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 23 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 20 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,707 2,208 3,304
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.34% 8.98% 8.86%
As % of the General category 16.80% 14.04% 15.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,617 1,504 2,195
10th Percentile £350 £338 £302
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 £608 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £518
% change year-on-year - -3.47% -1.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 89 165
10th Percentile £14.67 £15.28 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.57 £22.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.30% - +12.50%
75th Percentile £26.12 £34.15 £55.00
90th Percentile £55.00 £64.80 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.95 £21.62
% change year-on-year -1.96% +6.18% +8.08%

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 22,061 15,727 21,785
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.57% 63.99% 58.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,826 10,218 14,096
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,429 662 1,772
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.05 £17.53 £15.39
Median hourly rate £30.00 £28.60 £29.83
Median % change year-on-year +4.90% -4.11% -14.79%
75th Percentile £61.25 £58.75 £51.25
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £28.55 £28.18 £28.50
% change year-on-year +1.31% -1.12% -18.57%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 1,647 £525 - 300
North of England -1 656 £453 -4.63% 214
South East -1 448 £500 -6.72% 196
Midlands +3 385 £500 +5.26% 96
North West 0 318 £465 -9.93% 97
West Midlands +1 292 £495 +8.06% 78
South West -3 255 £525 -4.55% 101
Yorkshire +9 227 £475 +4.40% 60
North East -3 116 £450 -2.17% 59
East of England +28 97 £413 -8.33% 51
East Midlands +12 88 £500 - 18
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
1 142 (3.83%) Confluence
2 110 (2.97%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (0.59%) SAS
5 18 (0.49%) CMS
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 15 (0.40%) Apache
9 14 (0.38%) nginx
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.13%) Camunda
12 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
13 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.081%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.081%) Drupal
14 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
14 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 88 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 70 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
3 33 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.70%) SAP S/4HANA
2 40 (1.08%) Dynamics CRM
3 18 (0.49%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 10 (0.27%) iTrent
7 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.24%) SystmOne
9 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.16%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 689 (18.59%) AWS
2 634 (17.10%) Azure
3 198 (5.34%) Power Platform
4 169 (4.56%) Serverless
5 158 (4.26%) Microsoft 365
6 148 (3.99%) GitHub
7 137 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
8 135 (3.64%) GCP
9 100 (2.70%) AWS Lambda
9 100 (2.70%) Entra ID
10 94 (2.54%) Amazon S3
11 86 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
12 80 (2.16%) SaaS
13 69 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
14 65 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
14 65 (1.75%) Dynamics 365
15 63 (1.70%) Power Automate
16 60 (1.62%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 60 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
17 54 (1.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 89 (2.40%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) DNS
3 54 (1.46%) Network Security
4 53 (1.43%) WAN
5 52 (1.40%) VPN
6 46 (1.24%) LAN
7 27 (0.73%) BGP
8 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
9 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
10 22 (0.59%) OSPF
11 20 (0.54%) DHCP
12 18 (0.49%) SD-WAN
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 15 (0.40%) Internet
14 15 (0.40%) VLAN
14 15 (0.40%) Wireless
15 12 (0.32%) VoIP
16 11 (0.30%) MPLS
17 10 (0.27%) DKIM
17 10 (0.27%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (3.97%) Power BI
2 79 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
3 71 (1.92%) SQL Server
4 63 (1.70%) Data Warehouse
5 58 (1.56%) Metadata
6 55 (1.48%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 44 (1.19%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.84%) Data Lake
11 30 (0.81%) Tableau
12 28 (0.76%) DynamoDB
12 28 (0.76%) Relational Database
13 24 (0.65%) Oracle Database
14 23 (0.62%) Azure SQL Database
14 23 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
15 21 (0.57%) MySQL
16 19 (0.51%) Pentaho
17 18 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
17 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 229 (6.18%) JIRA
2 185 (4.99%) Git
3 122 (3.29%) GitLab
4 116 (3.13%) Jenkins
5 41 (1.11%) Selenium
6 39 (1.05%) JUnit
7 37 (1.00%) Postman
8 34 (0.92%) Mockito
9 30 (0.81%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.65%) JMeter
11 19 (0.51%) Maven
12 18 (0.49%) Cucumber
12 18 (0.49%) Cypress.io
13 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
14 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
15 11 (0.30%) jMock
16 10 (0.27%) Mocha
16 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 960 (25.90%) Social Skills
2 493 (13.30%) Finance
3 360 (9.71%) Analytical Skills
4 185 (4.99%) Military
5 167 (4.50%) Local Government
6 126 (3.40%) Telecoms
7 102 (2.75%) Marketing
8 94 (2.54%) Manufacturing
9 86 (2.32%) Legal
10 83 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
11 77 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
12 75 (2.02%) Electronics
13 72 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
14 69 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 55 (1.48%) Police
16 54 (1.46%) Banking
17 47 (1.27%) Law
17 47 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
