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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 20 19
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,960 2,334 2,693
As % of all contract jobs in England 8.55% 8.40% 8.18%
As % of the General category 15.29% 13.06% 14.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,711 1,620 1,671
10th Percentile £363 £325 £313
25th Percentile £440 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £618 £600 £627
90th Percentile £700 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £503
% change year-on-year +5.00% -0.50% -4.29%
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 99 105
10th Percentile £15.72 £15.45 £14.41
25th Percentile £16.62 £18.05 £16.00
Median hourly rate £21.35 £21.30 £23.99
Median % change year-on-year +0.23% -11.21% +14.24%
75th Percentile £47.05 £29.38 £48.75
90th Percentile £75.40 £65.65 £74.95
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.50
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.67% +11.94%

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 25,891 17,876 19,214
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 55.90% 64.36% 58.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,219 11,317 11,704
10th Percentile £313 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,261 1,018 971
10th Percentile £13.63 £13.50 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.95 £16.17 £17.44
Median hourly rate £30.90 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +22.86% -34.02% +27.07%
75th Percentile £57.00 £47.41 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.33 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £29.60 £25.15 £35.03
% change year-on-year +17.69% -28.20% +27.38%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 1,735 £550 +7.32% 1,637
North of England 0 717 £475 - 642
Midlands +10 506 £490 +3.16% 305
South East -3 438 £513 -1.16% 361
West Midlands +6 435 £490 +3.16% 226
South West -5 368 £535 -2.73% 293
Yorkshire +3 279 £470 -5.05% 184
North West -15 243 £525 +16.67% 341
North East 0 207 £450 -10.00% 119
East Midlands +12 67 £450 +9.76% 79
East of England -19 49 £450 -10.00% 137
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
1 161 (4.07%) Confluence
2 106 (2.68%) SharePoint
3 53 (1.34%) SAS
4 49 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
5 47 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
6 44 (1.11%) Apache Spark
7 41 (1.04%) Apache
8 29 (0.73%) CMS
9 20 (0.51%) Jupyter
10 16 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
11 11 (0.28%) nginx
11 11 (0.28%) WordPress
12 8 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 6 (0.15%) Headless CMS
14 5 (0.13%) Drupal
14 5 (0.13%) SharePoint 2013
14 5 (0.13%) Tuxedo
15 3 (0.076%) IIS
16 2 (0.051%) Tomcat
16 2 (0.051%) WebLogic
Applications
1 75 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.19%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
4 22 (0.56%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.15%) MS Visio
8 5 (0.13%) Sketch
8 5 (0.13%) Trello
9 4 (0.10%) Adobe XD
10 3 (0.076%) Adobe After Effects
11 2 (0.051%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.051%) Adobe Premiere
11 2 (0.051%) Navisworks
11 2 (0.051%) ProjectWise
11 2 (0.051%) Revit
12 1 (0.025%) AutoCAD
12 1 (0.025%) Gliffy
12 1 (0.025%) LaTeX
12 1 (0.025%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 52 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
2 45 (1.14%) Oracle ERP
2 45 (1.14%) SAP S/4HANA
3 27 (0.68%) SAP PSCD
4 19 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.45%) SAP Payroll
6 14 (0.35%) NetSuite
6 14 (0.35%) Workday HCM
7 13 (0.33%) Oracle Payables
8 12 (0.30%) SAP BRIM
8 12 (0.30%) SAP Hybris
9 11 (0.28%) Oracle Payroll
9 11 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
9 11 (0.28%) SAP HR
10 10 (0.25%) Oracle General Ledger
10 10 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 9 (0.23%) NEC Housing
12 8 (0.20%) ContrOCC
12 8 (0.20%) SAP FI
13 7 (0.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 796 (20.10%) AWS
2 744 (18.79%) Azure
3 243 (6.14%) Power Platform
4 175 (4.42%) Azure DevOps
5 164 (4.14%) Microsoft 365
6 153 (3.86%) GCP
7 147 (3.71%) Serverless
8 146 (3.69%) GitHub
9 130 (3.28%) Entra ID
10 113 (2.85%) Amazon S3
10 113 (2.85%) SaaS
11 108 (2.73%) GitHub Actions
12 98 (2.47%) OCI
13 88 (2.22%) Power Automate
14 85 (2.15%) AWS Lambda
15 83 (2.10%) Dynamics 365
16 75 (1.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 68 (1.72%) Amazon EKS
