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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 22 16
Rank change year-on-year +2 -6 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,643 2,031 3,136
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.84% 8.39% 8.62%
As % of the General category 16.34% 13.09% 14.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,579 1,386 2,106
10th Percentile £350 £350 £313
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £688 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £513
% change year-on-year - -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 155 78 159
10th Percentile £13.69 £15.97 £12.74
25th Percentile £16.77 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £23.83 £22.70 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.96% +5.58% +4.17%
75th Percentile £33.70 £32.06 £54.77
90th Percentile £68.70 £63.07 £70.39
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £22.17 £21.00
% change year-on-year +7.47% +5.57% +2.84%

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 22,298 15,520 21,189
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.08% 64.09% 58.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,771 10,039 13,665
10th Percentile £310 £290 £281
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £626 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £510 £517 £525
% change year-on-year -1.35% -1.52% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,484 684 1,774
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.76 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.03 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.78 £27.25 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +12.95% -9.65% -5.75%
75th Percentile £61.18 £54.25 £52.35
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £66.59
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.40 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.49% -8.67% -7.69%

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 May 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 May 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 May 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 +4 1,629 £525 - 343
North of England -3 659 £450 -5.26% 242
South East +1 434 £500 -6.98% 207
Midlands +4 379 £500 +10.38% 122
North West +2 313 £475 -5.00% 93
West Midlands 0 305 £495 +9.63% 87
South West -6 255 £525 -4.55% 109
Yorkshire +4 222 £450 -2.70% 86
North East -3 132 £450 -3.23% 64
East of England +22 83 £450 - 51
East Midlands +7 68 £525 +10.53% 35
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
1 142 (3.90%) Confluence
2 103 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.21%) Microsoft Exchange
4 31 (0.85%) SAS
5 22 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.58%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.44%) Apache
8 15 (0.41%) CMS
9 9 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
10 7 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.19%) Tomcat
11 6 (0.16%) Jupyter
11 6 (0.16%) nginx
11 6 (0.16%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.14%) Camunda
13 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.082%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.082%) Drupal
14 2 (0.055%) Sitecore CMS
14 2 (0.055%) WordPress
Applications
1 77 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 62 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 25 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
7 7 (0.19%) Trello
8 4 (0.11%) Adobe XD
8 4 (0.11%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.11%) Sketch
9 3 (0.082%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.055%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.055%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.027%) InVision
11 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
11 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 60 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.49%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 10 (0.27%) SystmOne
7 9 (0.25%) iTrent
7 9 (0.25%) SAP BRIM
7 9 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
8 8 (0.22%) NEC Housing
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Receivables
11 4 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 690 (18.94%) AWS
2 627 (17.21%) Azure
3 189 (5.19%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.42%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (3.95%) GitHub
6 140 (3.84%) Serverless
7 131 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
8 130 (3.57%) GCP
9 102 (2.80%) Entra ID
10 99 (2.72%) Amazon S3
11 86 (2.36%) AWS Lambda
12 84 (2.31%) SaaS
