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

6 months to
27 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 14 10
Rank change year-on-year -12 -4 -2
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 256 220 267
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.51% 9.87% 10.95%
As % of the General category 12.81% 15.98% 20.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 153 164
10th Percentile £361 £215 £336
25th Percentile £410 £375 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £475 £497
Median % change year-on-year +7.58% -4.33% -5.43%
75th Percentile £625 £583 £620
90th Percentile £723 £650 £687
England median daily rate £525 £510 £520
% change year-on-year +2.94% -1.92% -3.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 8 13
10th Percentile £16.34 £16.11 £16.05
25th Percentile - £17.30 £18.03
Median hourly rate £25.38 £20.07 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.46% +0.35% +18.69%
75th Percentile £25.49 £32.95 £29.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.25 £34.80
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.39 £24.18
% change year-on-year -0.16% -11.56% +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 1,999 1,377 1,330
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 50.81% 61.78% 54.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,131 878 794
10th Percentile £250 £270 £278
25th Percentile £400 £375 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £465 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% -7.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £585
90th Percentile £675 £676 £675
England median daily rate £525 £503 £538
% change year-on-year +4.48% -6.51% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 117 86
10th Percentile £16.01 £12.82 £16.03
25th Percentile £24.79 £13.85 £18.32
Median hourly rate £35.00 £28.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% -17.86% +31.58%
75th Percentile £50.25 £50.00 £47.17
90th Percentile £83.60 £71.10 £57.50
England median hourly rate £31.90 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +26.84% -34.02% +35.37%

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 27 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 27 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 27 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 -12 161 £476 +5.78% 225
Merseyside -6 33 £525 -4.55% 14
Cheshire -1 29 £500 +40.35% 5
Lancashire -3 17 £575 +21.05% 31
Cumbria -26 9 £334 -38.81% 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 19 (7.42%) SharePoint
2 11 (4.30%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (2.73%) Confluence
4 4 (1.56%) SharePoint 2013
5 3 (1.17%) SAS
6 2 (0.78%) CMS
6 2 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.78%) WordPress
7 1 (0.39%) Apache
7 1 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.39%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.39%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.39%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (0.78%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.39%) AutoCAD
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.39%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.39%) Navisworks
2 1 (0.39%) ProjectWise
2 1 (0.39%) Revit
2 1 (0.39%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.17%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.17%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.78%) Oracle Cash Management
2 2 (0.78%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.78%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 2 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
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 62 (24.22%) Azure
2 59 (23.05%) AWS
3 33 (12.89%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (6.25%) SaaS
5 14 (5.47%) OCI
6 13 (5.08%) Dynamics 365
7 12 (4.69%) Microsoft Copilot
8 11 (4.30%) Power Platform
8 11 (4.30%) Serverless
9 10 (3.91%) Google Workspace
10 9 (3.52%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (3.13%) GCP
12 7 (2.73%) Google Drive
13 6 (2.34%) Entra ID
14 4 (1.56%) Amazon S3
14 4 (1.56%) Azure Data Factory
14 4 (1.56%) GitHub
14 4 (1.56%) OneDrive
14 4 (1.56%) Power Automate
15 3 (1.17%) ShareGate
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.30%) Firewall
2 10 (3.91%) BGP
2 10 (3.91%) OSPF
3 9 (3.52%) Wi-Fi
4 8 (3.13%) BIG-IP
4 8 (3.13%) Ethernet VPN
4 8 (3.13%) VXLAN
5 7 (2.73%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 7 (2.73%) SD-WAN
5 7 (2.73%) WAN
6 6 (2.34%) WLAN
7 4 (1.56%) DNS
8 3 (1.17%) Cisco ASA
8 3 (1.17%) Cisco Firepower
8 3 (1.17%) DKIM
8 3 (1.17%) DMARC
8 3 (1.17%) EIGRP
8 3 (1.17%) HSRP
8 3 (1.17%) IPsec
9 1 (0.39%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (3.91%) MongoDB
1 10 (3.91%) Relational Database
2 8 (3.13%) Oracle Database
3 7 (2.73%) RDBMS
4 6 (2.34%) Power BI
5 5 (1.95%) Metadata
5 5 (1.95%) Oracle Exadata
5 5 (1.95%) PostgreSQL
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%) Data Lake
