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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 23 19
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,010 2,100 2,830
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.92% 7.67% 8.09%
As % of the General category 16.13% 12.06% 14.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,787 1,429 1,915
10th Percentile £358 £325 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £520
Median % change year-on-year +2.90% -3.75% -2.62%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £692 £688 £713
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 80 132
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £15.01
25th Percentile £17.00 £18.13 £16.19
Median hourly rate £25.38 £21.70 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% -20.37% +29.76%
75th Percentile £50.00 £30.06 £58.54
90th Percentile £75.40 £63.90 £76.13
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £20.29 £23.50
% change year-on-year +25.12% -13.66% +14.61%

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 24,862 17,417 20,123
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.31% 63.65% 57.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,918 11,125 12,941
10th Percentile £313 £281 £300
25th Percentile £414 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £745 £751 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,827 915 1,461
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.29 £13.86
25th Percentile £19.25 £16.39 £16.30
Median hourly rate £34.00 £26.28 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +29.38% -29.92% +24.79%
75th Percentile £65.00 £51.22 £58.70
90th Percentile £82.25 £74.50 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.00 £25.50 £35.36
% change year-on-year +29.41% -27.88% +15.78%

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 24 July 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 24 July 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 24 July 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 +3 1,788 £525 - 452
North of England +2 704 £463 -2.63% 268
South East +8 498 £500 -4.76% 219
Midlands +9 468 £500 +8.11% 128
West Midlands +4 382 £500 +8.11% 107
South West -8 298 £525 -4.55% 138
North West -2 283 £500 +7.53% 105
Yorkshire +10 259 £466 -1.84% 104
North East -2 173 £450 -6.25% 60
East Midlands +28 78 £525 +29.63% 21
East of England +5 61 £463 -7.50% 37
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 (4.01%) Confluence
2 118 (2.94%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.25%) Microsoft Exchange
4 47 (1.17%) SAS
5 45 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
6 37 (0.92%) Apache Spark
7 33 (0.82%) Apache
8 22 (0.55%) CMS
9 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
10 13 (0.32%) nginx
10 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
11 10 (0.25%) WordPress
12 9 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
13 7 (0.17%) Tomcat
14 5 (0.12%) Drupal
14 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
14 5 (0.12%) WebLogic
15 3 (0.075%) ArcGIS
15 3 (0.075%) IIS
Applications
1 81 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
3 30 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.15%) Trello
9 5 (0.12%) Sketch
10 3 (0.075%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.025%) Revit
12 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.55%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 41 (1.02%) Oracle ERP
4 25 (0.62%) Oracle EBS
5 24 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
6 14 (0.35%) Workday HCM
7 12 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 11 (0.27%) NEC Housing
8 11 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
9 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
9 10 (0.25%) NetSuite
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 10 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
10 9 (0.22%) SAP BRIM
10 9 (0.22%) SAP Hybris
10 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 9 (0.22%) SystmOne
11 7 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
11 7 (0.17%) SAP FI
12 6 (0.15%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 807 (20.12%) AWS
2 764 (19.05%) Azure
3 224 (5.59%) Power Platform
4 184 (4.59%) Microsoft 365
5 173 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
6 155 (3.87%) GCP
6 155 (3.87%) GitHub
7 150 (3.74%) Serverless
8 131 (3.27%) Entra ID
9 130 (3.24%) Amazon S3
10 104 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
10 104 (2.59%) SaaS
11 93 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
