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 16 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 13 11 9
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 241 244 353
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 10.76% 10.11% 12.43%
As % of the General category 17.26% 17.45% 22.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 178 127 249
10th Percentile £215 £341 £272
25th Percentile £396 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £493 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.72% -6.10% +5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £582 £627
90th Percentile £646 £685 £720
England median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 10 15
10th Percentile £16.11 £15.95 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.30 £16.70 £16.22
Median hourly rate £20.07 £18.62 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.77% -1.99% -15.56%
75th Percentile £32.95 £29.88 £20.75
90th Percentile £67.25 £36.40 £28.32
England median hourly rate £21.40 £23.80 £21.31
% change year-on-year -10.07% +11.66% +9.65%

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 1,396 1,398 1,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 62.32% 57.94% 54.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 914 763 1,019
10th Percentile £255 £278 £256
25th Percentile £375 £390 £398
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -4.00% +2.56%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £678 £661 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 114 88 113
10th Percentile £12.87 £16.00 £15.73
25th Percentile £15.50 £18.89 £16.70
Median hourly rate £24.83 £35.00 £22.53
Median % change year-on-year -29.07% +55.35% -2.87%
75th Percentile £47.12 £46.18 £43.10
90th Percentile £65.18 £63.25 £61.09
England median hourly rate £25.00 £35.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year -28.57% +16.67% +20.00%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -1 157 £438 -8.85% 109
Cheshire -16 30 £415 -15.09% 18
Merseyside +1 22 £535 +18.89% 12
Cumbria +1 14 £540 +8.00% 1
Lancashire -7 9 £455 +7.06% 56
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 6 (2.49%) Confluence
2 3 (1.24%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.41%) CMS
4 1 (0.41%) IIS
4 1 (0.41%) nginx
4 1 (0.41%) OpenStack
Applications
1 15 (6.22%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (2.49%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.41%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.41%) SPSS
4 1 (0.41%) Stata
4 1 (0.41%) Trello
Business Applications
1 15 (6.22%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.41%) SAP EHS
3 1 (0.41%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.41%) SAP QM
3 1 (0.41%) SAP VC
3 1 (0.41%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 48 (19.92%) Azure
2 39 (16.18%) AWS
3 22 (9.13%) Power Platform
4 16 (6.64%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (6.22%) Azure DevOps
6 14 (5.81%) SaaS
7 13 (5.39%) GCP
8 10 (4.15%) Google Workspace
9 9 (3.73%) Power Automate
9 9 (3.73%) Serverless
10 8 (3.32%) Amazon SQS
10 8 (3.32%) PowerApps
10 8 (3.32%) SuccessFactors
11 7 (2.90%) AWS Lambda
12 6 (2.49%) Entra ID
12 6 (2.49%) GitHub
12 6 (2.49%) Google Tag Manager
13 5 (2.07%) Azure AKS
13 5 (2.07%) Google Analytics
14 4 (1.66%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.56%) Firewall
2 8 (3.32%) DNS
3 5 (2.07%) DHCP
3 5 (2.07%) Wireless
4 4 (1.66%) DMZ
4 4 (1.66%) TCP/IP
4 4 (1.66%) WAN
5 3 (1.24%) Cisco ISE
5 3 (1.24%) NetScaler
5 3 (1.24%) SAN
5 3 (1.24%) Wi-Fi
6 2 (0.83%) BGP
6 2 (0.83%) LAN
6 2 (0.83%) VLAN
7 1 (0.41%) 3GPP
7 1 (0.41%) Cisco IOS
7 1 (0.41%) Network Security
7 1 (0.41%) VoIP
7 1 (0.41%) Wireshark
7 1 (0.41%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.81%) Power BI
