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 3 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 10 10 8
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 291 237 336
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.80% 10.51% 12.65%
As % of the General category 19.17% 18.15% 22.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 219 119 241
10th Percentile £295 £328 £313
25th Percentile £398 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -9.09% +7.84%
75th Percentile £538 £638 £650
90th Percentile £625 £740 £720
England median daily rate £500 £525 £545
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.67% +0.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 12 11
10th Percentile £16.43 £15.53 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.38 £15.98 £15.45
Median hourly rate £41.86 £16.65 £16.85
Median % change year-on-year +151.34% -1.17% -15.24%
75th Percentile £44.94 £20.97 £20.63
90th Percentile £67.25 £29.95 £21.50
England median hourly rate £21.25 £22.50 £25.19
% change year-on-year -5.56% -10.68% +26.74%

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 common skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 1,518 1,306 1,471
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 61.53% 57.92% 55.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 997 691 963
10th Percentile £213 £263 £256
25th Percentile £358 £375 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -4.00% +3.09%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £673 £700
England median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 104 107
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.00 £15.74
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.03 £17.14
Median hourly rate £29.60 £29.12 £23.61
Median % change year-on-year +1.67% +23.32% +18.05%
75th Percentile £45.46 £43.94 £45.88
90th Percentile £72.03 £63.50 £57.89
England median hourly rate £24.00 £30.59 £33.00
% change year-on-year -21.54% -7.30% +28.35%

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025. 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 -1 186 £432 -13.55% 65
Cheshire -5 39 £425 -19.05% 10
Merseyside +2 27 £510 +13.33% 6
Cumbria +4 19 £537 +7.40%
Lancashire -18 9 £475 +46.15% 33
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 5 (1.72%) Confluence
2 3 (1.03%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.69%) CMS
3 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.69%) OpenStack
3 2 (0.69%) Skype for Business
4 1 (0.34%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.34%) nginx
4 1 (0.34%) SAS
Applications
1 22 (7.56%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.34%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.34%) SPSS
4 1 (0.34%) Stata
4 1 (0.34%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (5.15%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.72%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (1.03%) iTrent
4 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.34%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.34%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.34%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.34%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.34%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.34%) SAP QM
4 1 (0.34%) SAP VC
4 1 (0.34%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 67 (23.02%) Azure
2 59 (20.27%) AWS
3 25 (8.59%) Power Platform
4 19 (6.53%) GCP
5 18 (6.19%) Microsoft 365
6 17 (5.84%) Azure DevOps
7 15 (5.15%) Serverless
8 13 (4.47%) SaaS
9 12 (4.12%) Amazon SQS
10 11 (3.78%) AWS Lambda
11 10 (3.44%) GitHub
11 10 (3.44%) PowerApps
12 9 (3.09%) Google Tag Manager
12 9 (3.09%) Power Automate
13 8 (2.75%) Entra ID
13 8 (2.75%) Google Analytics
13 8 (2.75%) Google Workspace
14 7 (2.41%) SuccessFactors
15 6 (2.06%) Dynamics 365
16 5 (1.72%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 17 (5.84%) Firewall
