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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,479 2,537 3,415
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.02% 9.79% 9.11%
As % of the General category 16.92% 15.65% 15.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,443 1,547 2,268
10th Percentile £343 £307 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.75% -1.05% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £671 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 88 148
10th Percentile £16.56 £15.00 £13.66
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.94 £56.93
90th Percentile £45.36 £62.99 £70.15
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +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 20,563 16,215 22,061
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.23% 62.59% 58.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,016 9,949 14,501
10th Percentile £300 £297 £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 1,295 516 1,527
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £16.93 £20.00 £15.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.45 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.47% +17.12% -10.34%
75th Percentile £51.53 £60.00 £51.50
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £67.10
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £29.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -20.69% +11.54% -3.70%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -3 1,454 £513 -2.38% 361
North of England -2 651 £450 -5.26% 181
South East 0 416 £500 -4.76% 216
Midlands -1 351 £496 -0.75% 97
North West 0 330 £450 -10.00% 74
South West -3 289 £525 -4.55% 92
West Midlands 0 260 £500 - 74
Yorkshire -1 196 £500 +11.11% 73
North East 0 127 £450 +5.88% 34
East of England +24 113 £375 +7.14% 45
East Midlands +11 90 £425 -10.53% 22
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
1 128 (3.68%) Confluence
2 96 (2.76%) SharePoint
3 28 (0.80%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.63%) SAS
5 20 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.46%) Apache
7 15 (0.43%) nginx
8 13 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.34%) CMS
9 12 (0.34%) Skype for Business
10 7 (0.20%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.17%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.11%) Documentum
12 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.086%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.086%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.086%) SharePoint Server
13 3 (0.086%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 98 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
2 91 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.46%) 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
10 3 (0.086%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 2 (0.057%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.057%) Adobe Illustrator
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 60 (1.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 18 (0.52%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.52%) SAP Hybris
5 11 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
6 9 (0.26%) iTrent
6 9 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 9 (0.26%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
10 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
11 4 (0.11%) Primavera
11 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 631 (18.14%) AWS
2 587 (16.87%) Azure
3 196 (5.63%) Power Platform
4 159 (4.57%) Serverless
5 153 (4.40%) GitHub
6 136 (3.91%) GCP
6 136 (3.91%) Microsoft 365
7 122 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
8 102 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
9 88 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
10 80 (2.30%) Amazon S3
11 73 (2.10%) Entra ID
12 62 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
13 59 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 58 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
14 58 (1.67%) OCI
15 56 (1.61%) Power Automate
16 55 (1.58%) SaaS
17 53 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
18 51 (1.47%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (2.53%) Firewall
2 59 (1.70%) DNS
3 57 (1.64%) VPN
4 53 (1.52%) WAN
5 51 (1.47%) Network Security
6 44 (1.26%) LAN
6 44 (1.26%) Wireless
7 34 (0.98%) TCP/IP
8 31 (0.89%) BGP
9 25 (0.72%) DHCP
