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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 20 19
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,018 2,341 2,669
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.67% 8.50% 8.25%
As % of the General category 15.46% 13.24% 14.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,749 1,627 1,636
10th Percentile £363 £313 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £523
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.31% -5.00%
75th Percentile £615 £600 £626
90th Percentile £700 £675 £703
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 105 96
10th Percentile £15.77 £15.48 £14.85
25th Percentile £16.66 £18.13 £16.19
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.03 £23.99
Median % change year-on-year -3.09% -8.17% +14.24%
75th Percentile £41.00 £27.95 £42.71
90th Percentile £75.32 £58.75 £71.82
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.91% +8.72%

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 25,995 17,685 18,969
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.12% 64.19% 58.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,236 11,225 11,391
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.54% -2.73%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,312 1,019 892
10th Percentile £13.51 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.77 £16.17 £17.88
Median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.28% -32.93% +27.12%
75th Percentile £56.21 £45.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.68 £69.65 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £29.01 £25.13 £35.00
% change year-on-year +15.44% -28.20% +27.27%

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 29 September 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 29 September 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 29 September 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 1,765 £550 +7.32% 1,443
North of England +2 734 £475 - 663
Midlands +10 521 £490 +3.16% 278
West Midlands +7 445 £490 +3.16% 199
South East +2 441 £511 -0.73% 323
South West -3 364 £535 -2.73% 294
Yorkshire +3 284 £473 -5.50% 188
North West -13 247 £550 +22.22% 339
North East +1 218 £450 -10.00% 136
East Midlands +12 72 £450 +9.76% 79
East of England -20 48 £450 -10.00% 80
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
1 161 (4.01%) Confluence
2 104 (2.59%) SharePoint
3 52 (1.29%) SAS
4 48 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
5 47 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
6 44 (1.10%) Apache Spark
7 43 (1.07%) Apache
8 30 (0.75%) CMS
9 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
10 16 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.27%) WordPress
12 10 (0.25%) nginx
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
14 7 (0.17%) Headless CMS
15 5 (0.12%) Drupal
15 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
15 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 3 (0.075%) IIS
17 2 (0.050%) Mendix
17 2 (0.050%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 79 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 52 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 22 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.12%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.12%) Sketch
7 5 (0.12%) Trello
8 4 (0.100%) Adobe After Effects
8 4 (0.100%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.050%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.050%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.050%) Revit
10 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.025%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.025%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 53 (1.32%) Dynamics CRM
2 47 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 45 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
4 30 (0.75%) SAP PSCD
5 21 (0.52%) Oracle EBS
6 20 (0.50%) SAP Payroll
7 16 (0.40%) Workday HCM
8 14 (0.35%) NetSuite
8 14 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
8 14 (0.35%) SAP BRIM
9 13 (0.32%) SAP HR
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
10 12 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
11 11 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
12 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
12 10 (0.25%) SAP FI
13 9 (0.22%) NEC Housing
13 9 (0.22%) SAP HCM
13 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
14 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
Cloud Services
1 802 (19.96%) AWS
2 737 (18.34%) Azure
3 246 (6.12%) Power Platform
4 181 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
