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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 20 18
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,058 2,431 2,735
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.78% 8.65% 8.44%
As % of the General category 15.54% 13.52% 14.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,798 1,685 1,670
10th Percentile £363 £313 £306
25th Percentile £445 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -6.36%
75th Percentile £619 £595 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 118 95
10th Percentile £15.19 £15.48 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.02 £16.32
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.05 £23.99
Median % change year-on-year -3.17% -8.09% +14.24%
75th Percentile £37.82 £29.69 £40.30
90th Percentile £75.08 £65.08 £62.04
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.67% +7.14%

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 26,116 17,975 19,086
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.51% 63.97% 58.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,203 11,399 11,463
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £527
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -5.03% -4.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £738 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,419 1,061 841
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.69 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.50 £16.30 £17.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £25.08 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.65% -28.36% +16.67%
75th Percentile £56.21 £45.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.51 £70.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.00% -23.08% +18.18%

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 9 October 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 9 October 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 9 October 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 0 1,799 £550 +7.58% 1,752
North of England +1 746 £476 +0.11% 736
Midlands +8 531 £490 +3.16% 304
West Midlands +8 450 £490 +3.16% 228
South East 0 438 £510 -0.78% 347
South West -3 362 £535 -2.73% 243
Yorkshire +2 271 £475 -5.00% 214
North West -10 266 £570 +26.67% 389
North East +1 228 £450 -10.00% 133
East Midlands +7 77 £450 +9.09% 76
East of England -25 49 £450 -10.00% 149
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
1 167 (4.12%) Confluence
2 102 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.21%) SAS
5 44 (1.08%) Apache Airflow
5 44 (1.08%) Apache Spark
6 43 (1.06%) Apache
7 26 (0.64%) CMS
8 20 (0.49%) Jupyter
9 12 (0.30%) nginx
9 12 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
10 10 (0.25%) WordPress
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.17%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.099%) IIS
15 3 (0.074%) Drupal
15 3 (0.074%) SAP Portal
15 3 (0.074%) Tomcat
Applications
1 77 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 53 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
4 22 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
6 5 (0.12%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.12%) Sketch
6 5 (0.12%) Trello
7 4 (0.099%) Adobe After Effects
7 4 (0.099%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.049%) Adobe Illustrator
8 2 (0.049%) Adobe Premiere
8 2 (0.049%) Navisworks
8 2 (0.049%) ProjectWise
8 2 (0.049%) Revit
9 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
9 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
9 1 (0.025%) SPSS
9 1 (0.025%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 52 (1.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 51 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 46 (1.13%) Oracle ERP
4 31 (0.76%) SAP PSCD
5 23 (0.57%) SAP Payroll
6 22 (0.54%) Oracle EBS
7 17 (0.42%) Workday HCM
8 16 (0.39%) SAP BRIM
9 15 (0.37%) NetSuite
9 15 (0.37%) SAP HR
10 14 (0.34%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.34%) SAP FI
11 13 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
12 12 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
12 12 (0.30%) SAP HCM
13 11 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
14 10 (0.25%) NEC Housing
14 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
15 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
16 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
Cloud Services
1 793 (19.54%) AWS
2 754 (18.58%) Azure
3 247 (6.09%) Power Platform
4 196 (4.83%) Azure DevOps
5 167 (4.12%) Microsoft 365
6 161 (3.97%) GitHub
7 156 (3.84%) GCP
8 144 (3.55%) Entra ID
9 142 (3.50%) Serverless
10 115 (2.83%) Amazon S3
