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

6 months to
19 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 2,880 2,712 3,559
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.48% 8.79% 9.06%
As % of the General category 14.88% 14.82% 15.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,000 1,618 2,517
10th Percentile £313 £300 £290
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% +0.47%
75th Percentile £594 £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 166 95 96
10th Percentile £15.48 £15.00 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.16 £17.24
Median hourly rate £21.50 £24.18 £21.91
Median % change year-on-year -11.08% +10.39% +15.29%
75th Percentile £25.15 £40.30 £59.13
90th Percentile £54.13 £63.91 £70.87
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.00 £21.31
% change year-on-year -8.70% +7.93% +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 19,359 18,300 23,458
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.71% 59.35% 59.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,267 10,981 15,978
10th Percentile £275 £300 £297
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £627 £650 £671
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,270 683 1,033
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.93 £17.50 £17.25
Median hourly rate £25.00 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.88% -1.54% +26.41%
75th Percentile £45.46 £60.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £71.55 £71.25 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £24.27 £29.50 £31.71
% change year-on-year -17.72% -6.97% +26.84%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 0 1,186 £513 -2.38% 546
North of England 0 539 £471 -0.79% 214
South West +2 327 £550 -4.35% 109
South East -9 308 £500 -9.09% 306
Midlands +4 276 £475 -5.00% 123
North West 0 269 £450 -5.96% 102
West Midlands +5 218 £478 -4.50% 79
Yorkshire +7 172 £501 +5.37% 68
North East +2 101 £450 +6.51% 44
East of England 0 77 £375 +7.14% 55
East Midlands -2 58 £415 -7.78% 42
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 (3.92%) Confluence
2 87 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.90%) nginx
5 25 (0.87%) SAS
6 24 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.52%) Apache
7 15 (0.52%) Skype for Business
8 11 (0.38%) CMS
9 10 (0.35%) Apache Spark
10 6 (0.21%) 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%) Exchange Server 2007
13 3 (0.10%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.10%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 89 (3.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 88 (3.06%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.63%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.35%) Trello
7 9 (0.31%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.21%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.21%) 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 (0.069%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.035%) Adobe After Effects
13 1 (0.035%) Revit
13 1 (0.035%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
3 15 (0.52%) SAP PSCD
4 12 (0.42%) Oracle EBS
4 12 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 12 (0.42%) SAP ERP
5 11 (0.38%) SAP BRIM
5 11 (0.38%) SAP Hybris
6 9 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.28%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
9 6 (0.21%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
11 4 (0.14%) iTrent
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 545 (18.92%) AWS
2 516 (17.92%) Azure
3 193 (6.70%) Power Platform
4 149 (5.17%) Microsoft 365
5 123 (4.27%) GitHub
6 122 (4.24%) GCP
7 116 (4.03%) Serverless
8 100 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
9 80 (2.78%) Amazon S3
10 72 (2.50%) AWS Lambda
11 67 (2.33%) SaaS
12 62 (2.15%) GitHub Actions
12 62 (2.15%) PowerApps
13 57 (1.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 57 (1.98%) Amazon EC2
13 57 (1.98%) Entra ID
14 53 (1.84%) Power Automate
15 52 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
16 48 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
17 43 (1.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 112 (3.89%) Firewall
2 79 (2.74%) DNS
3 60 (2.08%) VPN
4 46 (1.60%) WAN
5 42 (1.46%) Wireless
6 40 (1.39%) Network Security
7 37 (1.28%) LAN
8 31 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.04%) BGP
