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 16 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 26 18
Rank change year-on-year +4 -8 +9
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,646 954 1,490
As % of all contract jobs in London 9.14% 7.69% 8.53%
As % of the General category 15.32% 11.36% 13.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,242 694 1,054
10th Percentile £381 £400 £374
25th Percentile £450 £453 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.67%
75th Percentile £619 £613 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £743
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 18 14
10th Percentile £16.80 £21.40 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.65 £22.07 £15.66
Median hourly rate £37.00 £25.76 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year +43.62% +42.10% -27.48%
75th Percentile £50.00 £60.63 £25.73
90th Percentile £76.15 £74.00 £65.90
England median hourly rate £23.83 £22.90 £21.50
% change year-on-year +4.04% +6.51% +5.29%

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 10,745 8,399 11,028
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 59.68% 67.73% 63.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,966 5,644 7,869
10th Percentile £350 £343 £336
25th Percentile £425 £440 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £565 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.96% -1.74% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £713 £700
90th Percentile £788 £825 £825
England median daily rate £513 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 141 232
10th Percentile £18.75 £15.84 £15.55
25th Percentile £21.93 £22.90 £18.13
Median hourly rate £35.00 £34.00 £27.92
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% +21.78% -11.95%
75th Percentile £46.25 £51.18 £44.00
90th Percentile £67.30 £65.00 £65.00
England median hourly rate £30.75 £27.38 £30.16
% change year-on-year +12.33% -9.23% -7.20%

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 16 May 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 16 May 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 16 May 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 +1 154 £550 +4.76% 90
South London +1 66 £500 +1.01% 7
West London -26 10 £506 +26.56% 8
East London -9 8 £750 +27.66% 20
North London -2 3 £425 -15.00%
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 72 (4.37%) Confluence
2 35 (2.13%) SharePoint
3 12 (0.73%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.67%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.49%) CMS
5 8 (0.49%) Palantir Foundry
6 7 (0.43%) Apache
6 7 (0.43%) Tomcat
7 6 (0.36%) nginx
8 5 (0.30%) Camunda
9 3 (0.18%) WebLogic
10 2 (0.12%) Drupal
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) SAS
10 2 (0.12%) WordPress
11 1 (0.061%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.061%) Mule
11 1 (0.061%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.061%) WebSphere
Applications
1 46 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 15 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 14 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
5 5 (0.30%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.24%) Trello
7 3 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.12%) Adobe After Effects
8 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.12%) Sketch
9 1 (0.061%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 1 (0.061%) InVision
9 1 (0.061%) Siemens NX
Business Applications
1 24 (1.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 16 (0.97%) SAP S/4HANA
3 14 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.43%) iTrent
4 7 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
5 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 3 (0.18%) Exchequer
6 3 (0.18%) PeopleSoft HCM
6 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) Integrated Workplace Management System
7 2 (0.12%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle Financials
7 2 (0.12%) Oracle Payroll
7 2 (0.12%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.12%) SAP GRC
7 2 (0.12%) SAP HCM
7 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
8 1 (0.061%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 1 (0.061%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 357 (21.69%) AWS
2 289 (17.56%) Azure
3 100 (6.08%) Power Platform
4 75 (4.56%) Serverless
