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

6 months to
15 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 20 17
Rank change year-on-year -2 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 4,131 2,469 2,708
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.82% 8.77% 8.43%
As % of the General category 15.52% 13.70% 14.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,844 1,712 1,648
10th Percentile £363 £313 £306
25th Percentile £440 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £515
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -6.36%
75th Percentile £619 £588 £625
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 195 122 90
10th Percentile £15.06 £15.48 £15.06
25th Percentile £16.62 £17.72 £16.67
Median hourly rate £20.62 £22.02 £23.80
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% -7.48% +11.66%
75th Percentile £35.27 £28.40 £39.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £61.22
UK median hourly rate £21.05 £21.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year +0.25% -4.55% +4.76%

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 26,613 18,020 18,925
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.81% 64.01% 58.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,501 11,462 11,360
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £738 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,509 1,070 803
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.74 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.46 £16.45 £17.50
Median hourly rate £28.40 £25.08 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.24% -28.36% +16.67%
75th Percentile £55.00 £45.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £78.51 £71.28 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £27.38 £25.00 £32.28
% change year-on-year +9.52% -22.55% +8.50%

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 October 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 15 October 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 15 October 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 1,834 £550 +10.00% 1,276
North of England 0 761 £481 +1.16% 530
Midlands +7 541 £488 +2.63% 229
West Midlands +9 455 £490 +3.16% 170
South East 0 438 £500 -1.91% 280
South West -3 366 £535 -2.73% 187
Yorkshire +3 282 £475 -5.00% 158
North West -13 273 £570 +26.67% 274
North East +1 225 £450 -10.00% 98
East Midlands +9 82 £444 +4.72% 59
East of England -29 55 £450 - 96
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
1 166 (4.02%) Confluence
2 107 (2.59%) SharePoint
3 51 (1.23%) Microsoft Exchange
4 50 (1.21%) SAS
5 44 (1.07%) Apache Airflow
5 44 (1.07%) Apache Spark
6 43 (1.04%) Apache
7 27 (0.65%) CMS
8 20 (0.48%) Jupyter
9 13 (0.31%) nginx
10 12 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
11 10 (0.24%) WordPress
12 8 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
13 7 (0.17%) Headless CMS
14 5 (0.12%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.12%) Tuxedo
15 4 (0.097%) IIS
16 3 (0.073%) Drupal
16 3 (0.073%) SAP Portal
16 3 (0.073%) Tomcat
Applications
1 78 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 55 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
4 23 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
5 22 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 8 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.12%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.12%) Sketch
8 4 (0.097%) Adobe After Effects
8 4 (0.097%) Adobe XD
8 4 (0.097%) Trello
9 2 (0.048%) Adobe Illustrator
9 2 (0.048%) Adobe Premiere
9 2 (0.048%) Navisworks
9 2 (0.048%) ProjectWise
9 2 (0.048%) Revit
10 1 (0.024%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.024%) Gliffy
10 1 (0.024%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.024%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 51 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 50 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 47 (1.14%) Oracle ERP
4 31 (0.75%) SAP PSCD
5 23 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
6 22 (0.53%) SAP Payroll
7 17 (0.41%) Workday HCM
8 16 (0.39%) SAP BRIM
9 15 (0.36%) NetSuite
9 15 (0.36%) SAP HR
10 14 (0.34%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.34%) SAP FI
11 13 (0.31%) SAP Hybris
12 12 (0.29%) NEC Housing
12 12 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
12 12 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
12 12 (0.29%) SAP HCM
13 10 (0.24%) Oracle Payroll
14 9 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
15 8 (0.19%) ContrOCC
Cloud Services
1 799 (19.34%) AWS
2 767 (18.57%) Azure
3 251 (6.08%) Power Platform
