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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 6 2
Rank change year-on-year -4 -4 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 295 275 469
As % of all contract jobs in Scotland 12.46% 17.23% 24.97%
As % of the General category 19.88% 25.39% 38.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 192 179 315
10th Percentile £307 £203 £169
25th Percentile £375 £371 £309
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £471 £450
Median % change year-on-year +0.84% +4.68% -5.26%
75th Percentile £539 £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 £22.50
% change year-on-year +1.67% -6.67% +7.14%

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 1,484 1,083 1,214
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Scotland 62.70% 67.86% 64.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 788 630 711
10th Percentile £222 £219 £170
25th Percentile £363 £375 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £471 £440
Median % change year-on-year -1.70% +6.94% -7.37%
75th Percentile £557 £538 £538
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 120 52 43
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.05 £12.30
25th Percentile £13.50 £16.02 £13.57
Median hourly rate £16.11 £18.37 £16.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.30% +11.33% -13.97%
75th Percentile £40.48 £24.57 £23.64
90th Percentile £57.50 £56.33 £40.90
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £25.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.00% -23.08% +9.24%

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 11 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 11 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 +6 144 £457 -8.60% 85
Edinburgh 0 125 £475 +0.42% 87
Lanarkshire 0 7 £415 +219.04% 34
South Lanarkshire -2 7 £669 +21.55%
Dundee +2 2 £400 +99.50% 1
Aberdeen -5 2 £425 +27.34% 7
Dumfries and Galloway - 2 £500 - 7
Inverclyde - 1 £675 -
East Lothian - 1 - -
Fife - 1 - -
Midlothian - 1 £500 - 45
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 (5.76%) Confluence
2 10 (3.39%) CMS
2 10 (3.39%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.34%) IIS
3 1 (0.34%) JBoss
3 1 (0.34%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 14 (4.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (1.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (1.02%) 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 51 (17.29%) AWS
2 39 (13.22%) Azure
3 22 (7.46%) Power Platform
4 21 (7.12%) Microsoft 365
5 13 (4.41%) Amazon S3
5 13 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
6 11 (3.73%) GCP
7 10 (3.39%) SaaS
8 9 (3.05%) Serverless
9 7 (2.37%) AWS CloudFormation
9 7 (2.37%) AWS Lambda
9 7 (2.37%) OCI
10 6 (2.03%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 6 (2.03%) OpenShift
11 5 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 5 (1.69%) Anthropic Claude
11 5 (1.69%) Azure Monitor
11 5 (1.69%) Entra ID
11 5 (1.69%) GitHub
11 5 (1.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.71%) DNS
2 5 (1.69%) SSL
3 4 (1.36%) Firewall
4 3 (1.02%) HTTPS
4 3 (1.02%) LAN
4 3 (1.02%) SSH
4 3 (1.02%) Wi-Fi
4 3 (1.02%) 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 (5.42%) SQL Server
2 13 (4.41%) Power BI
3 10 (3.39%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (3.05%) Amazon Aurora
4 9 (3.05%) MongoDB
4 9 (3.05%) MySQL
5 7 (2.37%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (2.37%) Relational Database
6 6 (2.03%) MariaDB
6 6 (2.03%) Oracle Database
7 4 (1.36%) Power Query
8 3 (1.02%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (1.02%) Metadata
8 3 (1.02%) RDBMS
9 2 (0.68%) MS Access
9 2 (0.68%) SQLPlus
10 1 (0.34%) BusinessObjects
10 1 (0.34%) GIS
10 1 (0.34%) Oracle Database 10g
10 1 (0.34%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 20 (6.78%) JIRA
2 17 (5.76%) Jenkins
3 11 (3.73%) Git
4 9 (3.05%) GitLab
5 7 (2.37%) Cypress.io
6 6 (2.03%) Gradle
6 6 (2.03%) Maven
7 4 (1.36%) Subversion
8 3 (1.02%) GoCD
8 3 (1.02%) JProfiler
8 3 (1.02%) JUnit
8 3 (1.02%) Oracle APEX
8 3 (1.02%) Selenium
8 3 (1.02%) webpack
9 2 (0.68%) Appium
9 2 (0.68%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.68%) Postman
9 2 (0.68%) REST Assured
9 2 (0.68%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.34%) SpecFlow
General
1 86 (29.15%) Social Skills
2 28 (9.49%) Finance
3 20 (6.78%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (6.10%) Organisational Skills
5 10 (3.39%) Influencing Skills
6 7 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
6 7 (2.37%) Legal
6 7 (2.37%) Local Government
6 7 (2.37%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (2.03%) Publishing
8 5 (1.69%) Military
9 4 (1.36%) Marketing
10 3 (1.02%) Back Office
10 3 (1.02%) 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 (13.22%) Architect
2 33 (11.19%) Developer
3 26 (8.81%) Solutions Architect
4 24 (8.14%) Analyst
