NHS Contract Job Trends in Wales

National Health Service (NHS)
UK > Wales

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term NHS in contract job vacancies in Wales. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited NHS over the 6 months leading up to 21 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

	6 months to 21 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	21	23	22
Rank change year-on-year	+2	-1	+4
Contract jobs citing NHS	37	23	26
As % of all contract jobs in Wales	5.48%	5.71%	6.05%
As % of the Miscellaneous category	17.54%	18.40%	17.93%
Number of daily rates quoted	35	21	18
10^th Percentile	£275	£183	£120
25^th Percentile	£306	£226	£137
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£313	£308	£178
Median % change year-on-year	+1.63%	+72.91%	-14.09%
75^th Percentile	£325	£415	£265
90^th Percentile	-	£433	£348
UK median daily rate	£450	£425	£350
% change year-on-year	+5.88%	+21.43%	+13.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted	0	0	7
10^th Percentile	-	-	£20.16
25^th Percentile	-	-	£23.55
Median hourly rate	-	-	£25.60
75^th Percentile	-	-	-
90^th Percentile	-	-	£25.96
UK median hourly rate	£20.00	£16.00	£23.99
% change year-on-year	+25.00%	-33.31%	+24.04%

All Generic Skills
Wales

NHS falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in Wales.

	6 months to 21 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills	211	125	145
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Wales	31.26%	31.02%	33.72%
Number of daily rates quoted	139	69	85
10^th Percentile	£240	£189	£134
25^th Percentile	£306	£238	£178
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£425	£325	£325
Median % change year-on-year	+30.77%	-	-13.33%
75^th Percentile	£550	£444	£550
90^th Percentile	£713	£543	£695
UK median daily rate	£525	£515	£534
% change year-on-year	+1.94%	-3.47%	-3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted	21	24	15
10^th Percentile	£13.94	£13.08	£19.83
25^th Percentile	£21.50	£17.30	£22.00
Median hourly rate	£43.96	£20.50	£25.60
Median % change year-on-year	+114.44%	-19.92%	-36.00%
75^th Percentile	-	£21.50	£27.00
90^th Percentile	£72.50	£32.63	£47.16
UK median hourly rate	£36.00	£26.64	£46.18
% change year-on-year	+35.14%	-42.31%	+3.78%

NHS Job Vacancy Trend in Wales

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing NHS relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Wales.

NHS Daily Rate Trend in Wales

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Wales citing NHS.

NHS Daily Rate Histogram in Wales

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing NHS in Wales over the 6 months to 21 October 2026.

NHS Hourly Rate Trend in Wales

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Wales citing NHS.

NHS Contract Job Locations in Wales

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing NHS within the Wales region over the 6 months to 21 October 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
South Wales	+2	36	£313	+1.63%	9
Dyfed	-	1	£475	-
NHS UK

NHS Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Wales

For the 6 months to 21 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing NHS also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Wales region with a requirement for NHS.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Microsoft	64.9%	24
2	Azure	62.2%	23
3	Power Platform	56.8%	21
4	DevOps	43.2%	16
5	CI/CD	37.8%	14
6	PowerApps	29.7%	11
7	Analytics	21.6%	8
7	Business Intelligence	21.6%	8
7	Platform Engineering	21.6%	8
7	Terraform	21.6%	8
11	.NET	18.9%	7
11	Power BI	18.9%	7
13	Agile	16.2%	6
13	GitHub	16.2%	6
13	Incident Response	16.2%	6
13	Microsoft 365	16.2%	6
13	SQL	16.2%	6
13	Validation	16.2%	6
19	Azure DevOps	13.5%	5
19	Azure Monitor	13.5%	5
19	Containerisation	13.5%	5
19	Continuous Delivery	13.5%	5
19	CRM	13.5%	5
19	Data Validation	13.5%	5
19	Deployment Automation	13.5%	5
19	Docker	13.5%	5
19	Dynamics CRM	13.5%	5
19	ETL	13.5%	5
19	Kubernetes	13.5%	5
19	Requirements Gathering	13.5%	5

NHS Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Wales by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Miscellaneous

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Data Structures	8.1%	3
2	Low-Code	2.7%	1
2	Onboarding	2.7%	1