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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,220 2,620 3,437
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.90% 9.80% 9.18%
As % of the General category 16.45% 15.71% 15.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,270 1,575 2,342
10th Percentile £340 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -0.93%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £717 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.06% -2.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 98 119
10th Percentile £16.36 £14.91 £13.05
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.54 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.25 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% +26.25% +0.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.73 £67.55
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £24.18 £20.00
% change year-on-year -13.15% +20.90% +5.26%

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 19,569 16,674 22,035
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.19% 62.38% 58.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,477 10,062 14,653
10th Percentile £286 £300 £266
25th Percentile £403 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £527 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.03% -4.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,214 547 1,315
10th Percentile £14.03 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.00 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.00 £29.00 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.71% +11.54% +1.13%
75th Percentile £46.94 £55.84 £55.47
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.80 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £22.92 £27.50 £26.00
% change year-on-year -16.65% +5.77% +4.00%

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 24 January 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 24 January 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 24 January 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 -2 1,312 £525 - 276
North of England -1 629 £458 -3.68% 234
South East -5 374 £500 -4.76% 263
North West +1 325 £450 -10.00% 80
Midlands +3 311 £488 -2.50% 139
South West -1 308 £525 -4.55% 117
West Midlands 0 233 £500 - 92
Yorkshire -4 188 £500 +9.89% 99
North East -1 120 £450 +5.88% 56
East of England +25 105 £375 +7.14% 84
East Midlands +8 78 £424 -10.79% 44
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
1 119 (3.70%) Confluence
2 93 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.84%) SAS
5 23 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 21 (0.65%) nginx
7 18 (0.56%) Apache
8 15 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.40%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.37%) CMS
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
11 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.12%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.093%) IIS
13 3 (0.093%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.093%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.093%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 97 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 84 (2.61%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 16 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.28%) Trello
7 7 (0.22%) Adobe XD
7 7 (0.22%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.16%) Sketch
10 3 (0.093%) InVision
11 2 (0.062%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.062%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.062%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.062%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.031%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.031%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.031%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.031%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.28%) iTrent
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.22%) SAP HR
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.16%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 592 (18.39%) AWS
2 561 (17.42%) Azure
3 195 (6.06%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.63%) Serverless
5 146 (4.53%) Microsoft 365
6 144 (4.47%) GitHub
7 143 (4.44%) GCP
8 115 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
9 94 (2.92%) AWS Lambda
10 82 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
11 70 (2.17%) Amazon S3
12 67 (2.08%) Power Automate
13 63 (1.96%) Entra ID
14 60 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
