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

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 12 9
Rank change year-on-year +2 -3 -4
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 326 212 318
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 11.68% 10.29% 11.53%
As % of the General category 19.52% 17.79% 21.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 252 115 212
10th Percentile £327 £350 £350
25th Percentile £400 £416 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -4.76% +5.00%
75th Percentile £532 £609 £650
90th Percentile £625 £677 £725
England median daily rate £500 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -3.47% -1.33% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 31
10th Percentile - £12.88 £12.00
25th Percentile £38.77 £14.82 £14.50
Median hourly rate £41.86 £16.01 £16.00
Median % change year-on-year +161.39% +0.08% -20.00%
75th Percentile £44.94 £16.20 £20.25
90th Percentile - £16.23 £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 1,670 1,192 1,505
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 59.84% 57.86% 54.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,065 678 930
10th Percentile £200 £265 £265
25th Percentile £356 £364 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +4.17%
75th Percentile £551 £575 £587
90th Percentile £638 £675 £685
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 130 98 191
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.04 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.56 £14.50
Median hourly rate £32.00 £28.99 £17.72
Median % change year-on-year +10.38% +63.60% -29.12%
75th Percentile £56.08 £48.11 £36.09
90th Percentile £74.26 £71.07 £46.18
England median hourly rate £23.58 £30.81 £26.00
% change year-on-year -23.47% +18.48% -13.33%

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 26 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
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 26 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 +2 215 £450 -10.00% 44
Cheshire +9 53 £447 -3.92% 3
Merseyside -10 26 £510 +2.00% 8
Cumbria +2 13 £509 +1.85%
Lancashire -22 6 £455 -24.17% 17
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 (3.37%) Confluence
2 9 (2.76%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.45%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (0.61%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.61%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.61%) CICS
4 2 (0.61%) CMS
4 2 (0.61%) OpenStack
4 2 (0.61%) Skype for Business
5 1 (0.31%) Apache
5 1 (0.31%) Jupyter
5 1 (0.31%) SAS
Applications
1 21 (6.44%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.31%) Adobe Premiere
3 1 (0.31%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.31%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.31%) Quicktime
3 1 (0.31%) Trello
Business Applications
1 13 (3.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.92%) iTrent
4 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
4 1 (0.31%) SAP EHS
4 1 (0.31%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.31%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.31%) SAP HR
4 1 (0.31%) SAP PSCD
4 1 (0.31%) SAP QM
4 1 (0.31%) SAP VC
Cloud Services
1 73 (22.39%) Azure
2 61 (18.71%) AWS
3 29 (8.90%) Power Platform
4 23 (7.06%) GitHub
4 23 (7.06%) Microsoft 365
5 20 (6.13%) Serverless
6 17 (5.21%) GCP
7 14 (4.29%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (4.29%) Power Automate
7 14 (4.29%) PowerApps
8 13 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (3.99%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (3.68%) Entra ID
10 11 (3.37%) Amazon SQS
11 9 (2.76%) Amazon S3
11 9 (2.76%) Google Tag Manager
11 9 (2.76%) Microsoft Copilot
12 8 (2.45%) Dynamics 365
12 8 (2.45%) Google Analytics
13 7 (2.15%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 18 (5.52%) Firewall
2 9 (2.76%) WAN
3 8 (2.45%) VPN
3 8 (2.45%) Wi-Fi
4 7 (2.15%) Wireless
5 6 (1.84%) DNS
