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

6 months to
14 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 20 19
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,932 2,307 2,706
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.55% 8.37% 8.25%
As % of the General category 15.35% 12.98% 14.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,696 1,611 1,709
10th Percentile £363 £325 £315
25th Percentile £431 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.00%
75th Percentile £618 £600 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £523 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +4.50% -1.96% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 186 94 112
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.48 £14.43
25th Percentile £16.63 £18.13 £16.36
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.75 £24.18
Median % change year-on-year -1.84% -10.05% +17.78%
75th Percentile £50.00 £32.14 £57.31
90th Percentile £76.33 £66.65 £74.71
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.91% +12.80%

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 25,608 17,771 19,076
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.67% 64.48% 58.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,098 11,246 11,725
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £424 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,164 1,009 997
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.11 £16.17 £17.50
Median hourly rate £31.13 £25.15 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.77% -34.68% +40.00%
75th Percentile £56.25 £47.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.65 £70.38 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £29.96 £25.15 £37.00
% change year-on-year +19.13% -32.03% +34.55%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 1,716 £542 +5.83% 1,861
North of England 0 708 £475 - 722
Midlands +9 507 £490 +3.16% 364
South East -1 439 £510 -2.25% 394
West Midlands +7 433 £490 +3.16% 265
South West -5 364 £525 -2.33% 363
Yorkshire +6 275 £473 -3.57% 220
North West -18 242 £525 +16.67% 380
North East +1 202 £450 -10.00% 126
East Midlands +15 68 £450 +7.78% 98
East of England -18 49 £450 -10.00% 154
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
1 159 (4.04%) Confluence
2 105 (2.67%) SharePoint
3 50 (1.27%) SAS
4 49 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
5 47 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
6 44 (1.12%) Apache Spark
7 41 (1.04%) Apache
8 31 (0.79%) CMS
9 20 (0.51%) Jupyter
10 15 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.28%) WordPress
12 8 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.13%) Drupal
13 5 (0.13%) Headless CMS
13 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
14 3 (0.076%) IIS
14 3 (0.076%) Tomcat
15 2 (0.051%) WebLogic
Applications
1 75 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.13%) Trello
8 4 (0.10%) Sketch
9 3 (0.076%) Adobe XD
10 2 (0.051%) Adobe After Effects
10 2 (0.051%) Adobe Illustrator
10 2 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
10 2 (0.051%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.051%) Navisworks
10 2 (0.051%) ProjectWise
10 2 (0.051%) Revit
11 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
11 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
11 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 50 (1.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 45 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
3 44 (1.12%) Oracle ERP
4 27 (0.69%) SAP PSCD
5 21 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
6 14 (0.36%) SAP Payroll
6 14 (0.36%) Workday HCM
7 13 (0.33%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.31%) SAP BRIM
8 12 (0.31%) SAP Hybris
9 11 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
10 10 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
10 10 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
11 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
11 9 (0.23%) SAP HR
11 9 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
12 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
12 8 (0.20%) SAP FI
13 7 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 800 (20.35%) AWS
2 753 (19.15%) Azure
3 239 (6.08%) Power Platform
4 183 (4.65%) Azure DevOps
5 166 (4.22%) Microsoft 365
6 150 (3.81%) Serverless
7 149 (3.79%) GCP
7 149 (3.79%) GitHub
8 129 (3.28%) Entra ID
9 115 (2.92%) Amazon S3
10 112 (2.85%) SaaS
11 110 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
12 96 (2.44%) OCI
13 88 (2.24%) AWS Lambda
