Local Government Contract Job Trends

Local Government (Local Authority, Local Council)
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Local Government in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Local Government over the 6 months leading up to 1 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 281 254 238
Rank change year-on-year -27 -16 +147
Contract jobs citing Local Government 413 296 409
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.84% 1.02% 0.95%
As % of the General category 1.57% 1.61% 1.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 295 198 301
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £411 £398 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% +2.78% -
75th Percentile £600 £550 £558
90th Percentile £692 £638 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £417 £475
% change year-on-year +19.90% -12.21% +15.15%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 43 61
10th Percentile £16.70 £14.93 £15.39
25th Percentile £20.51 £20.45 £16.00
Median hourly rate £25.38 £27.00 £26.24
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +2.90% +17.88%
75th Percentile £27.74 £30.70 £34.88
90th Percentile £33.93 £53.00 £42.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £19.97 £21.57
% change year-on-year +27.09% -7.43% +7.17%

All General Skills
UK

Local Government 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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 26,337 18,442 24,728
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 53.81% 63.30% 57.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 15,946 11,681 15,547
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £756 £764
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,748 823 1,981
10th Percentile £13.72 £13.50 £12.78
25th Percentile £17.69 £16.95 £15.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 £27.94 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.37% -6.87% -7.12%
75th Percentile £60.00 £55.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £67.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.07 £24.34 £28.34
% change year-on-year +19.43% -14.10% +3.04%

Local Government
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Local Government relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Local Government job vacancy trend in the UK

Local Government
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Local Government.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Local Government

Local Government
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Local Government over the 6 months to 1 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Local Government in the UK

Local Government
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Local Government.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Local Government

Local Government
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Local Government over the 6 months to 1 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Local Government in the UK

Local Government
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Local Government within the UK over the 6 months to 1 June 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
England -28 399 £500 +8.11% 266
UK excluding London -16 212 £500 +19.90% 208
London -39 187 £505 +6.32% 86
Work from Home -12 137 £500 +11.11% 120
Midlands +23 95 £500 -3.85% 50
West Midlands +2 63 £450 -14.29% 28
East of England -11 30 £425 +41.67% 26
East Midlands -9 28 £500 -3.85% 22
North of England -76 28 £513 +28.13% 50
South West -41 26 £500 +25.00% 31
South East -57 26 £550 +22.22% 42
North West -34 17 £325 -18.75% 25
Yorkshire -70 10 £550 +41.94% 18
Scotland -4 4 £198 -50.63% 13
Wales -9 3 £425 - 4
North East -28 1 £500 -23.08% 8

Local Government
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 20 (4.84%) SharePoint
2 5 (1.21%) CMS
3 4 (0.97%) OpenEdge
3 4 (0.97%) Oracle Workflow
4 3 (0.73%) Confluence
4 3 (0.73%) Drupal
5 2 (0.48%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.48%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.48%) govService
5 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (0.48%) WordPress
6 1 (0.24%) ArcGIS
6 1 (0.24%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 24 (5.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.18%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.21%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.73%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.48%) Trello
Business Applications
1 24 (5.81%) SAP S/4HANA
2 20 (4.84%) NEC Housing
3 12 (2.91%) Oracle Receivables
4 10 (2.42%) Oracle General Ledger
4 10 (2.42%) Oracle Payables
4 10 (2.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 7 (1.69%) ContrOCC
6 5 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (1.21%) SAP ERP
7 4 (0.97%) iTrent
7 4 (0.97%) Oracle Financials
8 3 (0.73%) Oracle Applications
9 2 (0.48%) Oracle EBS
10 1 (0.24%) MIS ActiveH
10 1 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
10 1 (0.24%) SAP CO
10 1 (0.24%) SAP FI
10 1 (0.24%) SAP FI/CO
10 1 (0.24%) SAP HR
10 1 (0.24%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 40 (9.69%) Azure
2 29 (7.02%) Power Platform
3 27 (6.54%) Microsoft 365
4 19 (4.60%) SaaS
5 15 (3.63%) AWS
6 14 (3.39%) Dynamics 365
7 9 (2.18%) Entra ID
8 7 (1.69%) Microsoft Copilot
9 6 (1.45%) Azure DevOps
9 6 (1.45%) Power Automate
9 6 (1.45%) PowerApps
10 4 (0.97%) Azure Sentinel
10 4 (0.97%) OCI
10 4 (0.97%) SuccessFactors
11 3 (0.73%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (0.73%) Azure Logic Apps
11 3 (0.73%) Miro
11 3 (0.73%) OneDrive
12 2 (0.48%) Amazon ECS
12 2 (0.48%) Azure Service Bus
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.94%) Firewall
2 6 (1.45%) Network Security
3 5 (1.21%) DHCP
3 5 (1.21%) DNS
4 4 (0.97%) Broadband
4 4 (0.97%) LAN
4 4 (0.97%) VPN
4 4 (0.97%) WAN
5 2 (0.48%) Intranet
5 2 (0.48%) PSTN
5 2 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.24%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.24%) Unified Communications
6 1 (0.24%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (5.81%) Power BI
2 19 (4.60%) Oracle Reports
3 9 (2.18%) SQL Server
4 6 (1.45%) GIS
5 3 (0.73%) BusinessObjects
5 3 (0.73%) OLTP
6 2 (0.48%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (0.48%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.48%) Apache Hudi
6 2 (0.48%) Big Data
6 2 (0.48%) Crystal Reports
6 2 (0.48%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.48%) MS Access
6 2 (0.48%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.48%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.48%) Power Query
6 2 (0.48%) Presto
6 2 (0.48%) Spatial Data
6 2 (0.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (0.48%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 7 (1.69%) JIRA
2 3 (0.73%) GitLab
3 2 (0.48%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.24%) JUnit
4 1 (0.24%) Oracle APEX
General
1 176 (42.62%) Public Sector
2 132 (31.96%) Finance
3 110 (26.63%) Social Skills
4 36 (8.72%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (5.57%) Legal
6 20 (4.84%) Organisational Skills
7 16 (3.87%) Influencing Skills
8 12 (2.91%) Social Housing
9 8 (1.94%) Fire and Rescue
9 8 (1.94%) Police
9 8 (1.94%) Retail
10 5 (1.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.97%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (0.97%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.73%) Back Office
12 3 (0.73%) Marketing
13 2 (0.48%) Banking
13 2 (0.48%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.24%) Law
14 1 (0.24%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 53 (12.83%) Analyst
2 52 (12.59%) Senior
3 50 (12.11%) Lead
4 31 (7.51%) Accountant
5 30 (7.26%) Systems Accountant
6 28 (6.78%) Developer
7 25 (6.05%) Business Analyst
8 24 (5.81%) Project Manager
9 22 (5.33%) Architect
10 16 (3.87%) Consultant
11 14 (3.39%) Support Officer
12 12 (2.91%) Finance Manager
13 11 (2.66%) Senior Accountant
13 11 (2.66%) Senior Analyst
13 11 (2.66%) Senior Systems Accountant
13 11 (2.66%) Tester
14 10 (2.42%) Oracle Developer
14 10 (2.42%) Service Manager
14 10 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
