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 30 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 12
Rank change year-on-year -1 -5 -5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 293 173 271
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 8.25% 8.48% 9.80%
As % of the General category 15.42% 14.46% 18.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 171 118 167
10th Percentile £358 £275 £328
25th Percentile £400 £400 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £465 £493
Median % change year-on-year +7.53% -5.68% -3.80%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £582
90th Percentile £675 £650 £669
England median daily rate £513 £513 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.38% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 3 26
10th Percentile - £17.86 £14.50
25th Percentile - £19.05 £15.50
Median hourly rate £25.38 £21.27 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.32% +28.91% -13.16%
75th Percentile £25.49 £21.52 £27.00
90th Percentile £85.00 - £35.11
England median hourly rate £22.50 £25.08 £26.50
% change year-on-year -10.27% -5.38% +27.28%

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 1,900 1,196 1,488
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 53.49% 58.66% 53.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,066 764 878
10th Percentile £275 £302 £295
25th Percentile £380 £378 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £464 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.43% -5.36% -2.00%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £575
90th Percentile £650 £675 £656
England median daily rate £525 £519 £535
% change year-on-year +1.16% -2.99% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 207 108 192
10th Percentile £16.50 £12.82 £13.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £13.90 £15.50
Median hourly rate £35.55 £29.54 £22.98
Median % change year-on-year +20.37% +28.55% -4.57%
75th Percentile £67.42 £58.76 £42.88
90th Percentile £84.25 £76.63 £51.79
England median hourly rate £32.50 £27.50 £32.70
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.90% +8.99%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 +1 197 £489 +8.61% 47
Cheshire +13 36 £450 +8.11% 4
Merseyside -10 24 £510 -21.54% 10
Lancashire -4 13 £575 -4.17% 12
Cumbria -15 11 £424 -17.32%
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 24 (8.19%) SharePoint
2 16 (5.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 12 (4.10%) Confluence
4 4 (1.37%) SharePoint 2013
5 2 (0.68%) Apache
5 2 (0.68%) CICS
5 2 (0.68%) CMS
5 2 (0.68%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.68%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.34%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.34%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.34%) SAS
6 1 (0.34%) Skype for Business
6 1 (0.34%) WordPress
Applications
1 4 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.68%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (1.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.68%) Oracle Cash Management
3 2 (0.68%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.68%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 2 (0.68%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 72 (24.57%) Azure
2 63 (21.50%) AWS
3 40 (13.65%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (6.83%) Microsoft Copilot
5 18 (6.14%) Serverless
6 17 (5.80%) SaaS
7 14 (4.78%) GitHub
7 14 (4.78%) OCI
8 13 (4.44%) Dynamics 365
8 13 (4.44%) Power Platform
9 12 (4.10%) Entra ID
10 11 (3.75%) GCP
11 10 (3.41%) Amazon S3
12 9 (3.07%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (3.07%) Azure DevOps
12 9 (3.07%) Google Workspace
12 9 (3.07%) Power Automate
13 8 (2.73%) AWS Lambda
13 8 (2.73%) OneDrive
14 7 (2.39%) Google Drive
Communications & Networking
1 15 (5.12%) Firewall
2 8 (2.73%) BIG-IP
2 8 (2.73%) Ethernet VPN
2 8 (2.73%) VXLAN
2 8 (2.73%) WAN
