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 22 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 245 208
Rank change year-on-year -5 -37 +127
Contract jobs citing Local Government 564 341 451
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.03% 1.05% 1.19%
As % of the General category 1.85% 1.65% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 407 224 245
10th Percentile £313 £250 £300
25th Percentile £405 £381 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% +5.56% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £538
90th Percentile £738 £668 £627
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +16.67% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 64 32
10th Percentile £14.77 £20.71 £21.03
25th Percentile £16.70 £28.36 £23.58
Median hourly rate £20.62 £33.45 £27.26
Median % change year-on-year -38.36% +22.69% +23.63%
75th Percentile £27.74 £57.50 £34.20
90th Percentile £32.03 £58.75 £53.01
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.39 £27.06 £25.93
% change year-on-year -24.64% +4.34% +22.98%

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 30,427 20,617 22,081
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.76% 63.48% 58.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,821 12,765 13,200
10th Percentile £313 £275 £283
25th Percentile £420 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £495
% change year-on-year +5.26% -4.04% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,558 1,199 1,073
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.73
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.78 £25.15 £35.36
Median % change year-on-year +18.41% -28.87% +28.58%
75th Percentile £54.36 £47.31 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £21.00 £35.03
% change year-on-year +42.86% -40.05% +28.79%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 -2 511 £525 +10.53% 708
UK excluding London +17 282 £525 +16.67% 425
London -28 223 £525 +10.53% 332
Work from Home -22 178 £500 +5.26% 393
Midlands +21 80 £500 +25.00% 73
South East -25 69 £637 +59.25% 98
West Midlands +9 61 £525 +31.25% 48
North of England -46 56 £390 -13.33% 127
South West -37 37 £625 +56.25% 48
East of England -7 31 £370 +36.67% 36
Yorkshire -26 29 £513 +32.26% 37
North West -46 26 £358 -20.56% 72
East Midlands -2 18 £500 +73.91% 25
Scotland -23 9 £650 +30.00% 26
Wales -8 3 £425 - 15
North East -35 1 - - 19

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 25 (4.43%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.42%) Oracle Workflow
3 6 (1.06%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.06%) CMS
4 4 (0.71%) Confluence
4 4 (0.71%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.53%) Drupal
5 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.53%) WordPress
6 2 (0.35%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.18%) Apache
7 1 (0.18%) govService
7 1 (0.18%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 27 (4.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (2.30%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.77%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (1.60%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.35%) Trello
7 1 (0.18%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 18 (3.19%) Oracle Receivables
2 17 (3.01%) NEC Housing
3 15 (2.66%) ContrOCC
3 15 (2.66%) Oracle Payables
3 15 (2.66%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 14 (2.48%) Oracle General Ledger
5 7 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
5 7 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
6 5 (0.89%) iTrent
7 4 (0.71%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.35%) MIS ActiveH
8 2 (0.35%) SAP CO
8 2 (0.35%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.35%) SAP FI/CO
8 2 (0.35%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.18%) OPENHousing
9 1 (0.18%) Orchard Housing
9 1 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.18%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 58 (10.28%) Azure
