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

6 months to
29 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 18 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,979 2,841 3,567
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.70% 9.17% 9.16%
As % of the General category 15.36% 15.22% 15.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,081 1,707 2,529
10th Percentile £315 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% +0.93%
75th Percentile £594 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 105 96
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.70 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.25 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.30 £23.41 £23.75
Median % change year-on-year -9.01% -1.43% +25.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £36.00 £58.12
90th Percentile £47.00 £63.73 £70.25
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.56 £21.91
% change year-on-year -6.91% +2.99% +15.29%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,391 18,671 23,234
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.13% 60.27% 59.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,328 11,210 15,788
10th Percentile £275 £300 £288
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £626 £650 £670
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,243 693 1,033
10th Percentile £14.01 £15.23 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.00 £17.46
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.88 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.27% -6.44% +29.31%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.40 £71.25 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £24.05 £28.00 £32.00
% change year-on-year -14.13% -12.50% +28.00%

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 29 November 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 29 November 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 29 November 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 -2 1,217 £513 -2.38% 266
North of England 0 569 £464 -3.28% 108
South East -6 338 £500 -9.09% 266
South West 0 326 £538 -4.87% 89
North West +1 293 £450 -10.00% 46
Midlands +5 287 £475 -5.00% 107
West Midlands +7 227 £475 -5.00% 72
Yorkshire +4 175 £505 +6.37% 44
North East +2 105 £450 +5.88% 19
East of England +2 80 £375 +7.14% 33
East Midlands +3 60 £419 -13.66% 33
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
1 112 (3.76%) Confluence
2 90 (3.02%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.87%) nginx
4 26 (0.87%) SAS
5 25 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.50%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.47%) Apache
8 13 (0.44%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.40%) CMS
10 6 (0.20%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.17%) Documentum
11 5 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
11 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2003
13 3 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.10%) Smallworld
Applications
1 91 (3.05%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.60%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.34%) Trello
7 9 (0.30%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.20%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.20%) Sketch
9 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.17%) InVision
10 4 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.13%) UXPin
11 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
13 1 (0.034%) SPSS
13 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.57%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
5 13 (0.44%) SAP BRIM
5 13 (0.44%) SAP Hybris
6 12 (0.40%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.27%) iTrent
8 8 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.27%) SAP HR
9 7 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.23%) Remedy ITSM
10 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
10 6 (0.20%) Primavera
11 5 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.17%) Oracle Payroll
11 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 560 (18.80%) AWS
2 542 (18.19%) Azure
3 197 (6.61%) Power Platform
4 150 (5.04%) Microsoft 365
5 132 (4.43%) Serverless
6 131 (4.40%) GitHub
7 128 (4.30%) GCP
8 109 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
9 82 (2.75%) AWS Lambda
10 75 (2.52%) Amazon S3
11 71 (2.38%) GitHub Actions
12 63 (2.11%) PowerApps
13 62 (2.08%) SaaS
