Public Sector Contract Job Trends in Scotland

Public Sector
UK > Scotland

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Sector in contract job vacancies in Scotland. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Sector over the 6 months leading up to 23 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 5 1
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 278 322 545
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.32% 19.22% 27.24%
As % of the General category 20.73% 26.81% 43.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 179 209 350
10th Percentile £313 £185 £161
25th Percentile £406 £315 £260
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - -2.17%
75th Percentile £575 £525 £538
90th Percentile £721 £600 £639
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 9 15
10th Percentile - £16.68 £12.00
25th Percentile £25.19 £18.54 £13.23
Median hourly rate £25.39 £19.83 £16.92
Median % change year-on-year +28.01% +17.20% +10.19%
75th Percentile £25.58 £27.95 £19.38
90th Percentile - £31.86 £23.47
UK median hourly rate £25.38 £20.57 £23.50
% change year-on-year +23.38% -12.45% +14.61%

All General Skills
Scotland

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 Scotland.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,341 1,201 1,267
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 59.44% 71.70% 63.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 701 713 771
10th Percentile £250 £226 £175
25th Percentile £359 £368 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £465 £450
Median % change year-on-year -0.97% +3.22% -5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £550
90th Percentile £650 £600 £638
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 110 42 54
10th Percentile £12.74 £15.64 £12.30
25th Percentile £13.45 £16.33 £13.53
Median hourly rate £16.54 £19.71 £17.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.11% +15.94% -11.37%
75th Percentile £43.09 £24.62 £24.92
90th Percentile £61.50 £40.84 £49.00
UK median hourly rate £32.81 £26.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +26.17% -25.71% +14.68%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in Scotland

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Public Sector relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland.

Public Sector job vacancy trend in Scotland

Public Sector
Daily Rate Trend in Scotland

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Public Sector.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Daily Rate Histogram in Scotland

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Sector in Scotland over the 6 months to 23 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in Scotland

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Trend in Scotland

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Public Sector.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Contract Job Locations in Scotland

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 Scotland region over the 6 months to 23 July 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
Edinburgh 0 131 £463 +2.78% 15
Glasgow +1 120 £525 +10.53% 23
South Lanarkshire -3 11 £669 +42.23% 1
Lanarkshire 0 4 £431 +231.73% 17
East Lothian +4 1 - -
Moray -1 1 - -
North Lanarkshire -3 1 £350 -12.50%
Dundee -4 1 - -
Aberdeen -4 1 £138 -58.80%
Inverclyde - 1 £675 -
Dumfries and Galloway - 1 - -
Fife - 1 - -
Public Sector
UK

