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

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,219 2,625 3,399
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.92% 9.79% 9.19%
As % of the General category 16.46% 15.70% 15.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,267 1,583 2,318
10th Percentile £338 £306 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £536
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.96% -0.83%
75th Percentile £592 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 97 116
10th Percentile £16.36 £14.88 £12.92
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.16
Median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +25.00% +0.63%
75th Percentile £25.00 £35.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £47.00 £64.74 £68.00
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £24.18 £20.00
% change year-on-year -13.15% +20.90% +5.26%

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 19,559 16,719 21,770
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 60.25% 62.38% 58.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,484 10,095 14,489
10th Percentile £286 £299 £267
25th Percentile £404 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £533 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.19% -3.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,216 556 1,290
10th Percentile £14.07 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.50 £19.00 £15.17
Median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.33% +11.13% +5.00%
75th Percentile £46.38 £57.53 £55.94
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.93 £68.75
UK median hourly rate £22.85 £27.50 £26.72
% change year-on-year -16.91% +2.92% +6.88%

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 23 January 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 23 January 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 23 January 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 1,312 £525 - 276
North of England 0 630 £455 -4.21% 218
South East -5 373 £500 -5.21% 277
North West -1 325 £450 -10.00% 75
Midlands +3 313 £488 -2.50% 143
South West -1 307 £525 -4.55% 116
West Midlands 0 235 £500 - 94
Yorkshire -1 190 £500 +8.70% 98
North East -1 119 £450 +5.88% 48
East of England +22 105 £375 +7.14% 79
East Midlands +3 78 £424 -10.79% 48
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
1 122 (3.79%) Confluence
2 93 (2.89%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.03%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (0.84%) SAS
5 23 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
6 22 (0.68%) nginx
7 18 (0.56%) Apache
8 15 (0.47%) Skype for Business
9 13 (0.40%) Apache Spark
10 12 (0.37%) CMS
11 5 (0.16%) Documentum
11 5 (0.16%) WebLogic
12 4 (0.12%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.12%) ArcGIS
12 4 (0.12%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.12%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.093%) Exchange Server 2013
13 3 (0.093%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.093%) Smallworld
13 3 (0.093%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 97 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 85 (2.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 37 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 22 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
5 16 (0.50%) MS Visio
5 16 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.31%) Trello
7 8 (0.25%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 7 (0.22%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.19%) Chatbot
10 5 (0.16%) Sketch
11 3 (0.093%) InVision
12 2 (0.062%) Adobe After Effects
12 2 (0.062%) Adobe Illustrator
12 2 (0.062%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.062%) Photoshop
13 1 (0.031%) Adobe Premiere
13 1 (0.031%) OmniGraffle
13 1 (0.031%) Quicktime
13 1 (0.031%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 57 (1.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
4 17 (0.53%) SAP BRIM
4 17 (0.53%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
6 13 (0.40%) 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 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
9 8 (0.25%) Unit4 Business World
10 7 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
10 7 (0.22%) SAP HR
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
11 6 (0.19%) Oracle General Ledger
11 6 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
12 5 (0.16%) SAP FI
13 4 (0.12%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 589 (18.30%) AWS
2 560 (17.40%) Azure
3 198 (6.15%) Power Platform
