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 19 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 18 17
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,487 2,668 3,700
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.84% 8.38% 9.00%
As % of the General category 13.85% 14.19% 15.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,721 1,612 2,653
10th Percentile £313 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £421
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +4.76%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £706 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 126 89 95
10th Percentile £15.40 £15.05 £14.28
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.39 £17.23
Median hourly rate £21.29 £23.60 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.81% +9.77% +10.63%
75th Percentile £27.34 £40.00 £55.70
90th Percentile £65.00 £61.39 £70.30
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.25 £21.00
% change year-on-year -5.62% +5.95% +5.79%

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 17,956 18,798 24,405
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.82% 59.04% 59.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,376 11,267 16,835
10th Percentile £275 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £638 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,088 774 1,021
10th Percentile £13.79 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.29 £17.44 £16.85
Median hourly rate £25.00 £33.65 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.69% +12.15% +20.00%
75th Percentile £44.26 £61.25 £58.75
90th Percentile £69.99 £72.50 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £24.34 £31.50 £29.25
% change year-on-year -22.73% +7.69% +17.00%

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 19 October 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 19 October 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 19 October 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 -1 1,028 £502 -4.48% 549
North of England 0 462 £475 -1.04% 279
South West +2 309 £550 -4.35% 123
South East -14 241 £500 -7.41% 460
North West 0 240 £450 -8.72% 159
Midlands +7 239 £475 -5.00% 136
West Midlands +8 198 £475 -5.00% 89
Yorkshire +14 152 £500 +5.26% 77
North East +3 75 £488 +14.71% 43
East of England -10 59 £450 +28.57% 54
East Midlands -14 41 £424 -5.62% 47
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 90 (3.62%) Confluence
2 65 (2.61%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
5 17 (0.68%) nginx
5 17 (0.68%) SAS
6 13 (0.52%) Skype for Business
7 10 (0.40%) Apache
8 9 (0.36%) CMS
9 7 (0.28%) Apache Spark
10 5 (0.20%) Documentum
10 5 (0.20%) IIS
10 5 (0.20%) Jupyter
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
10 5 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.16%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2013
11 4 (0.16%) WebLogic
Applications
1 79 (3.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 78 (3.14%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
5 14 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 8 (0.32%) Trello
8 6 (0.24%) Sketch
9 5 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
9 5 (0.20%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.20%) InVision
9 5 (0.20%) Photoshop
10 4 (0.16%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.16%) UXPin
11 2 (0.080%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.080%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.040%) S-PLUS
12 1 (0.040%) Stata
12 1 (0.040%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 35 (1.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 11 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 11 (0.44%) SAP ERP
4 11 (0.44%) SAP PSCD
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
5 9 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
6 8 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 8 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 7 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
7 7 (0.28%) SAP HR
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.24%) Oracle Payroll
9 5 (0.20%) Primavera
9 5 (0.20%) Unit4 Business World
10 4 (0.16%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
11 3 (0.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 487 (19.58%) AWS
2 433 (17.41%) Azure
3 162 (6.51%) Power Platform
4 133 (5.35%) Microsoft 365
5 108 (4.34%) GCP
6 102 (4.10%) GitHub
7 89 (3.58%) Serverless
8 86 (3.46%) Amazon S3
9 80 (3.22%) Azure DevOps
