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 27 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 18 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,958 2,839 3,519
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.62% 9.10% 9.14%
As % of the General category 15.18% 15.16% 15.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,060 1,698 2,501
10th Percentile £313 £304 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -5.00% +1.85%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 107 93
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.70 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.16 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.27 £23.60 £21.31
Median % change year-on-year -9.87% +10.75% +12.16%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.50 £58.48
90th Percentile £48.70 £63.24 £70.40
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.56 £21.31
% change year-on-year -6.91% +5.87% +12.16%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,482 18,729 22,954
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.35% 60.00% 59.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,335 11,242 15,607
10th Percentile £275 £300 £288
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £626 £650 £670
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,269 703 1,020
10th Percentile £14.04 £15.25 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.00 £17.50
Median hourly rate £25.00 £31.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.63% -4.55% +28.35%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £72.25 £71.91
UK median hourly rate £24.34 £28.00 £32.32
% change year-on-year -13.07% -13.37% +29.28%

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025.

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 27 November 2025. 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 1,221 £513 -2.38% 289
North of England -3 562 £470 -1.05% 134
South West +1 329 £538 -6.52% 108
South East -6 320 £500 -9.09% 296
Midlands +5 284 £475 -5.00% 118
North West -1 283 £450 -10.00% 64
West Midlands +5 223 £475 -5.00% 81
Yorkshire +3 177 £505 +6.37% 48
North East +2 106 £450 +5.88% 23
East of England +3 80 £375 +7.14% 40
East Midlands +5 61 £419 -11.84% 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
1 113 (3.82%) Confluence
2 91 (3.08%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.88%) nginx
4 26 (0.88%) SAS
5 25 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.51%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.47%) Apache
8 13 (0.44%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.41%) CMS
10 6 (0.20%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.17%) Documentum
11 5 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.10%) IIS
13 3 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.10%) Smallworld
Applications
1 92 (3.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 88 (2.97%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.34%) Trello
7 9 (0.30%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.20%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.20%) Sketch
9 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.17%) InVision
10 4 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.14%) UXPin
11 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) S-PLUS
13 1 (0.034%) Stata
13 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (1.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.57%) SAP PSCD
4 13 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.44%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (0.44%) SAP Hybris
5 12 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
5 12 (0.41%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.27%) iTrent
7 8 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.27%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle Payroll
9 6 (0.20%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 552 (18.66%) AWS
2 530 (17.92%) Azure
3 196 (6.63%) Power Platform
4 152 (5.14%) Microsoft 365
5 131 (4.43%) Serverless
6 130 (4.39%) GitHub
7 124 (4.19%) GCP
8 108 (3.65%) Azure DevOps
9 81 (2.74%) AWS Lambda
10 76 (2.57%) Amazon S3
11 72 (2.43%) GitHub Actions
12 63 (2.13%) SaaS
13 62 (2.10%) PowerApps
14 58 (1.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 58 (1.96%) AWS CloudFormation
14 58 (1.96%) Entra ID
15 54 (1.83%) Power Automate
16 51 (1.72%) Amazon EC2
