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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 19 19 16
Rank change year-on-year 0 -3 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,712 2,221 3,310
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.39% 9.06% 8.90%
As % of the General category 16.87% 14.17% 15.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,631 1,516 2,200
10th Percentile £350 £336 £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 £594 £608 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £501 £525
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.67% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 176 87 165
10th Percentile £14.67 £15.27 £12.75
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.20 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.57 £22.50 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.30% - +12.50%
75th Percentile £25.77 £33.58 £55.00
90th Percentile £55.00 £63.25 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £22.50 £22.95 £21.73
% change year-on-year -1.96% +5.61% +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 22,000 15,674 21,731
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.62% 63.96% 58.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,802 10,204 14,046
10th Percentile £304 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £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 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,419 653 1,762
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.00 £17.61 £15.39
Median hourly rate £30.00 £28.75 £28.71
Median % change year-on-year +4.35% +0.14% -15.56%
75th Percentile £61.18 £58.75 £51.12
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £27.72 £28.60 £28.42
% change year-on-year -3.08% +0.63% -18.80%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 1,648 £525 - 377
North of England -3 656 £454 -4.42% 255
South East -4 442 £500 -7.32% 203
Midlands +4 395 £500 +5.26% 106
North West -1 321 £461 -8.66% 113
West Midlands 0 301 £500 +8.11% 88
South West -3 256 £525 -4.55% 113
Yorkshire +6 225 £478 +6.11% 76
North East -3 115 £450 -2.17% 68
East of England +19 98 £400 +3.23% 57
East Midlands +13 89 £500 - 18
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
1 141 (3.80%) Confluence
2 108 (2.91%) SharePoint
3 41 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
4 29 (0.78%) SAS
5 18 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (0.46%) Apache
6 17 (0.46%) Apache Spark
6 17 (0.46%) CMS
7 14 (0.38%) nginx
8 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.16%) Tomcat
10 5 (0.13%) Camunda
10 5 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
11 4 (0.11%) ArcGIS
12 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 3 (0.081%) Drupal
12 3 (0.081%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.081%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 87 (2.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 70 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 19 (0.51%) 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 Illustrator
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Quicktime
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
12 1 (0.027%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 61 (1.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 41 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.46%) SAP PSCD
4 15 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
5 13 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
6 12 (0.32%) SAP BRIM
6 12 (0.32%) SAP Hybris
7 10 (0.27%) iTrent
7 10 (0.27%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.22%) SystmOne
9 7 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 6 (0.16%) NEC Housing
10 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
10 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
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 (18.72%) AWS
2 634 (17.08%) Azure
3 199 (5.36%) Power Platform
4 170 (4.58%) Serverless
5 156 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
6 151 (4.07%) GitHub
7 141 (3.80%) Azure DevOps
7 141 (3.80%) GCP
8 102 (2.75%) AWS Lambda
9 95 (2.56%) Amazon S3
10 91 (2.45%) Entra ID
11 88 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
12 79 (2.13%) SaaS
13 71 (1.91%) AWS CloudFormation
14 66 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
