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

6 months to
19 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 18 13
Rank change year-on-year 0 -5 -5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 301 111 177
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 9.83% 8.17% 9.22%
As % of the General category 19.00% 13.18% 16.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 211 69 126
10th Percentile £350 £252 £304
25th Percentile £418 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.11% -7.50% -7.41%
75th Percentile £575 £580 £547
90th Percentile £645 £613 £613
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 6 6
10th Percentile £17.09 - £12.82
25th Percentile £18.44 £14.70 £15.04
Median hourly rate £24.39 £15.57 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +56.64% -18.07% +7.59%
75th Percentile £46.76 £17.99 £31.13
90th Percentile £65.50 £18.44 £35.00
England median hourly rate £22.57 £22.50 £22.50
% change year-on-year +0.30% - +12.50%

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 1,584 842 1,090
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 51.73% 61.96% 56.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,040 552 754
10th Percentile £300 £190 £260
25th Percentile £400 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.52% -4.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £688 £750
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 44 110
10th Percentile £14.00 - £11.06
25th Percentile £16.03 £14.00 £13.89
Median hourly rate £25.00 £18.00 £19.30
Median % change year-on-year +38.89% -6.71% +7.19%
75th Percentile £34.42 £28.64 £38.44
90th Percentile £63.97 £36.25 £56.50
England median hourly rate £29.04 £28.75 £28.44
% change year-on-year +1.01% +1.09% -16.35%

