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 2 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 21 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 +21
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,322 1,236 1,609
As % of all contract jobs in London 9.02% 9.04% 8.63%
As % of the General category 13.95% 13.89% 13.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 967 769 1,113
10th Percentile £375 £350 £390
25th Percentile £434 £446 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £688 £769 £745
England median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -0.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 16 11
10th Percentile - £21.00 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.50 £22.20 £15.57
Median hourly rate £20.60 £33.75 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.97% +68.75% -2.06%
75th Percentile £42.69 £42.45 £43.89
90th Percentile £55.28 £65.00 £78.75
England median hourly rate £21.94 £25.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year -13.98% +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 9,476 8,899 11,872
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 64.63% 65.08% 63.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,170 5,592 8,509
10th Percentile £350 £327 £336
25th Percentile £425 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.61% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £668 £700 £694
90th Percentile £775 £825 £800
England median daily rate £500 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 157 112 257
10th Percentile £17.50 £20.88 £16.00
25th Percentile £20.82 £25.94 £18.78
Median hourly rate £27.50 £36.15 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.93% +26.84% -
75th Percentile £47.50 £53.75 £50.25
90th Percentile £74.50 £78.40 £73.11
England median hourly rate £22.50 £30.00 £25.75
% change year-on-year -25.00% +16.50% -0.96%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -8 148 £550 +4.76% 87
South London +3 46 £500 - 6
North London -2 5 £650 +154.90% 1
East London -3 5 £638 +12.83% 14
West London -32 4 £600 +60.00% 11
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 (4.01%) Confluence
2 36 (2.72%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.98%) nginx
4 12 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (0.68%) Apache
6 7 (0.53%) Apache Spark
6 7 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.30%) CMS
7 4 (0.30%) SAS
8 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.15%) Camunda
9 1 (0.076%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.076%) Appian
9 1 (0.076%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.076%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.076%) Moodle
9 1 (0.076%) Sitecore CMS
9 1 (0.076%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 43 (3.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 16 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.45%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.38%) Adobe XD
6 5 (0.38%) MS Visio
7 4 (0.30%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.30%) Sketch
7 4 (0.30%) Trello
8 3 (0.23%) InVision
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe After Effects
9 2 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
10 1 (0.076%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.076%) OmniGraffle
10 1 (0.076%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.076%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.076%) Siemens NX
10 1 (0.076%) UXPin
Business Applications
1 21 (1.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (1.13%) SAP S/4HANA
3 14 (1.06%) Oracle ERP
4 8 (0.61%) SAP Payroll
5 6 (0.45%) iTrent
6 5 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
7 4 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
7 4 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
7 4 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
7 4 (0.30%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
8 3 (0.23%) SAP HCM
9 2 (0.15%) Exchequer
9 2 (0.15%) Loan IQ
9 2 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
9 2 (0.15%) SAP Business One
9 2 (0.15%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.15%) SAP GRC
9 2 (0.15%) SAP HR
9 2 (0.15%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 263 (19.89%) AWS
1 263 (19.89%) Azure
2 98 (7.41%) Power Platform