5 164 (4.08%) Microsoft 365
6 154 (3.83%) GCP
7 147 (3.66%) Serverless
8 145 (3.61%) GitHub
9 129 (3.21%) Entra ID
10 116 (2.89%) Amazon S3
11 114 (2.84%) SaaS
12 107 (2.66%) GitHub Actions
13 95 (2.36%) OCI
14 86 (2.14%) Power Automate
15 85 (2.12%) AWS Lambda
16 81 (2.02%) Dynamics 365
17 76 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 71 (1.77%) Amazon EKS
19 62 (1.54%) PowerApps
20 55 (1.37%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 96 (2.39%) Firewall
2 64 (1.59%) DNS
3 48 (1.19%) WAN
4 39 (0.97%) LAN
5 38 (0.95%) Network Security
6 31 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
7 30 (0.75%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.72%) DHCP
9 28 (0.70%) VPN
10 26 (0.65%) BGP
11 25 (0.62%) OSPF
12 18 (0.45%) SD-WAN
13 17 (0.42%) Wireless
14 15 (0.37%) VXLAN
14 15 (0.37%) WLAN
15 14 (0.35%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.35%) VoIP
16 13 (0.32%) Ethernet VPN
16 13 (0.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 13 (0.32%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (3.98%) Power BI
2 106 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
3 96 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
4 95 (2.36%) Metadata
5 71 (1.77%) SQL Server
6 70 (1.74%) Relational Database
7 64 (1.59%) MongoDB
8 56 (1.39%) Oracle Database
9 55 (1.37%) Data Lake
10 50 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
11 41 (1.02%) NoSQL
12 33 (0.82%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
14 28 (0.70%) Amazon Aurora
15 27 (0.67%) MySQL
16 26 (0.65%) Pentaho
16 26 (0.65%) Tableau
17 25 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
18 24 (0.60%) DynamoDB
19 18 (0.45%) Redis
Development Applications
1 233 (5.80%) JIRA
2 185 (4.60%) Git
3 171 (4.26%) GitLab
4 129 (3.21%) Jenkins
5 53 (1.32%) Selenium
6 50 (1.24%) Cucumber
7 38 (0.95%) JUnit
8 31 (0.77%) Postman
9 28 (0.70%) Cypress.io
10 26 (0.65%) Mockito
10 26 (0.65%) SonarQube
11 25 (0.62%) Maven
12 22 (0.55%) REST Assured
13 19 (0.47%) Gatling
13 19 (0.47%) JMeter
13 19 (0.47%) WebDriver
14 15 (0.37%) MSI
15 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
16 9 (0.22%) TestNG
17 8 (0.20%) CircleCI
General
1 1,294 (32.21%) Social Skills
2 448 (11.15%) Finance
3 427 (10.63%) Analytical Skills
4 285 (7.09%) Military
5 223 (5.55%) Local Government
6 187 (4.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 156 (3.88%) Influencing Skills
8 120 (2.99%) Legal
9 118 (2.94%) Organisational Skills
10 87 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
10 87 (2.17%) Police
11 62 (1.54%) Law
12 54 (1.34%) Telecoms
13 44 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
14 43 (1.07%) Marketing
15 39 (0.97%) Banking
16 29 (0.72%) Billing
17 27 (0.67%) Retail
18 20 (0.50%) Manufacturing
18 20 (0.50%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 566 (14.09%) Architect
2 556 (13.84%) Senior
3 514 (12.79%) Developer
4 493 (12.27%) Lead
5 346 (8.61%) Analyst
6 194 (4.83%) Consultant
7 152 (3.78%) Designer
8 151 (3.76%) Data Engineer
9 137 (3.41%) Business Analyst
10 135 (3.36%) Data Architect
11 132 (3.29%) DevOps Engineer
12 119 (2.96%) Solutions Architect
13 118 (2.94%) Delivery Manager
14 109 (2.71%) Technical Architect
15 107 (2.66%) Senior Developer
16 102 (2.54%) User Researcher
17 88 (2.19%) Java Developer
17 88 (2.19%) Senior Manager
18 84 (2.09%) Project Manager
19 76 (1.89%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 355 (8.84%) Terraform
2 163 (4.06%) REST
3 103 (2.56%) RESTful
4 100 (2.49%) Spring
5 96 (2.39%) Node.js
6 91 (2.26%) React
7 89 (2.22%) Spring Boot
8 82 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
9 76 (1.89%) SOAP
10 71 (1.77%) HTML
11 68 (1.69%) Kafka
12 65 (1.62%) Web Services
13 64 (1.59%) CSS
14 62 (1.54%) Django
15 59 (1.47%) .NET
16 58 (1.44%) OAuth
17 56 (1.39%) JSON
18 48 (1.19%) PySpark
19 47 (1.17%) OpenID
20 46 (1.14%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 242 (6.02%) Cloud Native
2 172 (4.28%) Product Ownership
3 164 (4.08%) Onboarding
4 134 (3.33%) Management Information System
5 131 (3.26%) NHS
6 107 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
7 82 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
8 49 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
9 45 (1.12%) Data Centre
9 45 (1.12%) Data Structures
9 45 (1.12%) Freedom of Information
10 42 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
11 41 (1.02%) CMDB
12 40 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
13 37 (0.92%) AI Agents
14 35 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
16 32 (0.80%) Data Protection Act
16 32 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