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 19 April 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 19 April 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 19 April 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 -1 87 £514 +2.75% 40
Shropshire -10 76 £450 -7.93% 10
Warwickshire +20 45 £550 +15.79% 4
Coventry -10 27 £498 +24.38% 1
Solihull -6 18 £402 -4.29%
Staffordshire +8 10 £400 -30.25% 8
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 23 (7.64%) SAS
2 17 (5.65%) Confluence
3 15 (4.98%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.99%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (1.66%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.66%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.33%) Apache
7 1 (0.33%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.33%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.33%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 3 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
1 3 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
1 3 (1.00%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.33%) Adobe Illustrator
2 1 (0.33%) Adobe XD
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.33%) Photoshop
2 1 (0.33%) Sketch
2 1 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.00%) NEC Housing
1 3 (1.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.66%) Maximo
2 2 (0.66%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.66%) SAP FI
2 2 (0.66%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.33%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.33%) SAP PSCD
3 1 (0.33%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 61 (20.27%) AWS
2 50 (16.61%) Azure
3 16 (5.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 16 (5.32%) Amazon S3
4 15 (4.98%) Amazon EC2
5 14 (4.65%) Amazon SQS
5 14 (4.65%) AWS KMS
5 14 (4.65%) Route 53
6 12 (3.99%) Power Platform
7 10 (3.32%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (2.33%) PaaS
9 6 (1.99%) GitHub
9 6 (1.99%) Microsoft 365
9 6 (1.99%) SaaS
10 5 (1.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 5 (1.66%) Entra ID
11 4 (1.33%) GCP
11 4 (1.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 3 (1.00%) OCI
12 3 (1.00%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 8 (2.66%) Firewall
2 6 (1.99%) VPN
3 4 (1.33%) LAN
4 3 (1.00%) SSL
4 3 (1.00%) WAN
5 2 (0.66%) BGP
5 2 (0.66%) DNS
5 2 (0.66%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.66%) MPLS
5 2 (0.66%) Network Security
5 2 (0.66%) VLAN
5 2 (0.66%) WLAN
6 1 (0.33%) Cisco ASA
6 1 (0.33%) Cisco ISE
6 1 (0.33%) EIGRP
6 1 (0.33%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 1 (0.33%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.33%) IPsec
6 1 (0.33%) OSPF
6 1 (0.33%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (6.31%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (5.98%) Pentaho
3 17 (5.65%) Amazon RDS
4 14 (4.65%) Amazon Aurora
4 14 (4.65%) DynamoDB
4 14 (4.65%) Oracle Reports
5 11 (3.65%) Power BI
6 10 (3.32%) Oracle Database
7 8 (2.66%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 6 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (1.99%) MongoDB
9 5 (1.66%) Electronic Patient Records
9 5 (1.66%) NoSQL
9 5 (1.66%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 4 (1.33%) Metadata
10 4 (1.33%) Relational Database
10 4 (1.33%) SQL Server
11 3 (1.00%) Tableau
12 2 (0.66%) Elasticsearch
12 2 (0.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 30 (9.97%) Git
2 28 (9.30%) JIRA
3 24 (7.97%) Jenkins
4 16 (5.32%) JUnit
5 15 (4.98%) Maven
5 15 (4.98%) Mockito
6 14 (4.65%) SonarQube
7 11 (3.65%) DbUnit
7 11 (3.65%) jMock
8 9 (2.99%) Bitbucket Server
8 9 (2.99%) JMeter
9 6 (1.99%) GitLab
10 3 (1.00%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (1.00%) Postman
10 3 (1.00%) Toad
11 2 (0.66%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.66%) ERwin
11 2 (0.66%) LoadRunner
11 2 (0.66%) Selenium
12 1 (0.33%) MSI
General
1 78 (25.91%) Social Skills
2 34 (11.30%) Analytical Skills
3 33 (10.96%) Finance
4 23 (7.64%) Local Government
5 17 (5.65%) Legal
6 15 (4.98%) Police
7 7 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.66%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (1.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.33%) Law
10 4 (1.33%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.33%) Military
11 2 (0.66%) Banking
12 1 (0.33%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.33%) Automotive
12 1 (0.33%) Publishing
12 1 (0.33%) Retail
12 1 (0.33%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 39 (12.96%) Developer
2 33 (10.96%) Analyst
3 31 (10.30%) Architect
3 31 (10.30%) Senior
4 27 (8.97%) Data Engineer
5 24 (7.97%) Java Developer
6 18 (5.98%) Lead
7 14 (4.65%) Release Manager
8 13 (4.32%) Accountant
8 13 (4.32%) Business Analyst
8 13 (4.32%) Consultant
8 13 (4.32%) Systems Accountant
9 11 (3.65%) Senior Accountant
9 11 (3.65%) Senior Developer
9 11 (3.65%) Senior Systems Accountant
9 11 (3.65%) Solutions Architect
10 9 (2.99%) Designer
11 8 (2.66%) DBA
11 8 (2.66%) Performance Engineer
12 7 (2.33%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (7.97%) Spring Boot
2 23 (7.64%) REST
2 23 (7.64%) Spring
3 20 (6.64%) AngularJS
4 17 (5.65%) SOAP
5 15 (4.98%) Hibernate
5 15 (4.98%) JPA
6 14 (4.65%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (4.65%) RESTful
6 14 (4.65%) Spring Batch
6 14 (4.65%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (4.65%) Spring Integration
6 14 (4.65%) Web Services
7 11 (3.65%) Oracle Fusion
7 11 (3.65%) PowerMock
8 10 (3.32%) Node.js
9 9 (2.99%) Bootstrap
10 6 (1.99%) XML
11 5 (1.66%) .NET
11 5 (1.66%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (5.98%) Management Information System
2 16 (5.32%) Product Ownership
3 15 (4.98%) Data Structures
4 11 (3.65%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (3.32%) NHS
6 8 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (1.99%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.66%) Cloud Native
9 4 (1.33%) Driving Licence
9 4 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
10 3 (1.00%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.66%) BYOD
11 2 (0.66%) e-Learning
11 2 (0.66%) Mobile App
11 2 (0.66%) PKI
11 2 (0.66%) Private Cloud
11 2 (0.66%) Reference Data
11 2 (0.66%) Replication
11 2 (0.66%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 20 (6.64%) Linux
2 9 (2.99%) Windows
3 4 (1.33%) Unix
4 3 (1.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.66%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (31.23%) Agile
2 54 (17.94%) DevOps
3 49 (16.28%) Stakeholder Management
4 47 (15.61%) CI/CD
5 42 (13.95%) Continuous Improvement
5 42 (13.95%) Migration
6 32 (10.63%) Analytics
6 32 (10.63%) Scrum
7 31 (10.30%) Problem-Solving
8 30 (9.97%) Decision-Making
8 30 (9.97%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 28 (9.30%) Data Integration
9 28 (9.30%) Data Modelling
10 27 (8.97%) Records Management
11 26 (8.64%) Change Management
11 26 (8.64%) ETL
12 25 (8.31%) Containerisation
13 24 (7.97%) Microservices
14 23 (7.64%) Project Delivery
15 20 (6.64%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 78 (25.91%) SQL
2 40 (13.29%) Java
3 19 (6.31%) Python
4 9 (2.99%) PL/SQL
5 6 (1.99%) Bash
5 6 (1.99%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.00%) C#
6 3 (1.00%) PowerShell
6 3 (1.00%) Scala
6 3 (1.00%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.66%) Bicep
7 2 (0.66%) Perl
8 1 (0.33%) ABAP
8 1 (0.33%) COBOL
8 1 (0.33%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.33%) R
8 1 (0.33%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (0.33%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 143 (47.51%) Security Cleared
2 87 (28.90%) SC Cleared
3 10 (3.32%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (2.99%) Degree
5 7 (2.33%) AWS Certification
5 7 (2.33%) Azure Certification
6 5 (1.66%) DV Cleared
7 4 (1.33%) Cisco Certification
8 3 (1.00%) CCNP
8 3 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.66%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 2 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.66%) CCIE
9 2 (0.66%) CISSP
9 2 (0.66%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 2 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.33%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.33%) OCP
10 1 (0.33%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (6.64%) Data Quality
2 14 (4.65%) QA
3 11 (3.65%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 5 (1.66%) WCAG
5 4 (1.33%) GDPR
6 3 (1.00%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.66%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.66%) NIST
7 2 (0.66%) PMO
8 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.33%) COBIT
8 1 (0.33%) GRC
8 1 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.33%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (9.97%) Docker
2 10 (3.32%) Postfix
3 7 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.66%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.66%) vSphere
6 1 (0.33%) etcd
6 1 (0.33%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.33%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 22 (7.31%) Kubernetes
2 14 (4.65%) Grafana
3 6 (1.99%) Terraform
4 5 (1.66%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.66%) Ansible
5 2 (0.66%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.66%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.66%) Kibana
5 2 (0.66%) vRealize
5 2 (0.66%) VxRail
6 1 (0.33%) CASB
6 1 (0.33%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.33%) logstash
6 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.33%) SCCM
6 1 (0.33%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 53 (17.61%) Oracle
2 21 (6.98%) Talend
3 20 (6.64%) Microsoft
4 14 (4.65%) Jaspersoft
5 13 (4.32%) Atlassian
5 13 (4.32%) SAP
6 10 (3.32%) Denodo
6 10 (3.32%) Informatica
7 7 (2.33%) Dynatrace
7 7 (2.33%) VMware
8 6 (1.99%) Cisco
8 6 (1.99%) Salesforce
8 6 (1.99%) ServiceNow
9 5 (1.66%) Databricks
9 5 (1.66%) IBM
10 4 (1.33%) Cloudera
10 4 (1.33%) MuleSoft
10 4 (1.33%) Pega
11 3 (1.00%) SolarWinds
11 3 (1.00%) Splunk