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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 17 18 16
Rank change year-on-year +1 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,019 2,837 3,491
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.69% 9.24% 9.15%
As % of the General category 15.43% 15.26% 15.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,110 1,714 2,478
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +1.85%
75th Percentile £594 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 100 94
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.70 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.05 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.30 £22.50 £25.19
Median % change year-on-year -5.33% -10.68% +26.77%
75th Percentile £25.11 £33.75 £58.87
90th Percentile £46.60 £60.28 £70.35
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year -4.55% -2.22% +18.42%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 19,567 18,586 22,759
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 62.80% 60.55% 59.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,456 11,217 15,436
10th Percentile £277 £300 £290
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £626 £650 £667
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,255 671 1,035
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.25 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.95 £18.00 £17.23
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.76% -6.31% +26.41%
75th Percentile £46.00 £58.51 £60.00
90th Percentile £71.50 £72.50 £70.59
UK median hourly rate £24.00 £27.50 £31.71
% change year-on-year -12.73% -13.28% +26.84%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 1,230 £513 -2.38% 257
North of England 0 574 £460 -4.17% 197
South East -7 341 £500 -9.09% 235
South West +2 331 £531 -6.80% 97
North West +1 298 £450 -10.00% 97
Midlands +4 291 £475 -5.00% 115
West Midlands +4 228 £475 -5.00% 74
Yorkshire +2 175 £513 +7.89% 63
North East +2 105 £450 +5.88% 39
East of England +1 84 £375 +7.14% 48
East Midlands +8 63 £423 -11.05% 39
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
1 115 (3.81%) Confluence
2 90 (2.98%) SharePoint
3 31 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.89%) SAS
5 26 (0.86%) nginx
6 24 (0.79%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (0.50%) Skype for Business
8 14 (0.46%) Apache
9 13 (0.43%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.40%) CMS
11 6 (0.20%) Anypoint
12 5 (0.17%) Documentum
12 5 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
12 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
13 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.13%) Exchange Server 2013
14 3 (0.099%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.099%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.099%) Jupyter
Applications
1 101 (3.35%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (3.05%) Microsoft Excel
3 38 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.63%) Microsoft Project
4 19 (0.63%) MS Visio
4 19 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
5 11 (0.36%) Trello
6 9 (0.30%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 7 (0.23%) Sketch
8 6 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.20%) InVision
8 6 (0.20%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.13%) Adobe XD
10 4 (0.13%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.13%) UXPin
11 2 (0.066%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.066%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.033%) SPSS
12 1 (0.033%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 44 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
4 14 (0.46%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
5 13 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
5 13 (0.43%) SAP ERP
5 13 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
6 9 (0.30%) iTrent
6 9 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
7 7 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
7 7 (0.23%) SAP HR
8 6 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.17%) Oracle Cash Management
9 5 (0.17%) Oracle Payroll
9 5 (0.17%) Primavera
9 5 (0.17%) Remedy ITSM
9 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 577 (19.11%) AWS
2 542 (17.95%) Azure
3 195 (6.46%) Power Platform
4 147 (4.87%) Microsoft 365
5 138 (4.57%) Serverless
6 136 (4.50%) GitHub
7 133 (4.41%) GCP
8 107 (3.54%) Azure DevOps
9 87 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
10 76 (2.52%) Amazon S3
11 74 (2.45%) GitHub Actions
