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 16 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 6 1
Rank change year-on-year -3 -5 0
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 297 273 468
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.65% 17.05% 25.13%
As % of the General category 20.12% 24.82% 39.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 201 179 309
10th Percentile £300 £211 £161
25th Percentile £388 £388 £281
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -5.26%
75th Percentile £558 £538 £550
90th Percentile £713 £600 £640
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £505
% change year-on-year +5.00% -0.99% -3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 7 15
10th Percentile - £14.63 £12.48
25th Percentile £13.25 £16.08 £13.57
Median hourly rate £13.50 £19.37 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.29% +7.58% +33.33%
75th Percentile £13.75 £26.22 £20.26
90th Percentile - £35.09 £26.12
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.56
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.91% +12.80%

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 1,476 1,100 1,183
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 62.86% 68.71% 63.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 799 635 703
10th Percentile £237 £223 £168
25th Percentile £363 £368 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £470 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% +4.44% -5.26%
75th Percentile £569 £538 £538
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 120 50 44
10th Percentile £13.43 £16.02 £12.30
25th Percentile £13.45 £16.74 £14.28
Median hourly rate £16.11 £19.23 £17.46
Median % change year-on-year -16.22% +10.14% -29.00%
75th Percentile £39.18 £24.62 £24.16
90th Percentile £57.50 £46.97 £41.18
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £36.00
% change year-on-year +19.28% -30.14% +30.91%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 +13 151 £475 - 95
Edinburgh -1 125 £475 - 116
South Lanarkshire -1 8 £669 - 1
Lanarkshire 0 5 £413 +217.31% 58
Dumfries and Galloway - 2 £500 -
East Lothian +6 1 - -
Dundee -2 1 - -
Midlothian - 1 £500 - 64
Inverclyde - 1 £675 - 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 18 (6.06%) Confluence
2 10 (3.37%) CMS
3 8 (2.69%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.34%) IIS
4 1 (0.34%) JBoss
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 9 (3.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.68%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.67%) Adobe Creative Suite
3 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.34%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.34%) InDesign
4 1 (0.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.34%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.34%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.67%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.34%) SAP GRC
2 1 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 53 (17.85%) AWS
2 40 (13.47%) Azure
3 21 (7.07%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (5.05%) OCI
4 15 (5.05%) Power Platform
5 14 (4.71%) Amazon S3
5 14 (4.71%) Azure DevOps
6 12 (4.04%) GCP
7 11 (3.70%) Serverless
8 9 (3.03%) SaaS
9 8 (2.69%) AWS Lambda
10 7 (2.36%) AWS CloudFormation
11 6 (2.02%) GitHub
11 6 (2.02%) OpenShift
12 5 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 5 (1.68%) Azure Monitor
12 5 (1.68%) Entra ID
12 5 (1.68%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (1.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 4 (1.35%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.03%) DNS
2 6 (2.02%) SSL
3 4 (1.35%) Firewall
