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 20 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 145 115 136
Rank change year-on-year -30 +21 -10
Contract jobs citing NHS 7 2 7
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.19% 0.10% 0.26%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.71% 0.31% 0.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 1 2
10th Percentile £422 - £177
25th Percentile £437 - £179
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £474 £222 £192
Median % change year-on-year +113.40% +15.38% -8.38%
75th Percentile £510 - £206
90th Percentile £524 - £208
England median daily rate £463 £450 £350
% change year-on-year +2.78% +28.57% +8.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 3
10th Percentile - - £18.50
25th Percentile - - £20.00
Median hourly rate - - £23.99
75th Percentile - - £25.49
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £20.00 £27.50 £18.27
% change year-on-year -27.27% +50.52% -8.65%

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 986 637 761
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 26.29% 32.55% 28.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 538 388 433
10th Percentile £307 £225 £225
25th Percentile £413 £363 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £516 £538
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -4.04% -2.18%
75th Percentile £660 £638 £650
90th Percentile £750 £706 £700
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 130 65 104
10th Percentile £14.00 £6.00 £18.20
25th Percentile £17.85 £15.48 £66.25
Median hourly rate £26.14 £29.00 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.86% -58.57% -2.10%
75th Percentile £65.00 £44.81 £72.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.00 £75.00
England median hourly rate £37.50 £32.83 £57.35
% change year-on-year +14.22% -42.76% +25.00%

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 20 September 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
Wiltshire - 3 - - 3
Somerset -28 1 £523 - 13
Cornwall - 1 - - 5
Gloucestershire - 1 - - 4
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:

Cloud Services
1 1 (14.29%) Azure
1 1 (14.29%) Azure Data Factory
1 1 (14.29%) Smartsheet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (28.57%) Electronic Patient Records
General
1 3 (42.86%) Organisational Skills
1 3 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 1 (14.29%) Digital Health
2 1 (14.29%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 3 (42.86%) Administration Assistant
1 3 (42.86%) Administrator
2 2 (28.57%) Lead
3 1 (14.29%) Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Data Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Data Migration Architect
3 1 (14.29%) Deployment Team Leader
3 1 (14.29%) Digital Project Manager
3 1 (14.29%) EPR Project Manager
3 1 (14.29%) Migration Architect
3 1 (14.29%) PMO Lead
3 1 (14.29%) Project Manager
3 1 (14.29%) Team Leader
Miscellaneous
1 3 (42.86%) Management Information System
2 1 (14.29%) Legacy Systems
Processes & Methodologies
1 3 (42.86%) Data Entry
1 3 (42.86%) Data Protection
1 3 (42.86%) Information Governance
1 3 (42.86%) Records Management
1 3 (42.86%) Time Management
2 1 (14.29%) Data Cleansing
2 1 (14.29%) Data Extraction
2 1 (14.29%) Data Interpretation
2 1 (14.29%) Data Modelling
2 1 (14.29%) Data Strategy
2 1 (14.29%) Data Validation
2 1 (14.29%) Decision-Making
2 1 (14.29%) ETL
2 1 (14.29%) Migration
2 1 (14.29%) Programme Management
2 1 (14.29%) Risk Management
2 1 (14.29%) Roadmaps
2 1 (14.29%) Stakeholder Management
2 1 (14.29%) Technical Leadership
2 1 (14.29%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1 (14.29%) SQL
Qualifications
1 1 (14.29%) SC Cleared
1 1 (14.29%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (57.14%) GDPR
2 1 (14.29%) Data Quality
2 1 (14.29%) PMO
Vendors
1 1 (14.29%) Informatica
1 1 (14.29%) Microsoft