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

6 months to
3 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 13 13
Rank change year-on-year -13 0 -4
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 259 233 232
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.55% 10.65% 9.67%
As % of the General category 12.82% 17.38% 16.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 146 171 120
10th Percentile £363 £215 £328
25th Percentile £419 £398 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £450 £493
Median % change year-on-year +22.22% -8.72% -6.10%
75th Percentile £638 £561 £591
90th Percentile £728 £656 £688
England median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -5.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 8 10
10th Percentile £13.59 £16.11 £15.95
25th Percentile £22.99 £17.30 £16.70
Median hourly rate £25.49 £20.07 £18.62
Median % change year-on-year +27.01% +7.77% +10.52%
75th Percentile £69.66 £32.95 £29.88
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.25 £36.40
England median hourly rate £21.35 £22.07 £23.99
% change year-on-year -3.26% -8.00% +14.24%

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 2,020 1,341 1,369
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 51.11% 61.32% 57.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,121 871 750
10th Percentile £230 £268 £275
25th Percentile £400 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £455 £490
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -7.14% -2.00%
75th Percentile £594 £572 £575
90th Percentile £675 £688 £675
England median daily rate £525 £501 £533
% change year-on-year +4.90% -6.10% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 110 82
10th Percentile £14.06 £12.82 £16.00
25th Percentile £21.00 £15.50 £18.03
Median hourly rate £35.00 £23.57 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.53% -32.67% +59.09%
75th Percentile £57.19 £49.28 £46.18
90th Percentile £77.88 £65.45 £62.50
England median hourly rate £29.50 £25.15 £36.00
% change year-on-year +17.30% -30.14% +25.22%

