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

6 months to
28 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,583 2,426 3,384
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.08% 9.45% 8.95%
As % of the General category 17.14% 15.06% 15.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,520 1,514 2,249
10th Percentile £350 £308 £306
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -1.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £673 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 84 148
10th Percentile £16.52 £15.25 £13.66
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.68 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.25 £21.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% +18.82% +6.25%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.94 £55.43
90th Percentile £45.61 £63.98 £69.27
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.66 £21.00
% change year-on-year -10.79% +17.43% +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 20,905 16,109 22,319
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 58.84% 62.73% 59.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,243 9,992 14,653
10th Percentile £300 £300 £265
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 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,300 549 1,599
10th Percentile £14.10 £15.26 £13.23
25th Percentile £17.12 £20.00 £15.31
Median hourly rate £23.83 £30.45 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.76% +17.12% -14.75%
75th Percentile £55.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £23.58 £29.52 £26.00
% change year-on-year -20.13% +13.52% -10.34%

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 February 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 February 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 February 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 1,519 £518 -1.43% 280
North of England -3 649 £450 -5.26% 136
South East +2 427 £500 -4.76% 187
Midlands +2 374 £488 +1.56% 88
North West +2 323 £450 -10.00% 62
West Midlands +2 279 £500 +2.04% 59
South West -3 272 £530 -3.64% 67
Yorkshire -3 203 £500 +11.11% 47
North East 0 127 £450 +5.88% 28
East of England +29 114 £400 +14.29% 24
East Midlands +11 94 £425 -10.53% 29
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
1 129 (3.60%) Confluence
2 98 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.73%) SAS
5 21 (0.59%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.45%) Apache
7 15 (0.42%) nginx
8 13 (0.36%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.33%) CMS
10 11 (0.31%) Skype for Business
11 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.17%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.084%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.084%) Documentum
14 3 (0.084%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.084%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 96 (2.68%) Microsoft Office
2 94 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.50%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.22%) Trello
8 6 (0.17%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.17%) Sketch
9 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
10 3 (0.084%) InVision
11 2 (0.056%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.056%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.056%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 2 (0.056%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.028%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.028%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.028%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.028%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.028%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 64 (1.79%) SAP S/4HANA
2 31 (0.87%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.61%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
4 18 (0.50%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.50%) SAP Hybris
5 13 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 11 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.25%) iTrent
7 9 (0.25%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Payables
10 6 (0.17%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.17%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.14%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Financials
12 4 (0.11%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 661 (18.45%) AWS
2 595 (16.61%) Azure
3 200 (5.58%) Power Platform
4 164 (4.58%) Serverless
5 151 (4.21%) GitHub
6 143 (3.99%) Microsoft 365
