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

6 months to
14 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 3,418 2,560 3,461
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.99% 9.82% 9.10%
As % of the General category 16.82% 15.71% 15.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,398 1,553 2,319
10th Percentile £343 £307 £312
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £673 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 187 89 142
10th Percentile £16.44 £15.00 £13.21
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.20
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.13 £35.00 £56.05
90th Percentile £45.27 £62.74 £69.88
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.42 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.91% +16.29% +5.66%

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 20,320 16,297 22,372
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.37% 62.55% 58.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,881 9,923 14,767
10th Percentile £300 £300 £265
25th Percentile £405 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,272 515 1,500
10th Percentile £14.02 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £16.74 £19.54 £15.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £25.37
Median % change year-on-year -23.33% +18.25% -10.98%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.00 £52.57
90th Percentile £72.45 £75.00 £67.39
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £29.00 £25.25
% change year-on-year -21.21% +14.85% -5.24%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -2 1,424 £520 -0.95% 311
North of England -2 646 £450 -5.26% 206
South East -1 416 £500 -4.76% 187
Midlands +2 336 £500 - 117
North West 0 330 £450 -10.00% 81
South West -3 289 £525 -4.55% 83
West Midlands -3 248 £500 - 92
Yorkshire -3 192 £500 +11.11% 84
North East 0 126 £450 +5.88% 41
East of England +25 111 £375 +7.14% 41
East Midlands +12 88 £425 -10.53% 23
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
1 131 (3.83%) Confluence
2 92 (2.69%) SharePoint
3 30 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
4 19 (0.56%) SAS
5 17 (0.50%) nginx
6 16 (0.47%) Apache
7 13 (0.38%) Apache Spark
7 13 (0.38%) CMS
7 13 (0.38%) Skype for Business
8 5 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 5 (0.15%) Documentum
8 5 (0.15%) WebLogic
9 4 (0.12%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
9 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
10 3 (0.088%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 3 (0.088%) OpenStack
10 3 (0.088%) Smallworld
10 3 (0.088%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 99 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
2 91 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.23%) Trello
8 7 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.15%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.088%) InVision
12 2 (0.059%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.059%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.059%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.029%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.029%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.029%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.029%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 59 (1.73%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.64%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
5 17 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 10 (0.29%) SAP ERP
8 9 (0.26%) iTrent
8 9 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
9 8 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 7 (0.20%) Unit4 Business World
11 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.15%) NEC Housing
12 5 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
12 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 608 (17.79%) AWS
2 579 (16.94%) Azure
3 193 (5.65%) Power Platform
4 156 (4.56%) Serverless
5 149 (4.36%) GitHub
6 134 (3.92%) GCP
6 134 (3.92%) Microsoft 365
7 120 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
8 100 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
9 87 (2.55%) GitHub Actions
10 78 (2.28%) Amazon S3
11 72 (2.11%) Entra ID
12 61 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
13 57 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 57 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
13 57 (1.67%) OCI
14 54 (1.58%) Power Automate
15 53 (1.55%) SaaS
16 52 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
17 51 (1.49%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 89 (2.60%) Firewall
2 62 (1.81%) DNS
3 56 (1.64%) VPN
4 53 (1.55%) WAN
5 50 (1.46%) Network Security
6 45 (1.32%) LAN
7 43 (1.26%) Wireless
8 34 (0.99%) TCP/IP
9 31 (0.91%) BGP
10 25 (0.73%) DHCP
11 24 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
12 23 (0.67%) OSPF
13 16 (0.47%) SSL
14 15 (0.44%) SD-WAN
15 14 (0.41%) MPLS
15 14 (0.41%) Skype
15 14 (0.41%) VLAN
15 14 (0.41%) VoIP
16 13 (0.38%) Internet
16 13 (0.38%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (4.51%) Power BI
2 79 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
3 54 (1.58%) MongoDB
4 53 (1.55%) Metadata
5 48 (1.40%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.08%) Data Lake
6 37 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
6 37 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 34 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
8 29 (0.85%) Relational Database
9 27 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
10 26 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (0.64%) MySQL
12 20 (0.59%) Redis
12 20 (0.59%) Tableau
13 18 (0.53%) BigQuery
14 17 (0.50%) Oracle Database
15 16 (0.47%) DynamoDB
15 16 (0.47%) Electronic Patient Records
16 14 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 203 (5.94%) JIRA
2 158 (4.62%) Git
3 128 (3.74%) GitLab
4 119 (3.48%) Jenkins
5 50 (1.46%) Selenium
6 49 (1.43%) Postman
7 31 (0.91%) Cucumber
8 28 (0.82%) JUnit
9 27 (0.79%) Cypress.io
10 24 (0.70%) Mockito
11 19 (0.56%) REST Assured
12 15 (0.44%) Bitbucket
12 15 (0.44%) Mocha
13 14 (0.41%) JMeter
13 14 (0.41%) SonarQube
14 13 (0.38%) CircleCI
15 11 (0.32%) MSI
16 9 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
17 8 (0.23%) Gradle
17 8 (0.23%) MLflow
General
1 979 (28.64%) Social Skills
2 540 (15.80%) Finance
3 315 (9.22%) Analytical Skills
4 210 (6.14%) Telecoms
5 173 (5.06%) Marketing
6 171 (5.00%) Manufacturing
7 158 (4.62%) Military
8 153 (4.48%) Electronics
9 130 (3.80%) Local Government
10 75 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
12 71 (2.08%) Legal
13 58 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
14 48 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
15 46 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 45 (1.32%) Banking
17 37 (1.08%) Law
18 34 (0.99%) Billing
18 34 (0.99%) Police
19 32 (0.94%) Retail
Job Titles
1 406 (11.88%) Developer
2 397 (11.61%) Architect
3 361 (10.56%) Senior
4 347 (10.15%) Analyst
5 310 (9.07%) Lead
6 186 (5.44%) Consultant
7 163 (4.77%) Business Analyst
8 135 (3.95%) DevOps Engineer
9 116 (3.39%) Designer
10 107 (3.13%) Project Manager
11 97 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
12 89 (2.60%) Technical Architect
13 75 (2.19%) Data Engineer
14 72 (2.11%) Java Developer
14 72 (2.11%) User Researcher
15 67 (1.96%) AWS Engineer
16 66 (1.93%) Senior Developer
17 59 (1.73%) Service Designer
18 56 (1.64%) Product Manager
18 56 (1.64%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (4.15%) REST
2 116 (3.39%) Node.js
3 104 (3.04%) React
4 96 (2.81%) Spring
5 85 (2.49%) RESTful
5 85 (2.49%) Spring Boot
6 74 (2.17%) .NET
7 72 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
8 70 (2.05%) HTML
9 67 (1.96%) CSS
10 61 (1.78%) AngularJS
10 61 (1.78%) Web Services
11 57 (1.67%) JSON
12 56 (1.64%) SOAP
13 52 (1.52%) Kafka
14 39 (1.14%) XML
15 37 (1.08%) Playwright
16 30 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
16 30 (0.88%) Middleware
17 27 (0.79%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 130 (3.80%) Cloud Native
2 125 (3.66%) Onboarding
3 118 (3.45%) NHS
4 113 (3.31%) Product Ownership
5 88 (2.57%) Data Centre
6 71 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
7 67 (1.96%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.29%) Public Cloud
9 33 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (0.94%) Data Structures
11 31 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
12 30 (0.88%) Security Posture
13 29 (0.85%) PKI
14 28 (0.82%) CMDB
15 27 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
15 27 (0.79%) Replication
16 26 (0.76%) AI Agents
17 25 (0.73%) Distributed Systems
18 22 (0.64%) Security Operations Centre
19 17 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 227 (6.64%) Windows
2 166 (4.86%) Linux
3 56 (1.64%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.40%) Windows 10
5 47 (1.38%) Android
6 44 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 37 (1.08%) Unix
