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 7 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 18 18 17
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 +5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,776 2,685 3,572
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.33% 8.59% 8.99%
As % of the General category 14.68% 14.52% 15.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,928 1,618 2,529
10th Percentile £313 £300 £285
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -3.70% +2.86%
75th Percentile £594 £631 £650
90th Percentile £677 £713 £731
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 153 89 96
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.94 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.00 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.50 £23.99 £22.40
Median % change year-on-year -10.38% +7.12% +12.68%
75th Percentile £25.15 £40.30 £59.13
90th Percentile £47.40 £63.10 £70.87
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £22.56 £21.90
% change year-on-year -6.91% +3.04% +10.25%

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 common skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 18,913 18,490 23,677
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.59% 59.15% 59.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,000 11,095 16,192
10th Percentile £274 £300 £300
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £635 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,202 704 1,022
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.51 £17.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £31.97 £30.48
Median % change year-on-year -21.80% +4.91% +18.53%
75th Percentile £44.94 £60.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £69.96 £71.25 £70.66
UK median hourly rate £24.61 £29.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year -16.58% -1.67% +20.00%

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 7 November 2025.

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 7 November 2025.

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 7 November 2025. 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 0 1,141 £513 -2.38% 834
North of England 0 517 £471 -0.79% 349
South West +2 331 £550 -4.35% 148
South East -8 287 £500 -9.09% 805
Midlands +4 267 £475 -5.00% 151
North West -2 261 £450 -8.86% 183
West Midlands +4 214 £475 -5.00% 95
Yorkshire +12 169 £500 +5.26% 90
North East +2 90 £450 +7.78% 76
East of England -4 68 £450 +26.32% 71
East Midlands -4 53 £415 -7.57% 51
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
1 103 (3.71%) Confluence
2 78 (2.81%) SharePoint
3 32 (1.15%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
4 24 (0.86%) SAS
5 23 (0.83%) nginx
6 15 (0.54%) Skype for Business
7 14 (0.50%) Apache
8 10 (0.36%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.32%) CMS
10 6 (0.22%) Documentum
10 6 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.18%) Anypoint
11 5 (0.18%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 5 (0.18%) SharePoint Server
12 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
12 4 (0.14%) IIS
12 4 (0.14%) Jupyter
13 3 (0.11%) Smallworld
Applications
1 86 (3.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 84 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (0.65%) MS Visio
5 17 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
6 15 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.32%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 9 (0.32%) Trello
8 6 (0.22%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.22%) Photoshop
9 5 (0.18%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.18%) Sketch
10 4 (0.14%) InVision
10 4 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.14%) UXPin
11 2 (0.072%) Adobe XD
11 2 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.036%) S-PLUS
12 1 (0.036%) Stata
12 1 (0.036%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 39 (1.40%) SAP S/4HANA
2 24 (0.86%) Dynamics CRM
3 13 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 11 (0.40%) Oracle EBS
4 11 (0.40%) SAP ERP
4 11 (0.40%) SAP PSCD
5 9 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
5 9 (0.32%) Oracle Receivables
6 8 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
6 8 (0.29%) SAP BRIM
6 8 (0.29%) SAP Hybris
7 7 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
7 7 (0.25%) SAP HR
7 7 (0.25%) SAP Payroll
8 6 (0.22%) Oracle General Ledger
8 6 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
9 5 (0.18%) Primavera
9 5 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
10 4 (0.14%) Integrated Workplace Management System