18 63 (1.59%) PowerApps
19 56 (1.41%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 100 (2.53%) Firewall
2 64 (1.62%) DNS
3 52 (1.31%) WAN
4 42 (1.06%) LAN
5 37 (0.93%) Network Security
6 30 (0.76%) Wi-Fi
7 29 (0.73%) DHCP
7 29 (0.73%) TCP/IP
8 27 (0.68%) BGP
9 26 (0.66%) OSPF
9 26 (0.66%) VPN
10 19 (0.48%) WLAN
11 18 (0.45%) SD-WAN
12 17 (0.43%) Wireless
13 16 (0.40%) VXLAN
14 15 (0.38%) BIG-IP
15 14 (0.35%) Ethernet VPN
15 14 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
16 13 (0.33%) NGFW
16 13 (0.33%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (3.94%) Power BI
2 107 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
3 97 (2.45%) PostgreSQL
4 94 (2.37%) Metadata
5 73 (1.84%) SQL Server
6 70 (1.77%) Relational Database
7 61 (1.54%) MongoDB
8 56 (1.41%) Oracle Database
9 53 (1.34%) Data Lake
10 52 (1.31%) Amazon RDS
11 42 (1.06%) NoSQL
12 33 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (0.76%) Amazon Redshift
14 29 (0.73%) Amazon Aurora
15 27 (0.68%) MySQL
16 26 (0.66%) Oracle Reports
16 26 (0.66%) Pentaho
17 25 (0.63%) DynamoDB
17 25 (0.63%) Tableau
18 19 (0.48%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 232 (5.86%) JIRA
2 188 (4.75%) Git
3 161 (4.07%) GitLab
4 126 (3.18%) Jenkins
5 46 (1.16%) Selenium
6 42 (1.06%) Cucumber
7 34 (0.86%) JUnit
8 31 (0.78%) Postman
9 28 (0.71%) Mockito
10 27 (0.68%) Cypress.io
10 27 (0.68%) SonarQube
11 25 (0.63%) Maven
12 19 (0.48%) WebDriver
13 18 (0.45%) JMeter
13 18 (0.45%) REST Assured
14 13 (0.33%) Gatling
14 13 (0.33%) MSI
15 11 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
16 9 (0.23%) CircleCI
17 8 (0.20%) Gradle
General
1 1,246 (31.46%) Social Skills
2 437 (11.04%) Finance
3 422 (10.66%) Analytical Skills
4 278 (7.02%) Military
5 221 (5.58%) Local Government
6 180 (4.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 152 (3.84%) Influencing Skills
8 116 (2.93%) Organisational Skills
9 113 (2.85%) Legal
10 90 (2.27%) Police
11 88 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
12 64 (1.62%) Law
13 52 (1.31%) Telecoms
14 42 (1.06%) Marketing
15 39 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
16 35 (0.88%) Banking
17 27 (0.68%) Retail
18 25 (0.63%) Billing
19 20 (0.51%) Manufacturing
20 19 (0.48%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 553 (13.96%) Architect
2 544 (13.74%) Senior
3 522 (13.18%) Developer
4 482 (12.17%) Lead
5 339 (8.56%) Analyst
6 184 (4.65%) Consultant
7 148 (3.74%) Designer
8 146 (3.69%) Data Engineer
9 136 (3.43%) Business Analyst
10 130 (3.28%) Data Architect
10 130 (3.28%) DevOps Engineer
11 118 (2.98%) Delivery Manager
12 116 (2.93%) Solutions Architect
13 111 (2.80%) Senior Developer
14 106 (2.68%) Technical Architect
15 93 (2.35%) User Researcher
16 88 (2.22%) Project Manager
17 87 (2.20%) Java Developer
17 87 (2.20%) Senior Manager
18 74 (1.87%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 354 (8.94%) Terraform
2 156 (3.94%) REST
3 101 (2.55%) RESTful
4 98 (2.47%) Spring
5 93 (2.35%) React
6 92 (2.32%) Node.js
7 87 (2.20%) Spring Boot
8 81 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
9 76 (1.92%) SOAP
10 72 (1.82%) HTML
11 69 (1.74%) Kafka
12 68 (1.72%) Web Services
13 65 (1.64%) CSS
14 64 (1.62%) Django
15 61 (1.54%) .NET
16 58 (1.46%) OAuth
17 55 (1.39%) JSON
18 48 (1.21%) OpenID
19 46 (1.16%) AngularJS
19 46 (1.16%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 237 (5.98%) Cloud Native
2 165 (4.17%) Product Ownership
3 160 (4.04%) Onboarding
4 134 (3.38%) NHS
5 133 (3.36%) Management Information System
6 105 (2.65%) Legacy Systems
7 75 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
8 52 (1.31%) Distributed Systems
9 46 (1.16%) Freedom of Information
10 44 (1.11%) Data Centre
11 42 (1.06%) CMDB
12 40 (1.01%) Data Structures
12 40 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
13 39 (0.98%) Analytical Mindset
14 34 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
14 34 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
15 33 (0.83%) AI Agents
16 32 (0.81%) Security Operations Centre
17 31 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
17 31 (0.78%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 125 (3.16%) Linux
1 125 (3.16%) Windows
2 47 (1.19%) Unix
3 39 (0.98%) Windows Server
4 22 (0.56%) Android
5 19 (0.48%) Apple iOS
6 17 (0.43%) Mac OS
6 17 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.38%) Windows 10
8 5 (0.13%) Amazon Linux
9 4 (0.10%) AIX