13 82 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
14 76 (2.09%) Amazon EC2
15 66 (1.81%) Amazon EKS
15 66 (1.81%) Power Automate
16 63 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
17 62 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 62 (1.70%) OCI
18 58 (1.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.61%) Firewall
2 54 (1.48%) WAN
3 50 (1.37%) DNS
4 47 (1.29%) Network Security
5 44 (1.21%) VPN
6 40 (1.10%) LAN
7 35 (0.96%) BGP
8 30 (0.82%) OSPF
9 26 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
10 24 (0.66%) TCP/IP
11 21 (0.58%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.52%) DHCP
12 19 (0.52%) VXLAN
13 18 (0.49%) BIG-IP
14 17 (0.47%) Ethernet VPN
15 16 (0.44%) SSL
16 14 (0.38%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 12 (0.33%) DKIM
17 12 (0.33%) WLAN
18 11 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (3.60%) Power BI
2 79 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
3 69 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
4 66 (1.81%) SQL Server
5 57 (1.56%) MongoDB
6 56 (1.54%) Metadata
7 50 (1.37%) Amazon RDS
8 42 (1.15%) NoSQL
9 34 (0.93%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 31 (0.85%) DynamoDB
11 31 (0.85%) Oracle Database
11 31 (0.85%) Tableau
12 29 (0.80%) Relational Database
13 21 (0.58%) Amazon Aurora
13 21 (0.58%) Electronic Patient Records
14 20 (0.55%) Pentaho
15 18 (0.49%) Azure SQL Database
15 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
16 16 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 215 (5.90%) JIRA
2 165 (4.53%) Git
3 145 (3.98%) GitLab
4 124 (3.40%) Jenkins
5 47 (1.29%) Selenium
6 40 (1.10%) JUnit
7 34 (0.93%) Mockito
8 32 (0.88%) SonarQube
9 31 (0.85%) Postman
10 26 (0.71%) JMeter
11 22 (0.60%) Cucumber
12 21 (0.58%) Maven
13 20 (0.55%) Cypress.io
14 17 (0.47%) CircleCI
15 16 (0.44%) REST Assured
16 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
16 14 (0.38%) DbUnit
17 13 (0.36%) jMock
18 12 (0.33%) Gatling
19 11 (0.30%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 911 (25.01%) Social Skills
2 451 (12.38%) Finance
3 356 (9.77%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (5.24%) Military
5 155 (4.25%) Local Government
6 91 (2.50%) Organisational Skills
7 83 (2.28%) Telecoms
8 81 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
8 81 (2.22%) Legal
9 78 (2.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 70 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
11 65 (1.78%) Marketing
12 60 (1.65%) Police
13 54 (1.48%) Banking
14 52 (1.43%) Law
15 45 (1.24%) Manufacturing
16 36 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
17 35 (0.96%) Electronics
18 28 (0.77%) Billing
19 26 (0.71%) Retail
Job Titles
1 498 (13.67%) Developer
2 470 (12.90%) Architect
3 414 (11.36%) Senior
4 345 (9.47%) Analyst
5 317 (8.70%) Lead
6 157 (4.31%) Designer
7 151 (4.14%) Business Analyst
8 139 (3.82%) Consultant
9 127 (3.49%) DevOps Engineer
10 124 (3.40%) Data Engineer
11 112 (3.07%) Project Manager
12 111 (3.05%) Java Developer
12 111 (3.05%) Technical Architect
13 104 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
14 90 (2.47%) Senior Developer
15 86 (2.36%) User Researcher
16 85 (2.33%) Delivery Manager
17 69 (1.89%) Service Designer
18 63 (1.73%) Administrator
19 60 (1.65%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (3.68%) REST
2 128 (3.51%) Node.js
3 117 (3.21%) Spring
4 103 (2.83%) Spring Boot
5 98 (2.69%) React
6 93 (2.55%) RESTful
7 70 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
8 69 (1.89%) Web Services
9 68 (1.87%) AngularJS
10 67 (1.84%) Kafka
11 64 (1.76%) .NET
11 64 (1.76%) SOAP
12 62 (1.70%) HTML
13 51 (1.40%) CSS
14 44 (1.21%) Lightning Web Components
15 40 (1.10%) OAuth
15 40 (1.10%) Playwright
16 36 (0.99%) Middleware
17 34 (0.93%) JSON
18 27 (0.74%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 176 (4.83%) Cloud Native
2 143 (3.93%) Product Ownership
3 126 (3.46%) NHS
4 123 (3.38%) Onboarding
5 83 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
6 75 (2.06%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.92%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.48%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.29%) Public Cloud
10 44 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
11 43 (1.18%) Data Structures
12 39 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
13 34 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (0.88%) CMDB
15 28 (0.77%) Analytical Mindset
16 26 (0.71%) Freedom of Information
17 22 (0.60%) Mobile App
17 22 (0.60%) PKI
18 21 (0.58%) Virtual Team
19 20 (0.55%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 168 (4.61%) Windows
2 152 (4.17%) Linux