2 10 (3.44%) DNS
3 8 (2.75%) WAN
4 6 (2.06%) DHCP
4 6 (2.06%) LAN
4 6 (2.06%) Wireless
5 5 (1.72%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.72%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (1.37%) DMZ
6 4 (1.37%) VLAN
6 4 (1.37%) VPN
7 3 (1.03%) BGP
7 3 (1.03%) Cisco ISE
7 3 (1.03%) MPLS
7 3 (1.03%) NetScaler
7 3 (1.03%) SAN
8 2 (0.69%) Cisco ASA
8 2 (0.69%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.69%) OSPF
8 2 (0.69%) Skype
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.50%) Power BI
2 14 (4.81%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (4.47%) MongoDB
4 11 (3.78%) Redis
5 10 (3.44%) MySQL
6 9 (3.09%) BigQuery
6 9 (3.09%) Looker
7 8 (2.75%) Relational Database
8 6 (2.06%) Data Warehouse
9 5 (1.72%) DocumentDB
9 5 (1.72%) Metadata
9 5 (1.72%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.37%) DynamoDB
10 4 (1.37%) RDBMS
10 4 (1.37%) SQL Server
11 3 (1.03%) Apache Cassandra
11 3 (1.03%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (1.03%) Big Data
12 2 (0.69%) SAP HANA
12 2 (0.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 19 (6.53%) GitLab
2 17 (5.84%) Git
3 9 (3.09%) JIRA
4 8 (2.75%) Jenkins
4 8 (2.75%) Postman
4 8 (2.75%) SonarQube
5 5 (1.72%) JUnit
5 5 (1.72%) Selenium
6 4 (1.37%) Cucumber
6 4 (1.37%) Mockito
7 3 (1.03%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.69%) Gradle
8 2 (0.69%) Maven
8 2 (0.69%) MSI
8 2 (0.69%) SonarLint
9 1 (0.34%) Browser DevTools
9 1 (0.34%) Gatling
9 1 (0.34%) InstallShield
9 1 (0.34%) MLflow
9 1 (0.34%) REST Assured
General
1 61 (20.96%) Social Skills
2 35 (12.03%) Finance
3 23 (7.90%) Military
4 14 (4.81%) Analytical Skills
4 14 (4.81%) Local Government
5 13 (4.47%) Telecoms
6 12 (4.12%) Manufacturing
7 11 (3.78%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (3.78%) Marketing
8 10 (3.44%) Electronics
9 8 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.37%) Legal
11 3 (1.03%) Banking
12 2 (0.69%) Law
12 2 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.34%) Digital Health
13 1 (0.34%) Digital Healthcare
Job Titles
1 52 (17.87%) Developer
2 45 (15.46%) Analyst
3 31 (10.65%) Architect
4 30 (10.31%) Senior
5 21 (7.22%) Lead
6 20 (6.87%) Java Developer
7 17 (5.84%) Consultant
8 14 (4.81%) Business Analyst
9 13 (4.47%) AWS Engineer
10 12 (4.12%) DevOps Engineer
10 12 (4.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 12 (4.12%) Technical Architect
11 9 (3.09%) Senior Developer
12 8 (2.75%) Data Architect
12 8 (2.75%) Full-Stack Developer
12 8 (2.75%) Senior Java Developer
12 8 (2.75%) Software Engineer
13 7 (2.41%) Azure Engineer
13 7 (2.41%) IT Support
13 7 (2.41%) Payroll Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.25%) Spring Boot
2 21 (7.22%) Spring
3 16 (5.50%) Node.js
4 15 (5.15%) JSON
4 15 (5.15%) RESTful
5 12 (4.12%) Kafka
6 11 (3.78%) React
7 9 (3.09%) HTML
8 8 (2.75%) AngularJS
9 6 (2.06%) HTML5 Canvas
9 6 (2.06%) Spring Security
10 5 (1.72%) Hibernate
10 5 (1.72%) JAX-RS
10 5 (1.72%) Playwright
10 5 (1.72%) REST
10 5 (1.72%) Spring MVC
11 4 (1.37%) ActiveMQ
11 4 (1.37%) jQuery
11 4 (1.37%) POJO
11 4 (1.37%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.22%) Onboarding
2 15 (5.15%) Data Centre
3 9 (3.09%) Cloud Native
4 8 (2.75%) Hybrid Cloud
4 8 (2.75%) Product Ownership
5 7 (2.41%) NHS
5 7 (2.41%) Public Cloud
6 6 (2.06%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.72%) Low-Code
8 4 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
8 4 (1.37%) Data Structures
9 3 (1.03%) N-Tier
9 3 (1.03%) Operational Technology
10 2 (0.69%) Driving Licence
10 2 (0.69%) Fibre Optics
10 2 (0.69%) Mobile App
10 2 (0.69%) Taxonomies
11 1 (0.34%) Digital Signage
11 1 (0.34%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.19%) Windows
2 12 (4.12%) Linux
3 8 (2.75%) Android
3 8 (2.75%) Mac OS
4 6 (2.06%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.72%) Apple iOS
6 4 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.69%) Unix
