Public Sector Contract Job Trends in the North West

Public Sector
England > North West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Sector in contract job vacancies in the North West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Sector over the 6 months leading up to 26 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 11 9
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 -5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 321 212 325
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.45% 10.78% 11.58%
As % of the General category 18.18% 18.50% 21.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 237 129 220
10th Percentile £332 £334 £350
25th Percentile £400 £406 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £537 £600 £669
90th Percentile £617 £658 £725
England median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 4 34
10th Percentile - £12.88 £12.00
25th Percentile - £14.82 £14.50
Median hourly rate £25.38 £16.01 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +58.50% +0.08% -20.00%
75th Percentile £30.27 £16.20 £21.00
90th Percentile £44.94 £16.23 £32.05
England median hourly rate £22.09 £24.00 £24.00
% change year-on-year -7.97% - +20.00%

All General Skills
North West

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 the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,766 1,146 1,512
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 57.51% 58.29% 53.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,090 695 933
10th Percentile £198 £263 £285
25th Percentile £358 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £550 £580 £588
90th Percentile £638 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 158 110 206
10th Percentile £16.35 £15.81 £12.50
25th Percentile £21.46 £21.05 £14.55
Median hourly rate £35.25 £29.52 £18.75
Median % change year-on-year +19.43% +57.41% -30.17%
75th Percentile £58.44 £47.69 £37.23
90th Percentile £76.00 £75.13 £48.50
England median hourly rate £25.38 £30.21 £26.00
% change year-on-year -15.97% +16.17% -25.71%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Public Sector relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

Public Sector job vacancy trend in the North West

Public Sector
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Public Sector.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Sector in the North West over the 6 months to 26 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in the North West

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Public Sector.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Public Sector in the North West over the 6 months to 26 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Public Sector in the North West

Public Sector
Contract Job Locations in the North West

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 North West region over the 6 months to 26 March 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
Manchester +2 210 £450 -9.59% 66
Cheshire +5 48 £425 -5.56% 7
Merseyside -3 32 £510 +2.00% 7
Cumbria -3 12 £500 -4.76%
Lancashire -17 6 £525 -12.50% 20
Public Sector
England

