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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 14 10
Rank change year-on-year -11 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 256 216 266
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.55% 9.68% 10.87%
As % of the General category 12.83% 15.79% 19.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 148 164
10th Percentile £350 £215 £336
25th Percentile £407 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £475 £497
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% -4.33% -5.43%
75th Percentile £613 £584 £620
90th Percentile £723 £650 £687
England median daily rate £525 £513 £520
% change year-on-year +2.44% -1.44% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 7 13
10th Percentile £16.34 £17.26 £16.05
25th Percentile - £18.12 £18.03
Median hourly rate £25.38 £21.27 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +19.32% +6.35% +18.69%
75th Percentile £25.49 £44.39 £29.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.25 £34.80
England median hourly rate £21.50 £21.70 £24.18
% change year-on-year -0.92% -10.26% +20.90%

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 1,996 1,368 1,339
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 51.04% 61.29% 54.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,132 868 799
10th Percentile £250 £270 £299
25th Percentile £400 £380 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £470 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.50% -6.10% -
75th Percentile £588 £580 £585
90th Percentile £675 £688 £675
England median daily rate £525 £508 £538
% change year-on-year +3.45% -5.58% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 252 115 92
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £16.06
25th Percentile £24.93 £15.64 £18.00
Median hourly rate £35.00 £28.75 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -15.44% +30.77%
75th Percentile £51.44 £51.25 £46.51
90th Percentile £83.75 £71.56 £57.50
England median hourly rate £32.36 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +28.68% -34.02% +37.42%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -11 161 £475 +5.56% 78
Merseyside -6 33 £525 -4.55% 5
Cheshire +5 29 £500 +37.93% 3
Lancashire -2 16 £575 +21.05% 18
Cumbria -25 10 £357 -32.96% 1
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 20 (7.81%) SharePoint
2 13 (5.08%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (2.73%) Confluence
4 4 (1.56%) SharePoint 2013
5 2 (0.78%) CMS
5 2 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.78%) SAS
5 2 (0.78%) WordPress
6 1 (0.39%) Apache
6 1 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.39%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.39%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.39%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.78%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.39%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.17%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.78%) Oracle Cash Management
2 2 (0.78%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.78%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 1 (0.39%) Primavera
3 1 (0.39%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.39%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 63 (24.61%) Azure
2 59 (23.05%) AWS
3 35 (13.67%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (5.86%) SaaS
5 14 (5.47%) OCI
6 13 (5.08%) Dynamics 365
6 13 (5.08%) Microsoft Copilot
7 11 (4.30%) Power Platform
7 11 (4.30%) Serverless
8 10 (3.91%) Google Workspace
9 9 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (3.13%) Entra ID
10 8 (3.13%) GCP
11 7 (2.73%) Google Drive
12 5 (1.95%) OneDrive
12 5 (1.95%) Power Automate
13 4 (1.56%) Amazon S3
13 4 (1.56%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (1.56%) GitHub
14 3 (1.17%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 12 (4.69%) Firewall
2 10 (3.91%) BGP
2 10 (3.91%) OSPF
2 10 (3.91%) Wi-Fi
3 8 (3.13%) BIG-IP
3 8 (3.13%) Ethernet VPN
3 8 (3.13%) VXLAN
3 8 (3.13%) WAN
4 7 (2.73%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 7 (2.73%) SD-WAN
5 6 (2.34%) WLAN
6 4 (1.56%) DNS
7 3 (1.17%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (1.17%) Cisco Firepower
7 3 (1.17%) DKIM
7 3 (1.17%) DMARC
7 3 (1.17%) EIGRP
7 3 (1.17%) HSRP
7 3 (1.17%) IPsec
8 2 (0.78%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (4.30%) MongoDB
2 10 (3.91%) Relational Database
3 8 (3.13%) Oracle Database
4 7 (2.73%) RDBMS
5 5 (1.95%) Metadata
5 5 (1.95%) Oracle Exadata
5 5 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
5 5 (1.95%) Power BI
6 3 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (1.17%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.78%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.78%) DocumentDB
7 2 (0.78%) EDMS
7 2 (0.78%) MySQL
7 2 (0.78%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.78%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 2 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.78%) Tableau
8 1 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.39%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 17 (6.64%) GitLab
2 14 (5.47%) JIRA
3 9 (3.52%) Cucumber
3 9 (3.52%) Selenium
4 6 (2.34%) Mockito
5 5 (1.95%) REST Assured
6 4 (1.56%) Git
6 4 (1.56%) Jenkins
7 3 (1.17%) Cypress.io
7 3 (1.17%) JUnit
8 2 (0.78%) Gatling
8 2 (0.78%) JDeveloper
8 2 (0.78%) Postman
8 2 (0.78%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.78%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.39%) Gradle
9 1 (0.39%) JMeter
9 1 (0.39%) Serenity BDD
9 1 (0.39%) TestNG
9 1 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 58 (22.66%) Social Skills
2 35 (13.67%) Military
3 28 (10.94%) Finance
4 20 (7.81%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (7.42%) Local Government
6 6 (2.34%) Legal
