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

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 17 12
Rank change year-on-year -1 -5 -6
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 266 132 189
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 9.96% 9.09% 10.01%
As % of the General category 18.03% 14.86% 17.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 178 79 127
10th Percentile £350 £298 £213
25th Percentile £421 £393 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -
75th Percentile £600 £554 £579
90th Percentile £650 £603 £650
England median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 6 8
10th Percentile £17.03 - £13.24
25th Percentile £18.44 £14.70 £14.07
Median hourly rate £23.03 £16.42 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +40.27% -53.10% +98.64%
75th Percentile £25.00 £22.23 £69.06
90th Percentile £30.92 £40.43 £72.93
England median hourly rate £22.00 £25.00 £21.00
% change year-on-year -12.00% +19.05% +5.00%

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 1,475 888 1,059
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 55.20% 61.16% 56.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 944 564 720
10th Percentile £263 £200 £220
25th Percentile £400 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £688
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 38 97
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.49 £11.01
25th Percentile £16.00 £15.19 £13.91
Median hourly rate £20.50 £21.59 £19.95
Median % change year-on-year -5.05% +8.22% +13.22%
75th Percentile £27.21 £28.56 £42.50
90th Percentile £34.20 £41.83 £62.75
England median hourly rate £23.00 £30.31 £26.00
% change year-on-year -24.10% +16.56% -13.33%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 20 February 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 +5 100 £500 +4.17% 43
Warwickshire +22 53 £550 +4.76% 5
Shropshire -17 48 £490 -9.26% 26
Coventry -11 24 £475 +11.76% 4
Staffordshire +3 7 £413 -17.50% 5
Solihull -9 6 £270 -34.94% 8
Worcestershire -23 1 £363 -30.95% 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 18 (6.77%) Confluence
2 16 (6.02%) SAS
3 11 (4.14%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.88%) WebLogic
5 3 (1.13%) nginx
6 2 (0.75%) SugarCRM
7 1 (0.38%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.38%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.38%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 6 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.13%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 3 (1.13%) MS Visio
2 3 (1.13%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.38%) Adobe Illustrator
3 1 (0.38%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Smart View
3 1 (0.38%) Photoshop
3 1 (0.38%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.13%) NEC Housing
1 3 (1.13%) SAP ERP
1 3 (1.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.75%) Maximo
2 2 (0.75%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.38%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.38%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.38%) Primavera
3 1 (0.38%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.38%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 51 (19.17%) AWS
2 42 (15.79%) Azure
3 14 (5.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 14 (5.26%) Amazon S3
3 14 (5.26%) Power Platform
4 12 (4.51%) Amazon EC2
4 12 (4.51%) AWS KMS
5 9 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
5 9 (3.38%) Route 53
5 9 (3.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 8 (3.01%) Microsoft 365
7 6 (2.26%) Amazon ELB
7 6 (2.26%) Amazon SQS
7 6 (2.26%) GitHub
7 6 (2.26%) SaaS
8 5 (1.88%) Entra ID
9 4 (1.50%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (1.50%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.50%) GCP
9 4 (1.50%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 12 (4.51%) Firewall
2 7 (2.63%) DNS
2 7 (2.63%) VPN
3 5 (1.88%) FTP
3 5 (1.88%) HTTP
3 5 (1.88%) SMTP
3 5 (1.88%) SSH
3 5 (1.88%) WAN
3 5 (1.88%) Wireless
4 3 (1.13%) BGP
4 3 (1.13%) IMAP
4 3 (1.13%) IPsec
4 3 (1.13%) LAN
4 3 (1.13%) MPLS
4 3 (1.13%) OpenLDAP
5 2 (0.75%) Network Security
5 2 (0.75%) SD-WAN
5 2 (0.75%) SSL
5 2 (0.75%) VLAN
6 1 (0.38%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (5.26%) Amazon RDS
1 14 (5.26%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (4.89%) Power BI
3 12 (4.51%) Pentaho
4 9 (3.38%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (3.01%) Oracle Reports
6 6 (2.26%) DynamoDB
6 6 (2.26%) MongoDB
7 5 (1.88%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.50%) Electronic Patient Records
8 4 (1.50%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 3 (1.13%) Metadata
9 3 (1.13%) MySQL
9 3 (1.13%) NoSQL
9 3 (1.13%) Oracle Database
9 3 (1.13%) Tableau
10 2 (0.75%) Data Hub
10 2 (0.75%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.75%) SQL Server
10 2 (0.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 30 (11.28%) Git
2 27 (10.15%) JIRA
3 24 (9.02%) Jenkins
4 9 (3.38%) JUnit
5 7 (2.63%) Maven
5 7 (2.63%) Mockito
6 6 (2.26%) SonarQube
7 5 (1.88%) DbUnit
7 5 (1.88%) jMock
7 5 (1.88%) Vagrant
8 4 (1.50%) GitLab
9 3 (1.13%) Bitbucket Server
9 3 (1.13%) Toad
10 2 (0.75%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 2 (0.75%) Selenium
11 1 (0.38%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.38%) Bitbucket
11 1 (0.38%) MSTest
11 1 (0.38%) TeamCity
11 1 (0.38%) TestNG
General
1 74 (27.82%) Social Skills
2 30 (11.28%) Finance
3 20 (7.52%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (5.64%) Police
5 14 (5.26%) Local Government
6 11 (4.14%) Legal
7 8 (3.01%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (2.63%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (2.26%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (1.88%) Law
10 5 (1.88%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.50%) Military
11 4 (1.50%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.75%) Banking
12 2 (0.75%) Retail
13 1 (0.38%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.38%) Electronics
13 1 (0.38%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 33 (12.41%) Analyst
2 32 (12.03%) Developer
3 26 (9.77%) Architect
4 23 (8.65%) Senior
5 22 (8.27%) Lead
6 16 (6.02%) Consultant
7 14 (5.26%) Data Engineer
8 13 (4.89%) Java Developer
8 13 (4.89%) Solutions Architect
9 11 (4.14%) Business Analyst
10 9 (3.38%) DevOps Engineer
11 8 (3.01%) Accountant
11 8 (3.01%) Release Manager
11 8 (3.01%) Senior Accountant
12 7 (2.63%) Senior Developer
12 7 (2.63%) Technical Architect
13 6 (2.26%) Infrastructure Consultant
13 6 (2.26%) IT Consultant
13 6 (2.26%) Support Engineer
13 6 (2.26%) Systems Accountant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (5.64%) REST
1 15 (5.64%) Spring Boot
2 14 (5.26%) Spring
3 12 (4.51%) AngularJS
3 12 (4.51%) RESTful
4 9 (3.38%) Oracle Fusion
5 8 (3.01%) CSS
5 8 (3.01%) SOAP
5 8 (3.01%) Web Services
6 7 (2.63%) Hibernate
6 7 (2.63%) JPA
6 7 (2.63%) React
7 6 (2.26%) ActiveMQ
7 6 (2.26%) HTML
7 6 (2.26%) Node.js
7 6 (2.26%) Spring Batch
7 6 (2.26%) Spring Cloud
7 6 (2.26%) Spring Integration
7 6 (2.26%) XML
8 5 (1.88%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 17 (6.39%) Management Information System
2 10 (3.76%) Product Ownership
3 9 (3.38%) Data Structures
4 8 (3.01%) Legacy Systems
5 7 (2.63%) Replication
6 6 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (2.26%) NHS
7 5 (1.88%) Cloud Native
7 5 (1.88%) Driving Licence
7 5 (1.88%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
8 4 (1.50%) Hybrid Cloud
9 3 (1.13%) Mobile App
9 3 (1.13%) PKI
10 2 (0.75%) Data Centre
10 2 (0.75%) e-Learning