4 200 (4.84%) Azure DevOps
5 171 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
6 164 (3.97%) GitHub
7 156 (3.78%) GCP
8 145 (3.51%) Entra ID
9 142 (3.44%) Serverless
10 115 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
11 114 (2.76%) SaaS
12 113 (2.74%) Amazon S3
13 101 (2.44%) OCI
14 86 (2.08%) Power Automate
15 80 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
16 79 (1.91%) AWS Lambda
17 74 (1.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 71 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
19 64 (1.55%) PowerApps
20 54 (1.31%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 95 (2.30%) Firewall
2 68 (1.65%) DNS
3 50 (1.21%) WAN
4 43 (1.04%) LAN
5 41 (0.99%) Network Security
6 33 (0.80%) TCP/IP
6 33 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
7 31 (0.75%) DHCP
8 29 (0.70%) VPN
9 27 (0.65%) BGP
10 26 (0.63%) OSPF
11 20 (0.48%) SD-WAN
11 20 (0.48%) Wireless
12 15 (0.36%) VXLAN
13 14 (0.34%) BIG-IP
13 14 (0.34%) VoIP
13 14 (0.34%) WLAN
14 13 (0.31%) Ethernet VPN
14 13 (0.31%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
14 13 (0.31%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (3.92%) Power BI
2 102 (2.47%) Data Warehouse
3 99 (2.40%) Metadata
4 97 (2.35%) PostgreSQL
5 72 (1.74%) Relational Database
6 65 (1.57%) MongoDB
6 65 (1.57%) SQL Server
7 54 (1.31%) Oracle Database
8 53 (1.28%) Data Lake
9 51 (1.23%) Amazon RDS
10 38 (0.92%) NoSQL
11 28 (0.68%) Amazon Athena
11 28 (0.68%) Amazon Redshift
12 27 (0.65%) Amazon Aurora
12 27 (0.65%) MySQL
12 27 (0.65%) Pentaho
13 25 (0.61%) Tableau
14 24 (0.58%) Oracle Reports
15 19 (0.46%) Redis
16 18 (0.44%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 237 (5.74%) JIRA
2 182 (4.41%) Git
3 172 (4.16%) GitLab
4 132 (3.20%) Jenkins
5 60 (1.45%) Selenium
6 53 (1.28%) Cucumber
7 39 (0.94%) JUnit
8 35 (0.85%) Postman
9 30 (0.73%) Cypress.io
10 24 (0.58%) Maven
11 23 (0.56%) Gatling
11 23 (0.56%) Mockito
12 22 (0.53%) REST Assured
13 21 (0.51%) JMeter
14 20 (0.48%) SonarQube
15 19 (0.46%) WebDriver
16 15 (0.36%) MSI
17 11 (0.27%) Team Foundation Server
17 11 (0.27%) TestNG
18 9 (0.22%) Gradle
General
1 1,372 (33.21%) Social Skills
2 465 (11.26%) Finance
3 439 (10.63%) Analytical Skills
4 294 (7.12%) Military
5 236 (5.71%) Local Government
6 191 (4.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 175 (4.24%) Influencing Skills
8 128 (3.10%) Legal
9 118 (2.86%) Organisational Skills
10 98 (2.37%) Police
11 91 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
12 66 (1.60%) Law
13 53 (1.28%) Telecoms
14 49 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
15 42 (1.02%) Marketing
16 35 (0.85%) Banking
17 34 (0.82%) Billing
18 25 (0.61%) Retail
19 20 (0.48%) Manufacturing
19 20 (0.48%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 593 (14.35%) Senior
2 574 (13.89%) Architect
3 501 (12.13%) Developer
4 494 (11.96%) Lead
5 365 (8.84%) Analyst
6 206 (4.99%) Consultant
7 153 (3.70%) Data Engineer
8 150 (3.63%) Designer
9 148 (3.58%) Business Analyst
10 142 (3.44%) DevOps Engineer
11 131 (3.17%) Solutions Architect
12 130 (3.15%) Data Architect
13 121 (2.93%) Delivery Manager
14 116 (2.81%) User Researcher
15 111 (2.69%) Technical Architect
16 101 (2.44%) Senior Developer
17 88 (2.13%) Senior Manager
18 87 (2.11%) Java Developer
19 83 (2.01%) Project Manager
20 79 (1.91%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 363 (8.79%) Terraform
2 181 (4.38%) REST
3 110 (2.66%) RESTful
4 98 (2.37%) Spring
5 95 (2.30%) Node.js
6 94 (2.28%) React
7 88 (2.13%) Spring Boot
8 86 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
9 77 (1.86%) SOAP
10 70 (1.69%) Kafka
11 69 (1.67%) HTML
11 69 (1.67%) Web Services
12 65 (1.57%) OAuth
13 64 (1.55%) CSS
13 64 (1.55%) Django
14 62 (1.50%) .NET
14 62 (1.50%) JSON
15 55 (1.33%) OpenID
16 44 (1.07%) OAuth2
16 44 (1.07%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 251 (6.08%) Cloud Native
2 180 (4.36%) Product Ownership
3 172 (4.16%) Onboarding
4 146 (3.53%) Management Information System
5 134 (3.24%) NHS
6 106 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
7 90 (2.18%) Enterprise Software
8 53 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
9 48 (1.16%) Data Centre
9 48 (1.16%) Data Structures
10 43 (1.04%) Freedom of Information
11 42 (1.02%) AI Agents
11 42 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
11 42 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
12 41 (0.99%) CMDB
13 36 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
13 36 (0.87%) Taxonomies
14 33 (0.80%) Cyber Threat
15 32 (0.77%) Data Protection Act
15 32 (0.77%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 130 (3.15%) Windows
