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 15 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 13 10
Rank change year-on-year -14 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 243 229 247
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 6.19% 10.69% 10.42%
As % of the General category 12.16% 17.28% 18.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 133 160 138
10th Percentile £363 £215 £350
25th Percentile £418 £383 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -10.00% -7.19%
75th Percentile £638 £550 £636
90th Percentile £733 £644 £691
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 8 11
10th Percentile £15.24 £16.11 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.72 £17.30 £17.14
Median hourly rate £25.49 £20.07 £19.18
Median % change year-on-year +27.01% +4.64% +13.83%
75th Percentile £69.66 £32.95 £29.75
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.25 £36.00
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.75 £24.09
% change year-on-year -1.84% -9.71% +17.17%

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 1,998 1,325 1,314
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 50.89% 61.86% 55.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,131 844 756
10th Percentile £240 £271 £276
25th Percentile £400 £378 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £455 £500
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% -8.91% -0.10%
75th Percentile £594 £556 £586
90th Percentile £680 £674 £688
England median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 256 111 77
10th Percentile £14.68 £12.82 £16.00
25th Percentile £23.94 £14.35 £18.00
Median hourly rate £35.53 £22.63 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.98% -35.34% +55.35%
75th Percentile £63.84 £48.56 £46.18
90th Percentile £81.63 £70.00 £55.40
England median hourly rate £31.16 £25.15 £38.85
% change year-on-year +23.88% -35.26% +41.27%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 -16 159 £515 +14.44% 359
Cheshire -1 26 £500 +42.86% 2
Merseyside -10 24 £525 +2.94% 31
Lancashire -8 18 £575 +26.37% 35
Cumbria -30 9 £334 -38.24%
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 17 (7.00%) SharePoint
2 10 (4.12%) Microsoft Exchange
3 7 (2.88%) Confluence
4 4 (1.65%) SharePoint 2013
5 3 (1.23%) Apache
5 3 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.23%) Apache Spark
5 3 (1.23%) SAS
6 2 (0.82%) CMS
6 2 (0.82%) Oracle Workflow
6 2 (0.82%) WordPress
7 1 (0.41%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.41%) nginx
7 1 (0.41%) Skype for Business
7 1 (0.41%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (0.82%) Chatbot
1 2 (0.82%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.41%) AutoCAD
2 1 (0.41%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.41%) Navisworks
2 1 (0.41%) ProjectWise
2 1 (0.41%) Revit
2 1 (0.41%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.23%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.82%) Oracle Cash Management
2 2 (0.82%) Oracle Payables
2 2 (0.82%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 2 (0.82%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.41%) Integrated Workplace Management System
3 1 (0.41%) Primavera
3 1 (0.41%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.41%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 55 (22.63%) AWS
2 51 (20.99%) Azure
3 27 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (7.41%) SaaS
5 13 (5.35%) OCI
6 10 (4.12%) Google Workspace
6 10 (4.12%) Microsoft Copilot
6 10 (4.12%) Power Platform
6 10 (4.12%) Serverless
7 8 (3.29%) Dynamics 365
8 7 (2.88%) GCP
8 7 (2.88%) GitHub
8 7 (2.88%) Google Drive
9 6 (2.47%) Entra ID
10 4 (1.65%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (1.65%) Amazon S3
10 4 (1.65%) Azure Data Factory
