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 17 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 12 10 9
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 1,377 2,149 3,161
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 10.61% 10.59% 13.74%
As % of the General category 16.99% 19.47% 24.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 942 1,385 2,466
10th Percentile £250 £205 £208
25th Percentile £390 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £584 £600 £600
90th Percentile £663 £696 £680
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 160 70
10th Percentile £14.82 £12.53 £13.31
25th Percentile £18.13 £15.33 £16.77
Median hourly rate £21.20 £20.87 £20.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.58% +4.35% +2.77%
75th Percentile £28.42 £50.75 £26.00
90th Percentile £55.25 £68.91 £42.50
UK median hourly rate £22.39 £21.00 £20.26
% change year-on-year +6.60% +3.65% +0.70%

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 8,105 11,039 13,015
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 62.42% 54.41% 56.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,973 6,308 8,884
10th Percentile £210 £208 £230
25th Percentile £361 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £595 £600
90th Percentile £651 £688 £693
UK median daily rate £520 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 589 1,647 745
10th Percentile £13.25 £12.50 £13.35
25th Percentile £16.02 £15.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £24.50 £28.25 £29.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.27% -2.59% +52.63%
75th Percentile £54.01 £53.75 £61.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £67.38 £69.50
UK median hourly rate £27.45 £30.00 £32.60
% change year-on-year -8.50% -7.96% +44.87%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -2 351 £475 -7.77% 380
Scotland -4 331 £450 - 96
South East 0 266 £538 +19.44% 374
South West -2 217 £550 -4.35% 203
North West -7 191 £500 -4.76% 202
Midlands -6 134 £453 +0.67% 248
West Midlands -5 109 £452 -9.70% 160
Yorkshire -9 82 £469 -10.71% 129
North East +7 80 £465 -13.49% 51
Wales +8 39 £419 -16.25% 55
East of England +2 29 £450 - 88
East Midlands -17 25 £475 +31.94% 81
Northern Ireland -6 19 £520 -20.00% 40
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 62 (4.50%) SharePoint
2 46 (3.34%) Confluence
3 36 (2.61%) Microsoft Exchange
4 11 (0.80%) Skype for Business
5 10 (0.73%) IIS
6 7 (0.51%) Exchange Server 2013
7 6 (0.44%) Apache
8 5 (0.36%) Camunda
9 4 (0.29%) Anypoint
9 4 (0.29%) Mule
10 3 (0.22%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
10 3 (0.22%) CMS
10 3 (0.22%) Documentum
10 3 (0.22%) FileNet
10 3 (0.22%) nginx
10 3 (0.22%) R Markdown
10 3 (0.22%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.15%) Exchange Server 2010
11 2 (0.15%) JBoss
11 2 (0.15%) Oracle Self-Service HR
Applications
1 72 (5.23%) Microsoft Office
2 50 (3.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 21 (1.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 18 (1.31%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.87%) MS Visio
6 6 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.29%) Oracle Smart View
8 3 (0.22%) Adobe Creative Suite
9 2 (0.15%) Adobe XD
9 2 (0.15%) Sketch
10 1 (0.073%) Adobe Illustrator
10 1 (0.073%) Adobe Premiere
10 1 (0.073%) CATIA
