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

6 months to
8 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 21 16
Rank change year-on-year +2 -5 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,641 2,082 3,245
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.99% 8.59% 8.81%
As % of the General category 16.46% 13.39% 15.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,576 1,423 2,174
10th Percentile £350 £350 £313
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.42%
75th Percentile £600 £602 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £518
% change year-on-year - -3.47% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 159 84 163
10th Percentile £13.94 £16.12 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.16 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £23.83 £23.45 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.60% +9.07% +5.29%
75th Percentile £31.87 £33.29 £54.15
90th Percentile £64.27 £64.93 £70.21
UK median hourly rate £23.23 £22.95 £21.00
% change year-on-year +1.22% +9.29% +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 22,122 15,548 21,475
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.60% 64.17% 58.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,749 10,088 13,837
10th Percentile £306 £300 £278
25th Percentile £409 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.62% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,446 660 1,786
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.18 £16.99 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.50 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.91% -9.84% -6.15%
75th Percentile £63.75 £56.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.07 £75.00 £65.14
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.16
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.82% -8.17%

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 8 May 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 8 May 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 8 May 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 1,637 £525 - 369
North of England -1 644 £450 -6.25% 247
South East -2 429 £500 -6.19% 201
Midlands +4 377 £500 +9.15% 122
North West +1 318 £455 -9.05% 102
West Midlands +5 297 £490 +8.83% 100
South West -7 249 £525 -4.55% 109
Yorkshire +6 214 £450 -4.00% 67
North East -3 117 £450 -3.23% 78
East of England +19 93 £425 +6.25% 36
East Midlands +12 75 £525 +5.00% 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
1 144 (3.95%) Confluence
2 110 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.69%) SAS
5 19 (0.52%) CMS
6 18 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.49%) Apache Spark
7 14 (0.38%) Apache
8 9 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
9 7 (0.19%) nginx
9 7 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.19%) Tomcat
10 6 (0.16%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.14%) Camunda
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.082%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.082%) Drupal
14 2 (0.055%) WordPress
Applications
1 88 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (0.38%) MS Visio
6 13 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.14%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.082%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.055%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.055%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.055%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 23 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.38%) SAP BRIM
6 14 (0.38%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SystmOne
8 8 (0.22%) iTrent
9 7 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 5 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 4 (0.11%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.11%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 679 (18.65%) AWS
2 635 (17.44%) Azure
3 196 (5.38%) Power Platform
4 160 (4.39%) Microsoft 365
5 153 (4.20%) Serverless
6 142 (3.90%) GitHub
7 130 (3.57%) GCP
8 126 (3.46%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.77%) Entra ID
10 96 (2.64%) Amazon S3
11 94 (2.58%) AWS Lambda
12 82 (2.25%) SaaS
13 80 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
14 68 (1.87%) Amazon EC2
15 64 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
16 63 (1.73%) OCI
