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

6 months to
12 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 23 18
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,053 2,107 3,008
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.99% 7.72% 8.17%
As % of the General category 16.26% 12.10% 14.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,832 1,424 2,016
10th Percentile £358 £340 £313
25th Percentile £425 £418 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.29% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £630
90th Percentile £688 £699 £716
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 89 159
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £14.48
25th Percentile £17.00 £18.13 £15.62
Median hourly rate £22.50 £25.08 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.27% -7.13% +28.57%
75th Percentile £45.78 £34.15 £58.73
90th Percentile £75.00 £65.95 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £24.19 £22.03 £23.50
% change year-on-year +9.80% -6.24% +14.61%

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 24,929 17,412 21,136
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.30% 63.83% 57.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,049 11,170 13,492
10th Percentile £313 £285 £300
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £514 £534
Median % change year-on-year +2.14% -3.75% -2.91%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £763 £775
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,809 894 1,716
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.25 £13.21
25th Percentile £19.00 £16.43 £16.06
Median hourly rate £33.00 £27.17 £33.65
Median % change year-on-year +21.47% -19.26% +10.18%
75th Percentile £63.75 £52.00 £56.31
90th Percentile £82.25 £74.63 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £27.17 £32.50
% change year-on-year +19.63% -16.41% +5.25%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +3 1,786 £525 - 574
North of England +4 717 £470 -1.05% 257
South East +5 513 £500 -4.76% 274
Midlands +10 468 £500 +9.15% 129
West Midlands +3 374 £500 +8.11% 92
North West 0 308 £500 +7.53% 106
South West -7 297 £525 -4.55% 189
Yorkshire +14 252 £460 -3.16% 88
North East -3 168 £450 -6.25% 63
East Midlands +23 86 £500 +23.46% 35
East of England +11 70 £475 -5.00% 36
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
1 157 (3.87%) Confluence
2 117 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 51 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 45 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
4 45 (1.11%) SAS
5 35 (0.86%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.81%) Apache
7 22 (0.54%) CMS
8 20 (0.49%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 12 (0.30%) nginx
11 9 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
12 8 (0.20%) WordPress
13 7 (0.17%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.12%) Camunda
14 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
14 5 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 4 (0.099%) Drupal
16 3 (0.074%) IIS
Applications
1 73 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.06%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.099%) Sketch
9 3 (0.074%) Adobe XD
9 3 (0.074%) Trello
10 2 (0.049%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.049%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.049%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.025%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 70 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 41 (1.01%) Oracle ERP
4 27 (0.67%) SAP PSCD
5 19 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.30%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
6 12 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 11 (0.27%) Workday HCM
8 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
9 9 (0.22%) NEC Housing
9 9 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 9 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.22%) SystmOne
10 8 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 7 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
11 7 (0.17%) SAP HR
12 6 (0.15%) SAP ERP
12 6 (0.15%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 805 (19.86%) AWS
2 733 (18.09%) Azure
3 219 (5.40%) Power Platform
4 184 (4.54%) Microsoft 365
5 154 (3.80%) Serverless
6 153 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
7 150 (3.70%) GitHub
8 149 (3.68%) GCP
9 129 (3.18%) Amazon S3
10 124 (3.06%) Entra ID
11 103 (2.54%) SaaS
12 101 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
13 97 (2.39%) AWS Lambda
14 87 (2.15%) OCI
15 82 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
