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 20 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,484 2,530 3,431
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.00% 9.75% 9.09%
As % of the General category 16.91% 15.57% 15.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,444 1,541 2,279
10th Percentile £350 £309 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £670 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 89 148
10th Percentile £16.56 £15.00 £13.66
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £56.93
90th Percentile £45.36 £62.74 £70.15
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +5.00%

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 20,608 16,245 22,215
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.15% 62.60% 58.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,026 9,960 14,601
10th Percentile £300 £297 £265
25th Percentile £405 £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 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,302 536 1,536
10th Percentile £14.02 £15.36 £13.09
25th Percentile £17.00 £20.00 £15.12
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.31 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.10% +16.56% -13.33%
75th Percentile £52.45 £60.00 £51.50
90th Percentile £73.46 £75.00 £67.13
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £29.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -20.69% +11.54% -5.45%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 20 February 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 1,459 £513 -2.38% 502
North of England -2 648 £450 -5.26% 276
South East -1 413 £500 -4.76% 331
Midlands +2 358 £490 -2.00% 159
North West +1 328 £450 -10.00% 128
South West -2 280 £525 -4.55% 171
West Midlands -1 266 £500 - 98
Yorkshire -2 197 £500 +11.11% 105
North East -1 125 £450 +5.88% 43
East of England +23 113 £375 +7.14% 102
East Midlands +8 91 £425 -10.53% 59
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
1 128 (3.67%) Confluence
2 94 (2.70%) SharePoint
3 27 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.69%) SAS
5 21 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.46%) Apache
7 14 (0.40%) nginx
8 13 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.34%) CMS
10 11 (0.32%) Skype for Business
11 7 (0.20%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
14 3 (0.086%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.086%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.086%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.086%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.086%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 97 (2.78%) Microsoft Office
2 90 (2.58%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.55%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.23%) Trello
8 7 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.17%) Sketch
10 3 (0.086%) InVision
10 3 (0.086%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 2 (0.057%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.057%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.057%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.029%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.029%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.029%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.029%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
4 18 (0.52%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.52%) SAP Hybris
5 11 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
6 9 (0.26%) iTrent
6 9 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
6 9 (0.26%) SAP ERP
7 8 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
10 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle General Ledger
11 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 636 (18.25%) AWS
2 585 (16.79%) Azure
3 196 (5.63%) Power Platform
4 160 (4.59%) Serverless
5 151 (4.33%) GitHub
6 139 (3.99%) Microsoft 365
7 137 (3.93%) GCP
8 122 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 103 (2.96%) AWS Lambda
10 88 (2.53%) GitHub Actions
11 82 (2.35%) Amazon S3
12 73 (2.10%) Entra ID
13 62 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 61 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 59 (1.69%) OCI
16 58 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
17 56 (1.61%) Power Automate
18 55 (1.58%) SaaS
19 54 (1.55%) Amazon EC2
20 51 (1.46%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 89 (2.55%) Firewall
2 54 (1.55%) DNS
3 52 (1.49%) VPN
