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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 256 261 213
Rank change year-on-year +5 -48 +127
Contract jobs citing Local Government 544 348 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 1.06% 1.19%
As % of the General category 1.84% 1.66% 2.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 384 230 267
10th Percentile £325 £250 £300
25th Percentile £413 £375 £376
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £471 £450
Median % change year-on-year +11.37% +4.76% -
75th Percentile £628 £555 £538
90th Percentile £738 £650 £632
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £450 £450
% change year-on-year +16.67% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 60 36
10th Percentile £15.41 £19.89 £19.45
25th Percentile £16.70 £26.34 £23.13
Median hourly rate £20.73 £30.13 £26.71
Median % change year-on-year -31.20% +12.81% +19.78%
75th Percentile £27.74 £53.75 £33.24
90th Percentile £31.09 £58.75 £49.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.62 £27.64 £25.18
% change year-on-year -25.42% +9.77% +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 29,592 20,923 22,211
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 55.06% 63.49% 57.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,452 13,016 13,665
10th Percentile £313 £275 £293
25th Percentile £418 £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 £739 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% 0.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,301 1,177 1,214
10th Percentile £13.81 £13.50 £14.26
25th Percentile £16.93 £16.17 £17.25
Median hourly rate £31.16 £25.15 £37.04
Median % change year-on-year +23.88% -32.10% +34.69%
75th Percentile £55.00 £50.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £69.11 £70.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.56 £22.05 £37.28
% change year-on-year +43.11% -40.85% +45.63%

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 31 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 31 August 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 31 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 +8 509 £525 +15.07% 302
UK excluding London +29 282 £525 +16.67% 243
London -24 222 £525 +10.53% 118
Work from Home -14 177 £525 +13.51% 144
Midlands +31 92 £525 +31.25% 49
West Midlands +20 68 £525 +31.25% 30
North of England -49 57 £488 +5.41% 51
South East -42 56 £650 +62.50% 64
South West -40 37 £625 +56.25% 37
East of England +7 31 £370 +23.33% 20
Yorkshire -32 28 £494 +9.72% 17
North West -40 28 £445 -6.32% 29
East Midlands +2 21 £500 +73.91% 21
Scotland -18 9 £650 +30.00% 13
Wales -13 3 £425 - 16
North East -36 1 - - 6

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 27 (4.96%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.47%) Oracle Workflow
3 6 (1.10%) CMS
4 4 (0.74%) Confluence
4 4 (0.74%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.55%) Drupal
5 3 (0.55%) 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 (0.18%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.18%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 27 (4.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.02%) Spreadsheet
3 8 (1.47%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.47%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.37%) Trello
5 1 (0.18%) Gliffy
5 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 20 (3.68%) Oracle Receivables
2 18 (3.31%) ContrOCC
3 17 (3.13%) Oracle Payables
3 17 (3.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 16 (2.94%) NEC Housing
4 16 (2.94%) Oracle General Ledger
5 11 (2.02%) SAP S/4HANA
6 8 (1.47%) Dynamics CRM
7 5 (0.92%) iTrent
8 4 (0.74%) SAP ERP
9 2 (0.37%) MIS ActiveH
9 2 (0.37%) SAP CO
9 2 (0.37%) SAP FI
9 2 (0.37%) SAP FI/CO
9 2 (0.37%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
