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 1 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 6 1
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 306 272 479
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.82% 16.90% 25.66%
As % of the General category 20.51% 24.42% 39.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 204 175 319
10th Percentile £308 £214 £163
25th Percentile £375 £388 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £558 £539 £538
90th Percentile £696 £600 £607
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 6 16
10th Percentile - £14.51 £12.61
25th Percentile £13.25 £15.59 £13.60
Median hourly rate £13.50 £18.26 £19.38
Median % change year-on-year -26.06% -5.79% +12.61%
75th Percentile £13.75 £26.01 £21.99
90th Percentile - £36.87 £30.63
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.91% +7.43%

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 1,492 1,114 1,202
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 62.53% 69.24% 64.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 799 638 711
10th Percentile £230 £219 £165
25th Percentile £363 £375 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £474 £440
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% +7.73% -7.37%
75th Percentile £567 £538 £538
90th Percentile £650 £600 £623
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 118 53 45
10th Percentile £13.45 £16.00 £12.30
25th Percentile £13.50 £16.63 £13.64
Median hourly rate £16.11 £19.23 £16.92
Median % change year-on-year -16.22% +13.65% -11.78%
75th Percentile £40.48 £25.15 £24.18
90th Percentile £57.50 £59.50 £43.42
UK median hourly rate £28.50 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +13.32% -28.14% +27.27%

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 1 October 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 1 October 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
Glasgow +10 159 £475 -5.00% 56
Edinburgh -1 122 £475 - 73
South Lanarkshire -2 8 £669 +21.55%
Lanarkshire 0 7 £415 +219.04% 20
Aberdeen -5 2 £425 +27.34% 9
Dumfries and Galloway - 2 £500 - 6
Dundee -1 1 - - 1
East Lothian - 1 - -
Midlothian - 1 £500 - 29
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 17 (5.56%) Confluence
2 10 (3.27%) CMS
2 10 (3.27%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.33%) IIS
3 1 (0.33%) JBoss
3 1 (0.33%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 13 (4.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.63%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.65%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.65%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.33%) InDesign
5 1 (0.33%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.33%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.65%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.33%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.33%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 56 (18.30%) AWS
2 42 (13.73%) Azure
3 22 (7.19%) Microsoft 365
3 22 (7.19%) Power Platform
4 15 (4.90%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (4.58%) Amazon S3
6 12 (3.92%) OCI
7 11 (3.59%) GCP
8 10 (3.27%) Serverless
9 9 (2.94%) SaaS
10 8 (2.61%) AWS Lambda
11 7 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
12 6 (1.96%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 6 (1.96%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.96%) GitHub
12 6 (1.96%) OpenShift
13 5 (1.63%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 5 (1.63%) Azure Monitor
13 5 (1.63%) GitHub Actions
13 5 (1.63%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.61%) DNS
2 5 (1.63%) SSL
3 4 (1.31%) Firewall
4 3 (0.98%) HTTPS
4 3 (0.98%) LAN
4 3 (0.98%) SSH
4 3 (0.98%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (0.98%) Wireless
5 2 (0.65%) Kerberos
5 2 (0.65%) VoIP
