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

6 months to
7 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 3,682 2,399 3,428
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.11% 9.33% 8.97%
As % of the General category 17.31% 14.84% 15.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,602 1,521 2,271
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 £504 £525
% change year-on-year -0.79% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 190 80 149
10th Percentile £16.61 £15.23 £13.73
25th Percentile £17.78 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £24.59 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.23% +14.37% +7.50%
75th Percentile £25.38 £33.19 £56.58
90th Percentile £45.02 £62.49 £69.70
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% +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 21,273 16,169 22,466
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.42% 62.90% 58.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,462 10,167 14,689
10th Percentile £300 £300 £266
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £758
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,318 569 1,655
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.25 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.00 £15.27
Median hourly rate £24.51 £30.81 £25.79
Median % change year-on-year -20.45% +19.45% -19.41%
75th Percentile £56.00 £61.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £30.00 £25.50
% change year-on-year -20.00% +17.65% -19.28%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 1,573 £520 -0.95% 375
North of England -3 659 £450 -5.26% 198
South East 0 441 £500 -7.32% 243
Midlands +2 386 £500 +4.71% 116
North West +3 328 £450 -10.00% 87
West Midlands +2 285 £500 +4.71% 71
South West -2 278 £525 -4.55% 84
Yorkshire -1 207 £500 +11.11% 68
North East 0 129 £450 +4.65% 43
East of England +32 115 £413 +17.86% 44
East Midlands +13 99 £447 -8.33% 42
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
1 134 (3.64%) Confluence
2 104 (2.82%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 22 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
7 14 (0.38%) nginx
8 12 (0.33%) CMS
9 9 (0.24%) Skype for Business
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.081%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.081%) Smallworld
Applications
1 95 (2.58%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.55%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 3 (0.081%) 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%) Mozilla Thunderbird
13 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 70 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.92%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.49%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.49%) SAP Hybris
5 16 (0.43%) 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
1 682 (18.52%) AWS
2 625 (16.97%) Azure
3 212 (5.76%) Power Platform
4 164 (4.45%) Serverless
5 155 (4.21%) GitHub
6 153 (4.16%) Microsoft 365
7 147 (3.99%) GCP
8 132 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.77%) AWS Lambda
10 89 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
11 86 (2.34%) Entra ID
12 85 (2.31%) Amazon S3
13 65 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
13 65 (1.77%) Power Automate
14 62 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
15 60 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
16 59 (1.60%) Amazon EC2
16 59 (1.60%) PowerApps
17 57 (1.55%) OCI
18 55 (1.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 89 (2.42%) Firewall
2 57 (1.55%) VPN
3 50 (1.36%) DNS
3 50 (1.36%) Network Security
3 50 (1.36%) WAN
4 42 (1.14%) Wireless
5 40 (1.09%) LAN
6 32 (0.87%) TCP/IP
7 29 (0.79%) BGP
8 25 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
9 22 (0.60%) OSPF
10 21 (0.57%) DHCP
11 16 (0.43%) SD-WAN
12 15 (0.41%) SSL
13 14 (0.38%) Internet
14 13 (0.35%) MPLS
15 12 (0.33%) IPsec
15 12 (0.33%) VLAN
16 11 (0.30%) HTTP
17 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (4.45%) Power BI
2 83 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.63%) SQL Server
4 55 (1.49%) MongoDB
5 53 (1.44%) Metadata
6 46 (1.25%) Data Warehouse
7 42 (1.14%) Data Lake
8 39 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 38 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
10 31 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.84%) Relational Database
11 27 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (0.62%) Tableau
13 22 (0.60%) Oracle Database
14 21 (0.57%) Electronic Patient Records
14 21 (0.57%) MySQL
15 20 (0.54%) DynamoDB
16 19 (0.52%) Redis
17 18 (0.49%) BigQuery
18 17 (0.46%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 206 (5.59%) JIRA
2 169 (4.59%) Git
3 132 (3.59%) GitLab
4 130 (3.53%) Jenkins
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 19 (0.52%) 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 1,026 (27.87%) Social Skills
2 551 (14.96%) Finance
3 333 (9.04%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (5.08%) Telecoms
5 157 (4.26%) Marketing
5 157 (4.26%) Military
6 155 (4.21%) Manufacturing
7 138 (3.75%) Local Government
8 134 (3.64%) Electronics
9 77 (2.09%) Legal
10 74 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (1.93%) Organisational Skills
12 68 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
13 51 (1.39%) Banking
14 50 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 50 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
15 43 (1.17%) Police
16 40 (1.09%) Law
17 35 (0.95%) Billing
18 34 (0.92%) Retail
Job Titles
1 452 (12.28%) Developer
2 442 (12.00%) Architect
3 393 (10.67%) Senior
4 363 (9.86%) Analyst
5 317 (8.61%) Lead