7 141 (3.94%) GCP
8 125 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
9 103 (2.87%) AWS Lambda
10 86 (2.40%) Amazon S3
10 86 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
11 84 (2.34%) Entra ID
12 65 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
13 60 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 60 (1.67%) Amazon EC2
13 60 (1.67%) Power Automate
14 58 (1.62%) OCI
15 57 (1.59%) Amazon EKS
16 56 (1.56%) Dynamics 365
17 55 (1.54%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.54%) Firewall
2 54 (1.51%) DNS
3 50 (1.40%) VPN
3 50 (1.40%) WAN
4 48 (1.34%) Network Security
5 44 (1.23%) Wireless
6 40 (1.12%) LAN
7 35 (0.98%) TCP/IP
8 29 (0.81%) BGP
9 25 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 24 (0.67%) DHCP
11 22 (0.61%) OSPF
12 16 (0.45%) SSL
13 15 (0.42%) SD-WAN
14 14 (0.39%) VLAN
15 13 (0.36%) Internet
15 13 (0.36%) MPLS
16 12 (0.33%) HTTP
16 12 (0.33%) IPsec
16 12 (0.33%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (4.35%) Power BI
2 85 (2.37%) PostgreSQL
3 58 (1.62%) SQL Server
4 53 (1.48%) MongoDB
5 51 (1.42%) Metadata
6 43 (1.20%) Data Warehouse
7 39 (1.09%) Data Lake
8 38 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
9 37 (1.03%) NoSQL
10 30 (0.84%) Oracle Reports
10 30 (0.84%) Relational Database
11 26 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.61%) MySQL
12 22 (0.61%) Tableau
13 21 (0.59%) Oracle Database
14 20 (0.56%) DynamoDB
15 19 (0.53%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.53%) Redis
16 18 (0.50%) BigQuery
17 17 (0.47%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 204 (5.69%) JIRA
2 169 (4.72%) Git
3 129 (3.60%) GitLab
4 128 (3.57%) Jenkins
5 47 (1.31%) Selenium
6 46 (1.28%) Postman
7 33 (0.92%) JUnit
8 29 (0.81%) Cucumber
9 27 (0.75%) Cypress.io
9 27 (0.75%) Mockito
10 20 (0.56%) SonarQube
11 18 (0.50%) REST Assured
12 16 (0.45%) JMeter
13 14 (0.39%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.39%) Mocha
14 13 (0.36%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.33%) Maven
16 10 (0.28%) MSI
17 9 (0.25%) Oracle Forms
18 8 (0.22%) Gradle
General
1 1,010 (28.19%) Social Skills
2 541 (15.10%) Finance
3 328 (9.15%) Analytical Skills
4 192 (5.36%) Telecoms
5 161 (4.49%) Marketing
6 158 (4.41%) Manufacturing
7 155 (4.33%) Military
8 137 (3.82%) Electronics
9 129 (3.60%) Local Government
10 76 (2.12%) Legal
11 74 (2.07%) Organisational Skills
12 71 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
13 64 (1.79%) Influencing Skills
14 49 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
15 48 (1.34%) Banking
15 48 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 40 (1.12%) Police
17 39 (1.09%) Law
18 35 (0.98%) Billing
19 31 (0.87%) Retail
Job Titles
1 437 (12.20%) Developer
2 421 (11.75%) Architect
3 382 (10.66%) Senior
4 353 (9.85%) Analyst
5 305 (8.51%) Lead
6 188 (5.25%) Consultant
7 167 (4.66%) Business Analyst
8 136 (3.80%) Designer
9 130 (3.63%) DevOps Engineer
10 107 (2.99%) Project Manager
11 102 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
12 100 (2.79%) Data Engineer
13 94 (2.62%) Technical Architect
14 86 (2.40%) Java Developer
15 83 (2.32%) User Researcher
16 71 (1.98%) AWS Engineer
17 69 (1.93%) Senior Developer
18 66 (1.84%) Service Designer
19 64 (1.79%) Delivery Manager
20 57 (1.59%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 152 (4.24%) REST
2 129 (3.60%) Node.js
3 109 (3.04%) React
4 103 (2.87%) Spring
5 92 (2.57%) Spring Boot
6 87 (2.43%) RESTful
7 76 (2.12%) .NET
8 75 (2.09%) Oracle Fusion
9 73 (2.04%) AngularJS
9 73 (2.04%) HTML
10 67 (1.87%) CSS
11 66 (1.84%) Web Services
12 62 (1.73%) SOAP
13 52 (1.45%) JSON
14 47 (1.31%) Kafka
15 38 (1.06%) Playwright
16 35 (0.98%) XML
17 34 (0.95%) Middleware
18 31 (0.87%) Lightning Web Components
19 28 (0.78%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 141 (3.94%) Cloud Native
2 134 (3.74%) Onboarding
3 121 (3.38%) Product Ownership
4 119 (3.32%) NHS
5 85 (2.37%) Data Centre
6 72 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
7 67 (1.87%) Management Information System
8 48 (1.34%) Public Cloud
9 34 (0.95%) Enterprise Software
10 33 (0.92%) Distributed Systems
11 31 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
11 31 (0.87%) Security Posture
12 30 (0.84%) PKI
13 29 (0.81%) Data Structures
13 29 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
14 27 (0.75%) CMDB
15 24 (0.67%) AI Agents
15 24 (0.67%) Replication
16 22 (0.61%) Security Operations Centre
17 19 (0.53%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 215 (6.00%) Windows
2 166 (4.63%) Linux
3 56 (1.56%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.37%) Android
