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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,164 2,605 3,387
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.90% 9.68% 9.22%
As % of the General category 16.32% 15.58% 15.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,230 1,569 2,324
10th Percentile £333 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -0.46%
75th Percentile £594 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 166 97 113
10th Percentile £16.22 £14.70 £13.14
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.16
Median hourly rate £21.97 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.13% +19.05% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.00 £56.40
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.74 £69.75
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.80 £20.35
% change year-on-year -11.76% +16.94% +2.53%

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 19,387 16,717 21,677
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.66% 62.11% 59.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,354 10,087 14,491
10th Percentile £284 £299 £275
25th Percentile £402 £413 £417
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £534 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.37% -2.91% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,198 561 1,188
10th Percentile £14.21 £15.53 £13.65
25th Percentile £16.57 £18.70 £15.52
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £29.69
Median % change year-on-year -23.33% +1.06% +15.46%
75th Percentile £46.00 £57.25 £57.08
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £23.00 £27.50 £29.00
% change year-on-year -16.36% -5.17% +16.00%

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 17 January 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 17 January 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 17 January 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 -4 1,302 £523 -0.48% 249
North of England -2 611 £452 -4.85% 192
South East -4 360 £500 -4.76% 270
North West +2 312 £450 -10.00% 67
South West 0 308 £525 -4.55% 100
Midlands +3 305 £488 -2.50% 112
West Midlands +3 233 £500 - 71
Yorkshire +1 189 £500 +9.59% 87
North East -1 114 £450 +6.51% 41
East of England +19 100 £375 +7.14% 80
East Midlands +4 72 £423 -11.05% 40
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
1 118 (3.73%) Confluence
2 96 (3.03%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.85%) SAS
5 23 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.70%) nginx
7 18 (0.57%) Apache
8 15 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.41%) Apache Spark
10 11 (0.35%) CMS
11 5 (0.16%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
11 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.13%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.13%) SharePoint Server
13 3 (0.095%) IIS
13 3 (0.095%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.095%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.095%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.095%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 99 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
2 88 (2.78%) Microsoft Excel
3 40 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.38%) Trello
7 8 (0.25%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 7 (0.22%) Adobe XD
9 5 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.16%) Sketch
10 3 (0.095%) Adobe Illustrator
10 3 (0.095%) InVision
10 3 (0.095%) Photoshop
11 2 (0.063%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.063%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.032%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.032%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.032%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.032%) Stata
Business Applications
1 52 (1.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.51%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.51%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.41%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.28%) iTrent
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.22%) SAP HR
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.16%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.13%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 589 (18.62%) AWS
2 563 (17.79%) Azure
3 195 (6.16%) Power Platform
4 154 (4.87%) Microsoft 365
5 144 (4.55%) Serverless
6 143 (4.52%) GCP
7 139 (4.39%) GitHub
8 115 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
9 88 (2.78%) AWS Lambda
10 78 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
11 67 (2.12%) Amazon S3
12 66 (2.09%) Entra ID
12 66 (2.09%) Power Automate