Public Sector
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 12 (3.74%) SharePoint
2 11 (3.43%) Confluence
3 10 (3.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.93%) CMS
5 2 (0.62%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.62%) CICS
5 2 (0.62%) OpenStack
5 2 (0.62%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.31%) Apache
6 1 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.31%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.31%) SAS
Applications
1 17 (5.30%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.62%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.62%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.31%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.31%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 5 (1.56%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.93%) iTrent
3 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.31%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.31%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 82 (25.55%) Azure
2 59 (18.38%) AWS
3 31 (9.66%) Microsoft 365
4 28 (8.72%) Power Platform
5 24 (7.48%) GitHub
6 19 (5.92%) Serverless
7 17 (5.30%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (4.98%) Dynamics 365
8 16 (4.98%) GCP
9 15 (4.67%) Entra ID
9 15 (4.67%) Power Automate
9 15 (4.67%) PowerApps
10 14 (4.36%) Microsoft Copilot
11 13 (4.05%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (3.74%) AWS Lambda
13 9 (2.80%) Amazon S3
13 9 (2.80%) OneDrive
14 8 (2.49%) Amazon SQS
15 7 (2.18%) Amazon EKS
15 7 (2.18%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.92%) Firewall
2 9 (2.80%) WAN
3 8 (2.49%) VPN
3 8 (2.49%) Wi-Fi
4 7 (2.18%) DNS
5 6 (1.87%) LAN
5 6 (1.87%) Wireless
6 4 (1.25%) DHCP
6 4 (1.25%) MPLS
6 4 (1.25%) VLAN
7 3 (0.93%) BGP
7 3 (0.93%) Cisco ISE
7 3 (0.93%) Network Security
7 3 (0.93%) OSPF
7 3 (0.93%) SNMP
7 3 (0.93%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.62%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 2 (0.62%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.62%) Skype
8 2 (0.62%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (4.05%) MongoDB
1 13 (4.05%) Power BI
2 10 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (2.49%) DocumentDB
4 7 (2.18%) MySQL
5 6 (1.87%) Looker
5 6 (1.87%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.87%) Redis
5 6 (1.87%) Relational Database
5 6 (1.87%) SQL Server
6 5 (1.56%) BigQuery
7 4 (1.25%) Metadata
7 4 (1.25%) Tableau
8 3 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.93%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.62%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.62%) DataStage
9 2 (0.62%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.62%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 32 (9.97%) GitLab
2 23 (7.17%) Git
3 15 (4.67%) JIRA
4 9 (2.80%) Cypress.io
4 9 (2.80%) Postman
5 8 (2.49%) Jenkins
5 8 (2.49%) JUnit
5 8 (2.49%) Mocha
6 7 (2.18%) CircleCI
6 7 (2.18%) Mockito
7 6 (1.87%) Cucumber
7 6 (1.87%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.93%) Selenium
9 2 (0.62%) Jasmine
9 2 (0.62%) MSI
10 1 (0.31%) Axure RP
10 1 (0.31%) InstallShield
10 1 (0.31%) JMeter
General
1 68 (21.18%) Social Skills
2 36 (11.21%) Finance
3 24 (7.48%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (4.67%) Local Government
5 14 (4.36%) Military
6 11 (3.43%) Banking
7 8 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.18%) Manufacturing
9 6 (1.87%) Legal
9 6 (1.87%) Marketing
9 6 (1.87%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.56%) Electronics
10 5 (1.56%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.25%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
13 2 (0.62%) Digital Economy
14 1 (0.31%) Digital Health
14 1 (0.31%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 86 (26.79%) Developer
2 37 (11.53%) Senior
3 36 (11.21%) Java Developer
4 31 (9.66%) Analyst
5 29 (9.03%) Architect
6 28 (8.72%) Lead
7 15 (4.67%) DevOps Engineer
7 15 (4.67%) Tester
8 14 (4.36%) Full-Stack Developer
9 13 (4.05%) Senior Developer
10 12 (3.74%) Designer
11 10 (3.12%) Business Analyst
11 10 (3.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (3.12%) Software Developer
12 9 (2.80%) Lead Developer
12 9 (2.80%) Senior Java Developer
12 9 (2.80%) Technical Architect
12 9 (2.80%) Test Engineer
13 8 (2.49%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
13 8 (2.49%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (10.90%) Spring
1 35 (10.90%) Spring Boot
2 28 (8.72%) Node.js
3 17 (5.30%) React
4 15 (4.67%) REST
5 13 (4.05%) HTML
5 13 (4.05%) RESTful
6 12 (3.74%) Jest
7 11 (3.43%) Kafka
7 11 (3.43%) Playwright
8 9 (2.80%) CSS
8 9 (2.80%) JSON
9 8 (2.49%) AngularJS
9 8 (2.49%) Spring MVC
10 7 (2.18%) Hibernate
10 7 (2.18%) JAX-RS
11 6 (1.87%) ActiveMQ
11 6 (1.87%) OAuth
12 5 (1.56%) HTML5 Canvas
13 4 (1.25%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 24 (7.48%) Onboarding
