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

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 16 16
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,266 2,578 3,504
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.95% 9.83% 9.15%
As % of the General category 16.68% 15.71% 15.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,298 1,541 2,363
10th Percentile £339 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -0.93%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £644
90th Percentile £670 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 177 91 140
10th Percentile £16.25 £15.00 £13.09
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.36 £15.16
Median hourly rate £21.94 £25.50 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.98% +21.43% +5.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £38.88 £55.35
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.75 £70.05
UK median hourly rate £21.30 £25.00 £20.71
% change year-on-year -14.80% +20.74% +6.59%

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 19,582 16,409 22,565
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.67% 62.54% 58.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,454 9,860 14,954
10th Percentile £288 £297 £265
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,215 530 1,486
10th Percentile £14.01 £15.62 £13.24
25th Percentile £16.49 £19.43 £15.00
Median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £25.75
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% +16.50% -0.96%
75th Percentile £47.50 £57.59 £54.89
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £28.60 £25.71
% change year-on-year -21.33% +11.24% +2.84%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -3 1,322 £513 -2.38% 401
North of England -1 642 £451 -5.05% 179
South East -5 383 £500 -4.76% 236
North West +2 328 £450 -10.00% 72
Midlands +3 325 £500 - 117
South West -3 302 £525 -4.55% 75
West Midlands +3 247 £500 - 95
Yorkshire -1 194 £500 +11.11% 67
North East -1 123 £450 +5.88% 42
East of England +22 107 £375 +7.14% 42
East Midlands +8 78 £419 -11.84% 21
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
1 118 (3.61%) Confluence
2 91 (2.79%) SharePoint
3 34 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.83%) SAS
5 24 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.49%) Apache
6 16 (0.49%) nginx
7 14 (0.43%) Skype for Business
8 13 (0.40%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.40%) CMS
9 5 (0.15%) Documentum
10 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
10 4 (0.12%) WebLogic
11 3 (0.092%) Anypoint
11 3 (0.092%) GeoServer
11 3 (0.092%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.092%) SharePoint Server
11 3 (0.092%) Smallworld
11 3 (0.092%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 98 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
2 88 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 35 (1.07%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 21 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
6 16 (0.49%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.28%) Trello
8 7 (0.21%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.18%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.092%) InVision
12 2 (0.061%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.061%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.061%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.061%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.031%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.031%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.031%) Siemens NX
13 1 (0.031%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
2 33 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.64%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.52%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.52%) SAP Hybris
5 16 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.37%) SAP ERP
7 10 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
7 10 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
8 9 (0.28%) iTrent
8 9 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 8 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.21%) Oracle Payables
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
11 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
12 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 584 (17.88%) AWS
2 568 (17.39%) Azure
3 193 (5.91%) Power Platform
4 148 (4.53%) Serverless
5 145 (4.44%) GitHub
5 145 (4.44%) Microsoft 365
6 138 (4.23%) GCP
7 118 (3.61%) Azure DevOps
8 92 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