10 1 (0.073%) Chatbot
10 1 (0.073%) CINEMA 4D
10 1 (0.073%) Final Cut Pro
10 1 (0.073%) InfoPath
10 1 (0.073%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.073%) Trello
10 1 (0.073%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 9 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
2 7 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.51%) SAP BRIM
2 7 (0.51%) SAP HR
2 7 (0.51%) SAP Hybris
2 7 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.36%) iTrent
4 4 (0.29%) SAP Payroll
5 3 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 3 (0.22%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.22%) Primavera
5 3 (0.22%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.22%) Unit4 Business World
6 2 (0.15%) Dynamics GP
6 2 (0.15%) NetSuite
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle HRMS
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle Payroll
6 2 (0.15%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.15%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.073%) Misys Midas
Cloud Services
1 212 (15.40%) Azure
2 177 (12.85%) AWS
3 100 (7.26%) Microsoft 365
4 66 (4.79%) Power Platform
5 52 (3.78%) Serverless
6 50 (3.63%) Azure DevOps
6 50 (3.63%) GCP
7 40 (2.90%) Amazon S3
8 34 (2.47%) Entra ID
9 32 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
10 29 (2.11%) AWS CloudFormation
11 28 (2.03%) SaaS
12 25 (1.82%) Amazon EC2
13 23 (1.67%) PaaS
14 18 (1.31%) Amazon SQS
14 18 (1.31%) PowerApps
15 17 (1.23%) Dynamics 365
15 17 (1.23%) IaaS
16 15 (1.09%) OCI
17 14 (1.02%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 51 (3.70%) Firewall
2 50 (3.63%) VPN
3 44 (3.20%) DNS
4 31 (2.25%) DHCP
5 28 (2.03%) WAN
6 21 (1.53%) Network Security
7 18 (1.31%) BGP
8 17 (1.23%) IPsec
8 17 (1.23%) LAN
9 13 (0.94%) OSPF
10 12 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
11 11 (0.80%) Skype
12 10 (0.73%) Cisco ISE
12 10 (0.73%) SMTP
13 9 (0.65%) EIGRP
13 9 (0.65%) SAN
14 8 (0.58%) Cisco Firepower
14 8 (0.58%) MPLS
14 8 (0.58%) Wireless
15 7 (0.51%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (4.94%) PostgreSQL
2 39 (2.83%) Power BI
3 32 (2.32%) Data Warehouse
4 31 (2.25%) MySQL
4 31 (2.25%) Relational Database
4 31 (2.25%) SQL Server
5 30 (2.18%) Amazon RDS
6 29 (2.11%) MongoDB
7 22 (1.60%) Oracle Database
8 17 (1.23%) Amazon Aurora
9 15 (1.09%) Oracle Reports
10 14 (1.02%) Big Data
10 14 (1.02%) Metadata
10 14 (1.02%) NoSQL
11 13 (0.94%) Tableau
12 12 (0.87%) Elasticsearch
13 10 (0.73%) DynamoDB
13 10 (0.73%) RDBMS
14 9 (0.65%) GIS
14 9 (0.65%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 76 (5.52%) Git
2 72 (5.23%) JIRA
3 70 (5.08%) Jenkins
4 39 (2.83%) GitLab
5 30 (2.18%) JUnit
6 22 (1.60%) Selenium
7 20 (1.45%) Mockito
8 19 (1.38%) Maven
9 18 (1.31%) Cucumber
10 13 (0.94%) SonarQube
11 12 (0.87%) Cypress.io
12 10 (0.73%) Gradle
12 10 (0.73%) Liquibase
13 8 (0.58%) Postman
14 7 (0.51%) gulp
14 7 (0.51%) Jasmine
15 6 (0.44%) Artifactory
15 6 (0.44%) Bitbucket
15 6 (0.44%) JMeter
15 6 (0.44%) Oracle APEX
General
1 347 (25.20%) Social Skills
2 270 (19.61%) Finance
3 154 (11.18%) Telecoms
4 142 (10.31%) Marketing
5 135 (9.80%) Manufacturing
6 133 (9.66%) Analytical Skills
7 129 (9.37%) Electronics
8 66 (4.79%) Military
9 36 (2.61%) Local Government
10 35 (2.54%) Organisational Skills
11 22 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
12 21 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 18 (1.31%) Back Office
14 17 (1.23%) Law
15 13 (0.94%) Banking
15 13 (0.94%) Legal
15 13 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
16 10 (0.73%) Documentation Skills
17 9 (0.65%) Billing
18 8 (0.58%) Fire and Rescue
Job Titles
1 184 (13.36%) Developer
2 160 (11.62%) Analyst
3 138 (10.02%) Senior
4 126 (9.15%) Architect
5 72 (5.23%) Lead
6 66 (4.79%) Business Analyst
7 58 (4.21%) Project Manager
8 53 (3.85%) Support Engineer
9 47 (3.41%) Consultant
10 39 (2.83%) DevOps Engineer
11 35 (2.54%) Java Developer
11 35 (2.54%) Network Engineer
12 33 (2.40%) Administrator
12 33 (2.40%) IT Support
13 32 (2.32%) Designer
14 31 (2.25%) IT Engineer
15 30 (2.18%) Senior Manager
16 26 (1.89%) Delivery Manager
17 25 (1.82%) Data Engineer
18 23 (1.67%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 63 (4.58%) Node.js
2 53 (3.85%) React
3 52 (3.78%) HTML
4 50 (3.63%) Spring Boot
5 49 (3.56%) REST
6 48 (3.49%) .NET
7 47 (3.41%) Spring
8 46 (3.34%) CSS
9 42 (3.05%) AngularJS
10 33 (2.40%) SOAP
11 30 (2.18%) Kafka
12 29 (2.11%) Web Services
13 28 (2.03%) RESTful
14 22 (1.60%) Oracle Fusion
15 21 (1.53%) XML
16 20 (1.45%) OpenAPI
16 20 (1.45%) Swagger
17 19 (1.38%) AWS CDK
18 18 (1.31%) JSON
19 17 (1.23%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 52 (3.78%) Management Information System
2 45 (3.27%) NHS
3 43 (3.12%) Product Ownership
4 42 (3.05%) Onboarding
5 31 (2.25%) Data Centre
5 31 (2.25%) PKI
6 22 (1.60%) Driving Licence
6 22 (1.60%) Hybrid Cloud
7 21 (1.53%) Self-Motivation
8 20 (1.45%) Clustering
9 17 (1.23%) Cloud Native
9 17 (1.23%) Legacy Systems
10 14 (1.02%) Public Cloud
11 13 (0.94%) CMDB
11 13 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (0.94%) Social Media
12 10 (0.73%) Distributed Systems
12 10 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
13 9 (0.65%) Mobile App
14 7 (0.51%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 165 (11.98%) Windows
2 84 (6.10%) Linux
3 54 (3.92%) Windows Server
4 43 (3.12%) Windows 10
5 20 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 20 (1.45%) Unix
6 13 (0.94%) Mac OS
6 13 (0.94%) Windows Server 2012
7 11 (0.80%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (0.73%) Apple iOS
8 10 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.65%) VMS
10 8 (0.58%) Windows 7
11 7 (0.51%) Android
12 6 (0.44%) CentOS
13 5 (0.36%) Ubuntu
14 3 (0.22%) AIX
14 3 (0.22%) Solaris
14 3 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
15 2 (0.15%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 365 (26.51%) Agile
2 194 (14.09%) DevOps
3 190 (13.80%) Problem-Solving
4 180 (13.07%) Business Intelligence
5 151 (10.97%) CI/CD
6 149 (10.82%) Programme Management
7 145 (10.53%) Project Management
8 131 (9.51%) Digital Marketing
8 131 (9.51%) Stakeholder Management
9 123 (8.93%) ITIL
10 109 (7.92%) Test Automation
11 101 (7.33%) Migration
12 86 (6.25%) Service Management
13 76 (5.52%) Microservices
14 75 (5.45%) TDD
15 71 (5.16%) User Experience
16 69 (5.01%) Continuous Improvement
17 67 (4.87%) Analytics
18 66 (4.79%) Change Management
18 66 (4.79%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 144 (10.46%) SQL
2 113 (8.21%) Java
3 112 (8.13%) Python
4 92 (6.68%) JavaScript
5 79 (5.74%) PowerShell
6 45 (3.27%) Bash
7 44 (3.20%) TypeScript
