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

6 months to
17 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 21 19
Rank change year-on-year -3 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,988 2,317 2,690
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.59% 8.34% 8.23%
As % of the General category 15.37% 12.96% 14.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,738 1,616 1,679
10th Percentile £363 £325 £315
25th Percentile £431 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £615 £600 £627
90th Percentile £700 £675 £712
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £505
% change year-on-year +5.00% -0.99% -3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 188 97 108
10th Percentile £15.48 £15.48 £14.41
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.13 £16.19
Median hourly rate £21.35 £22.00 £24.09
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% -8.68% +15.93%
75th Percentile £50.00 £30.25 £57.31
90th Percentile £75.40 £66.05 £74.91
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +1.67% -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 general skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 25,944 17,881 19,031
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.89% 64.40% 58.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,297 11,322 11,616
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,210 1,012 979
10th Percentile £13.74 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.11 £16.17 £17.44
Median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +25.25% -34.68% +40.00%
75th Percentile £57.99 £47.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.48 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £36.00
% change year-on-year +19.28% -30.14% +30.91%

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 17 September 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 17 September 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 17 September 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 1,735 £543 +5.85% 1,732
North of England 0 725 £475 - 688
Midlands +9 516 £490 +3.16% 346
South East 0 443 £513 -1.16% 376
West Midlands +7 441 £490 +3.16% 255
South West -4 369 £530 -1.40% 315
Yorkshire +1 282 £470 -4.08% 199
North West -16 244 £525 +16.67% 363
North East +1 210 £450 -10.00% 128
East Midlands +22 70 £450 +7.78% 91
East of England -19 49 £450 -10.00% 136
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
1 161 (4.04%) Confluence
2 105 (2.63%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.33%) SAS
4 49 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
5 45 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
6 44 (1.10%) Apache Spark
7 40 (1.00%) Apache
8 31 (0.78%) CMS
9 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
10 16 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.28%) WordPress
12 7 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.13%) Drupal
13 5 (0.13%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
14 3 (0.075%) IIS
14 3 (0.075%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.050%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 76 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.48%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.15%) MS Visio
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
8 5 (0.13%) Trello
9 4 (0.10%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.075%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.050%) Navisworks
11 2 (0.050%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.050%) Revit
12 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.025%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 52 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 48 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 44 (1.10%) Oracle ERP
4 27 (0.68%) SAP PSCD
5 21 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
6 17 (0.43%) SAP Payroll
7 14 (0.35%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.35%) Workday HCM
8 13 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
9 12 (0.30%) SAP BRIM
9 12 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
10 11 (0.28%) Oracle Payroll
10 11 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
11 10 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
11 10 (0.25%) SAP HR
12 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
12 9 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
13 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
13 8 (0.20%) SAP FI
14 7 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 808 (20.26%) AWS
2 755 (18.93%) Azure
3 243 (6.09%) Power Platform
