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 9 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 23 19
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,022 2,068 3,039
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.00% 7.66% 8.15%
As % of the General category 16.29% 12.02% 14.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,810 1,392 2,026
10th Percentile £358 £340 £313
25th Percentile £425 £417 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.38% -
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £694 £695 £715
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.50% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 87 164
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £14.43
25th Percentile £17.00 £18.13 £15.59
Median hourly rate £22.50 £25.08 £25.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.27% -1.67% +21.43%
75th Percentile £45.78 £33.58 £58.54
90th Percentile £75.00 £66.65 £74.48
UK median hourly rate £24.19 £22.49 £23.00
% change year-on-year +7.58% -2.24% +14.43%

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 24,687 17,210 21,387
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.21% 63.78% 57.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,906 11,035 13,658
10th Percentile £313 £282 £300
25th Percentile £413 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £533
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -3.38% -3.09%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £763 £775
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,786 874 1,756
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.01 £16.37 £15.92
Median hourly rate £33.06 £27.13 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.88% -17.80% +10.00%
75th Percentile £63.75 £52.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.38 £69.75
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £27.13 £31.97
% change year-on-year +19.82% -15.15% +6.57%

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 9 July 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 9 July 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 9 July 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 +2 1,773 £525 - 566
North of England +3 708 £470 - 272
South East +4 508 £500 -4.76% 270
Midlands +10 468 £500 +9.15% 119
West Midlands +5 376 £500 +8.11% 85
North West 0 302 £500 +7.53% 114
South West -6 295 £525 -4.55% 170
Yorkshire +20 251 £458 -3.68% 83
North East -3 166 £450 -3.23% 77
East Midlands +23 85 £500 +23.46% 32
East of England +14 71 £475 -7.32% 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
1 155 (3.85%) Confluence
2 115 (2.86%) SharePoint
3 48 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 45 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
4 45 (1.12%) SAS
5 35 (0.87%) Apache Spark
6 33 (0.82%) Apache
7 21 (0.52%) CMS
8 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
10 12 (0.30%) nginx
11 10 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
12 7 (0.17%) Tomcat
12 7 (0.17%) WordPress
13 5 (0.12%) Camunda
13 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.12%) WebLogic
14 4 (0.099%) Drupal
15 3 (0.075%) IIS
Applications
1 74 (1.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 43 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
3 26 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 15 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.27%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.22%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.099%) Sketch
9 3 (0.075%) Adobe XD
9 3 (0.075%) Trello
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
11 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
11 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
11 1 (0.025%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 70 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 43 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
3 39 (0.97%) Oracle ERP
4 27 (0.67%) SAP PSCD
5 19 (0.47%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.30%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
6 12 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 11 (0.27%) Oracle Payables
7 11 (0.27%) Workday HCM
8 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.22%) NEC Housing
9 9 (0.22%) SystmOne
10 8 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 7 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
11 7 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
11 7 (0.17%) SAP HR
12 6 (0.15%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 790 (19.64%) AWS
2 723 (17.98%) Azure
3 216 (5.37%) Power Platform
4 180 (4.48%) Microsoft 365
5 152 (3.78%) Serverless
6 151 (3.75%) GitHub
