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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,422 2,517 3,464
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.98% 9.82% 9.13%
As % of the General category 16.84% 15.68% 15.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,403 1,527 2,299
10th Percentile £343 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.47% -1.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £670 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 88 147
10th Percentile £16.62 £15.00 £13.58
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.00%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.94 £56.49
90th Percentile £45.53 £62.99 £70.20
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.18 £21.00
% change year-on-year -9.02% +15.14% +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 20,324 16,048 22,337
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 59.26% 62.59% 58.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,885 9,772 14,695
10th Percentile £300 £296 £265
25th Percentile £405 £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 1,276 507 1,520
10th Percentile £14.01 £15.62 £13.05
25th Percentile £16.90 £20.00 £15.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.40 £25.71
Median % change year-on-year -24.34% +18.24% -11.34%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.00 £67.38
UK median hourly rate £22.81 £29.00 £25.71
% change year-on-year -21.34% +12.80% -4.78%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 1,431 £513 -2.38% 369
North of England -2 643 £450 -5.26% 203
South East -1 413 £500 -4.76% 219
Midlands +2 337 £500 - 119
North West -1 327 £450 -10.00% 83
South West -4 288 £525 -4.55% 92
West Midlands -1 248 £500 - 93
Yorkshire 0 192 £500 +11.11% 81
North East 0 126 £450 +5.88% 39
East of England +25 112 £375 +7.14% 51
East Midlands +11 88 £425 -10.53% 25
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
1 126 (3.68%) Confluence
2 92 (2.69%) SharePoint
3 28 (0.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 21 (0.61%) SAS
5 19 (0.56%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.47%) Apache
7 15 (0.44%) nginx
8 13 (0.38%) Apache Spark
9 12 (0.35%) CMS
9 12 (0.35%) Skype for Business
10 5 (0.15%) ArcGIS
10 5 (0.15%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.12%) Documentum
11 4 (0.12%) Jupyter
11 4 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
11 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.088%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.088%) OpenStack
12 3 (0.088%) SharePoint Server
12 3 (0.088%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 99 (2.89%) Microsoft Office
2 92 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.23%) Trello
8 7 (0.20%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.18%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.15%) Sketch
11 3 (0.088%) InVision
11 3 (0.088%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 2 (0.058%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.058%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.058%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.029%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.029%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.029%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.029%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.029%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 59 (1.72%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
3 22 (0.64%) SAP PSCD
4 18 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
4 18 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
5 17 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.32%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.26%) iTrent
7 9 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
7 9 (0.26%) SAP ERP
8 8 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
9 7 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
9 7 (0.20%) Oracle Receivables
10 6 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.18%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.15%) NEC Housing
11 5 (0.15%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.15%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.12%) Primavera
12 4 (0.12%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 613 (17.91%) AWS
2 576 (16.83%) Azure
3 194 (5.67%) Power Platform
4 156 (4.56%) Serverless
5 151 (4.41%) GitHub
6 134 (3.92%) GCP
7 132 (3.86%) Microsoft 365
8 119 (3.48%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (2.95%) AWS Lambda
10 87 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
