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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 6 2
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 296 274 467
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.28% 17.17% 25.23%
As % of the General category 19.59% 25.37% 39.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 192 177 313
10th Percentile £307 £203 £167
25th Percentile £375 £356 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% +2.78% -5.26%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £538
90th Percentile £672 £600 £600
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 5 15
10th Percentile - £14.39 £12.48
25th Percentile £13.25 £15.09 £13.57
Median hourly rate £13.50 £17.15 £19.17
Median % change year-on-year -21.28% -10.54% +24.68%
75th Percentile £13.75 £27.95 £20.26
90th Percentile - £38.66 £31.40
UK median hourly rate £21.35 £21.00 £22.00
% change year-on-year +1.67% -4.55% +4.76%

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 1,511 1,080 1,194
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 62.70% 67.67% 64.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 804 628 695
10th Percentile £218 £208 £168
25th Percentile £363 £368 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £468 £438
Median % change year-on-year -1.07% +6.86% -7.89%
75th Percentile £556 £538 £534
90th Percentile £650 £600 £619
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 52 41
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.05 £12.38
25th Percentile £13.50 £16.02 £14.50
Median hourly rate £16.11 £18.37 £16.92
Median % change year-on-year -12.30% +8.57% -8.29%
75th Percentile £40.48 £24.57 £24.15
90th Percentile £58.00 £56.33 £42.50
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £32.00
% change year-on-year +10.00% -21.88% +7.56%

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 14 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 14 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 +5 145 £457 -8.60% 41
Edinburgh -1 125 £475 +0.84% 49
Lanarkshire 0 7 £415 +219.04% 4
South Lanarkshire -2 7 £669 +21.55%
Dundee +2 2 £400 +99.50% 1
Aberdeen -5 2 £425 +27.34% 5
Dumfries and Galloway - 2 £500 -
Midlothian - 1 £500 - 11
Inverclyde - 1 £675 -
East Lothian - 1 - -
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 17 (5.74%) Confluence
2 11 (3.72%) SharePoint
3 10 (3.38%) CMS
4 1 (0.34%) IIS
4 1 (0.34%) JBoss
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 14 (4.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.01%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.68%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.68%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.34%) Adobe Illustrator
5 1 (0.34%) InDesign
5 1 (0.34%) Photoshop
5 1 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.34%) Trello
Business Applications
1 2 (0.68%) Dynamics GP
2 1 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.34%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 52 (17.57%) AWS
2 41 (13.85%) Azure
3 23 (7.77%) Power Platform
4 22 (7.43%) Microsoft 365
5 15 (5.07%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (4.39%) Amazon S3
7 12 (4.05%) GCP
8 10 (3.38%) SaaS
9 9 (3.04%) Serverless
10 7 (2.36%) AWS CloudFormation
10 7 (2.36%) AWS Lambda
11 6 (2.03%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 6 (2.03%) GitHub
11 6 (2.03%) OCI
11 6 (2.03%) OpenShift
12 5 (1.69%) Anthropic Claude
12 5 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
12 5 (1.69%) Entra ID
12 5 (1.69%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (1.69%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.70%) DNS
2 5 (1.69%) SSL
3 4 (1.35%) Firewall
4 3 (1.01%) HTTPS
4 3 (1.01%) LAN
