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

6 months to
9 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 3,674 2,086 3,231
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.02% 8.58% 8.77%
As % of the General category 16.50% 13.39% 15.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,601 1,431 2,165
10th Percentile £350 £350 £313
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £600 £601 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £518
% change year-on-year - -3.47% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 84 161
10th Percentile £13.97 £16.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.09 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £23.23 £23.45 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% +9.07% +5.29%
75th Percentile £31.86 £33.29 £54.55
90th Percentile £63.64 £64.93 £70.39
UK median hourly rate £22.64 £22.70 £21.00
% change year-on-year -0.29% +8.10% +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 22,262 15,582 21,447
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.63% 64.12% 58.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,829 10,117 13,818
10th Percentile £306 £300 £280
25th Percentile £410 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% -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 1,462 662 1,788
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.14 £16.96 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.50 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.89% -9.84% -6.15%
75th Percentile £63.75 £56.91 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.40
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.16
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.82% -10.24%

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 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 9 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 9 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 1,651 £525 - 373
North of England -1 651 £450 -6.25% 233
South East -2 430 £500 -6.72% 200
Midlands +5 376 £500 +8.11% 125
North West +2 318 £455 -9.05% 97
West Midlands +1 297 £490 +8.11% 102
South West -4 261 £525 -4.55% 109
Yorkshire +2 215 £450 -5.26% 64
North East -3 123 £450 -3.23% 72
East of England +14 93 £425 +6.25% 38
East Midlands +7 74 £525 +7.69% 23
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
1 147 (4.00%) Confluence
2 110 (2.99%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 19 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (0.52%) Apache Spark
5 19 (0.52%) CMS
6 15 (0.41%) Apache
7 9 (0.24%) Palantir Foundry
8 7 (0.19%) nginx
8 7 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
8 7 (0.19%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.16%) WebLogic
10 5 (0.14%) Camunda
10 5 (0.14%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.082%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.082%) Drupal
13 2 (0.054%) WordPress
Applications
1 88 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (0.38%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
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 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) 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 63 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.46%) 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 8 (0.22%) iTrent
8 8 (0.22%) NEC Housing
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
10 5 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.11%) SAP FI
11 4 (0.11%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 685 (18.64%) AWS
2 642 (17.47%) Azure
3 197 (5.36%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.38%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (4.16%) Serverless
6 143 (3.89%) GitHub
7 133 (3.62%) GCP
8 129 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.75%) Entra ID
10 97 (2.64%) Amazon S3
11 94 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
12 82 (2.23%) SaaS
13 81 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
14 69 (1.88%) Amazon EC2
15 65 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
16 63 (1.71%) OCI
16 63 (1.71%) Power Automate
17 60 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
18 58 (1.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 58 (1.58%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.59%) Firewall
2 53 (1.44%) WAN
3 52 (1.42%) DNS
3 52 (1.42%) Network Security
4 47 (1.28%) VPN
5 44 (1.20%) LAN
6 32 (0.87%) BGP
7 27 (0.73%) OSPF
7 27 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
9 20 (0.54%) DHCP
9 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
10 16 (0.44%) SSL
11 15 (0.41%) VXLAN
12 14 (0.38%) BIG-IP
13 13 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
13 13 (0.35%) Internet
13 13 (0.35%) VoIP
14 12 (0.33%) Wireless
14 12 (0.33%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (3.86%) Power BI
2 76 (2.07%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (1.82%) SQL Server
4 65 (1.77%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.50%) Metadata
6 52 (1.42%) MongoDB
7 44 (1.20%) Amazon RDS
7 44 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 37 (1.01%) Oracle Reports
9 32 (0.87%) Data Lake
9 32 (0.87%) Relational Database
10 30 (0.82%) Oracle Database
10 30 (0.82%) Tableau
11 27 (0.73%) DynamoDB
12 22 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
13 20 (0.54%) Pentaho
14 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.46%) Amazon Aurora
16 16 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 221 (6.02%) JIRA
2 170 (4.63%) Git
3 137 (3.73%) GitLab
4 117 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 40 (1.09%) Selenium
6 39 (1.06%) JUnit
7 35 (0.95%) Postman
8 33 (0.90%) Mockito
9 31 (0.84%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.65%) JMeter
11 20 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.52%) Maven
13 18 (0.49%) Cucumber
14 17 (0.46%) CircleCI
15 15 (0.41%) Artifactory
16 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
16 11 (0.30%) jMock
17 10 (0.27%) Gatling
17 10 (0.27%) Mocha
17 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 937 (25.50%) Social Skills
2 473 (12.87%) Finance
3 365 (9.93%) Analytical Skills
4 188 (5.12%) Military
