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 13 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 10 10
Rank change year-on-year -1 0 -4
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 331 233 328
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.15% 11.06% 11.66%
As % of the General category 20.28% 19.04% 21.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 128 225
10th Percentile £314 £346 £350
25th Percentile £400 £419 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £530
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -5.66% +6.00%
75th Percentile £532 £615 £658
90th Percentile £625 £684 £725
England median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 5 29
10th Percentile £16.32 £13.15 £12.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £15.49 £14.50
Median hourly rate £41.86 £16.13 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +159.57% +0.78% -20.00%
75th Percentile £50.52 £16.25 £19.50
90th Percentile £67.25 £17.37 £24.04
England median hourly rate £22.00 £25.25 £21.00
% change year-on-year -12.87% +20.24% +5.32%

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 1,632 1,224 1,525
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 59.91% 58.12% 54.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,043 684 961
10th Percentile £200 £261 £265
25th Percentile £354 £360 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £588
90th Percentile £639 £675 £690
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 94 176
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.93 £12.12
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.39 £13.93
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.50 £19.25
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% +42.86% -18.35%
75th Percentile £52.50 £45.76 £37.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £69.45 £47.09
England median hourly rate £22.92 £30.31 £25.37
% change year-on-year -24.37% +19.45% -8.08%

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 13 February 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 13 February 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 13 February 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 +1 213 £450 -10.00% 65
Cheshire +4 57 £436 -6.68% 3
Merseyside -10 26 £510 +4.62% 4
Cumbria -6 13 £528 +5.55%
Lancashire -22 7 £455 -24.17% 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 12 (3.63%) Confluence
2 5 (1.51%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.60%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.60%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.60%) CICS
4 2 (0.60%) CMS
4 2 (0.60%) OpenStack
4 2 (0.60%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.30%) Apache
5 1 (0.30%) SAS
Applications
1 24 (7.25%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.30%) Adobe Premiere
4 1 (0.30%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.30%) Quicktime
4 1 (0.30%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (3.93%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.91%) iTrent
4 2 (0.60%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.30%) SAP EHS
5 1 (0.30%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.30%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.30%) SAP PSCD
5 1 (0.30%) SAP QM
5 1 (0.30%) SAP VC
5 1 (0.30%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 76 (22.96%) Azure
2 63 (19.03%) AWS
3 28 (8.46%) Power Platform
4 23 (6.95%) GitHub
5 20 (6.04%) GCP
5 20 (6.04%) Serverless
6 19 (5.74%) Microsoft 365
7 14 (4.23%) AWS Lambda
8 13 (3.93%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (3.93%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (3.63%) Amazon SQS
10 11 (3.32%) PowerApps
11 10 (3.02%) Google Tag Manager
11 10 (3.02%) Power Automate
12 9 (2.72%) Google Analytics
13 8 (2.42%) Amazon S3
13 8 (2.42%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (2.42%) Entra ID
14 6 (1.81%) Amazon EKS
14 6 (1.81%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 19 (5.74%) Firewall