Public Sector
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Scotland 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 13 (4.68%) Confluence
2 6 (2.16%) CMS
2 6 (2.16%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.72%) Apache
3 2 (0.72%) JBoss
4 1 (0.36%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.36%) Drupal
4 1 (0.36%) IIS
4 1 (0.36%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.36%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 10 (3.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.16%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.72%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.36%) InDesign
5 1 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.36%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 5 (1.80%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.72%) Dynamics GP
3 1 (0.36%) IntelliMatch
3 1 (0.36%) iTrent
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.36%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 50 (17.99%) AWS
2 48 (17.27%) Azure
3 22 (7.91%) Power Platform
4 20 (7.19%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (5.76%) Microsoft 365
6 14 (5.04%) OCI
6 14 (5.04%) Serverless
7 13 (4.68%) Amazon S3
8 9 (3.24%) AWS Lambda
9 8 (2.88%) GCP
9 8 (2.88%) SaaS
10 7 (2.52%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (2.52%) PowerApps
11 6 (2.16%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (2.16%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (2.16%) Dynamics 365
11 6 (2.16%) Entra ID
11 6 (2.16%) GitHub
11 6 (2.16%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (2.16%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.52%) DNS
2 5 (1.80%) LAN
2 5 (1.80%) Wi-Fi
3 4 (1.44%) Firewall
3 4 (1.44%) SSL
3 4 (1.44%) WAN
4 3 (1.08%) Cisco Nexus
4 3 (1.08%) Remote Desktop
4 3 (1.08%) SD-WAN
4 3 (1.08%) SSH
4 3 (1.08%) VPN
4 3 (1.08%) Wireless
5 2 (0.72%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.72%) Network Security
6 1 (0.36%) DSL
6 1 (0.36%) HTTP
6 1 (0.36%) Intranet
6 1 (0.36%) MPLS
6 1 (0.36%) SDH
6 1 (0.36%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (5.40%) Power BI
2 11 (3.96%) MySQL
3 9 (3.24%) Metadata
3 9 (3.24%) Relational Database
4 7 (2.52%) MongoDB
4 7 (2.52%) SQL Server
5 6 (2.16%) MariaDB
5 6 (2.16%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (1.80%) Amazon Aurora
7 4 (1.44%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (1.44%) Oracle Database
8 3 (1.08%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (1.08%) DynamoDB
8 3 (1.08%) Geospatial Data
8 3 (1.08%) Power Query
9 2 (0.72%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.72%) GIS
9 2 (0.72%) MS Access
9 2 (0.72%) SQLPlus
10 1 (0.36%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 17 (6.12%) JIRA
2 12 (4.32%) Git
3 10 (3.60%) Jenkins
4 9 (3.24%) Cypress.io
5 7 (2.52%) Selenium
6 5 (1.80%) Cucumber
6 5 (1.80%) Subversion
7 4 (1.44%) Gradle
7 4 (1.44%) Maven
8 3 (1.08%) GoCD
8 3 (1.08%) JProfiler
8 3 (1.08%) JUnit
8 3 (1.08%) WebDriver
9 2 (0.72%) Appium
9 2 (0.72%) Postman
9 2 (0.72%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.72%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.36%) Jasmine
10 1 (0.36%) Karma Test Runner
10 1 (0.36%) SpecFlow
General
1 87 (31.29%) Social Skills
2 38 (13.67%) Finance
3 21 (7.55%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (3.60%) Legal
5 9 (3.24%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (3.24%) Organisational Skills
6 8 (2.88%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.44%) Local Government
7 4 (1.44%) Marketing
7 4 (1.44%) Military
7 4 (1.44%) Publishing
8 3 (1.08%) Banking
9 2 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.72%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.36%) Back Office
10 1 (0.36%) Law
10 1 (0.36%) Police
10 1 (0.36%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 31 (11.15%) Analyst
2 30 (10.79%) Architect
2 30 (10.79%) Developer
3 26 (9.35%) Senior
4 18 (6.47%) Project Manager
5 17 (6.12%) Lead
6 14 (5.04%) Consultant
6 14 (5.04%) DevOps Engineer
7 13 (4.68%) Solutions Architect
8 10 (3.60%) Designer
9 8 (2.88%) Cloud Consultant
9 8 (2.88%) Cloud Engineer
9 8 (2.88%) Network Engineer
9 8 (2.88%) Oracle Consultant
10 7 (2.52%) Administrator
10 7 (2.52%) Software Developer
11 6 (2.16%) Business Analyst
11 6 (2.16%) Help Desk Consultant
11 6 (2.16%) Oracle HRMS Consultant
11 6 (2.16%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (4.68%) .NET
2 12 (4.32%) React
3 10 (3.60%) Spring
3 10 (3.60%) Spring Boot
4 9 (3.24%) REST
5 8 (2.88%) RESTful
6 7 (2.52%) AWS CDK
6 7 (2.52%) Web Services
7 5 (1.80%) Jest
7 5 (1.80%) Node.js
7 5 (1.80%) Playwright
8 4 (1.44%) JSON
8 4 (1.44%) Middleware
8 4 (1.44%) SOAP
9 3 (1.08%) ARM Templates
9 3 (1.08%) ASP.NET
9 3 (1.08%) FreeMarker
9 3 (1.08%) Gherkin
9 3 (1.08%) JSF
