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

6 months to
4 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,326 2,570 3,486
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.98% 9.84% 9.17%
As % of the General category 16.71% 15.72% 15.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,337 1,547 2,342
10th Percentile £340 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -1.11%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £644
90th Percentile £669 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 91 142
10th Percentile £16.09 £15.00 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.57 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £20.85
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +22.29% +4.89%
75th Percentile £25.11 £38.88 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.75 £69.88
UK median hourly rate £21.50 £25.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year -14.00% +25.00% +5.26%

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 19,902 16,352 22,376
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.70% 62.61% 58.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,652 9,880 14,818
10th Percentile £290 £294 £263
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,235 529 1,488
10th Percentile £14.01 £15.62 £13.23
25th Percentile £16.50 £20.00 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.85 £30.21 £25.71
Median % change year-on-year -24.36% +17.50% -1.12%
75th Percentile £49.25 £57.62 £53.78
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £25.71
% change year-on-year -21.34% +12.80% +2.84%

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 4 February 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 4 February 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 4 February 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 -3 1,351 £513 -2.38% 360
North of England -2 654 £450 -5.26% 192
South East -5 394 £500 -4.76% 231
North West 0 333 £450 -10.00% 78
Midlands +3 328 £500 - 114
South West -3 303 £525 -4.55% 80
West Midlands +1 248 £500 - 89
Yorkshire 0 198 £500 +11.11% 73
North East -1 125 £450 +5.88% 43
East of England +28 108 £375 +7.14% 47
East Midlands +7 80 £423 -11.05% 24
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
1 118 (3.55%) Confluence
2 93 (2.80%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.81%) SAS
5 24 (0.72%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.48%) Apache
6 16 (0.48%) nginx
7 14 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.39%) CMS
9 5 (0.15%) Documentum
10 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
10 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.090%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.090%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.090%) SharePoint Server
11 3 (0.090%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.090%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 98 (2.95%) Microsoft Office
2 88 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.48%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.27%) Trello
8 7 (0.21%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.18%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.090%) InVision
12 2 (0.060%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.060%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.060%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.060%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.030%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.030%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.030%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.030%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 19 (0.57%) Oracle ERP
5 17 (0.51%) SAP BRIM
5 17 (0.51%) SAP Hybris
6 12 (0.36%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.27%) iTrent
8 9 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 595 (17.89%) AWS
2 578 (17.38%) Azure
3 196 (5.89%) Power Platform
4 151 (4.54%) Serverless
5 149 (4.48%) GitHub
6 146 (4.39%) Microsoft 365
7 140 (4.21%) GCP
8 119 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
9 93 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
10 85 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
11 70 (2.10%) Entra ID
12 68 (2.04%) Power Automate
13 65 (1.95%) Amazon S3
14 60 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
14 60 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
14 60 (1.80%) PowerApps
