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

6 months to
3 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 3,593 2,353 3,390
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.09% 9.40% 8.94%
As % of the General category 17.20% 14.96% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,528 1,494 2,251
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £672 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 79 146
10th Percentile £16.52 £15.25 £13.51
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.67 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +17.65% +6.25%
75th Percentile £25.15 £33.95 £56.08
90th Percentile £44.94 £62.74 £69.62
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.42 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.91% +16.29% +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 20,888 15,729 22,300
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.68% 62.86% 58.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,223 9,848 14,608
10th Percentile £300 £299 £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 £751
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,299 536 1,620
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.25 £13.15
25th Percentile £17.16 £20.00 £15.32
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.76% +17.12% -20.00%
75th Percentile £55.00 £60.19 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £23.79 £30.00 £25.71
% change year-on-year -20.71% +16.69% -19.43%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 0 1,524 £520 -0.95% 376
North of England -3 648 £450 -5.26% 244
South East +3 427 £500 -5.66% 291
Midlands +1 378 £496 +3.93% 154
North West +1 322 £450 -10.00% 106
West Midlands +2 280 £500 +4.71% 82
South West -3 274 £525 -4.55% 131
Yorkshire -3 204 £500 +11.11% 99
North East 0 126 £450 +5.88% 40
East of England +28 114 £400 +14.29% 108
East Midlands +11 97 £434 -10.90% 69
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
1 127 (3.53%) Confluence
2 99 (2.76%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.72%) SAS
5 21 (0.58%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.45%) Apache
7 14 (0.39%) nginx
8 13 (0.36%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 10 (0.28%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) 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 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.083%) Documentum
14 3 (0.083%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.083%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 95 (2.64%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 6 (0.17%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.17%) Sketch
9 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.083%) InVision
11 2 (0.056%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.056%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.028%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.028%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.028%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.028%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.028%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.028%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 67 (1.86%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.61%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
4 18 (0.50%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.50%) SAP Hybris
5 13 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.25%) iTrent
7 9 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
12 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 659 (18.34%) AWS
2 593 (16.50%) Azure
3 202 (5.62%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.48%) Serverless
5 150 (4.17%) GitHub
6 145 (4.04%) Microsoft 365
7 141 (3.92%) GCP
8 124 (3.45%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
10 86 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
11 84 (2.34%) Amazon S3
11 84 (2.34%) Entra ID
12 65 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
13 60 (1.67%) Power Automate
14 59 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 59 (1.64%) Amazon EC2
15 58 (1.61%) OCI
16 57 (1.59%) Amazon EKS
17 55 (1.53%) Dynamics 365
17 55 (1.53%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 90 (2.50%) Firewall
2 52 (1.45%) DNS
3 51 (1.42%) Network Security
3 51 (1.42%) VPN
3 51 (1.42%) WAN
4 44 (1.22%) Wireless
