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 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 21 19 17
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +8
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,317 2,690 3,759
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 8.35% 8.23% 8.90%
As % of the General category 12.96% 14.14% 14.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,616 1,679 2,736
10th Percentile £325 £315 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £627 £650
90th Percentile £675 £712 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 108 92
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.41 £14.01
25th Percentile £18.13 £16.19 £16.85
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.09 £20.78
Median % change year-on-year -8.68% +15.93% +3.90%
75th Percentile £30.25 £57.31 £43.86
90th Percentile £66.05 £74.91 £65.52
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.56 £20.00
% change year-on-year -6.91% +12.80% -

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 17,881 19,030 25,105
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 64.40% 58.21% 59.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,322 11,616 17,339
10th Percentile £275 £300 £313
25th Percentile £400 £415 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £779
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,012 979 988
10th Percentile £13.50 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.17 £17.44 £16.63
Median hourly rate £25.15 £38.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.68% +40.00% +10.93%
75th Percentile £47.50 £61.30 £58.59
90th Percentile £71.48 £71.50 £70.84
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £27.50
% change year-on-year -30.14% +30.91% +12.24%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing Public Sector as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for Public Sector 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 September 2025.

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 September 2025.

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 September 2025. 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 1,022 £513 -2.38% 533
North of England -2 422 £475 -5.00% 291
South West +3 290 £538 -6.52% 177
North West -2 235 £450 -10.00% 155
South East -15 211 £519 -2.85% 325
Midlands -2 199 £475 -4.62% 130
West Midlands +1 172 £475 -5.00% 82
Yorkshire +18 133 £490 -2.00% 95
North East +3 59 £500 +19.05% 41
East of England -12 39 £500 +40.35% 47
East Midlands -25 27 £418 -7.12% 47
Public Sector
UK

Public Sector
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 88 (3.80%) Confluence
2 59 (2.55%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (0.82%) nginx
5 15 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
5 15 (0.65%) SAS
6 12 (0.52%) Skype for Business
7 10 (0.43%) Apache
8 9 (0.39%) Apache Spark
9 8 (0.35%) CMS
10 7 (0.30%) IIS
11 6 (0.26%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.26%) Documentum
11 6 (0.26%) Exchange Server 2013
11 6 (0.26%) Jupyter
11 6 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2003
12 5 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2010
12 5 (0.22%) Office Communications Server
12 5 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 68 (2.93%) Microsoft Office
2 60 (2.59%) Microsoft Excel
3 27 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 16 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.39%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 7 (0.30%) Trello
9 5 (0.22%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.22%) InVision
9 5 (0.22%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.22%) Sketch
10 4 (0.17%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.17%) UXPin
11 2 (0.086%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.043%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 1 (0.043%) Chatbot
12 1 (0.043%) SPSS
12 1 (0.043%) Stata
12 1 (0.043%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (1.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 23 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.52%) SAP PSCD
4 11 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
5 9 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 9 (0.39%) SAP ERP
6 8 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
6 8 (0.35%) SAP BRIM
6 8 (0.35%) SAP Hybris
7 7 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
7 7 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.26%) Oracle Payroll
8 6 (0.26%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.22%) Unit4 Business World
10 4 (0.17%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 4 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
11 3 (0.13%) Oracle HRMS
11 3 (0.13%) Primavera
