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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,680 2,389 3,375
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.11% 9.35% 8.94%
As % of the General category 17.28% 14.87% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,596 1,517 2,244
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £501 £525
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 189 80 146
10th Percentile £16.60 £15.23 £13.51
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £24.59 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year -10.23% +15.72% +6.25%
75th Percentile £25.38 £33.19 £57.64
90th Percentile £45.11 £62.49 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.09 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.68% +14.71% +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 21,296 16,062 22,211
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.52% 62.86% 58.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,455 10,093 14,544
10th Percentile £300 £300 £265
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £757
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,331 548 1,626
10th Percentile £14.12 £15.25 £13.17
25th Percentile £17.42 £20.00 £15.30
Median hourly rate £24.03 £30.45 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.08% +17.12% -18.75%
75th Percentile £55.88 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £25.71
% change year-on-year -20.00% +16.69% -17.06%

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 6 March 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 6 March 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 6 March 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 1,566 £520 -0.95% 390
North of England -3 664 £450 -5.26% 195
South East +1 437 £500 -7.24% 234
Midlands +2 386 £500 +4.71% 115
North West +4 331 £450 -10.00% 87
West Midlands +3 285 £500 +4.71% 76
South West -1 278 £525 -4.55% 79
Yorkshire -4 209 £500 +11.11% 72
North East 0 129 £450 +4.65% 37
East of England +28 115 £413 +17.86% 45
East Midlands +14 99 £447 -8.33% 37
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
1 129 (3.51%) Confluence
2 102 (2.77%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.71%) SAS
5 22 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.43%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) nginx
8 13 (0.35%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 10 (0.27%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.082%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.082%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.082%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 96 (2.61%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.082%) InVision
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 70 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.49%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.49%) SAP Hybris
5 17 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 9 (0.24%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
11 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
12 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 5 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
13 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 676 (18.37%) AWS
2 618 (16.79%) Azure
3 209 (5.68%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.38%) Serverless
5 154 (4.18%) GitHub
6 151 (4.10%) Microsoft 365
7 147 (3.99%) GCP
8 131 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.74%) AWS Lambda
10 89 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
11 86 (2.34%) Amazon S3
11 86 (2.34%) Entra ID
12 65 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
13 63 (1.71%) Power Automate
14 61 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.63%) Amazon EC2
16 57 (1.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 57 (1.55%) Amazon EKS
16 57 (1.55%) PowerApps
17 56 (1.52%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.47%) Firewall
2 56 (1.52%) VPN
3 52 (1.41%) DNS
4 50 (1.36%) Network Security
4 50 (1.36%) WAN
5 43 (1.17%) Wireless
6 40 (1.09%) LAN
7 33 (0.90%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.79%) BGP
9 25 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (0.60%) DHCP
10 22 (0.60%) OSPF
11 16 (0.43%) SD-WAN
11 16 (0.43%) SSL
12 14 (0.38%) Internet
13 13 (0.35%) MPLS
14 12 (0.33%) IPsec
14 12 (0.33%) VLAN
15 11 (0.30%) Unified Communications
16 10 (0.27%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (4.43%) Power BI
2 83 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.63%) SQL Server
4 55 (1.49%) MongoDB
5 53 (1.44%) Metadata
6 47 (1.28%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 39 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
10 31 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
11 30 (0.82%) Relational Database
12 27 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.60%) Tableau
14 21 (0.57%) Electronic Patient Records
14 21 (0.57%) MySQL
14 21 (0.57%) Oracle Database
15 20 (0.54%) DynamoDB
16 19 (0.52%) Redis
17 18 (0.49%) BigQuery
18 17 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 207 (5.63%) JIRA
2 170 (4.62%) Git
3 131 (3.56%) Jenkins
4 130 (3.53%) GitLab
5 47 (1.28%) Selenium
6 45 (1.22%) Postman
7 33 (0.90%) JUnit
8 28 (0.76%) Mockito
9 27 (0.73%) Cucumber
9 27 (0.73%) Cypress.io
10 21 (0.57%) SonarQube
11 17 (0.46%) JMeter
12 16 (0.43%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.38%) Mocha
14 12 (0.33%) Maven
15 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,028 (27.93%) Social Skills
2 555 (15.08%) Finance
3 334 (9.08%) Analytical Skills
4 190 (5.16%) Telecoms
5 158 (4.29%) Marketing
6 156 (4.24%) Manufacturing
6 156 (4.24%) Military
7 137 (3.72%) Local Government
8 135 (3.67%) Electronics
9 78 (2.12%) Legal
10 73 (1.98%) Organisational Skills
11 72 (1.96%) Documentation Skills
12 68 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
13 50 (1.36%) Banking
14 49 (1.33%) Presentation Skills
15 48 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 43 (1.17%) Police
17 40 (1.09%) Law
18 35 (0.95%) Billing
19 34 (0.92%) Retail
Job Titles
1 449 (12.20%) Developer