5 42 (1.17%) Mac OS
6 40 (1.12%) Windows 10
7 37 (1.03%) Unix
8 23 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 13 (0.36%) VMS
11 12 (0.33%) Mac OS X
12 11 (0.31%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
15 7 (0.20%) Solaris
15 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 899 (25.09%) Agile
2 513 (14.32%) CI/CD
3 490 (13.68%) DevOps
4 449 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
5 418 (11.67%) Stakeholder Management
6 382 (10.66%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 352 (9.82%) Migration
8 333 (9.29%) Continuous Improvement
9 316 (8.82%) Business Intelligence
10 309 (8.62%) Roadmaps
11 254 (7.09%) Analytics
12 244 (6.81%) Decision-Making
13 226 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
14 222 (6.20%) Containerisation
14 222 (6.20%) Test Automation
15 215 (6.00%) Microservices
16 201 (5.61%) User Research
17 199 (5.55%) AI
18 196 (5.47%) Workshop Facilitation
19 195 (5.44%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 384 (10.72%) Python
2 325 (9.07%) SQL
3 261 (7.28%) Java
4 195 (5.44%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.38%) TypeScript
6 118 (3.29%) PowerShell
7 88 (2.46%) C#
8 67 (1.87%) Bash
9 39 (1.09%) Ruby
10 31 (0.87%) PL/SQL
11 30 (0.84%) Apex Code
12 25 (0.70%) Go
13 22 (0.61%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.53%) R
15 18 (0.50%) PHP
16 14 (0.39%) Bicep
17 12 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.33%) Kotlin
18 11 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
19 10 (0.28%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,113 (58.97%) Security Cleared
2 1,383 (38.60%) SC Cleared
3 175 (4.88%) Degree
4 169 (4.72%) DV Cleared
5 100 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 49 (1.37%) Azure Certification
7 45 (1.26%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.23%) CISSP
9 40 (1.12%) ITIL Certification
9 40 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
10 34 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 33 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
12 26 (0.73%) CISM
13 25 (0.70%) PMP
14 24 (0.67%) ISEB
15 21 (0.59%) PMI Certification
16 19 (0.53%) CCNP
17 18 (0.50%) ISTQB
18 17 (0.47%) CCNA
19 16 (0.45%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (5.25%) Accessibility
2 145 (4.05%) QA
3 130 (3.63%) Data Quality
4 103 (2.87%) GDPR
5 76 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 68 (1.90%) NIST
7 66 (1.84%) WCAG
8 61 (1.70%) PMO
9 57 (1.59%) NCSC
10 45 (1.26%) SLA
11 22 (0.61%) GRC
12 19 (0.53%) COBIT
13 17 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
13 17 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
14 16 (0.45%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.39%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.36%) PCI DSS
17 11 (0.31%) HL7
17 11 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.20%) RMADS
System Software
1 252 (7.03%) Docker
2 123 (3.43%) Active Directory
3 63 (1.76%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.50%) VMware NSX
5 17 (0.47%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
7 12 (0.33%) vSphere
8 9 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
9 8 (0.22%) Postfix
10 6 (0.17%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.084%) DFS Replication
13 3 (0.084%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.084%) RACF
13 3 (0.084%) Squid
14 2 (0.056%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.056%) Dovecot
14 2 (0.056%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 301 (8.40%) Terraform
2 266 (7.42%) Kubernetes
3 74 (2.07%) Grafana
4 72 (2.01%) Ansible
5 51 (1.42%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.81%) SCCM
8 22 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
9 13 (0.36%) Argo
9 13 (0.36%) Puppet
9 13 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.33%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.31%) Packer
12 10 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
13 8 (0.22%) Kibana
14 7 (0.20%) Nessus
14 7 (0.20%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.17%) SCOM
15 6 (0.17%) vRealize
Vendors
1 398 (11.11%) Microsoft
2 277 (7.73%) SAP
3 211 (5.89%) Oracle
4 140 (3.91%) Cisco
5 110 (3.07%) ServiceNow
6 105 (2.93%) Salesforce
7 97 (2.71%) VMware
8 67 (1.87%) Google
9 62 (1.73%) Databricks
10 60 (1.67%) Splunk
11 42 (1.17%) Aruba
12 41 (1.14%) Virgin Media
13 35 (0.98%) Dell
13 35 (0.98%) Juniper
13 35 (0.98%) Palo Alto
14 34 (0.95%) Apple
15 33 (0.92%) Red Hat
16 31 (0.87%) HP
17 28 (0.78%) Atlassian
18 26 (0.73%) IBM