12 85 (2.12%) OCI
13 75 (1.87%) Amazon EC2
13 75 (1.87%) Power Automate
14 73 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
15 68 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 68 (1.70%) Amazon EKS
16 63 (1.57%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 112 (2.79%) Firewall
2 68 (1.70%) DNS
3 57 (1.42%) WAN
4 55 (1.37%) Network Security
5 50 (1.25%) LAN
6 43 (1.07%) VPN
7 34 (0.85%) DHCP
8 32 (0.80%) BGP
9 30 (0.75%) TCP/IP
10 29 (0.72%) OSPF
11 28 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
12 21 (0.52%) SD-WAN
13 18 (0.45%) BIG-IP
13 18 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 18 (0.45%) WLAN
14 16 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
15 15 (0.37%) Wireless
16 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 14 (0.35%) NGFW
17 13 (0.32%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (3.84%) Power BI
2 106 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
4 80 (2.00%) SQL Server
5 58 (1.45%) Metadata
6 54 (1.35%) Relational Database
7 53 (1.32%) Data Lake
8 51 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
9 49 (1.22%) MongoDB
9 49 (1.22%) Oracle Database
10 44 (1.10%) NoSQL
11 38 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
12 33 (0.82%) Amazon Redshift
13 32 (0.80%) DynamoDB
14 31 (0.77%) Amazon Athena
15 30 (0.75%) Tableau
16 25 (0.62%) Delta Lake
16 25 (0.62%) Pentaho
17 23 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
18 21 (0.52%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 235 (5.86%) JIRA
2 165 (4.11%) Git
3 153 (3.82%) GitLab
4 137 (3.42%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.10%) Selenium
6 38 (0.95%) Mockito
7 37 (0.92%) JUnit
8 31 (0.77%) Cucumber
9 30 (0.75%) SonarQube
10 29 (0.72%) Postman
11 27 (0.67%) JMeter
12 24 (0.60%) Maven
13 22 (0.55%) Cypress.io
14 19 (0.47%) REST Assured
15 16 (0.40%) WebDriver
16 14 (0.35%) DbUnit
16 14 (0.35%) Gatling
17 13 (0.32%) jMock
18 11 (0.27%) Bitbucket Server
18 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,084 (27.03%) Social Skills
2 481 (12.00%) Finance
3 394 (9.83%) Analytical Skills
4 226 (5.64%) Military
5 209 (5.21%) Local Government
6 123 (3.07%) Influencing Skills
7 122 (3.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 106 (2.64%) Legal
9 94 (2.34%) Organisational Skills
10 87 (2.17%) Police
11 82 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
12 52 (1.30%) Law
12 52 (1.30%) Telecoms
13 47 (1.17%) Banking
14 42 (1.05%) Marketing
15 37 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
16 28 (0.70%) Billing
17 23 (0.57%) Retail
18 17 (0.42%) General Ledger
19 15 (0.37%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 538 (13.42%) Architect
2 526 (13.12%) Developer
3 522 (13.02%) Senior
4 433 (10.80%) Lead
5 373 (9.30%) Analyst
6 156 (3.89%) Designer
7 155 (3.87%) Business Analyst
7 155 (3.87%) Consultant
8 149 (3.72%) Data Engineer
9 145 (3.62%) DevOps Engineer
10 128 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
11 115 (2.87%) Delivery Manager
12 111 (2.77%) Java Developer
13 110 (2.74%) Technical Architect
14 103 (2.57%) Senior Developer
15 100 (2.49%) Project Manager
16 91 (2.27%) User Researcher
17 85 (2.12%) Data Architect
18 75 (1.87%) AWS Engineer
19 70 (1.75%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 146 (3.64%) REST
2 107 (2.67%) Node.js
3 100 (2.49%) RESTful
4 99 (2.47%) Spring
5 94 (2.34%) React
6 90 (2.24%) Spring Boot
7 78 (1.95%) Kafka
8 77 (1.92%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (1.85%) SOAP
10 63 (1.57%) .NET
11 62 (1.55%) HTML
12 61 (1.52%) Web Services
13 58 (1.45%) AngularJS
14 52 (1.30%) CSS
15 51 (1.27%) OAuth
16 49 (1.22%) JSON
17 47 (1.17%) Django
18 45 (1.12%) PySpark
19 38 (0.95%) OpenID
20 37 (0.92%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 228 (5.69%) Cloud Native
2 165 (4.11%) Product Ownership
3 163 (4.06%) Onboarding
4 145 (3.62%) NHS
5 104 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
6 93 (2.32%) Management Information System
7 69 (1.72%) Data Centre
8 68 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
9 58 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
10 51 (1.27%) Data Structures
11 49 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
12 48 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
13 43 (1.07%) Public Cloud
14 33 (0.82%) Analytical Mindset
15 32 (0.80%) CMDB
15 32 (0.80%) Virtual Team
16 27 (0.67%) PKI
16 27 (0.67%) Security Posture
17 26 (0.65%) Freedom of Information
18 25 (0.62%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 167 (4.16%) Windows
2 158 (3.94%) Linux