4 180 (4.51%) Azure DevOps
5 165 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
6 153 (3.84%) GCP
7 151 (3.79%) GitHub
7 151 (3.79%) Serverless
8 131 (3.28%) Entra ID
9 114 (2.86%) Amazon S3
10 113 (2.83%) SaaS
11 111 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
12 99 (2.48%) OCI
13 89 (2.23%) Power Automate
14 87 (2.18%) AWS Lambda
15 83 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
16 76 (1.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 68 (1.71%) Amazon EKS
18 63 (1.58%) PowerApps
19 57 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 102 (2.56%) Firewall
2 66 (1.65%) DNS
3 52 (1.30%) WAN
4 43 (1.08%) LAN
5 38 (0.95%) Network Security
6 31 (0.78%) DHCP
7 30 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
8 29 (0.73%) TCP/IP
9 28 (0.70%) BGP
10 27 (0.68%) OSPF
10 27 (0.68%) VPN
11 19 (0.48%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.48%) WLAN
12 16 (0.40%) VXLAN
12 16 (0.40%) Wireless
13 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
14 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 14 (0.35%) VLAN
15 13 (0.33%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (3.89%) Power BI
2 108 (2.71%) Data Warehouse
3 102 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
4 91 (2.28%) Metadata
5 73 (1.83%) SQL Server
6 71 (1.78%) Relational Database
7 63 (1.58%) MongoDB
8 55 (1.38%) Oracle Database
9 53 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
10 52 (1.30%) Data Lake
11 44 (1.10%) NoSQL
12 33 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (0.73%) Amazon Aurora
15 28 (0.70%) Tableau
16 27 (0.68%) MySQL
16 27 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
17 26 (0.65%) DynamoDB
17 26 (0.65%) Pentaho
18 19 (0.48%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 236 (5.92%) JIRA
2 195 (4.89%) Git
3 162 (4.06%) GitLab
4 128 (3.21%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.10%) Selenium
6 40 (1.00%) Cucumber
7 34 (0.85%) JUnit
8 30 (0.75%) Postman
9 28 (0.70%) Mockito
10 27 (0.68%) SonarQube
11 26 (0.65%) Cypress.io
11 26 (0.65%) Maven
12 19 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 18 (0.45%) WebDriver
14 17 (0.43%) JMeter
15 13 (0.33%) MSI
16 12 (0.30%) Team Foundation Server
17 11 (0.28%) Gatling
18 10 (0.25%) fastlane
19 9 (0.23%) CircleCI
General
1 1,246 (31.24%) Social Skills
2 442 (11.08%) Finance
3 418 (10.48%) Analytical Skills
4 274 (6.87%) Military
5 218 (5.47%) Local Government
6 176 (4.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 151 (3.79%) Influencing Skills
8 116 (2.91%) Organisational Skills
9 111 (2.78%) Legal
10 89 (2.23%) Police
11 84 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
12 64 (1.60%) Law
13 53 (1.33%) Telecoms
14 42 (1.05%) Marketing
15 37 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
16 34 (0.85%) Banking
17 27 (0.68%) Retail
18 25 (0.63%) Billing
19 20 (0.50%) Manufacturing
20 18 (0.45%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 553 (13.87%) Architect
2 542 (13.59%) Senior
3 532 (13.34%) Developer
4 484 (12.14%) Lead
5 346 (8.68%) Analyst
6 182 (4.56%) Consultant
7 151 (3.79%) Designer
8 144 (3.61%) Data Engineer
9 136 (3.41%) Business Analyst
10 133 (3.34%) DevOps Engineer
11 128 (3.21%) Data Architect
12 123 (3.08%) Delivery Manager
13 119 (2.98%) Solutions Architect
14 116 (2.91%) Senior Developer
15 106 (2.66%) Technical Architect
16 91 (2.28%) Project Manager
16 91 (2.28%) User Researcher
17 87 (2.18%) Java Developer
17 87 (2.18%) Senior Manager
18 75 (1.88%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 362 (9.08%) Terraform
2 160 (4.01%) REST
3 107 (2.68%) RESTful
4 98 (2.46%) Spring
5 96 (2.41%) React
6 93 (2.33%) Node.js
7 88 (2.21%) Spring Boot
8 84 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
9 77 (1.93%) SOAP
10 71 (1.78%) HTML
11 68 (1.71%) Kafka
12 67 (1.68%) Web Services
13 66 (1.65%) Django
14 64 (1.60%) CSS
15 63 (1.58%) .NET
16 58 (1.45%) OAuth
17 55 (1.38%) JSON
18 48 (1.20%) AngularJS
18 48 (1.20%) OpenID
19 47 (1.18%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 239 (5.99%) Cloud Native
2 168 (4.21%) Product Ownership
3 160 (4.01%) Onboarding
4 135 (3.39%) NHS
5 128 (3.21%) Management Information System
6 106 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
7 76 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
8 52 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.15%) Data Centre
10 45 (1.13%) Freedom of Information
11 43 (1.08%) Data Structures
12 42 (1.05%) CMDB
13 41 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
14 39 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
15 34 (0.85%) Cyber Threat
