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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 15
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 3,701 2,294 3,391
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.06% 9.27% 8.95%
As % of the General category 17.46% 14.66% 15.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,618 1,515 2,263
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £419 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.44% -0.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 191 80 149
10th Percentile £16.36 £15.23 £13.73
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.43 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.00 £24.59 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -10.53% +13.16% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.38 £34.60 £55.11
90th Percentile £46.25 £62.49 £68.90
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% +14.29% +5.00%

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 21,201 15,643 22,211
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.65% 63.23% 58.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,382 10,110 14,532
10th Percentile £300 £300 £269
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,328 575 1,663
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.00 £13.01
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.99 £15.35
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.78 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.78% +18.38% -23.53%
75th Percentile £58.94 £61.50 £50.00
90th Percentile £77.33 £76.25 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £24.19 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -19.37% +15.38% -24.64%

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 16 March 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 16 March 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 16 March 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 1,580 £525 - 301
North of England -3 662 £450 -5.26% 210
South East -1 456 £500 -7.62% 242
Midlands +3 395 £500 +5.26% 102
North West +2 330 £450 -10.00% 83
West Midlands +1 291 £500 +6.61% 67
South West -1 273 £525 -4.55% 92
Yorkshire 0 208 £500 +11.11% 73
North East 0 129 £450 +3.75% 54
East of England +26 118 £425 +21.43% 42
East Midlands +14 101 £500 - 34
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
1 135 (3.65%) Confluence
2 101 (2.73%) SharePoint
3 32 (0.86%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.65%) SAS
5 20 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.41%) Apache
7 14 (0.38%) Apache Spark
8 13 (0.35%) nginx
9 12 (0.32%) CMS
10 8 (0.22%) WebLogic
11 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.11%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.11%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 3 (0.081%) GeoServer
14 3 (0.081%) OpenStack
14 3 (0.081%) Smallworld
Applications
1 97 (2.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 93 (2.51%) Microsoft Office
3 34 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 27 (0.73%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 15 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
7 9 (0.24%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.14%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.081%) InVision
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
14 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
14 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 68 (1.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 35 (0.95%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.30%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
8 7 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
8 7 (0.19%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
10 5 (0.14%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 690 (18.64%) AWS
2 631 (17.05%) Azure
3 216 (5.84%) Power Platform
4 171 (4.62%) Serverless
5 164 (4.43%) GitHub
6 158 (4.27%) Microsoft 365
7 147 (3.97%) GCP
8 139 (3.76%) Azure DevOps
9 107 (2.89%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.51%) GitHub Actions
11 92 (2.49%) Entra ID
12 90 (2.43%) Amazon S3
13 66 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
14 65 (1.76%) Power Automate
15 63 (1.70%) Dynamics 365
16 61 (1.65%) Amazon EC2
16 61 (1.65%) Amazon EKS
17 59 (1.59%) PowerApps
18 56 (1.51%) SaaS
19 55 (1.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.49%) Firewall
2 57 (1.54%) VPN
