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 4 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 20 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,650 2,128 3,268
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.06% 8.73% 8.86%
As % of the General category 16.54% 13.63% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,571 1,459 2,186
10th Percentile £350 £348 £311
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £518
% change year-on-year - -3.47% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 85 164
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.62 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.57 £22.50 £21.62
Median % change year-on-year +0.30% +4.09% +5.85%
75th Percentile £30.87 £33.00 £54.66
90th Percentile £62.25 £64.90 £70.12
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.39 £21.00
% change year-on-year +0.51% +6.60% +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 22,062 15,610 21,499
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.76% 64.03% 58.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,764 10,134 13,862
10th Percentile £305 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,440 669 1,783
10th Percentile £14.24 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.27 £17.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +10.91% -8.82% -7.20%
75th Percentile £63.75 £55.93 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.06 £75.00 £65.03
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -10.14%

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 4 May 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 4 May 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 4 May 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 +3 1,638 £525 - 391
North of England -1 647 £452 -4.85% 252
South East -4 427 £500 -6.98% 217
Midlands +6 381 £500 +8.11% 131
North West -1 315 £465 -7.00% 109
West Midlands +4 298 £490 +8.11% 97
South West -8 250 £525 -4.55% 119
Yorkshire +6 221 £450 -2.70% 72
North East -3 117 £450 -2.96% 71
East of England +15 93 £425 +21.43% 70
East Midlands +9 78 £525 +5.00% 33
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
1 143 (3.92%) Confluence
2 104 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 19 (0.52%) CMS
6 17 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.47%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.41%) Apache
8 8 (0.22%) nginx
8 8 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
9 6 (0.16%) WebLogic
10 5 (0.14%) Camunda
11 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 3 (0.082%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.082%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.082%) Drupal
11 3 (0.082%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.082%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 87 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 14 (0.38%) MS Visio
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.14%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.082%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.055%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.055%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.055%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SystmOne
8 9 (0.25%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
10 7 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.14%) SAP HR
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 4 (0.11%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 677 (18.55%) AWS
2 641 (17.56%) Azure
3 196 (5.37%) Power Platform
4 158 (4.33%) Serverless
5 157 (4.30%) Microsoft 365
6 143 (3.92%) GitHub
7 131 (3.59%) GCP
8 130 (3.56%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.77%) Entra ID
10 94 (2.58%) Amazon S3
10 94 (2.58%) AWS Lambda
11 83 (2.27%) SaaS
12 82 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
13 66 (1.81%) Amazon EC2
13 66 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
14 62 (1.70%) AWS CloudFormation
14 62 (1.70%) OCI
15 61 (1.67%) Power Automate
16 60 (1.64%) Amazon EKS
17 58 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.60%) Firewall
2 55 (1.51%) WAN
3 53 (1.45%) Network Security
4 52 (1.42%) DNS
5 49 (1.34%) VPN
6 45 (1.23%) LAN
7 34 (0.93%) BGP
8 29 (0.79%) OSPF
8 29 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
9 24 (0.66%) TCP/IP
10 22 (0.60%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.52%) DHCP
12 16 (0.44%) SSL
13 15 (0.41%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.38%) Internet
15 13 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.36%) VLAN
15 13 (0.36%) Wireless
16 12 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (3.95%) Power BI
2 74 (2.03%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (1.84%) SQL Server
4 64 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.51%) Metadata
6 51 (1.40%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.23%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
9 36 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 29 (0.79%) Tableau
12 28 (0.77%) Relational Database
13 27 (0.74%) DynamoDB
14 26 (0.71%) Oracle Database
15 22 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
16 19 (0.52%) Pentaho
17 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
18 16 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 220 (6.03%) JIRA
2 174 (4.77%) Git
3 130 (3.56%) GitLab
4 114 (3.12%) Jenkins
5 40 (1.10%) JUnit
6 39 (1.07%) Selenium
7 36 (0.99%) Postman
8 35 (0.96%) Mockito
9 31 (0.85%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.66%) JMeter
11 20 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.52%) Maven
13 17 (0.47%) CircleCI
14 16 (0.44%) Cucumber
15 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
16 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
16 11 (0.30%) jMock
17 10 (0.27%) Mocha
18 9 (0.25%) Bitbucket
18 9 (0.25%) Gradle
General
1 933 (25.56%) Social Skills
2 469 (12.85%) Finance
3 357 (9.78%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (5.07%) Military
5 168 (4.60%) Local Government
6 104 (2.85%) Telecoms
7 86 (2.36%) Organisational Skills
8 81 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
9 80 (2.19%) Legal
9 80 (2.19%) Marketing
