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 10 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,099 2,618 3,358
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.90% 9.68% 9.24%
As % of the General category 16.27% 15.59% 15.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,169 1,589 2,318
10th Percentile £332 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £719 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -0.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 87 100
10th Percentile £16.42 £14.70 £14.24
25th Percentile £17.69 £17.82 £15.57
Median hourly rate £21.94 £23.41 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.30% +11.48% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.11 £31.88 £56.44
90th Percentile £47.00 £63.24 £70.05
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.70% +9.52% +10.53%

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 19,050 16,789 21,454
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.85% 62.07% 59.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,092 10,138 14,416
10th Percentile £285 £298 £275
25th Percentile £402 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.45% -2.82% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £653
90th Percentile £738 £775 £753
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £543
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.23% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,197 551 1,057
10th Percentile £14.20 £15.53 £14.16
25th Percentile £16.84 £18.51 £16.25
Median hourly rate £23.50 £30.00 £32.32
Median % change year-on-year -21.67% -7.18% +25.71%
75th Percentile £46.00 £57.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £71.50 £74.87 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £23.33 £27.39 £31.80
% change year-on-year -14.81% -13.88% +27.20%

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 10 January 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 10 January 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 10 January 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 1,281 £525 - 242
North of England -2 606 £453 -5.63% 208
South East -4 342 £500 -9.09% 257
South West -1 312 £525 -4.55% 91
North West 0 308 £450 -10.00% 81
Midlands +2 289 £482 -3.67% 142
West Midlands +3 225 £488 -2.50% 94
Yorkshire +4 192 £500 +11.11% 86
North East 0 109 £450 - 42
East of England +10 96 £375 +7.14% 87
East Midlands +8 64 £425 -10.53% 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
1 118 (3.81%) Confluence
2 92 (2.97%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.84%) SAS
5 23 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
5 23 (0.74%) nginx
6 15 (0.48%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.45%) Apache
8 12 (0.39%) Apache Spark
9 10 (0.32%) CMS
10 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.16%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
12 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
13 3 (0.097%) IIS
13 3 (0.097%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.097%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.097%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.097%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 102 (3.29%) Microsoft Office
2 90 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 42 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.55%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.39%) Trello
7 9 (0.29%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.19%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.16%) Sketch
10 3 (0.097%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.097%) InVision
10 3 (0.097%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.065%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.065%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.032%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.032%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.032%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.032%) Stata
Business Applications
1 45 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.55%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.45%) SAP BRIM
4 14 (0.45%) SAP ERP
4 14 (0.45%) SAP Hybris
5 13 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
6 10 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.29%) iTrent
7 9 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
8 8 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
8 8 (0.26%) Unit4 Business World
9 7 (0.23%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.23%) SAP HR
10 6 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
10 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
10 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
11 4 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
11 4 (0.13%) SAP HCM