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 5 (1.95%) Mockito
4 5 (1.95%) REST Assured
5 4 (1.56%) Git
5 4 (1.56%) Jenkins
6 3 (1.17%) Cypress.io
6 3 (1.17%) JUnit
7 2 (0.78%) Gatling
7 2 (0.78%) JDeveloper
7 2 (0.78%) Postman
7 2 (0.78%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.78%) WebDriver
8 1 (0.39%) Gradle
8 1 (0.39%) JMeter
8 1 (0.39%) Serenity BDD
8 1 (0.39%) TestNG
8 1 (0.39%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 60 (23.44%) Social Skills
2 35 (13.67%) Military
3 27 (10.55%) 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 51 (19.92%) Lead
2 40 (15.63%) Developer
3 35 (13.67%) Senior
4 34 (13.28%) Architect
5 18 (7.03%) Java Developer
6 15 (5.86%) Analyst
7 14 (5.47%) Administrator
8 12 (4.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 12 (4.69%) Security Architect
8 12 (4.69%) Tester
9 11 (4.30%) Consultant
9 11 (4.30%) Designer
9 11 (4.30%) Senior Developer
10 10 (3.91%) Business Analyst
10 10 (3.91%) Lead Developer
10 10 (3.91%) Test Engineer
11 9 (3.52%) Lead Architect
11 9 (3.52%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 9 (3.52%) Senior Java Developer
11 9 (3.52%) 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 10 (3.91%) Kafka
5 10 (3.91%) REST
6 8 (3.13%) OAuth
7 5 (1.95%) Oracle GoldenGate
8 4 (1.56%) ActiveMQ
8 4 (1.56%) JAX-RS
8 4 (1.56%) Nunjucks
8 4 (1.56%) OpenID
8 4 (1.56%) Oracle Fusion
8 4 (1.56%) Playwright
9 3 (1.17%) React
10 2 (0.78%) AngularJS
10 2 (0.78%) Express.js
10 2 (0.78%) GraphQL
10 2 (0.78%) RESTful
10 2 (0.78%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 16 (6.25%) Cloud Native
2 11 (4.30%) Legacy Systems
3 9 (3.52%) Management Information System
3 9 (3.52%) Onboarding
3 9 (3.52%) Product Ownership
4 7 (2.73%) Data Centre
4 7 (2.73%) NHS
5 6 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (2.34%) Operational Technology
6 5 (1.95%) Replication
6 5 (1.95%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (1.95%) Taxonomies
7 4 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.56%) Public Cloud
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 14 (5.47%) Linux
2 7 (2.73%) Unix
3 6 (2.34%) Windows
4 5 (1.95%) AIX
5 3 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.78%) Mac OS X
6 2 (0.78%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.39%) Android
7 1 (0.39%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.39%) CentOS
7 1 (0.39%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.39%) Solaris
7 1 (0.39%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 62 (24.22%) Agile
2 42 (16.41%) Stakeholder Management
3 41 (16.02%) CI/CD
4 40 (15.63%) DevOps
5 33 (12.89%) Continuous Improvement
6 32 (12.50%) Migration
7 30 (11.72%) Test Automation
8 26 (10.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 24 (9.38%) Digital Transformation Programme
9 24 (9.38%) Microservices
10 22 (8.59%) Mentoring
11 21 (8.20%) Infrastructure as Code
11 21 (8.20%) Technical Leadership
12 20 (7.81%) Roadmaps
13 19 (7.42%) Cybersecurity
14 18 (7.03%) ERP
14 18 (7.03%) User Experience
15 16 (6.25%) Risk Management
16 15 (5.86%) AI
16 15 (5.86%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 34 (13.28%) Java
2 22 (8.59%) JavaScript
3 20 (7.81%) Python
4 16 (6.25%) SQL
5 7 (2.73%) TypeScript
6 6 (2.34%) PowerShell
7 2 (0.78%) PHP
7 2 (0.78%) PL/SQL
7 2 (0.78%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.39%) Bash
8 1 (0.39%) Bicep
8 1 (0.39%) C#
8 1 (0.39%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.39%) Scala
8 1 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 111 (43.36%) Security Cleared
2 81 (31.64%) SC Cleared
3 14 (5.47%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (2.73%) Degree
5 3 (1.17%) ITIL Certification
5 3 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.78%) Azure Certification
6 2 (0.78%) DBS Check
6 2 (0.78%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.39%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 1 (0.39%) CCNA
7 1 (0.39%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (0.39%) Oracle Certification
7 1 (0.39%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (9.38%) 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%) ISO 19650
9 1 (0.39%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 17 (6.64%) Docker
2 14 (5.47%) 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%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.78%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (0.78%) Grafana
5 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Intune
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 39 (15.23%) Microsoft
2 18 (7.03%) Oracle
3 11 (4.30%) Palo Alto
4 10 (3.91%) Google
4 10 (3.91%) ServiceNow
5 8 (3.13%) F5
6 7 (2.73%) Arista
7 6 (2.34%) Aruba
8 5 (1.95%) Cisco
9 4 (1.56%) SAP
10 3 (1.17%) CheckPoint
10 3 (1.17%) Virgin Media
11 2 (0.78%) BeyondTrust
11 2 (0.78%) CyberArk
11 2 (0.78%) Databricks
11 2 (0.78%) OpenAI
11 2 (0.78%) Tanium
11 2 (0.78%) Thycotic
11 2 (0.78%) Trend Micro
12 1 (0.39%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud