Public Sector Contract Job Trends in London

Public Sector
England > London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Sector in contract job vacancies in London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Sector over the 6 months leading up to 10 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 20 18
Rank change year-on-year -4 -2 +17
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,375 1,227 1,590
As % of all contract jobs in London 9.17% 9.12% 8.57%
As % of the General category 14.24% 13.97% 13.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,002 768 1,101
10th Percentile £375 £350 £388
25th Percentile £431 £437 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.71% -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £612 £638 £650
90th Percentile £688 £764 £743
England median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 16 12
10th Percentile - £21.00 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £22.20 £15.86
Median hourly rate £20.60 £33.75 £19.75
Median % change year-on-year -38.97% +70.89% -3.28%
75th Percentile £41.25 £42.45 £35.06
90th Percentile £54.00 £65.00 £77.03
England median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.63%

All General Skills
London

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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 9,654 8,784 11,782
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 64.36% 65.27% 63.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,299 5,528 8,437
10th Percentile £350 £325 £335
25th Percentile £425 £450 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.96% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £668 £700 £688
90th Percentile £775 £825 £800
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 161 107 257
10th Percentile £17.50 £21.50 £16.00
25th Percentile £20.18 £26.13 £18.78
Median hourly rate £27.50 £38.11 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.84% +33.72% -
75th Percentile £47.50 £55.50 £49.08
90th Percentile £72.50 £78.54 £73.69
England median hourly rate £22.85 £30.31 £25.25
% change year-on-year -24.60% +20.02% -6.48%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Public Sector relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Public Sector job vacancy trend in London

Public Sector
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Public Sector.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Sector in London over the 6 months to 10 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in London

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Public Sector.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Public Sector in London over the 6 months to 10 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Public Sector in London

Public Sector
Contract Job Locations in London

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 London region over the 6 months to 10 February 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
Central London -3 146 £550 +5.52% 52
South London +3 46 £500 -2.44% 12
North London -2 5 £650 +154.90% 1
East London -2 5 £638 +12.83% 16
West London -28 4 £600 +116.22% 17
Public Sector
England

