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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 18 12
Rank change year-on-year +3 -6 -6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 234 133 181
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.04% 8.40% 10.45%
As % of the General category 17.54% 13.56% 19.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 153 80 118
10th Percentile £305 £279 £197
25th Percentile £413 £393 £402
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £493 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -1.50% -3.85% -1.14%
75th Percentile £550 £543 £588
90th Percentile £638 £588 £658
England median daily rate £500 £523 £538
% change year-on-year -4.37% -2.72% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 10
10th Percentile £16.97 - £13.90
25th Percentile £17.09 £14.70 £18.00
Median hourly rate £23.00 £20.87 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.23% -7.27% +27.70%
75th Percentile £25.00 £28.77 £63.44
90th Percentile £35.45 £41.68 £70.98
England median hourly rate £21.94 £23.60 £21.00
% change year-on-year -7.06% +12.38% +5.66%

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 1,334 981 942
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 57.23% 61.93% 54.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 858 605 639
10th Percentile £213 £200 £219
25th Percentile £400 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £582 £611 £600
90th Percentile £663 £700 £688
England median daily rate £500 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 37 51
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.70 £14.14
25th Percentile £15.88 £18.13 £17.61
Median hourly rate £19.00 £23.82 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year -20.24% +5.87% +30.23%
75th Percentile £27.21 £30.68 £43.13
90th Percentile £35.60 £47.25 £70.00
England median hourly rate £23.00 £30.00 £30.48
% change year-on-year -23.33% -1.56% +18.53%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 92 £475 -5.00% 37
Shropshire -17 47 £519 +0.68% 11
Warwickshire +15 38 £575 +9.52% 13
Coventry -2 25 £454 -13.57% 3
Staffordshire +2 5 £413 -17.50% 8
Solihull -5 3 £425 +25.00% 1
Worcestershire -25 2 £363 +13.73% 3
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 21 (8.97%) Confluence
2 18 (7.69%) SAS
3 11 (4.70%) SharePoint
4 9 (3.85%) nginx
5 5 (2.14%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (1.71%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.85%) SugarCRM
8 1 (0.43%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.43%) Apache
8 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.43%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 8 (3.42%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 7 (2.99%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (2.56%) Spreadsheet
4 4 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.71%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.85%) Adobe Illustrator
5 2 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.85%) Photoshop
6 1 (0.43%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.43%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.43%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 5 (2.14%) SAP ERP
2 3 (1.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.85%) SAP FI
3 2 (0.85%) SAP HR
3 2 (0.85%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.43%) MIS ActiveH
4 1 (0.43%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.43%) Primavera
4 1 (0.43%) SAP PM
4 1 (0.43%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 49 (20.94%) AWS
2 45 (19.23%) Azure
3 17 (7.26%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 16 (6.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 16 (6.84%) Amazon S3
5 15 (6.41%) AWS KMS
6 14 (5.98%) Amazon EC2
6 14 (5.98%) Amazon ELB
7 12 (5.13%) Microsoft 365
7 12 (5.13%) Power Platform