6 1 (0.33%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.33%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.33%) Network Security
6 1 (0.33%) Remote Desktop
6 1 (0.33%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.33%) Structured Cabling
6 1 (0.33%) TETRA
6 1 (0.33%) VPN
6 1 (0.33%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.23%) SQL Server
2 13 (4.25%) Power BI
3 10 (3.27%) Amazon Aurora
3 10 (3.27%) MySQL
3 10 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (2.94%) MongoDB
5 7 (2.29%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.29%) MariaDB
5 7 (2.29%) Relational Database
6 6 (1.96%) Oracle Database
7 5 (1.63%) Metadata
8 4 (1.31%) Power Query
9 3 (0.98%) Data Warehouse
9 3 (0.98%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.65%) MS Access
10 2 (0.65%) SQLPlus
11 1 (0.33%) Azure SQL Database
11 1 (0.33%) BusinessObjects Web Intelligence
11 1 (0.33%) GIS
11 1 (0.33%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 19 (6.21%) JIRA
2 17 (5.56%) Jenkins
3 12 (3.92%) Git
4 9 (2.94%) GitLab
5 7 (2.29%) Cypress.io
6 6 (1.96%) Gradle
6 6 (1.96%) Maven
7 4 (1.31%) Selenium
7 4 (1.31%) Subversion
8 3 (0.98%) Cucumber
8 3 (0.98%) GoCD
8 3 (0.98%) JProfiler
8 3 (0.98%) JUnit
8 3 (0.98%) Oracle APEX
8 3 (0.98%) webpack
9 2 (0.65%) Appium
9 2 (0.65%) Postman
9 2 (0.65%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.65%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.33%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 85 (27.78%) Social Skills
2 29 (9.48%) Finance
3 20 (6.54%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (6.21%) Organisational Skills
5 8 (2.61%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (2.29%) Legal
6 7 (2.29%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.96%) Publishing
8 5 (1.63%) Local Government
8 5 (1.63%) Military
9 3 (0.98%) Back Office
9 3 (0.98%) Marketing
9 3 (0.98%) Retail
10 1 (0.33%) Banking
10 1 (0.33%) Fire and Rescue
10 1 (0.33%) Law
10 1 (0.33%) Multimedia
10 1 (0.33%) Police
10 1 (0.33%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 40 (13.07%) Architect
2 34 (11.11%) Developer
3 25 (8.17%) Analyst
3 25 (8.17%) Solutions Architect
4 19 (6.21%) Senior
5 18 (5.88%) Lead
6 16 (5.23%) Project Manager
7 15 (4.90%) Technical Architect
8 14 (4.58%) Consultant
9 13 (4.25%) DBA
10 11 (3.59%) Administrator
10 11 (3.59%) DevOps Engineer
11 10 (3.27%) Technical Solutions Architect
12 9 (2.94%) SQL DBA
13 8 (2.61%) Software Developer
13 8 (2.61%) SQL Server DBA
14 7 (2.29%) Java Developer
14 7 (2.29%) Linux Administrator
14 7 (2.29%) Linux Systems Administrator
14 7 (2.29%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (6.21%) Spring
1 19 (6.21%) Spring Boot
2 18 (5.88%) Terraform
3 15 (4.90%) REST
4 12 (3.92%) Node.js
5 11 (3.59%) React
6 8 (2.61%) Playwright
7 7 (2.29%) RESTful
7 7 (2.29%) Web Services
8 6 (1.96%) AWS CDK
8 6 (1.96%) HTML
8 6 (1.96%) Jest
9 5 (1.63%) .NET
9 5 (1.63%) AngularJS
9 5 (1.63%) Next.js
9 5 (1.63%) Vue
10 4 (1.31%) JSON
10 4 (1.31%) Middleware
11 3 (0.98%) FreeMarker
11 3 (0.98%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 21 (6.86%) Product Ownership
2 20 (6.54%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.59%) Data Protection Act
3 11 (3.59%) Management Information System
4 8 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (2.61%) NHS
5 6 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.63%) Data Centre
6 5 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.98%) Cyber Threat
7 3 (0.98%) Freedom of Information
7 3 (0.98%) Legacy Applications
7 3 (0.98%) Mainframe
7 3 (0.98%) PKI
7 3 (0.98%) Replication
7 3 (0.98%) Security Posture
8 2 (0.65%) Clustering
8 2 (0.65%) Distributed Architecture
8 2 (0.65%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (0.65%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 23 (7.52%) Linux
