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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 21
Rank change year-on-year +5 +5 -10
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 408 162 127
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.76% 9.51% 6.78%
As % of the General category 21.99% 14.96% 12.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 305 107 91
10th Percentile £358 £260 £285
25th Percentile £418 £408 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £458
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% +3.83% -8.50%
75th Percentile £575 £533 £550
90th Percentile £656 £593 £625
England median daily rate £517 £513 £520
% change year-on-year +0.82% -1.44% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 3 9
10th Percentile £17.57 £15.87 £18.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.75 £18.50
Median hourly rate £21.50 £18.44 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year +16.63% -29.44% +45.14%
75th Percentile £75.00 £18.70 £35.00
90th Percentile - £18.72 £43.00
England median hourly rate £22.35 £21.39 £27.00
% change year-on-year +4.51% -20.80% +33.00%

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 1,855 1,083 1,028
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 53.49% 63.56% 54.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,172 672 693
10th Percentile £315 £220 £250
25th Percentile £407 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £581 £570 £626
90th Percentile £675 £638 £750
England median daily rate £525 £510 £538
% change year-on-year +2.94% -5.12% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 138 88 69
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.67 £14.70
Median hourly rate £28.05 £28.18 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% +43.85% -11.36%
75th Percentile £43.96 £40.07 £32.28
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £51.00
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 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
Shropshire +7 181 £490 -4.85% 34
Birmingham -5 81 £525 +10.53% 54
Coventry +7 42 £425 - 7
Warwickshire -8 21 £450 +5.88% 10
Solihull -11 21 £447 +5.80% 3
Staffordshire +8 16 £850 +51.79% 7
Worcestershire +5 9 £450 -35.71%
Dudley -5 2 £375 -
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 39 (9.56%) SAS
2 26 (6.37%) Confluence
3 15 (3.68%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (2.45%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.23%) Tuxedo
6 3 (0.74%) Apache
6 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.49%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.25%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.25%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 8 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (2.21%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.96%) ContrOCC
3 7 (1.72%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (1.47%) Oracle General Ledger
4 6 (1.47%) Oracle Payables
5 5 (1.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (0.98%) SAP PSCD
7 3 (0.74%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.49%) Oracle Payroll
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.25%) Primavera
9 1 (0.25%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.25%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
9 1 (0.25%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 90 (22.06%) AWS
2 86 (21.08%) Azure
3 33 (8.09%) Azure DevOps
4 27 (6.62%) Power Platform
5 22 (5.39%) Power Automate
6 21 (5.15%) Dynamics 365
7 17 (4.17%) GitHub
8 16 (3.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 15 (3.68%) Amazon EC2
9 15 (3.68%) Amazon S3
10 13 (3.19%) Amazon SQS
10 13 (3.19%) AWS KMS
10 13 (3.19%) Azure Data Factory
10 13 (3.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 13 (3.19%) Route 53
11 12 (2.94%) PowerApps
12 10 (2.45%) PaaS
13 9 (2.21%) Serverless
14 8 (1.96%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.72%) Firewall
2 3 (0.74%) LAN
2 3 (0.74%) VPN
3 2 (0.49%) SSL
3 2 (0.49%) WAN
4 1 (0.25%) DNS
4 1 (0.25%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.25%) Internet
4 1 (0.25%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (0.25%) Network Security
4 1 (0.25%) SMTP
4 1 (0.25%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (6.86%) Pentaho
2 26 (6.37%) Data Warehouse
3 19 (4.66%) PostgreSQL
4 18 (4.41%) Oracle Database
4 18 (4.41%) SQL Server
5 17 (4.17%) Power BI
5 17 (4.17%) SAS Visual Analytics
6 16 (3.92%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 14 (3.43%) Amazon RDS
7 14 (3.43%) Oracle Reports
8 13 (3.19%) Amazon Aurora
8 13 (3.19%) DynamoDB
9 12 (2.94%) Data Lake
10 11 (2.70%) Metadata
10 11 (2.70%) Relational Database
11 8 (1.96%) NoSQL
12 7 (1.72%) Ingres
13 6 (1.47%) RDBMS
13 6 (1.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 5 (1.23%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 40 (9.80%) JIRA
2 36 (8.82%) Git
3 34 (8.33%) Jenkins
4 21 (5.15%) GitLab
5 17 (4.17%) JUnit
6 16 (3.92%) Mockito
6 16 (3.92%) SonarQube
7 15 (3.68%) Maven
8 14 (3.43%) Selenium
9 13 (3.19%) Postman
10 10 (2.45%) Bitbucket Server
10 10 (2.45%) DbUnit
10 10 (2.45%) jMock
10 10 (2.45%) WebDriver
11 9 (2.21%) Cypress.io
11 9 (2.21%) JMeter
12 8 (1.96%) Cucumber
12 8 (1.96%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (1.23%) Oracle Forms
14 3 (0.74%) Bitbucket
General
1 119 (29.17%) Social Skills
2 60 (14.71%) Finance
3 58 (14.22%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.33%) Local Government
5 31 (7.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 19 (4.66%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (2.21%) Legal
