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 23 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,485 2,473 3,422
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.05% 9.64% 9.05%
As % of the General category 17.03% 15.38% 15.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,445 1,524 2,274
10th Percentile £350 £308 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -1.38% -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 180 83 150
10th Percentile £16.49 £15.25 £13.81
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.35 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.12 £38.88 £56.53
90th Percentile £44.94 £64.23 £70.05
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +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 20,467 16,080 22,327
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.00% 62.66% 59.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,946 9,886 14,658
10th Percentile £300 £300 £265
25th Percentile £405 £410 £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 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,280 530 1,571
10th Percentile £14.02 £15.59 £13.18
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.14 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.50 £30.79 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.68% +18.43% -13.33%
75th Percentile £53.75 £60.00 £51.25
90th Percentile £73.75 £75.00 £65.98
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -23.33% +15.38% -8.77%

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 23 February 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 23 February 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 23 February 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 1,464 £513 -2.38% 337
North of England -3 644 £450 -5.26% 147
South East +2 415 £500 -4.76% 209
Midlands +1 357 £488 -0.51% 96
North West +1 323 £450 -10.00% 65
South West -3 271 £525 -4.55% 79
West Midlands -1 266 £500 - 67
Yorkshire -5 200 £500 +11.11% 52
North East -1 123 £450 +5.88% 30
East of England +26 112 £400 +14.29% 33
East Midlands +9 90 £425 -10.53% 28
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
1 124 (3.56%) Confluence
2 95 (2.73%) SharePoint
3 28 (0.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.69%) SAS
5 21 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.46%) Apache
7 15 (0.43%) nginx
8 13 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.34%) CMS
10 11 (0.32%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.23%) 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 (0.086%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.086%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.086%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.086%) OpenStack
Applications
1 95 (2.73%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.52%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.23%) Trello
8 7 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.17%) Sketch
10 3 (0.086%) InVision
11 2 (0.057%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.057%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.057%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 2 (0.057%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.029%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.029%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.029%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.029%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 19 (0.55%) Oracle ERP
5 18 (0.52%) SAP BRIM
5 18 (0.52%) SAP Hybris
6 11 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 10 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
8 9 (0.26%) iTrent
8 9 (0.26%) SAP ERP
9 8 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
12 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
13 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 630 (18.08%) AWS
2 577 (16.56%) Azure
3 195 (5.60%) Power Platform
4 157 (4.51%) Serverless
5 147 (4.22%) GitHub
6 138 (3.96%) Microsoft 365
7 134 (3.85%) GCP
8 122 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.90%) AWS Lambda
10 84 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
11 80 (2.30%) Amazon S3
12 76 (2.18%) Entra ID
13 62 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 60 (1.72%) OCI
15 59 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 57 (1.64%) Dynamics 365
16 57 (1.64%) Power Automate
16 57 (1.64%) SaaS