3 52 (1.49%) WAN
4 49 (1.41%) Network Security
5 44 (1.26%) Wireless
6 41 (1.18%) LAN
7 34 (0.98%) TCP/IP
8 31 (0.89%) BGP
9 24 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
10 23 (0.66%) DHCP
10 23 (0.66%) OSPF
11 16 (0.46%) SD-WAN
11 16 (0.46%) SSL
12 14 (0.40%) IPsec
12 14 (0.40%) MPLS
12 14 (0.40%) VLAN
13 13 (0.37%) Internet
14 12 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
14 12 (0.34%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (4.48%) Power BI
2 79 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (1.61%) MongoDB
4 54 (1.55%) Metadata
5 51 (1.46%) SQL Server
6 41 (1.18%) Data Warehouse
7 38 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
7 38 (1.09%) Data Lake
8 37 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 30 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
9 30 (0.86%) Relational Database
10 26 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.63%) MySQL
11 22 (0.63%) Tableau
12 20 (0.57%) Redis
13 19 (0.55%) BigQuery
13 19 (0.55%) Electronic Patient Records
13 19 (0.55%) Oracle Database
14 18 (0.52%) DynamoDB
15 14 (0.40%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 199 (5.71%) JIRA
2 161 (4.62%) Git
3 127 (3.65%) GitLab
4 122 (3.50%) Jenkins
5 50 (1.44%) Selenium
6 48 (1.38%) Postman
7 30 (0.86%) Cucumber
7 30 (0.86%) JUnit
8 27 (0.77%) Cypress.io
8 27 (0.77%) Mockito
9 18 (0.52%) REST Assured
10 16 (0.46%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.40%) JMeter
11 14 (0.40%) Mocha
12 13 (0.37%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.37%) CircleCI
13 10 (0.29%) MSI
14 9 (0.26%) Maven
14 9 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
15 8 (0.23%) Gradle
General
1 999 (28.67%) Social Skills
2 541 (15.53%) Finance
3 322 (9.24%) Analytical Skills
4 203 (5.83%) Telecoms
5 166 (4.76%) Marketing
6 164 (4.71%) Manufacturing
7 157 (4.51%) Military
8 145 (4.16%) Electronics
9 131 (3.76%) Local Government
10 74 (2.12%) Legal
11 73 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
12 70 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
13 58 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.35%) Banking
14 47 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
15 46 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 37 (1.06%) Law
16 37 (1.06%) Police
17 34 (0.98%) Billing
18 31 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 419 (12.03%) Developer
2 408 (11.71%) Architect
3 372 (10.68%) Senior
4 354 (10.16%) Analyst
5 310 (8.90%) Lead
6 185 (5.31%) Consultant
7 166 (4.76%) Business Analyst
8 135 (3.87%) DevOps Engineer
9 126 (3.62%) Designer
10 106 (3.04%) Project Manager
11 97 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
12 92 (2.64%) Technical Architect
13 88 (2.53%) Data Engineer
14 81 (2.32%) Java Developer
15 77 (2.21%) User Researcher
16 69 (1.98%) AWS Engineer
17 66 (1.89%) Senior Developer
18 62 (1.78%) Service Designer
19 56 (1.61%) Product Manager
20 55 (1.58%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (4.10%) REST
2 120 (3.44%) Node.js
3 105 (3.01%) React
4 101 (2.90%) Spring
5 91 (2.61%) Spring Boot
6 83 (2.38%) RESTful
7 75 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
8 72 (2.07%) .NET
9 68 (1.95%) HTML
10 65 (1.87%) CSS
11 64 (1.84%) AngularJS
12 63 (1.81%) Web Services
13 57 (1.64%) SOAP
14 54 (1.55%) JSON
15 53 (1.52%) Kafka
16 38 (1.09%) Playwright
17 37 (1.06%) XML
18 30 (0.86%) Lightning Web Components
18 30 (0.86%) Middleware
19 27 (0.77%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 130 (3.73%) Cloud Native
2 126 (3.62%) NHS
2 126 (3.62%) Onboarding
3 116 (3.33%) Product Ownership
4 86 (2.47%) Data Centre
5 71 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
6 69 (1.98%) Management Information System
7 45 (1.29%) Public Cloud
8 33 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
9 31 (0.89%) Security Posture
10 29 (0.83%) Data Structures
10 29 (0.83%) PKI
10 29 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
11 28 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
12 27 (0.77%) CMDB
12 27 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
13 26 (0.75%) AI Agents
14 24 (0.69%) Replication
15 22 (0.63%) Security Operations Centre
16 17 (0.49%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 214 (6.14%) Windows
2 167 (4.79%) Linux
3 53 (1.52%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.38%) Android
5 44 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 43 (1.23%) Windows 10
7 39 (1.12%) Unix