2 11 (4.56%) MongoDB
3 9 (3.73%) PostgreSQL
4 7 (2.90%) BigQuery
4 7 (2.90%) MySQL
4 7 (2.90%) Redis
5 6 (2.49%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (2.49%) Looker
6 4 (1.66%) SQL Server
7 3 (1.24%) Apache Cassandra
7 3 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (1.24%) Big Data
7 3 (1.24%) DynamoDB
7 3 (1.24%) Metadata
7 3 (1.24%) NoSQL
7 3 (1.24%) Relational Database
7 3 (1.24%) Siebel EIM
8 2 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
8 2 (0.83%) Amazon Aurora
8 2 (0.83%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 14 (5.81%) GitLab
2 11 (4.56%) Git
3 9 (3.73%) JIRA
4 7 (2.90%) Jenkins
5 6 (2.49%) Postman
6 5 (2.07%) SonarQube
7 4 (1.66%) JUnit
7 4 (1.66%) Selenium
8 3 (1.24%) Cucumber
8 3 (1.24%) Cypress.io
8 3 (1.24%) Maven
8 3 (1.24%) Mockito
9 2 (0.83%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.83%) Gradle
9 2 (0.83%) SonarLint
10 1 (0.41%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.41%) Gatling
10 1 (0.41%) gulp
10 1 (0.41%) MLflow
10 1 (0.41%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 52 (21.58%) Social Skills
2 29 (12.03%) Finance
3 23 (9.54%) Military
4 11 (4.56%) Telecoms
5 10 (4.15%) Manufacturing
6 9 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (3.73%) Local Government
7 8 (3.32%) Electronics
7 8 (3.32%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (3.32%) Marketing
8 5 (2.07%) Analytical Skills
9 4 (1.66%) Legal
10 3 (1.24%) Banking
11 2 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.83%) Law
11 2 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.41%) Digital Healthcare
12 1 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 40 (16.60%) Analyst
2 37 (15.35%) Developer
3 23 (9.54%) Architect
4 20 (8.30%) Senior
5 16 (6.64%) Consultant
5 16 (6.64%) Lead
6 11 (4.56%) Business Analyst
6 11 (4.56%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 10 (4.15%) AWS Engineer
7 10 (4.15%) Java Developer
8 8 (3.32%) Software Engineer
8 8 (3.32%) Technical Architect
9 7 (2.90%) DevOps Engineer
9 7 (2.90%) Microsoft Developer
9 7 (2.90%) Payroll Manager
9 7 (2.90%) Project Manager
9 7 (2.90%) Senior Developer
9 7 (2.90%) Senior Java Developer
9 7 (2.90%) Systems Analyst
9 7 (2.90%) Systems Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (6.22%) Spring Boot
2 12 (4.98%) Spring
3 11 (4.56%) JSON
4 10 (4.15%) Kafka
4 10 (4.15%) RESTful
5 9 (3.73%) Node.js
6 7 (2.90%) HTML
6 7 (2.90%) React
7 6 (2.49%) HTML5 Canvas
8 5 (2.07%) AngularJS
8 5 (2.07%) Web Services
9 4 (1.66%) Dropwizard
9 4 (1.66%) Express.js
9 4 (1.66%) JAX-RS
9 4 (1.66%) jQuery
9 4 (1.66%) Playwright
9 4 (1.66%) POJO
9 4 (1.66%) REST
9 4 (1.66%) SOAP
9 4 (1.66%) Thymeleaf
Miscellaneous
1 13 (5.39%) Data Centre
1 13 (5.39%) Onboarding
2 10 (4.15%) Hybrid Cloud
3 9 (3.73%) Product Ownership
4 8 (3.32%) Cloud Native
5 6 (2.49%) Low-Code
6 5 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
6 5 (2.07%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (1.66%) NHS
8 3 (1.24%) Analytical Mindset
8 3 (1.24%) Data Structures
8 3 (1.24%) N-Tier
8 3 (1.24%) Operational Technology
9 2 (0.83%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.83%) Fibre Optics
9 2 (0.83%) Taxonomies
10 1 (0.41%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.41%) Mobile App
10 1 (0.41%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 13 (5.39%) Windows
2 12 (4.98%) Linux
3 7 (2.90%) Mac OS
4 6 (2.49%) Android
5 4 (1.66%) Apple iOS
5 4 (1.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.83%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.83%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.83%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.83%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.41%) Unix
