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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 22 16
Rank change year-on-year +2 -6 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,631 2,056 3,174
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.91% 8.50% 8.70%
As % of the General category 16.43% 13.24% 14.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,575 1,407 2,133
10th Percentile £350 £350 £313
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £638
90th Percentile £683 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £515
% change year-on-year - -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 154 81 160
10th Percentile £13.78 £16.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £16.88 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £23.83 £22.90 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year +4.04% +7.76% +4.06%
75th Percentile £30.88 £33.00 £54.66
90th Percentile £62.55 £65.00 £70.39
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £22.39 £21.00
% change year-on-year +6.43% +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 22,101 15,523 21,243
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 54.26% 64.15% 58.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,699 10,059 13,688
10th Percentile £306 £296 £280
25th Percentile £412 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -2.88% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,452 669 1,780
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.97 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.78 £27.50 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.93% -9.84% -6.15%
75th Percentile £63.75 £55.25 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.33
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.16
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.82% -11.29%

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 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 15 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 15 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 1,632 £525 - 423
North of England -1 654 £450 -5.76% 250
South East -1 429 £500 -6.19% 196
Midlands +6 366 £500 +10.29% 125
North West +2 319 £463 -7.50% 102
West Midlands +3 293 £488 +7.97% 100
South West -5 257 £525 -4.55% 110
Yorkshire +3 218 £450 -5.26% 80
North East -3 123 £450 -3.23% 69
East of England +15 85 £425 -5.56% 48
East Midlands +5 68 £525 +10.53% 25
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
1 144 (3.97%) Confluence
2 107 (2.95%) SharePoint
3 45 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.74%) SAS
5 19 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
5 19 (0.52%) Apache Spark
6 18 (0.50%) CMS
7 14 (0.39%) Apache
8 9 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
9 7 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.19%) Tomcat
10 6 (0.17%) nginx
10 6 (0.17%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.14%) Camunda
11 5 (0.14%) Jupyter
12 3 (0.083%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.083%) Anypoint
12 3 (0.083%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.083%) Drupal
13 2 (0.055%) WordPress
Applications
1 86 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 63 (1.74%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 28 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.36%) MS Visio
5 10 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.19%) Trello
7 4 (0.11%) Adobe XD
7 4 (0.11%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.11%) Sketch
8 3 (0.083%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.055%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.055%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.028%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.028%) InVision
10 1 (0.028%) Quicktime
10 1 (0.028%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.028%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 60 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 38 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.55%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.30%) SAP BRIM
6 11 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
6 11 (0.30%) SystmOne
7 9 (0.25%) iTrent
8 8 (0.22%) NEC Housing
9 6 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.17%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.17%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Financials
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 4 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
11 4 (0.11%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 674 (18.56%) AWS