18 31 (0.84%) Billing
19 27 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 487 (13.14%) Developer
2 473 (12.76%) Architect
3 400 (10.79%) Senior
4 374 (10.09%) Analyst
5 309 (8.34%) Lead
6 165 (4.45%) Business Analyst
7 157 (4.24%) Consultant
8 154 (4.15%) Designer
9 122 (3.29%) Data Engineer
9 122 (3.29%) DevOps Engineer
10 117 (3.16%) Project Manager
11 108 (2.91%) Technical Architect
12 106 (2.86%) Java Developer
13 105 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
14 88 (2.37%) Senior Developer
15 84 (2.27%) User Researcher
16 82 (2.21%) Delivery Manager
17 70 (1.89%) Service Designer
18 64 (1.73%) Administrator
19 63 (1.70%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 139 (3.75%) REST
2 118 (3.18%) Node.js
3 117 (3.16%) Spring
4 103 (2.78%) Spring Boot
5 100 (2.70%) React
6 96 (2.59%) RESTful
7 78 (2.10%) Oracle Fusion
8 74 (2.00%) .NET
9 72 (1.94%) AngularJS
10 69 (1.86%) Web Services
11 66 (1.78%) HTML
12 61 (1.65%) SOAP
13 60 (1.62%) Kafka
14 55 (1.48%) CSS
15 43 (1.16%) Lightning Web Components
16 39 (1.05%) JSON
17 36 (0.97%) OAuth
18 34 (0.92%) Middleware
18 34 (0.92%) Playwright
19 32 (0.86%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 172 (4.64%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.72%) NHS
3 132 (3.56%) Onboarding
3 132 (3.56%) Product Ownership
4 85 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
5 79 (2.13%) Management Information System
6 67 (1.81%) Data Centre
7 54 (1.46%) Public Cloud
8 47 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
9 44 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
10 41 (1.11%) Data Structures
11 38 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
12 27 (0.73%) CMDB
12 27 (0.73%) Hybrid Cloud
12 27 (0.73%) Replication
13 24 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
14 21 (0.57%) PKI
14 21 (0.57%) Security Posture
15 19 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
16 18 (0.49%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 198 (5.34%) Windows
2 158 (4.26%) Linux
3 61 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.29%) Unix
5 40 (1.08%) Windows 10
6 30 (0.81%) Android
7 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
7 23 (0.62%) Mac OS
8 21 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
10 9 (0.24%) VMS
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
12 7 (0.19%) Solaris
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.11%) AIX
15 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.081%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 965 (26.03%) Agile
2 521 (14.05%) CI/CD
3 516 (13.92%) DevOps
4 461 (12.44%) Stakeholder Management
5 420 (11.33%) Problem-Solving
6 403 (10.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 384 (10.36%) Continuous Improvement
8 378 (10.20%) Migration
9 322 (8.69%) Roadmaps
10 314 (8.47%) Analytics
11 288 (7.77%) Decision-Making
12 244 (6.58%) Business Intelligence
12 244 (6.58%) Containerisation
13 238 (6.42%) Test Automation
14 235 (6.34%) Data Modelling
15 226 (6.10%) Infrastructure as Code
15 226 (6.10%) Microservices
16 219 (5.91%) AI
17 206 (5.56%) User Research
18 205 (5.53%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 401 (10.82%) Python
2 340 (9.17%) SQL
3 275 (7.42%) Java
4 192 (5.18%) JavaScript
5 115 (3.10%) PowerShell
6 112 (3.02%) TypeScript
7 87 (2.35%) C#
8 50 (1.35%) Bash
9 43 (1.16%) Apex Code
9 43 (1.16%) Ruby
10 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 23 (0.62%) Bicep
11 23 (0.62%) Shell Script
12 22 (0.59%) Go
13 21 (0.57%) R
14 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
15 14 (0.38%) Scala
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,071 (55.87%) Security Cleared
2 1,381 (37.25%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.96%) DV Cleared
4 176 (4.75%) Degree
5 113 (3.05%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.40%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.11%) AWS Certification
8 38 (1.03%) CISSP
8 38 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
9 33 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
10 32 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
11 30 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
12 29 (0.78%) PMP
13 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.62%) ISEB
15 22 (0.59%) CISM
16 18 (0.49%) CCNP
17 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
18 14 (0.38%) DBS Check
18 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (5.40%) Accessibility
2 157 (4.24%) Data Quality
2 157 (4.24%) QA
3 106 (2.86%) GDPR
4 83 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 80 (2.16%) WCAG
6 66 (1.78%) NCSC
7 65 (1.75%) PMO
8 58 (1.56%) NIST
9 36 (0.97%) SLA
10 32 (0.86%) GRC
11 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
12 21 (0.57%) COBIT
13 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 16 (0.43%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.40%) PCI DSS
16 14 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 9 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 260 (7.01%) Docker
2 154 (4.15%) Active Directory
3 55 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.57%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 292 (7.88%) Terraform
2 270 (7.28%) Kubernetes
3 73 (1.97%) Grafana
4 66 (1.78%) Ansible
5 53 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.11%) Microsoft Intune
7 32 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.30%) Argo
11 11 (0.30%) Kibana
12 10 (0.27%) Consul
12 10 (0.27%) FortiGate
12 10 (0.27%) Packer
13 8 (0.22%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Istio
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 432 (11.65%) Microsoft
2 224 (6.04%) Oracle
3 217 (5.85%) SAP
4 124 (3.35%) Salesforce
5 110 (2.97%) ServiceNow
6 92 (2.48%) Google
7 88 (2.37%) VMware
8 84 (2.27%) Cisco
9 81 (2.19%) Databricks
10 44 (1.19%) Splunk
11 34 (0.92%) Atlassian
12 32 (0.86%) Virgin Media
13 29 (0.78%) IBM
14 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft
15 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
15 27 (0.73%) Talend
16 25 (0.67%) Aruba
16 25 (0.67%) Dynatrace
17 24 (0.65%) Juniper
18 22 (0.59%) CyberArk