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

6 months to
7 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 21 16
Rank change year-on-year +1 -5 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,656 2,101 3,276
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.98% 8.62% 8.84%
As % of the General category 16.42% 13.44% 15.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,577 1,437 2,193
10th Percentile £350 £350 £311
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £516
% change year-on-year - -3.01% -1.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 86 164
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.70 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.37 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.64 £22.70 £21.62
Median % change year-on-year -0.29% +5.02% +7.54%
75th Percentile £31.87 £33.00 £54.66
90th Percentile £62.70 £64.88 £70.12
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year - +7.14% +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 22,261 15,638 21,618
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.67% 64.15% 58.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,821 10,155 13,947
10th Percentile £305 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,463 667 1,789
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.19 £17.19 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.15 £27.76 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.61% -8.98% -5.86%
75th Percentile £63.75 £56.58 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.01
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £27.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +5.45% -8.33% -7.96%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +2 1,635 £525 - 378
North of England -2 647 £450 -6.20% 257
South East 0 434 £500 -7.62% 229
Midlands +1 382 £500 +8.11% 127
North West +2 316 £458 -9.41% 107
West Midlands +1 299 £493 +9.08% 103
South West -7 249 £525 -4.55% 113
Yorkshire +5 219 £450 -3.95% 70
North East -3 117 £450 -3.23% 80
East of England +19 95 £425 +6.25% 56
East Midlands +8 78 £525 +5.00% 24
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
1 145 (3.97%) Confluence
2 108 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (0.49%) Apache Spark
5 18 (0.49%) CMS
6 15 (0.41%) Apache
7 9 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.22%) nginx
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.16%) WebLogic
10 5 (0.14%) Camunda
11 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.082%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.082%) Drupal
13 2 (0.055%) WordPress
Applications
1 89 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 14 (0.38%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.14%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.082%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.055%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.055%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.055%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.68%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.38%) SAP BRIM
6 14 (0.38%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SystmOne
8 9 (0.25%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
10 7 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.14%) SAP HR
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 4 (0.11%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 676 (18.49%) AWS
2 638 (17.45%) Azure
3 197 (5.39%) Power Platform
4 159 (4.35%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (4.16%) Serverless
6 142 (3.88%) GitHub
7 130 (3.56%) GCP
8 128 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 100 (2.74%) Entra ID
10 94 (2.57%) Amazon S3
11 92 (2.52%) AWS Lambda
12 82 (2.24%) SaaS
13 80 (2.19%) GitHub Actions
14 66 (1.81%) Amazon EC2
15 64 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
16 63 (1.72%) OCI
17 62 (1.70%) Power Automate
18 60 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
18 60 (1.64%) AWS CloudFormation
19 57 (1.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.60%) Firewall
2 54 (1.48%) WAN
3 53 (1.45%) DNS
3 53 (1.45%) Network Security
4 50 (1.37%) VPN
5 44 (1.20%) LAN
6 33 (0.90%) BGP
7 29 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
8 28 (0.77%) OSPF
9 24 (0.66%) TCP/IP
10 21 (0.57%) SD-WAN
11 20 (0.55%) DHCP
12 16 (0.44%) SSL
13 15 (0.41%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.38%) Internet
15 13 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.36%) VLAN
15 13 (0.36%) Wireless
16 12 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (3.97%) Power BI
2 74 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (1.83%) SQL Server
4 65 (1.78%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.50%) Metadata
6 52 (1.42%) MongoDB
7 44 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
9 36 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 30 (0.82%) Tableau
12 29 (0.79%) Relational Database
13 27 (0.74%) DynamoDB
14 26 (0.71%) Oracle Database
15 22 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
16 20 (0.55%) Pentaho
17 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
18 16 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 220 (6.02%) JIRA
2 175 (4.79%) Git
3 134 (3.67%) GitLab
4 115 (3.15%) Jenkins
5 41 (1.12%) Selenium
6 40 (1.09%) JUnit
7 36 (0.98%) Postman
8 34 (0.93%) Mockito
9 31 (0.85%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.66%) JMeter
11 21 (0.57%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.52%) Maven
13 17 (0.46%) CircleCI
13 17 (0.46%) Cucumber
14 15 (0.41%) Artifactory
15 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
15 11 (0.30%) jMock
16 10 (0.27%) Gatling
16 10 (0.27%) Mocha
16 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 934 (25.55%) Social Skills
2 473 (12.94%) Finance
3 362 (9.90%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (5.14%) Military
5 168 (4.60%) Local Government
6 104 (2.84%) Telecoms
7 89 (2.43%) Organisational Skills
8 84 (2.30%) Legal
9 81 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
10 76 (2.08%) Marketing
11 73 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
12 72 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 64 (1.75%) Manufacturing
14 60 (1.64%) Police
15 54 (1.48%) Banking
16 50 (1.37%) Law
