Public Sector Contracts in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
UK > UK excluding London

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Sector in contract job vacancies in the UK excluding London. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Sector over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 12 10 8
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,380 2,278 3,352
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.81% 10.97% 13.93%
As % of the General category 17.37% 20.04% 24.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 938 1,461 2,638
10th Percentile £257 £205 £208
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.35% - +7.53%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £666 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £519 £525
% change year-on-year -3.66% -1.14% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 163 76
10th Percentile £14.96 £12.71 £13.91
25th Percentile £18.13 £15.39 £16.85
Median hourly rate £21.95 £21.00 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.52% +5.00% +6.67%
75th Percentile £28.22 £53.38 £25.25
90th Percentile £57.25 £70.06 £46.00
UK median hourly rate £22.27 £21.50 £20.00
% change year-on-year +3.58% +7.50% -

All General Skills
UK excluding London

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 common skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 7,944 11,365 13,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 62.23% 54.72% 56.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,914 6,491 9,285
10th Percentile £213 £205 £228
25th Percentile £363 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% +5.26%
75th Percentile £580 £597 £600
90th Percentile £662 £688 £693
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% +2.80%
Number of hourly rates quoted 586 1,652 782
10th Percentile £13.88 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.30 £15.00 £16.54
Median hourly rate £24.71 £28.42 £30.54
Median % change year-on-year -13.05% -6.94% +65.08%
75th Percentile £55.76 £52.84 £61.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £69.95
UK median hourly rate £27.50 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -8.33% -14.29% +59.31%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Public Sector as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Public Sector in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Public Sector in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Public Sector in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Sector in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Public Sector in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Public Sector in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Public Sector in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Public Sector in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
North of England -1 356 £475 -9.52% 260
Scotland -5 328 £450 -5.26% 72
South East +2 282 £538 +19.44% 260
South West -1 207 £550 -3.51% 141
North West -4 199 £500 -4.76% 149
Midlands -6 130 £469 +4.17% 187
West Midlands -4 108 £454 -9.26% 104
North East +6 80 £463 -11.90% 28
Yorkshire -13 77 £463 -11.90% 84
Wales +5 40 £413 -17.50% 40
East of England -6 27 £388 +3.33% 45
East Midlands -19 22 £500 +81.82% 75
Northern Ireland -8 16 £520 -16.80% 21
Channel Islands - 2 £298 -
Public Sector
UK

Public Sector
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 76 (5.51%) SharePoint
2 46 (3.33%) Confluence
3 35 (2.54%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.80%) Skype for Business
5 9 (0.65%) IIS
6 6 (0.43%) Apache
6 6 (0.43%) nginx
7 5 (0.36%) Camunda
7 5 (0.36%) Exchange Server 2013
8 4 (0.29%) Anypoint
8 4 (0.29%) CMS
8 4 (0.29%) Mule
9 3 (0.22%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
9 3 (0.22%) R Markdown
9 3 (0.22%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.14%) GeoServer
10 2 (0.14%) JBoss
10 2 (0.14%) OpenROAD
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 2 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 67 (4.86%) Microsoft Office
2 44 (3.19%) Microsoft Excel
3 19 (1.38%) Microsoft Project
4 18 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.87%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.29%) Oracle Smart View
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.14%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.14%) Sketch
10 1 (0.072%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.072%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.072%) AutoCAD
10 1 (0.072%) CATIA
10 1 (0.072%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.072%) CINEMA 4D
10 1 (0.072%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.072%) InfoPath
10 1 (0.072%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.072%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (0.58%) SAP PSCD
