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

6 months to
17 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 3,714 2,277 3,391
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.08% 9.27% 8.95%
As % of the General category 17.49% 14.65% 15.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,624 1,507 2,264
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.44% -0.33% -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 192 80 149
10th Percentile £16.37 £15.23 £13.73
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.04 £24.59 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -10.38% +13.16% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.38 £34.60 £55.11
90th Percentile £54.13 £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 21,233 15,539 22,215
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.64% 63.25% 58.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,414 10,034 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 1,326 577 1,666
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.00 £13.03
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.97 £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.78 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.78% +18.38% -23.53%
75th Percentile £58.98 £61.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £77.13 £76.25 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.55 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -18.17% +15.38% -25.71%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 1,594 £525 - 348
North of England -3 658 £450 -5.26% 211
South East 0 456 £500 -8.47% 239
Midlands +4 398 £500 +5.26% 109
North West 0 326 £450 -10.00% 85
West Midlands +1 293 £500 +7.53% 75
South West +1 273 £525 -4.55% 92
Yorkshire 0 208 £500 +11.11% 77
North East 0 129 £450 +3.75% 49
East of England +25 118 £425 +21.43% 41
East Midlands +10 101 £500 - 34
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
1 135 (3.63%) Confluence
2 103 (2.77%) SharePoint
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.65%) 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 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
14 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
14 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.081%) GeoServer
15 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
15 3 (0.081%) Smallworld
Applications
1 97 (2.61%) Microsoft Excel
2 92 (2.48%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (0.73%) 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 (0.081%) InVision
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
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
14 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 64 (1.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.19%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 690 (18.58%) AWS
2 640 (17.23%) Azure
3 216 (5.82%) Power Platform
4 171 (4.60%) Serverless
5 163 (4.39%) GitHub
6 161 (4.33%) Microsoft 365
7 147 (3.96%) GCP
8 144 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
9 107 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
10 94 (2.53%) Entra ID
11 93 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
12 90 (2.42%) Amazon S3
13 66 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
13 66 (1.78%) Power Automate
14 63 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
15 62 (1.67%) Amazon EC2
15 62 (1.67%) Amazon EKS
16 59 (1.59%) PowerApps
17 57 (1.53%) SaaS
18 55 (1.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.45%) Firewall
2 57 (1.53%) VPN
3 54 (1.45%) Network Security
4 52 (1.40%) WAN
5 49 (1.32%) DNS
6 43 (1.16%) LAN
7 40 (1.08%) Wireless
8 30 (0.81%) TCP/IP
9 29 (0.78%) BGP
10 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (0.59%) OSPF
12 21 (0.57%) DHCP
13 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
14 16 (0.43%) Internet
15 15 (0.40%) SSL
16 12 (0.32%) MPLS
17 11 (0.30%) IPsec
17 11 (0.30%) VLAN
18 10 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
18 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (4.58%) Power BI
2 81 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
3 61 (1.64%) SQL Server
4 55 (1.48%) MongoDB
5 54 (1.45%) Metadata
6 47 (1.27%) Data Warehouse
7 44 (1.18%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.10%) Data Lake
9 40 (1.08%) Amazon RDS
10 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
11 34 (0.92%) Relational Database
12 29 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
13 25 (0.67%) Tableau
14 24 (0.65%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.57%) 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
1 211 (5.68%) JIRA
2 172 (4.63%) Git
3 130 (3.50%) GitLab
4 125 (3.37%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.29%) Selenium
6 43 (1.16%) Postman
7 34 (0.92%) JUnit
8 29 (0.78%) Mockito
9 25 (0.67%) Cucumber
9 25 (0.67%) Cypress.io
10 22 (0.59%) SonarQube
11 21 (0.57%) JMeter
12 15 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.38%) Mocha
14 12 (0.32%) Maven
15 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,022 (27.52%) Social Skills
2 554 (14.92%) Finance
3 360 (9.69%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (4.82%) Telecoms
5 161 (4.33%) Military
6 150 (4.04%) Local Government
6 150 (4.04%) Marketing
7 148 (3.98%) Manufacturing
8 128 (3.45%) Electronics
9 83 (2.23%) Legal
10 78 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (1.91%) Influencing Skills
12 69 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
13 54 (1.45%) Banking
14 50 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 49 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