15 34 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
15 34 (0.85%) Virtual Team
16 32 (0.80%) Security Operations Centre
17 31 (0.78%) AI Agents
17 31 (0.78%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 131 (3.28%) Windows
2 128 (3.21%) Linux
3 48 (1.20%) Unix
4 42 (1.05%) Windows Server
5 22 (0.55%) Android
6 19 (0.48%) Apple iOS
7 18 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 17 (0.43%) Mac OS
8 17 (0.43%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.13%) Amazon Linux
10 4 (0.10%) AIX
10 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.075%) CentOS
11 3 (0.075%) Solaris
12 2 (0.050%) VMS
12 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.025%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,295 (32.47%) Agile
2 886 (22.22%) Stakeholder Management
3 695 (17.43%) Continuous Improvement
4 683 (17.13%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 678 (17.00%) CI/CD
6 633 (15.87%) DevOps
7 498 (12.49%) Problem-Solving
8 477 (11.96%) Decision-Making
9 422 (10.58%) Analytics
10 367 (9.20%) Roadmaps
11 364 (9.13%) AI
11 364 (9.13%) Migration
12 359 (9.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 346 (8.68%) Infrastructure as Code
14 310 (7.77%) Data Modelling
15 300 (7.52%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 296 (7.42%) Technical Leadership
17 270 (6.77%) Mentoring
18 258 (6.47%) Containerisation
18 258 (6.47%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 461 (11.56%) Python
2 385 (9.65%) SQL
3 248 (6.22%) Java
4 228 (5.72%) JavaScript
5 122 (3.06%) TypeScript
6 112 (2.81%) PowerShell
7 87 (2.18%) C#
8 62 (1.55%) Bash
9 53 (1.33%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.15%) Bicep
11 40 (1.00%) Scala
12 28 (0.70%) Apex Code
13 26 (0.65%) R
14 25 (0.63%) Groovy
14 25 (0.63%) Kotlin
15 23 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 20 (0.50%) ABAP
16 20 (0.50%) Ruby
17 15 (0.38%) Shell Script
18 14 (0.35%) Go
Qualifications
1 2,023 (50.73%) Security Cleared
2 1,658 (41.57%) SC Cleared
3 291 (7.30%) BPSS Clearance
4 239 (5.99%) DV Cleared
5 177 (4.44%) Degree
6 76 (1.91%) Microsoft Certification
7 63 (1.58%) AWS Certification
7 63 (1.58%) Azure Certification
8 48 (1.20%) CISSP
9 43 (1.08%) Cisco Certification
10 34 (0.85%) CISM
11 29 (0.73%) CCNP
12 28 (0.70%) ISTQB
13 25 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
14 24 (0.60%) PMI Certification
15 22 (0.55%) Master's Degree
16 20 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
17 18 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 17 (0.43%) DBS Check
18 17 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 326 (8.17%) Accessibility
2 242 (6.07%) Data Quality
3 233 (5.84%) QA
4 144 (3.61%) WCAG
5 134 (3.36%) GDPR
6 98 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 84 (2.11%) NCSC
8 79 (1.98%) NIST
9 77 (1.93%) PMO
10 36 (0.90%) GRC
11 29 (0.73%) SLA
12 28 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 12 (0.30%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.28%) NIST 800
17 7 (0.18%) HL7
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 293 (7.35%) Docker
2 138 (3.46%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.45%) VMware NSX
5 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
6 11 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
7 10 (0.25%) vSphere
8 9 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 7 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.13%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
11 2 (0.050%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.025%) Ceph
12 1 (0.025%) Squid
12 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 271 (6.80%) Kubernetes
2 96 (2.41%) Grafana
3 70 (1.76%) Ansible
4 66 (1.65%) Prometheus
5 39 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
7 23 (0.58%) Argo
8 22 (0.55%) SCCM
9 16 (0.40%) Kibana
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle RMAN
11 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
11 8 (0.20%) VxRail
12 7 (0.18%) Puppet
13 6 (0.15%) Istio
14 5 (0.13%) Consul
14 5 (0.13%) Packer
14 5 (0.13%) QRadar
14 5 (0.13%) vCenter Server
15 4 (0.10%) Jamf Pro
15 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 530 (13.29%) Microsoft
2 336 (8.43%) Oracle
3 153 (3.84%) ServiceNow
4 125 (3.13%) Google
5 118 (2.96%) SAP
6 101 (2.53%) Salesforce
7 81 (2.03%) Databricks
8 49 (1.23%) Cisco
9 44 (1.10%) VMware
10 39 (0.98%) Palo Alto
11 34 (0.85%) Splunk
12 30 (0.75%) Talend
13 29 (0.73%) Dynatrace
14 28 (0.70%) Foundry
15 26 (0.65%) Informatica
16 25 (0.63%) Workday
17 24 (0.60%) Palantir
18 23 (0.58%) CyberArk
19 21 (0.53%) Red Hat
20 20 (0.50%) F5