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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 17 11
Rank change year-on-year +2 -6 -5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 285 128 183
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.12% 9.28% 9.50%
As % of the General category 18.55% 15.02% 17.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 195 82 126
10th Percentile £357 £291 £241
25th Percentile £413 £393 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £478 £524
Median % change year-on-year +4.71% -8.83% -0.24%
75th Percentile £600 £560 £575
90th Percentile £648 £611 £638
England median daily rate £500 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -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 £22.08 £24.59 £21.50
% change year-on-year -10.23% +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 1,536 852 1,076
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 54.56% 61.74% 55.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 997 557 732
10th Percentile £271 £200 £220
25th Percentile £400 £360 £386
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -
75th Percentile £581 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 35 107
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.00 £11.06
25th Percentile £16.09 £14.70 £13.90
Median hourly rate £23.00 £18.13 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +26.86% -2.00% +4.52%
75th Percentile £27.50 £24.00 £39.34
90th Percentile £47.50 £31.33 £58.75
England median hourly rate £24.51 £30.81 £25.79
% change year-on-year -20.45% +19.45% -19.41%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +5 95 £500 +4.17% 31
Shropshire -12 58 £477 -9.55% 14
Warwickshire +20 51 £550 +4.76% 2
Coventry -8 31 £495 +20.00% 2
Solihull -6 13 £401 -3.95% 7
Staffordshire +3 8 £413 -23.15% 4
Worcestershire -25 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 (6.32%) SAS
2 17 (5.96%) Confluence
3 13 (4.56%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.75%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.70%) SugarCRM
6 1 (0.35%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.35%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.35%) nginx
6 1 (0.35%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.35%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 6 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.05%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.70%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.35%) Adobe Illustrator
4 1 (0.35%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Smart View
4 1 (0.35%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.35%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.05%) NEC Housing
1 3 (1.05%) SAP ERP
1 3 (1.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.70%) Maximo
2 2 (0.70%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.35%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.35%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.35%) Primavera
3 1 (0.35%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.35%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 50 (17.54%) AWS
2 44 (15.44%) Azure
3 15 (5.26%) Power Platform
4 13 (4.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 13 (4.56%) Amazon S3
5 11 (3.86%) Amazon EC2
5 11 (3.86%) AWS KMS
6 10 (3.51%) Route 53
7 9 (3.16%) Amazon SQS
7 9 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (2.46%) SaaS
9 6 (2.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 6 (2.11%) GitHub
9 6 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
9 6 (2.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (1.75%) Entra ID
10 5 (1.75%) GCP
11 4 (1.40%) Azure Logic Apps
11 4 (1.40%) Dynamics 365
11 4 (1.40%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.16%) Firewall
2 7 (2.46%) VPN
3 4 (1.40%) Wireless
4 3 (1.05%) DNS