14 87 (2.21%) Power Automate
15 81 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
16 76 (1.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 69 (1.75%) Amazon EKS
18 64 (1.63%) PowerApps
19 58 (1.48%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 98 (2.49%) Firewall
2 64 (1.63%) DNS
3 51 (1.30%) WAN
4 43 (1.09%) LAN
5 37 (0.94%) Network Security
6 31 (0.79%) DHCP
7 28 (0.71%) BGP
7 28 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
8 27 (0.69%) OSPF
8 27 (0.69%) TCP/IP
9 25 (0.64%) VPN
10 19 (0.48%) WLAN
11 18 (0.46%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.41%) VXLAN
13 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.36%) Ethernet VPN
14 14 (0.36%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 14 (0.36%) Wireless
15 13 (0.33%) VLAN
15 13 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (3.87%) Power BI
2 104 (2.64%) Data Warehouse
2 104 (2.64%) PostgreSQL
3 87 (2.21%) Metadata
4 73 (1.86%) Relational Database
5 71 (1.81%) SQL Server
6 63 (1.60%) MongoDB
7 54 (1.37%) Oracle Database
8 51 (1.30%) Amazon RDS
8 51 (1.30%) Data Lake
9 46 (1.17%) NoSQL
10 33 (0.84%) Amazon Athena
11 30 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
12 29 (0.74%) Amazon Aurora
12 29 (0.74%) Oracle Reports
13 28 (0.71%) MySQL
13 28 (0.71%) Tableau
14 26 (0.66%) DynamoDB
15 25 (0.64%) Pentaho
16 18 (0.46%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 234 (5.95%) JIRA
2 194 (4.93%) Git
3 159 (4.04%) GitLab
4 128 (3.26%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.12%) Selenium
6 40 (1.02%) Cucumber
7 35 (0.89%) JUnit
8 30 (0.76%) Postman
9 29 (0.74%) Mockito
10 27 (0.69%) SonarQube
11 26 (0.66%) Cypress.io
11 26 (0.66%) Maven
12 19 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 18 (0.46%) WebDriver
14 17 (0.43%) JMeter
15 13 (0.33%) MSI
16 12 (0.31%) Team Foundation Server
17 11 (0.28%) Gatling
18 10 (0.25%) fastlane
18 10 (0.25%) Gradle
General
1 1,215 (30.90%) Social Skills
2 439 (11.16%) Finance
3 412 (10.48%) Analytical Skills
4 269 (6.84%) Military
5 213 (5.42%) Local Government
6 174 (4.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 146 (3.71%) Influencing Skills
8 113 (2.87%) Organisational Skills
9 107 (2.72%) Legal
10 89 (2.26%) Police
11 82 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 64 (1.63%) Law
13 54 (1.37%) Telecoms
14 42 (1.07%) Marketing
15 36 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
16 35 (0.89%) Banking
17 27 (0.69%) Retail
18 25 (0.64%) Billing
19 20 (0.51%) Manufacturing
20 18 (0.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 543 (13.81%) Architect
2 537 (13.66%) Senior
3 530 (13.48%) Developer
4 476 (12.11%) Lead
5 344 (8.75%) Analyst
6 177 (4.50%) Consultant
7 143 (3.64%) Designer
8 139 (3.54%) Data Engineer
9 134 (3.41%) Business Analyst
10 132 (3.36%) DevOps Engineer
11 125 (3.18%) Data Architect
12 122 (3.10%) Delivery Manager
13 116 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
14 115 (2.92%) Senior Developer
15 106 (2.70%) Technical Architect
16 90 (2.29%) Project Manager
17 87 (2.21%) User Researcher
18 86 (2.19%) Java Developer
18 86 (2.19%) Senior Manager
19 75 (1.91%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 358 (9.10%) Terraform
2 159 (4.04%) REST
3 107 (2.72%) RESTful
4 97 (2.47%) React
4 97 (2.47%) Spring
5 90 (2.29%) Node.js
6 86 (2.19%) Spring Boot
7 84 (2.14%) Oracle Fusion
8 76 (1.93%) SOAP
9 73 (1.86%) HTML
10 71 (1.81%) Kafka
11 68 (1.73%) Django
12 65 (1.65%) Web Services
13 64 (1.63%) .NET
13 64 (1.63%) CSS
14 56 (1.42%) OAuth
15 54 (1.37%) JSON
16 49 (1.25%) AngularJS
17 48 (1.22%) PySpark
18 47 (1.20%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 235 (5.98%) Cloud Native
2 166 (4.22%) Product Ownership
3 158 (4.02%) Onboarding
4 132 (3.36%) NHS
5 127 (3.23%) Management Information System
6 106 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
7 75 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
8 53 (1.35%) Distributed Systems
9 47 (1.20%) Data Centre
10 45 (1.14%) Data Structures
11 44 (1.12%) Freedom of Information
12 41 (1.04%) CMDB
12 41 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
13 38 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
14 35 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (0.84%) Virtual Team
16 32 (0.81%) Security Operations Centre
17 31 (0.79%) Cyber Threat
17 31 (0.79%) Low-Code
18 29 (0.74%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 129 (3.28%) Windows
2 128 (3.26%) Linux
3 47 (1.20%) Unix
4 42 (1.07%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.53%) Android
