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 29 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 16 18
Rank change year-on-year +4 +2 -8
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 383 139 134
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.20% 8.44% 7.07%
As % of the General category 21.09% 13.40% 13.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 283 84 100
10th Percentile £350 £257 £262
25th Percentile £414 £406 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £469 £463
Median % change year-on-year +5.07% +1.35% -11.48%
75th Percentile £575 £526 £550
90th Percentile £661 £614 £639
England median daily rate £515 £511 £520
% change year-on-year +0.78% -1.73% -3.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 3 8
10th Percentile £17.57 £15.87 £17.75
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.75 £18.50
Median hourly rate £21.50 £18.44 £26.47
Median % change year-on-year +16.63% -30.34% +47.03%
75th Percentile £75.00 £18.70 £35.00
90th Percentile - £18.72 £47.00
England median hourly rate £25.38 £21.70 £27.00
% change year-on-year +16.96% -19.63% +29.68%

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 1,816 1,037 1,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 53.08% 63.00% 54.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,150 644 710
10th Percentile £313 £206 £263
25th Percentile £405 £362 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £461 £503
Median % change year-on-year +6.67% -8.21% -3.37%
75th Percentile £588 £570 £626
90th Percentile £675 £643 £750
England median daily rate £525 £510 £538
% change year-on-year +2.94% -5.12% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 124 85 75
10th Percentile £15.83 £14.00 £12.56
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.13 £14.00
Median hourly rate £30.27 £27.21 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.25% +43.21% -9.39%
75th Percentile £43.96 £40.02 £33.11
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £53.00
England median hourly rate £33.99 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +35.15% -34.02% +27.07%

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 29 July 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 29 July 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 29 July 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 +6 152 £492 +7.40% 33
Birmingham -2 90 £525 +10.53% 45
Coventry +5 40 £450 +2.86% 2
Solihull -8 23 £447 +6.43% 1
Warwickshire -14 20 £450 +5.88% 7
Staffordshire +9 17 £850 +51.79% 13
Worcestershire +1 9 £450 -35.71%
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 37 (9.66%) SAS
2 29 (7.57%) Confluence
3 15 (3.92%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (2.87%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.31%) Tuxedo
6 3 (0.78%) Apache
6 3 (0.78%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.52%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.26%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.26%) IIS
8 1 (0.26%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 8 (2.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.26%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 8 (2.09%) ContrOCC
1 8 (2.09%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.83%) Oracle Receivables
3 6 (1.57%) Oracle General Ledger
3 6 (1.57%) Oracle Payables
4 5 (1.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (1.04%) SAP PSCD
6 3 (0.78%) NEC Housing
6 3 (0.78%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.52%) Oracle ERP
7 2 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle EBS
8 1 (0.26%) Oracle Payroll
8 1 (0.26%) Primavera
8 1 (0.26%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.26%) SAP HR
8 1 (0.26%) SAP Hybris
8 1 (0.26%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 91 (23.76%) AWS
2 87 (22.72%) Azure
3 30 (7.83%) Azure DevOps
4 28 (7.31%) Power Platform
5 21 (5.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 20 (5.22%) Amazon EC2
