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 25 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 246 210
Rank change year-on-year -11 -36 +118
Contract jobs citing Local Government 535 354 459
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.00% 1.08% 1.18%
As % of the General category 1.81% 1.70% 2.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 382 228 273
10th Percentile £325 £250 £312
25th Percentile £413 £378 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% +5.56% -
75th Percentile £634 £556 £538
90th Percentile £738 £650 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +16.67% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 65 37
10th Percentile £15.29 £15.02 £18.67
25th Percentile £16.70 £23.50 £22.50
Median hourly rate £20.76 £30.00 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year -30.82% +12.44% +19.67%
75th Percentile £27.25 £52.50 £33.07
90th Percentile £31.25 £58.25 £44.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.62 £23.25 £25.18
% change year-on-year -11.33% -7.66% +24.04%

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 29,490 20,770 22,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.97% 63.45% 57.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,431 12,916 13,846
10th Percentile £313 £275 £288
25th Percentile £415 £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 £749 £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 2,285 1,168 1,267
10th Percentile £13.89 £13.43 £14.06
25th Percentile £17.11 £16.17 £16.70
Median hourly rate £31.50 £25.15 £35.36
Median % change year-on-year +25.25% -28.87% +28.58%
75th Percentile £56.21 £50.00 £59.98
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.00 £70.31
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.00 £22.14 £35.00
% change year-on-year +44.53% -36.74% +34.74%

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 25 August 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 25 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Local Government in the UK

Local Government
Top 15 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 25 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
England +2 505 £525 +13.51% 395
UK excluding London +14 281 £525 +16.67% 285
London -30 220 £525 +10.53% 154
Work from Home -30 176 £525 +13.51% 187
Midlands +15 93 £525 +31.25% 49
West Midlands +19 70 £525 +31.25% 26
North of England -48 57 £475 - 86
South East -41 56 £650 +62.50% 51
South West -44 35 £625 +56.25% 51
East of England +4 31 £370 -7.50% 27
North West -28 29 £390 -20.00% 48
Yorkshire -29 28 £494 +9.72% 24
East Midlands -5 20 £500 +73.91% 25
Scotland -10 9 £650 +30.00% 16
Wales -13 3 £425 - 11

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 26 (4.86%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.50%) Oracle Workflow
3 6 (1.12%) CMS
4 4 (0.75%) Confluence
4 4 (0.75%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.56%) Drupal
5 3 (0.56%) WordPress
6 2 (0.37%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.37%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.37%) govService
6 2 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.19%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 26 (4.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.06%) Spreadsheet
3 8 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.93%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.37%) Trello
6 1 (0.19%) Gliffy
6 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (3.74%) Oracle Receivables
2 17 (3.18%) ContrOCC
2 17 (3.18%) Oracle Payables
2 17 (3.18%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 16 (2.99%) Oracle General Ledger
4 15 (2.80%) NEC Housing
5 12 (2.24%) SAP S/4HANA
6 7 (1.31%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.93%) iTrent
8 4 (0.75%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.56%) Oracle Financials
10 2 (0.37%) MIS ActiveH
10 2 (0.37%) SAP CO
10 2 (0.37%) SAP FI
10 2 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