2 9 (2.72%) WAN
3 8 (2.42%) DNS
3 8 (2.42%) VPN
4 7 (2.11%) LAN
4 7 (2.11%) Wireless
5 6 (1.81%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (1.21%) DHCP
6 4 (1.21%) MPLS
6 4 (1.21%) Network Security
6 4 (1.21%) TCP/IP
6 4 (1.21%) VLAN
7 3 (0.91%) BGP
7 3 (0.91%) Cisco ISE
7 3 (0.91%) SAN
7 3 (0.91%) SNMP
8 2 (0.60%) Internet
8 2 (0.60%) OSPF
8 2 (0.60%) SSH
8 2 (0.60%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (5.44%) Power BI
2 13 (3.93%) MongoDB
3 11 (3.32%) PostgreSQL
4 10 (3.02%) Looker
5 9 (2.72%) DocumentDB
5 9 (2.72%) Redis
6 8 (2.42%) BigQuery
6 8 (2.42%) MySQL
7 7 (2.11%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (1.81%) Metadata
9 5 (1.51%) Relational Database
10 4 (1.21%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.21%) SQL Server
11 3 (0.91%) Apache Cassandra
11 3 (0.91%) Big Data
11 3 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 2 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
12 2 (0.60%) DynamoDB
12 2 (0.60%) SAP HANA
12 2 (0.60%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 37 (11.18%) GitLab
2 24 (7.25%) Git
3 15 (4.53%) JIRA
4 10 (3.02%) Cypress.io
5 8 (2.42%) Jenkins
5 8 (2.42%) JUnit
5 8 (2.42%) Mocha
5 8 (2.42%) Postman
6 7 (2.11%) CircleCI
6 7 (2.11%) Mockito
6 7 (2.11%) SonarQube
7 5 (1.51%) Cucumber
8 4 (1.21%) Selenium
9 2 (0.60%) Jasmine
9 2 (0.60%) MSI
10 1 (0.30%) Browser DevTools
10 1 (0.30%) InstallShield
10 1 (0.30%) JMeter
10 1 (0.30%) MLflow
10 1 (0.30%) Rational DOORS
General
1 75 (22.66%) Social Skills
2 41 (12.39%) Finance
3 17 (5.14%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (4.83%) Military
5 12 (3.63%) Telecoms
6 11 (3.32%) Manufacturing
7 10 (3.02%) Local Government
7 10 (3.02%) Marketing
8 9 (2.72%) Electronics
9 7 (2.11%) Banking
9 7 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.81%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (1.51%) Legal
11 5 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.60%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.60%) Digital Economy
12 2 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.30%) Digital Health
13 1 (0.30%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 80 (24.17%) Developer
2 39 (11.78%) Analyst
3 34 (10.27%) Architect
3 34 (10.27%) Senior
4 28 (8.46%) Java Developer
5 26 (7.85%) Lead
6 15 (4.53%) DevOps Engineer
6 15 (4.53%) Full-Stack Developer
7 14 (4.23%) Business Analyst
8 12 (3.63%) Designer
9 11 (3.32%) Consultant
9 11 (3.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 11 (3.32%) Technical Architect
10 10 (3.02%) Project Manager
11 9 (2.72%) AWS Engineer
11 9 (2.72%) Lead Developer
11 9 (2.72%) Senior Developer
11 9 (2.72%) Software Developer
11 9 (2.72%) Test Engineer
12 8 (2.42%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (10.88%) Spring
1 36 (10.88%) Spring Boot
2 30 (9.06%) Node.js
3 18 (5.44%) React
4 16 (4.83%) REST
5 14 (4.23%) HTML
5 14 (4.23%) RESTful
6 13 (3.93%) Jest
6 13 (3.93%) Playwright
7 11 (3.32%) JSON
7 11 (3.32%) Kafka
8 8 (2.42%) CSS
9 7 (2.11%) AngularJS
9 7 (2.11%) Hibernate
9 7 (2.11%) JAX-RS
9 7 (2.11%) Spring MVC
10 6 (1.81%) ActiveMQ
10 6 (1.81%) HTML5 Canvas
10 6 (1.81%) Spring Security
11 5 (1.51%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 26 (7.85%) Onboarding
2 16 (4.83%) Data Centre
3 14 (4.23%) Product Ownership
4 11 (3.32%) Cloud Native
5 8 (2.42%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (2.42%) NHS
6 5 (1.51%) Low-Code
6 5 (1.51%) Operational Technology
7 4 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.21%) Public Cloud
8 3 (0.91%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.60%) BYOD
9 2 (0.60%) Clustering
9 2 (0.60%) Data Structures
9 2 (0.60%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.60%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.60%) Replication
9 2 (0.60%) Taxonomies
9 2 (0.60%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 22 (6.65%) Linux
2 20 (6.04%) Windows
3 10 (3.02%) Mac OS
4 9 (2.72%) Unix
5 7 (2.11%) Android
