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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 21
Rank change year-on-year +7 +4 -9
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 456 181 138
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.64% 9.79% 7.32%
As % of the General category 23.71% 15.59% 12.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 347 125 87
10th Percentile £363 £283 £242
25th Percentile £425 £406 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £530 £566
90th Percentile £665 £591 £666
England median daily rate £525 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +5.00% -3.85% -5.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 4 8
10th Percentile £18.07 £17.02 £17.75
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.79 £22.33
Median hourly rate £22.00 £20.72 £30.03
Median % change year-on-year +6.19% -31.00% +50.14%
75th Percentile £75.00 £23.52 £40.56
90th Percentile - £23.55 £62.58
England median hourly rate £21.35 £22.05 £23.99
% change year-on-year -3.17% -8.09% +14.24%

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 1,923 1,161 1,080
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 53.30% 62.82% 57.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,173 736 672
10th Percentile £325 £224 £203
25th Percentile £410 £392 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.51% -2.00% -0.99%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £650 £731
England median daily rate £525 £500 £533
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.19% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 87 53
10th Percentile £13.46 £14.15 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.48 £18.50 £15.25
Median hourly rate £22.50 £29.00 £23.82
Median % change year-on-year -22.41% +21.75% +16.20%
75th Percentile £33.99 £40.25 £32.25
90th Percentile £52.25 £50.00 £49.75
England median hourly rate £29.50 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +17.30% -32.93% +29.87%

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 1 October 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 1 October 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 1 October 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 +10 231 £500 -3.57% 35
Birmingham -6 89 £525 +10.53% 130
Coventry +6 49 £425 -9.81% 11
Warwickshire -21 17 £450 -5.26% 13
Solihull -11 16 - - 2
Staffordshire +1 15 £850 +51.79% 7
Worcestershire +10 10 £450 - 1
Dudley - 5 £375 - 1
Herefordshire +3 2 - - 6
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 34 (7.46%) SAS
2 31 (6.80%) Confluence
3 15 (3.29%) Apache Airflow
3 15 (3.29%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.10%) Apache
4 5 (1.10%) Apache Spark
4 5 (1.10%) Tuxedo
5 3 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.44%) SAP Portal
7 1 (0.22%) IIS
7 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 9 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.10%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 19 (4.17%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.75%) ContrOCC
2 8 (1.75%) SAP HR
2 8 (1.75%) SAP Payroll
2 8 (1.75%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (1.54%) Oracle General Ledger
3 7 (1.54%) Oracle Payables
3 7 (1.54%) Oracle Receivables
3 7 (1.54%) SAP HCM
4 5 (1.10%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 4 (0.88%) SAP PSCD
6 3 (0.66%) SAP ERP
7 2 (0.44%) iTrent
7 2 (0.44%) NetSuite
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle Payroll
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle Cash Management
8 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
8 1 (0.22%) Primavera
8 1 (0.22%) SAP BRIM
Cloud Services
1 98 (21.49%) AWS
2 94 (20.61%) Azure
3 43 (9.43%) Azure DevOps