3 56 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 51 (1.40%) Unix
5 27 (0.74%) Android
6 26 (0.71%) Apple iOS
6 26 (0.71%) Windows 10
7 22 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 19 (0.52%) Mac OS
9 11 (0.30%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.25%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.22%) Solaris
12 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
13 5 (0.14%) VMS
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 3 (0.082%) Amazon Linux
15 3 (0.082%) Windows Server 2012
16 2 (0.055%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 959 (26.32%) Agile
2 544 (14.93%) CI/CD
3 530 (14.55%) DevOps
4 483 (13.26%) Stakeholder Management
5 393 (10.79%) Problem-Solving
6 391 (10.73%) Continuous Improvement
7 373 (10.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 331 (9.09%) Migration
9 313 (8.59%) Decision-Making
10 311 (8.54%) Analytics
11 298 (8.18%) Roadmaps
12 247 (6.78%) Data Modelling
13 245 (6.73%) Containerisation
14 236 (6.48%) Infrastructure as Code
15 229 (6.29%) Test Automation
16 221 (6.07%) Microservices
17 218 (5.98%) User Research
18 215 (5.90%) AI
19 188 (5.16%) Workshop Facilitation
20 187 (5.13%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 389 (10.68%) Python
2 336 (9.22%) SQL
3 283 (7.77%) Java
4 185 (5.08%) JavaScript
5 107 (2.94%) PowerShell
6 105 (2.88%) TypeScript
7 78 (2.14%) C#
8 52 (1.43%) Bash
9 47 (1.29%) Apex Code
10 43 (1.18%) Ruby
11 41 (1.13%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.66%) Kotlin
13 22 (0.60%) Bicep
14 21 (0.58%) Go
14 21 (0.58%) R
14 21 (0.58%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.44%) Scala
16 13 (0.36%) PHP
17 11 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,975 (54.21%) Security Cleared
2 1,338 (36.73%) SC Cleared
3 187 (5.13%) DV Cleared
4 172 (4.72%) Degree
5 115 (3.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.26%) Azure Certification
7 37 (1.02%) CISSP
8 34 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
9 33 (0.91%) AWS Certification
10 32 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
11 28 (0.77%) PMP
12 27 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
13 23 (0.63%) Computer Science Degree
13 23 (0.63%) PMI Certification
14 22 (0.60%) CISM
15 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
16 14 (0.38%) CCNP
16 14 (0.38%) ISTQB
17 13 (0.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 13 (0.36%) APMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 248 (6.81%) Accessibility
2 161 (4.42%) Data Quality
3 155 (4.25%) QA
4 100 (2.74%) GDPR
5 96 (2.64%) WCAG
6 78 (2.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 66 (1.81%) PMO
8 65 (1.78%) NCSC
9 55 (1.51%) NIST
10 28 (0.77%) SLA
11 26 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
11 26 (0.71%) GRC
12 20 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.36%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.33%) COBIT
15 10 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
15 10 (0.27%) HL7
16 9 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 8 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 8 (0.22%) IFRS
System Software
1 255 (7.00%) Docker
2 149 (4.09%) Active Directory
3 42 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 17 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.30%) Postfix
9 10 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
10 8 (0.22%) vSphere
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.082%) RACF
13 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.055%) Squid
13 2 (0.055%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) KVM
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 274 (7.52%) Terraform
2 251 (6.89%) Kubernetes
3 87 (2.39%) Grafana
4 79 (2.17%) Ansible
5 61 (1.67%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.15%) Single Sign-On
7 39 (1.07%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.58%) Argo
9 16 (0.44%) Puppet
10 13 (0.36%) SCCM
11 12 (0.33%) Kibana
12 10 (0.27%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
14 8 (0.22%) FortiGate
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
17 5 (0.14%) Data Guard
18 4 (0.11%) Nessus
18 4 (0.11%) SCOM
Vendors
1 406 (11.14%) Microsoft
2 218 (5.98%) Oracle
3 168 (4.61%) SAP
4 122 (3.35%) Salesforce
5 116 (3.18%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.55%) Google
7 80 (2.20%) Databricks
8 70 (1.92%) VMware
9 45 (1.24%) Cisco
10 42 (1.15%) Splunk
11 34 (0.93%) Red Hat
12 32 (0.88%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.88%) Palo Alto
13 29 (0.80%) Dynatrace
14 28 (0.77%) Talend
15 26 (0.71%) F5
15 26 (0.71%) IBM
15 26 (0.71%) MuleSoft
16 25 (0.69%) Virgin Media
17 20 (0.55%) Foundry