5 40 (1.11%) LAN
6 34 (0.95%) TCP/IP
7 29 (0.81%) BGP
8 25 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
9 22 (0.61%) DHCP
9 22 (0.61%) OSPF
10 16 (0.45%) SD-WAN
10 16 (0.45%) SSL
11 13 (0.36%) Internet
11 13 (0.36%) MPLS
11 13 (0.36%) VLAN
12 12 (0.33%) IPsec
13 11 (0.31%) HTTP
13 11 (0.31%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (4.40%) Power BI
2 83 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
3 59 (1.64%) SQL Server
4 53 (1.48%) MongoDB
5 52 (1.45%) Metadata
6 45 (1.25%) Data Warehouse
7 40 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 37 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
8 37 (1.03%) NoSQL
9 31 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
10 30 (0.83%) Relational Database
11 26 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.61%) Tableau
13 21 (0.58%) MySQL
13 21 (0.58%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.56%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.53%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.53%) Redis
16 18 (0.50%) BigQuery
17 17 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 203 (5.65%) JIRA
2 168 (4.68%) Git
3 129 (3.59%) GitLab
4 127 (3.53%) Jenkins
5 45 (1.25%) Postman
5 45 (1.25%) Selenium
6 33 (0.92%) JUnit
7 27 (0.75%) Cucumber
7 27 (0.75%) Cypress.io
7 27 (0.75%) Mockito
8 20 (0.56%) SonarQube
9 16 (0.45%) JMeter
9 16 (0.45%) REST Assured
10 14 (0.39%) CircleCI
10 14 (0.39%) Mocha
11 13 (0.36%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.33%) Maven
13 10 (0.28%) MSI
14 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
15 8 (0.22%) ERwin
General
1 1,014 (28.22%) Social Skills
2 541 (15.06%) Finance
3 328 (9.13%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (5.32%) Telecoms
5 158 (4.40%) Marketing
6 156 (4.34%) Manufacturing
7 155 (4.31%) Military
8 135 (3.76%) Electronics
9 130 (3.62%) Local Government
10 77 (2.14%) Legal
11 73 (2.03%) Organisational Skills
12 70 (1.95%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
14 49 (1.36%) Banking
15 48 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 48 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
16 42 (1.17%) Police
17 39 (1.09%) Law
18 35 (0.97%) Billing
19 31 (0.86%) Retail
Job Titles
1 436 (12.13%) Developer
2 422 (11.75%) Architect
3 385 (10.72%) Senior
4 359 (9.99%) Analyst
5 306 (8.52%) Lead
6 189 (5.26%) Consultant
7 167 (4.65%) Business Analyst
8 136 (3.79%) Designer
9 129 (3.59%) DevOps Engineer
10 107 (2.98%) Project Manager
11 104 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
12 102 (2.84%) Data Engineer
13 94 (2.62%) Technical Architect
14 84 (2.34%) Java Developer
15 83 (2.31%) User Researcher
16 70 (1.95%) AWS Engineer
17 68 (1.89%) Senior Developer
18 65 (1.81%) Delivery Manager
18 65 (1.81%) Service Designer
19 57 (1.59%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (4.12%) REST
2 129 (3.59%) Node.js
3 109 (3.03%) React
4 102 (2.84%) Spring
5 89 (2.48%) Spring Boot
6 85 (2.37%) RESTful
7 76 (2.12%) Oracle Fusion
8 74 (2.06%) .NET
9 73 (2.03%) HTML
10 72 (2.00%) AngularJS
11 66 (1.84%) CSS
11 66 (1.84%) Web Services
12 62 (1.73%) SOAP
13 51 (1.42%) JSON
14 47 (1.31%) Kafka
15 38 (1.06%) Playwright
16 34 (0.95%) Middleware
16 34 (0.95%) XML
17 31 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
18 26 (0.72%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 141 (3.92%) Cloud Native
2 135 (3.76%) Onboarding
3 120 (3.34%) Product Ownership
4 117 (3.26%) NHS
5 85 (2.37%) Data Centre
6 74 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
7 68 (1.89%) Management Information System
8 51 (1.42%) Public Cloud
9 34 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 33 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
11 31 (0.86%) Data Structures
11 31 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
11 31 (0.86%) Security Posture
11 31 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
12 29 (0.81%) PKI
13 27 (0.75%) CMDB
14 24 (0.67%) AI Agents
15 23 (0.64%) Replication
16 22 (0.61%) Security Operations Centre
17 18 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 219 (6.10%) Windows
2 163 (4.54%) Linux
3 56 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.36%) Android
5 43 (1.20%) Windows 10
6 42 (1.17%) Mac OS
7 36 (1.00%) Unix
8 23 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 12 (0.33%) VMS
11 11 (0.31%) Mac OS X
12 10 (0.28%) Ubuntu
