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 18 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,733 2,281 3,392
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.11% 9.31% 8.95%
As % of the General category 17.55% 14.73% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,637 1,514 2,264
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 80 149
10th Percentile £16.40 £15.23 £13.73
25th Percentile £17.70 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £24.59 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -10.23% +13.16% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.38 £34.60 £55.11
90th Percentile £53.80 £62.49 £68.90
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% +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 21,266 15,486 22,218
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.58% 63.20% 58.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,416 10,011 14,532
10th Percentile £300 £300 £269
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,331 580 1,667
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.00 £13.03
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.96 £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.79 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.81% +18.43% -23.12%
75th Percentile £59.00 £60.94 £50.00
90th Percentile £77.00 £76.25 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.55 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -18.17% +15.38% -23.53%

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 18 March 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 18 March 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 18 March 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 0 1,598 £523 -0.38% 349
North of England -3 654 £450 -5.26% 205
South East 0 463 £500 -9.09% 204
Midlands +7 403 £500 +5.26% 96
North West +1 325 £450 -10.00% 79
West Midlands 0 297 £500 +7.53% 70
South West 0 277 £525 -4.55% 78
Yorkshire 0 205 £500 +14.29% 74
North East 0 129 £450 +3.75% 52
East of England +28 119 £425 +21.43% 27
East Midlands +8 102 £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
1 134 (3.59%) Confluence
2 103 (2.76%) SharePoint
3 34 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.64%) SAS
5 20 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.43%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.35%) nginx
9 12 (0.32%) CMS
10 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
11 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
14 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.080%) Camunda
15 3 (0.080%) GeoServer
15 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
Applications
1 98 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 93 (2.49%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.080%) InVision
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
14 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 64 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
5 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
6 15 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
7 11 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.24%) iTrent
9 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.19%) SAP HR
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 695 (18.62%) AWS
2 643 (17.22%) Azure
3 216 (5.79%) Power Platform
4 172 (4.61%) Serverless
5 163 (4.37%) Microsoft 365
6 162 (4.34%) GitHub
7 146 (3.91%) GCP
8 144 (3.86%) Azure DevOps
9 108 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
10 95 (2.54%) Entra ID
11 92 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
12 90 (2.41%) Amazon S3
13 68 (1.82%) AWS CloudFormation
14 67 (1.79%) Power Automate
15 63 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
16 62 (1.66%) Amazon EC2
16 62 (1.66%) Amazon EKS
17 59 (1.58%) PowerApps
18 57 (1.53%) SaaS
19 55 (1.47%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.46%) Firewall
2 57 (1.53%) VPN
3 54 (1.45%) Network Security
4 52 (1.39%) WAN
5 49 (1.31%) DNS
6 43 (1.15%) LAN
7 40 (1.07%) Wireless
8 30 (0.80%) TCP/IP
9 29 (0.78%) BGP
10 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (0.59%) OSPF
12 21 (0.56%) DHCP
13 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
14 16 (0.43%) Internet
14 16 (0.43%) SSL
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
16 11 (0.29%) IPsec
16 11 (0.29%) VLAN
17 10 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
17 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (4.58%) Power BI
2 84 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.61%) SQL Server
4 56 (1.50%) MongoDB
5 55 (1.47%) Metadata
6 49 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
7 46 (1.23%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.10%) Data Lake
9 40 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
10 36 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
11 35 (0.94%) Relational Database
12 29 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
13 26 (0.70%) Tableau
14 24 (0.64%) Electronic Patient Records
15 22 (0.59%) DynamoDB
16 20 (0.54%) MySQL
16 20 (0.54%) Oracle Database
17 19 (0.51%) Redis
18 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
19 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 212 (5.68%) JIRA
2 176 (4.71%) Git
3 128 (3.43%) GitLab
4 123 (3.29%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.29%) Selenium
6 42 (1.13%) Postman
7 34 (0.91%) JUnit
8 29 (0.78%) Mockito
9 25 (0.67%) Cypress.io
10 24 (0.64%) Cucumber
11 22 (0.59%) JMeter
11 22 (0.59%) SonarQube
12 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.38%) Mocha
12 14 (0.38%) REST Assured
13 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
14 12 (0.32%) Maven
15 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,026 (27.48%) Social Skills
2 558 (14.95%) Finance
3 363 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
4 180 (4.82%) Telecoms
5 162 (4.34%) Military
6 151 (4.05%) Local Government
7 149 (3.99%) Marketing
8 148 (3.96%) Manufacturing
9 128 (3.43%) Electronics
10 83 (2.22%) Legal
11 78 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 72 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
13 69 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
14 54 (1.45%) Banking
15 51 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 49 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
17 45 (1.21%) Police