Public Sector
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 53 (3.85%) Confluence
2 36 (2.62%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.95%) Apache Airflow
4 12 (0.87%) nginx
5 9 (0.65%) Apache
6 7 (0.51%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.29%) CMS
7 4 (0.29%) SAS
8 3 (0.22%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.15%) Camunda
10 1 (0.073%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.073%) Appian
10 1 (0.073%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.073%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.073%) Moodle
10 1 (0.073%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.073%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.073%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 41 (2.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 16 (1.16%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.44%) MS Visio
6 5 (0.36%) Adobe XD
6 5 (0.36%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 4 (0.29%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.29%) Sketch
7 4 (0.29%) Trello
8 3 (0.22%) InVision
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
10 1 (0.073%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.073%) OmniGraffle
10 1 (0.073%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.073%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.073%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.073%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 20 (1.45%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (1.16%) Oracle ERP
3 14 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
4 9 (0.65%) SAP Payroll
5 6 (0.44%) iTrent
6 5 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
7 4 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
7 4 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.22%) Exchequer
8 3 (0.22%) Oracle Cash Management
8 3 (0.22%) SAP HCM
8 3 (0.22%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 2 (0.15%) Loan IQ
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 2 (0.15%) SAP GRC
9 2 (0.15%) SAP HR
9 2 (0.15%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 269 (19.56%) AWS
2 265 (19.27%) Azure
3 93 (6.76%) Power Platform
4 75 (5.45%) Serverless
5 63 (4.58%) GitHub
6 58 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
7 50 (3.64%) Microsoft 365
8 44 (3.20%) GCP
9 43 (3.13%) AWS Lambda
10 37 (2.69%) GitHub Actions
10 37 (2.69%) OCI
11 36 (2.62%) Power Automate
12 35 (2.55%) Amazon S3
12 35 (2.55%) Dynamics 365
13 31 (2.25%) Amazon ECS
13 31 (2.25%) AWS CloudFormation
14 27 (1.96%) PowerApps
15 25 (1.82%) Amazon EKS
15 25 (1.82%) Entra ID
16 23 (1.67%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.96%) Firewall
2 24 (1.75%) Network Security
3 21 (1.53%) DNS
4 17 (1.24%) WAN
5 15 (1.09%) VPN
5 15 (1.09%) Wireless
6 13 (0.95%) LAN
6 13 (0.95%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.80%) TCP/IP
8 10 (0.73%) BGP
8 10 (0.73%) OSPF
9 7 (0.51%) SD-WAN
10 6 (0.44%) HTTP
10 6 (0.44%) Internet
10 6 (0.44%) SMTP
11 5 (0.36%) FTP
11 5 (0.36%) IMAP
11 5 (0.36%) OpenLDAP
11 5 (0.36%) SSH
11 5 (0.36%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (4.80%) Power BI
2 39 (2.84%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (1.75%) Metadata
4 23 (1.67%) Data Lake
5 19 (1.38%) SQL Server
6 16 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
6 16 (1.16%) Data Warehouse
7 15 (1.09%) MongoDB
8 14 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
8 14 (1.02%) NoSQL
9 12 (0.87%) Relational Database
10 9 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
10 9 (0.65%) Data Hub
10 9 (0.65%) Oracle Database
10 9 (0.65%) Power Query
11 8 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
11 8 (0.58%) DynamoDB
12 7 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
13 6 (0.44%) BigQuery
Development Applications
1 80 (5.82%) JIRA
2 68 (4.95%) Git
3 37 (2.69%) GitLab
4 34 (2.47%) Jenkins
5 29 (2.11%) Postman
6 24 (1.75%) Selenium
7 7 (0.51%) JUnit
8 6 (0.44%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.44%) MLflow
9 5 (0.36%) Gradle
9 5 (0.36%) JMeter
9 5 (0.36%) Vagrant
10 4 (0.29%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.29%) Liquibase
10 4 (0.29%) Mockito
11 3 (0.22%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.22%) Appium
11 3 (0.22%) Axure RP
11 3 (0.22%) Pa11y
11 3 (0.22%) REST Assured
General
1 393 (28.58%) Social Skills
2 225 (16.36%) Finance
3 114 (8.29%) Analytical Skills
4 69 (5.02%) Telecoms
5 63 (4.58%) Marketing
6 60 (4.36%) Local Government
7 59 (4.29%) Manufacturing
8 49 (3.56%) Electronics
9 38 (2.76%) Military
10 32 (2.33%) Legal
11 31 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
12 29 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
13 27 (1.96%) Presentation Skills
14 20 (1.45%) Banking
14 20 (1.45%) Retail
15 19 (1.38%) Organisational Skills
16 18 (1.31%) Law
17 15 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 14 (1.02%) Police
19 11 (0.80%) Billing
Job Titles
1 184 (13.38%) Developer
2 167 (12.15%) Architect
3 163 (11.85%) Senior
4 134 (9.75%) Analyst
5 115 (8.36%) Lead
6 82 (5.96%) Business Analyst
7 69 (5.02%) Designer
8 67 (4.87%) DevOps Engineer
9 62 (4.51%) Consultant
10 47 (3.42%) User Researcher
11 41 (2.98%) Project Manager
12 39 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
13 36 (2.62%) AWS Engineer
13 36 (2.62%) Service Designer
14 33 (2.40%) Data Engineer
14 33 (2.40%) Technical Architect
15 31 (2.25%) Azure Engineer
16 30 (2.18%) Senior Developer
17 27 (1.96%) Senior Analyst