4 3 (1.05%) LAN
4 3 (1.05%) Network Security
4 3 (1.05%) WAN
5 2 (0.70%) BGP
5 2 (0.70%) IPsec
5 2 (0.70%) MPLS
5 2 (0.70%) SSL
5 2 (0.70%) VLAN
6 1 (0.35%) EIGRP
6 1 (0.35%) Internet
6 1 (0.35%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.35%) IPv4
6 1 (0.35%) IPv6
6 1 (0.35%) OSPF
6 1 (0.35%) SSH
6 1 (0.35%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (5.61%) PostgreSQL
2 15 (5.26%) Pentaho
3 14 (4.91%) Power BI
4 13 (4.56%) Amazon RDS
5 10 (3.51%) Amazon Aurora
5 10 (3.51%) Oracle Reports
6 9 (3.16%) DynamoDB
7 6 (2.11%) MongoDB
8 5 (1.75%) Relational Database
9 4 (1.40%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (1.40%) Electronic Patient Records
9 4 (1.40%) Metadata
9 4 (1.40%) NoSQL
9 4 (1.40%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 4 (1.40%) SQL Server
10 3 (1.05%) MySQL
10 3 (1.05%) Oracle Database
10 3 (1.05%) Tableau
11 2 (0.70%) Data Hub
11 2 (0.70%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 31 (10.88%) Git
2 28 (9.82%) JIRA
3 25 (8.77%) Jenkins
4 12 (4.21%) JUnit
5 10 (3.51%) Maven
5 10 (3.51%) Mockito
6 9 (3.16%) SonarQube
7 7 (2.46%) DbUnit
7 7 (2.46%) jMock
8 5 (1.75%) Bitbucket Server
8 5 (1.75%) GitLab
9 3 (1.05%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (1.05%) JMeter
9 3 (1.05%) Toad
10 2 (0.70%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.70%) ERwin
10 2 (0.70%) Selenium
11 1 (0.35%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.35%) Liquibase
11 1 (0.35%) Vagrant
General
1 84 (29.47%) Social Skills
2 35 (12.28%) Finance
3 27 (9.47%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (5.61%) Local Government
5 13 (4.56%) Legal
5 13 (4.56%) Police
6 9 (3.16%) Influencing Skills
7 8 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (2.11%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (2.11%) Manufacturing
8 6 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (1.75%) Law
10 4 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.40%) Military
11 2 (0.70%) Banking
11 2 (0.70%) Retail
11 2 (0.70%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.35%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.35%) Automotive
12 1 (0.35%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 36 (12.63%) Developer
2 32 (11.23%) Analyst
3 29 (10.18%) Architect
4 27 (9.47%) Senior
5 22 (7.72%) Lead
6 19 (6.67%) Data Engineer
7 18 (6.32%) Java Developer
8 17 (5.96%) Consultant
9 12 (4.21%) Solutions Architect
10 10 (3.51%) Business Analyst
10 10 (3.51%) Release Manager
11 9 (3.16%) Accountant
11 9 (3.16%) Senior Accountant
12 8 (2.81%) Senior Developer
12 8 (2.81%) Senior Systems Accountant
12 8 (2.81%) Systems Accountant
13 7 (2.46%) Technical Architect
14 6 (2.11%) DBA
14 6 (2.11%) Infrastructure Consultant
14 6 (2.11%) IT Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (6.32%) REST
1 18 (6.32%) Spring Boot
2 17 (5.96%) Spring
3 15 (5.26%) AngularJS
4 12 (4.21%) RESTful
5 11 (3.86%) Oracle Fusion
5 11 (3.86%) SOAP
5 11 (3.86%) Web Services
6 10 (3.51%) Hibernate
6 10 (3.51%) JPA
7 9 (3.16%) ActiveMQ
7 9 (3.16%) Spring Batch
7 9 (3.16%) Spring Cloud
7 9 (3.16%) Spring Integration
8 8 (2.81%) CSS
8 8 (2.81%) Node.js
9 7 (2.46%) HTML
9 7 (2.46%) PowerMock
10 6 (2.11%) .NET
10 6 (2.11%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 17 (5.96%) Management Information System
2 12 (4.21%) Data Structures
3 10 (3.51%) Product Ownership
4 8 (2.81%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.46%) NHS
6 5 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
6 5 (1.75%) Cloud Native
6 5 (1.75%) Driving Licence
6 5 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
7 4 (1.40%) Onboarding
8 3 (1.05%) Mobile App
8 3 (1.05%) Replication
9 2 (0.70%) Data Centre
9 2 (0.70%) e-Learning
9 2 (0.70%) PKI
9 2 (0.70%) Private Cloud
9 2 (0.70%) Public Cloud
9 2 (0.70%) Reference Data