3 70 (5.30%) Serverless
4 61 (4.61%) GitHub
5 57 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
6 56 (4.24%) Microsoft 365
7 46 (3.48%) GCP
8 40 (3.03%) Power Automate
9 39 (2.95%) AWS Lambda
10 38 (2.87%) OCI
11 36 (2.72%) Dynamics 365
11 36 (2.72%) GitHub Actions
12 32 (2.42%) Amazon S3
13 31 (2.34%) PowerApps
14 30 (2.27%) Amazon ECS
14 30 (2.27%) AWS CloudFormation
15 24 (1.82%) PaaS
16 23 (1.74%) Entra ID
16 23 (1.74%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 26 (1.97%) Firewall
2 24 (1.82%) Network Security
3 20 (1.51%) DNS
4 16 (1.21%) WAN
5 15 (1.13%) VPN
5 15 (1.13%) Wireless
6 13 (0.98%) Wi-Fi
7 12 (0.91%) LAN
8 10 (0.76%) BGP
8 10 (0.76%) OSPF
8 10 (0.76%) TCP/IP
9 7 (0.53%) HTTP
9 7 (0.53%) SMTP
10 6 (0.45%) FTP
10 6 (0.45%) IMAP
10 6 (0.45%) Internet
10 6 (0.45%) OpenLDAP
10 6 (0.45%) SD-WAN
10 6 (0.45%) SSH
11 5 (0.38%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (4.99%) Power BI
2 40 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
3 25 (1.89%) Metadata
4 22 (1.66%) Data Lake
5 19 (1.44%) SQL Server
6 17 (1.29%) Amazon RDS
7 16 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
8 14 (1.06%) Azure SQL Database
8 14 (1.06%) MongoDB
8 14 (1.06%) NoSQL
9 12 (0.91%) Relational Database
10 10 (0.76%) Power Query
11 9 (0.68%) Data Hub
11 9 (0.68%) Oracle Database
12 8 (0.61%) Amazon Athena
12 8 (0.61%) DynamoDB
13 7 (0.53%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (0.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 7 (0.53%) Tableau
14 6 (0.45%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 81 (6.13%) JIRA
2 66 (4.99%) Git
3 32 (2.42%) GitLab
4 30 (2.27%) Jenkins
5 27 (2.04%) Postman
6 22 (1.66%) Selenium
7 7 (0.53%) JUnit
8 6 (0.45%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.45%) Vagrant
9 5 (0.38%) Gradle
9 5 (0.38%) MLflow
10 4 (0.30%) Cucumber
10 4 (0.30%) JMeter
10 4 (0.30%) Liquibase
10 4 (0.30%) Mockito
11 3 (0.23%) Android Studio
11 3 (0.23%) Appium
11 3 (0.23%) Axure RP
11 3 (0.23%) Pa11y
11 3 (0.23%) REST Assured
General
1 388 (29.35%) Social Skills
2 218 (16.49%) Finance
3 114 (8.62%) Analytical Skills
4 70 (5.30%) Telecoms
5 64 (4.84%) Marketing
6 60 (4.54%) Manufacturing
7 58 (4.39%) Local Government
8 50 (3.78%) Electronics
9 38 (2.87%) Military
10 32 (2.42%) Legal
11 30 (2.27%) Documentation Skills
12 29 (2.19%) Influencing Skills
13 27 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
14 20 (1.51%) Retail
15 19 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
16 18 (1.36%) Banking
16 18 (1.36%) Law
17 15 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
18 13 (0.98%) Police
19 11 (0.83%) Billing
Job Titles
1 180 (13.62%) Developer
2 160 (12.10%) Architect
3 155 (11.72%) Senior
4 127 (9.61%) Analyst
5 116 (8.77%) Lead
6 77 (5.82%) Business Analyst
7 65 (4.92%) Consultant
8 62 (4.69%) Designer
9 61 (4.61%) DevOps Engineer
10 41 (3.10%) Project Manager
11 40 (3.03%) User Researcher
12 39 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
13 37 (2.80%) AWS Engineer
14 34 (2.57%) Data Engineer
15 33 (2.50%) Service Designer
16 31 (2.34%) Azure Engineer
16 31 (2.34%) Technical Architect
17 29 (2.19%) Senior Developer
18 26 (1.97%) Senior Analyst
19 25 (1.89%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (4.69%) REST
2 40 (3.03%) Oracle Fusion
3 36 (2.72%) React
4 35 (2.65%) RESTful
5 33 (2.50%) Node.js
6 32 (2.42%) .NET
6 32 (2.42%) Web Services
7 29 (2.19%) JSON
8 27 (2.04%) AngularJS
8 27 (2.04%) Spring
9 25 (1.89%) HTML
9 25 (1.89%) SOAP
10 23 (1.74%) CSS
10 23 (1.74%) Lightning Web Components
10 23 (1.74%) Spring Boot
11 22 (1.66%) Kafka
12 19 (1.44%) XML
13 16 (1.21%) OAuth
14 13 (0.98%) LangChain
15 12 (0.91%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 63 (4.77%) Cloud Native
2 55 (4.16%) Onboarding
3 38 (2.87%) Legacy Systems
4 32 (2.42%) Product Ownership
5 31 (2.34%) Data Centre
6 25 (1.89%) AI Agents
7 22 (1.66%) NHS
8 18 (1.36%) Management Information System
9 16 (1.21%) Public Cloud
10 15 (1.13%) Security Posture
11 14 (1.06%) Data Structures
11 14 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
11 14 (1.06%) Replication
12 13 (0.98%) Virtual Team
13 12 (0.91%) Security Operations Centre
14 10 (0.76%) Data Protection Act
14 10 (0.76%) Distributed Systems
14 10 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
