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

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,223 2,589 3,466
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.90% 9.85% 9.19%
As % of the General category 16.51% 15.75% 15.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,274 1,552 2,349
10th Percentile £340 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.37% -2.72% -0.46%
75th Percentile £593 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 97 129
10th Percentile £16.36 £15.00 £13.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.63 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.00 £56.40
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.74 £70.10
UK median hourly rate £21.30 £24.83 £20.00
% change year-on-year -14.22% +24.15% +5.26%

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 19,520 16,439 22,220
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.96% 62.54% 58.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,426 9,889 14,759
10th Percentile £288 £300 £265
25th Percentile £404 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £528 £545
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% -3.21% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,206 540 1,367
10th Percentile £14.04 £15.62 £13.30
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.24 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.00 £29.12 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.02% +11.98% +1.13%
75th Percentile £47.69 £57.50 £55.20
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.88 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £27.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -16.91% +5.77% +4.00%

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 27 January 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 27 January 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 27 January 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 1,309 £525 - 311
North of England 0 627 £458 -3.68% 236
South East -5 374 £500 -4.76% 298
North West +1 320 £450 -10.00% 83
Midlands +2 318 £500 - 133
South West -1 308 £525 -4.55% 100
West Midlands +4 240 £500 - 89
Yorkshire -2 188 £500 +11.11% 101
North East -1 123 £450 +5.88% 54
East of England +25 105 £375 +7.14% 86
East Midlands +7 78 £424 -10.79% 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
1 117 (3.63%) Confluence
2 90 (2.79%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.84%) SAS
5 23 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.65%) nginx
7 17 (0.53%) Apache
8 15 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.40%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.37%) CMS
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
12 4 (0.12%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
13 3 (0.093%) IIS
13 3 (0.093%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.093%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.093%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 97 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 83 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 36 (1.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
6 15 (0.47%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.28%) Trello
8 7 (0.22%) Adobe XD
8 7 (0.22%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.19%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.16%) Sketch
11 3 (0.093%) InVision
12 2 (0.062%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.062%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.062%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.062%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.031%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.031%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.031%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.031%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.28%) iTrent
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.22%) SAP HR
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.16%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 590 (18.31%) AWS
2 557 (17.28%) Azure
3 193 (5.99%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.62%) Serverless
5 145 (4.50%) GitHub
6 142 (4.41%) GCP
6 142 (4.41%) Microsoft 365
7 115 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
8 93 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
9 82 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
10 69 (2.14%) Amazon S3
11 66 (2.05%) Power Automate
12 65 (2.02%) Entra ID
13 60 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
