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

6 months to
25 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 2,919 2,795 3,566
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.58% 9.05% 9.12%
As % of the General category 15.10% 15.11% 15.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,028 1,667 2,538
10th Percentile £313 £304 £285
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 166 103 94
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.76 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.16 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.29 £23.60 £21.91
Median % change year-on-year -9.81% +7.74% +15.29%
75th Percentile £25.15 £37.50 £58.87
90th Percentile £49.13 £64.23 £70.50
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 19,330 18,495 23,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.44% 59.87% 59.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,237 11,086 15,866
10th Percentile £275 £300 £288
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £628 £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 1,261 695 1,026
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.22 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.00 £17.47
Median hourly rate £24.61 £31.97 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.02% -3.12% +28.35%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £72.00 £71.58
UK median hourly rate £24.09 £28.75 £32.32
% change year-on-year -16.21% -11.05% +29.28%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 1,201 £513 -2.38% 259
North of England -1 550 £466 -1.89% 131
South West +1 329 £538 -6.52% 105
South East -5 313 £500 -9.09% 281
Midlands +4 286 £475 -5.00% 114
North West 0 281 £450 -7.69% 61
West Midlands +7 225 £475 -5.00% 71
Yorkshire +2 173 £515 +8.42% 42
North East +2 100 £450 +5.88% 28
East of England +1 79 £375 +7.14% 45
East Midlands +6 61 £415 -16.16% 41
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 (3.84%) Confluence
2 90 (3.08%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.89%) nginx
4 26 (0.89%) SAS
5 25 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.51%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.48%) Apache
8 12 (0.41%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.41%) CMS
9 6 (0.21%) Anypoint
10 5 (0.17%) Documentum
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
12 3 (0.10%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.10%) Jupyter
Applications
1 90 (3.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 86 (2.95%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (1.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.62%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.34%) Trello
7 9 (0.31%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.21%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.21%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.21%) 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 (0.069%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) S-PLUS
13 1 (0.034%) Stata
13 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 42 (1.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
4 13 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.45%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (0.45%) SAP Hybris
5 12 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
5 12 (0.41%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.27%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
9 6 (0.21%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
11 4 (0.14%) iTrent
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 545 (18.67%) AWS
2 523 (17.92%) Azure
3 196 (6.71%) Power Platform
4 149 (5.10%) Microsoft 365
5 125 (4.28%) Serverless
6 124 (4.25%) GitHub
7 123 (4.21%) GCP
8 105 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
9 81 (2.77%) Amazon S3
10 77 (2.64%) AWS Lambda
11 67 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (2.30%) SaaS
12 63 (2.16%) PowerApps
13 58 (1.99%) Entra ID
14 57 (1.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 55 (1.88%) Amazon EC2
15 55 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
16 53 (1.82%) Power Automate
17 51 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