16 51 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
17 46 (1.56%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 111 (3.75%) Firewall
2 79 (2.67%) DNS
3 61 (2.06%) VPN
4 48 (1.62%) WAN
5 44 (1.49%) Wireless
6 40 (1.35%) Network Security
7 39 (1.32%) LAN
8 33 (1.12%) TCP/IP
9 31 (1.05%) BGP
10 29 (0.98%) DHCP
11 26 (0.88%) HTTP
12 24 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.78%) SD-WAN
14 21 (0.71%) SSH
15 20 (0.68%) FTP
15 20 (0.68%) Internet
15 20 (0.68%) OSPF
15 20 (0.68%) SMTP
16 19 (0.64%) SSL
17 18 (0.61%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.50%) Power BI
2 85 (2.87%) PostgreSQL
3 48 (1.62%) MongoDB
4 42 (1.42%) Metadata
5 38 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
6 35 (1.18%) Relational Database
6 35 (1.18%) SQL Server
7 30 (1.01%) NoSQL
8 29 (0.98%) Data Lake
9 28 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
9 28 (0.95%) Oracle Database
10 26 (0.88%) MySQL
11 20 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
11 20 (0.68%) Redis
12 18 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
13 17 (0.57%) BigQuery
13 17 (0.57%) Tableau
14 14 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
14 14 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
14 14 (0.47%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 195 (6.59%) JIRA
2 165 (5.58%) Git
3 140 (4.73%) Jenkins
4 88 (2.97%) GitLab
5 35 (1.18%) Postman
6 33 (1.12%) Selenium
7 27 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 23 (0.78%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.68%) Mockito
9 20 (0.68%) Vagrant
10 19 (0.64%) Cypress.io
11 18 (0.61%) JUnit
11 18 (0.61%) REST Assured
12 14 (0.47%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.37%) CircleCI
13 11 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
14 9 (0.30%) MSI
15 8 (0.27%) JMeter
16 7 (0.24%) Metasploit
16 7 (0.24%) Mocha
General
1 873 (29.51%) Social Skills
2 489 (16.53%) Finance
3 264 (8.92%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (8.05%) Telecoms
5 200 (6.76%) Manufacturing
6 193 (6.52%) Marketing
7 182 (6.15%) Electronics
8 130 (4.39%) Military
9 124 (4.19%) Local Government
10 73 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.37%) Legal
12 53 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
13 45 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
15 40 (1.35%) Law
16 38 (1.28%) Retail
17 37 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 30 (1.01%) Police
19 28 (0.95%) Banking
20 20 (0.68%) Billing
Job Titles
1 358 (12.10%) Developer
2 326 (11.02%) Architect
3 313 (10.58%) Analyst
4 291 (9.84%) Senior
5 282 (9.53%) Lead
6 200 (6.76%) Consultant
7 129 (4.36%) Business Analyst
8 124 (4.19%) DevOps Engineer
9 85 (2.87%) Project Manager
10 78 (2.64%) AWS Engineer
11 77 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
12 72 (2.43%) Designer
12 72 (2.43%) Technical Architect
13 65 (2.20%) Support Engineer
14 55 (1.86%) Java Developer
14 55 (1.86%) Network Engineer
15 54 (1.83%) Senior Developer
16 51 (1.72%) Data Engineer
17 50 (1.69%) IT Support
18 47 (1.59%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (3.89%) REST
2 85 (2.87%) React
3 84 (2.84%) RESTful
4 80 (2.70%) Node.js
5 75 (2.54%) .NET
6 62 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
7 61 (2.06%) Spring
7 61 (2.06%) Spring Boot
8 60 (2.03%) HTML
9 58 (1.96%) Kafka
10 55 (1.86%) JSON
11 53 (1.79%) CSS
12 51 (1.72%) AngularJS
12 51 (1.72%) SOAP
13 50 (1.69%) Web Services
14 37 (1.25%) XML
15 27 (0.91%) OAuth
16 23 (0.78%) Playwright
17 22 (0.74%) LDAP
18 21 (0.71%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 105 (3.55%) Cloud Native
2 99 (3.35%) NHS
3 97 (3.28%) Onboarding
4 82 (2.77%) Product Ownership
5 73 (2.47%) Data Centre
6 69 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
6 69 (2.33%) Management Information System
7 38 (1.28%) Replication
8 33 (1.12%) Public Cloud
9 32 (1.08%) PKI
10 31 (1.05%) Security Posture
11 28 (0.95%) CMDB
12 25 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
13 24 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (0.78%) AI Agents
14 23 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
14 23 (0.78%) Data Structures
14 23 (0.78%) Driving Licence
15 21 (0.71%) Security Operations Centre
15 21 (0.71%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 242 (8.18%) Windows
2 156 (5.27%) Linux
3 52 (1.76%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.56%) Windows Server