16 72 (1.78%) Power Automate
17 70 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
18 63 (1.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 63 (1.55%) Amazon EKS
19 61 (1.51%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 106 (2.62%) Firewall
2 63 (1.55%) DNS
3 60 (1.48%) WAN
4 58 (1.43%) Network Security
5 50 (1.23%) LAN
6 43 (1.06%) VPN
7 33 (0.81%) BGP
8 29 (0.72%) DHCP
9 28 (0.69%) OSPF
10 26 (0.64%) TCP/IP
11 25 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
12 22 (0.54%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.47%) BIG-IP
14 18 (0.44%) VXLAN
15 17 (0.42%) WLAN
16 16 (0.39%) Ethernet VPN
17 15 (0.37%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 15 (0.37%) Wireless
18 14 (0.35%) NGFW
19 12 (0.30%) DKIM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (3.63%) Power BI
2 95 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
3 91 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (1.95%) SQL Server
5 59 (1.46%) Metadata
6 54 (1.33%) MongoDB
7 52 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
8 49 (1.21%) Data Lake
9 47 (1.16%) Oracle Database
9 47 (1.16%) Relational Database
10 45 (1.11%) NoSQL
11 40 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
12 35 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
13 34 (0.84%) DynamoDB
14 32 (0.79%) Amazon Athena
15 31 (0.76%) Tableau
16 23 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
17 22 (0.54%) Pentaho
18 20 (0.49%) Delta Lake
19 18 (0.44%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 225 (5.55%) JIRA
2 164 (4.05%) Git
2 164 (4.05%) GitLab
3 137 (3.38%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.16%) Selenium
5 39 (0.96%) JUnit
6 38 (0.94%) Mockito
7 31 (0.76%) SonarQube
8 30 (0.74%) Cucumber
9 29 (0.72%) Postman
10 27 (0.67%) JMeter
11 23 (0.57%) Cypress.io
11 23 (0.57%) Maven
12 19 (0.47%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.39%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.35%) DbUnit
15 13 (0.32%) CircleCI
15 13 (0.32%) Gatling
15 13 (0.32%) jMock
16 11 (0.27%) Artifactory
General
1 1,066 (26.30%) Social Skills
2 490 (12.09%) Finance
3 387 (9.55%) Analytical Skills
4 223 (5.50%) Military
5 208 (5.13%) Local Government
6 117 (2.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 107 (2.64%) Influencing Skills
8 104 (2.57%) Legal
9 89 (2.20%) Organisational Skills
10 84 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
11 83 (2.05%) Police
12 52 (1.28%) Telecoms
13 50 (1.23%) Banking
14 49 (1.21%) Law
15 41 (1.01%) Marketing
16 34 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
17 31 (0.76%) Billing
18 24 (0.59%) Retail
19 16 (0.39%) General Ledger
20 14 (0.35%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 539 (13.30%) Architect
2 538 (13.27%) Developer
3 511 (12.61%) Senior
4 419 (10.34%) Lead
5 382 (9.43%) Analyst
6 167 (4.12%) Designer
7 164 (4.05%) Consultant
8 157 (3.87%) Business Analyst
9 149 (3.68%) Data Engineer
10 147 (3.63%) DevOps Engineer
11 129 (3.18%) Solutions Architect
12 117 (2.89%) Technical Architect
13 114 (2.81%) Java Developer
14 105 (2.59%) Delivery Manager
14 105 (2.59%) Senior Developer
15 101 (2.49%) Project Manager
16 86 (2.12%) User Researcher
17 82 (2.02%) Data Architect
18 75 (1.85%) AWS Engineer
18 75 (1.85%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (3.53%) REST
2 118 (2.91%) Node.js
2 118 (2.91%) Spring
3 101 (2.49%) RESTful
4 100 (2.47%) Spring Boot
5 97 (2.39%) React
6 77 (1.90%) Kafka
6 77 (1.90%) Oracle Fusion
7 69 (1.70%) SOAP
8 65 (1.60%) .NET
9 60 (1.48%) Web Services
10 59 (1.46%) AngularJS
10 59 (1.46%) HTML
11 49 (1.21%) CSS
12 48 (1.18%) OAuth
13 46 (1.13%) Django
14 44 (1.09%) PySpark
15 42 (1.04%) JSON
16 39 (0.96%) Middleware
17 38 (0.94%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 226 (5.58%) Cloud Native
2 161 (3.97%) Product Ownership
3 153 (3.77%) Onboarding
4 147 (3.63%) NHS
5 102 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
6 90 (2.22%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.73%) Data Centre
8 64 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
9 58 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
10 53 (1.31%) Public Cloud
11 49 (1.21%) Hybrid Cloud
12 45 (1.11%) Data Structures
12 45 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
13 36 (0.89%) CMDB
14 32 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (0.76%) Virtual Team
16 28 (0.69%) PKI
16 28 (0.69%) Security Posture
17 27 (0.67%) Security Operations Centre
18 24 (0.59%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 176 (4.34%) Windows
2 159 (3.92%) Linux
3 63 (1.55%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.43%) Unix
