Public Sector Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Public Sector
England > West Midlands

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Sector in contract job vacancies in the West Midlands. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Sector over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 13
Rank change year-on-year -1 -4 -5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 298 108 176
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 9.47% 8.04% 9.04%
As % of the General category 18.68% 12.86% 15.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 209 69 126
10th Percentile £348 £252 £314
25th Percentile £420 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £454 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.45% -9.26% -7.41%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £538
90th Percentile £645 £613 £613
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 6 7
10th Percentile £17.09 - £13.03
25th Percentile £19.26 £14.70 £16.19
Median hourly rate £39.14 £15.57 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +151.39% -18.07% +7.34%
75th Percentile £69.69 £17.99 £27.25
90th Percentile £76.13 £18.44 £35.00
England median hourly rate £22.50 £22.27 £22.12
% change year-on-year +1.03% +0.70% +10.58%

All General Skills
West Midlands

Public Sector 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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for general skills 1,595 840 1,101
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 50.70% 62.50% 56.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,048 553 758
10th Percentile £300 £185 £263
25th Percentile £400 £360 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -6.86% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £675 £750
England median daily rate £503 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.29% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 77 50 111
10th Percentile £14.54 - £11.06
25th Percentile £17.09 £14.00 £13.90
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.07 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +39.22% -7.78% +9.75%
75th Percentile £47.50 £28.18 £39.34
90th Percentile £67.84 £34.24 £56.25
England median hourly rate £30.50 £27.50 £30.16
% change year-on-year +10.91% -8.82% -10.82%

Public Sector
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Public Sector relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Public Sector job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Public Sector
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Public Sector.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Sector in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Sector in the West Midlands

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Public Sector.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Public Sector

Public Sector
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Public Sector in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Public Sector in the West Midlands

Public Sector
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Public Sector within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 1 May 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
Birmingham -1 86 £525 +3.91% 40
Shropshire +1 75 £450 -0.81% 14
Warwickshire +11 44 £550 +29.41% 6
Coventry -8 24 £500 +25.00% 2
Solihull -7 19 £402 -4.29%
Staffordshire +10 12 £400 -30.25% 11
Public Sector
England

