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 13 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 5 1
Rank change year-on-year -3 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 242 325 588
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 13.29% 20.57% 27.26%
As % of the General category 22.81% 28.19% 42.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 226 370
10th Percentile £310 £192 £156
25th Percentile £381 £344 £265
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £450 £454
Median % change year-on-year +2.78% -0.83% -0.49%
75th Percentile £558 £519 £539
90th Percentile £650 £592 £660
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £517
% change year-on-year - -3.29% -1.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 9 10
10th Percentile - £19.38 £11.97
25th Percentile £17.23 £19.75 £13.31
Median hourly rate £21.31 £23.00 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.36% +31.43% +13.97%
75th Percentile £26.47 £24.66 £18.75
90th Percentile £28.08 £31.86 £19.77
UK median hourly rate £23.83 £22.39 £21.00
% change year-on-year +6.43% +6.60% +5.00%

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 1,061 1,153 1,388
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 58.26% 72.97% 64.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 537 680 832
10th Percentile £250 £244 £179
25th Percentile £363 £368 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £464 £475
Median % change year-on-year +0.27% -2.37% -
75th Percentile £575 £538 £575
90th Percentile £675 £607 £662
UK median daily rate £503 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.37% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 34 69
10th Percentile £12.60 £16.02 £12.24
25th Percentile £13.45 £17.10 £15.67
Median hourly rate £16.25 £22.00 £19.17
Median % change year-on-year -26.14% +14.76% -9.83%
75th Percentile £50.00 £24.66 £60.00
90th Percentile £62.55 £55.74 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £27.30 £30.16
% change year-on-year +9.89% -9.48% -10.82%

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 -4 119 £444 -0.39% 19
Glasgow +8 99 £500 +5.26% 17
South Lanarkshire -4 11 £669 +42.23%
Lanarkshire 0 2 £431 +31.68% 11
West Lothian 0 2 £388 +106.67%
East Lothian +4 1 - -
Moray -2 1 - -
North Lanarkshire -3 1 £350 -12.50%
Fife - 1 - - 1
Aberdeen - 1 £138 - 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 7 (2.89%) Confluence
2 4 (1.65%) CMS
3 3 (1.24%) Apache
3 3 (1.24%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.83%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.83%) Drupal
5 1 (0.41%) Apache TomEE
5 1 (0.41%) CICS
5 1 (0.41%) Exchange Server 2013
5 1 (0.41%) JBoss
5 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.41%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.41%) Umbraco
Applications
1 8 (3.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.83%) Adobe Illustrator
2 2 (0.83%) InDesign
2 2 (0.83%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (0.83%) Microsoft Project
2 2 (0.83%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.41%) Adobe After Effects
3 1 (0.41%) Adobe Creative Suite
Business Applications
1 6 (2.48%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.41%) IntelliMatch
2 1 (0.41%) iTrent
2 1 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.41%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.41%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 49 (20.25%) Azure
2 41 (16.94%) AWS
3 23 (9.50%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (9.09%) Power Platform
5 14 (5.79%) Microsoft 365
5 14 (5.79%) OCI
6 11 (4.55%) Serverless
7 8 (3.31%) Dynamics 365
7 8 (3.31%) PowerApps
8 7 (2.89%) Azure AI
8 7 (2.89%) Azure Cognitive Search
8 7 (2.89%) Azure Cognitive Services
8 7 (2.89%) Cloud Computing
8 7 (2.89%) Power Automate
9 6 (2.48%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (2.48%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (2.48%) SaaS
10 5 (2.07%) Amazon S3
