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

6 months to
14 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 3,707 2,295 3,384
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.07% 9.29% 8.92%
As % of the General category 17.42% 14.69% 15.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,619 1,499 2,260
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 194 80 145
10th Percentile £16.40 £15.23 £13.43
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.04 £24.59 £21.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.38% +14.37% +7.50%
75th Percentile £25.38 £34.60 £55.11
90th Percentile £46.11 £62.49 £69.20
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% +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 21,278 15,619 22,243
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.79% 63.21% 58.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,437 10,022 14,551
10th Percentile £300 £300 £266
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £758
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,333 564 1,662
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.02 £13.05
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.00 £15.38
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.90 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.10% +18.86% -22.39%
75th Percentile £58.65 £62.24 £50.00
90th Percentile £77.00 £76.25 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.19 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -19.37% +15.38% -21.21%

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 14 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 14 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 14 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 1,581 £524 -0.19% 356
North of England -2 663 £450 -5.26% 225
South East 0 456 £500 -7.62% 247
Midlands +5 395 £500 +5.26% 110
North West +1 329 £450 -10.00% 91
West Midlands +1 291 £500 +6.61% 75
South West 0 275 £525 -4.55% 96
Yorkshire -1 209 £500 +11.11% 76
North East 0 130 £450 +4.65% 59
East of England +30 120 £425 +21.43% 39
East Midlands +13 101 £500 - 33
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
1 135 (3.64%) Confluence
2 103 (2.78%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.65%) SAS
5 20 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.40%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.35%) nginx
9 12 (0.32%) CMS
10 8 (0.22%) Skype for Business
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
12 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.081%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.081%) Smallworld
Applications
1 97 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 94 (2.54%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.081%) InVision
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
14 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 68 (1.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.19%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 691 (18.64%) AWS
2 631 (17.02%) Azure
3 216 (5.83%) Power Platform
4 171 (4.61%) Serverless
5 164 (4.42%) GitHub
6 158 (4.26%) Microsoft 365
7 147 (3.97%) GCP
8 139 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
9 107 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
11 92 (2.48%) Entra ID
12 90 (2.43%) Amazon S3
13 66 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 65 (1.75%) Power Automate
15 63 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
16 61 (1.65%) Amazon EC2
16 61 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
17 59 (1.59%) PowerApps
18 56 (1.51%) OCI
18 56 (1.51%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.48%) Firewall
2 57 (1.54%) VPN
3 53 (1.43%) Network Security
4 51 (1.38%) WAN
5 50 (1.35%) DNS
6 42 (1.13%) LAN
7 40 (1.08%) Wireless
8 31 (0.84%) TCP/IP
9 29 (0.78%) BGP
10 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (0.59%) DHCP
11 22 (0.59%) OSPF
12 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 12 (0.32%) MPLS
15 11 (0.30%) IPsec
15 11 (0.30%) VLAN
16 10 (0.27%) HTTP
16 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (4.59%) Power BI
2 79 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
3 62 (1.67%) SQL Server
4 55 (1.48%) MongoDB
5 54 (1.46%) Metadata
6 47 (1.27%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.11%) Data Lake
7 41 (1.11%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
9 33 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.86%) Relational Database
11 29 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
12 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
12 25 (0.67%) Tableau
13 21 (0.57%) DynamoDB
14 20 (0.54%) Oracle Database
15 19 (0.51%) MySQL
15 19 (0.51%) Redis
16 17 (0.46%) BigQuery
17 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 210 (5.66%) JIRA
2 169 (4.56%) Git
3 132 (3.56%) GitLab
4 125 (3.37%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.29%) Selenium
6 43 (1.16%) Postman
7 33 (0.89%) JUnit
8 28 (0.76%) Mockito
9 25 (0.67%) Cucumber
9 25 (0.67%) Cypress.io
10 22 (0.59%) SonarQube
11 21 (0.57%) JMeter
12 15 (0.40%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.38%) Mocha
14 12 (0.32%) Maven
15 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.24%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,019 (27.49%) Social Skills
2 553 (14.92%) Finance
3 356 (9.60%) Analytical Skills
4 180 (4.86%) Telecoms
5 160 (4.32%) Military
6 151 (4.07%) Marketing
7 150 (4.05%) Manufacturing
8 147 (3.97%) Local Government
9 129 (3.48%) Electronics
10 82 (2.21%) Legal
11 77 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
12 74 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
13 69 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
14 53 (1.43%) Banking
15 50 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 49 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
17 44 (1.19%) Police
18 39 (1.05%) Law
19 35 (0.94%) Billing
20 33 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 458 (12.36%) Architect