4 149 (4.63%) Microsoft 365
5 148 (4.60%) Serverless
6 143 (4.44%) GitHub
7 142 (4.41%) GCP
8 115 (3.57%) Azure DevOps
9 93 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
10 81 (2.52%) GitHub Actions
11 72 (2.24%) Amazon S3
12 67 (2.08%) Power Automate
13 65 (2.02%) Entra ID
14 61 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
15 59 (1.83%) Dynamics 365
16 58 (1.80%) SaaS
17 57 (1.77%) PowerApps
18 54 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 54 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
19 51 (1.58%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 103 (3.20%) Firewall
2 69 (2.14%) DNS
3 61 (1.89%) VPN
4 56 (1.74%) WAN
5 45 (1.40%) Network Security
5 45 (1.40%) Wireless
6 43 (1.34%) LAN
7 39 (1.21%) TCP/IP
8 32 (0.99%) BGP
9 27 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
10 25 (0.78%) DHCP
11 23 (0.71%) OSPF
12 20 (0.62%) SSL
13 18 (0.56%) HTTP
13 18 (0.56%) Skype
14 17 (0.53%) VLAN
15 16 (0.50%) SD-WAN
16 15 (0.47%) Internet
16 15 (0.47%) MPLS
16 15 (0.47%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (4.50%) Power BI
2 83 (2.58%) PostgreSQL
3 53 (1.65%) MongoDB
4 50 (1.55%) Metadata
5 37 (1.15%) NoSQL
5 37 (1.15%) Relational Database
5 37 (1.15%) SQL Server
6 32 (0.99%) Amazon RDS
6 32 (0.99%) Data Lake
7 29 (0.90%) Data Warehouse
8 26 (0.81%) Oracle Reports
9 23 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
9 23 (0.71%) MySQL
9 23 (0.71%) Oracle Database
10 21 (0.65%) Redis
11 20 (0.62%) BigQuery
12 16 (0.50%) Electronic Patient Records
12 16 (0.50%) Tableau
13 15 (0.47%) Power Query
14 14 (0.43%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 199 (6.18%) JIRA
2 167 (5.19%) Git
3 128 (3.98%) Jenkins
4 117 (3.63%) GitLab
5 49 (1.52%) Postman
6 47 (1.46%) Selenium
7 31 (0.96%) Cucumber
8 24 (0.75%) Cypress.io
9 22 (0.68%) JUnit
10 18 (0.56%) REST Assured
11 17 (0.53%) Mockito
12 14 (0.43%) Bitbucket
12 14 (0.43%) CircleCI
13 13 (0.40%) Mocha
13 13 (0.40%) Vagrant
14 12 (0.37%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.34%) MSI
16 10 (0.31%) Gradle
17 9 (0.28%) JMeter
17 9 (0.28%) Oracle Forms
General
1 944 (29.33%) Social Skills
2 514 (15.97%) Finance
3 294 (9.13%) Analytical Skills
4 229 (7.11%) Telecoms
5 193 (6.00%) Manufacturing
6 192 (5.96%) Marketing
7 172 (5.34%) Electronics
8 148 (4.60%) Military
9 119 (3.70%) Local Government
10 71 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
11 67 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
12 65 (2.02%) Legal
13 50 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
14 46 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 46 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
15 35 (1.09%) Law
16 34 (1.06%) Banking
16 34 (1.06%) Retail
17 30 (0.93%) Billing
18 25 (0.78%) Police
Job Titles
1 392 (12.18%) Developer
2 372 (11.56%) Architect
3 331 (10.28%) Senior
4 317 (9.85%) Analyst
5 302 (9.38%) Lead
6 196 (6.09%) Consultant
7 141 (4.38%) Business Analyst
8 131 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
9 97 (3.01%) Designer
9 97 (3.01%) Project Manager
10 90 (2.80%) Solutions Architect
11 84 (2.61%) Technical Architect
12 75 (2.33%) AWS Engineer
13 67 (2.08%) Data Engineer
14 65 (2.02%) Senior Developer
15 62 (1.93%) Java Developer
16 59 (1.83%) User Researcher
17 55 (1.71%) Support Engineer
18 53 (1.65%) Network Engineer
18 53 (1.65%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 144 (4.47%) REST
2 104 (3.23%) React
3 100 (3.11%) Node.js
4 92 (2.86%) RESTful
5 87 (2.70%) Spring
6 81 (2.52%) Spring Boot
7 73 (2.27%) .NET
7 73 (2.27%) HTML
8 68 (2.11%) Oracle Fusion
9 64 (1.99%) CSS
10 61 (1.89%) JSON
11 58 (1.80%) AngularJS
12 56 (1.74%) SOAP
13 54 (1.68%) Web Services
14 53 (1.65%) Kafka
15 43 (1.34%) XML
16 37 (1.15%) Playwright
17 30 (0.93%) OAuth
18 29 (0.90%) Lightning Web Components
19 24 (0.75%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 122 (3.79%) Cloud Native
2 112 (3.48%) Onboarding
3 111 (3.45%) NHS
4 105 (3.26%) Product Ownership
5 83 (2.58%) Data Centre
6 66 (2.05%) Legacy Systems
7 62 (1.93%) Management Information System
8 42 (1.30%) Public Cloud
9 34 (1.06%) Replication
10 32 (0.99%) PKI
11 31 (0.96%) CMDB
12 30 (0.93%) Security Posture
13 28 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
14 27 (0.84%) AI Agents
14 27 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
15 26 (0.81%) Data Structures
16 25 (0.78%) Distributed Systems
17 24 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
18 23 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
19 22 (0.68%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 213 (6.62%) Windows
