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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 20 20 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,704 2,173 3,292
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.22% 8.88% 8.91%
As % of the General category 16.72% 13.87% 15.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,616 1,489 2,197
10th Percentile £350 £338 £311
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
75th Percentile £600 £608 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £520
% change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 89 165
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.28 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.60 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £23.00 £22.27 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year +3.28% +2.49% +8.38%
75th Percentile £27.21 £33.00 £55.00
90th Percentile £55.00 £62.74 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.57 £22.39 £21.25
% change year-on-year +0.82% +5.34% +6.25%

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 22,149 15,663 21,593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.15% 64.04% 58.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,855 10,187 13,921
10th Percentile £305 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £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 1,457 674 1,773
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.08 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.28 £17.44 £15.46
Median hourly rate £30.00 £28.18 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +6.46% -6.07% -12.56%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.71 £51.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £28.17 £29.00
% change year-on-year +2.96% -2.88% -17.14%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +4 1,658 £525 - 340
North of England -3 655 £455 -4.32% 240
South East -2 442 £500 -6.98% 216
Midlands +1 388 £500 +8.11% 106
North West 0 320 £467 -8.43% 122
West Midlands +1 297 £492 +8.53% 91
South West -8 245 £525 -4.55% 100
Yorkshire +4 224 £475 +2.98% 57
North East -3 116 £450 -2.17% 61
East of England +21 97 £425 +9.68% 41
East Midlands +7 86 £513 +2.50% 14
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
1 145 (3.91%) Confluence
2 106 (2.86%) SharePoint
3 43 (1.16%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.65%) SAS
5 19 (0.51%) CMS
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
7 16 (0.43%) Apache Spark
8 15 (0.40%) Apache
9 14 (0.38%) nginx
10 8 (0.22%) Palantir Foundry
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.13%) Camunda
13 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
14 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.081%) Anypoint
14 3 (0.081%) Drupal
14 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
14 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 90 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (1.86%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 28 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
5 17 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 16 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 5 (0.13%) Adobe XD
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.081%) Chatbot
11 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.054%) InVision
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 62 (1.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 19 (0.51%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
6 12 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
7 9 (0.24%) SystmOne
8 8 (0.22%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 7 (0.19%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
11 5 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
11 5 (0.13%) SAP ERP
11 5 (0.13%) SAP HR
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 695 (18.76%) AWS
2 644 (17.39%) Azure
3 196 (5.29%) Power Platform
4 165 (4.45%) Serverless
5 154 (4.16%) Microsoft 365
6 147 (3.97%) GitHub
7 135 (3.64%) Azure DevOps
7 135 (3.64%) GCP
8 102 (2.75%) Entra ID
9 97 (2.62%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.51%) Amazon S3
11 87 (2.35%) GitHub Actions
12 83 (2.24%) SaaS
13 70 (1.89%) AWS CloudFormation
14 66 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
15 65 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
