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

6 months to
22 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 3,757 2,298 3,394
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.02% 9.32% 9.00%
As % of the General category 17.44% 14.68% 15.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,662 1,533 2,258
10th Percentile £350 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £675 £718 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 196 81 155
10th Percentile £16.43 £15.25 £13.43
25th Percentile £17.69 £18.51 £15.39
Median hourly rate £22.18 £25.00 £21.73
Median % change year-on-year -11.27% +15.05% +8.65%
75th Percentile £25.38 £35.00 £56.56
90th Percentile £56.00 £62.24 £70.10
UK median hourly rate £22.08 £24.09 £21.00
% change year-on-year -8.36% +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 21,546 15,659 22,064
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 57.45% 63.48% 58.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,618 10,132 14,382
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 1,352 591 1,665
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £19.79 £15.17
Median hourly rate £25.15 £31.35 £26.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.76% +20.56% -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 £25.75
% change year-on-year -16.67% +16.50% -26.43%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 1,613 £523 -0.43% 355
North of England -2 655 £450 -5.26% 220
South East -1 467 £500 -7.83% 206
Midlands +6 409 £500 +5.26% 114
North West -1 328 £450 -10.00% 94
West Midlands 0 300 £500 +6.61% 85
South West -2 279 £525 -4.55% 79
Yorkshire -2 207 £500 +23.08% 73
North East 0 125 £450 +5.26% 53
East of England +26 117 £413 +17.86% 45
East Midlands +11 104 £500 +2.56% 29
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 (3.59%) Confluence
2 105 (2.79%) SharePoint
3 34 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 24 (0.64%) SAS
5 18 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (0.43%) Apache
7 15 (0.40%) CMS
8 14 (0.37%) Apache Spark
9 13 (0.35%) nginx
10 8 (0.21%) WebLogic
11 7 (0.19%) Skype for Business
12 6 (0.16%) ArcGIS
13 5 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
13 5 (0.13%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.11%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.11%) Camunda
14 4 (0.11%) Jupyter
14 4 (0.11%) Sitecore CMS
15 3 (0.080%) GeoServer
15 3 (0.080%) OpenStack
Applications
1 94 (2.50%) Microsoft Excel
1 94 (2.50%) Microsoft Office
2 34 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 29 (0.77%) Microsoft Project
4 20 (0.53%) MS Visio
5 15 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.24%) Trello
7 7 (0.19%) Sketch
8 6 (0.16%) Adobe XD
8 6 (0.16%) Chatbot
9 4 (0.11%) Adobe After Effects
10 3 (0.080%) InVision
11 2 (0.053%) Adobe Creative Suite
11 2 (0.053%) Adobe Illustrator
11 2 (0.053%) CPLEX
11 2 (0.053%) Photoshop
12 1 (0.027%) Adobe Premiere
12 1 (0.027%) OmniGraffle
12 1 (0.027%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.027%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 63 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
2 36 (0.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 20 (0.53%) 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
10 5 (0.13%) NEC Housing
10 5 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
10 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 5 (0.13%) SystmOne
11 4 (0.11%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 692 (18.42%) AWS
2 653 (17.38%) Azure
3 217 (5.78%) Power Platform
4 173 (4.60%) Serverless
5 167 (4.45%) Microsoft 365
6 160 (4.26%) GitHub
7 153 (4.07%) Azure DevOps
8 144 (3.83%) GCP
9 106 (2.82%) AWS Lambda
10 95 (2.53%) Entra ID
11 91 (2.42%) Amazon S3
12 90 (2.40%) GitHub Actions
13 70 (1.86%) AWS CloudFormation
14 68 (1.81%) Power Automate
15 67 (1.78%) Dynamics 365
16 63 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
17 60 (1.60%) Amazon EKS
17 60 (1.60%) PowerApps
