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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 20 19
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,989 2,321 2,626
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.57% 8.41% 8.16%
As % of the General category 15.30% 13.10% 13.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,739 1,614 1,624
10th Percentile £363 £325 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £524
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.53% -3.01%
75th Percentile £615 £600 £625
90th Percentile £694 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 100 97
10th Percentile £15.48 £15.46 £14.41
25th Percentile £16.65 £18.09 £16.00
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.40 £23.99
Median % change year-on-year -0.23% -10.80% +14.24%
75th Percentile £45.57 £29.06 £48.75
90th Percentile £75.40 £65.45 £73.90
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.53
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.79% +7.29%

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 26,068 17,724 18,793
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.01% 64.21% 58.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,310 11,214 11,424
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
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 2,281 1,015 930
10th Percentile £13.63 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.95 £16.17 £17.63
Median hourly rate £30.90 £25.08 £39.18
Median % change year-on-year +23.23% -35.99% +36.26%
75th Percentile £57.00 £45.97 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £29.50 £25.11 £35.00
% change year-on-year +17.48% -28.26% +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 23 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 23 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 23 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 1,751 £550 +7.32% 1,699
North of England -2 723 £475 - 708
Midlands +9 513 £490 +3.16% 310
West Midlands +7 440 £490 +3.16% 221
South East -3 438 £513 -1.77% 392
South West -5 365 £535 -2.73% 336
Yorkshire +1 282 £470 -5.05% 218
North West -12 244 £550 +22.22% 360
North East 0 209 £450 -10.00% 131
East Midlands +11 69 £450 +9.76% 89
East of England -22 49 £450 -10.00% 130
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
1 163 (4.09%) Confluence
2 105 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.33%) SAS
4 49 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
5 48 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
6 44 (1.10%) Apache Spark
7 41 (1.03%) Apache
8 30 (0.75%) CMS
9 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
10 16 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.28%) WordPress
12 8 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 7 (0.18%) Headless CMS
14 5 (0.13%) Drupal
14 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
15 3 (0.075%) IIS
16 2 (0.050%) Tomcat
16 2 (0.050%) WebLogic
Applications
1 79 (1.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
4 23 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 22 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
6 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.13%) Sketch
7 5 (0.13%) Trello
8 4 (0.10%) Adobe XD
9 3 (0.075%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
10 2 (0.050%) Navisworks
10 2 (0.050%) ProjectWise
10 2 (0.050%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.025%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.025%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 52 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 47 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
3 45 (1.13%) Oracle ERP
4 29 (0.73%) SAP PSCD
5 19 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 19 (0.48%) SAP Payroll
6 15 (0.38%) Workday HCM
7 14 (0.35%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.35%) Oracle Payables
8 13 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
9 12 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
9 12 (0.30%) SAP HR
9 12 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
10 11 (0.28%) Oracle General Ledger
11 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
11 10 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
12 9 (0.23%) SAP FI
13 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
14 7 (0.18%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 800 (20.06%) AWS
2 745 (18.68%) Azure
3 248 (6.22%) Power Platform
4 176 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
5 164 (4.11%) Microsoft 365
6 157 (3.94%) GCP
7 147 (3.69%) GitHub
7 147 (3.69%) Serverless
