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 12 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 17 13
Rank change year-on-year 0 -4 -6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 304 116 178
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.04% 8.51% 9.21%
As % of the General category 19.22% 13.81% 16.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 212 75 126
10th Percentile £351 £270 £300
25th Percentile £424 £381 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £454 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.21% -9.26% -7.41%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £550
90th Percentile £645 £609 £631
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 6 6
10th Percentile £17.09 - £12.82
25th Percentile £19.80 £14.70 £15.04
Median hourly rate £25.00 £15.57 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +60.59% -18.07% +7.59%
75th Percentile £39.76 £17.99 £31.13
90th Percentile £63.15 £18.44 £35.00
England median hourly rate £22.50 £22.50 £21.73
% change year-on-year - +3.54% +8.65%

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 1,582 840 1,087
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 52.26% 61.63% 56.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,042 556 744
10th Percentile £300 £193 £260
25th Percentile £400 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £623
90th Percentile £663 £683 £750
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 40 113
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.98 £11.07
25th Percentile £16.46 £14.00 £13.91
Median hourly rate £25.00 £17.58 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.23% -7.49% +5.56%
75th Percentile £34.42 £28.18 £37.50
90th Percentile £63.97 £34.24 £56.25
England median hourly rate £28.00 £29.00 £27.51
% change year-on-year -3.45% +5.43% -21.41%

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 12 April 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 12 April 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 12 April 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 +2 90 £513 +4.59% 41
Shropshire -8 77 £463 +0.96% 14
Warwickshire +17 46 £550 +10.00% 9
Coventry -9 28 £500 +25.00% 1
Solihull -6 16 £402 -4.29% 2
Staffordshire +9 9 £413 -28.07% 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 24 (7.89%) SAS
2 16 (5.26%) Confluence
3 15 (4.93%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.97%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (1.64%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.66%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.33%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.33%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 4 (1.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.99%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (0.33%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.33%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.33%) Sketch
3 1 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.99%) NEC Housing
1 3 (0.99%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.66%) Maximo
2 2 (0.66%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.66%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.66%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 57 (18.75%) AWS
2 49 (16.12%) Azure
3 14 (4.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 14 (4.61%) Amazon S3
4 13 (4.28%) Amazon EC2
5 12 (3.95%) Amazon SQS
5 12 (3.95%) AWS KMS
5 12 (3.95%) Power Platform
5 12 (3.95%) Route 53
6 10 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
7 7 (2.30%) PaaS
8 6 (1.97%) Entra ID
8 6 (1.97%) GitHub
8 6 (1.97%) Microsoft 365
8 6 (1.97%) SaaS
9 4 (1.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 4 (1.32%) GCP
9 4 (1.32%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 3 (0.99%) IaaS
10 3 (0.99%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.96%) Firewall
2 7 (2.30%) VPN
3 4 (1.32%) LAN
4 3 (0.99%) SSL
4 3 (0.99%) WAN
5 2 (0.66%) BGP
5 2 (0.66%) DNS
5 2 (0.66%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.66%) MPLS
5 2 (0.66%) Network Security
5 2 (0.66%) VLAN
5 2 (0.66%) WLAN
6 1 (0.33%) Cisco ASA
6 1 (0.33%) Cisco ISE
6 1 (0.33%) EIGRP
6 1 (0.33%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 1 (0.33%) OSPF
6 1 (0.33%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.33%) VSAN
6 1 (0.33%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (5.59%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (5.26%) Pentaho
3 15 (4.93%) Amazon RDS
4 13 (4.28%) Oracle Reports
5 12 (3.95%) Amazon Aurora
5 12 (3.95%) DynamoDB
6 11 (3.62%) Power BI
7 8 (2.63%) Oracle Database
7 8 (2.63%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 6 (1.97%) MongoDB
9 5 (1.64%) Electronic Patient Records
9 5 (1.64%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 4 (1.32%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (1.32%) NoSQL
10 4 (1.32%) Relational Database
10 4 (1.32%) SQL Server
11 3 (0.99%) Metadata
11 3 (0.99%) Tableau
12 2 (0.66%) Data Hub
12 2 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 30 (9.87%) Git
2 28 (9.21%) JIRA
3 24 (7.89%) Jenkins
4 15 (4.93%) JUnit
5 13 (4.28%) Maven
5 13 (4.28%) Mockito
6 12 (3.95%) SonarQube
7 9 (2.96%) DbUnit
7 9 (2.96%) JMeter
7 9 (2.96%) jMock
8 7 (2.30%) Bitbucket Server
8 7 (2.30%) GitLab
9 3 (0.99%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (0.99%) Toad
10 2 (0.66%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.66%) ERwin
10 2 (0.66%) LoadRunner
10 2 (0.66%) Postman
10 2 (0.66%) Selenium
11 1 (0.33%) MLflow
General
1 79 (25.99%) Social Skills
2 34 (11.18%) Finance
3 31 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (7.89%) Local Government
5 17 (5.59%) Legal
6 15 (4.93%) Police
7 7 (2.30%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.32%) Law
