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

6 months to
30 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 23 19
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,009 2,126 2,747
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.87% 7.73% 8.06%
As % of the General category 16.02% 12.12% 14.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,781 1,456 1,874
10th Percentile £358 £330 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £511 £520
Median % change year-on-year +0.78% -1.73% -3.26%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £694 £688 £710
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 80 120
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £15.09
25th Percentile £16.92 £18.13 £17.94
Median hourly rate £25.38 £21.70 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% -19.63% +29.68%
75th Percentile £51.69 £30.06 £57.75
90th Percentile £76.90 £63.90 £73.43
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £19.92 £23.41
% change year-on-year +27.44% -14.93% +16.47%

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 25,021 17,544 19,580
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.36% 63.79% 57.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,996 11,215 12,627
10th Percentile £313 £281 £300
25th Percentile £416 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -5.12% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £656
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,881 927 1,344
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.31 £14.06
25th Percentile £18.75 £16.39 £17.44
Median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +35.15% -34.02% +27.07%
75th Percentile £64.09 £50.88 £59.66
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.75 £70.25
UK median hourly rate £33.00 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +31.21% -32.93% +22.79%

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 30 July 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 30 July 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 30 July 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 1,782 £525 - 493
North of England +1 701 £463 -2.63% 248
South East +7 497 £500 -4.76% 185
Midlands +10 477 £500 +8.11% 132
West Midlands +2 389 £492 +5.01% 111
South West -8 302 £525 -4.55% 176
North West -7 281 £500 +7.53% 117
Yorkshire +14 260 £473 -0.53% 84
North East -2 171 £450 -6.25% 48
East Midlands +29 80 £538 +31.10% 21
East of England +8 62 £463 -7.50% 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
1 163 (4.07%) Confluence
2 116 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 49 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
3 49 (1.22%) SAS
4 45 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
5 37 (0.92%) Apache Spark
6 34 (0.85%) Apache
7 21 (0.52%) CMS
8 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.32%) nginx
9 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 10 (0.25%) WordPress
11 9 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.17%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.12%) Drupal
13 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 3 (0.075%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.075%) IIS
Applications
1 82 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.25%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.15%) Sketch
8 6 (0.15%) Trello
9 3 (0.075%) Adobe XD
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.025%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 42 (1.05%) Oracle ERP
4 26 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
5 24 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
6 14 (0.35%) Workday HCM
7 12 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
8 11 (0.27%) NEC Housing
8 11 (0.27%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
9 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 9 (0.22%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
10 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
11 8 (0.20%) SystmOne
12 7 (0.17%) SAP FI
13 6 (0.15%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 816 (20.35%) AWS
2 770 (19.21%) Azure
3 232 (5.79%) Power Platform
4 183 (4.56%) Microsoft 365
5 180 (4.49%) Azure DevOps
6 155 (3.87%) GCP
7 154 (3.84%) GitHub
8 146 (3.64%) Serverless
9 131 (3.27%) Amazon S3
10 128 (3.19%) Entra ID
11 105 (2.62%) GitHub Actions
12 103 (2.57%) SaaS
13 90 (2.24%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (2.15%) OCI
15 79 (1.97%) Power Automate
16 76 (1.90%) Amazon EC2
17 75 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
18 67 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
19 65 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 65 (1.62%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 113 (2.82%) Firewall
2 69 (1.72%) DNS
3 57 (1.42%) WAN
4 50 (1.25%) LAN
5 49 (1.22%) Network Security
6 39 (0.97%) VPN
7 34 (0.85%) DHCP
8 31 (0.77%) BGP
9 30 (0.75%) OSPF
10 29 (0.72%) TCP/IP
11 28 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
12 21 (0.52%) SD-WAN
13 18 (0.45%) BIG-IP
13 18 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 18 (0.45%) WLAN
14 16 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
15 15 (0.37%) Wireless
16 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 13 (0.32%) NGFW
17 13 (0.32%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 159 (3.97%) Power BI
2 109 (2.72%) Data Warehouse
3 94 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (1.97%) SQL Server
5 57 (1.42%) Relational Database
6 55 (1.37%) Metadata
7 54 (1.35%) Data Lake
8 50 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
9 48 (1.20%) MongoDB
10 47 (1.17%) Oracle Database
11 46 (1.15%) NoSQL
12 37 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
13 32 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
14 31 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
14 31 (0.77%) DynamoDB
15 30 (0.75%) Tableau
16 28 (0.70%) Pentaho
17 25 (0.62%) Delta Lake
18 22 (0.55%) Amazon Aurora
18 22 (0.55%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 237 (5.91%) JIRA
2 174 (4.34%) Git
3 153 (3.82%) GitLab
4 140 (3.49%) Jenkins
5 45 (1.12%) Selenium
6 40 (1.00%) JUnit
6 40 (1.00%) Mockito
7 33 (0.82%) Cucumber
7 33 (0.82%) SonarQube
8 28 (0.70%) Postman
9 27 (0.67%) JMeter
10 26 (0.65%) Maven
11 22 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.47%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.40%) WebDriver
14 15 (0.37%) Gatling
15 14 (0.35%) DbUnit
16 13 (0.32%) jMock
17 11 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
17 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,086 (27.09%) Social Skills
2 478 (11.92%) Finance
3 390 (9.73%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (5.91%) Military
5 213 (5.31%) Local Government
6 128 (3.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 128 (3.19%) Influencing Skills
7 107 (2.67%) Legal
8 91 (2.27%) Organisational Skills
9 84 (2.10%) Police
10 83 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
11 51 (1.27%) Law
12 49 (1.22%) Telecoms
13 44 (1.10%) Banking
14 43 (1.07%) Marketing
15 37 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
16 28 (0.70%) Billing
17 22 (0.55%) Retail
18 17 (0.42%) General Ledger
19 15 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 544 (13.57%) Architect
2 541 (13.49%) Developer
3 523 (13.05%) Senior
4 443 (11.05%) Lead
5 372 (9.28%) Analyst
6 156 (3.89%) Consultant
6 156 (3.89%) Data Engineer
7 153 (3.82%) Designer
8 152 (3.79%) Business Analyst
9 139 (3.47%) DevOps Engineer
10 129 (3.22%) Solutions Architect
11 118 (2.94%) Delivery Manager
12 113 (2.82%) Java Developer
13 108 (2.69%) Senior Developer
13 108 (2.69%) Technical Architect
14 98 (2.44%) Project Manager
15 91 (2.27%) Data Architect
16 88 (2.20%) User Researcher
17 71 (1.77%) AWS Engineer
18 70 (1.75%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (3.69%) REST
2 109 (2.72%) Node.js
3 103 (2.57%) Spring
4 102 (2.54%) RESTful
5 99 (2.47%) React
6 92 (2.29%) Spring Boot
7 79 (1.97%) Kafka
7 79 (1.97%) Oracle Fusion
8 76 (1.90%) SOAP
9 67 (1.67%) HTML
10 64 (1.60%) .NET
11 62 (1.55%) Web Services
12 60 (1.50%) AngularJS
13 57 (1.42%) CSS
14 52 (1.30%) OAuth
15 50 (1.25%) Django
16 49 (1.22%) JSON
17 45 (1.12%) PySpark
18 39 (0.97%) OpenID
19 36 (0.90%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 231 (5.76%) Cloud Native
2 170 (4.24%) Product Ownership
3 166 (4.14%) Onboarding
4 144 (3.59%) NHS
5 107 (2.67%) Legacy Systems
6 98 (2.44%) Management Information System
7 67 (1.67%) Data Centre
7 67 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
8 61 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (1.22%) Data Structures
10 47 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
10 47 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
11 42 (1.05%) Public Cloud
12 34 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
13 32 (0.80%) CMDB
14 31 (0.77%) Virtual Team
15 28 (0.70%) Low-Code
16 25 (0.62%) Freedom of Information
16 25 (0.62%) Security Operations Centre
16 25 (0.62%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 163 (4.07%) Windows
2 155 (3.87%) Linux
3 60 (1.50%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.45%) Unix
