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 30 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 24 18
Rank change year-on-year +3 -6 +10
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,654 1,031 1,523
As % of all contract jobs in London 9.35% 8.21% 8.54%
As % of the General category 15.43% 12.16% 13.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,249 758 1,070
10th Percentile £385 £388 £375
25th Percentile £448 £451 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £706 £750 £745
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 19 13
10th Percentile £17.47 £21.60 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.24 £22.14 £15.50
Median hourly rate £37.00 £37.50 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year -1.33% +106.84% -20.17%
75th Percentile £50.00 £56.25 £26.24
90th Percentile £74.05 £72.25 £67.10
England median hourly rate £22.64 £22.39 £22.12
% change year-on-year +1.12% +1.22% +10.58%

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 10,716 8,479 11,281
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 60.56% 67.56% 63.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,976 5,730 8,058
10th Percentile £343 £340 £336
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £668 £713 £700
90th Percentile £788 £825 £813
England median daily rate £501 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.67% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 141 245
10th Percentile £18.32 £15.84 £16.00
25th Percentile £21.93 £22.90 £18.25
Median hourly rate £35.00 £34.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.45% +21.05% -10.94%
75th Percentile £50.00 £52.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £72.00 £65.00 £65.45
England median hourly rate £30.38 £28.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +8.50% -6.67% -11.53%

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 30 April 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 30 April 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 30 April 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 -1 153 £550 +4.76% 50
South London +2 69 £500 +1.52% 7
East London -7 8 £750 +27.66% 17
West London -31 6 £506 +26.56% 11
North London -3 4 £450 +11.25% 1
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 75 (4.53%) Confluence
2 36 (2.18%) SharePoint
3 12 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.67%) Apache Spark
4 11 (0.67%) nginx
5 10 (0.60%) Apache
6 9 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (0.48%) CMS
7 8 (0.48%) Palantir Foundry
8 6 (0.36%) Tomcat
9 5 (0.30%) Camunda
10 3 (0.18%) WebLogic
11 2 (0.12%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.12%) Drupal
11 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
11 2 (0.12%) SAS
12 1 (0.060%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.060%) Sitecore CMS
12 1 (0.060%) WebSphere
12 1 (0.060%) WordPress
Applications
1 48 (2.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 18 (1.09%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 15 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
5 5 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (0.30%) Trello
6 3 (0.18%) Adobe After Effects
6 3 (0.18%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.18%) Sketch
7 2 (0.12%) InVision
8 1 (0.060%) Adobe Creative Suite
8 1 (0.060%) Chatbot
8 1 (0.060%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 28 (1.69%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 13 (0.79%) Oracle ERP
4 8 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
5 6 (0.36%) iTrent
5 6 (0.36%) SAP Payroll
5 6 (0.36%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
7 3 (0.18%) Exchequer
8 2 (0.12%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 2 (0.12%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.12%) Oracle Payroll
8 2 (0.12%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
8 2 (0.12%) SAP HCM
8 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.060%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.060%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.060%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 1 (0.060%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 367 (22.19%) AWS
2 308 (18.62%) Azure
3 103 (6.23%) Power Platform
4 87 (5.26%) Serverless
5 67 (4.05%) GitHub
6 66 (3.99%) GCP
7 62 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
8 53 (3.20%) Amazon S3
8 53 (3.20%) AWS Lambda
8 53 (3.20%) Microsoft 365
9 44 (2.66%) AWS CloudFormation
10 40 (2.42%) GitHub Actions
11 39 (2.36%) Dynamics 365
12 38 (2.30%) Entra ID
13 37 (2.24%) Amazon EKS
14 35 (2.12%) Amazon EC2
15 34 (2.06%) OCI
15 34 (2.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 33 (2.00%) SaaS
17 32 (1.93%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.75%) Firewall
2 27 (1.63%) Network Security
3 21 (1.27%) DNS
4 14 (0.85%) VPN
5 13 (0.79%) WAN
5 13 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
6 12 (0.73%) LAN
7 8 (0.48%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.42%) DKIM
8 7 (0.42%) Internet
8 7 (0.42%) NGFW
8 7 (0.42%) Wireless
9 6 (0.36%) BGP
9 6 (0.36%) OSPF
10 5 (0.30%) DMARC
10 5 (0.30%) Reverse Proxy
10 5 (0.30%) SD-WAN
10 5 (0.30%) WLAN
11 4 (0.24%) HTTP
11 4 (0.24%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (4.59%) Power BI
2 33 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
3 28 (1.69%) Data Warehouse
4 26 (1.57%) Metadata
5 25 (1.51%) SQL Server
6 24 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
7 21 (1.27%) Data Lake
8 20 (1.21%) MongoDB
9 17 (1.03%) NoSQL
10 15 (0.91%) Tableau
11 14 (0.85%) Delta Lake
12 13 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
13 12 (0.73%) Amazon Athena
14 11 (0.67%) Azure SQL Database
15 10 (0.60%) DynamoDB
16 9 (0.54%) Data Hub
16 9 (0.54%) Oracle Reports
17 8 (0.48%) Amazon QuickSight
17 8 (0.48%) Relational Database
18 7 (0.42%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 103 (6.23%) JIRA
2 98 (5.93%) Git
3 53 (3.20%) GitLab
4 50 (3.02%) Jenkins
5 21 (1.27%) Selenium
6 20 (1.21%) Postman
7 14 (0.85%) JUnit
8 12 (0.73%) Mockito
9 10 (0.60%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.48%) CircleCI
10 8 (0.48%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.42%) Artifactory
11 7 (0.42%) Snyk
12 6 (0.36%) JMeter
13 5 (0.30%) Gradle
13 5 (0.30%) Liquibase
13 5 (0.30%) Maven
14 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
14 4 (0.24%) Cucumber
14 4 (0.24%) MLflow
General
1 403 (24.37%) Social Skills
2 219 (13.24%) Finance
3 144 (8.71%) Analytical Skills
4 78 (4.72%) Local Government
5 49 (2.96%) Military
6 48 (2.90%) Telecoms
7 46 (2.78%) Influencing Skills
8 44 (2.66%) Marketing
9 33 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
10 32 (1.93%) Legal
11 31 (1.87%) Banking
12 28 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 28 (1.69%) Organisational Skills
13 27 (1.63%) Manufacturing
13 27 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.45%) Law
14 24 (1.45%) Police
15 21 (1.27%) Electronics
16 18 (1.09%) Retail
17 11 (0.67%) Billing
Job Titles
1 240 (14.51%) Developer
2 226 (13.66%) Architect
3 174 (10.52%) Senior
4 151 (9.13%) Lead
5 141 (8.52%) Analyst
6 91 (5.50%) Designer
7 78 (4.72%) Business Analyst
8 66 (3.99%) DevOps Engineer
9 56 (3.39%) Consultant
9 56 (3.39%) User Researcher
10 52 (3.14%) Data Engineer
11 51 (3.08%) Project Manager
12 48 (2.90%) Solutions Architect
12 48 (2.90%) Technical Architect
13 44 (2.66%) Delivery Manager
14 41 (2.48%) Senior Developer
15 39 (2.36%) Azure Engineer
15 39 (2.36%) Salesforce Developer
16 38 (2.30%) Service Designer
17 35 (2.12%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (3.45%) REST
2 49 (2.96%) RESTful
3 48 (2.90%) React
4 46 (2.78%) Node.js
5 42 (2.54%) Spring
6 38 (2.30%) Oracle Fusion
7 36 (2.18%) Lightning Web Components
7 36 (2.18%) Spring Boot
7 36 (2.18%) Web Services
8 35 (2.12%) .NET
9 34 (2.06%) HTML
10 32 (1.93%) AngularJS
11 26 (1.57%) Kafka
11 26 (1.57%) SOAP
12 22 (1.33%) CSS
13 19 (1.15%) JSON
14 16 (0.97%) Middleware
14 16 (0.97%) PySpark
15 14 (0.85%) XML
16 13 (0.79%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 110 (6.65%) Cloud Native
2 62 (3.75%) Onboarding
3 52 (3.14%) Legacy Systems
4 39 (2.36%) Product Ownership
5 35 (2.12%) NHS
6 32 (1.93%) Data Centre
7 24 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
7 24 (1.45%) Management Information System
8 21 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
9 18 (1.09%) Public Cloud
9 18 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
10 15 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
11 13 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (0.79%) Data Structures
12 12 (0.73%) AI Agents
12 12 (0.73%) Security Posture
13 10 (0.60%) CMDB
13 10 (0.60%) Enterprise Cloud
14 9 (0.54%) Data Protection Act
14 9 (0.54%) Freedom of Information
Operating Systems
1 54 (3.26%) Linux
2 47 (2.84%) Windows
3 14 (0.85%) Windows Server
4 11 (0.67%) Android
5 9 (0.54%) Windows 10
6 7 (0.42%) Apple iOS
6 7 (0.42%) VMS
7 6 (0.36%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.30%) Solaris
8 5 (0.30%) Unix
8 5 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
8 5 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
9 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.12%) Amazon Linux
11 1 (0.060%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 414 (25.03%) Agile
2 259 (15.66%) CI/CD
3 249 (15.05%) DevOps
4 216 (13.06%) Stakeholder Management
5 183 (11.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 155 (9.37%) Continuous Improvement
6 155 (9.37%) Migration
7 151 (9.13%) Decision-Making
8 150 (9.07%) Roadmaps
9 146 (8.83%) Problem-Solving
10 135 (8.16%) AI
10 135 (8.16%) Infrastructure as Code
11 131 (7.92%) Containerisation
12 124 (7.50%) Analytics
13 121 (7.32%) User Research
14 115 (6.95%) Data Modelling
15 106 (6.41%) Test Automation
16 104 (6.29%) Digital Transformation Programme
17 103 (6.23%) Business Intelligence
18 101 (6.11%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 199 (12.03%) Python
2 137 (8.28%) SQL
3 110 (6.65%) Java
4 82 (4.96%) JavaScript
5 53 (3.20%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.42%) C#
6 40 (2.42%) Ruby
7 37 (2.24%) PowerShell
8 36 (2.18%) Apex Code
9 26 (1.57%) Bash
10 17 (1.03%) PL/SQL
11 13 (0.79%) Bicep
12 12 (0.73%) R
13 11 (0.67%) Kotlin
14 10 (0.60%) Go
15 9 (0.54%) Shell Script
16 8 (0.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 5 (0.30%) C
17 5 (0.30%) T-SQL
18 4 (0.24%) Scala
Qualifications
1 930 (56.23%) Security Cleared
2 703 (42.50%) SC Cleared
3 66 (3.99%) DV Cleared
4 55 (3.33%) Degree
5 50 (3.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (1.63%) Azure Certification
7 24 (1.45%) CISSP
8 22 (1.33%) AWS Certification
9 16 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
10 15 (0.91%) CISM
11 13 (0.79%) PMP
12 12 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
13 11 (0.67%) APMP
14 10 (0.60%) CIMA
15 9 (0.54%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 9 (0.54%) ACCA
15 9 (0.54%) CTC Cleared
16 8 (0.48%) PMI Certification
17 7 (0.42%) ISTQB
17 7 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (6.65%) Accessibility
2 72 (4.35%) Data Quality
3 68 (4.11%) QA
4 46 (2.78%) WCAG
5 45 (2.72%) GDPR
6 39 (2.36%) PMO
7 37 (2.24%) NCSC
8 30 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 15 (0.91%) NIST
10 12 (0.73%) SLA
11 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
11 11 (0.67%) GRC
12 10 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
13 9 (0.54%) PCI DSS
14 8 (0.48%) Government Security Classifications
15 5 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 5 (0.30%) NIST 800
16 4 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
16 4 (0.24%) IFRS
17 3 (0.18%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 127 (7.68%) Docker
2 33 (2.00%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
6 5 (0.30%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
7 3 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.12%) Postfix
8 2 (0.12%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.12%) vSphere
9 1 (0.060%) FreeRADIUS
9 1 (0.060%) IAG
9 1 (0.060%) NLBS
9 1 (0.060%) Sendmail
9 1 (0.060%) Squid
9 1 (0.060%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 155 (9.37%) Terraform
2 135 (8.16%) Kubernetes
3 32 (1.93%) Grafana
4 29 (1.75%) Ansible
4 29 (1.75%) Prometheus
5 11 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
6 6 (0.36%) Consul
6 6 (0.36%) Kibana
6 6 (0.36%) Puppet
6 6 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
7 5 (0.30%) Argo
7 5 (0.30%) Packer
8 3 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (0.18%) Salt
8 3 (0.18%) SCCM
8 3 (0.18%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Clustering
9 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.12%) vRealize
Vendors
1 172 (10.40%) Microsoft
2 93 (5.62%) Oracle
3 91 (5.50%) Salesforce
4 58 (3.51%) SAP
5 50 (3.02%) Databricks
6 44 (2.66%) ServiceNow
7 35 (2.12%) Google
8 21 (1.27%) Cisco
9 20 (1.21%) VMware
10 19 (1.15%) Foundry
10 19 (1.15%) IBM
11 18 (1.09%) MuleSoft
12 16 (0.97%) Atlassian
13 13 (0.79%) Virgin Media
14 12 (0.73%) OpenAI
14 12 (0.73%) Red Hat
15 11 (0.67%) Splunk
16 10 (0.60%) Fortinet
16 10 (0.60%) Palo Alto
17 9 (0.54%) ForgeRock