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

6 months to
15 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 4,016 2,088 2,991
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.98% 7.70% 8.16%
As % of the General category 16.27% 12.07% 14.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,803 1,409 2,000
10th Percentile £358 £346 £313
25th Percentile £425 £419 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -1.44% -0.95%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £688 £700 £713
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 86 158
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £14.47
25th Percentile £17.13 £18.13 £15.65
Median hourly rate £23.41 £22.49 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +4.12% -17.49% +29.76%
75th Percentile £50.00 £32.14 £58.74
90th Percentile £75.40 £63.00 £75.38
UK median hourly rate £24.82 £21.59 £23.99
% change year-on-year +14.96% -10.03% +18.18%

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 24,681 17,301 21,065
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.17% 63.77% 57.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,862 11,088 13,439
10th Percentile £313 £285 £300
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £533
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -3.85% -3.09%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £744 £763 £775
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,804 896 1,708
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.25 £13.25
25th Percentile £19.24 £16.48 £16.06
Median hourly rate £34.00 £26.75 £33.93
Median % change year-on-year +27.08% -21.16% +11.10%
75th Percentile £65.00 £51.20 £56.49
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.00 £26.50 £32.90
% change year-on-year +24.53% -19.44% +7.71%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 1,777 £525 - 454
North of England +3 716 £470 -1.05% 287
South East +4 499 £500 -4.76% 289
Midlands +11 465 £500 +8.11% 169
West Midlands +4 372 £500 +8.11% 115
North West 0 305 £505 +8.60% 131
South West -6 296 £525 -4.55% 140
Yorkshire +13 254 £461 -2.96% 109
North East -3 168 £450 -6.25% 48
East Midlands +25 85 £500 +21.95% 53
East of England +9 66 £476 -4.90% 63
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
1 158 (3.93%) Confluence
2 116 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 45 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
4 45 (1.12%) SAS
5 34 (0.85%) Apache Spark
6 32 (0.80%) Apache
7 21 (0.52%) CMS
8 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.32%) nginx
9 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 9 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
11 8 (0.20%) WordPress
12 7 (0.17%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.12%) Camunda
13 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 4 (0.100%) Drupal
15 3 (0.075%) IIS
Applications
1 73 (1.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.12%) Sketch
9 3 (0.075%) Adobe XD
9 3 (0.075%) Trello
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.025%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 72 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 44 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 42 (1.05%) 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
6 12 (0.30%) Workday HCM
7 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
7 10 (0.25%) NEC Housing
7 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payables
8 9 (0.22%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 9 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
8 9 (0.22%) SystmOne
9 8 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 7 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 7 (0.17%) SAP FI
10 7 (0.17%) SAP HR
11 6 (0.15%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 798 (19.87%) AWS
2 730 (18.18%) Azure
3 218 (5.43%) Power Platform
4 178 (4.43%) Microsoft 365
5 159 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
6 155 (3.86%) Serverless
7 154 (3.83%) GitHub
8 148 (3.69%) GCP
9 127 (3.16%) Amazon S3
10 122 (3.04%) Entra ID
11 104 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
12 99 (2.47%) SaaS
13 98 (2.44%) AWS Lambda
14 86 (2.14%) OCI
15 83 (2.07%) Amazon EC2
16 73 (1.82%) Power Automate
17 70 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
18 66 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
19 65 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 61 (1.52%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 107 (2.66%) Firewall
