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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,066 2,584 3,357
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.89% 9.67% 9.22%
As % of the General category 16.28% 15.59% 15.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,146 1,567 2,308
10th Percentile £331 £306 £306
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £716 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 87 105
10th Percentile £16.39 £14.70 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.82 £15.46
Median hourly rate £21.94 £23.41 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.30% +11.48% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.06 £31.88 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.00 £63.24 £69.50
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.00 £20.71
% change year-on-year -8.70% +11.08% +8.97%

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 18,828 16,570 21,528
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.71% 62.03% 59.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,944 9,986 14,444
10th Percentile £284 £295 £275
25th Percentile £402 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £534 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.37% -2.91% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,180 542 1,087
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.49 £14.05
25th Percentile £16.74 £18.50 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.19 £29.12 £30.48
Median % change year-on-year -20.35% -4.46% +18.53%
75th Percentile £46.00 £55.88 £57.50
90th Percentile £70.07 £74.65 £70.03
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £27.19 £30.00
% change year-on-year -15.40% -9.38% +20.00%

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 12 January 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 12 January 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 12 January 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 1,266 £525 - 237
North of England -2 598 £452 -5.25% 177
South East -5 340 £500 -4.76% 235
South West +1 310 £525 -4.55% 72
North West -2 306 £450 -10.00% 72
Midlands +1 290 £485 -2.92% 120
West Midlands +3 226 £488 -2.50% 83
Yorkshire +5 187 £500 +11.11% 70
North East 0 107 £448 +5.29% 37
East of England +14 94 £375 +7.14% 66
East Midlands +7 64 £425 -10.53% 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
1 114 (3.72%) Confluence
2 92 (3.00%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.85%) SAS
5 23 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.72%) nginx
7 15 (0.49%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.46%) Apache
9 12 (0.39%) Apache Spark
10 10 (0.33%) CMS
11 5 (0.16%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
11 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
13 3 (0.098%) IIS
13 3 (0.098%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.098%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.098%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.098%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 101 (3.29%) Microsoft Office
2 90 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 41 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.39%) Trello
7 8 (0.26%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.16%) Sketch
10 3 (0.098%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.098%) InVision
10 3 (0.098%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.065%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.065%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.033%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.033%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.033%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.033%) Stata
Business Applications
1 45 (1.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.55%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.46%) SAP BRIM
4 14 (0.46%) SAP ERP
4 14 (0.46%) SAP Hybris
5 13 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 10 (0.33%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.29%) iTrent
7 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.26%) Unit4 Business World
9 7 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.23%) SAP HR
10 6 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
10 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
10 6 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.13%) Primavera
11 4 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 566 (18.46%) AWS
2 547 (17.84%) Azure
3 196 (6.39%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.86%) Microsoft 365