13 61 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
14 60 (1.90%) Dynamics 365
15 58 (1.83%) PowerApps
16 55 (1.74%) SaaS
17 54 (1.71%) Amazon ECS
18 53 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 48 (1.52%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 102 (3.22%) Firewall
2 68 (2.15%) DNS
3 61 (1.93%) VPN
4 52 (1.64%) WAN
5 46 (1.45%) Wireless
6 45 (1.42%) Network Security
7 40 (1.26%) LAN
8 37 (1.17%) TCP/IP
9 30 (0.95%) BGP
10 27 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
11 26 (0.82%) DHCP
12 22 (0.70%) OSPF
13 21 (0.66%) SSL
14 18 (0.57%) HTTP
14 18 (0.57%) Skype
15 17 (0.54%) VLAN
16 16 (0.51%) SD-WAN
17 15 (0.47%) Internet
17 15 (0.47%) SSH
18 14 (0.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (4.42%) Power BI
2 83 (2.62%) PostgreSQL
3 51 (1.61%) MongoDB
4 49 (1.55%) Metadata
5 38 (1.20%) SQL Server
6 36 (1.14%) Relational Database
7 34 (1.07%) NoSQL
8 32 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
9 29 (0.92%) Data Lake
10 27 (0.85%) Data Warehouse
11 25 (0.79%) Oracle Database
11 25 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
12 23 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
12 23 (0.73%) MySQL
13 22 (0.70%) Redis
14 20 (0.63%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.54%) Electronic Patient Records
15 17 (0.54%) Tableau
16 14 (0.44%) Data Hub
16 14 (0.44%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 199 (6.29%) JIRA
2 166 (5.25%) Git
3 128 (4.05%) Jenkins
4 108 (3.41%) GitLab
5 50 (1.58%) Postman
6 48 (1.52%) Selenium
7 31 (0.98%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.76%) Cypress.io
9 22 (0.70%) JUnit
10 19 (0.60%) REST Assured
11 18 (0.57%) Mockito
12 14 (0.44%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.44%) CircleCI
13 13 (0.41%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.41%) Vagrant
14 11 (0.35%) Mocha
14 11 (0.35%) MSI
15 10 (0.32%) Gradle
15 10 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
16 9 (0.28%) JMeter
General
1 936 (29.58%) Social Skills
2 509 (16.09%) Finance
3 283 (8.94%) Analytical Skills
4 235 (7.43%) Telecoms
5 199 (6.29%) Marketing
6 198 (6.26%) Manufacturing
7 177 (5.59%) Electronics
8 146 (4.61%) Military
9 123 (3.89%) Local Government
10 68 (2.15%) Organisational Skills
11 66 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 61 (1.93%) Legal
13 50 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
14 46 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 45 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
16 38 (1.20%) Law
17 35 (1.11%) Banking
18 34 (1.07%) Retail
19 28 (0.88%) Billing
19 28 (0.88%) Police
Job Titles
1 382 (12.07%) Developer
2 368 (11.63%) Architect
3 326 (10.30%) Senior
4 319 (10.08%) Analyst
5 301 (9.51%) Lead
6 193 (6.10%) Consultant
7 139 (4.39%) Business Analyst
8 126 (3.98%) DevOps Engineer
9 96 (3.03%) Project Manager
10 89 (2.81%) Designer
11 88 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
12 82 (2.59%) Technical Architect
13 75 (2.37%) AWS Engineer
14 65 (2.05%) Data Engineer
15 62 (1.96%) Senior Developer
16 61 (1.93%) Java Developer
17 55 (1.74%) Support Engineer
18 53 (1.68%) Test Engineer
18 53 (1.68%) User Researcher
19 52 (1.64%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 137 (4.33%) REST
2 101 (3.19%) React
3 93 (2.94%) Node.js
4 88 (2.78%) RESTful
5 82 (2.59%) Spring
6 77 (2.43%) .NET
7 75 (2.37%) Spring Boot
8 73 (2.31%) HTML
9 66 (2.09%) CSS
10 65 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
11 61 (1.93%) JSON
12 56 (1.77%) Kafka
13 55 (1.74%) SOAP
14 54 (1.71%) AngularJS
15 53 (1.68%) Web Services
16 42 (1.33%) XML
17 37 (1.17%) Playwright
18 29 (0.92%) OAuth
19 26 (0.82%) Lightning Web Components
20 23 (0.73%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 118 (3.73%) Cloud Native
2 112 (3.54%) Onboarding
3 110 (3.48%) NHS
4 100 (3.16%) Product Ownership
5 82 (2.59%) Data Centre
6 66 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
7 64 (2.02%) Management Information System
8 40 (1.26%) Public Cloud
9 33 (1.04%) Replication
10 31 (0.98%) PKI
11 29 (0.92%) CMDB
11 29 (0.92%) Security Posture
12 26 (0.82%) AI Agents
12 26 (0.82%) Distributed Systems
12 26 (0.82%) Enterprise Software
12 26 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
13 25 (0.79%) Data Structures
13 25 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
14 22 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
15 20 (0.63%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 213 (6.73%) Windows
2 150 (4.74%) Linux
3 51 (1.61%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.45%) Android
5 43 (1.36%) Windows Server
6 41 (1.30%) Mac OS
7 25 (0.79%) Unix
8 24 (0.76%) VMS
