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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 23 19
Rank change year-on-year +3 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,984 2,099 2,854
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.88% 7.70% 8.07%
As % of the General category 16.09% 12.11% 14.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,771 1,430 1,926
10th Percentile £358 £335 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £516
Median % change year-on-year +2.03% -2.09% -2.74%
75th Percentile £600 £600 £625
90th Percentile £688 £700 £713
UK median daily rate £514 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.80% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 185 82 137
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.48 £15.06
25th Percentile £17.50 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £25.38 £21.70 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.96% -21.09% +30.95%
75th Percentile £50.00 £30.19 £58.49
90th Percentile £75.40 £63.60 £75.50
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £20.29 £23.50
% change year-on-year +25.12% -13.66% +15.74%

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 24,762 17,335 20,319
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.22% 63.61% 57.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,855 11,073 13,039
10th Percentile £313 £281 £300
25th Percentile £413 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £749 £760 £775
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.05% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,816 906 1,501
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.25 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.03 £16.36 £16.30
Median hourly rate £33.99 £26.16 £35.71
Median % change year-on-year +29.93% -26.74% +19.03%
75th Percentile £65.00 £51.10 £57.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.75 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £33.00 £25.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +29.41% -27.14% +14.75%

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 21 July 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 21 July 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 21 July 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 +2 1,771 £525 - 478
North of England +2 704 £463 -2.63% 242
South East +4 501 £500 -4.76% 219
Midlands +11 460 £500 +8.11% 119
West Midlands +3 375 £500 +8.11% 102
South West -8 296 £525 -4.55% 126
North West -4 288 £505 +7.45% 101
Yorkshire +11 256 £463 -2.63% 94
North East -2 171 £450 -6.25% 48
East Midlands +25 77 £525 +28.05% 17
East of England +1 59 £475 -5.00% 39
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
1 156 (3.92%) Confluence
2 117 (2.94%) SharePoint
3 51 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
4 45 (1.13%) Apache Airflow
5 44 (1.10%) SAS
6 35 (0.88%) Apache Spark
7 31 (0.78%) Apache
8 22 (0.55%) CMS
9 20 (0.50%) Jupyter
10 13 (0.33%) nginx
10 13 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
11 9 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 9 (0.23%) WordPress
12 7 (0.18%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.13%) Drupal
13 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
13 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.13%) WebLogic
14 4 (0.10%) Camunda
15 3 (0.075%) IIS
Applications
1 78 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.70%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.28%) MS Visio
7 9 (0.23%) Chatbot
8 6 (0.15%) Trello
9 5 (0.13%) Sketch
10 3 (0.075%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.050%) CPLEX
12 1 (0.025%) Navisworks
12 1 (0.025%) ProjectWise
12 1 (0.025%) Revit
12 1 (0.025%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 45 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 41 (1.03%) Oracle ERP
4 23 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
5 21 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
6 12 (0.30%) Workday HCM
7 11 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
8 10 (0.25%) ContrOCC
8 10 (0.25%) NEC Housing
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 9 (0.23%) SAP BRIM
9 9 (0.23%) SAP Hybris
9 9 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 9 (0.23%) SystmOne
10 7 (0.18%) NetSuite
10 7 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.15%) SAP ERP
11 6 (0.15%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 791 (19.85%) AWS
2 754 (18.93%) Azure
3 221 (5.55%) Power Platform
4 181 (4.54%) Microsoft 365
5 171 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
6 155 (3.89%) GitHub
7 147 (3.69%) GCP
7 147 (3.69%) Serverless
