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 4 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 267 260 233
Rank change year-on-year -7 -27 +127
Contract jobs citing Local Government 473 330 447
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.92% 1.05% 1.03%
As % of the General category 1.68% 1.66% 1.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 339 221 306
10th Percentile £335 £296 £325
25th Percentile £408 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £453
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -0.55% +0.56%
75th Percentile £600 £550 £574
90th Percentile £700 £650 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £409 £475
% change year-on-year +22.25% -13.89% +8.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 62 51 60
10th Percentile £16.62 £12.21 £15.39
25th Percentile £17.57 £20.45 £17.53
Median hourly rate £21.25 £29.00 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.72% +16.00% +11.93%
75th Percentile £26.90 £34.74 £33.65
90th Percentile £32.30 £57.50 £43.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.62 £20.83 £23.08
% change year-on-year -1.03% -9.75% +3.68%

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 28,167 19,915 24,791
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.57% 63.13% 57.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,875 12,519 15,502
10th Percentile £313 £281 £275
25th Percentile £413 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.73% -4.67% -4.55%
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £490
% change year-on-year +6.38% -4.08% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,947 987 1,949
10th Percentile £13.99 £13.50 £12.82
25th Percentile £18.09 £16.39 £15.62
Median hourly rate £32.00 £27.22 £31.80
Median % change year-on-year +17.56% -14.40% +4.13%
75th Percentile £60.00 £52.00 £53.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.06 £68.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.95 £23.00 £30.91
% change year-on-year +38.91% -25.60% +19.12%

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 4 July 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 4 July 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 4 July 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 -12 457 £505 +12.11% 232
UK excluding London -6 251 £500 +22.25% 184
London -29 203 £520 +9.47% 58
Work from Home -16 164 £525 +17.54% 116
Midlands +33 116 £525 +14.13% 40
West Midlands +10 79 £525 +13.51% 18
North of England -74 38 £531 +21.43% 55
South East -46 37 £637 +34.11% 56
East Midlands +11 33 £500 +8.70% 22
South West -49 27 £500 +25.00% 12
East of England -12 26 £370 -7.44% 16
North West -34 19 £350 -17.65% 32
Yorkshire -57 19 £550 +41.94% 17
Scotland -11 4 £198 -50.63% 2
Wales -15 3 £425 - 5

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 (5.29%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.69%) Oracle Workflow
3 5 (1.06%) CMS
4 4 (0.85%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.63%) Drupal
5 3 (0.63%) WordPress
6 2 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.42%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.42%) Confluence
6 2 (0.42%) govService
6 2 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.21%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 21 (4.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.27%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.63%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.42%) Trello
Business Applications
1 26 (5.50%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (4.02%) Oracle Receivables
3 18 (3.81%) NEC Housing
4 17 (3.59%) ContrOCC
5 16 (3.38%) Oracle General Ledger
5 16 (3.38%) Oracle Payables
5 16 (3.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 6 (1.27%) iTrent
7 4 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
7 4 (0.85%) Oracle Financials
7 4 (0.85%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.42%) SAP CO