5 7 (2.11%) Windows 10
6 5 (1.51%) Apple iOS
6 5 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.21%) Mac OS X
8 2 (0.60%) AIX
8 2 (0.60%) Solaris
8 2 (0.60%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (25.68%) Agile
2 60 (18.13%) CI/CD
3 58 (17.52%) DevOps
4 48 (14.50%) Microservices
5 41 (12.39%) Continuous Improvement
6 40 (12.08%) Problem-Solving
6 40 (12.08%) Test Automation
7 36 (10.88%) User Experience
8 27 (8.16%) Containerisation
9 26 (7.85%) Stakeholder Management
10 25 (7.55%) Business Intelligence
10 25 (7.55%) Change Management
10 25 (7.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 25 (7.55%) Validation
11 24 (7.25%) Analytics
11 24 (7.25%) User Research
12 21 (6.34%) TDD
13 20 (6.04%) Full-Stack Development
13 20 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
13 20 (6.04%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 59 (17.82%) Java
2 30 (9.06%) JavaScript
3 24 (7.25%) Python
4 22 (6.65%) TypeScript
5 16 (4.83%) SQL
6 13 (3.93%) PowerShell
7 7 (2.11%) Bash
8 5 (1.51%) C#
9 4 (1.21%) Go
10 3 (0.91%) ABAP
10 3 (0.91%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.91%) Perl
10 3 (0.91%) Ruby
11 2 (0.60%) COBOL
11 2 (0.60%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.60%) VB
11 2 (0.60%) VBScript
12 1 (0.30%) C++
12 1 (0.30%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.30%) ProC
Qualifications
1 166 (50.15%) Security Cleared
2 85 (25.68%) SC Cleared
3 23 (6.95%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (4.83%) Degree
5 6 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.51%) Azure Certification
6 5 (1.51%) DV Cleared
7 3 (0.91%) AWS Certification
7 3 (0.91%) ISTQB
7 3 (0.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
7 3 (0.91%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.60%) CCNP
8 2 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.60%) CISM
8 2 (0.60%) CISSP
8 2 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.60%) MBA
8 2 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.30%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (13.60%) Accessibility
2 16 (4.83%) Data Quality
2 16 (4.83%) WCAG
3 13 (3.93%) QA
4 8 (2.42%) NIST
5 6 (1.81%) PMO
6 5 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.91%) GDPR
7 3 (0.91%) IFRS
7 3 (0.91%) SLA
8 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.60%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.60%) PSD2
9 1 (0.30%) CRD IV
9 1 (0.30%) FINREP
9 1 (0.30%) GRC
9 1 (0.30%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.30%) NCSC
9 1 (0.30%) SEPA
9 1 (0.30%) SOC 2
System Software
1 38 (11.48%) Docker
2 11 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.51%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.60%) BitLocker
4 2 (0.60%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.60%) ISA Server
5 1 (0.30%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.30%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 39 (11.78%) Kubernetes
2 36 (10.88%) Terraform
3 6 (1.81%) SCCM
4 5 (1.51%) Ansible
4 5 (1.51%) Grafana
5 4 (1.21%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (1.21%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.91%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 2 (0.60%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
8 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.30%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.30%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (0.30%) Nagios
8 1 (0.30%) Norton AntiVirus
8 1 (0.30%) Packer
8 1 (0.30%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 53 (16.01%) Microsoft
2 27 (8.16%) SAP
3 23 (6.95%) Oracle
4 15 (4.53%) Cisco
5 14 (4.23%) Virgin Media
6 13 (3.93%) Google
7 9 (2.72%) ServiceNow
8 8 (2.42%) Apple
8 8 (2.42%) VMware
9 7 (2.11%) Palo Alto
10 6 (1.81%) Adobe
10 6 (1.81%) Dell
11 5 (1.51%) HP
11 5 (1.51%) Meraki
11 5 (1.51%) PeopleSoft
12 4 (1.21%) Dynatrace
12 4 (1.21%) IBM
12 4 (1.21%) SolarWinds
12 4 (1.21%) Splunk
13 3 (0.91%) Red Hat