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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,698 2,225 3,285
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.33% 9.07% 8.87%
As % of the General category 16.78% 14.17% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,614 1,515 2,180
10th Percentile £350 £338 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £597 £608 £638
90th Percentile £676 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £501 £524
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.48% -0.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 89 165
10th Percentile £14.80 £15.28 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.64 £22.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.60% - +12.50%
75th Percentile £25.77 £34.15 £55.00
90th Percentile £55.00 £64.80 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.95 £21.73
% change year-on-year -1.96% +5.61% +8.65%

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 22,044 15,707 21,615
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.61% 64.03% 58.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,814 10,205 13,961
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £410 £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 1,427 660 1,767
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £30.00 £28.60 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -1.38% -17.14%
75th Percentile £61.21 £58.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £28.25 £28.30 £28.44
% change year-on-year -0.16% -0.51% -18.74%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 1,644 £525 - 366
North of England -3 653 £452 -4.85% 255
South East -4 444 £500 -7.62% 207
Midlands +1 387 £500 +5.26% 113
North West -1 317 £464 -9.07% 111
West Midlands +1 293 £500 +9.15% 88
South West -3 257 £525 -4.55% 118
Yorkshire +8 229 £475 +5.56% 77
North East -3 112 £450 -2.17% 69
East of England +21 97 £413 -8.33% 64
East Midlands +12 89 £500 - 25
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
1 142 (3.84%) Confluence
2 110 (2.97%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.59%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
5 18 (0.49%) CMS
6 16 (0.43%) Apache
6 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
7 14 (0.38%) nginx
8 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
10 5 (0.14%) Camunda
10 5 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.081%) Anypoint
12 3 (0.081%) Drupal
12 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 87 (2.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.14%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.49%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 10 (0.27%) iTrent
7 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.24%) SystmOne
9 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.16%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.14%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.14%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 693 (18.74%) AWS
2 632 (17.09%) Azure
3 200 (5.41%) Power Platform
4 170 (4.60%) Serverless
5 155 (4.19%) Microsoft 365
6 148 (4.00%) GitHub
7 140 (3.79%) GCP
8 137 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
9 100 (2.70%) AWS Lambda
10 94 (2.54%) Amazon S3
11 93 (2.51%) Entra ID
12 85 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
13 78 (2.11%) SaaS
14 69 (1.87%) AWS CloudFormation
15 65 (1.76%) Amazon EC2
15 65 (1.76%) Dynamics 365
16 62 (1.68%) Power Automate
17 60 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
18 59 (1.60%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 54 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 90 (2.43%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) DNS
3 55 (1.49%) Network Security
4 54 (1.46%) WAN
5 53 (1.43%) VPN
6 47 (1.27%) LAN
7 28 (0.76%) BGP
8 25 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
9 23 (0.62%) OSPF
9 23 (0.62%) TCP/IP
10 21 (0.57%) DHCP
11 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
12 17 (0.46%) Wireless
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) VLAN
14 15 (0.41%) SSL
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
15 12 (0.32%) VoIP
16 10 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
16 10 (0.27%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (4.03%) Power BI
2 79 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
3 71 (1.92%) SQL Server
4 63 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (1.60%) Metadata
6 55 (1.49%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.22%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.84%) Data Lake
10 31 (0.84%) Tableau
11 28 (0.76%) DynamoDB
12 27 (0.73%) Relational Database
13 24 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 23 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
14 23 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.57%) MySQL
16 19 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
16 19 (0.51%) Pentaho
17 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 231 (6.25%) JIRA
2 185 (5.00%) Git
3 120 (3.24%) GitLab
4 116 (3.14%) Jenkins
5 42 (1.14%) Selenium
6 39 (1.05%) JUnit
7 37 (1.00%) Postman
8 34 (0.92%) Mockito
9 30 (0.81%) SonarQube
10 25 (0.68%) JMeter
11 19 (0.51%) Maven
12 18 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 18 (0.49%) Cypress.io
13 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
14 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
15 11 (0.30%) jMock
16 10 (0.27%) Mocha
16 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 963 (26.04%) Social Skills
2 493 (13.33%) Finance
3 362 (9.79%) Analytical Skills
4 183 (4.95%) Military
5 167 (4.52%) Local Government
6 127 (3.43%) Telecoms
7 103 (2.79%) Marketing
8 95 (2.57%) Manufacturing
9 84 (2.27%) Legal
10 80 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
11 76 (2.06%) Electronics
12 74 (2.00%) Organisational Skills
13 73 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
14 66 (1.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 57 (1.54%) Police
16 54 (1.46%) Banking
17 47 (1.27%) Law
17 47 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
18 31 (0.84%) Billing