7 150 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
8 146 (3.63%) GCP
9 128 (3.18%) Amazon S3
10 121 (3.01%) Entra ID
11 103 (2.56%) SaaS
12 102 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
13 96 (2.39%) AWS Lambda
14 85 (2.11%) OCI
15 82 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
16 72 (1.79%) Power Automate
17 69 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
18 63 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 63 (1.57%) Amazon EKS
19 61 (1.52%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 105 (2.61%) Firewall
2 61 (1.52%) DNS
3 60 (1.49%) WAN
4 59 (1.47%) Network Security
5 49 (1.22%) LAN
6 42 (1.04%) VPN
7 32 (0.80%) BGP
8 28 (0.70%) DHCP
9 27 (0.67%) OSPF
10 24 (0.60%) TCP/IP
10 24 (0.60%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (0.55%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.47%) BIG-IP
13 18 (0.45%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
14 16 (0.40%) WLAN
15 15 (0.37%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 14 (0.35%) NGFW
16 14 (0.35%) Wireless
17 12 (0.30%) DKIM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (3.63%) Power BI
2 94 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
3 89 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
4 79 (1.96%) SQL Server
5 57 (1.42%) Metadata
6 54 (1.34%) MongoDB
7 52 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
8 48 (1.19%) Data Lake
9 46 (1.14%) Oracle Database
10 45 (1.12%) NoSQL
10 45 (1.12%) Relational Database
11 40 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
12 34 (0.85%) Amazon Redshift
12 34 (0.85%) DynamoDB
13 32 (0.80%) Amazon Athena
14 31 (0.77%) Tableau
15 23 (0.57%) Amazon Aurora
16 22 (0.55%) Pentaho
17 19 (0.47%) Delta Lake
18 18 (0.45%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 223 (5.54%) JIRA
2 163 (4.05%) GitLab
3 158 (3.93%) Git
4 135 (3.36%) Jenkins
5 47 (1.17%) Selenium
6 40 (0.99%) JUnit
7 38 (0.94%) Mockito
8 30 (0.75%) Cucumber
8 30 (0.75%) SonarQube
9 29 (0.72%) Postman
10 27 (0.67%) JMeter
11 24 (0.60%) Cypress.io
12 22 (0.55%) Maven
13 19 (0.47%) REST Assured
14 16 (0.40%) WebDriver
15 14 (0.35%) CircleCI
15 14 (0.35%) DbUnit
16 13 (0.32%) Gatling
16 13 (0.32%) jMock
17 11 (0.27%) Artifactory
General
1 1,059 (26.33%) Social Skills
2 485 (12.06%) Finance
3 383 (9.52%) Analytical Skills
4 222 (5.52%) Military
5 207 (5.15%) Local Government
6 113 (2.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 103 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
8 102 (2.54%) Legal
9 86 (2.14%) Organisational Skills
10 85 (2.11%) Police
11 84 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 53 (1.32%) Telecoms
13 50 (1.24%) Banking
14 49 (1.22%) Law
15 41 (1.02%) Marketing
16 33 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
17 31 (0.77%) Billing
18 24 (0.60%) Retail
19 17 (0.42%) General Ledger
20 14 (0.35%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 537 (13.35%) Architect
2 532 (13.23%) Developer
3 498 (12.38%) Senior
4 409 (10.17%) Lead
5 375 (9.32%) Analyst
6 166 (4.13%) Designer
7 163 (4.05%) Consultant
8 152 (3.78%) Business Analyst
9 150 (3.73%) Data Engineer
10 147 (3.65%) DevOps Engineer
11 128 (3.18%) Solutions Architect
12 118 (2.93%) Technical Architect
13 112 (2.78%) Java Developer
14 104 (2.59%) Delivery Manager
15 102 (2.54%) Senior Developer
16 101 (2.51%) Project Manager
17 88 (2.19%) User Researcher
18 80 (1.99%) Data Architect
19 75 (1.86%) AWS Engineer
19 75 (1.86%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (3.53%) REST
2 117 (2.91%) Spring
3 116 (2.88%) Node.js
4 99 (2.46%) Spring Boot
5 97 (2.41%) RESTful
6 95 (2.36%) React
7 78 (1.94%) Oracle Fusion
8 76 (1.89%) Kafka
9 69 (1.72%) SOAP
10 63 (1.57%) .NET
11 61 (1.52%) Web Services
12 59 (1.47%) AngularJS
13 52 (1.29%) HTML
14 47 (1.17%) OAuth
15 45 (1.12%) Django
16 42 (1.04%) CSS
16 42 (1.04%) JSON
16 42 (1.04%) PySpark
17 40 (0.99%) Middleware
18 39 (0.97%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 220 (5.47%) Cloud Native
2 161 (4.00%) Product Ownership
3 151 (3.75%) Onboarding
4 147 (3.65%) NHS
5 102 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
6 91 (2.26%) Management Information System
7 69 (1.72%) Data Centre
8 63 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
9 58 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
10 53 (1.32%) Public Cloud
11 49 (1.22%) Hybrid Cloud
12 45 (1.12%) Data Structures
13 44 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
14 36 (0.90%) CMDB
15 32 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
16 30 (0.75%) Virtual Team
17 29 (0.72%) Security Posture
18 27 (0.67%) PKI
19 26 (0.65%) Security Operations Centre