15 65 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
16 61 (1.64%) Power Automate
17 60 (1.62%) Amazon EKS
18 59 (1.59%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 53 (1.43%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 89 (2.40%) Firewall
2 57 (1.54%) DNS
3 55 (1.48%) Network Security
3 55 (1.48%) WAN
4 54 (1.45%) VPN
5 48 (1.29%) LAN
6 29 (0.78%) BGP
7 25 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
8 24 (0.65%) OSPF
8 24 (0.65%) TCP/IP
9 22 (0.59%) DHCP
10 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
10 19 (0.51%) Wireless
11 16 (0.43%) Internet
11 16 (0.43%) VLAN
12 15 (0.40%) SSL
13 12 (0.32%) MPLS
13 12 (0.32%) VoIP
14 11 (0.30%) Cisco ASA
14 11 (0.30%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (4.01%) Power BI
2 81 (2.18%) PostgreSQL
3 74 (1.99%) SQL Server
4 61 (1.64%) Data Warehouse
5 59 (1.59%) Metadata
6 55 (1.48%) MongoDB
7 45 (1.21%) NoSQL
8 43 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
9 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
10 32 (0.86%) Data Lake
11 31 (0.84%) Tableau
12 29 (0.78%) DynamoDB
13 28 (0.75%) Relational Database
14 26 (0.70%) Azure SQL Database
15 25 (0.67%) Oracle Database
16 23 (0.62%) Electronic Patient Records
17 21 (0.57%) MySQL
18 20 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
19 19 (0.51%) Amazon Athena
19 19 (0.51%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 231 (6.22%) JIRA
2 187 (5.04%) Git
3 121 (3.26%) GitLab
4 116 (3.13%) Jenkins
5 44 (1.19%) Selenium
6 40 (1.08%) JUnit
6 40 (1.08%) Postman
7 34 (0.92%) Mockito
8 30 (0.81%) SonarQube
9 25 (0.67%) JMeter
10 19 (0.51%) Maven
11 18 (0.48%) Cucumber
11 18 (0.48%) Cypress.io
12 14 (0.38%) Artifactory
12 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 12 (0.32%) Bitbucket
14 11 (0.30%) DbUnit
14 11 (0.30%) jMock
15 10 (0.27%) Mocha
15 10 (0.27%) REST Assured
General
1 961 (25.89%) Social Skills
2 496 (13.36%) Finance
3 368 (9.91%) Analytical Skills
4 181 (4.88%) Military
5 169 (4.55%) Local Government
6 129 (3.48%) Telecoms
7 106 (2.86%) Marketing
8 98 (2.64%) Manufacturing
9 84 (2.26%) Legal
10 81 (2.18%) Documentation Skills
11 79 (2.13%) Electronics
12 74 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
13 73 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
14 64 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 58 (1.56%) Police
16 55 (1.48%) Banking
17 47 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
18 46 (1.24%) Law
19 32 (0.86%) Billing
20 27 (0.73%) Retail
Job Titles
1 488 (13.15%) Developer
2 472 (12.72%) Architect
3 404 (10.88%) Senior
4 379 (10.21%) Analyst
5 309 (8.32%) Lead
6 170 (4.58%) Business Analyst
7 158 (4.26%) Consultant
8 154 (4.15%) Designer
9 126 (3.39%) Data Engineer
10 117 (3.15%) DevOps Engineer
11 113 (3.04%) Project Manager
12 107 (2.88%) Technical Architect
13 105 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
14 102 (2.75%) Java Developer
15 88 (2.37%) Senior Developer
16 83 (2.24%) Delivery Manager
16 83 (2.24%) User Researcher
17 70 (1.89%) Service Designer
18 63 (1.70%) Administrator
18 63 (1.70%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 141 (3.80%) REST
2 121 (3.26%) Node.js
3 114 (3.07%) Spring
4 104 (2.80%) React
5 100 (2.69%) Spring Boot
6 97 (2.61%) RESTful
7 79 (2.13%) .NET
8 76 (2.05%) AngularJS
8 76 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
9 67 (1.80%) HTML
10 66 (1.78%) Web Services
11 62 (1.67%) SOAP
12 61 (1.64%) Kafka
13 56 (1.51%) CSS
14 44 (1.19%) JSON
15 43 (1.16%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.94%) Middleware
17 34 (0.92%) Playwright
17 34 (0.92%) XML
18 30 (0.81%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 173 (4.66%) Cloud Native
2 139 (3.74%) NHS
3 133 (3.58%) Product Ownership
4 132 (3.56%) Onboarding
5 83 (2.24%) Legacy Systems
6 75 (2.02%) Management Information System
7 69 (1.86%) Data Centre
8 57 (1.54%) Public Cloud
9 49 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
10 44 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
11 40 (1.08%) Data Structures
12 36 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
13 29 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
14 26 (0.70%) CMDB
14 26 (0.70%) Replication
15 25 (0.67%) Analytical Mindset
16 23 (0.62%) Security Posture
17 22 (0.59%) PKI
18 19 (0.51%) Data Protection Act
19 17 (0.46%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 200 (5.39%) Windows
2 157 (4.23%) Linux
3 62 (1.67%) Windows Server
4 46 (1.24%) Unix
5 41 (1.10%) Windows 10
6 32 (0.86%) Android
7 24 (0.65%) Mac OS
8 23 (0.62%) Apple iOS
9 21 (0.57%) 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 2012
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
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
16 3 (0.081%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 964 (25.97%) Agile
2 528 (14.22%) CI/CD
3 516 (13.90%) DevOps
4 463 (12.47%) Stakeholder Management
5 430 (11.58%) Problem-Solving
6 409 (11.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 386 (10.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 377 (10.16%) Migration
9 328 (8.84%) Roadmaps
10 310 (8.35%) Analytics
11 288 (7.76%) Decision-Making
12 249 (6.71%) Business Intelligence
13 243 (6.55%) Containerisation
13 243 (6.55%) Test Automation
14 234 (6.30%) Data Modelling
15 227 (6.12%) Microservices
16 225 (6.06%) Infrastructure as Code
17 216 (5.82%) AI
18 207 (5.58%) User Research
19 204 (5.50%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 402 (10.83%) Python
2 344 (9.27%) SQL
3 274 (7.38%) Java
4 196 (5.28%) JavaScript
5 115 (3.10%) TypeScript
6 109 (2.94%) PowerShell
7 92 (2.48%) C#
8 47 (1.27%) Bash
9 44 (1.19%) Ruby
10 43 (1.16%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 22 (0.59%) Bicep
12 22 (0.59%) Go
12 22 (0.59%) R
12 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
13 21 (0.57%) Kotlin
14 13 (0.35%) PHP
14 13 (0.35%) Scala
14 13 (0.35%) T-SQL
15 11 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 2,087 (56.22%) Security Cleared
2 1,382 (37.23%) SC Cleared
3 181 (4.88%) DV Cleared
4 171 (4.61%) Degree
5 109 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
6 51 (1.37%) Azure Certification
7 42 (1.13%) AWS Certification
7 42 (1.13%) CISSP
8 38 (1.02%) ITIL Certification
9 35 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
10 30 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
11 29 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.78%) PMP
12 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
13 24 (0.65%) CISM
14 23 (0.62%) ISEB
15 19 (0.51%) CCNP
16 17 (0.46%) ISTQB
17 14 (0.38%) APMP
17 14 (0.38%) GIAC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 200 (5.39%) Accessibility
2 160 (4.31%) QA
3 158 (4.26%) Data Quality
4 108 (2.91%) GDPR
5 86 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 79 (2.13%) WCAG
7 69 (1.86%) NCSC
8 65 (1.75%) PMO
9 59 (1.59%) NIST
10 36 (0.97%) SLA
11 33 (0.89%) GRC
12 22 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
13 21 (0.57%) COBIT
14 20 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
15 18 (0.48%) PCI DSS
16 16 (0.43%) HL7
17 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
18 14 (0.38%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
19 9 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 261 (7.03%) Docker
2 145 (3.91%) Active Directory
3 57 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.59%) VMware NSX
5 21 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
6 19 (0.51%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
8 11 (0.30%) vSphere
9 10 (0.27%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) 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%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) IAG
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
14 1 (0.027%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 292 (7.87%) Terraform
2 269 (7.25%) Kubernetes
3 71 (1.91%) Grafana
4 65 (1.75%) Ansible
5 50 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 39 (1.05%) Microsoft Intune
7 29 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
8 23 (0.62%) SCCM
9 14 (0.38%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 11 (0.30%) Argo
11 11 (0.30%) FortiGate
11 11 (0.30%) Kibana
12 9 (0.24%) Packer
13 8 (0.22%) Consul
13 8 (0.22%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
15 6 (0.16%) Rancher
Vendors
1 420 (11.31%) Microsoft
2 229 (6.17%) Oracle
3 217 (5.85%) SAP
4 125 (3.37%) Salesforce
5 111 (2.99%) ServiceNow
6 93 (2.51%) Google
7 90 (2.42%) Cisco
7 90 (2.42%) VMware
8 85 (2.29%) Databricks
9 44 (1.19%) Splunk
10 35 (0.94%) Atlassian
11 33 (0.89%) Virgin Media
12 30 (0.81%) IBM
13 28 (0.75%) MuleSoft
14 27 (0.73%) Aruba
14 27 (0.73%) Red Hat
14 27 (0.73%) Talend
15 26 (0.70%) Juniper
16 24 (0.65%) Dynatrace
17 23 (0.62%) CyberArk