10 28 (0.97%) DHCP
11 27 (0.94%) HTTP
12 23 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
13 22 (0.76%) SD-WAN
13 22 (0.76%) SSH
14 21 (0.73%) FTP
14 21 (0.73%) SMTP
15 19 (0.66%) OSPF
15 19 (0.66%) SSL
16 18 (0.63%) Internet
16 18 (0.63%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 132 (4.58%) Power BI
2 85 (2.95%) PostgreSQL
3 47 (1.63%) MongoDB
4 39 (1.35%) Amazon RDS
4 39 (1.35%) Metadata
5 36 (1.25%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.11%) Relational Database
7 30 (1.04%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.01%) Data Lake
8 29 (1.01%) Oracle Database
9 28 (0.97%) MySQL
10 27 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
11 20 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
12 18 (0.63%) Redis
12 18 (0.63%) Tableau
13 16 (0.56%) Amazon Aurora
13 16 (0.56%) BigQuery
13 16 (0.56%) Oracle Reports
14 13 (0.45%) GIS
15 12 (0.42%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 192 (6.67%) JIRA
2 158 (5.49%) Git
3 134 (4.65%) Jenkins
4 80 (2.78%) GitLab
5 34 (1.18%) Postman
5 34 (1.18%) Selenium
6 29 (1.01%) SonarQube
7 28 (0.97%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.73%) Vagrant
9 20 (0.69%) Cypress.io
9 20 (0.69%) Mockito
10 19 (0.66%) JUnit
10 19 (0.66%) REST Assured
11 13 (0.45%) Bitbucket
11 13 (0.45%) Burp Suite
11 13 (0.45%) Metasploit
12 11 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
13 10 (0.35%) CircleCI
14 8 (0.28%) MSI
15 7 (0.24%) JMeter
General
1 847 (29.41%) Social Skills
2 485 (16.84%) Finance
3 250 (8.68%) Analytical Skills
4 234 (8.13%) Telecoms
5 199 (6.91%) Manufacturing
6 192 (6.67%) Marketing
7 181 (6.28%) Electronics
8 130 (4.51%) Military
9 127 (4.41%) Local Government
10 78 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.43%) Legal
12 51 (1.77%) Influencing Skills
13 45 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.39%) Law
15 39 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
16 38 (1.32%) Retail
17 35 (1.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 31 (1.08%) Police
19 26 (0.90%) Banking
20 19 (0.66%) Billing
Job Titles
1 344 (11.94%) Developer
2 322 (11.18%) Architect
3 299 (10.38%) Analyst
4 277 (9.62%) Senior
5 273 (9.48%) Lead
6 199 (6.91%) Consultant
7 119 (4.13%) Business Analyst
8 118 (4.10%) DevOps Engineer
9 90 (3.13%) Project Manager
10 75 (2.60%) AWS Engineer
11 74 (2.57%) Solutions Architect
12 72 (2.50%) Technical Architect
13 66 (2.29%) Support Engineer
14 64 (2.22%) Designer
15 53 (1.84%) Network Engineer
16 50 (1.74%) Data Engineer
16 50 (1.74%) Senior Developer
17 49 (1.70%) IT Support
17 49 (1.70%) Java Developer
17 49 (1.70%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 109 (3.78%) REST
2 83 (2.88%) RESTful
3 79 (2.74%) React
4 71 (2.47%) .NET
4 71 (2.47%) Node.js
5 59 (2.05%) HTML
5 59 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
6 58 (2.01%) Spring Boot
7 56 (1.94%) Spring
8 53 (1.84%) JSON
8 53 (1.84%) Kafka
9 52 (1.81%) CSS
9 52 (1.81%) SOAP
9 52 (1.81%) Web Services
10 48 (1.67%) AngularJS
11 36 (1.25%) XML
12 27 (0.94%) OAuth
13 22 (0.76%) LDAP
13 22 (0.76%) Playwright
14 19 (0.66%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 100 (3.47%) Onboarding
2 96 (3.33%) Cloud Native
3 93 (3.23%) NHS
4 75 (2.60%) Product Ownership
5 73 (2.53%) Data Centre
6 70 (2.43%) Management Information System
7 67 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
8 38 (1.32%) Replication
9 34 (1.18%) PKI
10 33 (1.15%) Public Cloud
11 30 (1.04%) Security Posture
12 27 (0.94%) CMDB
13 26 (0.90%) Security Operations Centre
14 24 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
14 24 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
15 23 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
15 23 (0.80%) Data Structures
15 23 (0.80%) Driving Licence
16 22 (0.76%) AI Agents
17 20 (0.69%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 243 (8.44%) Windows
2 155 (5.38%) Linux
3 49 (1.70%) Windows 10
4 47 (1.63%) Windows Server
5 46 (1.60%) Android
6 41 (1.42%) Mac OS
7 28 (0.97%) VMS
8 24 (0.83%) Unix
9 22 (0.76%) Amazon Linux
10 21 (0.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 20 (0.69%) Apple iOS
12 13 (0.45%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
14 7 (0.24%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
15 6 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