8 131 (3.28%) Entra ID
9 114 (2.86%) Amazon S3
10 113 (2.83%) SaaS
11 109 (2.73%) GitHub Actions
12 97 (2.43%) OCI
13 87 (2.18%) Power Automate
14 85 (2.13%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
16 75 (1.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 68 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
18 62 (1.55%) PowerApps
19 56 (1.40%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 99 (2.48%) Firewall
2 64 (1.60%) DNS
3 52 (1.30%) WAN
4 43 (1.08%) LAN
5 38 (0.95%) Network Security
6 31 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
7 30 (0.75%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.73%) DHCP
9 28 (0.70%) VPN
10 27 (0.68%) BGP
11 26 (0.65%) OSPF
12 19 (0.48%) WLAN
13 18 (0.45%) SD-WAN
14 17 (0.43%) Wireless
15 16 (0.40%) VXLAN
16 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
17 14 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
17 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
18 13 (0.33%) NGFW
18 13 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (4.06%) Power BI
2 107 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
4 94 (2.36%) Metadata
5 73 (1.83%) SQL Server
6 70 (1.75%) Relational Database
7 61 (1.53%) MongoDB
8 56 (1.40%) Oracle Database
9 53 (1.33%) Data Lake
10 52 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
11 41 (1.03%) NoSQL
12 34 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (0.73%) Amazon Aurora
15 28 (0.70%) Tableau
16 27 (0.68%) MySQL
17 26 (0.65%) DynamoDB
17 26 (0.65%) Pentaho
18 25 (0.63%) Oracle Reports
19 19 (0.48%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 235 (5.89%) JIRA
2 190 (4.76%) Git
3 164 (4.11%) GitLab
4 129 (3.23%) Jenkins
5 49 (1.23%) Selenium
6 45 (1.13%) Cucumber
7 37 (0.93%) JUnit
8 32 (0.80%) Postman
9 28 (0.70%) Mockito
10 27 (0.68%) Cypress.io
10 27 (0.68%) SonarQube
11 25 (0.63%) Maven
12 20 (0.50%) REST Assured
13 19 (0.48%) JMeter
13 19 (0.48%) WebDriver
14 13 (0.33%) Gatling
14 13 (0.33%) MSI
15 11 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
16 9 (0.23%) CircleCI
16 9 (0.23%) TestNG
General
1 1,268 (31.79%) Social Skills
2 445 (11.16%) Finance
3 424 (10.63%) Analytical Skills
4 278 (6.97%) Military
5 221 (5.54%) Local Government
6 180 (4.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 153 (3.84%) Influencing Skills
8 116 (2.91%) Organisational Skills
9 115 (2.88%) Legal
10 89 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
10 89 (2.23%) Police
11 64 (1.60%) Law
12 53 (1.33%) Telecoms
13 43 (1.08%) Marketing
14 42 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
15 36 (0.90%) Banking
16 27 (0.68%) Retail
17 26 (0.65%) Billing
18 20 (0.50%) Manufacturing
18 20 (0.50%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 556 (13.94%) Architect
2 548 (13.74%) Senior
3 523 (13.11%) Developer
4 486 (12.18%) Lead
5 339 (8.50%) Analyst
6 190 (4.76%) Consultant
7 148 (3.71%) Designer
8 147 (3.69%) Data Engineer
9 134 (3.36%) Business Analyst
10 132 (3.31%) Data Architect
11 131 (3.28%) DevOps Engineer
12 118 (2.96%) Delivery Manager
13 117 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
14 112 (2.81%) Senior Developer
15 106 (2.66%) Technical Architect
16 97 (2.43%) User Researcher
17 89 (2.23%) Java Developer
18 87 (2.18%) Project Manager
18 87 (2.18%) Senior Manager
19 73 (1.83%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 355 (8.90%) Terraform
2 159 (3.99%) REST
3 103 (2.58%) RESTful
4 101 (2.53%) Spring
5 95 (2.38%) Node.js
6 92 (2.31%) React
7 89 (2.23%) Spring Boot
8 80 (2.01%) Oracle Fusion
9 76 (1.91%) SOAP
10 72 (1.80%) HTML
11 69 (1.73%) Kafka
12 66 (1.65%) Web Services
13 65 (1.63%) CSS
14 63 (1.58%) Django
15 60 (1.50%) .NET
16 58 (1.45%) OAuth
17 55 (1.38%) JSON
18 48 (1.20%) OpenID
19 46 (1.15%) PySpark
20 45 (1.13%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 238 (5.97%) Cloud Native
2 168 (4.21%) Product Ownership
3 160 (4.01%) Onboarding
4 135 (3.38%) NHS
5 133 (3.33%) Management Information System
6 107 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
7 79 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
8 52 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.15%) Freedom of Information
10 45 (1.13%) Data Centre
11 43 (1.08%) CMDB
12 41 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
12 41 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
13 40 (1.00%) Data Structures
14 35 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (0.83%) AI Agents
15 33 (0.83%) Cyber Threat
16 32 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