14 59 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
15 56 (1.74%) PowerApps
16 55 (1.71%) SaaS
17 52 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 51 (1.58%) Amazon ECS
19 50 (1.55%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 97 (3.01%) Firewall
2 66 (2.05%) DNS
3 60 (1.86%) VPN
4 55 (1.71%) WAN
5 44 (1.37%) Wireless
6 43 (1.33%) Network Security
7 41 (1.27%) LAN
8 39 (1.21%) TCP/IP
9 31 (0.96%) BGP
10 27 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 25 (0.78%) DHCP
12 22 (0.68%) OSPF
13 20 (0.62%) SSL
14 18 (0.56%) Skype
15 17 (0.53%) VLAN
16 16 (0.50%) HTTP
16 16 (0.50%) IPsec
17 15 (0.47%) Internet
17 15 (0.47%) MPLS
17 15 (0.47%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (4.41%) Power BI
2 83 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.64%) MongoDB
4 51 (1.58%) Metadata
5 38 (1.18%) NoSQL
5 38 (1.18%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.15%) Relational Database
7 32 (0.99%) Data Lake
8 30 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
9 29 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
10 27 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
11 24 (0.74%) MySQL
12 23 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
13 21 (0.65%) Oracle Database
13 21 (0.65%) Redis
14 20 (0.62%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.53%) Electronic Patient Records
16 15 (0.47%) Tableau
17 14 (0.43%) DynamoDB
17 14 (0.43%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 193 (5.99%) JIRA
2 167 (5.18%) Git
3 124 (3.85%) Jenkins
4 119 (3.69%) GitLab
5 50 (1.55%) Postman
6 47 (1.46%) Selenium
7 31 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 25 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.71%) JUnit
10 18 (0.56%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.53%) Mockito
12 15 (0.47%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.43%) Mocha
14 13 (0.40%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.34%) MSI
15 11 (0.34%) Vagrant
16 10 (0.31%) Gradle
16 10 (0.31%) JMeter
17 9 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
General
1 946 (29.35%) Social Skills
2 518 (16.07%) Finance
3 289 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (7.11%) Telecoms
5 193 (5.99%) Manufacturing
6 192 (5.96%) Marketing
7 172 (5.34%) Electronics
8 147 (4.56%) Military
9 120 (3.72%) Local Government
10 71 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
11 68 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
12 67 (2.08%) Legal
13 50 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 47 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
15 37 (1.15%) Law
16 35 (1.09%) Banking
17 33 (1.02%) Retail
18 31 (0.96%) Billing
19 30 (0.93%) Police
Job Titles
1 395 (12.26%) Developer
2 369 (11.45%) Architect
3 323 (10.02%) Senior
4 312 (9.68%) Analyst
5 298 (9.25%) Lead
6 198 (6.14%) Consultant
7 141 (4.37%) Business Analyst
8 129 (4.00%) DevOps Engineer
9 99 (3.07%) Designer
10 98 (3.04%) Project Manager
11 88 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
12 83 (2.58%) Technical Architect
13 74 (2.30%) AWS Engineer
14 69 (2.14%) Data Engineer
15 65 (2.02%) Senior Developer
16 62 (1.92%) Java Developer
17 60 (1.86%) User Researcher
18 54 (1.68%) Test Engineer
19 53 (1.64%) Support Engineer
20 52 (1.61%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 145 (4.50%) REST
2 107 (3.32%) React
3 102 (3.16%) Node.js
4 94 (2.92%) RESTful
5 89 (2.76%) Spring
6 83 (2.58%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.23%) .NET
7 72 (2.23%) HTML
8 69 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
9 64 (1.99%) CSS
10 60 (1.86%) JSON
11 59 (1.83%) AngularJS
12 55 (1.71%) SOAP
13 54 (1.68%) Web Services
14 53 (1.64%) Kafka
15 43 (1.33%) XML
16 36 (1.12%) Playwright
17 31 (0.96%) OAuth
18 29 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
19 25 (0.78%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 123 (3.82%) Cloud Native
2 112 (3.48%) NHS
2 112 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 105 (3.26%) Product Ownership
4 83 (2.58%) Data Centre
5 69 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
6 64 (1.99%) Management Information System
7 42 (1.30%) Public Cloud
8 32 (0.99%) Replication
9 31 (0.96%) CMDB
9 31 (0.96%) PKI
10 30 (0.93%) Security Posture
11 27 (0.84%) AI Agents
11 27 (0.84%) Data Structures
11 27 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
12 26 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
13 25 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
14 22 (0.68%) Security Operations Centre
15 21 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