12 10 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 7 (0.19%) 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 (0.083%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 893 (24.85%) Agile
2 508 (14.14%) CI/CD
3 487 (13.55%) DevOps
4 449 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 425 (11.83%) Stakeholder Management
6 384 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 354 (9.85%) Migration
8 335 (9.32%) Continuous Improvement
9 316 (8.79%) Business Intelligence
10 312 (8.68%) Roadmaps
11 256 (7.12%) Analytics
12 245 (6.82%) Decision-Making
13 226 (6.29%) Infrastructure as Code
14 220 (6.12%) Test Automation
15 219 (6.10%) Containerisation
16 212 (5.90%) Microservices
17 201 (5.59%) User Research
17 201 (5.59%) Workshop Facilitation
18 200 (5.57%) AI
19 198 (5.51%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 382 (10.63%) Python
2 323 (8.99%) SQL
3 256 (7.12%) Java
4 194 (5.40%) JavaScript
5 119 (3.31%) TypeScript
6 116 (3.23%) PowerShell
7 85 (2.37%) C#
8 67 (1.86%) Bash
9 39 (1.09%) Ruby
10 31 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 30 (0.83%) Apex Code
12 25 (0.70%) Go
13 22 (0.61%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.53%) R
15 16 (0.45%) PHP
16 14 (0.39%) Bicep
17 13 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.33%) Kotlin
19 11 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
20 10 (0.28%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,119 (58.98%) Security Cleared
2 1,385 (38.55%) SC Cleared
3 173 (4.81%) Degree
4 172 (4.79%) DV Cleared
5 100 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.31%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.22%) AWS Certification
7 44 (1.22%) CISSP
8 40 (1.11%) ITIL Certification
9 39 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
10 34 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 33 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
12 26 (0.72%) CISM
13 25 (0.70%) PMP
14 24 (0.67%) ISEB
15 21 (0.58%) PMI Certification
16 18 (0.50%) CCNP
16 18 (0.50%) ISTQB
17 17 (0.47%) CCNA
18 16 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 184 (5.12%) Accessibility
2 148 (4.12%) QA
3 133 (3.70%) Data Quality
4 103 (2.87%) GDPR
5 76 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.86%) NIST
7 65 (1.81%) WCAG
8 63 (1.75%) PMO
9 56 (1.56%) NCSC
10 45 (1.25%) SLA
11 24 (0.67%) GRC
12 19 (0.53%) COBIT
13 17 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.42%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.39%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.36%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.31%) HL7
17 11 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 249 (6.93%) Docker
2 129 (3.59%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.70%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.50%) VMware NSX
5 17 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.45%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.33%) vSphere
9 9 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.19%) Postfix
11 5 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.083%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.083%) RACF
14 2 (0.056%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.056%) DFS Replication
14 2 (0.056%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.056%) Squid
14 2 (0.056%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 300 (8.35%) Terraform
2 267 (7.43%) Kubernetes
3 73 (2.03%) Grafana
4 72 (2.00%) Ansible
5 50 (1.39%) Prometheus
6 34 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (0.78%) SCCM
8 25 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.36%) Argo
9 13 (0.36%) Puppet
9 13 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.31%) Packer
12 10 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
13 8 (0.22%) Kibana
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.17%) Nessus
15 6 (0.17%) SCOM
15 6 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 402 (11.19%) Microsoft
2 280 (7.79%) SAP
3 212 (5.90%) Oracle
4 137 (3.81%) Cisco
5 109 (3.03%) ServiceNow
6 107 (2.98%) Salesforce
7 95 (2.64%) VMware
8 66 (1.84%) Google
9 64 (1.78%) Databricks
10 59 (1.64%) Splunk
11 42 (1.17%) Aruba
12 41 (1.14%) Virgin Media
13 35 (0.97%) Dell
14 34 (0.95%) Apple
14 34 (0.95%) Juniper
14 34 (0.95%) Palo Alto
15 33 (0.92%) Red Hat
16 31 (0.86%) HP
17 29 (0.81%) Atlassian
18 26 (0.72%) IBM