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 5 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 5 1
Rank change year-on-year -5 -4 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 272 312 493
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.20% 18.53% 25.95%
As % of the General category 20.15% 26.11% 40.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 181 194 313
10th Percentile £325 £205 £158
25th Percentile £406 £400 £250
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £470 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.06% +4.44% -2.70%
75th Percentile £575 £536 £538
90th Percentile £720 £600 £638
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +3.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 9 14
10th Percentile - £16.68 £12.00
25th Percentile - £18.54 £13.22
Median hourly rate - £19.83 £15.96
Median % change year-on-year - +24.25% +3.94%
75th Percentile - £27.95 £19.49
90th Percentile - £31.86 £23.90
UK median hourly rate £25.05 £19.83 £23.21
% change year-on-year +26.32% -14.54% +15.45%

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 1,350 1,195 1,208
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 60.54% 70.96% 63.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 727 696 724
10th Percentile £250 £243 £169
25th Percentile £363 £374 £301
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £470 £440
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% +6.82% -7.37%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £538
90th Percentile £650 £600 £635
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 106 46 49
10th Percentile £12.95 £15.80 £12.30
25th Percentile £13.45 £16.33 £13.50
Median hourly rate £16.56 £19.30 £16.92
Median % change year-on-year -14.21% +14.05% -11.78%
75th Percentile £43.96 £24.62 £20.93
90th Percentile £60.75 £44.01 £31.35
UK median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +27.07%

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 5 August 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 5 August 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 0 131 £465 -2.11% 28
Glasgow +3 115 £488 +2.63% 37
South Lanarkshire -3 10 £669 +42.23%
Lanarkshire 0 4 £431 +231.73% 28
Dumfries and Galloway - 2 £500 -
East Lothian +4 1 - -
North Lanarkshire -3 1 £350 -12.50% 1
Aberdeen -4 1 £138 -58.80% 3
Dundee -4 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 14 (5.15%) Confluence
2 5 (1.84%) CMS
2 5 (1.84%) SharePoint
3 2 (0.74%) JBoss
4 1 (0.37%) Apache
4 1 (0.37%) IIS
4 1 (0.37%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.37%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 9 (3.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.74%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.37%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 1 (0.37%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.37%) InDesign
4 1 (0.37%) Photoshop
Business Applications
1 3 (1.10%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.74%) Dynamics GP
3 1 (0.37%) IntelliMatch
3 1 (0.37%) iTrent
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.37%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 48 (17.65%) Azure
2 45 (16.54%) AWS
3 19 (6.99%) Azure DevOps
3 19 (6.99%) Power Platform
4 15 (5.51%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (5.51%) OCI
5 14 (5.15%) Amazon S3
6 13 (4.78%) Serverless
7 9 (3.31%) GCP
8 8 (2.94%) AWS Lambda
8 8 (2.94%) SaaS
9 7 (2.57%) AWS CloudFormation
10 6 (2.21%) Azure Monitor
10 6 (2.21%) Entra ID
10 6 (2.21%) GitHub
10 6 (2.21%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.84%) Amazon EKS
11 5 (1.84%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 5 (1.84%) Azure Key Vault
12 4 (1.47%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.94%) DNS
2 5 (1.84%) LAN
2 5 (1.84%) SSL
2 5 (1.84%) Wi-Fi