18 39 (1.04%) Law
19 35 (0.94%) Billing
20 33 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 467 (12.51%) Developer
2 460 (12.32%) Architect
3 401 (10.74%) Senior
4 376 (10.07%) Analyst
5 319 (8.55%) Lead
6 186 (4.98%) Consultant
7 169 (4.53%) Business Analyst
8 142 (3.80%) Designer
9 122 (3.27%) DevOps Engineer
10 115 (3.08%) Project Manager
11 112 (3.00%) Data Engineer
12 111 (2.97%) Solutions Architect
13 106 (2.84%) Technical Architect
14 87 (2.33%) Java Developer
15 84 (2.25%) User Researcher
16 72 (1.93%) Senior Developer
17 71 (1.90%) Delivery Manager
18 66 (1.77%) Service Designer
19 60 (1.61%) AWS Engineer
20 59 (1.58%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 153 (4.10%) REST
2 128 (3.43%) Node.js
3 110 (2.95%) React
4 106 (2.84%) Spring
5 93 (2.49%) RESTful
6 91 (2.44%) Spring Boot
7 78 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
8 76 (2.04%) HTML
9 74 (1.98%) .NET
9 74 (1.98%) AngularJS
10 70 (1.88%) CSS
11 66 (1.77%) Web Services
12 58 (1.55%) Kafka
12 58 (1.55%) SOAP
13 51 (1.37%) JSON
14 35 (0.94%) Lightning Web Components
14 35 (0.94%) XML
15 34 (0.91%) Middleware
15 34 (0.91%) Playwright
16 27 (0.72%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 158 (4.23%) Cloud Native
2 135 (3.62%) Onboarding
3 122 (3.27%) NHS
3 122 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 89 (2.38%) Data Centre
5 80 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
6 70 (1.88%) Management Information System
7 53 (1.42%) Public Cloud
8 40 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
9 38 (1.02%) Distributed Systems
10 36 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
11 35 (0.94%) Data Structures
12 34 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
13 33 (0.88%) Security Posture
14 30 (0.80%) CMDB
15 25 (0.67%) AI Agents
15 25 (0.67%) Replication
16 24 (0.64%) PKI
17 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
18 20 (0.54%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 211 (5.65%) Windows
2 156 (4.18%) Linux
3 56 (1.50%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.31%) Android
5 45 (1.21%) Windows 10
6 44 (1.18%) Mac OS
7 37 (0.99%) Unix
8 23 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 20 (0.54%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.29%) Mac OS X
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.24%) VMS
13 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.19%) Solaris
15 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) AIX
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 933 (24.99%) Agile
2 524 (14.04%) CI/CD
3 521 (13.96%) DevOps
4 465 (12.46%) Problem-Solving
5 454 (12.16%) Stakeholder Management
6 410 (10.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 373 (9.99%) Migration
8 347 (9.30%) Continuous Improvement
9 336 (9.00%) Roadmaps
10 323 (8.65%) Business Intelligence
11 283 (7.58%) Analytics
12 263 (7.05%) Decision-Making
13 237 (6.35%) Containerisation
14 233 (6.24%) Test Automation
15 230 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
16 228 (6.11%) Microservices
17 224 (6.00%) Data Modelling
18 214 (5.73%) AI
19 213 (5.71%) User Research
19 213 (5.71%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 404 (10.82%) Python
2 343 (9.19%) SQL
3 262 (7.02%) Java
4 195 (5.22%) JavaScript
5 119 (3.19%) PowerShell
6 117 (3.13%) TypeScript
7 85 (2.28%) C#
8 66 (1.77%) Bash
9 45 (1.21%) Ruby
10 35 (0.94%) Apex Code
11 33 (0.88%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
13 20 (0.54%) R
13 20 (0.54%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.51%) Kotlin
15 17 (0.46%) Bicep
16 14 (0.38%) PHP
17 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
19 11 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,193 (58.75%) Security Cleared
2 1,412 (37.82%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.93%) DV Cleared
4 181 (4.85%) Degree
5 102 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.34%) Azure Certification
7 46 (1.23%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.15%) CISSP
9 37 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
10 36 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
10 36 (0.96%) Microsoft Certification
11 30 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
12 29 (0.78%) PMP
13 25 (0.67%) CISM
13 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.62%) ISEB
15 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
16 15 (0.40%) CCNP
16 15 (0.40%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (5.22%) Accessibility
2 156 (4.18%) QA
3 148 (3.96%) Data Quality
4 109 (2.92%) GDPR
5 85 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 71 (1.90%) WCAG
7 67 (1.79%) NIST
8 65 (1.74%) PMO
9 61 (1.63%) NCSC
10 42 (1.13%) SLA
11 27 (0.72%) GRC
12 20 (0.54%) COBIT
13 18 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.38%) HL7
17 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
18 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 258 (6.91%) Docker
2 137 (3.67%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.54%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.40%) vSphere
8 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
9 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.16%) Postfix
11 5 (0.13%) NFS
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.080%) RACF
14 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 2 (0.054%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.027%) etcd
15 1 (0.027%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 299 (8.01%) Terraform
2 274 (7.34%) Kubernetes
3 73 (1.96%) Ansible
4 71 (1.90%) Grafana
5 49 (1.31%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
7 31 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
8 26 (0.70%) SCCM
9 15 (0.40%) Argo
10 13 (0.35%) Puppet
11 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.27%) Packer
13 9 (0.24%) Kibana
14 8 (0.21%) Consul
14 8 (0.21%) vRealize
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 423 (11.33%) Microsoft
2 273 (7.31%) SAP
3 221 (5.92%) Oracle
4 129 (3.46%) Cisco
5 116 (3.11%) ServiceNow
6 113 (3.03%) Salesforce
7 98 (2.63%) VMware
8 73 (1.96%) Databricks
9 69 (1.85%) Google
10 55 (1.47%) Splunk
11 42 (1.13%) Aruba
12 39 (1.04%) Virgin Media
13 35 (0.94%) Dell
14 34 (0.91%) Apple
14 34 (0.91%) Red Hat
15 32 (0.86%) IBM
16 31 (0.83%) Atlassian
16 31 (0.83%) HP
16 31 (0.83%) MuleSoft
17 30 (0.80%) Juniper