9 4 (1.32%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.32%) Military
9 4 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.66%) Banking
11 1 (0.33%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.33%) Automotive
11 1 (0.33%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.33%) Publishing
11 1 (0.33%) Retail
Job Titles
1 37 (12.17%) Developer
2 33 (10.86%) Analyst
3 32 (10.53%) Senior
4 31 (10.20%) Architect
5 24 (7.89%) Data Engineer
6 22 (7.24%) Java Developer
7 20 (6.58%) Lead
8 14 (4.61%) Business Analyst
8 14 (4.61%) Consultant
8 14 (4.61%) Release Manager
9 13 (4.28%) Accountant
9 13 (4.28%) Systems Accountant
10 11 (3.62%) Senior Accountant
10 11 (3.62%) Senior Developer
10 11 (3.62%) Senior Systems Accountant
10 11 (3.62%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (2.96%) Designer
12 8 (2.63%) DBA
12 8 (2.63%) Performance Engineer
13 7 (2.30%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (7.24%) Spring Boot
2 21 (6.91%) REST
2 21 (6.91%) Spring
3 18 (5.92%) AngularJS
4 15 (4.93%) SOAP
5 13 (4.28%) Hibernate
5 13 (4.28%) JPA
6 12 (3.95%) ActiveMQ
6 12 (3.95%) RESTful
6 12 (3.95%) Spring Batch
6 12 (3.95%) Spring Cloud
6 12 (3.95%) Spring Integration
6 12 (3.95%) Web Services
7 11 (3.62%) Oracle Fusion
8 9 (2.96%) Node.js
8 9 (2.96%) PowerMock
9 7 (2.30%) Bootstrap
10 6 (1.97%) XML
11 5 (1.64%) CSS
11 5 (1.64%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.92%) Management Information System
2 16 (5.26%) Product Ownership
3 15 (4.93%) Data Structures
4 10 (3.29%) NHS
5 9 (2.96%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (2.30%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.64%) Driving Licence
9 4 (1.32%) Cloud Native
9 4 (1.32%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (0.99%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.66%) BYOD
11 2 (0.66%) e-Learning
11 2 (0.66%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.66%) Mobile App
11 2 (0.66%) Private Cloud
11 2 (0.66%) Reference Data
11 2 (0.66%) Replication
11 2 (0.66%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 18 (5.92%) Linux
2 9 (2.96%) Windows
3 4 (1.32%) Unix
4 3 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.66%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (30.59%) Agile
2 55 (18.09%) DevOps
3 50 (16.45%) CI/CD
4 49 (16.12%) Stakeholder Management
5 44 (14.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 39 (12.83%) Migration
7 33 (10.86%) Analytics
7 33 (10.86%) Scrum
8 32 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
9 30 (9.87%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 27 (8.88%) Data Integration
10 27 (8.88%) Data Modelling
10 27 (8.88%) Records Management
11 26 (8.55%) Change Management
11 26 (8.55%) Decision-Making
12 25 (8.22%) ETL
13 24 (7.89%) Containerisation
13 24 (7.89%) Microservices
14 23 (7.57%) Project Delivery
15 20 (6.58%) User Research
Programming Languages
1 74 (24.34%) SQL
2 37 (12.17%) Java
3 19 (6.25%) Python
4 9 (2.96%) PL/SQL
5 7 (2.30%) Bash
6 6 (1.97%) JavaScript
6 6 (1.97%) Scala
7 4 (1.32%) PowerShell
8 3 (0.99%) C#
8 3 (0.99%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.66%) Bicep
9 2 (0.66%) Perl
10 1 (0.33%) ABAP
10 1 (0.33%) COBOL
10 1 (0.33%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.33%) R
10 1 (0.33%) Search Processing Language
10 1 (0.33%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 140 (46.05%) Security Cleared
2 82 (26.97%) SC Cleared
3 10 (3.29%) BPSS Clearance
4 8 (2.63%) Degree
5 7 (2.30%) Azure Certification
6 6 (1.97%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.32%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (1.32%) DV Cleared
8 3 (0.99%) CCNP
8 3 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (0.99%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 2 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.66%) CCIE
9 2 (0.66%) CISSP
9 2 (0.66%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.33%) CCIE Security
10 1 (0.33%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
10 1 (0.33%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.58%) Data Quality
2 16 (5.26%) QA
3 10 (3.29%) Accessibility
4 6 (1.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.32%) GDPR
5 4 (1.32%) WCAG
6 3 (0.99%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.66%) NIST
7 2 (0.66%) PMO
8 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.33%) COBIT
8 1 (0.33%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.33%) GRC
8 1 (0.33%) NCSC
8 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.33%) SLA
System Software
1 29 (9.54%) Docker
2 8 (2.63%) Postfix
3 7 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (1.97%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.66%) vSphere
6 1 (0.33%) etcd
6 1 (0.33%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.33%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 24 (7.89%) Kubernetes
2 12 (3.95%) Grafana
3 7 (2.30%) Terraform
4 4 (1.32%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.66%) Ansible
5 2 (0.66%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.66%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.66%) Kibana
5 2 (0.66%) vRealize
5 2 (0.66%) VxRail
6 1 (0.33%) CASB
6 1 (0.33%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.33%) logstash
6 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.33%) SCCM
6 1 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 50 (16.45%) Oracle
2 20 (6.58%) Microsoft
3 19 (6.25%) Talend
4 13 (4.28%) SAP
5 12 (3.95%) Jaspersoft
6 11 (3.62%) Atlassian
7 10 (3.29%) Denodo
7 10 (3.29%) Informatica
8 7 (2.30%) Dynatrace
8 7 (2.30%) VMware
9 6 (1.97%) Cisco
9 6 (1.97%) Salesforce
9 6 (1.97%) ServiceNow
10 5 (1.64%) IBM
11 4 (1.32%) Ariba
11 4 (1.32%) Cloudera
11 4 (1.32%) Databricks
11 4 (1.32%) MuleSoft
11 4 (1.32%) Pega
12 3 (0.99%) Splunk