3 4 (1.35%) HTTPS
3 4 (1.35%) LAN
3 4 (1.35%) SSH
3 4 (1.35%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (1.01%) Remote Desktop
4 3 (1.01%) Wireless
5 2 (0.67%) Cisco Nexus
5 2 (0.67%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.67%) VoIP
5 2 (0.67%) VPN
5 2 (0.67%) WAN
6 1 (0.34%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.34%) MPLS
6 1 (0.34%) Network Security
6 1 (0.34%) SDH
6 1 (0.34%) Structured Cabling
6 1 (0.34%) TETRA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (4.04%) PostgreSQL
1 12 (4.04%) SQL Server
2 10 (3.37%) Amazon Aurora
2 10 (3.37%) MongoDB
2 10 (3.37%) MySQL
3 8 (2.69%) MariaDB
3 8 (2.69%) Power BI
4 5 (1.68%) Amazon RDS
4 5 (1.68%) Metadata
4 5 (1.68%) Relational Database
5 3 (1.01%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (1.01%) Oracle Database
5 3 (1.01%) Power Query
5 3 (1.01%) SQLPlus
6 2 (0.67%) MS Access
7 1 (0.34%) BusinessObjects
7 1 (0.34%) Oracle Database 10g
7 1 (0.34%) Oracle Reports
7 1 (0.34%) RDBMS
7 1 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 20 (6.73%) JIRA
2 17 (5.72%) Jenkins
3 10 (3.37%) Git
4 7 (2.36%) Cypress.io
4 7 (2.36%) GitLab
5 6 (2.02%) Gradle
5 6 (2.02%) Maven
6 4 (1.35%) Selenium
6 4 (1.35%) Subversion
7 3 (1.01%) Cucumber
7 3 (1.01%) GoCD
7 3 (1.01%) JProfiler
7 3 (1.01%) JUnit
7 3 (1.01%) webpack
8 2 (0.67%) Appium
8 2 (0.67%) Postman
8 2 (0.67%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.67%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.34%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.34%) WebDriver
General
1 82 (27.61%) Social Skills
2 30 (10.10%) Finance
3 21 (7.07%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (6.40%) Organisational Skills
5 7 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
5 7 (2.36%) Influencing Skills
5 7 (2.36%) Legal
6 6 (2.02%) Publishing
7 5 (1.68%) Local Government
7 5 (1.68%) Military
7 5 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
8 3 (1.01%) Marketing
8 3 (1.01%) Retail
9 1 (0.34%) Back Office
9 1 (0.34%) Banking
9 1 (0.34%) Fire and Rescue
9 1 (0.34%) Law
9 1 (0.34%) Multimedia
9 1 (0.34%) Social Housing
9 1 (0.34%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 36 (12.12%) Architect
2 32 (10.77%) Developer
3 26 (8.75%) Senior
4 25 (8.42%) Analyst
5 22 (7.41%) Solutions Architect
6 17 (5.72%) Lead
6 17 (5.72%) Project Manager
7 16 (5.39%) Consultant
8 14 (4.71%) Technical Architect
9 12 (4.04%) Administrator
10 11 (3.70%) DevOps Engineer
11 10 (3.37%) DBA
12 8 (2.69%) Cloud Consultant
12 8 (2.69%) Cloud Engineer
12 8 (2.69%) Oracle Consultant
12 8 (2.69%) Software Developer
12 8 (2.69%) Technical Solutions Architect
13 7 (2.36%) Designer
13 7 (2.36%) Linux Systems Administrator
13 7 (2.36%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (6.40%) Spring
1 19 (6.40%) Spring Boot
2 18 (6.06%) Terraform
3 12 (4.04%) React
3 12 (4.04%) REST
4 10 (3.37%) Node.js
5 8 (2.69%) Playwright
6 7 (2.36%) RESTful
6 7 (2.36%) Web Services
7 6 (2.02%) .NET
7 6 (2.02%) AWS CDK
7 6 (2.02%) Jest
8 5 (1.68%) HTML
8 5 (1.68%) Next.js
8 5 (1.68%) Vue
9 4 (1.35%) JSON
9 4 (1.35%) Middleware
10 3 (1.01%) FreeMarker
10 3 (1.01%) OAuth
10 3 (1.01%) Spring Security
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.07%) Product Ownership
2 17 (5.72%) Cloud Native
3 11 (3.70%) Data Protection Act
3 11 (3.70%) Management Information System
4 10 (3.37%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (2.69%) NHS
6 5 (1.68%) Data Centre
6 5 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (1.01%) Freedom of Information
8 3 (1.01%) Legacy Applications
8 3 (1.01%) Mainframe
8 3 (1.01%) Security Posture
9 2 (0.67%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.67%) Distributed Architecture
9 2 (0.67%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.67%) PKI
9 2 (0.67%) Smartphone
10 1 (0.34%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.34%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 25 (8.42%) Linux
2 16 (5.39%) Windows
3 7 (2.36%) SUSE
4 6 (2.02%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (1.01%) Windows 10
7 2 (0.67%) Android
7 2 (0.67%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.67%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.34%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (29.63%) Agile
2 54 (18.18%) Stakeholder Management
3 53 (17.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 51 (17.17%) Continuous Improvement
5 41 (13.80%) DevOps
6 38 (12.79%) CI/CD
7 28 (9.43%) Decision-Making
7 28 (9.43%) Project Delivery
8 26 (8.75%) Infrastructure as Code
9 25 (8.42%) Coaching
9 25 (8.42%) Workshop Facilitation
10 24 (8.08%) AI
10 24 (8.08%) Mentoring
10 24 (8.08%) Migration
11 23 (7.74%) Problem-Solving
12 21 (7.07%) Scrum
13 20 (6.73%) Microservices
14 19 (6.40%) Test Automation
15 18 (6.06%) Cybersecurity
15 18 (6.06%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 32 (10.77%) Java
2 23 (7.74%) JavaScript
3 20 (6.73%) Python
4 19 (6.40%) TypeScript
5 18 (6.06%) SQL
6 9 (3.03%) Bash
7 8 (2.69%) PowerShell
8 6 (2.02%) Bicep
9 5 (1.68%) C#
10 4 (1.35%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.01%) Groovy
11 3 (1.01%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.34%) R
13 1 (0.34%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.34%) VB.NET
13 1 (0.34%) VBA
13 1 (0.34%) XPath
Qualifications
1 55 (18.52%) Security Cleared
2 51 (17.17%) SC Cleared
3 14 (4.71%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.70%) DV Cleared
5 8 (2.69%) Degree
6 5 (1.68%) Microsoft Certification
6 5 (1.68%) PMI Certification
6 5 (1.68%) PMP
7 4 (1.35%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (1.01%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.01%) CISM
8 3 (1.01%) CISSP
8 3 (1.01%) MCSE
8 3 (1.01%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.67%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (0.67%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
9 2 (0.67%) IIBA
9 2 (0.67%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 2 (0.67%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (8.08%) Accessibility
2 23 (7.74%) Disclosure Scotland
3 13 (4.38%) PMO
4 10 (3.37%) Data Quality
4 10 (3.37%) QA
5 9 (3.03%) GDPR
5 9 (3.03%) WCAG
6 7 (2.36%) NIST
7 5 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.68%) NCSC
8 3 (1.01%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.67%) GRC
9 2 (0.67%) SLA
10 1 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 12 (4.04%) Docker
2 9 (3.03%) Active Directory
3 7 (2.36%) Hyper-V
4 5 (1.68%) Ceph
4 5 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.01%) Squid
6 1 (0.34%) IAG
6 1 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.34%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 16 (5.39%) Kubernetes
2 9 (3.03%) Ansible
3 7 (2.36%) Grafana
4 4 (1.35%) Istio
4 4 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (1.01%) Argo
5 3 (1.01%) Kibana
5 3 (1.01%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.67%) SCCM
6 2 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 36 (12.12%) Microsoft
2 33 (11.11%) Oracle
3 9 (3.03%) Salesforce
4 6 (2.02%) Google
5 5 (1.68%) Cisco
5 5 (1.68%) MuleSoft
5 5 (1.68%) VMware
6 4 (1.35%) Atlassian
6 4 (1.35%) Red Hat
7 3 (1.01%) SAP
7 3 (1.01%) UiPath
8 2 (0.67%) Adobe
8 2 (0.67%) F5
8 2 (0.67%) Okta
8 2 (0.67%) Palo Alto
9 1 (0.34%) AppDynamics
9 1 (0.34%) EnterpriseDB
9 1 (0.34%) Infor
9 1 (0.34%) Qualys
9 1 (0.34%) SolarWinds