8 22 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 22 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.43%) Mac OS X
9 15 (0.43%) VMS
10 12 (0.34%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.17%) Amazon Linux
12 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.14%) Solaris
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.086%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 859 (24.66%) Agile
2 488 (14.01%) CI/CD
3 467 (13.40%) DevOps
4 442 (12.69%) Problem-Solving
5 395 (11.34%) Stakeholder Management
6 385 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 345 (9.90%) Migration
8 323 (9.27%) Business Intelligence
9 321 (9.21%) Continuous Improvement
10 289 (8.30%) Roadmaps
11 238 (6.83%) Analytics
12 237 (6.80%) Decision-Making
13 220 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
14 219 (6.29%) Test Automation
15 214 (6.14%) Microservices
16 212 (6.08%) Containerisation
17 193 (5.54%) AI
18 189 (5.42%) ITIL
19 187 (5.37%) Data Modelling
19 187 (5.37%) Programme Management
Programming Languages
1 371 (10.65%) Python
2 306 (8.78%) SQL
3 258 (7.41%) Java
4 184 (5.28%) JavaScript
5 117 (3.36%) PowerShell
6 116 (3.33%) TypeScript
7 84 (2.41%) C#
8 65 (1.87%) Bash
9 38 (1.09%) Ruby
10 29 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 27 (0.77%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.69%) Go
13 20 (0.57%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.52%) PHP
15 16 (0.46%) R
16 13 (0.37%) Bicep
16 13 (0.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.32%) Kotlin
18 10 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
19 9 (0.26%) C
Qualifications
1 2,043 (58.64%) Security Cleared
2 1,340 (38.46%) SC Cleared
3 170 (4.88%) Degree
4 164 (4.71%) DV Cleared
5 97 (2.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.32%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.21%) CISSP
8 41 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
9 39 (1.12%) AWS Certification
10 34 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
11 33 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (0.75%) CISM
14 24 (0.69%) ISEB
15 23 (0.66%) PMP
16 19 (0.55%) PMI Certification
17 18 (0.52%) ISTQB
18 16 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 16 (0.46%) CCNP
18 16 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (5.17%) Accessibility
2 134 (3.85%) QA
3 129 (3.70%) Data Quality
4 102 (2.93%) GDPR
5 77 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 66 (1.89%) NIST
7 63 (1.81%) WCAG
8 56 (1.61%) PMO
9 52 (1.49%) NCSC
10 46 (1.32%) SLA
11 21 (0.60%) GRC
12 19 (0.55%) COBIT
12 19 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.46%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.40%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.37%) PCI DSS
16 12 (0.34%) HL7
17 10 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 244 (7.00%) Docker
2 116 (3.33%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.52%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 12 (0.34%) vSphere
8 9 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.20%) Postfix
10 6 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.14%) DFS Replication
11 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 4 (0.11%) Squid
13 3 (0.086%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.086%) RACF
14 2 (0.057%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.057%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.057%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 303 (8.70%) Terraform
2 260 (7.46%) Kubernetes
3 70 (2.01%) Ansible
4 68 (1.95%) Grafana
5 51 (1.46%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
7 31 (0.89%) SCCM
8 22 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.37%) Argo
9 13 (0.37%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.34%) Packer
11 11 (0.32%) Puppet
12 10 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.29%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.23%) Consul
13 8 (0.23%) Nessus
14 6 (0.17%) Istio
14 6 (0.17%) Kibana
14 6 (0.17%) SCOM
14 6 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 390 (11.19%) Microsoft
2 283 (8.12%) SAP
3 203 (5.83%) Oracle
4 142 (4.08%) Cisco
5 107 (3.07%) ServiceNow
6 106 (3.04%) Salesforce
7 95 (2.73%) VMware
8 64 (1.84%) Google
9 60 (1.72%) Databricks
10 59 (1.69%) Splunk
11 42 (1.21%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.15%) Aruba
13 37 (1.06%) Apple
13 37 (1.06%) Juniper
14 36 (1.03%) Dell
15 34 (0.98%) Palo Alto
16 32 (0.92%) HP
17 30 (0.86%) Red Hat
18 27 (0.77%) SolarWinds
19 26 (0.75%) Atlassian