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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 259 198
Rank change year-on-year +9 -61 +133
Contract jobs citing Local Government 578 345 462
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.06% 1.05% 1.21%
As % of the General category 1.90% 1.66% 2.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 416 229 249
10th Percentile £312 £250 £300
25th Percentile £400 £390 £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 £655 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +16.67% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 63 32
10th Percentile £14.44 £20.69 £20.27
25th Percentile £16.70 £29.00 £23.13
Median hourly rate £20.62 £34.00 £27.26
Median % change year-on-year -39.37% +24.72% +23.63%
75th Percentile £27.74 £57.50 £33.80
90th Percentile £31.98 £58.75 £43.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.39 £27.06 £25.18
% change year-on-year -24.64% +7.45% +19.42%

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 30,424 20,830 22,263
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.94% 63.48% 58.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,767 12,947 13,186
10th Percentile £313 £273 £281
25th Percentile £419 £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 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,613 1,218 1,027
10th Percentile £13.50 £13.50 £14.89
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £25.08 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.65% -28.36% +27.27%
75th Percentile £53.75 £46.61 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £67.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.01 £21.39 £35.00
% change year-on-year +35.62% -38.89% +29.63%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +12 520 £525 +10.53% 615
UK excluding London +22 287 £525 +16.67% 394
London -24 228 £525 +10.53% 258
Work from Home -15 179 £500 +5.26% 299
Midlands +28 80 £500 +25.00% 78
South East -19 72 £637 +45.60% 92
West Midlands +11 60 £513 -14.58% 52
North of England -43 59 £383 -15.00% 102
South West -38 37 £625 +56.25% 45
Yorkshire -22 30 £531 +37.10% 40
East of England +1 29 £370 -26.00% 30
North West -48 28 £320 -28.89% 50
East Midlands -2 19 £500 +73.91% 26
Scotland -26 9 £650 +30.00% 24
Wales -12 4 £425 - 23
North East -38 1 - - 14

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 (4.50%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.38%) Oracle Workflow
3 6 (1.04%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (1.04%) CMS
4 4 (0.69%) Confluence
5 3 (0.52%) Drupal
5 3 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.52%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.52%) WordPress
6 2 (0.35%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.17%) Apache
7 1 (0.17%) govService
7 1 (0.17%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 30 (5.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (2.42%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.73%) Spreadsheet
4 9 (1.56%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.35%) Trello
7 1 (0.17%) Gliffy
Business Applications
1 17 (2.94%) NEC Housing
1 17 (2.94%) Oracle Receivables
2 15 (2.60%) ContrOCC
3 14 (2.42%) Oracle Payables
3 14 (2.42%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 13 (2.25%) Oracle General Ledger
5 7 (1.21%) Dynamics CRM
5 7 (1.21%) SAP S/4HANA
6 5 (0.87%) iTrent
7 4 (0.69%) 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
8 2 (0.35%) SystmOne
8 2 (0.35%) Unit4 Business World
9 1 (0.17%) Orchard Housing
9 1 (0.17%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 60 (10.38%) Azure
2 50 (8.65%) Power Platform
3 29 (5.02%) AWS
4 21 (3.63%) Microsoft 365
5 17 (2.94%) GCP
6 16 (2.77%) Entra ID
6 16 (2.77%) SaaS
7 12 (2.08%) Azure DevOps
7 12 (2.08%) Dynamics 365
8 11 (1.90%) GitHub
8 11 (1.90%) Miro
9 8 (1.38%) Google Workspace
9 8 (1.38%) Lucidchart
9 8 (1.38%) PowerApps
10 7 (1.21%) GitHub Actions
10 7 (1.21%) Microsoft Purview
10 7 (1.21%) Power Automate
11 6 (1.04%) Azure Key Vault
11 6 (1.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 6 (1.04%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.77%) Firewall
2 11 (1.90%) DNS
3 8 (1.38%) Network Security
4 6 (1.04%) VPN
5 5 (0.87%) DHCP
5 5 (0.87%) LAN
5 5 (0.87%) WAN
6 4 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.52%) Broadband
7 3 (0.52%) 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 (0.17%) SSL
9 1 (0.17%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (8.13%) Power BI
2 11 (1.90%) Oracle Reports
3 9 (1.56%) SQL Server
4 8 (1.38%) Metadata
5 7 (1.21%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (1.04%) BusinessObjects
6 6 (1.04%) NoSQL
6 6 (1.04%) Power Query
6 6 (1.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 5 (0.87%) GIS
8 4 (0.69%) Amazon RDS
9 3 (0.52%) Apache Hudi
9 3 (0.52%) Azure SQL Database
9 3 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
10 2 (0.35%) Amazon Aurora
10 2 (0.35%) Big Data
10 2 (0.35%) MongoDB
10 2 (0.35%) Redis
10 2 (0.35%) Star Schema
10 2 (0.35%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 10 (1.73%) Jenkins
2 9 (1.56%) JIRA
3 4 (0.69%) GitLab
4 3 (0.52%) Git
5 2 (0.35%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.35%) Cypress.io
5 2 (0.35%) Mocha
5 2 (0.35%) MSI
6 1 (0.17%) Capybara
6 1 (0.17%) Oracle APEX
6 1 (0.17%) RSpec
General
1 264 (45.67%) Public Sector
2 187 (32.35%) Social Skills
3 149 (25.78%) Finance
4 99 (17.13%) Analytical Skills
5 46 (7.96%) Organisational Skills
6 27 (4.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 24 (4.15%) Influencing Skills
8 23 (3.98%) Legal
9 20 (3.46%) Social Housing
10 11 (1.90%) Police
11 9 (1.56%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.38%) Back Office
12 8 (1.38%) Fire and Rescue
12 8 (1.38%) Retail
13 7 (1.21%) Documentation Skills
14 6 (1.04%) Publishing
15 5 (0.87%) Banking
16 4 (0.69%) General Ledger
16 4 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
17 3 (0.52%) Law
Job Titles
1 78 (13.49%) Analyst
2 77 (13.32%) Senior
3 72 (12.46%) Lead
4 38 (6.57%) Architect
5 37 (6.40%) Business Analyst
6 32 (5.54%) Developer
7 29 (5.02%) Consultant
8 28 (4.84%) Project Manager
8 28 (4.84%) Support Officer
9 23 (3.98%) Senior Analyst
10 17 (2.94%) Transformation Manager
11 16 (2.77%) Finance Manager
12 15 (2.60%) Administrator
12 15 (2.60%) Applications Support
12 15 (2.60%) Data Analyst
13 14 (2.42%) Designer
13 14 (2.42%) Team Leader
14 12 (2.08%) Information Officer
15 11 (1.90%) Finance Systems Manager
15 11 (1.90%) Senior Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (5.71%) Oracle Fusion
2 16 (2.77%) Terraform
3 14 (2.42%) RESTful
4 6 (1.04%) SAP Fiori
5 5 (0.87%) .NET
5 5 (0.87%) HTML
5 5 (0.87%) REST
6 4 (0.69%) Play Framework
7 3 (0.52%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.52%) ASP.NET
7 3 (0.52%) ASP.NET Core
7 3 (0.52%) CSS
8 2 (0.35%) FHIR
8 2 (0.35%) JSON
8 2 (0.35%) Middleware
8 2 (0.35%) Node.js
8 2 (0.35%) OAuth
8 2 (0.35%) SOAP
8 2 (0.35%) Software Packaging
8 2 (0.35%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 43 (7.44%) Management Information System
2 23 (3.98%) Analytical Mindset
3 22 (3.81%) Freedom of Information
4 19 (3.29%) NHS
5 15 (2.60%) Product Ownership
6 13 (2.25%) Onboarding
7 12 (2.08%) Enterprise Software
7 12 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
8 11 (1.90%) Housing Association
9 10 (1.73%) Cloud Native
10 5 (0.87%) Hybrid Cloud
10 5 (0.87%) Public Cloud
11 4 (0.69%) Distributed Systems
11 4 (0.69%) Security Posture
12 3 (0.52%) Cyberattack
12 3 (0.52%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.52%) e-Learning
12 3 (0.52%) Manufacturing Execution System
12 3 (0.52%) Mobile App
13 2 (0.35%) SystemC
Operating Systems
1 18 (3.11%) Windows
2 8 (1.38%) Windows 10
3 5 (0.87%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.52%) Linux
5 2 (0.35%) Unix
6 1 (0.17%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.17%) VMS
6 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (21.97%) Stakeholder Management
2 113 (19.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 111 (19.20%) Agile
4 88 (15.22%) Decision-Making
5 84 (14.53%) Continuous Improvement
6 64 (11.07%) Service Delivery
7 60 (10.38%) Migration
8 58 (10.03%) Problem-Solving
9 51 (8.82%) Business Intelligence
10 48 (8.30%) Business Analysis
11 46 (7.96%) Data Protection
12 44 (7.61%) Roadmaps
12 44 (7.61%) Validation
13 43 (7.44%) Project Delivery
14 40 (6.92%) AI
14 40 (6.92%) Collaborative Working
14 40 (6.92%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
15 39 (6.75%) Data Governance
15 39 (6.75%) DevOps
16 37 (6.40%) Case Management
Programming Languages
1 48 (8.30%) SQL
2 13 (2.25%) Python
3 11 (1.90%) JavaScript
4 9 (1.56%) PowerShell
5 8 (1.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 7 (1.21%) Java
7 4 (0.69%) C#
7 4 (0.69%) Scala
7 4 (0.69%) TypeScript
8 3 (0.52%) ABAP
8 3 (0.52%) Bicep
8 3 (0.52%) Go
9 2 (0.35%) T-SQL
10 1 (0.17%) Bash
10 1 (0.17%) Groovy
10 1 (0.17%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.17%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.17%) R
10 1 (0.17%) Ruby
10 1 (0.17%) Swift
Qualifications
1 53 (9.17%) Security Cleared
2 46 (7.96%) SC Cleared
3 29 (5.02%) Degree
4 13 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (1.56%) DBS Check
5 9 (1.56%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.04%) Cisco Certification
6 6 (1.04%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (0.87%) Azure Certification
7 5 (0.87%) CISSP
7 5 (0.87%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (0.69%) CCNP
9 3 (0.52%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.52%) CCAB
9 3 (0.52%) CCNA
9 3 (0.52%) CIMA
9 3 (0.52%) CIPFA
9 3 (0.52%) CISM
10 2 (0.35%) PMI Certification
10 2 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (9.69%) Data Quality
2 48 (8.30%) GDPR
3 29 (5.02%) Accessibility
3 29 (5.02%) PMO
4 19 (3.29%) QA
5 15 (2.60%) NCSC
6 12 (2.08%) SLA
7 10 (1.73%) WCAG
8 9 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (1.21%) Cyber Essentials
10 4 (0.69%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.69%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.69%) IFRS
10 4 (0.69%) NIST
11 2 (0.35%) HMG Security Policy Framework
11 2 (0.35%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.17%) GRC
12 1 (0.17%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (2.25%) Docker
2 12 (2.08%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.35%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.17%) Firmware
4 1 (0.17%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 13 (2.25%) Kubernetes
2 7 (1.21%) Microsoft Intune
3 6 (1.04%) Grafana
4 5 (0.87%) Kibana
5 2 (0.35%) Failover Clustering
5 2 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
5 2 (0.35%) VxRail
6 1 (0.17%) Ansible
6 1 (0.17%) Argo
6 1 (0.17%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.17%) SCCM
Vendors
1 90 (15.57%) Microsoft
2 45 (7.79%) Oracle
3 24 (4.15%) SAP
4 19 (3.29%) Liquidlogic
5 18 (3.11%) NEC
6 17 (2.94%) Google
7 14 (2.42%) ServiceNow
8 13 (2.25%) Civica
9 9 (1.56%) Northgate
10 7 (1.21%) Databricks
11 6 (1.04%) Orchard
11 6 (1.04%) Palo Alto
12 4 (0.69%) Cisco
12 4 (0.69%) Splunk
13 3 (0.52%) Infoblox
13 3 (0.52%) Juniper
13 3 (0.52%) Kronos
13 3 (0.52%) Sitecore
13 3 (0.52%) VMware
14 2 (0.35%) F5