18 58 (1.54%) SaaS
19 55 (1.46%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 92 (2.45%) Firewall
2 57 (1.52%) VPN
3 55 (1.46%) Network Security
4 52 (1.38%) WAN
5 50 (1.33%) DNS
6 44 (1.17%) LAN
7 40 (1.06%) Wireless
8 30 (0.80%) BGP
9 29 (0.77%) TCP/IP
10 26 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 23 (0.61%) OSPF
12 22 (0.59%) DHCP
13 20 (0.53%) SD-WAN
14 16 (0.43%) Internet
14 16 (0.43%) SSL
15 13 (0.35%) VLAN
16 12 (0.32%) MPLS
17 11 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
17 11 (0.29%) IPsec
18 10 (0.27%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (4.52%) Power BI
2 84 (2.24%) PostgreSQL
3 60 (1.60%) SQL Server
4 57 (1.52%) Metadata
5 54 (1.44%) MongoDB
6 49 (1.30%) Data Warehouse
7 47 (1.25%) NoSQL
8 41 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
8 41 (1.09%) Data Lake
9 35 (0.93%) Relational Database
10 34 (0.90%) Oracle Reports
11 29 (0.77%) Azure SQL Database
12 28 (0.75%) Tableau
13 25 (0.67%) Electronic Patient Records
14 22 (0.59%) DynamoDB
15 20 (0.53%) MySQL
15 20 (0.53%) Oracle Database
16 19 (0.51%) Redis
17 17 (0.45%) Delta Lake
18 16 (0.43%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 216 (5.75%) JIRA
2 178 (4.74%) Git
3 122 (3.25%) GitLab
4 121 (3.22%) Jenkins
5 45 (1.20%) Selenium
6 41 (1.09%) Postman
7 34 (0.90%) JUnit
8 29 (0.77%) Mockito
9 24 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 22 (0.59%) SonarQube
11 21 (0.56%) Cucumber
11 21 (0.56%) JMeter
12 14 (0.37%) Bitbucket
13 13 (0.35%) CircleCI
13 13 (0.35%) Maven
13 13 (0.35%) REST Assured
14 12 (0.32%) Mocha
15 11 (0.29%) Artifactory
16 10 (0.27%) Gradle
16 10 (0.27%) MSI
General
1 1,033 (27.50%) Social Skills
2 561 (14.93%) Finance
3 367 (9.77%) Analytical Skills
4 178 (4.74%) Telecoms
5 160 (4.26%) Military
6 158 (4.21%) Local Government
7 148 (3.94%) Marketing
8 146 (3.89%) Manufacturing
9 126 (3.35%) Electronics
10 85 (2.26%) Legal
11 78 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
12 72 (1.92%) Influencing Skills
13 69 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
14 55 (1.46%) Banking
15 54 (1.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 48 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
17 47 (1.25%) Police
18 41 (1.09%) Law
19 35 (0.93%) Billing
20 33 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 467 (12.43%) Architect
2 465 (12.38%) Developer
3 411 (10.94%) Senior
4 384 (10.22%) Analyst
5 313 (8.33%) Lead
6 187 (4.98%) Consultant
7 172 (4.58%) Business Analyst
8 146 (3.89%) Designer
9 120 (3.19%) DevOps Engineer
10 116 (3.09%) Project Manager
11 115 (3.06%) Solutions Architect
12 112 (2.98%) Data Engineer
13 107 (2.85%) Technical Architect
14 86 (2.29%) Java Developer
15 85 (2.26%) User Researcher
16 77 (2.05%) Senior Developer
17 76 (2.02%) Delivery Manager
18 67 (1.78%) Service Designer
19 61 (1.62%) Full-Stack Developer
20 57 (1.52%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 149 (3.97%) REST
2 127 (3.38%) Node.js
3 112 (2.98%) React
4 104 (2.77%) Spring
5 97 (2.58%) RESTful
6 91 (2.42%) Spring Boot
7 77 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
8 75 (2.00%) .NET
9 74 (1.97%) AngularJS
9 74 (1.97%) HTML
10 68 (1.81%) CSS
11 65 (1.73%) Web Services
12 58 (1.54%) SOAP
13 56 (1.49%) Kafka
14 51 (1.36%) JSON
15 36 (0.96%) Lightning Web Components
16 35 (0.93%) Middleware
16 35 (0.93%) XML
17 34 (0.90%) Playwright
18 26 (0.69%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 158 (4.21%) Cloud Native
2 133 (3.54%) Onboarding
3 128 (3.41%) Product Ownership
4 125 (3.33%) NHS
5 88 (2.34%) Data Centre
6 80 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
7 71 (1.89%) Management Information System
8 56 (1.49%) Public Cloud
9 40 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
10 39 (1.04%) Distributed Systems
11 36 (0.96%) Data Structures
12 35 (0.93%) Self-Motivation
13 34 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
14 32 (0.85%) Security Posture
15 28 (0.75%) CMDB
16 26 (0.69%) Replication