11 3 (0.13%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 454 (19.59%) AWS
2 379 (16.36%) Azure
3 134 (5.78%) Power Platform
4 115 (4.96%) Microsoft 365
5 99 (4.27%) Amazon S3
6 94 (4.06%) Serverless
7 92 (3.97%) GCP
8 75 (3.24%) GitHub
9 65 (2.81%) Amazon EC2
10 63 (2.72%) AWS Lambda
10 63 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
11 58 (2.50%) SaaS
12 50 (2.16%) Entra ID
13 49 (2.11%) Amazon SQS
14 48 (2.07%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 45 (1.94%) AWS CloudFormation
15 45 (1.94%) PowerApps
16 37 (1.60%) Power Automate
17 36 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 35 (1.51%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 111 (4.79%) Firewall
2 89 (3.84%) DNS
3 64 (2.76%) VPN
4 41 (1.77%) WAN
5 40 (1.73%) DHCP
6 34 (1.47%) Network Security
7 31 (1.34%) LAN
8 30 (1.29%) BGP
9 29 (1.25%) SMTP
10 28 (1.21%) TCP/IP
11 27 (1.17%) HTTP
12 24 (1.04%) SSH
13 23 (0.99%) Wi-Fi
14 22 (0.95%) SSL
15 21 (0.91%) FTP
16 20 (0.86%) OSPF
17 19 (0.82%) IPsec
18 16 (0.69%) SD-WAN
18 16 (0.69%) VLAN
19 15 (0.65%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (4.53%) PostgreSQL
2 81 (3.50%) Power BI
3 64 (2.76%) Amazon RDS
4 52 (2.24%) MongoDB
5 39 (1.68%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.60%) NoSQL
7 36 (1.55%) SQL Server
8 31 (1.34%) Metadata
8 31 (1.34%) Oracle Database
9 29 (1.25%) MySQL
10 28 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
11 21 (0.91%) Amazon Aurora
11 21 (0.91%) Big Data
11 21 (0.91%) Tableau
12 16 (0.69%) Redis
13 12 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
13 12 (0.52%) DynamoDB
14 11 (0.47%) BigQuery
14 11 (0.47%) Oracle Reports
15 10 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 145 (6.26%) JIRA
2 129 (5.57%) Git
3 125 (5.39%) Jenkins
4 74 (3.19%) GitLab
5 42 (1.81%) SonarQube
6 41 (1.77%) Mockito
7 37 (1.60%) JUnit
8 23 (0.99%) Vagrant
9 21 (0.91%) Gradle
10 20 (0.86%) Liquibase
11 19 (0.82%) Selenium
12 17 (0.73%) Postman
13 16 (0.69%) Maven
14 14 (0.60%) Cucumber
15 12 (0.52%) Burp Suite
15 12 (0.52%) Metasploit
16 11 (0.47%) REST Assured
17 10 (0.43%) Cypress.io
18 8 (0.35%) CircleCI
19 7 (0.30%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 624 (26.93%) Social Skills
2 387 (16.70%) Finance
3 227 (9.80%) Analytical Skills
4 182 (7.85%) Telecoms
5 155 (6.69%) Marketing
6 146 (6.30%) Manufacturing
7 138 (5.96%) Electronics
8 125 (5.39%) Military
9 103 (4.45%) Local Government
10 69 (2.98%) Documentation Skills
11 52 (2.24%) Law
12 46 (1.99%) Legal
13 42 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 41 (1.77%) Organisational Skills
15 40 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
16 37 (1.60%) Police
17 31 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
18 26 (1.12%) Retail
19 20 (0.86%) Banking
20 14 (0.60%) Billing
Job Titles
1 299 (12.90%) Developer
2 273 (11.78%) Architect
3 224 (9.67%) Analyst
4 220 (9.50%) Senior
5 184 (7.94%) Lead
6 143 (6.17%) Consultant
7 93 (4.01%) DevOps Engineer
8 91 (3.93%) Business Analyst
9 78 (3.37%) Project Manager
10 60 (2.59%) AWS Engineer
10 60 (2.59%) Java Developer
11 58 (2.50%) Designer
12 56 (2.42%) Support Engineer
13 55 (2.37%) Solutions Architect
14 51 (2.20%) Security Architect
15 50 (2.16%) Data Engineer
16 49 (2.11%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 47 (2.03%) Network Engineer
18 42 (1.81%) Senior Developer
19 41 (1.77%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.80%) React
2 85 (3.67%) Kafka
3 72 (3.11%) REST
4 67 (2.89%) Spring
4 67 (2.89%) Spring Boot
5 60 (2.59%) Node.js
6 59 (2.55%) .NET
7 56 (2.42%) RESTful
8 51 (2.20%) SOAP
9 48 (2.07%) HTML
10 45 (1.94%) Oracle Fusion
11 43 (1.86%) Web Services
12 41 (1.77%) AngularJS
13 37 (1.60%) JSON
14 36 (1.55%) CSS
15 32 (1.38%) OAuth
16 28 (1.21%) XML
17 27 (1.17%) Swagger
18 21 (0.91%) ActiveMQ
18 21 (0.91%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 72 (3.11%) Onboarding
2 69 (2.98%) Product Ownership
3 67 (2.89%) Management Information System
4 58 (2.50%) Data Centre
4 58 (2.50%) NHS
5 47 (2.03%) Cloud Native
6 46 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
6 46 (1.99%) PKI
7 31 (1.34%) Driving Licence
7 31 (1.34%) Replication
8 29 (1.25%) CMDB
8 29 (1.25%) Hybrid Cloud
9 28 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
10 23 (0.99%) Security Operations Centre
11 22 (0.95%) Data Structures
12 21 (0.91%) Public Cloud
13 19 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
14 18 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
14 18 (0.78%) Security Posture
15 16 (0.69%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 215 (9.28%) Windows
2 138 (5.96%) Linux
3 55 (2.37%) Windows Server
4 35 (1.51%) Windows 10
5 25 (1.08%) VMS
6 22 (0.95%) Amazon Linux
6 22 (0.95%) Unix
