript
7 83 (2.11%) C#
8 59 (1.50%) Bash
9 52 (1.32%) PL/SQL
10 48 (1.22%) Bicep
11 35 (0.89%) Apex Code
11 35 (0.89%) Scala
12 29 (0.74%) Kotlin
13 26 (0.66%) Ruby
14 25 (0.64%) R
15 24 (0.61%) Groovy
16 21 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 15 (0.38%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.36%) ABAP
19 13 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,015 (51.21%) Security Cleared
2 1,601 (40.69%) SC Cleared
3 245 (6.23%) DV Cleared
4 240 (6.10%) BPSS Clearance
5 174 (4.42%) Degree
6 68 (1.73%) Microsoft Certification
7 60 (1.52%) Azure Certification
8 58 (1.47%) AWS Certification
9 45 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
10 41 (1.04%) CISSP
11 30 (0.76%) CCNP
12 28 (0.71%) CISM
12 28 (0.71%) PMI Certification
13 26 (0.66%) ISTQB
13 26 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
14 22 (0.56%) Master's Degree
15 21 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
16 17 (0.43%) PMP
17 15 (0.38%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 309 (7.85%) Accessibility
2 231 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 226 (5.74%) QA
4 129 (3.28%) WCAG
5 128 (3.25%) GDPR
6 96 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 81 (2.06%) NCSC
8 79 (2.01%) PMO
9 74 (1.88%) NIST
10 36 (0.91%) GRC
11 33 (0.84%) SLA
12 26 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 13 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 12 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 12 (0.30%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
18 10 (0.25%) HL7
19 5 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 301 (7.65%) Docker
2 158 (4.02%) Active Directory
3 41 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.61%) VMware NSX
5 16 (0.41%) Hyper-V
6 13 (0.33%) vSphere
7 10 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
7 10 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.15%) Postfix
10 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.025%) Ceph
10 1 (0.025%) etcd
10 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
10 1 (0.025%) GPFS
10 1 (0.025%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.025%) NFS
10 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 277 (7.04%) Kubernetes
2 89 (2.26%) Grafana
3 79 (2.01%) Ansible
4 60 (1.52%) Prometheus
5 46 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
6 40 (1.02%) Microsoft Intune
7 25 (0.64%) Argo
8 17 (0.43%) SCCM
9 14 (0.36%) Kibana
10 10 (0.25%) Puppet
11 9 (0.23%) Data Guard
11 9 (0.23%) Oracle RMAN
11 9 (0.23%) VxRail
12 7 (0.18%) vCenter Server
13 6 (0.15%) Istio
13 6 (0.15%) Progress Chef
14 5 (0.13%) QRadar
15 4 (0.10%) Consul
15 4 (0.10%) Packer
15 4 (0.10%) Rancher
Vendors
1 525 (13.34%) Microsoft
2 322 (8.18%) Oracle
3 141 (3.58%) ServiceNow
4 125 (3.18%) SAP
5 122 (3.10%) Google
6 109 (2.77%) Salesforce
7 92 (2.34%) Databricks
8 53 (1.35%) VMware
9 48 (1.22%) Cisco
10 38 (0.97%) Palo Alto
11 33 (0.84%) Dynatrace
12 29 (0.74%) Talend
13 27 (0.69%) Informatica
14 25 (0.64%) Foundry
15 23 (0.58%) Palantir
15 23 (0.58%) Red Hat
15 23 (0.58%) Splunk
15 23 (0.58%) Workday
16 22 (0.56%) Atlassian
17 21 (0.53%) Blue Prism