Public Sector
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 (7.38%) Confluence
2 18 (6.04%) SAS
3 15 (5.03%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (1.34%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.67%) Anypoint
6 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.34%) Apache
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.34%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 5 (1.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.67%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.34%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.34%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.01%) NEC Housing
1 3 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.67%) Maximo
2 2 (0.67%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.67%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.34%) Primavera
3 1 (0.34%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 60 (20.13%) AWS
2 49 (16.44%) Azure
3 17 (5.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 17 (5.70%) Amazon S3
4 16 (5.37%) Amazon EC2
5 14 (4.70%) Amazon SQS
5 14 (4.70%) AWS KMS
5 14 (4.70%) Route 53
6 11 (3.69%) Power Platform
7 8 (2.68%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (2.01%) Entra ID
8 6 (2.01%) GitHub
8 6 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (2.01%) PaaS
9 5 (1.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 5 (1.68%) SaaS
10 4 (1.34%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 3 (1.01%) AWS Lambda
11 3 (1.01%) GCP
11 3 (1.01%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.35%) Firewall
2 6 (2.01%) VPN
3 4 (1.34%) LAN
4 3 (1.01%) SSL
4 3 (1.01%) WAN
5 2 (0.67%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.67%) Network Security
6 1 (0.34%) BGP
6 1 (0.34%) DNS
6 1 (0.34%) Internet
6 1 (0.34%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.34%) IPsec
6 1 (0.34%) MPLS
6 1 (0.34%) SMTP
6 1 (0.34%) VLAN
6 1 (0.34%) VSAN
6 1 (0.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (6.38%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (5.70%) Pentaho
3 16 (5.37%) Amazon RDS
4 14 (4.70%) Amazon Aurora
4 14 (4.70%) DynamoDB
4 14 (4.70%) Oracle Reports
5 10 (3.36%) Power BI
6 9 (3.02%) Oracle Database
7 8 (2.68%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (1.68%) Electronic Patient Records
8 5 (1.68%) MongoDB
8 5 (1.68%) NoSQL
8 5 (1.68%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 5 (1.68%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 4 (1.34%) Metadata
9 4 (1.34%) Relational Database
9 4 (1.34%) SQL Server
10 3 (1.01%) Tableau
11 2 (0.67%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 28 (9.40%) JIRA
2 27 (9.06%) Git
3 23 (7.72%) Jenkins
4 16 (5.37%) JUnit
5 15 (5.03%) Maven
5 15 (5.03%) Mockito
6 14 (4.70%) SonarQube
7 11 (3.69%) DbUnit
7 11 (3.69%) jMock
8 9 (3.02%) Bitbucket Server
8 9 (3.02%) JMeter
9 7 (2.35%) GitLab
10 3 (1.01%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (1.01%) Postman
11 2 (0.67%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.67%) ERwin
11 2 (0.67%) LoadRunner
11 2 (0.67%) Selenium
12 1 (0.34%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.34%) MSI
General
1 77 (25.84%) Social Skills
2 35 (11.74%) Analytical Skills
3 33 (11.07%) Finance
4 23 (7.72%) Local Government
5 17 (5.70%) Legal
6 15 (5.03%) Police
7 6 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (2.01%) Military
7 6 (2.01%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.68%) Law
8 5 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.01%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.67%) Banking
12 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.34%) Automotive
12 1 (0.34%) Publishing
12 1 (0.34%) Retail
12 1 (0.34%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 39 (13.09%) Developer
2 33 (11.07%) Senior
3 32 (10.74%) Architect
4 28 (9.40%) Analyst
4 28 (9.40%) Data Engineer
5 24 (8.05%) Java Developer
6 19 (6.38%) Lead
7 13 (4.36%) Accountant
7 13 (4.36%) Systems Accountant
8 12 (4.03%) Consultant
9 11 (3.69%) Business Analyst
9 11 (3.69%) Designer
9 11 (3.69%) Release Manager
9 11 (3.69%) Senior Accountant
9 11 (3.69%) Senior Developer
9 11 (3.69%) Senior Systems Accountant
10 10 (3.36%) Solutions Architect
11 8 (2.68%) DBA
11 8 (2.68%) Performance Engineer
11 8 (2.68%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.05%) Spring Boot
2 23 (7.72%) REST
2 23 (7.72%) Spring
3 20 (6.71%) AngularJS
4 18 (6.04%) SOAP
5 15 (5.03%) Hibernate
5 15 (5.03%) JPA
6 14 (4.70%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (4.70%) RESTful
6 14 (4.70%) Spring Batch
6 14 (4.70%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (4.70%) Spring Integration
6 14 (4.70%) Web Services
7 11 (3.69%) Oracle Fusion
7 11 (3.69%) PowerMock
8 10 (3.36%) Node.js
9 9 (3.02%) Bootstrap
10 5 (1.68%) .NET
10 5 (1.68%) HTML
10 5 (1.68%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.38%) Product Ownership
2 18 (6.04%) Management Information System
3 15 (5.03%) Data Structures
4 11 (3.69%) Distributed Systems
5 9 (3.02%) NHS
6 8 (2.68%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (2.35%) Cloud Native
8 6 (2.01%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.68%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (1.34%) Driving Licence
11 3 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
12 2 (0.67%) BYOD
12 2 (0.67%) Enterprise Software
12 2 (0.67%) Linux Command Line
12 2 (0.67%) Mobile App
12 2 (0.67%) PKI
12 2 (0.67%) Private Cloud
12 2 (0.67%) Reference Data
12 2 (0.67%) Replication
12 2 (0.67%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.38%) Linux
2 6 (2.01%) Unix
2 6 (2.01%) Windows
3 3 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.67%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (31.88%) Agile
2 52 (17.45%) DevOps
3 45 (15.10%) Stakeholder Management
4 44 (14.77%) CI/CD
4 44 (14.77%) Migration
5 43 (14.43%) Continuous Improvement
6 35 (11.74%) Scrum
7 31 (10.40%) Data Modelling
7 31 (10.40%) Decision-Making
8 30 (10.07%) Analytics
8 30 (10.07%) Data Integration
9 29 (9.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 28 (9.40%) Records Management
11 27 (9.06%) Problem-Solving
12 26 (8.72%) Change Management
12 26 (8.72%) ETL
13 25 (8.39%) Containerisation
14 24 (8.05%) Microservices
14 24 (8.05%) Project Delivery
15 23 (7.72%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 75 (25.17%) SQL
2 35 (11.74%) Java
3 17 (5.70%) Python
4 10 (3.36%) PL/SQL
5 6 (2.01%) Bash
5 6 (2.01%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.01%) C#
6 3 (1.01%) PowerShell
6 3 (1.01%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.67%) Bicep
7 2 (0.67%) Perl
7 2 (0.67%) Scala
8 1 (0.34%) ABAP
8 1 (0.34%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.34%) R
8 1 (0.34%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (0.34%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 140 (46.98%) Security Cleared
2 89 (29.87%) SC Cleared
3 11 (3.69%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (3.02%) Degree
5 5 (1.68%) AWS Certification
5 5 (1.68%) Azure Certification
5 5 (1.68%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.67%) CCNP
8 1 (0.34%) CCIE
8 1 (0.34%) CCNA
8 1 (0.34%) CISSP
8 1 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.34%) OCP
8 1 (0.34%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.34%) PhD
8 1 (0.34%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.05%) Data Quality
2 12 (4.03%) Accessibility
2 12 (4.03%) QA
3 5 (1.68%) WCAG
4 4 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.01%) GDPR
5 3 (1.01%) PMO
6 2 (0.67%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (0.67%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.34%) COBIT
7 1 (0.34%) GRC
7 1 (0.34%) NIST
7 1 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.34%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (10.07%) Docker
2 10 (3.36%) Postfix
3 6 (2.01%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.01%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.67%) Hyper-V
4 2 (0.67%) vSphere
5 1 (0.34%) etcd
5 1 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 21 (7.05%) Kubernetes
2 15 (5.03%) Grafana
3 6 (2.01%) Prometheus
4 5 (1.68%) Terraform
5 2 (0.67%) Ansible
5 2 (0.67%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.67%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.67%) Kibana
5 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.67%) vRealize
5 2 (0.67%) VxRail
6 1 (0.34%) CASB
6 1 (0.34%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.34%) logstash
6 1 (0.34%) SCCM
6 1 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 46 (15.44%) Oracle
2 19 (6.38%) Microsoft
2 19 (6.38%) Talend
3 14 (4.70%) Jaspersoft
4 13 (4.36%) Atlassian
5 12 (4.03%) Informatica
6 10 (3.36%) Denodo
6 10 (3.36%) SAP
7 7 (2.35%) Dynatrace
8 6 (2.01%) ServiceNow
8 6 (2.01%) VMware
9 5 (1.68%) Databricks
9 5 (1.68%) Pega
9 5 (1.68%) Salesforce
10 4 (1.34%) Cisco
10 4 (1.34%) Cloudera
10 4 (1.34%) IBM
10 4 (1.34%) MuleSoft
11 3 (1.01%) Dell
11 3 (1.01%) Splunk