8 129 (3.24%) Entra ID
9 127 (3.19%) Amazon S3
10 103 (2.59%) GitHub Actions
11 102 (2.56%) SaaS
12 94 (2.36%) AWS Lambda
13 86 (2.16%) OCI
14 78 (1.96%) Amazon EC2
15 73 (1.83%) Power Automate
16 72 (1.81%) Dynamics 365
17 68 (1.71%) Amazon EKS
18 65 (1.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 61 (1.53%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 108 (2.71%) Firewall
2 68 (1.71%) DNS
3 56 (1.41%) WAN
4 54 (1.36%) Network Security
5 49 (1.23%) LAN
6 43 (1.08%) VPN
7 33 (0.83%) DHCP
8 31 (0.78%) BGP
9 30 (0.75%) TCP/IP
10 28 (0.70%) OSPF
11 27 (0.68%) Wi-Fi
12 21 (0.53%) SD-WAN
13 18 (0.45%) BIG-IP
13 18 (0.45%) VXLAN
13 18 (0.45%) WLAN
14 16 (0.40%) Ethernet VPN
15 15 (0.38%) Wireless
16 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 14 (0.35%) NGFW
17 13 (0.33%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (3.79%) Power BI
2 100 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
3 90 (2.26%) PostgreSQL
4 81 (2.03%) SQL Server
5 58 (1.46%) Metadata
6 51 (1.28%) Amazon RDS
6 51 (1.28%) MongoDB
7 50 (1.26%) Data Lake
7 50 (1.26%) Relational Database
8 49 (1.23%) Oracle Database
9 41 (1.03%) NoSQL
10 38 (0.95%) Oracle Reports
11 33 (0.83%) DynamoDB
12 32 (0.80%) Amazon Redshift
13 31 (0.78%) Amazon Athena
13 31 (0.78%) Tableau
14 23 (0.58%) Amazon Aurora
14 23 (0.58%) Pentaho
15 21 (0.53%) Delta Lake
15 21 (0.53%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 229 (5.75%) JIRA
2 161 (4.04%) Git
3 156 (3.92%) GitLab
4 136 (3.41%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.10%) Selenium
6 38 (0.95%) JUnit
6 38 (0.95%) Mockito
7 30 (0.75%) Cucumber
7 30 (0.75%) SonarQube
8 29 (0.73%) Postman
9 28 (0.70%) JMeter
10 24 (0.60%) Maven
11 23 (0.58%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.48%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.40%) WebDriver
14 14 (0.35%) DbUnit
14 14 (0.35%) Gatling
15 13 (0.33%) jMock
16 11 (0.28%) Bitbucket Server
16 11 (0.28%) CircleCI
General
1 1,063 (26.68%) Social Skills
2 477 (11.97%) Finance
3 391 (9.81%) Analytical Skills
4 221 (5.55%) Military
5 204 (5.12%) Local Government
6 120 (3.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 119 (2.99%) Influencing Skills
8 106 (2.66%) Legal
9 93 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
10 87 (2.18%) Police
11 82 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
12 49 (1.23%) Telecoms
13 48 (1.20%) Law
14 47 (1.18%) Banking
15 42 (1.05%) Marketing
16 36 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
17 27 (0.68%) Billing
18 23 (0.58%) Retail
19 16 (0.40%) General Ledger
20 15 (0.38%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 531 (13.33%) Architect
2 522 (13.10%) Developer
3 516 (12.95%) Senior
4 419 (10.52%) Lead
5 376 (9.44%) Analyst
6 161 (4.04%) Designer
7 155 (3.89%) Business Analyst
8 153 (3.84%) Consultant
9 149 (3.74%) Data Engineer
10 143 (3.59%) DevOps Engineer
11 127 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
12 111 (2.79%) Delivery Manager
12 111 (2.79%) Java Developer
13 110 (2.76%) Technical Architect
14 104 (2.61%) Senior Developer
15 102 (2.56%) Project Manager
16 88 (2.21%) User Researcher
17 81 (2.03%) Data Architect
18 72 (1.81%) Senior Manager
19 71 (1.78%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 140 (3.51%) REST
2 108 (2.71%) Node.js
3 103 (2.59%) Spring
4 100 (2.51%) RESTful
5 94 (2.36%) Spring Boot
6 92 (2.31%) React
7 77 (1.93%) Oracle Fusion
8 75 (1.88%) Kafka
9 70 (1.76%) SOAP
10 61 (1.53%) .NET
11 58 (1.46%) Web Services
12 57 (1.43%) AngularJS
12 57 (1.43%) HTML
13 49 (1.23%) OAuth
14 48 (1.20%) CSS
15 47 (1.18%) Django
16 45 (1.13%) JSON
17 44 (1.10%) PySpark
18 36 (0.90%) Middleware
18 36 (0.90%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 223 (5.60%) Cloud Native
2 166 (4.17%) Product Ownership
3 158 (3.97%) Onboarding
4 142 (3.56%) NHS
5 104 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
6 93 (2.33%) Management Information System
7 69 (1.73%) Data Centre
8 66 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
9 57 (1.43%) Enterprise Software
10 49 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
11 48 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
12 47 (1.18%) Data Structures
13 43 (1.08%) Public Cloud
14 33 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
14 33 (0.83%) CMDB
15 32 (0.80%) Virtual Team
16 28 (0.70%) Security Posture
17 27 (0.68%) PKI
18 26 (0.65%) Freedom of Information
19 25 (0.63%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 169 (4.24%) Windows
2 158 (3.97%) Linux
3 60 (1.51%) Windows Server
4 58 (1.46%) Unix
5 26 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 25 (0.63%) Android
