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

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,334 2,583 3,452
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.98% 9.83% 9.14%
As % of the General category 16.71% 15.70% 15.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,337 1,557 2,319
10th Percentile £339 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -1.11%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £640
90th Percentile £672 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 92 142
10th Percentile £16.14 £15.01 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.60 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £20.85
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +22.29% +4.89%
75th Percentile £25.11 £39.33 £55.00
90th Percentile £46.76 £64.75 £69.88
UK median hourly rate £21.80 £25.25 £20.00
% change year-on-year -13.66% +26.25% +5.26%

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 19,951 16,450 22,227
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.72% 62.60% 58.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,689 9,937 14,729
10th Percentile £294 £296 £264
25th Percentile £403 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,240 531 1,485
10th Percentile £14.02 £15.62 £13.23
25th Percentile £16.54 £19.99 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.92 £30.40 £25.71
Median % change year-on-year -24.61% +18.24% -1.12%
75th Percentile £49.81 £57.62 £53.85
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £22.83 £29.00 £25.61
% change year-on-year -21.28% +13.26% -0.04%

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 5 February 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 5 February 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 5 February 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 1,358 £523 -0.38% 420
North of England -1 648 £450 -5.26% 214
South East -5 395 £500 -4.76% 233
North West 0 331 £450 -10.00% 90
Midlands +1 330 £500 - 122
South West -1 303 £525 -4.55% 93
West Midlands 0 247 £500 - 94
Yorkshire -3 195 £500 +11.11% 80
North East 0 124 £450 +5.88% 46
East of England +27 108 £375 +7.14% 55
East Midlands +10 83 £423 -10.92% 27
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
1 118 (3.54%) Confluence
2 93 (2.79%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.78%) SAS
5 23 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.48%) Apache
6 16 (0.48%) nginx
7 14 (0.42%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.39%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.39%) CMS
9 5 (0.15%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.15%) Documentum
10 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
10 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.090%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.090%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.090%) SharePoint Server
11 3 (0.090%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.090%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 98 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
2 89 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
6 17 (0.51%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.27%) Trello
8 7 (0.21%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.18%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.090%) InVision
12 2 (0.060%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.060%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.060%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.060%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.030%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.030%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.030%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.030%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 58 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 34 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.63%) SAP PSCD
4 19 (0.57%) Oracle ERP
5 17 (0.51%) SAP BRIM
5 17 (0.51%) SAP Hybris
6 11 (0.33%) SAP Payroll
7 10 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.30%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.27%) iTrent
8 9 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.21%) Unit4 Business World
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 592 (17.76%) AWS
2 575 (17.25%) Azure
3 197 (5.91%) Power Platform
4 152 (4.56%) Serverless
5 151 (4.53%) GitHub
6 146 (4.38%) Microsoft 365
7 138 (4.14%) GCP
8 118 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
9 94 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
