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

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 23 23 19
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,971 2,230 2,634
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.69% 8.02% 7.95%
As % of the General category 15.70% 12.48% 13.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,775 1,525 1,807
10th Percentile £360 £325 £316
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -2.38% -2.33%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £688 £700
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 87 111
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.32 £15.10
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.05 £18.08
Median hourly rate £21.50 £21.27 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.08% -21.22% +35.00%
75th Percentile £51.69 £30.13 £58.00
90th Percentile £77.33 £66.05 £74.87
UK median hourly rate £22.20 £20.01 £23.41
% change year-on-year +10.94% -14.52% +20.05%

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 25,294 17,865 19,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.35% 64.26% 57.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,068 11,346 12,263
10th Percentile £313 £276 £300
25th Percentile £419 £400 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -5.20% -2.18%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £660
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 2,019 974 1,202
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.25 £14.48
25th Percentile £17.75 £16.36 £18.00
Median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%
75th Percentile £61.18 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.37 £75.00 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £31.56 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +25.47% -34.02% +38.62%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 17 August 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 1,719 £539 +2.62% 343
North of England 0 700 £475 -2.56% 256
Midlands +8 491 £494 +4.00% 122
South East +5 486 £500 -4.76% 178
West Midlands +5 410 £490 +3.16% 95
South West -6 340 £525 -4.55% 155
North West -5 264 £505 +6.32% 114
Yorkshire +6 259 £473 -1.82% 94
North East -2 189 £450 -11.76% 50
East Midlands +16 74 £600 +46.34% 27
East of England -2 58 £463 -7.50% 31
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
1 153 (3.85%) Confluence
2 113 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
4 49 (1.23%) SAS
5 44 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
6 39 (0.98%) Apache Spark
7 35 (0.88%) Apache
8 24 (0.60%) CMS
9 19 (0.48%) Jupyter
10 13 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.28%) WordPress
12 7 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.13%) Drupal
13 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.10%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.076%) Camunda
15 3 (0.076%) IIS
Applications
1 76 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
4 24 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
5 17 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 9 (0.23%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.15%) Sketch
8 6 (0.15%) Trello
9 3 (0.076%) Adobe XD
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.025%) Gliffy
11 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.025%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 43 (1.08%) Oracle ERP
4 26 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
5 23 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
6 15 (0.38%) Workday HCM
7 12 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
8 11 (0.28%) NetSuite
8 11 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.28%) SAP Payroll
9 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
9 10 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
10 9 (0.23%) SAP FI
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 8 (0.20%) SAP BRIM
11 8 (0.20%) SAP Hybris
12 7 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
12 7 (0.18%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 817 (20.57%) AWS
2 781 (19.67%) Azure
3 231 (5.82%) Power Platform
4 191 (4.81%) Azure DevOps
5 183 (4.61%) Microsoft 365
6 158 (3.98%) GCP
7 154 (3.88%) GitHub
8 144 (3.63%) Serverless
9 132 (3.32%) Entra ID
10 118 (2.97%) Amazon S3
11 109 (2.74%) GitHub Actions
12 107 (2.69%) SaaS
13 92 (2.32%) OCI
14 85 (2.14%) AWS Lambda
14 85 (2.14%) Power Automate
15 78 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