5 17 (5.76%) Lead
5 17 (5.76%) Project Manager
6 16 (5.42%) Senior
7 13 (4.41%) DBA
7 13 (4.41%) Technical Architect
8 10 (3.39%) Consultant
8 10 (3.39%) Technical Solutions Architect
9 9 (3.05%) Administrator
9 9 (3.05%) SQL DBA
10 8 (2.71%) SQL Server DBA
11 7 (2.37%) Designer
11 7 (2.37%) Java Developer
11 7 (2.37%) Linux Administrator
11 7 (2.37%) Linux Systems Administrator
11 7 (2.37%) Software Developer
11 7 (2.37%) Systems Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.76%) Spring
1 17 (5.76%) Spring Boot
2 15 (5.08%) REST
2 15 (5.08%) Terraform
3 12 (4.07%) Node.js
4 11 (3.73%) React
5 7 (2.37%) RESTful
5 7 (2.37%) Web Services
6 6 (2.03%) AWS CDK
6 6 (2.03%) HTML
6 6 (2.03%) Jest
6 6 (2.03%) Playwright
7 5 (1.69%) .NET
7 5 (1.69%) AngularJS
7 5 (1.69%) Next.js
7 5 (1.69%) Vue
8 4 (1.36%) JSON
9 3 (1.02%) CSS
9 3 (1.02%) JSF
9 3 (1.02%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.80%) Product Ownership
2 20 (6.78%) Cloud Native
3 12 (4.07%) Management Information System
4 11 (3.73%) Data Protection Act
5 8 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (2.37%) NHS
7 6 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.69%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.36%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (1.02%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.02%) Enterprise Storage
10 3 (1.02%) Freedom of Information
10 3 (1.02%) Legacy Applications
10 3 (1.02%) Mainframe
10 3 (1.02%) PKI
10 3 (1.02%) Replication
10 3 (1.02%) Security Posture
11 2 (0.68%) Clustering
11 2 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (0.68%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 21 (7.12%) Linux
2 12 (4.07%) Windows
3 7 (2.37%) SUSE
4 6 (2.03%) Windows Server
5 3 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.68%) Android
6 2 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.68%) macOS
7 1 (0.34%) Kali Linux
7 1 (0.34%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (31.53%) Agile
2 62 (21.02%) Stakeholder Management
3 55 (18.64%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 49 (16.61%) Continuous Improvement
5 37 (12.54%) CI/CD
5 37 (12.54%) DevOps
6 32 (10.85%) Decision-Making
7 29 (9.83%) Project Delivery
8 27 (9.15%) AI
8 27 (9.15%) Coaching
8 27 (9.15%) Workshop Facilitation
9 26 (8.81%) Mentoring
10 24 (8.14%) Infrastructure as Code
11 23 (7.80%) Migration
11 23 (7.80%) Risk Management
12 22 (7.46%) Microservices
13 21 (7.12%) Data Protection
13 21 (7.12%) Scrum
14 20 (6.78%) PRINCE2
14 20 (6.78%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 28 (9.49%) Java
2 24 (8.14%) JavaScript
3 20 (6.78%) SQL
4 19 (6.44%) TypeScript
5 17 (5.76%) Python
6 10 (3.39%) PowerShell
7 8 (2.71%) Bash
8 6 (2.03%) Bicep
9 5 (1.69%) C#
9 5 (1.69%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.36%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (1.02%) Groovy
12 1 (0.34%) R
12 1 (0.34%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.34%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.34%) VBA
12 1 (0.34%) XPath
Qualifications
1 50 (16.95%) Security Cleared
2 45 (15.25%) SC Cleared
3 13 (4.41%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.73%) DV Cleared
5 8 (2.71%) Degree
6 6 (2.03%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (1.36%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (1.36%) MCSE
7 4 (1.36%) PMI Certification
7 4 (1.36%) PMP
8 3 (1.02%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.02%) CISM
8 3 (1.02%) CISSP
8 3 (1.02%) HND
8 3 (1.02%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 2 (0.68%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (0.68%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
9 2 (0.68%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.68%) Six Sigma Black Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (9.49%) Disclosure Scotland
2 22 (7.46%) Accessibility
3 13 (4.41%) PMO
4 12 (4.07%) Data Quality
5 10 (3.39%) GDPR
5 10 (3.39%) QA
6 9 (3.05%) WCAG
7 6 (2.03%) NIST
8 5 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (1.36%) 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 12 (4.07%) Docker
2 7 (2.37%) Hyper-V
3 6 (2.03%) Active Directory
4 5 (1.69%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (1.02%) Ceph
5 3 (1.02%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.68%) DFS Replication
6 2 (0.68%) Squid
6 2 (0.68%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 15 (5.08%) Kubernetes
2 7 (2.37%) Ansible
2 7 (2.37%) Grafana
3 4 (1.36%) SCCM
4 3 (1.02%) Kibana
4 3 (1.02%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.02%) 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 40 (13.56%) Microsoft
2 27 (9.15%) Oracle
3 6 (2.03%) Google
4 5 (1.69%) MuleSoft
4 5 (1.69%) VMware
5 4 (1.36%) Atlassian
5 4 (1.36%) Cisco
6 3 (1.02%) Red Hat
6 3 (1.02%) 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%) EnterpriseDB
8 1 (0.34%) F5
8 1 (0.34%) Infor
8 1 (0.34%) SolarWinds