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

6 months to
24 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 3,731 2,271 3,390
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.97% 9.34% 8.99%
As % of the General category 17.38% 14.71% 15.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,641 1,523 2,251
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £624 £638
90th Percentile £675 £718 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 81 157
10th Percentile £16.39 £15.25 £13.58
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.08 £25.00 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -11.70% +15.05% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.38 £35.00 £58.00
90th Percentile £56.60 £62.24 £71.23
UK median hourly rate £22.00 £24.09 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.68% +14.71% +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 21,471 15,443 22,067
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.35% 63.50% 58.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,561 10,061 14,375
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
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 1,354 591 1,677
10th Percentile £14.38 £14.90 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.00 £15.17
Median hourly rate £25.15 £30.78 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.29% +18.38% -25.71%
75th Percentile £60.00 £60.00 £50.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £65.00
UK median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £26.00
% change year-on-year -16.67% +15.38% -25.71%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 1,602 £520 -0.95% 360
North of England -2 646 £450 -5.26% 213
South East -1 467 £500 -7.62% 197
Midlands +4 407 £500 +5.26% 118
North West -1 322 £450 -10.00% 87
West Midlands +1 298 £500 +6.61% 90
South West -3 277 £525 -4.55% 81
Yorkshire +2 206 £500 +23.08% 75
North East 0 123 £450 +5.88% 51
East of England +25 115 £400 +14.29% 35
East Midlands +11 104 £500 +2.56% 28
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 (3.62%) Confluence
2 103 (2.76%) SharePoint
3 33 (0.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.64%) SAS
5 17 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.43%) Apache
7 15 (0.40%) Apache Spark
7 15 (0.40%) CMS
8 13 (0.35%) nginx
9 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.13%) Skype for Business
11 5 (0.13%) Tomcat
12 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
12 4 (0.11%) Camunda
12 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
13 3 (0.080%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 3 (0.080%) GeoServer
13 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
Applications
1 93 (2.49%) Microsoft Office
2 91 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
3 34 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 29 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
5 20 (0.54%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
7 8 (0.21%) Trello
8 7 (0.19%) Sketch
9 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
10 5 (0.13%) Chatbot
11 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
12 3 (0.080%) InVision
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.054%) Adobe Illustrator
13 2 (0.054%) CPLEX
13 2 (0.054%) Photoshop
14 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
14 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
14 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
14 1 (0.027%) S-PLUS
Business Applications
1 63 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.54%) SAP PSCD
4 16 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
4 16 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
4 16 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
5 15 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
6 11 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
7 9 (0.24%) iTrent
8 7 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
9 6 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
9 6 (0.16%) SAP ERP
9 6 (0.16%) SAP FI
9 6 (0.16%) SAP HR
9 6 (0.16%) SystmOne
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 685 (18.36%) AWS
2 650 (17.42%) Azure
3 213 (5.71%) Power Platform
4 172 (4.61%) Serverless
5 167 (4.48%) Microsoft 365
6 159 (4.26%) GitHub
7 153 (4.10%) Azure DevOps
8 143 (3.83%) GCP
9 105 (2.81%) AWS Lambda
10 93 (2.49%) Entra ID
11 92 (2.47%) Amazon S3
