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

6 months to
23 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 258 260 236
Rank change year-on-year +2 -24 +125
Contract jobs citing Local Government 501 344 421
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.95% 1.05% 1.02%
As % of the General category 1.73% 1.67% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 364 224 287
10th Percentile £329 £264 £325
25th Percentile £413 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -5.26% +5.56%
75th Percentile £638 £550 £560
90th Percentile £700 £650 £638
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £409 £475
% change year-on-year +28.36% -13.89% +11.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 52 48
10th Percentile £16.62 £12.21 £16.00
25th Percentile £17.57 £20.45 £20.75
Median hourly rate £21.49 £28.32 £26.68
Median % change year-on-year -24.12% +6.15% +17.30%
75th Percentile £26.54 £34.61 £33.60
90th Percentile £32.27 £57.50 £54.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £20.62 £20.83 £25.00
% change year-on-year -1.03% -16.68% +21.95%

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 28,911 20,540 23,548
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 54.83% 62.88% 57.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,215 12,857 14,814
10th Percentile £313 £280 £282
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £634 £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 2,025 1,069 1,632
10th Percentile £14.04 £13.33 £13.50
25th Percentile £18.32 £16.30 £16.25
Median hourly rate £32.81 £26.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.17% -25.71% +14.68%
75th Percentile £61.50 £51.90 £56.31
90th Percentile £81.05 £71.30 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.00 £22.63 £35.00
% change year-on-year +45.82% -35.34% +34.62%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -8 479 £525 +16.67% 204
UK excluding London -10 259 £525 +28.36% 169
London -25 218 £525 +10.53% 60
Work from Home -29 163 £525 +16.67% 92
Midlands +32 106 £525 +31.25% 26
West Midlands +11 77 £525 +31.25% 15
North of England -65 47 £475 +5.56% 47
South East -56 43 £637 +45.60% 49
South West -51 29 £525 +32.91% 15
East Midlands +7 25 £500 +25.00% 11
East of England -10 24 £370 -25.93% 15
Yorkshire -50 24 £550 +41.94% 17
North West -35 23 £370 -15.43% 25
Scotland -2 7 £650 +44.44% 9
Wales -15 3 £425 - 12

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 22 (4.39%) SharePoint
2 8 (1.60%) Oracle Workflow
3 7 (1.40%) CMS
4 4 (0.80%) Drupal
4 4 (0.80%) OpenEdge
5 3 (0.60%) WordPress
6 2 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.40%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.40%) Confluence
6 2 (0.40%) govService
6 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.20%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.20%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 19 (3.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (1.20%) Spreadsheet
3 3 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.40%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.40%) Trello
Business Applications
1 20 (3.99%) Oracle Receivables
1 20 (3.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 19 (3.79%) NEC Housing
3 17 (3.39%) ContrOCC
3 17 (3.39%) Oracle Payables
3 17 (3.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 16 (3.19%) Oracle General Ledger
5 6 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
5 6 (1.20%) iTrent
6 4 (0.80%) Oracle Financials
6 4 (0.80%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.40%) MIS ActiveH
7 2 (0.40%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.40%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.40%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.20%) SAP MM
8 1 (0.20%) SAP Payroll
