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

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 16 22
Rank change year-on-year +5 +6 -10
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 405 165 125
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.69% 9.64% 6.68%
As % of the General category 22.07% 15.03% 12.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 306 108 89
10th Percentile £358 £254 £261
25th Percentile £417 £406 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% +2.70% -7.50%
75th Percentile £575 £528 £550
90th Percentile £656 £588 £640
England median daily rate £520 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +1.46% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 3 10
10th Percentile £17.57 £15.87 £18.25
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.75 £18.50
Median hourly rate £21.50 £18.44 £30.03
Median % change year-on-year +16.63% -38.61% +66.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £18.70 £35.00
90th Percentile - £18.72 £39.00
England median hourly rate £21.50 £21.27 £26.56
% change year-on-year +1.08% -19.92% +32.81%

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 1,835 1,098 1,025
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 52.96% 64.14% 54.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,153 688 689
10th Percentile £315 £212 £248
25th Percentile £405 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £580 £573 £630
90th Percentile £675 £638 £750
England median daily rate £525 £510 £538
% change year-on-year +2.94% -5.20% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 142 86 67
10th Percentile £13.55 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.34 £18.05 £14.85
Median hourly rate £27.30 £28.59 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year -4.51% +45.94% -9.03%
75th Percentile £43.96 £40.19 £32.27
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £49.25
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +29.22% -34.02% +38.62%

