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 14 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 20 15
Rank change year-on-year +3 -5 -7
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 294 103 167
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 9.33% 7.52% 8.78%
As % of the General category 18.53% 11.98% 15.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 205 60 123
10th Percentile £358 £206 £310
25th Percentile £420 £390 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £452 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.97% -9.70% -7.19%
75th Percentile £575 £548 £555
90th Percentile £645 £607 £625
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 8
10th Percentile £17.09 £14.87 £13.24
25th Percentile £21.43 £15.14 £15.47
Median hourly rate £52.50 £17.28 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +203.78% -9.04% +7.83%
75th Percentile £75.00 £18.28 £23.38
90th Percentile - £18.56 £35.00
England median hourly rate £23.83 £22.90 £21.25
% change year-on-year +4.04% +7.76% +4.06%

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 1,587 860 1,070
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 50.36% 62.82% 56.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,022 557 742
10th Percentile £300 £181 £263
25th Percentile £400 £350 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £475 £513
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% -7.45% +2.65%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £659 £751
England median daily rate £513 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 81 48 110
10th Percentile £14.82 - £11.06
25th Percentile £19.34 £14.00 £13.89
Median hourly rate £30.00 £18.44 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +62.73% -2.97% -2.56%
75th Percentile £47.50 £25.38 £37.81
90th Percentile £67.84 £34.91 £56.50
England median hourly rate £30.58 £27.25 £30.50
% change year-on-year +12.22% -10.66% -6.15%

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 14 May 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 81 £525 +4.90% 53
Shropshire -6 77 £450 -1.77% 25
Warwickshire +18 42 £550 +29.41% 2
Coventry -5 25 £500 +29.03% 2
Solihull -8 19 £402 -4.29% 2
Staffordshire +7 12 £388 -27.47% 10
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 22 (7.48%) Confluence
2 19 (6.46%) SAS
3 15 (5.10%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.04%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (1.02%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.68%) Anypoint
6 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.34%) Apache
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.34%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 5 (1.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.34%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.34%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.34%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 3 (1.02%) NEC Housing
1 3 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.68%) Maximo
2 2 (0.68%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.34%) Primavera
3 1 (0.34%) SAP HR
3 1 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 62 (21.09%) AWS
2 45 (15.31%) Azure
3 17 (5.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 17 (5.78%) Amazon S3
4 16 (5.44%) Amazon EC2
5 14 (4.76%) Amazon SQS
5 14 (4.76%) AWS KMS
5 14 (4.76%) Route 53
6 12 (4.08%) Power Platform
7 8 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
8 7 (2.38%) Microsoft 365
9 6 (2.04%) Entra ID
9 6 (2.04%) GitHub
9 6 (2.04%) PaaS
10 5 (1.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 4 (1.36%) SaaS
11 4 (1.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 3 (1.02%) AWS Lambda
12 3 (1.02%) GCP
12 3 (1.02%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.04%) Firewall
2 5 (1.70%) VPN
3 3 (1.02%) LAN
3 3 (1.02%) SSL
3 3 (1.02%) WAN
4 2 (0.68%) HTTPS
5 1 (0.34%) BGP
5 1 (0.34%) DNS
5 1 (0.34%) Internet
5 1 (0.34%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.34%) IPsec
5 1 (0.34%) MPLS
5 1 (0.34%) Network Security
5 1 (0.34%) SMTP
5 1 (0.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (6.46%) Pentaho
1 19 (6.46%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (5.44%) Amazon RDS
3 14 (4.76%) Amazon Aurora
3 14 (4.76%) DynamoDB
3 14 (4.76%) Oracle Reports
4 11 (3.74%) Power BI
5 10 (3.40%) Oracle Database
6 8 (2.72%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.70%) Electronic Patient Records
7 5 (1.70%) NoSQL
7 5 (1.70%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 5 (1.70%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 4 (1.36%) Metadata
8 4 (1.36%) MongoDB
8 4 (1.36%) Relational Database
8 4 (1.36%) SQL Server
9 3 (1.02%) Tableau
10 2 (0.68%) Data Lake
10 2 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 30 (10.20%) JIRA
2 26 (8.84%) Git
3 23 (7.82%) Jenkins
4 16 (5.44%) JUnit
5 15 (5.10%) Maven
5 15 (5.10%) Mockito
6 14 (4.76%) SonarQube
7 11 (3.74%) DbUnit
7 11 (3.74%) jMock
8 9 (3.06%) Bitbucket Server
8 9 (3.06%) GitLab
8 9 (3.06%) JMeter
9 3 (1.02%) Postman
10 2 (0.68%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.68%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 2 (0.68%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.68%) ERwin
10 2 (0.68%) LoadRunner
10 2 (0.68%) Selenium
11 1 (0.34%) MSI
General
1 76 (25.85%) Social Skills
2 37 (12.59%) Analytical Skills
3 33 (11.22%) Finance
4 23 (7.82%) Local Government
5 17 (5.78%) Legal
6 14 (4.76%) Police
7 6 (2.04%) Military
7 6 (2.04%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.70%) Influencing Skills
9 4 (1.36%) Law