5 45 (1.52%) Android
6 40 (1.35%) Mac OS
7 28 (0.95%) VMS
8 26 (0.88%) Unix
9 20 (0.68%) Amazon Linux
9 20 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.64%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.41%) Ubuntu
12 10 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.27%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
15 6 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
16 3 (0.10%) CentOS
16 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 743 (25.12%) Agile
2 430 (14.54%) DevOps
3 418 (14.13%) CI/CD
4 392 (13.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 391 (13.22%) Problem-Solving
6 342 (11.56%) Business Intelligence
7 295 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
8 282 (9.53%) Migration
9 260 (8.79%) Continuous Improvement
10 224 (7.57%) Roadmaps
11 207 (7.00%) Programme Management
12 191 (6.46%) Infrastructure as Code
13 190 (6.42%) Microservices
14 182 (6.15%) Analytics
15 181 (6.12%) Digital Marketing
16 178 (6.02%) ITIL
17 174 (5.88%) Decision-Making
18 166 (5.61%) AI
19 164 (5.54%) Test Automation
20 160 (5.41%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 345 (11.66%) Python
2 256 (8.65%) SQL
3 239 (8.08%) Java
4 136 (4.60%) JavaScript
5 119 (4.02%) PowerShell
6 82 (2.77%) TypeScript
7 74 (2.50%) Bash
7 74 (2.50%) C#
8 31 (1.05%) Go
9 25 (0.85%) PL/SQL
10 24 (0.81%) Groovy
11 22 (0.74%) C++
12 21 (0.71%) Perl
13 20 (0.68%) Ruby
14 19 (0.64%) Apex Code
14 19 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 14 (0.47%) C
15 14 (0.47%) PHP
16 13 (0.44%) Bicep
17 12 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,796 (60.72%) Security Cleared
2 1,242 (41.99%) SC Cleared
3 168 (5.68%) DV Cleared
4 125 (4.23%) Degree
5 76 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.76%) CISSP
7 43 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
8 40 (1.35%) Azure Certification
9 38 (1.28%) ITIL Certification
10 37 (1.25%) AWS Certification
11 34 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
12 27 (0.91%) CISM
13 25 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
14 24 (0.81%) CCNP
15 21 (0.71%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.64%) ISEB
17 15 (0.51%) CCNA
17 15 (0.51%) Master's Degree
18 14 (0.47%) MCSE
18 14 (0.47%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (4.19%) Accessibility
2 121 (4.09%) QA
3 90 (3.04%) GDPR
4 84 (2.84%) Data Quality
5 81 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (2.33%) NIST
7 52 (1.76%) NCSC
8 42 (1.42%) PMO
8 42 (1.42%) SLA
9 40 (1.35%) WCAG
10 20 (0.68%) GRC
11 19 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.57%) COBIT
12 17 (0.57%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.54%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.37%) PCI DSS
16 10 (0.34%) HL7
17 9 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.30%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 215 (7.27%) Docker
2 125 (4.23%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.68%) DFS Replication
5 16 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.54%) vSphere
6 11 (0.37%) Postfix
6 11 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (0.37%) VMware NSX
7 9 (0.30%) Dovecot
7 9 (0.30%) Squid
8 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.17%) UAG
10 4 (0.14%) Firmware
10 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
12 2 (0.068%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 282 (9.53%) Terraform
2 222 (7.51%) Kubernetes
3 80 (2.70%) Ansible
4 68 (2.30%) Grafana
5 55 (1.86%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
7 39 (1.32%) SCCM
8 20 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 19 (0.64%) Packer
10 15 (0.51%) vCenter Server
11 12 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.41%) Nessus
12 11 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.37%) Argo
13 10 (0.34%) SCOM
14 9 (0.30%) Consul
14 9 (0.30%) Proxmox
15 8 (0.27%) Nmap
15 8 (0.27%) Puppet
16 7 (0.24%) vRealize
Vendors
1 412 (13.93%) Microsoft
2 301 (10.18%) SAP
3 183 (6.19%) Oracle
4 148 (5.00%) Cisco
5 107 (3.62%) ServiceNow
6 85 (2.87%) VMware
7 63 (2.13%) Salesforce
8 57 (1.93%) Google
9 55 (1.86%) Splunk
10 50 (1.69%) Juniper
11 39 (1.32%) Aruba
12 38 (1.28%) HP
13 37 (1.25%) Dell
14 36 (1.22%) Apple
15 35 (1.18%) Palo Alto
16 31 (1.05%) Databricks
16 31 (1.05%) Virgin Media
17 29 (0.98%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.88%) Fortinet
19 25 (0.85%) Red Hat