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 15 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 16 19
Rank change year-on-year +6 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 442 171 143
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.56% 9.51% 7.55%
As % of the General category 23.61% 15.08% 13.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 334 118 89
10th Percentile £363 £271 £279
25th Percentile £425 £400 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £528 £565
90th Percentile £665 £579 £664
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 2 9
10th Percentile £17.74 £18.65 £18.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £19.29 £18.50
Median hourly rate £21.50 £20.74 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year +3.65% -20.60% +30.63%
75th Percentile £75.00 £22.34 £35.00
90th Percentile - £23.08 £60.80
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.75 £24.09
% change year-on-year -1.84% -9.71% +17.17%

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 1,872 1,134 1,078
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 53.18% 63.04% 56.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,148 726 686
10th Percentile £313 £216 £213
25th Percentile £408 £382 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £475 £511
Median % change year-on-year +1.86% -7.09% -2.62%
75th Percentile £580 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £638 £738
England median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 157 86 57
10th Percentile £13.46 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.48 £19.13 £15.13
Median hourly rate £25.00 £29.67 £23.82
Median % change year-on-year -15.73% +24.54% +13.59%
75th Percentile £34.56 £40.41 £32.25
90th Percentile £63.73 £50.00 £52.00
England median hourly rate £31.16 £25.15 £38.85
% change year-on-year +23.88% -35.26% +41.27%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +9 221 £500 -3.57% 41
Birmingham -7 85 £525 +10.53% 169
Coventry +8 44 £425 - 7
Solihull -13 18 £493 +6.49% 2
Warwickshire -14 18 £450 -5.26% 9
Staffordshire +2 15 £850 +51.79% 4
Worcestershire +10 10 £450 - 4
Dudley - 4 £375 - 1
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 35 (7.92%) SAS
2 31 (7.01%) Confluence
3 17 (3.85%) Apache Airflow
4 15 (3.39%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.13%) Tuxedo
6 4 (0.90%) Apache
6 4 (0.90%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.23%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.23%) IIS
7 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.23%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 9 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 18 (4.07%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.81%) ContrOCC
3 7 (1.58%) Oracle General Ledger
3 7 (1.58%) Oracle Payables
3 7 (1.58%) Oracle Receivables
4 5 (1.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.90%) SAP HR
5 4 (0.90%) SAP Payroll
5 4 (0.90%) SAP PSCD
5 4 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.68%) SAP ERP
6 3 (0.68%) SAP HCM
7 2 (0.45%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.45%) Oracle Payroll
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.23%) Primavera
8 1 (0.23%) SAP BRIM
8 1 (0.23%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 96 (21.72%) AWS
1 96 (21.72%) Azure
2 41 (9.28%) Azure DevOps
3 40 (9.05%) Power Platform
4 36 (8.14%) Power Automate
5 32 (7.24%) Dynamics 365
6 18 (4.07%) PowerApps
7 17 (3.85%) GitHub
7 17 (3.85%) Serverless
8 15 (3.39%) Azure Functions
9 12 (2.71%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (2.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 11 (2.49%) PaaS
11 10 (2.26%) Amazon EC2
11 10 (2.26%) Amazon S3
11 10 (2.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 8 (1.81%) Amazon SQS
12 8 (1.81%) AWS KMS
12 8 (1.81%) GCP
12 8 (1.81%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.68%) WAN
2 2 (0.45%) Firewall
2 2 (0.45%) LAN
3 1 (0.23%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.23%) SSL
3 1 (0.23%) VPN
3 1 (0.23%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (5.66%) Data Warehouse
1 25 (5.66%) SQL Server
2 23 (5.20%) Pentaho
3 20 (4.52%) Oracle Database
3 20 (4.52%) Power BI
4 18 (4.07%) PostgreSQL
4 18 (4.07%) SAS Visual Analytics
5 17 (3.85%) Metadata
5 17 (3.85%) Relational Database
5 17 (3.85%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 14 (3.17%) Data Lake
7 11 (2.49%) NoSQL
8 9 (2.04%) Amazon RDS
8 9 (2.04%) MongoDB
8 9 (2.04%) Oracle Reports
9 8 (1.81%) Amazon Aurora
9 8 (1.81%) DynamoDB
10 7 (1.58%) Ingres
11 6 (1.36%) RDBMS
12 5 (1.13%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 46 (10.41%) Git
2 42 (9.50%) JIRA
3 32 (7.24%) Jenkins
4 24 (5.43%) GitLab
5 19 (4.30%) JUnit
6 18 (4.07%) SonarQube
7 17 (3.85%) Mockito
8 16 (3.62%) Maven
8 16 (3.62%) Selenium
9 14 (3.17%) Postman
10 11 (2.49%) WebDriver
11 10 (2.26%) Cucumber
11 10 (2.26%) Cypress.io
12 9 (2.04%) Team Foundation Server
13 7 (1.58%) JMeter
14 6 (1.36%) Bitbucket Server
14 6 (1.36%) DbUnit
14 6 (1.36%) jMock
15 5 (1.13%) Oracle Forms
16 3 (0.68%) Visual Studio
General
1 149 (33.71%) Social Skills
2 68 (15.38%) Analytical Skills
3 64 (14.48%) Finance
4 41 (9.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 26 (5.88%) Local Government
6 25 (5.66%) Influencing Skills
7 16 (3.62%) Organisational Skills