11 113 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
12 112 (2.76%) SaaS
13 100 (2.46%) OCI
14 86 (2.12%) Power Automate
15 81 (2.00%) Dynamics 365
16 79 (1.95%) AWS Lambda
17 75 (1.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 70 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
19 64 (1.58%) PowerApps
20 55 (1.36%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.34%) Firewall
2 68 (1.68%) DNS
3 49 (1.21%) WAN
4 42 (1.03%) LAN
5 41 (1.01%) Network Security
6 33 (0.81%) TCP/IP
7 32 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
8 31 (0.76%) DHCP
9 29 (0.71%) VPN
10 27 (0.67%) BGP
11 26 (0.64%) OSPF
12 19 (0.47%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.47%) Wireless
13 15 (0.37%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.34%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.34%) WLAN
15 13 (0.32%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
15 13 (0.32%) VLAN
15 13 (0.32%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (3.92%) Power BI
2 104 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
3 99 (2.44%) Metadata
4 97 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
5 71 (1.75%) Relational Database
6 66 (1.63%) SQL Server
7 64 (1.58%) MongoDB
8 54 (1.33%) Oracle Database
9 53 (1.31%) Data Lake
10 52 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
11 40 (0.99%) NoSQL
12 29 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
12 29 (0.71%) Amazon Aurora
13 28 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
13 28 (0.69%) MySQL
14 27 (0.67%) Pentaho
15 26 (0.64%) Tableau
16 24 (0.59%) Oracle Reports
17 20 (0.49%) DynamoDB
17 20 (0.49%) Redis
Development Applications
1 239 (5.89%) JIRA
2 182 (4.48%) Git
3 169 (4.16%) GitLab
4 131 (3.23%) Jenkins
5 60 (1.48%) Selenium
6 53 (1.31%) Cucumber
7 39 (0.96%) JUnit
8 34 (0.84%) Postman
9 29 (0.71%) Cypress.io
10 26 (0.64%) Maven
11 25 (0.62%) Mockito
12 23 (0.57%) SonarQube
13 22 (0.54%) REST Assured
14 21 (0.52%) Gatling
14 21 (0.52%) JMeter
15 20 (0.49%) WebDriver
16 15 (0.37%) MSI
17 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
17 11 (0.27%) TestNG
18 8 (0.20%) Gradle
General
1 1,338 (32.97%) Social Skills
2 452 (11.14%) Finance
3 433 (10.67%) Analytical Skills
4 284 (7.00%) Military
5 226 (5.57%) Local Government
6 183 (4.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 171 (4.21%) Influencing Skills
8 123 (3.03%) Legal
9 118 (2.91%) Organisational Skills
10 95 (2.34%) Police
11 90 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
12 63 (1.55%) Law
13 54 (1.33%) Telecoms
14 48 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
15 40 (0.99%) Marketing
16 34 (0.84%) Banking
17 33 (0.81%) Billing
18 25 (0.62%) Retail
19 21 (0.52%) Publishing
20 20 (0.49%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 579 (14.27%) Senior
2 566 (13.95%) Architect
3 495 (12.20%) Developer
4 490 (12.07%) Lead
5 355 (8.75%) Analyst
6 204 (5.03%) Consultant
7 150 (3.70%) Data Engineer
7 150 (3.70%) Designer
8 148 (3.65%) Business Analyst
9 135 (3.33%) DevOps Engineer
10 130 (3.20%) Data Architect
11 125 (3.08%) Solutions Architect
12 116 (2.86%) Delivery Manager
13 109 (2.69%) User Researcher
14 108 (2.66%) Technical Architect
15 102 (2.51%) Senior Developer
16 87 (2.14%) Java Developer
17 86 (2.12%) Senior Manager
18 82 (2.02%) Project Manager
19 80 (1.97%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 356 (8.77%) Terraform
2 176 (4.34%) REST
3 109 (2.69%) RESTful
4 99 (2.44%) Spring
5 98 (2.41%) Node.js
6 91 (2.24%) React
7 89 (2.19%) Spring Boot
8 85 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
9 77 (1.90%) SOAP
10 70 (1.72%) HTML
10 70 (1.72%) Web Services
11 68 (1.68%) Kafka
12 64 (1.58%) CSS
13 63 (1.55%) OAuth
14 61 (1.50%) Django
15 59 (1.45%) JSON
16 58 (1.43%) .NET
17 53 (1.31%) OpenID
18 45 (1.11%) AngularJS
19 44 (1.08%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 247 (6.09%) Cloud Native
2 177 (4.36%) Product Ownership
3 168 (4.14%) Onboarding
4 138 (3.40%) Management Information System
5 126 (3.10%) NHS
6 106 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
7 89 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
8 51 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (1.11%) Data Structures
10 44 (1.08%) Data Centre
10 44 (1.08%) Freedom of Information
11 43 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
12 41 (1.01%) CMDB
12 41 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
13 40 (0.99%) AI Agents
14 36 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
15 35 (0.86%) Taxonomies
16 32 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
16 32 (0.79%) Security Operations Centre
17 31 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 127 (3.13%) Windows