20 24 (0.60%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 174 (4.33%) Windows
2 156 (3.88%) Linux
3 63 (1.57%) Windows Server
4 57 (1.42%) Unix
5 28 (0.70%) Android
6 26 (0.65%) Apple iOS
6 26 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 23 (0.57%) Windows 10
8 18 (0.45%) Mac OS
9 10 (0.25%) Mac OS X
9 10 (0.25%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.22%) Solaris
11 7 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
12 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
13 5 (0.12%) AIX
14 4 (0.099%) Amazon Linux
14 4 (0.099%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
16 2 (0.050%) CentOS
16 2 (0.050%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,156 (28.74%) Agile
2 636 (15.81%) Stakeholder Management
3 634 (15.76%) CI/CD
4 626 (15.56%) DevOps
5 535 (13.30%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 519 (12.90%) Continuous Improvement
7 421 (10.47%) Problem-Solving
8 398 (9.90%) Analytics
9 390 (9.70%) Decision-Making
10 369 (9.17%) Migration
11 328 (8.16%) Roadmaps
12 303 (7.53%) Infrastructure as Code
13 285 (7.09%) Data Modelling
14 283 (7.04%) AI
15 275 (6.84%) Containerisation
16 239 (5.94%) Microservices
17 236 (5.87%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 235 (5.84%) Test Automation
19 234 (5.82%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
20 233 (5.79%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 463 (11.51%) Python
2 387 (9.62%) SQL
3 307 (7.63%) Java
4 180 (4.48%) JavaScript
5 108 (2.69%) TypeScript
6 103 (2.56%) PowerShell
7 80 (1.99%) C#
8 62 (1.54%) Bash
9 57 (1.42%) PL/SQL
10 41 (1.02%) Apex Code
11 34 (0.85%) Bicep
11 34 (0.85%) Ruby
12 29 (0.72%) Kotlin
13 23 (0.57%) R
14 18 (0.45%) Shell Script
15 17 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (0.42%) Go
16 16 (0.40%) Scala
17 14 (0.35%) ABAP
18 13 (0.32%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 2,083 (51.79%) Security Cleared
2 1,531 (38.07%) SC Cleared
3 231 (5.74%) DV Cleared
4 188 (4.67%) BPSS Clearance
5 186 (4.62%) Degree
6 53 (1.32%) Azure Certification
7 49 (1.22%) Microsoft Certification
8 44 (1.09%) CISSP
9 41 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
10 40 (0.99%) AWS Certification
11 27 (0.67%) CISM
11 27 (0.67%) ITIL Certification
12 22 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
13 21 (0.52%) CCNP
13 21 (0.52%) PMI Certification
14 18 (0.45%) ISTQB
14 18 (0.45%) Master's Degree
14 18 (0.45%) PMP
15 15 (0.37%) CCNA
15 15 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 283 (7.04%) Accessibility
2 198 (4.92%) Data Quality
3 177 (4.40%) QA
4 124 (3.08%) GDPR
5 114 (2.83%) WCAG
6 100 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 80 (1.99%) PMO
8 76 (1.89%) NCSC
9 71 (1.77%) NIST
10 35 (0.87%) SLA
11 30 (0.75%) GRC
12 28 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 22 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 15 (0.37%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.27%) HL7
17 10 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.20%) NIST 800
19 7 (0.17%) IFRS
System Software
1 297 (7.38%) Docker
2 164 (4.08%) Active Directory
3 46 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.55%) VMware NSX
5 15 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
6 12 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.27%) Postfix
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
8 10 (0.25%) vSphere
9 9 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.050%) NFS
11 2 (0.050%) RACF
12 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.025%) etcd
12 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.025%) GPFS
12 1 (0.025%) NLBS
12 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 337 (8.38%) Terraform
2 284 (7.06%) Kubernetes
3 90 (2.24%) Grafana
4 79 (1.96%) Ansible
5 58 (1.44%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
7 38 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
8 29 (0.72%) Argo
9 14 (0.35%) Kibana
9 14 (0.35%) Puppet
9 14 (0.35%) SCCM
10 10 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
10 10 (0.25%) vCenter Server
11 7 (0.17%) Data Guard
11 7 (0.17%) FortiGate
12 6 (0.15%) Istio
13 5 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 5 (0.12%) Progress Chef
13 5 (0.12%) Rancher
14 4 (0.099%) VxRail
Vendors
1 493 (12.26%) Microsoft
2 301 (7.48%) Oracle
3 152 (3.78%) SAP
4 131 (3.26%) ServiceNow
5 119 (2.96%) Salesforce
6 107 (2.66%) Google
7 96 (2.39%) Databricks
8 65 (1.62%) VMware
9 47 (1.17%) Cisco
10 39 (0.97%) Palo Alto
11 36 (0.90%) Atlassian
12 34 (0.85%) Red Hat
13 29 (0.72%) Dynatrace
13 29 (0.72%) Splunk
14 28 (0.70%) Talend
15 27 (0.67%) IBM
16 25 (0.62%) CyberArk
17 24 (0.60%) F5
17 24 (0.60%) Informatica
18 23 (0.57%) Foundry