17 54 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
18 51 (1.46%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (2.53%) Firewall
2 52 (1.49%) DNS
3 51 (1.46%) Network Security
3 51 (1.46%) WAN
4 50 (1.43%) VPN
5 43 (1.23%) Wireless
6 39 (1.12%) LAN
7 34 (0.98%) TCP/IP
8 31 (0.89%) BGP
9 23 (0.66%) DHCP
9 23 (0.66%) OSPF
9 23 (0.66%) Wi-Fi
10 17 (0.49%) SSL
11 15 (0.43%) SD-WAN
12 14 (0.40%) IPsec
12 14 (0.40%) MPLS
13 13 (0.37%) Internet
13 13 (0.37%) VLAN
14 12 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
14 12 (0.34%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (4.45%) Power BI
2 77 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.52%) MongoDB
4 51 (1.46%) Metadata
4 51 (1.46%) SQL Server
5 39 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
6 38 (1.09%) Data Lake
7 36 (1.03%) Amazon RDS
7 36 (1.03%) NoSQL
8 30 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
8 30 (0.86%) Relational Database
9 25 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
10 22 (0.63%) Tableau
11 20 (0.57%) MySQL
11 20 (0.57%) Oracle Database
11 20 (0.57%) Redis
12 18 (0.52%) BigQuery
12 18 (0.52%) DynamoDB
12 18 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
13 14 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 194 (5.57%) JIRA
2 160 (4.59%) Git
3 123 (3.53%) GitLab
4 119 (3.41%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.38%) Postman
5 48 (1.38%) Selenium
6 31 (0.89%) JUnit
7 29 (0.83%) Cucumber
8 27 (0.77%) Cypress.io
9 26 (0.75%) Mockito
10 18 (0.52%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.49%) SonarQube
12 14 (0.40%) JMeter
12 14 (0.40%) Mocha
13 13 (0.37%) CircleCI
14 12 (0.34%) Bitbucket
15 10 (0.29%) Maven
15 10 (0.29%) MSI
16 9 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.23%) Gradle
General
1 989 (28.38%) Social Skills
2 529 (15.18%) Finance
3 318 (9.12%) Analytical Skills
4 195 (5.60%) Telecoms
5 162 (4.65%) Marketing
6 160 (4.59%) Manufacturing
7 155 (4.45%) Military
8 140 (4.02%) Electronics
9 127 (3.64%) Local Government
10 73 (2.09%) Legal
11 70 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
12 62 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
13 47 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
14 46 (1.32%) Banking
15 45 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 39 (1.12%) Police
17 37 (1.06%) Law
18 34 (0.98%) Billing
19 30 (0.86%) Retail
Job Titles
1 422 (12.11%) Developer
2 405 (11.62%) Architect
3 371 (10.65%) Senior
4 343 (9.84%) Analyst
5 305 (8.75%) Lead
6 186 (5.34%) Consultant
7 162 (4.65%) Business Analyst
8 134 (3.85%) Designer
9 128 (3.67%) DevOps Engineer
10 105 (3.01%) Project Manager
11 96 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
12 92 (2.64%) Technical Architect
13 89 (2.55%) Data Engineer
14 84 (2.41%) Java Developer
15 79 (2.27%) User Researcher
16 67 (1.92%) AWS Engineer
16 67 (1.92%) Senior Developer
17 66 (1.89%) Service Designer
18 60 (1.72%) Delivery Manager
19 57 (1.64%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 145 (4.16%) REST
2 121 (3.47%) Node.js
3 106 (3.04%) React
4 100 (2.87%) Spring
5 89 (2.55%) Spring Boot
6 85 (2.44%) RESTful
7 74 (2.12%) Oracle Fusion
8 72 (2.07%) .NET
9 69 (1.98%) HTML
10 66 (1.89%) CSS
11 64 (1.84%) AngularJS
12 63 (1.81%) Web Services
13 58 (1.66%) SOAP
14 53 (1.52%) JSON
15 48 (1.38%) Kafka
16 38 (1.09%) Playwright
17 35 (1.00%) XML
18 31 (0.89%) Middleware
19 30 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
20 26 (0.75%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 131 (3.76%) Cloud Native
2 126 (3.62%) Onboarding
3 121 (3.47%) NHS
4 115 (3.30%) Product Ownership
5 88 (2.53%) Data Centre
6 72 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
7 67 (1.92%) Management Information System
8 45 (1.29%) Public Cloud
9 32 (0.92%) Enterprise Software
10 30 (0.86%) Security Posture
11 29 (0.83%) PKI
12 28 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
12 28 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
12 28 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
13 27 (0.77%) CMDB
13 27 (0.77%) Data Structures
14 24 (0.69%) AI Agents
15 22 (0.63%) Replication
15 22 (0.63%) Security Operations Centre
16 18 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 210 (6.03%) Windows
2 168 (4.82%) Linux
3 54 (1.55%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.41%) Android
5 42 (1.21%) Mac OS
6 40 (1.15%) Windows 10
7 39 (1.12%) Unix
8 23 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.60%) Apple iOS
