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 29 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +4
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,095 2,721 3,397
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.81% 9.64% 9.28%
As % of the General category 16.01% 15.61% 15.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,164 1,665 2,369
10th Percentile £331 £307 £305
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% +0.93%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £722 £729
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 98 99
10th Percentile £16.36 £14.70 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.56 £16.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £22.27 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% +3.58% +8.20%
75th Percentile £25.11 £29.88 £58.24
90th Percentile £47.00 £60.72 £70.10
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.14 £21.00
% change year-on-year -5.13% +5.40% +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 19,332 17,436 21,714
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 61.29% 61.74% 59.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,247 10,551 14,670
10th Percentile £282 £300 £279
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -
75th Percentile £626 £650 £663
90th Percentile £738 £775 £753
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,238 598 1,015
10th Percentile £14.21 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.93 £18.42 £16.75
Median hourly rate £23.50 £30.00 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.67% -9.09% +28.35%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.00 £59.71
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.05 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £27.39 £32.50
% change year-on-year -14.19% -15.74% +30.00%

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 29 December 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 29 December 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 29 December 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 -3 1,272 £525 - 502
North of England -1 611 £455 -4.66% 531
South East -6 344 £500 -9.09% 565
North West -1 314 £450 -10.00% 247
South West 0 312 £525 -4.55% 287
Midlands +1 287 £475 -5.00% 425
West Midlands +3 224 £478 -4.50% 225
Yorkshire 0 190 £500 +9.59% 232
North East 0 111 £450 +5.88% 53
East of England +14 94 £375 +7.14% 313
East Midlands +3 63 £425 -14.14% 176
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
1 116 (3.75%) Confluence
2 90 (2.91%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.84%) SAS
5 24 (0.78%) nginx
6 23 (0.74%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.48%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.45%) Apache
9 12 (0.39%) Apache Spark
10 10 (0.32%) CMS
11 6 (0.19%) Anypoint
11 6 (0.19%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.16%) Documentum
13 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
14 3 (0.097%) IIS
14 3 (0.097%) Jupyter
14 3 (0.097%) Smallworld
14 3 (0.097%) SugarCRM
14 3 (0.097%) WordPress
Applications
1 108 (3.49%) Microsoft Office
2 91 (2.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 41 (1.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.61%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.61%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
6 12 (0.39%) Trello
7 9 (0.29%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.19%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.19%) Sketch
9 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
10 4 (0.13%) InVision
10 4 (0.13%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.065%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.065%) OmniGraffle
11 2 (0.065%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.065%) UXPin
12 1 (0.032%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.032%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 44 (1.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 28 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.55%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.45%) Oracle EBS
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%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.29%) iTrent
8 7 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
8 7 (0.23%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.23%) Unit4 Business World
9 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
9 6 (0.19%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
10 5 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
11 4 (0.13%) Integrated Workplace Management System
Cloud Services
1 574 (18.55%) AWS
2 563 (18.19%) Azure
3 198 (6.40%) Power Platform