17 62 (1.70%) Power Automate
18 60 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
19 58 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
20 57 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.55%) Firewall
2 53 (1.46%) WAN
3 52 (1.43%) DNS
4 51 (1.40%) Network Security
5 47 (1.29%) VPN
6 44 (1.21%) LAN
7 32 (0.88%) BGP
8 27 (0.74%) OSPF
8 27 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
9 24 (0.66%) TCP/IP
10 20 (0.55%) DHCP
10 20 (0.55%) SD-WAN
11 16 (0.44%) SSL
12 15 (0.41%) VXLAN
13 14 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 13 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
14 13 (0.36%) Internet
15 12 (0.33%) VoIP
15 12 (0.33%) Wireless
15 12 (0.33%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (3.90%) Power BI
2 75 (2.06%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (1.84%) SQL Server
4 65 (1.79%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.51%) Metadata
6 52 (1.43%) MongoDB
7 44 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
9 37 (1.02%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 30 (0.82%) Relational Database
11 30 (0.82%) Tableau
12 27 (0.74%) DynamoDB
12 27 (0.74%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
14 20 (0.55%) Pentaho
15 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
16 16 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
16 16 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 218 (5.99%) JIRA
2 169 (4.64%) Git
3 135 (3.71%) GitLab
4 114 (3.13%) Jenkins
5 40 (1.10%) Selenium
6 39 (1.07%) JUnit
7 35 (0.96%) Postman
8 33 (0.91%) Mockito
9 31 (0.85%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.66%) JMeter
11 20 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.52%) Maven
13 18 (0.49%) Cucumber
14 17 (0.47%) CircleCI
15 15 (0.41%) Artifactory
16 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
16 11 (0.30%) jMock
17 10 (0.27%) Gatling
17 10 (0.27%) Mocha
17 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 930 (25.54%) Social Skills
2 468 (12.85%) Finance
3 363 (9.97%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (5.11%) Military
5 164 (4.50%) Local Government
6 101 (2.77%) Telecoms
7 89 (2.44%) Organisational Skills
8 82 (2.25%) Legal
9 80 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
10 75 (2.06%) Marketing
11 72 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
12 69 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 61 (1.68%) Police
14 57 (1.57%) Manufacturing
15 54 (1.48%) Banking
16 52 (1.43%) Law
17 46 (1.26%) Electronics
18 43 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
19 33 (0.91%) Billing
20 24 (0.66%) Retail
Job Titles
1 484 (13.29%) Developer
2 461 (12.66%) Architect
3 407 (11.18%) Senior
4 364 (10.00%) Analyst
5 310 (8.51%) Lead
6 162 (4.45%) Business Analyst
7 160 (4.39%) Designer
8 147 (4.04%) Consultant
9 125 (3.43%) Data Engineer
10 118 (3.24%) Project Manager
11 117 (3.21%) DevOps Engineer
12 110 (3.02%) Java Developer
13 106 (2.91%) Technical Architect
14 99 (2.72%) Solutions Architect
15 87 (2.39%) Senior Developer
16 82 (2.25%) User Researcher
17 78 (2.14%) Delivery Manager
18 68 (1.87%) Service Designer
19 64 (1.76%) Administrator
20 62 (1.70%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 132 (3.63%) REST
2 125 (3.43%) Node.js
3 120 (3.30%) Spring
4 106 (2.91%) Spring Boot
5 95 (2.61%) React
6 93 (2.55%) RESTful
7 75 (2.06%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (1.95%) AngularJS
9 67 (1.84%) .NET
9 67 (1.84%) Web Services
10 62 (1.70%) HTML
10 62 (1.70%) Kafka
11 57 (1.57%) SOAP
12 51 (1.40%) CSS
13 43 (1.18%) Lightning Web Components
14 38 (1.04%) OAuth
15 36 (0.99%) JSON
15 36 (0.99%) Playwright
16 35 (0.96%) Middleware
17 27 (0.74%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 173 (4.75%) Cloud Native
2 142 (3.90%) Product Ownership
3 128 (3.52%) Onboarding
4 127 (3.49%) NHS
5 88 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
6 77 (2.11%) Management Information System
7 71 (1.95%) Data Centre
8 52 (1.43%) Public Cloud
9 49 (1.35%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.04%) Data Structures
11 38 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
12 31 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
13 27 (0.74%) CMDB
14 26 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
15 22 (0.60%) Freedom of Information
16 20 (0.55%) Data Protection Act