5 6 (1.84%) LAN
6 4 (1.23%) DHCP
6 4 (1.23%) MPLS
6 4 (1.23%) VLAN
7 3 (0.92%) Cisco ISE
7 3 (0.92%) Network Security
7 3 (0.92%) SNMP
7 3 (0.92%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.61%) BGP
8 2 (0.61%) OSPF
8 2 (0.61%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.61%) Skype
8 2 (0.61%) TACACS
8 2 (0.61%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (4.91%) Power BI
2 13 (3.99%) MongoDB
3 9 (2.76%) DocumentDB
3 9 (2.76%) Looker
3 9 (2.76%) PostgreSQL
3 9 (2.76%) Redis
4 7 (2.15%) BigQuery
5 6 (1.84%) MySQL
6 5 (1.53%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (1.53%) Relational Database
7 4 (1.23%) Metadata
7 4 (1.23%) NoSQL
7 4 (1.23%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.92%) Big Data
8 3 (0.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 2 (0.61%) DataStage
9 2 (0.61%) DynamoDB
9 2 (0.61%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.61%) SAP HANA
9 2 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 36 (11.04%) GitLab
2 25 (7.67%) Git
3 14 (4.29%) JIRA
4 10 (3.07%) Cypress.io
5 9 (2.76%) Jenkins
6 8 (2.45%) JUnit
6 8 (2.45%) Mocha
6 8 (2.45%) Postman
7 7 (2.15%) CircleCI
7 7 (2.15%) Mockito
7 7 (2.15%) SonarQube
8 5 (1.53%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.92%) Selenium
10 2 (0.61%) Jasmine
10 2 (0.61%) MSI
11 1 (0.31%) Axure RP
11 1 (0.31%) Browser DevTools
11 1 (0.31%) InstallShield
11 1 (0.31%) JMeter
11 1 (0.31%) MLflow
General
1 64 (19.63%) Social Skills
2 34 (10.43%) Finance
3 17 (5.21%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (3.99%) Military
5 11 (3.37%) Local Government
6 8 (2.45%) Banking
6 8 (2.45%) Manufacturing
6 8 (2.45%) Telecoms
7 7 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
7 7 (2.15%) Marketing
8 6 (1.84%) Electronics
8 6 (1.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (1.84%) Legal
9 5 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.61%) Corporate Banking
11 2 (0.61%) Digital Economy
11 2 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.31%) Digital Health
12 1 (0.31%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 83 (25.46%) Developer
2 34 (10.43%) Analyst
3 32 (9.82%) Architect
4 31 (9.51%) Senior
5 30 (9.20%) Java Developer
6 26 (7.98%) Lead
7 16 (4.91%) Full-Stack Developer
8 15 (4.60%) DevOps Engineer
9 13 (3.99%) Business Analyst
10 12 (3.68%) Designer
11 11 (3.37%) Consultant
11 11 (3.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 10 (3.07%) Technical Architect
13 9 (2.76%) AWS Engineer
13 9 (2.76%) Lead Developer
13 9 (2.76%) Project Manager
13 9 (2.76%) Senior Developer
13 9 (2.76%) Software Developer
14 8 (2.45%) Administrator
14 8 (2.45%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (10.43%) Spring
1 34 (10.43%) Spring Boot
2 31 (9.51%) Node.js
3 19 (5.83%) React
4 16 (4.91%) REST
5 14 (4.29%) HTML
5 14 (4.29%) RESTful
6 13 (3.99%) Jest
6 13 (3.99%) Playwright
7 11 (3.37%) Kafka
8 10 (3.07%) JSON
9 8 (2.45%) AngularJS
9 8 (2.45%) CSS
10 7 (2.15%) Hibernate
10 7 (2.15%) JAX-RS
10 7 (2.15%) Spring MVC
11 6 (1.84%) ActiveMQ
11 6 (1.84%) HTML5 Canvas
12 5 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
12 5 (1.53%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (7.36%) Onboarding
2 15 (4.60%) Product Ownership
3 14 (4.29%) Data Centre
4 12 (3.68%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.15%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.53%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.53%) Low-Code
6 5 (1.53%) NHS
6 5 (1.53%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
7 4 (1.23%) Operational Technology
8 3 (0.92%) Mobile App
9 2 (0.61%) BYOD
9 2 (0.61%) Clustering
9 2 (0.61%) e-Learning
9 2 (0.61%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.61%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.61%) VSAM
10 1 (0.31%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.31%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 22 (6.75%) Linux
2 18 (5.52%) Windows
3 11 (3.37%) Unix
4 8 (2.45%) Mac OS
5 7 (2.15%) Android
6 6 (1.84%) Mac OS X
6 6 (1.84%) Windows 10
7 4 (1.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.92%) Apple iOS
9 2 (0.61%) AIX
9 2 (0.61%) Solaris
9 2 (0.61%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (26.99%) Agile
2 61 (18.71%) CI/CD
3 59 (18.10%) DevOps
4 48 (14.72%) Microservices
5 41 (12.58%) Continuous Improvement
5 41 (12.58%) Test Automation
6 39 (11.96%) Problem-Solving
7 35 (10.74%) User Experience
8 25 (7.67%) Containerisation
8 25 (7.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 25 (7.67%) Stakeholder Management
8 25 (7.67%) Validation
9 23 (7.06%) Change Management
9 23 (7.06%) User Research
10 22 (6.75%) Analytics
11 21 (6.44%) Migration
11 21 (6.44%) TDD
12 20 (6.13%) Business Intelligence
12 20 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
13 19 (5.83%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 59 (18.10%) Java
2 30 (9.20%) JavaScript
3 26 (7.98%) Python
4 22 (6.75%) TypeScript
5 15 (4.60%) SQL
6 12 (3.68%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.23%) Bash
7 4 (1.23%) C#
7 4 (1.23%) Go
8 3 (0.92%) ABAP
8 3 (0.92%) Ruby
9 2 (0.61%) COBOL
9 2 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.61%) Perl
9 2 (0.61%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.61%) VB
9 2 (0.61%) VBScript
10 1 (0.31%) Bicep
10 1 (0.31%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.31%) ProC
Qualifications
1 161 (49.39%) Security Cleared
2 81 (24.85%) SC Cleared
3 20 (6.13%) BPSS Clearance
3 20 (6.13%) Degree
4 7 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (1.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (1.53%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.23%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.23%) ISTQB
8 3 (0.92%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.92%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.61%) CCNP
9 2 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.61%) CISM
9 2 (0.61%) CISSP
9 2 (0.61%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (0.61%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (0.61%) MBA
10 1 (0.31%) CCIE
10 1 (0.31%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (13.19%) Accessibility
2 15 (4.60%) WCAG
3 13 (3.99%) Data Quality
3 13 (3.99%) QA
4 6 (1.84%) NIST
5 5 (1.53%) GDPR
5 5 (1.53%) PMO
6 4 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.92%) IFRS
7 3 (0.92%) SLA
8 2 (0.61%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.61%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.61%) PSD2
9 1 (0.31%) CRD IV
9 1 (0.31%) FINREP
9 1 (0.31%) GRC
9 1 (0.31%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.31%) NCSC
9 1 (0.31%) SEPA
9 1 (0.31%) SOC 2
System Software
1 36 (11.04%) Docker
2 13 (3.99%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.23%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.61%) BitLocker
4 2 (0.61%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.61%) ISA Server
5 1 (0.31%) Virtual Desktop
5 1 (0.31%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (11.66%) Kubernetes
2 36 (11.04%) Terraform
3 5 (1.53%) Ansible
3 5 (1.53%) Grafana
4 4 (1.23%) Microsoft Intune
4 4 (1.23%) Prometheus
4 4 (1.23%) SCCM
5 2 (0.61%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 1 (0.31%) Cisco CUCM
6 1 (0.31%) Cisco Prime
6 1 (0.31%) Failover Clustering
6 1 (0.31%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Clustering
6 1 (0.31%) Nagios
6 1 (0.31%) Norton AntiVirus
6 1 (0.31%) Packer
Vendors
1 55 (16.87%) Microsoft
2 24 (7.36%) SAP
3 22 (6.75%) Oracle
4 13 (3.99%) Cisco
4 13 (3.99%) Virgin Media
5 11 (3.37%) Google
6 7 (2.15%) Palo Alto
6 7 (2.15%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.15%) VMware
7 6 (1.84%) Adobe
7 6 (1.84%) Apple
8 5 (1.53%) Dell
8 5 (1.53%) HP
8 5 (1.53%) PeopleSoft
9 4 (1.23%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.23%) IBM
9 4 (1.23%) Meraki
9 4 (1.23%) Splunk
10 3 (0.92%) Aruba
10 3 (0.92%) Workday