6 20 (5.22%) Amazon S3
7 18 (4.70%) Dynamics 365
7 18 (4.70%) Power Automate
8 17 (4.44%) Amazon SQS
8 17 (4.44%) AWS KMS
8 17 (4.44%) Route 53
9 16 (4.18%) GitHub
10 13 (3.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 12 (3.13%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (2.61%) PaaS
13 9 (2.35%) PowerApps
14 8 (2.09%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (2.09%) Microsoft 365
14 8 (2.09%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.83%) Firewall
2 3 (0.78%) LAN
2 3 (0.78%) VPN
3 2 (0.52%) SSL
3 2 (0.52%) WAN
4 1 (0.26%) DNS
4 1 (0.26%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.26%) Internet
4 1 (0.26%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (0.26%) Network Security
4 1 (0.26%) SMTP
4 1 (0.26%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (6.53%) Pentaho
2 23 (6.01%) Data Warehouse
2 23 (6.01%) PostgreSQL
3 20 (5.22%) Power BI
4 19 (4.96%) Amazon RDS
5 18 (4.70%) Oracle Database
6 17 (4.44%) Amazon Aurora
6 17 (4.44%) DynamoDB
6 17 (4.44%) Oracle Reports
6 17 (4.44%) SQL Server
7 16 (4.18%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 16 (4.18%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 11 (2.87%) Data Lake
9 10 (2.61%) Metadata
10 9 (2.35%) Relational Database
11 7 (1.83%) Ingres
11 7 (1.83%) NoSQL
12 6 (1.57%) RDBMS
12 6 (1.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 5 (1.31%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 39 (10.18%) JIRA
2 36 (9.40%) Jenkins
3 35 (9.14%) Git
4 21 (5.48%) JUnit
5 20 (5.22%) Mockito
6 19 (4.96%) GitLab
6 19 (4.96%) Maven
6 19 (4.96%) SonarQube
7 13 (3.39%) DbUnit
7 13 (3.39%) jMock
7 13 (3.39%) Selenium
8 11 (2.87%) Bitbucket Server
8 11 (2.87%) Postman
9 10 (2.61%) JMeter
10 9 (2.35%) WebDriver
11 8 (2.09%) Cypress.io
11 8 (2.09%) Team Foundation Server
12 7 (1.83%) Cucumber
13 5 (1.31%) Oracle Forms
14 3 (0.78%) Bitbucket
General
1 109 (28.46%) Social Skills
2 58 (15.14%) Finance
3 52 (13.58%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (9.14%) Local Government
5 26 (6.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (4.18%) Influencing Skills
7 11 (2.87%) Legal
8 7 (1.83%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.57%) Military
10 5 (1.31%) Police
10 5 (1.31%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.04%) General Ledger
11 4 (1.04%) Manufacturing
12 3 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
13 2 (0.52%) Banking
13 2 (0.52%) Retail
14 1 (0.26%) Advertising
14 1 (0.26%) Billing
14 1 (0.26%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 55 (14.36%) Senior
2 52 (13.58%) Developer
3 48 (12.53%) Architect
4 44 (11.49%) Analyst
5 40 (10.44%) Data Engineer
5 40 (10.44%) Lead
6 31 (8.09%) Java Developer
7 21 (5.48%) Business Analyst
8 17 (4.44%) Data Architect
9 12 (3.13%) Release Manager
9 12 (3.13%) Senior Developer
10 11 (2.87%) Accountant
10 11 (2.87%) Applications Support
10 11 (2.87%) Senior Analyst
10 11 (2.87%) Systems Accountant
10 11 (2.87%) Technical Architect
11 10 (2.61%) DevOps Engineer
11 10 (2.61%) HR Director
12 9 (2.35%) Consultant
12 9 (2.35%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (7.05%) Spring
1 27 (7.05%) Spring Boot
2 25 (6.53%) SOAP
3 23 (6.01%) REST
4 22 (5.74%) Oracle Fusion
5 20 (5.22%) ActiveMQ
5 20 (5.22%) AngularJS
6 19 (4.96%) Hibernate
6 19 (4.96%) JPA
7 18 (4.70%) Spring Cloud
7 18 (4.70%) Web Services
8 17 (4.44%) Spring Batch
8 17 (4.44%) Spring Integration
9 15 (3.92%) RESTful
10 13 (3.39%) PowerMock
11 12 (3.13%) JSON
11 12 (3.13%) Node.js
12 11 (2.87%) Bootstrap
13 9 (2.35%) Gherkin
14 7 (1.83%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 29 (7.57%) Product Ownership
2 22 (5.74%) Cloud Native
3 16 (4.18%) Data Structures
3 16 (4.18%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (4.18%) Management Information System