9 4 (0.10%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.076%) CentOS
10 3 (0.076%) Solaris
11 2 (0.051%) VMS
11 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2008
11 2 (0.051%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.025%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.025%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,281 (32.35%) Agile
2 904 (22.83%) Stakeholder Management
3 692 (17.47%) Continuous Improvement
4 689 (17.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 670 (16.92%) CI/CD
6 620 (15.66%) DevOps
7 495 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
8 477 (12.05%) Decision-Making
9 417 (10.53%) Analytics
10 375 (9.47%) AI
11 364 (9.19%) Roadmaps
12 362 (9.14%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 362 (9.14%) Migration
13 339 (8.56%) Infrastructure as Code
14 309 (7.80%) Data Modelling
15 303 (7.65%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
16 297 (7.50%) Technical Leadership
17 276 (6.97%) Mentoring
18 254 (6.41%) Containerisation
19 249 (6.29%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 451 (11.39%) Python
2 382 (9.65%) SQL
3 238 (6.01%) Java
4 225 (5.68%) JavaScript
5 119 (3.01%) TypeScript
6 106 (2.68%) PowerShell
7 87 (2.20%) C#
8 60 (1.52%) Bash
9 52 (1.31%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.16%) Bicep
11 41 (1.04%) Scala
12 27 (0.68%) Apex Code
13 26 (0.66%) R
14 25 (0.63%) Groovy
15 23 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 23 (0.58%) Kotlin
16 20 (0.51%) ABAP
17 19 (0.48%) Ruby
18 14 (0.35%) Go
18 14 (0.35%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 2,000 (50.51%) Security Cleared
2 1,646 (41.57%) SC Cleared
3 297 (7.50%) BPSS Clearance
4 235 (5.93%) DV Cleared
5 178 (4.49%) Degree
6 76 (1.92%) Microsoft Certification
7 64 (1.62%) AWS Certification
7 64 (1.62%) Azure Certification
8 48 (1.21%) CISSP
9 42 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
10 35 (0.88%) CISM
11 30 (0.76%) ISTQB
12 28 (0.71%) CCNP
13 24 (0.61%) PMI Certification
14 23 (0.58%) ITIL Certification
14 23 (0.58%) Master's Degree
15 21 (0.53%) Computer Science Degree
16 18 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 17 (0.43%) DBS Check
17 17 (0.43%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 321 (8.11%) Accessibility
2 244 (6.16%) Data Quality
3 230 (5.81%) QA
4 140 (3.54%) WCAG
5 137 (3.46%) GDPR
6 97 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 83 (2.10%) NCSC
8 78 (1.97%) NIST
9 77 (1.94%) PMO
10 36 (0.91%) GRC
11 30 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
12 28 (0.71%) SLA
13 20 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 12 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 12 (0.30%) PCI DSS
16 11 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
16 11 (0.28%) NIST 800
17 6 (0.15%) HL7
17 6 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 20000
System Software
1 288 (7.27%) Docker
2 134 (3.38%) Active Directory
3 33 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
4 16 (0.40%) VMware NSX
5 11 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
6 9 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
6 9 (0.23%) vSphere
7 6 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.13%) Postfix
9 4 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
10 2 (0.051%) Microsoft App-V
11 1 (0.025%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.025%) Ceph
11 1 (0.025%) Squid
11 1 (0.025%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 267 (6.74%) Kubernetes
2 96 (2.42%) Grafana
3 69 (1.74%) Ansible
4 65 (1.64%) Prometheus
5 39 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
6 38 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
7 22 (0.56%) Argo
8 20 (0.51%) SCCM
9 17 (0.43%) Kibana
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle RMAN
11 8 (0.20%) Data Guard
11 8 (0.20%) VxRail
12 6 (0.15%) Istio
12 6 (0.15%) Puppet
13 5 (0.13%) Consul
13 5 (0.13%) Packer
13 5 (0.13%) QRadar
13 5 (0.13%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (0.10%) Jamf Pro
Vendors
1 532 (13.43%) Microsoft
2 331 (8.36%) Oracle
3 151 (3.81%) ServiceNow
4 125 (3.16%) Google
5 116 (2.93%) SAP
6 96 (2.42%) Salesforce
7 84 (2.12%) Databricks
8 47 (1.19%) Cisco
9 39 (0.98%) VMware
10 38 (0.96%) Palo Alto
11 34 (0.86%) Splunk
12 30 (0.76%) Talend
13 28 (0.71%) Foundry
14 27 (0.68%) Dynatrace
15 26 (0.66%) Informatica
15 26 (0.66%) Workday
16 25 (0.63%) Palantir
17 23 (0.58%) CyberArk
18 20 (0.51%) F5
18 20 (0.51%) Red Hat