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 3 months leading up to 20 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

3 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 6 1
Rank change year-on-year -1 -5 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 162 129 225
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 13.86% 15.30% 25.37%
As % of the General category 21.18% 23.04% 40.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 84 144
10th Percentile £263 £193 £168
25th Percentile £375 £300 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - -3.02%
75th Percentile £545 £532 £543
90th Percentile £675 £629 £603
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £515
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.91% -1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 7
10th Percentile - £18.05 £13.47
25th Percentile - £19.52 £15.28
Median hourly rate - £22.28 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year - +13.71% +69.90%
75th Percentile - £25.27 £20.26
90th Percentile - £26.88 £26.36
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £20.57 £22.56
% change year-on-year +3.79% -8.82% +15.69%

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 765 560 556
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 65.44% 66.43% 62.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 432 331 310
10th Percentile £211 £210 £165
25th Percentile £325 £359 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £470 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% +4.44% -5.26%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £535
90th Percentile £650 £600 £619
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 28 24
10th Percentile £13.45 £16.39 £13.34
25th Percentile £13.50 £17.73 £14.73
Median hourly rate £16.93 £19.23 £15.74
Median % change year-on-year -11.96% +22.17% -14.69%
75th Percentile £41.35 £22.45 £19.92
90th Percentile £43.96 £36.82 £31.40
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £26.00 £29.75
% change year-on-year +15.38% -12.61% +13.33%