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 October 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 3 October 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 3 October 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 -13 172 £525 +17.32% 336
Cheshire -11 24 £511 +17.02% 17
Lancashire -8 23 £575 +26.37% 49
Merseyside -9 23 £525 -1.87% 34
Cumbria -29 11 £376 -30.69% 5
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 14 (5.41%) SharePoint
2 9 (3.47%) Microsoft Exchange
3 6 (2.32%) Confluence
4 5 (1.93%) SAS
5 4 (1.54%) SharePoint 2013
6 3 (1.16%) Apache
6 3 (1.16%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (1.16%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.77%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.77%) WordPress
8 1 (0.39%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.39%) nginx
8 1 (0.39%) Skype for Business
8 1 (0.39%) Traefik
Applications
1 1 (0.39%) AutoCAD
1 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.39%) Navisworks
1 1 (0.39%) ProjectWise
1 1 (0.39%) Revit
1 1 (0.39%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.16%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.77%) Oracle Cash Management
2 2 (0.77%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.77%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 2 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.39%) Integrated Workplace Management System
3 1 (0.39%) Primavera
3 1 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.39%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 64 (24.71%) AWS
2 46 (17.76%) Azure
3 25 (9.65%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (7.34%) SaaS
5 13 (5.02%) OCI
6 11 (4.25%) Google Workspace
7 10 (3.86%) GCP
7 10 (3.86%) GitHub
7 10 (3.86%) Serverless
8 8 (3.09%) Power Platform
9 7 (2.70%) Google Drive
10 6 (2.32%) Amazon S3
10 6 (2.32%) AWS KMS
10 6 (2.32%) Azure DevOps
10 6 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
10 6 (2.32%) Microsoft Copilot
11 5 (1.93%) Amazon EC2
11 5 (1.93%) Amazon ECS
12 4 (1.54%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 4 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.25%) Firewall
2 10 (3.86%) Wi-Fi
3 9 (3.47%) BGP
3 9 (3.47%) OSPF
4 8 (3.09%) SD-WAN
4 8 (3.09%) WAN
5 7 (2.70%) BIG-IP
5 7 (2.70%) Ethernet VPN
5 7 (2.70%) VXLAN
6 6 (2.32%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 6 (2.32%) WLAN
7 4 (1.54%) DNS
8 3 (1.16%) Cisco ASA
8 3 (1.16%) Cisco Firepower
8 3 (1.16%) DKIM
8 3 (1.16%) DMARC
8 3 (1.16%) EIGRP
8 3 (1.16%) HSRP
8 3 (1.16%) IPsec
9 2 (0.77%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.47%) Relational Database
2 8 (3.09%) MongoDB
3 7 (2.70%) Oracle Database
4 6 (2.32%) Power BI
4 6 (2.32%) RDBMS
5 4 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (1.54%) Metadata
5 4 (1.54%) Oracle Exadata
5 4 (1.54%) PowerCenter
6 2 (0.77%) Amazon QuickSight
6 2 (0.77%) DocumentDB
6 2 (0.77%) EDMS
6 2 (0.77%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 2 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (0.39%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.39%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.39%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 20 (7.72%) GitLab
2 14 (5.41%) Cucumber
3 13 (5.02%) Selenium
4 12 (4.63%) JIRA
5 10 (3.86%) Jenkins
6 8 (3.09%) REST Assured
7 7 (2.70%) Git
8 5 (1.93%) JUnit
9 3 (1.16%) Cypress.io
9 3 (1.16%) Gatling
9 3 (1.16%) Maven
9 3 (1.16%) Mockito
9 3 (1.16%) TestNG
10 2 (0.77%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.77%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.77%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.39%) Gradle
11 1 (0.39%) JMeter
11 1 (0.39%) MSI
11 1 (0.39%) SonarQube
General
1 65 (25.10%) Social Skills
2 44 (16.99%) Military
3 22 (8.49%) Finance
4 19 (7.34%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (4.63%) Local Government
6 5 (1.93%) Legal
6 5 (1.93%) Police
6 5 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.16%) Marketing
9 2 (0.77%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (0.77%) General Ledger
10 1 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 47 (18.15%) Lead
2 39 (15.06%) Architect
3 38 (14.67%) Senior
4 34 (13.13%) Developer
5 16 (6.18%) Analyst
6 15 (5.79%) Consultant
6 15 (5.79%) Security Architect
6 15 (5.79%) Test Engineer
7 14 (5.41%) Administrator
7 14 (5.41%) Solutions Architect
8 12 (4.63%) Java Developer
9 11 (4.25%) Designer
9 11 (4.25%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 10 (3.86%) Business Analyst
11 9 (3.47%) Lead Developer
12 8 (3.09%) Content Designer
12 8 (3.09%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 8 (3.09%) Technical Architect
13 7 (2.70%) Product Manager
13 7 (2.70%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (11.20%) Terraform
2 18 (6.95%) Node.js
3 13 (5.02%) REST
4 12 (4.63%) Spring Boot
5 10 (3.86%) Spring
6 9 (3.47%) Kafka
7 7 (2.70%) OAuth
8 6 (2.32%) Playwright
8 6 (2.32%) RESTful
9 4 (1.54%) AWS CDK
9 4 (1.54%) Django
9 4 (1.54%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (1.54%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 3 (1.16%) Middleware
10 3 (1.16%) PySpark
10 3 (1.16%) React
11 2 (0.77%) GraphQL
11 2 (0.77%) JAX-RS
11 2 (0.77%) Nunjucks
11 2 (0.77%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 20 (7.72%) Cloud Native
2 11 (4.25%) Legacy Systems
2 11 (4.25%) Management Information System
3 8 (3.09%) Data Centre
3 8 (3.09%) Product Ownership
4 7 (2.70%) Hybrid Cloud
4 7 (2.70%) NHS
5 6 (2.32%) Onboarding
5 6 (2.32%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (1.93%) Public Cloud
6 5 (1.93%) Taxonomies
7 4 (1.54%) Replication
8 3 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (1.16%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.77%) CSOC
9 2 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.77%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.77%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.77%) Educational Technology
9 2 (0.77%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.41%) Linux
2 7 (2.70%) Unix
3 5 (1.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (1.93%) Windows
4 4 (1.54%) AIX
5 2 (0.77%) CentOS
6 1 (0.39%) Android
6 1 (0.39%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.39%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.39%) Solaris
6 1 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.39%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (23.17%) Agile
2 53 (20.46%) Stakeholder Management
3 46 (17.76%) CI/CD
4 41 (15.83%) DevOps
5 38 (14.67%) Continuous Improvement
6 33 (12.74%) Migration
6 33 (12.74%) Test Automation
7 30 (11.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 29 (11.20%) Microservices
9 24 (9.27%) Infrastructure as Code
9 24 (9.27%) Mentoring
10 23 (8.88%) Cybersecurity
10 23 (8.88%) Roadmaps
11 22 (8.49%) Technical Leadership
12 21 (8.11%) Risk Management
13 20 (7.72%) Architectural Patterns
14 19 (7.34%) Software Engineering
15 18 (6.95%) Decision-Making
16 17 (6.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 15 (5.79%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 32 (12.36%) Java
2 24 (9.27%) Python
3 21 (8.11%) JavaScript
4 19 (7.34%) SQL
5 9 (3.47%) TypeScript
6 6 (2.32%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.54%) Bash
7 4 (1.54%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.77%) PHP
8 2 (0.77%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.39%) Bicep
9 1 (0.39%) C#
9 1 (0.39%) Go
9 1 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 131 (50.58%) Security Cleared
2 104 (40.15%) SC Cleared
3 14 (5.41%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (2.32%) AWS Certification
5 3 (1.16%) Azure Certification
5 3 (1.16%) Degree
6 2 (0.77%) CISM
6 2 (0.77%) CISSP
6 2 (0.77%) DBS Check
6 2 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
6 2 (0.77%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 1 (0.39%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.39%) Oracle Certification
7 1 (0.39%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.39%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (8.88%) Accessibility
2 18 (6.95%) QA
3 10 (3.86%) Data Quality
4 9 (3.47%) PMO
5 8 (3.09%) WCAG
6 6 (2.32%) NCSC
7 5 (1.93%) GDPR
8 3 (1.16%) NIST
9 2 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.39%) ISO 19650
10 1 (0.39%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.39%) SLA
10 1 (0.39%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 20 (7.72%) Docker
2 10 (3.86%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.93%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.39%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.39%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 14 (5.41%) Kubernetes
2 13 (5.02%) Ansible
3 5 (1.93%) Data Guard
4 4 (1.54%) Oracle RMAN
5 3 (1.16%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.77%) Grafana
6 2 (0.77%) Packer
6 2 (0.77%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.77%) SCCM
7 1 (0.39%) CASB
7 1 (0.39%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.39%) Consul
7 1 (0.39%) HAProxy
7 1 (0.39%) Istio
7 1 (0.39%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.39%) linkerd
7 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.39%) Oracle ZFS
7 1 (0.39%) Rancher
7 1 (0.39%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 29 (11.20%) Microsoft
2 18 (6.95%) Oracle
3 12 (4.63%) Google
4 10 (3.86%) Palo Alto
5 7 (2.70%) Aruba
5 7 (2.70%) F5
5 7 (2.70%) ServiceNow
6 6 (2.32%) Arista
6 6 (2.32%) Informatica
7 5 (1.93%) Cisco
8 3 (1.16%) CheckPoint
9 2 (0.77%) Databricks
9 2 (0.77%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.77%) SAP
9 2 (0.77%) Splunk
9 2 (0.77%) Trend Micro
10 1 (0.39%) ESET
10 1 (0.39%) Okta
10 1 (0.39%) Tanium
10 1 (0.39%) Tenable