7 5 (1.95%) Presentation Skills
8 4 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.56%) Police
9 3 (1.17%) Banking
9 3 (1.17%) Marketing
10 2 (0.78%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 1 (0.39%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 50 (19.53%) Lead
2 41 (16.02%) Developer
3 34 (13.28%) Senior
4 31 (12.11%) Architect
5 19 (7.42%) Java Developer
6 15 (5.86%) Analyst
7 14 (5.47%) Administrator
8 13 (5.08%) Tester
9 12 (4.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 12 (4.69%) Security Architect
10 11 (4.30%) Consultant
10 11 (4.30%) Designer
10 11 (4.30%) Senior Developer
11 10 (3.91%) Business Analyst
11 10 (3.91%) Lead Developer
11 10 (3.91%) Test Engineer
12 9 (3.52%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
12 9 (3.52%) Senior Java Developer
12 9 (3.52%) Software Developer
13 8 (3.13%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (11.33%) Terraform
2 17 (6.64%) Node.js
3 14 (5.47%) Spring
4 13 (5.08%) Spring Boot
5 11 (4.30%) Kafka
6 10 (3.91%) REST
7 8 (3.13%) OAuth
8 5 (1.95%) ActiveMQ
8 5 (1.95%) JAX-RS
8 5 (1.95%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 4 (1.56%) Nunjucks
9 4 (1.56%) OpenID
9 4 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
9 4 (1.56%) Playwright
10 3 (1.17%) React
11 2 (0.78%) AngularJS
11 2 (0.78%) Express.js
11 2 (0.78%) RESTful
11 2 (0.78%) SailPoint
11 2 (0.78%) Spring MVC
Miscellaneous
1 15 (5.86%) Cloud Native
2 11 (4.30%) Legacy Systems
3 9 (3.52%) Onboarding
3 9 (3.52%) Product Ownership
4 8 (3.13%) Management Information System
5 7 (2.73%) Data Centre
6 6 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (2.34%) NHS
6 6 (2.34%) Operational Technology
7 5 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
7 5 (1.95%) Public Cloud
7 5 (1.95%) Replication
7 5 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
7 5 (1.95%) Taxonomies
8 3 (1.17%) Freedom of Information
8 3 (1.17%) Housing Association
9 2 (0.78%) CSOC
9 2 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.78%) Educational Technology
9 2 (0.78%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.86%) Linux
2 8 (3.13%) Unix
3 7 (2.73%) Windows
4 5 (1.95%) AIX
5 3 (1.17%) Mac OS X
5 3 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (1.17%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.39%) Android
6 1 (0.39%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.39%) CentOS
6 1 (0.39%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.39%) Solaris
6 1 (0.39%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (24.22%) Agile
2 41 (16.02%) CI/CD
3 40 (15.63%) DevOps
3 40 (15.63%) Stakeholder Management
4 32 (12.50%) Continuous Improvement
4 32 (12.50%) Migration
5 31 (12.11%) Test Automation
6 25 (9.77%) Microservices
7 24 (9.38%) Digital Transformation Programme
7 24 (9.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 23 (8.98%) Mentoring
9 21 (8.20%) Infrastructure as Code
9 21 (8.20%) Technical Leadership
10 19 (7.42%) Cybersecurity
10 19 (7.42%) Roadmaps
11 18 (7.03%) ERP
11 18 (7.03%) User Experience
12 16 (6.25%) Risk Management
13 15 (5.86%) AI
13 15 (5.86%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 35 (13.67%) Java
2 22 (8.59%) JavaScript
3 20 (7.81%) Python
4 16 (6.25%) SQL
5 7 (2.73%) PowerShell
5 7 (2.73%) TypeScript
6 2 (0.78%) PHP
6 2 (0.78%) PL/SQL
6 2 (0.78%) Shell Script
7 1 (0.39%) Bash
7 1 (0.39%) Bicep
7 1 (0.39%) C#
7 1 (0.39%) Kotlin
7 1 (0.39%) Scala
7 1 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 111 (43.36%) Security Cleared
2 81 (31.64%) SC Cleared
3 13 (5.08%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (3.52%) Degree
5 4 (1.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 3 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
7 2 (0.78%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.78%) CCNA
7 2 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
7 2 (0.78%) DBS Check
7 2 (0.78%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.39%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 1 (0.39%) CCNP
8 1 (0.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.39%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.39%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.39%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (8.98%) Accessibility
2 13 (5.08%) QA
3 11 (4.30%) Data Quality
4 8 (3.13%) WCAG
5 7 (2.73%) PMO
6 5 (1.95%) GDPR
7 4 (1.56%) NIST
8 2 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.78%) NCSC
8 2 (0.78%) NIST 800
8 2 (0.78%) SLA
9 1 (0.39%) GRC
9 1 (0.39%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 17 (6.64%) Docker
2 16 (6.25%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.34%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.39%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.39%) GPFS
4 1 (0.39%) Microsoft App-V
4 1 (0.39%) NFS
4 1 (0.39%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.39%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 14 (5.47%) Ansible
1 14 (5.47%) Kubernetes
2 6 (2.34%) Data Guard
3 5 (1.95%) Oracle RMAN
4 3 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (0.78%) Grafana
5 2 (0.78%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.78%) SCCM
6 1 (0.39%) Argo
6 1 (0.39%) CASB
6 1 (0.39%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.39%) Oracle ZFS
6 1 (0.39%) Packer
6 1 (0.39%) vRealize
6 1 (0.39%) VxRail
Vendors
1 40 (15.63%) Microsoft
2 18 (7.03%) Oracle
3 12 (4.69%) Palo Alto
4 10 (3.91%) Google
4 10 (3.91%) ServiceNow
5 8 (3.13%) F5
6 7 (2.73%) Arista
6 7 (2.73%) Aruba
7 5 (1.95%) Cisco
7 5 (1.95%) SAP
8 4 (1.56%) CheckPoint
9 3 (1.17%) Virgin Media
10 2 (0.78%) BeyondTrust
10 2 (0.78%) CyberArk
10 2 (0.78%) Databricks
10 2 (0.78%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.78%) Tanium
10 2 (0.78%) Thycotic
10 2 (0.78%) Trend Micro
11 1 (0.39%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud