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

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 26 19
Rank change year-on-year +4 -7 +8
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,647 893 1,460
As % of all contract jobs in London 9.04% 7.36% 8.39%
As % of the General category 15.18% 10.88% 13.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,238 643 1,031
10th Percentile £385 £400 £369
25th Percentile £450 £455 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.67%
75th Percentile £619 £613 £650
90th Percentile £725 £729 £743
England median daily rate £502 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.48% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 16 14
10th Percentile £16.80 £21.00 £15.00
25th Percentile £23.04 £22.20 £15.66
Median hourly rate £39.50 £25.08 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year +57.53% +38.31% -27.48%
75th Percentile £50.00 £44.69 £25.73
90th Percentile £76.15 £77.50 £65.90
England median hourly rate £23.83 £25.08 £22.12
% change year-on-year -4.99% +13.38% +7.15%

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 10,850 8,207 10,989
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 59.55% 67.67% 63.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,014 5,493 7,853
10th Percentile £350 £341 £338
25th Percentile £430 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £563 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -2.17% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £704 £700
90th Percentile £788 £825 £825
England median daily rate £514 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.10% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 193 142 234
10th Percentile £18.75 £15.93 £15.65
25th Percentile £22.50 £24.30 £18.16
Median hourly rate £35.00 £31.92 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.64% +14.01% -11.11%
75th Percentile £46.25 £50.69 £43.75
90th Percentile £67.30 £63.70 £65.00
England median hourly rate £30.81 £27.39 £30.00
% change year-on-year +12.50% -8.71% -7.12%

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 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 23 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 23 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 -2 148 £550 +4.76% 128
South London -1 67 £500 +1.01% 5
West London -33 11 £500 +16.96% 8
East London -7 8 £750 +30.43% 21
North London -1 2 £425 -19.05% 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 71 (4.31%) Confluence
2 36 (2.19%) SharePoint
3 13 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
4 12 (0.73%) Apache Spark
5 8 (0.49%) Apache
5 8 (0.49%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (0.49%) Palantir Foundry
6 7 (0.43%) CMS
6 7 (0.43%) Tomcat
7 6 (0.36%) nginx
8 5 (0.30%) Camunda
9 3 (0.18%) WebLogic
9 3 (0.18%) WordPress
10 2 (0.12%) Drupal
10 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.12%) SAS
11 1 (0.061%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.061%) Mule
11 1 (0.061%) Skype for Business
11 1 (0.061%) WebSphere
Applications
1 39 (2.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (0.85%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (0.79%) Microsoft PowerPoint
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 22 (1.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 14 (0.85%) Oracle ERP
4 7 (0.43%) iTrent
5 6 (0.36%) Oracle EBS
6 4 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
6 4 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 3 (0.18%) Exchequer
7 3 (0.18%) PeopleSoft HCM
7 3 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.12%) Integrated Workplace Management System
8 2 (0.12%) Oracle Financials
8 2 (0.12%) Remedy ITSM
8 2 (0.12%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.12%) SAP HCM
8 2 (0.12%) Workday HCM
9 1 (0.061%) Loan IQ
9 1 (0.061%) NEC Housing
9 1 (0.061%) OpenText VIM for SAP
9 1 (0.061%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 366 (22.22%) AWS
2 292 (17.73%) Azure
3 95 (5.77%) Power Platform
4 74 (4.49%) Serverless
5 69 (4.19%) GCP
6 66 (4.01%) GitHub
7 59 (3.58%) Microsoft 365
8 56 (3.40%) Amazon S3
8 56 (3.40%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (3.04%) AWS Lambda
