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

6 months to
19 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 3,738 2,274 3,388
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.10% 9.29% 8.96%
As % of the General category 17.56% 14.68% 15.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,646 1,509 2,258
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £415
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 81 151
10th Percentile £16.37 £15.25 £13.89
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.09 £25.00 £24.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.65% +2.04% +22.50%
75th Percentile £25.38 £35.00 £57.20
90th Percentile £54.60 £62.24 £69.50
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.09 £21.50
% change year-on-year -8.68% +12.05% +7.50%

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 21,286 15,488 22,174
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.52% 63.30% 58.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,445 10,017 14,493
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.41% -3.18%
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 1,335 579 1,658
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.94 £15.29
Median hourly rate £25.08 £30.81 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.60% +18.48% -22.76%
75th Percentile £59.25 £60.38 £50.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £25.75
% change year-on-year -16.67% +16.50% -24.06%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 +2 1,599 £523 -0.48% 346
North of England -3 656 £450 -5.26% 221
South East 0 461 £500 -9.09% 201
Midlands +5 406 £500 +5.26% 105
North West -1 323 £450 -10.00% 89
West Midlands +2 299 £500 +6.61% 74
South West 0 278 £525 -4.55% 75
Yorkshire +2 209 £500 +14.29% 79
North East 0 129 £450 +4.65% 53
East of England +26 118 £413 +17.86% 34
East Midlands +9 102 £500 - 31
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 (3.58%) Confluence
2 102 (2.73%) 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 (0.37%) Apache Spark
7 14 (0.37%) CMS
8 13 (0.35%) nginx
9 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
10 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
11 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 5 (0.13%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 4 (0.11%) Camunda
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
14 3 (0.080%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
Applications
1 95 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 94 (2.51%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 29 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) 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 62 (1.66%) 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%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.19%) SAP HR
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
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
1 697 (18.65%) AWS
2 648 (17.34%) Azure
3 216 (5.78%) Power Platform
4 174 (4.65%) Serverless
5 163 (4.36%) GitHub
6 160 (4.28%) Microsoft 365
7 148 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
8 147 (3.93%) GCP
9 109 (2.92%) AWS Lambda
10 94 (2.51%) Entra ID
11 93 (2.49%) GitHub Actions
12 91 (2.43%) Amazon S3
13 69 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
14 66 (1.77%) Power Automate
15 63 (1.69%) Amazon EC2
15 63 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
16 60 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
17 59 (1.58%) PowerApps
18 58 (1.55%) SaaS
19 56 (1.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.46%) Firewall
2 57 (1.52%) VPN
3 55 (1.47%) Network Security
4 53 (1.42%) WAN
5 49 (1.31%) DNS
6 44 (1.18%) LAN
7 40 (1.07%) Wireless
8 30 (0.80%) BGP
8 30 (0.80%) TCP/IP
9 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 23 (0.62%) OSPF
11 21 (0.56%) DHCP
12 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 12 (0.32%) MPLS
14 12 (0.32%) VLAN
15 11 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
15 11 (0.29%) IPsec
16 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 171 (4.57%) Power BI
2 85 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.61%) SQL Server
4 56 (1.50%) Metadata
4 56 (1.50%) MongoDB
5 49 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
6 46 (1.23%) NoSQL
7 41 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
7 41 (1.10%) Data Lake
8 36 (0.96%) Oracle Reports
9 35 (0.94%) Relational Database
10 29 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
11 27 (0.72%) Tableau
12 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
13 22 (0.59%) DynamoDB
14 20 (0.54%) MySQL
14 20 (0.54%) Oracle Database
15 19 (0.51%) Redis
16 17 (0.45%) Delta Lake
17 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 214 (5.72%) JIRA
2 178 (4.76%) Git
3 128 (3.42%) GitLab
4 124 (3.32%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.28%) Selenium
6 43 (1.15%) 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 15 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.37%) Mocha
14 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
14 13 (0.35%) Maven
15 11 (0.29%) Artifactory
16 10 (0.27%) MSI
17 9 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,026 (27.45%) Social Skills
2 559 (14.95%) Finance
3 366 (9.79%) Analytical Skills
4 179 (4.79%) Telecoms
5 160 (4.28%) Military
6 151 (4.04%) Local Government
7 148 (3.96%) Marketing
8 147 (3.93%) Manufacturing
9 127 (3.40%) Electronics
10 84 (2.25%) Legal
11 78 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 72 (1.93%) Influencing Skills
13 69 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
14 54 (1.44%) Banking
15 51 (1.36%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 49 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
17 46 (1.23%) Police
18 40 (1.07%) Law
19 35 (0.94%) Billing
20 33 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 463 (12.39%) Architect
1 463 (12.39%) Developer
2 403 (10.78%) Senior
3 382 (10.22%) Analyst
