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

6 months to
4 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 18 15
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,744 2,221 3,347
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.70% 9.12% 8.91%
As % of the General category 17.11% 14.31% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,665 1,506 2,221
10th Percentile £350 £325 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.37% -0.40% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £612 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 180 84 163
10th Percentile £15.68 £15.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.38 £22.39 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.01% -6.73% +20.00%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.29 £58.24
90th Percentile £61.50 £64.00 £70.48
UK median hourly rate £22.09 £23.00 £21.62
% change year-on-year -3.97% +6.41% +8.08%

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 21,876 15,520 21,920
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.66% 63.70% 58.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,794 10,111 14,221
10th Percentile £301 £300 £275
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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,366 629 1,714
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.42 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £15.29
Median hourly rate £26.47 £29.07 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.94% +7.67% -22.86%
75th Percentile £61.18 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £29.00 £26.37
% change year-on-year -11.14% +9.97% -24.66%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 0 1,621 £520 -0.95% 363
North of England -2 651 £453 -4.63% 228
South East -3 461 £500 -7.62% 200
Midlands +4 406 £500 +7.82% 117
North West 0 320 £451 -9.80% 90
West Midlands +2 305 £500 +10.29% 89
South West -1 269 £525 -2.78% 87
Yorkshire +7 218 £500 +11.11% 76
North East -2 118 £446 +2.23% 62
East of England +26 112 £375 +11.11% 44
East Midlands +16 96 £500 - 28
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
1 132 (3.53%) Confluence
2 106 (2.83%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.77%) SAS
5 20 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.45%) Apache
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 15 (0.40%) CMS
9 14 (0.37%) nginx
10 9 (0.24%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.13%) Camunda
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.11%) Skype for Business
14 3 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.080%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.080%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 95 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 78 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.21%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.080%) InVision
12 2 (0.053%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.053%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.053%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.053%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 14 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 6 (0.16%) SystmOne
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
10 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
Cloud Services
1 701 (18.72%) AWS
2 650 (17.36%) Azure
3 209 (5.58%) Power Platform
4 174 (4.65%) Serverless
5 158 (4.22%) GitHub
6 154 (4.11%) Microsoft 365
7 142 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
8 140 (3.74%) GCP
9 108 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
10 95 (2.54%) Amazon S3
11 92 (2.46%) Entra ID
11 92 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
12 73 (1.95%) AWS CloudFormation
13 65 (1.74%) Amazon EC2
13 65 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
13 65 (1.74%) Power Automate
14 61 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
15 60 (1.60%) SaaS
16 58 (1.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 56 (1.50%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.46%) Firewall
2 60 (1.60%) VPN
3 57 (1.52%) WAN
4 55 (1.47%) Network Security
5 49 (1.31%) LAN
6 47 (1.26%) DNS
7 30 (0.80%) BGP
8 27 (0.72%) Wireless
9 26 (0.69%) TCP/IP
10 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
11 24 (0.64%) OSPF
12 20 (0.53%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.51%) DHCP
14 16 (0.43%) SSL
15 15 (0.40%) Internet
16 13 (0.35%) VLAN
17 12 (0.32%) MPLS
18 11 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
18 11 (0.29%) IPsec
18 11 (0.29%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (4.33%) Power BI
2 84 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
3 63 (1.68%) SQL Server
4 59 (1.58%) Metadata
5 55 (1.47%) Data Warehouse
6 53 (1.42%) MongoDB
7 47 (1.26%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 31 (0.83%) Tableau
12 28 (0.75%) Relational Database
13 27 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
13 27 (0.72%) DynamoDB
14 26 (0.69%) Electronic Patient Records
15 23 (0.61%) Oracle Database
16 21 (0.56%) MySQL
17 17 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
17 17 (0.45%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 213 (5.69%) JIRA
2 184 (4.91%) Git
3 121 (3.23%) GitLab
4 119 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 45 (1.20%) Selenium
6 41 (1.10%) Postman
7 37 (0.99%) JUnit
8 33 (0.88%) Mockito
9 25 (0.67%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.64%) JMeter
11 20 (0.53%) Cucumber
11 20 (0.53%) Cypress.io
12 15 (0.40%) Maven
13 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
13 13 (0.35%) REST Assured
14 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
14 12 (0.32%) Mocha
15 11 (0.29%) Artifactory
16 9 (0.24%) DbUnit
16 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 991 (26.47%) Social Skills
2 538 (14.37%) Finance
3 361 (9.64%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (4.51%) Military
5 164 (4.38%) Local Government
6 156 (4.17%) Telecoms
7 126 (3.37%) Marketing
8 122 (3.26%) Manufacturing
9 102 (2.72%) Electronics
10 88 (2.35%) Legal
11 79 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
12 77 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
13 71 (1.90%) Organisational Skills
14 61 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 53 (1.42%) Banking
16 52 (1.39%) Police
