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 23 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 25 23
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,711 1,000 1,251
As % of all contract jobs in London 8.48% 7.42% 7.71%
As % of the General category 13.92% 10.77% 12.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,298 723 869
10th Percentile £385 £363 £363
25th Percentile £457 £431 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% - -8.70%
75th Percentile £638 £613 £625
90th Percentile £725 £688 £700
England median daily rate £525 £513 £520
% change year-on-year +2.44% -1.44% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 21 10
10th Percentile £17.53 £19.79 £17.87
25th Percentile £33.15 £23.45 £18.60
Median hourly rate £47.00 £30.00 £28.97
Median % change year-on-year +56.67% +3.57% -33.96%
75th Percentile £66.49 £47.00 £66.50
90th Percentile £76.15 £68.75 £83.50
England median hourly rate £21.50 £21.70 £24.59
% change year-on-year -0.92% -11.75% +22.95%

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 12,288 9,283 10,111
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 60.91% 68.91% 62.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,836 6,173 7,024
10th Percentile £350 £325 £338
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £700
90th Percentile £788 £800 £825
England median daily rate £525 £508 £538
% change year-on-year +3.45% -5.58% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 186 139
10th Percentile £18.50 £15.84 £18.10
25th Percentile £21.93 £24.66 £24.18
Median hourly rate £28.40 £30.75 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.64% -15.77% +9.71%
75th Percentile £43.75 £49.00 £52.75
90th Percentile £65.00 £63.50 £68.30
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%

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 23 August 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 23 August 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 23 August 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 +8 174 £550 +4.76% 71
South London +2 62 £525 +7.14% 8
West London -27 13 £500 +5.26% 79
East London +8 10 £750 +30.43% 20
North London -2 5 £400 -27.27% 2
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 76 (4.44%) Confluence
2 50 (2.92%) SharePoint
3 16 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 15 (0.88%) CMS
5 14 (0.82%) Apache Spark
6 13 (0.76%) Apache
7 11 (0.64%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.47%) nginx
9 7 (0.41%) SAS
10 6 (0.35%) WordPress
11 5 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
12 3 (0.18%) Camunda
12 3 (0.18%) Drupal
12 3 (0.18%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.12%) Mendix
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.058%) Anypoint
14 1 (0.058%) Headless CMS
14 1 (0.058%) Luigi
14 1 (0.058%) R Markdown
Applications
1 34 (1.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
4 7 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.18%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.18%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.18%) Sketch
6 3 (0.18%) Trello
7 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
8 1 (0.058%) Adobe After Effects
8 1 (0.058%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.058%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 21 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 17 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (0.99%) Oracle EBS
3 15 (0.88%) Oracle ERP
4 11 (0.64%) NetSuite
5 6 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 4 (0.23%) iTrent
6 4 (0.23%) SAP FI
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
7 3 (0.18%) PeopleSoft HCM
7 3 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
7 3 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.18%) SAP CO
7 3 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
7 3 (0.18%) SAP HR
8 2 (0.12%) SAP ERP
9 1 (0.058%) Changepoint
9 1 (0.058%) Loan IQ
9 1 (0.058%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.058%) Oracle Cash Management
Cloud Services
1 411 (24.02%) AWS
2 361 (21.10%) Azure
3 103 (6.02%) Power Platform
4 92 (5.38%) GCP
5 88 (5.14%) GitHub
6 77 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
7 74 (4.32%) Serverless
8 73 (4.27%) Amazon S3
9 67 (3.92%) Microsoft 365
10 66 (3.86%) Entra ID
11 62 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
12 49 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
