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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 +6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,035 2,766 3,474
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.76% 9.51% 9.24%
As % of the General category 15.72% 15.53% 15.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,106 1,694 2,456
10th Percentile £325 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +1.85%
75th Percentile £595 £628 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 98 95
10th Percentile £16.03 £14.70 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.11 £16.96
Median hourly rate £21.97 £22.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.37% -10.00% +25.82%
75th Percentile £25.11 £32.81 £58.74
90th Percentile £47.00 £60.72 £70.30
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -4.55% -2.22% +18.42%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,304 17,812 22,455
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 62.07% 61.26% 59.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,225 10,778 15,181
10th Percentile £280 £300 £285
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £630 £650 £665
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,268 631 1,002
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.49 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.50 £18.03 £17.25
Median hourly rate £23.50 £30.21 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.21% -8.45% +28.35%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.51 £60.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £72.50 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £23.58 £27.50 £32.75
% change year-on-year -14.27% -16.03% +31.00%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 1,242 £515 -1.90% 307
North of England -2 589 £455 -5.21% 350
South East -8 341 £500 -9.09% 399
South West 0 312 £538 -2.27% 207
North West -1 305 £450 -10.00% 170
Midlands +1 287 £475 -5.00% 226
West Midlands +2 223 £475 -5.00% 136
Yorkshire +2 180 £505 +6.37% 129
North East +2 108 £448 +5.29% 52
East of England +9 91 £375 +7.14% 175
East Midlands +9 64 £425 -14.14% 81
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
1 110 (3.62%) Confluence
2 92 (3.03%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (0.92%) SAS
5 25 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 24 (0.79%) nginx
7 15 (0.49%) Apache
7 15 (0.49%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.43%) Apache Spark
9 11 (0.36%) CMS
10 6 (0.20%) Anypoint
10 6 (0.20%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
11 5 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.16%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.099%) Exchange Server 2003
13 3 (0.099%) IIS
13 3 (0.099%) Smallworld
Applications
1 109 (3.59%) Microsoft Office
2 93 (3.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 39 (1.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.66%) MS Visio
5 19 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
7 11 (0.36%) Trello
8 9 (0.30%) Mozilla Thunderbird
9 6 (0.20%) Sketch
10 5 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.13%) Adobe Illustrator
11 4 (0.13%) InVision
11 4 (0.13%) Photoshop
12 2 (0.066%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.066%) OmniGraffle
12 2 (0.066%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.066%) UXPin
13 1 (0.033%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.033%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 44 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
4 14 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
4 14 (0.46%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
5 13 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
6 9 (0.30%) iTrent
6 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 7 (0.23%) SAP HR
8 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.16%) Oracle Cash Management
9 5 (0.16%) Remedy ITSM
9 5 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 5 (0.16%) Unit4 Business World
10 4 (0.13%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 569 (18.75%) AWS
2 544 (17.92%) Azure
3 193 (6.36%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.91%) Microsoft 365
5 137 (4.51%) GCP
6 131 (4.32%) Serverless
7 130 (4.28%) GitHub
8 103 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
9 85 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
10 76 (2.50%) GitHub Actions
11 69 (2.27%) Amazon S3
12 66 (2.17%) Entra ID
13 63 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