14 10 (2.42%) Team Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (7.75%) Oracle Fusion
2 5 (1.21%) Middleware
3 4 (0.97%) CSS
3 4 (0.97%) HTML
3 4 (0.97%) SAP Fiori
4 3 (0.73%) REST
4 3 (0.73%) RESTful
5 2 (0.48%) JSON
5 2 (0.48%) Play Framework
5 2 (0.48%) SOAP
6 1 (0.24%) .NET
6 1 (0.24%) FHIR
6 1 (0.24%) Node.js
6 1 (0.24%) Spring
6 1 (0.24%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.24%) Web Services
6 1 (0.24%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 35 (8.47%) Management Information System
2 18 (4.36%) Public Cloud
3 16 (3.87%) Legacy Systems
4 13 (3.15%) Data Structures
5 12 (2.91%) NHS
6 10 (2.42%) Freedom of Information
7 9 (2.18%) Product Ownership
8 8 (1.94%) Housing Association
9 7 (1.69%) Driving Licence
9 7 (1.69%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.21%) Enterprise Cloud
10 5 (1.21%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (0.73%) Cyber Security Posture
12 3 (0.73%) Legacy Code
12 3 (0.73%) Virtual Team
13 2 (0.48%) Cloud Native
13 2 (0.48%) Cyber Threat
13 2 (0.48%) PKI
13 2 (0.48%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 21 (5.08%) Windows
2 7 (1.69%) Linux
2 7 (1.69%) Windows Server
3 5 (1.21%) Windows 10
4 2 (0.48%) Unix
5 1 (0.24%) Android
5 1 (0.24%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (20.10%) Stakeholder Management
2 67 (16.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 64 (15.50%) Continuous Improvement
4 52 (12.59%) ERP
5 51 (12.35%) Migration
6 50 (12.11%) Service Delivery
7 49 (11.86%) Decision-Making
8 39 (9.44%) Agile
9 38 (9.20%) Problem-Solving
10 33 (7.99%) Change Management
10 33 (7.99%) Roadmaps
11 31 (7.51%) Data Migration
11 31 (7.51%) Digital Transformation Programme
11 31 (7.51%) Project Delivery
12 30 (7.26%) Cybersecurity
12 30 (7.26%) User Acceptance Testing
13 28 (6.78%) Data Protection
13 28 (6.78%) Validation
14 27 (6.54%) Analytics
15 26 (6.30%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 28 (6.78%) SQL
2 4 (0.97%) Java
2 4 (0.97%) JavaScript
2 4 (0.97%) PL/SQL
3 3 (0.73%) ABAP
3 3 (0.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
3 3 (0.73%) PowerShell
3 3 (0.73%) ProC
3 3 (0.73%) Python
3 3 (0.73%) Shell Script
4 2 (0.48%) C#
4 2 (0.48%) Scala
4 2 (0.48%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.24%) Apex Code
5 1 (0.24%) Bash
5 1 (0.24%) C
5 1 (0.24%) Korn
5 1 (0.24%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 14 (3.39%) Degree
2 13 (3.15%) DBS Check
3 10 (2.42%) Security Cleared
4 9 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (1.69%) SC Cleared
6 6 (1.45%) NVQ Level 3
7 4 (0.97%) CIPFA
7 4 (0.97%) CISSP
8 3 (0.73%) CISM
8 3 (0.73%) SAP Certification
9 2 (0.48%) CCAB
9 2 (0.48%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.48%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.48%) IIBA
9 2 (0.48%) ISEB
9 2 (0.48%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.48%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (0.48%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.48%) PMP
9 2 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (6.30%) Data Quality
2 25 (6.05%) GDPR
3 12 (2.91%) Accessibility
4 9 (2.18%) QA
5 7 (1.69%) NCSC
5 7 (1.69%) PMO
5 7 (1.69%) SLA
6 6 (1.45%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (1.45%) PCI DSS
6 6 (1.45%) WCAG
7 4 (0.97%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.73%) PERC
9 2 (0.48%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.48%) GRC
10 1 (0.24%) BS7666
10 1 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.24%) IFRS
10 1 (0.24%) NIST
System Software
1 9 (2.18%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.21%) Hyper-V
2 5 (1.21%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (0.73%) Docker
4 1 (0.24%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (0.73%) Microsoft Intune
1 3 (0.73%) Prometheus
1 3 (0.73%) Terraform
2 2 (0.48%) Grafana
2 2 (0.48%) Kibana
2 2 (0.48%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.48%) SCCM
3 1 (0.24%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 71 (17.19%) Microsoft
2 49 (11.86%) Oracle
3 41 (9.93%) SAP
4 21 (5.08%) NEC
5 8 (1.94%) Civica
6 7 (1.69%) Liquidlogic
6 7 (1.69%) VMware
7 5 (1.21%) Ariba
8 4 (0.97%) Orchard
9 3 (0.73%) Dynatrace
9 3 (0.73%) Salesforce
9 3 (0.73%) ServiceNow
9 3 (0.73%) Splunk
10 2 (0.48%) Blue Prism
10 2 (0.48%) Google
10 2 (0.48%) OneLogin
10 2 (0.48%) Palo Alto
10 2 (0.48%) Ribbon
10 2 (0.48%) Sitecore
10 2 (0.48%) UiPath