4 153 (4.94%) Microsoft 365
5 137 (4.43%) Serverless
6 135 (4.36%) GitHub
7 133 (4.30%) GCP
8 114 (3.68%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
10 79 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
11 68 (2.20%) Amazon S3
12 66 (2.13%) Entra ID
13 64 (2.07%) Power Automate
14 62 (2.00%) AWS CloudFormation
15 59 (1.91%) PowerApps
16 58 (1.87%) Dynamics 365
17 55 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 54 (1.74%) Amazon ECS
19 51 (1.65%) SaaS
20 48 (1.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 113 (3.65%) Firewall
2 76 (2.46%) DNS
3 63 (2.04%) VPN
4 55 (1.78%) WAN
5 46 (1.49%) Network Security
6 45 (1.45%) Wireless
7 42 (1.36%) LAN
8 36 (1.16%) TCP/IP
9 33 (1.07%) BGP
10 29 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
11 28 (0.90%) DHCP
12 24 (0.78%) SSL
13 23 (0.74%) OSPF
14 22 (0.71%) HTTP
14 22 (0.71%) SD-WAN
15 20 (0.65%) Internet
16 18 (0.58%) Skype
16 18 (0.58%) SSH
16 18 (0.58%) VLAN
17 17 (0.55%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (4.52%) Power BI
2 82 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
3 50 (1.62%) MongoDB
4 45 (1.45%) Metadata
5 38 (1.23%) Relational Database
6 37 (1.20%) SQL Server
7 33 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
8 31 (1.00%) Data Lake
9 30 (0.97%) NoSQL
10 27 (0.87%) Data Warehouse
11 25 (0.81%) Oracle Database
11 25 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
12 24 (0.78%) Redis
13 22 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.71%) MySQL
14 19 (0.61%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.55%) Tableau
16 16 (0.52%) Big Data
17 15 (0.48%) Electronic Patient Records
18 14 (0.45%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 205 (6.62%) JIRA
2 172 (5.56%) Git
3 133 (4.30%) Jenkins
4 101 (3.26%) GitLab
5 47 (1.52%) Postman
6 43 (1.39%) Selenium
7 29 (0.94%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.68%) Cypress.io
8 21 (0.68%) JUnit
9 20 (0.65%) REST Assured
10 18 (0.58%) Mockito
11 16 (0.52%) SonarQube
11 16 (0.52%) Vagrant
12 15 (0.48%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.45%) CircleCI
14 12 (0.39%) Oracle Forms
15 11 (0.36%) MSI
16 10 (0.32%) Mocha
17 9 (0.29%) Gradle
18 8 (0.26%) JMeter
General
1 942 (30.44%) Social Skills
2 496 (16.03%) Finance
3 283 (9.14%) Analytical Skills
4 238 (7.69%) Telecoms
5 203 (6.56%) Manufacturing
6 200 (6.46%) Marketing
7 182 (5.88%) Electronics
8 135 (4.36%) Military
9 115 (3.72%) Local Government
10 72 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
11 66 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
12 65 (2.10%) Legal
13 52 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
14 44 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
15 42 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 40 (1.29%) Retail
17 31 (1.00%) Banking
17 31 (1.00%) Law
18 25 (0.81%) Billing
19 24 (0.78%) Police
Job Titles
1 377 (12.18%) Developer
2 364 (11.76%) Architect
3 323 (10.44%) Senior
4 317 (10.24%) Analyst
5 284 (9.18%) Lead
6 194 (6.27%) Consultant
7 137 (4.43%) Business Analyst
8 128 (4.14%) DevOps Engineer
9 92 (2.97%) Project Manager
10 84 (2.71%) Designer
10 84 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
11 79 (2.55%) AWS Engineer
12 77 (2.49%) Technical Architect
13 62 (2.00%) Senior Developer
14 59 (1.91%) Java Developer
14 59 (1.91%) Network Engineer
14 59 (1.91%) Support Engineer
15 53 (1.71%) Data Engineer
16 52 (1.68%) Senior Analyst
16 52 (1.68%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (4.23%) REST
2 97 (3.13%) React
3 89 (2.88%) Node.js
4 87 (2.81%) RESTful
5 75 (2.42%) .NET
6 73 (2.36%) HTML
7 70 (2.26%) Spring Boot
8 68 (2.20%) Spring
9 66 (2.13%) Oracle Fusion
10 64 (2.07%) CSS
11 62 (2.00%) JSON
12 57 (1.84%) Kafka
13 55 (1.78%) SOAP
14 54 (1.74%) AngularJS
15 53 (1.71%) Web Services
16 42 (1.36%) XML
17 30 (0.97%) Playwright
18 29 (0.94%) OAuth
19 27 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
20 23 (0.74%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 114 (3.68%) Cloud Native
2 108 (3.49%) Onboarding
3 105 (3.39%) NHS
4 91 (2.94%) Product Ownership
5 80 (2.58%) Data Centre
6 65 (2.10%) Legacy Systems
7 61 (1.97%) Management Information System
8 36 (1.16%) Replication
9 32 (1.03%) PKI
10 30 (0.97%) Public Cloud
10 30 (0.97%) Security Posture
11 29 (0.94%) CMDB
12 27 (0.87%) AI Agents
13 25 (0.81%) Data Structures
13 25 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
13 25 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
14 23 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
15 22 (0.71%) Enterprise Software
15 22 (0.71%) Self-Motivation
16 19 (0.61%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 226 (7.30%) Windows
2 150 (4.85%) Linux
