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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 18 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,725 2,235 3,365
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.76% 9.22% 8.93%
As % of the General category 17.17% 14.52% 15.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,656 1,511 2,239
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £414 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £590 £612 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 83 159
10th Percentile £15.76 £15.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.09 £22.50 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -1.83% +3.54% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.47 £33.95 £56.56
90th Percentile £60.85 £64.25 £69.70
UK median hourly rate £22.04 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -4.18% +9.52% +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 21,698 15,388 22,008
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.84% 63.47% 58.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,693 10,039 14,313
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £410 £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 £767
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,366 623 1,708
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.71 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.50 £15.28
Median hourly rate £25.77 £30.00 £26.03
Median % change year-on-year -14.10% +15.25% -25.63%
75th Percentile £61.18 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.20 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £29.07 £26.00
% change year-on-year -12.69% +11.81% -25.71%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 0 1,610 £520 -0.95% 363
North of England -3 648 £450 -4.76% 228
South East -1 466 £500 -7.32% 200
Midlands +6 401 £500 +7.82% 117
North West -1 324 £450 -10.00% 90
West Midlands -2 298 £500 +10.29% 89
South West -3 270 £525 -1.87% 87
Yorkshire +5 212 £500 +23.08% 76
North East -2 117 £446 +2.53% 62
East of England +24 114 £375 +15.38% 44
East Midlands +15 98 £500 - 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 (3.57%) Confluence
2 104 (2.79%) SharePoint
3 30 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.72%) SAS
5 20 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.43%) Apache
7 15 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.40%) CMS
8 14 (0.38%) nginx
9 9 (0.24%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.13%) Camunda
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.11%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.081%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 94 (2.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 82 (2.20%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.21%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.081%) InVision
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
13 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 14 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 6 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
8 6 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.16%) SystmOne
9 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
9 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
10 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 695 (18.66%) AWS
2 651 (17.48%) Azure
3 209 (5.61%) Power Platform
4 171 (4.59%) Serverless
5 161 (4.32%) GitHub
6 155 (4.16%) Microsoft 365
7 145 (3.89%) Azure DevOps
8 138 (3.70%) GCP
9 104 (2.79%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
11 92 (2.47%) Entra ID
12 91 (2.44%) Amazon S3
13 70 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
14 65 (1.74%) Amazon EC2
14 65 (1.74%) Power Automate
15 64 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
16 59 (1.58%) Amazon EKS
17 56 (1.50%) OCI
17 56 (1.50%) PowerApps
18 55 (1.48%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.50%) Firewall
2 59 (1.58%) VPN
3 56 (1.50%) WAN
4 55 (1.48%) Network Security
5 48 (1.29%) LAN
6 47 (1.26%) DNS
7 31 (0.83%) Wireless
8 30 (0.81%) BGP
9 26 (0.70%) TCP/IP
10 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
11 24 (0.64%) OSPF
12 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.51%) DHCP
14 16 (0.43%) Internet
14 16 (0.43%) SSL
15 13 (0.35%) VLAN
16 12 (0.32%) MPLS
17 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
17 11 (0.30%) IPsec
18 10 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (4.35%) Power BI
2 81 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
3 62 (1.66%) SQL Server
4 59 (1.58%) Metadata
5 53 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
5 53 (1.42%) MongoDB
6 47 (1.26%) NoSQL
7 41 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
8 34 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
9 32 (0.86%) Data Lake
10 29 (0.78%) Relational Database
10 29 (0.78%) Tableau
11 28 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
12 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
13 24 (0.64%) DynamoDB
14 22 (0.59%) Oracle Database
15 19 (0.51%) MySQL
16 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
16 17 (0.46%) Redis
17 16 (0.43%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 212 (5.69%) JIRA
2 183 (4.91%) Git
3 121 (3.25%) GitLab
4 120 (3.22%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.18%) Selenium
6 42 (1.13%) Postman
7 36 (0.97%) JUnit
8 32 (0.86%) Mockito
9 24 (0.64%) SonarQube
10 23 (0.62%) JMeter
11 22 (0.59%) Cypress.io
12 21 (0.56%) Cucumber
13 14 (0.38%) Maven
14 13 (0.35%) Bitbucket
14 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
15 12 (0.32%) Mocha
15 12 (0.32%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.30%) Artifactory
17 10 (0.27%) MSI
18 9 (0.24%) ERwin
General
1 991 (26.60%) Social Skills
2 540 (14.50%) Finance
3 361 (9.69%) Analytical Skills
4 162 (4.35%) Telecoms
5 161 (4.32%) Local Government
6 160 (4.30%) Military
7 130 (3.49%) Marketing
8 128 (3.44%) Manufacturing
9 108 (2.90%) Electronics
10 88 (2.36%) Legal
11 78 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 74 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
13 70 (1.88%) Organisational Skills
14 59 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 52 (1.40%) Banking