10 73 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 72 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
12 67 (1.84%) Manufacturing
13 59 (1.62%) Police
14 53 (1.45%) Banking
15 52 (1.42%) Electronics
16 51 (1.40%) Law
17 43 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
18 30 (0.82%) Billing
19 27 (0.74%) Retail
Job Titles
1 491 (13.45%) Developer
2 453 (12.41%) Architect
3 407 (11.15%) Senior
4 362 (9.92%) Analyst
5 307 (8.41%) Lead
6 162 (4.44%) Designer
7 158 (4.33%) Business Analyst
8 144 (3.95%) Consultant
9 124 (3.40%) Data Engineer
10 117 (3.21%) DevOps Engineer
11 116 (3.18%) Project Manager
12 110 (3.01%) Java Developer
13 102 (2.79%) Technical Architect
14 98 (2.68%) Solutions Architect
15 91 (2.49%) Senior Developer
16 81 (2.22%) Delivery Manager
16 81 (2.22%) User Researcher
17 72 (1.97%) Service Designer
18 64 (1.75%) Administrator
19 63 (1.73%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (3.70%) REST
2 121 (3.32%) Node.js
3 118 (3.23%) Spring
4 103 (2.82%) Spring Boot
5 97 (2.66%) React
6 95 (2.60%) RESTful
7 76 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (1.95%) AngularJS
9 70 (1.92%) .NET
10 68 (1.86%) Web Services
11 62 (1.70%) HTML
12 61 (1.67%) Kafka
13 57 (1.56%) SOAP
14 51 (1.40%) CSS
15 43 (1.18%) Lightning Web Components
16 38 (1.04%) OAuth
17 36 (0.99%) JSON
18 34 (0.93%) Middleware
18 34 (0.93%) Playwright
19 27 (0.74%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 170 (4.66%) Cloud Native
2 136 (3.73%) Product Ownership
3 130 (3.56%) Onboarding
4 129 (3.53%) NHS
5 84 (2.30%) Legacy Systems
6 83 (2.27%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.92%) Data Centre
8 53 (1.45%) Public Cloud
9 48 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
12 38 (1.04%) Data Structures
13 32 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
14 26 (0.71%) CMDB
15 23 (0.63%) Replication
16 21 (0.58%) PKI
17 20 (0.55%) Freedom of Information
18 19 (0.52%) Data Protection Act
19 18 (0.49%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 185 (5.07%) Windows
2 146 (4.00%) Linux
3 60 (1.64%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.34%) Unix
5 35 (0.96%) Windows 10
6 26 (0.71%) Android
7 22 (0.60%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.58%) Mac OS
9 19 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.25%) Ubuntu
12 8 (0.22%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
16 2 (0.055%) Amazon Linux
16 2 (0.055%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 947 (25.95%) Agile
2 518 (14.19%) CI/CD
3 508 (13.92%) DevOps
4 456 (12.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 400 (10.96%) Problem-Solving
6 386 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 383 (10.49%) Continuous Improvement
8 355 (9.73%) Migration
9 314 (8.60%) Analytics
10 301 (8.25%) Roadmaps
11 293 (8.03%) Decision-Making
12 247 (6.77%) Containerisation
13 232 (6.36%) Data Modelling
14 231 (6.33%) Infrastructure as Code
15 230 (6.30%) Test Automation
16 223 (6.11%) Microservices
17 220 (6.03%) AI
18 217 (5.95%) Business Intelligence
19 216 (5.92%) User Research
20 196 (5.37%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 397 (10.88%) Python
2 335 (9.18%) SQL
3 273 (7.48%) Java
4 179 (4.90%) JavaScript
5 112 (3.07%) PowerShell
5 112 (3.07%) TypeScript
6 84 (2.30%) C#
7 49 (1.34%) Bash
8 43 (1.18%) Apex Code
9 42 (1.15%) Ruby
10 35 (0.96%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.66%) Bicep
12 22 (0.60%) Go
12 22 (0.60%) R
13 21 (0.58%) Kotlin
14 20 (0.55%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.41%) Scala
16 13 (0.36%) PHP
17 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,997 (54.71%) Security Cleared
2 1,329 (36.41%) SC Cleared
3 192 (5.26%) DV Cleared
4 174 (4.77%) Degree
5 114 (3.12%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.34%) Azure Certification
7 38 (1.04%) AWS Certification
8 37 (1.01%) CISSP
9 35 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
10 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
12 28 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
13 27 (0.74%) PMP
14 24 (0.66%) PMI Certification
15 23 (0.63%) CISM
16 18 (0.49%) CCNP
17 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
17 15 (0.41%) ISEB
18 14 (0.38%) APMP
19 13 (0.36%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (6.14%) Accessibility
2 161 (4.41%) Data Quality
3 159 (4.36%) QA
4 98 (2.68%) GDPR
5 90 (2.47%) WCAG
6 81 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 70 (1.92%) PMO
8 61 (1.67%) NCSC
9 55 (1.51%) NIST
10 32 (0.88%) SLA
11 28 (0.77%) GRC
12 25 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.41%) PCI DSS
15 14 (0.38%) COBIT
15 14 (0.38%) HL7
16 10 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 8 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
17 8 (0.22%) IFRS
18 7 (0.19%) JSP 440
System Software
1 259 (7.10%) Docker
2 151 (4.14%) Active Directory
3 53 (1.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.47%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 7 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.082%) RACF
13 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.055%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) KVM
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 283 (7.75%) Terraform
2 265 (7.26%) Kubernetes
3 76 (2.08%) Grafana
4 73 (2.00%) Ansible
5 56 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (0.52%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Argo
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.33%) Kibana
10 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.27%) FortiGate
12 8 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) Consul
14 6 (0.16%) Istio
14 6 (0.16%) Rancher
14 6 (0.16%) vRealize
15 5 (0.14%) Packer
Vendors
1 431 (11.81%) Microsoft
2 221 (6.05%) Oracle
3 193 (5.29%) SAP
4 121 (3.32%) Salesforce
5 106 (2.90%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.55%) Google
7 83 (2.27%) VMware
8 77 (2.11%) Databricks
9 58 (1.59%) Cisco
10 38 (1.04%) Splunk
11 33 (0.90%) Atlassian
12 29 (0.79%) IBM
12 29 (0.79%) Palo Alto
12 29 (0.79%) Virgin Media
13 28 (0.77%) Red Hat
14 26 (0.71%) MuleSoft
14 26 (0.71%) Talend
15 25 (0.68%) Dynatrace
16 23 (0.63%) F5
16 23 (0.63%) Juniper