7 9 (2.21%) Military
8 8 (1.96%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.47%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (1.47%) Police
10 5 (1.23%) Telecoms
11 4 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (0.98%) General Ledger
11 4 (0.98%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.49%) Banking
12 2 (0.49%) Law
12 2 (0.49%) Retail
13 1 (0.25%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.25%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 59 (14.46%) Senior
2 57 (13.97%) Developer
3 52 (12.75%) Architect
4 49 (12.01%) Data Engineer
5 47 (11.52%) Analyst
6 41 (10.05%) Lead
7 27 (6.62%) Java Developer
8 25 (6.13%) Data Architect
9 23 (5.64%) Business Analyst
10 13 (3.19%) Senior Developer
11 12 (2.94%) Senior Analyst
12 11 (2.70%) DevOps Engineer
12 11 (2.70%) Release Manager
12 11 (2.70%) Technical Architect
12 11 (2.70%) Test Analyst
13 10 (2.45%) HR Director
14 9 (2.21%) Accountant
14 9 (2.21%) Designer
14 9 (2.21%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 9 (2.21%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (5.88%) Spring
2 23 (5.64%) Spring Boot
3 21 (5.15%) Oracle Fusion
3 21 (5.15%) SOAP
4 19 (4.66%) REST
5 16 (3.92%) ActiveMQ
5 16 (3.92%) AngularJS
6 15 (3.68%) Hibernate
6 15 (3.68%) JPA
6 15 (3.68%) RESTful
7 14 (3.43%) Spring Cloud
7 14 (3.43%) Web Services
8 13 (3.19%) JSON
8 13 (3.19%) Spring Batch
8 13 (3.19%) Spring Integration
9 10 (2.45%) Bootstrap
9 10 (2.45%) Gherkin
9 10 (2.45%) PowerMock
10 8 (1.96%) Node.js
11 7 (1.72%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 29 (7.11%) Product Ownership
2 26 (6.37%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.41%) Management Information System
4 14 (3.43%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.43%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (3.19%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (1.96%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.47%) Enterprise Cloud
8 6 (1.47%) Low-Code
8 6 (1.47%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.23%) BYOD
10 4 (0.98%) NHS
11 3 (0.74%) Autonomous Agent
11 3 (0.74%) Freedom of Information
11 3 (0.74%) Taxonomies
11 3 (0.74%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.49%) AI Agents
12 2 (0.49%) Hybrid Cloud
12 2 (0.49%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 15 (3.68%) Linux
2 8 (1.96%) Unix
3 5 (1.23%) Windows
4 2 (0.49%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 205 (50.25%) Agile
2 105 (25.74%) DevOps
3 92 (22.55%) Continuous Improvement
4 90 (22.06%) CI/CD
5 85 (20.83%) Stakeholder Management
6 75 (18.38%) Analytics
7 72 (17.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 70 (17.16%) Scrum
9 69 (16.91%) Migration
10 62 (15.20%) Problem-Solving
11 56 (13.73%) Data Modelling
11 56 (13.73%) Decision-Making
12 54 (13.24%) Data Integration
13 50 (12.25%) ETL
14 40 (9.80%) Data Pipeline
15 39 (9.56%) Technical Leadership
16 38 (9.31%) Microservices
17 37 (9.07%) Test Automation
18 36 (8.82%) AI
19 34 (8.33%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 82 (20.10%) SQL
2 47 (11.52%) Java
3 24 (5.88%) Python
4 19 (4.66%) JavaScript
5 16 (3.92%) C#
6 13 (3.19%) PL/SQL
7 11 (2.70%) Scala
8 7 (1.72%) VB
8 7 (1.72%) VB6
9 6 (1.47%) Bash
10 5 (1.23%) C
10 5 (1.23%) TypeScript
11 4 (0.98%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.74%) ABAP
12 3 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.74%) R
13 2 (0.49%) Bicep
13 2 (0.49%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.49%) ProC
13 2 (0.49%) VBA
Qualifications
1 194 (47.55%) Security Cleared
2 163 (39.95%) SC Cleared
3 54 (13.24%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (5.15%) Degree
5 16 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (3.19%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.98%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.98%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.74%) ACCA
10 3 (0.74%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.74%) CCA
10 3 (0.74%) CCAB
10 3 (0.74%) CIMA
10 3 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.74%) CISM
10 3 (0.74%) CISSP
10 3 (0.74%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (9.07%) Data Quality
1 37 (9.07%) QA
2 32 (7.84%) Accessibility
3 14 (3.43%) GDPR
4 13 (3.19%) WCAG
5 9 (2.21%) SLA
6 8 (1.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.23%) GRC
7 5 (1.23%) PMO
8 4 (0.98%) NCSC
9 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 2 (0.49%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.49%) NIST
9 2 (0.49%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.25%) COBIT
10 1 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 42 (10.29%) Docker
2 8 (1.96%) Postfix
3 4 (0.98%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.25%) etcd
4 1 (0.25%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.25%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 31 (7.60%) Kubernetes
2 19 (4.66%) Grafana
3 12 (2.94%) Prometheus
4 10 (2.45%) Terraform
5 4 (0.98%) Ansible
6 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.25%) CASB
7 1 (0.25%) Fluentd
7 1 (0.25%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.25%) SCCM
7 1 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 75 (18.38%) Oracle
2 42 (10.29%) Microsoft
3 27 (6.62%) Talend
4 16 (3.92%) Denodo
5 15 (3.68%) Informatica
6 13 (3.19%) Atlassian
6 13 (3.19%) Jaspersoft
7 11 (2.70%) Databricks
8 9 (2.21%) SAP
9 8 (1.96%) Dynatrace
9 8 (1.96%) Liquidlogic
10 5 (1.23%) Actian
10 5 (1.23%) Cloudera
11 4 (0.98%) Pega
11 4 (0.98%) ServiceNow
12 3 (0.74%) Blue Prism
12 3 (0.74%) OneLogin
12 3 (0.74%) Sparx
13 2 (0.49%) MuleSoft
13 2 (0.49%) UiPath