12 67 (2.22%) AWS CloudFormation
13 64 (2.12%) Entra ID
14 62 (2.05%) SaaS
15 61 (2.02%) PowerApps
16 58 (1.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 54 (1.79%) Power Automate
18 53 (1.76%) Amazon ECS
19 51 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
20 50 (1.66%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 115 (3.81%) Firewall
2 82 (2.72%) DNS
3 63 (2.09%) VPN
4 51 (1.69%) WAN
5 44 (1.46%) Wireless
6 40 (1.32%) LAN
7 39 (1.29%) Network Security
8 33 (1.09%) BGP
8 33 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 28 (0.93%) DHCP
10 27 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.86%) HTTP
12 23 (0.76%) SD-WAN
13 22 (0.73%) OSPF
14 21 (0.70%) Internet
14 21 (0.70%) SSH
14 21 (0.70%) SSL
15 20 (0.66%) FTP
15 20 (0.66%) SMTP
16 18 (0.60%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.41%) Power BI
2 85 (2.82%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (1.72%) MongoDB
4 45 (1.49%) Metadata
5 38 (1.26%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.23%) Relational Database
7 35 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
8 33 (1.09%) NoSQL
9 29 (0.96%) Oracle Database
10 28 (0.93%) Data Lake
10 28 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
11 26 (0.86%) MySQL
12 24 (0.79%) Redis
13 22 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
14 21 (0.70%) Oracle Reports
15 18 (0.60%) BigQuery
15 18 (0.60%) Tableau
16 14 (0.46%) Big Data
17 13 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
17 13 (0.43%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 203 (6.72%) JIRA
2 169 (5.60%) Git
3 139 (4.60%) Jenkins
4 93 (3.08%) GitLab
5 39 (1.29%) Postman
6 34 (1.13%) Selenium
7 28 (0.93%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.70%) SonarQube
9 20 (0.66%) Vagrant
10 19 (0.63%) Cypress.io
10 19 (0.63%) REST Assured
11 18 (0.60%) Mockito
12 17 (0.56%) JUnit
13 15 (0.50%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.36%) Oracle Forms
15 10 (0.33%) MSI
16 9 (0.30%) CircleCI
17 8 (0.26%) JMeter
18 7 (0.23%) Burp Suite
18 7 (0.23%) Metasploit
General
1 886 (29.35%) Social Skills
2 498 (16.50%) Finance
3 267 (8.84%) Analytical Skills
4 242 (8.02%) Telecoms
5 203 (6.72%) Manufacturing
6 195 (6.46%) Marketing
7 184 (6.09%) Electronics
8 137 (4.54%) Military
9 117 (3.88%) Local Government
10 70 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
11 67 (2.22%) Legal
12 53 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
13 51 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
14 41 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
15 40 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 39 (1.29%) Retail
17 34 (1.13%) Law
18 26 (0.86%) Banking
18 26 (0.86%) Police
19 22 (0.73%) Billing
Job Titles
1 363 (12.02%) Developer
2 350 (11.59%) Architect
3 314 (10.40%) Analyst
4 297 (9.84%) Senior
5 281 (9.31%) Lead
6 199 (6.59%) Consultant
7 128 (4.24%) Business Analyst
8 126 (4.17%) DevOps Engineer
9 87 (2.88%) Project Manager
10 81 (2.68%) AWS Engineer
11 79 (2.62%) Solutions Architect
12 76 (2.52%) Technical Architect
13 75 (2.48%) Designer
14 64 (2.12%) Support Engineer
15 57 (1.89%) Network Engineer
16 55 (1.82%) Java Developer
17 52 (1.72%) Data Engineer
17 52 (1.72%) Senior Developer
18 48 (1.59%) IT Support
19 46 (1.52%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (3.91%) REST
2 86 (2.85%) React
2 86 (2.85%) RESTful
3 83 (2.75%) Node.js
4 75 (2.48%) .NET
5 65 (2.15%) Oracle Fusion
6 64 (2.12%) Spring Boot
7 63 (2.09%) Kafka
7 63 (2.09%) Spring
8 62 (2.05%) HTML
9 60 (1.99%) JSON
10 54 (1.79%) CSS
11 53 (1.76%) AngularJS
12 51 (1.69%) SOAP
13 47 (1.56%) Web Services
14 40 (1.32%) XML
15 28 (0.93%) OAuth
16 26 (0.86%) Playwright
17 22 (0.73%) LDAP
18 21 (0.70%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 108 (3.58%) Cloud Native
2 104 (3.44%) Onboarding
3 97 (3.21%) NHS
4 80 (2.65%) Product Ownership
5 76 (2.52%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.25%) Legacy Systems
7 66 (2.19%) Management Information System
8 39 (1.29%) Replication
9 33 (1.09%) Public Cloud
10 32 (1.06%) CMDB
10 32 (1.06%) PKI
11 31 (1.03%) Security Posture
12 27 (0.89%) Data Structures
13 25 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
14 24 (0.79%) AI Agents
14 24 (0.79%) Distributed Systems
15 23 (0.76%) Analytical Mindset
16 22 (0.73%) Driving Licence
16 22 (0.73%) Self-Motivation
17 21 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 241 (7.98%) Windows
2 159 (5.27%) Linux
3 51 (1.69%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.49%) Windows Server
5 43 (1.42%) Android
6 40 (1.32%) Mac OS
7 28 (0.93%) VMS