5 66 (4.01%) GitHub
6 65 (3.95%) GCP
7 57 (3.46%) Azure DevOps
7 57 (3.46%) Microsoft 365
8 56 (3.40%) Amazon S3
9 52 (3.16%) AWS Lambda
10 42 (2.55%) Amazon EKS
11 40 (2.43%) Amazon EC2
12 37 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
13 36 (2.19%) Entra ID
13 36 (2.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 35 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
15 34 (2.07%) AWS CloudFormation
16 32 (1.94%) OCI
17 31 (1.88%) SaaS
18 30 (1.82%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 29 (1.76%) Firewall
2 23 (1.40%) Network Security
3 18 (1.09%) DNS
4 12 (0.73%) LAN
4 12 (0.73%) WAN
5 10 (0.61%) VPN
5 10 (0.61%) Wi-Fi
6 9 (0.55%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.49%) DKIM
7 8 (0.49%) NGFW
8 6 (0.36%) DMARC
8 6 (0.36%) Wireless
9 5 (0.30%) BGP
9 5 (0.30%) OSPF
9 5 (0.30%) WLAN
10 4 (0.24%) Internet
10 4 (0.24%) Reverse Proxy
10 4 (0.24%) SD-WAN
10 4 (0.24%) SSL
11 3 (0.18%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.25%) Power BI
2 37 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
3 29 (1.76%) Data Warehouse
4 27 (1.64%) Amazon RDS
4 27 (1.64%) Metadata
5 23 (1.40%) SQL Server
6 21 (1.28%) Data Lake
6 21 (1.28%) MongoDB
7 16 (0.97%) NoSQL
8 15 (0.91%) Tableau
9 14 (0.85%) Delta Lake
10 12 (0.73%) Amazon Athena
10 12 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
11 10 (0.61%) DynamoDB
12 9 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.49%) Amazon QuickSight
13 8 (0.49%) GIS
13 8 (0.49%) Relational Database
14 7 (0.43%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (0.43%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 98 (5.95%) JIRA
2 89 (5.41%) Git
3 56 (3.40%) GitLab
4 50 (3.04%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.34%) Selenium
6 20 (1.22%) Postman
7 11 (0.67%) JUnit
8 10 (0.61%) Mockito
9 9 (0.55%) SonarQube
10 8 (0.49%) CircleCI
10 8 (0.49%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.43%) Artifactory
11 7 (0.43%) Snyk
12 6 (0.36%) JMeter
13 5 (0.30%) Gradle
14 4 (0.24%) Cucumber
14 4 (0.24%) Maven
14 4 (0.24%) MLflow
15 3 (0.18%) DbUnit
15 3 (0.18%) jMock
General
1 390 (23.69%) Social Skills
2 212 (12.88%) Finance
3 138 (8.38%) Analytical Skills
4 71 (4.31%) Local Government
5 57 (3.46%) Military
6 42 (2.55%) Telecoms
7 40 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
7 40 (2.43%) Marketing
8 36 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
9 34 (2.07%) Banking
10 32 (1.94%) Legal
11 29 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
12 27 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 27 (1.64%) Police
13 25 (1.52%) Law
14 24 (1.46%) Presentation Skills
15 17 (1.03%) Manufacturing
15 17 (1.03%) Retail
16 15 (0.91%) Electronics
17 12 (0.73%) Billing
Job Titles
1 242 (14.70%) Developer
2 228 (13.85%) Architect
3 175 (10.63%) Senior
4 158 (9.60%) Lead
5 138 (8.38%) Analyst
6 91 (5.53%) Designer
7 80 (4.86%) Business Analyst
8 67 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
9 57 (3.46%) User Researcher
10 55 (3.34%) Project Manager
11 53 (3.22%) Data Engineer
12 52 (3.16%) Consultant
13 50 (3.04%) Technical Architect
14 47 (2.86%) Solutions Architect
15 42 (2.55%) Delivery Manager
15 42 (2.55%) Senior Developer
16 40 (2.43%) Salesforce Developer
17 39 (2.37%) AWS Engineer
17 39 (2.37%) Security Architect
18 37 (2.25%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (3.10%) REST
2 48 (2.92%) React
2 48 (2.92%) RESTful
3 46 (2.79%) Node.js
4 39 (2.37%) Lightning Web Components
4 39 (2.37%) Spring
5 36 (2.19%) Oracle Fusion
6 34 (2.07%) HTML
6 34 (2.07%) Web Services
7 33 (2.00%) Spring Boot
8 31 (1.88%) .NET
9 30 (1.82%) AngularJS
10 29 (1.76%) Kafka
11 25 (1.52%) SOAP
12 23 (1.40%) CSS
13 18 (1.09%) JSON
14 17 (1.03%) Django
14 17 (1.03%) Middleware
15 15 (0.91%) OAuth
15 15 (0.91%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 107 (6.50%) Cloud Native
2 58 (3.52%) Onboarding
3 50 (3.04%) Legacy Systems
4 41 (2.49%) Product Ownership
5 34 (2.07%) NHS
6 30 (1.82%) Data Centre
7 25 (1.52%) Distributed Systems
8 24 (1.46%) Management Information System
9 23 (1.40%) Enterprise Software
10 15 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
11 14 (0.85%) Data Structures
11 14 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
12 13 (0.79%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (0.79%) Public Cloud
13 11 (0.67%) AI Agents
13 11 (0.67%) CMDB