8 21 (0.61%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 17 (0.50%) VMS
10 14 (0.41%) Mac OS X
10 14 (0.41%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.23%) Amazon Linux
13 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.15%) Solaris
16 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.088%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 841 (24.61%) Agile
2 483 (14.13%) CI/CD
3 464 (13.58%) DevOps
4 436 (12.76%) Problem-Solving
5 386 (11.29%) Stakeholder Management
6 382 (11.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 340 (9.95%) Migration
8 327 (9.57%) Business Intelligence
9 313 (9.16%) Continuous Improvement
10 281 (8.22%) Roadmaps
11 232 (6.79%) Decision-Making
12 231 (6.76%) Analytics
13 219 (6.41%) Test Automation
14 216 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
15 211 (6.17%) Microservices
16 205 (6.00%) Containerisation
17 196 (5.73%) Programme Management
18 189 (5.53%) ITIL
19 187 (5.47%) AI
20 177 (5.18%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 360 (10.53%) Python
2 289 (8.46%) SQL
3 245 (7.17%) Java
4 181 (5.30%) JavaScript
5 126 (3.69%) PowerShell
6 113 (3.31%) TypeScript
7 84 (2.46%) C#
8 62 (1.81%) Bash
9 37 (1.08%) Ruby
10 29 (0.85%) Apex Code
11 24 (0.70%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.67%) Go
13 19 (0.56%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.53%) PHP
15 17 (0.50%) R
16 14 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 13 (0.38%) Bicep
18 11 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
19 10 (0.29%) C
19 10 (0.29%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 2,010 (58.81%) Security Cleared
2 1,317 (38.53%) SC Cleared
3 172 (5.03%) Degree
4 169 (4.94%) DV Cleared
5 92 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.43%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
8 41 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 39 (1.14%) CISSP
10 34 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
10 34 (0.99%) Microsoft Certification
11 28 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.70%) ISEB
13 23 (0.67%) CISM
13 23 (0.67%) PMP
14 19 (0.56%) ISTQB
14 19 (0.56%) PMI Certification
15 17 (0.50%) CCNP
16 16 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.47%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (5.27%) Accessibility
2 135 (3.95%) QA
3 123 (3.60%) Data Quality
4 97 (2.84%) GDPR
5 77 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (2.02%) NIST
7 64 (1.87%) WCAG
8 55 (1.61%) PMO
9 52 (1.52%) NCSC
10 47 (1.38%) SLA
11 23 (0.67%) GRC
12 20 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.53%) COBIT
14 15 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
14 15 (0.44%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.41%) HIPAA
16 12 (0.35%) HL7
16 12 (0.35%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 235 (6.88%) Docker
2 124 (3.63%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.53%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
5 16 (0.47%) VMware NSX
6 15 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.38%) vSphere
8 11 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.23%) Postfix
10 7 (0.20%) DFS Replication
11 6 (0.18%) Squid
11 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.15%) Dovecot
12 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.12%) NFS
14 3 (0.088%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.088%) RACF
15 2 (0.059%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.059%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 298 (8.72%) Terraform
2 256 (7.49%) Kubernetes
3 70 (2.05%) Ansible
4 68 (1.99%) Grafana
5 51 (1.49%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (0.94%) SCCM
7 21 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.41%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.38%) Argo
10 11 (0.32%) Packer
10 11 (0.32%) Puppet
11 10 (0.29%) Nessus
12 9 (0.26%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.23%) SCOM
13 8 (0.23%) vRealize
14 7 (0.20%) Consul
15 6 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.18%) Proxmox
Vendors
1 392 (11.47%) Microsoft
2 291 (8.51%) SAP
3 195 (5.71%) Oracle
4 142 (4.15%) Cisco
5 107 (3.13%) ServiceNow
6 103 (3.01%) Salesforce
7 96 (2.81%) VMware
8 62 (1.81%) Google
9 60 (1.76%) Splunk
10 57 (1.67%) Databricks
11 41 (1.20%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.17%) Aruba
13 37 (1.08%) Apple
13 37 (1.08%) Dell
14 36 (1.05%) Juniper
15 33 (0.97%) HP
16 32 (0.94%) Palo Alto
17 30 (0.88%) Red Hat
18 28 (0.82%) SolarWinds
19 27 (0.79%) IBM