9 2 (0.70%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 16 (5.61%) Linux
2 9 (3.16%) Windows
3 3 (1.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.70%) Unix
5 1 (0.35%) Amazon Linux
5 1 (0.35%) Mac OS X
5 1 (0.35%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.35%) VMS
5 1 (0.35%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (29.12%) Agile
2 48 (16.84%) DevOps
3 46 (16.14%) Stakeholder Management
4 44 (15.44%) CI/CD
5 38 (13.33%) Continuous Improvement
6 36 (12.63%) Problem-Solving
7 32 (11.23%) Migration
8 28 (9.82%) Scrum
9 26 (9.12%) Analytics
9 26 (9.12%) Data Modelling
9 26 (9.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 25 (8.77%) Records Management
11 23 (8.07%) Containerisation
12 21 (7.37%) Change Management
12 21 (7.37%) ETL
12 21 (7.37%) Microservices
12 21 (7.37%) Project Delivery
13 20 (7.02%) Business Intelligence
14 19 (6.67%) Test Automation
15 18 (6.32%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 65 (22.81%) SQL
2 32 (11.23%) Java
3 21 (7.37%) Python
4 12 (4.21%) JavaScript
5 7 (2.46%) PL/SQL
6 6 (2.11%) Bash
7 4 (1.40%) C#
7 4 (1.40%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.40%) Scala
8 3 (1.05%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.70%) Go
9 2 (0.70%) Groovy
9 2 (0.70%) Perl
9 2 (0.70%) PHP
9 2 (0.70%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.35%) ABAP
10 1 (0.35%) Bicep
10 1 (0.35%) COBOL
10 1 (0.35%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.35%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 135 (47.37%) Security Cleared
2 74 (25.96%) SC Cleared
3 9 (3.16%) Degree
4 8 (2.81%) AWS Certification
4 8 (2.81%) Azure Certification
5 7 (2.46%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (2.46%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.40%) Cisco Certification
6 4 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (1.40%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (1.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.05%) CCNP
7 3 (1.05%) DBS Check
8 2 (0.70%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 2 (0.70%) CCNA
8 2 (0.70%) CISSP
8 2 (0.70%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.70%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.35%) ISEB
9 1 (0.35%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (6.32%) Data Quality
2 15 (5.26%) QA
3 9 (3.16%) Accessibility
4 6 (2.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.40%) GDPR
5 4 (1.40%) WCAG
6 3 (1.05%) NIST
6 3 (1.05%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.70%) PMO
7 2 (0.70%) SLA
8 1 (0.35%) COBIT
8 1 (0.35%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.35%) NCSC
8 1 (0.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 28 (9.82%) Docker
2 7 (2.46%) Postfix
3 6 (2.11%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.70%) vSphere
5 1 (0.35%) DFS Replication
5 1 (0.35%) Dovecot
5 1 (0.35%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.35%) Squid
5 1 (0.35%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 24 (8.42%) Kubernetes
2 11 (3.86%) Grafana
3 9 (3.16%) Terraform
4 4 (1.40%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.05%) Ansible
6 2 (0.70%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (0.70%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.70%) Kibana
6 2 (0.70%) vRealize
6 2 (0.70%) VxRail
7 1 (0.35%) logstash
7 1 (0.35%) Nessus
7 1 (0.35%) Proxmox
7 1 (0.35%) QRadar
7 1 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 41 (14.39%) Oracle
2 22 (7.72%) Microsoft
3 17 (5.96%) Talend
4 13 (4.56%) SAP
5 10 (3.51%) Denodo
5 10 (3.51%) Jaspersoft
6 9 (3.16%) Atlassian
7 7 (2.46%) Ariba
7 7 (2.46%) Cisco
7 7 (2.46%) Informatica
7 7 (2.46%) Salesforce
7 7 (2.46%) ServiceNow
7 7 (2.46%) VMware
8 6 (2.11%) Splunk
9 5 (1.75%) IBM
10 4 (1.40%) Databricks
11 3 (1.05%) Cloudera
11 3 (1.05%) Dell
11 3 (1.05%) F5
11 3 (1.05%) NEC