13 11 (0.67%) Enterprise Cloud
13 11 (0.67%) Freedom of Information
13 11 (0.67%) Security Posture
13 11 (0.67%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 49 (2.98%) Linux
2 46 (2.79%) Windows
3 15 (0.91%) Windows Server
4 14 (0.85%) Android
5 10 (0.61%) Apple iOS
6 9 (0.55%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 6 (0.36%) Mac OS
8 6 (0.36%) Solaris
8 6 (0.36%) VMS
8 6 (0.36%) Windows Server 2008
8 6 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.30%) Unix
10 3 (0.18%) Amazon Linux
10 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 405 (24.61%) Agile
2 259 (15.74%) CI/CD
3 249 (15.13%) DevOps
4 223 (13.55%) Stakeholder Management
5 174 (10.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 153 (9.30%) Continuous Improvement
7 152 (9.23%) Decision-Making
8 149 (9.05%) Problem-Solving
8 149 (9.05%) Roadmaps
9 148 (8.99%) Migration
10 134 (8.14%) Infrastructure as Code
11 128 (7.78%) Containerisation
12 127 (7.72%) AI
13 123 (7.47%) Data Modelling
14 118 (7.17%) Analytics
14 118 (7.17%) User Research
15 109 (6.62%) Test Automation
16 101 (6.14%) Digital Transformation Programme
16 101 (6.14%) Service Design
17 89 (5.41%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 191 (11.60%) Python
2 135 (8.20%) SQL
3 109 (6.62%) Java
4 79 (4.80%) JavaScript
5 50 (3.04%) TypeScript
6 39 (2.37%) Apex Code
7 36 (2.19%) C#
8 35 (2.13%) PowerShell
8 35 (2.13%) Ruby
9 26 (1.58%) Bash
10 18 (1.09%) PL/SQL
11 13 (0.79%) Kotlin
12 12 (0.73%) Bicep
12 12 (0.73%) R
13 10 (0.61%) Go
13 10 (0.61%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.30%) C
15 5 (0.30%) T-SQL
16 4 (0.24%) Scala
Qualifications
1 931 (56.56%) Security Cleared
2 708 (43.01%) SC Cleared
3 70 (4.25%) DV Cleared
4 51 (3.10%) Degree
5 43 (2.61%) BPSS Clearance
6 25 (1.52%) CISSP
7 24 (1.46%) Azure Certification
8 20 (1.22%) AWS Certification
9 16 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
9 16 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
10 15 (0.91%) CISM
11 14 (0.85%) PMP
12 11 (0.67%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 10 (0.61%) APMP
13 10 (0.61%) CIMA
14 9 (0.55%) ACCA
14 9 (0.55%) CTC Cleared
15 8 (0.49%) PMI Certification
16 7 (0.43%) CCSP
16 7 (0.43%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (7.17%) Accessibility
2 74 (4.50%) Data Quality
3 71 (4.31%) QA
4 48 (2.92%) WCAG
5 43 (2.61%) GDPR
6 38 (2.31%) PMO
7 36 (2.19%) NCSC
8 27 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 12 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
9 12 (0.73%) SLA
10 11 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
10 11 (0.67%) NIST
11 9 (0.55%) GRC
12 8 (0.49%) PCI DSS
13 7 (0.43%) Government Security Classifications
14 6 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 6 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
15 5 (0.30%) IFRS
16 4 (0.24%) IFRS 9
17 3 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 114 (6.93%) Docker
2 34 (2.07%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
5 4 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.12%) Postfix
7 2 (0.12%) Squid
7 2 (0.12%) vSphere
8 1 (0.061%) FreeRADIUS
8 1 (0.061%) IAG
8 1 (0.061%) NLBS
8 1 (0.061%) Sendmail
8 1 (0.061%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.061%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 144 (8.75%) Terraform
2 119 (7.23%) Kubernetes
3 33 (2.00%) Grafana
4 30 (1.82%) Ansible
4 30 (1.82%) Prometheus
5 12 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.43%) Puppet
8 5 (0.30%) Argo
8 5 (0.30%) Kibana
9 3 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
9 3 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.18%) Salt
9 3 (0.18%) SCCM
10 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Clustering
10 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.12%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.061%) Kubeflow
11 1 (0.061%) linkerd
11 1 (0.061%) Suricata
Vendors
1 164 (9.96%) Microsoft
2 92 (5.59%) Salesforce
3 89 (5.41%) Oracle
4 53 (3.22%) SAP
5 48 (2.92%) Databricks
6 45 (2.73%) ServiceNow
7 33 (2.00%) Google
8 19 (1.15%) IBM
9 18 (1.09%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.03%) Cisco
10 17 (1.03%) Foundry
11 16 (0.97%) Atlassian
12 14 (0.85%) Splunk
13 13 (0.79%) Red Hat
13 13 (0.79%) VMware
14 11 (0.67%) OpenAI
14 11 (0.67%) Virgin Media
15 9 (0.55%) Palo Alto
16 8 (0.49%) Palantir
16 8 (0.49%) Zscaler