2 8 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.51%) iTrent
3 7 (0.51%) SAP BRIM
3 7 (0.51%) SAP Hybris
4 6 (0.43%) SAP HR
5 4 (0.29%) Dynamics GP
5 4 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
5 4 (0.29%) Unit4 Business World
6 3 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
6 3 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.22%) Primavera
7 2 (0.14%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle HRMS
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
7 2 (0.14%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.14%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.072%) Misys Midas
Cloud Services
1 222 (16.09%) Azure
2 168 (12.17%) AWS
3 104 (7.54%) Microsoft 365
4 79 (5.72%) Power Platform
5 47 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
6 46 (3.33%) Serverless
7 43 (3.12%) GCP
8 40 (2.90%) Entra ID
9 33 (2.39%) Amazon S3
10 31 (2.25%) SaaS
11 30 (2.17%) AWS CloudFormation
12 28 (2.03%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (2.03%) PaaS
13 27 (1.96%) PowerApps
14 23 (1.67%) Power Automate
15 19 (1.38%) Dynamics 365
15 19 (1.38%) IaaS
16 18 (1.30%) Amazon EC2
17 15 (1.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 15 (1.09%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 48 (3.48%) VPN
2 47 (3.41%) Firewall
3 44 (3.19%) DNS
4 29 (2.10%) DHCP
4 29 (2.10%) WAN
5 20 (1.45%) Network Security
6 18 (1.30%) BGP
7 16 (1.16%) IPsec
7 16 (1.16%) LAN
8 13 (0.94%) OSPF
9 11 (0.80%) Skype
9 11 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
10 10 (0.72%) SMTP
11 9 (0.65%) Cisco ISE
11 9 (0.65%) EIGRP
11 9 (0.65%) MPLS
11 9 (0.65%) SAN
12 8 (0.58%) iSCSI
12 8 (0.58%) SD-WAN
12 8 (0.58%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (4.42%) PostgreSQL
2 44 (3.19%) Power BI
3 31 (2.25%) MySQL
3 31 (2.25%) Relational Database
3 31 (2.25%) SQL Server
4 30 (2.17%) Data Warehouse
5 27 (1.96%) MongoDB
6 26 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
7 23 (1.67%) Oracle Database
8 13 (0.94%) Elasticsearch
8 13 (0.94%) Metadata
8 13 (0.94%) NoSQL
8 13 (0.94%) Oracle Reports
8 13 (0.94%) Tableau
9 12 (0.87%) Amazon Aurora
9 12 (0.87%) Big Data
10 10 (0.72%) RDBMS
11 9 (0.65%) DynamoDB
11 9 (0.65%) GIS
12 8 (0.58%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 73 (5.29%) Git
2 72 (5.22%) JIRA
3 67 (4.86%) Jenkins
4 42 (3.04%) GitLab
5 27 (1.96%) JUnit
6 21 (1.52%) Selenium
7 18 (1.30%) Cucumber
8 17 (1.23%) Mockito
9 15 (1.09%) Maven
10 10 (0.72%) Gradle
10 10 (0.72%) Liquibase
10 10 (0.72%) SonarQube
11 9 (0.65%) Cypress.io
12 7 (0.51%) gulp
12 7 (0.51%) Jasmine
12 7 (0.51%) Postman
12 7 (0.51%) Visual Studio
13 6 (0.43%) Artifactory
13 6 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 6 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 347 (25.14%) Social Skills
2 270 (19.57%) Finance
3 158 (11.45%) Telecoms
4 142 (10.29%) Marketing
5 136 (9.86%) Manufacturing
6 134 (9.71%) Analytical Skills
7 129 (9.35%) Electronics
8 63 (4.57%) Military
9 41 (2.97%) Local Government
10 33 (2.39%) Organisational Skills
11 23 (1.67%) Influencing Skills
12 18 (1.30%) Back Office
13 15 (1.09%) Law
13 15 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
14 14 (1.01%) Legal
15 12 (0.87%) Banking
15 12 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 9 (0.65%) Documentation Skills
17 8 (0.58%) Fire and Rescue
17 8 (0.58%) Police
Job Titles
1 181 (13.12%) Developer
2 158 (11.45%) Analyst
3 143 (10.36%) Senior
4 136 (9.86%) Architect
5 77 (5.58%) Lead
6 70 (5.07%) Business Analyst
7 64 (4.64%) Project Manager
8 53 (3.84%) Support Engineer
9 46 (3.33%) Consultant
10 43 (3.12%) DevOps Engineer
11 38 (2.75%) Network Engineer
12 32 (2.32%) Administrator
12 32 (2.32%) IT Engineer
12 32 (2.32%) Java Developer
13 30 (2.17%) IT Support
13 30 (2.17%) Senior Manager
14 28 (2.03%) Data Engineer
15 27 (1.96%) Designer
15 27 (1.96%) Solutions Architect
16 26 (1.88%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (4.13%) Node.js
2 55 (3.99%) HTML
3 52 (3.77%) React
3 52 (3.77%) Spring Boot
4 51 (3.70%) .NET
4 51 (3.70%) CSS
5 47 (3.41%) Spring
6 46 (3.33%) REST
7 39 (2.83%) AngularJS
8 30 (2.17%) Kafka
8 30 (2.17%) SOAP
9 27 (1.96%) Web Services
10 26 (1.88%) RESTful
11 25 (1.81%) Oracle Fusion
12 20 (1.45%) OpenAPI
12 20 (1.45%) Swagger
12 20 (1.45%) XML
13 17 (1.23%) AWS CDK
14 16 (1.16%) JSON
15 15 (1.09%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 50 (3.62%) Management Information System
2 44 (3.19%) NHS
2 44 (3.19%) Onboarding
3 39 (2.83%) PKI
4 36 (2.61%) Product Ownership
5 28 (2.03%) Data Centre
6 25 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
7 22 (1.59%) Driving Licence
8 19 (1.38%) Clustering
9 18 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
10 17 (1.23%) Cloud Native
10 17 (1.23%) Public Cloud
11 14 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