10 41 (2.49%) Amazon EC2
10 41 (2.49%) Amazon EKS
11 37 (2.25%) Entra ID
11 37 (2.25%) GitHub Actions
12 36 (2.19%) Dynamics 365
12 36 (2.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 34 (2.06%) SaaS
14 33 (2.00%) Power Automate
15 31 (1.88%) AWS CloudFormation
16 30 (1.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.88%) Firewall
2 26 (1.58%) Network Security
3 15 (0.91%) DNS
4 10 (0.61%) LAN
4 10 (0.61%) VPN
4 10 (0.61%) WAN
5 8 (0.49%) DKIM
5 8 (0.49%) NGFW
5 8 (0.49%) TCP/IP
5 8 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
6 6 (0.36%) DMARC
7 5 (0.30%) BGP
7 5 (0.30%) OSPF
8 4 (0.24%) Reverse Proxy
8 4 (0.24%) SSL
8 4 (0.24%) Wireless
9 3 (0.18%) HTTP
9 3 (0.18%) Intranet
9 3 (0.18%) VoIP
9 3 (0.18%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (3.76%) Power BI
2 37 (2.25%) PostgreSQL
3 30 (1.82%) Data Warehouse
4 28 (1.70%) Amazon RDS
4 28 (1.70%) Metadata
5 22 (1.34%) 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 11 (0.67%) DynamoDB
12 9 (0.55%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (0.49%) Amazon QuickSight
14 7 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (0.43%) GIS
14 7 (0.43%) MySQL
14 7 (0.43%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 95 (5.77%) JIRA
2 89 (5.40%) Git
3 56 (3.40%) GitLab
4 51 (3.10%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.34%) Selenium
6 17 (1.03%) Postman
7 12 (0.73%) JUnit
8 11 (0.67%) Mockito
9 10 (0.61%) SonarQube
10 9 (0.55%) CircleCI
11 8 (0.49%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.43%) Artifactory
12 7 (0.43%) JMeter
12 7 (0.43%) Snyk
13 5 (0.30%) Gradle
13 5 (0.30%) Maven
14 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket Server
14 4 (0.24%) Cucumber
14 4 (0.24%) DbUnit
14 4 (0.24%) jMock
General
1 389 (23.62%) Social Skills
2 209 (12.69%) Finance
3 134 (8.14%) Analytical Skills
4 73 (4.43%) Local Government
5 61 (3.70%) Military
6 42 (2.55%) Influencing Skills
7 40 (2.43%) Telecoms
8 38 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
8 38 (2.31%) Marketing
9 34 (2.06%) Banking
10 31 (1.88%) Legal
11 29 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 29 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
12 27 (1.64%) Police
13 26 (1.58%) Law
14 22 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
15 15 (0.91%) Retail
16 14 (0.85%) Manufacturing
17 13 (0.79%) Electronics
18 12 (0.73%) Billing
Job Titles
1 241 (14.63%) Developer
2 240 (14.57%) Architect
3 172 (10.44%) Senior
4 164 (9.96%) Lead
5 123 (7.47%) Analyst
6 88 (5.34%) Designer
7 69 (4.19%) Business Analyst
7 69 (4.19%) DevOps Engineer
8 61 (3.70%) User Researcher
9 53 (3.22%) Technical Architect
10 52 (3.16%) Data Engineer
11 50 (3.04%) Consultant
11 50 (3.04%) Project Manager
11 50 (3.04%) Solutions Architect
12 45 (2.73%) Delivery Manager
13 44 (2.67%) AWS Engineer
14 41 (2.49%) Salesforce Developer
14 41 (2.49%) Security Architect
15 40 (2.43%) Senior Developer
16 37 (2.25%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (2.98%) REST
2 47 (2.85%) Node.js
2 47 (2.85%) React
2 47 (2.85%) RESTful
3 40 (2.43%) Lightning Web Components
4 39 (2.37%) Spring
5 34 (2.06%) HTML
6 33 (2.00%) Spring Boot
7 32 (1.94%) Oracle Fusion
7 32 (1.94%) Web Services
8 30 (1.82%) .NET
9 29 (1.76%) Kafka
10 28 (1.70%) AngularJS
11 23 (1.40%) CSS
11 23 (1.40%) SOAP
12 19 (1.15%) Django
13 17 (1.03%) JSON
14 16 (0.97%) Middleware
15 15 (0.91%) PySpark
16 14 (0.85%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 105 (6.38%) Cloud Native
2 59 (3.58%) Onboarding
3 47 (2.85%) Legacy Systems
4 42 (2.55%) Product Ownership
5 39 (2.37%) NHS
6 28 (1.70%) Data Centre
7 27 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
7 27 (1.64%) Management Information System
8 20 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
9 16 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
10 15 (0.91%) Data Structures
10 15 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
11 12 (0.73%) AI Agents
11 12 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (0.73%) Public Cloud
11 12 (0.73%) Security Posture
12 11 (0.67%) CMDB
12 11 (0.67%) Enterprise Cloud
12 11 (0.67%) Low-Code