8 26 (0.86%) Unix
9 20 (0.66%) Amazon Linux
9 20 (0.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 17 (0.56%) Apple iOS
11 12 (0.40%) Ubuntu
12 10 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
13 8 (0.26%) Mac OS X
14 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
14 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
14 7 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
15 3 (0.099%) CentOS
15 3 (0.099%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.099%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 753 (24.94%) Agile
2 432 (14.31%) CI/CD
3 429 (14.21%) DevOps
4 408 (13.51%) Problem-Solving
5 395 (13.08%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 344 (11.39%) Business Intelligence
7 303 (10.04%) Stakeholder Management
8 294 (9.74%) Migration
9 263 (8.71%) Continuous Improvement
10 224 (7.42%) Roadmaps
11 212 (7.02%) Programme Management
12 195 (6.46%) ITIL
12 195 (6.46%) Microservices
13 193 (6.39%) Infrastructure as Code
14 185 (6.13%) Analytics
15 183 (6.06%) Digital Marketing
16 179 (5.93%) Decision-Making
17 169 (5.60%) AI
18 165 (5.47%) Containerisation
19 164 (5.43%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 358 (11.86%) Python
2 252 (8.35%) SQL
3 244 (8.08%) Java
4 146 (4.84%) JavaScript
5 124 (4.11%) PowerShell
6 82 (2.72%) TypeScript
7 71 (2.35%) Bash
7 71 (2.35%) C#
8 33 (1.09%) Go
9 25 (0.83%) Groovy
10 24 (0.79%) Ruby
11 23 (0.76%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.73%) C++
13 21 (0.70%) Perl
14 19 (0.63%) Apex Code
14 19 (0.63%) Shell Script
15 15 (0.50%) C
16 14 (0.46%) PHP
17 13 (0.43%) Bicep
18 11 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1,854 (61.41%) Security Cleared
2 1,261 (41.77%) SC Cleared
3 176 (5.83%) DV Cleared
4 130 (4.31%) Degree
5 76 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.72%) CISSP
7 43 (1.42%) AWS Certification
7 43 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
8 42 (1.39%) Azure Certification
9 38 (1.26%) ITIL Certification
10 34 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
11 27 (0.89%) CISM
12 26 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
13 24 (0.79%) CCNP
14 20 (0.66%) ISTQB
15 19 (0.63%) ISEB
16 16 (0.53%) CCNA
17 15 (0.50%) OSCP
18 14 (0.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 14 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 124 (4.11%) Accessibility
2 119 (3.94%) QA
3 91 (3.01%) GDPR
4 89 (2.95%) Data Quality
5 82 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (2.29%) NIST
7 56 (1.85%) NCSC
8 44 (1.46%) PMO
9 42 (1.39%) SLA
10 40 (1.32%) WCAG
11 24 (0.79%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.66%) GRC
13 17 (0.56%) COBIT
13 17 (0.56%) JSP 440
14 16 (0.53%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.40%) PCI DSS
17 10 (0.33%) HL7
18 9 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 8 (0.26%) RMADS
System Software
1 217 (7.19%) Docker
2 127 (4.21%) Active Directory
3 62 (2.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.66%) DFS Replication
5 18 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
5 18 (0.60%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.50%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (0.46%) vSphere
8 12 (0.40%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 9 (0.30%) Postfix
9 9 (0.30%) Squid
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) ISA Server
11 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.17%) UAG
12 3 (0.099%) Brightmail
12 3 (0.099%) Firmware
12 3 (0.099%) NFS
Systems Management
1 289 (9.57%) Terraform
2 224 (7.42%) Kubernetes
3 81 (2.68%) Ansible
4 67 (2.22%) Grafana
5 54 (1.79%) Prometheus
6 38 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (1.26%) SCCM
7 20 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (0.63%) Packer
9 17 (0.56%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
10 12 (0.40%) Nessus
11 11 (0.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 11 (0.36%) Argo
12 10 (0.33%) SCOM
13 9 (0.30%) Consul
13 9 (0.30%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.30%) Puppet
14 8 (0.26%) Nmap
14 8 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 416 (13.78%) Microsoft
2 305 (10.10%) SAP
3 187 (6.19%) Oracle
4 151 (5.00%) Cisco
5 116 (3.84%) ServiceNow
6 91 (3.01%) VMware
7 64 (2.12%) Salesforce
8 59 (1.95%) Google
9 57 (1.89%) Splunk
10 50 (1.66%) Juniper
11 40 (1.32%) Aruba
12 37 (1.23%) Dell
12 37 (1.23%) HP
13 36 (1.19%) Apple
13 36 (1.19%) Palo Alto
14 35 (1.16%) Virgin Media
15 33 (1.09%) Databricks
16 28 (0.93%) SolarWinds
17 26 (0.86%) F5
17 26 (0.86%) Fortinet