4 12 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (1.83%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.57%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (1.57%) Low-Code
8 5 (1.31%) BYOD
8 5 (1.31%) NHS
8 5 (1.31%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.78%) Autonomous Agent
9 3 (0.78%) Freedom of Information
9 3 (0.78%) Taxonomies
9 3 (0.78%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.52%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.52%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.70%) Linux
2 8 (2.09%) Unix
3 5 (1.31%) Windows
4 2 (0.52%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 188 (49.09%) Agile
2 96 (25.07%) DevOps
3 82 (21.41%) Stakeholder Management
4 80 (20.89%) CI/CD
5 74 (19.32%) Continuous Improvement
6 65 (16.97%) Scrum
7 63 (16.45%) Analytics
7 63 (16.45%) Migration
8 62 (16.19%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 53 (13.84%) Decision-Making
10 51 (13.32%) Data Modelling
11 49 (12.79%) Data Integration
12 48 (12.53%) Problem-Solving
13 43 (11.23%) ETL
14 35 (9.14%) Technical Leadership
15 34 (8.88%) Data Pipeline
15 34 (8.88%) Microservices
16 33 (8.62%) Test Automation
17 31 (8.09%) Containerisation
17 31 (8.09%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 85 (22.19%) SQL
2 50 (13.05%) Java
3 24 (6.27%) Python
4 15 (3.92%) JavaScript
5 14 (3.66%) C#
6 13 (3.39%) PL/SQL
7 7 (1.83%) VB
7 7 (1.83%) VB6
8 6 (1.57%) Bash
9 5 (1.31%) C
10 4 (1.04%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.04%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.78%) ABAP
11 3 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.78%) R
11 3 (0.78%) Scala
12 2 (0.52%) Bicep
12 2 (0.52%) PowerShell
12 2 (0.52%) ProC
12 2 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 188 (49.09%) Security Cleared
2 152 (39.69%) SC Cleared
3 42 (10.97%) BPSS Clearance
4 19 (4.96%) Degree
5 13 (3.39%) Microsoft Certification
6 10 (2.61%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.57%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.31%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.31%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.04%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.04%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (1.04%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.78%) ACCA
10 3 (0.78%) CCA
10 3 (0.78%) CCAB
10 3 (0.78%) CIMA
10 3 (0.78%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.78%) CISM
10 3 (0.78%) CISSP
11 2 (0.52%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (8.62%) Data Quality
2 28 (7.31%) QA
3 27 (7.05%) Accessibility
4 13 (3.39%) GDPR
5 11 (2.87%) WCAG
6 9 (2.35%) SLA
7 6 (1.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.31%) PMO
9 3 (0.78%) NCSC
10 2 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.52%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.52%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.52%) GRC
10 2 (0.52%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.26%) COBIT
11 1 (0.26%) NIST
11 1 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 42 (10.97%) Docker
2 11 (2.87%) Postfix
3 4 (1.04%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.26%) etcd
4 1 (0.26%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 27 (7.05%) Kubernetes
2 23 (6.01%) Grafana
3 12 (3.13%) Prometheus
4 9 (2.35%) Terraform
5 4 (1.04%) Ansible
6 2 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.26%) CASB
7 1 (0.26%) Fluentd
7 1 (0.26%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.26%) SCCM
7 1 (0.26%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 74 (19.32%) Oracle
2 39 (10.18%) Microsoft
3 25 (6.53%) Talend
4 17 (4.44%) Jaspersoft
5 16 (4.18%) Atlassian
6 15 (3.92%) Informatica
7 14 (3.66%) Denodo
8 12 (3.13%) Databricks
9 10 (2.61%) SAP
10 8 (2.09%) Liquidlogic
11 7 (1.83%) Dynatrace
12 6 (1.57%) ServiceNow
13 5 (1.31%) Actian
13 5 (1.31%) Cloudera
13 5 (1.31%) Pega
14 3 (0.78%) Google
14 3 (0.78%) NEC
14 3 (0.78%) OneLogin
14 3 (0.78%) Salesforce
14 3 (0.78%) Sparx