10 24 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.66%) OSPF
12 16 (0.46%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.46%) SSL
13 14 (0.40%) IPsec
13 14 (0.40%) MPLS
14 13 (0.37%) Internet
14 13 (0.37%) VLAN
15 12 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
15 12 (0.34%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (4.48%) Power BI
2 79 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (1.61%) MongoDB
4 53 (1.52%) Metadata
5 49 (1.41%) SQL Server
6 39 (1.12%) Data Warehouse
7 38 (1.09%) Data Lake
8 37 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 35 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 30 (0.86%) Relational Database
11 29 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
12 26 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.63%) MySQL
14 21 (0.60%) Tableau
15 20 (0.57%) Redis
16 18 (0.52%) BigQuery
16 18 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
17 17 (0.49%) DynamoDB
17 17 (0.49%) Oracle Database
18 14 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 198 (5.69%) JIRA
2 158 (4.54%) Git
3 128 (3.68%) GitLab
4 119 (3.42%) Jenkins
5 50 (1.44%) Selenium
6 48 (1.38%) Postman
7 30 (0.86%) Cucumber
8 29 (0.83%) JUnit
9 27 (0.78%) Cypress.io
10 26 (0.75%) Mockito
11 18 (0.52%) REST Assured
12 15 (0.43%) SonarQube
13 14 (0.40%) JMeter
13 14 (0.40%) Mocha
14 13 (0.37%) Bitbucket
14 13 (0.37%) CircleCI
15 11 (0.32%) MSI
16 9 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.23%) Gradle
17 8 (0.23%) Maven
General
1 1,002 (28.80%) Social Skills
2 541 (15.55%) Finance
3 323 (9.28%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (5.92%) Telecoms
5 169 (4.86%) Marketing
6 167 (4.80%) Manufacturing
7 158 (4.54%) Military
8 148 (4.25%) Electronics
9 131 (3.77%) Local Government
10 73 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
10 73 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
11 72 (2.07%) Legal
12 58 (1.67%) Influencing Skills
13 47 (1.35%) Banking
14 46 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 46 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
15 38 (1.09%) Police
16 37 (1.06%) Law
17 34 (0.98%) Billing
18 31 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 415 (11.93%) Developer
2 408 (11.73%) Architect
3 369 (10.61%) Senior
4 356 (10.23%) Analyst
5 311 (8.94%) Lead
6 185 (5.32%) Consultant
7 168 (4.83%) Business Analyst
8 134 (3.85%) DevOps Engineer
9 121 (3.48%) Designer
10 106 (3.05%) Project Manager
11 98 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
12 91 (2.62%) Technical Architect
13 83 (2.39%) Data Engineer
14 78 (2.24%) Java Developer
15 77 (2.21%) User Researcher
16 68 (1.95%) AWS Engineer
17 66 (1.90%) Senior Developer
18 59 (1.70%) Service Designer
19 56 (1.61%) Product Manager
20 55 (1.58%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (4.11%) REST
2 119 (3.42%) Node.js
3 105 (3.02%) React
4 100 (2.87%) Spring
5 90 (2.59%) Spring Boot
6 82 (2.36%) RESTful
7 75 (2.16%) Oracle Fusion
8 72 (2.07%) .NET
9 68 (1.95%) HTML
10 65 (1.87%) CSS
11 63 (1.81%) AngularJS
12 62 (1.78%) Web Services
13 56 (1.61%) SOAP
14 54 (1.55%) JSON
15 53 (1.52%) Kafka
16 38 (1.09%) Playwright
17 37 (1.06%) XML
18 30 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
18 30 (0.86%) Middleware
19 27 (0.78%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 130 (3.74%) Cloud Native
2 126 (3.62%) Onboarding
3 125 (3.59%) NHS
4 116 (3.33%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.56%) Data Centre
6 71 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.98%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.26%) Public Cloud
9 33 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (0.92%) Security Posture
11 30 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
12 29 (0.83%) Data Structures
12 29 (0.83%) PKI
13 28 (0.80%) CMDB
13 28 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.75%) AI Agents
14 26 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
15 25 (0.72%) Replication
16 22 (0.63%) Security Operations Centre
17 17 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 223 (6.41%) Windows
2 167 (4.80%) Linux
3 55 (1.58%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.41%) Android
5 47 (1.35%) Windows 10
6 45 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 38 (1.09%) Unix
8 23 (0.66%) Apple iOS
9 22 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 15 (0.43%) Mac OS X
10 15 (0.43%) VMS
11 12 (0.34%) Ubuntu