8 9 (3.85%) Amazon ECS
9 8 (3.42%) GitHub
9 8 (3.42%) Route 53
10 7 (2.99%) Dynamics 365
10 7 (2.99%) PaaS
11 6 (2.56%) Amazon Glacier
11 6 (2.56%) Azure DevOps
12 5 (2.14%) Serverless
13 4 (1.71%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 22 (9.40%) Firewall
2 18 (7.69%) DNS
3 14 (5.98%) FTP
3 14 (5.98%) HTTP
3 14 (5.98%) SMTP
3 14 (5.98%) SSH
4 11 (4.70%) VPN
5 9 (3.85%) WAN
6 8 (3.42%) IMAP
6 8 (3.42%) OpenLDAP
7 6 (2.56%) IPsec
7 6 (2.56%) Wireless
8 5 (2.14%) BGP
8 5 (2.14%) MPLS
9 4 (1.71%) LAN
10 3 (1.28%) SD-WAN
10 3 (1.28%) SSL
11 2 (0.85%) DHCP
11 2 (0.85%) Internet
11 2 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (6.41%) Amazon RDS
2 12 (5.13%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (4.70%) Power BI
4 10 (4.27%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 8 (3.42%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (3.42%) Pentaho
6 7 (2.99%) Oracle Database
7 6 (2.56%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.56%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 4 (1.71%) Electronic Patient Records
8 4 (1.71%) MongoDB
9 3 (1.28%) MySQL
10 2 (0.85%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.85%) Metadata
10 2 (0.85%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.85%) QlikView
10 2 (0.85%) SAP BW
10 2 (0.85%) SQL Server
10 2 (0.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 2 (0.85%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 33 (14.10%) JIRA
2 31 (13.25%) Git
3 27 (11.54%) Jenkins
4 14 (5.98%) Vagrant
5 5 (2.14%) GitLab
6 3 (1.28%) Toad
7 2 (0.85%) JUnit
7 2 (0.85%) Selenium
8 1 (0.43%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.43%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.43%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.43%) Maven
8 1 (0.43%) Mockito
8 1 (0.43%) MSI
8 1 (0.43%) Oracle Forms
General
1 64 (27.35%) Social Skills
2 19 (8.12%) Finance
3 13 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (4.70%) Presentation Skills
5 8 (3.42%) Organisational Skills
5 8 (3.42%) Police
5 8 (3.42%) Telecoms
6 6 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
6 6 (2.56%) Legal
7 5 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (2.14%) Local Government
7 5 (2.14%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.71%) Military
9 3 (1.28%) Law
10 2 (0.85%) Banking
10 2 (0.85%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.85%) Retail
11 1 (0.43%) Electronics
11 1 (0.43%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 29 (12.39%) Analyst
2 24 (10.26%) Developer
3 22 (9.40%) Lead
4 20 (8.55%) DevOps Engineer
5 19 (8.12%) Architect
6 17 (7.26%) AWS Engineer
7 15 (6.41%) AWS DevOps
7 15 (6.41%) AWS DevOps Engineer
7 15 (6.41%) Platform Engineer
7 15 (6.41%) Senior
8 14 (5.98%) Cloud Platform Engineer
8 14 (5.98%) Consultant
9 12 (5.13%) Release Manager
10 9 (3.85%) Business Analyst
11 8 (3.42%) AWS Platform Engineer
11 8 (3.42%) Support Engineer
12 7 (2.99%) Data Engineer
12 7 (2.99%) DevOps Platform Engineer
12 7 (2.99%) Network Engineer
13 6 (2.56%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.27%) CSS
1 10 (4.27%) LDAP
1 10 (4.27%) REST
2 9 (3.85%) React
2 9 (3.85%) RESTful
3 8 (3.42%) HTML
4 7 (2.99%) .NET
5 6 (2.56%) AngularJS
5 6 (2.56%) XML
6 5 (2.14%) Playwright
7 4 (1.71%) .NET Framework
7 4 (1.71%) EDI
7 4 (1.71%) Play Framework
7 4 (1.71%) Spring
7 4 (1.71%) Spring Boot
8 3 (1.28%) JSON
8 3 (1.28%) OAuth
8 3 (1.28%) OAuth2
8 3 (1.28%) Oracle Fusion
8 3 (1.28%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 16 (6.84%) Replication
2 11 (4.70%) Legacy Systems
2 11 (4.70%) Management Information System
3 7 (2.99%) Onboarding
4 6 (2.56%) Cloud Native
4 6 (2.56%) Product Ownership
5 5 (2.14%) Driving Licence
5 5 (2.14%) NHS
5 5 (2.14%) PKI
6 4 (1.71%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (1.71%) Data Centre
6 4 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.28%) e-Learning