6 194 (5.27%) Consultant
7 170 (4.62%) Business Analyst
8 143 (3.88%) Designer
9 132 (3.59%) DevOps Engineer
10 110 (2.99%) Project Manager
11 106 (2.88%) Solutions Architect
12 104 (2.82%) Data Engineer
13 100 (2.72%) Technical Architect
14 85 (2.31%) Java Developer
14 85 (2.31%) User Researcher
15 69 (1.87%) Senior Developer
16 68 (1.85%) Delivery Manager
17 67 (1.82%) AWS Engineer
17 67 (1.82%) Service Designer
18 57 (1.55%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.07%) REST
2 133 (3.61%) Node.js
3 111 (3.01%) React
4 103 (2.80%) Spring
5 91 (2.47%) Spring Boot
6 87 (2.36%) RESTful
7 78 (2.12%) .NET
8 75 (2.04%) HTML
9 72 (1.96%) AngularJS
9 72 (1.96%) Oracle Fusion
10 69 (1.87%) CSS
11 68 (1.85%) Web Services
12 62 (1.68%) SOAP
13 51 (1.39%) JSON
13 51 (1.39%) Kafka
14 37 (1.00%) Playwright
15 35 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
15 35 (0.95%) Middleware
16 34 (0.92%) XML
17 27 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 143 (3.88%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.75%) Onboarding
3 122 (3.31%) Product Ownership
4 121 (3.29%) NHS
5 89 (2.42%) Data Centre
6 79 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.87%) Management Information System
8 56 (1.52%) Public Cloud
9 35 (0.95%) Distributed Systems
9 35 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
10 32 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
11 31 (0.84%) Security Posture
12 30 (0.81%) Data Structures
13 28 (0.76%) PKI
14 26 (0.71%) CMDB
15 25 (0.68%) AI Agents
16 23 (0.62%) Replication
17 22 (0.60%) Security Operations Centre
18 18 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 218 (5.92%) Windows
2 166 (4.51%) Linux
3 58 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.33%) Android
5 44 (1.20%) Windows 10
6 43 (1.17%) Mac OS
7 37 (1.00%) Unix
8 25 (0.68%) 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%) AIX
16 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 919 (24.96%) Agile
2 524 (14.23%) CI/CD
3 508 (13.80%) DevOps
4 456 (12.38%) Problem-Solving
5 442 (12.00%) Stakeholder Management
6 406 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 364 (9.89%) Migration
8 342 (9.29%) Continuous Improvement
9 329 (8.94%) Roadmaps
10 322 (8.75%) Business Intelligence
11 267 (7.25%) Analytics
12 254 (6.90%) Decision-Making
13 232 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
14 226 (6.14%) Containerisation
14 226 (6.14%) Test Automation
15 221 (6.00%) Microservices
16 209 (5.68%) User Research
16 209 (5.68%) Workshop Facilitation
17 207 (5.62%) AI
18 205 (5.57%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 390 (10.59%) Python
2 331 (8.99%) SQL
3 262 (7.12%) Java
4 199 (5.40%) JavaScript
5 122 (3.31%) TypeScript
6 118 (3.20%) PowerShell
7 88 (2.39%) C#
8 65 (1.77%) Bash
9 39 (1.06%) Ruby
10 34 (0.92%) 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%) Kotlin
15 17 (0.46%) PHP
16 14 (0.38%) Bicep
17 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
19 11 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,161 (58.69%) Security Cleared
2 1,409 (38.27%) SC Cleared
3 179 (4.86%) Degree
4 176 (4.78%) DV Cleared
5 100 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 46 (1.25%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.20%) CISSP
9 40 (1.09%) ITIL Certification
10 39 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
12 31 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (0.71%) CISM
14 25 (0.68%) PMP
15 22 (0.60%) ISEB
16 21 (0.57%) PMI Certification
17 17 (0.46%) CCNP
18 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
18 16 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (5.27%) Accessibility
2 153 (4.16%) QA
3 139 (3.78%) Data Quality
4 110 (2.99%) GDPR
5 81 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 68 (1.85%) WCAG
7 67 (1.82%) NIST
8 62 (1.68%) PMO
9 59 (1.60%) NCSC
10 46 (1.25%) SLA
11 26 (0.71%) GRC
12 19 (0.52%) COBIT
13 17 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
14 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.38%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.30%) HL7
17 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.19%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 253 (6.87%) Docker
2 132 (3.59%) 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
10 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
10 4 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.081%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 3 (0.081%) 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%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 304 (8.26%) Terraform
2 274 (7.44%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.04%) Ansible
3 75 (2.04%) Grafana
4 50 (1.36%) Prometheus
5 37 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
6 27 (0.73%) SCCM
6 27 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (0.41%) Argo
8 13 (0.35%) Puppet
8 13 (0.35%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
10 11 (0.30%) Packer
11 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.24%) Kibana
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 7 (0.19%) vRealize
15 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 419 (11.38%) Microsoft
2 284 (7.71%) SAP
3 208 (5.65%) Oracle
4 135 (3.67%) Cisco
5 114 (3.10%) Salesforce
6 110 (2.99%) ServiceNow
7 97 (2.63%) VMware
8 69 (1.87%) Google
9 66 (1.79%) Databricks
10 58 (1.58%) Splunk
11 45 (1.22%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.14%) Aruba
13 35 (0.95%) Dell
13 35 (0.95%) Red Hat
14 34 (0.92%) Apple
14 34 (0.92%) Juniper
15 31 (0.84%) HP
15 31 (0.84%) Palo Alto
16 30 (0.81%) Atlassian
17 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft