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 14 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 17 13
Rank change year-on-year +1 -4 -7
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 291 117 183
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.25% 8.82% 9.42%
As % of the General category 18.97% 14.27% 16.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 197 78 126
10th Percentile £357 £276 £241
25th Percentile £425 £384 £404
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £469 £508
Median % change year-on-year +6.61% -7.59% -3.33%
75th Percentile £600 £539 £569
90th Percentile £650 £604 £638
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 7 6
10th Percentile £16.97 - £12.82
25th Percentile £17.09 £14.70 £16.66
Median hourly rate £23.00 £16.44 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +39.95% -45.22% +70.26%
75th Percentile £25.00 £18.44 £35.00
90th Percentile £36.07 £20.68 £57.39
England median hourly rate £22.04 £24.59 £21.50
% change year-on-year -10.38% +14.37% +7.50%

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 1,534 820 1,078
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 54.01% 61.84% 55.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 987 543 740
10th Percentile £300 £200 £238
25th Percentile £400 £353 £389
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -
75th Percentile £581 £597 £610
90th Percentile £675 £689 £716
England median daily rate £500 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 35 108
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.95 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.05 £14.70 £13.90
Median hourly rate £23.00 £18.00 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +27.78% -8.12% +10.68%
75th Percentile £27.50 £23.24 £37.81
90th Percentile £47.50 £30.68 £57.00
England median hourly rate £25.00 £30.90 £26.00
% change year-on-year -19.10% +18.86% -22.39%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 94 £500 +5.71% 38
Shropshire -12 61 £469 -8.93% 11
Warwickshire +23 51 £550 +4.76% 2
Coventry -7 31 £500 +21.21% 1
Solihull -5 13 £401 -4.52% 3
Staffordshire +3 9 £413 -23.15% 6
Worcestershire -22 1 £363 -30.95% 2
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 18 (6.19%) SAS
2 16 (5.50%) Confluence
3 14 (4.81%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.72%) WebLogic
5 1 (0.34%) Anypoint
5 1 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.34%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.34%) SugarCRM
5 1 (0.34%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 6 (2.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.03%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.03%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.34%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.34%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.34%) Oracle Smart View
4 1 (0.34%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.34%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.03%) NEC Housing
1 3 (1.03%) SAP ERP
1 3 (1.03%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.69%) Maximo
2 2 (0.69%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.69%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.34%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle Assets
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 51 (17.53%) AWS
2 44 (15.12%) Azure
3 16 (5.50%) Power Platform
4 12 (4.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 12 (4.12%) Amazon S3
5 10 (3.44%) Amazon EC2
5 10 (3.44%) AWS KMS
5 10 (3.44%) Azure DevOps
6 9 (3.09%) Amazon SQS
6 9 (3.09%) Route 53
7 7 (2.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 7 (2.41%) Entra ID
7 7 (2.41%) GitHub
7 7 (2.41%) SaaS
8 5 (1.72%) GCP
8 5 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (1.37%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (1.37%) OCI
9 4 (1.37%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 10 (3.44%) Firewall
2 7 (2.41%) VPN
3 3 (1.03%) LAN
3 3 (1.03%) Wireless
4 2 (0.69%) BGP
4 2 (0.69%) DNS
4 2 (0.69%) Internet
4 2 (0.69%) MPLS
4 2 (0.69%) Network Security
4 2 (0.69%) SSL
4 2 (0.69%) VLAN
4 2 (0.69%) WAN
5 1 (0.34%) Broadband
5 1 (0.34%) Cisco ASA
5 1 (0.34%) EIGRP
5 1 (0.34%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.34%) IPv4
5 1 (0.34%) IPv6
5 1 (0.34%) OSPF
5 1 (0.34%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.50%) Pentaho
2 15 (5.15%) PostgreSQL
2 15 (5.15%) Power BI
3 12 (4.12%) Amazon RDS
4 11 (3.78%) Oracle Reports
5 9 (3.09%) Amazon Aurora
5 9 (3.09%) DynamoDB
6 6 (2.06%) MongoDB
7 5 (1.72%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.72%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.37%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (1.37%) Electronic Patient Records
8 4 (1.37%) Metadata
8 4 (1.37%) SQL Server
9 3 (1.03%) Oracle Database
9 3 (1.03%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 3 (1.03%) Tableau
10 2 (0.69%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.69%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.69%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 28 (9.62%) Git
2 27 (9.28%) JIRA
3 23 (7.90%) Jenkins
4 12 (4.12%) JUnit
5 10 (3.44%) Maven
5 10 (3.44%) Mockito
6 9 (3.09%) SonarQube
7 7 (2.41%) DbUnit
7 7 (2.41%) jMock
8 5 (1.72%) Bitbucket Server
8 5 (1.72%) GitLab
9 3 (1.03%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (1.03%) JMeter
9 3 (1.03%) Toad
10 2 (0.69%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.69%) ERwin
10 2 (0.69%) Selenium
11 1 (0.34%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.34%) Balsamiq
11 1 (0.34%) MSTest
General
1 84 (28.87%) Social Skills
2 35 (12.03%) Finance
3 28 (9.62%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (6.87%) Local Government
5 14 (4.81%) Legal
6 13 (4.47%) Police
7 8 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (2.75%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (2.06%) Military
9 5 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 5 (1.72%) Law
9 5 (1.72%) Manufacturing
9 5 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.69%) Banking
10 2 (0.69%) Retail
10 2 (0.69%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.34%) Automotive
11 1 (0.34%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 35 (12.03%) Analyst
2 34 (11.68%) Developer
3 31 (10.65%) Architect
4 30 (10.31%) Senior
5 22 (7.56%) Data Engineer
5 22 (7.56%) Lead
6 18 (6.19%) Java Developer
7 16 (5.50%) Consultant
8 13 (4.47%) Solutions Architect
9 12 (4.12%) Business Analyst
10 10 (3.44%) Accountant
10 10 (3.44%) Release Manager
10 10 (3.44%) Senior Accountant
11 9 (3.09%) Senior Systems Accountant
11 9 (3.09%) Systems Accountant
12 8 (2.75%) Senior Developer
13 7 (2.41%) Designer
13 7 (2.41%) Technical Architect
14 6 (2.06%) Head of Infrastructure
14 6 (2.06%) IT Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (6.19%) REST
1 18 (6.19%) Spring Boot
2 17 (5.84%) Spring
3 15 (5.15%) AngularJS
4 12 (4.12%) Oracle Fusion
4 12 (4.12%) RESTful
5 11 (3.78%) SOAP
5 11 (3.78%) Web Services
6 10 (3.44%) Hibernate
6 10 (3.44%) JPA
7 9 (3.09%) ActiveMQ
7 9 (3.09%) Spring Batch
7 9 (3.09%) Spring Cloud
7 9 (3.09%) Spring Integration
8 8 (2.75%) Node.js
9 7 (2.41%) CSS
9 7 (2.41%) PowerMock
10 6 (2.06%) HTML
10 6 (2.06%) React
10 6 (2.06%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (6.19%) Management Information System
2 13 (4.47%) Data Structures
3 11 (3.78%) Product Ownership
4 8 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (2.75%) NHS
5 6 (2.06%) Cloud Native
6 5 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (1.72%) Driving Licence
6 5 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (1.72%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.03%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.03%) PKI
8 2 (0.69%) CMDB
8 2 (0.69%) e-Learning
8 2 (0.69%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.69%) Public Cloud
8 2 (0.69%) Reference Data
8 2 (0.69%) Replication
8 2 (0.69%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.15%) Linux
2 8 (2.75%) Windows
3 3 (1.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.69%) Unix
5 1 (0.34%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 85 (29.21%) Agile
2 50 (17.18%) Stakeholder Management
3 47 (16.15%) DevOps
4 42 (14.43%) CI/CD
5 37 (12.71%) Continuous Improvement
6 35 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
7 32 (11.00%) Migration
8 29 (9.97%) Analytics
8 29 (9.97%) Data Modelling
9 27 (9.28%) Scrum
10 26 (8.93%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 25 (8.59%) Records Management
12 24 (8.25%) Containerisation
13 23 (7.90%) ETL
14 21 (7.22%) Change Management
14 21 (7.22%) Microservices
14 21 (7.22%) Project Delivery
15 20 (6.87%) Business Intelligence
15 20 (6.87%) Data Integration
15 20 (6.87%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 67 (23.02%) SQL
2 32 (11.00%) Java
3 21 (7.22%) Python
4 10 (3.44%) JavaScript
5 7 (2.41%) Bash
5 7 (2.41%) PL/SQL
6 4 (1.37%) PowerShell
6 4 (1.37%) Scala
7 3 (1.03%) C#
7 3 (1.03%) Shell Script
8 2 (0.69%) Bicep
8 2 (0.69%) Go
8 2 (0.69%) Perl
8 2 (0.69%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 1 (0.34%) Groovy
9 1 (0.34%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.34%) PHP
9 1 (0.34%) R
9 1 (0.34%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 137 (47.08%) Security Cleared
2 71 (24.40%) SC Cleared
3 9 (3.09%) Degree
4 8 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (2.41%) AWS Certification
5 7 (2.41%) Azure Certification
5 7 (2.41%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (1.37%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (1.03%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.03%) CCNP
7 3 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
8 2 (0.69%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 2 (0.69%) CCNA
8 2 (0.69%) CISSP
8 2 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.69%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.34%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.34%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
9 1 (0.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.87%) Data Quality
2 14 (4.81%) QA
3 11 (3.78%) Accessibility
4 7 (2.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (1.72%) GDPR
6 4 (1.37%) WCAG
7 3 (1.03%) NIST
7 3 (1.03%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.69%) PMO
8 2 (0.69%) SLA
9 1 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.34%) COBIT
9 1 (0.34%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.34%) NCSC
9 1 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 27 (9.28%) Docker
2 6 (2.06%) Postfix
2 6 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (1.72%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.69%) vSphere
5 1 (0.34%) etcd
5 1 (0.34%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.34%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 25 (8.59%) Kubernetes
2 10 (3.44%) Grafana
3 9 (3.09%) Terraform
4 4 (1.37%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.03%) Ansible
6 2 (0.69%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (0.69%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.69%) Kibana
6 2 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.69%) vRealize
6 2 (0.69%) VxRail
7 1 (0.34%) CASB
7 1 (0.34%) Fluentd
7 1 (0.34%) logstash
7 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.34%) QRadar
Vendors
1 45 (15.46%) Oracle
2 24 (8.25%) Microsoft
3 18 (6.19%) Talend
4 15 (5.15%) SAP
5 10 (3.44%) Informatica
6 9 (3.09%) Atlassian
6 9 (3.09%) Denodo
6 9 (3.09%) Jaspersoft
7 7 (2.41%) Ariba
7 7 (2.41%) Splunk
7 7 (2.41%) VMware
8 6 (2.06%) Cisco
8 6 (2.06%) Salesforce
8 6 (2.06%) ServiceNow
9 5 (1.72%) Databricks
9 5 (1.72%) IBM
10 4 (1.37%) Cloudera
11 3 (1.03%) Dell
11 3 (1.03%) Google
11 3 (1.03%) SolarWinds