4 3 (1.01%) SSH
4 3 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (1.01%) Wireless
5 2 (0.68%) Kerberos
5 2 (0.68%) VoIP
6 1 (0.34%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.34%) Cisco Wireless
6 1 (0.34%) Network Security
6 1 (0.34%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.34%) Structured Cabling
6 1 (0.34%) TETRA
6 1 (0.34%) VPN
6 1 (0.34%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.41%) SQL Server
2 14 (4.73%) Power BI
3 10 (3.38%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (3.04%) Amazon Aurora
4 9 (3.04%) MongoDB
4 9 (3.04%) MySQL
5 7 (2.36%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.36%) Relational Database
6 6 (2.03%) MariaDB
6 6 (2.03%) Oracle Database
7 4 (1.35%) Power Query
8 3 (1.01%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (1.01%) Metadata
8 3 (1.01%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.68%) MS Access
9 2 (0.68%) SQLPlus
10 1 (0.34%) Elasticsearch
10 1 (0.34%) GIS
10 1 (0.34%) Oracle ODI
10 1 (0.34%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 21 (7.09%) JIRA
2 18 (6.08%) Jenkins
3 12 (4.05%) Git
4 9 (3.04%) GitLab
5 8 (2.70%) Cypress.io
6 6 (2.03%) Gradle
6 6 (2.03%) Maven
7 4 (1.35%) Selenium
7 4 (1.35%) Subversion
8 3 (1.01%) Appium
8 3 (1.01%) Cucumber
8 3 (1.01%) GoCD
8 3 (1.01%) JProfiler
8 3 (1.01%) JUnit
8 3 (1.01%) Oracle APEX
8 3 (1.01%) Postman
8 3 (1.01%) REST Assured
8 3 (1.01%) webpack
9 2 (0.68%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.68%) SpecFlow
General
1 88 (29.73%) Social Skills
2 28 (9.46%) Finance
3 21 (7.09%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (6.08%) Organisational Skills
5 10 (3.38%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (2.36%) Legal
6 7 (2.36%) Local Government
6 7 (2.36%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (2.03%) Publishing
8 5 (1.69%) Military
9 4 (1.35%) Marketing
10 3 (1.01%) Back Office
10 3 (1.01%) Retail
11 1 (0.34%) Banking
11 1 (0.34%) Fire and Rescue
11 1 (0.34%) Law
11 1 (0.34%) Multimedia
11 1 (0.34%) Police
11 1 (0.34%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 39 (13.18%) Architect
2 33 (11.15%) Developer
3 26 (8.78%) Solutions Architect
4 24 (8.11%) Analyst
5 17 (5.74%) Lead
5 17 (5.74%) Project Manager
6 16 (5.41%) Senior
7 13 (4.39%) DBA
7 13 (4.39%) Technical Architect
8 10 (3.38%) Technical Solutions Architect
9 9 (3.04%) Administrator
9 9 (3.04%) Consultant
9 9 (3.04%) SQL DBA
10 8 (2.70%) SQL Server DBA
11 7 (2.36%) Designer
11 7 (2.36%) Java Developer
11 7 (2.36%) Linux Administrator
11 7 (2.36%) Linux Systems Administrator
11 7 (2.36%) Software Developer
11 7 (2.36%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.74%) Spring
1 17 (5.74%) Spring Boot
2 15 (5.07%) REST
2 15 (5.07%) Terraform
3 12 (4.05%) Node.js
4 11 (3.72%) React
5 7 (2.36%) Playwright
5 7 (2.36%) RESTful
5 7 (2.36%) Web Services
6 6 (2.03%) AWS CDK
6 6 (2.03%) HTML
6 6 (2.03%) Jest
7 5 (1.69%) .NET
7 5 (1.69%) AngularJS
7 5 (1.69%) Next.js
7 5 (1.69%) Vue
8 4 (1.35%) JSON
9 3 (1.01%) FreeMarker
9 3 (1.01%) JSF
9 3 (1.01%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.77%) Product Ownership
2 20 (6.76%) Cloud Native
3 12 (4.05%) Management Information System
4 11 (3.72%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (2.36%) NHS
7 6 (2.03%) Data Centre
7 6 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (1.01%) Cyber Threat
9 3 (1.01%) Enterprise Storage
9 3 (1.01%) Freedom of Information
9 3 (1.01%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (1.01%) Mainframe
9 3 (1.01%) PKI
9 3 (1.01%) Replication
9 3 (1.01%) Security Posture
10 2 (0.68%) Clustering
10 2 (0.68%) Distributed Systems
10 2 (0.68%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 21 (7.09%) Linux