16 72 (1.81%) PowerApps
17 69 (1.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 64 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
19 62 (1.56%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 114 (2.87%) Firewall
2 71 (1.79%) DNS
3 56 (1.41%) WAN
4 50 (1.26%) LAN
5 47 (1.18%) Network Security
6 39 (0.98%) VPN
7 34 (0.86%) DHCP
8 30 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (0.71%) BGP
9 28 (0.71%) OSPF
9 28 (0.71%) TCP/IP
10 21 (0.53%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.48%) WLAN
12 16 (0.40%) VXLAN
12 16 (0.40%) Wireless
13 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
14 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 14 (0.35%) VLAN
14 14 (0.35%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 150 (3.78%) Power BI
2 113 (2.85%) Data Warehouse
3 106 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
4 80 (2.01%) SQL Server
5 68 (1.71%) Relational Database
6 63 (1.59%) Metadata
7 57 (1.44%) MongoDB
8 55 (1.39%) Amazon RDS
9 52 (1.31%) Data Lake
10 51 (1.28%) Oracle Database
11 47 (1.18%) NoSQL
12 34 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
13 31 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
14 30 (0.76%) MySQL
15 29 (0.73%) Amazon Aurora
15 29 (0.73%) Pentaho
16 28 (0.71%) Amazon Athena
16 28 (0.71%) DynamoDB
17 26 (0.65%) Tableau
18 22 (0.55%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 235 (5.92%) JIRA
2 185 (4.66%) Git
3 149 (3.75%) GitLab
4 133 (3.35%) Jenkins
5 42 (1.06%) Selenium
6 33 (0.83%) Cucumber
7 32 (0.81%) JUnit
7 32 (0.81%) Mockito
8 29 (0.73%) SonarQube
9 28 (0.71%) Postman
10 23 (0.58%) Cypress.io
10 23 (0.58%) JMeter
11 22 (0.55%) Maven
12 17 (0.43%) REST Assured
12 17 (0.43%) WebDriver
13 15 (0.38%) Gatling
14 11 (0.28%) DbUnit
14 11 (0.28%) MSI
14 11 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
15 10 (0.25%) jMock
General
1 1,130 (28.46%) Social Skills
2 457 (11.51%) Finance
3 389 (9.80%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (5.77%) Military
5 224 (5.64%) Local Government
6 155 (3.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 133 (3.35%) Influencing Skills
8 102 (2.57%) Legal
9 97 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
10 84 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
10 84 (2.12%) Police
11 55 (1.39%) Law
12 48 (1.21%) Telecoms
13 44 (1.11%) Marketing
14 36 (0.91%) Banking
15 33 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
16 28 (0.71%) Retail
17 25 (0.63%) Billing
18 19 (0.48%) Manufacturing
19 17 (0.43%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 537 (13.52%) Architect
2 530 (13.35%) Developer
3 519 (13.07%) Senior
4 452 (11.38%) Lead
5 344 (8.66%) Analyst
6 168 (4.23%) Consultant
7 156 (3.93%) Data Engineer
8 155 (3.90%) Designer
9 135 (3.40%) Business Analyst
10 133 (3.35%) DevOps Engineer
11 128 (3.22%) Delivery Manager
12 119 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
13 106 (2.67%) Senior Developer
14 105 (2.64%) Data Architect
15 104 (2.62%) Technical Architect
16 97 (2.44%) Java Developer
17 91 (2.29%) Project Manager
18 89 (2.24%) User Researcher
19 79 (1.99%) Senior Manager
20 76 (1.91%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 154 (3.88%) REST
2 108 (2.72%) RESTful
3 104 (2.62%) React
4 99 (2.49%) Node.js
5 93 (2.34%) Spring
6 84 (2.12%) Spring Boot
7 82 (2.06%) Oracle Fusion
8 76 (1.91%) HTML
9 75 (1.89%) Kafka
10 71 (1.79%) SOAP
11 67 (1.69%) Web Services
12 66 (1.66%) .NET
13 65 (1.64%) CSS
14 60 (1.51%) Django
15 57 (1.44%) AngularJS
15 57 (1.44%) OAuth
16 48 (1.21%) JSON
17 46 (1.16%) OpenID
18 42 (1.06%) PySpark
19 40 (1.01%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 229 (5.77%) Cloud Native
2 167 (4.21%) Onboarding
3 163 (4.10%) Product Ownership
4 135 (3.40%) NHS
5 110 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
6 103 (2.59%) Management Information System
7 68 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
8 61 (1.54%) Distributed Systems
9 53 (1.33%) Data Centre
10 46 (1.16%) Data Structures
11 42 (1.06%) Self-Motivation
12 41 (1.03%) Hybrid Cloud
13 40 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
14 39 (0.98%) Public Cloud
15 34 (0.86%) CMDB
16 31 (0.78%) Freedom of Information
16 31 (0.78%) Virtual Team
17 30 (0.76%) Low-Code
17 30 (0.76%) Security Operations Centre
18 28 (0.71%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 148 (3.73%) Windows
2 136 (3.42%) Linux
3 49 (1.23%) Windows Server
4 45 (1.13%) Unix
5 22 (0.55%) Android
5 22 (0.55%) Windows 10