8 2 (0.42%) SAP FI
8 2 (0.42%) SAP FI/CO
9 1 (0.21%) MIS ActiveH
9 1 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.21%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.21%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.21%) SAP MM
9 1 (0.21%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 43 (9.09%) Azure
2 29 (6.13%) Power Platform
3 28 (5.92%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (4.23%) AWS
5 17 (3.59%) SaaS
6 13 (2.75%) Dynamics 365
6 13 (2.75%) Entra ID
7 9 (1.90%) Azure DevOps
8 8 (1.69%) GCP
9 5 (1.06%) Azure Logic Apps
9 5 (1.06%) Microsoft Copilot
9 5 (1.06%) Power Automate
9 5 (1.06%) PowerApps
10 4 (0.85%) Azure Sentinel
10 4 (0.85%) GitHub
10 4 (0.85%) OCI
10 4 (0.85%) SuccessFactors
11 3 (0.63%) Azure Key Vault
11 3 (0.63%) GitHub Actions
11 3 (0.63%) OneDrive
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.75%) Firewall
2 10 (2.11%) DNS
3 8 (1.69%) DHCP
4 6 (1.27%) Network Security
5 5 (1.06%) Broadband
6 4 (0.85%) VPN
6 4 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.63%) LAN
7 3 (0.63%) WAN
8 2 (0.42%) Intranet
8 2 (0.42%) PSTN
9 1 (0.21%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.21%) Unified Communications
9 1 (0.21%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (5.29%) Oracle Reports
1 25 (5.29%) Power BI
2 7 (1.48%) SQL Server
3 6 (1.27%) GIS
4 4 (0.85%) BusinessObjects
4 4 (0.85%) NoSQL
5 3 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
5 3 (0.63%) Star Schema
6 2 (0.42%) Amazon Aurora
6 2 (0.42%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (0.42%) Apache Hudi
6 2 (0.42%) Big Data
6 2 (0.42%) Crystal Reports
6 2 (0.42%) Data Lake
6 2 (0.42%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
6 2 (0.42%) Power Query
6 2 (0.42%) Presto
6 2 (0.42%) Spatial Data
7 1 (0.21%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 6 (1.27%) JIRA
2 3 (0.63%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.21%) Git
3 1 (0.21%) JUnit
3 1 (0.21%) Oracle APEX
General
1 217 (45.88%) Public Sector
2 161 (34.04%) Finance
3 126 (26.64%) Social Skills
4 47 (9.94%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (5.07%) Legal
6 21 (4.44%) Organisational Skills
7 13 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
7 13 (2.75%) Social Housing
8 10 (2.11%) Police
9 9 (1.90%) Retail
10 8 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 7 (1.48%) Fire and Rescue
12 5 (1.06%) Banking
12 5 (1.06%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.06%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.85%) General Ledger
14 3 (0.63%) Publishing
15 2 (0.42%) Back Office
15 2 (0.42%) Law
15 2 (0.42%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 62 (13.11%) Analyst
2 59 (12.47%) Lead
3 58 (12.26%) Senior
4 32 (6.77%) Accountant
5 30 (6.34%) Systems Accountant
6 27 (5.71%) Business Analyst
7 26 (5.50%) Developer
8 21 (4.44%) Architect
9 20 (4.23%) Consultant
9 20 (4.23%) Project Manager
10 19 (4.02%) Finance Manager
11 18 (3.81%) Support Officer
12 14 (2.96%) Finance Systems Manager
12 14 (2.96%) Senior Analyst
13 13 (2.75%) Applications Support
13 13 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
14 11 (2.33%) Data Analyst
14 11 (2.33%) Systems Analyst
14 11 (2.33%) Team Leader
14 11 (2.33%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (10.15%) Oracle Fusion
2 5 (1.06%) Middleware
2 5 (1.06%) RESTful
2 5 (1.06%) SAP Fiori
3 4 (0.85%) CSS
3 4 (0.85%) HTML
3 4 (0.85%) REST
4 2 (0.42%) .NET
4 2 (0.42%) JSON
4 2 (0.42%) Play Framework
4 2 (0.42%) SOAP
4 2 (0.42%) Spring
4 2 (0.42%) Spring Boot
5 1 (0.21%) ARM Templates
5 1 (0.21%) FHIR
5 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Graph
5 1 (0.21%) PySpark
5 1 (0.21%) SAP MI
5 1 (0.21%) Web Services
5 1 (0.21%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (6.77%) Management Information System
2 21 (4.44%) Public Cloud
3 16 (3.38%) Legacy Systems
4 13 (2.75%) NHS
5 12 (2.54%) Data Structures