12 89 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
13 69 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
14 66 (1.77%) Dynamics 365
14 66 (1.77%) Power Automate
15 64 (1.72%) Amazon EC2
16 60 (1.61%) Amazon EKS
17 59 (1.58%) PowerApps
18 58 (1.55%) SaaS
19 55 (1.47%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 93 (2.49%) Firewall
2 57 (1.53%) VPN
3 55 (1.47%) Network Security
4 52 (1.39%) WAN
5 48 (1.29%) DNS
6 44 (1.18%) LAN
7 40 (1.07%) Wireless
8 30 (0.80%) BGP
9 27 (0.72%) TCP/IP
10 26 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.62%) OSPF
12 20 (0.54%) DHCP
12 20 (0.54%) SD-WAN
13 16 (0.43%) Internet
13 16 (0.43%) SSL
14 13 (0.35%) VLAN
15 12 (0.32%) MPLS
16 11 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
16 11 (0.29%) IPsec
17 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (4.45%) Power BI
2 83 (2.22%) PostgreSQL
3 59 (1.58%) SQL Server
4 57 (1.53%) Metadata
5 53 (1.42%) MongoDB
6 49 (1.31%) Data Warehouse
7 46 (1.23%) NoSQL
8 42 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
9 41 (1.10%) Data Lake
10 35 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
11 30 (0.80%) Relational Database
12 28 (0.75%) Azure SQL Database
13 27 (0.72%) Tableau
14 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
15 22 (0.59%) DynamoDB
16 20 (0.54%) Oracle Database
17 19 (0.51%) MySQL
18 18 (0.48%) Redis
19 17 (0.46%) Delta Lake
20 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 216 (5.79%) JIRA
2 177 (4.74%) Git
3 121 (3.24%) GitLab
3 121 (3.24%) Jenkins
4 45 (1.21%) Selenium
5 41 (1.10%) Postman
6 34 (0.91%) JUnit
7 29 (0.78%) Mockito
8 24 (0.64%) Cypress.io
9 21 (0.56%) JMeter
9 21 (0.56%) SonarQube
10 20 (0.54%) Cucumber
11 14 (0.38%) Bitbucket
12 13 (0.35%) Maven
13 12 (0.32%) CircleCI
13 12 (0.32%) Mocha
13 12 (0.32%) REST Assured
14 11 (0.29%) Artifactory
15 10 (0.27%) MSI
16 9 (0.24%) Gradle
General
1 1,024 (27.45%) Social Skills
2 559 (14.98%) Finance
3 367 (9.84%) Analytical Skills
4 177 (4.74%) Telecoms
5 161 (4.32%) Military
6 159 (4.26%) Local Government
7 147 (3.94%) Marketing
8 145 (3.89%) Manufacturing
9 125 (3.35%) Electronics
10 85 (2.28%) Legal
11 78 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
12 73 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
13 69 (1.85%) Organisational Skills
14 56 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 55 (1.47%) Banking
16 48 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
17 47 (1.26%) Police
18 41 (1.10%) Law
19 35 (0.94%) Billing
20 33 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 466 (12.49%) Architect
2 459 (12.30%) Developer
3 412 (11.04%) Senior
4 383 (10.27%) Analyst
5 309 (8.28%) Lead
6 186 (4.99%) Consultant
7 171 (4.58%) Business Analyst
8 145 (3.89%) Designer
9 118 (3.16%) DevOps Engineer
10 115 (3.08%) Solutions Architect
11 114 (3.06%) Project Manager
12 111 (2.98%) Data Engineer
13 107 (2.87%) Technical Architect
14 85 (2.28%) Java Developer
14 85 (2.28%) User Researcher
15 78 (2.09%) Senior Developer
16 75 (2.01%) Delivery Manager
17 66 (1.77%) Service Designer
18 60 (1.61%) Full-Stack Developer
19 57 (1.53%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 147 (3.94%) REST
2 127 (3.40%) Node.js
3 111 (2.98%) React
4 101 (2.71%) Spring
5 93 (2.49%) RESTful
6 87 (2.33%) Spring Boot
7 77 (2.06%) Oracle Fusion
8 75 (2.01%) .NET
8 75 (2.01%) AngularJS
9 73 (1.96%) HTML
10 67 (1.80%) CSS
11 66 (1.77%) Web Services
12 58 (1.55%) SOAP
13 54 (1.45%) Kafka
14 51 (1.37%) JSON
15 36 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
15 36 (0.96%) Middleware
16 35 (0.94%) XML
17 34 (0.91%) Playwright
18 26 (0.70%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 157 (4.21%) Cloud Native
2 131 (3.51%) Onboarding
3 129 (3.46%) Product Ownership
4 125 (3.35%) NHS
5 88 (2.36%) Data Centre
6 80 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
7 70 (1.88%) Management Information System
8 56 (1.50%) Public Cloud
9 40 (1.07%) Distributed Systems
9 40 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
10 37 (0.99%) Data Structures
10 37 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
11 33 (0.88%) Hybrid Cloud
12 29 (0.78%) Security Posture
13 28 (0.75%) CMDB
14 26 (0.70%) Replication
15 23 (0.62%) PKI
16 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
17 19 (0.51%) AI Agents
17 19 (0.51%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 209 (5.60%) Windows
2 156 (4.18%) Linux