13 44 (2.57%) SaaS
14 39 (2.28%) Amazon EKS
15 37 (2.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 35 (2.05%) Amazon EC2
17 34 (1.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 31 (1.81%) AWS CloudFormation
19 30 (1.75%) PowerApps
20 29 (1.69%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 46 (2.69%) Firewall
2 31 (1.81%) DNS
3 29 (1.69%) Network Security
4 13 (0.76%) LAN
4 13 (0.76%) VPN
4 13 (0.76%) WAN
5 9 (0.53%) NGFW
5 9 (0.53%) TCP/IP
6 8 (0.47%) DHCP
7 7 (0.41%) Cisco IPT
7 7 (0.41%) DKIM
8 6 (0.35%) DMARC
8 6 (0.35%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.29%) Reverse Proxy
10 4 (0.23%) HTTPS
10 4 (0.23%) Intranet
10 4 (0.23%) Wireless
11 3 (0.18%) HTTP
11 3 (0.18%) Kerberos
11 3 (0.18%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (3.80%) Power BI
2 59 (3.45%) PostgreSQL
3 38 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
4 32 (1.87%) Metadata
5 31 (1.81%) Amazon RDS
6 27 (1.58%) Data Lake
7 26 (1.52%) MongoDB
8 25 (1.46%) NoSQL
8 25 (1.46%) SQL Server
9 24 (1.40%) Amazon Redshift
10 20 (1.17%) MySQL
11 19 (1.11%) Amazon Athena
11 19 (1.11%) Amazon Aurora
12 16 (0.94%) Delta Lake
13 14 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
13 14 (0.82%) Relational Database
13 14 (0.82%) Tableau
14 12 (0.70%) Redis
15 10 (0.58%) Oracle Database
16 9 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 105 (6.14%) Git
1 105 (6.14%) JIRA
2 71 (4.15%) Jenkins
3 64 (3.74%) GitLab
4 12 (0.70%) SonarQube
5 11 (0.64%) JUnit
5 11 (0.64%) Mockito
6 10 (0.58%) CircleCI
7 9 (0.53%) Cypress.io
7 9 (0.53%) Maven
7 9 (0.53%) Selenium
8 6 (0.35%) JMeter
8 6 (0.35%) Postman
8 6 (0.35%) Snyk
9 5 (0.29%) Artifactory
9 5 (0.29%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.29%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.18%) DbUnit
10 3 (0.18%) Gradle
10 3 (0.18%) VTune
General
1 500 (29.22%) Social Skills
2 184 (10.75%) Finance
3 150 (8.77%) Analytical Skills
4 105 (6.14%) Local Government
5 85 (4.97%) Military
6 67 (3.92%) Influencing Skills
7 45 (2.63%) Legal
8 41 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 40 (2.34%) Organisational Skills
10 36 (2.10%) Police
11 33 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
12 28 (1.64%) Law
13 24 (1.40%) Marketing
13 24 (1.40%) Telecoms
14 21 (1.23%) Banking
15 14 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
16 9 (0.53%) Manufacturing
16 9 (0.53%) Publishing
16 9 (0.53%) Retail
17 8 (0.47%) Billing
Job Titles
1 295 (17.24%) Architect
2 230 (13.44%) Developer
3 221 (12.92%) Lead
4 191 (11.16%) Senior
5 111 (6.49%) Analyst
6 74 (4.32%) Delivery Manager
7 69 (4.03%) DevOps Engineer
8 68 (3.97%) Designer
9 66 (3.86%) Solutions Architect
10 60 (3.51%) Technical Architect
11 54 (3.16%) User Researcher
12 51 (2.98%) Data Engineer
13 50 (2.92%) Business Analyst
13 50 (2.92%) Data Architect
14 49 (2.86%) Consultant
15 42 (2.45%) Software Engineer
16 41 (2.40%) Java Developer
16 41 (2.40%) Project Manager
17 39 (2.28%) AWS Engineer
18 38 (2.22%) AWS Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 175 (10.23%) Terraform
2 76 (4.44%) REST
3 55 (3.21%) React
4 48 (2.81%) Django
5 47 (2.75%) RESTful
5 47 (2.75%) Spring
6 41 (2.40%) Node.js
7 39 (2.28%) Spring Boot
8 37 (2.16%) Kafka
9 35 (2.05%) Oracle Fusion
10 34 (1.99%) HTML
11 33 (1.93%) Lightning Web Components
12 32 (1.87%) .NET
12 32 (1.87%) SOAP
13 30 (1.75%) Web Services
14 27 (1.58%) AngularJS
14 27 (1.58%) PySpark
15 23 (1.34%) CSS
16 22 (1.29%) JSON
17 17 (0.99%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 117 (6.84%) Cloud Native
2 78 (4.56%) Onboarding
3 62 (3.62%) NHS
4 57 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
5 55 (3.21%) Product Ownership
6 37 (2.16%) Distributed Systems
7 34 (1.99%) Management Information System
8 28 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
9 24 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
10 20 (1.17%) Data Structures
11 18 (1.05%) Low-Code
12 17 (0.99%) Data Centre
13 16 (0.94%) AI Agents
13 16 (0.94%) Replication
14 14 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
15 13 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
15 13 (0.76%) Virtual Team
16 12 (0.70%) Enterprise Cloud
16 12 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
17 11 (0.64%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 46 (2.69%) Linux
2 39 (2.28%) Windows
3 11 (0.64%) Android
3 11 (0.64%) Windows 10
3 11 (0.64%) Windows Server
4 8 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 7 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (0.35%) Mac OS
7 5 (0.29%) Amazon Linux
7 5 (0.29%) Unix
8 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.12%) Solaris
9 2 (0.12%) VMS
9 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
9 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.058%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 542 (31.68%) Agile
2 343 (20.05%) Stakeholder Management
3 314 (18.35%) CI/CD
4 310 (18.12%) DevOps
5 289 (16.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 281 (16.42%) Continuous Improvement
7 198 (11.57%) Decision-Making
8 188 (10.99%) AI
9 180 (10.52%) Infrastructure as Code
10 175 (10.23%) Problem-Solving
11 165 (9.64%) Migration
12 161 (9.41%) Roadmaps
13 160 (9.35%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 152 (8.88%) Analytics
14 152 (8.88%) Data Modelling
15 126 (7.36%) Containerisation
15 126 (7.36%) Technical Leadership
16 113 (6.60%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
17 108 (6.31%) User Research
18 103 (6.02%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 232 (13.56%) Python
2 164 (9.59%) SQL
3 119 (6.95%) Java
4 93 (5.44%) JavaScript
5 61 (3.57%) TypeScript
6 43 (2.51%) PowerShell
7 36 (2.10%) C#
8 31 (1.81%) Apex Code
8 31 (1.81%) Bash
9 26 (1.52%) Bicep
10 23 (1.34%) Ruby
11 21 (1.23%) Groovy
12 19 (1.11%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.76%) R
14 12 (0.70%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 8 (0.47%) Scala
17 7 (0.41%) Shell Script
18 6 (0.35%) Search Processing Language
19 5 (0.29%) Perl
Qualifications
1 964 (56.34%) Security Cleared
2 843 (49.27%) SC Cleared
3 88 (5.14%) DV Cleared
4 81 (4.73%) BPSS Clearance
5 43 (2.51%) AWS Certification
6 42 (2.45%) Degree
7 35 (2.05%) Azure Certification
8 30 (1.75%) Microsoft Certification
9 27 (1.58%) CISSP
10 18 (1.05%) Cisco Certification
11 16 (0.94%) CISM
12 12 (0.70%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 11 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
14 10 (0.58%) CCNP
14 10 (0.58%) Master's Degree
15 9 (0.53%) APMG
15 9 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
16 7 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 7 (0.41%) PMI Certification
16 7 (0.41%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 128 (7.48%) Accessibility
2 95 (5.55%) Data Quality
3 73 (4.27%) QA
4 54 (3.16%) GDPR
5 53 (3.10%) WCAG
6 47 (2.75%) PMO
7 40 (2.34%) NCSC
8 30 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 25 (1.46%) NIST
10 20 (1.17%) Cyber Essentials
11 13 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 12 (0.70%) SLA
13 11 (0.64%) GRC
13 11 (0.64%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 11 (0.64%) PCI DSS
14 8 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
14 8 (0.47%) Government Security Classifications
15 5 (0.29%) NIST 800
16 4 (0.23%) PERC
16 4 (0.23%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 135 (7.89%) Docker
2 43 (2.51%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.18%) Postfix
6 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.058%) Ceph
7 1 (0.058%) FreeRADIUS
7 1 (0.058%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.058%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.058%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.058%) Squid
7 1 (0.058%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 134 (7.83%) Kubernetes
2 41 (2.40%) Grafana
3 32 (1.87%) Prometheus
4 29 (1.69%) Ansible
5 21 (1.23%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (0.58%) Kibana
7 9 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.47%) Argo
9 7 (0.41%) SCCM
10 6 (0.35%) Puppet
11 5 (0.29%) Istio
12 3 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
12 3 (0.18%) Salt
13 2 (0.12%) AirWatch
13 2 (0.12%) Consul
13 2 (0.12%) Docker Swarm
13 2 (0.12%) Karpenter
13 2 (0.12%) Kustomize
14 1 (0.058%) Suricata
14 1 (0.058%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 224 (13.09%) Microsoft
2 114 (6.66%) Oracle
3 92 (5.38%) Salesforce
4 59 (3.45%) Google
5 55 (3.21%) Databricks
5 55 (3.21%) ServiceNow
6 39 (2.28%) SAP
7 20 (1.17%) Foundry
8 18 (1.05%) Cisco
8 18 (1.05%) Palantir
9 14 (0.82%) IBM
9 14 (0.82%) Palo Alto
10 11 (0.64%) Informatica
10 11 (0.64%) MuleSoft
11 10 (0.58%) OpenAI
12 9 (0.53%) Atlassian
13 8 (0.47%) Juniper
13 8 (0.47%) Splunk
13 8 (0.47%) VMware
14 7 (0.41%) Fortinet