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 15 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 18 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,706 2,215 3,283
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.45% 9.08% 8.85%
As % of the General category 16.92% 14.22% 15.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,632 1,509 2,171
10th Percentile £350 £331 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £594 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 84 165
10th Percentile £14.84 £15.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.18 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.50 £22.39 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.51% -0.51% +12.22%
75th Percentile £25.77 £34.23 £55.11
90th Percentile £55.00 £64.00 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £23.00 £22.12
% change year-on-year -2.17% +4.00% +10.58%

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 21,907 15,575 21,659
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.89% 63.85% 58.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,758 10,131 14,014
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -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 1,407 645 1,748
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £17.61 £15.39
Median hourly rate £28.55 £29.00 £27.59
Median % change year-on-year -1.55% +5.10% -21.16%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.75 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £28.75 £27.50
% change year-on-year -4.35% +4.55% -21.43%

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 15 April 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 15 April 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 15 April 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 +1 1,628 £525 - 347
North of England -3 647 £450 -5.26% 247
South East -3 450 £500 -8.05% 195
Midlands +4 395 £500 +5.26% 82
North West -3 317 £460 -8.00% 115
West Midlands -1 300 £500 +9.15% 74
South West -3 260 £525 -2.78% 91
Yorkshire +7 217 £480 +5.49% 74
North East -3 118 £450 -2.17% 59
East of England +24 101 £425 +9.68% 35
East Midlands +15 90 £500 - 8
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
1 136 (3.67%) Confluence
2 103 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 30 (0.81%) SAS
5 19 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (0.49%) CMS
7 17 (0.46%) Apache
8 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
9 14 (0.38%) nginx
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 5 (0.13%) Camunda
12 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
13 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.081%) Drupal
14 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
14 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 90 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 74 (2.00%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
9 4 (0.11%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.054%) InVision
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
11 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.49%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 14 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.35%) SAP BRIM
6 13 (0.35%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 10 (0.27%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SystmOne
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 695 (18.75%) AWS
2 631 (17.03%) Azure
3 204 (5.50%) Power Platform
4 169 (4.56%) Serverless
5 150 (4.05%) GitHub
6 149 (4.02%) Microsoft 365
7 140 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 138 (3.72%) GCP
9 102 (2.75%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.51%) Amazon S3
10 93 (2.51%) Entra ID
11 86 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
12 70 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
13 66 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
13 66 (1.78%) Power Automate
14 65 (1.75%) SaaS
15 64 (1.73%) Amazon EC2
16 61 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
17 59 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 56 (1.51%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.46%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) Network Security
3 55 (1.48%) VPN
3 55 (1.48%) WAN
4 49 (1.32%) LAN
5 48 (1.30%) DNS
6 28 (0.76%) BGP
7 25 (0.67%) TCP/IP
8 24 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
9 23 (0.62%) OSPF
10 22 (0.59%) Wireless
11 20 (0.54%) DHCP
12 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
13 15 (0.40%) Internet
13 15 (0.40%) SSL
14 14 (0.38%) VLAN
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
16 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.30%) IPsec
16 11 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (4.21%) Power BI
2 80 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
3 72 (1.94%) SQL Server
4 61 (1.65%) Data Warehouse
5 60 (1.62%) Metadata
6 54 (1.46%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 42 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.86%) Tableau
11 31 (0.84%) Data Lake
12 29 (0.78%) DynamoDB
13 28 (0.76%) Relational Database
14 27 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
15 24 (0.65%) Oracle Database
16 22 (0.59%) Electronic Patient Records
17 20 (0.54%) MySQL
18 19 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
18 19 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
19 18 (0.49%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 220 (5.94%) JIRA
2 182 (4.91%) Git
3 122 (3.29%) GitLab
4 115 (3.10%) Jenkins
5 43 (1.16%) Selenium
6 41 (1.11%) Postman
7 39 (1.05%) JUnit
8 33 (0.89%) Mockito
9 29 (0.78%) SonarQube
10 25 (0.67%) JMeter
11 18 (0.49%) Cypress.io
12 17 (0.46%) Maven
13 16 (0.43%) Cucumber
14 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
15 13 (0.35%) Artifactory
16 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
17 11 (0.30%) REST Assured
18 10 (0.27%) DbUnit
18 10 (0.27%) jMock
18 10 (0.27%) Mocha
General
1 972 (26.23%) Social Skills
2 512 (13.82%) Finance
3 366 (9.88%) Analytical Skills
4 175 (4.72%) Military
5 164 (4.43%) Local Government
6 141 (3.80%) Telecoms
7 116 (3.13%) Marketing
8 110 (2.97%) Manufacturing
9 91 (2.46%) Electronics
10 84 (2.27%) Legal