12 11 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.17%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.14%) Solaris
16 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.086%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 858 (24.66%) Agile
2 486 (13.97%) CI/CD
3 465 (13.37%) DevOps
4 441 (12.68%) Problem-Solving
5 398 (11.44%) Stakeholder Management
6 388 (11.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 343 (9.86%) Migration
8 324 (9.31%) Business Intelligence
9 318 (9.14%) Continuous Improvement
10 285 (8.19%) Roadmaps
11 238 (6.84%) Decision-Making
12 233 (6.70%) Analytics
13 218 (6.27%) Infrastructure as Code
13 218 (6.27%) Test Automation
14 213 (6.12%) Microservices
15 209 (6.01%) Containerisation
16 193 (5.55%) ITIL
17 192 (5.52%) AI
18 190 (5.46%) Programme Management
19 183 (5.26%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 369 (10.61%) Python
2 300 (8.62%) SQL
3 255 (7.33%) Java
4 183 (5.26%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.45%) PowerShell
6 116 (3.33%) TypeScript
7 84 (2.41%) C#
8 66 (1.90%) Bash
9 37 (1.06%) Ruby
10 29 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.78%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.69%) Go
13 19 (0.55%) PHP
13 19 (0.55%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.46%) R
15 13 (0.37%) Bicep
15 13 (0.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.32%) Kotlin
17 10 (0.29%) C
17 10 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,040 (58.64%) Security Cleared
2 1,337 (38.43%) SC Cleared
3 170 (4.89%) Degree
3 170 (4.89%) DV Cleared
4 98 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (1.32%) Azure Certification
6 43 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
7 40 (1.15%) CISSP
8 39 (1.12%) AWS Certification
9 34 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 27 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.69%) CISM
12 24 (0.69%) ISEB
13 23 (0.66%) PMP
14 19 (0.55%) PMI Certification
15 18 (0.52%) ISTQB
16 16 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.46%) CCNP
16 16 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (5.17%) Accessibility
2 134 (3.85%) QA
3 128 (3.68%) Data Quality
4 101 (2.90%) GDPR
5 78 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 68 (1.95%) NIST
7 63 (1.81%) WCAG
8 55 (1.58%) PMO
9 52 (1.49%) NCSC
10 47 (1.35%) SLA
11 21 (0.60%) GRC
12 20 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.55%) COBIT
14 16 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.46%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.40%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.37%) PCI DSS
17 12 (0.34%) HL7
18 10 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 8 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 239 (6.87%) Docker
2 121 (3.48%) Active Directory
3 63 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.55%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.46%) VMware NSX
6 13 (0.37%) vSphere
7 11 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
8 6 (0.17%) Postfix
8 6 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.14%) DFS Replication
9 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 4 (0.11%) NFS
10 4 (0.11%) Squid
11 3 (0.086%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.086%) ISA Server
11 3 (0.086%) RACF
12 2 (0.057%) BitLocker
12 2 (0.057%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 301 (8.65%) Terraform
2 258 (7.42%) Kubernetes
3 70 (2.01%) Ansible
4 67 (1.93%) Grafana
5 51 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 34 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.95%) SCCM
8 22 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.40%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.37%) Argo
11 12 (0.34%) Packer
12 11 (0.32%) Puppet
13 10 (0.29%) FortiGate
13 10 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.23%) Consul
14 8 (0.23%) Nessus
15 7 (0.20%) SCOM
15 7 (0.20%) vRealize
16 6 (0.17%) Kibana
16 6 (0.17%) WSUS
Vendors
1 394 (11.33%) Microsoft
2 286 (8.22%) SAP
3 200 (5.75%) Oracle
4 142 (4.08%) Cisco
5 107 (3.08%) ServiceNow
6 105 (3.02%) Salesforce
7 97 (2.79%) VMware
8 63 (1.81%) Google
9 60 (1.72%) Databricks
9 60 (1.72%) Splunk
10 42 (1.21%) Virgin Media
11 40 (1.15%) Aruba
12 37 (1.06%) Apple
12 37 (1.06%) Juniper
13 36 (1.03%) Dell
14 33 (0.95%) Palo Alto
15 32 (0.92%) HP
16 30 (0.86%) Red Hat
17 28 (0.80%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.75%) IBM