2 19 (5.92%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.74%) Cloud Native
4 11 (3.43%) Data Centre
5 6 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (1.87%) Operational Technology
6 5 (1.56%) NHS
6 5 (1.56%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.25%) Low-Code
7 4 (1.25%) Mobile App
8 3 (0.93%) Housing Association
9 2 (0.62%) BYOD
9 2 (0.62%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.62%) e-Learning
9 2 (0.62%) Graphic Design
9 2 (0.62%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.62%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.62%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 23 (7.17%) Linux
2 18 (5.61%) Windows
3 12 (3.74%) Unix
4 7 (2.18%) Mac OS
4 7 (2.18%) Mac OS X
4 7 (2.18%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.87%) Android
6 3 (0.93%) AIX
6 3 (0.93%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.62%) Solaris
7 2 (0.62%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (30.53%) Agile
2 62 (19.31%) DevOps
3 60 (18.69%) CI/CD
4 47 (14.64%) Microservices
5 46 (14.33%) Test Automation
6 41 (12.77%) Continuous Improvement
7 39 (12.15%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (10.28%) User Experience
9 27 (8.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 26 (8.10%) Stakeholder Management
11 25 (7.79%) Containerisation
12 24 (7.48%) Migration
12 24 (7.48%) TDD
13 23 (7.17%) Validation
14 22 (6.85%) Change Management
14 22 (6.85%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 20 (6.23%) Analytics
15 20 (6.23%) User Research
16 17 (5.30%) Business Intelligence
16 17 (5.30%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 63 (19.63%) Java
2 31 (9.66%) JavaScript
3 23 (7.17%) Python
4 19 (5.92%) TypeScript
5 17 (5.30%) SQL
6 14 (4.36%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.25%) C#
8 3 (0.93%) Bash
8 3 (0.93%) Go
8 3 (0.93%) Ruby
9 2 (0.62%) COBOL
9 2 (0.62%) Kotlin
9 2 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.62%) VB
9 2 (0.62%) VBScript
10 1 (0.31%) ABAP
10 1 (0.31%) Perl
10 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.31%) ProC
10 1 (0.31%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 154 (47.98%) Security Cleared
2 70 (21.81%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.85%) Degree
4 15 (4.67%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (1.87%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (1.87%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (1.56%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.25%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.93%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.93%) ISTQB
8 3 (0.93%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (0.93%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.62%) CCNA
9 2 (0.62%) CCNP
9 2 (0.62%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (0.62%) MBA
9 2 (0.62%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.62%) PMP
10 1 (0.31%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (12.77%) Accessibility
2 15 (4.67%) WCAG
3 14 (4.36%) Data Quality
4 13 (4.05%) QA
5 8 (2.49%) NIST
6 6 (1.87%) GDPR
7 5 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.56%) PMO
8 4 (1.25%) SLA
9 3 (0.93%) IFRS
10 2 (0.62%) GRC
10 2 (0.62%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.62%) PSD2
11 1 (0.31%) COBIT
11 1 (0.31%) CRD IV
11 1 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.31%) FINREP
11 1 (0.31%) ISO 20022
11 1 (0.31%) SEPA
11 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 32 (9.97%) Docker
2 17 (5.30%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.25%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.62%) BitLocker
4 2 (0.62%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.62%) ISA Server
4 2 (0.62%) Virtual Desktop
4 2 (0.62%) vSphere
5 1 (0.31%) GPFS
5 1 (0.31%) NFS
5 1 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 33 (10.28%) Kubernetes
2 32 (9.97%) Terraform
3 5 (1.56%) Ansible
3 5 (1.56%) Grafana
3 5 (1.56%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (1.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 4 (1.25%) SCCM
5 3 (0.93%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.31%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.31%) Data Guard
6 1 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.31%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Clustering
6 1 (0.31%) Nagios
6 1 (0.31%) Norton AntiVirus
6 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
6 1 (0.31%) vRealize
6 1 (0.31%) VxRail
Vendors
1 62 (19.31%) Microsoft
2 23 (7.17%) Oracle
3 15 (4.67%) SAP
4 13 (4.05%) Cisco
4 13 (4.05%) Virgin Media
5 8 (2.49%) Google
5 8 (2.49%) Palo Alto
5 8 (2.49%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.18%) VMware
7 5 (1.56%) Apple
7 5 (1.56%) PeopleSoft
8 4 (1.25%) Adobe
8 4 (1.25%) Dell
8 4 (1.25%) HP
8 4 (1.25%) IBM
8 4 (1.25%) Meraki
8 4 (1.25%) Splunk
9 3 (0.93%) Aruba
9 3 (0.93%) F5
9 3 (0.93%) Workday