4 41 (8.99%) Power Platform
5 37 (8.11%) Power Automate
6 33 (7.24%) Dynamics 365
7 19 (4.17%) PowerApps
8 18 (3.95%) GitHub
8 18 (3.95%) Serverless
9 16 (3.51%) Azure Functions
10 13 (2.85%) Azure Data Factory
11 10 (2.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 10 (2.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 9 (1.97%) Amazon EC2
12 9 (1.97%) Amazon S3
12 9 (1.97%) PaaS
13 8 (1.75%) GCP
13 8 (1.75%) Microsoft 365
13 8 (1.75%) SaaS
13 8 (1.75%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.88%) LAN
2 3 (0.66%) VPN
2 3 (0.66%) WAN
3 2 (0.44%) Internet
3 2 (0.44%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.22%) Firewall
4 1 (0.22%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (5.92%) Data Warehouse
2 26 (5.70%) SQL Server
3 23 (5.04%) Pentaho
4 20 (4.39%) Power BI
5 19 (4.17%) Oracle Database
6 18 (3.95%) Metadata
7 17 (3.73%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (3.73%) Relational Database
8 16 (3.51%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 15 (3.29%) Data Lake
9 15 (3.29%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 11 (2.41%) NoSQL
11 10 (2.19%) MongoDB
12 8 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
12 8 (1.75%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (1.54%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (1.54%) DynamoDB
13 7 (1.54%) Ingres
14 6 (1.32%) RDBMS
15 5 (1.10%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 47 (10.31%) Git
2 41 (8.99%) JIRA
3 31 (6.80%) Jenkins
4 29 (6.36%) GitLab
5 21 (4.61%) JUnit
6 19 (4.17%) Selenium
7 18 (3.95%) SonarQube
8 17 (3.73%) Mockito
9 16 (3.51%) Maven
10 14 (3.07%) Postman
11 13 (2.85%) Cucumber
12 12 (2.63%) WebDriver
13 11 (2.41%) Cypress.io
14 9 (1.97%) Team Foundation Server
15 5 (1.10%) Bitbucket Server
15 5 (1.10%) DbUnit
15 5 (1.10%) Gatling
15 5 (1.10%) jMock
15 5 (1.10%) Oracle Forms
16 3 (0.66%) JMeter
General
1 165 (36.18%) Social Skills
2 74 (16.23%) Analytical Skills
3 61 (13.38%) Finance
4 44 (9.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 26 (5.70%) Local Government
6 25 (5.48%) Influencing Skills
7 19 (4.17%) Organisational Skills
8 14 (3.07%) Legal
9 12 (2.63%) Military
10 8 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.54%) Police
12 6 (1.32%) Banking
12 6 (1.32%) Telecoms
13 5 (1.10%) General Ledger
14 4 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
15 2 (0.44%) Advertising
15 2 (0.44%) Law
15 2 (0.44%) Manufacturing
15 2 (0.44%) Retail
16 1 (0.22%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 90 (19.74%) Developer
2 71 (15.57%) Senior
3 64 (14.04%) Architect
4 55 (12.06%) Lead
5 54 (11.84%) Analyst
6 42 (9.21%) Data Engineer
7 38 (8.33%) Data Architect
8 29 (6.36%) Java Developer
9 25 (5.48%) Business Analyst
10 24 (5.26%) Senior Developer
11 19 (4.17%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 15 (3.29%) Test Analyst
13 14 (3.07%) Senior Analyst
14 13 (2.85%) Consultant
14 13 (2.85%) Technical Architect
15 12 (2.63%) Designer
15 12 (2.63%) SAP Consultant
15 12 (2.63%) Senior Java Developer
16 11 (2.41%) DevOps Engineer
16 11 (2.41%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (6.80%) REST
1 31 (6.80%) Spring
2 30 (6.58%) SOAP
3 27 (5.92%) Spring Boot
4 25 (5.48%) JSON
5 19 (4.17%) Oracle Fusion
6 18 (3.95%) RESTful
7 17 (3.73%) Web Services
8 16 (3.51%) ActiveMQ
8 16 (3.51%) AngularJS
8 16 (3.51%) JPA
9 15 (3.29%) Hibernate
9 15 (3.29%) XML
10 14 (3.07%) Gherkin
10 14 (3.07%) Spring Cloud
11 12 (2.63%) Playwright
12 11 (2.41%) React
12 11 (2.41%) XSLT
13 9 (1.97%) Terraform
14 8 (1.75%) SAPUI5
Miscellaneous
1 38 (8.33%) Cloud Native
2 34 (7.46%) Product Ownership
3 27 (5.92%) Management Information System