16 45 (1.21%) Police
17 39 (1.05%) Law
18 35 (0.94%) Billing
19 33 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 464 (12.49%) Developer
2 459 (12.36%) Architect
3 399 (10.74%) Senior
4 372 (10.02%) Analyst
5 314 (8.45%) Lead
6 186 (5.01%) Consultant
7 170 (4.58%) Business Analyst
8 140 (3.77%) Designer
9 124 (3.34%) DevOps Engineer
10 113 (3.04%) Project Manager
11 111 (2.99%) Data Engineer
11 111 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
12 103 (2.77%) Technical Architect
13 88 (2.37%) Java Developer
14 84 (2.26%) User Researcher
15 71 (1.91%) Senior Developer
16 70 (1.88%) Delivery Manager
17 65 (1.75%) Service Designer
18 61 (1.64%) AWS Engineer
19 57 (1.53%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (4.09%) REST
2 127 (3.42%) Node.js
3 108 (2.91%) React
4 106 (2.85%) Spring
5 94 (2.53%) Spring Boot
6 91 (2.45%) RESTful
7 77 (2.07%) HTML
8 76 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
9 75 (2.02%) .NET
10 73 (1.97%) AngularJS
11 71 (1.91%) CSS
12 67 (1.80%) Web Services
13 58 (1.56%) Kafka
13 58 (1.56%) SOAP
14 52 (1.40%) JSON
15 36 (0.97%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.94%) XML
17 34 (0.92%) Middleware
17 34 (0.92%) Playwright
18 27 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 156 (4.20%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.72%) Onboarding
3 125 (3.37%) NHS
4 121 (3.26%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.40%) Data Centre
6 79 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
7 70 (1.88%) Management Information System
8 53 (1.43%) Public Cloud
9 39 (1.05%) Enterprise Software
10 37 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
11 35 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
12 34 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
13 33 (0.89%) Data Structures
14 32 (0.86%) Security Posture
15 30 (0.81%) CMDB
16 25 (0.67%) AI Agents
16 25 (0.67%) Replication
17 24 (0.65%) PKI
18 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
19 20 (0.54%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 208 (5.60%) Windows
2 157 (4.23%) Linux
3 55 (1.48%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.32%) Android
5 44 (1.18%) Mac OS
5 44 (1.18%) Windows 10
6 37 (1.00%) Unix
7 23 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (0.54%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 931 (25.07%) Agile
2 525 (14.14%) CI/CD
3 520 (14.00%) DevOps
4 463 (12.47%) Problem-Solving
5 455 (12.25%) Stakeholder Management
6 411 (11.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 371 (9.99%) Migration
8 343 (9.24%) Continuous Improvement
9 333 (8.97%) Roadmaps
10 323 (8.70%) Business Intelligence
11 281 (7.57%) Analytics
12 261 (7.03%) Decision-Making
13 236 (6.35%) Containerisation
14 233 (6.27%) Test Automation
15 230 (6.19%) Infrastructure as Code
16 228 (6.14%) Microservices
17 222 (5.98%) Data Modelling
18 212 (5.71%) AI
18 212 (5.71%) User Research
19 210 (5.65%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 401 (10.80%) Python
2 341 (9.18%) SQL
3 262 (7.05%) Java
4 194 (5.22%) JavaScript
5 117 (3.15%) PowerShell
5 117 (3.15%) TypeScript
6 85 (2.29%) C#
7 67 (1.80%) Bash
8 44 (1.18%) Ruby
9 35 (0.94%) Apex Code
10 32 (0.86%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.65%) Go
12 21 (0.57%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.51%) Kotlin
13 19 (0.51%) R
14 17 (0.46%) Bicep
15 14 (0.38%) PHP
16 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,175 (58.56%) Security Cleared
2 1,401 (37.72%) SC Cleared
3 182 (4.90%) DV Cleared
4 181 (4.87%) Degree
5 101 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 46 (1.24%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.16%) CISSP
9 37 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
10 36 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
10 36 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
11 30 (0.81%) 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
1 194 (5.22%) Accessibility
2 154 (4.15%) QA
3 147 (3.96%) Data Quality
4 110 (2.96%) GDPR
5 84 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 70 (1.88%) WCAG
7 66 (1.78%) NIST
8 65 (1.75%) PMO
9 60 (1.62%) NCSC
10 42 (1.13%) SLA
11 27 (0.73%) GRC
12 19 (0.51%) 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 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 258 (6.95%) Docker
2 135 (3.63%) Active Directory
3 60 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.51%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.38%) vSphere
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.16%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) NFS
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
13 2 (0.054%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.027%) etcd
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 299 (8.05%) Terraform
2 273 (7.35%) Kubernetes
3 74 (1.99%) Ansible
4 72 (1.94%) Grafana
5 50 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
7 31 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
8 24 (0.65%) 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 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.19%) vRealize
16 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 422 (11.36%) Microsoft
2 272 (7.32%) SAP
3 215 (5.79%) Oracle
4 129 (3.47%) Cisco
5 115 (3.10%) Salesforce
5 115 (3.10%) ServiceNow
6 95 (2.56%) VMware
7 73 (1.97%) Databricks
8 69 (1.86%) Google
9 56 (1.51%) Splunk
10 43 (1.16%) Virgin Media
11 42 (1.13%) Aruba
12 35 (0.94%) Dell
13 34 (0.92%) Apple
13 34 (0.92%) Red Hat
14 31 (0.83%) Atlassian
14 31 (0.83%) HP
15 30 (0.81%) IBM
15 30 (0.81%) Juniper
16 29 (0.78%) MuleSoft