16 4 (0.14%) CentOS
17 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 721 (25.03%) Agile
2 414 (14.38%) DevOps
3 403 (13.99%) CI/CD
4 381 (13.23%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 369 (12.81%) Problem-Solving
6 337 (11.70%) Business Intelligence
7 290 (10.07%) Stakeholder Management
8 272 (9.44%) Migration
9 249 (8.65%) Continuous Improvement
10 215 (7.47%) Roadmaps
11 207 (7.19%) Programme Management
12 186 (6.46%) Infrastructure as Code
13 180 (6.25%) Digital Marketing
14 174 (6.04%) Microservices
15 173 (6.01%) Analytics
16 171 (5.94%) ITIL
17 162 (5.63%) Decision-Making
18 155 (5.38%) AI
18 155 (5.38%) Test Automation
19 144 (5.00%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 334 (11.60%) Python
2 253 (8.78%) SQL
3 235 (8.16%) Java
4 130 (4.51%) JavaScript
5 119 (4.13%) PowerShell
6 80 (2.78%) Bash
7 74 (2.57%) TypeScript
8 70 (2.43%) C#
9 31 (1.08%) Go
10 25 (0.87%) Groovy
10 25 (0.87%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.80%) Perl
12 22 (0.76%) C++
13 18 (0.63%) Apex Code
13 18 (0.63%) Ruby
13 18 (0.63%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.49%) C
15 13 (0.45%) PHP
16 12 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.38%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,754 (60.90%) Security Cleared
2 1,228 (42.64%) SC Cleared
3 172 (5.97%) DV Cleared
4 115 (3.99%) Degree
5 70 (2.43%) BPSS Clearance
6 54 (1.88%) CISSP
7 43 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
8 37 (1.28%) Azure Certification
8 37 (1.28%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (1.22%) AWS Certification
10 34 (1.18%) Cisco Certification
11 27 (0.94%) CISM
12 24 (0.83%) CCNP
13 22 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
14 21 (0.73%) OSCP
15 20 (0.69%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.66%) CREST Certified
17 15 (0.52%) CCNA
18 14 (0.49%) MCSE
19 13 (0.45%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (4.17%) Accessibility
2 115 (3.99%) QA
3 87 (3.02%) GDPR
4 81 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 73 (2.53%) Data Quality
6 70 (2.43%) NIST
7 58 (2.01%) NCSC
8 43 (1.49%) SLA
9 41 (1.42%) PMO
10 37 (1.28%) WCAG
11 24 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.66%) GRC
13 18 (0.63%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.56%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.42%) COBIT
15 12 (0.42%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 11 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
17 10 (0.35%) PCI DSS
18 9 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.31%) RMADS
System Software
1 206 (7.15%) Docker
2 126 (4.38%) Active Directory
3 58 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.73%) DFS Replication
5 16 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.56%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.56%) vSphere
6 15 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.45%) Postfix
8 11 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.38%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.31%) Dovecot
9 9 (0.31%) Squid
10 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.17%) UAG
12 4 (0.14%) Firmware
13 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
13 3 (0.10%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 268 (9.31%) Terraform
2 211 (7.33%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.71%) Ansible
4 69 (2.40%) Grafana
5 56 (1.94%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.39%) SCCM
7 37 (1.28%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (0.66%) Packer
8 19 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.52%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.49%) Nmap
11 12 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 12 (0.42%) Argo
11 12 (0.42%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.42%) Nessus
12 11 (0.38%) SCOM
13 9 (0.31%) Consul
13 9 (0.31%) Proxmox
14 7 (0.24%) vRealize
15 6 (0.21%) QRadar
Vendors
1 406 (14.10%) Microsoft
2 293 (10.17%) SAP
3 182 (6.32%) Oracle
4 147 (5.10%) Cisco
5 106 (3.68%) ServiceNow
6 82 (2.85%) VMware
7 61 (2.12%) Salesforce
8 57 (1.98%) Splunk
9 54 (1.88%) Google
10 50 (1.74%) Juniper
11 39 (1.35%) HP
12 38 (1.32%) Aruba
13 36 (1.25%) Apple
13 36 (1.25%) Dell
14 34 (1.18%) Palo Alto
15 31 (1.08%) Virgin Media
16 30 (1.04%) SolarWinds
17 27 (0.94%) Databricks
18 26 (0.90%) Fortinet
19 25 (0.87%) F5