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

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 10 9 10
Rank change year-on-year -1 +1 -3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 314 236 336
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 12.51% 10.96% 12.80%
As % of the General category 20.51% 18.90% 22.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 118 238
10th Percentile £300 £317 £360
25th Percentile £381 £409 £464
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -13.04% +12.47%
75th Percentile £546 £597 £707
90th Percentile £627 £700 £725
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 11 13
10th Percentile £16.43 £15.49 £14.14
25th Percentile £17.38 £15.95 £16.19
Median hourly rate £41.86 £16.50 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +153.67% -13.16% -4.43%
75th Percentile £44.94 £18.11 £21.00
90th Percentile £67.25 £29.50 £21.50
England median hourly rate £21.94 £22.27 £25.00
% change year-on-year -1.50% -10.92% +31.58%

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 1,531 1,249 1,462
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 61.00% 57.99% 55.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 987 676 954
10th Percentile £210 £250 £263
25th Percentile £358 £360 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +2.83%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £600
90th Percentile £650 £675 £712
England median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 98 111
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.97 £15.72
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.35 £17.20
Median hourly rate £29.60 £27.13 £24.05
Median % change year-on-year +9.12% +12.79% +20.25%
75th Percentile £45.46 £45.76 £45.88
90th Percentile £67.72 £65.75 £60.00
England median hourly rate £23.50 £30.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -21.67% -9.09% +32.00%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +1 202 £425 -15.00% 38
Cheshire +8 42 £398 -16.26% 10
Merseyside 0 28 £510 +10.27% 4
Cumbria +6 20 £539 +7.70%
Lancashire -14 10 £455 +40.00% 23
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 (1.59%) Confluence
2 4 (1.27%) SharePoint
3 3 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.64%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.64%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.64%) CMS
4 2 (0.64%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.32%) nginx
5 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.32%) SAS
Applications
1 25 (7.96%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.32%) Adobe Premiere
3 1 (0.32%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.32%) Quicktime
3 1 (0.32%) SPSS
3 1 (0.32%) Stata
3 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (4.14%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.59%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.96%) iTrent
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.32%) Remedy ITSM
4 1 (0.32%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.32%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.32%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.32%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.32%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.32%) SAP QM
4 1 (0.32%) SAP VC
4 1 (0.32%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 74 (23.57%) Azure
2 63 (20.06%) AWS
3 25 (7.96%) Power Platform
4 22 (7.01%) GCP
5 20 (6.37%) Microsoft 365
6 18 (5.73%) Serverless
7 16 (5.10%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (4.14%) AWS Lambda
8 13 (4.14%) GitHub
9 12 (3.82%) Amazon SQS
9 12 (3.82%) SaaS
10 11 (3.50%) Google Tag Manager
11 10 (3.18%) Google Analytics
11 10 (3.18%) PowerApps
12 9 (2.87%) Power Automate
13 8 (2.55%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (2.55%) Entra ID
14 7 (2.23%) Google Workspace
15 6 (1.91%) Amazon ECS
15 6 (1.91%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 20 (6.37%) Firewall