16 32 (0.80%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 126 (3.14%) Windows
2 125 (3.11%) Linux
3 47 (1.17%) Unix
4 38 (0.95%) Windows Server
5 23 (0.57%) Android
6 20 (0.50%) Apple iOS
7 18 (0.45%) Windows 10
8 16 (0.40%) Mac OS
8 16 (0.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.12%) AIX
9 5 (0.12%) Amazon Linux
10 4 (0.100%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.075%) CentOS
12 2 (0.050%) Solaris
12 2 (0.050%) VMS
13 1 (0.025%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.025%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,299 (32.33%) Agile
2 951 (23.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 709 (17.65%) Continuous Improvement
4 699 (17.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 678 (16.87%) CI/CD
6 629 (15.65%) DevOps
7 505 (12.57%) Problem-Solving
8 482 (12.00%) Decision-Making
9 419 (10.43%) Analytics
10 382 (9.51%) AI
11 380 (9.46%) Migration
12 373 (9.28%) Roadmaps
13 367 (9.13%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 340 (8.46%) Infrastructure as Code
15 313 (7.79%) Data Modelling
15 313 (7.79%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 303 (7.54%) Technical Leadership
17 282 (7.02%) Mentoring
18 257 (6.40%) Containerisation
19 255 (6.35%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 454 (11.30%) Python
2 391 (9.73%) SQL
3 250 (6.22%) Java
4 226 (5.62%) JavaScript
5 122 (3.04%) TypeScript
6 108 (2.69%) PowerShell
7 84 (2.09%) C#
8 63 (1.57%) Bash
9 50 (1.24%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.14%) Bicep
11 43 (1.07%) Scala
12 27 (0.67%) R
13 26 (0.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 25 (0.62%) Groovy
15 23 (0.57%) Apex Code
15 23 (0.57%) Kotlin
16 22 (0.55%) ABAP
17 17 (0.42%) Ruby
18 15 (0.37%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.32%) Go
Qualifications
1 2,017 (50.20%) Security Cleared
2 1,667 (41.49%) SC Cleared
3 333 (8.29%) BPSS Clearance
4 233 (5.80%) DV Cleared
5 183 (4.55%) Degree
6 78 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
7 68 (1.69%) AWS Certification
8 65 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 49 (1.22%) CISSP
10 38 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
11 35 (0.87%) CISM
12 31 (0.77%) ISTQB
13 25 (0.62%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.60%) CCNP
15 23 (0.57%) Master's Degree
16 22 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
16 22 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
17 18 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.40%) DBS Check
18 16 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 332 (8.26%) Accessibility
2 256 (6.37%) Data Quality
3 241 (6.00%) QA
4 140 (3.48%) WCAG
5 135 (3.36%) GDPR
6 95 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 83 (2.07%) NCSC
8 79 (1.97%) NIST
9 77 (1.92%) PMO
10 37 (0.92%) GRC
11 29 (0.72%) SLA
12 28 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 25 (0.62%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 11 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.27%) NIST 800
17 8 (0.20%) PCI DSS
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 6 (0.15%) PERC
System Software
1 287 (7.14%) Docker
2 135 (3.36%) Active Directory
3 32 (0.80%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
5 15 (0.37%) VMware NSX
6 11 (0.27%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.22%) vSphere
8 8 (0.20%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.100%) Postfix
10 4 (0.100%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.075%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.025%) Ceph
12 1 (0.025%) Squid
12 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 271 (6.74%) Kubernetes
2 98 (2.44%) Grafana
3 69 (1.72%) Ansible
4 65 (1.62%) Prometheus
5 41 (1.02%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
7 22 (0.55%) Argo
8 21 (0.52%) SCCM
9 19 (0.47%) Kibana
10 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.20%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.20%) VxRail
11 6 (0.15%) Istio
11 6 (0.15%) Puppet
12 5 (0.12%) Consul
12 5 (0.12%) Packer
12 5 (0.12%) QRadar
12 5 (0.12%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.100%) Jamf Pro
14 3 (0.075%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 536 (13.34%) Microsoft
2 334 (8.31%) Oracle
3 154 (3.83%) ServiceNow
4 127 (3.16%) Google
5 123 (3.06%) SAP
6 93 (2.31%) Salesforce
7 84 (2.09%) Databricks
8 48 (1.19%) Cisco
9 37 (0.92%) Palo Alto
9 37 (0.92%) Splunk
9 37 (0.92%) VMware
10 30 (0.75%) Talend
11 29 (0.72%) Workday
12 28 (0.70%) Foundry
13 27 (0.67%) Dynatrace
13 27 (0.67%) Informatica
14 25 (0.62%) Palantir
15 23 (0.57%) CyberArk
16 19 (0.47%) F5
16 19 (0.47%) Red Hat