16 20 (0.62%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 211 (6.55%) Windows
2 147 (4.56%) Linux
3 50 (1.55%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.40%) Android
4 45 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 41 (1.27%) Mac OS
6 22 (0.68%) Unix
7 21 (0.65%) VMS
8 20 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 17 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 11 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
10 11 (0.34%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
15 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
17 1 (0.031%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 785 (24.36%) Agile
2 470 (14.58%) CI/CD
3 441 (13.68%) DevOps
4 423 (13.12%) Problem-Solving
5 387 (12.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 361 (11.20%) Stakeholder Management
7 341 (10.58%) Business Intelligence
8 311 (9.65%) Migration
9 290 (9.00%) Continuous Improvement
10 266 (8.25%) Roadmaps
11 216 (6.70%) Analytics
12 213 (6.61%) Programme Management
13 208 (6.45%) Test Automation
14 203 (6.30%) Decision-Making
15 199 (6.17%) Microservices
16 195 (6.05%) Infrastructure as Code
17 194 (6.02%) Containerisation
18 184 (5.71%) ITIL
19 183 (5.68%) AI
20 172 (5.34%) Digital Marketing
Programming Languages
1 355 (11.01%) Python
2 266 (8.25%) SQL
3 248 (7.69%) Java
4 175 (5.43%) JavaScript
5 123 (3.82%) PowerShell
6 109 (3.38%) TypeScript
7 78 (2.42%) C#
8 61 (1.89%) Bash
9 36 (1.12%) Ruby
10 27 (0.84%) Apex Code
10 27 (0.84%) Go
11 26 (0.81%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.59%) Shell Script
13 16 (0.50%) R
14 15 (0.47%) PHP
15 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 14 (0.43%) Groovy
16 12 (0.37%) Perl
17 11 (0.34%) ABAP
17 11 (0.34%) C
Qualifications
1 1,920 (59.57%) Security Cleared
2 1,274 (39.53%) SC Cleared
3 159 (4.93%) DV Cleared
4 158 (4.90%) Degree
5 81 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.37%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.27%) AWS Certification
8 40 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
9 39 (1.21%) CISSP
10 35 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
10 35 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
11 24 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
11 24 (0.74%) ISEB
12 23 (0.71%) PMP
13 22 (0.68%) CISM
14 20 (0.62%) PMI Certification
15 18 (0.56%) ISTQB
16 17 (0.53%) CCNP
17 16 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.50%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (4.81%) Accessibility
2 129 (4.00%) QA
3 108 (3.35%) Data Quality
4 93 (2.89%) GDPR
5 73 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 61 (1.89%) NIST
7 54 (1.68%) NCSC
8 51 (1.58%) WCAG
9 46 (1.43%) SLA
10 44 (1.37%) PMO
11 24 (0.74%) GRC
12 19 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.56%) COBIT
14 16 (0.50%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.43%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.34%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.31%) HL7
18 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 6 (0.19%) NIST 800
System Software
1 231 (7.17%) Docker
2 116 (3.60%) Active Directory
3 59 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.56%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.40%) vSphere
8 11 (0.34%) DFS Replication
9 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.25%) Squid
11 7 (0.22%) Dovecot
11 7 (0.22%) Postfix
12 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.12%) ISA Server
15 3 (0.093%) NFS
16 2 (0.062%) Brightmail
16 2 (0.062%) RACF
16 2 (0.062%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 284 (8.81%) Terraform
2 246 (7.63%) Kubernetes
3 73 (2.26%) Ansible
4 63 (1.95%) Grafana
5 51 (1.58%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.96%) SCCM
7 25 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.37%) Packer
11 11 (0.34%) Argo
11 11 (0.34%) Nessus
12 10 (0.31%) Puppet
13 9 (0.28%) vRealize
14 8 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.25%) Proxmox
15 7 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.22%) SCOM
16 6 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 399 (12.38%) Microsoft
2 308 (9.56%) SAP
3 191 (5.93%) Oracle
4 145 (4.50%) Cisco
5 102 (3.16%) ServiceNow
6 94 (2.92%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.76%) VMware
8 57 (1.77%) Google
8 57 (1.77%) Splunk
9 45 (1.40%) Databricks
10 40 (1.24%) Aruba
10 40 (1.24%) Palo Alto
11 39 (1.21%) Juniper
11 39 (1.21%) Virgin Media
12 37 (1.15%) Apple
12 37 (1.15%) Dell
13 33 (1.02%) HP
14 27 (0.84%) SolarWinds
15 25 (0.78%) Fortinet
15 25 (0.78%) Red Hat