3 4 (1.47%) Firewall
3 4 (1.47%) SSH
4 3 (1.10%) Cisco Nexus
4 3 (1.10%) HTTPS
4 3 (1.10%) Remote Desktop
4 3 (1.10%) SD-WAN
4 3 (1.10%) VPN
4 3 (1.10%) WAN
4 3 (1.10%) Wireless
5 1 (0.37%) Cisco Wireless
5 1 (0.37%) MPLS
5 1 (0.37%) Network Security
5 1 (0.37%) SDH
5 1 (0.37%) Structured Cabling
5 1 (0.37%) VLAN
5 1 (0.37%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (4.78%) Power BI
2 10 (3.68%) MongoDB
2 10 (3.68%) PostgreSQL
3 7 (2.57%) MariaDB
3 7 (2.57%) Metadata
3 7 (2.57%) MySQL
4 6 (2.21%) Relational Database
4 6 (2.21%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.84%) Amazon Aurora
6 3 (1.10%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (1.10%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (1.10%) Oracle Database
6 3 (1.10%) Power Query
6 3 (1.10%) SQLPlus
7 2 (0.74%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (0.74%) DynamoDB
7 2 (0.74%) Geospatial Data
7 2 (0.74%) MS Access
8 1 (0.37%) OpenStack Swift
8 1 (0.37%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 18 (6.62%) JIRA
2 12 (4.41%) Jenkins
3 11 (4.04%) Git
4 8 (2.94%) Cypress.io
5 6 (2.21%) Selenium
6 4 (1.47%) Cucumber
6 4 (1.47%) Gradle
6 4 (1.47%) Maven
6 4 (1.47%) Subversion
7 3 (1.10%) GitLab
7 3 (1.10%) GoCD
7 3 (1.10%) JProfiler
7 3 (1.10%) JUnit
8 2 (0.74%) Appium
8 2 (0.74%) Postman
8 2 (0.74%) REST Assured
8 2 (0.74%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.74%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.74%) WebDriver
9 1 (0.37%) Oracle APEX
General
1 82 (30.15%) Social Skills
2 37 (13.60%) Finance
3 22 (8.09%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (4.41%) Organisational Skills
5 9 (3.31%) Legal
6 8 (2.94%) Influencing Skills
7 7 (2.57%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.84%) Local Government
9 4 (1.47%) Marketing
10 3 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Publishing
10 3 (1.10%) Retail
11 2 (0.74%) Banking
11 2 (0.74%) Military
11 2 (0.74%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.37%) Back Office
12 1 (0.37%) Law
12 1 (0.37%) Police
12 1 (0.37%) Social Housing
Job Titles
1 34 (12.50%) Developer
2 33 (12.13%) Analyst
3 26 (9.56%) Senior
4 25 (9.19%) Architect
5 19 (6.99%) Project Manager
6 18 (6.62%) Lead
7 14 (5.15%) Consultant
7 14 (5.15%) DevOps Engineer
8 12 (4.41%) Solutions Architect
9 10 (3.68%) Designer
10 9 (3.31%) Business Analyst
10 9 (3.31%) Software Developer
11 8 (2.94%) Administrator
11 8 (2.94%) Cloud Consultant
11 8 (2.94%) Cloud Engineer
11 8 (2.94%) Oracle Consultant
12 7 (2.57%) Network Engineer
13 6 (2.21%) Help Desk Consultant
13 6 (2.21%) Oracle HRMS Consultant
13 6 (2.21%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (5.15%) Spring
1 14 (5.15%) Spring Boot
2 11 (4.04%) .NET
2 11 (4.04%) React
3 10 (3.68%) REST
4 8 (2.94%) Playwright
5 7 (2.57%) RESTful
5 7 (2.57%) Web Services
6 6 (2.21%) AWS CDK
6 6 (2.21%) Node.js
7 5 (1.84%) Jest
8 4 (1.47%) JSON
8 4 (1.47%) Middleware
8 4 (1.47%) OAuth
8 4 (1.47%) OAuth2
9 3 (1.10%) ASP.NET
9 3 (1.10%) FreeMarker
9 3 (1.10%) JSF
9 3 (1.10%) SOAP
9 3 (1.10%) Spring Security
Miscellaneous
1 20 (7.35%) Product Ownership
2 14 (5.15%) Legacy Systems
3 11 (4.04%) Cloud Native
3 11 (4.04%) Data Protection Act
4 10 (3.68%) Management Information System
5 8 (2.94%) NHS
6 5 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
7 4 (1.47%) Legacy Applications
7 4 (1.47%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (1.10%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.74%) Data Centre
9 2 (0.74%) Distributed Systems
9 2 (0.74%) Freedom of Information
9 2 (0.74%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.74%) PKI
10 1 (0.37%) Cyber Threat
10 1 (0.37%) Distributed Architecture
10 1 (0.37%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (0.37%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.37%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 22 (8.09%) Linux