9 4 (1.36%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.02%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.68%) Banking
12 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.34%) Automotive
12 1 (0.34%) Financial Institution
12 1 (0.34%) Publishing
12 1 (0.34%) Retail
Job Titles
1 36 (12.24%) Developer
2 34 (11.56%) Architect
2 34 (11.56%) Senior
3 30 (10.20%) Data Engineer
4 25 (8.50%) Analyst
5 24 (8.16%) Java Developer
6 18 (6.12%) Lead
7 13 (4.42%) Accountant
7 13 (4.42%) Systems Accountant
8 12 (4.08%) Business Analyst
8 12 (4.08%) Consultant
9 11 (3.74%) Designer
9 11 (3.74%) Release Manager
9 11 (3.74%) Senior Accountant
9 11 (3.74%) Senior Systems Accountant
10 10 (3.40%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (3.06%) Senior Developer
12 8 (2.72%) DBA
12 8 (2.72%) Performance Engineer
12 8 (2.72%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (7.82%) Spring Boot
2 22 (7.48%) REST
2 22 (7.48%) Spring
3 20 (6.80%) AngularJS
4 18 (6.12%) SOAP
5 15 (5.10%) Hibernate
5 15 (5.10%) JPA
6 14 (4.76%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (4.76%) RESTful
6 14 (4.76%) Spring Batch
6 14 (4.76%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (4.76%) Spring Integration
6 14 (4.76%) Web Services
7 11 (3.74%) Oracle Fusion
7 11 (3.74%) PowerMock
8 10 (3.40%) Node.js
9 9 (3.06%) Bootstrap
10 5 (1.70%) CSS
10 5 (1.70%) HTML
10 5 (1.70%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.14%) Product Ownership
2 18 (6.12%) Management Information System
3 15 (5.10%) Data Structures
4 11 (3.74%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (3.40%) Legacy Systems
6 9 (3.06%) NHS
7 7 (2.38%) Cloud Native
8 6 (2.04%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.70%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.02%) Driving Licence
11 2 (0.68%) BYOD
11 2 (0.68%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (0.68%) Mobile App
11 2 (0.68%) PKI
11 2 (0.68%) Private Cloud
11 2 (0.68%) Reference Data
11 2 (0.68%) SCADA
12 1 (0.34%) CMDB
12 1 (0.34%) Data Protection Act
12 1 (0.34%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 17 (5.78%) Linux
2 8 (2.72%) Unix
3 6 (2.04%) Windows
4 2 (0.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.68%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 104 (35.37%) Agile
2 54 (18.37%) DevOps
3 46 (15.65%) Stakeholder Management
4 44 (14.97%) Migration
5 43 (14.63%) CI/CD
6 42 (14.29%) Continuous Improvement
7 36 (12.24%) Scrum
8 35 (11.90%) Data Modelling
9 32 (10.88%) Data Integration
9 32 (10.88%) Decision-Making
10 31 (10.54%) Analytics
11 28 (9.52%) ETL
11 28 (9.52%) Records Management
12 27 (9.18%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 26 (8.84%) Change Management
13 26 (8.84%) Data Pipeline
14 24 (8.16%) Containerisation
15 23 (7.82%) Problem-Solving
16 22 (7.48%) Microservices
16 22 (7.48%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 78 (26.53%) SQL
2 33 (11.22%) Java
3 16 (5.44%) Python
4 11 (3.74%) PL/SQL
5 7 (2.38%) Bash
6 6 (2.04%) JavaScript
7 3 (1.02%) C#
7 3 (1.02%) PowerShell
8 2 (0.68%) Bicep
8 2 (0.68%) Scala
8 2 (0.68%) Shell Script
9 1 (0.34%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.34%) Perl
9 1 (0.34%) R
9 1 (0.34%) Search Processing Language
9 1 (0.34%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 139 (47.28%) Security Cleared
2 92 (31.29%) SC Cleared
3 14 (4.76%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (3.74%) Degree
5 5 (1.70%) AWS Certification
5 5 (1.70%) Azure Certification
6 3 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
6 3 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.02%) DV Cleared
7 2 (0.68%) CCNP
8 1 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.34%) CCNA
8 1 (0.34%) CISSP
8 1 (0.34%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.34%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
8 1 (0.34%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 1 (0.34%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
8 1 (0.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.34%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (7.48%) Data Quality
2 13 (4.42%) Accessibility
3 12 (4.08%) QA
4 5 (1.70%) WCAG
5 4 (1.36%) GDPR
5 4 (1.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.02%) PMO
7 2 (0.68%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.68%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.34%) COBIT
8 1 (0.34%) GRC
8 1 (0.34%) NIST
8 1 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.34%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (10.20%) Docker
2 10 (3.40%) Postfix
3 6 (2.04%) Active Directory
4 4 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.68%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.34%) etcd
6 1 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 20 (6.80%) Kubernetes
2 15 (5.10%) Grafana
3 6 (2.04%) Prometheus
4 5 (1.70%) Terraform
5 2 (0.68%) Ansible
5 2 (0.68%) Kibana
5 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.34%) CASB
6 1 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
6 1 (0.34%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.34%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.34%) logstash
6 1 (0.34%) SCCM
6 1 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 48 (16.33%) Oracle
2 22 (7.48%) Talend
3 19 (6.46%) Microsoft
4 14 (4.76%) Jaspersoft
5 13 (4.42%) Atlassian
5 13 (4.42%) Informatica
6 11 (3.74%) Denodo
7 9 (3.06%) SAP
8 7 (2.38%) Dynatrace
9 6 (2.04%) ServiceNow
10 5 (1.70%) Cloudera
10 5 (1.70%) Databricks
10 5 (1.70%) Pega
10 5 (1.70%) Salesforce
11 4 (1.36%) MuleSoft
11 4 (1.36%) VMware
12 3 (1.02%) NEC
12 3 (1.02%) Splunk
13 2 (0.68%) IBM
13 2 (0.68%) Sparx