7 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (17.84%) Agile
2 31 (12.86%) DevOps
3 26 (10.79%) CI/CD
4 22 (9.13%) Stakeholder Management
5 21 (8.71%) Business Intelligence
5 21 (8.71%) Microservices
5 21 (8.71%) Problem-Solving
6 20 (8.30%) User Experience
7 18 (7.47%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 17 (7.05%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (6.22%) Analytics
9 15 (6.22%) Mentoring
10 14 (5.81%) Containerisation
11 13 (5.39%) Infrastructure as Code
11 13 (5.39%) Software Engineering
11 13 (5.39%) Technical Leadership
11 13 (5.39%) Test Automation
11 13 (5.39%) User Research
12 12 (4.98%) Change Management
12 12 (4.98%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 34 (14.11%) Java
2 22 (9.13%) Python
3 20 (8.30%) SQL
4 7 (2.90%) JavaScript
5 6 (2.49%) TypeScript
6 5 (2.07%) Bash
7 4 (1.66%) Perl
7 4 (1.66%) PL/SQL
7 4 (1.66%) PowerShell
8 3 (1.24%) C++
8 3 (1.24%) Go
8 3 (1.24%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.83%) ABAP
9 2 (0.83%) C
9 2 (0.83%) C#
9 2 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.41%) Rust
Qualifications
1 125 (51.87%) Security Cleared
2 90 (37.34%) SC Cleared
3 18 (7.47%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (2.90%) Degree
4 7 (2.90%) ISTQB
5 3 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.83%) Azure Certification
6 2 (0.83%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.41%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.41%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
7 1 (0.41%) CCDP
7 1 (0.41%) CCNP
7 1 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.41%) CISM
7 1 (0.41%) CISSP
7 1 (0.41%) CTC Cleared
7 1 (0.41%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.41%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
7 1 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (0.41%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (8.71%) Accessibility
2 9 (3.73%) Data Quality
3 7 (2.90%) NIST
3 7 (2.90%) QA
4 5 (2.07%) SLA
5 4 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.66%) WCAG
6 3 (1.24%) PMO
7 2 (0.83%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.83%) ISO 26262
7 2 (0.83%) NCSC
8 1 (0.41%) COBIT
8 1 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
8 1 (0.41%) GDPR
8 1 (0.41%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.41%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 24 (9.96%) Docker
2 8 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 7 (2.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (1.66%) UAG
5 2 (0.83%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
6 1 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 23 (9.54%) Terraform
2 19 (7.88%) Kubernetes
3 6 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (2.07%) SCCM
5 4 (1.66%) Ansible
6 3 (1.24%) Packer
7 2 (0.83%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.83%) HP ALM
7 2 (0.83%) Microsoft Clustering
7 2 (0.83%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
7 2 (0.83%) vCenter Server
8 1 (0.41%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.41%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.41%) Nessus
8 1 (0.41%) NetApp OnCommand
8 1 (0.41%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.41%) SELinux
8 1 (0.41%) vMotion
8 1 (0.41%) WSUS
Vendors
1 39 (16.18%) Microsoft
2 25 (10.37%) SAP
3 20 (8.30%) Google
4 10 (4.15%) Cisco
5 9 (3.73%) Oracle
6 8 (3.32%) VMware
7 7 (2.90%) Dell
7 7 (2.90%) Virgin Media
8 6 (2.49%) Apple
8 6 (2.49%) HP
9 5 (2.07%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.66%) Meraki
10 4 (1.66%) Palo Alto
10 4 (1.66%) Red Hat
11 3 (1.24%) Dynatrace
11 3 (1.24%) Pega
11 3 (1.24%) Siebel
12 2 (0.83%) Databricks
12 2 (0.83%) Gigya
12 2 (0.83%) LogRhythm