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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 18 15
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,723 2,245 3,392
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.81% 9.26% 9.01%
As % of the General category 17.20% 14.56% 15.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,645 1,513 2,248
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 83 160
10th Percentile £15.87 £15.25 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £24.18 £21.62
Median % change year-on-year -8.71% +11.87% +8.08%
75th Percentile £25.50 £36.61 £55.83
90th Percentile £59.70 £64.25 £69.60
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 21,649 15,417 22,022
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.02% 63.56% 58.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,650 10,062 14,321
10th Percentile £303 £300 £270
25th Percentile £408 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £765
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,360 618 1,694
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.88 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.54 £15.17
Median hourly rate £25.46 £30.21 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.72% +16.17% -25.71%
75th Percentile £61.18 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.55 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £29.53 £26.00
% change year-on-year -14.82% +13.56% -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 28 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 28 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 28 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 1,613 £520 -0.95% 363
North of England -2 644 £450 -4.26% 228
South East -3 460 £500 -6.98% 200
Midlands +4 404 £500 +7.53% 117
North West -1 321 £450 -10.00% 90
West Midlands +1 298 £500 +9.15% 89
South West -2 272 £525 -4.55% 87
Yorkshire +5 210 £500 +17.65% 76
North East -2 118 £450 +4.65% 62
East of England +21 114 £375 +7.14% 44
East Midlands +14 101 £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
1 134 (3.60%) Confluence
2 102 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 30 (0.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 25 (0.67%) SAS
5 17 (0.46%) 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%) Sitecore CMS
12 4 (0.11%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.081%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
Applications
1 93 (2.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 83 (2.23%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.21%) 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%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
14 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.97%) 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%) iTrent
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
8 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
8 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
8 6 (0.16%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 6 (0.16%) SystmOne
9 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
9 5 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
9 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
10 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 685 (18.40%) AWS
2 650 (17.46%) Azure
3 209 (5.61%) Power Platform
4 171 (4.59%) Serverless
5 160 (4.30%) GitHub
6 154 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
7 152 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
8 140 (3.76%) GCP
9 105 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.50%) Entra ID
11 92 (2.47%) Amazon S3
11 92 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
12 70 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
13 66 (1.77%) Power Automate
14 65 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
15 63 (1.69%) Dynamics 365
16 60 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
17 58 (1.56%) PowerApps
18 56 (1.50%) OCI
19 55 (1.48%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 94 (2.52%) Firewall
2 57 (1.53%) VPN
3 56 (1.50%) Network Security
3 56 (1.50%) WAN
4 48 (1.29%) LAN
5 47 (1.26%) DNS
6 31 (0.83%) BGP
6 31 (0.83%) Wireless
7 26 (0.70%) TCP/IP
7 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (0.64%) OSPF
9 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
10 19 (0.51%) DHCP
11 16 (0.43%) Internet
11 16 (0.43%) SSL
12 13 (0.35%) VLAN
13 12 (0.32%) MPLS
14 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
14 11 (0.30%) IPsec
15 10 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (4.35%) Power BI
2 80 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
3 62 (1.67%) SQL Server
4 56 (1.50%) Metadata
5 54 (1.45%) MongoDB
6 50 (1.34%) Data Warehouse
7 46 (1.24%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
9 40 (1.07%) Data Lake
10 33 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
11 28 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 28 (0.75%) Relational Database
11 28 (0.75%) Tableau
12 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
13 24 (0.64%) DynamoDB
14 19 (0.51%) MySQL
14 19 (0.51%) Oracle Database
15 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
15 17 (0.46%) Redis
16 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 214 (5.75%) JIRA
2 183 (4.92%) Git
3 122 (3.28%) Jenkins
4 121 (3.25%) GitLab
5 45 (1.21%) Selenium
6 42 (1.13%) Postman
7 36 (0.97%) JUnit
8 32 (0.86%) Mockito
9 24 (0.64%) JMeter
10 23 (0.62%) SonarQube
11 22 (0.59%) Cypress.io
12 21 (0.56%) Cucumber
13 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.38%) Maven
14 12 (0.32%) 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 1,010 (27.13%) Social Skills
2 546 (14.67%) Finance
3 365 (9.80%) Analytical Skills
4 166 (4.46%) Telecoms
5 159 (4.27%) Local Government
5 159 (4.27%) Military
6 134 (3.60%) Marketing
7 132 (3.55%) Manufacturing
8 112 (3.01%) Electronics
9 87 (2.34%) Legal
10 79 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