5 163 (4.44%) Local Government
6 101 (2.75%) Telecoms
7 89 (2.42%) Organisational Skills
8 83 (2.26%) Legal
9 80 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
10 75 (2.04%) Marketing
11 73 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
12 70 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 63 (1.71%) Police
14 57 (1.55%) Manufacturing
15 54 (1.47%) Banking
16 53 (1.44%) Law
17 46 (1.25%) Electronics
18 43 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
19 33 (0.90%) Billing
20 24 (0.65%) Retail
Job Titles
1 490 (13.34%) Developer
2 464 (12.63%) Architect
3 411 (11.19%) Senior
4 369 (10.04%) Analyst
5 312 (8.49%) Lead
6 165 (4.49%) Business Analyst
7 160 (4.35%) Designer
8 148 (4.03%) Consultant
9 126 (3.43%) Data Engineer
10 119 (3.24%) DevOps Engineer
11 118 (3.21%) Project Manager
12 111 (3.02%) Java Developer
13 107 (2.91%) Technical Architect
14 99 (2.69%) Solutions Architect
15 87 (2.37%) Senior Developer
16 83 (2.26%) User Researcher
17 78 (2.12%) Delivery Manager
18 68 (1.85%) Service Designer
19 64 (1.74%) Administrator
20 62 (1.69%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (3.59%) REST
2 126 (3.43%) Node.js
3 120 (3.27%) Spring
4 106 (2.89%) Spring Boot
5 96 (2.61%) React
6 95 (2.59%) RESTful
7 75 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (1.93%) AngularJS
9 68 (1.85%) .NET
10 67 (1.82%) Web Services
11 62 (1.69%) HTML
11 62 (1.69%) Kafka
12 57 (1.55%) SOAP
13 51 (1.39%) CSS
14 44 (1.20%) Lightning Web Components
15 38 (1.03%) OAuth
16 36 (0.98%) JSON
16 36 (0.98%) Playwright
17 35 (0.95%) Middleware
18 27 (0.73%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 174 (4.74%) Cloud Native
2 145 (3.95%) Product Ownership
3 128 (3.48%) Onboarding
4 127 (3.46%) NHS
5 90 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
6 77 (2.10%) Management Information System
7 71 (1.93%) Data Centre
8 52 (1.42%) Public Cloud
9 49 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.03%) Data Structures
11 38 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
12 31 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
13 27 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
13 27 (0.73%) CMDB
14 23 (0.63%) Freedom of Information
15 21 (0.57%) Virtual Team
16 20 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
16 20 (0.54%) PKI
16 20 (0.54%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 184 (5.01%) Windows
2 147 (4.00%) Linux
3 61 (1.66%) Windows Server
4 51 (1.39%) Unix
5 32 (0.87%) Windows 10
6 27 (0.73%) Android
7 25 (0.68%) Apple iOS
8 22 (0.60%) Mac OS
9 20 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.22%) Solaris
12 8 (0.22%) VMS
13 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 3 (0.082%) Amazon Linux
17 2 (0.054%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 959 (26.10%) Agile
2 534 (14.53%) CI/CD
3 520 (14.15%) DevOps
4 473 (12.87%) Stakeholder Management
5 403 (10.97%) Problem-Solving
6 387 (10.53%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 383 (10.42%) Continuous Improvement
8 349 (9.50%) Migration
9 317 (8.63%) Analytics
10 303 (8.25%) Roadmaps
11 302 (8.22%) Decision-Making
12 247 (6.72%) Containerisation
13 238 (6.48%) Data Modelling
14 235 (6.40%) Test Automation
15 232 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
16 223 (6.07%) Microservices
17 217 (5.91%) User Research
18 215 (5.85%) AI
19 208 (5.66%) Business Intelligence
20 192 (5.23%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 389 (10.59%) Python
2 341 (9.28%) SQL
3 275 (7.49%) Java
4 181 (4.93%) JavaScript
5 111 (3.02%) PowerShell
6 110 (2.99%) TypeScript
7 82 (2.23%) C#
8 50 (1.36%) Bash
9 45 (1.22%) Apex Code
10 40 (1.09%) PL/SQL
10 40 (1.09%) Ruby
11 23 (0.63%) Bicep
11 23 (0.63%) Kotlin
11 23 (0.63%) R
12 21 (0.57%) Go
12 21 (0.57%) Shell Script
13 15 (0.41%) Scala
14 13 (0.35%) PHP
15 12 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,996 (54.33%) Security Cleared
2 1,336 (36.36%) SC Cleared
3 191 (5.20%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.79%) Degree
5 113 (3.08%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.33%) Azure Certification
7 38 (1.03%) AWS Certification
7 38 (1.03%) CISSP
8 34 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
9 33 (0.90%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (0.82%) ITIL Certification
11 28 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (0.73%) PMP
13 24 (0.65%) CISM
13 24 (0.65%) PMI Certification
14 15 (0.41%) CCNP
14 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
14 15 (0.41%) ISEB
15 14 (0.38%) APMP
16 13 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 237 (6.45%) Accessibility
2 164 (4.46%) QA
3 162 (4.41%) Data Quality
4 103 (2.80%) GDPR
5 91 (2.48%) WCAG
6 79 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 72 (1.96%) PMO
8 64 (1.74%) NCSC
9 53 (1.44%) NIST
10 31 (0.84%) SLA
11 26 (0.71%) GRC
12 25 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) 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
1 259 (7.05%) Docker
2 154 (4.19%) Active Directory
3 53 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) 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 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 281 (7.65%) Terraform
2 260 (7.08%) Kubernetes
3 80 (2.18%) Grafana
4 74 (2.01%) Ansible
5 58 (1.58%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.14%) Microsoft Intune
7 36 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.49%) SCCM
9 17 (0.46%) Argo
10 14 (0.38%) Puppet
11 12 (0.33%) Kibana
12 11 (0.30%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.24%) FortiGate
14 8 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Istio
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
16 6 (0.16%) vRealize
17 5 (0.14%) SCOM
18 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 432 (11.76%) Microsoft
2 224 (6.10%) Oracle
3 185 (5.04%) SAP
4 120 (3.27%) Salesforce
5 109 (2.97%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.53%) Google
7 83 (2.26%) VMware
8 78 (2.12%) Databricks
9 55 (1.50%) Cisco
10 40 (1.09%) Splunk
11 32 (0.87%) Atlassian
12 31 (0.84%) Red Hat
13 29 (0.79%) IBM
13 29 (0.79%) Palo Alto
13 29 (0.79%) Talend
14 28 (0.76%) Virgin Media
15 27 (0.73%) Dynatrace
15 27 (0.73%) MuleSoft
16 22 (0.60%) F5
17 21 (0.57%) Foundry