5 138 (4.50%) Serverless
6 135 (4.40%) GitHub
7 131 (4.27%) GCP
8 115 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
10 76 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
11 66 (2.15%) Amazon S3
11 66 (2.15%) Power Automate
12 63 (2.05%) Entra ID
13 59 (1.92%) Dynamics 365
13 59 (1.92%) PowerApps
14 58 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
15 53 (1.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 53 (1.73%) Amazon ECS
16 50 (1.63%) SaaS
17 44 (1.44%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 101 (3.29%) Firewall
2 68 (2.22%) DNS
3 58 (1.89%) VPN
4 51 (1.66%) WAN
5 45 (1.47%) Wireless
6 43 (1.40%) Network Security
7 39 (1.27%) LAN
8 37 (1.21%) TCP/IP
9 29 (0.95%) BGP
10 27 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.85%) DHCP
12 22 (0.72%) OSPF
13 21 (0.68%) SSL
14 19 (0.62%) HTTP
15 18 (0.59%) Skype
16 17 (0.55%) VLAN
17 16 (0.52%) SD-WAN
17 16 (0.52%) SSH
18 15 (0.49%) Internet
19 14 (0.46%) FTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (4.63%) Power BI
2 78 (2.54%) PostgreSQL
3 48 (1.57%) MongoDB
4 47 (1.53%) Metadata
5 39 (1.27%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.21%) SQL Server
7 32 (1.04%) Amazon RDS
8 29 (0.95%) Data Lake
8 29 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
8 29 (0.95%) NoSQL
9 24 (0.78%) Oracle Database
9 24 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
9 24 (0.78%) Redis
10 23 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.72%) MySQL
12 19 (0.62%) BigQuery
13 17 (0.55%) Electronic Patient Records
13 17 (0.55%) Tableau
14 14 (0.46%) Power Query
15 13 (0.42%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 197 (6.43%) JIRA
2 163 (5.32%) Git
3 124 (4.04%) Jenkins
4 99 (3.23%) GitLab
5 47 (1.53%) Postman
6 44 (1.44%) Selenium
7 30 (0.98%) Cucumber
8 22 (0.72%) Cypress.io
8 22 (0.72%) JUnit
9 19 (0.62%) REST Assured
10 18 (0.59%) Mockito
11 14 (0.46%) Bitbucket
11 14 (0.46%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.46%) Vagrant
12 13 (0.42%) CircleCI
13 11 (0.36%) Mocha
14 10 (0.33%) Gradle
14 10 (0.33%) MSI
14 10 (0.33%) Oracle Forms
15 9 (0.29%) JMeter
General
1 918 (29.94%) Social Skills
2 492 (16.05%) Finance
3 275 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
4 235 (7.66%) Telecoms
5 200 (6.52%) Manufacturing
5 200 (6.52%) Marketing
6 179 (5.84%) Electronics
7 137 (4.47%) Military
8 114 (3.72%) Local Government
9 69 (2.25%) Organisational Skills
10 65 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
11 62 (2.02%) Legal
12 52 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
13 46 (1.50%) Presentation Skills
14 41 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 36 (1.17%) Law
16 34 (1.11%) Retail
17 32 (1.04%) Banking
18 26 (0.85%) Billing
18 26 (0.85%) Police
Job Titles
1 366 (11.94%) Developer
2 357 (11.64%) Architect
3 313 (10.21%) Analyst
4 312 (10.18%) Senior
5 288 (9.39%) Lead
6 189 (6.16%) Consultant
7 139 (4.53%) Business Analyst
8 124 (4.04%) DevOps Engineer
9 97 (3.16%) Project Manager
10 85 (2.77%) Designer
11 84 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
12 79 (2.58%) Technical Architect
13 73 (2.38%) AWS Engineer
14 59 (1.92%) Data Engineer
15 58 (1.89%) Senior Developer
16 57 (1.86%) Java Developer
17 56 (1.83%) Support Engineer
18 53 (1.73%) Test Engineer
18 53 (1.73%) User Researcher
19 52 (1.70%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (4.31%) REST
2 99 (3.23%) React
3 87 (2.84%) Node.js
4 85 (2.77%) RESTful
5 76 (2.48%) .NET
6 70 (2.28%) HTML
6 70 (2.28%) Spring Boot
7 69 (2.25%) Spring
8 65 (2.12%) Oracle Fusion
9 64 (2.09%) CSS
10 58 (1.89%) JSON
11 55 (1.79%) Kafka
12 54 (1.76%) AngularJS
13 52 (1.70%) SOAP
13 52 (1.70%) Web Services
14 41 (1.34%) XML
15 30 (0.98%) Playwright
16 28 (0.91%) OAuth
17 26 (0.85%) Lightning Web Components
18 23 (0.75%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 113 (3.69%) Cloud Native
2 108 (3.52%) Onboarding
3 105 (3.42%) NHS
4 94 (3.07%) Product Ownership
5 81 (2.64%) Data Centre
6 64 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
7 63 (2.05%) Management Information System
8 34 (1.11%) Replication
9 30 (0.98%) Public Cloud
10 29 (0.95%) CMDB
10 29 (0.95%) PKI
10 29 (0.95%) Security Posture
11 27 (0.88%) AI Agents
12 25 (0.82%) Data Structures
12 25 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
13 24 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
13 24 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
14 23 (0.75%) Analytical Mindset
14 23 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
15 18 (0.59%) Driving Licence
Operating Systems
1 206 (6.72%) Windows
2 144 (4.70%) Linux
