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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,646 2,319 3,390
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.13% 9.31% 8.90%
As % of the General category 17.42% 14.76% 15.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,576 1,513 2,255
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £504 £525
% change year-on-year -0.84% -3.95% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 79 144
10th Percentile £16.50 £15.21 £13.36
25th Percentile £17.87 £18.36 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £24.00 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year -8.02% +12.94% +6.25%
75th Percentile £25.38 £33.38 £55.43
90th Percentile £44.94 £62.74 £69.28
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £23.30 £21.00
% change year-on-year -5.58% +10.95% +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 20,929 15,709 22,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.13% 63.07% 58.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,261 10,035 14,572
10th Percentile £300 £300 £266
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £756
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,303 570 1,672
10th Percentile £14.15 £15.06 £13.05
25th Percentile £17.55 £19.93 £15.29
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.41 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.78% +16.94% -19.38%
75th Percentile £57.25 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.03 £29.23 £25.71
% change year-on-year -17.79% +13.69% -19.66%

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 9 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 1,556 £525 - 312
North of England -3 653 £450 -5.26% 195
South East -1 438 £500 -6.45% 248
Midlands +1 383 £500 +4.71% 123
North West +3 324 £450 -10.00% 88
West Midlands 0 282 £500 +4.71% 78
South West 0 274 £525 -4.55% 90
Yorkshire 0 206 £500 +11.11% 68
North East 0 128 £450 +4.65% 39
East of England +27 116 £413 +17.86% 53
East Midlands +10 99 £447 -8.33% 42
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
1 132 (3.62%) Confluence
2 102 (2.80%) SharePoint
3 31 (0.85%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.69%) SAS
5 22 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.47%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.36%) nginx
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 8 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.082%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.082%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.082%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 93 (2.55%) Microsoft Excel
1 93 (2.55%) Microsoft Office
2 35 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 23 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.25%) Trello
7 7 (0.19%) Sketch
8 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.082%) InVision
11 2 (0.055%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.055%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.055%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 68 (1.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.49%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.49%) SAP Hybris
5 16 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.25%) iTrent
9 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
9 7 (0.19%) SAP ERP
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
11 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 674 (18.49%) AWS
2 617 (16.92%) Azure
3 209 (5.73%) Power Platform
4 164 (4.50%) Serverless
5 154 (4.22%) GitHub
6 152 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
7 145 (3.98%) GCP
8 130 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
10 88 (2.41%) GitHub Actions
11 85 (2.33%) Entra ID
12 84 (2.30%) Amazon S3
13 65 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 64 (1.76%) Power Automate
15 61 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
16 60 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
17 58 (1.59%) Amazon EC2
17 58 (1.59%) PowerApps
18 56 (1.54%) OCI
19 54 (1.48%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 88 (2.41%) Firewall
2 57 (1.56%) VPN
3 50 (1.37%) Network Security
3 50 (1.37%) WAN
4 48 (1.32%) DNS
5 42 (1.15%) Wireless
6 40 (1.10%) LAN
7 32 (0.88%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.80%) BGP
9 25 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
10 22 (0.60%) OSPF