6 20 (0.50%) Apple iOS
6 20 (0.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.35%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.13%) AIX
8 5 (0.13%) Solaris
8 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.10%) Amazon Linux
9 4 (0.10%) Mac OS X
9 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.050%) CentOS
10 2 (0.050%) VMS
10 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
11 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,254 (31.58%) Agile
2 749 (18.86%) Stakeholder Management
3 664 (16.72%) CI/CD
4 663 (16.70%) DevOps
5 640 (16.12%) Continuous Improvement
6 624 (15.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 476 (11.99%) Problem-Solving
8 426 (10.73%) Analytics
9 420 (10.58%) Decision-Making
10 374 (9.42%) Migration
11 349 (8.79%) Roadmaps
12 341 (8.59%) Infrastructure as Code
13 324 (8.16%) AI
14 318 (8.01%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 299 (7.53%) Data Modelling
16 282 (7.10%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 268 (6.75%) Containerisation
18 265 (6.67%) Technical Leadership
19 259 (6.52%) Scrum
20 257 (6.47%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 472 (11.89%) Python
2 398 (10.02%) SQL
3 263 (6.62%) Java
4 214 (5.39%) JavaScript
5 110 (2.77%) PowerShell
6 105 (2.64%) TypeScript
7 82 (2.06%) C#
8 61 (1.54%) Bash
9 55 (1.39%) PL/SQL
10 48 (1.21%) Bicep
11 34 (0.86%) Apex Code
12 33 (0.83%) Scala
13 27 (0.68%) Kotlin
13 27 (0.68%) Ruby
14 25 (0.63%) R
15 23 (0.58%) Groovy
16 20 (0.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 15 (0.38%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.35%) ABAP
19 13 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,044 (51.47%) Security Cleared
2 1,611 (40.57%) SC Cleared
3 245 (6.17%) DV Cleared
4 230 (5.79%) BPSS Clearance
5 175 (4.41%) Degree
6 66 (1.66%) Microsoft Certification
7 58 (1.46%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.36%) AWS Certification
9 47 (1.18%) CISSP
10 43 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
11 33 (0.83%) CISM
12 28 (0.71%) PMI Certification
13 26 (0.65%) CCNP
13 26 (0.65%) ISTQB
13 26 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
14 20 (0.50%) Master's Degree
15 19 (0.48%) Computer Science Degree
16 17 (0.43%) PMP
17 14 (0.35%) CCNA
17 14 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 313 (7.88%) Accessibility
2 217 (5.46%) Data Quality
2 217 (5.46%) QA
3 131 (3.30%) WCAG
4 129 (3.25%) GDPR
5 99 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 82 (2.06%) NCSC
7 77 (1.94%) PMO
8 73 (1.84%) NIST
9 37 (0.93%) GRC
10 33 (0.83%) SLA
11 26 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 13 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 13 (0.33%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
17 9 (0.23%) HL7
18 5 (0.13%) COBIT
System Software
1 305 (7.68%) Docker
2 158 (3.98%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (0.63%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.45%) Hyper-V
6 14 (0.35%) vSphere
7 12 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
7 12 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (0.23%) Virtual Desktop
8 9 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.20%) Postfix
10 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.025%) Ceph
10 1 (0.025%) etcd
10 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
10 1 (0.025%) GPFS
10 1 (0.025%) NFS
10 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
10 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 355 (8.94%) Terraform
2 277 (6.98%) Kubernetes
3 91 (2.29%) Grafana
4 76 (1.91%) Ansible
5 60 (1.51%) Prometheus
6 46 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
7 42 (1.06%) Microsoft Intune
8 25 (0.63%) Argo
9 16 (0.40%) SCCM
10 15 (0.38%) Kibana
11 12 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
12 10 (0.25%) Data Guard
12 10 (0.25%) Puppet
13 9 (0.23%) VxRail
14 8 (0.20%) Istio
15 7 (0.18%) vCenter Server
16 5 (0.13%) Consul
16 5 (0.13%) Packer
16 5 (0.13%) Progress Chef
16 5 (0.13%) QRadar
Vendors
1 527 (13.27%) Microsoft
2 325 (8.18%) Oracle
3 142 (3.58%) ServiceNow
4 130 (3.27%) SAP
5 121 (3.05%) Google
6 111 (2.80%) Salesforce
7 95 (2.39%) Databricks
8 57 (1.44%) VMware
9 47 (1.18%) Cisco
10 41 (1.03%) Palo Alto
11 33 (0.83%) Dynatrace
12 30 (0.76%) Talend
13 27 (0.68%) Red Hat
14 26 (0.65%) Atlassian
15 25 (0.63%) Informatica
15 25 (0.63%) Splunk
16 24 (0.60%) Workday
17 23 (0.58%) Foundry
18 22 (0.55%) Palantir
19 21 (0.53%) Blue Prism