2 16 (5.88%) Windows
3 6 (2.21%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.47%) Windows 10
6 2 (0.74%) SUSE
7 1 (0.37%) Android
7 1 (0.37%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.37%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.37%) Rocky
7 1 (0.37%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.37%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (28.68%) Agile
2 48 (17.65%) Stakeholder Management
3 47 (17.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 45 (16.54%) DevOps
5 43 (15.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 37 (13.60%) CI/CD
7 26 (9.56%) Project Delivery
8 24 (8.82%) AI
9 23 (8.46%) Migration
10 21 (7.72%) Infrastructure as Code
11 20 (7.35%) Problem-Solving
11 20 (7.35%) Scrum
12 19 (6.99%) Decision-Making
13 18 (6.62%) Mentoring
13 18 (6.62%) Microservices
13 18 (6.62%) Project Management
13 18 (6.62%) Roadmaps
14 17 (6.25%) Cybersecurity
14 17 (6.25%) Data Protection
15 16 (5.88%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 25 (9.19%) Java
2 23 (8.46%) Python
3 20 (7.35%) JavaScript
3 20 (7.35%) SQL
4 14 (5.15%) TypeScript
5 10 (3.68%) C#
6 8 (2.94%) PowerShell
7 7 (2.57%) Bash
8 6 (2.21%) Bicep
9 3 (1.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 3 (1.10%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.74%) Shell Script
11 1 (0.37%) Groovy
11 1 (0.37%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.37%) VB.NET
11 1 (0.37%) VBA
11 1 (0.37%) XPath
Qualifications
1 51 (18.75%) Security Cleared
2 41 (15.07%) SC Cleared
3 17 (6.25%) BPSS Clearance
4 10 (3.68%) DV Cleared
5 9 (3.31%) Degree
6 6 (2.21%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.47%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (1.47%) PMI Certification
7 4 (1.47%) PMP
8 3 (1.10%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.10%) CCAB
8 3 (1.10%) CISSP
8 3 (1.10%) MCSE
9 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (0.74%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
9 2 (0.74%) IIBA
9 2 (0.74%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.74%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.74%) Six Sigma Black Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (6.99%) Accessibility
2 16 (5.88%) Disclosure Scotland
3 11 (4.04%) Data Quality
4 10 (3.68%) GDPR
4 10 (3.68%) PMO
4 10 (3.68%) QA
5 6 (2.21%) NIST
6 5 (1.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.84%) WCAG
7 4 (1.47%) NCSC
8 3 (1.10%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.74%) GRC
9 2 (0.74%) SLA
10 1 (0.37%) ISO 20022
10 1 (0.37%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 10 (3.68%) Active Directory
2 8 (2.94%) Docker
3 6 (2.21%) Hyper-V
4 4 (1.47%) Ceph
4 4 (1.47%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.10%) Squid
6 2 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.37%) IAG
7 1 (0.37%) iptables
7 1 (0.37%) NFS
7 1 (0.37%) Samba
7 1 (0.37%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 19 (6.99%) Terraform
2 13 (4.78%) Kubernetes
3 7 (2.57%) Ansible
3 7 (2.57%) Grafana
4 6 (2.21%) Istio
4 6 (2.21%) Microsoft Intune
5 4 (1.47%) Argo
6 3 (1.10%) Kibana
6 3 (1.10%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.10%) SCCM
7 2 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.37%) Rundeck
8 1 (0.37%) SELinux
8 1 (0.37%) systemd
8 1 (0.37%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 37 (13.60%) Microsoft
2 33 (12.13%) Oracle
3 9 (3.31%) Salesforce
4 6 (2.21%) Cisco
4 6 (2.21%) Google
5 5 (1.84%) MuleSoft
6 4 (1.47%) VMware
7 3 (1.10%) F5
7 3 (1.10%) Palo Alto
7 3 (1.10%) Red Hat
7 3 (1.10%) SAP
7 3 (1.10%) UiPath
8 2 (0.74%) Atlassian
8 2 (0.74%) Okta
8 2 (0.74%) OpenAI
8 2 (0.74%) SaltStack
9 1 (0.37%) EnterpriseDB
9 1 (0.37%) Infor
9 1 (0.37%) Qualys
9 1 (0.37%) SolarWinds