10 5 (2.07%) Azure Functions
10 5 (2.07%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.89%) DNS
2 6 (2.48%) Cisco Nexus
2 6 (2.48%) Wi-Fi
3 5 (2.07%) Firewall
3 5 (2.07%) Network Security
3 5 (2.07%) WAN
4 4 (1.65%) LAN
4 4 (1.65%) SD-WAN
4 4 (1.65%) VPN
5 3 (1.24%) Remote Desktop
6 2 (0.83%) BGP
6 2 (0.83%) Fibre Channel
6 2 (0.83%) Intranet
6 2 (0.83%) OSPF
6 2 (0.83%) SSH
6 2 (0.83%) TCP/IP
7 1 (0.41%) DSL
7 1 (0.41%) MPLS
7 1 (0.41%) SAN
7 1 (0.41%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (7.44%) Power BI
2 10 (4.13%) MySQL
2 10 (4.13%) Relational Database
3 9 (3.72%) Metadata
4 7 (2.89%) SQL Server
5 6 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.65%) Amazon Aurora
6 4 (1.65%) Data Lake
6 4 (1.65%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (1.65%) MariaDB
7 3 (1.24%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.24%) Snowflake Schema
8 2 (0.83%) Amazon Athena
8 2 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.83%) DynamoDB
8 2 (0.83%) GIS
8 2 (0.83%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.83%) Power Query
9 1 (0.41%) Delta Lake
9 1 (0.41%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 11 (4.55%) JIRA
2 7 (2.89%) Git
3 5 (2.07%) Selenium
4 4 (1.65%) Cucumber
4 4 (1.65%) Jenkins
5 3 (1.24%) Cypress.io
5 3 (1.24%) GitLab
5 3 (1.24%) WebDriver
6 2 (0.83%) MLflow
6 2 (0.83%) NUnit
6 2 (0.83%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.83%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.41%) Ant
7 1 (0.41%) Eclipse
7 1 (0.41%) Maven
7 1 (0.41%) Postman
7 1 (0.41%) Subversion
7 1 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.41%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.41%) Visual Studio
General
1 59 (24.38%) Social Skills
2 32 (13.22%) Finance
3 20 (8.26%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (4.55%) Influencing Skills
4 11 (4.55%) Legal
5 8 (3.31%) Organisational Skills
6 4 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.24%) Banking
7 3 (1.24%) Military
7 3 (1.24%) Police
7 3 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.83%) Local Government
8 2 (0.83%) Marketing
8 2 (0.83%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.41%) Back Office
9 1 (0.41%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 35 (14.46%) Analyst
2 22 (9.09%) Senior
3 21 (8.68%) Architect
4 19 (7.85%) Developer
5 18 (7.44%) Consultant
6 16 (6.61%) Lead
7 13 (5.37%) Project Manager
8 11 (4.55%) DevOps Engineer
9 9 (3.72%) Business Analyst
10 8 (3.31%) Cloud Consultant
10 8 (3.31%) DBA
10 8 (3.31%) Network Engineer
10 8 (3.31%) Oracle Consultant
11 7 (2.89%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 6 (2.48%) Designer
12 6 (2.48%) Help Desk Consultant
12 6 (2.48%) HR Consultant
12 6 (2.48%) Oracle HRMS Consultant
13 5 (2.07%) Data Analyst
13 5 (2.07%) Service Desk Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (7.85%) .NET
2 14 (5.79%) React
3 7 (2.89%) REST
3 7 (2.89%) RESTful
3 7 (2.89%) Spring
4 6 (2.48%) JSON
5 4 (1.65%) Spring Boot
6 3 (1.24%) ASP.NET
6 3 (1.24%) Gherkin
6 3 (1.24%) Middleware
6 3 (1.24%) Playwright
6 3 (1.24%) XML
7 2 (0.83%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.83%) FastAPI
7 2 (0.83%) FHIR
7 2 (0.83%) Hugging Face
7 2 (0.83%) JWT
7 2 (0.83%) PyTorch
7 2 (0.83%) SOAP
7 2 (0.83%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 18 (7.44%) Product Ownership
2 15 (6.20%) Management Information System
3 11 (4.55%) Legacy Systems
4 7 (2.89%) Data Centre
4 7 (2.89%) Data Protection Act
5 6 (2.48%) Legacy Applications
6 5 (2.07%) Data Structures
6 5 (2.07%) NHS
6 5 (2.07%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.24%) Cloud Native
7 3 (1.24%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (1.24%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.24%) Replication
7 3 (1.24%) Wiki
8 2 (0.83%) Cyberattack
8 2 (0.83%) Graphic Design
8 2 (0.83%) Low-Code
8 2 (0.83%) NVMe
8 2 (0.83%) Security Operations Centre