6 18 (0.46%) Apple iOS
6 18 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 17 (0.43%) Mac OS
8 15 (0.38%) Windows 10
9 5 (0.13%) Amazon Linux
10 4 (0.10%) AIX
10 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.076%) CentOS
11 3 (0.076%) Solaris
12 2 (0.051%) VMS
12 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.025%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,278 (32.50%) Agile
2 861 (21.90%) Stakeholder Management
3 685 (17.42%) Continuous Improvement
4 674 (17.14%) CI/CD
5 662 (16.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 633 (16.10%) DevOps
7 492 (12.51%) Problem-Solving
8 471 (11.98%) Decision-Making
9 415 (10.55%) Analytics
10 365 (9.28%) Migration
11 361 (9.18%) Roadmaps
12 355 (9.03%) AI
13 354 (9.00%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 341 (8.67%) Infrastructure as Code
15 303 (7.71%) Data Modelling
16 292 (7.43%) Technical Leadership
17 289 (7.35%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 269 (6.84%) Mentoring
19 259 (6.59%) Scrum
20 258 (6.56%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 464 (11.80%) Python
2 379 (9.64%) SQL
3 245 (6.23%) Java
4 223 (5.67%) JavaScript
5 122 (3.10%) TypeScript
6 110 (2.80%) PowerShell
7 85 (2.16%) C#
8 62 (1.58%) Bash
9 52 (1.32%) PL/SQL
10 45 (1.14%) Bicep
11 39 (0.99%) Scala
12 28 (0.71%) Apex Code
13 26 (0.66%) R
14 25 (0.64%) Kotlin
15 24 (0.61%) Groovy
16 23 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 21 (0.53%) Ruby
18 17 (0.43%) ABAP
19 14 (0.36%) Shell Script
20 12 (0.31%) Go
Qualifications
1 2,005 (50.99%) Security Cleared
2 1,639 (41.68%) SC Cleared
3 282 (7.17%) BPSS Clearance
4 238 (6.05%) DV Cleared
5 176 (4.48%) Degree
6 74 (1.88%) Microsoft Certification
7 62 (1.58%) AWS Certification
8 60 (1.53%) Azure Certification
9 45 (1.14%) CISSP
10 41 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
11 32 (0.81%) CISM
12 28 (0.71%) CCNP
12 28 (0.71%) ISTQB
13 25 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
13 25 (0.64%) PMI Certification
14 22 (0.56%) Master's Degree
15 20 (0.51%) Computer Science Degree
16 18 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 17 (0.43%) DBS Check
17 17 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 315 (8.01%) Accessibility
2 238 (6.05%) Data Quality
2 238 (6.05%) QA
3 142 (3.61%) WCAG
4 132 (3.36%) GDPR
5 91 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 80 (2.03%) NCSC
7 79 (2.01%) PMO
8 74 (1.88%) NIST
9 36 (0.92%) GRC
10 29 (0.74%) SLA
11 26 (0.66%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
13 15 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 12 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 12 (0.31%) PCI DSS
15 11 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
15 11 (0.28%) NIST 800
16 7 (0.18%) HL7
17 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 294 (7.48%) Docker
2 137 (3.48%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.89%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.46%) VMware NSX
5 16 (0.41%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.25%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (0.25%) vSphere
7 9 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
8 7 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.13%) Postfix
9 5 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.051%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.025%) Ceph
11 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
11 1 (0.025%) Squid
11 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 269 (6.84%) Kubernetes
2 96 (2.44%) Grafana
3 70 (1.78%) Ansible
4 66 (1.68%) Prometheus
5 37 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
5 37 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
6 23 (0.58%) Argo
7 22 (0.56%) SCCM
8 15 (0.38%) Kibana
9 9 (0.23%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.20%) VxRail
11 7 (0.18%) Puppet
12 6 (0.15%) Istio
13 5 (0.13%) Consul
13 5 (0.13%) Packer
13 5 (0.13%) QRadar
13 5 (0.13%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.10%) Jamf Pro
14 4 (0.10%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 523 (13.30%) Microsoft
2 327 (8.32%) Oracle
3 152 (3.87%) ServiceNow
4 123 (3.13%) Google
5 114 (2.90%) SAP
6 99 (2.52%) Salesforce
7 81 (2.06%) Databricks
8 47 (1.20%) Cisco
9 44 (1.12%) VMware
10 37 (0.94%) Palo Alto
11 33 (0.84%) Splunk
12 29 (0.74%) Dynatrace
12 29 (0.74%) Talend
13 27 (0.69%) Foundry
14 24 (0.61%) Informatica
14 24 (0.61%) Workday
15 23 (0.58%) CyberArk
15 23 (0.58%) Palantir
16 21 (0.53%) Red Hat
17 18 (0.46%) Blue Prism