12 13 (0.94%) Social Media
13 12 (0.87%) Enterprise Software
14 11 (0.80%) CMDB
14 11 (0.80%) Mobile App
15 10 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
16 8 (0.58%) Cyber Threat
16 8 (0.58%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 167 (12.10%) Windows
2 86 (6.23%) Linux
3 52 (3.77%) Windows Server
4 39 (2.83%) Windows 10
5 23 (1.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 20 (1.45%) Unix
7 12 (0.87%) Mac OS
8 10 (0.72%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
8 10 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.65%) CentOS
9 9 (0.65%) VMS
9 9 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (0.58%) Windows 7
11 6 (0.43%) Android
12 5 (0.36%) Ubuntu
13 3 (0.22%) AIX
13 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
14 2 (0.14%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.14%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 361 (26.16%) Agile
2 189 (13.70%) DevOps
3 187 (13.55%) Problem-Solving
4 184 (13.33%) Business Intelligence
5 151 (10.94%) CI/CD
6 148 (10.72%) Programme Management
7 146 (10.58%) Project Management
8 131 (9.49%) Digital Marketing
9 130 (9.42%) Stakeholder Management
10 115 (8.33%) ITIL
11 109 (7.90%) Test Automation
12 92 (6.67%) Migration
13 81 (5.87%) Service Management
14 78 (5.65%) Microservices
15 76 (5.51%) TDD
16 70 (5.07%) Continuous Improvement
17 69 (5.00%) Analytics
18 68 (4.93%) Decision-Making
19 67 (4.86%) User Experience
20 65 (4.71%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 137 (9.93%) SQL
2 110 (7.97%) Python
3 107 (7.75%) Java
4 99 (7.17%) JavaScript
5 89 (6.45%) PowerShell
6 47 (3.41%) Bash
7 44 (3.19%) TypeScript
8 36 (2.61%) C#
9 23 (1.67%) PL/SQL
10 20 (1.45%) Shell Script
11 10 (0.72%) Go
12 9 (0.65%) VBA
13 8 (0.58%) R
14 7 (0.51%) Bicep
14 7 (0.51%) C++
14 7 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
15 6 (0.43%) VB
16 4 (0.29%) PHP
16 4 (0.29%) T-SQL
16 4 (0.29%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 605 (43.84%) Security Cleared
2 361 (26.16%) SC Cleared
3 144 (10.43%) Degree
4 137 (9.93%) DV Cleared
5 36 (2.61%) Master's Degree
6 35 (2.54%) Microsoft Certification
7 33 (2.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.88%) Cisco Certification
9 25 (1.81%) Azure Certification
10 22 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
11 21 (1.52%) AWS Certification
12 19 (1.38%) CCNA
12 19 (1.38%) ITIL Certification
12 19 (1.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 16 (1.16%) CISSP
14 14 (1.01%) CISM
14 14 (1.01%) DBS Check
15 13 (0.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 12 (0.87%) CCNP
17 11 (0.80%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (3.99%) Accessibility
2 38 (2.75%) QA
3 32 (2.32%) Data Quality
4 27 (1.96%) SLA
5 26 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (1.74%) NCSC
7 21 (1.52%) Disclosure Scotland
7 21 (1.52%) PMO
7 21 (1.52%) WCAG
8 19 (1.38%) GDPR
9 11 (0.80%) NIST
10 10 (0.72%) Cyber Essentials
11 8 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.43%) Def Stans
12 6 (0.43%) GRC
13 5 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
13 5 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
14 4 (0.29%) RMADS
15 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
16 2 (0.14%) COBIT
System Software
1 130 (9.42%) Active Directory
2 77 (5.58%) Docker
3 48 (3.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 26 (1.88%) VMware ESXi
5 25 (1.81%) Hyper-V
6 24 (1.74%) VMware NSX
7 15 (1.09%) BitLocker
8 11 (0.80%) vSphere
9 9 (0.65%) Virtual Machines
10 7 (0.51%) Terminal Services
11 6 (0.43%) Microsoft App-V
11 6 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
12 5 (0.36%) NFS
12 5 (0.36%) Postfix
13 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 3 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.14%) Brightmail
14 2 (0.14%) ISA Server
15 1 (0.072%) RACF
Systems Management
1 71 (5.14%) Terraform
2 61 (4.42%) Kubernetes
3 36 (2.61%) Ansible
3 36 (2.61%) Microsoft Intune
4 30 (2.17%) SCCM
5 28 (2.03%) Grafana
6 21 (1.52%) vCenter Server
7 19 (1.38%) Prometheus
8 12 (0.87%) Packer
8 12 (0.87%) Puppet
9 11 (0.80%) WSUS
10 8 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.58%) vMotion
11 6 (0.43%) Nagios
11 6 (0.43%) Oracle RMAN
11 6 (0.43%) vRealize
12 5 (0.36%) FortiGate
12 5 (0.36%) SCOM
13 4 (0.29%) Kibana
13 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 254 (18.41%) Microsoft
2 151 (10.94%) SAP
3 88 (6.38%) Oracle
4 71 (5.14%) VMware
5 60 (4.35%) Cisco
6 53 (3.84%) Google
7 40 (2.90%) ServiceNow
8 30 (2.17%) HP
9 26 (1.88%) Virgin Media
10 25 (1.81%) Atlassian
11 23 (1.67%) Databricks
12 19 (1.38%) Citrix
13 18 (1.30%) Dell
14 16 (1.16%) Juniper
14 16 (1.16%) Palo Alto
15 13 (0.94%) SolarWinds
16 12 (0.87%) Adobe
17 11 (0.80%) CheckPoint
18 10 (0.72%) Splunk
19 9 (0.65%) F5