2 626 (17.24%) Azure
3 195 (5.37%) Power Platform
4 161 (4.43%) Microsoft 365
5 143 (3.94%) Serverless
6 140 (3.86%) GitHub
7 132 (3.64%) GCP
8 127 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.78%) Entra ID
10 94 (2.59%) Amazon S3
11 88 (2.42%) AWS Lambda
12 83 (2.29%) SaaS
13 79 (2.18%) GitHub Actions
14 69 (1.90%) Amazon EC2
15 63 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
16 62 (1.71%) Amazon EKS
16 62 (1.71%) OCI
16 62 (1.71%) Power Automate
17 57 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 57 (1.57%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.62%) Firewall
2 55 (1.51%) WAN
3 53 (1.46%) DNS
4 48 (1.32%) Network Security
5 44 (1.21%) VPN
6 43 (1.18%) LAN
7 33 (0.91%) BGP
8 28 (0.77%) OSPF
9 27 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
10 25 (0.69%) TCP/IP
11 22 (0.61%) SD-WAN
12 20 (0.55%) DHCP
13 17 (0.47%) VXLAN
14 16 (0.44%) BIG-IP
14 16 (0.44%) SSL
15 15 (0.41%) Ethernet VPN
16 13 (0.36%) WLAN
17 12 (0.33%) DKIM
17 12 (0.33%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
17 12 (0.33%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (3.86%) Power BI
2 76 (2.09%) PostgreSQL
3 68 (1.87%) Data Warehouse
4 67 (1.85%) SQL Server
5 55 (1.51%) Metadata
6 54 (1.49%) MongoDB
7 43 (1.18%) Amazon RDS
7 43 (1.18%) NoSQL
8 36 (0.99%) Oracle Reports
9 32 (0.88%) Data Lake
10 31 (0.85%) Oracle Database
10 31 (0.85%) Relational Database
10 31 (0.85%) Tableau
11 27 (0.74%) DynamoDB
12 22 (0.61%) Electronic Patient Records
13 21 (0.58%) Pentaho
14 18 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
14 18 (0.50%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.47%) Amazon Aurora
16 16 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 219 (6.03%) JIRA
2 164 (4.52%) Git
3 139 (3.83%) GitLab
4 113 (3.11%) Jenkins
5 42 (1.16%) Selenium
6 37 (1.02%) JUnit
7 34 (0.94%) Postman
8 32 (0.88%) Mockito
9 29 (0.80%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.66%) JMeter
11 20 (0.55%) Cucumber
11 20 (0.55%) Cypress.io
12 18 (0.50%) Maven
13 17 (0.47%) CircleCI
14 15 (0.41%) Artifactory
15 13 (0.36%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
16 11 (0.30%) Gatling
16 11 (0.30%) jMock
17 9 (0.25%) Mocha
General
1 908 (25.01%) Social Skills
2 456 (12.56%) Finance
3 358 (9.86%) Analytical Skills
4 191 (5.26%) Military
5 156 (4.30%) Local Government
6 91 (2.51%) Telecoms
7 88 (2.42%) Organisational Skills
8 83 (2.29%) Legal
9 79 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
10 70 (1.93%) Marketing
11 68 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 68 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
12 60 (1.65%) Police
13 56 (1.54%) Banking
14 51 (1.40%) Law
14 51 (1.40%) Manufacturing
15 40 (1.10%) Electronics
16 38 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
17 30 (0.83%) Billing
18 27 (0.74%) Retail
Job Titles
1 486 (13.38%) Developer
2 462 (12.72%) Architect
3 409 (11.26%) Senior
4 358 (9.86%) Analyst
5 309 (8.51%) Lead
6 160 (4.41%) Designer
7 159 (4.38%) Business Analyst
8 145 (3.99%) Consultant
9 127 (3.50%) Data Engineer
10 120 (3.30%) DevOps Engineer
11 116 (3.19%) Project Manager
12 110 (3.03%) Java Developer
13 105 (2.89%) Technical Architect
14 101 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
15 88 (2.42%) Senior Developer
16 82 (2.26%) User Researcher
17 79 (2.18%) Delivery Manager
18 68 (1.87%) Service Designer
19 64 (1.76%) Administrator
20 62 (1.71%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 134 (3.69%) REST
2 125 (3.44%) Node.js
3 115 (3.17%) Spring
4 101 (2.78%) Spring Boot
5 95 (2.62%) React
6 92 (2.53%) RESTful
7 74 (2.04%) Oracle Fusion
8 68 (1.87%) Web Services
9 67 (1.85%) AngularJS
10 65 (1.79%) .NET
11 64 (1.76%) Kafka
12 61 (1.68%) HTML
12 61 (1.68%) SOAP
13 51 (1.40%) CSS
14 44 (1.21%) Lightning Web Components
15 39 (1.07%) OAuth
16 38 (1.05%) Playwright
17 35 (0.96%) Middleware
18 34 (0.94%) JSON
19 27 (0.74%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 172 (4.74%) Cloud Native
2 142 (3.91%) Product Ownership
3 123 (3.39%) NHS
4 122 (3.36%) Onboarding
5 87 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
6 75 (2.07%) Management Information System
7 70 (1.93%) Data Centre
8 50 (1.38%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.32%) Public Cloud
10 42 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.10%) Data Structures
12 39 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
14 31 (0.85%) CMDB
15 27 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
16 25 (0.69%) Freedom of Information
17 21 (0.58%) Virtual Team
18 20 (0.55%) Data Protection Act
