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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 11 9
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 -3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 331 217 329
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.93% 10.54% 11.68%
As % of the General category 19.90% 18.13% 21.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 254 116 224
10th Percentile £325 £350 £350
25th Percentile £400 £417 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £528
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -5.21% +5.50%
75th Percentile £538 £615 £657
90th Percentile £625 £685 £725
England median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.80% -1.00% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 5 31
10th Percentile £21.33 £13.15 £12.00
25th Percentile £32.54 £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 £44.94 £16.25 £20.25
90th Percentile - £17.37 £34.21
England median hourly rate £22.00 £25.50 £21.00
% change year-on-year -13.73% +21.43% +5.00%

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 1,663 1,197 1,524
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 59.95% 58.14% 54.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,060 677 955
10th Percentile £200 £258 £265
25th Percentile £356 £360 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +3.09%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £588
90th Percentile £639 £675 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 130 98 184
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.78 £12.32
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.05 £14.20
Median hourly rate £31.00 £28.75 £18.25
Median % change year-on-year +7.81% +57.53% -27.00%
75th Percentile £54.38 £45.76 £37.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £71.07 £46.18
England median hourly rate £23.00 £30.78 £26.00
% change year-on-year -25.28% +18.38% -12.61%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +2 219 £450 -10.00% 57
Cheshire +6 54 £444 -4.88% 3
Merseyside -9 26 £510 +2.00% 7
Cumbria -2 13 £528 +5.55%
Lancashire -23 6 £455 -24.17% 22
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 11 (3.32%) Confluence
2 6 (1.81%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.21%) 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%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.30%) SAS
Applications
1 23 (6.95%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.30%) Adobe Premiere
3 1 (0.30%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.30%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.30%) Quicktime
3 1 (0.30%) Trello
Business Applications
1 12 (3.63%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.91%) iTrent
4 1 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.30%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.30%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.30%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.30%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.30%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.30%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.30%) SAP QM
4 1 (0.30%) SAP VC
Cloud Services
1 76 (22.96%) Azure
2 64 (19.34%) AWS
3 29 (8.76%) 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%) PowerApps
10 11 (3.32%) Amazon SQS
10 11 (3.32%) Power Automate
11 10 (3.02%) Google Tag Manager
12 9 (2.72%) Amazon S3
12 9 (2.72%) Google Analytics
13 8 (2.42%) Dynamics 365
13 8 (2.42%) Entra ID
14 7 (2.11%) Amazon EKS
15 6 (1.81%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 18 (5.44%) Firewall
2 8 (2.42%) VPN
2 8 (2.42%) WAN
3 7 (2.11%) Wireless
4 6 (1.81%) DNS
4 6 (1.81%) LAN
4 6 (1.81%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (1.21%) DHCP
5 4 (1.21%) MPLS
6 3 (0.91%) Cisco ISE
6 3 (0.91%) Network Security
6 3 (0.91%) SNMP
6 3 (0.91%) VLAN
7 2 (0.60%) Cisco ASA
7 2 (0.60%) Cisco Nexus
7 2 (0.60%) NetScaler
7 2 (0.60%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.60%) Skype
7 2 (0.60%) SSH
7 2 (0.60%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (5.44%) Power BI
2 14 (4.23%) 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 36 (10.88%) GitLab
2 25 (7.55%) Git
3 14 (4.23%) JIRA
4 10 (3.02%) Cypress.io
5 9 (2.72%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.42%) JUnit
6 8 (2.42%) Mocha
6 8 (2.42%) Mockito
6 8 (2.42%) Postman
7 7 (2.11%) CircleCI
7 7 (2.11%) SonarQube
8 5 (1.51%) Cucumber
9 4 (1.21%) Selenium
10 2 (0.60%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.60%) MSI
11 1 (0.30%) Axure RP
11 1 (0.30%) Browser DevTools
11 1 (0.30%) InstallShield
11 1 (0.30%) JMeter
11 1 (0.30%) MLflow
General
1 70 (21.15%) Social Skills
2 35 (10.57%) Finance
3 18 (5.44%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (4.53%) Military
5 10 (3.02%) Local Government
6 9 (2.72%) Telecoms
7 8 (2.42%) Banking
7 8 (2.42%) Manufacturing
8 7 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (2.11%) Marketing
9 6 (1.81%) Electronics
9 6 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.81%) Legal
10 5 (1.51%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.60%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.60%) Digital Economy
11 2 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.30%) Digital Health
12 1 (0.30%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 83 (25.08%) Developer
2 36 (10.88%) Analyst
2 36 (10.88%) Architect
3 33 (9.97%) Senior
4 30 (9.06%) Java Developer
5 27 (8.16%) Lead
6 16 (4.83%) Full-Stack Developer
7 15 (4.53%) DevOps Engineer
8 13 (3.93%) Business Analyst
9 12 (3.63%) Designer
10 11 (3.32%) Consultant
10 11 (3.32%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 11 (3.32%) Technical Architect
11 10 (3.02%) Senior Developer
12 9 (2.72%) AWS Engineer
12 9 (2.72%) Lead Developer
12 9 (2.72%) Project Manager
12 9 (2.72%) Software Developer
12 9 (2.72%) Test Engineer
13 8 (2.42%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (10.88%) Spring
1 36 (10.88%) Spring Boot
2 31 (9.37%) Node.js
3 19 (5.74%) 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 12 (3.63%) Kafka
8 10 (3.02%) JSON
9 8 (2.42%) AngularJS
9 8 (2.42%) CSS
9 8 (2.42%) JAX-RS
10 7 (2.11%) ActiveMQ
10 7 (2.11%) Hibernate
10 7 (2.11%) Spring MVC
11 6 (1.81%) HTML5 Canvas
11 6 (1.81%) Spring Security
12 5 (1.51%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (7.55%) Onboarding
2 15 (4.53%) Data Centre
2 15 (4.53%) Product Ownership
3 12 (3.63%) Cloud Native
4 8 (2.42%) NHS
5 7 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.51%) Low-Code
7 4 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.21%) Operational Technology
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%) e-Learning
9 2 (0.60%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.60%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.60%) VSAM
10 1 (0.30%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.30%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 23 (6.95%) Linux
2 17 (5.14%) Windows
3 10 (3.02%) Unix
4 8 (2.42%) Mac OS
5 7 (2.11%) Android
6 6 (1.81%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 5 (1.51%) Mac OS X
7 5 (1.51%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.91%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.60%) AIX
9 2 (0.60%) Solaris
9 2 (0.60%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 89 (26.89%) Agile
2 61 (18.43%) CI/CD
3 59 (17.82%) DevOps
4 49 (14.80%) Microservices
5 42 (12.69%) Continuous Improvement
6 41 (12.39%) Test Automation
7 39 (11.78%) Problem-Solving
8 36 (10.88%) User Experience
9 27 (8.16%) Containerisation
10 26 (7.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 26 (7.85%) Stakeholder Management
11 25 (7.55%) Validation
12 24 (7.25%) Change Management
12 24 (7.25%) User Research
13 23 (6.95%) Analytics
14 22 (6.65%) Business Intelligence
14 22 (6.65%) TDD
15 21 (6.34%) Full-Stack Development
16 20 (6.04%) Infrastructure as Code
17 19 (5.74%) Service Design
Programming Languages
1 60 (18.13%) Java
2 30 (9.06%) JavaScript
3 26 (7.85%) Python
4 22 (6.65%) TypeScript
5 18 (5.44%) SQL
6 11 (3.32%) PowerShell
7 6 (1.81%) Bash
8 5 (1.51%) C#
9 4 (1.21%) Go
10 3 (0.91%) ABAP
10 3 (0.91%) Ruby
11 2 (0.60%) COBOL
11 2 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.60%) Perl
11 2 (0.60%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.60%) VB
11 2 (0.60%) VBScript
12 1 (0.30%) Bicep
12 1 (0.30%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.30%) ProC
Qualifications
1 166 (50.15%) Security Cleared
2 84 (25.38%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.65%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (4.83%) Degree
5 6 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (1.51%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.21%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.91%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.91%) ISTQB
8 3 (0.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (0.91%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.60%) CISM
9 2 (0.60%) CISSP
9 2 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (0.60%) MBA
10 1 (0.30%) CCA
10 1 (0.30%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.30%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.30%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (13.29%) Accessibility
2 16 (4.83%) Data Quality
3 15 (4.53%) WCAG
4 14 (4.23%) QA
5 6 (1.81%) NIST
6 5 (1.51%) GDPR
6 5 (1.51%) PMO
7 4 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.91%) IFRS
8 3 (0.91%) SLA
9 2 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.60%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.60%) PSD2
10 1 (0.30%) CRD IV
10 1 (0.30%) FINREP
10 1 (0.30%) GRC
10 1 (0.30%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.30%) NCSC
10 1 (0.30%) SEPA
10 1 (0.30%) SOC 2
System Software
1 38 (11.48%) Docker
2 9 (2.72%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.21%) 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 40 (12.08%) Kubernetes
2 36 (10.88%) Terraform
3 5 (1.51%) Ansible
3 5 (1.51%) Grafana
4 4 (1.21%) Prometheus
4 4 (1.21%) SCCM
5 3 (0.91%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.30%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.30%) Cisco Prime
7 1 (0.30%) Failover Clustering
7 1 (0.30%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (0.30%) Nagios
7 1 (0.30%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.30%) Packer
Vendors
1 54 (16.31%) Microsoft
2 23 (6.95%) SAP
3 22 (6.65%) Oracle
4 14 (4.23%) Virgin Media
5 13 (3.93%) Cisco
5 13 (3.93%) Google
6 7 (2.11%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.11%) VMware
7 6 (1.81%) Adobe
7 6 (1.81%) Apple
7 6 (1.81%) Palo Alto
8 5 (1.51%) Dell
8 5 (1.51%) HP
8 5 (1.51%) PeopleSoft
9 4 (1.21%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.21%) IBM
9 4 (1.21%) Meraki
9 4 (1.21%) Splunk
10 3 (0.91%) Red Hat
10 3 (0.91%) Workday