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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 15 8
Rank change year-on-year 0 -7 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 309 185 298
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 9.38% 9.54% 11.26%
As % of the General category 17.15% 16.31% 21.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 127 193
10th Percentile £349 £320 £350
25th Percentile £400 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £571 £588 £656
90th Percentile £638 £653 £725
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 0 32
10th Percentile - - £12.00
25th Percentile - - £14.50
Median hourly rate £25.38 - £16.00
75th Percentile £25.49 - £21.00
90th Percentile - - £33.49
England median hourly rate £23.83 £25.08 £21.62
% change year-on-year -4.99% +16.01% +4.72%

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 1,802 1,134 1,419
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 54.72% 58.48% 53.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,038 706 866
10th Percentile £220 £268 £300
25th Percentile £365 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year -3.37% -3.65% -1.40%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £588
90th Percentile £639 £675 £675
England median daily rate £513 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 101 189
10th Percentile £16.28 £13.00 £12.50
25th Percentile £22.68 £17.44 £14.50
Median hourly rate £35.50 £29.27 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +21.28% +65.18% -31.85%
75th Percentile £63.31 £58.27 £37.18
90th Percentile £84.88 £76.25 £51.91
England median hourly rate £31.00 £27.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +12.73% -8.33% -6.25%

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 22 May 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
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 22 May 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 +3 213 £476 -4.80% 69
Cheshire +3 37 £445 +12.72% 4
Merseyside -9 24 £510 -21.54% 5
Cumbria -15 13 £442 -19.66% 2
Lancashire -6 11 £575 -4.17% 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 21 (6.80%) SharePoint
2 17 (5.50%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (3.88%) Confluence
4 2 (0.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.65%) CICS
4 2 (0.65%) CMS
5 1 (0.32%) Apache
5 1 (0.32%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.32%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.32%) SAS
5 1 (0.32%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 7 (2.27%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.65%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.65%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.32%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.32%) Quicktime
Business Applications
1 4 (1.29%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.65%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.65%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Cash Management
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.32%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 76 (24.60%) Azure
2 64 (20.71%) AWS
3 36 (11.65%) Microsoft 365
4 22 (7.12%) Serverless
5 20 (6.47%) GitHub
6 17 (5.50%) Power Platform
6 17 (5.50%) SaaS
7 15 (4.85%) GCP
8 14 (4.53%) Dynamics 365
8 14 (4.53%) Entra ID
8 14 (4.53%) Microsoft Copilot
9 13 (4.21%) OCI
10 12 (3.88%) Amazon S3
10 12 (3.88%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (3.88%) GitHub Actions
11 10 (3.24%) Azure DevOps
12 9 (2.91%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (2.91%) Google Workspace
12 9 (2.91%) OneDrive
13 8 (2.59%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 20 (6.47%) Firewall
2 10 (3.24%) WAN
2 10 (3.24%) Wi-Fi
3 8 (2.59%) BGP
3 8 (2.59%) BIG-IP
3 8 (2.59%) Ethernet VPN
3 8 (2.59%) OSPF
3 8 (2.59%) VXLAN
4 7 (2.27%) DNS
4 7 (2.27%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 6 (1.94%) SD-WAN
5 6 (1.94%) VPN
6 5 (1.62%) WLAN
7 3 (0.97%) DKIM
7 3 (0.97%) DMARC
7 3 (0.97%) LAN
7 3 (0.97%) MPLS
8 2 (0.65%) Cisco ISE
8 2 (0.65%) DHCP
8 2 (0.65%) TACACS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.53%) MongoDB
2 8 (2.59%) DocumentDB
3 6 (1.94%) PostgreSQL
3 6 (1.94%) Power BI
4 5 (1.62%) NoSQL
4 5 (1.62%) Relational Database
5 4 (1.29%) Metadata
5 4 (1.29%) SQL Server
5 4 (1.29%) Tableau
6 3 (0.97%) BigQuery
6 3 (0.97%) Looker
6 3 (0.97%) MySQL
6 3 (0.97%) Oracle Database
6 3 (0.97%) RDBMS
7 2 (0.65%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.65%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.65%) DataStage
7 2 (0.65%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.65%) Redis
7 2 (0.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 34 (11.00%) GitLab
2 20 (6.47%) JIRA
3 15 (4.85%) Git
4 9 (2.91%) JUnit
5 8 (2.59%) Cypress.io
5 8 (2.59%) Jenkins
5 8 (2.59%) Mocha
6 7 (2.27%) CircleCI
6 7 (2.27%) Cucumber
6 7 (2.27%) Mockito
7 6 (1.94%) Postman
7 6 (1.94%) Selenium
8 5 (1.62%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.97%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.65%) Gatling
10 2 (0.65%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.65%) JMeter
11 1 (0.32%) InstallShield
11 1 (0.32%) JDeveloper
11 1 (0.32%) MSI
General
1 66 (21.36%) Social Skills
2 31 (10.03%) Finance
3 23 (7.44%) Analytical Skills
3 23 (7.44%) Military
4 13 (4.21%) Local Government
5 8 (2.59%) Banking
6 7 (2.27%) Legal
7 6 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.65%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.65%) Digital Economy
11 2 (0.65%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.32%) General Ledger
12 1 (0.32%) Retail Banking
12 1 (0.32%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 80 (25.89%) Developer
2 42 (13.59%) Senior
3 35 (11.33%) Lead
4 34 (11.00%) Java Developer
5 29 (9.39%) Architect
6 26 (8.41%) Analyst
7 16 (5.18%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 15 (4.85%) Full-Stack Developer
8 15 (4.85%) Senior Developer
8 15 (4.85%) Software Developer
8 15 (4.85%) Tester
9 14 (4.53%) Lead Developer
10 13 (4.21%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 12 (3.88%) Business Analyst
11 12 (3.88%) Designer
12 11 (3.56%) Administrator
12 11 (3.56%) Senior Java Developer
12 11 (3.56%) Technical Architect
13 10 (3.24%) Lead Architect
13 10 (3.24%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (11.00%) Spring
2 33 (10.68%) Spring Boot
3 32 (10.36%) Node.js
4 17 (5.50%) React
5 15 (4.85%) REST
6 13 (4.21%) Playwright
7 12 (3.88%) Jest
7 12 (3.88%) Kafka
8 10 (3.24%) OAuth
9 9 (2.91%) AngularJS
9 9 (2.91%) RESTful
10 8 (2.59%) CSS
10 8 (2.59%) HTML
11 6 (1.94%) ActiveMQ
11 6 (1.94%) JAX-RS
12 5 (1.62%) OpenID
12 5 (1.62%) Spring MVC
13 4 (1.29%) Nunjucks
13 4 (1.29%) Oracle Fusion
14 3 (0.97%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 22 (7.12%) Cloud Native
2 21 (6.80%) Product Ownership
3 18 (5.83%) Onboarding
4 11 (3.56%) Data Centre
5 10 (3.24%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (2.59%) Operational Technology
7 7 (2.27%) Management Information System
8 6 (1.94%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.62%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (1.62%) NHS
9 5 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
10 4 (1.29%) Mobile App
10 4 (1.29%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.97%) Freedom of Information
11 3 (0.97%) Housing Association
11 3 (0.97%) Replication
12 2 (0.65%) Clustering
12 2 (0.65%) e-Learning
12 2 (0.65%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 21 (6.80%) Linux
2 14 (4.53%) Windows
3 12 (3.88%) Unix
4 6 (1.94%) Mac OS X
5 5 (1.62%) Windows 10
6 3 (0.97%) AIX
6 3 (0.97%) Mac OS
6 3 (0.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.65%) Solaris