15 9 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
15 9 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 50 (3.78%) Linux
2 48 (3.63%) Windows
3 17 (1.29%) Mac OS
4 14 (1.06%) Android
5 12 (0.91%) VMS
6 6 (0.45%) Amazon Linux
6 6 (0.45%) Ubuntu
6 6 (0.45%) Unix
6 6 (0.45%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.38%) Apple iOS
8 3 (0.23%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.076%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.076%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 328 (24.81%) Agile
2 199 (15.05%) CI/CD
3 177 (13.39%) DevOps
4 173 (13.09%) Stakeholder Management
5 161 (12.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 144 (10.89%) Problem-Solving
7 122 (9.23%) AI
7 122 (9.23%) Business Intelligence
8 111 (8.40%) Roadmaps
9 107 (8.09%) Migration
10 106 (8.02%) Continuous Improvement
11 100 (7.56%) Decision-Making
12 93 (7.03%) Infrastructure as Code
13 89 (6.73%) Analytics
13 89 (6.73%) User Research
14 80 (6.05%) Containerisation
15 77 (5.82%) Test Automation
16 74 (5.60%) Workshop Facilitation
17 72 (5.45%) Project Management
18 71 (5.37%) Digital Transformation Programme
Programming Languages
1 149 (11.27%) Python
2 121 (9.15%) SQL
3 75 (5.67%) Java
4 64 (4.84%) JavaScript
5 41 (3.10%) C#
5 41 (3.10%) PowerShell
6 33 (2.50%) TypeScript
7 31 (2.34%) Ruby
8 21 (1.59%) Apex Code
9 20 (1.51%) Bash
10 12 (0.91%) PL/SQL
11 11 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 8 (0.61%) Bicep
12 8 (0.61%) Go
12 8 (0.61%) R
13 7 (0.53%) C
14 6 (0.45%) Groovy
14 6 (0.45%) Kotlin
15 4 (0.30%) C++
15 4 (0.30%) JSX
Qualifications
1 777 (58.77%) Security Cleared
2 579 (43.80%) SC Cleared
3 65 (4.92%) Degree
4 45 (3.40%) DV Cleared
5 28 (2.12%) Azure Certification
6 27 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
7 18 (1.36%) AWS Certification
8 16 (1.21%) CISSP
9 14 (1.06%) PMP
10 12 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
11 11 (0.83%) CISM
11 11 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
12 10 (0.76%) APMP
12 10 (0.76%) OSCP
13 9 (0.68%) CIMA
13 9 (0.68%) PMI Certification
14 8 (0.61%) ACCA
14 8 (0.61%) ISTQB
14 8 (0.61%) TOGAF Certification
15 7 (0.53%) CREST Certified
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (4.69%) Accessibility
2 52 (3.93%) GDPR
3 51 (3.86%) QA
4 45 (3.40%) Data Quality
5 37 (2.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (2.12%) NIST
7 26 (1.97%) NCSC
8 24 (1.82%) PMO
9 14 (1.06%) GRC
9 14 (1.06%) WCAG
10 10 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
10 10 (0.76%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.53%) Cyber Essentials
12 5 (0.38%) NIST 800
12 5 (0.38%) SLA
13 4 (0.30%) PCI DSS
13 4 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 3 (0.23%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 3 (0.23%) IFRS
15 2 (0.15%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 92 (6.96%) Docker
2 25 (1.89%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.53%) Squid
3 7 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (0.45%) DFS Replication
4 6 (0.45%) Dovecot
4 6 (0.45%) Postfix
4 6 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.38%) Hyper-V
6 4 (0.30%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.15%) vSphere
8 1 (0.076%) IAG
8 1 (0.076%) NLBS
8 1 (0.076%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.076%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 114 (8.62%) Terraform
2 104 (7.87%) Kubernetes
3 21 (1.59%) Grafana
4 18 (1.36%) Prometheus
5 17 (1.29%) Ansible
6 9 (0.68%) Jamf Pro
7 7 (0.53%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (0.53%) Nessus
7 7 (0.53%) Packer
7 7 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (0.45%) Proxmox
9 5 (0.38%) Argo
9 5 (0.38%) Consul
10 4 (0.30%) SCCM
11 3 (0.23%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.15%) Fluentd
12 2 (0.15%) Progress Chef
12 2 (0.15%) Puppet
12 2 (0.15%) QRadar
12 2 (0.15%) vRealize
Vendors
1 154 (11.65%) Microsoft
2 89 (6.73%) SAP
3 81 (6.13%) Oracle
4 63 (4.77%) Salesforce
5 42 (3.18%) ServiceNow
6 30 (2.27%) Cisco
6 30 (2.27%) Databricks
7 19 (1.44%) Google
8 18 (1.36%) VMware
9 17 (1.29%) Virgin Media
10 16 (1.21%) Apple
10 16 (1.21%) MuleSoft
11 15 (1.13%) Splunk
12 13 (0.98%) Palo Alto
13 12 (0.91%) Fortinet
14 11 (0.83%) Dell
15 10 (0.76%) HP
16 9 (0.68%) CyberArk
16 9 (0.68%) Juniper
16 9 (0.68%) OpenAI