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 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 15 18 12
Rank change year-on-year +3 -6 -8
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 227 147 192
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.27% 8.13% 10.08%
As % of the General category 17.29% 13.65% 18.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 89 125
10th Percentile £285 £284 £194
25th Percentile £400 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £537 £540 £606
90th Percentile £604 £590 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 7 14
10th Percentile £17.70 - £15.25
25th Percentile £21.43 £14.70 £17.06
Median hourly rate £23.03 £23.60 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +24.21% +7.83%
75th Percentile £25.00 £30.84 £41.88
90th Percentile £40.68 £43.90 £69.63
England median hourly rate £21.40 £22.50 £25.38
% change year-on-year -4.89% -11.35% +27.70%

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 common skills in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for common skills 1,313 1,077 1,029
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 59.41% 59.57% 54.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 848 656 705
10th Percentile £243 £211 £220
25th Percentile £400 £375 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +2.25% -
75th Percentile £581 £613 £606
90th Percentile £654 £712 £700
England median daily rate £500 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.98% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 46 47
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.00 £14.89
25th Percentile £16.13 £14.90 £16.77
Median hourly rate £24.34 £23.82 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.18% +28.76% +4.99%
75th Percentile £35.00 £30.68 £31.63
90th Percentile £50.00 £46.88 £60.50
England median hourly rate £23.58 £30.45 £32.50
% change year-on-year -22.58% -6.31% +26.41%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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 96 £475 -5.00% 62
Shropshire -18 46 £519 +0.68% 31
Warwickshire +16 32 £500 -7.41% 6
Coventry 0 24 £425 -19.05% 14
Worcestershire -21 5 £363 +13.73% 10
Staffordshire -3 4 £481 -3.75% 21
Solihull -3 3 £425 +12.58% 1
Herefordshire -13 1 - - 4
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 27 (11.89%) Confluence
2 18 (7.93%) SAS
3 10 (4.41%) nginx
4 8 (3.52%) SharePoint
5 5 (2.20%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (1.76%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.88%) Oracle Workflow
7 2 (0.88%) SugarCRM
8 1 (0.44%) Apache
8 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.44%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 1 (0.44%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 9 (3.96%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 8 (3.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 7 (3.08%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (2.64%) Spreadsheet
5 5 (2.20%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.88%) Adobe Illustrator
6 2 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
6 2 (0.88%) Photoshop
7 1 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.44%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 4 (1.76%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.88%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.88%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.44%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle HRMS
3 1 (0.44%) Primavera
3 1 (0.44%) SAP PM
3 1 (0.44%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 51 (22.47%) AWS
2 44 (19.38%) Azure
3 22 (9.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
4 21 (9.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 21 (9.25%) Amazon S3
5 20 (8.81%) AWS KMS
6 19 (8.37%) Amazon EC2
6 19 (8.37%) Amazon ELB
7 12 (5.29%) Microsoft 365
7 12 (5.29%) Power Platform
8 10 (4.41%) Amazon ECS
8 10 (4.41%) Amazon Glacier
9 9 (3.96%) Route 53
