NHS Contract Job Trends in the South West

National Health Service (NHS)
England > South West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term NHS in contract job vacancies in the South West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited NHS over the 6 months leading up to 19 October 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 123 127 132
Rank change year-on-year +4 +5 -16
Contract jobs citing NHS 2 7 23
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.099% 0.28% 0.72%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.30% 1.03% 2.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 3 20
10th Percentile - £180 £159
25th Percentile - £188 £177
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £222 £200 £210
Median % change year-on-year +11.00% -4.76% -3.45%
75th Percentile - £425 £391
90th Percentile - £560 £438
England median daily rate £450 £350 £325
% change year-on-year +28.57% +7.69% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 1
Median hourly rate - £23.99 £31.05
Median % change year-on-year - -22.74% -
England median hourly rate £16.00 £23.60 £20.00
% change year-on-year -32.20% +18.00% +13.90%

All Generic Skills
South West

NHS falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 675 677 916
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 33.48% 27.41% 28.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 401 364 663
10th Percentile £225 £208 £286
25th Percentile £358 £440 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - +4.76%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £673
90th Percentile £715 £725 £738
England median daily rate £525 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -4.55% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 83 53
10th Percentile £6.00 £20.36 £16.20
25th Percentile £15.48 £66.25 £52.50
Median hourly rate £20.36 £70.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year -70.91% -10.26% +33.13%
75th Percentile £63.75 £72.50 £83.40
90th Percentile £74.00 £73.50 -
England median hourly rate £27.53 £52.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -47.56% +16.12% +75.50%

NHS
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NHS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

NHS job vacancy trend in the South West

NHS
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing NHS.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing NHS

NHS
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing NHS.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing NHS

NHS
Contract Job Locations in the South West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NHS within the South West region over the 6 months to 19 October 2025. 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
Somerset - 1 - - 6
NHS
England

NHS
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 1 (50.00%) Microsoft Exchange
Cloud Services
1 1 (50.00%) Azure
1 1 (50.00%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (50.00%) DHCP
1 1 (50.00%) DNS
1 1 (50.00%) LAN
1 1 (50.00%) VLAN
1 1 (50.00%) VPN
1 1 (50.00%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (50.00%) Electronic Patient Records
Development Applications
1 1 (50.00%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 2 (100.00%) Electronics
1 2 (100.00%) Finance
1 2 (100.00%) Manufacturing
1 2 (100.00%) Marketing
1 2 (100.00%) Public Sector
1 2 (100.00%) Social Skills
1 2 (100.00%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 1 (50.00%) Analyst
1 1 (50.00%) Analyst Developer
1 1 (50.00%) Developer
1 1 (50.00%) Developer Analyst
1 1 (50.00%) Infrastructure Engineer
1 1 (50.00%) Integration Analyst
1 1 (50.00%) Integration Developer
1 1 (50.00%) IT Engineer
1 1 (50.00%) IT Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (50.00%) .NET
1 1 (50.00%) FHIR
1 1 (50.00%) ODBC
1 1 (50.00%) Web Services
1 1 (50.00%) XML
1 1 (50.00%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 1 (50.00%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 2 (100.00%) Windows
2 1 (50.00%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (100.00%) Business Intelligence
1 2 (100.00%) Digital Marketing
1 2 (100.00%) Programme Management
2 1 (50.00%) BCP
2 1 (50.00%) Business Continuity
2 1 (50.00%) Business Continuity Planning
2 1 (50.00%) Change Control
2 1 (50.00%) Collaborative Working
2 1 (50.00%) Continuous Improvement
2 1 (50.00%) Cybersecurity
2 1 (50.00%) Data Integration
2 1 (50.00%) Data Protection
2 1 (50.00%) Digital Strategy
2 1 (50.00%) Disaster Recovery
2 1 (50.00%) High Availability
2 1 (50.00%) Information Governance
2 1 (50.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 1 (50.00%) Problem-Solving
2 1 (50.00%) Project Delivery
2 1 (50.00%) Vulnerability Management
Programming Languages
1 1 (50.00%) Java
1 1 (50.00%) PL/SQL
1 1 (50.00%) SQL
1 1 (50.00%) Tcl
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (50.00%) DICOM
1 1 (50.00%) HL7
System Software
1 1 (50.00%) Active Directory
1 1 (50.00%) Hyper-V
Vendors
1 2 (100.00%) SAP
2 1 (50.00%) Microsoft
2 1 (50.00%) VMware