15 58 (1.74%) OCI
16 56 (1.68%) SaaS
17 51 (1.53%) Amazon ECS
18 50 (1.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.86%) Firewall
2 61 (1.83%) DNS
3 60 (1.80%) VPN
4 57 (1.71%) WAN
5 48 (1.44%) Network Security
6 44 (1.32%) LAN
7 43 (1.29%) Wireless
8 36 (1.08%) TCP/IP
9 33 (0.99%) BGP
10 28 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 24 (0.72%) DHCP
12 22 (0.66%) OSPF
13 18 (0.54%) Skype
14 17 (0.51%) MPLS
14 17 (0.51%) VLAN
15 16 (0.48%) IPsec
15 16 (0.48%) SD-WAN
15 16 (0.48%) SSL
16 14 (0.42%) HTTP
16 14 (0.42%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (4.33%) Power BI
2 78 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.59%) Metadata
4 51 (1.53%) MongoDB
5 41 (1.23%) SQL Server
6 38 (1.14%) NoSQL
7 35 (1.05%) Data Lake
8 32 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
8 32 (0.96%) Relational Database
9 28 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
9 28 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
10 25 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 24 (0.72%) MySQL
12 23 (0.69%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.66%) Redis
14 20 (0.60%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
16 16 (0.48%) Tableau
17 15 (0.45%) DocumentDB
17 15 (0.45%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 196 (5.89%) JIRA
2 164 (4.93%) Git
3 126 (3.79%) GitLab
4 122 (3.67%) Jenkins
5 53 (1.59%) Postman
6 49 (1.47%) Selenium
7 31 (0.93%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 24 (0.72%) JUnit
10 18 (0.54%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.51%) Mockito
12 15 (0.45%) Mocha
13 14 (0.42%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.42%) CircleCI
14 13 (0.39%) SonarQube
15 12 (0.36%) JMeter
16 11 (0.33%) MSI
17 10 (0.30%) Gradle
18 9 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
18 9 (0.27%) Vagrant
General
1 976 (29.34%) Social Skills
2 533 (16.03%) Finance
3 297 (8.93%) Analytical Skills
4 222 (6.67%) Telecoms
5 185 (5.56%) Marketing
6 183 (5.50%) Manufacturing
7 165 (4.96%) Electronics
8 149 (4.48%) Military
9 121 (3.64%) Local Government
10 74 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
11 73 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
12 66 (1.98%) Legal
13 55 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
16 41 (1.23%) Banking
17 40 (1.20%) Law
18 34 (1.02%) Police
19 33 (0.99%) Retail
20 32 (0.96%) Billing
Job Titles
1 401 (12.06%) Developer
2 382 (11.49%) Architect
3 337 (10.13%) Senior
4 329 (9.89%) Analyst
5 296 (8.90%) Lead
6 197 (5.92%) Consultant
7 151 (4.54%) Business Analyst
8 131 (3.94%) DevOps Engineer
9 107 (3.22%) Designer
10 101 (3.04%) Project Manager
11 90 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
12 87 (2.62%) Technical Architect
13 74 (2.22%) AWS Engineer
14 71 (2.13%) Data Engineer
15 66 (1.98%) Senior Developer
15 66 (1.98%) User Researcher
16 64 (1.92%) Java Developer
17 55 (1.65%) Product Manager
17 55 (1.65%) Test Engineer
18 53 (1.59%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (4.33%) REST
2 109 (3.28%) Node.js
3 107 (3.22%) React
4 92 (2.77%) Spring
5 89 (2.68%) RESTful
6 87 (2.62%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.16%) .NET
7 72 (2.16%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (2.04%) HTML
9 64 (1.92%) CSS
10 60 (1.80%) AngularJS
10 60 (1.80%) JSON
11 56 (1.68%) Web Services
12 52 (1.56%) SOAP
13 49 (1.47%) Kafka
14 38 (1.14%) XML
15 37 (1.11%) Playwright
16 29 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
17 28 (0.84%) OAuth
18 26 (0.78%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 123 (3.70%) Onboarding
2 122 (3.67%) Cloud Native
3 117 (3.52%) NHS
4 108 (3.25%) Product Ownership
5 87 (2.62%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
7 63 (1.89%) Management Information System
8 41 (1.23%) Public Cloud
9 32 (0.96%) PKI
10 31 (0.93%) Data Structures
11 30 (0.90%) CMDB
11 30 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
12 29 (0.87%) Security Posture
13 28 (0.84%) Replication
13 28 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
14 27 (0.81%) AI Agents
15 26 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
16 25 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
17 22 (0.66%) Security Operations Centre
18 21 (0.63%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 221 (6.64%) Windows
2 152 (4.57%) Linux
3 51 (1.53%) Windows 10
4 47 (1.41%) Android
4 47 (1.41%) Windows Server
