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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 25 23
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,711 1,009 1,266
As % of all contract jobs in London 8.46% 7.49% 7.83%
As % of the General category 13.89% 10.88% 12.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,295 733 865
10th Percentile £390 £363 £359
25th Percentile £463 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year +6.80% -1.90% -8.70%
75th Percentile £638 £613 £625
90th Percentile £725 £688 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £523
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.53% -3.10%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 22 11
10th Percentile £17.11 £20.01 £18.13
25th Percentile £31.48 £23.71 £19.07
Median hourly rate £44.00 £33.75 £33.75
Median % change year-on-year +30.37% - -23.05%
75th Percentile £61.25 £47.38 £63.50
90th Percentile £73.17 £84.50 £76.25
England median hourly rate £21.50 £21.70 £24.18
% change year-on-year -0.92% -10.26% +20.60%

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 12,320 9,273 10,085
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 60.93% 68.87% 62.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,840 6,158 6,931
10th Percentile £350 £325 £338
25th Percentile £450 £424 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £679 £700
90th Percentile £788 £800 £825
England median daily rate £525 £501 £538
% change year-on-year +4.90% -6.88% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 186 137
10th Percentile £18.50 £16.17 £18.08
25th Percentile £21.93 £24.66 £24.18
Median hourly rate £28.20 £32.25 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.57% -11.64% +7.35%
75th Percentile £43.75 £50.50 £51.75
90th Percentile £64.63 £64.25 £65.42
England median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +25.25% -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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +6 177 £550 +4.76% 78
South London -4 58 £525 +6.54% 14
West London -22 14 £500 +5.26% 105
East London +9 11 £750 +30.43% 22
North London 0 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 75 (4.38%) Confluence
2 50 (2.92%) SharePoint
3 17 (0.99%) CMS
4 16 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
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%) Headless CMS
12 3 (0.18%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.12%) Mendix
13 2 (0.12%) OpenROAD
14 1 (0.058%) Anypoint
14 1 (0.058%) Jupyter
14 1 (0.058%) Luigi
Applications
1 35 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.70%) 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
7 2 (0.12%) Adobe XD
7 2 (0.12%) Trello
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 18 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.99%) Oracle ERP
4 16 (0.94%) Oracle EBS
5 11 (0.64%) NetSuite
6 6 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 4 (0.23%) iTrent
7 4 (0.23%) SAP FI
8 3 (0.18%) Exchequer
8 3 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
8 3 (0.18%) PeopleSoft HCM
8 3 (0.18%) Remedy ITSM
8 3 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
8 3 (0.18%) SAP CO
8 3 (0.18%) SAP FI/CO
8 3 (0.18%) SAP HR
9 2 (0.12%) SAP ERP
10 1 (0.058%) Changepoint
10 1 (0.058%) Primavera
10 1 (0.058%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 400 (23.38%) AWS
2 360 (21.04%) Azure
3 110 (6.43%) Power Platform
4 90 (5.26%) GCP
5 88 (5.14%) GitHub
6 79 (4.62%) Azure DevOps
7 78 (4.56%) Serverless
8 71 (4.15%) Amazon S3
9 69 (4.03%) Microsoft 365
10 68 (3.97%) Entra ID
11 62 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
12 49 (2.86%) AWS Lambda
13 43 (2.51%) SaaS
14 38 (2.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 37 (2.16%) Amazon EKS
16 36 (2.10%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 33 (1.93%) Amazon EC2
18 32 (1.87%) Power Automate
18 32 (1.87%) PowerApps
19 30 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 45 (2.63%) Firewall
2 30 (1.75%) DNS
3 29 (1.69%) Network Security
4 14 (0.82%) LAN
4 14 (0.82%) WAN
5 12 (0.70%) VPN
6 9 (0.53%) Cisco IPT