11 73 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
12 67 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
13 56 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 55 (1.48%) Banking
15 51 (1.37%) Police
16 48 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
17 42 (1.13%) Law
18 35 (0.94%) Billing
19 33 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 467 (12.54%) Developer
2 466 (12.52%) Architect
3 408 (10.96%) Senior
4 382 (10.26%) Analyst
5 305 (8.19%) Lead
6 184 (4.94%) Consultant
7 171 (4.59%) Business Analyst
8 146 (3.92%) Designer
9 120 (3.22%) DevOps Engineer
10 116 (3.12%) Solutions Architect
11 113 (3.04%) Project Manager
12 112 (3.01%) Data Engineer
13 104 (2.79%) Technical Architect
14 89 (2.39%) Java Developer
15 84 (2.26%) User Researcher
16 82 (2.20%) Senior Developer
17 77 (2.07%) Delivery Manager
18 66 (1.77%) Service Designer
19 57 (1.53%) Full-Stack Developer
20 56 (1.50%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (4.03%) REST
2 120 (3.22%) Node.js
3 108 (2.90%) React
4 103 (2.77%) Spring
5 97 (2.61%) RESTful
6 91 (2.44%) Spring Boot
7 78 (2.10%) .NET
8 74 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
9 73 (1.96%) AngularJS
9 73 (1.96%) HTML
10 67 (1.80%) CSS
10 67 (1.80%) Web Services
11 60 (1.61%) SOAP
12 58 (1.56%) Kafka
13 52 (1.40%) JSON
14 38 (1.02%) Lightning Web Components
15 35 (0.94%) Middleware
15 35 (0.94%) XML
16 33 (0.89%) Playwright
17 27 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 154 (4.14%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.52%) Onboarding
2 131 (3.52%) Product Ownership
3 129 (3.46%) NHS
4 81 (2.18%) Data Centre
5 79 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
6 70 (1.88%) Management Information System
7 57 (1.53%) Public Cloud
8 45 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
9 40 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
10 37 (0.99%) Data Structures
11 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
12 32 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
13 30 (0.81%) CMDB
14 29 (0.78%) Security Posture
15 25 (0.67%) Replication
16 23 (0.62%) Analytical Mindset
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) Virtual Team
19 18 (0.48%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 208 (5.59%) Windows
2 158 (4.24%) Linux
3 58 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 43 (1.15%) Windows 10
5 39 (1.05%) Android
5 39 (1.05%) Unix
6 34 (0.91%) Mac OS
7 25 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 19 (0.51%) 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
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
1 960 (25.79%) Agile
2 525 (14.10%) CI/CD
3 518 (13.91%) DevOps
4 464 (12.46%) Problem-Solving
5 451 (12.11%) Stakeholder Management
6 417 (11.20%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 368 (9.88%) Migration
8 363 (9.75%) Continuous Improvement
9 337 (9.05%) Roadmaps
10 295 (7.92%) Business Intelligence
11 290 (7.79%) Analytics
12 276 (7.41%) Decision-Making
13 242 (6.50%) Test Automation
14 238 (6.39%) Containerisation
15 233 (6.26%) Infrastructure as Code
16 229 (6.15%) Microservices
17 227 (6.10%) Data Modelling
18 215 (5.77%) Workshop Facilitation
19 213 (5.72%) User Research
20 211 (5.67%) AI
Programming Languages
1 407 (10.93%) Python
2 339 (9.11%) SQL
3 262 (7.04%) Java
4 197 (5.29%) JavaScript
5 116 (3.12%) TypeScript
6 115 (3.09%) PowerShell
7 89 (2.39%) C#
8 59 (1.58%) Bash
9 45 (1.21%) Ruby
10 38 (1.02%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 25 (0.67%) Go
13 23 (0.62%) Shell Script
14 22 (0.59%) R
15 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
16 18 (0.48%) Bicep
17 13 (0.35%) PHP
18 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
19 11 (0.30%) Scala
20 10 (0.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 2,167 (58.21%) Security Cleared
2 1,408 (37.82%) SC Cleared
3 184 (4.94%) DV Cleared
4 175 (4.70%) Degree
5 96 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.40%) Azure Certification
7 45 (1.21%) CISSP
8 43 (1.15%) AWS Certification
9 37 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
10 35 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
11 33 (0.89%) Computer Science Degree
12 30 (0.81%) PMP
13 26 (0.70%) CISM
13 26 (0.70%) PMI Certification
14 24 (0.64%) ISEB
15 19 (0.51%) CCNP
16 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
17 14 (0.38%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 197 (5.29%) Accessibility
2 156 (4.19%) QA
3 148 (3.98%) Data Quality
4 113 (3.04%) GDPR
5 88 (2.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 77 (2.07%) WCAG
7 69 (1.85%) NIST
8 64 (1.72%) NCSC
8 64 (1.72%) PMO
9 43 (1.15%) SLA
10 29 (0.78%) GRC
11 21 (0.56%) COBIT
12 20 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.46%) PCI DSS
15 16 (0.43%) HL7
16 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
17 11 (0.30%) HIPAA
17 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 258 (6.93%) Docker
2 135 (3.63%) 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%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) IAG
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
15 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 295 (7.92%) Terraform
2 270 (7.25%) Kubernetes
3 71 (1.91%) Ansible
4 67 (1.80%) Grafana
5 47 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) 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 (0.21%) Consul
12 8 (0.21%) Kibana
12 8 (0.21%) vRealize
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Jamf Pro
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 424 (11.39%) Microsoft
2 254 (6.82%) SAP
3 221 (5.94%) Oracle
4 120 (3.22%) Cisco
4 120 (3.22%) Salesforce
5 111 (2.98%) ServiceNow
6 100 (2.69%) VMware
7 79 (2.12%) Databricks
8 71 (1.91%) Google
9 48 (1.29%) Splunk
10 42 (1.13%) Aruba
11 36 (0.97%) Virgin Media
12 35 (0.94%) IBM
13 33 (0.89%) Atlassian
14 32 (0.86%) Red Hat
15 30 (0.81%) Juniper
15 30 (0.81%) MuleSoft
16 29 (0.78%) Palo Alto
17 27 (0.73%) Dell
18 23 (0.62%) HP