Public Sector Contract Job Trends 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 16 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 14 12
Rank change year-on-year -2 -2 -3
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 2,422 1,482 1,846
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 8.78% 9.62% 10.14%
As % of the General category 17.01% 15.72% 18.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,618 988 1,224
10th Percentile £325 £268 £200
25th Percentile £413 £404 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £496
Median % change year-on-year - +0.76% -0.75%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £620
90th Percentile £670 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £501
% change year-on-year +4.00% -0.10% -4.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 171 85 131
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.46 £13.21
25th Percentile £16.56 £15.28 £15.68
Median hourly rate £21.35 £18.44 £23.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.81% -19.85% +27.78%
75th Percentile £35.00 £25.15 £48.75
90th Percentile £77.25 £41.26 £70.39
UK median hourly rate £22.20 £20.01 £23.41
% change year-on-year +10.94% -14.52% +20.05%

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 general skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 14,236 9,429 9,803
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 51.62% 61.22% 53.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,896 5,679 5,644
10th Percentile £263 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £359 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £594 £575 £600
90th Percentile £680 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,952 854 1,165
10th Percentile £13.65 £13.00 £13.86
25th Percentile £16.71 £15.25 £16.06
Median hourly rate £32.50 £22.14 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +46.79% -41.92% +52.48%
75th Percentile £60.00 £47.12 £59.95
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £70.25
UK median hourly rate £31.56 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +25.47% -34.02% +38.62%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Public Sector job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Public Sector.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Public Sector

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 16 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in the UK excluding London

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Public Sector.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Public Sector

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 16 August 2026.

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 16 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
North of England -1 700 £475 -2.56% 245
Midlands +8 492 £493 +3.68% 113
South East +2 488 £500 -4.76% 168
West Midlands +5 411 £490 +3.16% 90
South West -6 342 £525 -4.55% 160
Scotland -3 273 £475 +2.70% 79
North West -9 265 £500 +5.26% 101
Yorkshire +6 259 £475 -1.30% 97
North East -2 188 £450 -11.76% 50
Wales +1 77 £475 +1.33% 35
East Midlands +17 73 £600 +46.34% 23
East of England -3 58 £463 -7.50% 31
Northern Ireland -7 17 £650 +25.00% 14
Public Sector
UK

Public Sector
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 91 (3.76%) Confluence
2 65 (2.68%) SharePoint
3 44 (1.82%) SAS
4 37 (1.53%) Apache Airflow
5 30 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
6 25 (1.03%) Apache Spark
7 23 (0.95%) Apache
8 18 (0.74%) Jupyter
9 17 (0.70%) CMS
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle Workflow
11 5 (0.21%) SharePoint 2013
11 5 (0.21%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.21%) WordPress
12 3 (0.12%) IIS
12 3 (0.12%) JBoss
13 2 (0.083%) Anypoint
13 2 (0.083%) Oracle Coherence
13 2 (0.083%) WebLogic
14 1 (0.041%) Drupal
14 1 (0.041%) OpenStack
Applications
1 46 (1.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
4 13 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
5 9 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 6 (0.25%) MS Visio
7 5 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.17%) Trello
9 2 (0.083%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.083%) CPLEX
9 2 (0.083%) Sketch
10 1 (0.041%) Adobe Creative Suite
10 1 (0.041%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.041%) InDesign
10 1 (0.041%) LaTeX
10 1 (0.041%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.041%) ProjectWise
10 1 (0.041%) Revit
10 1 (0.041%) SPSS
10 1 (0.041%) UserZoom
Business Applications
1 37 (1.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 29 (1.20%) Oracle ERP
3 28 (1.16%) Dynamics CRM
4 23 (0.95%) SAP PSCD
5 14 (0.58%) Workday HCM
6 10 (0.41%) ContrOCC
6 10 (0.41%) Oracle Payables
7 9 (0.37%) NEC Housing
7 9 (0.37%) Oracle Receivables
7 9 (0.37%) SAP Payroll
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
8 8 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
8 8 (0.33%) SAP BRIM
8 8 (0.33%) SAP Hybris
9 7 (0.29%) SystmOne
10 6 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 5 (0.21%) Primavera
11 5 (0.21%) SAP FI
12 4 (0.17%) SAP GRC
12 4 (0.17%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 443 (18.29%) Azure
2 429 (17.71%) AWS
3 139 (5.74%) Power Platform
4 126 (5.20%) Azure DevOps
5 123 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
6 80 (3.30%) Serverless
7 77 (3.18%) GitHub
8 75 (3.10%) OCI
9 70 (2.89%) Entra ID
9 70 (2.89%) GCP
10 65 (2.68%) Amazon S3
11 64 (2.64%) SaaS
12 56 (2.31%) Dynamics 365
12 56 (2.31%) GitHub Actions
12 56 (2.31%) Power Automate
13 46 (1.90%) AWS Lambda
14 43 (1.78%) PowerApps
15 41 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 36 (1.49%) Amazon EC2
17 33 (1.36%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 69 (2.85%) Firewall
2 52 (2.15%) WAN
3 45 (1.86%) DNS
4 44 (1.82%) LAN
5 28 (1.16%) Wi-Fi
6 27 (1.11%) VPN
7 26 (1.07%) BGP
7 26 (1.07%) OSPF
8 25 (1.03%) DHCP
9 22 (0.91%) SD-WAN
10 19 (0.78%) TCP/IP
11 18 (0.74%) Network Security
12 17 (0.70%) WLAN
13 15 (0.62%) VXLAN
14 14 (0.58%) BIG-IP
14 14 (0.58%) VLAN
14 14 (0.58%) VSAN
14 14 (0.58%) Wireless
15 13 (0.54%) Ethernet VPN
15 13 (0.54%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (3.84%) Power BI
2 69 (2.85%) Data Warehouse
3 64 (2.64%) SQL Server
4 60 (2.48%) PostgreSQL
5 59 (2.44%) Relational Database
6 43 (1.78%) Oracle Database
7 42 (1.73%) MongoDB
8 34 (1.40%) Metadata
9 30 (1.24%) Pentaho
10 28 (1.16%) Amazon RDS
11 26 (1.07%) DynamoDB
12 23 (0.95%) Amazon Aurora
13 22 (0.91%) NoSQL
14 19 (0.78%) Data Lake
14 19 (0.78%) MySQL
14 19 (0.78%) Oracle Reports
15 18 (0.74%) RDBMS
16 17 (0.70%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 17 (0.70%) SAS Visual Analytics
17 13 (0.54%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 146 (6.03%) JIRA
2 92 (3.80%) Git
3 91 (3.76%) GitLab
4 81 (3.34%) Jenkins
5 38 (1.57%) Selenium
6 32 (1.32%) Cucumber
7 26 (1.07%) JUnit
8 25 (1.03%) Cypress.io
9 24 (0.99%) Mockito
9 24 (0.99%) Postman
10 23 (0.95%) Maven
11 21 (0.87%) SonarQube
12 17 (0.70%) JMeter
13 16 (0.66%) REST Assured
13 16 (0.66%) WebDriver
14 11 (0.45%) DbUnit
14 11 (0.45%) Gatling
14 11 (0.45%) Gradle
15 10 (0.41%) jMock
15 10 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 665 (27.46%) Social Skills
2 283 (11.68%) Finance
3 254 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (5.28%) Military
5 119 (4.91%) Local Government
6 118 (4.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 74 (3.06%) Organisational Skills
8 68 (2.81%) Influencing Skills
9 60 (2.48%) Legal
10 56 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
11 42 (1.73%) Police
12 28 (1.16%) Telecoms
13 24 (0.99%) Law
14 23 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
15 22 (0.91%) Marketing
16 21 (0.87%) Retail
17 17 (0.70%) Banking
18 16 (0.66%) Billing
19 15 (0.62%) General Ledger
20 12 (0.50%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 336 (13.87%) Developer
2 335 (13.83%) Senior
3 247 (10.20%) Analyst
4 242 (9.99%) Lead
5 238 (9.83%) Architect
6 113 (4.67%) Consultant
7 94 (3.88%) Data Engineer
8 85 (3.51%) Business Analyst
9 82 (3.39%) Designer
10 79 (3.26%) DevOps Engineer
11 73 (3.01%) Senior Developer
12 70 (2.89%) Java Developer
12 70 (2.89%) Project Manager
13 65 (2.68%) Administrator
14 56 (2.31%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 56 (2.31%) Senior Manager
14 56 (2.31%) Solutions Architect
15 52 (2.15%) Data Architect
16 51 (2.11%) Technical Architect
17 45 (1.86%) Delivery Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (3.63%) REST
2 77 (3.18%) Spring
3 75 (3.10%) RESTful
4 74 (3.06%) Spring Boot
5 63 (2.60%) Node.js
6 57 (2.35%) React
7 52 (2.15%) Web Services
8 48 (1.98%) Oracle Fusion
9 45 (1.86%) SOAP
10 44 (1.82%) HTML
11 43 (1.78%) OAuth
12 42 (1.73%) .NET
13 41 (1.69%) CSS
14 39 (1.61%) Kafka
15 35 (1.45%) OpenID
16 33 (1.36%) OAuth2
17 32 (1.32%) JSON
17 32 (1.32%) Playwright
18 30 (1.24%) AngularJS
19 24 (0.99%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 121 (5.00%) Cloud Native
1 121 (5.00%) Product Ownership
2 85 (3.51%) Onboarding
3 78 (3.22%) Management Information System
3 78 (3.22%) NHS
4 70 (2.89%) Legacy Systems
5 44 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
6 39 (1.61%) Data Centre
7 30 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
8 29 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
8 29 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
9 28 (1.16%) Public Cloud
10 27 (1.11%) Data Structures
11 26 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
12 22 (0.91%) Freedom of Information
13 19 (0.78%) Operational Technology
14 18 (0.74%) PKI
15 17 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
16 16 (0.66%) Analytical Mindset
16 16 (0.66%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 123 (5.08%) Windows
2 117 (4.83%) Linux
3 41 (1.69%) Windows Server
4 40 (1.65%) Unix
5 17 (0.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.58%) Windows 10
7 12 (0.50%) Android
7 12 (0.50%) Apple iOS
8 8 (0.33%) Mac OS
9 6 (0.25%) AIX
10 4 (0.17%) Mac OS X
11 3 (0.12%) SUSE
12 2 (0.083%) CentOS
12 2 (0.083%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.041%) Rocky
13 1 (0.041%) Solaris
13 1 (0.041%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
13 1 (0.041%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.041%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 755 (31.17%) Agile
2 445 (18.37%) Stakeholder Management
3 388 (16.02%) Continuous Improvement
4 383 (15.81%) DevOps
5 381 (15.73%) CI/CD
6 360 (14.86%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 313 (12.92%) Problem-Solving
8 259 (10.69%) Analytics
9 235 (9.70%) Decision-Making
10 230 (9.50%) Migration
11 183 (7.56%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 180 (7.43%) Scrum
13 178 (7.35%) Infrastructure as Code
14 175 (7.23%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 173 (7.14%) Roadmaps
16 161 (6.65%) Test Automation
17 160 (6.61%) Cybersecurity
18 158 (6.52%) Containerisation
19 154 (6.36%) Mentoring
19 154 (6.36%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 256 (10.57%) Python
2 247 (10.20%) SQL
3 184 (7.60%) Java
4 135 (5.57%) JavaScript
5 75 (3.10%) PowerShell
6 60 (2.48%) TypeScript
7 55 (2.27%) C#
8 42 (1.73%) Bash
9 35 (1.45%) PL/SQL
10 27 (1.11%) Bicep
11 25 (1.03%) Scala
12 14 (0.58%) Kotlin
13 13 (0.54%) ABAP
13 13 (0.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 11 (0.45%) Apex Code
14 11 (0.45%) R
14 11 (0.45%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.37%) T-SQL
16 7 (0.29%) PHP
16 7 (0.29%) VB
Qualifications
1 1,038 (42.86%) Security Cleared
2 755 (31.17%) SC Cleared
3 163 (6.73%) BPSS Clearance
4 143 (5.90%) Degree
4 143 (5.90%) DV Cleared
5 43 (1.78%) Microsoft Certification
6 26 (1.07%) Azure Certification
6 26 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
6 26 (1.07%) ISTQB
7 24 (0.99%) PMI Certification
8 18 (0.74%) AWS Certification
8 18 (0.74%) CCNP
8 18 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
9 17 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
10 16 (0.66%) PMP
11 15 (0.62%) CISSP
12 14 (0.58%) DBS Check
12 14 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 12 (0.50%) CISM
14 11 (0.45%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 187 (7.72%) Accessibility
2 145 (5.99%) QA
3 130 (5.37%) Data Quality
4 83 (3.43%) WCAG
5 80 (3.30%) GDPR
6 68 (2.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 49 (2.02%) NIST
8 46 (1.90%) PMO
9 42 (1.73%) NCSC
10 24 (0.99%) GRC
11 23 (0.95%) SLA
12 19 (0.78%) Disclosure Scotland
13 11 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
14 9 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
15 7 (0.29%) HL7
16 5 (0.21%) NIST 800
17 4 (0.17%) ISO 9001
17 4 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 3 (0.12%) DICOM
18 3 (0.12%) RMADS
System Software
1 173 (7.14%) Docker
2 120 (4.95%) Active Directory
3 36 (1.49%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (0.91%) Hyper-V
5 14 (0.58%) VMware NSX
5 14 (0.58%) vSphere
6 10 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 8 (0.33%) Postfix
7 8 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.17%) Ceph
9 3 (0.12%) Squid
9 3 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.083%) NFS
11 1 (0.041%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.041%) etcd
11 1 (0.041%) GPFS
11 1 (0.041%) IAG
11 1 (0.041%) Samba
11 1 (0.041%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 187 (7.72%) Terraform
2 151 (6.23%) Kubernetes
3 62 (2.56%) Grafana
4 55 (2.27%) Ansible
5 36 (1.49%) Single Sign-On
6 31 (1.28%) Prometheus
7 24 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
8 21 (0.87%) Argo
9 11 (0.45%) SCCM
10 10 (0.41%) Data Guard
10 10 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
11 9 (0.37%) VxRail
12 8 (0.33%) Kibana
13 7 (0.29%) Istio
13 7 (0.29%) vCenter Server
14 4 (0.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 4 (0.17%) FortiGate
14 4 (0.17%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.17%) QRadar
14 4 (0.17%) Rancher
Vendors
1 318 (13.13%) Microsoft
2 231 (9.54%) Oracle
3 89 (3.67%) SAP
4 66 (2.73%) ServiceNow
5 58 (2.39%) Google
6 40 (1.65%) Cisco
7 39 (1.61%) VMware
8 33 (1.36%) Databricks
8 33 (1.36%) Dynatrace
8 33 (1.36%) Salesforce
9 29 (1.20%) Talend
10 27 (1.11%) Palo Alto
11 22 (0.91%) Red Hat
12 21 (0.87%) F5
13 20 (0.83%) Atlassian
13 20 (0.83%) Blue Prism
14 19 (0.78%) Workday
15 18 (0.74%) CyberArk
16 17 (0.70%) Splunk
17 16 (0.66%) BeyondTrust