8 1 (0.32%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.32%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (30.74%) Agile
2 63 (20.39%) CI/CD
3 62 (20.06%) DevOps
4 50 (16.18%) Microservices
5 47 (15.21%) Continuous Improvement
6 46 (14.89%) Test Automation
7 32 (10.36%) Migration
8 30 (9.71%) Stakeholder Management
9 29 (9.39%) Problem-Solving
10 28 (9.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 27 (8.74%) User Experience
12 22 (7.12%) Infrastructure as Code
12 22 (7.12%) Mentoring
12 22 (7.12%) Validation
13 21 (6.80%) Change Management
13 21 (6.80%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 21 (6.80%) Technical Leadership
14 20 (6.47%) Containerisation
14 20 (6.47%) Roadmaps
14 20 (6.47%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 63 (20.39%) Java
2 36 (11.65%) JavaScript
3 23 (7.44%) TypeScript
4 22 (7.12%) Python
5 16 (5.18%) SQL
6 12 (3.88%) PowerShell
7 3 (0.97%) Ruby
8 2 (0.65%) C#
8 2 (0.65%) COBOL
8 2 (0.65%) Go
8 2 (0.65%) Kotlin
8 2 (0.65%) PL/SQL
8 2 (0.65%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.32%) Bash
9 1 (0.32%) Bicep
9 1 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.32%) ProC
9 1 (0.32%) Scala
9 1 (0.32%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 143 (46.28%) Security Cleared
2 72 (23.30%) SC Cleared
3 16 (5.18%) Degree
4 13 (4.21%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (1.29%) Azure Certification
7 3 (0.97%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.65%) CCNA
8 2 (0.65%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.65%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.65%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.65%) ISTQB
8 2 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.65%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 2 (0.65%) MBA
8 2 (0.65%) PMI Certification
8 2 (0.65%) PMP
9 1 (0.32%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.32%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (11.97%) Accessibility
2 14 (4.53%) WCAG
3 12 (3.88%) Data Quality
4 11 (3.56%) QA
5 8 (2.59%) NIST
6 7 (2.27%) GDPR
6 7 (2.27%) PMO
7 4 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.29%) SLA
8 2 (0.65%) GRC
8 2 (0.65%) IFRS
8 2 (0.65%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.65%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.32%) Basel III
9 1 (0.32%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.32%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.32%) PSD2
9 1 (0.32%) SOC 2
System Software
1 30 (9.71%) Docker
2 23 (7.44%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.65%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.65%) ISA Server
3 2 (0.65%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.32%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.32%) GPFS
4 1 (0.32%) NFS
4 1 (0.32%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.32%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (12.30%) Terraform
2 29 (9.39%) Kubernetes
3 12 (3.88%) Ansible
4 6 (1.94%) Grafana
5 4 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (1.29%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.97%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 3 (0.97%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.65%) SCCM
8 1 (0.32%) Argo
8 1 (0.32%) Cisco CUCM
8 1 (0.32%) Cisco Prime
8 1 (0.32%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
8 1 (0.32%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (0.32%) Nagios
8 1 (0.32%) Packer
8 1 (0.32%) vRealize
8 1 (0.32%) VxRail
Vendors
1 51 (16.50%) Microsoft
2 14 (4.53%) Oracle
3 13 (4.21%) Google
4 11 (3.56%) Palo Alto
5 9 (2.91%) Virgin Media
6 8 (2.59%) Aruba
6 8 (2.59%) F5
6 8 (2.59%) ServiceNow
7 7 (2.27%) Arista
8 6 (1.94%) Cisco
8 6 (1.94%) SAP
9 5 (1.62%) PeopleSoft
10 4 (1.29%) IBM
10 4 (1.29%) VMware
11 3 (0.97%) Adobe
11 3 (0.97%) Splunk
12 2 (0.65%) BeyondTrust
12 2 (0.65%) Blue Prism
12 2 (0.65%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.65%) Thycotic