10 4 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 538 (19.38%) AWS
2 491 (17.69%) Azure
3 183 (6.59%) Power Platform
4 146 (5.26%) Microsoft 365
5 120 (4.32%) GCP
6 119 (4.29%) GitHub
7 108 (3.89%) Serverless
8 100 (3.60%) Azure DevOps
9 86 (3.10%) Amazon S3
10 69 (2.49%) SaaS
11 66 (2.38%) AWS Lambda
12 65 (2.34%) Amazon EC2
13 62 (2.23%) GitHub Actions
13 62 (2.23%) PowerApps
14 58 (2.09%) Entra ID
15 54 (1.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 52 (1.87%) Power Automate
17 44 (1.59%) Amazon SQS
17 44 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
17 44 (1.59%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 110 (3.96%) Firewall
2 79 (2.85%) DNS
3 59 (2.13%) VPN
4 44 (1.59%) WAN
5 42 (1.51%) Wireless
6 36 (1.30%) Network Security
7 34 (1.22%) LAN
8 31 (1.12%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.08%) BGP
9 30 (1.08%) DHCP
10 26 (0.94%) HTTP
11 22 (0.79%) SSH
12 21 (0.76%) FTP
12 21 (0.76%) SMTP
12 21 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
13 20 (0.72%) SD-WAN
13 20 (0.72%) SSL
14 19 (0.68%) OSPF
15 18 (0.65%) VLAN
16 17 (0.61%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (4.43%) Power BI
2 89 (3.21%) PostgreSQL
3 50 (1.80%) MongoDB
4 41 (1.48%) Amazon RDS
5 40 (1.44%) Metadata
5 40 (1.44%) SQL Server
6 32 (1.15%) Data Warehouse
7 30 (1.08%) NoSQL
7 30 (1.08%) Relational Database
8 29 (1.04%) Oracle Database
9 28 (1.01%) MySQL
10 27 (0.97%) Data Lake
11 21 (0.76%) Tableau
12 19 (0.68%) Amazon Aurora
13 17 (0.61%) Redis
14 16 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (0.58%) BigQuery
15 14 (0.50%) Amazon Redshift
15 14 (0.50%) Oracle Reports
16 13 (0.47%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 180 (6.48%) JIRA
2 150 (5.40%) Git
3 130 (4.68%) Jenkins
4 78 (2.81%) GitLab
5 35 (1.26%) Selenium
6 30 (1.08%) SonarQube
7 29 (1.04%) Postman
8 27 (0.97%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.79%) Mockito
10 21 (0.76%) Cypress.io
10 21 (0.76%) JUnit
10 21 (0.76%) Vagrant
11 20 (0.72%) REST Assured
12 13 (0.47%) Burp Suite
12 13 (0.47%) Metasploit
13 11 (0.40%) CircleCI
14 10 (0.36%) Bitbucket
14 10 (0.36%) Maven
14 10 (0.36%) Oracle Forms
15 8 (0.29%) MSI
General
1 795 (28.64%) Social Skills
2 464 (16.71%) Finance
3 242 (8.72%) Analytical Skills
4 227 (8.18%) Telecoms
5 193 (6.95%) Manufacturing
6 189 (6.81%) Marketing
7 178 (6.41%) Electronics
8 130 (4.68%) Military
9 116 (4.18%) Local Government
10 82 (2.95%) Documentation Skills
11 66 (2.38%) Legal
12 47 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
13 45 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
14 42 (1.51%) Law
15 36 (1.30%) Retail
16 35 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 34 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
18 31 (1.12%) Police
19 24 (0.86%) Banking
20 16 (0.58%) Billing
Job Titles
1 337 (12.14%) Developer
2 318 (11.46%) Architect
3 278 (10.01%) Analyst
4 270 (9.73%) Lead
5 266 (9.58%) Senior
6 197 (7.10%) Consultant
7 117 (4.21%) DevOps Engineer
8 109 (3.93%) Business Analyst
9 85 (3.06%) Project Manager
10 74 (2.67%) Solutions Architect
11 73 (2.63%) AWS Engineer
12 67 (2.41%) Technical Architect
13 66 (2.38%) Support Engineer
14 57 (2.05%) Designer
15 51 (1.84%) Security Engineer
16 50 (1.80%) IT Support
16 50 (1.80%) Java Developer
17 49 (1.77%) Network Engineer
17 49 (1.77%) Senior Developer
18 48 (1.73%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 110 (3.96%) REST
2 79 (2.85%) React
3 77 (2.77%) RESTful
4 72 (2.59%) .NET
5 69 (2.49%) Node.js
6 58 (2.09%) HTML
7 56 (2.02%) Kafka
7 56 (2.02%) SOAP
8 55 (1.98%) Oracle Fusion
9 53 (1.91%) JSON
9 53 (1.91%) Spring
9 53 (1.91%) Spring Boot
10 52 (1.87%) CSS
10 52 (1.87%) Web Services
11 46 (1.66%) AngularJS
12 37 (1.33%) XML
13 25 (0.90%) OAuth
14 23 (0.83%) Playwright
15 21 (0.76%) LDAP
16 19 (0.68%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 98 (3.53%) Onboarding
2 89 (3.21%) Cloud Native
3 88 (3.17%) NHS
4 75 (2.70%) Product Ownership
5 72 (2.59%) Data Centre
6 68 (2.45%) Management Information System
7 64 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
8 35 (1.26%) PKI
9 34 (1.22%) Replication
9 34 (1.22%) Security Operations Centre
10 31 (1.12%) Security Posture
11 29 (1.04%) CMDB
12 28 (1.01%) Public Cloud
13 26 (0.94%) Distributed Systems
14 24 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
15 23 (0.83%) Data Structures
15 23 (0.83%) Driving Licence
16 22 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
17 21 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
18 20 (0.72%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 228 (8.21%) Windows