3 53 (1.43%) Network Security
4 51 (1.38%) WAN
5 49 (1.32%) DNS
6 42 (1.13%) LAN
7 40 (1.08%) Wireless
8 31 (0.84%) TCP/IP
9 29 (0.78%) BGP
10 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 22 (0.59%) OSPF
12 21 (0.57%) DHCP
13 19 (0.51%) SD-WAN
14 16 (0.43%) Internet
14 16 (0.43%) SSL
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
16 11 (0.30%) IPsec
16 11 (0.30%) VLAN
17 10 (0.27%) Cisco ASA
17 10 (0.27%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (4.59%) Power BI
2 80 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
3 62 (1.68%) SQL Server
4 55 (1.49%) MongoDB
5 53 (1.43%) Metadata
6 47 (1.27%) Data Warehouse
7 41 (1.11%) Data Lake
7 41 (1.11%) NoSQL
8 39 (1.05%) Amazon RDS
9 34 (0.92%) Oracle Reports
10 33 (0.89%) Relational Database
11 29 (0.78%) Azure SQL Database
12 25 (0.68%) Tableau
13 24 (0.65%) Electronic Patient Records
14 21 (0.57%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.54%) Oracle Database
16 19 (0.51%) MySQL
16 19 (0.51%) Redis
17 17 (0.46%) BigQuery
18 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 210 (5.67%) JIRA
2 169 (4.57%) Git
3 132 (3.57%) GitLab
4 126 (3.40%) Jenkins
5 48 (1.30%) Selenium
6 43 (1.16%) Postman
7 34 (0.92%) JUnit
8 29 (0.78%) Mockito
9 25 (0.68%) Cucumber
9 25 (0.68%) Cypress.io
10 22 (0.59%) SonarQube
11 21 (0.57%) JMeter
12 15 (0.41%) REST Assured
13 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.38%) CircleCI
13 14 (0.38%) Mocha
14 12 (0.32%) Maven
15 10 (0.27%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,017 (27.48%) Social Skills
2 554 (14.97%) Finance
3 355 (9.59%) Analytical Skills
4 180 (4.86%) Telecoms
5 160 (4.32%) Military
6 151 (4.08%) Marketing
7 150 (4.05%) Manufacturing
8 148 (4.00%) Local Government
9 129 (3.49%) Electronics
10 83 (2.24%) Legal
11 77 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
12 72 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
13 69 (1.86%) Organisational Skills
14 53 (1.43%) Banking
15 50 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 49 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
17 44 (1.19%) Police
18 39 (1.05%) Law
19 35 (0.95%) Billing
20 33 (0.89%) Retail
Job Titles
1 459 (12.40%) Developer
2 456 (12.32%) Architect
3 397 (10.73%) Senior
4 371 (10.02%) Analyst
5 317 (8.57%) Lead
6 189 (5.11%) Consultant
7 170 (4.59%) Business Analyst
8 141 (3.81%) Designer
9 125 (3.38%) DevOps Engineer
10 112 (3.03%) Data Engineer
11 111 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
12 110 (2.97%) Project Manager
13 102 (2.76%) Technical Architect
14 88 (2.38%) Java Developer
15 83 (2.24%) User Researcher
16 71 (1.92%) Senior Developer
17 70 (1.89%) Delivery Manager
18 65 (1.76%) Service Designer
19 61 (1.65%) AWS Engineer
20 57 (1.54%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 151 (4.08%) REST
2 128 (3.46%) Node.js
3 107 (2.89%) React
4 106 (2.86%) Spring
5 94 (2.54%) Spring Boot
6 91 (2.46%) RESTful
7 75 (2.03%) HTML
7 75 (2.03%) Oracle Fusion
8 74 (2.00%) .NET
9 71 (1.92%) AngularJS
10 70 (1.89%) CSS
11 68 (1.84%) Web Services
12 57 (1.54%) SOAP
13 56 (1.51%) Kafka
14 50 (1.35%) JSON
15 36 (0.97%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.95%) XML
17 34 (0.92%) Middleware
17 34 (0.92%) Playwright
18 27 (0.73%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 153 (4.13%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.70%) Onboarding
3 124 (3.35%) NHS
4 121 (3.27%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.40%) Data Centre
6 79 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
7 70 (1.89%) Management Information System
8 53 (1.43%) Public Cloud
9 38 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
10 36 (0.97%) Distributed Systems
11 35 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
12 33 (0.89%) Data Structures
12 33 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
13 31 (0.84%) Security Posture
14 29 (0.78%) CMDB
15 25 (0.68%) AI Agents
15 25 (0.68%) Replication
16 24 (0.65%) PKI
17 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
18 20 (0.54%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 209 (5.65%) Windows
2 159 (4.30%) Linux
3 55 (1.49%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.32%) Android
5 44 (1.19%) Mac OS
5 44 (1.19%) Windows 10
6 37 (1.00%) Unix
7 23 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 20 (0.54%) Apple iOS
9 11 (0.30%) Mac OS X
10 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
11 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
