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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 18 15
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,757 2,215 3,331
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.61% 9.10% 8.91%
As % of the General category 17.04% 14.28% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,669 1,501 2,208
10th Percentile £350 £325 £300
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £613 £638
90th Percentile £675 £706 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 184 84 163
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.26 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.50 £22.39 £24.00
Median % change year-on-year +0.51% -6.73% +20.00%
75th Percentile £25.50 £33.29 £58.24
90th Percentile £54.63 £64.00 £70.48
UK median hourly rate £22.18 £23.00 £21.73
% change year-on-year -3.55% +5.84% +8.65%

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 22,053 15,508 21,809
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 56.41% 63.68% 58.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,895 10,101 14,140
10th Percentile £303 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £412 £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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,405 635 1,727
10th Percentile £14.30 £14.28 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £15.38
Median hourly rate £27.50 £29.07 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.40% +5.71% -21.43%
75th Percentile £61.18 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.77 £29.00 £26.70
% change year-on-year -11.14% +8.63% -23.73%

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 8 April 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 8 April 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 8 April 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 1,626 £520 -0.95% 363
North of England -2 655 £454 -4.42% 228
South East -2 458 £500 -7.83% 200
Midlands +3 408 £500 +6.38% 117
North West -1 321 £460 -8.00% 90
West Midlands +1 307 £500 +10.21% 89
South West -2 273 £525 -3.67% 87
Yorkshire +7 224 £480 +6.67% 76
North East -2 115 £450 +3.15% 62
East of England +28 113 £375 +11.11% 44
East Midlands +15 96 £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
1 132 (3.51%) Confluence
2 107 (2.85%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.77%) SAS
5 19 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.45%) Apache
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
7 16 (0.43%) CMS
8 14 (0.37%) nginx
9 9 (0.24%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.13%) Camunda
11 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.11%) Skype for Business
13 3 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
13 3 (0.080%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 95 (2.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 79 (2.10%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.21%) Trello
8 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.16%) Sketch
9 5 (0.13%) Chatbot
10 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.053%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.053%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.053%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Illustrator
12 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.65%) SAP S/4HANA
2 39 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.53%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 14 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
6 10 (0.27%) iTrent
6 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.21%) SystmOne
8 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Cash Management
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
10 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 700 (18.63%) AWS
2 643 (17.11%) Azure
3 207 (5.51%) Power Platform
4 171 (4.55%) Serverless
5 156 (4.15%) Microsoft 365
6 152 (4.05%) GitHub
7 142 (3.78%) Azure DevOps
8 140 (3.73%) GCP
9 104 (2.77%) AWS Lambda
10 92 (2.45%) Entra ID
11 91 (2.42%) Amazon S3
12 87 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
13 73 (1.94%) AWS CloudFormation
14 66 (1.76%) SaaS
15 65 (1.73%) Dynamics 365
16 64 (1.70%) Amazon EC2
16 64 (1.70%) Power Automate
17 61 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
18 57 (1.52%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 56 (1.49%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 91 (2.42%) Firewall