7 3 (1.28%) Mobile App
7 3 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.85%) Data Structures
8 2 (0.85%) Graphic Design
8 2 (0.85%) Learning Management System
8 2 (0.85%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (0.85%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 28 (11.97%) Windows
2 24 (10.26%) Linux
3 14 (5.98%) Amazon Linux
3 14 (5.98%) VMS
4 8 (3.42%) Ubuntu
5 4 (1.71%) Unix
6 2 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.85%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.43%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.43%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (23.93%) DevOps
2 53 (22.65%) Agile
3 47 (20.09%) CI/CD
4 33 (14.10%) Problem-Solving
5 32 (13.68%) Migration
6 29 (12.39%) Analytics
7 25 (10.68%) Change Management
7 25 (10.68%) Configuration Management
7 25 (10.68%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 22 (9.40%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (8.97%) Stakeholder Management
10 19 (8.12%) Data Modelling
11 16 (6.84%) Business Intelligence
11 16 (6.84%) Containerisation
11 16 (6.84%) Validation
12 15 (6.41%) Cloud Security
12 15 (6.41%) Data Integration
12 15 (6.41%) Patch Management
12 15 (6.41%) Platform Engineering
12 15 (6.41%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 45 (19.23%) SQL
2 31 (13.25%) Python
3 20 (8.55%) Java
4 19 (8.12%) PowerShell
5 15 (6.41%) Groovy
6 14 (5.98%) JavaScript
7 7 (2.99%) Perl
8 6 (2.56%) TypeScript
9 5 (2.14%) Scala
10 4 (1.71%) C#
11 3 (1.28%) ABAP
11 3 (1.28%) Bash
11 3 (1.28%) PHP
11 3 (1.28%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.85%) Go
12 2 (0.85%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.43%) C++
13 1 (0.43%) COBOL
13 1 (0.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.43%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 112 (47.86%) Security Cleared
2 61 (26.07%) SC Cleared
3 16 (6.84%) Degree
4 12 (5.13%) AWS Certification
4 12 (5.13%) Azure Certification
5 7 (2.99%) DV Cleared
6 5 (2.14%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (1.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.28%) DBS Check
8 3 (1.28%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.85%) ACCA
9 2 (0.85%) CCA
9 2 (0.85%) CCNP
9 2 (0.85%) CIMA
9 2 (0.85%) Cisco Certification
9 2 (0.85%) PMI Certification
9 2 (0.85%) PMP
10 1 (0.43%) JNCIE
10 1 (0.43%) JNCIP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (5.13%) Data Quality
1 12 (5.13%) QA
2 9 (3.85%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 4 (1.71%) WCAG
4 3 (1.28%) GDPR
4 3 (1.28%) NIST
4 3 (1.28%) PCI DSS
5 2 (0.85%) SLA
6 1 (0.43%) FIPS 140-2
6 1 (0.43%) NCSC
System Software
1 33 (14.10%) Docker
2 14 (5.98%) DFS Replication
3 12 (5.13%) Active Directory
4 8 (3.42%) Dovecot
4 8 (3.42%) Postfix
4 8 (3.42%) Squid
5 7 (2.99%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.85%) vSphere
7 1 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.43%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.43%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 24 (10.26%) Terraform
2 19 (8.12%) Kubernetes
3 16 (6.84%) Prometheus
4 15 (6.41%) Grafana
5 8 (3.42%) Nessus
5 8 (3.42%) Proxmox
6 3 (1.28%) Ansible
7 2 (0.85%) EMC NetWorker
7 2 (0.85%) Kibana
7 2 (0.85%) vRealize
7 2 (0.85%) VxRail
8 1 (0.43%) FortiGate
8 1 (0.43%) logstash
8 1 (0.43%) QRadar
8 1 (0.43%) SCCM
8 1 (0.43%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 33 (14.10%) Oracle
2 22 (9.40%) Microsoft
3 16 (6.84%) ServiceNow
4 14 (5.98%) SAP
5 9 (3.85%) Cisco
5 9 (3.85%) Talend
6 8 (3.42%) Jaspersoft
6 8 (3.42%) Juniper
6 8 (3.42%) VMware
7 7 (2.99%) Denodo
8 6 (2.56%) Ariba
8 6 (2.56%) IBM
8 6 (2.56%) Salesforce
8 6 (2.56%) Splunk
9 4 (1.71%) F5
10 3 (1.28%) AppDynamics
10 3 (1.28%) Databricks
10 3 (1.28%) Dell
10 3 (1.28%) SolarWinds
11 2 (0.85%) MuleSoft