3 57 (1.53%) Windows Server
4 49 (1.31%) Android
5 44 (1.18%) Windows 10
6 42 (1.13%) Mac OS
7 38 (1.02%) Unix
8 24 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 20 (0.54%) Apple iOS
10 11 (0.29%) Mac OS X
11 10 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
12 9 (0.24%) Ubuntu
12 9 (0.24%) VMS
13 8 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
14 7 (0.19%) Solaris
15 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2003
17 4 (0.11%) AIX
17 4 (0.11%) Windows 7
17 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 952 (25.52%) Agile
2 519 (13.91%) CI/CD
3 518 (13.88%) DevOps
4 469 (12.57%) Problem-Solving
5 454 (12.17%) Stakeholder Management
6 415 (11.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 374 (10.02%) Migration
8 355 (9.51%) Continuous Improvement
9 338 (9.06%) Roadmaps
10 314 (8.42%) Business Intelligence
11 290 (7.77%) Analytics
12 273 (7.32%) Decision-Making
13 235 (6.30%) Test Automation
14 232 (6.22%) Containerisation
15 228 (6.11%) Data Modelling
15 228 (6.11%) Infrastructure as Code
16 224 (6.00%) Microservices
17 216 (5.79%) Workshop Facilitation
18 213 (5.71%) AI
18 213 (5.71%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 405 (10.85%) Python
2 340 (9.11%) SQL
3 259 (6.94%) Java
4 196 (5.25%) JavaScript
5 121 (3.24%) PowerShell
6 118 (3.16%) TypeScript
7 86 (2.31%) C#
8 62 (1.66%) Bash
9 46 (1.23%) Ruby
10 36 (0.96%) Apex Code
11 31 (0.83%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
13 21 (0.56%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.54%) Kotlin
14 20 (0.54%) R
15 18 (0.48%) Bicep
16 13 (0.35%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 11 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,185 (58.56%) Security Cleared
2 1,413 (37.87%) SC Cleared
3 189 (5.07%) DV Cleared
4 180 (4.82%) Degree
5 96 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 44 (1.18%) AWS Certification
8 43 (1.15%) CISSP
9 37 (0.99%) ITIL Certification
10 36 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
11 35 (0.94%) Microsoft Certification
12 30 (0.80%) Cisco Certification
13 29 (0.78%) PMP
14 25 (0.67%) CISM
14 25 (0.67%) PMI Certification
15 24 (0.64%) ISEB
16 16 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 15 (0.40%) CCNP
17 15 (0.40%) ISTQB
18 14 (0.38%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 195 (5.23%) Accessibility
2 155 (4.15%) QA
3 148 (3.97%) Data Quality
4 112 (3.00%) GDPR
5 86 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 74 (1.98%) WCAG
7 67 (1.80%) NIST
8 65 (1.74%) NCSC
8 65 (1.74%) PMO
9 42 (1.13%) SLA
10 29 (0.78%) GRC
11 21 (0.56%) COBIT
12 20 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
13 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 17 (0.46%) PCI DSS
15 15 (0.40%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
16 11 (0.29%) HIPAA
16 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 9 (0.24%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 252 (6.75%) Docker
2 133 (3.56%) Active Directory
3 61 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.56%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.46%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (0.40%) vSphere
8 12 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
9 6 (0.16%) Postfix
10 5 (0.13%) NFS
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle RAC
12 3 (0.080%) 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
1 293 (7.85%) Terraform
2 269 (7.21%) Kubernetes
3 69 (1.85%) Ansible
4 66 (1.77%) Grafana
5 46 (1.23%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
7 30 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
8 26 (0.70%) SCCM
9 16 (0.43%) Argo
10 12 (0.32%) FortiGate
10 12 (0.32%) Puppet
10 12 (0.32%) vCenter Server
11 10 (0.27%) Packer
12 8 (0.21%) Consul
12 8 (0.21%) Jamf Pro
12 8 (0.21%) Kibana
12 8 (0.21%) vRealize
13 7 (0.19%) Istio
13 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
14 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 426 (11.42%) Microsoft
2 268 (7.18%) SAP
3 222 (5.95%) Oracle
4 128 (3.43%) Cisco
5 117 (3.14%) Salesforce
6 113 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 98 (2.63%) VMware
8 77 (2.06%) Databricks
9 72 (1.93%) Google
10 49 (1.31%) Splunk
11 42 (1.13%) Aruba
12 37 (0.99%) Virgin Media
13 35 (0.94%) Dell
14 34 (0.91%) Red Hat
15 33 (0.88%) Apple
15 33 (0.88%) IBM
16 31 (0.83%) Atlassian
16 31 (0.83%) HP
17 30 (0.80%) Juniper
17 30 (0.80%) MuleSoft