8 1 (0.20%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 47 (9.38%) Azure
2 31 (6.19%) Power Platform
3 30 (5.99%) Microsoft 365
4 20 (3.99%) AWS
5 18 (3.59%) SaaS
6 16 (3.19%) Dynamics 365
7 13 (2.59%) Entra ID
8 11 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (1.80%) GCP
10 7 (1.40%) Power Automate
10 7 (1.40%) PowerApps
11 5 (1.00%) Azure Logic Apps
11 5 (1.00%) Microsoft Copilot
11 5 (1.00%) OCI
12 4 (0.80%) GitHub
12 4 (0.80%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 4 (0.80%) SuccessFactors
13 3 (0.60%) Azure Monitor
13 3 (0.60%) GitHub Actions
13 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 18 (3.59%) Firewall
2 11 (2.20%) DNS
3 8 (1.60%) DHCP
4 7 (1.40%) LAN
4 7 (1.40%) WAN
5 6 (1.20%) Network Security
6 5 (1.00%) Broadband
6 5 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
7 4 (0.80%) VPN
8 2 (0.40%) Intranet
8 2 (0.40%) PSTN
9 1 (0.20%) SD-WAN
9 1 (0.20%) TCP/IP
9 1 (0.20%) Unified Communications
9 1 (0.20%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (5.39%) Power BI
2 24 (4.79%) Oracle Reports
3 8 (1.60%) SQL Server
4 7 (1.40%) GIS
5 4 (0.80%) BusinessObjects
5 4 (0.80%) NoSQL
6 3 (0.60%) Azure SQL Database
6 3 (0.60%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.60%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (0.60%) Star Schema
7 2 (0.40%) Amazon Aurora
7 2 (0.40%) Amazon RDS
7 2 (0.40%) Apache Hudi
7 2 (0.40%) Big Data
7 2 (0.40%) Crystal Reports
7 2 (0.40%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.40%) Power Query
7 2 (0.40%) Presto
7 2 (0.40%) Spatial Data
7 2 (0.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 8 (1.60%) JIRA
2 3 (0.60%) Jenkins
3 1 (0.20%) Capybara
3 1 (0.20%) Git
3 1 (0.20%) JUnit
3 1 (0.20%) Oracle APEX
3 1 (0.20%) RSpec
General
1 219 (43.71%) Public Sector
2 157 (31.34%) Finance
3 130 (25.95%) Social Skills
4 55 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (4.79%) Organisational Skills
6 23 (4.59%) Legal
7 16 (3.19%) Social Housing
8 14 (2.79%) Influencing Skills
9 9 (1.80%) Police
9 9 (1.80%) Retail
10 8 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.20%) Manufacturing
12 5 (1.00%) Banking
12 5 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
12 5 (1.00%) Fire and Rescue
13 4 (0.80%) General Ledger
13 4 (0.80%) Publishing
14 2 (0.40%) Back Office
14 2 (0.40%) Law
14 2 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 63 (12.57%) Analyst
2 61 (12.18%) Lead
2 61 (12.18%) Senior
3 33 (6.59%) Developer
4 29 (5.79%) Business Analyst
5 28 (5.59%) Accountant
6 27 (5.39%) Architect
7 26 (5.19%) Systems Accountant
8 22 (4.39%) Consultant
8 22 (4.39%) Project Manager
9 19 (3.79%) Finance Manager
10 17 (3.39%) Support Officer
11 14 (2.79%) Applications Support
11 14 (2.79%) Finance Systems Manager
11 14 (2.79%) Senior Analyst
11 14 (2.79%) Solutions Architect
12 12 (2.40%) Data Manager
12 12 (2.40%) Tester
13 11 (2.20%) Data Analyst
13 11 (2.20%) Systems Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (9.78%) Oracle Fusion
2 6 (1.20%) RESTful
3 5 (1.00%) CSS
3 5 (1.00%) HTML
3 5 (1.00%) REST
3 5 (1.00%) SAP Fiori
4 4 (0.80%) .NET
4 4 (0.80%) Middleware
5 2 (0.40%) ASP.NET
5 2 (0.40%) ASP.NET Core
5 2 (0.40%) FHIR
5 2 (0.40%) JSON
5 2 (0.40%) Play Framework
5 2 (0.40%) SOAP
5 2 (0.40%) Spring
5 2 (0.40%) Spring Boot
5 2 (0.40%) Web Services
6 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Graph
6 1 (0.20%) Next.js
6 1 (0.20%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 31 (6.19%) Management Information System
2 15 (2.99%) Legacy Systems
3 14 (2.79%) NHS
3 14 (2.79%) Public Cloud
4 13 (2.59%) Product Ownership
5 12 (2.40%) Freedom of Information
6 11 (2.20%) Data Structures
6 11 (2.20%) Onboarding
7 10 (2.00%) Housing Association
8 9 (1.80%) Cloud Native
9 8 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