2 65 (1.62%) DNS
3 58 (1.44%) WAN
4 57 (1.42%) Network Security
5 49 (1.22%) LAN
6 43 (1.07%) VPN
7 33 (0.82%) BGP
8 31 (0.77%) DHCP
9 29 (0.72%) TCP/IP
10 28 (0.70%) OSPF
11 25 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
12 22 (0.55%) SD-WAN
13 19 (0.47%) BIG-IP
14 18 (0.45%) VXLAN
15 17 (0.42%) WLAN
16 16 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
17 15 (0.37%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 14 (0.35%) NGFW
18 14 (0.35%) Wireless
19 12 (0.30%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (3.69%) Power BI
2 96 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
3 88 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
4 78 (1.94%) SQL Server
5 57 (1.42%) Metadata
6 52 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
6 52 (1.29%) MongoDB
7 49 (1.22%) Data Lake
7 49 (1.22%) Relational Database
8 46 (1.15%) Oracle Database
9 43 (1.07%) NoSQL
10 39 (0.97%) Oracle Reports
11 33 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
11 33 (0.82%) DynamoDB
12 31 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
12 31 (0.77%) Tableau
13 23 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
14 22 (0.55%) Pentaho
15 20 (0.50%) Delta Lake
16 18 (0.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 226 (5.63%) JIRA
2 162 (4.03%) Git
2 162 (4.03%) GitLab
3 139 (3.46%) Jenkins
4 47 (1.17%) Selenium
5 39 (0.97%) JUnit
6 38 (0.95%) Mockito
7 31 (0.77%) SonarQube
8 30 (0.75%) Postman
9 29 (0.72%) Cucumber
10 27 (0.67%) JMeter
11 24 (0.60%) Cypress.io
11 24 (0.60%) Maven
12 19 (0.47%) REST Assured
13 17 (0.42%) 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%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 1,064 (26.49%) Social Skills
2 485 (12.08%) Finance
3 390 (9.71%) Analytical Skills
4 217 (5.40%) Military
5 207 (5.15%) Local Government
6 113 (2.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 110 (2.74%) Influencing Skills
8 106 (2.64%) Legal
9 89 (2.22%) Organisational Skills
10 83 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
11 81 (2.02%) Police
12 52 (1.29%) Telecoms
13 49 (1.22%) Banking
14 46 (1.15%) Law
15 44 (1.10%) Marketing
16 37 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
17 31 (0.77%) Billing
18 24 (0.60%) Retail
19 17 (0.42%) General Ledger
20 13 (0.32%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 532 (13.25%) Architect
1 532 (13.25%) Developer
2 509 (12.67%) Senior
3 420 (10.46%) Lead
4 381 (9.49%) Analyst
5 165 (4.11%) Designer
6 163 (4.06%) Consultant
7 157 (3.91%) Business Analyst
8 148 (3.69%) DevOps Engineer
9 144 (3.59%) Data Engineer
10 130 (3.24%) Solutions Architect
11 114 (2.84%) Technical Architect
12 112 (2.79%) Java Developer
13 105 (2.61%) Delivery Manager
14 103 (2.56%) Project Manager
15 101 (2.51%) Senior Developer
16 85 (2.12%) User Researcher
17 80 (1.99%) Data Architect
18 75 (1.87%) AWS Engineer
19 74 (1.84%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (3.59%) REST
2 115 (2.86%) Spring
3 113 (2.81%) Node.js
4 103 (2.56%) RESTful
5 101 (2.51%) Spring Boot
6 95 (2.37%) React
7 77 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
8 75 (1.87%) Kafka
9 71 (1.77%) SOAP
10 65 (1.62%) .NET
11 59 (1.47%) Web Services
12 58 (1.44%) AngularJS
12 58 (1.44%) HTML
13 48 (1.20%) CSS
14 47 (1.17%) OAuth
15 46 (1.15%) Django
16 44 (1.10%) JSON
17 43 (1.07%) PySpark
18 40 (1.00%) Middleware
19 38 (0.95%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 223 (5.55%) Cloud Native
2 159 (3.96%) Product Ownership
3 151 (3.76%) Onboarding
4 141 (3.51%) NHS
5 101 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
6 89 (2.22%) Management Information System
7 71 (1.77%) Data Centre
8 66 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
9 57 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
10 53 (1.32%) Public Cloud
11 48 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
12 47 (1.17%) Data Structures
13 45 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
14 35 (0.87%) CMDB
15 33 (0.82%) Virtual Team
16 32 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
17 28 (0.70%) PKI
17 28 (0.70%) Security Posture
18 27 (0.67%) Security Operations Centre
19 24 (0.60%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 169 (4.21%) Windows
2 159 (3.96%) Linux
3 60 (1.49%) Windows Server
4 57 (1.42%) Unix
5 26 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 25 (0.62%) Android