15 59 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
16 57 (1.77%) PowerApps
17 56 (1.74%) SaaS
18 52 (1.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 52 (1.61%) Amazon ECS
19 51 (1.58%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 101 (3.14%) Firewall
2 66 (2.05%) DNS
3 61 (1.89%) VPN
4 56 (1.74%) WAN
5 45 (1.40%) Network Security
5 45 (1.40%) Wireless
6 43 (1.34%) LAN
7 39 (1.21%) TCP/IP
8 32 (0.99%) BGP
9 28 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
10 25 (0.78%) DHCP
11 23 (0.71%) OSPF
12 20 (0.62%) SSL
13 18 (0.56%) Skype
14 17 (0.53%) VLAN
15 16 (0.50%) HTTP
15 16 (0.50%) SD-WAN
16 15 (0.47%) Internet
16 15 (0.47%) IPsec
16 15 (0.47%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (4.44%) Power BI
2 83 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.65%) MongoDB
4 52 (1.61%) Metadata
5 38 (1.18%) NoSQL
5 38 (1.18%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.15%) Relational Database
7 32 (0.99%) Data Lake
8 30 (0.93%) Amazon RDS
9 29 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
10 26 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
11 24 (0.75%) MySQL
12 23 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
13 21 (0.65%) Oracle Database
13 21 (0.65%) Redis
14 20 (0.62%) BigQuery
15 16 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
16 15 (0.47%) Power Query
16 15 (0.47%) Tableau
17 14 (0.43%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 196 (6.09%) JIRA
2 167 (5.19%) Git
3 125 (3.88%) Jenkins
4 119 (3.70%) GitLab
5 50 (1.55%) Postman
6 48 (1.49%) Selenium
7 31 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 25 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.71%) JUnit
10 18 (0.56%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.53%) Mockito
12 15 (0.47%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.43%) Mocha
14 12 (0.37%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.34%) MSI
15 11 (0.34%) Vagrant
16 10 (0.31%) Gradle
16 10 (0.31%) JMeter
17 9 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
General
1 945 (29.35%) Social Skills
2 515 (15.99%) Finance
3 293 (9.10%) Analytical Skills
4 228 (7.08%) Telecoms
5 193 (5.99%) Manufacturing
6 192 (5.96%) Marketing
7 172 (5.34%) Electronics
8 150 (4.66%) Military
9 120 (3.73%) Local Government
10 71 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
11 67 (2.08%) Legal
11 67 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
12 50 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
13 47 (1.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 47 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
14 35 (1.09%) Banking
14 35 (1.09%) Law
15 34 (1.06%) Retail
16 30 (0.93%) Billing
17 25 (0.78%) Police
Job Titles
1 396 (12.30%) Developer
2 372 (11.55%) Architect
3 331 (10.28%) Senior
4 313 (9.72%) Analyst
5 301 (9.35%) Lead
6 196 (6.09%) Consultant
7 141 (4.38%) Business Analyst
8 129 (4.01%) DevOps Engineer
9 98 (3.04%) Designer
9 98 (3.04%) Project Manager
10 89 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
11 83 (2.58%) Technical Architect
12 74 (2.30%) AWS Engineer
13 69 (2.14%) Data Engineer
14 66 (2.05%) Senior Developer
15 62 (1.93%) Java Developer
16 57 (1.77%) User Researcher
17 54 (1.68%) Network Engineer
17 54 (1.68%) Support Engineer
18 53 (1.65%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (4.53%) REST
2 106 (3.29%) React
3 102 (3.17%) Node.js
4 94 (2.92%) RESTful
5 89 (2.76%) Spring
6 83 (2.58%) Spring Boot
7 74 (2.30%) .NET
8 73 (2.27%) HTML
9 68 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
10 64 (1.99%) CSS
11 61 (1.89%) JSON
12 59 (1.83%) AngularJS
13 56 (1.74%) SOAP
14 54 (1.68%) Web Services
15 53 (1.65%) Kafka
16 43 (1.34%) XML
17 37 (1.15%) Playwright
18 30 (0.93%) OAuth
19 29 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
20 25 (0.78%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 123 (3.82%) Cloud Native
2 112 (3.48%) NHS
2 112 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 106 (3.29%) Product Ownership
4 83 (2.58%) Data Centre
5 68 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
6 62 (1.93%) Management Information System
7 42 (1.30%) Public Cloud
8 32 (0.99%) PKI
8 32 (0.99%) Replication
9 31 (0.96%) CMDB
10 30 (0.93%) Security Posture
11 28 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
12 27 (0.84%) AI Agents
12 27 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
13 26 (0.81%) Data Structures
14 25 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
15 22 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
15 22 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