4 14 (3.07%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (2.85%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.41%) Taxonomies
7 9 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (1.75%) Virtual Team
9 7 (1.54%) Data Structures
9 7 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.32%) Data Fabric
10 6 (1.32%) Enterprise Cloud
10 6 (1.32%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.10%) Autonomous Agent
11 5 (1.10%) BYOD
12 4 (0.88%) Onboarding
13 3 (0.66%) Driving Licence
13 3 (0.66%) Freedom of Information
14 2 (0.44%) Smartphone
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.19%) Linux
2 9 (1.97%) Unix
3 4 (0.88%) Windows
4 2 (0.44%) Android
4 2 (0.44%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.22%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 244 (53.51%) Agile
2 114 (25.00%) Continuous Improvement
2 114 (25.00%) DevOps
2 114 (25.00%) Stakeholder Management
3 106 (23.25%) CI/CD
4 97 (21.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
5 87 (19.08%) Analytics
6 85 (18.64%) Problem-Solving
7 79 (17.32%) Scrum
8 71 (15.57%) Migration
9 62 (13.60%) Decision-Making
10 60 (13.16%) Data Modelling
11 58 (12.72%) Technical Leadership
12 54 (11.84%) Data Integration
13 53 (11.62%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 52 (11.40%) Test Automation
15 51 (11.18%) AI
16 50 (10.96%) Microservices
17 45 (9.87%) SFIA
18 44 (9.65%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 74 (16.23%) SQL
2 60 (13.16%) Java
3 43 (9.43%) JavaScript
4 27 (5.92%) C#
5 20 (4.39%) Python
6 17 (3.73%) TypeScript
7 13 (2.85%) Scala
8 11 (2.41%) ABAP
9 9 (1.97%) PL/SQL
10 8 (1.75%) VB
10 8 (1.75%) VB6
11 5 (1.10%) C
12 4 (0.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (0.88%) T-SQL
13 3 (0.66%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.66%) R
13 3 (0.66%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.66%) VBA
14 2 (0.44%) Bash
14 2 (0.44%) ProC
Qualifications
1 205 (44.96%) Security Cleared
2 185 (40.57%) SC Cleared
3 100 (21.93%) BPSS Clearance
4 29 (6.36%) Microsoft Certification
5 20 (4.39%) Degree
6 15 (3.29%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.32%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.10%) ACCA
8 5 (1.10%) CIMA
8 5 (1.10%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (0.88%) CCAB
9 4 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.88%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.66%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.66%) CCA
10 3 (0.66%) CISM
10 3 (0.66%) CISSP
10 3 (0.66%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.44%) A+ Certification
11 2 (0.44%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (11.62%) Accessibility
2 48 (10.53%) QA
3 35 (7.68%) Data Quality
4 29 (6.36%) WCAG
5 21 (4.61%) GDPR
6 10 (2.19%) SLA
7 6 (1.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.10%) GRC
9 4 (0.88%) NCSC
10 3 (0.66%) PMO
11 2 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.44%) NIST
12 1 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 39 (8.55%) Docker
2 5 (1.10%) Active Directory
3 4 (0.88%) Postfix
4 1 (0.22%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 31 (6.80%) Kubernetes
2 19 (4.17%) Grafana
3 15 (3.29%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.88%) Ansible
5 2 (0.44%) SCCM
6 1 (0.22%) Kibana
6 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 70 (15.35%) Oracle
2 54 (11.84%) Microsoft
3 22 (4.82%) Talend
4 15 (3.29%) Denodo
4 15 (3.29%) SAP
5 11 (2.41%) Databricks
6 10 (2.19%) Informatica
7 9 (1.97%) ServiceNow
8 8 (1.75%) Liquidlogic
9 7 (1.54%) Concur
9 7 (1.54%) Jaspersoft
10 6 (1.32%) Atlassian
10 6 (1.32%) Pega
11 5 (1.10%) Actian
12 4 (0.88%) Dynatrace
12 4 (0.88%) Google
13 3 (0.66%) Blue Prism
14 2 (0.44%) Alteryx
14 2 (0.44%) OneLogin
14 2 (0.44%) Splunk