17 31 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (0.78%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 127 (3.18%) Linux
2 126 (3.16%) Windows
3 49 (1.23%) Unix
4 39 (0.98%) Windows Server
5 23 (0.58%) Android
6 20 (0.50%) Apple iOS
7 17 (0.43%) Mac OS
7 17 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 16 (0.40%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.13%) AIX
9 5 (0.13%) Amazon Linux
10 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.075%) CentOS
11 3 (0.075%) Solaris
12 2 (0.050%) VMS
12 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.025%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,294 (32.44%) Agile
2 920 (23.06%) Stakeholder Management
3 703 (17.62%) Continuous Improvement
4 694 (17.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 677 (16.97%) CI/CD
6 628 (15.74%) DevOps
7 500 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
8 482 (12.08%) Decision-Making
9 417 (10.45%) Analytics
10 375 (9.40%) AI
11 373 (9.35%) Migration
12 365 (9.15%) Roadmaps
13 360 (9.02%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 340 (8.52%) Infrastructure as Code
15 311 (7.80%) Data Modelling
16 305 (7.65%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 301 (7.55%) Technical Leadership
18 279 (6.99%) Mentoring
19 258 (6.47%) Containerisation
20 253 (6.34%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 454 (11.38%) Python
2 386 (9.68%) SQL
3 248 (6.22%) Java
4 228 (5.72%) JavaScript
5 123 (3.08%) TypeScript
6 107 (2.68%) PowerShell
7 86 (2.16%) C#
8 61 (1.53%) Bash
9 51 (1.28%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.15%) Bicep
11 41 (1.03%) Scala
12 29 (0.73%) R
13 26 (0.65%) Apex Code
14 25 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 25 (0.63%) Groovy
15 23 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 21 (0.53%) ABAP
17 19 (0.48%) Ruby
18 16 (0.40%) Shell Script
19 14 (0.35%) Go
Qualifications
1 2,010 (50.39%) Security Cleared
2 1,657 (41.54%) SC Cleared
3 309 (7.75%) BPSS Clearance
4 234 (5.87%) DV Cleared
5 179 (4.49%) Degree
6 77 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
7 65 (1.63%) AWS Certification
8 64 (1.60%) Azure Certification
9 50 (1.25%) CISSP
10 43 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
11 35 (0.88%) CISM
12 30 (0.75%) ISTQB
13 28 (0.70%) CCNP
14 24 (0.60%) PMI Certification
15 23 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
15 23 (0.58%) Master's Degree
16 22 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
17 18 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 17 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
19 16 (0.40%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 326 (8.17%) Accessibility
2 248 (6.22%) Data Quality
3 234 (5.87%) QA
4 141 (3.53%) WCAG
5 136 (3.41%) GDPR
6 98 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 82 (2.06%) NCSC
8 80 (2.01%) PMO
9 79 (1.98%) NIST
10 37 (0.93%) GRC
11 30 (0.75%) SLA
12 29 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.53%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 11 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.28%) NIST 800
17 10 (0.25%) PCI DSS
18 6 (0.15%) HL7
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 290 (7.27%) Docker
2 137 (3.43%) Active Directory
3 33 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
4 16 (0.40%) VMware NSX
5 11 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
6 9 (0.23%) vSphere
7 6 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.13%) Postfix
9 4 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.050%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.025%) Ceph
11 1 (0.025%) Squid
11 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 268 (6.72%) Kubernetes
2 96 (2.41%) Grafana
3 70 (1.75%) Ansible
4 65 (1.63%) Prometheus
5 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
7 22 (0.55%) Argo
7 22 (0.55%) SCCM
8 17 (0.43%) Kibana
9 9 (0.23%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.20%) VxRail
11 6 (0.15%) Istio
11 6 (0.15%) Puppet
12 5 (0.13%) Consul
12 5 (0.13%) Packer
12 5 (0.13%) QRadar
12 5 (0.13%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 4 (0.10%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 535 (13.41%) Microsoft
2 329 (8.25%) Oracle
3 151 (3.79%) ServiceNow
4 128 (3.21%) Google
5 119 (2.98%) SAP
6 96 (2.41%) Salesforce
7 82 (2.06%) Databricks
8 47 (1.18%) Cisco
9 39 (0.98%) VMware
10 38 (0.95%) Palo Alto
11 36 (0.90%) Splunk
12 30 (0.75%) Talend
13 28 (0.70%) Foundry
14 27 (0.68%) Dynatrace
14 27 (0.68%) Workday
15 26 (0.65%) Informatica
16 25 (0.63%) Palantir
17 24 (0.60%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.50%) F5
18 20 (0.50%) Red Hat