15 22 (0.68%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 212 (6.58%) Windows
2 148 (4.60%) Linux
3 50 (1.55%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.40%) Android
4 45 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 41 (1.27%) Mac OS
6 23 (0.71%) Unix
7 21 (0.65%) VMS
8 19 (0.59%) Apple iOS
9 17 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 11 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
10 11 (0.34%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
15 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
17 1 (0.031%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 787 (24.44%) Agile
2 469 (14.57%) CI/CD
3 443 (13.76%) DevOps
4 424 (13.17%) Problem-Solving
5 389 (12.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 360 (11.18%) Stakeholder Management
7 344 (10.68%) Business Intelligence
8 312 (9.69%) Migration
9 289 (8.98%) Continuous Improvement
10 268 (8.32%) Roadmaps
11 218 (6.77%) Analytics
12 214 (6.65%) Programme Management
13 210 (6.52%) Test Automation
14 199 (6.18%) Decision-Making
14 199 (6.18%) Microservices
15 195 (6.06%) Infrastructure as Code
16 192 (5.96%) Containerisation
17 186 (5.78%) ITIL
18 184 (5.71%) AI
19 172 (5.34%) Digital Marketing
Programming Languages
1 358 (11.12%) Python
2 266 (8.26%) SQL
3 248 (7.70%) Java
4 175 (5.43%) JavaScript
5 123 (3.82%) PowerShell
6 109 (3.39%) TypeScript
7 78 (2.42%) C#
8 61 (1.89%) Bash
9 35 (1.09%) Ruby
10 29 (0.90%) Go
11 27 (0.84%) Apex Code
12 26 (0.81%) PL/SQL
13 19 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.50%) R
15 15 (0.47%) PHP
16 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 14 (0.43%) Groovy
17 13 (0.40%) Perl
18 11 (0.34%) ABAP
18 11 (0.34%) C
Qualifications
1 1,929 (59.91%) Security Cleared
2 1,280 (39.75%) SC Cleared
3 163 (5.06%) DV Cleared
4 157 (4.88%) Degree
5 82 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.40%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.27%) AWS Certification
8 40 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
9 39 (1.21%) CISSP
10 35 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
10 35 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
11 27 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.75%) ISEB
13 23 (0.71%) PMP
14 21 (0.65%) CISM
15 20 (0.62%) PMI Certification
16 19 (0.59%) CCNP
17 17 (0.53%) ISTQB
18 16 (0.50%) Master's Degree
19 15 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 155 (4.81%) Accessibility
2 129 (4.01%) QA
3 108 (3.35%) Data Quality
4 94 (2.92%) GDPR
5 74 (2.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 62 (1.93%) NIST
7 54 (1.68%) NCSC
8 50 (1.55%) WCAG
9 47 (1.46%) SLA
10 44 (1.37%) PMO
11 24 (0.75%) GRC
12 20 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.56%) COBIT
14 16 (0.50%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.43%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.37%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.31%) HL7
18 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 6 (0.19%) NIST 800
System Software
1 233 (7.24%) Docker
2 114 (3.54%) Active Directory
3 59 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.56%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.40%) vSphere
8 11 (0.34%) DFS Replication
9 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.25%) Squid
11 7 (0.22%) Dovecot
11 7 (0.22%) Postfix
12 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.12%) ISA Server
15 3 (0.093%) NFS
16 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
16 2 (0.062%) Brightmail
16 2 (0.062%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 286 (8.88%) Terraform
2 247 (7.67%) Kubernetes
3 76 (2.36%) Ansible
4 64 (1.99%) Grafana
5 51 (1.58%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.96%) SCCM
7 27 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.37%) Packer
11 11 (0.34%) Argo
12 10 (0.31%) Nessus
12 10 (0.31%) Puppet
13 9 (0.28%) vRealize
14 8 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.25%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.25%) Proxmox
15 7 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.22%) SCOM
16 6 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 401 (12.45%) Microsoft
2 312 (9.69%) SAP
3 190 (5.90%) Oracle
4 149 (4.63%) Cisco
5 106 (3.29%) ServiceNow
6 94 (2.92%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.76%) VMware
8 59 (1.83%) Google
9 56 (1.74%) Splunk
10 45 (1.40%) Databricks
11 42 (1.30%) Juniper
12 41 (1.27%) Aruba
13 40 (1.24%) Palo Alto
14 39 (1.21%) Virgin Media
15 37 (1.15%) Dell
16 36 (1.12%) Apple
17 34 (1.06%) HP
18 27 (0.84%) SolarWinds
19 25 (0.78%) F5
19 25 (0.78%) Red Hat