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 3 months to 20 August 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 3 months to 20 August 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 3 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Edinburgh +1 79 £475 - 21
Glasgow +9 71 £440 -2.22% 39
South Lanarkshire - 4 £775 - 1
Lanarkshire 0 2 - - 32
Dumfries and Galloway - 2 £500 - 4
Dundee +2 1 - -
Inverclyde - 1 £675 -
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 15 (5.40%) Confluence
2 9 (3.24%) CMS
3 7 (2.52%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.72%) JBoss
5 1 (0.36%) Apache
5 1 (0.36%) IIS
5 1 (0.36%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.36%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 8 (2.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.80%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.72%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.36%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.36%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.36%) InDesign
4 1 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.36%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.36%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.72%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.36%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.36%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 50 (17.99%) AWS
2 42 (15.11%) Azure
3 20 (7.19%) Microsoft 365
4 17 (6.12%) Power Platform
5 16 (5.76%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (5.40%) OCI
7 14 (5.04%) Amazon S3
8 12 (4.32%) Serverless
9 9 (3.24%) GCP
10 8 (2.88%) AWS Lambda
10 8 (2.88%) SaaS
11 6 (2.16%) Amazon EKS
11 6 (2.16%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (2.16%) Azure Monitor
11 6 (2.16%) GitHub
11 6 (2.16%) GitHub Actions
11 6 (2.16%) OpenShift
12 5 (1.80%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (1.80%) Entra ID
12 5 (1.80%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.88%) DNS
2 5 (1.80%) LAN
2 5 (1.80%) SSL
2 5 (1.80%) Wi-Fi
3 4 (1.44%) Firewall
3 4 (1.44%) SSH
4 3 (1.08%) Cisco Nexus
4 3 (1.08%) HTTPS
4 3 (1.08%) Remote Desktop
4 3 (1.08%) SD-WAN
4 3 (1.08%) VPN
4 3 (1.08%) WAN
4 3 (1.08%) Wireless
5 1 (0.36%) Cisco Wireless
5 1 (0.36%) MPLS
5 1 (0.36%) Network Security
5 1 (0.36%) SDH
5 1 (0.36%) Structured Cabling
5 1 (0.36%) VLAN
5 1 (0.36%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (4.32%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (3.96%) Amazon Aurora
2 11 (3.96%) MySQL
2 11 (3.96%) Power BI
3 10 (3.60%) MongoDB
4 9 (3.24%) MariaDB
4 9 (3.24%) SQL Server
5 6 (2.16%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.80%) Amazon RDS
6 5 (1.80%) Metadata
7 3 (1.08%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.08%) Power Query
7 3 (1.08%) SQLPlus
8 2 (0.72%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.72%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (0.72%) Geospatial Data
8 2 (0.72%) MS Access
9 1 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.36%) OpenStack Swift
9 1 (0.36%) Oracle ODI
Development Applications
1 17 (6.12%) JIRA
2 16 (5.76%) Jenkins
3 11 (3.96%) Git
4 8 (2.88%) Cypress.io
5 6 (2.16%) Gradle
5 6 (2.16%) Maven
5 6 (2.16%) Selenium
6 4 (1.44%) Cucumber
6 4 (1.44%) Subversion
7 3 (1.08%) GitLab
7 3 (1.08%) GoCD
7 3 (1.08%) JProfiler
7 3 (1.08%) JUnit
7 3 (1.08%) webpack
8 2 (0.72%) Appium
8 2 (0.72%) Postman
8 2 (0.72%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.72%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.72%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.72%) WebDriver
General
1 75 (26.98%) Social Skills
2 30 (10.79%) Finance
3 17 (6.12%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (5.76%) Organisational Skills
5 7 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (2.16%) Legal
6 6 (2.16%) Publishing
7 5 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
8 4 (1.44%) Local Government
9 3 (1.08%) Marketing
9 3 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (1.08%) Retail
10 2 (0.72%) Military
10 2 (0.72%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.36%) Back Office
11 1 (0.36%) Banking
11 1 (0.36%) Law
11 1 (0.36%) Police
11 1 (0.36%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 34 (12.23%) Developer
2 29 (10.43%) Architect
3 28 (10.07%) Analyst
4 24 (8.63%) Senior
5 19 (6.83%) Lead
6 18 (6.47%) Project Manager
7 15 (5.40%) Solutions Architect
8 13 (4.68%) Consultant
8 13 (4.68%) DevOps Engineer
9 10 (3.60%) Administrator
10 9 (3.24%) Software Developer
10 9 (3.24%) Technical Architect
11 8 (2.88%) Business Analyst
11 8 (2.88%) Cloud Consultant
11 8 (2.88%) Cloud Engineer
11 8 (2.88%) Designer
11 8 (2.88%) Oracle Consultant
12 7 (2.52%) DBA
12 7 (2.52%) Java Developer
12 7 (2.52%) Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (7.19%) Spring
1 20 (7.19%) Spring Boot
2 19 (6.83%) Terraform
3 14 (5.04%) React
4 12 (4.32%) REST
5 10 (3.60%) Node.js
6 8 (2.88%) .NET
6 8 (2.88%) Playwright
6 8 (2.88%) RESTful
7 7 (2.52%) Web Services
8 6 (2.16%) AWS CDK
8 6 (2.16%) Jest
9 5 (1.80%) HTML
9 5 (1.80%) Next.js
9 5 (1.80%) Vue
10 4 (1.44%) JSON
10 4 (1.44%) Middleware
11 3 (1.08%) FreeMarker
11 3 (1.08%) JSF
11 3 (1.08%) Spring Security
Miscellaneous
1 17 (6.12%) Product Ownership
2 13 (4.68%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.96%) Data Protection Act
3 11 (3.96%) Legacy Systems
3 11 (3.96%) Management Information System
4 8 (2.88%) NHS
5 5 (1.80%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.08%) Legacy Applications
6 3 (1.08%) Mainframe
6 3 (1.08%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (0.72%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.72%) Distributed Architecture
7 2 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
7 2 (0.72%) Freedom of Information
7 2 (0.72%) Onboarding
7 2 (0.72%) PKI
8 1 (0.36%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.36%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.36%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.36%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 24 (8.63%) Linux
2 15 (5.40%) Windows
3 6 (2.16%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.44%) SUSE
6 3 (1.08%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.36%) Android
7 1 (0.36%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.36%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.36%) Rocky
7 1 (0.36%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.36%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (29.14%) Agile
2 51 (18.35%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 46 (16.55%) Stakeholder Management
4 44 (15.83%) Continuous Improvement
5 43 (15.47%) DevOps
6 39 (14.03%) CI/CD
7 28 (10.07%) Project Delivery
8 26 (9.35%) Migration
9 22 (7.91%) Infrastructure as Code
10 21 (7.55%) Decision-Making
11 20 (7.19%) AI
11 20 (7.19%) Microservices
11 20 (7.19%) Scrum
12 19 (6.83%) Coaching
12 19 (6.83%) Data Protection
12 19 (6.83%) Mentoring
12 19 (6.83%) Workshop Facilitation
13 18 (6.47%) Roadmaps
14 17 (6.12%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 17 (6.12%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 33 (11.87%) Java
2 23 (8.27%) JavaScript
3 20 (7.19%) SQL
4 18 (6.47%) Python
4 18 (6.47%) TypeScript
5 9 (3.24%) Bash
6 8 (2.88%) PowerShell
7 7 (2.52%) C#
8 6 (2.16%) Bicep
9 4 (1.44%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (1.08%) Groovy
10 3 (1.08%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.36%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.36%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.36%) VBA
11 1 (0.36%) XPath
Qualifications
1 48 (17.27%) Security Cleared
2 44 (15.83%) SC Cleared
3 15 (5.40%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (3.60%) DV Cleared
5 6 (2.16%) Degree
5 6 (2.16%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (1.80%) PMI Certification
6 5 (1.80%) PMP
7 4 (1.44%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (1.08%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.08%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
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%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.72%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 2 (0.72%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (8.63%) Accessibility
2 19 (6.83%) Disclosure Scotland
3 14 (5.04%) PMO
4 9 (3.24%) GDPR
4 9 (3.24%) QA
4 9 (3.24%) WCAG
5 8 (2.88%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.44%) NIST
7 3 (1.08%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.72%) GRC
8 2 (0.72%) NCSC
8 2 (0.72%) SLA
System Software
1 11 (3.96%) Docker
2 9 (3.24%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.16%) Hyper-V
4 4 (1.44%) Ceph
4 4 (1.44%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.08%) Squid
6 2 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.36%) IAG
7 1 (0.36%) iptables
7 1 (0.36%) NFS
7 1 (0.36%) Samba
7 1 (0.36%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 13 (4.68%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.88%) Grafana
3 7 (2.52%) Ansible
4 6 (2.16%) Istio
5 5 (1.80%) Microsoft Intune
6 4 (1.44%) Argo
7 3 (1.08%) Kibana
7 3 (1.08%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.72%) SCCM
8 2 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.36%) Rundeck
9 1 (0.36%) SELinux
9 1 (0.36%) systemd
9 1 (0.36%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 35 (12.59%) Microsoft
2 32 (11.51%) Oracle
3 9 (3.24%) Salesforce
4 6 (2.16%) Cisco
5 5 (1.80%) Google
5 5 (1.80%) MuleSoft
6 4 (1.44%) VMware
7 3 (1.08%) F5
7 3 (1.08%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.08%) Red Hat
7 3 (1.08%) SAP
7 3 (1.08%) UiPath
8 2 (0.72%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.72%) Okta
8 2 (0.72%) SaltStack
9 1 (0.36%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.36%) EnterpriseDB
9 1 (0.36%) Infor
9 1 (0.36%) Qualys
9 1 (0.36%) SolarWinds