2 155 (5.58%) Linux
3 43 (1.55%) Windows 10
3 43 (1.55%) Windows Server
4 40 (1.44%) Android
5 37 (1.33%) Mac OS
6 26 (0.94%) Unix
6 26 (0.94%) VMS
7 22 (0.79%) Amazon Linux
7 22 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 17 (0.61%) Apple iOS
9 13 (0.47%) Ubuntu
10 10 (0.36%) Windows Server 2012
11 8 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
12 7 (0.25%) Mac OS X
12 7 (0.25%) Windows Server 2003
12 7 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
13 4 (0.14%) CentOS
14 3 (0.11%) Windows 7
14 3 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 692 (24.93%) Agile
2 404 (14.55%) DevOps
3 384 (13.83%) CI/CD
4 351 (12.64%) Problem-Solving
4 351 (12.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 328 (11.82%) Business Intelligence
6 280 (10.09%) Stakeholder Management
7 257 (9.26%) Migration
8 226 (8.14%) Continuous Improvement
9 207 (7.46%) Roadmaps
10 204 (7.35%) Programme Management
11 180 (6.48%) Infrastructure as Code
12 177 (6.38%) Digital Marketing
13 171 (6.16%) Microservices
14 169 (6.09%) ITIL
15 160 (5.76%) Analytics
16 159 (5.73%) Decision-Making
17 146 (5.26%) AI
18 145 (5.22%) Test Automation
19 144 (5.19%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 322 (11.60%) Python
2 254 (9.15%) SQL
3 234 (8.43%) Java
4 128 (4.61%) JavaScript
5 118 (4.25%) PowerShell
6 80 (2.88%) Bash
7 70 (2.52%) C#
7 70 (2.52%) TypeScript
8 31 (1.12%) Go
9 27 (0.97%) PL/SQL
10 25 (0.90%) C++
10 25 (0.90%) Groovy
11 24 (0.86%) Perl
12 20 (0.72%) Ruby
13 19 (0.68%) Shell Script
14 16 (0.58%) Apex Code
15 14 (0.50%) C
16 13 (0.47%) PHP
17 10 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 10 (0.36%) R
Qualifications
1 1,703 (61.35%) Security Cleared
2 1,198 (43.16%) SC Cleared
3 154 (5.55%) DV Cleared
4 109 (3.93%) Degree
5 67 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.87%) CISSP
7 42 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
8 35 (1.26%) Azure Certification
9 32 (1.15%) AWS Certification
9 32 (1.15%) ITIL Certification
10 31 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
11 23 (0.83%) CCNP
11 23 (0.83%) CISM
12 21 (0.76%) OSCP
13 20 (0.72%) CREST Certified
13 20 (0.72%) ISTQB
14 16 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
15 15 (0.54%) CCNA
16 14 (0.50%) CESG Certified Professional
17 13 (0.47%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 116 (4.18%) Accessibility
2 110 (3.96%) QA
3 82 (2.95%) GDPR
4 78 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 74 (2.67%) Data Quality
6 68 (2.45%) NIST
7 58 (2.09%) NCSC
8 42 (1.51%) SLA
9 36 (1.30%) PMO
10 34 (1.22%) WCAG
11 23 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
12 18 (0.65%) GRC
12 18 (0.65%) JSP 440
13 16 (0.58%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
14 11 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 10 (0.36%) COBIT
15 10 (0.36%) RMADS
16 9 (0.32%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 9 (0.32%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 193 (6.95%) Docker
2 121 (4.36%) Active Directory
3 48 (1.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.76%) DFS Replication
5 16 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
6 15 (0.54%) VMware ESXi
7 13 (0.47%) Postfix
7 13 (0.47%) vSphere
8 12 (0.43%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
9 11 (0.40%) VMware NSX
10 9 (0.32%) Dovecot
10 9 (0.32%) Squid
11 5 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.18%) UAG
11 5 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.14%) Firmware
13 3 (0.11%) Brightmail
13 3 (0.11%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.072%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 257 (9.26%) Terraform
2 192 (6.92%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.81%) Ansible
4 69 (2.49%) Grafana
5 58 (2.09%) Prometheus
6 35 (1.26%) SCCM
7 34 (1.22%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.58%) Packer
10 15 (0.54%) vCenter Server
11 14 (0.50%) Nmap
12 13 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 12 (0.43%) Argo
13 12 (0.43%) Nessus
14 11 (0.40%) Jamf Pro
15 10 (0.36%) SCOM
16 9 (0.32%) Proxmox
17 7 (0.25%) WSUS
18 6 (0.22%) Consul
18 6 (0.22%) QRadar
Vendors
1 380 (13.69%) Microsoft
2 281 (10.12%) SAP
3 173 (6.23%) Oracle
4 143 (5.15%) Cisco
5 107 (3.85%) ServiceNow
6 71 (2.56%) VMware
7 62 (2.23%) Splunk
8 58 (2.09%) Salesforce
9 52 (1.87%) Google
10 48 (1.73%) Juniper
11 38 (1.37%) Aruba
11 38 (1.37%) HP
12 35 (1.26%) Apple
13 34 (1.22%) Dell
14 32 (1.15%) Palo Alto
14 32 (1.15%) Virgin Media
15 31 (1.12%) SolarWinds
16 26 (0.94%) Fortinet
17 25 (0.90%) F5
17 25 (0.90%) Red Hat