2 11 (3.50%) WAN
3 10 (3.18%) DNS
4 8 (2.55%) Wi-Fi
5 7 (2.23%) LAN
5 7 (2.23%) VPN
5 7 (2.23%) Wireless
6 6 (1.91%) DHCP
6 6 (1.91%) TCP/IP
7 5 (1.59%) Cisco ISE
8 4 (1.27%) MPLS
8 4 (1.27%) NetScaler
8 4 (1.27%) VLAN
9 3 (0.96%) BGP
9 3 (0.96%) DMZ
9 3 (0.96%) Network Security
9 3 (0.96%) SAN
9 3 (0.96%) SNMP
10 2 (0.64%) Cisco IOS
10 2 (0.64%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (5.41%) Power BI
2 14 (4.46%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (3.50%) BigQuery
3 11 (3.50%) Looker
3 11 (3.50%) MongoDB
3 11 (3.50%) Redis
4 10 (3.18%) MySQL
5 8 (2.55%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.59%) DocumentDB
7 5 (1.59%) DynamoDB
7 5 (1.59%) Metadata
7 5 (1.59%) NoSQL
8 4 (1.27%) RDBMS
9 3 (0.96%) Apache Cassandra
9 3 (0.96%) Big Data
9 3 (0.96%) SQL Server
10 2 (0.64%) Amazon RDS
10 2 (0.64%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.64%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 24 (7.64%) GitLab
2 20 (6.37%) Git
3 11 (3.50%) JIRA
3 11 (3.50%) Postman
4 8 (2.55%) Jenkins
4 8 (2.55%) SonarQube
5 7 (2.23%) JUnit
6 6 (1.91%) Cucumber
6 6 (1.91%) Cypress.io
7 5 (1.59%) Selenium
8 4 (1.27%) Mockito
9 3 (0.96%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.64%) Gradle
10 2 (0.64%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.64%) Maven
10 2 (0.64%) Mocha
10 2 (0.64%) MSI
10 2 (0.64%) SonarLint
11 1 (0.32%) InstallShield
11 1 (0.32%) JMeter
General
1 69 (21.97%) Social Skills
2 35 (11.15%) Finance
3 20 (6.37%) Military
4 17 (5.41%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (4.46%) Telecoms
6 12 (3.82%) Local Government
6 12 (3.82%) Manufacturing
7 11 (3.50%) Marketing
8 10 (3.18%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (3.18%) Electronics
9 9 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
10 5 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.27%) Legal
11 4 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.96%) Banking
12 3 (0.96%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.64%) Law
14 1 (0.32%) Digital Health
14 1 (0.32%) Digital Healthcare
Job Titles
1 58 (18.47%) Developer
2 48 (15.29%) Analyst
3 32 (10.19%) Architect
4 31 (9.87%) Senior
5 24 (7.64%) Java Developer
6 19 (6.05%) Lead
7 17 (5.41%) Business Analyst
7 17 (5.41%) Consultant
8 13 (4.14%) AWS Engineer
8 13 (4.14%) DevOps Engineer
9 12 (3.82%) Technical Architect
10 11 (3.50%) Full-Stack Developer
10 11 (3.50%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (3.18%) Test Engineer
12 9 (2.87%) Senior Developer
13 8 (2.55%) Data Architect
13 8 (2.55%) Network Engineer
13 8 (2.55%) Senior Java Developer
14 7 (2.23%) Payroll Manager
14 7 (2.23%) Performance Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (9.55%) Spring Boot
2 26 (8.28%) Spring
3 22 (7.01%) Node.js
4 16 (5.10%) JSON
4 16 (5.10%) RESTful
5 14 (4.46%) React
6 12 (3.82%) HTML
7 10 (3.18%) Kafka
8 9 (2.87%) AngularJS
8 9 (2.87%) Playwright
8 9 (2.87%) REST
9 7 (2.23%) Jest
10 6 (1.91%) Spring MVC
10 6 (1.91%) Spring Security
11 5 (1.59%) CSS
11 5 (1.59%) Hibernate
11 5 (1.59%) HTML5 Canvas
11 5 (1.59%) JAX-RS
11 5 (1.59%) XML
12 4 (1.27%) Thymeleaf
Miscellaneous
1 27 (8.60%) Onboarding
2 16 (5.10%) Data Centre
3 12 (3.82%) Product Ownership
4 9 (2.87%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.23%) Hybrid Cloud
5 7 (2.23%) NHS
6 6 (1.91%) Distributed Systems
7 5 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.59%) Low-Code
7 5 (1.59%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
9 3 (0.96%) Data Structures
9 3 (0.96%) Mobile App
9 3 (0.96%) N-Tier
9 3 (0.96%) Operational Technology
10 2 (0.64%) Clustering
10 2 (0.64%) Driving Licence
10 2 (0.64%) Fibre Optics
10 2 (0.64%) Taxonomies
11 1 (0.32%) Digital Wallet
Operating Systems
1 20 (6.37%) Windows
2 14 (4.46%) Linux
3 9 (2.87%) Mac OS
4 8 (2.55%) Android
5 7 (2.23%) Windows 10
6 6 (1.91%) Apple iOS
