Public Sector Contract Job Trends in the South West

Public Sector
England > South West

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Sector in contract job vacancies in the South West. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Sector over the 6 months leading up to 18 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 6 12
Rank change year-on-year -6 +6 -6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 341 272 304
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 9.35% 14.35% 11.00%
As % of the General category 20.37% 24.89% 21.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 197 175 229
10th Percentile £399 £330 £403
25th Percentile £463 £425 £483
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% +9.09%
75th Percentile £610 £635 £675
90th Percentile £706 £729 £756
England median daily rate £520 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.46% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 24 11
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.54 -
25th Percentile £16.62 £15.48 £11.75
Median hourly rate £17.85 £18.26 £15.62
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +16.87% -43.83%
75th Percentile £32.06 £25.12 £17.00
90th Percentile £98.82 £27.45 £25.49
England median hourly rate £21.50 £21.27 £26.56
% change year-on-year +1.08% -19.92% +32.81%

All General Skills
South West

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 the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,674 1,093 1,409
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 45.90% 57.65% 50.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 860 652 877
10th Percentile £305 £213 £230
25th Percentile £413 £355 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £613 £613 £638
90th Percentile £711 £695 £725
England median daily rate £525 £510 £538
% change year-on-year +2.94% -5.20% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 284 100 182
10th Percentile £13.50 £12.62 £13.69
25th Percentile £17.10 £15.25 £30.00
Median hourly rate £35.71 £22.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.71% -60.87% +4.55%
75th Percentile £63.75 £43.61 £72.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £77.50
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

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

Public Sector job vacancy trend in the South West

Public Sector
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Public Sector
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Sector in the South West over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in the South West

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

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

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

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Histogram in the South West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Public Sector in the South West over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Public Sector in the South West

Public Sector
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 Public Sector within the South West region over the 6 months to 18 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
Wiltshire -1 102 £525 -8.70% 19
Bristol -8 100 £525 +16.67% 54
Devon -5 47 £613 +4.26% 14
Somerset -7 35 £413 -33.47% 18
Gloucestershire -5 23 £525 +68.00% 28
Dorset -11 11 £575 +4.55% 4
Cornwall - 3 - - 3
Public Sector
England

