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

6 months to
14 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 19 17
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,709 2,209 3,282
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.49% 9.06% 8.86%
As % of the General category 16.97% 14.20% 15.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,632 1,504 2,170
10th Percentile £350 £328 £305
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £590 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £701 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 179 84 165
10th Percentile £15.09 £15.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.18 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.50 £22.39 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.51% -0.51% +12.50%
75th Percentile £25.67 £34.23 £55.11
90th Percentile £55.00 £64.00 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.00 £22.12
% change year-on-year -2.17% +4.00% +10.58%

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 21,851 15,555 21,640
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.91% 63.79% 58.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,721 10,128 14,005
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,398 643 1,744
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.90 £17.90 £15.39
Median hourly rate £28.13 £29.00 £27.84
Median % change year-on-year -3.02% +4.19% -20.47%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £27.00 £28.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -6.09% +4.55% -21.43%

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 14 April 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 14 April 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 14 April 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 +1 1,619 £525 - 338
North of England -3 651 £450 -5.26% 243
South East -2 454 £500 -8.68% 195
Midlands +2 399 £500 +6.38% 78
North West -2 320 £460 -8.00% 111
West Midlands -1 303 £500 +10.21% 72
South West -3 261 £525 -1.87% 94
Yorkshire +8 218 £480 +6.67% 80
North East -3 118 £450 -1.10% 53
East of England +24 103 £400 +3.23% 34
East Midlands +13 91 £500 - 6
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
1 135 (3.64%) Confluence
2 104 (2.80%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.78%) SAS
5 19 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache
6 17 (0.46%) CMS
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 14 (0.38%) nginx
9 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.13%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.13%) Camunda
11 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.081%) Drupal
13 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 93 (2.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 74 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 5 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.054%) InVision
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
11 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.40%) SAP BRIM
5 15 (0.40%) SAP Hybris
6 14 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 10 (0.27%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SystmOne
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 694 (18.71%) AWS
2 633 (17.07%) Azure
3 205 (5.53%) Power Platform
4 169 (4.56%) Serverless
5 150 (4.04%) GitHub
5 150 (4.04%) Microsoft 365
6 140 (3.77%) Azure DevOps
7 138 (3.72%) GCP
8 102 (2.75%) AWS Lambda
9 93 (2.51%) Entra ID
10 92 (2.48%) Amazon S3
11 86 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
12 70 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
13 66 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
13 66 (1.78%) Power Automate
14 65 (1.75%) SaaS
15 63 (1.70%) Amazon EC2
16 61 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
17 58 (1.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 56 (1.51%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.48%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) Network Security
2 56 (1.51%) WAN
3 55 (1.48%) VPN
4 49 (1.32%) LAN
5 48 (1.29%) DNS
6 28 (0.75%) BGP
7 25 (0.67%) TCP/IP
7 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
8 23 (0.62%) OSPF
9 22 (0.59%) Wireless
10 20 (0.54%) DHCP
11 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.43%) SSL
13 15 (0.40%) Internet
14 14 (0.38%) VLAN
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
16 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.30%) IPsec
16 11 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (4.23%) Power BI
2 79 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
3 72 (1.94%) SQL Server
4 60 (1.62%) Data Warehouse
4 60 (1.62%) Metadata
5 54 (1.46%) MongoDB
6 44 (1.19%) NoSQL
7 41 (1.11%) Amazon RDS
8 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
9 32 (0.86%) Tableau
10 30 (0.81%) Data Lake
11 28 (0.75%) DynamoDB
11 28 (0.75%) Relational Database
12 27 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
13 23 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
13 23 (0.62%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.54%) MySQL
15 19 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
15 19 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
16 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 217 (5.85%) JIRA
2 181 (4.88%) Git
3 122 (3.29%) GitLab
4 115 (3.10%) Jenkins
5 43 (1.16%) Selenium
6 41 (1.11%) Postman
7 38 (1.02%) JUnit
8 32 (0.86%) Mockito
9 27 (0.73%) SonarQube
10 25 (0.67%) JMeter
11 18 (0.49%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 16 (0.43%) Maven
14 13 (0.35%) Artifactory
14 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
15 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.32%) REST Assured
16 10 (0.27%) Mocha
17 9 (0.24%) DbUnit
17 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 974 (26.26%) Social Skills
2 517 (13.94%) Finance
3 364 (9.81%) Analytical Skills
4 176 (4.75%) Military
5 163 (4.39%) Local Government
6 142 (3.83%) Telecoms
7 116 (3.13%) Marketing
8 110 (2.97%) Manufacturing
9 91 (2.45%) Electronics