3 52 (1.68%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.49%) Android
5 42 (1.36%) Windows Server
6 41 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 26 (0.84%) VMS
8 25 (0.81%) Unix
9 19 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 18 (0.58%) Apple iOS
11 16 (0.52%) Amazon Linux
12 11 (0.36%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.26%) Mac OS X
15 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
16 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2003
16 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
17 3 (0.097%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.097%) Windows Server 2008
18 2 (0.065%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 784 (25.33%) Agile
2 448 (14.47%) CI/CD
3 443 (14.31%) DevOps
4 429 (13.86%) Problem-Solving
5 394 (12.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 349 (11.28%) Business Intelligence
7 321 (10.37%) Stakeholder Management
8 307 (9.92%) Migration
9 269 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
10 250 (8.08%) Roadmaps
11 217 (7.01%) Programme Management
12 195 (6.30%) Microservices
13 194 (6.27%) Infrastructure as Code
13 194 (6.27%) Test Automation
14 187 (6.04%) Analytics
14 187 (6.04%) Decision-Making
15 183 (5.91%) ITIL
16 182 (5.88%) Digital Marketing
17 180 (5.82%) AI
18 176 (5.69%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 358 (11.57%) Python
2 265 (8.56%) SQL
3 237 (7.66%) Java
4 163 (5.27%) JavaScript
5 127 (4.10%) PowerShell
6 91 (2.94%) TypeScript
7 75 (2.42%) C#
8 65 (2.10%) Bash
9 34 (1.10%) Go
10 29 (0.94%) Ruby
11 26 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.81%) Apex Code
13 21 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.65%) Groovy
15 17 (0.55%) Perl
15 17 (0.55%) PHP
16 16 (0.52%) C++
17 15 (0.48%) C
18 13 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 13 (0.42%) R
Qualifications
1 1,871 (60.45%) Security Cleared
2 1,256 (40.58%) SC Cleared
3 160 (5.17%) DV Cleared
4 144 (4.65%) Degree
5 81 (2.62%) BPSS Clearance
6 48 (1.55%) CISSP
7 46 (1.49%) Azure Certification
8 43 (1.39%) AWS Certification
9 41 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
10 37 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
11 31 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
12 30 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (0.84%) CISM
14 21 (0.68%) CCNP
15 19 (0.61%) ISEB
15 19 (0.61%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.61%) PMI Certification
16 18 (0.58%) PMP
17 15 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 14 (0.45%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 148 (4.78%) Accessibility
2 128 (4.14%) QA
3 98 (3.17%) Data Quality
4 90 (2.91%) GDPR
5 78 (2.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (2.16%) NIST
7 51 (1.65%) NCSC
8 50 (1.62%) WCAG
9 44 (1.42%) PMO
10 43 (1.39%) SLA
11 22 (0.71%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.68%) GRC
13 17 (0.55%) COBIT
14 16 (0.52%) HIPAA
14 16 (0.52%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.45%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
16 11 (0.36%) HL7
17 9 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.23%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 216 (6.98%) Docker
2 122 (3.94%) Active Directory
3 58 (1.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.52%) DFS Replication
7 15 (0.48%) VMware ESXi
8 14 (0.45%) VMware NSX
9 13 (0.42%) vSphere
10 10 (0.32%) Squid
10 10 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
11 9 (0.29%) Dovecot
11 9 (0.29%) Postfix
12 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
15 3 (0.097%) NFS
15 3 (0.097%) UAG
16 2 (0.065%) Firmware
16 2 (0.065%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 287 (9.27%) Terraform
2 227 (7.33%) Kubernetes
3 81 (2.62%) Ansible
4 67 (2.16%) Grafana
5 54 (1.74%) Prometheus
6 38 (1.23%) SCCM
7 35 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
8 22 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.48%) Packer
10 14 (0.45%) vCenter Server
11 12 (0.39%) Nessus
12 11 (0.36%) Argo
13 10 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 10 (0.32%) Jamf Pro
13 10 (0.32%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.29%) vRealize
15 8 (0.26%) SCOM
16 7 (0.23%) Consul
16 7 (0.23%) Puppet
17 6 (0.19%) CSIRT
Vendors
1 418 (13.51%) Microsoft
2 307 (9.92%) SAP
3 191 (6.17%) Oracle
4 152 (4.91%) Cisco
5 106 (3.42%) ServiceNow
6 87 (2.81%) VMware
7 86 (2.78%) Salesforce
8 59 (1.91%) Splunk
9 58 (1.87%) Google
10 46 (1.49%) Juniper
11 40 (1.29%) Aruba
11 40 (1.29%) Databricks
12 39 (1.26%) Palo Alto
13 38 (1.23%) HP
13 38 (1.23%) Virgin Media
14 37 (1.20%) Dell
15 36 (1.16%) Apple
16 28 (0.90%) SolarWinds
17 27 (0.87%) Fortinet
18 25 (0.81%) MuleSoft