18 25 (1.82%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 61 (4.44%) REST
2 39 (2.84%) Oracle Fusion
3 37 (2.69%) React
4 35 (2.55%) Node.js
4 35 (2.55%) RESTful
5 32 (2.33%) .NET
5 32 (2.33%) Web Services
6 30 (2.18%) JSON
7 27 (1.96%) AngularJS
7 27 (1.96%) Spring
8 26 (1.89%) HTML
8 26 (1.89%) SOAP
9 24 (1.75%) CSS
9 24 (1.75%) Kafka
9 24 (1.75%) Lightning Web Components
10 23 (1.67%) Spring Boot
11 19 (1.38%) XML
12 17 (1.24%) OAuth
13 12 (0.87%) LangChain
13 12 (0.87%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 70 (5.09%) Cloud Native
2 56 (4.07%) Onboarding
3 36 (2.62%) Legacy Systems
4 35 (2.55%) Product Ownership
5 33 (2.40%) Data Centre
6 23 (1.67%) AI Agents
7 22 (1.60%) NHS
8 18 (1.31%) Management Information System
9 16 (1.16%) Public Cloud
9 16 (1.16%) Security Posture
10 15 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.02%) Data Structures
12 13 (0.95%) Replication
13 12 (0.87%) Security Operations Centre
14 11 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
14 11 (0.80%) Hybrid Cloud
14 11 (0.80%) Self-Motivation
15 10 (0.73%) Data Protection Act
16 9 (0.65%) Cyber Threat
16 9 (0.65%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 51 (3.71%) Linux
1 51 (3.71%) Windows
2 18 (1.31%) Mac OS
3 16 (1.16%) Android
4 12 (0.87%) VMS
5 7 (0.51%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.44%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.44%) Unix
7 5 (0.36%) Amazon Linux
7 5 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.22%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.073%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 344 (25.02%) Agile
2 211 (15.35%) CI/CD
3 187 (13.60%) DevOps
4 176 (12.80%) Stakeholder Management
5 161 (11.71%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 150 (10.91%) Problem-Solving
7 123 (8.95%) AI
8 121 (8.80%) Business Intelligence
9 118 (8.58%) Roadmaps
10 112 (8.15%) Decision-Making
11 110 (8.00%) Migration
12 109 (7.93%) Continuous Improvement
13 101 (7.35%) User Research
14 99 (7.20%) Infrastructure as Code
15 97 (7.05%) Analytics
16 85 (6.18%) Containerisation
17 77 (5.60%) Test Automation
18 76 (5.53%) Data Modelling
18 76 (5.53%) Workshop Facilitation
19 75 (5.45%) Digital Transformation Programme
Programming Languages
1 156 (11.35%) Python
2 120 (8.73%) SQL
3 76 (5.53%) Java
4 65 (4.73%) JavaScript
5 41 (2.98%) C#
6 38 (2.76%) PowerShell
7 33 (2.40%) TypeScript
8 31 (2.25%) Ruby
9 23 (1.67%) Apex Code
10 22 (1.60%) Bash
11 12 (0.87%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.80%) Go
13 10 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 9 (0.65%) R
15 7 (0.51%) Bicep
15 7 (0.51%) C
15 7 (0.51%) Kotlin
16 5 (0.36%) Groovy
17 4 (0.29%) C++
17 4 (0.29%) JSX
Qualifications
1 806 (58.62%) Security Cleared
2 601 (43.71%) SC Cleared
3 66 (4.80%) Degree
4 45 (3.27%) DV Cleared
5 31 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (1.96%) Azure Certification
7 17 (1.24%) AWS Certification
8 15 (1.09%) CISSP
9 14 (1.02%) PMP
10 12 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
11 11 (0.80%) CISM
11 11 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
12 10 (0.73%) APMP
12 10 (0.73%) CIMA
12 10 (0.73%) OSCP
13 9 (0.65%) ACCA
13 9 (0.65%) ISTQB
13 9 (0.65%) PMI Certification
14 8 (0.58%) TOGAF Certification
15 7 (0.51%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (5.24%) Accessibility
2 51 (3.71%) QA
3 50 (3.64%) GDPR
4 45 (3.27%) Data Quality
5 35 (2.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 27 (1.96%) NIST
7 25 (1.82%) NCSC
8 23 (1.67%) PMO
9 17 (1.24%) WCAG
10 14 (1.02%) GRC
11 11 (0.80%) Actionable Recommendations
12 10 (0.73%) HIPAA
13 7 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
14 6 (0.44%) SLA
15 5 (0.36%) NIST 800
16 4 (0.29%) PCI DSS
17 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
17 3 (0.22%) IFRS
17 3 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
18 2 (0.15%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 95 (6.91%) Docker
2 27 (1.96%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.58%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
5 6 (0.44%) Squid
6 5 (0.36%) DFS Replication
6 5 (0.36%) Dovecot
6 5 (0.36%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.36%) Postfix
7 4 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.22%) vSphere
9 2 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.15%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.073%) IAG
10 1 (0.073%) NLBS
10 1 (0.073%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 123 (8.95%) Terraform
2 113 (8.22%) Kubernetes
3 24 (1.75%) Grafana
4 21 (1.53%) Prometheus
5 20 (1.45%) Ansible
6 9 (0.65%) Jamf Pro
7 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (0.51%) Argo
8 7 (0.51%) Packer
9 6 (0.44%) Nessus
9 6 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.36%) Consul
10 5 (0.36%) Proxmox
10 5 (0.36%) SCCM
11 4 (0.29%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.22%) vCenter Server
13 2 (0.15%) CSIRT
13 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Clustering
13 2 (0.15%) Progress Chef
13 2 (0.15%) Puppet
Vendors
1 152 (11.05%) Microsoft
2 89 (6.47%) SAP
3 81 (5.89%) Oracle
4 67 (4.87%) Salesforce
5 43 (3.13%) ServiceNow
6 33 (2.40%) Databricks
7 30 (2.18%) Cisco
8 21 (1.53%) Google
9 19 (1.38%) VMware
10 17 (1.24%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.24%) Splunk
10 17 (1.24%) Virgin Media
11 16 (1.16%) Apple
12 13 (0.95%) Palo Alto
13 12 (0.87%) Fortinet
14 11 (0.80%) Dell
15 10 (0.73%) HP
15 10 (0.73%) Red Hat
16 9 (0.65%) Juniper
17 8 (0.58%) Foundry