15 52 (1.40%) Police
16 48 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
17 42 (1.13%) Law
18 36 (0.97%) Billing
19 34 (0.91%) Retail
Job Titles
1 473 (12.70%) Architect
2 465 (12.48%) Developer
3 409 (10.98%) Senior
4 387 (10.39%) Analyst
5 304 (8.16%) Lead
6 176 (4.72%) Consultant
7 173 (4.64%) Business Analyst
8 148 (3.97%) Designer
9 119 (3.19%) DevOps Engineer
10 116 (3.11%) Data Engineer
10 116 (3.11%) Solutions Architect
11 111 (2.98%) Project Manager
12 107 (2.87%) Technical Architect
13 89 (2.39%) Java Developer
14 84 (2.26%) Senior Developer
15 83 (2.23%) User Researcher
16 80 (2.15%) Delivery Manager
17 66 (1.77%) Service Designer
18 59 (1.58%) Data Analyst
19 57 (1.53%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (4.05%) REST
2 120 (3.22%) Node.js
3 106 (2.85%) React
4 103 (2.77%) Spring
5 98 (2.63%) RESTful
6 91 (2.44%) Spring Boot
7 79 (2.12%) .NET
8 72 (1.93%) Oracle Fusion
9 71 (1.91%) AngularJS
10 68 (1.83%) HTML
11 67 (1.80%) Web Services
12 64 (1.72%) CSS
13 63 (1.69%) SOAP
14 58 (1.56%) Kafka
15 50 (1.34%) JSON
16 39 (1.05%) Lightning Web Components
17 36 (0.97%) Middleware
18 35 (0.94%) Playwright
18 35 (0.94%) XML
19 27 (0.72%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 155 (4.16%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.57%) NHS
3 131 (3.52%) Product Ownership
4 127 (3.41%) Onboarding
5 80 (2.15%) Data Centre
6 76 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.85%) Management Information System
8 58 (1.56%) Public Cloud
9 47 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
10 40 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.02%) Data Structures
12 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
14 29 (0.78%) CMDB
15 27 (0.72%) Security Posture
16 25 (0.67%) Replication
17 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) Virtual Team
19 17 (0.46%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 202 (5.42%) Windows
2 153 (4.11%) Linux
3 58 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 43 (1.15%) Windows 10
5 39 (1.05%) Android
6 38 (1.02%) Unix
7 33 (0.89%) Mac OS
8 25 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 19 (0.51%) Apple iOS
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 9 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.19%) Solaris
12 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 968 (25.99%) Agile
2 530 (14.23%) CI/CD
3 521 (13.99%) DevOps
4 457 (12.27%) Problem-Solving
5 455 (12.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 419 (11.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 371 (9.96%) Migration
8 368 (9.88%) Continuous Improvement
9 343 (9.21%) Roadmaps
10 299 (8.03%) Analytics
11 294 (7.89%) Business Intelligence
12 279 (7.49%) Decision-Making
13 242 (6.50%) Test Automation
14 239 (6.42%) Containerisation
15 231 (6.20%) Data Modelling
16 229 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
16 229 (6.15%) Microservices
17 215 (5.77%) Workshop Facilitation
18 214 (5.74%) AI
19 212 (5.69%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 407 (10.93%) Python
2 338 (9.07%) SQL
3 264 (7.09%) Java
4 195 (5.23%) JavaScript
5 116 (3.11%) TypeScript
6 112 (3.01%) PowerShell
7 89 (2.39%) C#
8 57 (1.53%) Bash
9 46 (1.23%) Ruby
10 39 (1.05%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
12 24 (0.64%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.59%) R
14 21 (0.56%) Kotlin
15 20 (0.54%) Bicep
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.30%) Scala
19 10 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 2,158 (57.93%) Security Cleared
2 1,405 (37.72%) SC Cleared
3 183 (4.91%) DV Cleared
4 169 (4.54%) Degree
5 97 (2.60%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.40%) Azure Certification
7 46 (1.23%) CISSP
8 42 (1.13%) AWS Certification
9 39 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
11 34 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
12 33 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
13 29 (0.78%) PMP
14 28 (0.75%) CISM
15 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
16 24 (0.64%) ISEB
17 19 (0.51%) CCNP
18 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
19 15 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
20 14 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (5.18%) Accessibility
2 156 (4.19%) QA
3 149 (4.00%) Data Quality
4 106 (2.85%) GDPR
5 89 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 77 (2.07%) WCAG
7 67 (1.80%) NCSC
8 65 (1.74%) PMO
9 61 (1.64%) NIST
10 41 (1.10%) SLA
11 29 (0.78%) GRC
12 21 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
12 21 (0.56%) COBIT
12 21 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.46%) PCI DSS
14 16 (0.43%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 8 (0.21%) NIST 800
System Software
1 261 (7.01%) Docker
2 135 (3.62%) Active Directory
3 60 (1.61%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.56%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.38%) vSphere
8 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.19%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) 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%) etcd
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) KVM
14 1 (0.027%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 296 (7.95%) Terraform
2 271 (7.28%) Kubernetes
3 68 (1.83%) Ansible
3 68 (1.83%) Grafana
4 47 (1.26%) Prometheus
5 43 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
6 28 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
7 25 (0.67%) SCCM
8 13 (0.35%) Argo
9 12 (0.32%) Puppet
9 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
10 11 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 10 (0.27%) Packer
12 8 (0.21%) Consul
12 8 (0.21%) Kibana
12 8 (0.21%) vRealize
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
14 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 425 (11.41%) Microsoft
2 251 (6.74%) SAP
3 218 (5.85%) Oracle
4 121 (3.25%) Salesforce
5 118 (3.17%) Cisco
6 112 (3.01%) ServiceNow
7 96 (2.58%) VMware
8 81 (2.17%) Databricks
9 74 (1.99%) Google
10 47 (1.26%) Splunk
11 41 (1.10%) Aruba
12 35 (0.94%) IBM
12 35 (0.94%) Virgin Media
13 32 (0.86%) Atlassian
13 32 (0.86%) Red Hat
14 29 (0.78%) Juniper
14 29 (0.78%) MuleSoft
14 29 (0.78%) Palo Alto
15 26 (0.70%) Dell
16 23 (0.62%) HP