16 62 (1.67%) Power Automate
17 60 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
17 60 (1.62%) OCI
18 59 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.51%) Firewall
2 56 (1.51%) DNS
3 54 (1.46%) Network Security
3 54 (1.46%) WAN
4 52 (1.40%) VPN
5 46 (1.24%) LAN
6 31 (0.84%) BGP
7 28 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
8 26 (0.70%) OSPF
9 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
10 20 (0.54%) DHCP
10 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
11 16 (0.43%) SSL
12 15 (0.40%) VLAN
13 14 (0.38%) Internet
14 13 (0.35%) Wireless
15 12 (0.32%) VoIP
15 12 (0.32%) VXLAN
16 11 (0.30%) BIG-IP
16 11 (0.30%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (3.94%) Power BI
2 78 (2.11%) PostgreSQL
3 70 (1.89%) SQL Server
4 62 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
5 57 (1.54%) Metadata
6 53 (1.43%) MongoDB
7 46 (1.24%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
10 31 (0.84%) Data Lake
11 29 (0.78%) Relational Database
11 29 (0.78%) Tableau
12 28 (0.76%) DynamoDB
13 25 (0.67%) Oracle Database
14 22 (0.59%) Azure SQL Database
14 22 (0.59%) Electronic Patient Records
15 19 (0.51%) MySQL
15 19 (0.51%) Pentaho
16 18 (0.49%) Amazon Redshift
16 18 (0.49%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 227 (6.13%) JIRA
2 182 (4.91%) Git
3 125 (3.37%) GitLab
4 114 (3.08%) Jenkins
5 39 (1.05%) JUnit
6 38 (1.03%) Selenium
7 36 (0.97%) Postman
8 33 (0.89%) Mockito
9 31 (0.84%) SonarQube
10 23 (0.62%) JMeter
11 19 (0.51%) Cypress.io
11 19 (0.51%) Maven
12 17 (0.46%) CircleCI
12 17 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
14 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
14 11 (0.30%) jMock
15 10 (0.27%) Mocha
15 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
16 9 (0.24%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 952 (25.70%) Social Skills
2 490 (13.23%) Finance
3 361 (9.75%) Analytical Skills
4 184 (4.97%) Military
5 170 (4.59%) Local Government
6 124 (3.35%) Telecoms
7 96 (2.59%) Marketing
8 85 (2.29%) Legal
9 84 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
9 84 (2.27%) Manufacturing
10 81 (2.19%) Organisational Skills
11 74 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
12 73 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 69 (1.86%) Electronics
14 58 (1.57%) Police
15 54 (1.46%) Banking
16 47 (1.27%) Law
17 46 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
18 31 (0.84%) Billing
19 26 (0.70%) Retail
Job Titles
1 489 (13.20%) Developer
2 469 (12.66%) Architect
3 401 (10.83%) Senior
4 375 (10.12%) Analyst
5 315 (8.50%) Lead
6 165 (4.45%) Business Analyst
7 160 (4.32%) Designer
8 151 (4.08%) Consultant
9 122 (3.29%) Data Engineer
9 122 (3.29%) DevOps Engineer
10 115 (3.10%) Project Manager
11 109 (2.94%) Java Developer
12 107 (2.89%) Technical Architect
13 100 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
14 89 (2.40%) Senior Developer
15 83 (2.24%) Delivery Manager
16 81 (2.19%) User Researcher
17 71 (1.92%) Service Designer
18 64 (1.73%) Administrator
19 62 (1.67%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 140 (3.78%) REST
2 117 (3.16%) Node.js
2 117 (3.16%) Spring
3 103 (2.78%) Spring Boot
4 100 (2.70%) React
5 95 (2.56%) RESTful
6 79 (2.13%) Oracle Fusion
7 72 (1.94%) .NET
7 72 (1.94%) AngularJS
8 70 (1.89%) Web Services
9 63 (1.70%) HTML
10 61 (1.65%) SOAP
11 60 (1.62%) Kafka
12 51 (1.38%) CSS
13 43 (1.16%) Lightning Web Components
14 37 (1.00%) JSON
15 36 (0.97%) OAuth
16 34 (0.92%) Middleware
16 34 (0.92%) Playwright
17 30 (0.81%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 173 (4.67%) Cloud Native
2 136 (3.67%) NHS
3 132 (3.56%) Product Ownership
4 131 (3.54%) Onboarding
5 84 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
6 80 (2.16%) Management Information System
7 69 (1.86%) Data Centre
8 54 (1.46%) Public Cloud
9 47 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
10 43 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.08%) Data Structures
12 39 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
13 30 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
14 27 (0.73%) CMDB
15 26 (0.70%) Analytical Mindset
16 24 (0.65%) Replication
17 21 (0.57%) PKI
18 20 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
18 20 (0.54%) Freedom of Information
18 20 (0.54%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 195 (5.26%) Windows
