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

6 months to
22 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 2,930 2,801 3,591
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.58% 8.96% 9.08%
As % of the General category 15.07% 15.07% 15.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,035 1,683 2,550
10th Percentile £313 £300 £293
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -
75th Percentile £594 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £725 £730
UK median daily rate £500 £511 £525
% change year-on-year -2.20% -2.62% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 168 104 94
10th Percentile £15.48 £14.79 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.20 £17.25
Median hourly rate £21.30 £23.99 £21.91
Median % change year-on-year -11.21% +9.52% +15.29%
75th Percentile £25.15 £36.75 £58.87
90th Percentile £52.98 £62.56 £70.50
UK median hourly rate £21.00 £23.00 £21.31
% change year-on-year -8.70% +7.93% +12.16%

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 19,448 18,585 23,582
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 63.60% 59.44% 59.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,323 11,150 16,068
10th Percentile £275 £300 £294
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £630 £650 £671
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 1,280 708 1,034
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.04 £14.25
25th Percentile £16.94 £17.44 £17.25
Median hourly rate £24.48 £31.56 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.45% -2.89% +26.41%
75th Percentile £45.60 £59.96 £59.88
90th Percentile £72.00 £71.63 £70.60
UK median hourly rate £24.15 £28.00 £31.74
% change year-on-year -13.76% -11.77% +26.94%

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 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 22 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 22 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 -2 1,205 £513 -2.38% 532
North of England 0 546 £470 -1.05% 199
South West +1 331 £538 -6.52% 115
South East -7 314 £500 -9.09% 323
Midlands +2 287 £475 -5.00% 120
North West 0 278 £450 -6.25% 98
West Midlands +5 226 £475 -5.94% 81
Yorkshire +6 172 £515 +8.42% 59
North East +2 99 £450 +5.88% 43
East of England +3 80 £375 +7.14% 57
East Midlands +8 61 £415 -12.63% 36
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
1 111 (3.79%) Confluence
2 90 (3.07%) SharePoint
3 33 (1.13%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (0.89%) nginx
4 26 (0.89%) SAS
5 24 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
6 15 (0.51%) Apache
6 15 (0.51%) Skype for Business
7 12 (0.41%) CMS
8 11 (0.38%) Apache Spark
9 6 (0.20%) Anypoint
10 5 (0.17%) Documentum
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 5 (0.17%) SharePoint Server
10 5 (0.17%) WebLogic
11 4 (0.14%) ArcGIS
11 4 (0.14%) Exchange Server 2013
12 3 (0.10%) Exchange Server 2010
12 3 (0.10%) GeoServer
12 3 (0.10%) Jupyter
Applications
1 90 (3.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 85 (2.90%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 20 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
5 18 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
5 18 (0.61%) MS Visio
6 10 (0.34%) Trello
7 9 (0.31%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.20%) Adobe Illustrator
8 6 (0.20%) Photoshop
8 6 (0.20%) Sketch
9 5 (0.17%) Chatbot
9 5 (0.17%) InVision
10 4 (0.14%) OmniGraffle
10 4 (0.14%) UXPin
11 3 (0.10%) Adobe XD
12 2 (0.068%) Oracle Smart View
13 1 (0.034%) Adobe After Effects
13 1 (0.034%) Revit
13 1 (0.034%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 43 (1.47%) SAP S/4HANA
2 30 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
4 13 (0.44%) Oracle EBS
4 13 (0.44%) SAP BRIM
4 13 (0.44%) SAP Hybris
5 12 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
5 12 (0.41%) SAP ERP
6 9 (0.31%) SAP Payroll
7 8 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
7 8 (0.27%) Oracle Receivables
7 8 (0.27%) SAP HR
8 7 (0.24%) Oracle Payables
8 7 (0.24%) Remedy ITSM
9 6 (0.20%) Oracle Payroll
9 6 (0.20%) Primavera
10 5 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
10 5 (0.17%) Unit4 Business World
11 4 (0.14%) iTrent
11 4 (0.14%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 552 (18.84%) AWS
2 530 (18.09%) Azure
3 195 (6.66%) Power Platform
4 151 (5.15%) Microsoft 365
5 128 (4.37%) GCP
6 127 (4.33%) GitHub
7 121 (4.13%) Serverless
8 104 (3.55%) Azure DevOps