7 4 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.64%) Unix
8 2 (0.64%) Windows 7
9 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (20.06%) Agile
2 46 (14.65%) DevOps
3 45 (14.33%) CI/CD
4 37 (11.78%) Microservices
5 34 (10.83%) User Experience
6 33 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
7 32 (10.19%) Continuous Improvement
8 29 (9.24%) Stakeholder Management
9 27 (8.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 27 (8.60%) Test Automation
10 25 (7.96%) Business Intelligence
10 25 (7.96%) Containerisation
11 23 (7.32%) Analytics
12 22 (7.01%) Change Management
12 22 (7.01%) User Research
13 20 (6.37%) Validation
14 18 (5.73%) Full-Stack Development
14 18 (5.73%) Infrastructure as Code
15 17 (5.41%) Migration
15 17 (5.41%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 52 (16.56%) Java
2 30 (9.55%) Python
3 18 (5.73%) JavaScript
3 18 (5.73%) SQL
4 13 (4.14%) TypeScript
5 11 (3.50%) PowerShell
6 7 (2.23%) Bash
7 5 (1.59%) Perl
8 4 (1.27%) C#
8 4 (1.27%) Go
8 4 (1.27%) Shell Script
9 3 (0.96%) ABAP
9 3 (0.96%) C++
9 3 (0.96%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.64%) C
10 2 (0.64%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.64%) Ruby
10 2 (0.64%) VB
10 2 (0.64%) VBScript
11 1 (0.32%) ProC
Qualifications
1 170 (54.14%) Security Cleared
2 100 (31.85%) SC Cleared
3 19 (6.05%) BPSS Clearance
4 12 (3.82%) Degree
5 6 (1.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.27%) Azure Certification
6 4 (1.27%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.27%) ISTQB
6 4 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.64%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.64%) CCNP
7 2 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.64%) CISM
7 2 (0.64%) CISSP
8 1 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.32%) CCDP
8 1 (0.32%) CCIE
8 1 (0.32%) CTC Cleared
8 1 (0.32%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 1 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (11.46%) Accessibility
2 15 (4.78%) Data Quality
3 13 (4.14%) QA
4 9 (2.87%) WCAG
5 7 (2.23%) NIST
6 3 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.96%) PMO
7 2 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.64%) GDPR
7 2 (0.64%) IEC 61508
7 2 (0.64%) ISO 26262
7 2 (0.64%) PSD2
7 2 (0.64%) SLA
8 1 (0.32%) CRD IV
8 1 (0.32%) FINREP
8 1 (0.32%) IEC 62304
8 1 (0.32%) IFRS
8 1 (0.32%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.32%) NCSC
8 1 (0.32%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 33 (10.51%) Docker
2 9 (2.87%) Active Directory
3 7 (2.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.96%) UAG
4 3 (0.96%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.64%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.64%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.64%) ISA Server
6 1 (0.32%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 32 (10.19%) Terraform
2 30 (9.55%) Kubernetes
3 8 (2.55%) Microsoft Intune
4 7 (2.23%) SCCM
5 5 (1.59%) Ansible
6 3 (0.96%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.96%) Packer
6 3 (0.96%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.64%) Cisco CUCM
7 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Clustering
7 2 (0.64%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
8 1 (0.32%) AirWatch
8 1 (0.32%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.32%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.32%) Grafana
8 1 (0.32%) Nagios
8 1 (0.32%) Nessus
8 1 (0.32%) SELinux
8 1 (0.32%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 49 (15.61%) Microsoft
2 29 (9.24%) SAP
3 19 (6.05%) Google
3 19 (6.05%) Oracle
4 18 (5.73%) Cisco
5 16 (5.10%) Virgin Media
6 10 (3.18%) ServiceNow
7 9 (2.87%) Palo Alto
7 9 (2.87%) VMware
8 8 (2.55%) Apple
9 7 (2.23%) Meraki
10 6 (1.91%) Adobe
10 6 (1.91%) Dell
11 5 (1.59%) HP
11 5 (1.59%) Splunk
12 4 (1.27%) Dynatrace
12 4 (1.27%) Red Hat
13 3 (0.96%) F5
13 3 (0.96%) Pega
13 3 (0.96%) SolarWinds