17 49 (1.34%) Electronics
18 43 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
19 32 (0.88%) Billing
20 28 (0.77%) Retail
Job Titles
1 489 (13.38%) Developer
2 461 (12.61%) Architect
3 412 (11.27%) Senior
4 362 (9.90%) Analyst
5 309 (8.45%) Lead
6 164 (4.49%) Designer
7 159 (4.35%) Business Analyst
8 151 (4.13%) Consultant
9 125 (3.42%) Data Engineer
10 117 (3.20%) DevOps Engineer
10 117 (3.20%) Project Manager
11 110 (3.01%) Java Developer
12 102 (2.79%) Technical Architect
13 100 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
14 92 (2.52%) Senior Developer
15 81 (2.22%) User Researcher
16 79 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
17 73 (2.00%) Service Designer
18 65 (1.78%) Administrator
19 63 (1.72%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (3.67%) REST
2 121 (3.31%) Node.js
3 119 (3.25%) Spring
4 104 (2.84%) Spring Boot
5 93 (2.54%) React
6 92 (2.52%) RESTful
7 77 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (1.94%) AngularJS
9 67 (1.83%) .NET
9 67 (1.83%) Web Services
10 62 (1.70%) Kafka
11 61 (1.67%) HTML
12 58 (1.59%) SOAP
13 50 (1.37%) CSS
14 43 (1.18%) Lightning Web Components
15 38 (1.04%) OAuth
16 36 (0.98%) JSON
16 36 (0.98%) Playwright
17 35 (0.96%) Middleware
18 27 (0.74%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 169 (4.62%) Cloud Native
2 139 (3.80%) Product Ownership
3 130 (3.56%) Onboarding
4 126 (3.45%) NHS
5 84 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
6 81 (2.22%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.91%) Data Centre
8 52 (1.42%) Public Cloud
9 47 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
10 41 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.04%) Data Structures
11 38 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
12 32 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
13 27 (0.74%) CMDB
14 26 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
15 23 (0.63%) Replication
16 22 (0.60%) Freedom of Information
17 21 (0.57%) Data Protection Act
18 20 (0.55%) PKI
19 19 (0.52%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 184 (5.03%) Windows
2 146 (3.99%) Linux
3 61 (1.67%) Windows Server
4 51 (1.39%) Unix
5 34 (0.93%) Windows 10
6 26 (0.71%) Android
7 22 (0.60%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.57%) Mac OS
9 19 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.25%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.22%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 2 (0.055%) Amazon Linux
16 2 (0.055%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 947 (25.90%) Agile
2 519 (14.20%) CI/CD
3 510 (13.95%) DevOps
4 465 (12.72%) Stakeholder Management
5 402 (11.00%) Problem-Solving
6 385 (10.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 381 (10.42%) Continuous Improvement
8 353 (9.66%) Migration
9 315 (8.62%) Analytics
10 300 (8.21%) Roadmaps
11 296 (8.10%) Decision-Making
12 245 (6.70%) Containerisation
13 236 (6.46%) Data Modelling
14 232 (6.35%) Test Automation
15 227 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
16 220 (6.02%) Microservices
17 219 (5.99%) AI
18 217 (5.94%) User Research
19 214 (5.85%) Business Intelligence
20 198 (5.42%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 395 (10.80%) Python
2 338 (9.25%) SQL
3 273 (7.47%) Java
4 177 (4.84%) JavaScript
5 111 (3.04%) PowerShell
6 108 (2.95%) TypeScript
7 81 (2.22%) C#
8 50 (1.37%) Bash
9 43 (1.18%) Apex Code
10 41 (1.12%) Ruby
11 36 (0.98%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.63%) Bicep
12 23 (0.63%) R
13 21 (0.57%) Go
13 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
13 21 (0.57%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.41%) Scala
15 13 (0.36%) PHP
16 12 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,993 (54.51%) Security Cleared
2 1,327 (36.30%) SC Cleared
3 193 (5.28%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.79%) Degree
5 113 (3.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.34%) Azure Certification
7 37 (1.01%) AWS Certification
7 37 (1.01%) CISSP
8 34 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
10 29 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
11 28 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (0.74%) PMP
13 24 (0.66%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.63%) CISM
15 17 (0.46%) CCNP
16 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
16 15 (0.41%) ISEB
17 14 (0.38%) APMP
18 13 (0.36%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (6.26%) Accessibility
2 165 (4.51%) QA
3 162 (4.43%) Data Quality
4 99 (2.71%) GDPR
5 90 (2.46%) WCAG
6 79 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 71 (1.94%) PMO
8 61 (1.67%) NCSC
9 53 (1.45%) NIST
10 31 (0.85%) SLA
11 26 (0.71%) GRC
12 25 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.41%) PCI DSS
15 14 (0.38%) COBIT
16 11 (0.30%) HL7
17 10 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 8 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
18 8 (0.22%) IFRS
19 7 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 258 (7.06%) Docker
2 152 (4.16%) Active Directory
3 54 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.63%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 7 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.082%) RACF
13 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.055%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) KVM
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 280 (7.66%) Terraform
2 261 (7.14%) Kubernetes
3 77 (2.11%) Grafana
4 74 (2.02%) Ansible
5 57 (1.56%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.49%) SCCM
9 15 (0.41%) Argo
10 14 (0.38%) Puppet
11 12 (0.33%) Kibana
11 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 9 (0.25%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Consul
15 6 (0.16%) Istio
15 6 (0.16%) Packer
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
15 6 (0.16%) vRealize
Vendors
1 432 (11.82%) Microsoft
2 223 (6.10%) Oracle
3 194 (5.31%) SAP
4 120 (3.28%) Salesforce
5 109 (2.98%) ServiceNow
6 90 (2.46%) Google
7 84 (2.30%) VMware
8 78 (2.13%) Databricks
9 58 (1.59%) Cisco
10 39 (1.07%) Splunk
11 33 (0.90%) Atlassian
12 29 (0.79%) Palo Alto
12 29 (0.79%) Virgin Media
13 28 (0.77%) IBM
13 28 (0.77%) Red Hat
13 28 (0.77%) Talend
14 27 (0.74%) MuleSoft
15 25 (0.68%) Dynatrace
16 22 (0.60%) F5
16 22 (0.60%) Juniper