19 27 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 483 (13.06%) Developer
2 474 (12.82%) Architect
3 398 (10.76%) Senior
4 376 (10.17%) Analyst
5 306 (8.27%) Lead
6 167 (4.52%) Business Analyst
7 158 (4.27%) Consultant
8 153 (4.14%) Designer
9 123 (3.33%) Data Engineer
10 120 (3.24%) DevOps Engineer
11 116 (3.14%) Project Manager
12 107 (2.89%) Technical Architect
13 106 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
14 103 (2.79%) Java Developer
15 87 (2.35%) Senior Developer
16 85 (2.30%) User Researcher
17 82 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
18 69 (1.87%) Service Designer
19 63 (1.70%) Full-Stack Developer
20 61 (1.65%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (3.73%) REST
2 118 (3.19%) Node.js
3 114 (3.08%) Spring
4 101 (2.73%) React
5 100 (2.70%) Spring Boot
6 97 (2.62%) RESTful
7 78 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
8 76 (2.06%) .NET
9 73 (1.97%) AngularJS
10 66 (1.78%) HTML
10 66 (1.78%) Web Services
11 60 (1.62%) Kafka
11 60 (1.62%) SOAP
12 55 (1.49%) CSS
13 43 (1.16%) Lightning Web Components
14 39 (1.05%) JSON
15 34 (0.92%) Middleware
15 34 (0.92%) Playwright
16 32 (0.87%) XML
17 30 (0.81%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 175 (4.73%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.73%) NHS
3 131 (3.54%) Onboarding
4 130 (3.52%) Product Ownership
5 84 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
6 78 (2.11%) Management Information System
7 68 (1.84%) Data Centre
8 56 (1.51%) Public Cloud
9 48 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
10 43 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
11 39 (1.05%) Data Structures
12 38 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
13 28 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
14 27 (0.73%) Replication
15 26 (0.70%) CMDB
16 24 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
17 22 (0.59%) Security Posture
18 21 (0.57%) PKI
19 19 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
20 17 (0.46%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 199 (5.38%) Windows
2 158 (4.27%) Linux
3 61 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 47 (1.27%) Unix
5 40 (1.08%) Windows 10
6 30 (0.81%) Android
7 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
7 23 (0.62%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.19%) Solaris
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.081%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 962 (26.01%) Agile
2 521 (14.09%) CI/CD
3 513 (13.87%) DevOps
4 463 (12.52%) Stakeholder Management
5 421 (11.38%) Problem-Solving
6 403 (10.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 388 (10.49%) Continuous Improvement
8 378 (10.22%) Migration
9 323 (8.73%) Roadmaps
10 309 (8.36%) Analytics
11 288 (7.79%) Decision-Making
12 247 (6.68%) Business Intelligence
13 241 (6.52%) Containerisation
14 240 (6.49%) Test Automation
15 235 (6.35%) Data Modelling
16 224 (6.06%) Infrastructure as Code
16 224 (6.06%) Microservices
17 217 (5.87%) AI
18 207 (5.60%) User Research
19 205 (5.54%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 398 (10.76%) Python
2 338 (9.14%) SQL
3 271 (7.33%) Java
4 195 (5.27%) JavaScript
5 112 (3.03%) TypeScript
6 110 (2.97%) PowerShell
7 89 (2.41%) C#
8 49 (1.33%) Bash
9 43 (1.16%) Apex Code
9 43 (1.16%) Ruby
10 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 22 (0.59%) Bicep
11 22 (0.59%) Go
11 22 (0.59%) R
11 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
12 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.35%) PHP
13 13 (0.35%) Scala
14 12 (0.32%) T-SQL
15 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,072 (56.03%) Security Cleared
2 1,377 (37.24%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.98%) DV Cleared
4 173 (4.68%) Degree
5 110 (2.97%) BPSS Clearance
6 53 (1.43%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.14%) AWS Certification
7 42 (1.14%) CISSP
8 38 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (0.78%) PMP
12 27 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
13 25 (0.68%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.65%) CISM
15 23 (0.62%) ISEB
16 19 (0.51%) CCNP
17 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
18 14 (0.38%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 201 (5.44%) Accessibility
2 157 (4.25%) Data Quality
2 157 (4.25%) QA
3 109 (2.95%) GDPR
4 86 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 80 (2.16%) WCAG
6 68 (1.84%) NCSC
7 65 (1.76%) PMO
8 59 (1.60%) NIST
9 36 (0.97%) SLA
10 33 (0.89%) GRC
11 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.57%) COBIT
13 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.49%) PCI DSS
15 16 (0.43%) HL7
16 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
17 14 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 9 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 258 (6.98%) Docker
2 145 (3.92%) Active Directory
3 57 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.30%) vSphere
10 10 (0.27%) Postfix
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.081%) RACF
14 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.054%) SRDF
15 1 (0.027%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) IAG
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
15 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 291 (7.87%) Terraform
2 269 (7.27%) Kubernetes
3 72 (1.95%) Grafana
4 66 (1.78%) Ansible
5 52 (1.41%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) 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%) Kibana
12 10 (0.27%) FortiGate
13 9 (0.24%) Consul
13 9 (0.24%) Packer
14 8 (0.22%) vRealize
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 418 (11.30%) Microsoft
2 224 (6.06%) Oracle
3 216 (5.84%) SAP
4 125 (3.38%) Salesforce
5 112 (3.03%) ServiceNow
6 92 (2.49%) Google
7 89 (2.41%) VMware
8 87 (2.35%) Cisco
9 82 (2.22%) Databricks
10 43 (1.16%) Splunk
11 34 (0.92%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.87%) Virgin Media
13 30 (0.81%) IBM
14 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft
15 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
15 27 (0.73%) Talend
16 26 (0.70%) Aruba
17 25 (0.68%) Juniper
18 24 (0.65%) Dynatrace
19 22 (0.59%) Palo Alto