18 43 (1.47%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 111 (3.80%) Firewall
2 80 (2.74%) DNS
3 61 (2.09%) VPN
4 48 (1.64%) WAN
5 43 (1.47%) Wireless
6 40 (1.37%) Network Security
7 39 (1.34%) LAN
8 32 (1.10%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.03%) BGP
10 29 (0.99%) DHCP
11 27 (0.92%) HTTP
12 24 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.79%) SD-WAN
14 22 (0.75%) SSH
15 21 (0.72%) FTP
15 21 (0.72%) SMTP
16 20 (0.69%) Internet
17 19 (0.65%) OSPF
18 18 (0.62%) SSL
18 18 (0.62%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 134 (4.59%) Power BI
2 86 (2.95%) PostgreSQL
3 47 (1.61%) MongoDB
4 42 (1.44%) Metadata
5 39 (1.34%) Amazon RDS
6 36 (1.23%) SQL Server
7 35 (1.20%) Relational Database
8 29 (0.99%) Data Lake
8 29 (0.99%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.96%) Oracle Database
10 27 (0.92%) Data Warehouse
11 26 (0.89%) MySQL
12 20 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
13 19 (0.65%) Redis
14 18 (0.62%) Oracle Reports
15 17 (0.58%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.58%) Tableau
16 15 (0.51%) Amazon Aurora
17 13 (0.45%) Big Data
17 13 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 194 (6.65%) JIRA
2 162 (5.55%) Git
3 137 (4.69%) Jenkins
4 83 (2.84%) GitLab
5 35 (1.20%) Postman
6 33 (1.13%) Selenium
7 27 (0.92%) Cucumber
8 22 (0.75%) SonarQube
9 21 (0.72%) Mockito
9 21 (0.72%) Vagrant
10 19 (0.65%) Cypress.io
10 19 (0.65%) JUnit
11 18 (0.62%) REST Assured
12 13 (0.45%) Bitbucket
13 11 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 11 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
14 9 (0.31%) MSI
15 7 (0.24%) JMeter
15 7 (0.24%) Maven
15 7 (0.24%) Mocha
General
1 857 (29.36%) Social Skills
2 484 (16.58%) Finance
3 261 (8.94%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (8.12%) Telecoms
5 199 (6.82%) Manufacturing
6 192 (6.58%) Marketing
7 181 (6.20%) Electronics
8 130 (4.45%) Military
9 124 (4.25%) Local Government
10 78 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.40%) Legal
12 52 (1.78%) Influencing Skills
13 44 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.37%) Law
14 40 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
15 38 (1.30%) Retail
16 37 (1.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 31 (1.06%) Police
18 28 (0.96%) Banking
19 20 (0.69%) Billing
Job Titles
1 352 (12.06%) Developer
2 327 (11.20%) Architect
3 311 (10.65%) Analyst
4 287 (9.83%) Senior
5 279 (9.56%) Lead
6 200 (6.85%) Consultant
7 128 (4.39%) Business Analyst
8 120 (4.11%) DevOps Engineer
9 86 (2.95%) Project Manager
10 76 (2.60%) Solutions Architect
11 75 (2.57%) AWS Engineer
12 72 (2.47%) Technical Architect
13 68 (2.33%) Designer
14 65 (2.23%) Support Engineer
15 55 (1.88%) Java Developer
16 53 (1.82%) Network Engineer
16 53 (1.82%) Senior Developer
17 52 (1.78%) Data Engineer
18 50 (1.71%) IT Support
19 46 (1.58%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 112 (3.84%) REST
2 83 (2.84%) RESTful
3 81 (2.77%) React
4 74 (2.54%) .NET
4 74 (2.54%) Node.js
5 61 (2.09%) Spring Boot
6 60 (2.06%) HTML
6 60 (2.06%) Spring
7 59 (2.02%) Oracle Fusion
8 57 (1.95%) Kafka
9 55 (1.88%) JSON
10 54 (1.85%) CSS
11 52 (1.78%) AngularJS
11 52 (1.78%) SOAP
12 51 (1.75%) Web Services
13 37 (1.27%) XML
14 27 (0.92%) OAuth
15 23 (0.79%) Playwright
16 22 (0.75%) LDAP
17 21 (0.72%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 101 (3.46%) Onboarding
2 100 (3.43%) Cloud Native
3 95 (3.25%) NHS
4 82 (2.81%) Product Ownership
5 73 (2.50%) Data Centre
6 69 (2.36%) Legacy Systems
6 69 (2.36%) Management Information System
7 39 (1.34%) Replication
8 33 (1.13%) PKI
9 32 (1.10%) Public Cloud
10 30 (1.03%) Security Posture
11 27 (0.92%) CMDB
12 25 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
13 24 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
13 24 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
14 23 (0.79%) Data Structures
14 23 (0.79%) Driving Licence
15 22 (0.75%) AI Agents
16 21 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 241 (8.26%) Windows
2 156 (5.34%) Linux
3 51 (1.75%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.58%) Windows Server
5 45 (1.54%) Android
6 40 (1.37%) Mac OS
7 29 (0.99%) VMS
8 25 (0.86%) Unix
9 21 (0.72%) Amazon Linux
10 20 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 19 (0.65%) Apple iOS
