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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,717 2,246 3,365
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.77% 9.25% 8.93%
As % of the General category 17.18% 14.58% 15.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,647 1,514 2,239
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £590 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £711 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 84 159
10th Percentile £15.83 £15.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.09 £23.25 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +6.99% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.41 £34.23 £56.56
90th Percentile £59.55 £64.00 £69.70
UK median hourly rate £22.04 £23.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -4.18% +9.52% +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 21,636 15,407 22,008
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.87% 63.47% 58.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,643 10,049 14,313
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £410 £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 £767
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,369 626 1,706
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.73 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.50 £15.26
Median hourly rate £25.77 £30.00 £26.03
Median % change year-on-year -14.10% +15.25% -25.63%
75th Percentile £61.18 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.13 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £29.07 £26.00
% change year-on-year -12.69% +11.81% -25.71%

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 31 March 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 31 March 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 31 March 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 0 1,605 £520 -0.95% 363
North of England -2 650 £450 -4.26% 228
South East -2 459 £500 -7.24% 200
Midlands +5 398 £500 +8.11% 117
North West -1 325 £450 -10.00% 90
West Midlands -1 294 £500 +10.29% 89
South West -3 275 £525 -4.55% 87
Yorkshire +4 212 £500 +29.03% 76
North East -2 118 £450 +4.65% 62
East of England +16 114 £375 +7.14% 44
East Midlands +15 99 £500 - 28
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
1 133 (3.58%) Confluence
2 103 (2.77%) SharePoint
3 30 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.67%) SAS
5 18 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.43%) Apache
7 15 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.40%) CMS
8 14 (0.38%) nginx
9 9 (0.24%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.13%) Camunda
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.11%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.081%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 94 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 83 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 3 (0.081%) InVision
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
13 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 37 (1.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 14 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 6 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.16%) SystmOne
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
10 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
10 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 688 (18.51%) AWS
2 642 (17.27%) Azure
3 207 (5.57%) Power Platform
4 170 (4.57%) Serverless
5 160 (4.30%) GitHub
6 155 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
7 146 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
8 138 (3.71%) GCP
9 104 (2.80%) AWS Lambda
10 92 (2.48%) Entra ID
10 92 (2.48%) GitHub Actions
11 91 (2.45%) Amazon S3
12 70 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
13 66 (1.78%) Power Automate
14 65 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
15 64 (1.72%) Dynamics 365
16 59 (1.59%) Amazon EKS
17 57 (1.53%) OCI
17 57 (1.53%) PowerApps
18 55 (1.48%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.48%) Firewall
2 57 (1.53%) VPN
3 56 (1.51%) WAN
4 55 (1.48%) Network Security
5 48 (1.29%) LAN
6 47 (1.26%) DNS
7 31 (0.83%) BGP
7 31 (0.83%) Wireless
8 26 (0.70%) TCP/IP
8 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
9 24 (0.65%) OSPF
10 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
11 19 (0.51%) DHCP
12 16 (0.43%) Internet
12 16 (0.43%) SSL
13 13 (0.35%) VLAN
14 12 (0.32%) MPLS
15 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
15 11 (0.30%) IPsec
16 10 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (4.30%) Power BI
2 80 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
3 61 (1.64%) SQL Server
4 57 (1.53%) Metadata
5 53 (1.43%) MongoDB
6 51 (1.37%) Data Warehouse
7 46 (1.24%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.91%) Data Lake
9 34 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
10 29 (0.78%) Tableau
11 28 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 28 (0.75%) Relational Database
12 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
13 24 (0.65%) DynamoDB
14 20 (0.54%) Oracle Database
15 19 (0.51%) MySQL
16 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
16 17 (0.46%) Redis
17 16 (0.43%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 213 (5.73%) JIRA
2 183 (4.92%) Git
3 121 (3.26%) GitLab
3 121 (3.26%) Jenkins
4 44 (1.18%) Selenium
5 42 (1.13%) Postman
6 36 (0.97%) JUnit
7 32 (0.86%) Mockito
8 24 (0.65%) SonarQube
9 23 (0.62%) JMeter
10 22 (0.59%) Cypress.io
11 21 (0.56%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.38%) Maven
13 13 (0.35%) Bitbucket
13 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
14 12 (0.32%) Mocha
14 12 (0.32%) REST Assured
15 11 (0.30%) Artifactory
16 10 (0.27%) MSI
17 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 995 (26.77%) Social Skills
2 543 (14.61%) Finance
3 362 (9.74%) Analytical Skills
4 164 (4.41%) Telecoms
5 160 (4.30%) Local Government
5 160 (4.30%) Military
6 132 (3.55%) Marketing
7 130 (3.50%) Manufacturing
8 110 (2.96%) Electronics
9 87 (2.34%) Legal
10 79 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
11 74 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
12 67 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
13 57 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 52 (1.40%) Banking
14 52 (1.40%) Police
15 48 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
16 42 (1.13%) Law
17 37 (1.00%) Billing
18 33 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 470 (12.64%) Architect
2 465 (12.51%) Developer
3 407 (10.95%) Senior
4 385 (10.36%) Analyst
5 303 (8.15%) Lead
6 181 (4.87%) Consultant
7 172 (4.63%) Business Analyst
8 148 (3.98%) Designer
9 119 (3.20%) DevOps Engineer
10 116 (3.12%) Solutions Architect
11 113 (3.04%) Data Engineer
12 111 (2.99%) Project Manager
13 106 (2.85%) Technical Architect
14 89 (2.39%) Java Developer
15 84 (2.26%) User Researcher
16 82 (2.21%) Senior Developer
17 77 (2.07%) Delivery Manager
18 66 (1.78%) Service Designer
19 57 (1.53%) Data Analyst
19 57 (1.53%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 149 (4.01%) REST
2 120 (3.23%) Node.js
3 106 (2.85%) React
4 103 (2.77%) Spring
5 97 (2.61%) RESTful
6 91 (2.45%) Spring Boot
7 77 (2.07%) .NET
8 74 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
9 72 (1.94%) AngularJS
10 70 (1.88%) HTML
11 67 (1.80%) Web Services
12 65 (1.75%) CSS
13 61 (1.64%) SOAP
14 58 (1.56%) Kafka
15 51 (1.37%) JSON
16 39 (1.05%) Lightning Web Components
17 36 (0.97%) Middleware
18 35 (0.94%) Playwright
18 35 (0.94%) XML
19 27 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 155 (4.17%) Cloud Native
2 132 (3.55%) Product Ownership
3 131 (3.52%) NHS
4 128 (3.44%) Onboarding
5 80 (2.15%) Data Centre
6 77 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.86%) Management Information System
8 57 (1.53%) Public Cloud
9 47 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
10 40 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
11 38 (1.02%) Data Structures
12 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
14 29 (0.78%) CMDB
15 27 (0.73%) Security Posture
16 25 (0.67%) Replication
17 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) Virtual Team
19 17 (0.46%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 203 (5.46%) Windows
2 153 (4.12%) Linux
3 57 (1.53%) Windows Server
4 43 (1.16%) Windows 10
5 39 (1.05%) Android
6 38 (1.02%) Unix
7 33 (0.89%) Mac OS
8 25 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 19 (0.51%) Apple iOS
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 9 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.19%) Solaris
12 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 967 (26.02%) Agile
2 525 (14.12%) CI/CD
3 515 (13.86%) DevOps
4 457 (12.29%) Problem-Solving
5 454 (12.21%) Stakeholder Management
6 417 (11.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 367 (9.87%) Migration
8 366 (9.85%) Continuous Improvement
9 341 (9.17%) Roadmaps
10 294 (7.91%) Analytics
11 293 (7.88%) Business Intelligence
12 279 (7.51%) Decision-Making
13 242 (6.51%) Test Automation
14 238 (6.40%) Containerisation
15 229 (6.16%) Data Modelling
15 229 (6.16%) Infrastructure as Code
16 227 (6.11%) Microservices
17 217 (5.84%) Workshop Facilitation
18 213 (5.73%) AI
18 213 (5.73%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 406 (10.92%) Python
2 336 (9.04%) SQL
3 263 (7.08%) Java
4 195 (5.25%) JavaScript
5 115 (3.09%) TypeScript
6 113 (3.04%) PowerShell
7 87 (2.34%) C#
8 57 (1.53%) Bash
9 45 (1.21%) Ruby
10 39 (1.05%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.65%) Go
12 24 (0.65%) Shell Script
13 22 (0.59%) R
14 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
15 18 (0.48%) Bicep
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.30%) Scala
19 10 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 2,159 (58.08%) Security Cleared
2 1,409 (37.91%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.95%) DV Cleared
4 171 (4.60%) Degree
5 95 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.18%) CISSP
8 41 (1.10%) AWS Certification
9 39 (1.05%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
11 34 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
12 33 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
13 29 (0.78%) PMP
14 26 (0.70%) CISM
15 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
16 24 (0.65%) ISEB
17 19 (0.51%) CCNP
18 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
19 15 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
20 14 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (5.25%) Accessibility
2 155 (4.17%) QA
3 148 (3.98%) Data Quality
4 107 (2.88%) GDPR
5 88 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 77 (2.07%) WCAG
7 65 (1.75%) NCSC
7 65 (1.75%) PMO
8 63 (1.69%) NIST
9 42 (1.13%) SLA
10 29 (0.78%) GRC
11 21 (0.56%) COBIT
11 21 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.46%) PCI DSS
14 16 (0.43%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 8 (0.22%) NIST 800
System Software
1 260 (6.99%) Docker
2 134 (3.61%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.40%) vSphere
8 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
9 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.19%) Postfix
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.081%) RACF
14 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.054%) SRDF
15 1 (0.027%) etcd
15 1 (0.027%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
15 1 (0.027%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 296 (7.96%) Terraform
2 269 (7.24%) Kubernetes
3 70 (1.88%) Ansible
4 68 (1.83%) Grafana
5 47 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 25 (0.67%) SCCM
9 13 (0.35%) Argo
10 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.32%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.27%) Packer
12 8 (0.22%) Consul
12 8 (0.22%) Kibana
12 8 (0.22%) vRealize
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) Jamf Pro
14 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 424 (11.41%) Microsoft
2 253 (6.81%) SAP
3 218 (5.86%) Oracle
4 122 (3.28%) Salesforce
5 119 (3.20%) Cisco
6 113 (3.04%) ServiceNow
7 99 (2.66%) VMware
8 80 (2.15%) Databricks
9 74 (1.99%) Google
10 47 (1.26%) Splunk
11 42 (1.13%) Aruba
12 35 (0.94%) IBM
12 35 (0.94%) Virgin Media
13 32 (0.86%) Atlassian
13 32 (0.86%) Red Hat
14 29 (0.78%) Juniper
14 29 (0.78%) MuleSoft
14 29 (0.78%) Palo Alto
15 26 (0.70%) Dell
16 23 (0.62%) HP