11 20 (0.55%) DHCP
12 16 (0.44%) SD-WAN
13 15 (0.41%) SSL
14 14 (0.38%) Internet
15 13 (0.36%) MPLS
16 12 (0.33%) IPsec
16 12 (0.33%) VLAN
17 10 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
17 10 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (4.44%) Power BI
2 80 (2.19%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.65%) SQL Server
4 54 (1.48%) MongoDB
5 52 (1.43%) Metadata
6 44 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 38 (1.04%) NoSQL
9 37 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 31 (0.85%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.85%) Relational Database
11 26 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (0.63%) Tableau
13 21 (0.58%) Electronic Patient Records
13 21 (0.58%) MySQL
13 21 (0.58%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.55%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.52%) Redis
16 17 (0.47%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.44%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 204 (5.60%) JIRA
2 168 (4.61%) Git
3 130 (3.57%) GitLab
4 126 (3.46%) Jenkins
5 47 (1.29%) Selenium
6 45 (1.23%) Postman
7 32 (0.88%) JUnit
8 28 (0.77%) Mockito
9 26 (0.71%) Cucumber
10 25 (0.69%) Cypress.io
11 21 (0.58%) SonarQube
12 19 (0.52%) JMeter
13 16 (0.44%) REST Assured
14 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
14 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
14 14 (0.38%) Mocha
15 12 (0.33%) Maven
16 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
16 10 (0.27%) MSI
17 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,014 (27.81%) Social Skills
2 546 (14.98%) Finance
3 331 (9.08%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (5.05%) Telecoms
5 156 (4.28%) Marketing
6 154 (4.22%) Manufacturing
6 154 (4.22%) Military
7 137 (3.76%) Local Government
8 133 (3.65%) Electronics
9 77 (2.11%) Legal
10 74 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (1.97%) Organisational Skills
12 68 (1.87%) Influencing Skills
13 51 (1.40%) Banking
14 49 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (1.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 43 (1.18%) Police
17 39 (1.07%) Law
18 35 (0.96%) Billing
19 32 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 450 (12.34%) Developer
2 442 (12.12%) Architect
3 386 (10.59%) Senior
4 364 (9.98%) Analyst
5 315 (8.64%) Lead
6 190 (5.21%) Consultant
7 170 (4.66%) Business Analyst
8 140 (3.84%) Designer
9 125 (3.43%) DevOps Engineer
10 109 (2.99%) Project Manager
11 107 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
12 103 (2.83%) Data Engineer
13 100 (2.74%) Technical Architect
14 85 (2.33%) Java Developer
15 82 (2.25%) User Researcher
16 68 (1.87%) Senior Developer
17 67 (1.84%) Delivery Manager
18 66 (1.81%) Service Designer
19 64 (1.76%) AWS Engineer
20 57 (1.56%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.11%) REST
2 131 (3.59%) Node.js
3 107 (2.93%) React
4 102 (2.80%) Spring
5 90 (2.47%) Spring Boot
6 87 (2.39%) RESTful
7 77 (2.11%) .NET
8 75 (2.06%) HTML
9 72 (1.97%) Oracle Fusion
10 71 (1.95%) AngularJS
11 69 (1.89%) CSS
12 67 (1.84%) Web Services
13 62 (1.70%) SOAP
14 51 (1.40%) JSON
14 51 (1.40%) Kafka
15 36 (0.99%) Playwright
16 35 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.96%) Middleware
17 34 (0.93%) XML
18 27 (0.74%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 142 (3.89%) Cloud Native
2 134 (3.68%) Onboarding
3 121 (3.32%) NHS
4 118 (3.24%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.44%) Data Centre
6 77 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
7 68 (1.87%) Management Information System
8 54 (1.48%) Public Cloud
9 35 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
10 34 (0.93%) Distributed Systems
11 32 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
11 32 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
12 31 (0.85%) Security Posture
13 30 (0.82%) Data Structures
14 27 (0.74%) PKI
15 26 (0.71%) CMDB
16 25 (0.69%) AI Agents
17 22 (0.60%) Replication
18 21 (0.58%) Security Operations Centre
19 17 (0.47%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 214 (5.87%) Windows
2 164 (4.50%) Linux
3 56 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.32%) Android
5 44 (1.21%) Windows 10
6 43 (1.18%) Mac OS
7 37 (1.01%) Unix
8 25 (0.69%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 20 (0.55%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.25%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.25%) VMS
13 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.19%) Solaris
15 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) AIX
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 907 (24.88%) Agile
2 515 (14.13%) CI/CD
3 498 (13.66%) DevOps
4 453 (12.42%) Problem-Solving
5 436 (11.96%) Stakeholder Management
6 400 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 356 (9.76%) Migration
8 341 (9.35%) Continuous Improvement
9 327 (8.97%) Roadmaps
10 319 (8.75%) Business Intelligence
11 266 (7.30%) Analytics
12 250 (6.86%) Decision-Making
13 226 (6.20%) Containerisation
14 225 (6.17%) Infrastructure as Code
15 223 (6.12%) Test Automation
16 219 (6.01%) Microservices
17 208 (5.70%) Workshop Facilitation
18 206 (5.65%) AI
19 204 (5.60%) Data Modelling
19 204 (5.60%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 387 (10.61%) Python
2 325 (8.91%) SQL
3 257 (7.05%) Java
4 195 (5.35%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.29%) TypeScript
6 115 (3.15%) PowerShell
7 86 (2.36%) C#
8 65 (1.78%) Bash
9 39 (1.07%) Ruby
10 34 (0.93%) Apex Code
11 30 (0.82%) PL/SQL
12 26 (0.71%) Go
13 25 (0.69%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.52%) R
15 17 (0.47%) Kotlin
15 17 (0.47%) PHP
16 14 (0.38%) Bicep
17 13 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
19 11 (0.30%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,136 (58.58%) Security Cleared
2 1,391 (38.15%) SC Cleared
3 177 (4.85%) Degree
4 175 (4.80%) DV Cleared
5 100 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.37%) Azure Certification
7 45 (1.23%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.21%) CISSP
9 39 (1.07%) ITIL Certification
10 37 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
12 30 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
13 26 (0.71%) CISM
14 25 (0.69%) PMP
15 22 (0.60%) ISEB
16 21 (0.58%) PMI Certification
17 16 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.44%) CCNP
17 16 (0.44%) ISTQB
18 15 (0.41%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 190 (5.21%) Accessibility
2 151 (4.14%) QA
3 138 (3.78%) Data Quality
4 109 (2.99%) GDPR
5 81 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 66 (1.81%) NIST
6 66 (1.81%) WCAG
7 61 (1.67%) PMO
8 59 (1.62%) NCSC
9 45 (1.23%) SLA
10 26 (0.71%) GRC
11 19 (0.52%) COBIT
12 17 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
12 17 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
13 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
14 13 (0.36%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.36%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.30%) HL7
15 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 250 (6.86%) Docker
2 130 (3.57%) Active Directory
3 60 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
5 18 (0.49%) VMware NSX
6 16 (0.44%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.38%) vSphere
8 10 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.16%) Postfix
10 5 (0.14%) NFS
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.082%) RACF
12 3 (0.082%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.055%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.055%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.055%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 2 (0.055%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 299 (8.20%) Terraform
2 271 (7.43%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.06%) Ansible
4 73 (2.00%) Grafana
5 49 (1.34%) Prometheus
6 37 (1.01%) Microsoft Intune
7 27 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 26 (0.71%) SCCM
9 15 (0.41%) Argo
10 13 (0.36%) Puppet
11 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 11 (0.30%) Packer
13 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.25%) Kibana
15 8 (0.22%) Consul
16 7 (0.19%) Istio
16 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 7 (0.19%) vRealize
17 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 414 (11.35%) Microsoft
2 282 (7.73%) SAP
3 207 (5.68%) Oracle
4 133 (3.65%) Cisco
5 112 (3.07%) Salesforce
6 109 (2.99%) ServiceNow
7 95 (2.61%) VMware
8 68 (1.87%) Google
9 66 (1.81%) Databricks
10 56 (1.54%) Splunk
11 44 (1.21%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.15%) Aruba
13 35 (0.96%) Dell
13 35 (0.96%) Red Hat
14 34 (0.93%) Apple
15 33 (0.91%) Juniper
16 31 (0.85%) HP
17 30 (0.82%) Atlassian
17 30 (0.82%) Palo Alto
18 29 (0.80%) IBM