2 155 (4.18%) Linux
3 61 (1.65%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.32%) Unix
5 40 (1.08%) Windows 10
6 27 (0.73%) Android
7 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
8 21 (0.57%) Mac OS
9 20 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 10 (0.27%) Mac OS X
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
13 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
14 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 3 (0.081%) Windows 7
17 2 (0.054%) Amazon Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 958 (25.86%) Agile
2 521 (14.07%) CI/CD
3 517 (13.96%) DevOps
4 458 (12.37%) Stakeholder Management
5 417 (11.26%) Problem-Solving
6 396 (10.69%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 385 (10.39%) Continuous Improvement
8 377 (10.18%) Migration
9 312 (8.42%) Analytics
9 312 (8.42%) Roadmaps
10 292 (7.88%) Decision-Making
11 246 (6.64%) Containerisation
12 239 (6.45%) Data Modelling
13 238 (6.43%) Business Intelligence
14 236 (6.37%) Test Automation
15 231 (6.24%) Infrastructure as Code
16 224 (6.05%) Microservices
17 222 (5.99%) AI
18 212 (5.72%) User Research
19 203 (5.48%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 405 (10.93%) Python
2 340 (9.18%) SQL
3 276 (7.45%) Java
4 189 (5.10%) JavaScript
5 117 (3.16%) PowerShell
6 116 (3.13%) TypeScript
7 86 (2.32%) C#
8 50 (1.35%) Bash
9 45 (1.21%) Ruby
10 43 (1.16%) Apex Code
11 33 (0.89%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.59%) Bicep
12 22 (0.59%) Go
13 21 (0.57%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
14 20 (0.54%) R
15 15 (0.40%) Scala
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) T-SQL
18 11 (0.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 2,054 (55.45%) Security Cleared
2 1,373 (37.07%) SC Cleared
3 190 (5.13%) DV Cleared
4 177 (4.78%) Degree
5 116 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.40%) Azure Certification
7 41 (1.11%) AWS Certification
8 37 (1.00%) CISSP
8 37 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
9 33 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
10 31 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (0.78%) PMP
12 26 (0.70%) PMI Certification
13 23 (0.62%) ISEB
14 22 (0.59%) CISM
15 18 (0.49%) CCNP
16 14 (0.38%) APMP
16 14 (0.38%) DBS Check
16 14 (0.38%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 214 (5.78%) Accessibility
2 162 (4.37%) Data Quality
3 159 (4.29%) QA
4 105 (2.83%) GDPR
5 88 (2.38%) WCAG
6 81 (2.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 67 (1.81%) PMO
8 64 (1.73%) NCSC
9 57 (1.54%) NIST
10 34 (0.92%) SLA
11 30 (0.81%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) COBIT
14 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
15 15 (0.40%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) PCI DSS
16 13 (0.35%) JSP 440
17 12 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
18 9 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 265 (7.15%) Docker
2 155 (4.18%) Active Directory
3 55 (1.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.57%) VMware NSX
5 20 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 6 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
11 4 (0.11%) NFS
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
14 1 (0.027%) FreeRADIUS
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 295 (7.96%) Terraform
2 273 (7.37%) Kubernetes
3 76 (2.05%) Grafana
4 70 (1.89%) Ansible
5 56 (1.51%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.11%) Microsoft Intune
7 33 (0.89%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 13 (0.35%) Kibana
11 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
12 11 (0.30%) Argo
13 10 (0.27%) Consul
13 10 (0.27%) FortiGate
13 10 (0.27%) Packer
14 8 (0.22%) vRealize
15 7 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
16 6 (0.16%) Istio
16 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 434 (11.72%) Microsoft
2 229 (6.18%) Oracle
3 210 (5.67%) SAP
4 121 (3.27%) Salesforce
5 108 (2.92%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.51%) Google
7 88 (2.38%) VMware
8 79 (2.13%) Databricks
9 73 (1.97%) Cisco
10 41 (1.11%) Splunk
11 34 (0.92%) Atlassian
12 30 (0.81%) Virgin Media
13 29 (0.78%) IBM
14 28 (0.76%) MuleSoft
15 26 (0.70%) Palo Alto
15 26 (0.70%) Red Hat
15 26 (0.70%) Talend
16 25 (0.67%) Dynatrace
17 24 (0.65%) Juniper
18 21 (0.57%) Foundry