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

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 5 1
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 264 316 561
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.38% 19.39% 27.21%
As % of the General category 20.72% 26.44% 42.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 168 203 361
10th Percentile £313 £188 £156
25th Percentile £406 £313 £263
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £450 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.56% - -3.23%
75th Percentile £575 £510 £538
90th Percentile £726 £586 £638
UK median daily rate £510 £500 £507
% change year-on-year +2.00% -1.28% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 12
10th Percentile £18.03 £16.88 £12.00
25th Percentile £19.22 £18.80 £12.94
Median hourly rate £21.31 £22.08 £17.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.50% +26.17% +13.97%
75th Percentile £23.49 £27.13 £19.28
90th Percentile £24.74 £30.12 £24.61
UK median hourly rate £24.25 £22.90 £24.00
% change year-on-year +5.90% -4.58% +20.00%

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 1,274 1,195 1,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 59.73% 73.31% 63.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 662 688 785
10th Percentile £250 £220 £175
25th Percentile £363 £363 £316
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 £517 £501 £525
% change year-on-year +3.33% -4.67% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 46 73
10th Percentile £12.60 £16.02 £12.06
25th Percentile £13.45 £16.57 £13.50
Median hourly rate £16.25 £20.00 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -18.75% +11.11% -6.15%
75th Percentile £48.49 £25.82 £35.00
90th Percentile £63.25 £44.01 £60.75
UK median hourly rate £32.00 £27.50 £31.80
% change year-on-year +16.36% -13.52% +5.12%

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 27 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 27 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 -3 125 £450 - 10
Glasgow +5 113 £525 +10.53% 13
South Lanarkshire -2 12 £669 +42.23%
Lanarkshire -1 2 £431 +231.73% 5
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%
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 (4.17%) Confluence
2 4 (1.52%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.14%) 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 (2.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.52%) 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 (1.89%) 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 50 (18.94%) AWS
2 48 (18.18%) Azure
3 19 (7.20%) Power Platform
4 18 (6.82%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (6.06%) Microsoft 365
6 14 (5.30%) OCI
7 11 (4.17%) Amazon S3
7 11 (4.17%) Serverless
8 8 (3.03%) GCP
9 7 (2.65%) AWS Lambda
10 6 (2.27%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (2.27%) Azure AI
10 6 (2.27%) Azure Cognitive Search
10 6 (2.27%) Azure Cognitive Services
10 6 (2.27%) GitHub
10 6 (2.27%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.89%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 5 (1.89%) Azure Key Vault
11 5 (1.89%) Dynamics 365
11 5 (1.89%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.65%) DNS
1 7 (2.65%) Wi-Fi
2 5 (1.89%) Cisco Nexus
2 5 (1.89%) Firewall
2 5 (1.89%) LAN
3 4 (1.52%) Network Security
3 4 (1.52%) WAN
4 3 (1.14%) Remote Desktop
4 3 (1.14%) SD-WAN
4 3 (1.14%) SSH
4 3 (1.14%) SSL
4 3 (1.14%) VPN
4 3 (1.14%) 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%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.38%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (6.06%) Power BI
2 10 (3.79%) Relational Database
3 9 (3.41%) Metadata
3 9 (3.41%) MySQL
4 6 (2.27%) MongoDB
4 6 (2.27%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.89%) MariaDB
5 5 (1.89%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (1.52%) Amazon Aurora
6 4 (1.52%) Oracle Database
7 3 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (1.14%) DynamoDB
7 3 (1.14%) Geospatial Data
8 2 (0.76%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.76%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.76%) GIS
8 2 (0.76%) Power Query
8 2 (0.76%) SQLPlus
9 1 (0.38%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (0.38%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 14 (5.30%) JIRA
2 12 (4.55%) Git
3 9 (3.41%) Jenkins
4 8 (3.03%) Cypress.io
5 7 (2.65%) Selenium
6 5 (1.89%) Cucumber
6 5 (1.89%) Subversion
7 3 (1.14%) GoCD
7 3 (1.14%) Gradle
7 3 (1.14%) JProfiler
7 3 (1.14%) JUnit
7 3 (1.14%) Maven
7 3 (1.14%) 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%) MLflow
General
1 74 (28.03%) Social Skills
2 34 (12.88%) Finance
3 22 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (4.17%) Legal
5 10 (3.79%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (3.41%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.52%) Banking
8 4 (1.52%) Military
9 3 (1.14%) Police
9 3 (1.14%) 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 32 (12.12%) Analyst
2 28 (10.61%) Architect
3 27 (10.23%) Senior
4 21 (7.95%) Developer
5 16 (6.06%) Lead
5 16 (6.06%) Project Manager
6 14 (5.30%) Consultant
7 11 (4.17%) DevOps Engineer
7 11 (4.17%) Solutions Architect
8 10 (3.79%) Network Engineer
9 9 (3.41%) Cloud Engineer
10 8 (3.03%) Cloud Consultant
10 8 (3.03%) Oracle Consultant
11 7 (2.65%) Administrator
11 7 (2.65%) DBA
12 6 (2.27%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 6 (2.27%) Designer
12 6 (2.27%) Help Desk Consultant
12 6 (2.27%) Oracle HRMS Consultant
12 6 (2.27%) User Researcher
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (5.30%) .NET
2 13 (4.92%) React
3 9 (3.41%) REST
4 8 (3.03%) RESTful
5 6 (2.27%) Spring
5 6 (2.27%) Spring Boot
5 6 (2.27%) Web Services
6 5 (1.89%) AWS CDK
6 5 (1.89%) Playwright
7 4 (1.52%) Jest
7 4 (1.52%) Middleware
7 4 (1.52%) SOAP
8 3 (1.14%) FreeMarker
8 3 (1.14%) Gherkin
8 3 (1.14%) JSF
8 3 (1.14%) JSON
8 3 (1.14%) Node.js
9 2 (0.76%) JWT
9 2 (0.76%) OpenCV
9 2 (0.76%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 23 (8.71%) Product Ownership
2 12 (4.55%) Management Information System
3 11 (4.17%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
5 7 (2.65%) Data Centre
6 5 (1.89%) Cloud Native
6 5 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (1.89%) NHS
7 4 (1.52%) Data Structures
7 4 (1.52%) Legacy Applications
8 3 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
9 2 (0.76%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.76%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (0.76%) NVMe
9 2 (0.76%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.76%) PKI
10 1 (0.38%) CCTV
10 1 (0.38%) Graphic Design
10 1 (0.38%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 20 (7.58%) Linux
2 19 (7.20%) Windows
3 7 (2.65%) Windows Server
4 6 (2.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.89%) 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 71 (26.89%) Agile
2 44 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
3 40 (15.15%) DevOps
4 35 (13.26%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 34 (12.88%) CI/CD
5 34 (12.88%) Continuous Improvement
6 30 (11.36%) Migration
7 29 (10.98%) AI
8 26 (9.85%) Problem-Solving
9 25 (9.47%) Project Delivery
10 22 (8.33%) Infrastructure as Code
10 22 (8.33%) Roadmaps
11 21 (7.95%) Decision-Making
12 18 (6.82%) Scrum
13 16 (6.06%) Business Intelligence
13 16 (6.06%) Data Protection
13 16 (6.06%) Project Management
14 14 (5.30%) Cybersecurity
14 14 (5.30%) Mentoring
14 14 (5.30%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 29 (10.98%) Python
2 22 (8.33%) SQL
3 21 (7.95%) Java
4 17 (6.44%) JavaScript
5 14 (5.30%) C#
6 10 (3.79%) PowerShell
6 10 (3.79%) TypeScript
7 6 (2.27%) Bicep
8 4 (1.52%) 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 59 (22.35%) Security Cleared
2 43 (16.29%) SC Cleared
3 20 (7.58%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (4.92%) Degree
5 9 (3.41%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.52%) ITIL Certification
6 4 (1.52%) PMI Certification
6 4 (1.52%) PMP
7 3 (1.14%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.14%) CCAB
7 3 (1.14%) CCNP
7 3 (1.14%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.14%) IIBA
7 3 (1.14%) 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 17 (6.44%) QA
2 16 (6.06%) Accessibility
3 13 (4.92%) Data Quality
4 12 (4.55%) Disclosure Scotland
5 11 (4.17%) GDPR
6 6 (2.27%) PMO
7 5 (1.89%) WCAG
8 4 (1.52%) NIST
9 3 (1.14%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (1.14%) NCSC
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 (3.41%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.89%) Docker
2 5 (1.89%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (1.52%) Hyper-V
3 4 (1.52%) VMware NSX
4 3 (1.14%) 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 (6.44%) Terraform
2 11 (4.17%) Kubernetes
3 10 (3.79%) Ansible
4 6 (2.27%) Istio
5 5 (1.89%) Grafana
5 5 (1.89%) Microsoft Intune
6 3 (1.14%) Argo
7 2 (0.76%) SCCM
7 2 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.76%) vMotion
8 1 (0.38%) PowerCLI
8 1 (0.38%) Prometheus
8 1 (0.38%) Rundeck
8 1 (0.38%) SELinux
8 1 (0.38%) systemd
8 1 (0.38%) vRealize
8 1 (0.38%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 39 (14.77%) Microsoft
2 31 (11.74%) Oracle
3 10 (3.79%) Cisco
3 10 (3.79%) Salesforce
4 9 (3.41%) Google
5 7 (2.65%) VMware
6 5 (1.89%) MuleSoft
6 5 (1.89%) OpenAI
6 5 (1.89%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.14%) F5
7 3 (1.14%) SAP
8 2 (0.76%) Arista
8 2 (0.76%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.76%) Juniper
8 2 (0.76%) Okta
9 1 (0.38%) CrowdStrike
9 1 (0.38%) IFS
9 1 (0.38%) Openreach
9 1 (0.38%) UiPath
9 1 (0.38%) Workday