6 11 (2.33%) Product Ownership
7 10 (2.11%) Freedom of Information
7 10 (2.11%) Onboarding
8 9 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 8 (1.69%) Housing Association
10 6 (1.27%) Cloud Native
10 6 (1.27%) Driving Licence
11 5 (1.06%) Security Posture
12 4 (0.85%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (0.85%) Distributed Systems
12 4 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
13 3 (0.63%) Cyber Security Posture
14 2 (0.42%) Enterprise Cloud
14 2 (0.42%) Self-Motivation
14 2 (0.42%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 17 (3.59%) Windows
2 6 (1.27%) Linux
3 5 (1.06%) Windows 10
3 5 (1.06%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.42%) Unix
5 1 (0.21%) Android
5 1 (0.21%) VMS
5 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (20.93%) Stakeholder Management
2 83 (17.55%) Continuous Improvement
3 76 (16.07%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 62 (13.11%) Agile
5 61 (12.90%) Service Delivery
6 57 (12.05%) Migration
7 55 (11.63%) ERP
8 49 (10.36%) Decision-Making
9 46 (9.73%) Problem-Solving
10 38 (8.03%) Change Management
10 38 (8.03%) Project Delivery
11 35 (7.40%) Data Protection
11 35 (7.40%) Roadmaps
12 34 (7.19%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 34 (7.19%) User Acceptance Testing
13 31 (6.55%) Data Migration
13 31 (6.55%) Validation
14 30 (6.34%) Analytics
15 29 (6.13%) Collaborative Working
16 28 (5.92%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 29 (6.13%) SQL
2 8 (1.69%) Java
3 7 (1.48%) Python
4 6 (1.27%) JavaScript
5 4 (0.85%) C#
5 4 (0.85%) PowerShell
6 3 (0.63%) ABAP
6 3 (0.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.42%) Go
7 2 (0.42%) Scala
7 2 (0.42%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.42%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.21%) Apex Code
8 1 (0.21%) Bicep
8 1 (0.21%) Groovy
8 1 (0.21%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 23 (4.86%) Security Cleared
2 19 (4.02%) SC Cleared
3 15 (3.17%) DBS Check
4 14 (2.96%) Degree
5 13 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.27%) DV Cleared
7 5 (1.06%) CIPFA
7 5 (1.06%) Cisco Certification
7 5 (1.06%) CISSP
7 5 (1.06%) ITIL Certification
7 5 (1.06%) NVQ Level 3
8 4 (0.85%) CCNA
8 4 (0.85%) CCNP
9 3 (0.63%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.63%) CISM
9 3 (0.63%) SAP Certification
10 2 (0.42%) AAT
10 2 (0.42%) CIPD
10 2 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.42%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (6.13%) Data Quality
2 27 (5.71%) GDPR
3 18 (3.81%) PMO
4 13 (2.75%) Accessibility
4 13 (2.75%) SLA
5 9 (1.90%) QA
6 8 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
7 7 (1.48%) NCSC
8 6 (1.27%) PCI DSS
8 6 (1.27%) WCAG
9 5 (1.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 4 (0.85%) IFRS
11 3 (0.63%) NIST
11 3 (0.63%) PERC
12 2 (0.42%) GRC
13 1 (0.21%) BS7666
13 1 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
13 1 (0.21%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 12 (2.54%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.27%) Docker
3 4 (0.85%) Hyper-V
3 4 (0.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.21%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (2.11%) Terraform
2 9 (1.90%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.42%) Grafana
3 2 (0.42%) Kibana
3 2 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.42%) SCCM
4 1 (0.21%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 72 (15.22%) Microsoft
2 62 (13.11%) Oracle
3 46 (9.73%) SAP
4 19 (4.02%) NEC
5 16 (3.38%) Liquidlogic
6 10 (2.11%) Civica
7 8 (1.69%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.27%) Google
9 5 (1.06%) Ariba
9 5 (1.06%) VMware
10 4 (0.85%) Cisco
10 4 (0.85%) Infoblox
10 4 (0.85%) Orchard
10 4 (0.85%) Palo Alto
11 3 (0.63%) Juniper
11 3 (0.63%) Kronos
11 3 (0.63%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.63%) Sitecore
11 3 (0.63%) Splunk
12 2 (0.42%) Northgate