5 42 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 25 (0.75%) Unix
7 21 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 19 (0.57%) VMS
9 16 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 12 (0.36%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.27%) Amazon Linux
12 9 (0.27%) Mac OS X
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
16 2 (0.060%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 804 (24.17%) Agile
2 477 (14.34%) CI/CD
3 453 (13.62%) DevOps
4 435 (13.08%) Problem-Solving
5 390 (11.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 379 (11.40%) Stakeholder Management
7 334 (10.04%) Business Intelligence
8 333 (10.01%) Migration
9 299 (8.99%) Continuous Improvement
10 276 (8.30%) Roadmaps
11 226 (6.79%) Analytics
12 212 (6.37%) Test Automation
13 208 (6.25%) Decision-Making
14 207 (6.22%) Programme Management
15 205 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
16 200 (6.01%) Microservices
17 198 (5.95%) Containerisation
18 187 (5.62%) ITIL
19 184 (5.53%) AI
20 177 (5.32%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 344 (10.34%) Python
2 276 (8.30%) SQL
3 236 (7.10%) Java
4 177 (5.32%) JavaScript
5 126 (3.79%) PowerShell
6 111 (3.34%) TypeScript
7 82 (2.47%) C#
8 59 (1.77%) Bash
9 37 (1.11%) Ruby
10 27 (0.81%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.75%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.66%) Go
13 18 (0.54%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.51%) PHP
15 16 (0.48%) R
16 14 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 13 (0.39%) Bicep
18 12 (0.36%) Groovy
19 11 (0.33%) C
20 10 (0.30%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,962 (58.99%) Security Cleared
2 1,295 (38.94%) SC Cleared
3 159 (4.78%) DV Cleared
4 158 (4.75%) Degree
5 82 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.41%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
8 40 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 38 (1.14%) CISSP
10 37 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
11 32 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (0.72%) ISEB
14 22 (0.66%) PMP
15 21 (0.63%) CISM
16 19 (0.57%) CCNP
17 18 (0.54%) ISTQB
17 18 (0.54%) PMI Certification
18 16 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 163 (4.90%) Accessibility
2 134 (4.03%) QA
3 116 (3.49%) Data Quality
4 96 (2.89%) GDPR
5 73 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 64 (1.92%) NIST
7 55 (1.65%) NCSC
7 55 (1.65%) WCAG
8 48 (1.44%) PMO
9 46 (1.38%) SLA
10 24 (0.72%) GRC
11 18 (0.54%) COBIT
11 18 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.48%) JSP 440
13 14 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.42%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.36%) HL7
14 12 (0.36%) PCI DSS
15 9 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 7 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 231 (6.95%) Docker
2 121 (3.64%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.45%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.39%) vSphere
8 11 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 9 (0.27%) DFS Replication
10 7 (0.21%) Squid
11 6 (0.18%) Dovecot
11 6 (0.18%) Postfix
11 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.12%) NFS
14 3 (0.090%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.090%) RACF
15 2 (0.060%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.060%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 287 (8.63%) Terraform
2 257 (7.73%) Kubernetes
3 69 (2.07%) Ansible
4 66 (1.98%) Grafana
5 53 (1.59%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.96%) SCCM
7 29 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
8 22 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.36%) Argo
10 12 (0.36%) Packer
11 10 (0.30%) Puppet
12 9 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.27%) Nessus
13 8 (0.24%) SCOM
13 8 (0.24%) vRealize
14 7 (0.21%) Consul
14 7 (0.21%) FortiGate
14 7 (0.21%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 412 (12.39%) Microsoft
2 302 (9.08%) SAP
3 201 (6.04%) Oracle
4 146 (4.39%) Cisco
5 107 (3.22%) ServiceNow
6 94 (2.83%) Salesforce
7 93 (2.80%) VMware
8 60 (1.80%) Google
9 58 (1.74%) Splunk
10 52 (1.56%) Databricks
11 43 (1.29%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.20%) Aruba
13 38 (1.14%) Dell
13 38 (1.14%) Juniper
14 37 (1.11%) Apple
14 37 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 33 (0.99%) HP
16 28 (0.84%) SolarWinds
17 27 (0.81%) Red Hat
18 24 (0.72%) Fortinet