9 83 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
10 69 (2.11%) Entra ID
11 66 (2.02%) Power Automate
12 64 (1.96%) Amazon S3
13 60 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
13 60 (1.84%) Dynamics 365
14 58 (1.78%) PowerApps
15 57 (1.75%) OCI
16 54 (1.65%) SaaS
17 51 (1.56%) Amazon ECS
18 50 (1.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.85%) Firewall
2 60 (1.84%) VPN
3 59 (1.81%) DNS
4 56 (1.71%) WAN
5 48 (1.47%) Network Security
6 43 (1.32%) LAN
6 43 (1.32%) Wireless
7 35 (1.07%) TCP/IP
8 33 (1.01%) BGP
9 28 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
10 23 (0.70%) DHCP
11 22 (0.67%) OSPF
12 18 (0.55%) Skype
13 17 (0.52%) MPLS
13 17 (0.52%) VLAN
14 15 (0.46%) IPsec
14 15 (0.46%) SD-WAN
14 15 (0.46%) SSL
15 14 (0.43%) HTTP
15 14 (0.43%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (4.35%) Power BI
2 77 (2.36%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (1.59%) Metadata
4 51 (1.56%) MongoDB
5 41 (1.26%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.13%) NoSQL
7 35 (1.07%) Data Lake
8 32 (0.98%) Data Warehouse
8 32 (0.98%) Relational Database
9 28 (0.86%) Amazon RDS
9 28 (0.86%) Oracle Reports
10 25 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
11 24 (0.73%) MySQL
12 23 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 22 (0.67%) Redis
14 20 (0.61%) BigQuery
15 17 (0.52%) Electronic Patient Records
16 16 (0.49%) Tableau
17 15 (0.46%) DocumentDB
17 15 (0.46%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 193 (5.91%) JIRA
2 161 (4.93%) Git
3 120 (3.67%) GitLab
4 116 (3.55%) Jenkins
5 52 (1.59%) Postman
6 48 (1.47%) Selenium
7 31 (0.95%) Cucumber
8 26 (0.80%) Cypress.io
9 23 (0.70%) JUnit
10 18 (0.55%) REST Assured
11 16 (0.49%) Mockito
12 15 (0.46%) Mocha
13 14 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.43%) CircleCI
14 13 (0.40%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.34%) JMeter
15 11 (0.34%) MSI
16 10 (0.31%) Gradle
17 9 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
17 9 (0.28%) Vagrant
General
1 959 (29.36%) Social Skills
2 520 (15.92%) Finance
3 295 (9.03%) Analytical Skills
4 223 (6.83%) Telecoms
5 187 (5.73%) Marketing
6 185 (5.66%) Manufacturing
7 167 (5.11%) Electronics
8 148 (4.53%) Military
9 120 (3.67%) Local Government
10 73 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
11 72 (2.20%) Organisational Skills
12 65 (1.99%) Legal
13 54 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
14 47 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 46 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
16 40 (1.22%) Law
17 39 (1.19%) Banking
18 33 (1.01%) Retail
19 32 (0.98%) Police
20 31 (0.95%) Billing
Job Titles
1 397 (12.16%) Developer
2 373 (11.42%) Architect
3 331 (10.13%) Senior
4 321 (9.83%) Analyst
5 293 (8.97%) Lead
6 194 (5.94%) Consultant
7 145 (4.44%) Business Analyst
8 128 (3.92%) DevOps Engineer
9 102 (3.12%) Designer
10 97 (2.97%) Project Manager
11 89 (2.73%) Solutions Architect
12 84 (2.57%) Technical Architect
13 73 (2.24%) AWS Engineer
14 69 (2.11%) Data Engineer
15 66 (2.02%) Senior Developer
16 63 (1.93%) User Researcher
17 62 (1.90%) Java Developer
18 55 (1.68%) Product Manager
19 54 (1.65%) Test Engineer
20 52 (1.59%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (4.35%) REST
2 107 (3.28%) Node.js
3 106 (3.25%) React
4 90 (2.76%) Spring
5 88 (2.69%) RESTful
6 85 (2.60%) Spring Boot
7 72 (2.20%) .NET
8 71 (2.17%) Oracle Fusion
9 67 (2.05%) HTML
10 63 (1.93%) CSS
11 59 (1.81%) AngularJS
12 58 (1.78%) JSON
13 55 (1.68%) Web Services
14 51 (1.56%) SOAP
15 47 (1.44%) Kafka
16 38 (1.16%) XML
17 37 (1.13%) Playwright
18 29 (0.89%) Lightning Web Components
19 27 (0.83%) OAuth
20 26 (0.80%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 120 (3.67%) Onboarding
2 119 (3.64%) Cloud Native
3 116 (3.55%) NHS
4 105 (3.21%) Product Ownership
5 86 (2.63%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
7 63 (1.93%) Management Information System
8 41 (1.26%) Public Cloud
9 32 (0.98%) PKI
10 30 (0.92%) Data Structures
11 29 (0.89%) CMDB
11 29 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
11 29 (0.89%) Security Posture
12 28 (0.86%) Replication
13 27 (0.83%) AI Agents
14 26 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
15 25 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
16 22 (0.67%) Hybrid Cloud
16 22 (0.67%) Security Operations Centre
17 21 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 219 (6.71%) Windows
2 149 (4.56%) Linux
3 51 (1.56%) Windows 10
4 46 (1.41%) Android
4 46 (1.41%) Windows Server
5 42 (1.29%) Mac OS
6 24 (0.73%) Unix
7 21 (0.64%) Apple iOS
8 18 (0.55%) VMS