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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +8 183 £491 -4.66% 26
Birmingham -7 79 £525 +10.53% 102
Coventry +7 43 £425 - 1
Warwickshire -11 22 £450 +5.88% 4
Solihull -12 19 £447 +5.18% 4
Staffordshire +8 16 £850 +51.79% 9
Worcestershire +2 9 £450 - 1
Dudley -5 3 £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 37 (9.14%) SAS
2 25 (6.17%) Confluence
3 15 (3.70%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (2.47%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.23%) Tuxedo
6 3 (0.74%) Apache
6 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.25%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.25%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 8 (1.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.74%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (2.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.98%) ContrOCC
3 7 (1.73%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (1.48%) Oracle General Ledger
4 6 (1.48%) Oracle Payables
5 5 (1.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (0.99%) SAP PSCD
7 3 (0.74%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.49%) 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 87 (21.48%) Azure
2 86 (21.23%) AWS
3 34 (8.40%) Azure DevOps
4 28 (6.91%) Power Platform
5 24 (5.93%) Power Automate
6 22 (5.43%) Dynamics 365
7 17 (4.20%) GitHub
8 15 (3.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 14 (3.46%) Amazon EC2
9 14 (3.46%) Amazon S3
9 14 (3.46%) PowerApps
10 13 (3.21%) Azure Data Factory
10 13 (3.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 12 (2.96%) Amazon SQS
11 12 (2.96%) AWS KMS
11 12 (2.96%) Route 53
12 10 (2.47%) PaaS
13 9 (2.22%) Serverless
14 8 (1.98%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (1.73%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.73%) Firewall
2 3 (0.74%) LAN
2 3 (0.74%) VPN
3 2 (0.49%) SSL
3 2 (0.49%) 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 26 (6.42%) Data Warehouse
1 26 (6.42%) Pentaho
2 18 (4.44%) Oracle Database
2 18 (4.44%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (4.44%) SQL Server
3 17 (4.20%) Power BI
3 17 (4.20%) SAS Visual Analytics
4 16 (3.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 13 (3.21%) Amazon RDS
6 12 (2.96%) Amazon Aurora
6 12 (2.96%) Data Lake
6 12 (2.96%) DynamoDB
6 12 (2.96%) Oracle Reports
7 11 (2.72%) Metadata
7 11 (2.72%) Relational Database
8 8 (1.98%) NoSQL
9 7 (1.73%) Ingres
10 6 (1.48%) RDBMS
10 6 (1.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 5 (1.23%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 40 (9.88%) JIRA
2 36 (8.89%) Git
3 34 (8.40%) Jenkins
4 21 (5.19%) GitLab
5 16 (3.95%) JUnit
6 15 (3.70%) Mockito
6 15 (3.70%) SonarQube
7 14 (3.46%) Maven
7 14 (3.46%) Selenium
8 13 (3.21%) Postman
9 10 (2.47%) WebDriver
10 9 (2.22%) Bitbucket Server
10 9 (2.22%) Cypress.io
10 9 (2.22%) DbUnit
10 9 (2.22%) JMeter
10 9 (2.22%) jMock
11 8 (1.98%) Cucumber
11 8 (1.98%) Team Foundation Server
12 5 (1.23%) Oracle Forms
13 3 (0.74%) Bitbucket
General
1 118 (29.14%) Social Skills
2 57 (14.07%) Analytical Skills
2 57 (14.07%) Finance
3 32 (7.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 32 (7.90%) Local Government
4 19 (4.69%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (2.22%) Military
6 8 (1.98%) Legal
6 8 (1.98%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
8 6 (1.48%) Police
9 5 (1.23%) Telecoms
10 4 (0.99%) General Ledger
11 3 (0.74%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.74%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.49%) Banking
12 2 (0.49%) Law
12 2 (0.49%) Retail
13 1 (0.25%) Advertising
13 1 (0.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 58 (14.32%) Developer
1 58 (14.32%) Senior
2 53 (13.09%) Architect
3 48 (11.85%) Analyst
4 47 (11.60%) Data Engineer
5 41 (10.12%) Lead
6 26 (6.42%) Data Architect
7 24 (5.93%) Java Developer
8 23 (5.68%) Business Analyst
9 14 (3.46%) Senior Developer
10 12 (2.96%) Senior Analyst
10 12 (2.96%) Test Analyst
11 11 (2.72%) DevOps Engineer
11 11 (2.72%) Release Manager
11 11 (2.72%) Technical Architect
12 10 (2.47%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 10 (2.47%) HR Director
13 9 (2.22%) Designer
13 9 (2.22%) Senior Java Developer
13 9 (2.22%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.94%) SOAP
1 20 (4.94%) Spring
2 19 (4.69%) Oracle Fusion
2 19 (4.69%) Spring Boot
3 18 (4.44%) REST
4 15 (3.70%) ActiveMQ
4 15 (3.70%) AngularJS
5 14 (3.46%) Hibernate
5 14 (3.46%) JPA
5 14 (3.46%) JSON
5 14 (3.46%) RESTful
6 13 (3.21%) Spring Cloud
6 13 (3.21%) Web Services
7 12 (2.96%) Spring Batch
7 12 (2.96%) Spring Integration
8 10 (2.47%) Gherkin
9 9 (2.22%) Bootstrap
9 9 (2.22%) PowerMock
10 7 (1.73%) Kafka
10 7 (1.73%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 31 (7.65%) Product Ownership
2 26 (6.42%) Cloud Native
3 17 (4.20%) Management Information System
4 15 (3.70%) Legacy Systems
5 12 (2.96%) Data Structures
5 12 (2.96%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (1.98%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.73%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (1.48%) Enterprise Cloud
8 6 (1.48%) Low-Code
8 6 (1.48%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.23%) BYOD
10 4 (0.99%) NHS
11 3 (0.74%) Autonomous Agent
11 3 (0.74%) Freedom of Information
11 3 (0.74%) Taxonomies
11 3 (0.74%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.49%) AI Agents
12 2 (0.49%) Hybrid Cloud
12 2 (0.49%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 14 (3.46%) Linux
2 8 (1.98%) Unix
3 5 (1.23%) Windows
4 2 (0.49%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 204 (50.37%) Agile
2 107 (26.42%) DevOps
3 92 (22.72%) CI/CD
4 91 (22.47%) Continuous Improvement
5 85 (20.99%) Stakeholder Management
6 77 (19.01%) Analytics
7 74 (18.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 71 (17.53%) Scrum
9 69 (17.04%) Migration
10 64 (15.80%) Problem-Solving
11 56 (13.83%) Decision-Making
12 54 (13.33%) Data Modelling
13 52 (12.84%) Data Integration
14 48 (11.85%) ETL
15 41 (10.12%) Technical Leadership
16 38 (9.38%) Data Pipeline
16 38 (9.38%) Test Automation
17 37 (9.14%) Microservices
18 36 (8.89%) Digital Transformation Programme
18 36 (8.89%) SFIA
Programming Languages
1 76 (18.77%) SQL
2 43 (10.62%) Java
3 21 (5.19%) Python
4 20 (4.94%) JavaScript
5 17 (4.20%) C#
6 12 (2.96%) Scala
7 10 (2.47%) PL/SQL
8 7 (1.73%) VB
8 7 (1.73%) VB6
9 6 (1.48%) TypeScript
10 5 (1.23%) C
11 4 (0.99%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.74%) ABAP
12 3 (0.74%) Bash
12 3 (0.74%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (0.74%) R
13 2 (0.49%) Bicep
13 2 (0.49%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.49%) ProC
13 2 (0.49%) VBA
Qualifications
1 190 (46.91%) Security Cleared
2 159 (39.26%) SC Cleared
3 56 (13.83%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (5.19%) Degree
5 17 (4.20%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (3.21%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.99%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.99%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.74%) ACCA
10 3 (0.74%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.74%) CCA
10 3 (0.74%) CCAB
10 3 (0.74%) CIMA
10 3 (0.74%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.49%) APMG
11 2 (0.49%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.49%) CISSP
11 2 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 39 (9.63%) Data Quality
1 39 (9.63%) QA
2 33 (8.15%) Accessibility
3 13 (3.21%) GDPR
3 13 (3.21%) WCAG
4 9 (2.22%) SLA
5 7 (1.73%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.23%) GRC
6 5 (1.23%) PMO
7 4 (0.99%) NCSC
8 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 2 (0.49%) NIST
8 2 (0.49%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.25%) COBIT
9 1 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 42 (10.37%) Docker
2 8 (1.98%) Postfix
3 4 (0.99%) 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 32 (7.90%) Kubernetes
2 18 (4.44%) Grafana
3 12 (2.96%) Prometheus
4 10 (2.47%) Terraform
5 4 (0.99%) Ansible
6 2 (0.49%) 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 71 (17.53%) Oracle
2 43 (10.62%) Microsoft
3 25 (6.17%) Talend
4 17 (4.20%) Denodo
5 12 (2.96%) Atlassian
5 12 (2.96%) Informatica
5 12 (2.96%) Jaspersoft
6 11 (2.72%) Databricks
7 9 (2.22%) SAP
8 8 (1.98%) Dynatrace
8 8 (1.98%) Liquidlogic
9 5 (1.23%) Actian
10 4 (0.99%) Blue Prism
10 4 (0.99%) Pega
11 3 (0.74%) OneLogin
11 3 (0.74%) ServiceNow
11 3 (0.74%) Sparx
11 3 (0.74%) UiPath
12 2 (0.49%) Alteryx
12 2 (0.49%) MuleSoft