12 12 (0.41%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.27%) Mac OS X
15 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
16 6 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
17 3 (0.10%) CentOS
17 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 736 (25.21%) Agile
2 422 (14.46%) DevOps
3 407 (13.94%) CI/CD
4 389 (13.33%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 383 (13.12%) Problem-Solving
6 342 (11.72%) Business Intelligence
7 290 (9.93%) Stakeholder Management
8 279 (9.56%) Migration
9 255 (8.74%) Continuous Improvement
10 222 (7.61%) Roadmaps
11 206 (7.06%) Programme Management
12 184 (6.30%) Infrastructure as Code
13 183 (6.27%) Microservices
14 180 (6.17%) Digital Marketing
15 179 (6.13%) Analytics
16 176 (6.03%) ITIL
17 171 (5.86%) Decision-Making
18 161 (5.52%) AI
18 161 (5.52%) Test Automation
19 151 (5.17%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 341 (11.68%) Python
2 257 (8.80%) SQL
3 238 (8.15%) Java
4 132 (4.52%) JavaScript
5 120 (4.11%) PowerShell
6 78 (2.67%) TypeScript
7 74 (2.54%) Bash
7 74 (2.54%) C#
8 30 (1.03%) Go
9 25 (0.86%) Groovy
9 25 (0.86%) PL/SQL
10 22 (0.75%) C++
10 22 (0.75%) Perl
11 19 (0.65%) Apex Code
11 19 (0.65%) Ruby
11 19 (0.65%) Shell Script
12 14 (0.48%) C
13 13 (0.45%) PHP
14 12 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 11 (0.38%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 1,778 (60.91%) Security Cleared
2 1,235 (42.31%) SC Cleared
3 168 (5.76%) DV Cleared
4 123 (4.21%) Degree
5 74 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 53 (1.82%) CISSP
7 43 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
8 40 (1.37%) Azure Certification
9 38 (1.30%) ITIL Certification
10 37 (1.27%) AWS Certification
11 34 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
12 27 (0.92%) CISM
13 25 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
14 24 (0.82%) CCNP
15 21 (0.72%) ISTQB
16 19 (0.65%) ISEB
17 15 (0.51%) CCNA
18 14 (0.48%) Master's Degree
18 14 (0.48%) MCSE
18 14 (0.48%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (4.25%) Accessibility
2 118 (4.04%) QA
3 89 (3.05%) GDPR
4 82 (2.81%) Data Quality
5 80 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (2.36%) NIST
7 52 (1.78%) NCSC
8 42 (1.44%) PMO
8 42 (1.44%) SLA
9 40 (1.37%) WCAG
10 19 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
10 19 (0.65%) GRC
11 17 (0.58%) COBIT
11 17 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 16 (0.55%) HIPAA
13 12 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
14 10 (0.34%) PCI DSS
15 9 (0.31%) HL7
15 9 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 9 (0.31%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 209 (7.16%) Docker
2 124 (4.25%) Active Directory
3 60 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.72%) DFS Replication
5 16 (0.55%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.55%) vSphere
6 12 (0.41%) Postfix
7 11 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 11 (0.38%) VMware NSX
8 9 (0.31%) Dovecot
8 9 (0.31%) Squid
9 6 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.17%) UAG
11 4 (0.14%) Firmware
11 4 (0.14%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
13 2 (0.069%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 275 (9.42%) Terraform
2 218 (7.47%) Kubernetes
3 77 (2.64%) Ansible
4 67 (2.30%) Grafana
5 55 (1.88%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.34%) SCCM
7 38 (1.30%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (0.65%) Packer
8 19 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.41%) Nessus
11 11 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.38%) Argo
12 10 (0.34%) SCOM
13 9 (0.31%) Consul
13 9 (0.31%) Proxmox
14 7 (0.24%) Nmap
14 7 (0.24%) Puppet
14 7 (0.24%) vRealize
Vendors
1 409 (14.01%) Microsoft
2 296 (10.14%) SAP
3 181 (6.20%) Oracle
4 148 (5.07%) Cisco
5 106 (3.63%) ServiceNow
6 85 (2.91%) VMware
7 63 (2.16%) Salesforce
8 59 (2.02%) Splunk
9 56 (1.92%) Google
10 50 (1.71%) Juniper
11 39 (1.34%) Aruba
12 38 (1.30%) HP
13 37 (1.27%) Dell
14 36 (1.23%) Apple
15 35 (1.20%) Palo Alto
16 31 (1.06%) Databricks
16 31 (1.06%) Virgin Media
17 29 (0.99%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.89%) Fortinet
19 25 (0.86%) F5