10 2 (0.72%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 24 (8.63%) Product Ownership
2 11 (3.96%) Data Protection Act
2 11 (3.96%) Legacy Systems
2 11 (3.96%) Management Information System
3 8 (2.88%) Cloud Native
4 7 (2.52%) NHS
5 6 (2.16%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (1.44%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.08%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.08%) Legacy Applications
7 3 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (0.72%) Freedom of Information
8 2 (0.72%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.72%) PKI
9 1 (0.36%) Cyber Threat
9 1 (0.36%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.36%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.36%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.36%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 20 (7.19%) Linux
2 16 (5.76%) Windows
3 6 (2.16%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.44%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.36%) Android
6 1 (0.36%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.36%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.36%) Rocky
6 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.36%) Unix
6 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (28.06%) Agile
2 50 (17.99%) Stakeholder Management
3 45 (16.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 42 (15.11%) DevOps
5 39 (14.03%) Continuous Improvement
6 37 (13.31%) CI/CD
7 29 (10.43%) Migration
8 26 (9.35%) AI
9 24 (8.63%) Project Delivery
10 23 (8.27%) Infrastructure as Code
11 22 (7.91%) Problem-Solving
12 21 (7.55%) Scrum
13 20 (7.19%) Decision-Making
13 20 (7.19%) Roadmaps
14 19 (6.83%) Microservices
15 18 (6.47%) Data Protection
16 17 (6.12%) Mentoring
17 16 (5.76%) Cybersecurity
17 16 (5.76%) User Experience
18 15 (5.40%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 24 (8.63%) Java
2 22 (7.91%) Python
2 22 (7.91%) SQL
3 20 (7.19%) JavaScript
4 14 (5.04%) C#
4 14 (5.04%) TypeScript
5 10 (3.60%) PowerShell
6 7 (2.52%) Bicep
7 6 (2.16%) Bash
8 3 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (1.08%) PL/SQL
8 3 (1.08%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.72%) VBA
10 1 (0.36%) C++
10 1 (0.36%) Groovy
10 1 (0.36%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.36%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.36%) VB.NET
10 1 (0.36%) VBScript
10 1 (0.36%) XPath
Qualifications
1 57 (20.50%) Security Cleared
2 43 (15.47%) SC Cleared
3 20 (7.19%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (3.60%) Degree
5 9 (3.24%) DV Cleared
6 5 (1.80%) PMI Certification
6 5 (1.80%) PMP
7 4 (1.44%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (1.44%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.08%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.08%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.08%) CCAB
8 3 (1.08%) CISSP
8 3 (1.08%) MCSE
8 3 (1.08%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.72%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (0.72%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
9 2 (0.72%) IIBA
9 2 (0.72%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 2 (0.72%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.83%) Accessibility
2 16 (5.76%) QA
3 15 (5.40%) Disclosure Scotland
4 11 (3.96%) Data Quality
5 10 (3.60%) GDPR
6 9 (3.24%) PMO
7 6 (2.16%) NIST
8 5 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.80%) WCAG
9 4 (1.44%) NCSC
10 3 (1.08%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.72%) GRC
11 2 (0.72%) SLA
12 1 (0.36%) ISO 20022
12 1 (0.36%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 10 (3.60%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.52%) Docker
3 5 (1.80%) Hyper-V
4 3 (1.08%) Ceph
4 3 (1.08%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.72%) Squid
6 1 (0.36%) IAG
6 1 (0.36%) iptables
6 1 (0.36%) NFS
6 1 (0.36%) Samba
6 1 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 20 (7.19%) Terraform
2 14 (5.04%) Kubernetes
3 6 (2.16%) Ansible
3 6 (2.16%) Istio
3 6 (2.16%) Microsoft Intune
4 5 (1.80%) Grafana
5 4 (1.44%) Argo
6 3 (1.08%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.08%) SCCM
7 2 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.36%) Rundeck
8 1 (0.36%) SELinux
8 1 (0.36%) systemd
8 1 (0.36%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 40 (14.39%) Microsoft
2 32 (11.51%) Oracle
3 10 (3.60%) Salesforce
4 7 (2.52%) Google
5 6 (2.16%) Cisco
6 5 (1.80%) MuleSoft
7 3 (1.08%) F5
7 3 (1.08%) OpenAI
7 3 (1.08%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.08%) SAP
7 3 (1.08%) UiPath
7 3 (1.08%) VMware
8 2 (0.72%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.72%) Okta
8 2 (0.72%) Red Hat
9 1 (0.36%) Confluent
9 1 (0.36%) FIS
9 1 (0.36%) IFS
9 1 (0.36%) Openreach
9 1 (0.36%) Workday