10 4 (1.65%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (1.65%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 12 (4.94%) Firewall
2 10 (4.12%) BGP
2 10 (4.12%) OSPF
2 10 (4.12%) Wi-Fi
3 8 (3.29%) BIG-IP
3 8 (3.29%) Ethernet VPN
3 8 (3.29%) SD-WAN
3 8 (3.29%) VXLAN
3 8 (3.29%) WAN
4 7 (2.88%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 6 (2.47%) WLAN
6 4 (1.65%) DNS
7 3 (1.23%) Cisco ASA
7 3 (1.23%) Cisco Firepower
7 3 (1.23%) DKIM
7 3 (1.23%) DMARC
7 3 (1.23%) EIGRP
7 3 (1.23%) HSRP
7 3 (1.23%) IPsec
8 2 (0.82%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.70%) MongoDB
1 9 (3.70%) Relational Database
2 7 (2.88%) Oracle Database
3 6 (2.47%) RDBMS
4 5 (2.06%) Metadata
4 5 (2.06%) Power BI
5 4 (1.65%) Oracle Exadata
5 4 (1.65%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.82%) Amazon QuickSight
6 2 (0.82%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (0.82%) DocumentDB
6 2 (0.82%) EDMS
6 2 (0.82%) Oracle BI Publisher
6 2 (0.82%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.41%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.41%) Big Data
7 1 (0.41%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.41%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.41%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 18 (7.41%) GitLab
2 13 (5.35%) JIRA
3 11 (4.53%) Cucumber
4 10 (4.12%) Selenium
5 7 (2.88%) Git
6 6 (2.47%) Jenkins
6 6 (2.47%) REST Assured
7 4 (1.65%) Mockito
8 3 (1.23%) Cypress.io
8 3 (1.23%) JUnit
9 2 (0.82%) Gatling
9 2 (0.82%) JDeveloper
9 2 (0.82%) Maven
9 2 (0.82%) Postman
9 2 (0.82%) WebDriver
10 1 (0.41%) Gradle
10 1 (0.41%) Serenity BDD
10 1 (0.41%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.41%) TestNG
10 1 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 56 (23.05%) Social Skills
2 42 (17.28%) Military
3 23 (9.47%) Finance
4 15 (6.17%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (5.76%) Local Government
6 5 (2.06%) Police
7 4 (1.65%) Legal
7 4 (1.65%) Organisational Skills
7 4 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.23%) Marketing
9 2 (0.82%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (0.82%) General Ledger
9 2 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 50 (20.58%) Lead
2 37 (15.23%) Senior
3 36 (14.81%) Architect
4 35 (14.40%) Developer
5 14 (5.76%) Administrator
5 14 (5.76%) Analyst
6 13 (5.35%) Security Architect
7 12 (4.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 12 (4.94%) Java Developer
8 11 (4.53%) Consultant
9 10 (4.12%) Business Analyst
9 10 (4.12%) Designer
9 10 (4.12%) Lead Developer
9 10 (4.12%) Senior Developer
9 10 (4.12%) Test Engineer
10 9 (3.70%) Lead Architect
10 9 (3.70%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
10 9 (3.70%) Solutions Architect
11 8 (3.29%) Product Manager
11 8 (3.29%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (11.52%) Terraform
2 17 (7.00%) Node.js
3 12 (4.94%) REST
4 10 (4.12%) Spring
5 9 (3.70%) Kafka
5 9 (3.70%) Spring Boot
6 7 (2.88%) OAuth
7 4 (1.65%) AWS CDK
7 4 (1.65%) Django
7 4 (1.65%) Nunjucks
7 4 (1.65%) OpenID
7 4 (1.65%) Oracle Fusion
7 4 (1.65%) Oracle GoldenGate
7 4 (1.65%) Playwright
8 3 (1.23%) ActiveMQ
8 3 (1.23%) JAX-RS
8 3 (1.23%) Middleware
8 3 (1.23%) PySpark
8 3 (1.23%) React
9 2 (0.82%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 15 (6.17%) Cloud Native
2 11 (4.53%) Legacy Systems
3 9 (3.70%) Management Information System
4 7 (2.88%) Data Centre
4 7 (2.88%) NHS
5 6 (2.47%) Hybrid Cloud
5 6 (2.47%) Onboarding
5 6 (2.47%) Operational Technology
5 6 (2.47%) Product Ownership
6 5 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
6 5 (2.06%) Taxonomies
7 4 (1.65%) Public Cloud
7 4 (1.65%) Replication
8 3 (1.23%) Cyber Threat
8 3 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
8 3 (1.23%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.82%) CSOC
9 2 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.82%) Educational Technology
