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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 12 16 21
Rank change year-on-year +4 +5 -12
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 402 159 126
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.53% 9.36% 6.81%
As % of the General category 21.60% 14.80% 12.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 303 103 91
10th Percentile £356 £257 £285
25th Percentile £416 £408 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £458
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% +3.83% -8.50%
75th Percentile £575 £529 £550
90th Percentile £661 £598 £625
England median daily rate £515 £513 £523
% change year-on-year +0.49% -1.91% -2.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 3 9
10th Percentile £17.57 £15.87 £18.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.75 £18.50
Median hourly rate £21.50 £18.44 £26.13
Median % change year-on-year +16.63% -29.44% +45.14%
75th Percentile £75.00 £18.70 £35.00
90th Percentile - £18.72 £43.00
England median hourly rate £22.50 £21.50 £26.56
% change year-on-year +4.65% -19.06% +28.94%

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 1,861 1,074 1,009
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 53.35% 63.21% 54.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,180 666 688
10th Percentile £315 £220 £250
25th Percentile £407 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £581 £574 £626
90th Percentile £675 £639 £750
England median daily rate £525 £513 £538
% change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 137 87 69
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.67 £14.70
Median hourly rate £28.09 £28.18 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year -0.32% +43.85% -11.36%
75th Percentile £43.96 £40.13 £32.28
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £51.00
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +36.24%

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 10 August 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 10 August 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 10 August 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 +6 174 £490 -4.85% 41
Birmingham -4 84 £525 +10.53% 51
Coventry +8 42 £425 -8.11% 6
Solihull -15 21 £447 +6.43% 3
Warwickshire -8 20 £450 +5.88% 11
Staffordshire +8 16 £850 +51.79% 9
Worcestershire +4 9 £450 -35.71%
Dudley -5 2 £375 -
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 38 (9.45%) SAS
2 27 (6.72%) Confluence
3 15 (3.73%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (2.49%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.24%) Tuxedo
6 3 (0.75%) Apache
6 3 (0.75%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.50%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.25%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.25%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 9 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (2.24%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.99%) ContrOCC
3 7 (1.74%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (1.49%) Oracle General Ledger
4 6 (1.49%) Oracle Payables
5 5 (1.24%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (1.00%) SAP PSCD
7 3 (0.75%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.50%) Oracle Payroll
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.25%) Primavera
9 1 (0.25%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.25%) SAP HR
9 1 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
9 1 (0.25%) SAP IS-U
9 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 91 (22.64%) AWS
2 86 (21.39%) Azure
3 33 (8.21%) Azure DevOps
4 29 (7.21%) Power Platform
5 22 (5.47%) Power Automate
6 21 (5.22%) Dynamics 365
7 19 (4.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 18 (4.48%) Amazon EC2
8 18 (4.48%) Amazon S3
9 17 (4.23%) GitHub
10 15 (3.73%) Amazon SQS
10 15 (3.73%) AWS KMS
10 15 (3.73%) Route 53
11 13 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
11 13 (3.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 12 (2.99%) PowerApps
13 10 (2.49%) PaaS
14 9 (2.24%) Serverless
15 8 (1.99%) GitHub Actions
16 7 (1.74%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.74%) Firewall
2 3 (0.75%) LAN
2 3 (0.75%) VPN
3 2 (0.50%) SSL
3 2 (0.50%) WAN
4 1 (0.25%) DNS
4 1 (0.25%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.25%) Internet
4 1 (0.25%) Intrusion Detection
4 1 (0.25%) Network Security
4 1 (0.25%) SMTP
4 1 (0.25%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.72%) Pentaho
2 24 (5.97%) Data Warehouse
3 21 (5.22%) PostgreSQL
4 19 (4.73%) Power BI
5 18 (4.48%) Oracle Database
5 18 (4.48%) SQL Server
6 17 (4.23%) Amazon RDS
6 17 (4.23%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 16 (3.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 15 (3.73%) Amazon Aurora
8 15 (3.73%) DynamoDB
8 15 (3.73%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (2.99%) Data Lake
10 11 (2.74%) Metadata
11 10 (2.49%) Relational Database
12 8 (1.99%) NoSQL
13 7 (1.74%) Ingres
14 6 (1.49%) RDBMS
14 6 (1.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 5 (1.24%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 39 (9.70%) JIRA
2 36 (8.96%) Git
3 35 (8.71%) Jenkins
4 21 (5.22%) GitLab
5 19 (4.73%) JUnit
6 18 (4.48%) Mockito
6 18 (4.48%) SonarQube
7 17 (4.23%) Maven
8 14 (3.48%) Selenium
9 11 (2.74%) Bitbucket Server
9 11 (2.74%) DbUnit
9 11 (2.74%) jMock
9 11 (2.74%) Postman
10 10 (2.49%) WebDriver
11 9 (2.24%) Cypress.io
11 9 (2.24%) JMeter
12 8 (1.99%) Cucumber
12 8 (1.99%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (1.24%) Oracle Forms
14 3 (0.75%) Bitbucket
General
1 118 (29.35%) Social Skills
2 60 (14.93%) Finance
3 57 (14.18%) Analytical Skills
4 34 (8.46%) Local Government
5 31 (7.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 19 (4.73%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (2.24%) Legal
7 9 (2.24%) Military
7 9 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (1.49%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (1.24%) Police
9 5 (1.24%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
10 4 (1.00%) General Ledger
10 4 (1.00%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.50%) Banking
11 2 (0.50%) Law
11 2 (0.50%) Retail
12 1 (0.25%) Advertising
12 1 (0.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 59 (14.68%) Senior
2 57 (14.18%) Developer
3 50 (12.44%) Architect
4 48 (11.94%) Data Engineer
5 44 (10.95%) Analyst
6 42 (10.45%) Lead
7 29 (7.21%) Java Developer
8 23 (5.72%) Data Architect
9 20 (4.98%) Business Analyst
10 13 (3.23%) Senior Developer
11 12 (2.99%) Senior Analyst
12 11 (2.74%) Release Manager
12 11 (2.74%) Technical Architect
13 10 (2.49%) DevOps Engineer
13 10 (2.49%) HR Director
13 10 (2.49%) Test Analyst
14 9 (2.24%) Accountant
14 9 (2.24%) Dynamics 365 Developer
14 9 (2.24%) Systems Accountant
14 9 (2.24%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (6.47%) Spring
2 25 (6.22%) Spring Boot
3 23 (5.72%) SOAP
4 21 (5.22%) Oracle Fusion
4 21 (5.22%) REST
5 18 (4.48%) ActiveMQ
5 18 (4.48%) AngularJS
6 17 (4.23%) Hibernate
6 17 (4.23%) JPA
7 16 (3.98%) RESTful
7 16 (3.98%) Spring Cloud
7 16 (3.98%) Web Services
8 15 (3.73%) Spring Batch
8 15 (3.73%) Spring Integration
9 13 (3.23%) JSON
10 11 (2.74%) Bootstrap
10 11 (2.74%) PowerMock
11 10 (2.49%) Gherkin
11 10 (2.49%) Node.js
12 7 (1.74%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 29 (7.21%) Product Ownership
2 26 (6.47%) Cloud Native
3 17 (4.23%) Management Information System
4 14 (3.48%) Data Structures
4 14 (3.48%) Distributed Systems
4 14 (3.48%) Legacy Systems
5 8 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
6 7 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
7 6 (1.49%) Enterprise Cloud
7 6 (1.49%) Low-Code
7 6 (1.49%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.24%) BYOD
8 5 (1.24%) NHS
9 3 (0.75%) Autonomous Agent
9 3 (0.75%) Freedom of Information
9 3 (0.75%) Taxonomies
9 3 (0.75%) Virtual Team
10 2 (0.50%) Hybrid Cloud
10 2 (0.50%) SCADA
10 2 (0.50%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 16 (3.98%) Linux
2 8 (1.99%) Unix
3 5 (1.24%) Windows
4 2 (0.50%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 202 (50.25%) Agile
2 105 (26.12%) DevOps
3 91 (22.64%) CI/CD
4 87 (21.64%) Continuous Improvement
5 83 (20.65%) Stakeholder Management
6 75 (18.66%) Analytics
7 71 (17.66%) Scrum
8 68 (16.92%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 67 (16.67%) Migration
10 60 (14.93%) Problem-Solving
11 55 (13.68%) Data Modelling
12 54 (13.43%) Decision-Making
13 52 (12.94%) Data Integration
14 48 (11.94%) ETL
15 40 (9.95%) Microservices
16 39 (9.70%) Data Pipeline
16 39 (9.70%) Technical Leadership
17 34 (8.46%) SFIA
17 34 (8.46%) Test Automation
17 34 (8.46%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 83 (20.65%) SQL
2 49 (12.19%) Java
3 24 (5.97%) Python
4 18 (4.48%) JavaScript
5 16 (3.98%) C#
6 13 (3.23%) PL/SQL
7 11 (2.74%) Scala
8 7 (1.74%) VB
8 7 (1.74%) VB6
9 6 (1.49%) Bash
10 5 (1.24%) C
11 4 (1.00%) T-SQL
11 4 (1.00%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.75%) ABAP
12 3 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.75%) R
13 2 (0.50%) Bicep
13 2 (0.50%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.50%) ProC
13 2 (0.50%) VBA
Qualifications
1 195 (48.51%) Security Cleared
2 163 (40.55%) SC Cleared
3 53 (13.18%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (5.22%) Degree
5 16 (3.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (2.74%) ISTQB
7 5 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.00%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.00%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 4 (1.00%) SAS Certification
9 3 (0.75%) ACCA
9 3 (0.75%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.75%) CCA
9 3 (0.75%) CCAB
9 3 (0.75%) CIMA
9 3 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.75%) CISM
9 3 (0.75%) CISSP
9 3 (0.75%) DV Cleared
10 2 (0.50%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (8.96%) Data Quality
1 36 (8.96%) QA
2 32 (7.96%) Accessibility
3 14 (3.48%) GDPR
4 13 (3.23%) WCAG
5 9 (2.24%) SLA
6 7 (1.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (1.24%) PMO
8 4 (1.00%) GRC
9 3 (0.75%) NCSC
10 2 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.50%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.50%) NIST
10 2 (0.50%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.25%) COBIT
11 1 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 43 (10.70%) Docker
2 9 (2.24%) Postfix
3 4 (1.00%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.25%) etcd
4 1 (0.25%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.25%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 30 (7.46%) Kubernetes
2 21 (5.22%) Grafana
3 12 (2.99%) Prometheus
4 10 (2.49%) Terraform
5 4 (1.00%) Ansible
6 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Intune
7 1 (0.25%) CASB
7 1 (0.25%) Fluentd
7 1 (0.25%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.25%) SCCM
7 1 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 74 (18.41%) Oracle
2 42 (10.45%) Microsoft
3 26 (6.47%) Talend
4 15 (3.73%) Denodo
4 15 (3.73%) Informatica
4 15 (3.73%) Jaspersoft
5 14 (3.48%) Atlassian
6 11 (2.74%) Databricks
7 9 (2.24%) SAP
8 8 (1.99%) Dynatrace
8 8 (1.99%) Liquidlogic
9 5 (1.24%) Actian
9 5 (1.24%) Cloudera
9 5 (1.24%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.00%) Pega
11 3 (0.75%) OneLogin
11 3 (0.75%) Sparx
12 2 (0.50%) Alteryx
12 2 (0.50%) Google
12 2 (0.50%) MuleSoft