10 85 (2.29%) Legal
11 81 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
12 76 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
14 62 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 56 (1.51%) Police
16 55 (1.48%) Banking
17 46 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (1.16%) Law
19 35 (0.94%) Billing
20 28 (0.75%) Retail
Job Titles
1 482 (13.00%) Developer
2 472 (12.73%) Architect
3 404 (10.89%) Senior
4 384 (10.35%) Analyst
5 307 (8.28%) Lead
6 173 (4.66%) Business Analyst
7 169 (4.56%) Consultant
8 148 (3.99%) Designer
9 121 (3.26%) Data Engineer
10 115 (3.10%) DevOps Engineer
11 113 (3.05%) Project Manager
12 106 (2.86%) Solutions Architect
12 106 (2.86%) Technical Architect
13 95 (2.56%) Java Developer
14 88 (2.37%) Senior Developer
15 82 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
16 81 (2.18%) User Researcher
17 67 (1.81%) Service Designer
18 63 (1.70%) Data Analyst
19 61 (1.64%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (3.86%) REST
2 119 (3.21%) Node.js
3 110 (2.97%) Spring
4 101 (2.72%) React
5 96 (2.59%) Spring Boot
6 94 (2.53%) RESTful
7 79 (2.13%) .NET
8 77 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (2.00%) AngularJS
10 68 (1.83%) Web Services
11 67 (1.81%) HTML
12 62 (1.67%) SOAP
13 59 (1.59%) Kafka
14 56 (1.51%) CSS
15 46 (1.24%) JSON
16 42 (1.13%) Lightning Web Components
17 34 (0.92%) Middleware
17 34 (0.92%) XML
18 33 (0.89%) Playwright
19 30 (0.81%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 164 (4.42%) Cloud Native
2 141 (3.80%) NHS
3 131 (3.53%) Product Ownership
4 127 (3.42%) Onboarding
5 80 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
6 73 (1.97%) Data Centre
6 73 (1.97%) Management Information System
7 58 (1.56%) Public Cloud
8 46 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
9 44 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
10 40 (1.08%) Data Structures
11 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
12 30 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
13 28 (0.75%) CMDB
14 26 (0.70%) Replication
15 24 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
15 24 (0.65%) Security Posture
16 22 (0.59%) PKI
17 20 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
18 18 (0.49%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 203 (5.47%) Windows
2 156 (4.21%) Linux
3 62 (1.67%) Windows Server
4 46 (1.24%) Unix
5 42 (1.13%) Windows 10
6 35 (0.94%) Android
7 26 (0.70%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 9 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 961 (25.91%) Agile
2 525 (14.15%) CI/CD
3 518 (13.97%) DevOps
4 456 (12.29%) Stakeholder Management
5 436 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
6 418 (11.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 380 (10.25%) Continuous Improvement
8 373 (10.06%) Migration
9 337 (9.09%) Roadmaps
10 308 (8.30%) Analytics
11 287 (7.74%) Decision-Making
12 272 (7.33%) Business Intelligence
13 241 (6.50%) Test Automation
14 240 (6.47%) Containerisation
15 233 (6.28%) Data Modelling
16 227 (6.12%) Infrastructure as Code
16 227 (6.12%) Microservices
17 221 (5.96%) AI
18 212 (5.72%) Workshop Facilitation
19 208 (5.61%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 407 (10.97%) Python
2 337 (9.09%) SQL
3 264 (7.12%) Java
4 195 (5.26%) JavaScript
5 113 (3.05%) PowerShell
5 113 (3.05%) TypeScript
6 91 (2.45%) C#
7 51 (1.38%) Bash
8 44 (1.19%) Ruby
9 42 (1.13%) Apex Code
10 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.62%) Go
12 22 (0.59%) Bicep
12 22 (0.59%) R
12 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
13 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
14 14 (0.38%) Scala
15 13 (0.35%) PHP
15 13 (0.35%) T-SQL
16 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,102 (56.67%) Security Cleared
2 1,389 (37.45%) SC Cleared
3 183 (4.93%) DV Cleared
4 173 (4.66%) Degree
5 107 (2.88%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.19%) CISSP
8 42 (1.13%) AWS Certification
9 38 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
11 31 (0.84%) Computer Science Degree
12 30 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
13 29 (0.78%) PMP
14 26 (0.70%) CISM
15 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
16 23 (0.62%) ISEB
17 19 (0.51%) CCNP
18 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
19 14 (0.38%) APMP
19 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (5.23%) Accessibility
2 159 (4.29%) QA
3 157 (4.23%) Data Quality
4 109 (2.94%) GDPR
5 91 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 75 (2.02%) WCAG
7 68 (1.83%) NCSC
8 66 (1.78%) PMO
9 63 (1.70%) NIST
10 38 (1.02%) SLA
11 34 (0.92%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) COBIT
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.49%) PCI DSS
15 16 (0.43%) HL7
16 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
17 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 9 (0.24%) NIST 800
System Software
1 263 (7.09%) Docker
2 138 (3.72%) Active Directory
3 57 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 8 (0.22%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 295 (7.95%) Terraform
2 271 (7.31%) Kubernetes
3 68 (1.83%) Grafana
4 67 (1.81%) Ansible
5 48 (1.29%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
7 26 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.30%) Argo
11 11 (0.30%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.27%) Kibana
13 9 (0.24%) Packer
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
14 8 (0.22%) vRealize
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 423 (11.40%) Microsoft
2 232 (6.26%) SAP
3 229 (6.17%) Oracle
4 123 (3.32%) Salesforce
5 110 (2.97%) ServiceNow
6 103 (2.78%) Cisco
7 91 (2.45%) VMware
8 82 (2.21%) Databricks
9 79 (2.13%) Google
10 44 (1.19%) Splunk
11 34 (0.92%) Aruba
12 33 (0.89%) Atlassian
13 32 (0.86%) IBM
13 32 (0.86%) Virgin Media
14 28 (0.75%) MuleSoft
15 27 (0.73%) Juniper
15 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
16 24 (0.65%) CyberArk
16 24 (0.65%) Dynatrace
16 24 (0.65%) Palo Alto