2 58 (1.54%) VPN
3 57 (1.52%) WAN
4 55 (1.46%) Network Security
5 49 (1.30%) LAN
6 48 (1.28%) DNS
7 29 (0.77%) BGP
8 27 (0.72%) Wireless
9 26 (0.69%) TCP/IP
10 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.61%) OSPF
12 20 (0.53%) DHCP
12 20 (0.53%) SD-WAN
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 13 (0.35%) VLAN
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
15 12 (0.32%) VoIP
16 11 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.29%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (4.29%) Power BI
2 82 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
3 64 (1.70%) SQL Server
4 60 (1.60%) Metadata
5 58 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
6 53 (1.41%) MongoDB
7 47 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 40 (1.06%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (0.88%) Data Lake
11 31 (0.83%) Tableau
12 28 (0.75%) Relational Database
13 27 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
13 27 (0.72%) DynamoDB
13 27 (0.72%) Electronic Patient Records
14 23 (0.61%) Oracle Database
15 21 (0.56%) MySQL
16 17 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
16 17 (0.45%) Delta Lake
17 16 (0.43%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 213 (5.67%) JIRA
2 181 (4.82%) Git
3 121 (3.22%) GitLab
4 118 (3.14%) Jenkins
5 45 (1.20%) Selenium
6 41 (1.09%) Postman
7 37 (0.98%) JUnit
8 33 (0.88%) Mockito
9 25 (0.67%) SonarQube
10 24 (0.64%) JMeter
11 20 (0.53%) Cucumber
12 19 (0.51%) Cypress.io
13 15 (0.40%) Maven
14 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
14 13 (0.35%) REST Assured
15 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
15 12 (0.32%) Mocha
16 11 (0.29%) Artifactory
17 9 (0.24%) DbUnit
17 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 991 (26.38%) Social Skills
2 539 (14.35%) Finance
3 365 (9.72%) Analytical Skills
4 173 (4.60%) Military
5 167 (4.45%) Local Government
6 155 (4.13%) Telecoms
7 125 (3.33%) Marketing
8 120 (3.19%) Manufacturing
9 100 (2.66%) Electronics
10 88 (2.34%) Legal
11 78 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
11 78 (2.08%) Influencing Skills
12 73 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
13 62 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 57 (1.52%) Banking
15 53 (1.41%) Police
16 47 (1.25%) Presentation Skills
17 42 (1.12%) Law
18 36 (0.96%) Billing
19 31 (0.83%) Retail
Job Titles
1 477 (12.70%) Architect
2 475 (12.64%) Developer
3 415 (11.05%) Senior
4 393 (10.46%) Analyst
5 310 (8.25%) Lead
6 176 (4.68%) Business Analyst
7 174 (4.63%) Consultant
8 150 (3.99%) Designer
9 121 (3.22%) Data Engineer
10 118 (3.14%) DevOps Engineer
11 115 (3.06%) Project Manager
12 108 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
12 108 (2.87%) Technical Architect
13 90 (2.40%) Java Developer
14 86 (2.29%) Senior Developer
15 83 (2.21%) User Researcher
16 81 (2.16%) Delivery Manager
17 67 (1.78%) Service Designer
18 64 (1.70%) Data Analyst
19 57 (1.52%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (3.94%) REST
2 117 (3.11%) Node.js
3 106 (2.82%) Spring
4 103 (2.74%) React
5 96 (2.56%) RESTful
6 93 (2.48%) Spring Boot
7 77 (2.05%) .NET
8 75 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
9 71 (1.89%) AngularJS
10 70 (1.86%) HTML
11 68 (1.81%) Web Services
12 62 (1.65%) SOAP
13 60 (1.60%) CSS
13 60 (1.60%) Kafka
14 47 (1.25%) JSON
15 41 (1.09%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.93%) Middleware
17 34 (0.90%) Playwright
17 34 (0.90%) XML
18 28 (0.75%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 164 (4.37%) Cloud Native
2 143 (3.81%) NHS
3 132 (3.51%) Product Ownership
4 128 (3.41%) Onboarding
5 81 (2.16%) Legacy Systems
6 78 (2.08%) Data Centre
7 70 (1.86%) Management Information System
8 60 (1.60%) Public Cloud
9 48 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
10 41 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
11 39 (1.04%) Data Structures
12 37 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
13 32 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
14 28 (0.75%) CMDB
15 25 (0.67%) Replication
16 24 (0.64%) Analytical Mindset
17 23 (0.61%) Security Posture
18 22 (0.59%) PKI
19 20 (0.53%) Virtual Team
20 18 (0.48%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 199 (5.30%) Windows
2 153 (4.07%) Linux
3 59 (1.57%) Windows Server