7 2 (0.69%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.34%) Mac OS X
8 1 (0.34%) Windows Server
8 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (18.56%) Agile
2 42 (14.43%) DevOps
3 38 (13.06%) CI/CD
4 35 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
5 33 (11.34%) Microservices
6 26 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 26 (8.93%) Stakeholder Management
7 25 (8.59%) Business Intelligence
7 25 (8.59%) Continuous Improvement
8 23 (7.90%) Containerisation
8 23 (7.90%) User Experience
9 20 (6.87%) Test Automation
10 19 (6.53%) Analytics
11 17 (5.84%) Change Management
11 17 (5.84%) Mentoring
12 16 (5.50%) Migration
12 16 (5.50%) Validation
13 15 (5.15%) Full-Stack Development
13 15 (5.15%) Infrastructure as Code
13 15 (5.15%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 48 (16.49%) Java
2 26 (8.93%) Python
3 17 (5.84%) SQL
4 11 (3.78%) JavaScript
5 9 (3.09%) PowerShell
6 7 (2.41%) Bash
6 7 (2.41%) TypeScript
7 5 (1.72%) C#
7 5 (1.72%) Perl
8 4 (1.37%) Go
9 3 (1.03%) ABAP
9 3 (1.03%) C++
9 3 (1.03%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (1.03%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.69%) C
10 2 (0.69%) VB
10 2 (0.69%) VBScript
11 1 (0.34%) Kotlin
11 1 (0.34%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.34%) Rust
Qualifications
1 164 (56.36%) Security Cleared
2 104 (35.74%) SC Cleared
3 19 (6.53%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.78%) Degree
5 6 (2.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (2.06%) ISTQB
6 4 (1.37%) Azure Certification
6 4 (1.37%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.69%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.69%) CCNP
7 2 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.34%) APMG
8 1 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.34%) CCDP
8 1 (0.34%) CCIE
8 1 (0.34%) CISSP
8 1 (0.34%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 1 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (0.34%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (8.25%) Accessibility
2 13 (4.47%) Data Quality
3 11 (3.78%) QA
4 7 (2.41%) NIST
5 4 (1.37%) WCAG
6 3 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.03%) PMO
7 2 (0.69%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.69%) ISO 26262
7 2 (0.69%) NCSC
7 2 (0.69%) SLA
8 1 (0.34%) COBIT
8 1 (0.34%) CRD IV
8 1 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.34%) FINREP
8 1 (0.34%) GDPR
8 1 (0.34%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.34%) IFRS
8 1 (0.34%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.34%) SEPA
System Software
1 34 (11.68%) Docker
2 8 (2.75%) Active Directory
2 8 (2.75%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.37%) UAG
4 2 (0.69%) BitLocker
4 2 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.34%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.34%) ISA Server
5 1 (0.34%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 27 (9.28%) Kubernetes
2 26 (8.93%) Terraform
3 7 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
3 7 (2.41%) SCCM
4 4 (1.37%) Ansible
5 3 (1.03%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (1.03%) Packer
6 2 (0.69%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.69%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 1 (0.34%) AirWatch
7 1 (0.34%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.34%) Grafana
7 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (0.34%) Nessus
7 1 (0.34%) SELinux
7 1 (0.34%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 48 (16.49%) Microsoft
2 31 (10.65%) SAP
3 21 (7.22%) Google
4 17 (5.84%) Oracle
5 14 (4.81%) Cisco
6 11 (3.78%) Virgin Media
7 9 (3.09%) ServiceNow
7 9 (3.09%) VMware
8 8 (2.75%) Palo Alto
9 7 (2.41%) Apple
9 7 (2.41%) Dell
10 6 (2.06%) Meraki
11 5 (1.72%) HP
12 4 (1.37%) Adobe
12 4 (1.37%) Red Hat
12 4 (1.37%) Splunk
13 3 (1.03%) Dynatrace
13 3 (1.03%) F5
13 3 (1.03%) LogRhythm
13 3 (1.03%) Pega