Public Sector
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 26 (7.62%) Confluence
2 11 (3.23%) SharePoint
3 8 (2.35%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.29%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.29%) CMS
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle Coherence
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 10 (2.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.17%) Spreadsheet
3 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.88%) Trello
4 1 (0.29%) LaTeX
4 1 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.35%) Workday HCM
2 4 (1.17%) NEC Housing
2 4 (1.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.88%) SAP GRC
4 2 (0.59%) Oracle Payroll
4 2 (0.59%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.59%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.59%) SAP CO
4 2 (0.59%) SAP FI
4 2 (0.59%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.29%) iTrent
5 1 (0.29%) SAP HR
5 1 (0.29%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 54 (15.84%) Azure
2 49 (14.37%) AWS
3 27 (7.92%) Microsoft 365
4 15 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (3.81%) GCP
6 11 (3.23%) OCI
6 11 (3.23%) SaaS
7 10 (2.93%) OpenShift
8 9 (2.64%) Entra ID
8 9 (2.64%) GitHub
8 9 (2.64%) Power Platform
9 8 (2.35%) Figma
10 6 (1.76%) Amazon S3
10 6 (1.76%) Google Workspace
10 6 (1.76%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.47%) GitHub Actions
11 5 (1.47%) Google Drive
11 5 (1.47%) Power Automate
11 5 (1.47%) Serverless
12 4 (1.17%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.11%) DNS
2 11 (3.23%) DHCP
2 11 (3.23%) Firewall
3 7 (2.05%) TCP/IP
3 7 (2.05%) VSAN
4 4 (1.17%) DKIM
4 4 (1.17%) VLAN
5 3 (0.88%) DMARC
5 3 (0.88%) Intrusion Detection
6 2 (0.59%) LAN
6 2 (0.59%) Radio Access Network
6 2 (0.59%) SAN
6 2 (0.59%) VoIP
6 2 (0.59%) WAN
6 2 (0.59%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (0.29%) BGP
7 1 (0.29%) Cisco Nexus
7 1 (0.29%) Internet
7 1 (0.29%) Network Security
7 1 (0.29%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (2.93%) Geospatial Data
2 8 (2.35%) Relational Database
3 7 (2.05%) Oracle Database
3 7 (2.05%) Power BI
4 5 (1.47%) Data Lake
5 4 (1.17%) Amazon Athena
5 4 (1.17%) Amazon Redshift
5 4 (1.17%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (1.17%) Electronic Patient Records
5 4 (1.17%) Metadata
5 4 (1.17%) RDBMS
6 2 (0.59%) GIS
7 1 (0.29%) Big Data
7 1 (0.29%) Data Mart
7 1 (0.29%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (0.29%) NonStop SQL
7 1 (0.29%) NoSQL
7 1 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.29%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.29%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 32 (9.38%) JIRA
2 12 (3.52%) Git
3 9 (2.64%) MSI
4 4 (1.17%) Liquibase
5 3 (0.88%) Cucumber
5 3 (0.88%) Gatling
5 3 (0.88%) Postman
5 3 (0.88%) REST Assured
6 2 (0.59%) AdminStudio
6 2 (0.59%) InstallShield
6 2 (0.59%) IntelliJ
6 2 (0.59%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.59%) JMeter
6 2 (0.59%) LoadRunner
6 2 (0.59%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 1 (0.29%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.29%) GitLab
7 1 (0.29%) MLflow
7 1 (0.29%) Snyk
General
1 100 (29.33%) Social Skills
2 39 (11.44%) Military
3 37 (10.85%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (10.26%) Finance
5 12 (3.52%) Local Government
6 9 (2.64%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (2.64%) Organisational Skills
6 9 (2.64%) Police
7 6 (1.76%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.47%) General Ledger
8 5 (1.47%) Legal
9 4 (1.17%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.59%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.59%) Banking
10 2 (0.59%) Law
10 2 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
10 2 (0.59%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.59%) Retail
11 1 (0.29%) Aviation
11 1 (0.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 60 (17.60%) Developer
2 49 (14.37%) Senior
3 39 (11.44%) Architect
4 32 (9.38%) Lead
5 20 (5.87%) Analyst
6 18 (5.28%) Senior Developer
7 14 (4.11%) Consultant
8 13 (3.81%) Administrator
9 12 (3.52%) Project Manager
10 11 (3.23%) Enterprise Architect
10 11 (3.23%) Infrastructure Manager
10 11 (3.23%) IT Manager
11 10 (2.93%) Delivery Manager
12 9 (2.64%) Lead Architect
12 9 (2.64%) Network Infrastructure Manager
12 9 (2.64%) Service Manager
12 9 (2.64%) Software Developer
12 9 (2.64%) Technical Architect
13 8 (2.35%) Defect Manager
13 8 (2.35%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (5.57%) REST
2 17 (4.99%) HTML
3 16 (4.69%) CSS
4 13 (3.81%) React
5 11 (3.23%) Node.js
6 10 (2.93%) Oracle Fusion
7 9 (2.64%) .NET
