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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 1
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 262 308 560
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.41% 19.11% 27.04%
As % of the General category 20.86% 26.04% 42.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 199 361
10th Percentile £337 £187 £156
25th Percentile £407 £314 £275
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +6.17% - -3.23%
75th Percentile £575 £503 £538
90th Percentile £730 £588 £638
UK median daily rate £510 £500 £508
% change year-on-year +2.00% -1.48% -2.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 10 11
10th Percentile - £16.88 £12.00
25th Percentile - £18.80 £12.63
Median hourly rate £17.23 £22.08 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.97% +26.17% +13.97%
75th Percentile £21.40 £27.13 £18.96
90th Percentile £23.91 £30.12 £25.17
UK median hourly rate £24.25 £23.23 £23.99
% change year-on-year +4.41% -3.19% +19.95%

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 1,256 1,183 1,314
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 59.47% 73.39% 63.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 654 682 788
10th Percentile £250 £217 £174
25th Percentile £363 £363 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +0.54% +2.78% -5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £550
90th Percentile £675 £600 £638
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 47 76
10th Percentile £12.60 £16.02 £12.15
25th Percentile £13.45 £16.59 £14.25
Median hourly rate £16.25 £20.00 £18.07
Median % change year-on-year -18.75% +10.71% -5.81%
75th Percentile £48.49 £26.21 £45.75
90th Percentile £63.25 £50.48 £62.88
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £27.76 £31.13
% change year-on-year +15.27% -10.81% +3.75%

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 24 June 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 24 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
Edinburgh -3 124 £450 - 11
Glasgow +3 113 £525 +11.11% 12
South Lanarkshire -2 12 £669 +42.23%
Lanarkshire -1 2 £431 +231.73% 6
West Lothian -3 2 £388 +106.67% 1
East Lothian +4 1 - -
Moray -1 1 - -
North Lanarkshire -3 1 £350 -12.50%
Aberdeen -3 1 £138 -17.91% 1
Dundee -5 1 - -
Inverclyde - 1 £675 -
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 11 (4.20%) Confluence
2 4 (1.53%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.15%) CMS
4 2 (0.76%) Apache
4 2 (0.76%) Drupal
5 1 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.38%) CICS
5 1 (0.38%) Exchange Server 2013
5 1 (0.38%) JBoss
5 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.38%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.38%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 7 (2.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.53%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.76%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.38%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.38%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.38%) InDesign
4 1 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.38%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 5 (1.91%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.38%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.38%) IntelliMatch
2 1 (0.38%) iTrent
2 1 (0.38%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.38%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 51 (19.47%) AWS
1 51 (19.47%) Azure
2 19 (7.25%) Azure DevOps
2 19 (7.25%) Power Platform
3 16 (6.11%) Microsoft 365
4 14 (5.34%) OCI
5 11 (4.20%) Serverless
6 10 (3.82%) Amazon S3
7 9 (3.44%) GCP
8 7 (2.67%) AWS Lambda
8 7 (2.67%) Azure AI
8 7 (2.67%) Azure Cognitive Search
8 7 (2.67%) Azure Cognitive Services
9 6 (2.29%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (2.29%) GitHub
9 6 (2.29%) GitHub Actions
10 5 (1.91%) Azure Key Vault
10 5 (1.91%) Cloud Computing
10 5 (1.91%) PowerApps
10 5 (1.91%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.67%) DNS
1 7 (2.67%) Wi-Fi
2 5 (1.91%) Cisco Nexus
2 5 (1.91%) Firewall
2 5 (1.91%) LAN
3 4 (1.53%) Network Security
3 4 (1.53%) WAN
4 3 (1.15%) Remote Desktop
4 3 (1.15%) SD-WAN
4 3 (1.15%) SSH
4 3 (1.15%) SSL
4 3 (1.15%) VPN
4 3 (1.15%) Wireless
5 2 (0.76%) BGP
5 2 (0.76%) Fibre Channel
5 2 (0.76%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.76%) Intranet
5 2 (0.76%) OSPF
6 1 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
6 1 (0.38%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.11%) Power BI
2 10 (3.82%) Metadata
2 10 (3.82%) Relational Database
3 9 (3.44%) MySQL
4 6 (2.29%) MongoDB
4 6 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (2.29%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.91%) MariaDB
6 4 (1.53%) Amazon Aurora
6 4 (1.53%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.15%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.15%) DynamoDB
7 3 (1.15%) Geospatial Data
8 2 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.76%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.76%) GIS
8 2 (0.76%) Power Query
8 2 (0.76%) Snowflake Schema
8 2 (0.76%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 14 (5.34%) JIRA
2 12 (4.58%) Git
3 9 (3.44%) Jenkins
4 8 (3.05%) Cypress.io
5 7 (2.67%) Selenium
6 5 (1.91%) Cucumber
6 5 (1.91%) Subversion
7 3 (1.15%) GoCD
7 3 (1.15%) Gradle
7 3 (1.15%) JProfiler
7 3 (1.15%) JUnit
7 3 (1.15%) Maven
7 3 (1.15%) WebDriver
8 2 (0.76%) Appium
8 2 (0.76%) Postman
8 2 (0.76%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.76%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.76%) Terragrunt
9 1 (0.38%) Karma Test Runner
9 1 (0.38%) SpecFlow
General
1 75 (28.63%) Social Skills
2 34 (12.98%) Finance
3 21 (8.02%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (4.58%) Legal
5 11 (4.20%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (3.44%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (3.05%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.53%) Banking
8 4 (1.53%) Military
9 3 (1.15%) Police
9 3 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.76%) Local Government
10 2 (0.76%) Marketing
10 2 (0.76%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.38%) Back Office
11 1 (0.38%) Law
11 1 (0.38%) Publishing
11 1 (0.38%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 34 (12.98%) Analyst
2 29 (11.07%) Architect
3 27 (10.31%) Senior
4 20 (7.63%) Developer
5 16 (6.11%) Lead
6 15 (5.73%) Project Manager
7 14 (5.34%) Consultant
8 11 (4.20%) DevOps Engineer
8 11 (4.20%) Solutions Architect
9 10 (3.82%) Network Engineer
10 9 (3.44%) Cloud Engineer
11 8 (3.05%) Cloud Consultant
11 8 (3.05%) DBA
11 8 (3.05%) Oracle Consultant
12 7 (2.67%) Administrator
12 7 (2.67%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 6 (2.29%) Business Analyst
13 6 (2.29%) Help Desk Consultant
13 6 (2.29%) HR Consultant
13 6 (2.29%) Oracle HRMS Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (5.73%) .NET
2 14 (5.34%) React
3 9 (3.44%) REST
3 9 (3.44%) RESTful
4 6 (2.29%) Spring
4 6 (2.29%) Spring Boot
4 6 (2.29%) Web Services
5 5 (1.91%) AWS CDK
5 5 (1.91%) Playwright
6 4 (1.53%) Jest
6 4 (1.53%) JSON
6 4 (1.53%) Middleware
6 4 (1.53%) SOAP
7 3 (1.15%) FreeMarker
7 3 (1.15%) Gherkin
7 3 (1.15%) JSF
7 3 (1.15%) Node.js
8 2 (0.76%) ADO
8 2 (0.76%) ASP.NET
8 2 (0.76%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 23 (8.78%) Product Ownership
2 13 (4.96%) Management Information System
3 11 (4.20%) Legacy Systems
4 7 (2.67%) Data Centre
4 7 (2.67%) Data Protection Act
5 5 (1.91%) Cloud Native
5 5 (1.91%) Data Structures
5 5 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (1.53%) Legacy Applications
6 4 (1.53%) NHS
6 4 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (0.76%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (0.76%) Freedom of Information
7 2 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (0.76%) NVMe
7 2 (0.76%) Onboarding
7 2 (0.76%) PKI
7 2 (0.76%) Replication
8 1 (0.38%) Cyberattack
8 1 (0.38%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 20 (7.63%) Linux
2 19 (7.25%) Windows