10 87 (2.61%) GitHub Actions
11 71 (2.13%) Entra ID
12 68 (2.04%) Power Automate
13 65 (1.95%) Amazon S3
14 60 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
14 60 (1.80%) Dynamics 365
14 60 (1.80%) PowerApps
15 58 (1.74%) OCI
16 56 (1.68%) SaaS
17 52 (1.56%) Amazon ECS
18 50 (1.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 94 (2.82%) Firewall
2 60 (1.80%) DNS
3 59 (1.77%) VPN
4 57 (1.71%) WAN
5 48 (1.44%) Network Security
6 44 (1.32%) LAN
7 43 (1.29%) Wireless
8 34 (1.02%) TCP/IP
9 32 (0.96%) BGP
10 28 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.69%) DHCP
12 21 (0.63%) OSPF
13 18 (0.54%) Skype
14 16 (0.48%) IPsec
14 16 (0.48%) MPLS
14 16 (0.48%) SD-WAN
14 16 (0.48%) SSL
14 16 (0.48%) VLAN
15 14 (0.42%) HTTP
15 14 (0.42%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (4.35%) Power BI
2 77 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.59%) Metadata
4 50 (1.50%) MongoDB
5 41 (1.23%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.11%) NoSQL
7 36 (1.08%) Data Lake
8 32 (0.96%) Data Warehouse
8 32 (0.96%) Relational Database
9 28 (0.84%) Amazon RDS
9 28 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
10 25 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 24 (0.72%) MySQL
12 22 (0.66%) Oracle Database
12 22 (0.66%) Redis
13 20 (0.60%) BigQuery
14 17 (0.51%) Electronic Patient Records
15 15 (0.45%) DocumentDB
15 15 (0.45%) DynamoDB
15 15 (0.45%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 196 (5.88%) JIRA
2 161 (4.83%) Git
3 126 (3.78%) GitLab
4 122 (3.66%) Jenkins
5 52 (1.56%) Postman
6 50 (1.50%) Selenium
7 32 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 24 (0.72%) JUnit
10 19 (0.57%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.51%) Mockito
12 15 (0.45%) Mocha
13 14 (0.42%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.42%) CircleCI
14 13 (0.39%) JMeter
14 13 (0.39%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.33%) MSI
16 10 (0.30%) Gradle
17 9 (0.27%) Oracle Forms
17 9 (0.27%) Vagrant
General
1 974 (29.21%) Social Skills
2 535 (16.05%) Finance
3 299 (8.97%) Analytical Skills
4 219 (6.57%) Telecoms
5 184 (5.52%) Marketing
6 182 (5.46%) Manufacturing
7 164 (4.92%) Electronics
8 151 (4.53%) Military
9 121 (3.63%) Local Government
10 74 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
11 71 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
12 66 (1.98%) Legal
13 54 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 47 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
15 41 (1.23%) Banking
16 37 (1.11%) Law
17 34 (1.02%) Police
18 33 (0.99%) Retail
19 32 (0.96%) Billing
Job Titles
1 399 (11.97%) Developer
2 381 (11.43%) Architect
3 339 (10.17%) Senior
4 330 (9.90%) Analyst
5 300 (9.00%) Lead
6 193 (5.79%) Consultant
7 151 (4.53%) Business Analyst
8 131 (3.93%) DevOps Engineer
9 109 (3.27%) Designer
10 100 (3.00%) Project Manager
11 89 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
12 86 (2.58%) Technical Architect
13 71 (2.13%) AWS Engineer
14 70 (2.10%) Data Engineer
15 68 (2.04%) User Researcher
16 65 (1.95%) Senior Developer
17 63 (1.89%) Java Developer
18 57 (1.71%) Test Engineer
19 55 (1.65%) Product Manager
20 54 (1.62%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (4.32%) REST
2 109 (3.27%) Node.js
3 108 (3.24%) React
4 91 (2.73%) Spring
5 87 (2.61%) RESTful
6 86 (2.58%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.16%) .NET
7 72 (2.16%) Oracle Fusion
8 69 (2.07%) HTML
9 65 (1.95%) CSS
10 60 (1.80%) AngularJS
11 59 (1.77%) JSON
12 56 (1.68%) Web Services
13 52 (1.56%) SOAP
14 49 (1.47%) Kafka
15 38 (1.14%) XML
16 37 (1.11%) Playwright
17 29 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
17 29 (0.87%) OAuth
18 26 (0.78%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 123 (3.69%) Cloud Native
2 122 (3.66%) Onboarding
3 118 (3.54%) NHS
4 108 (3.24%) Product Ownership
5 88 (2.64%) Data Centre
6 66 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
7 64 (1.92%) Management Information System
8 41 (1.23%) Public Cloud
9 32 (0.96%) Data Structures
9 32 (0.96%) PKI
10 31 (0.93%) Security Posture
11 30 (0.90%) CMDB
11 30 (0.90%) Enterprise Software
12 28 (0.84%) Replication
12 28 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
13 27 (0.81%) AI Agents
14 25 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
15 24 (0.72%) Hybrid Cloud
16 22 (0.66%) Security Operations Centre
17 19 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 222 (6.66%) Windows
2 152 (4.56%) Linux
3 51 (1.53%) Windows 10
4 47 (1.41%) Android
4 47 (1.41%) Windows Server
5 42 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 25 (0.75%) Unix
7 21 (0.63%) Apple iOS
8 19 (0.57%) VMS
9 16 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 12 (0.36%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.27%) Amazon Linux
12 9 (0.27%) Mac OS X
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.090%) Windows Server 2008
16 2 (0.060%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 810 (24.30%) Agile
2 478 (14.34%) CI/CD
3 452 (13.56%) DevOps
4 433 (12.99%) Problem-Solving
5 386 (11.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 379 (11.37%) Stakeholder Management
7 334 (10.02%) Business Intelligence
7 334 (10.02%) Migration
8 301 (9.03%) Continuous Improvement
9 278 (8.34%) Roadmaps
10 227 (6.81%) Analytics
11 215 (6.45%) Decision-Making
12 214 (6.42%) Test Automation
13 206 (6.18%) Programme Management
14 205 (6.15%) Infrastructure as Code
15 198 (5.94%) Microservices
16 196 (5.88%) Containerisation
17 187 (5.61%) ITIL
18 183 (5.49%) AI
19 174 (5.22%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 343 (10.29%) Python
2 279 (8.37%) SQL
3 237 (7.11%) Java
4 178 (5.34%) JavaScript
5 126 (3.78%) PowerShell
6 111 (3.33%) TypeScript
7 82 (2.46%) C#
8 58 (1.74%) Bash
9 37 (1.11%) Ruby
10 28 (0.84%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.75%) PL/SQL
12 21 (0.63%) Go
13 17 (0.51%) PHP
13 17 (0.51%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.48%) R
15 14 (0.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 13 (0.39%) Bicep
17 12 (0.36%) Groovy
18 11 (0.33%) C
19 10 (0.30%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,962 (58.85%) Security Cleared
2 1,293 (38.78%) SC Cleared
3 161 (4.83%) DV Cleared
4 160 (4.80%) Degree
5 82 (2.46%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.41%) Azure Certification
7 40 (1.20%) AWS Certification
7 40 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
8 38 (1.14%) CISSP
9 37 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
10 32 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
11 26 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.72%) ISEB
13 22 (0.66%) PMP
14 21 (0.63%) CISM
15 19 (0.57%) CCNP
15 19 (0.57%) ISTQB
16 18 (0.54%) PMI Certification
17 16 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.48%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (5.07%) Accessibility
2 134 (4.02%) QA
3 117 (3.51%) Data Quality
4 97 (2.91%) GDPR
5 73 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 64 (1.92%) NIST
7 56 (1.68%) WCAG
8 55 (1.65%) NCSC
9 48 (1.44%) PMO
10 46 (1.38%) SLA
11 24 (0.72%) GRC
12 18 (0.54%) COBIT
12 18 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.48%) JSP 440
14 15 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
15 14 (0.42%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.36%) HL7
16 12 (0.36%) PCI DSS
17 9 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 229 (6.87%) Docker
2 122 (3.66%) Active Directory
3 63 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.54%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.45%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.39%) vSphere
8 11 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 9 (0.27%) DFS Replication
10 7 (0.21%) Squid
11 6 (0.18%) Dovecot
11 6 (0.18%) Postfix
11 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.12%) NFS
14 3 (0.090%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.090%) RACF
15 2 (0.060%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.060%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 287 (8.61%) Terraform
2 254 (7.62%) Kubernetes
3 67 (2.01%) Ansible
4 66 (1.98%) Grafana
5 53 (1.59%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.96%) SCCM
7 29 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
8 22 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.36%) Argo
11 11 (0.33%) Packer
12 10 (0.30%) Puppet
13 9 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 9 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.27%) Nessus
14 8 (0.24%) SCOM
14 8 (0.24%) vRealize
15 7 (0.21%) Consul
15 7 (0.21%) FortiGate
15 7 (0.21%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 415 (12.45%) Microsoft
2 301 (9.03%) SAP
3 200 (6.00%) Oracle
4 145 (4.35%) Cisco
5 107 (3.21%) ServiceNow
6 98 (2.94%) Salesforce
7 94 (2.82%) VMware
8 60 (1.80%) Google
9 58 (1.74%) Splunk
10 51 (1.53%) Databricks
11 43 (1.29%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.20%) Aruba
13 38 (1.14%) Dell
13 38 (1.14%) Juniper
14 37 (1.11%) Apple
15 36 (1.08%) Palo Alto
16 33 (0.99%) HP
17 27 (0.81%) Red Hat
17 27 (0.81%) SolarWinds
18 24 (0.72%) MuleSoft