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

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 18 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,957 2,818 3,555
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.71% 9.21% 9.18%
As % of the General category 15.42% 15.25% 15.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,068 1,699 2,522
10th Percentile £320 £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 161 102 96
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.70 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.11 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.30 £22.96 £23.75
Median % change year-on-year -7.21% -3.35% +25.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £34.69 £58.61
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.48 £70.25
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.25 £21.91
% change year-on-year -5.62% +1.57% +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 19,174 18,473 23,123
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 62.95% 60.38% 59.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,187 11,117 15,696
10th Percentile £275 £300 £290
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 £669
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 1,236 678 1,038
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.24 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.84 £18.00 £17.47
Median hourly rate £24.00 £30.69 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.79% -5.58% +26.41%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.75 £59.88
90th Percentile £72.00 £71.63 £70.65
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £28.00 £31.76
% change year-on-year -14.29% -11.84% +27.04%

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 1 December 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 1 December 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 1 December 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 1,211 £513 -2.38% 282
North of England -2 565 £461 -3.91% 106
South East -6 334 £500 -9.75% 270
South West +1 322 £538 -4.87% 97
North West +1 290 £450 -10.00% 46
Midlands +4 286 £475 -5.00% 112
West Midlands +4 226 £475 -5.00% 77
Yorkshire +3 175 £505 +6.37% 41
North East +2 104 £450 +5.88% 20
East of England +4 80 £375 +7.14% 36
East Midlands +8 60 £419 -11.84% 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
1 113 (3.82%) Confluence
2 90 (3.04%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.88%) nginx
4 26 (0.88%) SAS
5 25 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.51%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.47%) Apache
8 13 (0.44%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.41%) 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 (0.14%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.10%) IIS
13 3 (0.10%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.10%) Smallworld
Applications
1 91 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
2 90 (3.04%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.61%) 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 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.14%) UXPin
11 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) S-PLUS
13 1 (0.034%) Stata
13 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 41 (1.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.44%) SAP BRIM
5 13 (0.44%) SAP Hybris
6 12 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.41%) SAP ERP
7 9 (0.30%) iTrent
7 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.24%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.20%) Remedy ITSM
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle Payroll
10 5 (0.17%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 555 (18.77%) AWS
2 534 (18.06%) Azure
3 195 (6.59%) Power Platform
4 147 (4.97%) Microsoft 365
5 132 (4.46%) Serverless
6 131 (4.43%) GitHub
7 127 (4.29%) GCP
8 106 (3.58%) Azure DevOps
9 82 (2.77%) AWS Lambda
10 75 (2.54%) Amazon S3
11 71 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
12 62 (2.10%) SaaS
13 61 (2.06%) PowerApps
14 59 (2.00%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 59 (2.00%) Entra ID
15 58 (1.96%) AWS CloudFormation
16 54 (1.83%) Power Automate
17 51 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
18 50 (1.69%) Amazon EC2