8 2 (0.83%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 19 (7.85%) Linux
2 18 (7.44%) Windows
3 5 (2.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 5 (2.07%) Windows 10
3 5 (2.07%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.83%) Unix
5 1 (0.41%) Android
5 1 (0.41%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.41%) Mac OS
5 1 (0.41%) Rocky
5 1 (0.41%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (25.21%) Agile
2 38 (15.70%) DevOps
3 33 (13.64%) CI/CD
3 33 (13.64%) Stakeholder Management
4 32 (13.22%) Migration
5 31 (12.81%) Problem-Solving
6 28 (11.57%) AI
6 28 (11.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 26 (10.74%) Continuous Improvement
8 23 (9.50%) Roadmaps
9 21 (8.68%) Decision-Making
10 18 (7.44%) Business Intelligence
11 15 (6.20%) Change Management
11 15 (6.20%) Coaching
11 15 (6.20%) Infrastructure as Code
11 15 (6.20%) Machine Learning
11 15 (6.20%) Project Delivery
11 15 (6.20%) User Experience
12 14 (5.79%) Cybersecurity
12 14 (5.79%) OCR
Programming Languages
1 31 (12.81%) Python
2 22 (9.09%) Java
2 22 (9.09%) SQL
3 18 (7.44%) C#
4 13 (5.37%) JavaScript
4 13 (5.37%) PowerShell
5 8 (3.31%) TypeScript
6 6 (2.48%) Bicep
7 4 (1.65%) Bash
8 2 (0.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 2 (0.83%) Go
9 1 (0.41%) C++
9 1 (0.41%) COBOL
9 1 (0.41%) JCL
9 1 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.41%) Perl
9 1 (0.41%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.41%) SPARQL
9 1 (0.41%) VBA
9 1 (0.41%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 59 (24.38%) Security Cleared
2 34 (14.05%) SC Cleared
3 18 (7.44%) BPSS Clearance
4 15 (6.20%) Degree
5 7 (2.89%) DV Cleared
6 5 (2.07%) CCNP
6 5 (2.07%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (1.65%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.65%) PMI Certification
8 3 (1.24%) CCAB
8 3 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (1.24%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (1.24%) PMP
9 2 (0.83%) CIPD
9 2 (0.83%) CompTIA CySA+
9 2 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (0.83%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 2 (0.83%) Six Sigma Green Belt
10 1 (0.41%) IIBA
10 1 (0.41%) NCDA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (6.20%) Disclosure Scotland
1 15 (6.20%) QA
2 11 (4.55%) Accessibility
2 11 (4.55%) Data Quality
2 11 (4.55%) GDPR
3 4 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (1.65%) WCAG
4 3 (1.24%) Actionable Recommendations
4 3 (1.24%) GRC
4 3 (1.24%) NCSC
4 3 (1.24%) NIST
5 2 (0.83%) PMO
5 2 (0.83%) SLA
6 1 (0.41%) COBIT
6 1 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
6 1 (0.41%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.41%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 8 (3.31%) Active Directory
2 7 (2.89%) Docker
3 4 (1.65%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.65%) VMware NSX
4 2 (0.83%) Ceph
4 2 (0.83%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.83%) vSphere
5 1 (0.41%) HDFS
5 1 (0.41%) IAG
5 1 (0.41%) iptables
5 1 (0.41%) NFS
5 1 (0.41%) Samba
5 1 (0.41%) Squid
5 1 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 12 (4.96%) Terraform
2 10 (4.13%) Ansible
2 10 (4.13%) Kubernetes
3 5 (2.07%) Istio
4 4 (1.65%) Grafana
4 4 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.83%) Argo
5 2 (0.83%) vMotion
6 1 (0.41%) PowerCLI
6 1 (0.41%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.41%) Rundeck
6 1 (0.41%) SCCM
6 1 (0.41%) SELinux
6 1 (0.41%) systemd
6 1 (0.41%) vRealize
6 1 (0.41%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 40 (16.53%) Microsoft
2 22 (9.09%) Oracle
3 11 (4.55%) Google
4 10 (4.13%) Salesforce
5 9 (3.72%) Cisco
6 7 (2.89%) OpenAI
6 7 (2.89%) Palo Alto
7 6 (2.48%) VMware
8 4 (1.65%) F5
9 3 (1.24%) Greenplum
9 3 (1.24%) Informatica
9 3 (1.24%) Splunk
9 3 (1.24%) Talend
10 2 (0.83%) Adobe
10 2 (0.83%) Arista
10 2 (0.83%) Juniper
10 2 (0.83%) Red Hat
11 1 (0.41%) Databricks
11 1 (0.41%) FIS
11 1 (0.41%) Workday