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

6 months to
6 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 20 16
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,661 2,124 3,268
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.01% 8.71% 8.86%
As % of the General category 16.48% 13.58% 15.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,582 1,453 2,186
10th Percentile £350 £350 £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 162 85 164
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.62 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £23.83 £22.50 £21.62
Median % change year-on-year +5.89% +4.09% +7.54%
75th Percentile £34.62 £33.00 £54.66
90th Percentile £62.85 £64.90 £70.12
UK median hourly rate £22.64 £22.39 £21.00
% change year-on-year +1.12% +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 22,217 15,643 21,500
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.66% 64.12% 58.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,823 10,163 13,863
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 1,459 669 1,783
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.23 £17.13 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.64 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +10.35% -8.36% -6.63%
75th Percentile £63.75 £57.24 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.01 £75.00 £65.03
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -7.69%

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 6 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 6 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 6 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 +4 1,641 £525 - 383
North of England 0 647 £451 -5.16% 268
South East -3 433 £500 -7.32% 204
Midlands +6 384 £500 +8.11% 125
North West 0 314 £458 -8.50% 107
West Midlands +2 301 £494 +9.00% 93
South West -8 247 £525 -4.55% 117
Yorkshire +3 222 £451 -2.59% 71
North East -3 116 £450 -3.23% 90
East of England +19 95 £425 +21.43% 58
East Midlands +11 78 £525 +5.00% 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
1 145 (3.96%) Confluence
2 107 (2.92%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) CMS
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.41%) Apache
8 9 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
9 8 (0.22%) nginx
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
10 6 (0.16%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.14%) Camunda
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.082%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.082%) Drupal
13 3 (0.082%) Jupyter
14 2 (0.055%) OpenROAD
Applications
1 88 (2.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 67 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) 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 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.68%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.38%) SAP BRIM
6 14 (0.38%) 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 Financials
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 4 (0.11%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 675 (18.44%) AWS
2 639 (17.45%) Azure
3 197 (5.38%) Power Platform
4 159 (4.34%) Microsoft 365
5 155 (4.23%) Serverless
6 141 (3.85%) GitHub
7 130 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
7 130 (3.55%) GCP
8 100 (2.73%) Entra ID
9 93 (2.54%) Amazon S3
10 92 (2.51%) AWS Lambda
11 83 (2.27%) SaaS
12 80 (2.19%) GitHub Actions
13 65 (1.78%) Amazon EC2
13 65 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
14 62 (1.69%) OCI
14 62 (1.69%) Power Automate
15 60 (1.64%) AWS CloudFormation
16 59 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
17 56 (1.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.59%) Firewall
2 55 (1.50%) WAN
3 53 (1.45%) Network Security
4 52 (1.42%) DNS
5 49 (1.34%) VPN
6 44 (1.20%) LAN
7 33 (0.90%) BGP
8 29 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
9 28 (0.76%) OSPF
10 24 (0.66%) TCP/IP
11 22 (0.60%) SD-WAN
12 19 (0.52%) DHCP
13 16 (0.44%) SSL
14 15 (0.41%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.38%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.38%) Internet
16 13 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
16 13 (0.36%) VLAN
16 13 (0.36%) Wireless
17 12 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (3.96%) Power BI
2 74 (2.02%) PostgreSQL
3 67 (1.83%) SQL Server
4 64 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (1.50%) Metadata
6 51 (1.39%) MongoDB
7 44 (1.20%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
9 36 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.87%) Data Lake
11 29 (0.79%) Tableau
12 28 (0.76%) 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 20 (0.55%) Pentaho
17 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
18 16 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 220 (6.01%) JIRA
2 175 (4.78%) Git
3 131 (3.58%) GitLab
4 113 (3.09%) Jenkins
5 41 (1.12%) JUnit
6 40 (1.09%) Selenium
7 36 (0.98%) Postman
8 35 (0.96%) Mockito
9 31 (0.85%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.66%) JMeter
11 21 (0.57%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.52%) Maven
13 17 (0.46%) CircleCI
13 17 (0.46%) Cucumber
14 15 (0.41%) Artifactory
15 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
15 11 (0.30%) jMock
16 10 (0.27%) Mocha
17 9 (0.25%) Bitbucket
17 9 (0.25%) Gradle
General
1 940 (25.68%) Social Skills
2 472 (12.89%) Finance
3 360 (9.83%) Analytical Skills
4 187 (5.11%) Military
5 168 (4.59%) Local Government
6 105 (2.87%) Telecoms
7 87 (2.38%) Organisational Skills
8 83 (2.27%) Legal
9 81 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (2.10%) Marketing
11 73 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 73 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