17 25 (0.67%) AI Agents
18 24 (0.64%) PKI
19 22 (0.59%) Analytical Mindset
20 19 (0.51%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 212 (5.64%) Windows
2 158 (4.21%) Linux
3 58 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 50 (1.33%) Android
5 44 (1.17%) Windows 10
6 43 (1.14%) Mac OS
7 38 (1.01%) Unix
8 24 (0.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 21 (0.56%) 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
1 954 (25.39%) Agile
2 523 (13.92%) DevOps
3 520 (13.84%) CI/CD
4 472 (12.56%) Problem-Solving
5 458 (12.19%) Stakeholder Management
6 417 (11.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 376 (10.01%) Migration
8 357 (9.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 339 (9.02%) Roadmaps
10 319 (8.49%) Business Intelligence
11 291 (7.75%) Analytics
12 273 (7.27%) Decision-Making
13 235 (6.25%) Test Automation
14 232 (6.18%) Containerisation
15 229 (6.10%) Infrastructure as Code
16 228 (6.07%) Data Modelling
17 227 (6.04%) Microservices
18 219 (5.83%) AI
19 216 (5.75%) User Research
19 216 (5.75%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 404 (10.75%) Python
2 344 (9.16%) SQL
3 263 (7.00%) Java
4 197 (5.24%) JavaScript
5 124 (3.30%) PowerShell
6 119 (3.17%) TypeScript
7 86 (2.29%) C#
8 64 (1.70%) Bash
9 45 (1.20%) Ruby
10 36 (0.96%) Apex Code
11 32 (0.85%) PL/SQL
12 24 (0.64%) Go
13 21 (0.56%) Kotlin
13 21 (0.56%) Shell Script
14 20 (0.53%) R
15 18 (0.48%) Bicep
16 14 (0.37%) PHP
17 12 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 12 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
18 11 (0.29%) Scala
Qualifications
1 2,199 (58.53%) Security Cleared
2 1,420 (37.80%) SC Cleared
3 191 (5.08%) DV Cleared
4 182 (4.84%) Degree
5 98 (2.61%) BPSS Clearance
6 52 (1.38%) Azure Certification
7 46 (1.22%) AWS Certification
8 44 (1.17%) CISSP
9 38 (1.01%) ITIL Certification
10 37 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
11 36 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
12 31 (0.83%) Cisco Certification
13 29 (0.77%) 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
16 16 (0.43%) CCNP
16 16 (0.43%) ISTQB
17 15 (0.40%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 198 (5.27%) Accessibility
2 155 (4.13%) QA
3 148 (3.94%) Data Quality
4 111 (2.95%) GDPR
5 84 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 74 (1.97%) WCAG
7 67 (1.78%) NIST
8 66 (1.76%) PMO
9 63 (1.68%) NCSC
10 42 (1.12%) SLA
11 29 (0.77%) GRC
12 21 (0.56%) COBIT
13 19 (0.51%) Actionable Recommendations
14 18 (0.48%) Cyber Essentials
15 15 (0.40%) HL7
15 15 (0.40%) JSP 440
15 15 (0.40%) PCI DSS
16 12 (0.32%) HIPAA
17 11 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 7 (0.19%) RMADS
System Software
1 252 (6.71%) Docker
2 135 (3.59%) Active Directory
3 62 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.56%) VMware NSX
5 19 (0.51%) VMware ESXi
6 17 (0.45%) 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 (0.053%) BitLocker
13 2 (0.053%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.053%) SRDF
13 2 (0.053%) Virtual Servers
14 1 (0.027%) etcd
14 1 (0.027%) GPFS
14 1 (0.027%) RHEV
Systems Management
1 296 (7.88%) Terraform
2 270 (7.19%) Kubernetes
3 69 (1.84%) Ansible
4 68 (1.81%) Grafana
5 48 (1.28%) Prometheus
6 42 (1.12%) Microsoft Intune
7 31 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
8 27 (0.72%) 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 9 (0.24%) Jamf Pro
12 9 (0.24%) Kibana
13 8 (0.21%) Consul
13 8 (0.21%) vRealize
14 7 (0.19%) Istio
14 7 (0.19%) Progress Chef
15 6 (0.16%) SCOM
Vendors
1 427 (11.37%) Microsoft
2 270 (7.19%) SAP
3 222 (5.91%) Oracle
4 129 (3.43%) Cisco
5 117 (3.11%) Salesforce
6 113 (3.01%) ServiceNow
7 99 (2.64%) VMware
8 75 (2.00%) Databricks
9 70 (1.86%) Google
10 53 (1.41%) Splunk
11 42 (1.12%) Aruba
12 37 (0.98%) Virgin Media
13 35 (0.93%) Dell
13 35 (0.93%) Red Hat
14 34 (0.90%) Apple
15 33 (0.88%) IBM
16 32 (0.85%) HP
17 31 (0.83%) Atlassian
18 30 (0.80%) Juniper
18 30 (0.80%) MuleSoft