3 50 (1.63%) Windows 10
4 43 (1.40%) Android
5 40 (1.30%) Mac OS
6 38 (1.24%) Windows Server
7 24 (0.78%) Unix
7 24 (0.78%) VMS
8 17 (0.55%) Apple iOS
9 16 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 14 (0.46%) Amazon Linux
11 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.26%) Mac OS X
14 6 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 3 (0.098%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.098%) Windows Server 2008
17 1 (0.033%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 775 (25.28%) Agile
2 436 (14.22%) CI/CD
3 432 (14.09%) DevOps
4 413 (13.47%) Problem-Solving
5 386 (12.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 349 (11.38%) Business Intelligence
7 327 (10.67%) Stakeholder Management
8 307 (10.01%) Migration
9 272 (8.87%) Continuous Improvement
10 250 (8.15%) Roadmaps
11 221 (7.21%) Programme Management
12 196 (6.39%) Test Automation
13 191 (6.23%) Decision-Making
14 190 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
15 186 (6.07%) Microservices
16 183 (5.97%) Analytics
17 182 (5.94%) Containerisation
18 179 (5.84%) Digital Marketing
19 176 (5.74%) AI
20 173 (5.64%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 348 (11.35%) Python
2 265 (8.64%) SQL
3 227 (7.40%) Java
4 163 (5.32%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.91%) PowerShell
6 95 (3.10%) TypeScript
7 75 (2.45%) C#
8 61 (1.99%) Bash
9 31 (1.01%) Go
10 30 (0.98%) Ruby
11 26 (0.85%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.82%) Apex Code
13 18 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.55%) Groovy
15 15 (0.49%) PHP
16 14 (0.46%) Perl
17 13 (0.42%) C++
17 13 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 13 (0.42%) R
18 12 (0.39%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 1,862 (60.73%) Security Cleared
2 1,251 (40.80%) SC Cleared
3 159 (5.19%) DV Cleared
4 150 (4.89%) Degree
5 79 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.47%) Azure Certification
7 43 (1.40%) CISSP
8 42 (1.37%) AWS Certification
9 38 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
9 38 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
10 32 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
12 26 (0.85%) CISM
13 23 (0.75%) PMI Certification
13 23 (0.75%) PMP
14 19 (0.62%) CCNP
14 19 (0.62%) ISEB
15 17 (0.55%) ISTQB
16 15 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 14 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 145 (4.73%) Accessibility
2 129 (4.21%) QA
3 104 (3.39%) Data Quality
4 88 (2.87%) GDPR
5 72 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 62 (2.02%) NIST
7 54 (1.76%) NCSC
8 53 (1.73%) WCAG
9 47 (1.53%) PMO
10 45 (1.47%) SLA
11 21 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
11 21 (0.68%) GRC
12 17 (0.55%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.52%) COBIT
14 14 (0.46%) HIPAA
14 14 (0.46%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.36%) HL7
16 9 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 6 (0.20%) RMADS
System Software
1 214 (6.98%) Docker
2 114 (3.72%) Active Directory
3 56 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.59%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.46%) DFS Replication
7 14 (0.46%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.42%) vSphere
9 9 (0.29%) Squid
9 9 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.26%) Dovecot
10 8 (0.26%) Postfix
11 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.098%) NFS
15 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.065%) Brightmail
15 2 (0.065%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 277 (9.03%) Terraform
2 224 (7.31%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.45%) Ansible
4 64 (2.09%) Grafana
5 52 (1.70%) Prometheus
6 31 (1.01%) SCCM
7 27 (0.88%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.46%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.42%) Packer
11 11 (0.36%) Nessus
12 10 (0.33%) Argo
13 9 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.29%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.29%) vRealize
14 8 (0.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.23%) Consul
15 7 (0.23%) Puppet
15 7 (0.23%) SCOM
16 6 (0.20%) WSUS
Vendors
1 399 (13.01%) Microsoft
2 304 (9.92%) SAP
3 183 (5.97%) Oracle
4 144 (4.70%) Cisco
5 102 (3.33%) ServiceNow
6 88 (2.87%) Salesforce
7 85 (2.77%) VMware
8 58 (1.89%) Splunk
9 56 (1.83%) Google
10 40 (1.30%) Aruba
10 40 (1.30%) Databricks
11 39 (1.27%) Juniper
12 38 (1.24%) Palo Alto
12 38 (1.24%) Virgin Media
13 36 (1.17%) Apple
14 35 (1.14%) Dell
15 32 (1.04%) HP
16 27 (0.88%) SolarWinds
17 25 (0.82%) Fortinet
18 24 (0.78%) F5