10 7 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.80%) Distributed Systems
12 4 (0.80%) Driving Licence
12 4 (0.80%) Security Posture
13 3 (0.60%) Cyber Security Posture
13 3 (0.60%) Cyberattack
13 3 (0.60%) Self-Motivation
14 2 (0.40%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.19%) Windows
2 6 (1.20%) Windows 10
3 5 (1.00%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.80%) Linux
5 2 (0.40%) Unix
5 2 (0.40%) VMS
6 1 (0.20%) Android
6 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (20.76%) Stakeholder Management
2 83 (16.57%) Continuous Improvement
3 79 (15.77%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 69 (13.77%) Agile
5 62 (12.38%) Service Delivery
6 58 (11.58%) ERP
7 54 (10.78%) Decision-Making
7 54 (10.78%) Migration
8 49 (9.78%) Problem-Solving
9 40 (7.98%) Project Delivery
10 37 (7.39%) Change Management
10 37 (7.39%) Roadmaps
11 36 (7.19%) Digital Transformation Programme
12 35 (6.99%) Data Protection
13 32 (6.39%) Validation
14 30 (5.99%) Case Management
14 30 (5.99%) Collaborative Working
14 30 (5.99%) Cybersecurity
14 30 (5.99%) Data Migration
15 29 (5.79%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 33 (6.59%) SQL
2 8 (1.60%) Java
3 7 (1.40%) JavaScript
3 7 (1.40%) Python
4 5 (1.00%) PowerShell
5 4 (0.80%) C#
6 3 (0.60%) ABAP
6 3 (0.60%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 2 (0.40%) Go
7 2 (0.40%) Scala
7 2 (0.40%) T-SQL
7 2 (0.40%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.20%) Apex Code
8 1 (0.20%) Bicep
8 1 (0.20%) Groovy
8 1 (0.20%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.20%) Ruby
8 1 (0.20%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 28 (5.59%) Security Cleared
2 23 (4.59%) SC Cleared
3 16 (3.19%) DBS Check
4 14 (2.79%) Degree
5 12 (2.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.40%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
7 6 (1.20%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (1.00%) CCNP
8 5 (1.00%) CISSP
9 4 (0.80%) CCNA
9 4 (0.80%) CIPFA
10 3 (0.60%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.60%) CISM
10 3 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.60%) NVQ Level 3
11 2 (0.40%) AAT
11 2 (0.40%) CIPD
11 2 (0.40%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.40%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 31 (6.19%) Data Quality
2 28 (5.59%) GDPR
3 20 (3.99%) PMO
4 18 (3.59%) Accessibility
5 14 (2.79%) SLA
6 9 (1.80%) QA
7 8 (1.60%) Cyber Essentials
7 8 (1.60%) WCAG
8 7 (1.40%) NCSC
9 6 (1.20%) PCI DSS
10 5 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 4 (0.80%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 4 (0.80%) IFRS
12 3 (0.60%) NIST
12 3 (0.60%) PERC
13 2 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
13 2 (0.40%) GRC
14 1 (0.20%) BS7666
14 1 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
14 1 (0.20%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 13 (2.59%) Active Directory
2 7 (1.40%) Docker
3 2 (0.40%) Hyper-V
3 2 (0.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.20%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 10 (2.00%) Kubernetes
1 10 (2.00%) Terraform
2 2 (0.40%) Grafana
2 2 (0.40%) Kibana
2 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Intune
2 2 (0.40%) SCCM
3 1 (0.20%) FortiGate
3 1 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 80 (15.97%) Microsoft
2 65 (12.97%) Oracle
3 40 (7.98%) SAP
4 20 (3.99%) NEC
5 16 (3.19%) Liquidlogic
6 12 (2.40%) ServiceNow
7 10 (2.00%) Civica
8 7 (1.40%) Google
9 5 (1.00%) Ariba
9 5 (1.00%) Cisco
9 5 (1.00%) Palo Alto
10 4 (0.80%) Infoblox
10 4 (0.80%) Orchard
11 3 (0.60%) Databricks
11 3 (0.60%) Juniper
11 3 (0.60%) Kronos
11 3 (0.60%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.60%) Sitecore
11 3 (0.60%) Splunk
11 3 (0.60%) VMware