6 9 (0.53%) NGFW
7 8 (0.47%) DHCP
7 8 (0.47%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.41%) DKIM
8 7 (0.41%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.35%) DMARC
10 5 (0.29%) HTTPS
11 4 (0.23%) Intranet
11 4 (0.23%) Reverse Proxy
11 4 (0.23%) SD-WAN
11 4 (0.23%) Wireless
12 3 (0.18%) 5G
12 3 (0.18%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (4.09%) Power BI
2 54 (3.16%) PostgreSQL
3 36 (2.10%) Data Warehouse
4 35 (2.05%) Metadata
5 30 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
6 25 (1.46%) Data Lake
6 25 (1.46%) MongoDB
6 25 (1.46%) NoSQL
7 21 (1.23%) Amazon Redshift
7 21 (1.23%) SQL Server
8 20 (1.17%) MySQL
9 18 (1.05%) Amazon Aurora
10 17 (0.99%) Amazon Athena
11 16 (0.94%) Tableau
12 14 (0.82%) Delta Lake
12 14 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
12 14 (0.82%) Relational Database
13 12 (0.70%) Oracle Database
13 12 (0.70%) Redis
14 9 (0.53%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 104 (6.08%) JIRA
2 103 (6.02%) Git
3 67 (3.92%) Jenkins
4 62 (3.62%) GitLab
5 10 (0.58%) JUnit
5 10 (0.58%) Selenium
5 10 (0.58%) SonarQube
6 9 (0.53%) CircleCI
6 9 (0.53%) Cypress.io
6 9 (0.53%) Mockito
7 8 (0.47%) Maven
8 6 (0.35%) Postman
9 5 (0.29%) Bitbucket
9 5 (0.29%) Cucumber
9 5 (0.29%) JMeter
9 5 (0.29%) Snyk
10 4 (0.23%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.18%) MLflow
11 3 (0.18%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.18%) VTune
General
1 517 (30.22%) Social Skills
2 180 (10.52%) Finance
3 155 (9.06%) Analytical Skills
4 105 (6.14%) Local Government
5 91 (5.32%) Military
6 69 (4.03%) Influencing Skills
7 43 (2.51%) Legal
8 40 (2.34%) Organisational Skills
9 39 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 35 (2.05%) Police
11 33 (1.93%) Documentation Skills
12 31 (1.81%) Law
13 25 (1.46%) Telecoms
14 22 (1.29%) Marketing
15 21 (1.23%) Banking
16 12 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
16 12 (0.70%) Publishing
17 10 (0.58%) Manufacturing
18 9 (0.53%) Retail
19 7 (0.41%) Billing
Job Titles
1 292 (17.07%) Architect
2 225 (13.15%) Lead
3 217 (12.68%) Developer
4 191 (11.16%) Senior
5 118 (6.90%) Analyst
6 73 (4.27%) Delivery Manager
7 70 (4.09%) Designer
8 68 (3.97%) DevOps Engineer
9 62 (3.62%) Solutions Architect
10 58 (3.39%) Technical Architect
11 55 (3.21%) Consultant
12 53 (3.10%) User Researcher
13 51 (2.98%) Data Engineer
14 50 (2.92%) Business Analyst
14 50 (2.92%) Data Architect
15 42 (2.45%) Software Engineer
16 38 (2.22%) AWS Architect
17 37 (2.16%) Java Developer
17 37 (2.16%) Project Manager
18 36 (2.10%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 174 (10.17%) Terraform
2 74 (4.32%) REST
3 53 (3.10%) React
4 50 (2.92%) Django
5 46 (2.69%) RESTful
5 46 (2.69%) Spring
6 37 (2.16%) Node.js
6 37 (2.16%) Spring Boot
7 35 (2.05%) Kafka
8 34 (1.99%) Oracle Fusion
9 32 (1.87%) Lightning Web Components
10 31 (1.81%) HTML
11 30 (1.75%) .NET
11 30 (1.75%) SOAP
12 28 (1.64%) Web Services
13 27 (1.58%) PySpark
14 23 (1.34%) AngularJS
14 23 (1.34%) CSS
15 22 (1.29%) JSON
16 17 (0.99%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 113 (6.60%) Cloud Native
2 73 (4.27%) Onboarding
3 63 (3.68%) NHS
4 58 (3.39%) Legacy Systems
5 56 (3.27%) Product Ownership
6 37 (2.16%) Management Information System
7 34 (1.99%) Distributed Systems
8 28 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
10 20 (1.17%) AI Agents
10 20 (1.17%) Data Structures
10 20 (1.17%) Low-Code
11 17 (0.99%) Data Centre
12 15 (0.88%) Replication
13 14 (0.82%) Self-Motivation
14 13 (0.76%) Virtual Team
15 12 (0.70%) CMDB
15 12 (0.70%) Hybrid Cloud
15 12 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
15 12 (0.70%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 44 (2.57%) Linux
2 38 (2.22%) Windows
3 12 (0.70%) Windows Server
4 11 (0.64%) Android
4 11 (0.64%) Windows 10
5 8 (0.47%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.47%) Mac OS
6 7 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (0.29%) Amazon Linux
8 4 (0.23%) Unix
9 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.12%) Solaris
10 2 (0.12%) VMS