2 439 (11.93%) Architect
3 393 (10.68%) Senior
4 365 (9.92%) Analyst
5 316 (8.59%) Lead
6 194 (5.27%) Consultant
7 171 (4.65%) Business Analyst
8 145 (3.94%) Designer
9 131 (3.56%) DevOps Engineer
10 111 (3.02%) Project Manager
11 107 (2.91%) Solutions Architect
12 103 (2.80%) Data Engineer
13 98 (2.66%) Technical Architect
14 85 (2.31%) Java Developer
15 84 (2.28%) User Researcher
16 69 (1.88%) Senior Developer
16 69 (1.88%) Service Designer
17 67 (1.82%) AWS Engineer
17 67 (1.82%) Delivery Manager
18 57 (1.55%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.08%) REST
2 132 (3.59%) Node.js
3 111 (3.02%) React
4 103 (2.80%) Spring
5 91 (2.47%) Spring Boot
6 86 (2.34%) RESTful
7 78 (2.12%) .NET
8 75 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (2.01%) HTML
10 72 (1.96%) AngularJS
11 68 (1.85%) CSS
11 68 (1.85%) Web Services
12 62 (1.68%) SOAP
13 51 (1.39%) JSON
14 49 (1.33%) Kafka
15 38 (1.03%) Playwright
16 35 (0.95%) Middleware
17 34 (0.92%) XML
18 33 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
19 26 (0.71%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 142 (3.86%) Cloud Native
2 139 (3.78%) Onboarding
3 122 (3.32%) Product Ownership
4 120 (3.26%) NHS
5 89 (2.42%) Data Centre
6 78 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
7 70 (1.90%) Management Information System
8 55 (1.49%) Public Cloud
9 34 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
9 34 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
10 32 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
11 31 (0.84%) Data Structures
11 31 (0.84%) Security Posture
12 29 (0.79%) PKI
13 27 (0.73%) CMDB
14 25 (0.68%) AI Agents
15 23 (0.63%) Replication
16 22 (0.60%) Security Operations Centre
17 18 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 220 (5.98%) Windows
2 163 (4.43%) Linux
3 59 (1.60%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.33%) Android
5 44 (1.20%) Windows 10
6 43 (1.17%) Mac OS
7 37 (1.01%) Unix
8 24 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.57%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
10 11 (0.30%) VMS
11 10 (0.27%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
17 3 (0.082%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 917 (24.92%) Agile
2 517 (14.05%) CI/CD
3 504 (13.70%) DevOps
4 456 (12.39%) Problem-Solving
5 440 (11.96%) Stakeholder Management
6 404 (10.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 362 (9.84%) Migration
8 341 (9.27%) Continuous Improvement
9 324 (8.80%) Roadmaps
10 320 (8.70%) Business Intelligence
11 266 (7.23%) Analytics
12 252 (6.85%) Decision-Making
13 230 (6.25%) Infrastructure as Code
14 227 (6.17%) Test Automation
15 222 (6.03%) Containerisation
16 217 (5.90%) Microservices
17 210 (5.71%) Workshop Facilitation
18 209 (5.68%) User Research
19 204 (5.54%) AI
20 200 (5.43%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 388 (10.54%) Python
2 330 (8.97%) SQL
3 262 (7.12%) Java
4 198 (5.38%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.29%) TypeScript
6 118 (3.21%) PowerShell
7 88 (2.39%) C#
8 66 (1.79%) Bash
9 39 (1.06%) Ruby
10 32 (0.87%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 26 (0.71%) Go
13 25 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.52%) R
15 17 (0.46%) PHP
16 15 (0.41%) Kotlin
17 14 (0.38%) Bicep
18 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
20 11 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,157 (58.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,407 (38.23%) SC Cleared
3 180 (4.89%) Degree
4 175 (4.76%) DV Cleared
5 102 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.36%) Azure Certification
7 45 (1.22%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.20%) CISSP
9 41 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
10 40 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
12 32 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (0.71%) CISM
13 26 (0.71%) PMP
14 24 (0.65%) ISEB
15 22 (0.60%) PMI Certification
16 18 (0.49%) CCNP
16 18 (0.49%) ISTQB
17 16 (0.43%) CCNA
17 16 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (5.24%) Accessibility
2 153 (4.16%) QA
3 137 (3.72%) Data Quality
4 109 (2.96%) GDPR
5 81 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.82%) NIST
6 67 (1.82%) WCAG
7 64 (1.74%) PMO
8 59 (1.60%) NCSC
9 47 (1.28%) SLA
10 26 (0.71%) GRC
11 19 (0.52%) COBIT
12 17 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
12 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.38%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.30%) HL7
16 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 253 (6.88%) Docker
2 133 (3.61%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
4 19 (0.52%) VMware NSX
5 16 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
6 14 (0.38%) vSphere
7 10 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
8 7 (0.19%) Postfix
9 5 (0.14%) NFS
9 5 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
10 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.082%) Oracle RAC
11 3 (0.082%) RACF
12 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
12 2 (0.054%) Squid
12 2 (0.054%) SRDF
13 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 303 (8.23%) Terraform
2 273 (7.42%) Kubernetes
3 73 (1.98%) Ansible
3 73 (1.98%) Grafana
4 49 (1.33%) Prometheus
5 38 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
6 28 (0.76%) SCCM
7 27 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.38%) Argo
9 13 (0.35%) Puppet
9 13 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.30%) Packer
12 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
13 8 (0.22%) Kibana
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.19%) vRealize
15 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 416 (11.30%) Microsoft
2 285 (7.74%) SAP
3 212 (5.76%) Oracle
4 136 (3.70%) Cisco
5 112 (3.04%) ServiceNow
6 111 (3.02%) Salesforce
7 96 (2.61%) VMware
8 69 (1.88%) Google
9 65 (1.77%) Databricks
10 58 (1.58%) Splunk
11 45 (1.22%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.14%) Aruba
13 35 (0.95%) Dell
14 34 (0.92%) Apple
14 34 (0.92%) Juniper
14 34 (0.92%) Red Hat
15 33 (0.90%) Palo Alto
16 31 (0.84%) HP
17 30 (0.82%) Atlassian
18 28 (0.76%) IBM