9 81 (2.76%) Amazon S3
10 74 (2.53%) AWS Lambda
11 68 (2.32%) SaaS
12 64 (2.18%) GitHub Actions
13 63 (2.15%) PowerApps
14 57 (1.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 57 (1.95%) Entra ID
15 56 (1.91%) Amazon EC2
16 54 (1.84%) AWS CloudFormation
17 53 (1.81%) Power Automate
18 51 (1.74%) Dynamics 365
19 43 (1.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 111 (3.79%) Firewall
2 81 (2.76%) DNS
3 60 (2.05%) VPN
4 47 (1.60%) WAN
5 43 (1.47%) Wireless
6 40 (1.37%) Network Security
7 38 (1.30%) LAN
8 32 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 30 (1.02%) BGP
10 29 (0.99%) DHCP
11 27 (0.92%) HTTP
12 24 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
13 23 (0.78%) SD-WAN
14 22 (0.75%) SSH
15 21 (0.72%) FTP
15 21 (0.72%) SMTP
16 19 (0.65%) Internet
16 19 (0.65%) OSPF
17 18 (0.61%) SSL
17 18 (0.61%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (4.54%) Power BI
2 86 (2.94%) PostgreSQL
3 47 (1.60%) MongoDB
4 41 (1.40%) Metadata
5 39 (1.33%) Amazon RDS
6 37 (1.26%) SQL Server
7 35 (1.19%) Relational Database
8 29 (0.99%) Data Lake
8 29 (0.99%) NoSQL
8 29 (0.99%) Oracle Database
9 27 (0.92%) MySQL
10 26 (0.89%) Data Warehouse
11 20 (0.68%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (0.65%) Redis
13 18 (0.61%) Oracle Reports
14 16 (0.55%) Amazon Aurora
14 16 (0.55%) BigQuery
14 16 (0.55%) Tableau
15 13 (0.44%) Electronic Patient Records
15 13 (0.44%) GIS
Development Applications
1 194 (6.62%) JIRA
2 160 (5.46%) Git
3 136 (4.64%) Jenkins
4 82 (2.80%) GitLab
5 35 (1.19%) Postman
6 33 (1.13%) Selenium
7 29 (0.99%) SonarQube
8 27 (0.92%) Cucumber
9 22 (0.75%) Mockito
10 21 (0.72%) Vagrant
11 20 (0.68%) JUnit
12 19 (0.65%) Cypress.io
13 18 (0.61%) REST Assured
14 13 (0.44%) Bitbucket
14 13 (0.44%) Burp Suite
14 13 (0.44%) Metasploit
15 11 (0.38%) CircleCI
15 11 (0.38%) Oracle Forms
16 8 (0.27%) Maven
16 8 (0.27%) MSI
General
1 862 (29.42%) Social Skills
2 489 (16.69%) Finance
3 260 (8.87%) Analytical Skills
4 239 (8.16%) Telecoms
5 201 (6.86%) Manufacturing
6 194 (6.62%) Marketing
7 183 (6.25%) Electronics
8 131 (4.47%) Military
9 126 (4.30%) Local Government
10 78 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
11 70 (2.39%) Legal
12 52 (1.77%) Influencing Skills
13 44 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
14 40 (1.37%) Law
14 40 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
15 38 (1.30%) Retail
16 35 (1.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 31 (1.06%) Police
18 28 (0.96%) Banking
19 21 (0.72%) Billing
Job Titles
1 351 (11.98%) Developer
2 327 (11.16%) Architect
3 311 (10.61%) Analyst
4 286 (9.76%) Senior
5 279 (9.52%) Lead
6 202 (6.89%) Consultant
7 128 (4.37%) Business Analyst
8 121 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
9 87 (2.97%) Project Manager
10 76 (2.59%) AWS Engineer
11 75 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
12 71 (2.42%) Technical Architect
13 68 (2.32%) Designer
14 67 (2.29%) Support Engineer
15 55 (1.88%) Java Developer
16 53 (1.81%) Senior Developer
17 52 (1.77%) Data Engineer
17 52 (1.77%) Network Engineer
18 50 (1.71%) IT Support
19 48 (1.64%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 111 (3.79%) REST
2 83 (2.83%) RESTful
3 81 (2.76%) React
4 74 (2.53%) .NET
5 72 (2.46%) Node.js
6 61 (2.08%) Oracle Fusion
6 61 (2.08%) Spring Boot
7 59 (2.01%) HTML
7 59 (2.01%) Spring
8 57 (1.95%) Kafka
9 55 (1.88%) JSON
10 53 (1.81%) CSS
10 53 (1.81%) SOAP
11 52 (1.77%) AngularJS
11 52 (1.77%) Web Services
12 37 (1.26%) XML
13 27 (0.92%) OAuth
14 22 (0.75%) LDAP
14 22 (0.75%) Playwright
15 20 (0.68%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 101 (3.45%) Onboarding
2 99 (3.38%) Cloud Native
3 95 (3.24%) NHS
4 79 (2.70%) Product Ownership
5 74 (2.53%) Data Centre
6 70 (2.39%) Management Information System
7 69 (2.35%) Legacy Systems
8 38 (1.30%) Replication
9 34 (1.16%) Public Cloud
10 33 (1.13%) PKI
11 30 (1.02%) Security Posture
12 27 (0.92%) CMDB
13 25 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
13 25 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
14 24 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
15 23 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
15 23 (0.78%) Data Structures
15 23 (0.78%) Driving Licence
16 22 (0.75%) AI Agents
17 21 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 244 (8.33%) Windows
2 157 (5.36%) Linux
3 50 (1.71%) Windows 10
4 48 (1.64%) Windows Server
5 46 (1.57%) Android
6 41 (1.40%) Mac OS
7 29 (0.99%) VMS