9 2 (0.82%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 15 (6.17%) Linux
2 8 (3.29%) Unix
3 5 (2.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (2.06%) Windows
4 4 (1.65%) AIX
5 2 (0.82%) CentOS
6 1 (0.41%) Android
6 1 (0.41%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.41%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.41%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.41%) Solaris
6 1 (0.41%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.41%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (22.22%) Agile
2 44 (18.11%) Stakeholder Management
3 40 (16.46%) CI/CD
4 34 (13.99%) DevOps
5 31 (12.76%) Continuous Improvement
6 29 (11.93%) Migration
6 29 (11.93%) Test Automation
7 25 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 23 (9.47%) Infrastructure as Code
8 23 (9.47%) Microservices
9 22 (9.05%) Cybersecurity
9 22 (9.05%) Technical Leadership
10 21 (8.64%) Mentoring
11 20 (8.23%) Roadmaps
12 19 (7.82%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 18 (7.41%) Risk Management
14 17 (7.00%) Decision-Making
14 17 (7.00%) Software Engineering
15 16 (6.58%) ERP
15 16 (6.58%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 29 (11.93%) Java
2 25 (10.29%) JavaScript
3 24 (9.88%) Python
4 12 (4.94%) SQL
5 7 (2.88%) TypeScript
6 5 (2.06%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.65%) Bash
7 4 (1.65%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.82%) PHP
8 2 (0.82%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.41%) Bicep
9 1 (0.41%) C#
9 1 (0.41%) Go
9 1 (0.41%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 113 (46.50%) Security Cleared
2 87 (35.80%) SC Cleared
3 14 (5.76%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (2.06%) Degree
5 3 (1.23%) AWS Certification
5 3 (1.23%) Azure Certification
5 3 (1.23%) ITIL Certification
5 3 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.82%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.41%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 1 (0.41%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.41%) Oracle Certification
7 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
7 1 (0.41%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (8.23%) Accessibility
2 12 (4.94%) QA
3 8 (3.29%) Data Quality
3 8 (3.29%) PMO
3 8 (3.29%) WCAG
4 5 (2.06%) GDPR
5 4 (1.65%) NCSC
5 4 (1.65%) NIST
6 2 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.82%) NIST 800
6 2 (0.82%) SLA
7 1 (0.41%) ISO 19650
7 1 (0.41%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 19 (7.82%) Docker
2 13 (5.35%) Active Directory
3 5 (2.06%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.41%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.41%) Microsoft App-V
4 1 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 14 (5.76%) Kubernetes
2 13 (5.35%) Ansible
3 5 (2.06%) Data Guard
4 4 (1.65%) Oracle RMAN
5 3 (1.23%) Grafana
5 3 (1.23%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.23%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (0.82%) Packer
6 2 (0.82%) SCCM
7 1 (0.41%) Argo
7 1 (0.41%) CASB
7 1 (0.41%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.41%) HAProxy
7 1 (0.41%) Istio
7 1 (0.41%) Jamf Pro
7 1 (0.41%) linkerd
7 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.41%) Oracle ZFS
7 1 (0.41%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 33 (13.58%) Microsoft
2 15 (6.17%) Oracle
3 11 (4.53%) Palo Alto
4 10 (4.12%) Google
5 8 (3.29%) F5
5 8 (3.29%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.88%) Arista
6 7 (2.88%) Aruba
7 5 (2.06%) Cisco
8 4 (1.65%) SAP
9 3 (1.23%) CheckPoint
10 2 (0.82%) BeyondTrust
10 2 (0.82%) CyberArk
10 2 (0.82%) Databricks
10 2 (0.82%) OpenAI
10 2 (0.82%) Splunk
10 2 (0.82%) Thycotic
10 2 (0.82%) Trend Micro
11 1 (0.41%) Tanium
11 1 (0.41%) Tenable