2 47 (8.33%) Power Platform
3 27 (4.79%) AWS
4 20 (3.55%) Microsoft 365
5 18 (3.19%) SaaS
6 16 (2.84%) Entra ID
7 15 (2.66%) GCP
8 12 (2.13%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (2.13%) Dynamics 365
9 11 (1.95%) GitHub
10 10 (1.77%) Miro
11 8 (1.42%) PowerApps
12 7 (1.24%) GitHub Actions
12 7 (1.24%) Microsoft Purview
12 7 (1.24%) OCI
12 7 (1.24%) Power Automate
13 6 (1.06%) Azure Key Vault
13 6 (1.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 6 (1.06%) Google Workspace
13 6 (1.06%) Lucidchart
Communications & Networking
1 18 (3.19%) Firewall
2 11 (1.95%) DNS
3 8 (1.42%) Network Security
4 6 (1.06%) VPN
5 5 (0.89%) DHCP
5 5 (0.89%) LAN
5 5 (0.89%) WAN
6 4 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.53%) Broadband
7 3 (0.53%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.35%) Intranet
8 2 (0.35%) PSTN
8 2 (0.35%) Remote Desktop
8 2 (0.35%) VSAN
9 1 (0.18%) SSL
9 1 (0.18%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (7.80%) Power BI
2 12 (2.13%) Oracle Reports
3 9 (1.60%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.42%) Metadata
5 6 (1.06%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.06%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.06%) Power Query
5 6 (1.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 5 (0.89%) BusinessObjects
6 5 (0.89%) GIS
7 4 (0.71%) Amazon RDS
8 3 (0.53%) Apache Hudi
8 3 (0.53%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.53%) PostgreSQL
9 2 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.35%) Big Data
9 2 (0.35%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.35%) Redis
9 2 (0.35%) Spatial Data
9 2 (0.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 10 (1.77%) Jenkins
2 9 (1.60%) JIRA
3 4 (0.71%) GitLab
4 3 (0.53%) Git
5 2 (0.35%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.35%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.35%) Mocha
6 1 (0.18%) Capybara
6 1 (0.18%) Oracle APEX
6 1 (0.18%) RSpec
General
1 253 (44.86%) Public Sector
2 174 (30.85%) Social Skills
3 148 (26.24%) Finance
4 95 (16.84%) Analytical Skills
5 45 (7.98%) Organisational Skills
6 25 (4.43%) Influencing Skills
7 24 (4.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 22 (3.90%) Legal
9 20 (3.55%) Social Housing
10 11 (1.95%) Police
11 9 (1.60%) Manufacturing
11 9 (1.60%) Retail
12 8 (1.42%) Documentation Skills
12 8 (1.42%) Fire and Rescue
13 6 (1.06%) Back Office
13 6 (1.06%) Publishing
14 5 (0.89%) Banking
15 4 (0.71%) General Ledger
15 4 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
16 3 (0.53%) Law
Job Titles
1 75 (13.30%) Analyst
2 74 (13.12%) Senior
3 71 (12.59%) Lead
4 38 (6.74%) Business Analyst
5 36 (6.38%) Architect
6 32 (5.67%) Developer
7 30 (5.32%) Consultant
8 27 (4.79%) Project Manager
9 25 (4.43%) Support Officer
10 24 (4.26%) Senior Analyst
11 17 (3.01%) Finance Manager
12 16 (2.84%) Transformation Manager
13 15 (2.66%) Data Analyst
14 14 (2.48%) Designer
14 14 (2.48%) Team Leader
15 13 (2.30%) Administrator
15 13 (2.30%) Applications Support
16 12 (2.13%) Finance Systems Manager
16 12 (2.13%) Information Officer
17 11 (1.95%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (6.21%) Oracle Fusion
2 16 (2.84%) Terraform
3 12 (2.13%) RESTful
4 6 (1.06%) SAP Fiori
5 5 (0.89%) .NET
5 5 (0.89%) HTML
5 5 (0.89%) REST
6 4 (0.71%) Play Framework
7 3 (0.53%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.53%) ASP.NET
7 3 (0.53%) ASP.NET Core
7 3 (0.53%) CSS
8 2 (0.35%) Chai
8 2 (0.35%) FHIR
8 2 (0.35%) Jest
8 2 (0.35%) JWT
8 2 (0.35%) Nunjucks
8 2 (0.35%) PySpark
8 2 (0.35%) SOAP
8 2 (0.35%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 38 (6.74%) Management Information System
2 22 (3.90%) Analytical Mindset
3 20 (3.55%) Freedom of Information
4 19 (3.37%) NHS
5 15 (2.66%) Product Ownership
6 13 (2.30%) Onboarding
7 12 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
8 11 (1.95%) Housing Association
9 10 (1.77%) Cloud Native
9 10 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (0.89%) Hybrid Cloud
10 5 (0.89%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.71%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (0.71%) Security Posture
12 3 (0.53%) Cyberattack
12 3 (0.53%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.53%) e-Learning
12 3 (0.53%) Manufacturing Execution System
12 3 (0.53%) Mobile App
13 2 (0.35%) Freedom of Information Act
Operating Systems
1 14 (2.48%) Windows
2 6 (1.06%) Windows 10
3 5 (0.89%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.53%) Linux
5 2 (0.35%) Unix
6 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.18%) VMS
6 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (21.45%) Stakeholder Management
2 116 (20.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 106 (18.79%) Agile
4 82 (14.54%) Continuous Improvement
4 82 (14.54%) Decision-Making
5 64 (11.35%) Service Delivery
6 56 (9.93%) Migration
6 56 (9.93%) Problem-Solving
7 48 (8.51%) Business Intelligence
8 46 (8.16%) Business Analysis
9 44 (7.80%) Roadmaps
10 43 (7.62%) Data Protection
10 43 (7.62%) Project Delivery
11 42 (7.45%) Validation
12 40 (7.09%) Collaborative Working
13 38 (6.74%) AI
13 38 (6.74%) DevOps
13 38 (6.74%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
14 37 (6.56%) Case Management
14 37 (6.56%) ERP
Programming Languages
1 46 (8.16%) SQL
2 12 (2.13%) Python
3 11 (1.95%) JavaScript
4 9 (1.60%) PowerShell
5 7 (1.24%) Java
6 6 (1.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 4 (0.71%) C#
7 4 (0.71%) Scala
7 4 (0.71%) TypeScript
8 3 (0.53%) ABAP
8 3 (0.53%) Bicep
8 3 (0.53%) Go
9 2 (0.35%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.18%) Bash
10 1 (0.18%) Groovy
10 1 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.18%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.18%) Ruby
10 1 (0.18%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.18%) Swift
Qualifications
1 52 (9.22%) Security Cleared
2 45 (7.98%) SC Cleared
3 26 (4.61%) Degree
4 12 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (1.60%) DBS Check
5 9 (1.60%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
6 6 (1.06%) CISSP
7 5 (0.89%) Azure Certification
7 5 (0.89%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (0.71%) CCNP
8 4 (0.71%) CISM
9 3 (0.53%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.53%) CCNA
9 3 (0.53%) CIMA
9 3 (0.53%) CIPFA
10 2 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 2 (0.35%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.35%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (9.04%) Data Quality
2 46 (8.16%) GDPR
3 29 (5.14%) Accessibility
4 28 (4.96%) PMO
5 18 (3.19%) QA
6 15 (2.66%) NCSC
7 13 (2.30%) SLA
8 10 (1.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (1.77%) WCAG
9 9 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials
10 6 (1.06%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.71%) IFRS
11 4 (0.71%) NIST
11 4 (0.71%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 1 (0.18%) BS7666
13 1 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
13 1 (0.18%) JSP 440
13 1 (0.18%) P3O
System Software
1 13 (2.30%) Docker
2 12 (2.13%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.35%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.18%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 13 (2.30%) Kubernetes
2 6 (1.06%) Grafana
3 5 (0.89%) Kibana
3 5 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
4 2 (0.35%) Failover Clustering
4 2 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
4 2 (0.35%) VxRail
5 1 (0.18%) Ansible
5 1 (0.18%) Argo
5 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 89 (15.78%) Microsoft
2 48 (8.51%) Oracle
3 24 (4.26%) SAP
4 18 (3.19%) NEC
5 17 (3.01%) Liquidlogic
6 15 (2.66%) Google
7 14 (2.48%) Civica
7 14 (2.48%) ServiceNow
8 8 (1.42%) Northgate
9 7 (1.24%) Databricks
9 7 (1.24%) Orchard
10 6 (1.06%) Palo Alto
11 4 (0.71%) Cisco
11 4 (0.71%) Splunk
12 3 (0.53%) Infoblox
12 3 (0.53%) Juniper
12 3 (0.53%) Kronos
12 3 (0.53%) Sitecore
12 3 (0.53%) VMware
13 2 (0.35%) Ribbon