7 23 (0.58%) Apple iOS
8 22 (0.55%) Windows 10
9 17 (0.43%) Mac OS
10 10 (0.25%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.23%) Solaris
11 9 (0.23%) Ubuntu
12 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
13 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) AIX
15 4 (0.10%) Amazon Linux
16 3 (0.075%) VMS
16 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2016
17 2 (0.050%) CentOS
17 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,192 (29.92%) Agile
2 665 (16.69%) Stakeholder Management
3 642 (16.11%) DevOps
4 634 (15.91%) CI/CD
5 562 (14.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 558 (14.01%) Continuous Improvement
7 443 (11.12%) Problem-Solving
8 402 (10.09%) Analytics
9 401 (10.07%) Decision-Making
10 364 (9.14%) Migration
11 330 (8.28%) Roadmaps
12 310 (7.78%) Infrastructure as Code
13 289 (7.25%) AI
14 282 (7.08%) Data Modelling
15 270 (6.78%) Containerisation
16 258 (6.48%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 248 (6.22%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
18 239 (6.00%) Scrum
19 237 (5.95%) Mentoring
20 234 (5.87%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 464 (11.65%) Python
2 400 (10.04%) SQL
3 289 (7.25%) Java
4 183 (4.59%) JavaScript
5 106 (2.66%) PowerShell
6 104 (2.61%) TypeScript
7 76 (1.91%) C#
8 66 (1.66%) Bash
9 56 (1.41%) PL/SQL
10 40 (1.00%) Bicep
11 37 (0.93%) Apex Code
12 30 (0.75%) Ruby
13 29 (0.73%) Kotlin
14 22 (0.55%) R
15 17 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 17 (0.43%) Go
15 17 (0.43%) Scala
15 17 (0.43%) Shell Script
16 16 (0.40%) Groovy
17 13 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 2,066 (51.86%) Security Cleared
2 1,556 (39.06%) SC Cleared
3 237 (5.95%) DV Cleared
4 205 (5.15%) BPSS Clearance
5 189 (4.74%) Degree
6 57 (1.43%) Azure Certification
6 57 (1.43%) Microsoft Certification
7 45 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
8 44 (1.10%) CISSP
9 43 (1.08%) AWS Certification
10 29 (0.73%) CISM
10 29 (0.73%) PMI Certification
11 26 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
12 24 (0.60%) CCNP
13 21 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
13 21 (0.53%) ISTQB
14 19 (0.48%) PMP
15 17 (0.43%) Master's Degree
16 15 (0.38%) CCNA
17 14 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 301 (7.56%) Accessibility
2 200 (5.02%) Data Quality
3 179 (4.49%) QA
4 128 (3.21%) GDPR
4 128 (3.21%) WCAG
5 100 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 82 (2.06%) PMO
7 80 (2.01%) NCSC
8 74 (1.86%) NIST
9 35 (0.88%) SLA
10 31 (0.78%) GRC
11 29 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
12 20 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
13 16 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 14 (0.35%) PCI DSS
15 13 (0.33%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 10 (0.25%) HL7
17 10 (0.25%) NIST 800
18 6 (0.15%) IFRS
System Software
1 291 (7.30%) Docker
2 164 (4.12%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.18%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.60%) VMware NSX
5 15 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
6 13 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 12 (0.30%) vSphere
8 11 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
8 11 (0.28%) Postfix
9 8 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
10 6 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.050%) NFS
11 2 (0.050%) RACF
12 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.025%) etcd
12 1 (0.025%) FreeRADIUS
12 1 (0.025%) GPFS
12 1 (0.025%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.025%) Squid
Systems Management
1 339 (8.51%) Terraform
2 278 (6.98%) Kubernetes
3 90 (2.26%) Grafana
4 79 (1.98%) Ansible
5 59 (1.48%) Prometheus
6 45 (1.13%) Single Sign-On
7 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
8 29 (0.73%) Argo
9 13 (0.33%) Kibana
10 12 (0.30%) SCCM
11 11 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
11 11 (0.28%) Puppet
12 10 (0.25%) vCenter Server
13 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
13 8 (0.20%) Istio
14 7 (0.18%) FortiGate
15 5 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 5 (0.13%) Rancher
15 5 (0.13%) VxRail
16 4 (0.10%) Consul
Vendors
1 505 (12.68%) Microsoft
2 311 (7.81%) Oracle
3 135 (3.39%) SAP
4 129 (3.24%) ServiceNow
5 115 (2.89%) Salesforce
6 114 (2.86%) Google
7 96 (2.41%) Databricks
8 65 (1.63%) VMware
9 47 (1.18%) Cisco
10 40 (1.00%) Palo Alto
11 34 (0.85%) Atlassian
12 33 (0.83%) Red Hat
13 31 (0.78%) Dynatrace
14 30 (0.75%) Splunk
15 29 (0.73%) Talend
16 25 (0.63%) CyberArk
16 25 (0.63%) IBM
17 24 (0.60%) Foundry
17 24 (0.60%) Informatica
18 23 (0.58%) F5