10 68 (2.73%) Amazon EC2
11 61 (2.45%) SaaS
12 57 (2.29%) AWS Lambda
13 55 (2.21%) PowerApps
14 52 (2.09%) Entra ID
15 50 (2.01%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 47 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
17 46 (1.85%) Amazon SQS
17 46 (1.85%) Power Automate
18 41 (1.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 37 (1.49%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 109 (4.38%) Firewall
2 76 (3.06%) DNS
3 54 (2.17%) VPN
4 38 (1.53%) WAN
5 34 (1.37%) Network Security
6 32 (1.29%) Wireless
7 31 (1.25%) DHCP
8 30 (1.21%) LAN
8 30 (1.21%) TCP/IP
9 29 (1.17%) BGP
10 25 (1.01%) HTTP
11 23 (0.92%) SMTP
11 23 (0.92%) SSH
12 21 (0.84%) FTP
12 21 (0.84%) SSL
13 19 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
14 18 (0.72%) OSPF
15 16 (0.64%) SD-WAN
15 16 (0.64%) Skype
16 15 (0.60%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (4.30%) Power BI
2 85 (3.42%) PostgreSQL
3 48 (1.93%) MongoDB
4 43 (1.73%) Amazon RDS
5 39 (1.57%) SQL Server
6 33 (1.33%) Metadata
7 31 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 29 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
8 29 (1.17%) Oracle Database
9 28 (1.13%) Relational Database
10 24 (0.97%) Data Lake
11 23 (0.92%) MySQL
12 21 (0.84%) Amazon Aurora
13 20 (0.80%) Tableau
14 18 (0.72%) Redis
15 15 (0.60%) BigQuery
16 14 (0.56%) Big Data
17 13 (0.52%) DynamoDB
17 13 (0.52%) GIS
17 13 (0.52%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 152 (6.11%) JIRA
2 136 (5.47%) Git
3 121 (4.87%) Jenkins
4 74 (2.98%) GitLab
5 33 (1.33%) SonarQube
6 27 (1.09%) Selenium
7 24 (0.97%) Postman
8 23 (0.92%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.88%) Vagrant
10 21 (0.84%) Mockito
11 18 (0.72%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.68%) JUnit
13 16 (0.64%) REST Assured
14 13 (0.52%) Burp Suite
14 13 (0.52%) Metasploit
15 12 (0.48%) Maven
16 11 (0.44%) CircleCI
17 9 (0.36%) Oracle Forms
18 7 (0.28%) Bitbucket
19 6 (0.24%) DbUnit
General
1 711 (28.59%) Social Skills
2 418 (16.81%) Finance
3 225 (9.05%) Analytical Skills
4 197 (7.92%) Telecoms
5 160 (6.43%) Marketing
6 159 (6.39%) Manufacturing
7 150 (6.03%) Electronics
8 121 (4.87%) Military
9 101 (4.06%) Local Government
10 75 (3.02%) Documentation Skills
11 55 (2.21%) Legal
12 47 (1.89%) Organisational Skills
13 46 (1.85%) Law
14 43 (1.73%) Influencing Skills
15 38 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 31 (1.25%) Police
16 31 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
16 31 (1.25%) Retail
17 22 (0.88%) Banking
18 15 (0.60%) Billing
Job Titles
1 304 (12.22%) Developer
2 276 (11.10%) Architect
3 244 (9.81%) Analyst
4 242 (9.73%) Senior
5 231 (9.29%) Lead
6 165 (6.63%) Consultant
7 107 (4.30%) DevOps Engineer
8 95 (3.82%) Business Analyst
9 81 (3.26%) Project Manager
10 68 (2.73%) AWS Engineer
10 68 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
11 61 (2.45%) Support Engineer
12 56 (2.25%) Designer
13 55 (2.21%) Technical Architect
14 50 (2.01%) Java Developer
15 48 (1.93%) Security Engineer
16 47 (1.89%) IT Support
17 46 (1.85%) Security Architect
18 44 (1.77%) Network Engineer
18 44 (1.77%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.82%) REST
2 70 (2.81%) RESTful
3 66 (2.65%) Node.js
4 64 (2.57%) React
5 61 (2.45%) .NET
6 56 (2.25%) Kafka
7 54 (2.17%) HTML
8 52 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
8 52 (2.09%) SOAP
9 49 (1.97%) Web Services
10 48 (1.93%) Spring Boot
11 47 (1.89%) Spring
12 45 (1.81%) CSS
12 45 (1.81%) JSON
13 42 (1.69%) AngularJS
14 26 (1.05%) XML
15 25 (1.01%) OAuth
16 22 (0.88%) Playwright
17 21 (0.84%) LDAP
18 19 (0.76%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 90 (3.62%) Onboarding
2 73 (2.94%) Product Ownership
3 70 (2.81%) Cloud Native
4 69 (2.77%) NHS
5 68 (2.73%) Data Centre
6 66 (2.65%) Management Information System
7 53 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
8 36 (1.45%) PKI
9 32 (1.29%) Security Operations Centre
10 30 (1.21%) Replication
11 28 (1.13%) CMDB
12 27 (1.09%) Driving Licence
13 26 (1.05%) Distributed Systems
14 23 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (0.92%) Security Posture
15 21 (0.84%) Data Structures
15 21 (0.84%) Public Cloud
16 20 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
16 20 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
17 17 (0.68%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 216 (8.69%) Windows
2 153 (6.15%) Linux
3 45 (1.81%) Windows Server
4 37 (1.49%) Windows 10
5 32 (1.29%) Android
6 31 (1.25%) Mac OS