14 58 (1.91%) PowerApps
15 57 (1.88%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 56 (1.85%) Power Automate
17 55 (1.81%) SaaS
18 54 (1.78%) Amazon ECS
19 52 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
20 49 (1.61%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 114 (3.76%) Firewall
2 81 (2.67%) DNS
3 66 (2.17%) VPN
4 51 (1.68%) WAN
5 44 (1.45%) Wireless
6 43 (1.42%) Network Security
7 42 (1.38%) LAN
8 34 (1.12%) TCP/IP
9 33 (1.09%) BGP
10 29 (0.96%) DHCP
11 28 (0.92%) Wi-Fi
12 24 (0.79%) HTTP
13 23 (0.76%) SD-WAN
14 22 (0.72%) OSPF
14 22 (0.72%) SSL
15 20 (0.66%) Internet
15 20 (0.66%) SSH
15 20 (0.66%) VLAN
16 18 (0.59%) FTP
16 18 (0.59%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (4.45%) Power BI
2 81 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
3 50 (1.65%) MongoDB
4 45 (1.48%) Metadata
5 36 (1.19%) Relational Database
6 34 (1.12%) SQL Server
7 33 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
8 31 (1.02%) NoSQL
9 28 (0.92%) Data Lake
10 27 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
11 25 (0.82%) Oracle Database
12 24 (0.79%) Redis
13 23 (0.76%) MySQL
14 22 (0.72%) Oracle Reports
15 21 (0.69%) Azure SQL Database
16 19 (0.63%) BigQuery
17 17 (0.56%) Tableau
18 15 (0.49%) Big Data
19 13 (0.43%) Data Hub
19 13 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 197 (6.49%) JIRA
2 169 (5.57%) Git
3 135 (4.45%) Jenkins
4 99 (3.26%) GitLab
5 43 (1.42%) Postman
6 37 (1.22%) Selenium
7 29 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.69%) SonarQube
9 19 (0.63%) REST Assured
10 18 (0.59%) Cypress.io
10 18 (0.59%) JUnit
10 18 (0.59%) Mockito
10 18 (0.59%) Vagrant
11 15 (0.49%) Bitbucket
12 12 (0.40%) Oracle Forms
13 11 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 11 (0.36%) MSI
14 8 (0.26%) JMeter
14 8 (0.26%) Mocha
15 7 (0.23%) Burp Suite
General
1 903 (29.75%) Social Skills
2 496 (16.34%) Finance
3 281 (9.26%) Analytical Skills
4 247 (8.14%) Telecoms
5 208 (6.85%) Manufacturing
6 202 (6.66%) Marketing
7 188 (6.19%) Electronics
8 134 (4.42%) Military
9 110 (3.62%) Local Government
10 68 (2.24%) Legal
11 66 (2.17%) Documentation Skills
12 59 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
13 52 (1.71%) Influencing Skills
14 40 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 40 (1.32%) Retail
15 39 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
16 32 (1.05%) Law
17 28 (0.92%) Banking
18 25 (0.82%) Police
19 22 (0.72%) Billing
Job Titles
1 360 (11.86%) Developer
2 354 (11.66%) Architect
3 312 (10.28%) Analyst
4 303 (9.98%) Senior
5 281 (9.26%) Lead
6 194 (6.39%) Consultant
7 130 (4.28%) Business Analyst
8 128 (4.22%) DevOps Engineer
9 84 (2.77%) Project Manager
10 82 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
11 81 (2.67%) AWS Engineer
12 75 (2.47%) Designer
13 74 (2.44%) Technical Architect
14 63 (2.08%) Support Engineer
15 60 (1.98%) Network Engineer
16 56 (1.85%) Java Developer
17 53 (1.75%) Data Engineer
18 52 (1.71%) Senior Developer
19 49 (1.61%) Infrastructure Engineer
20 48 (1.58%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 127 (4.18%) REST
2 89 (2.93%) React
3 88 (2.90%) Node.js
4 86 (2.83%) RESTful
5 68 (2.24%) .NET
5 68 (2.24%) Oracle Fusion
6 66 (2.17%) Spring Boot
7 64 (2.11%) Spring
8 63 (2.08%) HTML
9 62 (2.04%) JSON
10 61 (2.01%) Kafka
11 57 (1.88%) SOAP
12 55 (1.81%) CSS
13 51 (1.68%) Web Services
14 50 (1.65%) AngularJS
15 41 (1.35%) XML
16 29 (0.96%) OAuth
17 28 (0.92%) Playwright
18 25 (0.82%) Lightning Web Components
19 23 (0.76%) LDAP
Miscellaneous
1 107 (3.53%) Cloud Native
2 105 (3.46%) Onboarding
3 97 (3.20%) NHS
4 83 (2.73%) Product Ownership
5 79 (2.60%) Data Centre
6 65 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
7 62 (2.04%) Management Information System
8 39 (1.29%) Replication
9 32 (1.05%) Public Cloud
10 31 (1.02%) CMDB
10 31 (1.02%) PKI
10 31 (1.02%) Security Posture
11 27 (0.89%) Data Structures
12 26 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
13 25 (0.82%) AI Agents
13 25 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
14 22 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
14 22 (0.72%) Driving Licence
14 22 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
15 20 (0.66%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 231 (7.61%) Windows
2 148 (4.88%) Linux
3 53 (1.75%) Windows 10
4 44 (1.45%) Android
5 42 (1.38%) Windows Server
6 41 (1.35%) Mac OS
7 27 (0.89%) VMS
8 24 (0.79%) Unix
9 20 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 18 (0.59%) Amazon Linux
10 18 (0.59%) Apple iOS