5 26 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 24 (0.60%) Android
7 23 (0.57%) Windows 10
8 21 (0.52%) Apple iOS
9 16 (0.40%) Mac OS
10 9 (0.22%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.22%) Solaris
11 7 (0.17%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.15%) AIX
12 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
13 4 (0.100%) Amazon Linux
14 3 (0.075%) VMS
14 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.050%) CentOS
15 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,236 (30.83%) Agile
2 701 (17.49%) Stakeholder Management
3 656 (16.36%) CI/CD
3 656 (16.36%) DevOps
4 592 (14.77%) Continuous Improvement
5 583 (14.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 458 (11.42%) Problem-Solving
7 414 (10.33%) Analytics
8 411 (10.25%) Decision-Making
9 369 (9.20%) Migration
10 330 (8.23%) Roadmaps
11 324 (8.08%) Infrastructure as Code
12 310 (7.73%) AI
13 290 (7.23%) Data Modelling
14 283 (7.06%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 277 (6.91%) Containerisation
16 256 (6.39%) Scrum
17 255 (6.36%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 246 (6.14%) Mentoring
19 244 (6.09%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 483 (12.05%) Python
2 407 (10.15%) SQL
3 292 (7.28%) Java
4 204 (5.09%) JavaScript
5 107 (2.67%) TypeScript
6 106 (2.64%) PowerShell
7 77 (1.92%) C#
8 66 (1.65%) Bash
9 57 (1.42%) PL/SQL
10 44 (1.10%) Bicep
11 37 (0.92%) Apex Code
12 29 (0.72%) Kotlin
13 28 (0.70%) Ruby
14 24 (0.60%) R
15 21 (0.52%) Groovy
15 21 (0.52%) Scala
16 18 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 16 (0.40%) Go
17 16 (0.40%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.35%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,095 (52.26%) Security Cleared
2 1,607 (40.08%) SC Cleared
3 245 (6.11%) DV Cleared
4 225 (5.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 188 (4.69%) Degree
6 59 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 58 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.07%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
8 43 (1.07%) CISSP
9 30 (0.75%) PMI Certification
10 28 (0.70%) CISM
11 27 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
12 23 (0.57%) CCNP
12 23 (0.57%) ISTQB
13 20 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
14 19 (0.47%) PMP
15 17 (0.42%) Master's Degree
16 14 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 308 (7.68%) Accessibility
2 212 (5.29%) Data Quality
3 203 (5.06%) QA
4 131 (3.27%) GDPR
4 131 (3.27%) WCAG
5 102 (2.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 81 (2.02%) NCSC
7 80 (2.00%) PMO
8 75 (1.87%) NIST
9 36 (0.90%) SLA
10 32 (0.80%) GRC
11 27 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
12 19 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.40%) Government Security Classifications
14 14 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 14 (0.35%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.20%) HL7
18 5 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 305 (7.61%) Docker
2 162 (4.04%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (0.65%) VMware NSX
5 14 (0.35%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.35%) VMware ESXi
5 14 (0.35%) vSphere
6 12 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
7 11 (0.27%) Postfix
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.025%) etcd
10 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
10 1 (0.025%) GPFS
10 1 (0.025%) NFS
10 1 (0.025%) RACF
10 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 349 (8.71%) Terraform
2 278 (6.93%) Kubernetes
3 89 (2.22%) Grafana
4 79 (1.97%) Ansible
5 59 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 43 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
8 28 (0.70%) Argo
9 14 (0.35%) SCCM
10 13 (0.32%) Kibana
11 12 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
12 11 (0.27%) Puppet
13 9 (0.22%) Data Guard
13 9 (0.22%) vCenter Server
14 8 (0.20%) Istio
15 7 (0.17%) FortiGate
16 6 (0.15%) VxRail
17 5 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
17 5 (0.12%) Rancher
18 4 (0.100%) Consul
Vendors
1 511 (12.75%) Microsoft
2 318 (7.93%) Oracle
3 142 (3.54%) ServiceNow
4 135 (3.37%) SAP
5 117 (2.92%) Google
5 117 (2.92%) Salesforce
6 99 (2.47%) Databricks
7 63 (1.57%) VMware
8 46 (1.15%) Cisco
9 40 (1.00%) Palo Alto
10 34 (0.85%) Atlassian
11 32 (0.80%) Red Hat
12 31 (0.77%) Talend
13 30 (0.75%) Dynatrace
14 26 (0.65%) IBM
15 25 (0.62%) Informatica
15 25 (0.62%) Splunk
16 24 (0.60%) CyberArk
17 23 (0.57%) Foundry
17 23 (0.57%) Workday