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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 13 8
Rank change year-on-year 0 -5 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 318 202 326
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 9.98% 10.35% 11.77%
As % of the General category 17.51% 18.07% 22.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 221 128 216
10th Percentile £343 £346 £350
25th Percentile £400 £419 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £516 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.93% -1.67% -
75th Percentile £550 £600 £656
90th Percentile £625 £679 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 4 33
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 £25.49 £16.20 £21.00
90th Percentile £44.94 £16.23 £32.77
England median hourly rate £22.57 £22.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +0.30% - +12.50%

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 1,816 1,118 1,480
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 57.02% 57.27% 53.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,087 671 917
10th Percentile £200 £267 £300
25th Percentile £358 £382 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £452 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.57% -2.20% -
75th Percentile £573 £586 £588
90th Percentile £638 £688 £693
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 109 191
10th Percentile £18.40 £13.00 £12.24
25th Percentile £22.85 £19.00 £14.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £28.75 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +25.22% +62.25% -30.51%
75th Percentile £60.61 £50.00 £36.72
90th Percentile £84.25 £76.50 £49.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £28.60 £29.83
% change year-on-year +4.90% -4.11% -14.79%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 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
Manchester +2 209 £475 -7.09% 66
Cheshire +9 46 £425 -2.86% 8
Merseyside -3 33 £510 -7.27% 3
Cumbria -4 13 £470 -14.55% 4
Lancashire -17 6 £550 -8.33% 26
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 18 (5.66%) SharePoint
2 15 (4.72%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (3.77%) Confluence
4 3 (0.94%) CMS
5 2 (0.63%) Adobe Experience Manager
5 2 (0.63%) CICS
5 2 (0.63%) SAS
5 2 (0.63%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.31%) Apache
6 1 (0.31%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
Applications
1 12 (3.77%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.63%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.63%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.31%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.31%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 5 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.94%) iTrent
3 2 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.63%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.31%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 79 (24.84%) Azure
2 64 (20.13%) AWS
3 33 (10.38%) Microsoft 365
4 23 (7.23%) GitHub
4 23 (7.23%) Serverless
5 18 (5.66%) Power Platform
6 17 (5.35%) GCP
7 15 (4.72%) Entra ID
8 14 (4.40%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (4.40%) Microsoft Copilot
9 13 (4.09%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (3.77%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (3.14%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (3.14%) SaaS
12 9 (2.83%) Amazon S3
12 9 (2.83%) OneDrive
13 8 (2.52%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (2.52%) Amazon SQS
13 8 (2.52%) Power Automate
14 7 (2.20%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 16 (5.03%) Firewall
2 9 (2.83%) DNS
3 8 (2.52%) WAN
4 7 (2.20%) VPN
4 7 (2.20%) Wi-Fi
5 6 (1.89%) LAN
6 4 (1.26%) DHCP
6 4 (1.26%) MPLS
6 4 (1.26%) VLAN
7 3 (0.94%) BGP
7 3 (0.94%) Network Security
7 3 (0.94%) OSPF
8 2 (0.63%) BIG-IP
8 2 (0.63%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.63%) Internet
8 2 (0.63%) SNMP
8 2 (0.63%) TACACS
8 2 (0.63%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.63%) VoIP
8 2 (0.63%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.40%) MongoDB
2 11 (3.46%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (2.52%) DocumentDB
4 7 (2.20%) MySQL
4 7 (2.20%) Power BI
5 6 (1.89%) Metadata
5 6 (1.89%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.89%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.57%) Looker
6 5 (1.57%) SQL Server
7 4 (1.26%) BigQuery
7 4 (1.26%) Redis
7 4 (1.26%) Tableau
8 3 (0.94%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.94%) RDBMS
8 3 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.63%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.63%) DataStage
9 2 (0.63%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.63%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 30 (9.43%) GitLab
2 22 (6.92%) Git
3 19 (5.97%) JIRA
4 9 (2.83%) Jenkins
5 8 (2.52%) JUnit
5 8 (2.52%) Mocha
5 8 (2.52%) Mockito
5 8 (2.52%) Postman
6 7 (2.20%) CircleCI
6 7 (2.20%) Cypress.io
6 7 (2.20%) SonarQube
7 6 (1.89%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.63%) Jasmine
8 2 (0.63%) Selenium
9 1 (0.31%) Axure RP
9 1 (0.31%) InstallShield
9 1 (0.31%) JMeter
9 1 (0.31%) MSI
9 1 (0.31%) REST Assured
General
1 68 (21.38%) Social Skills
2 32 (10.06%) Finance
3 23 (7.23%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (5.66%) Military
5 15 (4.72%) Local Government
6 11 (3.46%) Banking
7 7 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.20%) Legal
8 4 (1.26%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.94%) Manufacturing
9 3 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.63%) Corporate Banking
10 2 (0.63%) Digital Economy
10 2 (0.63%) Marketing
10 2 (0.63%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.31%) Digital Health
11 1 (0.31%) Electronics
11 1 (0.31%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 86 (27.04%) Developer
2 40 (12.58%) Java Developer
3 36 (11.32%) Senior
4 35 (11.01%) Architect
5 34 (10.69%) Lead
6 29 (9.12%) Analyst
7 16 (5.03%) Full-Stack Developer
8 15 (4.72%) Senior Developer
8 15 (4.72%) Tester
9 14 (4.40%) Technical Architect
10 13 (4.09%) DevOps Engineer
10 13 (4.09%) Lead Developer
10 13 (4.09%) Software Developer
11 12 (3.77%) Business Analyst
11 12 (3.77%) Designer
12 11 (3.46%) Senior Java Developer
13 10 (3.14%) Administrator
13 10 (3.14%) Lead Architect
14 9 (2.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 8 (2.52%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (11.95%) Spring
2 37 (11.64%) Spring Boot
3 33 (10.38%) Node.js
4 18 (5.66%) React
5 16 (5.03%) REST
6 13 (4.09%) RESTful
7 12 (3.77%) Kafka
8 11 (3.46%) Jest
9 10 (3.14%) OAuth
9 10 (3.14%) Playwright
10 9 (2.83%) AngularJS
10 9 (2.83%) HTML
11 8 (2.52%) CSS
11 8 (2.52%) JAX-RS
11 8 (2.52%) Spring MVC
12 7 (2.20%) ActiveMQ
12 7 (2.20%) Hibernate
13 6 (1.89%) JSON
14 5 (1.57%) OpenID
15 4 (1.26%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.60%) Onboarding
2 18 (5.66%) Product Ownership
3 16 (5.03%) Cloud Native
4 10 (3.14%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.20%) Operational Technology
6 6 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (1.89%) NHS
7 5 (1.57%) Data Centre
7 5 (1.57%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.26%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.26%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.94%) Housing Association
9 3 (0.94%) Management Information System
9 3 (0.94%) Replication
10 2 (0.63%) BYOD
10 2 (0.63%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (0.63%) e-Learning
10 2 (0.63%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
10 2 (0.63%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 21 (6.60%) Linux
2 17 (5.35%) Windows
3 13 (4.09%) Unix
4 7 (2.20%) Mac OS X
4 7 (2.20%) Windows 10
5 4 (1.26%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.94%) AIX
6 3 (0.94%) Apple iOS
6 3 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.63%) Android
7 2 (0.63%) Solaris
7 2 (0.63%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 98 (30.82%) Agile
2 58 (18.24%) CI/CD
3 57 (17.92%) DevOps
4 54 (16.98%) Microservices
5 46 (14.47%) Test Automation
6 44 (13.84%) Continuous Improvement
7 37 (11.64%) Problem-Solving
8 33 (10.38%) Migration
9 31 (9.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 30 (9.43%) User Experience
11 28 (8.81%) Stakeholder Management
12 25 (7.86%) Containerisation
12 25 (7.86%) TDD
13 24 (7.55%) Validation
14 23 (7.23%) Change Management
15 20 (6.29%) Analytics
15 20 (6.29%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 20 (6.29%) Technical Leadership
16 19 (5.97%) Full-Stack Development
16 19 (5.97%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 67 (21.07%) Java
2 34 (10.69%) JavaScript
3 21 (6.60%) TypeScript
4 18 (5.66%) Python
5 17 (5.35%) SQL
6 14 (4.40%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.94%) Go
7 3 (0.94%) Ruby
8 2 (0.63%) C#
8 2 (0.63%) COBOL
8 2 (0.63%) Kotlin
8 2 (0.63%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (0.63%) VB
8 2 (0.63%) VBScript
9 1 (0.31%) ABAP
9 1 (0.31%) Bicep
9 1 (0.31%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.31%) ProC
9 1 (0.31%) Scala
9 1 (0.31%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 158 (49.69%) Security Cleared
2 75 (23.58%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.92%) Degree
4 13 (4.09%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (2.20%) Microsoft Certification
6 6 (1.89%) Azure Certification
6 6 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.57%) DV Cleared
8 3 (0.94%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (0.94%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (0.94%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.63%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.63%) CCNA
9 2 (0.63%) CCNP
9 2 (0.63%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.63%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (0.63%) MBA
9 2 (0.63%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.63%) PMP
10 1 (0.31%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (10.69%) Accessibility
2 15 (4.72%) Data Quality
3 13 (4.09%) WCAG
4 12 (3.77%) QA
5 8 (2.52%) NIST
6 7 (2.20%) GDPR
7 4 (1.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.26%) PMO
7 4 (1.26%) SLA
8 3 (0.94%) IFRS
9 2 (0.63%) GRC
9 2 (0.63%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.63%) PSD2
10 1 (0.31%) CRD IV
10 1 (0.31%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.31%) FINREP
10 1 (0.31%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.31%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.31%) SEPA
10 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 32 (10.06%) Docker
2 21 (6.60%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.63%) BitLocker
3 2 (0.63%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.63%) ISA Server
3 2 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.31%) GPFS
4 1 (0.31%) NFS
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.31%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 33 (10.38%) Kubernetes
2 32 (10.06%) Terraform
3 6 (1.89%) Grafana
4 5 (1.57%) Ansible
5 4 (1.26%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (1.26%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.94%) SCCM
7 2 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.31%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.31%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.31%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (0.31%) Nagios
8 1 (0.31%) Norton AntiVirus
8 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.31%) vRealize
8 1 (0.31%) VxRail
Vendors
1 57 (17.92%) Microsoft
2 22 (6.92%) Oracle
3 13 (4.09%) Google
4 12 (3.77%) SAP
4 12 (3.77%) Virgin Media
5 9 (2.83%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.20%) Cisco
7 6 (1.89%) Palo Alto
8 5 (1.57%) PeopleSoft
9 4 (1.26%) Adobe
9 4 (1.26%) IBM
9 4 (1.26%) Splunk
9 4 (1.26%) VMware
10 3 (0.94%) Aruba
10 3 (0.94%) Meraki
10 3 (0.94%) Workday
11 2 (0.63%) Arista
11 2 (0.63%) Automation Anywhere
11 2 (0.63%) BeyondTrust
11 2 (0.63%) Thycotic