9 20 (0.63%) Apple iOS
10 18 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 13 (0.41%) Amazon Linux
12 12 (0.38%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
15 7 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
16 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
16 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
17 4 (0.13%) Windows 7
18 3 (0.095%) Windows Server 2008
19 1 (0.032%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 780 (24.65%) Agile
2 452 (14.29%) CI/CD
3 435 (13.75%) DevOps
4 417 (13.18%) Problem-Solving
5 389 (12.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 346 (10.94%) Stakeholder Management
7 345 (10.90%) Business Intelligence
8 311 (9.83%) Migration
9 278 (8.79%) Continuous Improvement
10 262 (8.28%) Roadmaps
11 220 (6.95%) Programme Management
12 205 (6.48%) Analytics
13 203 (6.42%) Test Automation
14 198 (6.26%) Decision-Making
15 197 (6.23%) Infrastructure as Code
16 192 (6.07%) Microservices
17 191 (6.04%) Containerisation
18 183 (5.78%) AI
19 178 (5.63%) ITIL
20 177 (5.59%) Digital Marketing
Programming Languages
1 365 (11.54%) Python
2 268 (8.47%) SQL
3 243 (7.68%) Java
4 173 (5.47%) JavaScript
5 124 (3.92%) PowerShell
6 103 (3.26%) TypeScript
7 76 (2.40%) C#
8 62 (1.96%) Bash
9 34 (1.07%) Ruby
10 31 (0.98%) Go
11 28 (0.88%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.79%) Apex Code
13 19 (0.60%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.51%) Groovy
14 16 (0.51%) PHP
15 14 (0.44%) C++
15 14 (0.44%) R
16 13 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 13 (0.41%) Perl
17 12 (0.38%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,919 (60.65%) Security Cleared
2 1,282 (40.52%) SC Cleared
3 165 (5.21%) DV Cleared
4 153 (4.84%) Degree
5 82 (2.59%) BPSS Clearance
6 44 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 43 (1.36%) CISSP
8 41 (1.30%) AWS Certification
9 38 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
10 34 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
11 33 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
12 27 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (0.76%) CISM
14 22 (0.70%) ISEB
14 22 (0.70%) PMP
15 21 (0.66%) PMI Certification
16 19 (0.60%) CCNP
17 18 (0.57%) ISTQB
18 15 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 15 (0.47%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (4.74%) Accessibility
2 128 (4.05%) QA
3 109 (3.45%) Data Quality
4 94 (2.97%) GDPR
5 77 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 65 (2.05%) NIST
7 58 (1.83%) NCSC
8 51 (1.61%) WCAG
9 47 (1.49%) PMO
9 47 (1.49%) SLA
10 23 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
11 22 (0.70%) GRC
12 18 (0.57%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.51%) COBIT
14 14 (0.44%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.41%) Actionable Recommendations
15 13 (0.41%) PCI DSS
16 10 (0.32%) HL7
17 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 6 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 231 (7.30%) Docker
2 120 (3.79%) Active Directory
3 59 (1.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.57%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.44%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.41%) DFS Replication
7 13 (0.41%) vSphere
8 10 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 9 (0.28%) Squid
10 8 (0.25%) Dovecot
10 8 (0.25%) Postfix
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.13%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.095%) NFS
15 2 (0.063%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.063%) Brightmail
15 2 (0.063%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 285 (9.01%) Terraform
2 243 (7.68%) Kubernetes
3 77 (2.43%) Ansible
4 64 (2.02%) Grafana
5 52 (1.64%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.98%) SCCM
7 26 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.41%) Packer
11 12 (0.38%) Nessus
12 11 (0.35%) Argo
13 10 (0.32%) Puppet
14 9 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
14 9 (0.28%) Proxmox
14 9 (0.28%) vRealize
15 8 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 8 (0.25%) SCOM
16 7 (0.22%) Consul
17 6 (0.19%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 403 (12.74%) Microsoft
2 311 (9.83%) SAP
3 187 (5.91%) Oracle
4 146 (4.61%) Cisco
5 105 (3.32%) ServiceNow
6 90 (2.84%) Salesforce
7 89 (2.81%) VMware
8 59 (1.86%) Google
9 58 (1.83%) Splunk
10 44 (1.39%) Databricks
11 40 (1.26%) Aruba
12 39 (1.23%) Juniper
12 39 (1.23%) Virgin Media
13 38 (1.20%) Palo Alto
14 37 (1.17%) Dell
15 36 (1.14%) Apple
16 34 (1.07%) HP
17 27 (0.85%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.82%) Fortinet
19 25 (0.79%) Red Hat