10 1 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
10 1 (0.18%) Orchard Housing
10 1 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
10 1 (0.18%) SAP MM
10 1 (0.18%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 58 (10.66%) Azure
2 44 (8.09%) Power Platform
3 29 (5.33%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (3.68%) AWS
5 18 (3.31%) Dynamics 365
5 18 (3.31%) SaaS
6 16 (2.94%) Entra ID
7 15 (2.76%) Azure DevOps
8 10 (1.84%) GCP
8 10 (1.84%) GitHub
9 9 (1.65%) Power Automate
9 9 (1.65%) PowerApps
10 7 (1.29%) OCI
11 6 (1.10%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (0.92%) Azure Key Vault
12 5 (0.92%) Azure Logic Apps
12 5 (0.92%) Azure Sentinel
12 5 (0.92%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 5 (0.92%) Microsoft Copilot
12 5 (0.92%) Miro
Communications & Networking
1 18 (3.31%) Firewall
2 11 (2.02%) DNS
3 7 (1.29%) DHCP
3 7 (1.29%) LAN
3 7 (1.29%) WAN
4 6 (1.10%) Network Security
5 5 (0.92%) VPN
6 4 (0.74%) Broadband
6 4 (0.74%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.37%) Intranet
7 2 (0.37%) PSTN
7 2 (0.37%) VSAN
8 1 (0.18%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.18%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (7.35%) Power BI
2 16 (2.94%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (1.47%) SQL Server
4 7 (1.29%) GIS
5 6 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.10%) Metadata
5 6 (1.10%) NoSQL
5 6 (1.10%) Power Query
6 5 (0.92%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (0.74%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (0.55%) Azure SQL Database
8 3 (0.55%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.55%) Spatial Data
9 2 (0.37%) Amazon Aurora
9 2 (0.37%) Big Data
9 2 (0.37%) MongoDB
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 9 (1.65%) JIRA
2 6 (1.10%) Jenkins
3 3 (0.55%) Git
3 3 (0.55%) GitLab
4 2 (0.37%) Bitbucket
4 2 (0.37%) Cypress.io
4 2 (0.37%) Mocha
5 1 (0.18%) Capybara
5 1 (0.18%) Oracle APEX
5 1 (0.18%) RSpec
General
1 241 (44.30%) Public Sector
2 157 (28.86%) Social Skills
3 148 (27.21%) Finance
4 85 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (7.35%) Organisational Skills
6 22 (4.04%) Influencing Skills
7 20 (3.68%) Social Housing
8 19 (3.49%) Legal
9 15 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (1.65%) Manufacturing
10 9 (1.65%) Retail
11 8 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
12 7 (1.29%) Police
13 5 (0.92%) Banking
14 4 (0.74%) General Ledger
14 4 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
14 4 (0.74%) Publishing
15 3 (0.55%) Back Office
15 3 (0.55%) Fire and Rescue
15 3 (0.55%) Law
Job Titles
1 77 (14.15%) Analyst
2 69 (12.68%) Lead
3 64 (11.76%) Senior
4 38 (6.99%) Business Analyst
5 36 (6.62%) Architect
6 35 (6.43%) Developer
7 26 (4.78%) Project Manager
8 25 (4.60%) Consultant
9 22 (4.04%) Senior Analyst
9 22 (4.04%) Support Officer
10 19 (3.49%) Finance Manager
11 16 (2.94%) Data Analyst
11 16 (2.94%) Transformation Manager
12 14 (2.57%) Finance Systems Manager
13 13 (2.39%) Team Leader
14 12 (2.21%) Applications Support
15 11 (2.02%) Solutions Architect
15 11 (2.02%) Systems Analyst
16 10 (1.84%) Service Manager
16 10 (1.84%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (7.35%) Oracle Fusion
2 15 (2.76%) Terraform
3 9 (1.65%) RESTful
4 6 (1.10%) HTML
5 5 (0.92%) .NET
5 5 (0.92%) REST
5 5 (0.92%) SAP Fiori
6 4 (0.74%) CSS
7 3 (0.55%) ARM Templates
7 3 (0.55%) ASP.NET
7 3 (0.55%) ASP.NET Core
7 3 (0.55%) Middleware
8 2 (0.37%) Chai
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 34 (6.25%) Management Information System
2 19 (3.49%) Freedom of Information
2 19 (3.49%) NHS
3 17 (3.13%) Analytical Mindset
4 13 (2.39%) Legacy Systems
5 12 (2.21%) Onboarding
5 12 (2.21%) Product Ownership
6 11 (2.02%) Housing Association
7 10 (1.84%) Cloud Native
8 9 (1.65%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (1.65%) Public Cloud