2 455 (12.27%) Developer
3 396 (10.68%) Senior
4 373 (10.06%) Analyst
5 318 (8.58%) Lead
6 189 (5.10%) Consultant
7 173 (4.67%) Business Analyst
8 140 (3.78%) Designer
9 124 (3.35%) DevOps Engineer
10 113 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
11 112 (3.02%) Data Engineer
12 110 (2.97%) Project Manager
13 103 (2.78%) Technical Architect
14 87 (2.35%) Java Developer
15 83 (2.24%) User Researcher
16 70 (1.89%) Delivery Manager
16 70 (1.89%) Senior Developer
17 65 (1.75%) Service Designer
18 61 (1.65%) AWS Engineer
19 58 (1.56%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (4.07%) REST
2 128 (3.45%) Node.js
3 107 (2.89%) React
4 105 (2.83%) Spring
5 93 (2.51%) Spring Boot
6 91 (2.45%) RESTful
7 75 (2.02%) HTML
8 74 (2.00%) .NET
8 74 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
9 72 (1.94%) AngularJS
10 70 (1.89%) CSS
11 68 (1.83%) Web Services
12 57 (1.54%) SOAP
13 55 (1.48%) Kafka
14 50 (1.35%) JSON
15 36 (0.97%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.94%) XML
17 34 (0.92%) Middleware
17 34 (0.92%) Playwright
18 27 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 153 (4.13%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.70%) Onboarding
3 125 (3.37%) NHS
4 121 (3.26%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.40%) Data Centre
6 80 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.86%) Management Information System
8 53 (1.43%) Public Cloud
9 38 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
10 36 (0.97%) Distributed Systems
11 35 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
12 33 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
13 32 (0.86%) Data Structures
14 31 (0.84%) Security Posture
15 29 (0.78%) CMDB
16 25 (0.67%) AI Agents
16 25 (0.67%) PKI
16 25 (0.67%) Replication
17 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
18 20 (0.54%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 210 (5.66%) Windows
2 160 (4.32%) Linux
3 56 (1.51%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.32%) Android
5 44 (1.19%) Mac OS
5 44 (1.19%) Windows 10
6 37 (1.00%) Unix
7 24 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (0.54%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 922 (24.87%) Agile
2 521 (14.05%) CI/CD
3 514 (13.87%) DevOps
4 459 (12.38%) Problem-Solving
5 451 (12.17%) Stakeholder Management
6 409 (11.03%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 366 (9.87%) Migration
8 339 (9.14%) Continuous Improvement
9 332 (8.96%) Roadmaps
10 323 (8.71%) Business Intelligence
11 283 (7.63%) Analytics
12 257 (6.93%) Decision-Making
13 233 (6.29%) Containerisation
14 232 (6.26%) Test Automation
15 230 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
16 226 (6.10%) Microservices
17 219 (5.91%) Data Modelling
18 213 (5.75%) User Research
19 212 (5.72%) AI
20 207 (5.58%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 399 (10.76%) Python
2 341 (9.20%) SQL
3 261 (7.04%) Java
4 194 (5.23%) JavaScript
5 117 (3.16%) PowerShell
5 117 (3.16%) TypeScript
6 84 (2.27%) C#
7 66 (1.78%) Bash
8 43 (1.16%) Ruby
9 35 (0.94%) Apex Code
10 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
11 24 (0.65%) Go
12 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
13 19 (0.51%) Kotlin
13 19 (0.51%) R
14 17 (0.46%) Bicep
15 14 (0.38%) PHP
16 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,174 (58.65%) Security Cleared
2 1,404 (37.87%) SC Cleared
3 181 (4.88%) Degree
3 181 (4.88%) DV Cleared
4 104 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 50 (1.35%) Azure Certification
6 46 (1.24%) AWS Certification
7 43 (1.16%) CISSP
8 38 (1.03%) ITIL Certification
9 36 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
9 36 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
10 31 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
11 28 (0.76%) PMP
12 25 (0.67%) CISM
13 24 (0.65%) PMI Certification
14 22 (0.59%) ISEB
15 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 16 (0.43%) CCNP
15 16 (0.43%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.40%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (5.26%) Accessibility
2 150 (4.05%) QA
3 146 (3.94%) Data Quality
4 111 (2.99%) GDPR
5 84 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 70 (1.89%) WCAG
7 66 (1.78%) NIST
8 62 (1.67%) PMO
9 60 (1.62%) NCSC
10 42 (1.13%) SLA
11 27 (0.73%) GRC
12 19 (0.51%) COBIT
13 18 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.38%) HL7
17 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
18 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 254 (6.85%) Docker
2 134 (3.61%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.51%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.38%) vSphere
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.16%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) NFS
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
12 3 (0.081%) Virtual Servers
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 300 (8.09%) Terraform
2 272 (7.34%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.02%) Ansible
4 72 (1.94%) Grafana
5 50 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 38 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
7 31 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
8 25 (0.67%) SCCM
9 15 (0.40%) Argo
10 13 (0.35%) Puppet
11 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.27%) Packer
13 9 (0.24%) Kibana
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.19%) vRealize
16 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 422 (11.38%) Microsoft
2 279 (7.53%) SAP
3 215 (5.80%) Oracle
4 130 (3.51%) Cisco
5 114 (3.08%) Salesforce
6 112 (3.02%) ServiceNow
7 96 (2.59%) VMware
8 71 (1.92%) Databricks
9 70 (1.89%) Google
10 58 (1.56%) Splunk
11 43 (1.16%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.13%) Aruba
13 35 (0.94%) Dell
14 34 (0.92%) Apple
14 34 (0.92%) Red Hat
15 31 (0.84%) Atlassian
15 31 (0.84%) HP
16 30 (0.81%) Juniper
17 29 (0.78%) IBM
17 29 (0.78%) MuleSoft