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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,565 2,447 3,344
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.08% 9.50% 8.97%
As % of the General category 17.08% 15.16% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,508 1,523 2,220
10th Percentile £350 £309 £306
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.47% -1.33% -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 180 83 147
10th Percentile £16.61 £15.25 £13.58
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.35 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £38.88 £55.76
90th Percentile £44.94 £64.23 £69.45
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.00%

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 20,871 16,137 21,991
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.02% 62.63% 59.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,227 9,981 14,442
10th Percentile £300 £300 £264
25th Percentile £406 £411 £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 1,297 533 1,578
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.62 £13.18
25th Percentile £17.05 £20.19 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.58 £30.81 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.47% +18.48% -13.33%
75th Percentile £55.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £23.58 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -21.42% +15.38% -7.52%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +1 1,503 £518 -1.43% 321
North of England -2 656 £450 -5.26% 150
South East 0 421 £500 -4.76% 200
Midlands +2 370 £493 +0.51% 95
North West +2 326 £450 -10.00% 66
West Midlands -1 277 £500 - 65
South West -2 275 £525 -4.55% 71
Yorkshire -4 208 £500 +11.11% 53
North East 0 126 £450 +5.88% 31
East of England +27 112 £400 +14.29% 29
East Midlands +11 92 £425 -10.53% 29
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
1 129 (3.62%) Confluence
2 98 (2.75%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.73%) SAS
5 21 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.45%) Apache
7 15 (0.42%) nginx
8 13 (0.36%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.34%) CMS
10 11 (0.31%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.084%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.084%) Documentum
14 3 (0.084%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.084%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 96 (2.69%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 7 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.17%) Sketch
10 3 (0.084%) InVision
11 2 (0.056%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.056%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 2 (0.056%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.028%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.028%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.028%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.028%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.028%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.74%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (0.93%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.62%) SAP PSCD
4 19 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
5 18 (0.50%) SAP BRIM
5 18 (0.50%) SAP Hybris
6 11 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.25%) iTrent
7 9 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
12 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 651 (18.26%) AWS
2 586 (16.44%) Azure
3 199 (5.58%) Power Platform
4 160 (4.49%) Serverless
5 148 (4.15%) GitHub
6 143 (4.01%) Microsoft 365
7 136 (3.81%) GCP
8 121 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
9 102 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
10 84 (2.36%) Amazon S3
10 84 (2.36%) GitHub Actions
11 82 (2.30%) Entra ID
12 63 (1.77%) AWS CloudFormation
13 61 (1.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 60 (1.68%) OCI
15 59 (1.65%) Amazon EC2
15 59 (1.65%) Power Automate
16 57 (1.60%) Dynamics 365
17 56 (1.57%) SaaS
18 54 (1.51%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.55%) Firewall
2 54 (1.51%) DNS
3 51 (1.43%) VPN
3 51 (1.43%) WAN
4 49 (1.37%) Network Security
5 44 (1.23%) Wireless
6 40 (1.12%) LAN
7 36 (1.01%) TCP/IP
8 30 (0.84%) BGP
9 25 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 24 (0.67%) DHCP
11 23 (0.65%) OSPF
12 17 (0.48%) SSL
13 15 (0.42%) SD-WAN
14 14 (0.39%) VLAN
15 13 (0.36%) Internet
15 13 (0.36%) IPsec
15 13 (0.36%) MPLS
16 12 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
16 12 (0.34%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (4.38%) Power BI
2 82 (2.30%) PostgreSQL
3 56 (1.57%) SQL Server
4 54 (1.51%) MongoDB
5 52 (1.46%) Metadata
6 41 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
7 38 (1.07%) Amazon RDS
8 37 (1.04%) Data Lake
9 36 (1.01%) NoSQL
10 31 (0.87%) Relational Database
11 30 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
12 25 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
13 22 (0.62%) Tableau
14 21 (0.59%) MySQL
15 20 (0.56%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.56%) Oracle Database
15 20 (0.56%) Redis
16 18 (0.50%) BigQuery
16 18 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
17 16 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 201 (5.64%) JIRA
2 167 (4.68%) Git
3 126 (3.53%) GitLab
3 126 (3.53%) Jenkins
4 48 (1.35%) Postman
5 47 (1.32%) Selenium
6 33 (0.93%) JUnit
7 29 (0.81%) Cucumber
7 29 (0.81%) Mockito
8 27 (0.76%) Cypress.io
9 19 (0.53%) SonarQube
10 18 (0.50%) REST Assured
11 14 (0.39%) JMeter
11 14 (0.39%) Mocha
12 13 (0.36%) CircleCI
13 12 (0.34%) Bitbucket
13 12 (0.34%) Maven
14 10 (0.28%) MSI
15 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
16 8 (0.22%) Artifactory
General
1 1,008 (28.27%) Social Skills
2 539 (15.12%) Finance
3 325 (9.12%) Analytical Skills
4 194 (5.44%) Telecoms
5 162 (4.54%) Marketing
6 160 (4.49%) Manufacturing
7 158 (4.43%) Military
8 139 (3.90%) Electronics
9 129 (3.62%) Local Government
10 77 (2.16%) Legal
11 73 (2.05%) Organisational Skills
12 72 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
14 48 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (1.32%) Banking
15 47 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 40 (1.12%) Police
17 39 (1.09%) Law
18 34 (0.95%) Billing
19 30 (0.84%) Retail
Job Titles
1 431 (12.09%) Developer
2 418 (11.73%) Architect
3 383 (10.74%) Senior
4 348 (9.76%) Analyst
5 304 (8.53%) Lead
6 188 (5.27%) Consultant
7 165 (4.63%) Business Analyst
8 138 (3.87%) Designer
9 129 (3.62%) DevOps Engineer
10 107 (3.00%) Project Manager
11 98 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
12 97 (2.72%) Data Engineer
13 94 (2.64%) Technical Architect
14 86 (2.41%) Java Developer
15 81 (2.27%) User Researcher
16 70 (1.96%) AWS Engineer
17 69 (1.94%) Senior Developer
18 68 (1.91%) Service Designer
19 61 (1.71%) Delivery Manager
20 56 (1.57%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.21%) REST
2 124 (3.48%) Node.js
3 107 (3.00%) React
4 102 (2.86%) Spring
5 91 (2.55%) Spring Boot
6 86 (2.41%) RESTful
7 76 (2.13%) .NET
8 75 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
9 74 (2.08%) HTML
10 72 (2.02%) AngularJS
11 68 (1.91%) CSS
12 67 (1.88%) Web Services
13 61 (1.71%) SOAP
14 53 (1.49%) JSON
15 49 (1.37%) Kafka
16 38 (1.07%) Playwright
17 36 (1.01%) XML
18 32 (0.90%) Middleware
19 30 (0.84%) Lightning Web Components
20 26 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 138 (3.87%) Cloud Native
2 130 (3.65%) Onboarding
3 120 (3.37%) NHS
3 120 (3.37%) Product Ownership
4 87 (2.44%) Data Centre
5 74 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
6 68 (1.91%) Management Information System
7 47 (1.32%) Public Cloud
8 34 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
9 32 (0.90%) Distributed Systems
10 31 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
10 31 (0.87%) Security Posture
11 30 (0.84%) PKI
11 30 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
12 28 (0.79%) Data Structures
13 27 (0.76%) CMDB
14 24 (0.67%) AI Agents
14 24 (0.67%) Replication
15 22 (0.62%) Security Operations Centre
16 18 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 215 (6.03%) Windows
2 170 (4.77%) Linux
3 56 (1.57%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.37%) Android
5 42 (1.18%) Mac OS
6 40 (1.12%) Windows 10
7 39 (1.09%) Unix
8 23 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 14 (0.39%) Mac OS X
11 13 (0.36%) VMS
12 11 (0.31%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
15 7 (0.20%) Solaris
15 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 897 (25.16%) Agile