17 47 (1.26%) Presentation Skills
18 42 (1.12%) Law
19 36 (0.96%) Billing
20 34 (0.91%) Retail
Job Titles
1 476 (12.71%) Architect
2 474 (12.66%) Developer
3 409 (10.92%) Senior
4 390 (10.42%) Analyst
5 306 (8.17%) Lead
6 180 (4.81%) Consultant
7 174 (4.65%) Business Analyst
8 152 (4.06%) Designer
9 120 (3.21%) Data Engineer
10 119 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
11 113 (3.02%) Solutions Architect
12 111 (2.96%) Project Manager
13 107 (2.86%) Technical Architect
14 90 (2.40%) Java Developer
15 86 (2.30%) Senior Developer
16 83 (2.22%) User Researcher
17 81 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
18 68 (1.82%) Service Designer
19 61 (1.63%) Data Analyst
20 57 (1.52%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (4.03%) REST
2 119 (3.18%) Node.js
3 105 (2.80%) React
3 105 (2.80%) Spring
4 99 (2.64%) RESTful
5 92 (2.46%) Spring Boot
6 77 (2.06%) .NET
7 72 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (1.90%) AngularJS
9 68 (1.82%) HTML
9 68 (1.82%) Web Services
10 63 (1.68%) SOAP
11 62 (1.66%) CSS
12 59 (1.58%) Kafka
13 48 (1.28%) JSON
14 41 (1.10%) Lightning Web Components
15 35 (0.93%) Middleware
16 34 (0.91%) Playwright
16 34 (0.91%) XML
17 28 (0.75%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 161 (4.30%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.69%) NHS
3 131 (3.50%) Product Ownership
4 128 (3.42%) Onboarding
5 77 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
6 76 (2.03%) Data Centre
7 68 (1.82%) Management Information System
8 59 (1.58%) Public Cloud
9 48 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
10 40 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.01%) Data Structures
12 36 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
14 28 (0.75%) CMDB
15 25 (0.67%) Replication
16 23 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
16 23 (0.61%) Security Posture
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 20 (0.53%) Virtual Team
19 18 (0.48%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 198 (5.29%) Windows
2 152 (4.06%) Linux
3 59 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 43 (1.15%) Windows 10
5 37 (0.99%) Unix
6 36 (0.96%) Android
7 29 (0.77%) Mac OS
8 25 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 20 (0.53%) Apple iOS
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 3 (0.080%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 969 (25.88%) Agile
2 532 (14.21%) CI/CD
3 524 (14.00%) DevOps
4 455 (12.15%) Stakeholder Management
5 448 (11.97%) Problem-Solving
6 427 (11.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 376 (10.04%) Migration
8 373 (9.96%) Continuous Improvement
9 342 (9.13%) Roadmaps
10 305 (8.15%) Analytics
11 288 (7.69%) Business Intelligence
12 286 (7.64%) Decision-Making
13 239 (6.38%) Containerisation
14 238 (6.36%) Test Automation
15 234 (6.25%) Data Modelling
15 234 (6.25%) Infrastructure as Code
16 231 (6.17%) Microservices
17 218 (5.82%) Workshop Facilitation
18 216 (5.77%) AI
19 213 (5.69%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 404 (10.79%) Python
2 340 (9.08%) SQL
3 263 (7.02%) Java
4 194 (5.18%) JavaScript
5 114 (3.04%) TypeScript
6 108 (2.88%) PowerShell
7 90 (2.40%) C#
8 55 (1.47%) Bash
9 45 (1.20%) Ruby
10 41 (1.10%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
13 23 (0.61%) Shell Script
14 22 (0.59%) Bicep
14 22 (0.59%) R
15 21 (0.56%) Kotlin
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) Scala
18 11 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.29%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,148 (57.37%) Security Cleared
2 1,404 (37.50%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.91%) DV Cleared
4 169 (4.51%) Degree
5 100 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 45 (1.20%) CISSP
8 42 (1.12%) AWS Certification
9 40 (1.07%) ITIL Certification
10 36 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
11 33 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
12 32 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
13 29 (0.77%) PMP
14 28 (0.75%) CISM
15 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
16 24 (0.64%) ISEB
17 20 (0.53%) CCNP
18 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
19 15 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
20 14 (0.37%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (5.15%) Accessibility
2 158 (4.22%) QA
3 151 (4.03%) Data Quality
4 105 (2.80%) GDPR
5 87 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 74 (1.98%) WCAG
7 66 (1.76%) NCSC
7 66 (1.76%) PMO
8 57 (1.52%) NIST
9 39 (1.04%) SLA
10 32 (0.85%) GRC
11 22 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
12 20 (0.53%) COBIT
12 20 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.45%) PCI DSS
14 16 (0.43%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 8 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 8 (0.21%) NIST 800
System Software
1 261 (6.97%) Docker
2 135 (3.61%) Active Directory
3 60 (1.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.61%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.45%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.37%) vSphere
8 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.21%) Postfix
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.080%) RACF
14 2 (0.053%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.053%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.053%) SRDF
15 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
15 1 (0.027%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
15 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 300 (8.01%) Terraform
2 275 (7.35%) Kubernetes
3 69 (1.84%) Grafana
4 68 (1.82%) Ansible
5 50 (1.34%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 24 (0.64%) SCCM
9 13 (0.35%) Argo
9 13 (0.35%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.24%) Kibana
12 9 (0.24%) Packer
13 8 (0.21%) Consul
13 8 (0.21%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 425 (11.35%) Microsoft
2 245 (6.54%) SAP
3 221 (5.90%) Oracle
4 124 (3.31%) Salesforce
5 114 (3.04%) Cisco
6 112 (2.99%) ServiceNow
7 95 (2.54%) VMware
8 84 (2.24%) Databricks
9 78 (2.08%) Google
10 46 (1.23%) Splunk
11 41 (1.10%) Aruba
12 34 (0.91%) IBM
12 34 (0.91%) Virgin Media
13 32 (0.85%) Atlassian
14 31 (0.83%) Red Hat
15 29 (0.77%) MuleSoft
16 28 (0.75%) Juniper
17 26 (0.69%) Palo Alto
18 24 (0.64%) Dynatrace
18 24 (0.64%) Talend