7 9 (2.64%) .NET Core
7 9 (2.64%) .NET Framework
7 9 (2.64%) ATL
7 9 (2.64%) COM
7 9 (2.64%) CSS3
7 9 (2.64%) GeoJSON
7 9 (2.64%) HTML5
7 9 (2.64%) MFC
7 9 (2.64%) RESTful
7 9 (2.64%) SOAP
7 9 (2.64%) WPF
8 8 (2.35%) Express.js
9 5 (1.47%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 23 (6.74%) Onboarding
2 20 (5.87%) Legacy Systems
3 17 (4.99%) Freedom of Information
4 16 (4.69%) Cloud Native
5 14 (4.11%) Management Information System
6 12 (3.52%) Product Ownership
7 10 (2.93%) Cyber Threat
7 10 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (2.93%) Security Operations Centre
8 9 (2.64%) CMDB
9 6 (1.76%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.76%) PKI
9 6 (1.76%) Replication
10 5 (1.47%) Security Posture
11 4 (1.17%) Clustering
12 3 (0.88%) CSOC
12 3 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.88%) NHS
12 3 (0.88%) PMI
13 2 (0.59%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 38 (11.14%) Windows
2 16 (4.69%) Linux
3 8 (2.35%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.59%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (24.63%) Agile
2 63 (18.48%) Stakeholder Management
3 60 (17.60%) Continuous Improvement
4 52 (15.25%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 51 (14.96%) Problem-Solving
6 47 (13.78%) Cybersecurity
7 44 (12.90%) CI/CD
8 42 (12.32%) Decision-Making
8 42 (12.32%) ITIL
9 38 (11.14%) DevOps
9 38 (11.14%) Roadmaps
10 32 (9.38%) AI
11 30 (8.80%) Analytics
11 30 (8.80%) Infrastructure as Code
12 29 (8.50%) Data Governance
13 27 (7.92%) Service Delivery
14 26 (7.62%) Containerisation
14 26 (7.62%) Migration
15 24 (7.04%) ITSM
16 23 (6.74%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 40 (11.73%) Python
2 26 (7.62%) JavaScript
3 24 (7.04%) SQL
4 13 (3.81%) Java
5 12 (3.52%) PowerShell
6 11 (3.23%) Bash
6 11 (3.23%) TypeScript
7 10 (2.93%) Bicep
7 10 (2.93%) PL/SQL
8 9 (2.64%) C#
9 2 (0.59%) Apex Code
9 2 (0.59%) BeanShell
9 2 (0.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 2 (0.59%) R
10 1 (0.29%) Fortran
10 1 (0.29%) Go
10 1 (0.29%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.29%) PHP
Qualifications
1 192 (56.30%) Security Cleared
2 135 (39.59%) SC Cleared
3 39 (11.44%) DV Cleared
4 12 (3.52%) Degree
5 10 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.76%) CISSP
7 5 (1.47%) CISM
7 5 (1.47%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (1.17%) PMI Certification
8 4 (1.17%) VCAP
9 3 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.88%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.59%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.59%) CCNP
10 2 (0.59%) ISEB
10 2 (0.59%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 2 (0.59%) SANS
10 2 (0.59%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 1 (0.29%) Chartered Engineer
11 1 (0.29%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 28 (8.21%) Accessibility
2 20 (5.87%) Data Quality
2 20 (5.87%) NCSC
3 18 (5.28%) GDPR
4 15 (4.40%) QA
5 9 (2.64%) WCAG
6 7 (2.05%) GRC
7 3 (0.88%) DICOM
7 3 (0.88%) HL7
7 3 (0.88%) NIST
8 2 (0.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.59%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.29%) COBIT
9 1 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 1 (0.29%) ITGC
9 1 (0.29%) JSP 440
9 1 (0.29%) PMO
9 1 (0.29%) RMADS
9 1 (0.29%) SLA
9 1 (0.29%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 25 (7.33%) Active Directory
2 22 (6.45%) Docker
3 14 (4.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 11 (3.23%) Hyper-V
5 7 (2.05%) VMware NSX
6 5 (1.47%) vSphere
7 2 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.59%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 30 (8.80%) Terraform
2 26 (7.62%) Kubernetes
3 13 (3.81%) Argo
4 12 (3.52%) Single Sign-On
5 11 (3.23%) Grafana
6 9 (2.64%) Ansible
7 6 (1.76%) VxRail
8 4 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.59%) Failover Clustering
9 2 (0.59%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.59%) Puppet
9 2 (0.59%) SCCM
9 2 (0.59%) WSUS
10 1 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 1 (0.29%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.29%) NetBackup
10 1 (0.29%) Prometheus
10 1 (0.29%) QRadar
10 1 (0.29%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.29%) vRealize
Vendors
1 49 (14.37%) Microsoft
2 22 (6.45%) Oracle
3 15 (4.40%) ServiceNow
3 15 (4.40%) VMware
4 14 (4.11%) Blue Prism
5 12 (3.52%) Google
5 12 (3.52%) Red Hat
6 9 (2.64%) Workday
7 6 (1.76%) ConnectWise
8 5 (1.47%) BiZZdesign
8 5 (1.47%) Databricks
8 5 (1.47%) NEC
8 5 (1.47%) SAP
9 4 (1.17%) Cisco
9 4 (1.17%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.88%) BMC
10 3 (0.88%) Dynatrace
10 3 (0.88%) F5
10 3 (0.88%) Remedy
10 3 (0.88%) Splunk