4 43 (1.14%) Windows 10
5 39 (1.04%) Android
6 37 (0.98%) Unix
7 30 (0.80%) Mac OS
8 25 (0.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 23 (0.61%) Apple iOS
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 3 (0.080%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 971 (25.85%) Agile
2 528 (14.05%) CI/CD
3 524 (13.95%) DevOps
4 461 (12.27%) Stakeholder Management
5 447 (11.90%) Problem-Solving
6 429 (11.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 382 (10.17%) Migration
8 378 (10.06%) Continuous Improvement
9 342 (9.10%) Roadmaps
10 308 (8.20%) Analytics
11 289 (7.69%) Decision-Making
12 286 (7.61%) Business Intelligence
13 239 (6.36%) Test Automation
14 238 (6.33%) Containerisation
15 234 (6.23%) Data Modelling
16 233 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
17 229 (6.10%) Microservices
18 217 (5.78%) AI
18 217 (5.78%) Workshop Facilitation
19 212 (5.64%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 403 (10.73%) Python
2 338 (9.00%) SQL
3 262 (6.97%) Java
4 193 (5.14%) JavaScript
5 112 (2.98%) TypeScript
6 109 (2.90%) PowerShell
7 90 (2.40%) C#
8 54 (1.44%) Bash
9 45 (1.20%) Ruby
10 41 (1.09%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
13 22 (0.59%) Bicep
13 22 (0.59%) R
13 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 21 (0.56%) Kotlin
15 13 (0.35%) PHP
16 12 (0.32%) Scala
16 12 (0.32%) T-SQL
17 11 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,135 (56.83%) Security Cleared
2 1,400 (37.26%) SC Cleared
3 185 (4.92%) DV Cleared
4 172 (4.58%) Degree
5 102 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.38%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.17%) CISSP
8 42 (1.12%) AWS Certification
9 40 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
10 36 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
11 32 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
11 32 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
12 29 (0.77%) PMP
13 27 (0.72%) CISM
14 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
15 24 (0.64%) ISEB
16 20 (0.53%) CCNP
17 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
18 14 (0.37%) CCNA
18 14 (0.37%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (5.16%) Accessibility
2 158 (4.21%) QA
3 155 (4.13%) Data Quality
4 110 (2.93%) GDPR
5 87 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 75 (2.00%) WCAG
7 67 (1.78%) NCSC
8 66 (1.76%) PMO
9 57 (1.52%) NIST
10 40 (1.06%) SLA
11 33 (0.88%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
13 21 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
14 20 (0.53%) COBIT
15 16 (0.43%) HL7
15 16 (0.43%) PCI DSS
16 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
17 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 8 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 8 (0.21%) NIST 800
System Software
1 260 (6.92%) Docker
2 133 (3.54%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 23 (0.61%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.45%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.37%) vSphere
8 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
10 8 (0.21%) Postfix
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle RAC
12 4 (0.11%) NFS
13 3 (0.080%) RACF
14 2 (0.053%) BitLocker
14 2 (0.053%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.053%) SRDF
15 1 (0.027%) GPFS
15 1 (0.027%) KVM
15 1 (0.027%) RHEV
15 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 299 (7.96%) Terraform
2 274 (7.29%) Kubernetes
3 70 (1.86%) Grafana
4 68 (1.81%) Ansible
5 51 (1.36%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
7 28 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.61%) SCCM
9 14 (0.37%) Argo
10 13 (0.35%) Puppet
11 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
12 11 (0.29%) FortiGate
13 9 (0.24%) Kibana
13 9 (0.24%) Packer
14 8 (0.21%) Consul
14 8 (0.21%) vRealize
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
16 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 426 (11.34%) Microsoft
2 243 (6.47%) SAP
3 224 (5.96%) Oracle
4 124 (3.30%) Salesforce
5 112 (2.98%) Cisco
6 110 (2.93%) ServiceNow
7 96 (2.56%) VMware
8 84 (2.24%) Databricks
9 78 (2.08%) Google
10 47 (1.25%) Splunk
11 38 (1.01%) Aruba
12 34 (0.90%) IBM
13 33 (0.88%) Virgin Media
14 32 (0.85%) Atlassian
14 32 (0.85%) Red Hat
15 29 (0.77%) MuleSoft
16 27 (0.72%) Juniper
17 26 (0.69%) Palo Alto
18 24 (0.64%) Talend
19 23 (0.61%) Dynatrace