16 20 (0.55%) PKI
17 19 (0.52%) Replication
17 19 (0.52%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 182 (5.00%) Windows
2 144 (3.95%) Linux
3 61 (1.68%) Windows Server
4 51 (1.40%) Unix
5 32 (0.88%) Windows 10
6 24 (0.66%) Android
7 22 (0.60%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.58%) Mac OS
9 20 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.25%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
12 8 (0.22%) Solaris
12 8 (0.22%) VMS
13 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 2 (0.055%) Amazon Linux
16 2 (0.055%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 945 (25.95%) Agile
2 525 (14.42%) CI/CD
3 515 (14.14%) DevOps
4 468 (12.85%) Stakeholder Management
5 395 (10.85%) Problem-Solving
6 384 (10.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 377 (10.35%) Continuous Improvement
8 349 (9.59%) Migration
9 313 (8.60%) Analytics
10 303 (8.32%) Roadmaps
11 300 (8.24%) Decision-Making
12 246 (6.76%) Containerisation
13 236 (6.48%) Data Modelling
14 231 (6.34%) Test Automation
15 230 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
16 223 (6.12%) Microservices
17 216 (5.93%) User Research
18 215 (5.90%) AI
19 208 (5.71%) Business Intelligence
20 191 (5.25%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 387 (10.63%) Python
2 337 (9.26%) SQL
3 271 (7.44%) Java
4 179 (4.92%) JavaScript
5 110 (3.02%) PowerShell
5 110 (3.02%) TypeScript
6 81 (2.22%) C#
7 50 (1.37%) Bash
8 44 (1.21%) Apex Code
9 40 (1.10%) Ruby
10 38 (1.04%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.63%) Bicep
11 23 (0.63%) R
12 21 (0.58%) Go
12 21 (0.58%) Kotlin
12 21 (0.58%) Shell Script
13 15 (0.41%) Scala
14 13 (0.36%) PHP
15 12 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,982 (54.44%) Security Cleared
2 1,322 (36.31%) SC Cleared
3 190 (5.22%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.83%) Degree
5 113 (3.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.32%) Azure Certification
7 37 (1.02%) AWS Certification
7 37 (1.02%) CISSP
8 33 (0.91%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
10 29 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
11 28 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (0.74%) PMP
13 24 (0.66%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.63%) CISM
15 15 (0.41%) CCNP
15 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
15 15 (0.41%) ISEB
16 14 (0.38%) APMP
17 13 (0.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 231 (6.34%) Accessibility
2 163 (4.48%) QA
3 161 (4.42%) Data Quality
4 99 (2.72%) GDPR
5 89 (2.44%) WCAG
6 79 (2.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 71 (1.95%) PMO
8 61 (1.68%) NCSC
9 53 (1.46%) NIST
10 31 (0.85%) SLA
11 26 (0.71%) GRC
12 25 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.41%) PCI DSS
15 14 (0.38%) COBIT
16 11 (0.30%) HL7
17 10 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 8 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
18 8 (0.22%) IFRS
19 7 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 257 (7.06%) Docker
2 153 (4.20%) Active Directory
3 53 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.47%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 7 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.082%) RACF
13 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.055%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 279 (7.66%) Terraform
2 260 (7.14%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.14%) Grafana
4 74 (2.03%) Ansible
5 57 (1.57%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 34 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.49%) SCCM
9 16 (0.44%) Argo
10 14 (0.38%) Puppet
11 12 (0.33%) Kibana
12 11 (0.30%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.25%) FortiGate
14 8 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Istio
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
16 6 (0.16%) vRealize
17 5 (0.14%) SCOM
18 4 (0.11%) Data Guard
Vendors
1 430 (11.81%) Microsoft
2 221 (6.07%) Oracle
3 185 (5.08%) SAP
4 119 (3.27%) Salesforce
5 108 (2.97%) ServiceNow
6 90 (2.47%) Google
7 83 (2.28%) VMware
8 78 (2.14%) Databricks
9 55 (1.51%) Cisco
10 40 (1.10%) Splunk
11 32 (0.88%) Atlassian
12 30 (0.82%) Red Hat
13 29 (0.80%) IBM
13 29 (0.80%) Palo Alto
14 28 (0.77%) Talend
14 28 (0.77%) Virgin Media
15 27 (0.74%) MuleSoft
16 25 (0.69%) Dynatrace
17 22 (0.60%) F5
18 21 (0.58%) Foundry