8 25 (0.85%) Unix
9 22 (0.75%) Amazon Linux
10 21 (0.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 20 (0.68%) Apple iOS
12 13 (0.44%) Ubuntu
13 10 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
14 8 (0.27%) Mac OS X
15 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
15 7 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
16 6 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
17 4 (0.14%) CentOS
18 3 (0.10%) Windows 7
18 3 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 735 (25.09%) Agile
2 425 (14.51%) DevOps
3 411 (14.03%) CI/CD
4 388 (13.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 385 (13.14%) Problem-Solving
6 341 (11.64%) Business Intelligence
7 290 (9.90%) Stakeholder Management
8 280 (9.56%) Migration
9 252 (8.60%) Continuous Improvement
10 222 (7.58%) Roadmaps
11 208 (7.10%) Programme Management
12 189 (6.45%) Infrastructure as Code
13 182 (6.21%) Digital Marketing
13 182 (6.21%) Microservices
14 178 (6.08%) ITIL
15 177 (6.04%) Analytics
16 168 (5.73%) Decision-Making
17 159 (5.43%) AI
18 158 (5.39%) Test Automation
19 151 (5.15%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 343 (11.71%) Python
2 257 (8.77%) SQL
3 237 (8.09%) Java
4 132 (4.51%) JavaScript
5 121 (4.13%) PowerShell
6 80 (2.73%) Bash
7 76 (2.59%) TypeScript
8 74 (2.53%) C#
9 30 (1.02%) Go
10 25 (0.85%) Groovy
10 25 (0.85%) PL/SQL
11 22 (0.75%) C++
11 22 (0.75%) Perl
12 19 (0.65%) Ruby
12 19 (0.65%) Shell Script
13 18 (0.61%) Apex Code
14 14 (0.48%) C
14 14 (0.48%) PHP
15 12 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 11 (0.38%) ABAP
Qualifications
1 1,785 (60.92%) Security Cleared
2 1,244 (42.46%) SC Cleared
3 173 (5.90%) DV Cleared
4 122 (4.16%) Degree
5 74 (2.53%) BPSS Clearance
6 54 (1.84%) CISSP
7 43 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
8 40 (1.37%) Azure Certification
9 39 (1.33%) ITIL Certification
10 38 (1.30%) AWS Certification
11 34 (1.16%) Cisco Certification
12 27 (0.92%) CISM
13 25 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
14 24 (0.82%) CCNP
15 21 (0.72%) ISTQB
15 21 (0.72%) OSCP
16 19 (0.65%) ISEB
17 18 (0.61%) CREST Certified
18 15 (0.51%) CCNA
19 14 (0.48%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 123 (4.20%) Accessibility
2 117 (3.99%) QA
3 89 (3.04%) GDPR
4 81 (2.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 78 (2.66%) Data Quality
6 70 (2.39%) NIST
7 58 (1.98%) NCSC
8 42 (1.43%) PMO
8 42 (1.43%) SLA
9 40 (1.37%) WCAG
10 24 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
11 19 (0.65%) GRC
12 18 (0.61%) JSP 440
13 17 (0.58%) COBIT
14 16 (0.55%) HIPAA
15 13 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 10 (0.34%) PCI DSS
18 9 (0.31%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 9 (0.31%) RMADS
System Software
1 209 (7.13%) Docker
2 127 (4.33%) Active Directory
3 61 (2.08%) VMware Infrastructure
4 21 (0.72%) DFS Replication
5 17 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
6 16 (0.55%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.55%) vSphere
7 13 (0.44%) Postfix
8 11 (0.38%) Virtual Desktop
8 11 (0.38%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.31%) Dovecot
9 9 (0.31%) Squid
10 6 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
11 5 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 5 (0.17%) UAG
12 4 (0.14%) Firmware
13 3 (0.10%) Brightmail
13 3 (0.10%) ISA Server
14 2 (0.068%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 274 (9.35%) Terraform
2 217 (7.41%) Kubernetes
3 78 (2.66%) Ansible
4 69 (2.35%) Grafana
5 56 (1.91%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.37%) SCCM
7 37 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 19 (0.65%) Packer
8 19 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.51%) vCenter Server
10 14 (0.48%) Nmap
11 12 (0.41%) Argo
11 12 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
11 12 (0.41%) Nessus
12 11 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 11 (0.38%) SCOM
13 9 (0.31%) Consul
13 9 (0.31%) Proxmox
14 7 (0.24%) vRealize
15 6 (0.20%) QRadar
Vendors
1 410 (13.99%) Microsoft
2 299 (10.20%) SAP
3 184 (6.28%) Oracle
4 147 (5.02%) Cisco
5 107 (3.65%) ServiceNow
6 86 (2.94%) VMware
7 61 (2.08%) Salesforce
8 57 (1.95%) Google
9 56 (1.91%) Splunk
10 50 (1.71%) Juniper
11 39 (1.33%) Aruba
12 38 (1.30%) HP
13 36 (1.23%) Apple
13 36 (1.23%) Dell
14 34 (1.16%) Palo Alto
15 32 (1.09%) Virgin Media
16 30 (1.02%) Databricks
16 30 (1.02%) SolarWinds
17 26 (0.89%) Fortinet
18 25 (0.85%) F5