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.12%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.058%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (31.62%) Agile
2 356 (20.81%) Stakeholder Management
3 312 (18.23%) CI/CD
4 299 (17.48%) DevOps
5 295 (17.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 284 (16.60%) Continuous Improvement
7 211 (12.33%) Decision-Making
8 192 (11.22%) AI
9 181 (10.58%) Infrastructure as Code
10 180 (10.52%) Problem-Solving
11 164 (9.59%) Migration
12 162 (9.47%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 157 (9.18%) Roadmaps
14 150 (8.77%) Data Modelling
15 149 (8.71%) Analytics
16 134 (7.83%) Technical Leadership
17 116 (6.78%) Containerisation
18 113 (6.60%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
19 107 (6.25%) User Research
20 106 (6.20%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 236 (13.79%) Python
2 161 (9.41%) SQL
3 114 (6.66%) Java
4 91 (5.32%) JavaScript
5 60 (3.51%) TypeScript
6 44 (2.57%) PowerShell
7 37 (2.16%) C#
8 30 (1.75%) Apex Code
8 30 (1.75%) Bash
9 26 (1.52%) Bicep
10 23 (1.34%) Ruby
11 21 (1.23%) Groovy
12 18 (1.05%) PL/SQL
13 13 (0.76%) R
14 12 (0.70%) Kotlin
15 11 (0.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 7 (0.41%) Scala
16 7 (0.41%) Shell Script
17 6 (0.35%) Search Processing Language
18 5 (0.29%) Go
Qualifications
1 956 (55.87%) Security Cleared
2 839 (49.04%) SC Cleared
3 92 (5.38%) BPSS Clearance
4 90 (5.26%) DV Cleared
5 46 (2.69%) Degree
6 42 (2.45%) AWS Certification
7 36 (2.10%) Azure Certification
8 32 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
9 30 (1.75%) CISSP
10 19 (1.11%) Cisco Certification
11 18 (1.05%) CISM
12 13 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 12 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
14 11 (0.64%) Master's Degree
15 10 (0.58%) CCNP
16 9 (0.53%) APMG
16 9 (0.53%) CTC Cleared
17 8 (0.47%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 8 (0.47%) CRISC
17 8 (0.47%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 127 (7.42%) Accessibility
2 94 (5.49%) Data Quality
3 73 (4.27%) QA
4 55 (3.21%) WCAG
5 54 (3.16%) GDPR
6 48 (2.81%) PMO
7 39 (2.28%) NCSC
8 33 (1.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 28 (1.64%) NIST
10 20 (1.17%) Cyber Essentials
11 16 (0.94%) GRC
12 13 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 11 (0.64%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 11 (0.64%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.64%) SLA
14 8 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
14 8 (0.47%) Government Security Classifications
15 5 (0.29%) NIST 800
16 4 (0.23%) P3O
16 4 (0.23%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 131 (7.66%) Docker
2 44 (2.57%) Active Directory
3 7 (0.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.12%) Postfix
5 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.058%) Ceph
6 1 (0.058%) FreeRADIUS
6 1 (0.058%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.058%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.058%) Sendmail
6 1 (0.058%) Squid
6 1 (0.058%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 131 (7.66%) Kubernetes
2 37 (2.16%) Grafana
3 30 (1.75%) Prometheus
4 26 (1.52%) Ansible
5 22 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
6 13 (0.76%) Kibana
7 9 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
8 8 (0.47%) Argo
8 8 (0.47%) SCCM
9 5 (0.29%) Istio
9 5 (0.29%) Puppet
10 3 (0.18%) Jamf Pro
11 2 (0.12%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.12%) Consul
11 2 (0.12%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.12%) Karpenter
11 2 (0.12%) Kustomize
11 2 (0.12%) Salt
12 1 (0.058%) linkerd
12 1 (0.058%) Suricata
Vendors
1 232 (13.56%) Microsoft
2 115 (6.72%) Oracle
3 90 (5.26%) Salesforce
4 61 (3.57%) Google
5 56 (3.27%) ServiceNow
6 52 (3.04%) Databricks
7 40 (2.34%) SAP
8 22 (1.29%) Foundry
9 18 (1.05%) Cisco
9 18 (1.05%) Palantir
10 15 (0.88%) IBM
11 14 (0.82%) Palo Alto
12 12 (0.70%) OpenAI
13 11 (0.64%) Informatica
13 11 (0.64%) MuleSoft
13 11 (0.64%) Splunk
14 8 (0.47%) Atlassian
14 8 (0.47%) CrowdStrike
14 8 (0.47%) Juniper
14 8 (0.47%) VMware