10 2 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 1 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
11 1 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
11 1 (0.19%) SAP MM
11 1 (0.19%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 56 (10.47%) Azure
2 41 (7.66%) Power Platform
3 29 (5.42%) Microsoft 365
4 18 (3.36%) AWS
4 18 (3.36%) SaaS
5 17 (3.18%) Dynamics 365
6 16 (2.99%) Entra ID
7 14 (2.62%) Azure DevOps
8 9 (1.68%) GCP
8 9 (1.68%) Power Automate
8 9 (1.68%) PowerApps
9 8 (1.50%) GitHub
10 7 (1.31%) OCI
11 6 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 6 (1.12%) Microsoft Purview
12 5 (0.93%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (0.93%) Azure Key Vault
12 5 (0.93%) Azure Logic Apps
12 5 (0.93%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (0.93%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 18 (3.36%) Firewall
2 11 (2.06%) DNS
3 7 (1.31%) DHCP
3 7 (1.31%) LAN
3 7 (1.31%) WAN
4 6 (1.12%) Network Security
5 5 (0.93%) VPN
6 4 (0.75%) Broadband
6 4 (0.75%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.37%) Intranet
7 2 (0.37%) PSTN
7 2 (0.37%) VSAN
8 1 (0.19%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.19%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (6.92%) Power BI
2 18 (3.36%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (1.50%) SQL Server
4 7 (1.31%) GIS
5 6 (1.12%) NoSQL
6 5 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (0.93%) Metadata
6 5 (0.93%) Power Query
6 5 (0.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.75%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.56%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.56%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.56%) Spatial Data
9 2 (0.37%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.37%) Amazon RDS
9 2 (0.37%) Big Data
9 2 (0.37%) Presto
9 2 (0.37%) Redis
9 2 (0.37%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.37%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 10 (1.87%) JIRA
2 5 (0.93%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.56%) Git
4 2 (0.37%) Bitbucket
4 2 (0.37%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.37%) GitLab
4 2 (0.37%) Mocha
5 1 (0.19%) Capybara
5 1 (0.19%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.19%) RSpec
General
1 238 (44.49%) Public Sector
2 150 (28.04%) Social Skills
3 147 (27.48%) Finance
4 78 (14.58%) Analytical Skills
5 38 (7.10%) Organisational Skills
6 20 (3.74%) Influencing Skills
6 20 (3.74%) Legal
7 18 (3.36%) Social Housing
8 10 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.68%) Manufacturing
9 9 (1.68%) Retail
10 7 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
10 7 (1.31%) Police
11 5 (0.93%) Banking
12 4 (0.75%) General Ledger
12 4 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.75%) Publishing
13 3 (0.56%) Fire and Rescue
14 2 (0.37%) Back Office
14 2 (0.37%) Law
Job Titles
1 74 (13.83%) Analyst
2 69 (12.90%) Lead
3 60 (11.21%) Senior
4 37 (6.92%) Developer
5 35 (6.54%) Architect
5 35 (6.54%) Business Analyst
6 26 (4.86%) Project Manager
7 24 (4.49%) Consultant
8 22 (4.11%) Support Officer
9 20 (3.74%) Senior Analyst
10 19 (3.55%) Finance Manager
11 16 (2.99%) Data Analyst
11 16 (2.99%) Transformation Manager
12 14 (2.62%) Finance Systems Manager
13 12 (2.24%) Applications Support
13 12 (2.24%) Solutions Architect
14 11 (2.06%) Data Manager
14 11 (2.06%) Systems Analyst
14 11 (2.06%) Team Leader
14 11 (2.06%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (7.85%) Oracle Fusion
2 13 (2.43%) Terraform
3 8 (1.50%) RESTful
4 6 (1.12%) HTML
5 5 (0.93%) .NET
5 5 (0.93%) REST
5 5 (0.93%) SAP Fiori
6 4 (0.75%) CSS
7 3 (0.56%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.56%) ASP.NET
7 3 (0.56%) ASP.NET Core
7 3 (0.56%) Middleware
8 2 (0.37%) Express.js
8 2 (0.37%) FHIR
8 2 (0.37%) Jest
8 2 (0.37%) JSON
8 2 (0.37%) JWT
8 2 (0.37%) Nunjucks
8 2 (0.37%) OAuth
8 2 (0.37%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 33 (6.17%) Management Information System
2 19 (3.55%) Freedom of Information
3 18 (3.36%) NHS
4 16 (2.99%) Analytical Mindset