7 23 (0.57%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.52%) Windows 10
9 17 (0.42%) 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%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.12%) AIX
15 4 (0.100%) Amazon Linux
16 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2016
17 2 (0.050%) CentOS
17 2 (0.050%) VMS
17 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,165 (29.01%) Agile
2 654 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
3 639 (15.91%) CI/CD
4 636 (15.84%) DevOps
5 549 (13.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 539 (13.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 434 (10.81%) Problem-Solving
8 404 (10.06%) Analytics
9 393 (9.79%) Decision-Making
10 369 (9.19%) Migration
11 327 (8.14%) Roadmaps
12 309 (7.69%) Infrastructure as Code
13 286 (7.12%) Data Modelling
14 283 (7.05%) AI
15 274 (6.82%) Containerisation
16 251 (6.25%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 244 (6.08%) Microservices
18 240 (5.98%) Mentoring
19 239 (5.95%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
20 236 (5.88%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 467 (11.63%) Python
2 388 (9.66%) SQL
3 305 (7.59%) Java
4 181 (4.51%) JavaScript
5 107 (2.66%) PowerShell
6 104 (2.59%) TypeScript
7 80 (1.99%) C#
8 65 (1.62%) Bash
9 55 (1.37%) PL/SQL
10 40 (1.00%) Apex Code
11 36 (0.90%) Bicep
12 30 (0.75%) Ruby
13 29 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 23 (0.57%) R
15 17 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (0.42%) Go
15 17 (0.42%) Scala
15 17 (0.42%) Shell Script
16 14 (0.35%) ABAP
17 13 (0.32%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 2,076 (51.69%) Security Cleared
2 1,542 (38.40%) SC Cleared
3 236 (5.88%) DV Cleared
4 201 (5.00%) BPSS Clearance
5 187 (4.66%) Degree
6 56 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 50 (1.25%) Microsoft Certification
8 43 (1.07%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.07%) CISSP
9 41 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
10 26 (0.65%) CISM
10 26 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
11 22 (0.55%) CCNP
11 22 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
12 21 (0.52%) PMI Certification
13 20 (0.50%) ISTQB
14 18 (0.45%) Master's Degree
14 18 (0.45%) PMP
15 15 (0.37%) CCNA
16 14 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 293 (7.30%) Accessibility
2 197 (4.91%) Data Quality
3 181 (4.51%) QA
4 128 (3.19%) GDPR
5 120 (2.99%) WCAG
6 98 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 79 (1.97%) PMO
8 77 (1.92%) NCSC
9 71 (1.77%) NIST
10 34 (0.85%) SLA
11 29 (0.72%) GRC
12 27 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 14 (0.35%) PCI DSS
16 12 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
17 11 (0.27%) HL7
18 10 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
19 7 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 301 (7.50%) Docker
2 161 (4.01%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.57%) VMware NSX
5 15 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (0.32%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
7 11 (0.27%) Postfix
7 11 (0.27%) vSphere
8 9 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.050%) NFS
10 2 (0.050%) RACF
11 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.025%) etcd
11 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
11 1 (0.025%) GPFS
11 1 (0.025%) NLBS
11 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 341 (8.49%) Terraform
2 286 (7.12%) Kubernetes
3 90 (2.24%) Grafana
4 82 (2.04%) Ansible
5 58 (1.44%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
7 38 (0.95%) Microsoft Intune
8 28 (0.70%) Argo
9 14 (0.35%) Kibana
10 13 (0.32%) Puppet
11 11 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
11 11 (0.27%) SCCM
12 10 (0.25%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
14 7 (0.17%) FortiGate
15 6 (0.15%) Istio
16 5 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
16 5 (0.12%) Rancher
16 5 (0.12%) VxRail
Vendors
1 488 (12.15%) Microsoft
2 305 (7.59%) Oracle
3 150 (3.74%) SAP
4 131 (3.26%) ServiceNow
5 118 (2.94%) Salesforce
6 110 (2.74%) Google
7 94 (2.34%) Databricks
8 65 (1.62%) VMware
9 46 (1.15%) Cisco
10 40 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 36 (0.90%) Atlassian
12 33 (0.82%) Red Hat
13 30 (0.75%) Splunk
14 29 (0.72%) Dynatrace
15 28 (0.70%) Talend
16 25 (0.62%) CyberArk
16 25 (0.62%) IBM
17 24 (0.60%) F5
17 24 (0.60%) Foundry
17 24 (0.60%) Informatica