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

6 months to
28 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 17 18 16
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,975 2,839 3,538
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.68% 9.12% 9.14%
As % of the General category 15.30% 15.16% 15.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,079 1,701 2,514
10th Percentile £315 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -
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 164 107 95
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.70 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.65 £16.16 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.26 £23.41 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.18% +4.04% +18.42%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.50 £58.24
90th Percentile £47.00 £63.24 £70.30
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.56 £21.31
% change year-on-year -6.91% +5.87% +12.16%

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 19,446 18,733 23,094
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.24% 60.17% 59.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,342 11,240 15,689
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 £627 £650 £670
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,255 700 1,030
10th Percentile £14.02 £15.25 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.00 £17.46
Median hourly rate £24.21 £31.31 £32.75
Median % change year-on-year -22.69% -4.40% +28.33%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.95 £59.88
90th Percentile £71.80 £72.50 £70.78
UK median hourly rate £24.09 £28.00 £32.00
% change year-on-year -13.96% -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -3 1,224 £513 -2.38% 292
North of England 0 566 £464 -2.47% 126
South East -7 332 £500 -9.09% 276
South West +1 328 £538 -6.52% 97
North West +1 289 £450 -10.00% 58
Midlands +4 285 £475 -5.00% 111
West Midlands +6 225 £475 -5.00% 76
Yorkshire +2 176 £505 +6.37% 44
North East +2 105 £450 +5.88% 25
East of England -2 79 £375 +7.14% 37
East Midlands +7 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 (3.03%) 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%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.10%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.10%) Smallworld
Applications
1 90 (3.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 88 (2.96%) Microsoft Office
3 38 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
6 18 (0.61%) MS Visio
7 10 (0.34%) Trello
8 9 (0.30%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
9 6 (0.20%) Photoshop
9 6 (0.20%) Sketch
10 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.17%) InVision
11 4 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
11 4 (0.13%) UXPin
12 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
13 2 (0.067%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
14 1 (0.034%) SPSS
14 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 13 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
4 13 (0.44%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (0.44%) SAP Hybris
5 12 (0.40%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.27%) iTrent
7 8 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.27%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
9 6 (0.20%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Payroll
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 558 (18.76%) AWS
2 534 (17.95%) Azure
3 197 (6.62%) Power Platform
4 150 (5.04%) Microsoft 365
5 133 (4.47%) Serverless
6 132 (4.44%) GitHub
7 126 (4.24%) GCP
8 109 (3.66%) Azure DevOps
9 83 (2.79%) AWS Lambda
10 76 (2.55%) Amazon S3
11 73 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
12 63 (2.12%) PowerApps
13 62 (2.08%) SaaS
14 59 (1.98%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 58 (1.95%) AWS CloudFormation
15 58 (1.95%) Entra ID
16 55 (1.85%) Power Automate
17 51 (1.71%) Amazon EC2
17 51 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
18 47 (1.58%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.80%) Firewall
2 81 (2.72%) DNS
3 63 (2.12%) 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 (0.71%) SSH
13 21 (0.71%) SSL
14 20 (0.67%) FTP
14 20 (0.67%) Internet
14 20 (0.67%) SMTP
15 18 (0.61%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.47%) Power BI
2 85 (2.86%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (1.65%) MongoDB
4 42 (1.41%) Metadata
5 38 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
6 36 (1.21%) Relational Database
7 35 (1.18%) SQL Server
8 30 (1.01%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.97%) Data Lake
10 28 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
10 28 (0.94%) Oracle Database
11 25 (0.84%) MySQL
12 22 (0.74%) Redis
13 20 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
15 17 (0.57%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.57%) Tableau
16 14 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
16 14 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
16 14 (0.47%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 196 (6.59%) JIRA
2 167 (5.61%) Git
3 141 (4.74%) Jenkins
4 89 (2.99%) GitLab
5 35 (1.18%) Postman
6 33 (1.11%) Selenium
7 27 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.81%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.67%) Mockito
9 20 (0.67%) Vagrant
10 19 (0.64%) Cypress.io
11 18 (0.61%) JUnit
11 18 (0.61%) REST Assured
12 14 (0.47%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.37%) CircleCI
13 11 (0.37%) Oracle Forms
14 10 (0.34%) MSI
15 8 (0.27%) JMeter
16 7 (0.24%) Burp Suite
16 7 (0.24%) Metasploit
General
1 877 (29.48%) Social Skills
2 489 (16.44%) Finance
3 267 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (8.00%) Telecoms
5 200 (6.72%) Manufacturing
6 192 (6.45%) Marketing
7 181 (6.08%) Electronics
8 132 (4.44%) Military
9 121 (4.07%) Local Government
10 72 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
11 69 (2.32%) Legal
12 53 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
13 45 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
15 38 (1.28%) Law
15 38 (1.28%) Retail
16 36 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 29 (0.97%) Police
18 28 (0.94%) Banking
19 21 (0.71%) Billing
Job Titles
1 364 (12.24%) Developer
2 334 (11.23%) Architect
3 309 (10.39%) Analyst
4 295 (9.92%) Senior
5 279 (9.38%) Lead
6 198 (6.66%) Consultant
7 128 (4.30%) Business Analyst
8 125 (4.20%) DevOps Engineer
9 86 (2.89%) Project Manager
10 78 (2.62%) AWS Engineer
10 78 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
11 73 (2.45%) Technical Architect
12 72 (2.42%) Designer
13 66 (2.22%) Support Engineer
14 55 (1.85%) Java Developer
14 55 (1.85%) Network Engineer
15 53 (1.78%) Senior Developer
16 51 (1.71%) Data Engineer
17 50 (1.68%) IT Support
18 47 (1.58%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 117 (3.93%) REST
2 86 (2.89%) React
3 84 (2.82%) RESTful
4 81 (2.72%) Node.js
5 74 (2.49%) .NET
6 64 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
7 62 (2.08%) Spring Boot
8 61 (2.05%) Spring
9 60 (2.02%) HTML
10 59 (1.98%) Kafka
11 56 (1.88%) JSON
12 53 (1.78%) CSS
12 53 (1.78%) SOAP
13 51 (1.71%) AngularJS
14 49 (1.65%) Web Services
15 38 (1.28%) XML
16 27 (0.91%) OAuth
17 23 (0.77%) Playwright
18 22 (0.74%) LDAP
19 21 (0.71%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 104 (3.50%) Cloud Native
2 99 (3.33%) NHS
3 97 (3.26%) Onboarding
4 80 (2.69%) Product Ownership
5 74 (2.49%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
7 66 (2.22%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.28%) Replication
9 34 (1.14%) PKI
10 33 (1.11%) Public Cloud
11 31 (1.04%) Security Posture
12 29 (0.97%) CMDB
13 26 (0.87%) Distributed Systems
14 25 (0.84%) Data Structures
15 24 (0.81%) AI Agents
15 24 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
16 23 (0.77%) Analytical Mindset
17 22 (0.74%) Driving Licence
17 22 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
18 21 (0.71%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 244 (8.20%) Windows
2 158 (5.31%) Linux
3 52 (1.75%) 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 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
14 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.10%) CentOS
15 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 748 (25.14%) Agile
2 430 (14.45%) DevOps
3 424 (14.25%) CI/CD
4 397 (13.34%) Problem-Solving
5 391 (13.14%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 341 (11.46%) Business Intelligence
7 298 (10.02%) Stakeholder Management
8 282 (9.48%) Migration
9 260 (8.74%) Continuous Improvement
10 223 (7.50%) Roadmaps
11 208 (6.99%) Programme Management
12 195 (6.55%) Microservices
13 191 (6.42%) Infrastructure as Code
14 184 (6.18%) ITIL
15 182 (6.12%) Analytics
16 180 (6.05%) Digital Marketing
17 175 (5.88%) Decision-Making
18 167 (5.61%) AI
19 164 (5.51%) Test Automation
20 163 (5.48%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 348 (11.70%) Python
2 251 (8.44%) SQL
3 241 (8.10%) Java
4 139 (4.67%) JavaScript
5 121 (4.07%) PowerShell
6 83 (2.79%) TypeScript
7 74 (2.49%) Bash
8 73 (2.45%) C#
9 32 (1.08%) Go
10 25 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.81%) Groovy
12 22 (0.74%) C++
13 21 (0.71%) 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 1,816 (61.04%) Security Cleared
2 1,248 (41.95%) SC Cleared
3 179 (6.02%) DV Cleared
4 127 (4.27%) Degree
5 77 (2.59%) 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 (0.71%) 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
1 123 (4.13%) Accessibility
2 122 (4.10%) QA
3 90 (3.03%) GDPR
4 83 (2.79%) Data Quality
5 80 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 68 (2.29%) NIST
7 51 (1.71%) NCSC
8 43 (1.45%) 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 13 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.37%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.34%) HL7
18 9 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.30%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 219 (7.36%) Docker
2 126 (4.24%) Active Directory
3 62 (2.08%) 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 12 (0.40%) VMware NSX
8 11 (0.37%) Postfix
8 11 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
9 9 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 9 (0.30%) Squid
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.17%) UAG
12 4 (0.13%) Firmware
12 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
13 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
13 3 (0.10%) NFS
Systems Management
1 282 (9.48%) Terraform
2 225 (7.56%) Kubernetes
3 79 (2.66%) Ansible
4 69 (2.32%) Grafana
5 56 (1.88%) 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%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.40%) Nessus
11 11 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.37%) Argo
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
1 413 (13.88%) Microsoft
2 300 (10.08%) SAP
3 183 (6.15%) Oracle
4 149 (5.01%) Cisco
5 110 (3.70%) ServiceNow
6 89 (2.99%) VMware
7 63 (2.12%) Salesforce
8 58 (1.95%) Google
9 55 (1.85%) 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 (1.18%) Palo Alto
16 32 (1.08%) Databricks
17 31 (1.04%) Virgin Media
18 29 (0.97%) SolarWinds
19 26 (0.87%) F5
19 26 (0.87%) Fortinet