19 47 (1.59%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.82%) Firewall
2 81 (2.74%) DNS
3 62 (2.10%) VPN
4 50 (1.69%) WAN
5 44 (1.49%) Wireless
6 40 (1.35%) LAN
6 40 (1.35%) Network Security
7 33 (1.12%) BGP
7 33 (1.12%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.98%) DHCP
9 26 (0.88%) HTTP
10 24 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.78%) SD-WAN
12 22 (0.74%) OSPF
13 21 (0.71%) SSH
14 20 (0.68%) FTP
14 20 (0.68%) Internet
14 20 (0.68%) SMTP
14 20 (0.68%) SSL
15 18 (0.61%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.50%) Power BI
2 85 (2.87%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (1.66%) MongoDB
4 43 (1.45%) Metadata
5 37 (1.25%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
6 36 (1.22%) Relational Database
7 31 (1.05%) NoSQL
8 29 (0.98%) Data Lake
9 28 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
9 28 (0.95%) Oracle Database
10 25 (0.85%) MySQL
11 23 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
11 23 (0.78%) Redis
12 19 (0.64%) Oracle Reports
13 17 (0.57%) Tableau
14 16 (0.54%) BigQuery
15 14 (0.47%) Big Data
16 13 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
16 13 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 196 (6.63%) JIRA
2 163 (5.51%) Git
3 136 (4.60%) Jenkins
4 88 (2.98%) GitLab
5 35 (1.18%) Postman
6 33 (1.12%) Selenium
7 27 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 22 (0.74%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.68%) Vagrant
10 19 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 19 (0.64%) Mockito
11 18 (0.61%) JUnit
11 18 (0.61%) 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 (0.24%) Metasploit
17 7 (0.24%) Mocha
General
1 869 (29.39%) Social Skills
2 481 (16.27%) Finance
3 265 (8.96%) Analytical Skills
4 235 (7.95%) Telecoms
5 196 (6.63%) Manufacturing
6 188 (6.36%) Marketing
7 177 (5.99%) Electronics
8 133 (4.50%) Military
9 118 (3.99%) Local Government
10 70 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
11 68 (2.30%) Legal
12 53 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
13 45 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
15 39 (1.32%) Retail
16 37 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (1.25%) Law
17 26 (0.88%) Banking
17 26 (0.88%) Police
18 23 (0.78%) Billing
Job Titles
1 357 (12.07%) Developer
2 339 (11.46%) Architect
3 307 (10.38%) Analyst
4 293 (9.91%) Senior
5 273 (9.23%) Lead
6 197 (6.66%) Consultant
7 127 (4.29%) Business Analyst
8 125 (4.23%) DevOps Engineer
9 85 (2.87%) Project Manager
10 79 (2.67%) AWS Engineer
10 79 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
11 73 (2.47%) Technical Architect
12 72 (2.43%) Designer
13 64 (2.16%) Support Engineer
14 55 (1.86%) Network Engineer
15 54 (1.83%) Java Developer
16 52 (1.76%) Data Engineer
16 52 (1.76%) Senior Developer
17 49 (1.66%) IT Support
18 47 (1.59%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 115 (3.89%) REST
2 85 (2.87%) React
3 83 (2.81%) RESTful
4 79 (2.67%) Node.js
5 75 (2.54%) .NET
6 62 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
7 61 (2.06%) Kafka
7 61 (2.06%) Spring Boot
8 59 (2.00%) HTML
8 59 (2.00%) Spring
9 57 (1.93%) JSON
10 52 (1.76%) CSS
11 51 (1.72%) AngularJS
12 50 (1.69%) SOAP
13 46 (1.56%) Web Services
14 38 (1.29%) XML
15 27 (0.91%) OAuth
16 23 (0.78%) Playwright
17 22 (0.74%) LDAP
18 21 (0.71%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 107 (3.62%) Cloud Native
2 100 (3.38%) Onboarding
3 99 (3.35%) NHS
4 78 (2.64%) Product Ownership
5 74 (2.50%) Data Centre
6 67 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
7 65 (2.20%) Management Information System
8 38 (1.29%) Replication
9 32 (1.08%) PKI
9 32 (1.08%) Public Cloud
10 31 (1.05%) Security Posture
11 29 (0.98%) CMDB
12 25 (0.85%) Data Structures
12 25 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
12 25 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
13 24 (0.81%) AI Agents
14 23 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
15 22 (0.74%) Driving Licence
15 22 (0.74%) Self-Motivation
16 21 (0.71%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 241 (8.15%) Windows
2 155 (5.24%) Linux
3 52 (1.76%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.56%) Windows Server
5 44 (1.49%) Android
6 40 (1.35%) Mac OS
7 28 (0.95%) VMS
8 25 (0.85%) Unix
9 20 (0.68%) Amazon Linux