2 14 (4.58%) Windows
3 7 (2.29%) SUSE
3 7 (2.29%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.65%) Android
5 2 (0.65%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.65%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.33%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.33%) Unix
6 1 (0.33%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (30.72%) Agile
2 59 (19.28%) Stakeholder Management
3 57 (18.63%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 51 (16.67%) Continuous Improvement
5 43 (14.05%) CI/CD
6 42 (13.73%) DevOps
7 31 (10.13%) Decision-Making
8 30 (9.80%) Project Delivery
9 28 (9.15%) AI
9 28 (9.15%) Coaching
10 27 (8.82%) Infrastructure as Code
10 27 (8.82%) Mentoring
10 27 (8.82%) Workshop Facilitation
11 23 (7.52%) Migration
12 22 (7.19%) Microservices
12 22 (7.19%) Risk Management
13 21 (6.86%) Scrum
13 21 (6.86%) Test Automation
14 20 (6.54%) Data Protection
14 20 (6.54%) PRINCE2
Programming Languages
1 32 (10.46%) Java
2 25 (8.17%) JavaScript
3 20 (6.54%) SQL
4 19 (6.21%) Python
4 19 (6.21%) TypeScript
5 10 (3.27%) PowerShell
6 8 (2.61%) Bash
7 6 (1.96%) Bicep
8 5 (1.63%) C#
8 5 (1.63%) PL/SQL
9 4 (1.31%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (0.98%) Groovy
11 1 (0.33%) R
11 1 (0.33%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.33%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.33%) VBA
11 1 (0.33%) XPath
Qualifications
1 57 (18.63%) Security Cleared
2 53 (17.32%) SC Cleared
3 13 (4.25%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.59%) DV Cleared
5 8 (2.61%) Degree
6 6 (1.96%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.63%) PMI Certification
7 5 (1.63%) PMP
8 4 (1.31%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (1.31%) MCSE
9 3 (0.98%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.98%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.98%) CISM
9 3 (0.98%) CISSP
9 3 (0.98%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 2 (0.65%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.65%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
10 2 (0.65%) IIBA
10 2 (0.65%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.65%) Six Sigma Black Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (8.17%) Disclosure Scotland
2 22 (7.19%) Accessibility
3 13 (4.25%) PMO
4 12 (3.92%) Data Quality
5 10 (3.27%) GDPR
5 10 (3.27%) QA
6 9 (2.94%) WCAG
7 6 (1.96%) NIST
8 5 (1.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (1.31%) NCSC
10 3 (0.98%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.65%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.65%) GRC
11 2 (0.65%) SLA
12 1 (0.33%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 12 (3.92%) Docker
2 8 (2.61%) Active Directory
3 7 (2.29%) Hyper-V
4 5 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.98%) Ceph
5 3 (0.98%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.65%) DFS Replication
6 2 (0.65%) Squid
6 2 (0.65%) vSphere
7 1 (0.33%) IAG
Systems Management
1 18 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.29%) Ansible
2 7 (2.29%) Grafana
3 4 (1.31%) Istio
3 4 (1.31%) SCCM
4 3 (0.98%) Argo
4 3 (0.98%) Kibana
4 3 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.98%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.65%) Failover Clustering
5 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Clustering
5 2 (0.65%) Perfmon
5 2 (0.65%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.65%) WSUS
6 1 (0.33%) Nessus
Vendors
1 41 (13.40%) Microsoft
2 33 (10.78%) Oracle
3 6 (1.96%) Google
3 6 (1.96%) Salesforce
4 5 (1.63%) MuleSoft
4 5 (1.63%) VMware
5 4 (1.31%) Atlassian
5 4 (1.31%) Cisco
6 3 (0.98%) Red Hat
6 3 (0.98%) SAP
6 3 (0.98%) UiPath
7 2 (0.65%) Adobe
7 2 (0.65%) Citrix
7 2 (0.65%) Commvault
7 2 (0.65%) Dell
7 2 (0.65%) Okta
7 2 (0.65%) Veeam
8 1 (0.33%) EnterpriseDB
8 1 (0.33%) F5
8 1 (0.33%) SolarWinds