Cloud Services
1 576 (18.59%) AWS
2 553 (17.84%) Azure
3 200 (6.45%) Power Platform
4 152 (4.90%) Microsoft 365
5 138 (4.45%) Serverless
6 136 (4.39%) GitHub
7 133 (4.29%) GCP
8 116 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
10 77 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
11 68 (2.19%) Power Automate
12 67 (2.16%) Amazon S3
13 64 (2.07%) Entra ID
14 61 (1.97%) PowerApps
15 60 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
16 59 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
17 55 (1.77%) Amazon ECS
18 54 (1.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 50 (1.61%) SaaS
20 46 (1.48%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 104 (3.36%) Firewall
2 70 (2.26%) DNS
3 58 (1.87%) VPN
4 52 (1.68%) WAN
5 45 (1.45%) Wireless
6 43 (1.39%) Network Security
7 40 (1.29%) LAN
8 37 (1.19%) TCP/IP
9 29 (0.94%) BGP
10 28 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.84%) DHCP
12 23 (0.74%) SSL
13 22 (0.71%) OSPF
14 21 (0.68%) HTTP
15 18 (0.58%) SD-WAN
15 18 (0.58%) Skype
16 17 (0.55%) SSH
16 17 (0.55%) VLAN
17 15 (0.48%) FTP
17 15 (0.48%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (4.61%) Power BI
2 80 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
3 49 (1.58%) MongoDB
4 48 (1.55%) Metadata
5 38 (1.23%) Relational Database
5 38 (1.23%) SQL Server
6 33 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
7 29 (0.94%) Data Lake
7 29 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
7 29 (0.94%) NoSQL
8 25 (0.81%) Oracle Database
9 24 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
9 24 (0.77%) Redis
10 23 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.71%) MySQL
12 19 (0.61%) BigQuery
13 17 (0.55%) Electronic Patient Records
13 17 (0.55%) Tableau
14 14 (0.45%) Power Query
15 13 (0.42%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 203 (6.55%) JIRA
2 166 (5.36%) Git
3 126 (4.07%) Jenkins
4 100 (3.23%) GitLab
5 47 (1.52%) Postman
6 44 (1.42%) Selenium
7 30 (0.97%) Cucumber
8 22 (0.71%) Cypress.io
8 22 (0.71%) JUnit
9 19 (0.61%) REST Assured
10 18 (0.58%) Mockito
11 15 (0.48%) CircleCI
11 15 (0.48%) Vagrant
12 14 (0.45%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.45%) SonarQube
13 11 (0.35%) Mocha
13 11 (0.35%) MSI
13 11 (0.35%) Oracle Forms
14 10 (0.32%) Gradle
15 9 (0.29%) JMeter
General
1 933 (30.11%) Social Skills
2 498 (16.07%) Finance
3 280 (9.04%) Analytical Skills
4 237 (7.65%) Telecoms
5 201 (6.49%) Manufacturing
5 201 (6.49%) Marketing
6 180 (5.81%) Electronics
7 138 (4.45%) Military
8 115 (3.71%) Local Government
9 69 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
9 69 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
10 65 (2.10%) Legal
11 54 (1.74%) Influencing Skills
12 47 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
13 42 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 36 (1.16%) Law
14 36 (1.16%) Retail
15 33 (1.06%) Banking
16 26 (0.84%) Billing
17 24 (0.77%) Police
Job Titles
1 371 (11.97%) Developer
2 365 (11.78%) Architect
3 317 (10.23%) Senior
4 316 (10.20%) Analyst
5 292 (9.42%) Lead
6 191 (6.16%) Consultant
7 140 (4.52%) Business Analyst
8 126 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
9 98 (3.16%) Project Manager
10 87 (2.81%) Designer
11 85 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
12 79 (2.55%) Technical Architect
13 74 (2.39%) AWS Engineer
14 59 (1.90%) Senior Developer
15 58 (1.87%) Data Engineer
16 57 (1.84%) Java Developer
17 56 (1.81%) Support Engineer
18 54 (1.74%) Test Engineer
19 52 (1.68%) Network Engineer
19 52 (1.68%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (4.32%) REST
2 100 (3.23%) React
3 88 (2.84%) Node.js
4 86 (2.78%) RESTful
5 77 (2.48%) .NET
6 73 (2.36%) HTML
7 70 (2.26%) Spring Boot
8 69 (2.23%) Spring
9 65 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
10 64 (2.07%) CSS
11 61 (1.97%) JSON
12 56 (1.81%) AngularJS
12 56 (1.81%) Kafka
13 55 (1.77%) SOAP
14 53 (1.71%) Web Services
15 41 (1.32%) XML
16 30 (0.97%) Playwright
17 28 (0.90%) OAuth
18 25 (0.81%) Lightning Web Components
19 23 (0.74%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 117 (3.78%) Cloud Native
2 110 (3.55%) Onboarding
3 107 (3.45%) NHS
4 96 (3.10%) Product Ownership
5 81 (2.61%) Data Centre
6 65 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
7 61 (1.97%) Management Information System
8 35 (1.13%) Replication
9 31 (1.00%) PKI
10 30 (0.97%) Public Cloud
11 29 (0.94%) CMDB
12 28 (0.90%) Security Posture
13 27 (0.87%) AI Agents
14 25 (0.81%) Data Structures
14 25 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
15 24 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
15 24 (0.77%) Enterprise Software
15 24 (0.77%) Hybrid Cloud
16 23 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
17 19 (0.61%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 213 (6.87%) Windows