3 7 (2.67%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.91%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.76%) Unix
7 1 (0.38%) Android
7 1 (0.38%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.38%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.38%) Rocky
7 1 (0.38%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.38%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (26.72%) Agile
2 42 (16.03%) Stakeholder Management
3 41 (15.65%) DevOps
4 34 (12.98%) CI/CD
4 34 (12.98%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 33 (12.60%) Continuous Improvement
6 31 (11.83%) Migration
7 30 (11.45%) AI
8 26 (9.92%) Problem-Solving
9 24 (9.16%) Project Delivery
9 24 (9.16%) Roadmaps
10 22 (8.40%) Infrastructure as Code
11 21 (8.02%) Decision-Making
12 19 (7.25%) Scrum
13 16 (6.11%) Business Intelligence
14 15 (5.73%) Data Protection
14 15 (5.73%) Machine Learning
14 15 (5.73%) Project Management
14 15 (5.73%) User Experience
15 14 (5.34%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 32 (12.21%) Python
2 23 (8.78%) SQL
3 21 (8.02%) Java
4 17 (6.49%) JavaScript
5 15 (5.73%) C#
6 10 (3.82%) PowerShell
6 10 (3.82%) TypeScript
7 6 (2.29%) Bicep
8 4 (1.53%) Bash
9 2 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.76%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.38%) C++
10 1 (0.38%) COBOL
10 1 (0.38%) JCL
10 1 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.38%) Perl
10 1 (0.38%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.38%) SPARQL
10 1 (0.38%) VBA
10 1 (0.38%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 60 (22.90%) Security Cleared
2 43 (16.41%) SC Cleared
3 21 (8.02%) BPSS Clearance
4 14 (5.34%) Degree
5 9 (3.44%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.53%) ITIL Certification
6 4 (1.53%) PMI Certification
6 4 (1.53%) PMP
7 3 (1.15%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.15%) CCAB
7 3 (1.15%) CCNP
7 3 (1.15%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.15%) IIBA
7 3 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
8 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
8 2 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.76%) ISTQB
8 2 (0.76%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (6.11%) QA
2 15 (5.73%) Accessibility
3 14 (5.34%) Data Quality
4 13 (4.96%) Disclosure Scotland
5 11 (4.20%) GDPR
6 6 (2.29%) PMO
7 5 (1.91%) WCAG
8 4 (1.53%) NIST
9 3 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (1.15%) NCSC
10 2 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.76%) SLA
11 1 (0.38%) COBIT
11 1 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.38%) GRC
11 1 (0.38%) ISO 20022
11 1 (0.38%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 9 (3.44%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.91%) Docker
2 5 (1.91%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.53%) Hyper-V
3 4 (1.53%) VMware NSX
4 3 (1.15%) Ceph
5 2 (0.76%) Squid
5 2 (0.76%) vSphere
6 1 (0.38%) IAG
6 1 (0.38%) iptables
6 1 (0.38%) NFS
6 1 (0.38%) Samba
6 1 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.38%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 17 (6.49%) Terraform
2 11 (4.20%) Ansible
2 11 (4.20%) Kubernetes
3 6 (2.29%) Istio
4 5 (1.91%) Grafana
4 5 (1.91%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (1.15%) Argo
6 2 (0.76%) SCCM
6 2 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.76%) vMotion
7 1 (0.38%) PowerCLI
7 1 (0.38%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.38%) Rundeck
7 1 (0.38%) SELinux
7 1 (0.38%) systemd
7 1 (0.38%) vRealize
7 1 (0.38%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 40 (15.27%) Microsoft
2 31 (11.83%) Oracle
3 11 (4.20%) Google
4 10 (3.82%) Cisco
4 10 (3.82%) Salesforce
5 7 (2.67%) OpenAI
5 7 (2.67%) VMware
6 5 (1.91%) MuleSoft
6 5 (1.91%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.15%) F5
7 3 (1.15%) SAP
8 2 (0.76%) Arista
8 2 (0.76%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.76%) Greenplum
8 2 (0.76%) Informatica
8 2 (0.76%) Juniper
8 2 (0.76%) Okta
8 2 (0.76%) Talend
9 1 (0.38%) AppNeta
9 1 (0.38%) CrowdStrike