9 20 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 18 (0.61%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.41%) 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
1 738 (24.96%) Agile
2 423 (14.31%) DevOps
3 421 (14.24%) CI/CD
4 395 (13.36%) Problem-Solving
5 389 (13.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 337 (11.40%) Business Intelligence
7 296 (10.01%) Stakeholder Management
8 284 (9.60%) Migration
9 261 (8.83%) Continuous Improvement
10 218 (7.37%) Roadmaps
11 204 (6.90%) Programme Management
12 191 (6.46%) Microservices
13 188 (6.36%) Infrastructure as Code
14 185 (6.26%) ITIL
15 180 (6.09%) Analytics
16 176 (5.95%) Digital Marketing
17 173 (5.85%) Decision-Making
18 166 (5.61%) AI
19 162 (5.48%) Test Automation
20 161 (5.44%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 348 (11.77%) Python
2 250 (8.45%) SQL
3 239 (8.08%) Java
4 139 (4.70%) JavaScript
5 121 (4.09%) PowerShell
6 79 (2.67%) TypeScript
7 72 (2.43%) Bash
8 70 (2.37%) C#
9 32 (1.08%) Go
10 24 (0.81%) Groovy
11 23 (0.78%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.74%) C++
13 21 (0.71%) Perl
14 20 (0.68%) Ruby
15 19 (0.64%) Apex Code
15 19 (0.64%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.51%) C
17 14 (0.47%) Bicep
17 14 (0.47%) PHP
18 12 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,808 (61.14%) Security Cleared
2 1,234 (41.73%) SC Cleared
3 174 (5.88%) DV Cleared
4 124 (4.19%) Degree
5 75 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.72%) CISSP
7 42 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
8 41 (1.39%) Azure Certification
9 38 (1.29%) ITIL Certification
10 37 (1.25%) AWS Certification
11 34 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
12 27 (0.91%) CISM
13 26 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
14 24 (0.81%) CCNP
15 20 (0.68%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.64%) ISEB
17 16 (0.54%) CCNA
18 14 (0.47%) Master's Degree
18 14 (0.47%) MCSE
18 14 (0.47%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 120 (4.06%) Accessibility
2 118 (3.99%) QA
3 90 (3.04%) GDPR
4 84 (2.84%) Data Quality
5 80 (2.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (2.27%) NIST
7 51 (1.72%) NCSC
8 43 (1.45%) PMO
9 42 (1.42%) SLA
10 39 (1.32%) WCAG
11 20 (0.68%) GRC
12 19 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
13 17 (0.57%) COBIT
14 16 (0.54%) HIPAA
14 16 (0.54%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.41%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.34%) HL7
18 9 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 8 (0.27%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 216 (7.30%) Docker
2 128 (4.33%) Active Directory
3 62 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.68%) DFS Replication
5 17 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.54%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
8 14 (0.47%) vSphere
9 13 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
10 12 (0.41%) VMware NSX
11 10 (0.34%) Postfix
12 9 (0.30%) Dovecot
12 9 (0.30%) Squid
13 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
14 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 5 (0.17%) UAG
15 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
16 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
16 3 (0.10%) Firmware
16 3 (0.10%) NFS
Systems Management
1 277 (9.37%) Terraform
2 219 (7.41%) Kubernetes
3 79 (2.67%) Ansible
4 67 (2.27%) Grafana
5 54 (1.83%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.32%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (1.32%) SCCM
7 20 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (0.64%) Packer
9 16 (0.54%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.41%) Nessus
11 11 (0.37%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.37%) Argo
12 10 (0.34%) SCOM
13 9 (0.30%) Consul
13 9 (0.30%) Proxmox
14 8 (0.27%) Nmap
14 8 (0.27%) Puppet
14 8 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 410 (13.87%) Microsoft
2 293 (9.91%) SAP
3 179 (6.05%) Oracle
4 149 (5.04%) Cisco
5 110 (3.72%) ServiceNow
6 89 (3.01%) VMware
7 64 (2.16%) Salesforce
8 58 (1.96%) Google
9 56 (1.89%) Splunk
10 50 (1.69%) Juniper
11 40 (1.35%) Aruba
12 37 (1.25%) Dell
12 37 (1.25%) HP
13 36 (1.22%) Apple
14 35 (1.18%) Palo Alto
15 34 (1.15%) Virgin Media
16 32 (1.08%) Databricks
17 28 (0.95%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.88%) F5
18 26 (0.88%) Red Hat