2 114 (2.81%) Linux
3 38 (0.94%) Unix
4 35 (0.86%) Windows Server
5 22 (0.54%) Android
6 20 (0.49%) Windows 10
7 19 (0.47%) Apple iOS
8 14 (0.34%) Mac OS
8 14 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.12%) AIX
9 5 (0.12%) Amazon Linux
10 3 (0.074%) CentOS
10 3 (0.074%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.049%) Solaris
11 2 (0.049%) VMS
12 1 (0.025%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.025%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
12 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2008
12 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,313 (32.36%) Agile
2 1,006 (24.79%) Stakeholder Management
3 732 (18.04%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 719 (17.72%) Continuous Improvement
5 682 (16.81%) CI/CD
6 641 (15.80%) DevOps
7 521 (12.84%) Problem-Solving
8 489 (12.05%) Decision-Making
9 416 (10.25%) Analytics
10 393 (9.68%) AI
11 388 (9.56%) Roadmaps
12 383 (9.44%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 382 (9.41%) Migration
14 349 (8.60%) Infrastructure as Code
15 321 (7.91%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 320 (7.89%) Data Modelling
17 299 (7.37%) Technical Leadership
18 278 (6.85%) Mentoring
19 267 (6.58%) User Research
20 264 (6.51%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 449 (11.06%) Python
2 404 (9.96%) SQL
3 253 (6.23%) Java
4 223 (5.50%) JavaScript
5 124 (3.06%) TypeScript
6 110 (2.71%) PowerShell
7 82 (2.02%) C#
8 65 (1.60%) Bash
9 51 (1.26%) Bicep
10 49 (1.21%) PL/SQL
11 42 (1.03%) Scala
12 28 (0.69%) Groovy
12 28 (0.69%) R
13 26 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 24 (0.59%) ABAP
15 22 (0.54%) Kotlin
16 20 (0.49%) Apex Code
17 15 (0.37%) Ruby
18 14 (0.34%) Go
18 14 (0.34%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 2,064 (50.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,716 (42.29%) SC Cleared
3 351 (8.65%) BPSS Clearance
4 230 (5.67%) DV Cleared
5 180 (4.44%) Degree
6 81 (2.00%) Microsoft Certification
7 75 (1.85%) AWS Certification
8 66 (1.63%) Azure Certification
9 47 (1.16%) CISSP
10 39 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
11 35 (0.86%) CISM
11 35 (0.86%) ISTQB
12 25 (0.62%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (0.57%) CCNP
14 23 (0.57%) Master's Degree
15 21 (0.52%) ITIL Certification
16 19 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
18 15 (0.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 354 (8.72%) Accessibility
2 260 (6.41%) Data Quality
3 253 (6.23%) QA
4 139 (3.43%) WCAG
5 127 (3.13%) GDPR
6 89 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 86 (2.12%) NCSC
8 75 (1.85%) PMO
9 73 (1.80%) NIST
10 34 (0.84%) GRC
11 30 (0.74%) SLA
12 25 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 24 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 11 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
17 8 (0.20%) NIST 800
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 6 (0.15%) PCI DSS
18 6 (0.15%) PERC
System Software
1 283 (6.97%) Docker
2 139 (3.43%) Active Directory
3 31 (0.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.39%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.32%) VMware NSX
6 12 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.22%) vSphere
8 8 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.099%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.074%) Microsoft App-V
11 3 (0.074%) Postfix
12 2 (0.049%) OpenAM
13 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.025%) Ceph
13 1 (0.025%) Squid
13 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 273 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 99 (2.44%) Grafana
3 65 (1.60%) Ansible
4 58 (1.43%) Prometheus
5 44 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
6 41 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
7 26 (0.64%) SCCM
8 22 (0.54%) Argo
9 21 (0.52%) Kibana
10 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.20%) VxRail
11 6 (0.15%) Istio
11 6 (0.15%) QRadar
12 5 (0.12%) Consul
12 5 (0.12%) Packer
12 5 (0.12%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.099%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.099%) Karpenter
14 3 (0.074%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 559 (13.78%) Microsoft
2 342 (8.43%) Oracle
3 155 (3.82%) ServiceNow
4 129 (3.18%) Google
4 129 (3.18%) SAP
5 91 (2.24%) Salesforce
6 81 (2.00%) Databricks
7 48 (1.18%) Cisco
8 38 (0.94%) Palo Alto
9 37 (0.91%) Splunk
10 35 (0.86%) VMware
11 33 (0.81%) Dynatrace
11 33 (0.81%) Informatica
12 31 (0.76%) Talend
13 30 (0.74%) Workday
14 21 (0.52%) Palantir
15 20 (0.49%) Foundry
16 19 (0.47%) CyberArk
17 18 (0.44%) Blue Prism
17 18 (0.44%) Red Hat