8 11 (2.49%) Legal
9 9 (2.04%) Military
10 8 (1.81%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.58%) Police
12 5 (1.13%) Banking
12 5 (1.13%) General Ledger
12 5 (1.13%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.45%) Advertising
13 2 (0.45%) Documentation Skills
13 2 (0.45%) Law
13 2 (0.45%) Manufacturing
13 2 (0.45%) Retail
14 1 (0.23%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 88 (19.91%) Developer
2 70 (15.84%) Senior
3 62 (14.03%) Architect
4 53 (11.99%) Lead
5 51 (11.54%) Analyst
6 41 (9.28%) Data Engineer
7 38 (8.60%) Data Architect
8 27 (6.11%) Java Developer
9 24 (5.43%) Senior Developer
10 23 (5.20%) Business Analyst
11 19 (4.30%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 14 (3.17%) Test Analyst
13 13 (2.94%) Senior Analyst
14 12 (2.71%) Senior Java Developer
15 11 (2.49%) Designer
15 11 (2.49%) DevOps Engineer
15 11 (2.49%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
16 10 (2.26%) Release Manager
16 10 (2.26%) Senior Manager
16 10 (2.26%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.79%) SOAP
2 29 (6.56%) REST
2 29 (6.56%) Spring
3 26 (5.88%) Spring Boot
4 23 (5.20%) JSON
5 17 (3.85%) ActiveMQ
5 17 (3.85%) Oracle Fusion
5 17 (3.85%) RESTful
6 16 (3.62%) AngularJS
6 16 (3.62%) Hibernate
6 16 (3.62%) JPA
6 16 (3.62%) Web Services
7 15 (3.39%) Spring Cloud
7 15 (3.39%) XML
8 12 (2.71%) Gherkin
9 11 (2.49%) XSLT
10 9 (2.04%) Playwright
10 9 (2.04%) React
10 9 (2.04%) Terraform
11 8 (1.81%) Spring Batch
Miscellaneous
1 35 (7.92%) Cloud Native
2 33 (7.47%) Product Ownership
3 25 (5.66%) Management Information System
4 14 (3.17%) Legacy Systems
5 12 (2.71%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.49%) Taxonomies
7 10 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.81%) Data Structures
8 8 (1.81%) Virtual Team
9 7 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.36%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (1.36%) Data Fabric
10 6 (1.36%) Enterprise Cloud
10 6 (1.36%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.13%) Autonomous Agent
11 5 (1.13%) BYOD
12 4 (0.90%) Onboarding
13 3 (0.68%) Freedom of Information
14 2 (0.45%) AI Agents
14 2 (0.45%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.49%) Linux
2 8 (1.81%) Unix
3 4 (0.90%) Windows
4 2 (0.45%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 233 (52.71%) Agile
2 115 (26.02%) DevOps
3 112 (25.34%) Continuous Improvement
4 107 (24.21%) Stakeholder Management
5 105 (23.76%) CI/CD
6 90 (20.36%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 84 (19.00%) Analytics
8 79 (17.87%) Problem-Solving
9 78 (17.65%) Scrum
10 71 (16.06%) Migration
11 61 (13.80%) Decision-Making
12 60 (13.57%) Data Modelling
13 56 (12.67%) Data Integration
14 55 (12.44%) Technical Leadership
15 47 (10.63%) AI
15 47 (10.63%) Digital Transformation Programme
15 47 (10.63%) Microservices
15 47 (10.63%) Test Automation
16 43 (9.73%) Sprint Planning
17 42 (9.50%) SFIA
Programming Languages
1 70 (15.84%) SQL
2 55 (12.44%) Java
3 40 (9.05%) JavaScript
4 26 (5.88%) C#
5 19 (4.30%) Python
6 16 (3.62%) TypeScript
7 13 (2.94%) Scala
8 10 (2.26%) PL/SQL
9 8 (1.81%) VB
9 8 (1.81%) VB6
10 7 (1.58%) ABAP
11 5 (1.13%) C
12 4 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (0.90%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.68%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.68%) R
13 3 (0.68%) VBA
14 2 (0.45%) Bash
14 2 (0.45%) ProC
15 1 (0.23%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 202 (45.70%) Security Cleared
2 184 (41.63%) SC Cleared
3 81 (18.33%) BPSS Clearance
4 26 (5.88%) Microsoft Certification
5 20 (4.52%) Degree
6 14 (3.17%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.36%) Azure Certification
7 6 (1.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (1.13%) ACCA
8 5 (1.13%) CIMA
9 4 (0.90%) CCAB
9 4 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.90%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.68%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.68%) CCA
10 3 (0.68%) CISM
10 3 (0.68%) CISSP
10 3 (0.68%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.45%) APMG
12 1 (0.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 47 (10.63%) Accessibility
2 46 (10.41%) QA
3 35 (7.92%) Data Quality
4 25 (5.66%) WCAG
5 20 (4.52%) GDPR
6 8 (1.81%) SLA
7 6 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.13%) GRC
9 4 (0.90%) NCSC
10 3 (0.68%) PMO
11 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.45%) NIST
12 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 37 (8.37%) Docker
2 5 (1.13%) Postfix
3 4 (0.90%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.23%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.23%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 26 (5.88%) Kubernetes
2 20 (4.52%) Grafana
3 16 (3.62%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.90%) Ansible
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.23%) SCCM
Vendors
1 66 (14.93%) Oracle
2 49 (11.09%) Microsoft
3 21 (4.75%) Talend
4 15 (3.39%) Denodo
5 10 (2.26%) SAP
5 10 (2.26%) ServiceNow
6 9 (2.04%) Databricks
7 8 (1.81%) Jaspersoft
7 8 (1.81%) Liquidlogic
8 7 (1.58%) Atlassian
8 7 (1.58%) Dynatrace
8 7 (1.58%) Informatica
9 6 (1.36%) Pega
10 5 (1.13%) Actian
11 4 (0.90%) Google
12 3 (0.68%) Blue Prism
12 3 (0.68%) Concur
13 2 (0.45%) MuleSoft
13 2 (0.45%) OneLogin
13 2 (0.45%) Sparx