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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 20 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,685 2,147 3,303
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.13% 8.82% 8.88%
As % of the General category 16.59% 13.78% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,601 1,469 2,211
10th Percentile £350 £346 £311
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £600 £606 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £519
% change year-on-year - -3.66% -1.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 170 88 164
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.27 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.18 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.50 £22.27 £22.12
Median % change year-on-year +1.03% +0.70% +10.58%
75th Percentile £27.23 £33.00 £55.03
90th Percentile £61.50 £64.83 £70.39
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.27 £21.50
% change year-on-year +1.03% +3.58% +7.50%

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 22,210 15,585 21,714
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.02% 64.02% 58.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,892 10,122 13,995
10th Percentile £305 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,450 671 1,789
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.27 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.50 £27.50 £30.16
Median % change year-on-year +10.91% -8.82% -10.82%
75th Percentile £63.75 £56.58 £51.91
90th Percentile £80.01 £75.00 £65.01
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -14.29%

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 1 May 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 1 May 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 1 May 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 1,651 £525 - 327
North of England -2 646 £454 -4.42% 209
South East -2 435 £500 -6.98% 187
Midlands +1 386 £500 +6.67% 97
North West 0 316 £470 -6.10% 105
West Midlands -1 298 £488 +7.45% 83
South West -8 252 £525 -4.55% 88
Yorkshire +5 221 £453 -2.11% 49
North East -3 114 £450 -2.70% 55
East of England +24 95 £425 +9.68% 34
East Midlands +13 83 £525 +5.00% 13
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
1 143 (3.88%) Confluence
2 105 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.68%) SAS
5 19 (0.52%) CMS
6 18 (0.49%) Apache Spark
7 17 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
8 15 (0.41%) Apache
9 8 (0.22%) nginx
9 8 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
10 7 (0.19%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.14%) Camunda
13 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.081%) Anypoint
13 3 (0.081%) ArcGIS
13 3 (0.081%) Drupal
13 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 88 (2.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 15 (0.41%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.22%) Trello
7 5 (0.14%) Adobe XD
7 5 (0.14%) Sketch
8 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
9 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
10 2 (0.054%) InVision
11 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
11 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
11 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
11 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 42 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.52%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
7 11 (0.30%) SystmOne
8 9 (0.24%) iTrent
9 8 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
10 7 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
12 5 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
12 5 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.14%) SAP HR
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
13 4 (0.11%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 689 (18.70%) AWS
2 652 (17.69%) Azure
3 198 (5.37%) Power Platform
4 162 (4.40%) Serverless
5 157 (4.26%) Microsoft 365
6 148 (4.02%) GitHub
7 135 (3.66%) GCP
8 134 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
9 106 (2.88%) Entra ID
10 95 (2.58%) AWS Lambda
11 94 (2.55%) Amazon S3
12 88 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
13 82 (2.23%) SaaS
14 67 (1.82%) Dynamics 365
15 66 (1.79%) Amazon EC2
16 64 (1.74%) AWS CloudFormation
17 62 (1.68%) OCI
17 62 (1.68%) Power Automate
18 60 (1.63%) Amazon EKS
19 58 (1.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 96 (2.61%) Firewall
2 58 (1.57%) WAN
3 56 (1.52%) DNS
4 54 (1.47%) Network Security
5 53 (1.44%) VPN
6 47 (1.28%) LAN
7 34 (0.92%) BGP
8 31 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
9 29 (0.79%) OSPF
10 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
11 23 (0.62%) SD-WAN
12 21 (0.57%) DHCP
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 15 (0.41%) VLAN
14 15 (0.41%) VXLAN
15 14 (0.38%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.38%) Internet
16 13 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
16 13 (0.35%) Wireless
17 12 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (3.96%) Power BI
2 78 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
3 69 (1.87%) SQL Server
4 65 (1.76%) Data Warehouse
5 56 (1.52%) Metadata
6 52 (1.41%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.22%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
9 36 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.84%) Data Lake
11 29 (0.79%) Relational Database
12 28 (0.76%) Tableau
13 27 (0.73%) DynamoDB
14 26 (0.71%) Oracle Database
15 22 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
15 22 (0.60%) Electronic Patient Records
16 19 (0.52%) MySQL
16 19 (0.52%) Pentaho
17 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 221 (6.00%) JIRA
2 178 (4.83%) Git
3 130 (3.53%) GitLab
4 116 (3.15%) Jenkins
5 42 (1.14%) JUnit
6 39 (1.06%) Selenium
7 36 (0.98%) Postman
8 35 (0.95%) Mockito
9 31 (0.84%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.65%) JMeter
11 20 (0.54%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.52%) Maven
13 17 (0.46%) CircleCI
14 16 (0.43%) Cucumber
15 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
16 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
16 11 (0.30%) jMock
17 10 (0.27%) Mocha
18 9 (0.24%) Bitbucket
18 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 940 (25.51%) Social Skills
2 475 (12.89%) Finance
3 359 (9.74%) Analytical Skills
4 186 (5.05%) Military
5 171 (4.64%) Local Government
6 116 (3.15%) Telecoms
7 90 (2.44%) Marketing
8 82 (2.23%) Legal
8 82 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
9 81 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
10 77 (2.09%) Manufacturing
11 75 (2.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 74 (2.01%) Influencing Skills
13 62 (1.68%) Electronics
14 60 (1.63%) Police
15 53 (1.44%) Banking
16 51 (1.38%) Law
17 45 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
18 30 (0.81%) Billing
19 26 (0.71%) Retail
Job Titles
1 494 (13.41%) Developer
2 459 (12.46%) Architect
3 408 (11.07%) Senior
4 373 (10.12%) Analyst
5 311 (8.44%) Lead
6 166 (4.50%) Business Analyst
7 162 (4.40%) Designer
8 149 (4.04%) Consultant
9 124 (3.36%) Data Engineer
10 119 (3.23%) DevOps Engineer
11 115 (3.12%) Project Manager
12 110 (2.99%) Java Developer
13 103 (2.80%) Technical Architect
14 97 (2.63%) Solutions Architect
15 90 (2.44%) Senior Developer
16 81 (2.20%) Delivery Manager
16 81 (2.20%) User Researcher
17 72 (1.95%) Service Designer
18 66 (1.79%) Administrator
19 64 (1.74%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 136 (3.69%) REST
2 120 (3.26%) Node.js
3 119 (3.23%) Spring
4 105 (2.85%) Spring Boot
5 102 (2.77%) React
6 97 (2.63%) RESTful
7 77 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
8 72 (1.95%) AngularJS
9 71 (1.93%) .NET
10 68 (1.85%) Web Services
11 63 (1.71%) HTML
12 61 (1.66%) Kafka
13 57 (1.55%) SOAP
14 52 (1.41%) CSS
15 43 (1.17%) Lightning Web Components
16 38 (1.03%) OAuth
17 37 (1.00%) JSON
18 34 (0.92%) Middleware
18 34 (0.92%) Playwright
19 28 (0.76%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 170 (4.61%) Cloud Native
2 136 (3.69%) NHS
3 135 (3.66%) Product Ownership
4 131 (3.55%) Onboarding
5 89 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
6 82 (2.23%) Management Information System
7 71 (1.93%) Data Centre
8 55 (1.49%) Public Cloud
9 47 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
10 42 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
12 38 (1.03%) Data Structures
13 32 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
14 26 (0.71%) CMDB
15 23 (0.62%) Replication
16 21 (0.57%) PKI
17 20 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
17 20 (0.54%) Freedom of Information
17 20 (0.54%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 189 (5.13%) Windows
2 150 (4.07%) Linux
3 60 (1.63%) Windows Server
4 50 (1.36%) Unix
5 37 (1.00%) Windows 10
6 26 (0.71%) Android
7 22 (0.60%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.57%) Mac OS
9 20 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
17 2 (0.054%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 951 (25.81%) Agile
2 524 (14.22%) CI/CD
3 514 (13.95%) DevOps
4 457 (12.40%) Stakeholder Management
5 409 (11.10%) Problem-Solving
6 390 (10.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 386 (10.47%) Continuous Improvement
8 368 (9.99%) Migration
9 312 (8.47%) Analytics
10 306 (8.30%) Roadmaps
11 294 (7.98%) Decision-Making
12 246 (6.68%) Containerisation
13 237 (6.43%) Data Modelling
14 235 (6.38%) Infrastructure as Code
14 235 (6.38%) Test Automation
15 230 (6.24%) Business Intelligence
16 225 (6.11%) Microservices
17 221 (6.00%) AI
18 215 (5.83%) User Research
19 199 (5.40%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 404 (10.96%) Python
2 339 (9.20%) SQL
3 274 (7.44%) Java
4 186 (5.05%) JavaScript
5 118 (3.20%) PowerShell
6 117 (3.18%) TypeScript
7 86 (2.33%) C#
8 49 (1.33%) Bash
9 45 (1.22%) Ruby
10 43 (1.17%) Apex Code
11 35 (0.95%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.65%) Bicep
13 22 (0.60%) Go
13 22 (0.60%) R
13 22 (0.60%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.38%) Scala
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.33%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 2,031 (55.12%) Security Cleared
2 1,355 (36.77%) SC Cleared
3 195 (5.29%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.80%) Degree
5 116 (3.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.36%) Azure Certification
7 39 (1.06%) AWS Certification
8 38 (1.03%) CISSP
9 37 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.95%) Cisco Certification
11 33 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
12 28 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
12 28 (0.76%) PMP
13 25 (0.68%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.62%) CISM
15 22 (0.60%) ISEB
16 18 (0.49%) CCNP
17 15 (0.41%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.38%) APMP
18 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 220 (5.97%) Accessibility
2 163 (4.42%) Data Quality
3 156 (4.23%) QA
4 100 (2.71%) GDPR
5 89 (2.42%) WCAG
6 82 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 67 (1.82%) PMO
8 63 (1.71%) NCSC
9 57 (1.55%) NIST
10 34 (0.92%) SLA
11 28 (0.76%) GRC
12 24 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) COBIT
14 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 15 (0.41%) PCI DSS
16 14 (0.38%) HL7
17 13 (0.35%) JSP 440
18 12 (0.33%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
20 8 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 259 (7.03%) Docker
2 157 (4.26%) Active Directory
3 53 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.52%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
8 12 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
9 11 (0.30%) vSphere
10 10 (0.27%) Postfix
11 7 (0.19%) 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%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 289 (7.84%) Terraform
2 268 (7.27%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.12%) Grafana
4 73 (1.98%) Ansible
5 56 (1.52%) Prometheus
6 43 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 35 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
8 20 (0.54%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 13 (0.35%) Argo
10 13 (0.35%) Kibana
11 12 (0.33%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.27%) FortiGate
13 8 (0.22%) Oracle RMAN
13 8 (0.22%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Consul
15 6 (0.16%) Istio
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
16 5 (0.14%) Packer
Vendors
1 438 (11.89%) Microsoft
2 227 (6.16%) Oracle
3 201 (5.45%) SAP
4 121 (3.28%) Salesforce
5 107 (2.90%) ServiceNow
6 92 (2.50%) Google
7 87 (2.36%) VMware
8 78 (2.12%) Databricks
9 66 (1.79%) Cisco
10 41 (1.11%) Splunk
11 33 (0.90%) Atlassian
12 30 (0.81%) Virgin Media
13 29 (0.79%) IBM
13 29 (0.79%) Palo Alto
14 28 (0.76%) Red Hat
15 26 (0.71%) MuleSoft
15 26 (0.71%) Talend
16 25 (0.68%) Dynatrace
17 24 (0.65%) Juniper
18 23 (0.62%) F5