9 16 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 12 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.28%) Amazon Linux
12 9 (0.28%) Mac OS X
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
13 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
14 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
15 3 (0.092%) Windows Server 2008
16 1 (0.031%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 783 (23.97%) Agile
2 465 (14.24%) CI/CD
3 442 (13.53%) DevOps
4 424 (12.98%) Problem-Solving
5 387 (11.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 366 (11.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 334 (10.23%) Business Intelligence
8 328 (10.04%) Migration
9 290 (8.88%) Continuous Improvement
10 272 (8.33%) Roadmaps
11 222 (6.80%) Analytics
12 210 (6.43%) Test Automation
13 209 (6.40%) Programme Management
14 202 (6.18%) Decision-Making
15 198 (6.06%) Infrastructure as Code
16 195 (5.97%) Microservices
17 189 (5.79%) Containerisation
18 183 (5.60%) ITIL
19 181 (5.54%) AI
20 172 (5.27%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 334 (10.23%) Python
2 272 (8.33%) SQL
3 234 (7.16%) Java
4 174 (5.33%) JavaScript
5 126 (3.86%) PowerShell
6 111 (3.40%) TypeScript
7 81 (2.48%) C#
8 56 (1.71%) Bash
9 37 (1.13%) Ruby
10 27 (0.83%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.77%) PL/SQL
12 19 (0.58%) Go
13 18 (0.55%) Shell Script
14 17 (0.52%) PHP
15 16 (0.49%) R
16 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 13 (0.40%) Bicep
18 12 (0.37%) Groovy
19 11 (0.34%) C
20 10 (0.31%) C++
Qualifications
1 1,932 (59.15%) Security Cleared
2 1,280 (39.19%) SC Cleared
3 158 (4.84%) DV Cleared
4 156 (4.78%) Degree
5 80 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.41%) Azure Certification
7 40 (1.22%) AWS Certification
7 40 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
8 38 (1.16%) CISSP
9 36 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
10 31 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
11 25 (0.77%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.73%) ISEB
13 21 (0.64%) CISM
13 21 (0.64%) PMP
14 18 (0.55%) CCNP
14 18 (0.55%) ISTQB
15 17 (0.52%) PMI Certification
16 16 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 161 (4.93%) Accessibility
2 130 (3.98%) QA
3 113 (3.46%) Data Quality
4 94 (2.88%) GDPR
5 72 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 63 (1.93%) NIST
7 55 (1.68%) WCAG
8 52 (1.59%) NCSC
9 47 (1.44%) PMO
10 46 (1.41%) SLA
11 24 (0.73%) GRC
12 18 (0.55%) COBIT
12 18 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
13 16 (0.49%) JSP 440
14 14 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
14 14 (0.43%) HIPAA
15 12 (0.37%) HL7
15 12 (0.37%) PCI DSS
16 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 7 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 225 (6.89%) Docker
2 119 (3.64%) Active Directory
3 60 (1.84%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.55%) Hyper-V
5 17 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.46%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.43%) VMware NSX
8 12 (0.37%) vSphere
9 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
10 9 (0.28%) DFS Replication
11 7 (0.21%) Squid
12 6 (0.18%) Dovecot
12 6 (0.18%) Postfix
12 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
13 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 4 (0.12%) NFS
15 3 (0.092%) ISA Server
16 2 (0.061%) BitLocker
16 2 (0.061%) RACF
16 2 (0.061%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 278 (8.51%) Terraform
2 246 (7.53%) Kubernetes
3 65 (1.99%) Ansible
4 62 (1.90%) Grafana
5 49 (1.50%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.95%) SCCM
7 28 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.64%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.49%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.37%) Packer
11 10 (0.31%) Argo
11 10 (0.31%) Puppet
12 9 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 9 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.28%) Nessus
13 8 (0.24%) SCOM
13 8 (0.24%) vRealize
14 7 (0.21%) Consul
14 7 (0.21%) Proxmox
15 6 (0.18%) WSUS
Vendors
1 407 (12.46%) Microsoft
2 301 (9.22%) SAP
3 197 (6.03%) Oracle
4 146 (4.47%) Cisco
5 102 (3.12%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.85%) Salesforce
7 90 (2.76%) VMware
8 60 (1.84%) Google
9 56 (1.71%) Splunk
10 50 (1.53%) Databricks
11 42 (1.29%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.22%) Aruba
13 38 (1.16%) Dell
13 38 (1.16%) Juniper
14 37 (1.13%) Apple
14 37 (1.13%) Palo Alto
15 33 (1.01%) HP
16 28 (0.86%) SolarWinds
17 24 (0.73%) Fortinet
17 24 (0.73%) Red Hat