2 12 (4.05%) Windows
3 7 (2.36%) SUSE
4 6 (2.03%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.68%) Android
6 2 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.68%) macOS
7 1 (0.34%) AIX
7 1 (0.34%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.34%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (32.09%) Agile
2 63 (21.28%) Stakeholder Management
3 55 (18.58%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 48 (16.22%) Continuous Improvement
5 39 (13.18%) DevOps
6 38 (12.84%) CI/CD
7 32 (10.81%) Decision-Making
8 29 (9.80%) Project Delivery
9 27 (9.12%) AI
9 27 (9.12%) Coaching
9 27 (9.12%) Workshop Facilitation
10 26 (8.78%) Mentoring
11 24 (8.11%) Infrastructure as Code
11 24 (8.11%) Migration
12 23 (7.77%) Risk Management
13 22 (7.43%) Microservices
13 22 (7.43%) Scrum
14 21 (7.09%) Data Protection
14 21 (7.09%) Problem-Solving
15 20 (6.76%) Digital Transformation Programme
Programming Languages
1 30 (10.14%) Java
2 25 (8.45%) JavaScript
3 20 (6.76%) SQL
3 20 (6.76%) TypeScript
4 18 (6.08%) Python
5 10 (3.38%) PowerShell
6 8 (2.70%) Bash
7 6 (2.03%) Bicep
7 6 (2.03%) C#
8 5 (1.69%) PL/SQL
9 4 (1.35%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (1.01%) Groovy
11 1 (0.34%) R
11 1 (0.34%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.34%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.34%) VBA
11 1 (0.34%) XPath
Qualifications
1 51 (17.23%) Security Cleared
2 46 (15.54%) SC Cleared
3 13 (4.39%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.72%) DV Cleared
5 8 (2.70%) Degree
6 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.35%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (1.35%) MCSE
7 4 (1.35%) PMI Certification
7 4 (1.35%) PMP
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%) HND
8 3 (1.01%) ISTQB
8 3 (1.01%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.68%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (0.68%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
9 2 (0.68%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (9.46%) Disclosure Scotland
2 22 (7.43%) Accessibility
3 13 (4.39%) PMO
4 12 (4.05%) Data Quality
5 10 (3.38%) GDPR
5 10 (3.38%) QA
6 9 (3.04%) WCAG
7 6 (2.03%) NIST
8 5 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (1.35%) NCSC
10 2 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.68%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.68%) SLA
11 1 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.34%) GRC
System Software
1 13 (4.39%) Docker
2 7 (2.36%) Hyper-V
3 6 (2.03%) Active Directory
4 5 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.01%) Ceph
5 3 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.68%) DFS Replication
6 2 (0.68%) Squid
6 2 (0.68%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 16 (5.41%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.36%) Ansible
2 7 (2.36%) Grafana
3 4 (1.35%) SCCM
4 3 (1.01%) Kibana
4 3 (1.01%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.68%) Argo
5 2 (0.68%) Failover Clustering
5 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Clustering
5 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.68%) Perfmon
5 2 (0.68%) WSUS
6 1 (0.34%) Avamar
6 1 (0.34%) Istio
6 1 (0.34%) Nessus
6 1 (0.34%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 41 (13.85%) Microsoft
2 26 (8.78%) Oracle
3 6 (2.03%) Google
4 5 (1.69%) Atlassian
4 5 (1.69%) MuleSoft
4 5 (1.69%) VMware
5 4 (1.35%) Cisco
6 3 (1.01%) Red Hat
6 3 (1.01%) UiPath
7 2 (0.68%) Adobe
7 2 (0.68%) Citrix
7 2 (0.68%) Commvault
7 2 (0.68%) Dell
7 2 (0.68%) Okta
7 2 (0.68%) SAP
7 2 (0.68%) Veeam
8 1 (0.34%) Confluent
8 1 (0.34%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.34%) IFS
8 1 (0.34%) Palo Alto