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 19 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 249 230
Rank change year-on-year -18 -19 +152
Contract jobs citing Local Government 442 315 456
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.87% 1.06% 1.04%
As % of the General category 1.61% 1.66% 1.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 317 217 317
10th Percentile £333 £299 £313
25th Percentile £410 £396 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £455 £450
Median % change year-on-year +9.89% +1.11% -
75th Percentile £600 £550 £550
90th Percentile £700 £650 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £415 £475
% change year-on-year +20.63% -12.74% +7.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 43 61
10th Percentile £16.62 £12.21 £15.39
25th Percentile £18.99 £20.23 £16.00
Median hourly rate £25.12 £28.60 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.17% +14.40% +12.31%
75th Percentile £27.74 £33.94 £34.88
90th Percentile £35.21 £57.50 £42.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.12 £20.87 £20.70
% change year-on-year +20.36% +0.85% +2.81%

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 27,395 18,938 25,018
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.21% 63.50% 57.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,527 11,957 15,649
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.90% -4.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £488
% change year-on-year +6.38% -3.59% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,837 906 2,015
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.48 £12.78
25th Percentile £18.22 £16.57 £15.50
Median hourly rate £32.00 £27.70 £30.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.52% -9.18% -0.07%
75th Percentile £61.18 £53.95 £52.50
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.46 £24.34 £29.75
% change year-on-year +29.25% -18.18% +12.31%

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 19 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 19 June 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 19 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 -20 428 £500 +11.11% 214
UK excluding London -27 232 £500 +20.63% 175
London -34 193 £525 +10.53% 55
Work from Home -11 145 £525 +16.67% 106
Midlands +28 108 £513 +11.41% 44
West Midlands +6 73 £525 +13.51% 22
East Midlands +6 31 £500 +8.70% 22
North of England -72 31 £513 +20.59% 44
South East -60 30 £550 +10.00% 49
East of England -8 28 £370 -7.44% 21
South West -38 28 £500 +25.00% 15
North West -30 17 £350 -15.15% 21
Yorkshire -66 14 £550 +41.94% 17
Scotland -9 4 £198 -50.63% 4
Wales -13 3 £425 - 4

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 21 (4.75%) SharePoint
2 7 (1.58%) Oracle Workflow
3 5 (1.13%) CMS
4 4 (0.90%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.68%) Drupal
5 3 (0.68%) WordPress
6 2 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.45%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.45%) Confluence
6 2 (0.45%) govService
6 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.23%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 21 (4.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.36%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.68%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.45%) Trello
Business Applications
1 25 (5.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 18 (4.07%) NEC Housing
3 16 (3.62%) Oracle Receivables
4 13 (2.94%) Oracle General Ledger
4 13 (2.94%) Oracle Payables
4 13 (2.94%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 11 (2.49%) ContrOCC
6 5 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
6 5 (1.13%) iTrent
7 4 (0.90%) Oracle Financials
7 4 (0.90%) SAP ERP
8 1 (0.23%) MIS ActiveH
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.23%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.23%) SAP CO
8 1 (0.23%) SAP FI
8 1 (0.23%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.23%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.23%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 40 (9.05%) Azure
2 28 (6.33%) Power Platform
3 25 (5.66%) Microsoft 365
4 16 (3.62%) AWS
4 16 (3.62%) SaaS
5 14 (3.17%) Dynamics 365
6 10 (2.26%) Entra ID
7 8 (1.81%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (1.36%) GCP
9 5 (1.13%) Microsoft Copilot
9 5 (1.13%) Power Automate
10 4 (0.90%) Azure Logic Apps
10 4 (0.90%) Azure Sentinel
10 4 (0.90%) GitHub
10 4 (0.90%) OCI
10 4 (0.90%) PowerApps
10 4 (0.90%) SuccessFactors
11 3 (0.68%) Azure ExpressRoute
11 3 (0.68%) OneDrive
11 3 (0.68%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 11 (2.49%) Firewall
2 8 (1.81%) DHCP
2 8 (1.81%) DNS
2 8 (1.81%) Network Security
3 5 (1.13%) Broadband
4 4 (0.90%) VPN
4 4 (0.90%) Wi-Fi
5 3 (0.68%) LAN
5 3 (0.68%) WAN
6 2 (0.45%) Intranet
6 2 (0.45%) PSTN
7 1 (0.23%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.23%) Unified Communications
7 1 (0.23%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (5.66%) Power BI
2 22 (4.98%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (1.81%) SQL Server
4 6 (1.36%) GIS
5 4 (0.90%) BusinessObjects
5 4 (0.90%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.68%) Star Schema
7 2 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
7 2 (0.45%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.45%) Apache Hudi
7 2 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
7 2 (0.45%) Big Data
7 2 (0.45%) Crystal Reports
7 2 (0.45%) Data Lake
7 2 (0.45%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.45%) Power Query
7 2 (0.45%) Presto
7 2 (0.45%) Spatial Data
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle ODI
Development Applications
1 6 (1.36%) JIRA
2 2 (0.45%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.23%) JUnit
3 1 (0.23%) Oracle APEX
General
1 195 (44.12%) Public Sector
2 146 (33.03%) Finance
3 117 (26.47%) Social Skills
4 42 (9.50%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (5.43%) Legal
6 21 (4.75%) Organisational Skills
7 16 (3.62%) Influencing Skills
8 14 (3.17%) Social Housing
9 10 (2.26%) Police
10 9 (2.04%) Retail
11 8 (1.81%) Fire and Rescue
11 8 (1.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.13%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.68%) Banking
13 3 (0.68%) Publishing
14 2 (0.45%) Back Office
14 2 (0.45%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.45%) Law
14 2 (0.45%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 58 (13.12%) Lead
2 57 (12.90%) Analyst
3 53 (11.99%) Senior
4 32 (7.24%) Accountant
5 30 (6.79%) Systems Accountant
6 24 (5.43%) Business Analyst
7 23 (5.20%) Developer
8 22 (4.98%) Architect
8 22 (4.98%) Project Manager
9 21 (4.75%) Consultant
10 16 (3.62%) Finance Manager
11 14 (3.17%) Support Officer
12 13 (2.94%) Senior Analyst
13 12 (2.71%) Solutions Architect
14 11 (2.49%) Data Analyst
14 11 (2.49%) Finance Systems Manager
14 11 (2.49%) Senior Accountant
14 11 (2.49%) Senior Systems Accountant
14 11 (2.49%) Team Leader
14 11 (2.49%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (9.95%) Oracle Fusion
2 5 (1.13%) Middleware
2 5 (1.13%) SAP Fiori
3 4 (0.90%) CSS
3 4 (0.90%) HTML
4 3 (0.68%) REST
4 3 (0.68%) RESTful
5 2 (0.45%) JSON
5 2 (0.45%) Play Framework
5 2 (0.45%) SOAP
6 1 (0.23%) .NET
6 1 (0.23%) ARM Templates
6 1 (0.23%) FHIR
6 1 (0.23%) Node.js
6 1 (0.23%) PySpark
6 1 (0.23%) Spring
6 1 (0.23%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.23%) Web Services
6 1 (0.23%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (7.47%) Management Information System
2 21 (4.75%) Public Cloud
3 16 (3.62%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (2.71%) Data Structures
4 12 (2.71%) NHS
5 11 (2.49%) Onboarding
6 10 (2.26%) Freedom of Information
7 9 (2.04%) Product Ownership
8 8 (1.81%) Housing Association
9 7 (1.58%) Driving Licence
10 6 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.13%) Cloud Native
11 5 (1.13%) Security Posture
12 4 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
13 3 (0.68%) Cyber Security Posture
13 3 (0.68%) Distributed Systems
13 3 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
13 3 (0.68%) PKI
14 2 (0.45%) Data Protection Act
14 2 (0.45%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.07%) Windows
2 7 (1.58%) Linux
3 5 (1.13%) Windows 10
3 5 (1.13%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.45%) Unix
5 1 (0.23%) Android
5 1 (0.23%) VMS
5 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (21.49%) Stakeholder Management
2 76 (17.19%) Continuous Improvement
3 71 (16.06%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 57 (12.90%) Service Delivery
5 54 (12.22%) Migration
6 52 (11.76%) ERP
7 51 (11.54%) Agile
8 49 (11.09%) Decision-Making
9 44 (9.95%) Problem-Solving
10 36 (8.14%) Project Delivery
11 35 (7.92%) Change Management
11 35 (7.92%) Roadmaps
12 33 (7.47%) Data Protection
12 33 (7.47%) User Acceptance Testing
13 32 (7.24%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 30 (6.79%) Data Migration
15 29 (6.56%) Analytics
15 29 (6.56%) Validation
16 28 (6.33%) Collaborative Working
17 27 (6.11%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 28 (6.33%) SQL
2 6 (1.36%) Java
2 6 (1.36%) JavaScript
2 6 (1.36%) Python
3 4 (0.90%) C#
3 4 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
3 4 (0.90%) PowerShell
4 3 (0.68%) ABAP
5 2 (0.45%) Go
5 2 (0.45%) Scala
5 2 (0.45%) T-SQL
5 2 (0.45%) TypeScript
6 1 (0.23%) Apex Code
6 1 (0.23%) Bicep
6 1 (0.23%) Groovy
6 1 (0.23%) PL/SQL
6 1 (0.23%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 19 (4.30%) Security Cleared
2 14 (3.17%) Degree
2 14 (3.17%) SC Cleared
3 13 (2.94%) DBS Check
4 12 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (1.36%) DV Cleared
5 6 (1.36%) NVQ Level 3
6 5 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (0.90%) CCNA
7 4 (0.90%) CCNP
7 4 (0.90%) CISSP
8 3 (0.68%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.68%) CIPFA
8 3 (0.68%) CISM
8 3 (0.68%) SAP Certification
9 2 (0.45%) CIMA
9 2 (0.45%) CIPD
9 2 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.45%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (6.11%) Data Quality
2 25 (5.66%) GDPR
3 13 (2.94%) Accessibility
3 13 (2.94%) PMO
4 9 (2.04%) SLA
5 8 (1.81%) QA
6 7 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials
6 7 (1.58%) NCSC
7 6 (1.36%) PCI DSS
7 6 (1.36%) WCAG
8 4 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 4 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.68%) PERC
10 2 (0.45%) GRC
10 2 (0.45%) IFRS
10 2 (0.45%) NIST
11 1 (0.23%) BS7666
11 1 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
11 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 11 (2.49%) Active Directory
2 5 (1.13%) Docker
2 5 (1.13%) Hyper-V
2 5 (1.13%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (0.23%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 8 (1.81%) Terraform
2 7 (1.58%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.45%) Grafana
3 2 (0.45%) Kibana
3 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.45%) SCCM
4 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 66 (14.93%) Microsoft
2 58 (13.12%) Oracle
3 44 (9.95%) SAP
4 19 (4.30%) NEC
5 10 (2.26%) Liquidlogic
6 9 (2.04%) Civica
7 6 (1.36%) VMware
8 5 (1.13%) Ariba
8 5 (1.13%) ServiceNow
9 4 (0.90%) Cisco
9 4 (0.90%) Google
9 4 (0.90%) Infoblox
9 4 (0.90%) Orchard
9 4 (0.90%) Palo Alto
10 3 (0.68%) Juniper
10 3 (0.68%) Kronos
10 3 (0.68%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.68%) Sitecore
10 3 (0.68%) Splunk
11 2 (0.45%) Ribbon