2 505 (14.17%) CI/CD
3 483 (13.55%) DevOps
4 448 (12.57%) Problem-Solving
5 411 (11.53%) Stakeholder Management
6 386 (10.83%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 350 (9.82%) Migration
8 327 (9.17%) Continuous Improvement
9 318 (8.92%) Business Intelligence
10 306 (8.58%) Roadmaps
11 249 (6.98%) Analytics
12 241 (6.76%) Decision-Making
13 223 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
13 223 (6.26%) Test Automation
14 220 (6.17%) Containerisation
15 217 (6.09%) Microservices
16 199 (5.58%) User Research
17 197 (5.53%) AI
18 193 (5.41%) Data Modelling
19 192 (5.39%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 380 (10.66%) Python
2 322 (9.03%) SQL
3 260 (7.29%) Java
4 193 (5.41%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.37%) TypeScript
6 119 (3.34%) PowerShell
7 89 (2.50%) C#
8 68 (1.91%) Bash
9 38 (1.07%) Ruby
10 30 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 29 (0.81%) Apex Code
12 25 (0.70%) Go
13 21 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 18 (0.50%) PHP
14 18 (0.50%) R
15 14 (0.39%) Bicep
16 12 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.31%) Kotlin
18 10 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
19 9 (0.25%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,106 (59.07%) Security Cleared
2 1,386 (38.88%) SC Cleared
3 175 (4.91%) Degree
4 168 (4.71%) DV Cleared
5 100 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (1.26%) AWS Certification
6 45 (1.26%) Azure Certification
6 45 (1.26%) CISSP
7 40 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
7 40 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
8 34 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
9 33 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
10 27 (0.76%) CISM
11 24 (0.67%) ISEB
11 24 (0.67%) PMP
12 20 (0.56%) PMI Certification
13 18 (0.50%) CCNP
13 18 (0.50%) ISTQB
14 16 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 16 (0.45%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 186 (5.22%) Accessibility
2 141 (3.96%) QA
3 129 (3.62%) Data Quality
4 103 (2.89%) GDPR
5 78 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (1.94%) NIST
7 65 (1.82%) WCAG
8 57 (1.60%) NCSC
8 57 (1.60%) PMO
9 47 (1.32%) SLA
10 22 (0.62%) GRC
11 19 (0.53%) COBIT
11 19 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
12 17 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.45%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.39%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.36%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.31%) HL7
16 11 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 8 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 248 (6.96%) Docker
2 120 (3.37%) Active Directory
3 65 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
4 18 (0.50%) VMware NSX
5 17 (0.48%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.36%) vSphere
8 9 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.22%) Postfix
10 6 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.084%) DFS Replication
13 3 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.084%) RACF
13 3 (0.084%) Squid
14 2 (0.056%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.056%) Dovecot
14 2 (0.056%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 301 (8.44%) Terraform
2 264 (7.41%) Kubernetes
3 73 (2.05%) Ansible
4 72 (2.02%) Grafana
5 51 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.81%) SCCM
8 22 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (0.39%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.36%) Argo
10 13 (0.36%) Puppet
11 11 (0.31%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.31%) Packer
12 10 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
14 7 (0.20%) Kibana
14 7 (0.20%) Nessus
14 7 (0.20%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.17%) SCOM
15 6 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 401 (11.25%) Microsoft
2 277 (7.77%) SAP
3 209 (5.86%) Oracle
4 141 (3.96%) Cisco
5 108 (3.03%) ServiceNow
6 105 (2.95%) Salesforce
7 99 (2.78%) VMware
8 67 (1.88%) Google
9 61 (1.71%) Splunk
10 60 (1.68%) Databricks
11 42 (1.18%) Aruba
12 41 (1.15%) Virgin Media
13 36 (1.01%) Juniper
13 36 (1.01%) Palo Alto
14 35 (0.98%) Dell
15 34 (0.95%) Apple
16 33 (0.93%) Red Hat
17 31 (0.87%) HP
18 27 (0.76%) Atlassian
19 26 (0.73%) IBM