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

6 months to
21 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 18 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,698 2,223 3,285
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.35% 9.07% 8.87%
As % of the General category 16.81% 14.18% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,617 1,518 2,181
10th Percentile £350 £337 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £595 £608 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 87 165
10th Percentile £14.67 £15.27 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.57 £22.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.30% - +12.50%
75th Percentile £25.77 £33.58 £55.00
90th Percentile £55.00 £63.25 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.95 £21.73
% change year-on-year -1.96% +5.61% +8.65%

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 22,000 15,678 21,613
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.61% 63.96% 58.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,781 10,206 13,962
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £411 £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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,424 653 1,765
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.61 £15.39
Median hourly rate £30.00 £28.75 £28.92
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% -0.59% -17.37%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £28.00 £28.60 £28.42
% change year-on-year -2.10% +0.63% -18.80%

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 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 21 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 21 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 +1 1,648 £525 - 365
North of England -3 646 £454 -4.42% 252
South East -5 440 £500 -7.32% 204
Midlands +4 390 £500 +5.26% 115
North West 0 315 £464 -8.17% 112
West Midlands 0 296 £500 +8.11% 90
South West -4 258 £525 -4.55% 115
Yorkshire +6 224 £478 +6.11% 77
North East -2 112 £450 -2.17% 65
East of England +21 98 £400 +3.23% 66
East Midlands +13 89 £500 - 25
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 (3.84%) Confluence
2 108 (2.92%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) CMS
7 16 (0.43%) Apache
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.38%) nginx
9 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.14%) Camunda
11 5 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.081%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.081%) Drupal
13 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 88 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 26 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.14%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 60 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.46%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 10 (0.27%) iTrent
7 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.22%) SystmOne
9 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.16%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.14%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.14%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 695 (18.79%) AWS
2 635 (17.17%) Azure
3 199 (5.38%) Power Platform
4 170 (4.60%) Serverless
5 156 (4.22%) Microsoft 365
6 152 (4.11%) GitHub
7 140 (3.79%) GCP
8 139 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.73%) AWS Lambda
10 95 (2.57%) Amazon S3
11 92 (2.49%) Entra ID
12 89 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
13 79 (2.14%) SaaS
14 71 (1.92%) AWS CloudFormation
15 66 (1.78%) Amazon EC2
16 65 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
17 62 (1.68%) Power Automate
18 60 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 60 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
19 54 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.46%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) DNS
3 55 (1.49%) Network Security
3 55 (1.49%) WAN
4 54 (1.46%) VPN
5 48 (1.30%) LAN
6 29 (0.78%) BGP
7 25 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (0.65%) OSPF
9 23 (0.62%) TCP/IP
10 21 (0.57%) DHCP
11 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
12 18 (0.49%) Wireless
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) VLAN
14 15 (0.41%) SSL
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
15 12 (0.32%) VoIP
16 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.30%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (4.03%) Power BI
2 82 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
3 73 (1.97%) SQL Server
4 62 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (1.60%) Metadata
6 55 (1.49%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.22%) NoSQL
8 44 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.87%) Data Lake
11 31 (0.84%) Tableau
12 29 (0.78%) DynamoDB
13 28 (0.76%) Relational Database
14 26 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 24 (0.65%) Oracle Database
16 23 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
17 21 (0.57%) MySQL
18 19 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
18 19 (0.51%) Delta Lake
19 18 (0.49%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 231 (6.25%) JIRA
2 184 (4.98%) Git
3 120 (3.24%) GitLab
4 116 (3.14%) Jenkins
5 43 (1.16%) Selenium
6 40 (1.08%) JUnit
6 40 (1.08%) Postman
7 34 (0.92%) Mockito
8 30 (0.81%) SonarQube
9 25 (0.68%) JMeter
10 19 (0.51%) Maven
11 18 (0.49%) Cucumber
11 18 (0.49%) Cypress.io
12 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
12 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
14 11 (0.30%) jMock
15 10 (0.27%) Mocha
15 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 962 (26.01%) Social Skills
2 493 (13.33%) Finance
3 364 (9.84%) Analytical Skills
4 182 (4.92%) Military
5 167 (4.52%) Local Government
6 128 (3.46%) Telecoms
7 104 (2.81%) Marketing
8 96 (2.60%) Manufacturing
9 83 (2.24%) Legal
10 81 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 77 (2.08%) Electronics
12 73 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
12 73 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
13 65 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 58 (1.57%) Police