4 318 (8.51%) Lead
5 185 (4.95%) Consultant
6 172 (4.60%) Business Analyst
7 144 (3.85%) Designer
8 119 (3.18%) DevOps Engineer
9 116 (3.10%) Project Manager
10 114 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
11 112 (3.00%) Data Engineer
12 106 (2.84%) Technical Architect
13 87 (2.33%) Java Developer
14 83 (2.22%) User Researcher
15 73 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
15 73 (1.95%) Senior Developer
16 66 (1.77%) Service Designer
17 61 (1.63%) Full-Stack Developer
18 58 (1.55%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 155 (4.15%) REST
2 129 (3.45%) Node.js
3 111 (2.97%) React
4 106 (2.84%) Spring
5 94 (2.51%) RESTful
6 92 (2.46%) Spring Boot
7 78 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
8 75 (2.01%) .NET
8 75 (2.01%) AngularJS
8 75 (2.01%) HTML
9 69 (1.85%) CSS
10 66 (1.77%) Web Services
11 59 (1.58%) SOAP
12 58 (1.55%) Kafka
13 51 (1.36%) JSON
14 35 (0.94%) Playwright
14 35 (0.94%) XML
15 34 (0.91%) Lightning Web Components
15 34 (0.91%) Middleware
16 26 (0.70%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 158 (4.23%) Cloud Native
2 134 (3.58%) Onboarding
3 124 (3.32%) NHS
4 123 (3.29%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.38%) Data Centre
6 80 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
7 70 (1.87%) Management Information System
8 54 (1.44%) Public Cloud
9 40 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
10 38 (1.02%) Distributed Systems
11 36 (0.96%) Data Structures
12 35 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
13 34 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
14 33 (0.88%) Security Posture
15 29 (0.78%) CMDB
16 26 (0.70%) Replication
17 25 (0.67%) AI Agents
18 24 (0.64%) PKI
19 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
20 20 (0.54%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 210 (5.62%) Windows
2 157 (4.20%) Linux
3 57 (1.52%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.31%) Android
5 43 (1.15%) Mac OS
5 43 (1.15%) Windows 10
6 37 (0.99%) Unix
7 24 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (0.54%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.29%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.21%) 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
1 942 (25.20%) Agile
2 523 (13.99%) CI/CD
2 523 (13.99%) DevOps
3 468 (12.52%) Problem-Solving
4 455 (12.17%) Stakeholder Management
5 411 (11.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 375 (10.03%) Migration
7 353 (9.44%) Continuous Improvement
8 338 (9.04%) Roadmaps
9 322 (8.61%) Business Intelligence
10 286 (7.65%) Analytics
11 266 (7.12%) Decision-Making
12 236 (6.31%) Containerisation
12 236 (6.31%) Test Automation
13 231 (6.18%) Microservices
14 228 (6.10%) Infrastructure as Code
15 227 (6.07%) Data Modelling
16 217 (5.81%) AI
17 215 (5.75%) User Research
18 214 (5.72%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 405 (10.83%) Python
2 347 (9.28%) SQL
3 268 (7.17%) Java
4 197 (5.27%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.24%) PowerShell
6 119 (3.18%) TypeScript
7 85 (2.27%) C#
8 65 (1.74%) Bash
9 45 (1.20%) Ruby
10 34 (0.91%) Apex Code
11 33 (0.88%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
13 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
13 20 (0.54%) R
13 20 (0.54%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.48%) Bicep
15 14 (0.37%) PHP
16 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,196 (58.75%) Security Cleared
2 1,410 (37.72%) SC Cleared
3 188 (5.03%) DV Cleared
4 184 (4.92%) Degree
5 100 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 47 (1.26%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.18%) CISSP
9 38 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
10 37 (0.99%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
12 31 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
13 29 (0.78%) PMP
14 25 (0.67%) CISM
14 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
15 23 (0.62%) ISEB
16 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.43%) CCNP
16 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
16 16 (0.43%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (5.32%) Accessibility
2 157 (4.20%) QA
3 148 (3.96%) Data Quality
4 109 (2.92%) GDPR
5 84 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 74 (1.98%) WCAG
7 67 (1.79%) NIST
8 65 (1.74%) PMO
9 61 (1.63%) NCSC
10 42 (1.12%) SLA
11 28 (0.75%) GRC
12 20 (0.54%) COBIT
13 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.40%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
17 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
18 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 256 (6.85%) Docker
2 136 (3.64%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.66%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.54%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.45%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.40%) vSphere
8 14 (0.37%) 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
1 296 (7.92%) Terraform
2 274 (7.33%) Kubernetes
3 71 (1.90%) Ansible
3 71 (1.90%) Grafana
4 49 (1.31%) Prometheus
5 41 (1.10%) Microsoft Intune
6 31 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
7 27 (0.72%) SCCM
8 16 (0.43%) Argo
9 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
9 12 (0.32%) Puppet
9 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
10 10 (0.27%) Packer
11 9 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
11 9 (0.24%) Kibana
12 8 (0.21%) Consul
12 8 (0.21%) vRealize
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 421 (11.26%) Microsoft
2 270 (7.22%) SAP
3 221 (5.91%) Oracle
4 128 (3.42%) Cisco
5 114 (3.05%) ServiceNow
6 113 (3.02%) Salesforce
7 98 (2.62%) VMware
8 74 (1.98%) Databricks
9 68 (1.82%) Google
10 54 (1.44%) Splunk
11 42 (1.12%) Aruba
12 38 (1.02%) Virgin Media
13 35 (0.94%) Dell
13 35 (0.94%) Red Hat
14 33 (0.88%) Apple
15 32 (0.86%) HP
15 32 (0.86%) IBM
16 31 (0.83%) Atlassian
16 31 (0.83%) MuleSoft
17 30 (0.80%) Juniper