7 26 (1.05%) Unix
8 25 (1.01%) VMS
9 23 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 22 (0.88%) Amazon Linux
11 17 (0.68%) Apple iOS
12 13 (0.52%) Ubuntu
13 9 (0.36%) Mac OS X
14 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
15 7 (0.28%) Windows Server 2019
16 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
17 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
18 4 (0.16%) CentOS
19 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
20 2 (0.080%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 614 (24.69%) Agile
2 363 (14.60%) DevOps
3 327 (13.15%) CI/CD
4 319 (12.83%) Problem-Solving
5 295 (11.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 284 (11.42%) Business Intelligence
7 248 (9.97%) Stakeholder Management
8 217 (8.73%) Migration
9 184 (7.40%) Continuous Improvement
10 174 (7.00%) Programme Management
11 163 (6.55%) Roadmaps
12 158 (6.35%) Decision-Making
13 156 (6.27%) Infrastructure as Code
13 156 (6.27%) ITIL
14 153 (6.15%) Microservices
15 149 (5.99%) Digital Marketing
16 143 (5.75%) Analytics
17 131 (5.27%) Mentoring
18 130 (5.23%) AI
18 130 (5.23%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 286 (11.50%) Python
2 237 (9.53%) SQL
3 213 (8.56%) Java
4 111 (4.46%) PowerShell
5 102 (4.10%) JavaScript
6 80 (3.22%) Bash
7 59 (2.37%) C#
8 54 (2.17%) TypeScript
9 29 (1.17%) Go
9 29 (1.17%) Groovy
10 28 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 25 (1.01%) C++
12 24 (0.97%) Perl
13 16 (0.64%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.60%) Ruby
15 14 (0.56%) C
16 13 (0.52%) PHP
17 11 (0.44%) Apex Code
18 10 (0.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 9 (0.36%) Scala
Qualifications
1 1,512 (60.80%) Security Cleared
2 1,041 (41.86%) SC Cleared
3 150 (6.03%) DV Cleared
4 104 (4.18%) Degree
5 61 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.85%) CISSP
7 35 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 28 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
9 26 (1.05%) AWS Certification
9 26 (1.05%) Azure Certification
10 25 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
11 22 (0.88%) CISM
12 21 (0.84%) CCNP
13 18 (0.72%) OSCP
14 17 (0.68%) CREST Certified
15 15 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
15 15 (0.60%) ISTQB
15 15 (0.60%) Master's Degree
16 14 (0.56%) CESG Certified Professional
17 13 (0.52%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (4.58%) Accessibility
2 97 (3.90%) QA
3 68 (2.73%) GDPR
4 67 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 63 (2.53%) Data Quality
6 58 (2.33%) NIST
7 52 (2.09%) NCSC
8 40 (1.61%) SLA
9 34 (1.37%) PMO
10 33 (1.33%) WCAG
11 23 (0.92%) Cyber Essentials
12 14 (0.56%) HIPAA
13 11 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 11 (0.44%) GRC
13 11 (0.44%) JSP 440
13 11 (0.44%) RMADS
14 9 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
15 8 (0.32%) ISO 9001
16 6 (0.24%) PCI DSS
17 3 (0.12%) COBIT
System Software
1 181 (7.28%) Docker
2 118 (4.74%) Active Directory
3 48 (1.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.84%) DFS Replication
5 17 (0.68%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.64%) vSphere
7 15 (0.60%) Postfix
8 14 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
10 9 (0.36%) Dovecot
10 9 (0.36%) Hyper-V
10 9 (0.36%) Squid
10 9 (0.36%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.20%) Firmware
11 5 (0.20%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.16%) UAG
13 3 (0.12%) Brightmail
13 3 (0.12%) ISA Server
13 3 (0.12%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 224 (9.01%) Terraform
2 174 (7.00%) Kubernetes
3 81 (3.26%) Ansible
4 70 (2.81%) Grafana
5 60 (2.41%) Prometheus
6 32 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (1.17%) SCCM
8 17 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.68%) vCenter Server
9 14 (0.56%) Nmap
10 12 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 12 (0.48%) Argo
11 11 (0.44%) Jamf Pro
11 11 (0.44%) Nessus
11 11 (0.44%) Packer
12 10 (0.40%) SCOM
13 9 (0.36%) Proxmox
14 8 (0.32%) Puppet
15 7 (0.28%) WSUS
16 6 (0.24%) QRadar
Vendors
1 355 (14.27%) Microsoft
2 238 (9.57%) SAP
3 154 (6.19%) Oracle
4 113 (4.54%) Cisco
5 101 (4.06%) ServiceNow
6 67 (2.69%) VMware
7 55 (2.21%) Splunk
8 54 (2.17%) Google
9 53 (2.13%) Salesforce
10 44 (1.77%) Juniper
11 34 (1.37%) HP
12 31 (1.25%) Dell
12 31 (1.25%) SolarWinds
13 30 (1.21%) Palo Alto
14 29 (1.17%) Virgin Media
15 28 (1.13%) Apple
16 26 (1.05%) Red Hat
17 23 (0.92%) F5
18 19 (0.76%) Atlassian
18 19 (0.76%) Fortinet