2 152 (4.72%) Linux
3 50 (1.55%) Windows 10
4 45 (1.40%) Android
4 45 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 41 (1.27%) Mac OS
6 24 (0.75%) Unix
7 23 (0.71%) VMS
8 19 (0.59%) Apple iOS
8 19 (0.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 13 (0.40%) Amazon Linux
10 12 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 10 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.25%) Mac OS X
13 7 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
14 6 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
15 4 (0.12%) Windows 7
16 3 (0.093%) Windows Server 2008
17 1 (0.031%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 792 (24.60%) Agile
2 468 (14.54%) CI/CD
3 444 (13.79%) DevOps
4 424 (13.17%) Problem-Solving
5 388 (12.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 359 (11.15%) Stakeholder Management
7 346 (10.75%) Business Intelligence
8 310 (9.63%) Migration
9 287 (8.92%) Continuous Improvement
10 264 (8.20%) Roadmaps
11 217 (6.74%) Analytics
12 214 (6.65%) Programme Management
13 209 (6.49%) Test Automation
14 199 (6.18%) Decision-Making
15 197 (6.12%) Microservices
16 196 (6.09%) Infrastructure as Code
17 192 (5.96%) Containerisation
18 185 (5.75%) AI
19 184 (5.72%) ITIL
20 172 (5.34%) Digital Marketing
Programming Languages
1 362 (11.25%) Python
2 267 (8.29%) SQL
3 246 (7.64%) Java
4 173 (5.37%) JavaScript
5 125 (3.88%) PowerShell
6 106 (3.29%) TypeScript
7 77 (2.39%) C#
8 62 (1.93%) Bash
9 35 (1.09%) Ruby
10 29 (0.90%) Go
11 27 (0.84%) Apex Code
12 26 (0.81%) PL/SQL
13 20 (0.62%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.50%) Groovy
14 16 (0.50%) R
15 15 (0.47%) PHP
16 14 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 14 (0.43%) Perl
17 13 (0.40%) C++
18 11 (0.34%) C
Qualifications
1 1,936 (60.14%) Security Cleared
2 1,287 (39.98%) SC Cleared
3 166 (5.16%) DV Cleared
4 157 (4.88%) Degree
5 85 (2.64%) BPSS Clearance
6 46 (1.43%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.30%) AWS Certification
8 40 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
9 39 (1.21%) CISSP
10 35 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
10 35 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
11 26 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
12 24 (0.75%) ISEB
13 23 (0.71%) PMP
14 21 (0.65%) CISM
15 20 (0.62%) PMI Certification
16 19 (0.59%) CCNP
17 17 (0.53%) ISTQB
18 16 (0.50%) Master's Degree
19 15 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 154 (4.78%) Accessibility
2 128 (3.98%) QA
3 110 (3.42%) Data Quality
4 94 (2.92%) GDPR
5 74 (2.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 63 (1.96%) NIST
7 55 (1.71%) NCSC
8 49 (1.52%) WCAG
9 47 (1.46%) SLA
10 45 (1.40%) PMO
11 24 (0.75%) GRC
12 20 (0.62%) Cyber Essentials
13 18 (0.56%) COBIT
14 16 (0.50%) JSP 440
15 14 (0.43%) HIPAA
16 13 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
17 12 (0.37%) PCI DSS
18 10 (0.31%) HL7
19 9 (0.28%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 6 (0.19%) NIST 800
System Software
1 234 (7.27%) Docker
2 117 (3.63%) Active Directory
3 59 (1.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.56%) Hyper-V
5 16 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 16 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (0.43%) VMware NSX
7 13 (0.40%) DFS Replication
7 13 (0.40%) vSphere
8 10 (0.31%) Virtual Machines
9 9 (0.28%) Squid
10 8 (0.25%) Dovecot
10 8 (0.25%) Postfix
11 6 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.16%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 4 (0.12%) ISA Server
14 3 (0.093%) NFS
15 2 (0.062%) BitLocker
15 2 (0.062%) Brightmail
15 2 (0.062%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 288 (8.95%) Terraform
2 245 (7.61%) Kubernetes
3 77 (2.39%) Ansible
4 64 (1.99%) Grafana
5 52 (1.62%) Prometheus
6 31 (0.96%) SCCM
7 27 (0.84%) Microsoft Intune
8 20 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 13 (0.40%) Packer
11 11 (0.34%) Argo
11 11 (0.34%) Nessus
12 10 (0.31%) Puppet
13 9 (0.28%) Jamf Pro
13 9 (0.28%) Proxmox
13 9 (0.28%) vRealize
14 8 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 7 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.22%) SCOM
16 6 (0.19%) WSUS
Vendors
1 399 (12.40%) Microsoft
2 312 (9.69%) SAP
3 192 (5.96%) Oracle
4 147 (4.57%) Cisco
5 108 (3.36%) ServiceNow
6 94 (2.92%) Salesforce
7 88 (2.73%) VMware
8 61 (1.89%) Google
9 58 (1.80%) Splunk
10 45 (1.40%) Databricks
11 41 (1.27%) Aruba
12 40 (1.24%) Juniper
13 39 (1.21%) Palo Alto
13 39 (1.21%) Virgin Media
14 37 (1.15%) Dell
15 36 (1.12%) Apple
16 34 (1.06%) HP
17 27 (0.84%) SolarWinds
18 26 (0.81%) Red Hat
19 25 (0.78%) Fortinet