15 54 (1.46%) Banking
16 47 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
17 45 (1.22%) Law
18 32 (0.87%) Billing
19 27 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 486 (13.14%) Developer
2 474 (12.82%) Architect
3 401 (10.84%) Senior
4 376 (10.17%) Analyst
5 304 (8.22%) Lead
6 169 (4.57%) Business Analyst
7 158 (4.27%) Consultant
8 153 (4.14%) Designer
9 123 (3.33%) Data Engineer
10 119 (3.22%) DevOps Engineer
11 112 (3.03%) Project Manager
12 107 (2.89%) Technical Architect
13 106 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
14 103 (2.79%) Java Developer
15 88 (2.38%) Senior Developer
16 85 (2.30%) User Researcher
17 82 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
18 69 (1.87%) Service Designer
19 63 (1.70%) Full-Stack Developer
20 62 (1.68%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (3.76%) REST
2 121 (3.27%) Node.js
3 115 (3.11%) Spring
4 103 (2.79%) React
5 101 (2.73%) Spring Boot
6 97 (2.62%) RESTful
7 79 (2.14%) .NET
8 77 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
9 75 (2.03%) AngularJS
10 66 (1.78%) HTML
10 66 (1.78%) Web Services
11 61 (1.65%) Kafka
12 60 (1.62%) SOAP
13 55 (1.49%) CSS
14 44 (1.19%) JSON
15 43 (1.16%) Lightning Web Components
16 34 (0.92%) Middleware
16 34 (0.92%) Playwright
16 34 (0.92%) XML
17 29 (0.78%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 173 (4.68%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.73%) NHS
3 131 (3.54%) Onboarding
3 131 (3.54%) Product Ownership
4 83 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
5 75 (2.03%) Management Information System
6 68 (1.84%) Data Centre
7 56 (1.51%) Public Cloud
8 48 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
9 43 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
10 39 (1.05%) Data Structures
11 38 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
12 29 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
13 27 (0.73%) Replication
14 26 (0.70%) CMDB
15 24 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
16 23 (0.62%) Security Posture
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
19 17 (0.46%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 199 (5.38%) Windows
2 157 (4.25%) Linux
3 61 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 46 (1.24%) Unix
5 41 (1.11%) Windows 10
6 31 (0.84%) Android
7 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
7 23 (0.62%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.19%) Solaris
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.081%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 958 (25.91%) Agile
2 527 (14.25%) CI/CD
3 513 (13.87%) DevOps
4 459 (12.41%) Stakeholder Management
5 424 (11.47%) Problem-Solving
6 406 (10.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 388 (10.49%) Continuous Improvement
8 376 (10.17%) Migration
9 325 (8.79%) Roadmaps
10 307 (8.30%) Analytics
11 287 (7.76%) Decision-Making
12 247 (6.68%) Business Intelligence
13 244 (6.60%) Containerisation
14 241 (6.52%) Test Automation
15 234 (6.33%) Data Modelling
16 228 (6.17%) Microservices
17 226 (6.11%) Infrastructure as Code
18 216 (5.84%) AI
19 207 (5.60%) User Research
20 205 (5.54%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 400 (10.82%) Python
2 344 (9.30%) SQL
3 274 (7.41%) Java
4 195 (5.27%) JavaScript
5 115 (3.11%) TypeScript
6 111 (3.00%) PowerShell
7 92 (2.49%) C#
8 48 (1.30%) Bash
9 43 (1.16%) Apex Code
9 43 (1.16%) Ruby
10 30 (0.81%) PL/SQL
11 22 (0.59%) Bicep
11 22 (0.59%) Go
11 22 (0.59%) R
11 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
12 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.35%) PHP
13 13 (0.35%) Scala
14 12 (0.32%) T-SQL
15 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,078 (56.19%) Security Cleared
2 1,375 (37.18%) SC Cleared
3 180 (4.87%) DV Cleared
4 172 (4.65%) Degree
5 109 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
6 53 (1.43%) Azure Certification
7 43 (1.16%) AWS Certification
8 42 (1.14%) CISSP
9 38 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
11 30 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (0.78%) PMP
13 25 (0.68%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.65%) CISM
15 23 (0.62%) ISEB
16 19 (0.51%) CCNP
17 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
18 14 (0.38%) APMP
18 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (5.38%) Accessibility
2 158 (4.27%) QA
3 157 (4.25%) Data Quality
4 107 (2.89%) GDPR
5 86 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 79 (2.14%) WCAG
7 68 (1.84%) NCSC
8 65 (1.76%) PMO
9 59 (1.60%) NIST
10 36 (0.97%) SLA
11 33 (0.89%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) COBIT
14 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 18 (0.49%) PCI DSS
16 16 (0.43%) HL7
17 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
18 14 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
19 9 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 262 (7.08%) Docker
2 145 (3.92%) Active Directory
3 57 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.30%) vSphere
10 10 (0.27%) Postfix
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.081%) RACF
14 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.054%) SRDF
15 1 (0.027%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) IAG
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
15 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 294 (7.95%) Terraform
2 271 (7.33%) Kubernetes
3 72 (1.95%) Grafana
4 66 (1.78%) Ansible
5 52 (1.41%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.30%) Argo
11 11 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.30%) Kibana
12 9 (0.24%) Consul
12 9 (0.24%) Packer
13 8 (0.22%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 420 (11.36%) Microsoft
2 225 (6.08%) Oracle
3 214 (5.79%) SAP
4 125 (3.38%) Salesforce
5 111 (3.00%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.51%) Google
7 89 (2.41%) Cisco
7 89 (2.41%) VMware
8 84 (2.27%) Databricks
9 44 (1.19%) Splunk
10 34 (0.92%) Atlassian
11 32 (0.87%) Virgin Media
12 30 (0.81%) IBM
13 27 (0.73%) Aruba
13 27 (0.73%) MuleSoft
13 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
14 26 (0.70%) Juniper
14 26 (0.70%) Talend
15 24 (0.65%) Dynatrace
16 23 (0.62%) Palo Alto