10 2 (0.75%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.75%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.75%) Public Cloud
10 2 (0.75%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 19 (7.14%) Linux
2 13 (4.89%) Windows
3 5 (1.88%) Amazon Linux
3 5 (1.88%) VMS
4 3 (1.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.13%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.75%) Unix
6 1 (0.38%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.38%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 67 (25.19%) Agile
2 46 (17.29%) DevOps
3 40 (15.04%) CI/CD
4 36 (13.53%) Stakeholder Management
5 33 (12.41%) Continuous Improvement
6 31 (11.65%) Problem-Solving
7 29 (10.90%) Migration
8 25 (9.40%) Records Management
9 24 (9.02%) Analytics
10 23 (8.65%) Change Management
10 23 (8.65%) Data Modelling
11 21 (7.89%) Scrum
11 21 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 19 (7.14%) Containerisation
13 18 (6.77%) Project Delivery
14 17 (6.39%) Business Intelligence
14 17 (6.39%) Microservices
15 15 (5.64%) ETL
15 15 (5.64%) Test Automation
16 14 (5.26%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 60 (22.56%) SQL
2 28 (10.53%) Java
3 23 (8.65%) Python
4 13 (4.89%) JavaScript
5 8 (3.01%) PowerShell
6 6 (2.26%) Bash
6 6 (2.26%) Groovy
6 6 (2.26%) PL/SQL
7 4 (1.50%) C#
7 4 (1.50%) Perl
7 4 (1.50%) Scala
7 4 (1.50%) TypeScript
8 3 (1.13%) PHP
8 3 (1.13%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.75%) Go
10 1 (0.38%) ABAP
10 1 (0.38%) COBOL
10 1 (0.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 1 (0.38%) R
10 1 (0.38%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 123 (46.24%) Security Cleared
2 68 (25.56%) SC Cleared
3 9 (3.38%) AWS Certification
3 9 (3.38%) Azure Certification
4 8 (3.01%) DV Cleared
5 7 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (2.63%) Degree
6 3 (1.13%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 3 (1.13%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (1.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.13%) DBS Check
6 3 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.75%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 2 (0.75%) ACCA
7 2 (0.75%) CCNP
7 2 (0.75%) CIMA
7 2 (0.75%) CISSP
8 1 (0.38%) APMG
8 1 (0.38%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
8 1 (0.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.64%) Data Quality
2 14 (5.26%) QA
3 6 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.88%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.13%) GDPR
5 3 (1.13%) NIST
5 3 (1.13%) PCI DSS
5 3 (1.13%) WCAG
6 2 (0.75%) SLA
7 1 (0.38%) COBIT
7 1 (0.38%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.38%) NCSC
7 1 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 25 (9.40%) Docker
2 8 (3.01%) Active Directory
3 7 (2.63%) Postfix
4 6 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.88%) DFS Replication
6 3 (1.13%) Dovecot
6 3 (1.13%) Squid
7 2 (0.75%) vSphere
8 1 (0.38%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.38%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 19 (7.14%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.89%) Terraform
3 12 (4.51%) Grafana
4 7 (2.63%) Prometheus
5 3 (1.13%) Ansible
5 3 (1.13%) Nessus
5 3 (1.13%) Proxmox
6 2 (0.75%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (0.75%) Kibana
6 2 (0.75%) vRealize
6 2 (0.75%) VxRail
7 1 (0.38%) FortiGate
7 1 (0.38%) logstash
7 1 (0.38%) QRadar
7 1 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 37 (13.91%) Oracle
2 18 (6.77%) Microsoft
3 14 (5.26%) Talend
4 12 (4.51%) SAP
5 10 (3.76%) ServiceNow
6 9 (3.38%) Jaspersoft
7 8 (3.01%) Denodo
8 7 (2.63%) Ariba
8 7 (2.63%) Salesforce
8 7 (2.63%) VMware
9 6 (2.26%) Cisco
9 6 (2.26%) Splunk
10 5 (1.88%) Atlassian
10 5 (1.88%) IBM
10 5 (1.88%) Informatica
11 4 (1.50%) Juniper
12 3 (1.13%) Dell
12 3 (1.13%) Google
12 3 (1.13%) NEC
12 3 (1.13%) SolarWinds