11 9 (0.24%) VMS
12 8 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.19%) Solaris
14 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
16 4 (0.11%) AIX
16 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
16 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 924 (24.97%) Agile
2 523 (14.13%) CI/CD
3 516 (13.94%) DevOps
4 459 (12.40%) Problem-Solving
5 451 (12.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 406 (10.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 366 (9.89%) Migration
8 339 (9.16%) Continuous Improvement
9 331 (8.94%) Roadmaps
10 324 (8.75%) Business Intelligence
11 281 (7.59%) Analytics
12 256 (6.92%) Decision-Making
13 234 (6.32%) Containerisation
14 233 (6.30%) Test Automation
15 230 (6.21%) Infrastructure as Code
16 227 (6.13%) Microservices
17 218 (5.89%) Data Modelling
18 211 (5.70%) AI
18 211 (5.70%) User Research
19 207 (5.59%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 399 (10.78%) Python
2 340 (9.19%) SQL
3 263 (7.11%) Java
4 193 (5.21%) JavaScript
5 118 (3.19%) TypeScript
6 116 (3.13%) PowerShell
7 84 (2.27%) C#
8 66 (1.78%) Bash
9 43 (1.16%) Ruby
10 35 (0.95%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.84%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.65%) Go
13 22 (0.59%) Shell Script
14 19 (0.51%) Kotlin
14 19 (0.51%) R
15 17 (0.46%) Bicep
16 14 (0.38%) PHP
17 13 (0.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
19 11 (0.30%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,169 (58.61%) Security Cleared
2 1,404 (37.94%) SC Cleared
3 181 (4.89%) DV Cleared
4 180 (4.86%) Degree
5 104 (2.81%) BPSS Clearance
6 50 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 46 (1.24%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.16%) CISSP
9 37 (1.00%) ITIL Certification
10 36 (0.97%) Computer Science Degree
11 35 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
12 30 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
13 28 (0.76%) PMP
14 25 (0.68%) CISM
15 24 (0.65%) PMI Certification
16 22 (0.59%) ISEB
17 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
18 15 (0.41%) CCNP
18 15 (0.41%) ISTQB
18 15 (0.41%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (5.24%) Accessibility
2 150 (4.05%) QA
3 145 (3.92%) Data Quality
4 110 (2.97%) GDPR
5 84 (2.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 69 (1.86%) WCAG
7 66 (1.78%) NIST
8 62 (1.68%) PMO
9 60 (1.62%) NCSC
10 42 (1.13%) SLA
11 27 (0.73%) GRC
12 19 (0.51%) COBIT
13 18 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.41%) JSP 440
16 14 (0.38%) HL7
17 13 (0.35%) PCI DSS
18 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
19 11 (0.30%) HMG Security Policy Framework
20 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 255 (6.89%) Docker
2 133 (3.59%) Active Directory
3 60 (1.62%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (0.51%) VMware NSX
5 18 (0.49%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
7 14 (0.38%) vSphere
8 11 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.16%) Postfix
10 5 (0.14%) NFS
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.081%) RACF
13 2 (0.054%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.054%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.054%) SRDF
13 2 (0.054%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.027%) etcd
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 300 (8.11%) Terraform
2 272 (7.35%) Kubernetes
3 75 (2.03%) Ansible
4 72 (1.95%) Grafana
5 50 (1.35%) Prometheus
6 38 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
7 31 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
8 24 (0.65%) SCCM
9 15 (0.41%) Argo
10 13 (0.35%) Puppet
11 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
11 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
12 10 (0.27%) Jamf Pro
12 10 (0.27%) Packer
13 9 (0.24%) Kibana
14 8 (0.22%) Consul
15 7 (0.19%) Istio
15 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 7 (0.19%) vRealize
16 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 421 (11.38%) Microsoft
2 278 (7.51%) SAP
3 215 (5.81%) Oracle
4 129 (3.49%) Cisco
5 115 (3.11%) Salesforce
6 112 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 95 (2.57%) VMware
8 71 (1.92%) Databricks
9 70 (1.89%) Google
10 57 (1.54%) Splunk
11 43 (1.16%) Virgin Media
12 42 (1.13%) Aruba
13 35 (0.95%) Dell
14 34 (0.92%) Apple
14 34 (0.92%) Red Hat
15 31 (0.84%) Atlassian
15 31 (0.84%) HP
16 30 (0.81%) Juniper
17 29 (0.78%) IBM
17 29 (0.78%) MuleSoft