5 28 (0.69%) Android
6 27 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 26 (0.64%) Apple iOS
8 23 (0.57%) Windows 10
9 18 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 10 (0.25%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.25%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.22%) Solaris
12 7 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.15%) AIX
13 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
14 4 (0.099%) Amazon Linux
14 4 (0.099%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.074%) Windows Server 2012
16 2 (0.049%) CentOS
16 2 (0.049%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,164 (28.72%) Agile
2 648 (15.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 643 (15.86%) CI/CD
4 632 (15.59%) DevOps
5 541 (13.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 533 (13.15%) Continuous Improvement
7 427 (10.54%) Problem-Solving
8 401 (9.89%) Analytics
9 397 (9.80%) Decision-Making
10 371 (9.15%) Migration
11 331 (8.17%) Roadmaps
12 306 (7.55%) Infrastructure as Code
13 288 (7.11%) Data Modelling
14 285 (7.03%) AI
15 277 (6.83%) Containerisation
16 243 (6.00%) Microservices
17 242 (5.97%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 239 (5.90%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
19 237 (5.85%) Mentoring
20 236 (5.82%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 473 (11.67%) Python
2 390 (9.62%) SQL
3 310 (7.65%) Java
4 185 (4.56%) JavaScript
5 108 (2.66%) TypeScript
6 104 (2.57%) PowerShell
7 80 (1.97%) C#
8 62 (1.53%) Bash
9 57 (1.41%) PL/SQL
10 40 (0.99%) Apex Code
11 35 (0.86%) Bicep
12 34 (0.84%) Ruby
13 29 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 23 (0.57%) R
15 18 (0.44%) Shell Script
16 17 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 17 (0.42%) Go
17 16 (0.39%) Scala
18 14 (0.35%) ABAP
19 13 (0.32%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 2,101 (51.84%) Security Cleared
2 1,546 (38.14%) SC Cleared
3 236 (5.82%) DV Cleared
4 192 (4.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 188 (4.64%) Degree
6 54 (1.33%) Azure Certification
7 50 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
8 44 (1.09%) CISSP
9 42 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
10 40 (0.99%) AWS Certification
11 27 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
12 26 (0.64%) CISM
13 23 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
14 22 (0.54%) CCNP
15 21 (0.52%) PMI Certification
16 19 (0.47%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.47%) Master's Degree
17 18 (0.44%) PMP
18 15 (0.37%) CCNA
18 15 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 289 (7.13%) Accessibility
2 198 (4.89%) Data Quality
3 181 (4.47%) QA
4 125 (3.08%) GDPR
5 116 (2.86%) WCAG
6 100 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 81 (2.00%) NCSC
8 79 (1.95%) PMO
9 73 (1.80%) NIST
10 35 (0.86%) SLA
11 30 (0.74%) GRC
12 28 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 15 (0.37%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.27%) HL7
17 10 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
18 7 (0.17%) IFRS
System Software
1 300 (7.40%) Docker
2 164 (4.05%) Active Directory
3 46 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.54%) VMware NSX
5 15 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
7 11 (0.27%) Postfix
8 10 (0.25%) vSphere
9 9 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.049%) NFS
11 2 (0.049%) RACF
12 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.025%) etcd
12 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.025%) GPFS
12 1 (0.025%) NLBS
12 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 340 (8.39%) Terraform
2 287 (7.08%) Kubernetes
3 90 (2.22%) Grafana
4 80 (1.97%) Ansible
5 58 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
7 38 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
8 29 (0.72%) Argo
9 14 (0.35%) Kibana
9 14 (0.35%) Puppet
9 14 (0.35%) SCCM
10 11 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
11 10 (0.25%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
13 7 (0.17%) FortiGate
14 6 (0.15%) Istio
15 5 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
15 5 (0.12%) Rancher
16 4 (0.099%) Consul
Vendors
1 496 (12.24%) Microsoft
2 305 (7.53%) Oracle
3 150 (3.70%) SAP
4 133 (3.28%) ServiceNow
5 118 (2.91%) Salesforce
6 109 (2.69%) Google
7 98 (2.42%) Databricks
8 65 (1.60%) VMware
9 47 (1.16%) Cisco
10 39 (0.96%) Palo Alto
11 36 (0.89%) Atlassian
12 34 (0.84%) Red Hat
13 30 (0.74%) Splunk
14 29 (0.72%) Dynatrace
15 28 (0.69%) Talend
16 27 (0.67%) IBM
17 25 (0.62%) CyberArk
18 24 (0.59%) F5
18 24 (0.59%) Foundry
18 24 (0.59%) Informatica