2 113 (2.74%) Linux
3 36 (0.87%) Unix
4 33 (0.80%) Windows Server
5 23 (0.56%) Android
6 21 (0.51%) Windows 10
7 20 (0.48%) Apple iOS
8 16 (0.39%) macOS
9 14 (0.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.12%) AIX
10 5 (0.12%) Amazon Linux
11 3 (0.073%) CentOS
11 3 (0.073%) Ubuntu
12 2 (0.048%) Solaris
12 2 (0.048%) VMS
13 1 (0.024%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.024%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.024%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.024%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,329 (32.17%) Agile
2 1,034 (25.03%) Stakeholder Management
3 751 (18.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 737 (17.84%) Continuous Improvement
5 697 (16.87%) CI/CD
6 654 (15.83%) DevOps
7 532 (12.88%) Problem-Solving
8 493 (11.93%) Decision-Making
9 413 (10.00%) Analytics
10 400 (9.68%) Digital Transformation Programme
11 398 (9.63%) Roadmaps
12 396 (9.59%) Migration
13 393 (9.51%) AI
14 354 (8.57%) Infrastructure as Code
15 331 (8.01%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 324 (7.84%) Data Modelling
17 301 (7.29%) Technical Leadership
18 282 (6.83%) Mentoring
19 278 (6.73%) User Research
20 267 (6.46%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 455 (11.01%) Python
2 408 (9.88%) SQL
3 253 (6.12%) Java
4 219 (5.30%) JavaScript
5 126 (3.05%) TypeScript
6 108 (2.61%) PowerShell
7 83 (2.01%) C#
8 67 (1.62%) Bash
9 51 (1.23%) Bicep
10 49 (1.19%) PL/SQL
11 43 (1.04%) Scala
12 29 (0.70%) Groovy
12 29 (0.70%) R
13 26 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 23 (0.56%) ABAP
15 22 (0.53%) Kotlin
16 18 (0.44%) Apex Code
17 15 (0.36%) Ruby
17 15 (0.36%) Shell Script
18 13 (0.31%) Go
Qualifications
1 2,101 (50.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,750 (42.36%) SC Cleared
3 362 (8.76%) BPSS Clearance
4 231 (5.59%) DV Cleared
5 182 (4.41%) Degree
6 81 (1.96%) Microsoft Certification
7 77 (1.86%) AWS Certification
8 67 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 47 (1.14%) CISSP
10 39 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
11 36 (0.87%) CISM
11 36 (0.87%) ISTQB
12 25 (0.61%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
14 23 (0.56%) CCNP
14 23 (0.56%) Master's Degree
15 22 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
16 19 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 16 (0.39%) DBS Check
17 16 (0.39%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 362 (8.76%) Accessibility
2 266 (6.44%) Data Quality
3 261 (6.32%) QA
4 141 (3.41%) WCAG
5 129 (3.12%) GDPR
6 89 (2.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 85 (2.06%) NCSC
8 75 (1.82%) PMO
9 71 (1.72%) NIST
10 34 (0.82%) GRC
11 30 (0.73%) SLA
12 28 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
13 25 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
14 14 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 11 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
17 7 (0.17%) NIST 800
17 7 (0.17%) PCI DSS
18 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 6 (0.15%) PERC
System Software
1 289 (7.00%) Docker
2 139 (3.36%) Active Directory
3 32 (0.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.39%) Hyper-V
5 13 (0.31%) VMware NSX
6 12 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 9 (0.22%) vSphere
8 8 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
9 5 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.097%) Virtual Machines
11 3 (0.073%) Microsoft App-V
12 2 (0.048%) OpenAM
12 2 (0.048%) Postfix
13 1 (0.024%) BitLocker
13 1 (0.024%) Ceph
13 1 (0.024%) Squid
13 1 (0.024%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 278 (6.73%) Kubernetes
2 98 (2.37%) Grafana
3 64 (1.55%) Ansible
4 58 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 44 (1.07%) Microsoft Intune
6 41 (0.99%) Single Sign-On
7 27 (0.65%) SCCM
8 22 (0.53%) Argo
9 21 (0.51%) Kibana
10 8 (0.19%) Data Guard
10 8 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
10 8 (0.19%) VxRail
11 6 (0.15%) Istio
11 6 (0.15%) QRadar
12 5 (0.12%) Consul
12 5 (0.12%) Packer
12 5 (0.12%) vCenter Server
13 4 (0.097%) Jamf Pro
13 4 (0.097%) Karpenter
14 3 (0.073%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 572 (13.85%) Microsoft
2 348 (8.42%) Oracle
3 157 (3.80%) ServiceNow
4 129 (3.12%) Google
5 126 (3.05%) SAP
6 89 (2.15%) Salesforce
7 84 (2.03%) Databricks
8 49 (1.19%) Cisco
9 38 (0.92%) Palo Alto
9 38 (0.92%) Splunk
10 36 (0.87%) VMware
11 33 (0.80%) Informatica
12 32 (0.77%) Dynatrace
12 32 (0.77%) Talend
12 32 (0.77%) Workday
13 21 (0.51%) Foundry
13 21 (0.51%) Palantir
14 19 (0.46%) NEC
15 18 (0.44%) Blue Prism
15 18 (0.44%) Red Hat