18 20 (0.55%) PKI
19 19 (0.52%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 173 (4.76%) Windows
2 145 (3.99%) Linux
3 58 (1.60%) Windows Server
4 51 (1.40%) Unix
5 29 (0.80%) Windows 10
6 25 (0.69%) Android
7 23 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 20 (0.55%) Mac OS
8 20 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.28%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.25%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
11 8 (0.22%) Solaris
12 7 (0.19%) VMS
13 6 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 3 (0.083%) Amazon Linux
16 3 (0.083%) Windows Server 2012
17 2 (0.055%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 947 (26.08%) Agile
2 528 (14.54%) CI/CD
3 515 (14.18%) DevOps
4 478 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
5 395 (10.88%) Problem-Solving
6 377 (10.38%) Continuous Improvement
7 370 (10.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 341 (9.39%) Migration
9 312 (8.59%) Analytics
10 303 (8.34%) Decision-Making
11 299 (8.23%) Roadmaps
12 245 (6.75%) Data Modelling
13 241 (6.64%) Containerisation
14 230 (6.33%) Infrastructure as Code
14 230 (6.33%) Test Automation
15 218 (6.00%) Microservices
16 213 (5.87%) User Research
17 211 (5.81%) AI
18 199 (5.48%) Business Intelligence
19 191 (5.26%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 383 (10.55%) Python
2 339 (9.34%) SQL
3 271 (7.46%) Java
4 180 (4.96%) JavaScript
5 107 (2.95%) PowerShell
6 105 (2.89%) TypeScript
7 79 (2.18%) C#
8 51 (1.40%) Bash
9 46 (1.27%) Apex Code
10 40 (1.10%) PL/SQL
11 39 (1.07%) Ruby
12 23 (0.63%) Kotlin
12 23 (0.63%) R
13 22 (0.61%) Bicep
14 21 (0.58%) Go
14 21 (0.58%) Shell Script
15 16 (0.44%) Scala
16 13 (0.36%) PHP
17 12 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 1,971 (54.28%) Security Cleared
2 1,322 (36.41%) SC Cleared
3 193 (5.32%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.82%) Degree
5 115 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.27%) Azure Certification
7 36 (0.99%) CISSP
8 33 (0.91%) AWS Certification
9 32 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
10 31 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
11 28 (0.77%) PMP
12 25 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
12 25 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
12 25 (0.69%) PMI Certification
13 23 (0.63%) CISM
14 16 (0.44%) DBS Check
15 15 (0.41%) CCNP
16 13 (0.36%) APMP
16 13 (0.36%) ISEB
16 13 (0.36%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 240 (6.61%) Accessibility
2 164 (4.52%) Data Quality
3 161 (4.43%) QA
4 101 (2.78%) GDPR
5 93 (2.56%) WCAG
6 78 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 68 (1.87%) PMO
8 64 (1.76%) NCSC
9 53 (1.46%) NIST
10 29 (0.80%) SLA
11 26 (0.72%) GRC
12 25 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.36%) PCI DSS
15 12 (0.33%) COBIT
16 10 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 10 (0.28%) HL7
17 8 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
17 8 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 8 (0.22%) IFRS
System Software
1 249 (6.86%) Docker
2 152 (4.19%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.61%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.55%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 10 (0.28%) Postfix
10 9 (0.25%) vSphere
11 8 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.083%) RACF
14 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.055%) Squid
14 2 (0.055%) SRDF
15 1 (0.028%) FreeRADIUS
15 1 (0.028%) IAG
15 1 (0.028%) RHEV
15 1 (0.028%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 271 (7.46%) Terraform
2 246 (6.77%) Kubernetes
3 80 (2.20%) Grafana
4 75 (2.07%) Ansible
5 58 (1.60%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.07%) Microsoft Intune
6 39 (1.07%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (0.50%) Argo
8 14 (0.39%) Puppet
8 14 (0.39%) SCCM
9 12 (0.33%) Kibana
10 11 (0.30%) vCenter Server
11 9 (0.25%) Oracle RMAN
12 8 (0.22%) FortiGate
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.17%) Rancher
15 5 (0.14%) Data Guard
16 4 (0.11%) Nessus
16 4 (0.11%) SCOM
Vendors
1 414 (11.40%) Microsoft
2 222 (6.11%) Oracle
3 175 (4.82%) SAP
4 122 (3.36%) Salesforce
5 115 (3.17%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.56%) Google
7 79 (2.18%) Databricks
8 74 (2.04%) VMware
9 48 (1.32%) Cisco
10 40 (1.10%) Splunk
11 32 (0.88%) Red Hat
12 31 (0.85%) Atlassian
13 30 (0.83%) Palo Alto
13 30 (0.83%) Talend
14 27 (0.74%) IBM
14 27 (0.74%) MuleSoft
14 27 (0.74%) Virgin Media
15 26 (0.72%) Dynatrace
16 24 (0.66%) F5
17 20 (0.55%) Foundry