11 78 (2.28%) Amazon S3
12 70 (2.05%) Entra ID
13 61 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 57 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
14 57 (1.67%) OCI
15 56 (1.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 55 (1.61%) Power Automate
17 54 (1.58%) SaaS
18 52 (1.52%) Amazon EC2
18 52 (1.52%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 87 (2.54%) Firewall
2 60 (1.75%) DNS
3 56 (1.64%) VPN
4 53 (1.55%) WAN
5 50 (1.46%) Network Security
6 44 (1.29%) LAN
7 43 (1.26%) Wireless
8 34 (0.99%) TCP/IP
9 32 (0.94%) BGP
10 25 (0.73%) DHCP
11 24 (0.70%) OSPF
11 24 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
12 16 (0.47%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.47%) SSL
13 14 (0.41%) IPsec
13 14 (0.41%) MPLS
13 14 (0.41%) VLAN
14 13 (0.38%) Internet
14 13 (0.38%) Skype
14 13 (0.38%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 154 (4.50%) Power BI
2 78 (2.28%) PostgreSQL
3 55 (1.61%) MongoDB
4 53 (1.55%) Metadata
5 49 (1.43%) SQL Server
6 37 (1.08%) Data Lake
6 37 (1.08%) Data Warehouse
7 36 (1.05%) NoSQL
8 33 (0.96%) Amazon RDS
9 29 (0.85%) Relational Database
10 28 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
11 26 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
12 22 (0.64%) MySQL
13 21 (0.61%) Tableau
14 19 (0.56%) Redis
15 18 (0.53%) BigQuery
15 18 (0.53%) Electronic Patient Records
16 17 (0.50%) Oracle Database
17 16 (0.47%) DynamoDB
18 14 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 197 (5.76%) JIRA
2 157 (4.59%) Git
3 128 (3.74%) GitLab
4 118 (3.45%) Jenkins
5 49 (1.43%) Selenium
6 48 (1.40%) Postman
7 30 (0.88%) Cucumber
8 28 (0.82%) JUnit
9 27 (0.79%) Cypress.io
10 24 (0.70%) Mockito
11 18 (0.53%) REST Assured
12 14 (0.41%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.41%) JMeter
12 14 (0.41%) Mocha
12 14 (0.41%) SonarQube
13 13 (0.38%) CircleCI
14 11 (0.32%) MSI
15 9 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
16 8 (0.23%) Gradle
16 8 (0.23%) MLflow
General
1 984 (28.76%) Social Skills
2 533 (15.58%) Finance
3 319 (9.32%) Analytical Skills
4 206 (6.02%) Telecoms
5 169 (4.94%) Marketing
6 167 (4.88%) Manufacturing
7 157 (4.59%) Military
8 149 (4.35%) Electronics
9 129 (3.77%) Local Government
10 72 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
10 72 (2.10%) Organisational Skills
11 71 (2.07%) Legal
12 59 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
13 46 (1.34%) Banking
13 46 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 46 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
14 37 (1.08%) Law
15 36 (1.05%) Police
16 34 (0.99%) Billing
17 31 (0.91%) Retail
Job Titles
1 406 (11.86%) Developer
2 397 (11.60%) Architect
3 364 (10.64%) Senior
4 350 (10.23%) Analyst
5 310 (9.06%) Lead
6 184 (5.38%) Consultant
7 165 (4.82%) Business Analyst
8 134 (3.92%) DevOps Engineer
9 118 (3.45%) Designer
10 106 (3.10%) Project Manager
11 97 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
12 89 (2.60%) Technical Architect
13 78 (2.28%) Data Engineer
14 74 (2.16%) User Researcher
15 73 (2.13%) Java Developer
16 66 (1.93%) AWS Engineer
17 65 (1.90%) Senior Developer
18 59 (1.72%) Service Designer
19 56 (1.64%) Product Manager
19 56 (1.64%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 141 (4.12%) REST
2 116 (3.39%) Node.js
3 103 (3.01%) React
4 97 (2.83%) Spring
5 86 (2.51%) Spring Boot
6 81 (2.37%) RESTful
7 73 (2.13%) Oracle Fusion
8 71 (2.07%) .NET
9 68 (1.99%) HTML
10 65 (1.90%) CSS
11 61 (1.78%) AngularJS
11 61 (1.78%) Web Services
12 55 (1.61%) JSON
12 55 (1.61%) SOAP
13 52 (1.52%) Kafka
14 37 (1.08%) Playwright
14 37 (1.08%) XML
15 30 (0.88%) Lightning Web Components
15 30 (0.88%) Middleware
16 27 (0.79%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 129 (3.77%) Cloud Native
2 125 (3.65%) Onboarding
3 123 (3.59%) NHS
4 113 (3.30%) Product Ownership
5 88 (2.57%) Data Centre
6 71 (2.07%) Legacy Systems
7 67 (1.96%) Management Information System
8 44 (1.29%) Public Cloud
9 33 (0.96%) Enterprise Software
10 32 (0.94%) Security Posture
11 31 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
12 29 (0.85%) Data Structures
12 29 (0.85%) PKI
13 27 (0.79%) CMDB
13 27 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.76%) AI Agents
15 25 (0.73%) Distributed Systems
15 25 (0.73%) Replication
16 22 (0.64%) Security Operations Centre
17 17 (0.50%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 220 (6.43%) Windows
2 165 (4.82%) Linux
3 55 (1.61%) Windows Server
4 48 (1.40%) Android
5 47 (1.37%) Windows 10
6 44 (1.29%) Mac OS
7 37 (1.08%) Unix
8 22 (0.64%) Apple iOS
8 22 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 15 (0.44%) VMS
10 14 (0.41%) Mac OS X
11 12 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 11 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
13 7 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.18%) Amazon Linux
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
15 5 (0.15%) Solaris
16 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
17 3 (0.088%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 841 (24.58%) Agile
2 481 (14.06%) CI/CD
3 461 (13.47%) DevOps
4 433 (12.65%) Problem-Solving
5 391 (11.43%) Stakeholder Management
6 382 (11.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 341 (9.96%) Migration
8 323 (9.44%) Business Intelligence
9 315 (9.21%) Continuous Improvement
10 281 (8.21%) Roadmaps
11 234 (6.84%) Decision-Making
12 230 (6.72%) Analytics
13 216 (6.31%) Infrastructure as Code
13 216 (6.31%) Test Automation
14 209 (6.11%) Microservices
15 205 (5.99%) Containerisation
16 190 (5.55%) Programme Management
17 189 (5.52%) AI
17 189 (5.52%) ITIL
18 178 (5.20%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 361 (10.55%) Python
2 290 (8.47%) SQL
3 248 (7.25%) Java
4 182 (5.32%) JavaScript
5 120 (3.51%) PowerShell
6 115 (3.36%) TypeScript
7 82 (2.40%) C#
8 64 (1.87%) Bash
9 37 (1.08%) Ruby
10 29 (0.85%) Apex Code
11 25 (0.73%) PL/SQL
12 23 (0.67%) Go
13 19 (0.56%) PHP
13 19 (0.56%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.47%) R
15 13 (0.38%) Bicep
15 13 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.32%) Kotlin
16 11 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
17 10 (0.29%) C
Qualifications
1 2,011 (58.77%) Security Cleared
2 1,319 (38.54%) SC Cleared
3 169 (4.94%) Degree
4 167 (4.88%) DV Cleared
5 97 (2.83%) BPSS Clearance
6 47 (1.37%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
8 39 (1.14%) AWS Certification
8 39 (1.14%) CISSP
9 34 (0.99%) Microsoft Certification
10 33 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
11 28 (0.82%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.70%) ISEB
13 23 (0.67%) CISM
13 23 (0.67%) PMP
14 19 (0.56%) ISTQB
14 19 (0.56%) PMI Certification
15 17 (0.50%) CCNP
16 16 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 16 (0.47%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (5.26%) Accessibility
2 131 (3.83%) QA
3 127 (3.71%) Data Quality
4 98 (2.86%) GDPR
5 77 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (2.02%) NIST
7 63 (1.84%) WCAG
8 55 (1.61%) PMO
9 52 (1.52%) NCSC
10 47 (1.37%) SLA
11 23 (0.67%) GRC
12 20 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.53%) COBIT
14 16 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
15 15 (0.44%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.41%) HIPAA
17 12 (0.35%) HL7
17 12 (0.35%) PCI DSS
18 10 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 8 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 234 (6.84%) Docker
2 119 (3.48%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.78%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.53%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
6 15 (0.44%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.44%) VMware NSX
7 12 (0.35%) vSphere
8 11 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.18%) Postfix
9 6 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.15%) DFS Replication
10 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 4 (0.12%) NFS
11 4 (0.12%) Squid
12 3 (0.088%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.088%) ISA Server
12 3 (0.088%) RACF
13 2 (0.058%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.058%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 297 (8.68%) Terraform
2 257 (7.51%) Kubernetes
3 70 (2.05%) Ansible
4 66 (1.93%) Grafana
5 49 (1.43%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.94%) Microsoft Intune
6 32 (0.94%) SCCM
7 21 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
8 14 (0.41%) vCenter Server
9 13 (0.38%) Argo
10 11 (0.32%) Packer
10 11 (0.32%) Puppet
11 10 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.26%) Jamf Pro
13 8 (0.23%) Nessus
14 7 (0.20%) Consul
14 7 (0.20%) SCOM
14 7 (0.20%) vRealize
15 6 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 6 (0.18%) Kibana
Vendors
1 389 (11.37%) Microsoft
2 286 (8.36%) SAP
3 196 (5.73%) Oracle
4 142 (4.15%) Cisco
5 104 (3.04%) ServiceNow
6 102 (2.98%) Salesforce
7 95 (2.78%) VMware
8 63 (1.84%) Google
9 60 (1.75%) Splunk
10 57 (1.67%) Databricks
11 41 (1.20%) Virgin Media
12 40 (1.17%) Aruba
13 37 (1.08%) Apple
14 36 (1.05%) Dell
14 36 (1.05%) Juniper
15 32 (0.94%) HP
15 32 (0.94%) Palo Alto
16 30 (0.88%) Red Hat
17 28 (0.82%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.76%) IBM