9 5 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
9 5 (0.92%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.74%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.74%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (0.55%) Cyber Security Posture
11 3 (0.55%) Cyberattack
11 3 (0.55%) Manufacturing Execution System
11 3 (0.55%) Mobile App
12 2 (0.37%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (2.57%) Windows
2 7 (1.29%) Windows 10
3 6 (1.10%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.55%) Linux
5 2 (0.37%) 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
1 112 (20.59%) Stakeholder Management
2 111 (20.40%) Stakeholder Engagement
3 89 (16.36%) Agile
4 85 (15.63%) Continuous Improvement
5 72 (13.24%) Decision-Making
6 69 (12.68%) Service Delivery
7 53 (9.74%) Migration
7 53 (9.74%) Problem-Solving
8 44 (8.09%) Business Intelligence
8 44 (8.09%) Roadmaps
9 42 (7.72%) Project Delivery
10 41 (7.54%) Collaborative Working
10 41 (7.54%) Validation
11 39 (7.17%) ERP
12 38 (6.99%) Digital Transformation Programme
13 37 (6.80%) Data Protection
14 36 (6.62%) Business Analysis
14 36 (6.62%) Case Management
14 36 (6.62%) DevOps
15 34 (6.25%) Cybersecurity
Programming Languages
1 41 (7.54%) SQL
2 12 (2.21%) JavaScript
3 11 (2.02%) Python
4 7 (1.29%) Java
4 7 (1.29%) PowerShell
5 5 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 4 (0.74%) C#
6 4 (0.74%) TypeScript
7 3 (0.55%) ABAP
7 3 (0.55%) Bicep
8 2 (0.37%) Go
8 2 (0.37%) Scala
9 1 (0.18%) Apex Code
9 1 (0.18%) Bash
9 1 (0.18%) Groovy
9 1 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.18%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.18%) Ruby
9 1 (0.18%) Swift
9 1 (0.18%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 40 (7.35%) Security Cleared
2 33 (6.07%) SC Cleared
3 20 (3.68%) Degree
4 13 (2.39%) DBS Check
5 11 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (1.65%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (1.10%) CISSP
8 5 (0.92%) Azure Certification
8 5 (0.92%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.74%) CCNP
9 4 (0.74%) CISM
10 3 (0.55%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.55%) CCNA
10 3 (0.55%) CIPFA
10 3 (0.55%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.55%) PMP
11 2 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 2 (0.37%) CRISC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (8.27%) Data Quality
2 38 (6.99%) GDPR
3 24 (4.41%) PMO
4 22 (4.04%) Accessibility
5 19 (3.49%) QA
6 15 (2.76%) SLA
7 11 (2.02%) NCSC
8 8 (1.47%) Cyber Essentials
8 8 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (1.29%) WCAG
10 6 (1.10%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.74%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.74%) IFRS
11 4 (0.74%) NIST
12 2 (0.37%) GRC
12 2 (0.37%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 2 (0.37%) PERC
13 1 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
13 1 (0.18%) P3O
System Software
1 12 (2.21%) Active Directory
2 10 (1.84%) Docker
3 2 (0.37%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.18%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 12 (2.21%) Kubernetes
2 3 (0.55%) Grafana
2 3 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (0.37%) Failover Clustering
3 2 (0.37%) Kibana
3 2 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
3 2 (0.37%) VxRail
4 1 (0.18%) Ansible
4 1 (0.18%) Argo
4 1 (0.18%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 94 (17.28%) Microsoft
2 55 (10.11%) Oracle
3 28 (5.15%) SAP
4 17 (3.13%) Liquidlogic
4 17 (3.13%) NEC
5 14 (2.57%) Civica
6 13 (2.39%) ServiceNow
7 8 (1.47%) Google
8 7 (1.29%) Orchard
9 6 (1.10%) Databricks
10 4 (0.74%) Cisco
10 4 (0.74%) Palo Alto
10 4 (0.74%) Splunk
11 3 (0.55%) Infoblox
11 3 (0.55%) Juniper
11 3 (0.55%) Kronos
11 3 (0.55%) Northgate
11 3 (0.55%) Sitecore
11 3 (0.55%) VMware
12 2 (0.37%) Salesforce