7 19 (0.82%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 15 (0.65%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.56%) Android
10 12 (0.52%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.47%) Mac OS
12 8 (0.35%) Mac OS X
12 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2003
12 8 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
13 7 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.26%) Windows Server 2012
15 5 (0.22%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.17%) CentOS
17 3 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 575 (24.82%) Agile
2 331 (14.29%) DevOps
3 306 (13.21%) Problem-Solving
4 274 (11.83%) CI/CD
5 255 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
6 246 (10.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 239 (10.32%) Business Intelligence
8 210 (9.06%) Migration
9 167 (7.21%) ITIL
10 161 (6.95%) Microservices
11 160 (6.91%) Continuous Improvement
12 157 (6.78%) Programme Management
13 140 (6.04%) Digital Marketing
14 137 (5.91%) Decision-Making
15 132 (5.70%) Containerisation
16 129 (5.57%) Analytics
16 129 (5.57%) Project Management
16 129 (5.57%) Roadmaps
17 115 (4.96%) Change Management
17 115 (4.96%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 267 (11.52%) Python
2 249 (10.75%) SQL
3 213 (9.19%) Java
4 108 (4.66%) PowerShell
5 102 (4.40%) JavaScript
6 64 (2.76%) TypeScript
7 61 (2.63%) Bash
8 60 (2.59%) C#
9 28 (1.21%) Groovy
10 26 (1.12%) Go
11 24 (1.04%) C++
11 24 (1.04%) Perl
12 22 (0.95%) PL/SQL
13 16 (0.69%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.60%) C
14 14 (0.60%) R
15 13 (0.56%) PHP
16 12 (0.52%) Ruby
17 8 (0.35%) Kotlin
17 8 (0.35%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,435 (61.93%) Security Cleared
2 969 (41.82%) SC Cleared
3 156 (6.73%) DV Cleared
4 110 (4.75%) Degree
5 61 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (2.07%) CISSP
7 37 (1.60%) AWS Certification
8 29 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
9 28 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
9 28 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
10 21 (0.91%) CCNP
11 20 (0.86%) Azure Certification
11 20 (0.86%) CISM
12 18 (0.78%) CESG Certified Professional
13 17 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 17 (0.73%) CREST Certified
13 17 (0.73%) ISTQB
14 16 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
15 15 (0.65%) Master's Degree
16 14 (0.60%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 108 (4.66%) Accessibility
2 90 (3.88%) QA
3 64 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 58 (2.50%) Data Quality
5 53 (2.29%) NCSC
6 52 (2.24%) GDPR
7 46 (1.99%) NIST
8 35 (1.51%) SLA
9 32 (1.38%) PMO
10 28 (1.21%) WCAG
11 21 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
12 13 (0.56%) JSP 440
12 13 (0.56%) RMADS
13 11 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 11 (0.47%) GRC
14 9 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 7 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 6 (0.26%) ISO 9001
16 6 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
17 5 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 180 (7.77%) Docker
2 127 (5.48%) Active Directory
3 49 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (1.08%) VMware ESXi
5 21 (0.91%) DFS Replication
6 19 (0.82%) Hyper-V
7 17 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
8 15 (0.65%) Postfix
9 12 (0.52%) vSphere
10 10 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
11 9 (0.39%) BitLocker
11 9 (0.39%) Dovecot
11 9 (0.39%) Microsoft App-V
11 9 (0.39%) Squid
11 9 (0.39%) Terminal Services
12 7 (0.30%) Firmware
13 6 (0.26%) VMware NSX
14 5 (0.22%) Brightmail
14 5 (0.22%) ISA Server
14 5 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
Systems Management
1 201 (8.68%) Terraform
2 166 (7.16%) Kubernetes
3 81 (3.50%) Ansible
4 59 (2.55%) Grafana
5 54 (2.33%) Prometheus
6 36 (1.55%) Microsoft Intune
7 26 (1.12%) SCCM
8 23 (0.99%) vCenter Server
9 15 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
10 13 (0.56%) Nmap
10 13 (0.56%) Puppet
11 11 (0.47%) Nessus
11 11 (0.47%) vMotion
12 10 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 10 (0.43%) Packer
12 10 (0.43%) SCOM
13 9 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
13 9 (0.39%) Nagios
13 9 (0.39%) Proxmox
14 8 (0.35%) WSUS
Vendors
1 347 (14.98%) Microsoft
2 217 (9.37%) SAP
3 143 (6.17%) Oracle
4 99 (4.27%) ServiceNow
5 84 (3.63%) Cisco
6 66 (2.85%) Google
7 64 (2.76%) VMware
8 47 (2.03%) Splunk
9 42 (1.81%) Juniper
10 40 (1.73%) Salesforce
11 31 (1.34%) SolarWinds
12 27 (1.17%) Palo Alto
13 24 (1.04%) HP
14 23 (0.99%) CheckPoint
15 20 (0.86%) Fortinet
15 20 (0.86%) Virgin Media
16 18 (0.78%) Atlassian
17 17 (0.73%) Dell
17 17 (0.73%) F5
17 17 (0.73%) IBM