2 8 (2.73%) Wi-Fi
3 7 (2.39%) BGP
3 7 (2.39%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
3 7 (2.39%) OSPF
3 7 (2.39%) SD-WAN
4 6 (2.05%) WLAN
5 5 (1.71%) DNS
6 3 (1.02%) DKIM
6 3 (1.02%) DMARC
7 2 (0.68%) LAN
7 2 (0.68%) VPN
8 1 (0.34%) IPv6
8 1 (0.34%) Kerberos
8 1 (0.34%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.34%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.46%) MongoDB
2 7 (2.39%) Relational Database
3 6 (2.05%) DocumentDB
4 5 (1.71%) Metadata
4 5 (1.71%) Oracle Database
4 5 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (1.37%) RDBMS
6 3 (1.02%) MySQL
6 3 (1.02%) NoSQL
6 3 (1.02%) Power BI
6 3 (1.02%) SQL Server
6 3 (1.02%) Tableau
7 2 (0.68%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.68%) Data Mining
7 2 (0.68%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.68%) DataStage
7 2 (0.68%) Oracle BI Publisher
7 2 (0.68%) Oracle Exadata
7 2 (0.68%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (0.34%) WebFOCUS
Development Applications
1 32 (10.92%) GitLab
2 19 (6.48%) JIRA
3 10 (3.41%) Selenium
4 9 (3.07%) Cucumber
4 9 (3.07%) Git
5 8 (2.73%) Jenkins
5 8 (2.73%) Mockito
6 6 (2.05%) Cypress.io
6 6 (2.05%) JUnit
7 5 (1.71%) Mocha
7 5 (1.71%) REST Assured
8 4 (1.37%) Postman
9 3 (1.02%) CircleCI
9 3 (1.02%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.68%) Gatling
10 2 (0.68%) JDeveloper
10 2 (0.68%) JMeter
10 2 (0.68%) WebDriver
11 1 (0.34%) Serenity BDD
11 1 (0.34%) TestNG
General
1 60 (20.48%) Social Skills
2 32 (10.92%) Military
3 28 (9.56%) Finance
4 22 (7.51%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (5.46%) Local Government
6 8 (2.73%) Legal
7 7 (2.39%) Banking
8 6 (2.05%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (1.71%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.68%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.68%) Digital Economy
12 2 (0.68%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.68%) Marketing
13 1 (0.34%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.34%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 69 (23.55%) Developer
2 47 (16.04%) Lead
3 38 (12.97%) Senior
4 32 (10.92%) Architect
5 28 (9.56%) Java Developer
6 17 (5.80%) Analyst
6 17 (5.80%) Lead Developer
7 15 (5.12%) Senior Developer
7 15 (5.12%) Software Developer
8 14 (4.78%) Administrator
8 14 (4.78%) Tester
9 13 (4.44%) Designer
9 13 (4.44%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 11 (3.75%) Senior Java Developer
10 11 (3.75%) Technical Architect
11 10 (3.41%) Business Analyst
11 10 (3.41%) Consultant
11 10 (3.41%) Lead Architect
11 10 (3.41%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
11 10 (3.41%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (8.87%) Spring
2 25 (8.53%) Node.js
3 24 (8.19%) Spring Boot
4 15 (5.12%) Kafka
4 15 (5.12%) REST
5 10 (3.41%) React
6 9 (3.07%) OAuth
7 7 (2.39%) ActiveMQ
7 7 (2.39%) JAX-RS
7 7 (2.39%) Playwright
7 7 (2.39%) RESTful
8 6 (2.05%) Jest
9 5 (1.71%) AngularJS
9 5 (1.71%) OpenID
10 4 (1.37%) Nunjucks
10 4 (1.37%) Oracle Fusion
11 3 (1.02%) ARM Templates
11 3 (1.02%) GraphQL
11 3 (1.02%) Vue
11 3 (1.02%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (8.19%) Cloud Native
2 15 (5.12%) Product Ownership
3 11 (3.75%) Data Centre
3 11 (3.75%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (3.41%) Onboarding
5 8 (2.73%) Management Information System
6 7 (2.39%) NHS
6 7 (2.39%) Operational Technology
7 6 (2.05%) Hybrid Cloud
7 6 (2.05%) Public Cloud
8 5 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.02%) Distributed Systems
9 3 (1.02%) Freedom of Information
9 3 (1.02%) Housing Association
9 3 (1.02%) Replication
10 2 (0.68%) Mainframe
10 2 (0.68%) Mobile App
10 2 (0.68%) SCADA
10 2 (0.68%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 21 (7.17%) Linux
2 13 (4.44%) Unix
3 10 (3.41%) Windows
4 6 (2.05%) Mac OS X
5 4 (1.37%) AIX
5 4 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.02%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.68%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.68%) Solaris
8 1 (0.34%) Android
8 1 (0.34%) Apple iOS
8 1 (0.34%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 90 (30.72%) Agile
2 61 (20.82%) CI/CD
3 55 (18.77%) DevOps
4 43 (14.68%) Microservices
5 41 (13.99%) Continuous Improvement
6 40 (13.65%) Test Automation
7 32 (10.92%) Migration
8 31 (10.58%) Stakeholder Management
9 30 (10.24%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 24 (8.19%) Infrastructure as Code
11 23 (7.85%) Mentoring
11 23 (7.85%) Problem-Solving
11 23 (7.85%) Technical Leadership
12 22 (7.51%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 22 (7.51%) Roadmaps
12 22 (7.51%) User Experience
13 21 (7.17%) TDD
14 19 (6.48%) Containerisation
15 18 (6.14%) Cybersecurity
16 17 (5.80%) AI
Programming Languages
1 57 (19.45%) Java
2 27 (9.22%) JavaScript
3 22 (7.51%) Python
4 17 (5.80%) SQL
5 16 (5.46%) TypeScript
6 9 (3.07%) PowerShell
7 2 (0.68%) C#
7 2 (0.68%) COBOL
7 2 (0.68%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.34%) Bash
8 1 (0.34%) Bicep
8 1 (0.34%) Go
8 1 (0.34%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (0.34%) PHP
8 1 (0.34%) Scala
8 1 (0.34%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.34%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 129 (44.03%) Security Cleared
2 82 (27.99%) SC Cleared
3 17 (5.80%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (5.46%) Degree
5 7 (2.39%) Microsoft Certification
6 4 (1.37%) Azure Certification
7 3 (1.02%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.68%) CCNA
8 2 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.68%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.68%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.68%) ISTQB
8 2 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.68%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 2 (0.68%) MBA
8 2 (0.68%) PMI Certification
8 2 (0.68%) PMP
9 1 (0.34%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.34%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (10.24%) Accessibility
2 12 (4.10%) WCAG
3 11 (3.75%) QA
4 10 (3.41%) Data Quality
4 10 (3.41%) PMO
5 7 (2.39%) NIST
6 6 (2.05%) GDPR
7 4 (1.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (1.02%) SLA
9 2 (0.68%) GRC
9 2 (0.68%) NIST 800
10 1 (0.34%) Basel III
10 1 (0.34%) IFRS
10 1 (0.34%) IFRS 17
10 1 (0.34%) NCSC
10 1 (0.34%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.34%) Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)
System Software
1 29 (9.90%) Docker
2 21 (7.17%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.68%) Oracle RAC
3 2 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.34%) BitLocker
4 1 (0.34%) GPFS
4 1 (0.34%) NFS
4 1 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
4 1 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
4 1 (0.34%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 38 (12.97%) Terraform
2 27 (9.22%) Kubernetes
3 14 (4.78%) Ansible
4 6 (2.05%) Grafana
5 3 (1.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 3 (1.02%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.02%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.68%) Data Guard
6 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.68%) Oracle RMAN
6 2 (0.68%) SCCM
7 1 (0.34%) Argo
7 1 (0.34%) CASB
7 1 (0.34%) Cisco CUCM
7 1 (0.34%) Norton AntiVirus
7 1 (0.34%) Packer
7 1 (0.34%) vRealize
7 1 (0.34%) VxRail
Vendors
1 49 (16.72%) Microsoft
2 13 (4.44%) Oracle
3 10 (3.41%) Google
4 9 (3.07%) Palo Alto
4 9 (3.07%) ServiceNow
5 8 (2.73%) Aruba
5 8 (2.73%) F5
6 7 (2.39%) Arista
6 7 (2.39%) SAP
7 4 (1.37%) IBM
7 4 (1.37%) PeopleSoft
8 3 (1.02%) Virgin Media
8 3 (1.02%) VMware
9 2 (0.68%) Automation Anywhere
9 2 (0.68%) BeyondTrust
9 2 (0.68%) Cisco
9 2 (0.68%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.68%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.68%) Tanium
9 2 (0.68%) Thycotic