12 11 (0.67%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 52 (3.16%) Linux
2 43 (2.61%) Windows
3 14 (0.85%) Android
3 14 (0.85%) Windows Server
4 11 (0.67%) Apple iOS
5 9 (0.55%) Windows 10
6 8 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 6 (0.36%) Mac OS
7 6 (0.36%) Solaris
7 6 (0.36%) Windows Server 2008
7 6 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.30%) Unix
9 4 (0.24%) VMS
10 3 (0.18%) Amazon Linux
10 3 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 408 (24.77%) Agile
2 260 (15.79%) CI/CD
3 251 (15.24%) DevOps
4 224 (13.60%) Stakeholder Management
5 184 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 162 (9.84%) Decision-Making
7 155 (9.41%) Continuous Improvement
8 149 (9.05%) Roadmaps
9 148 (8.99%) Problem-Solving
10 146 (8.86%) Migration
11 134 (8.14%) Infrastructure as Code
12 128 (7.77%) AI
13 126 (7.65%) Containerisation
14 124 (7.53%) Data Modelling
15 121 (7.35%) User Research
16 116 (7.04%) Analytics
17 106 (6.44%) Test Automation
18 104 (6.31%) Digital Transformation Programme
19 102 (6.19%) Service Design
20 82 (4.98%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 192 (11.66%) Python
2 135 (8.20%) SQL
3 112 (6.80%) Java
4 81 (4.92%) JavaScript
5 50 (3.04%) TypeScript
6 41 (2.49%) Apex Code
7 37 (2.25%) Ruby
8 36 (2.19%) C#
8 36 (2.19%) PowerShell
9 27 (1.64%) Bash
10 19 (1.15%) PL/SQL
11 14 (0.85%) Bicep
12 13 (0.79%) Kotlin
13 10 (0.61%) Go
13 10 (0.61%) R
13 10 (0.61%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 5 (0.30%) C
16 4 (0.24%) Scala
16 4 (0.24%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 930 (56.47%) Security Cleared
2 717 (43.53%) SC Cleared
3 65 (3.95%) DV Cleared
4 50 (3.04%) Degree
5 42 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (1.64%) CISSP
7 24 (1.46%) Azure Certification
8 22 (1.34%) AWS Certification
9 18 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
10 17 (1.03%) Cisco Certification
11 16 (0.97%) CISM
12 13 (0.79%) PMP
13 12 (0.73%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 10 (0.61%) APMP
14 10 (0.61%) CIMA
15 9 (0.55%) ACCA
16 8 (0.49%) CCSP
16 8 (0.49%) CTC Cleared
16 8 (0.49%) ITIL Certification
17 7 (0.43%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 122 (7.41%) Accessibility
2 74 (4.49%) Data Quality
3 68 (4.13%) QA
4 48 (2.91%) WCAG
5 43 (2.61%) GDPR
6 38 (2.31%) NCSC
6 38 (2.31%) PMO
7 27 (1.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 12 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
8 12 (0.73%) SLA
9 11 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
9 11 (0.67%) NIST
10 10 (0.61%) PCI DSS
11 8 (0.49%) GRC
12 7 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 7 (0.43%) Government Security Classifications
13 6 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 5 (0.30%) IFRS
15 4 (0.24%) IFRS 9
16 3 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 115 (6.98%) Docker
2 32 (1.94%) Active Directory
3 5 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
5 3 (0.18%) Oracle RAC
5 3 (0.18%) Postfix
5 3 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.12%) Squid
7 1 (0.061%) FreeRADIUS
7 1 (0.061%) NLBS
7 1 (0.061%) Sendmail
7 1 (0.061%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.061%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 141 (8.56%) Terraform
2 121 (7.35%) Kubernetes
3 35 (2.13%) Grafana
4 32 (1.94%) Prometheus
5 31 (1.88%) Ansible
6 13 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.43%) Puppet
9 6 (0.36%) Kibana
10 5 (0.30%) Argo
11 3 (0.18%) Oracle RMAN
11 3 (0.18%) Salt
11 3 (0.18%) SCCM
12 2 (0.12%) Consul
12 2 (0.12%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Clustering
12 2 (0.12%) Progress Chef
13 1 (0.061%) RSA Archer
13 1 (0.061%) Suricata
13 1 (0.061%) Sysdig
Vendors
1 162 (9.84%) Microsoft
2 92 (5.59%) Salesforce
3 88 (5.34%) Oracle
4 51 (3.10%) SAP
5 49 (2.98%) Databricks
6 46 (2.79%) ServiceNow
7 36 (2.19%) Google
8 19 (1.15%) IBM
9 18 (1.09%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.03%) Foundry
11 16 (0.97%) Atlassian
11 16 (0.97%) Cisco
12 15 (0.91%) Splunk
13 14 (0.85%) Red Hat
14 11 (0.67%) OpenAI
14 11 (0.67%) Virgin Media
15 10 (0.61%) Palo Alto
15 10 (0.61%) VMware
16 9 (0.55%) Fortinet
17 8 (0.49%) Palantir