2 148 (4.78%) Linux
3 50 (1.61%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.45%) Android
5 41 (1.32%) Mac OS
6 38 (1.23%) Windows Server
7 26 (0.84%) VMS
8 25 (0.81%) Unix
9 18 (0.58%) Apple iOS
10 17 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 15 (0.48%) Amazon Linux
12 12 (0.39%) Ubuntu
13 9 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.26%) Mac OS X
15 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
15 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
16 5 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.097%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
18 2 (0.065%) Kali Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 786 (25.36%) Agile
2 443 (14.29%) CI/CD
3 442 (14.26%) DevOps
4 416 (13.42%) Problem-Solving
5 389 (12.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 351 (11.33%) Business Intelligence
7 331 (10.68%) Stakeholder Management
8 306 (9.87%) Migration
9 274 (8.84%) Continuous Improvement
10 253 (8.16%) Roadmaps
11 222 (7.16%) Programme Management
12 197 (6.36%) Test Automation
13 192 (6.20%) Decision-Making
13 192 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
14 189 (6.10%) Microservices
15 183 (5.91%) Analytics
15 183 (5.91%) Containerisation
16 180 (5.81%) AI
16 180 (5.81%) Digital Marketing
17 175 (5.65%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 356 (11.49%) Python
2 268 (8.65%) SQL
3 229 (7.39%) Java
4 166 (5.36%) JavaScript
5 124 (4.00%) PowerShell
6 96 (3.10%) TypeScript
7 77 (2.48%) C#
8 64 (2.07%) Bash
9 33 (1.06%) Go
10 30 (0.97%) Ruby
11 26 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.77%) Apex Code
13 18 (0.58%) Groovy
13 18 (0.58%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.48%) Perl
14 15 (0.48%) PHP
15 14 (0.45%) C++
15 14 (0.45%) R
16 13 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 13 (0.42%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 1,886 (60.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,268 (40.92%) SC Cleared
3 163 (5.26%) DV Cleared
4 152 (4.90%) Degree
5 79 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.48%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.42%) CISSP
8 43 (1.39%) AWS Certification
9 41 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
10 38 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
11 32 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (0.84%) CISM
14 23 (0.74%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.74%) PMP
15 19 (0.61%) CCNP
15 19 (0.61%) ISEB
16 18 (0.58%) ISTQB
17 15 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 14 (0.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 147 (4.74%) Accessibility
2 131 (4.23%) QA
3 102 (3.29%) Data Quality
4 90 (2.90%) GDPR
5 74 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 65 (2.10%) NIST
7 56 (1.81%) NCSC
8 53 (1.71%) WCAG
9 47 (1.52%) PMO
10 46 (1.48%) SLA
11 21 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
11 21 (0.68%) GRC
12 17 (0.55%) COBIT
12 17 (0.55%) JSP 440
13 15 (0.48%) HIPAA
14 14 (0.45%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
15 11 (0.35%) HL7
16 9 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 6 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 216 (6.97%) Docker
2 115 (3.71%) Active Directory
3 56 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 15 (0.48%) DFS Replication
6 15 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.45%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.42%) vSphere
9 10 (0.32%) Squid
10 9 (0.29%) Dovecot
10 9 (0.29%) Postfix
10 9 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.097%) NFS
15 2 (0.065%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.065%) Brightmail
15 2 (0.065%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 282 (9.10%) Terraform
2 227 (7.32%) Kubernetes
3 77 (2.48%) Ansible
4 67 (2.16%) Grafana
5 55 (1.77%) Prometheus
6 34 (1.10%) SCCM
7 31 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
8 23 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.45%) Packer
9 14 (0.45%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.39%) Nessus
11 10 (0.32%) Argo
11 10 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.32%) Proxmox
12 9 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.29%) vRealize
13 8 (0.26%) SCOM
14 7 (0.23%) Consul
14 7 (0.23%) Puppet
15 6 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 407 (13.13%) Microsoft
2 306 (9.87%) SAP
3 184 (5.94%) Oracle
4 144 (4.65%) Cisco
5 106 (3.42%) ServiceNow
6 87 (2.81%) Salesforce
7 85 (2.74%) VMware
8 60 (1.94%) Splunk
9 57 (1.84%) Google
10 40 (1.29%) Aruba
10 40 (1.29%) Databricks
11 39 (1.26%) Juniper
12 38 (1.23%) Palo Alto
12 38 (1.23%) Virgin Media
13 36 (1.16%) Apple
13 36 (1.16%) Dell
14 35 (1.13%) HP
15 27 (0.87%) SolarWinds
16 26 (0.84%) Fortinet
17 24 (0.77%) F5