10 8 (3.52%) GitHub
11 7 (3.08%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (2.64%) PaaS
13 5 (2.20%) Azure Data Factory
13 5 (2.20%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (2.20%) GCP
13 5 (2.20%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 28 (12.33%) Firewall
2 23 (10.13%) DNS
3 19 (8.37%) FTP
3 19 (8.37%) HTTP
3 19 (8.37%) SMTP
3 19 (8.37%) SSH
4 13 (5.73%) VPN
5 12 (5.29%) WAN
6 9 (3.96%) IMAP
6 9 (3.96%) OpenLDAP
7 8 (3.52%) IPsec
8 7 (3.08%) BGP
8 7 (3.08%) MPLS
9 6 (2.64%) Wireless
10 4 (1.76%) LAN
10 4 (1.76%) SD-WAN
11 3 (1.32%) Junos
11 3 (1.32%) Network Security
11 3 (1.32%) SSL
12 2 (0.88%) DMVPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (8.81%) Amazon RDS
2 12 (5.29%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (4.85%) Power BI
4 10 (4.41%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 9 (3.96%) Amazon Aurora
5 9 (3.96%) Oracle Database
6 8 (3.52%) Pentaho
7 6 (2.64%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 4 (1.76%) MongoDB
9 3 (1.32%) DataStage
9 3 (1.32%) MySQL
10 2 (0.88%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.88%) Metadata
10 2 (0.88%) NoSQL
10 2 (0.88%) Oracle Database 12c
10 2 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
10 2 (0.88%) QlikView
10 2 (0.88%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.88%) SAP BW
10 2 (0.88%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 39 (17.18%) JIRA
2 35 (15.42%) Git
3 32 (14.10%) Jenkins
4 19 (8.37%) Vagrant
5 5 (2.20%) GitLab
6 3 (1.32%) Toad
7 2 (0.88%) JUnit
7 2 (0.88%) Selenium
8 1 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.44%) Bitbucket
8 1 (0.44%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.44%) Maven
8 1 (0.44%) Mockito
8 1 (0.44%) MSI
8 1 (0.44%) NUnit
8 1 (0.44%) Oracle Forms
8 1 (0.44%) PVCS
8 1 (0.44%) TestPartner
General
1 62 (27.31%) Social Skills
2 22 (9.69%) Finance
3 13 (5.73%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (5.73%) Presentation Skills
4 12 (5.29%) Telecoms
5 8 (3.52%) Documentation Skills
5 8 (3.52%) Manufacturing
6 6 (2.64%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (2.20%) Electronics
7 5 (2.20%) Local Government
7 5 (2.20%) Marketing
8 4 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.76%) Military
9 3 (1.32%) Legal
9 3 (1.32%) Police
10 2 (0.88%) Banking
10 2 (0.88%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.88%) Law
10 2 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 32 (14.10%) Analyst
2 26 (11.45%) Developer
3 25 (11.01%) DevOps Engineer
4 19 (8.37%) AWS Engineer
5 17 (7.49%) AWS DevOps
5 17 (7.49%) AWS DevOps Engineer
5 17 (7.49%) Platform Engineer
6 16 (7.05%) Architect
6 16 (7.05%) Cloud Platform Engineer
6 16 (7.05%) Lead
7 14 (6.17%) Consultant
7 14 (6.17%) Senior
8 10 (4.41%) Network Engineer
9 9 (3.96%) AWS Platform Engineer
9 9 (3.96%) Business Analyst
9 9 (3.96%) Support Engineer
10 8 (3.52%) DevOps Platform Engineer
10 8 (3.52%) Release Manager
11 7 (3.08%) Data Engineer
11 7 (3.08%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (4.85%) LDAP
2 10 (4.41%) REST
3 8 (3.52%) .NET
3 8 (3.52%) RESTful
4 6 (2.64%) CSS
4 6 (2.64%) XML
5 5 (2.20%) .NET Framework
5 5 (2.20%) Playwright
5 5 (2.20%) React
6 4 (1.76%) HTML
6 4 (1.76%) Play Framework
6 4 (1.76%) Spring
6 4 (1.76%) Spring Boot
7 3 (1.32%) EDI
7 3 (1.32%) Entity Framework
7 3 (1.32%) JSON
7 3 (1.32%) OAuth
7 3 (1.32%) OAuth2
7 3 (1.32%) Oracle Fusion
7 3 (1.32%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 21 (9.25%) Replication
2 8 (3.52%) Management Information System
3 7 (3.08%) Legacy Systems
3 7 (3.08%) PKI
4 6 (2.64%) Cloud Native
4 6 (2.64%) Onboarding
5 5 (2.20%) Hybrid Cloud
6 4 (1.76%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.32%) Driving Licence
7 3 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
8 2 (0.88%) Data Structures
8 2 (0.88%) Educational Technology
8 2 (0.88%) Graphic Design
8 2 (0.88%) Learning Management System
8 2 (0.88%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (0.88%) Mobile App
8 2 (0.88%) Product Ownership
8 2 (0.88%) Security Operations Centre
8 2 (0.88%) Security Posture
8 2 (0.88%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 34 (14.98%) Windows
2 30 (13.22%) Linux
3 19 (8.37%) Amazon Linux
3 19 (8.37%) VMS
4 9 (3.96%) Ubuntu
5 5 (2.20%) Unix
6 2 (0.88%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.44%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.44%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (25.11%) DevOps
2 50 (22.03%) Agile
3 46 (20.26%) CI/CD
4 37 (16.30%) Problem-Solving
5 30 (13.22%) Configuration Management
6 29 (12.78%) Analytics
6 29 (12.78%) Change Management
7 25 (11.01%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 24 (10.57%) Migration
9 22 (9.69%) Continuous Improvement
10 21 (9.25%) Business Intelligence
10 21 (9.25%) Stakeholder Management
11 20 (8.81%) Cloud Security
11 20 (8.81%) Patch Management
11 20 (8.81%) Platform Engineering
12 17 (7.49%) Data Modelling
12 17 (7.49%) Scrum
13 16 (7.05%) Test Automation
14 14 (6.17%) Data Integration
14 14 (6.17%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 41 (18.06%) SQL
2 32 (14.10%) Python
3 24 (10.57%) Java
4 23 (10.13%) PowerShell
5 20 (8.81%) Groovy
6 13 (5.73%) JavaScript
7 11 (4.85%) Perl
8 5 (2.20%) Scala
8 5 (2.20%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.76%) C#
10 3 (1.32%) ABAP
10 3 (1.32%) Bash
10 3 (1.32%) PHP
10 3 (1.32%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.88%) Go
11 2 (0.88%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.44%) C++
12 1 (0.44%) COBOL
12 1 (0.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.44%) R
Qualifications
1 130 (57.27%) Security Cleared
2 71 (31.28%) SC Cleared
3 16 (7.05%) Degree
4 13 (5.73%) AWS Certification
4 13 (5.73%) Azure Certification
5 12 (5.29%) DV Cleared
6 4 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
7 3 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 3 (1.32%) DBS Check
7 3 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (1.32%) PMP
8 2 (0.88%) ACCA
8 2 (0.88%) CCA
8 2 (0.88%) CCNP
8 2 (0.88%) CIMA
8 2 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
8 2 (0.88%) OCP
8 2 (0.88%) Oracle Certification
8 2 (0.88%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (5.73%) QA
2 10 (4.41%) Data Quality
3 6 (2.64%) Accessibility
4 4 (1.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (1.76%) SLA
5 3 (1.32%) GDPR
5 3 (1.32%) NIST
5 3 (1.32%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.44%) FIPS 140-2
6 1 (0.44%) NCSC
6 1 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 39 (17.18%) Docker
2 19 (8.37%) DFS Replication
3 17 (7.49%) Active Directory
4 9 (3.96%) Dovecot
4 9 (3.96%) Postfix
4 9 (3.96%) Squid
5 7 (3.08%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.88%) Oracle RAC
6 2 (0.88%) vSphere
7 1 (0.44%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.44%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.44%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 29 (12.78%) Terraform
2 21 (9.25%) Prometheus
3 20 (8.81%) Grafana
3 20 (8.81%) Kubernetes
4 9 (3.96%) Nessus
4 9 (3.96%) Proxmox
5 3 (1.32%) Ansible
6 2 (0.88%) Data Guard
6 2 (0.88%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (0.88%) Kibana
6 2 (0.88%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 2 (0.88%) Oracle RMAN
6 2 (0.88%) SCCM
6 2 (0.88%) vRealize
6 2 (0.88%) VxRail
7 1 (0.44%) CASB
7 1 (0.44%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.44%) logstash
7 1 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.44%) QRadar
Vendors
1 36 (15.86%) Oracle
2 22 (9.69%) Microsoft
3 20 (8.81%) ServiceNow
4 15 (6.61%) SAP
5 11 (4.85%) Cisco
5 11 (4.85%) Juniper
6 9 (3.96%) Jaspersoft
6 9 (3.96%) Talend
7 8 (3.52%) VMware
8 7 (3.08%) Denodo
8 7 (3.08%) IBM
9 6 (2.64%) Ariba
10 5 (2.20%) Salesforce
10 5 (2.20%) Splunk
11 4 (1.76%) F5
12 3 (1.32%) AppDynamics
12 3 (1.32%) Databricks
12 3 (1.32%) Dell
12 3 (1.32%) SolarWinds
13 2 (0.88%) CyberArk