8 35 (2.54%) C#
9 24 (1.74%) PL/SQL
10 17 (1.23%) Shell Script
11 9 (0.65%) R
12 8 (0.58%) Bicep
12 8 (0.58%) C++
12 8 (0.58%) VBA
13 7 (0.51%) Go
13 7 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
14 5 (0.36%) VB
15 4 (0.29%) Ruby
15 4 (0.29%) T-SQL
15 4 (0.29%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 617 (44.81%) Security Cleared
2 378 (27.45%) SC Cleared
3 145 (10.53%) Degree
4 125 (9.08%) DV Cleared
5 38 (2.76%) Master's Degree
6 34 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 32 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 26 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (1.89%) Cisco Certification
9 25 (1.82%) Azure Certification
10 20 (1.45%) AWS Certification
10 20 (1.45%) ITIL Certification
11 19 (1.38%) CCNA
12 17 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 16 (1.16%) CISSP
14 13 (0.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 13 (0.94%) DBS Check
15 12 (0.87%) CCNP
15 12 (0.87%) CISM
16 9 (0.65%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (3.99%) Accessibility
2 36 (2.61%) QA
3 33 (2.40%) Data Quality
4 25 (1.82%) SLA
5 24 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (1.60%) GDPR
6 22 (1.60%) WCAG
7 21 (1.53%) Disclosure Scotland
8 19 (1.38%) NCSC
9 18 (1.31%) PMO
10 10 (0.73%) NIST
11 8 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 6 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
12 6 (0.44%) Def Stans
12 6 (0.44%) GRC
13 5 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
14 4 (0.29%) RMADS
15 3 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
15 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
16 2 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
System Software
1 121 (8.79%) Active Directory
2 83 (6.03%) Docker
3 46 (3.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (1.74%) VMware ESXi
5 22 (1.60%) Hyper-V
6 19 (1.38%) VMware NSX
7 15 (1.09%) BitLocker
8 10 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
9 7 (0.51%) Terminal Services
10 6 (0.44%) Microsoft App-V
10 6 (0.44%) Virtual Servers
10 6 (0.44%) vSphere
11 5 (0.36%) Postfix
12 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 3 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.15%) Brightmail
13 2 (0.15%) ISA Server
13 2 (0.15%) NFS
14 1 (0.073%) Apache ZooKeeper
14 1 (0.073%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 70 (5.08%) Terraform
2 59 (4.28%) Kubernetes
3 41 (2.98%) Ansible
4 34 (2.47%) Microsoft Intune
5 28 (2.03%) Grafana
6 25 (1.82%) SCCM
7 22 (1.60%) vCenter Server
8 18 (1.31%) Prometheus
9 12 (0.87%) Puppet
10 11 (0.80%) WSUS
11 9 (0.65%) Packer
11 9 (0.65%) vMotion
12 8 (0.58%) Nagios
12 8 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
13 6 (0.44%) Oracle RMAN
14 5 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
14 5 (0.36%) SCOM
15 4 (0.29%) Progress Chef
16 3 (0.22%) Kibana
16 3 (0.22%) NetApp OnCommand
Vendors
1 248 (18.01%) Microsoft
2 151 (10.97%) SAP
3 94 (6.83%) Oracle
4 64 (4.65%) VMware
5 61 (4.43%) Cisco
6 57 (4.14%) Google
7 41 (2.98%) ServiceNow
8 30 (2.18%) HP
9 26 (1.89%) Atlassian
9 26 (1.89%) Virgin Media
10 22 (1.60%) Databricks
11 18 (1.31%) Dell
11 18 (1.31%) SolarWinds
12 17 (1.23%) Citrix
13 16 (1.16%) Juniper
14 14 (1.02%) Palo Alto
14 14 (1.02%) Salesforce
15 13 (0.94%) Adobe
16 11 (0.80%) CheckPoint
17 9 (0.65%) F5