14 59 (1.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 59 (1.98%) Entra ID
15 58 (1.95%) AWS CloudFormation
16 55 (1.85%) Power Automate
17 51 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
18 50 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
19 47 (1.58%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.79%) Firewall
2 81 (2.72%) DNS
3 63 (2.11%) VPN
4 50 (1.68%) WAN
5 44 (1.48%) Wireless
6 40 (1.34%) LAN
6 40 (1.34%) Network Security
7 33 (1.11%) BGP
7 33 (1.11%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.97%) DHCP
9 26 (0.87%) HTTP
10 24 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.77%) SD-WAN
12 22 (0.74%) OSPF
13 21 (0.70%) SSH
14 20 (0.67%) FTP
14 20 (0.67%) Internet
14 20 (0.67%) SMTP
14 20 (0.67%) SSL
15 18 (0.60%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.46%) Power BI
2 85 (2.85%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (1.64%) MongoDB
4 43 (1.44%) Metadata
5 37 (1.24%) Amazon RDS
5 37 (1.24%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.21%) Relational Database
7 31 (1.04%) NoSQL
8 29 (0.97%) Data Lake
9 28 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
9 28 (0.94%) Oracle Database
10 25 (0.84%) MySQL
11 23 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
11 23 (0.77%) Redis
12 19 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
13 17 (0.57%) BigQuery
13 17 (0.57%) Tableau
14 14 (0.47%) Big Data
15 13 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
15 13 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 196 (6.58%) JIRA
2 166 (5.57%) Git
3 139 (4.67%) Jenkins
4 91 (3.05%) GitLab
5 35 (1.17%) Postman
6 33 (1.11%) Selenium
7 27 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 23 (0.77%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.67%) Vagrant
10 19 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 19 (0.64%) Mockito
11 18 (0.60%) JUnit
11 18 (0.60%) REST Assured
12 14 (0.47%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
14 10 (0.34%) MSI
15 9 (0.30%) CircleCI
16 8 (0.27%) JMeter
17 7 (0.23%) Burp Suite
17 7 (0.23%) Metasploit
General
1 876 (29.41%) Social Skills
2 491 (16.48%) Finance
3 267 (8.96%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (7.99%) Telecoms
5 200 (6.71%) Manufacturing
6 192 (6.45%) Marketing
7 181 (6.08%) Electronics
8 134 (4.50%) Military
9 119 (3.99%) Local Government
10 70 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
11 69 (2.32%) Legal
12 53 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
13 46 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
15 39 (1.31%) Retail
16 37 (1.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (1.24%) Law
17 28 (0.94%) Banking
18 27 (0.91%) Police
19 22 (0.74%) Billing
Job Titles
1 365 (12.25%) Developer
2 339 (11.38%) Architect
3 307 (10.31%) Analyst
4 297 (9.97%) Senior
5 279 (9.37%) Lead
6 197 (6.61%) Consultant
7 127 (4.26%) Business Analyst
7 127 (4.26%) DevOps Engineer
8 85 (2.85%) Project Manager
9 79 (2.65%) AWS Engineer
9 79 (2.65%) Solutions Architect
10 73 (2.45%) Technical Architect
11 72 (2.42%) Designer
12 66 (2.22%) Support Engineer
13 56 (1.88%) Java Developer
14 55 (1.85%) Network Engineer
15 54 (1.81%) Senior Developer
16 51 (1.71%) Data Engineer
17 50 (1.68%) IT Support
18 47 (1.58%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 116 (3.89%) REST
2 86 (2.89%) React
3 83 (2.79%) RESTful
4 81 (2.72%) Node.js
5 77 (2.58%) .NET
6 64 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
7 63 (2.11%) Spring Boot
8 62 (2.08%) Spring
9 61 (2.05%) Kafka
10 60 (2.01%) HTML
11 57 (1.91%) JSON
12 53 (1.78%) CSS
13 52 (1.75%) AngularJS
13 52 (1.75%) SOAP
14 48 (1.61%) Web Services
15 38 (1.28%) XML
16 28 (0.94%) OAuth
17 23 (0.77%) Playwright
18 22 (0.74%) LDAP
19 21 (0.70%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 107 (3.59%) Cloud Native
2 101 (3.39%) Onboarding
3 99 (3.32%) NHS
4 79 (2.65%) Product Ownership
5 74 (2.48%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
7 64 (2.15%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.28%) Replication
9 33 (1.11%) PKI
10 32 (1.07%) Public Cloud
11 31 (1.04%) Security Posture
12 29 (0.97%) CMDB
13 25 (0.84%) Data Structures
13 25 (0.84%) Distributed Systems
13 25 (0.84%) Hybrid Cloud
14 24 (0.81%) AI Agents
15 23 (0.77%) Analytical Mindset
16 22 (0.74%) Driving Licence
16 22 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
17 21 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 244 (8.19%) Windows
2 158 (5.30%) Linux