11 80 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
12 75 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
13 73 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
14 61 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 56 (1.51%) Banking
15 56 (1.51%) Police
16 46 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
17 43 (1.16%) Law
18 33 (0.89%) Billing
19 28 (0.76%) Retail
Job Titles
1 483 (13.03%) Developer
2 473 (12.76%) Architect
3 403 (10.87%) Senior
4 382 (10.31%) Analyst
5 308 (8.31%) Lead
6 172 (4.64%) Business Analyst
7 163 (4.40%) Consultant
8 153 (4.13%) Designer
9 121 (3.26%) Data Engineer
10 116 (3.13%) DevOps Engineer
11 113 (3.05%) Project Manager
12 107 (2.89%) Solutions Architect
13 106 (2.86%) Technical Architect
14 96 (2.59%) Java Developer
15 88 (2.37%) Senior Developer
16 82 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
17 81 (2.19%) User Researcher
18 70 (1.89%) Service Designer
19 63 (1.70%) Data Analyst
20 61 (1.65%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 143 (3.86%) REST
2 119 (3.21%) Node.js
3 111 (3.00%) Spring
4 101 (2.73%) React
5 97 (2.62%) Spring Boot
6 95 (2.56%) RESTful
7 79 (2.13%) .NET
8 77 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
9 75 (2.02%) AngularJS
10 68 (1.83%) Web Services
11 66 (1.78%) HTML
12 63 (1.70%) SOAP
13 59 (1.59%) Kafka
14 55 (1.48%) CSS
15 46 (1.24%) JSON
16 42 (1.13%) Lightning Web Components
17 35 (0.94%) Middleware
18 34 (0.92%) XML
19 33 (0.89%) Playwright
20 30 (0.81%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 165 (4.45%) Cloud Native
2 140 (3.78%) NHS
3 131 (3.53%) Product Ownership
4 124 (3.35%) Onboarding
5 82 (2.21%) Legacy Systems
6 72 (1.94%) Data Centre
6 72 (1.94%) Management Information System
7 58 (1.57%) Public Cloud
8 47 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
9 44 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
10 40 (1.08%) Data Structures
11 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
12 30 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
13 28 (0.76%) CMDB
14 26 (0.70%) Replication
15 24 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
15 24 (0.65%) Security Posture
16 22 (0.59%) PKI
17 19 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
18 18 (0.49%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 202 (5.45%) Windows
2 157 (4.24%) Linux
3 61 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 46 (1.24%) Unix
5 42 (1.13%) Windows 10
6 35 (0.94%) Android
7 26 (0.70%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 9 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2003
16 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 963 (25.98%) Agile
2 521 (14.06%) CI/CD
3 516 (13.92%) DevOps
4 463 (12.49%) Stakeholder Management
5 433 (11.68%) Problem-Solving
6 417 (11.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 376 (10.15%) Continuous Improvement
8 373 (10.06%) Migration
9 335 (9.04%) Roadmaps
10 308 (8.31%) Analytics
11 290 (7.83%) Decision-Making
12 270 (7.29%) Business Intelligence
13 243 (6.56%) Test Automation
14 240 (6.48%) Containerisation
15 234 (6.31%) Data Modelling
16 226 (6.10%) Microservices
17 224 (6.04%) AI
17 224 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
18 211 (5.69%) Workshop Facilitation
19 207 (5.59%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 405 (10.93%) Python
2 338 (9.12%) SQL
3 264 (7.12%) Java
4 193 (5.21%) JavaScript
5 113 (3.05%) TypeScript
6 112 (3.02%) PowerShell
7 92 (2.48%) C#
8 51 (1.38%) Bash
9 44 (1.19%) Ruby
10 42 (1.13%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.59%) Bicep
12 22 (0.59%) Go
12 22 (0.59%) R
12 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
13 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.35%) PHP
14 13 (0.35%) T-SQL
15 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
15 11 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,101 (56.69%) Security Cleared
2 1,391 (37.53%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.96%) DV Cleared
4 172 (4.64%) Degree
5 106 (2.86%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 43 (1.16%) CISSP
8 42 (1.13%) AWS Certification
9 38 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
11 30 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 30 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (0.78%) PMP
13 25 (0.67%) CISM
13 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.62%) ISEB
15 19 (0.51%) CCNP
16 17 (0.46%) ISTQB
17 14 (0.38%) APMP
17 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (5.26%) Accessibility
2 158 (4.26%) Data Quality
3 157 (4.24%) QA
4 107 (2.89%) GDPR
5 89 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 76 (2.05%) WCAG
7 69 (1.86%) NCSC
8 68 (1.83%) PMO
9 62 (1.67%) NIST
10 37 (1.00%) SLA
11 34 (0.92%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) COBIT
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.49%) PCI DSS
15 16 (0.43%) HL7
16 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
17 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 10 (0.27%) NIST 800
19 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 262 (7.07%) Docker
2 137 (3.70%) Active Directory
3 57 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 9 (0.24%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 292 (7.88%) Terraform
2 270 (7.29%) Kubernetes
3 70 (1.89%) Grafana
4 66 (1.78%) Ansible
5 50 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.08%) Microsoft Intune
7 26 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.30%) Argo
11 11 (0.30%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.27%) Kibana
13 9 (0.24%) Packer
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
14 8 (0.22%) vRealize
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 421 (11.36%) Microsoft
2 231 (6.23%) SAP
3 229 (6.18%) Oracle
4 123 (3.32%) Salesforce
5 112 (3.02%) ServiceNow
6 100 (2.70%) Cisco
7 91 (2.46%) VMware
8 81 (2.19%) Databricks
9 79 (2.13%) Google
10 44 (1.19%) Splunk
11 34 (0.92%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.86%) Aruba
12 32 (0.86%) IBM
13 30 (0.81%) Virgin Media
14 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft
15 27 (0.73%) Juniper
15 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
16 25 (0.67%) Talend
17 24 (0.65%) Dynatrace
18 23 (0.62%) Palo Alto