12 65 (1.78%) Manufacturing
13 58 (1.58%) Police
14 54 (1.48%) Banking
15 51 (1.39%) Law
16 50 (1.37%) Electronics
17 43 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
18 32 (0.87%) Billing
19 28 (0.76%) Retail
Job Titles
1 492 (13.44%) Developer
2 458 (12.51%) Architect
3 412 (11.25%) Senior
4 365 (9.97%) Analyst
5 309 (8.44%) Lead
6 164 (4.48%) Designer
7 160 (4.37%) Business Analyst
8 151 (4.12%) Consultant
9 125 (3.41%) Data Engineer
10 116 (3.17%) DevOps Engineer
10 116 (3.17%) Project Manager
11 110 (3.00%) Java Developer
12 101 (2.76%) Technical Architect
13 99 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
14 93 (2.54%) Senior Developer
15 82 (2.24%) User Researcher
16 80 (2.19%) Delivery Manager
17 73 (1.99%) Service Designer
18 64 (1.75%) Administrator
19 62 (1.69%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (3.69%) REST
2 120 (3.28%) Node.js
3 118 (3.22%) Spring
4 103 (2.81%) Spring Boot
5 95 (2.59%) React
6 94 (2.57%) RESTful
7 77 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
8 70 (1.91%) AngularJS
9 69 (1.88%) .NET
10 67 (1.83%) Web Services
11 61 (1.67%) HTML
11 61 (1.67%) Kafka
12 57 (1.56%) SOAP
13 50 (1.37%) CSS
14 44 (1.20%) Lightning Web Components
15 38 (1.04%) OAuth
16 36 (0.98%) JSON
17 35 (0.96%) Playwright
18 34 (0.93%) Middleware
19 27 (0.74%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 169 (4.62%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.77%) Product Ownership
3 131 (3.58%) Onboarding
4 129 (3.52%) NHS
5 84 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
6 82 (2.24%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.91%) Data Centre
8 52 (1.42%) Public Cloud
9 48 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 39 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
12 38 (1.04%) Data Structures
13 32 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
14 26 (0.71%) CMDB
15 23 (0.63%) Replication
16 21 (0.57%) Freedom of Information
17 20 (0.55%) Data Protection Act
17 20 (0.55%) PKI
18 18 (0.49%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 183 (5.00%) Windows
2 145 (3.96%) Linux
3 60 (1.64%) Windows Server
4 51 (1.39%) Unix
5 34 (0.93%) Windows 10
6 26 (0.71%) Android
7 22 (0.60%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.57%) 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
1 951 (25.98%) Agile
2 520 (14.20%) CI/CD
3 507 (13.85%) DevOps
4 464 (12.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 402 (10.98%) Problem-Solving
6 388 (10.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 385 (10.52%) Continuous Improvement
8 352 (9.61%) Migration
9 315 (8.60%) Analytics
10 301 (8.22%) Roadmaps
11 297 (8.11%) Decision-Making
12 246 (6.72%) Containerisation
13 235 (6.42%) Data Modelling
14 232 (6.34%) Test Automation
15 228 (6.23%) Infrastructure as Code
16 224 (6.12%) Microservices
17 220 (6.01%) AI
18 218 (5.95%) User Research
19 216 (5.90%) Business Intelligence
20 198 (5.41%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 394 (10.76%) Python
2 337 (9.21%) SQL
3 274 (7.48%) Java
4 176 (4.81%) JavaScript
5 111 (3.03%) PowerShell
6 110 (3.00%) TypeScript
7 83 (2.27%) C#
8 49 (1.34%) Bash
9 44 (1.20%) Apex Code
10 42 (1.15%) Ruby
11 36 (0.98%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.63%) Bicep
13 22 (0.60%) R
14 21 (0.57%) Go
14 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
15 20 (0.55%) Shell Script
16 15 (0.41%) Scala
17 13 (0.36%) PHP
18 12 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,997 (54.55%) Security Cleared
2 1,329 (36.30%) SC Cleared
3 193 (5.27%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.81%) Degree
5 114 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.34%) Azure Certification
7 37 (1.01%) AWS Certification
7 37 (1.01%) CISSP
8 35 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
9 32 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
10 29 (0.79%) ITIL Certification
11 28 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (0.74%) PMP
13 24 (0.66%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.63%) CISM
15 18 (0.49%) CCNP
16 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
16 15 (0.41%) ISEB
17 14 (0.38%) APMP
18 13 (0.36%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 228 (6.23%) Accessibility
2 162 (4.43%) Data Quality
2 162 (4.43%) QA
3 98 (2.68%) GDPR
4 90 (2.46%) WCAG
5 80 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 71 (1.94%) PMO
7 61 (1.67%) NCSC
8 54 (1.48%) NIST
9 31 (0.85%) SLA
10 28 (0.76%) GRC
11 25 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.41%) PCI DSS
14 14 (0.38%) COBIT
14 14 (0.38%) HL7
15 10 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 8 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
16 8 (0.22%) IFRS
17 7 (0.19%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 258 (7.05%) Docker
2 151 (4.12%) Active Directory
3 53 (1.45%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.44%) 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%) Sendmail
14 1 (0.027%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 280 (7.65%) Terraform
2 262 (7.16%) Kubernetes
3 76 (2.08%) Grafana
4 73 (1.99%) Ansible
5 56 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
8 18 (0.49%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Argo
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.33%) Kibana
10 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.25%) 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
1 432 (11.80%) Microsoft
2 223 (6.09%) Oracle
3 195 (5.33%) SAP
4 122 (3.33%) Salesforce
5 108 (2.95%) ServiceNow
6 91 (2.49%) Google
7 82 (2.24%) VMware
8 77 (2.10%) Databricks
9 59 (1.61%) 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 (0.76%) Red Hat
13 28 (0.76%) Talend
14 27 (0.74%) MuleSoft
15 25 (0.68%) Dynatrace
16 22 (0.60%) F5
16 22 (0.60%) Juniper