3 53 (1.78%) Windows 10
4 47 (1.58%) Windows Server
5 45 (1.51%) Android
6 40 (1.34%) Mac OS
7 28 (0.94%) VMS
8 25 (0.84%) Unix
9 20 (0.67%) Amazon Linux
9 20 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 19 (0.64%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 10 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.27%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.10%) CentOS
15 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 746 (25.04%) Agile
2 431 (14.47%) DevOps
3 424 (14.23%) CI/CD
4 398 (13.36%) Problem-Solving
5 391 (13.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 341 (11.45%) Business Intelligence
7 299 (10.04%) Stakeholder Management
8 285 (9.57%) Migration
9 264 (8.86%) Continuous Improvement
10 219 (7.35%) Roadmaps
11 208 (6.98%) Programme Management
12 194 (6.51%) Microservices
13 190 (6.38%) Infrastructure as Code
14 187 (6.28%) ITIL
15 182 (6.11%) Analytics
16 180 (6.04%) Digital Marketing
17 174 (5.84%) Decision-Making
18 168 (5.64%) AI
19 164 (5.51%) Test Automation
20 163 (5.47%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 350 (11.75%) Python
2 253 (8.49%) SQL
3 242 (8.12%) Java
4 140 (4.70%) JavaScript
5 122 (4.10%) PowerShell
6 80 (2.69%) TypeScript
7 74 (2.48%) Bash
8 73 (2.45%) C#
9 32 (1.07%) Go
10 25 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.81%) Groovy
12 22 (0.74%) C++
13 21 (0.70%) Perl
14 20 (0.67%) Ruby
15 19 (0.64%) Apex Code
15 19 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.50%) C
17 14 (0.47%) Bicep
17 14 (0.47%) PHP
18 12 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,821 (61.13%) Security Cleared
2 1,244 (41.76%) SC Cleared
3 178 (5.98%) DV Cleared
4 125 (4.20%) Degree
5 76 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.75%) CISSP
7 42 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 41 (1.38%) Azure Certification
9 38 (1.28%) ITIL Certification
10 37 (1.24%) AWS Certification
11 34 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
12 27 (0.91%) CISM
13 26 (0.87%) Computer Science Degree
14 24 (0.81%) CCNP
15 21 (0.70%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.64%) ISEB
17 16 (0.54%) CCNA
18 15 (0.50%) Master's Degree
19 14 (0.47%) MCSE
19 14 (0.47%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (4.10%) Accessibility
2 121 (4.06%) QA
3 91 (3.05%) GDPR
4 84 (2.82%) Data Quality
5 81 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 68 (2.28%) NIST
7 51 (1.71%) NCSC
8 43 (1.44%) PMO
9 42 (1.41%) SLA
10 40 (1.34%) WCAG
11 20 (0.67%) GRC
12 19 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.57%) COBIT
13 17 (0.57%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.54%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.40%) PCI DSS
16 10 (0.34%) HL7
17 9 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.30%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 220 (7.39%) Docker
2 129 (4.33%) Active Directory
3 63 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.67%) DFS Replication
5 17 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.54%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.54%) vSphere
7 14 (0.47%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.40%) VMware NSX
9 10 (0.34%) Postfix
10 9 (0.30%) Dovecot
10 9 (0.30%) Squid
11 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 5 (0.17%) UAG
13 4 (0.13%) Firmware
13 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
14 3 (0.10%) NFS
Systems Management
1 281 (9.43%) Terraform
2 225 (7.55%) Kubernetes
3 80 (2.69%) Ansible
4 67 (2.25%) Grafana
5 54 (1.81%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
6 40 (1.34%) SCCM
7 20 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (0.64%) Packer
9 16 (0.54%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.40%) Argo
10 12 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.40%) Nessus
11 11 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.37%) SCOM
12 9 (0.30%) Consul
12 9 (0.30%) Proxmox
13 8 (0.27%) Nmap
13 8 (0.27%) Puppet
13 8 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 416 (13.96%) Microsoft
2 299 (10.04%) SAP
3 184 (6.18%) Oracle
4 149 (5.00%) Cisco
5 111 (3.73%) ServiceNow
6 90 (3.02%) VMware
7 64 (2.15%) Salesforce
8 59 (1.98%) Google
9 56 (1.88%) Splunk
10 50 (1.68%) Juniper
11 40 (1.34%) Aruba
12 38 (1.28%) HP
13 37 (1.24%) Dell
14 36 (1.21%) Apple
15 35 (1.17%) Palo Alto
16 34 (1.14%) Virgin Media
17 32 (1.07%) Databricks
18 29 (0.97%) SolarWinds
19 26 (0.87%) F5
19 26 (0.87%) Fortinet