5 15 (2.80%) Legacy Systems
6 12 (2.24%) Onboarding
6 12 (2.24%) Product Ownership
7 10 (1.87%) Cloud Native
7 10 (1.87%) Housing Association
7 10 (1.87%) Public Cloud
8 9 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (0.93%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.75%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.75%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (0.56%) Cyber Security Posture
11 3 (0.56%) Cyberattack
11 3 (0.56%) Manufacturing Execution System
11 3 (0.56%) Mobile App
12 2 (0.37%) Web Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 14 (2.62%) Windows
2 7 (1.31%) Windows 10
3 6 (1.12%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.37%) Linux
4 2 (0.37%) Unix
5 1 (0.19%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.19%) VMS
5 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (19.81%) Stakeholder Management
2 104 (19.44%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 86 (16.07%) Continuous Improvement
4 80 (14.95%) Agile
5 69 (12.90%) Service Delivery
6 67 (12.52%) Decision-Making
7 52 (9.72%) Problem-Solving
8 51 (9.53%) Migration
9 42 (7.85%) Roadmaps
9 42 (7.85%) Validation
10 41 (7.66%) Business Intelligence
10 41 (7.66%) ERP
11 40 (7.48%) Project Delivery
12 39 (7.29%) Collaborative Working
13 38 (7.10%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 37 (6.92%) Data Protection
15 35 (6.54%) Case Management
16 34 (6.36%) Cybersecurity
16 34 (6.36%) DevOps
17 33 (6.17%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 39 (7.29%) SQL
2 11 (2.06%) JavaScript
3 9 (1.68%) Python
4 7 (1.31%) Java
5 6 (1.12%) PowerShell
6 5 (0.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 4 (0.75%) C#
7 4 (0.75%) TypeScript
8 3 (0.56%) ABAP
8 3 (0.56%) Bicep
9 2 (0.37%) Go
9 2 (0.37%) Scala
10 1 (0.19%) Apex Code
10 1 (0.19%) Groovy
10 1 (0.19%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.19%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.19%) Ruby
10 1 (0.19%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.19%) Swift
10 1 (0.19%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 36 (6.73%) Security Cleared
2 30 (5.61%) SC Cleared
3 18 (3.36%) Degree
4 15 (2.80%) DBS Check
5 11 (2.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.50%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (1.12%) CISSP
8 5 (0.93%) Azure Certification
8 5 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.75%) CCNP
9 4 (0.75%) CISM
9 4 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.56%) CCNA
10 3 (0.56%) CIPFA
11 2 (0.37%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 2 (0.37%) AAT
11 2 (0.37%) CIPD
11 2 (0.37%) CRISC
11 2 (0.37%) CTC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (8.04%) Data Quality
2 36 (6.73%) GDPR
3 25 (4.67%) PMO
4 21 (3.93%) Accessibility
5 19 (3.55%) QA
6 15 (2.80%) SLA
7 9 (1.68%) NCSC
8 8 (1.50%) Cyber Essentials
9 7 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 6 (1.12%) PCI DSS
10 6 (1.12%) WCAG
11 4 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.75%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.75%) IFRS
12 3 (0.56%) NIST
12 3 (0.56%) PERC
13 2 (0.37%) GRC
13 2 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 1 (0.19%) Government Security Classifications
14 1 (0.19%) P3O
System Software
1 12 (2.24%) Active Directory
2 9 (1.68%) Docker
3 2 (0.37%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (1.87%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.37%) Failover Clustering
3 2 (0.37%) Grafana
3 2 (0.37%) Kibana
3 2 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (0.37%) VxRail
Vendors
1 93 (17.38%) Microsoft
2 59 (11.03%) Oracle
3 29 (5.42%) SAP
4 16 (2.99%) NEC
5 15 (2.80%) Liquidlogic
6 13 (2.43%) Civica
6 13 (2.43%) ServiceNow
7 8 (1.50%) Google
8 6 (1.12%) Databricks
8 6 (1.12%) Orchard
9 4 (0.75%) Cisco
9 4 (0.75%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.56%) Infoblox
10 3 (0.56%) Juniper
10 3 (0.56%) Kronos
10 3 (0.56%) Sitecore
10 3 (0.56%) Splunk
10 3 (0.56%) VMware
11 2 (0.37%) Ariba
11 2 (0.37%) Ribbon