3 59 (1.47%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.45%) Unix
5 26 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 25 (0.62%) Android
7 23 (0.57%) Apple iOS
7 23 (0.57%) Windows 10
8 17 (0.42%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.25%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.22%) Solaris
10 9 (0.22%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
13 5 (0.12%) AIX
14 4 (0.100%) Amazon Linux
15 3 (0.075%) VMS
15 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2016
16 2 (0.050%) CentOS
16 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,214 (30.27%) Agile
2 683 (17.03%) Stakeholder Management
3 654 (16.31%) DevOps
4 649 (16.18%) CI/CD
5 576 (14.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 567 (14.14%) Continuous Improvement
7 454 (11.32%) Problem-Solving
8 410 (10.22%) Analytics
9 406 (10.12%) Decision-Making
10 375 (9.35%) Migration
11 327 (8.15%) Roadmaps
12 325 (8.10%) Infrastructure as Code
13 300 (7.48%) AI
14 284 (7.08%) Data Modelling
15 278 (6.93%) Containerisation
16 270 (6.73%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 251 (6.26%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 246 (6.13%) Scrum
19 244 (6.08%) Mentoring
20 240 (5.99%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 480 (11.97%) Python
2 403 (10.05%) SQL
3 289 (7.21%) Java
4 194 (4.84%) JavaScript
5 109 (2.72%) PowerShell
6 102 (2.54%) TypeScript
7 77 (1.92%) C#
8 67 (1.67%) Bash
9 57 (1.42%) PL/SQL
10 43 (1.07%) Bicep
11 36 (0.90%) Apex Code
12 30 (0.75%) Ruby
13 29 (0.72%) Kotlin
14 22 (0.55%) R
15 19 (0.47%) Groovy
16 18 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 17 (0.42%) Scala
18 16 (0.40%) Go
18 16 (0.40%) Shell Script
19 13 (0.32%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,093 (52.19%) Security Cleared
2 1,590 (39.65%) SC Cleared
3 242 (6.03%) DV Cleared
4 214 (5.34%) BPSS Clearance
5 190 (4.74%) Degree
6 57 (1.42%) Azure Certification
6 57 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
7 44 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
7 44 (1.10%) CISSP
8 43 (1.07%) AWS Certification
9 30 (0.75%) PMI Certification
10 29 (0.72%) CISM
11 26 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
12 24 (0.60%) CCNP
13 22 (0.55%) ISTQB
14 20 (0.50%) Computer Science Degree
14 20 (0.50%) PMP
15 17 (0.42%) Master's Degree
16 14 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 14 (0.35%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 302 (7.53%) Accessibility
2 205 (5.11%) Data Quality
3 186 (4.64%) QA
4 131 (3.27%) GDPR
4 131 (3.27%) WCAG
5 99 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 83 (2.07%) PMO
7 81 (2.02%) NCSC
8 74 (1.85%) NIST
9 35 (0.87%) SLA
10 31 (0.77%) GRC
11 29 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 15 (0.37%) Government Security Classifications
15 14 (0.35%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.25%) HL7
17 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
18 6 (0.15%) IFRS
System Software
1 300 (7.48%) Docker
2 164 (4.09%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (0.62%) VMware NSX
5 15 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.32%) vSphere
8 11 (0.27%) Oracle RAC
8 11 (0.27%) Postfix
9 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.17%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.050%) NFS
11 2 (0.050%) RACF
12 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.025%) etcd
12 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.025%) GPFS
12 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 349 (8.70%) Terraform
2 280 (6.98%) Kubernetes
3 88 (2.19%) Grafana
4 80 (2.00%) Ansible
5 58 (1.45%) Prometheus
6 44 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
8 29 (0.72%) Argo
9 13 (0.32%) Kibana
9 13 (0.32%) SCCM
10 11 (0.27%) Oracle RMAN
10 11 (0.27%) Puppet
11 10 (0.25%) vCenter Server
12 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
12 8 (0.20%) Istio
13 7 (0.17%) FortiGate
14 6 (0.15%) VxRail
15 5 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 5 (0.12%) Rancher
16 4 (0.100%) Consul
Vendors
1 512 (12.77%) Microsoft
2 314 (7.83%) Oracle
3 136 (3.39%) SAP
4 131 (3.27%) ServiceNow
5 118 (2.94%) Google
6 115 (2.87%) Salesforce
7 100 (2.49%) Databricks
8 64 (1.60%) VMware
9 47 (1.17%) Cisco
10 40 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 35 (0.87%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.80%) Red Hat
13 30 (0.75%) Dynatrace
14 29 (0.72%) Talend
15 28 (0.70%) Splunk
16 26 (0.65%) IBM
17 25 (0.62%) Informatica
18 24 (0.60%) CyberArk
18 24 (0.60%) Foundry
19 23 (0.57%) Workday