10 15 (0.43%) Mac OS X
11 13 (0.37%) VMS
12 11 (0.32%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
14 7 (0.20%) Solaris
14 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
14 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
16 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 868 (24.91%) Agile
2 488 (14.00%) CI/CD
3 464 (13.31%) DevOps
4 437 (12.54%) Problem-Solving
5 401 (11.51%) Stakeholder Management
6 376 (10.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 341 (9.78%) Migration
8 321 (9.21%) Continuous Improvement
9 317 (9.10%) Business Intelligence
10 297 (8.52%) Roadmaps
11 242 (6.94%) Analytics
12 237 (6.80%) Decision-Making
13 219 (6.28%) Infrastructure as Code
13 219 (6.28%) Test Automation
14 213 (6.11%) Microservices
15 210 (6.03%) Containerisation
16 194 (5.57%) User Research
17 191 (5.48%) AI
18 187 (5.37%) ITIL
18 187 (5.37%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 371 (10.65%) Python
2 307 (8.81%) SQL
3 257 (7.37%) Java
4 185 (5.31%) JavaScript
5 116 (3.33%) TypeScript
6 115 (3.30%) PowerShell
7 84 (2.41%) C#
8 64 (1.84%) Bash
9 38 (1.09%) Ruby
10 30 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 29 (0.83%) Apex Code
12 25 (0.72%) Go
13 21 (0.60%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.52%) PHP
15 16 (0.46%) R
16 13 (0.37%) Bicep
17 12 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.32%) Kotlin
19 10 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
20 9 (0.26%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,053 (58.91%) Security Cleared
2 1,352 (38.79%) SC Cleared
3 170 (4.88%) Degree
4 164 (4.71%) DV Cleared
5 98 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.29%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.26%) CISSP
8 39 (1.12%) AWS Certification
8 39 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
9 36 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 30 (0.86%) Cisco Certification
12 26 (0.75%) CISM
13 24 (0.69%) ISEB
14 23 (0.66%) PMP
15 19 (0.55%) PMI Certification
16 17 (0.49%) ISTQB
17 16 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.46%) CCNP
18 15 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 185 (5.31%) Accessibility
2 133 (3.82%) QA
3 125 (3.59%) Data Quality
4 103 (2.96%) GDPR
5 76 (2.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (1.92%) NIST
7 64 (1.84%) WCAG
8 55 (1.58%) NCSC
8 55 (1.58%) PMO
9 46 (1.32%) SLA
10 22 (0.63%) GRC
11 19 (0.55%) COBIT
11 19 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
12 16 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
12 16 (0.46%) JSP 440
13 14 (0.40%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.37%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.32%) HL7
16 10 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 8 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 239 (6.86%) Docker
2 113 (3.24%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (0.49%) Hyper-V
4 17 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 12 (0.34%) vSphere
8 10 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.20%) Postfix
10 6 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.086%) DFS Replication
13 3 (0.086%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.086%) RACF
13 3 (0.086%) Squid
14 2 (0.057%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.057%) Dovecot
14 2 (0.057%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 296 (8.49%) Terraform
2 253 (7.26%) Kubernetes
3 69 (1.98%) Ansible
4 68 (1.95%) Grafana
5 48 (1.38%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.83%) SCCM
8 22 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.37%) Argo
9 13 (0.37%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.34%) Packer
11 11 (0.32%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.29%) Puppet
13 8 (0.23%) Consul
14 7 (0.20%) Kibana
14 7 (0.20%) Nessus
15 6 (0.17%) Istio
15 6 (0.17%) SCOM
15 6 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 390 (11.19%) Microsoft
2 277 (7.95%) SAP
3 205 (5.88%) Oracle
4 143 (4.10%) Cisco
5 105 (3.01%) Salesforce
6 103 (2.96%) ServiceNow
7 95 (2.73%) VMware
8 64 (1.84%) Google
9 61 (1.75%) Splunk
10 58 (1.66%) Databricks
11 41 (1.18%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.15%) Aruba
13 37 (1.06%) Juniper
14 35 (1.00%) Dell
14 35 (1.00%) Palo Alto
15 34 (0.98%) Apple
16 32 (0.92%) Red Hat
17 31 (0.89%) HP
18 27 (0.77%) SolarWinds
19 26 (0.75%) Atlassian