11 10 (0.33%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.26%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
13 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
14 5 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 3 (0.099%) CentOS
15 3 (0.099%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.099%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 751 (24.74%) Agile
2 436 (14.37%) CI/CD
3 425 (14.00%) DevOps
4 423 (13.94%) Problem-Solving
5 391 (12.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 349 (11.50%) Business Intelligence
7 306 (10.08%) Stakeholder Management
8 301 (9.92%) Migration
9 263 (8.67%) Continuous Improvement
10 232 (7.64%) Roadmaps
11 215 (7.08%) Programme Management
12 197 (6.49%) Microservices
13 191 (6.29%) ITIL
14 190 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
15 188 (6.19%) Digital Marketing
16 183 (6.03%) Analytics
17 178 (5.86%) Decision-Making
18 177 (5.83%) AI
19 168 (5.54%) Containerisation
19 168 (5.54%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 360 (11.86%) Python
2 253 (8.34%) SQL
3 241 (7.94%) Java
4 150 (4.94%) JavaScript
5 123 (4.05%) PowerShell
6 83 (2.73%) TypeScript
7 70 (2.31%) Bash
8 66 (2.17%) C#
9 35 (1.15%) Go
10 24 (0.79%) Ruby
11 23 (0.76%) Apex Code
11 23 (0.76%) Groovy
11 23 (0.76%) PL/SQL
12 21 (0.69%) C++
12 21 (0.69%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.63%) Perl
13 19 (0.63%) PHP
14 17 (0.56%) C
15 12 (0.40%) Bicep
16 11 (0.36%) R
Qualifications
1 1,861 (61.32%) Security Cleared
2 1,255 (41.35%) SC Cleared
3 167 (5.50%) DV Cleared
4 135 (4.45%) Degree
5 77 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.61%) CISSP
7 44 (1.45%) AWS Certification
7 44 (1.45%) Azure Certification
8 41 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
9 38 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
10 34 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
11 29 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
12 26 (0.86%) CISM
13 24 (0.79%) CCNP
14 20 (0.66%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.63%) ISEB
16 17 (0.56%) CCNA
17 16 (0.53%) OSCP
18 15 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
19 14 (0.46%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (4.22%) Accessibility
2 117 (3.86%) QA
3 95 (3.13%) Data Quality
4 88 (2.90%) GDPR
5 81 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 67 (2.21%) NIST
7 56 (1.85%) NCSC
8 43 (1.42%) WCAG
9 41 (1.35%) PMO
10 38 (1.25%) SLA
11 24 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.69%) GRC
13 17 (0.56%) COBIT
14 16 (0.53%) HIPAA
14 16 (0.53%) JSP 440
15 13 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.43%) PCI DSS
16 10 (0.33%) HL7
17 9 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.26%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 210 (6.92%) Docker
2 127 (4.18%) Active Directory
3 62 (2.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.66%) Virtual Desktop
5 18 (0.59%) DFS Replication
5 18 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.49%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.46%) vSphere
8 13 (0.43%) VMware NSX
9 11 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
10 9 (0.30%) Dovecot
10 9 (0.30%) Postfix
10 9 (0.30%) Squid
11 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) ISA Server
12 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 5 (0.16%) UAG
13 3 (0.099%) Brightmail
13 3 (0.099%) Firmware
13 3 (0.099%) NFS
Systems Management
1 287 (9.46%) Terraform
2 224 (7.38%) Kubernetes
3 82 (2.70%) Ansible
4 66 (2.17%) Grafana
5 55 (1.81%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.22%) Microsoft Intune
6 37 (1.22%) SCCM
7 22 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.56%) Packer
8 17 (0.56%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.40%) Nessus
10 11 (0.36%) Argo
10 11 (0.36%) Jamf Pro
11 10 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 10 (0.33%) Proxmox
12 9 (0.30%) Puppet
13 8 (0.26%) Nmap
13 8 (0.26%) SCOM
13 8 (0.26%) vRealize
14 7 (0.23%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 407 (13.41%) Microsoft
2 310 (10.21%) SAP
3 192 (6.33%) Oracle
4 155 (5.11%) Cisco
5 112 (3.69%) ServiceNow
6 91 (3.00%) VMware
7 76 (2.50%) Salesforce
8 57 (1.88%) Google
8 57 (1.88%) Splunk
9 50 (1.65%) Juniper
10 41 (1.35%) Aruba
11 38 (1.25%) HP
11 38 (1.25%) Virgin Media
12 37 (1.22%) Dell
13 36 (1.19%) Apple
14 35 (1.15%) Databricks
14 35 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 30 (0.99%) SolarWinds
16 27 (0.89%) F5
16 27 (0.89%) Fortinet