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

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 16 19
Rank change year-on-year +3 +3 -9
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 394 142 129
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 11.33% 8.60% 6.92%
As % of the General category 21.30% 13.54% 12.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 294 87 95
10th Percentile £350 £260 £272
25th Percentile £413 £406 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £475 £458
Median % change year-on-year +3.58% +3.83% -12.86%
75th Percentile £575 £528 £550
90th Percentile £661 £609 £645
England median daily rate £515 £513 £517
% change year-on-year +0.49% -0.82% -3.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 3 8
10th Percentile £17.57 £15.87 £17.75
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.75 £18.50
Median hourly rate £21.50 £18.44 £26.47
Median % change year-on-year +16.63% -30.34% +47.03%
75th Percentile £75.00 £18.70 £35.00
90th Percentile - £18.72 £47.00
England median hourly rate £25.38 £21.70 £26.50
% change year-on-year +16.96% -18.11% +27.28%

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 1,850 1,049 1,006
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 53.21% 63.50% 53.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,174 652 694
10th Percentile £315 £206 £263
25th Percentile £407 £363 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £463 £500
Median % change year-on-year +6.16% -7.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £582 £563 £630
90th Percentile £675 £638 £751
England median daily rate £525 £513 £538
% change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 128 88 74
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.13 £14.00
Median hourly rate £30.27 £27.70 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.30% +45.76% -9.39%
75th Percentile £43.96 £40.07 £33.52
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £53.50
England median hourly rate £33.74 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +34.16% -34.02% +27.07%

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 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 1 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 1 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 +7 160 £491 +7.18% 52
Birmingham -2 88 £525 +10.53% 49
Coventry +4 42 £425 -2.86% 3
Solihull -7 23 £447 +6.43% 1
Warwickshire -13 21 £450 +5.88% 10
Staffordshire +9 17 £850 +51.79% 17
Worcestershire +3 9 £450 -35.71%
Dudley -6 1 £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 (9.39%) SAS
2 29 (7.36%) Confluence
3 15 (3.81%) Apache Airflow
4 11 (2.79%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.27%) Tuxedo
6 3 (0.76%) Apache
6 3 (0.76%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.51%) WebLogic
8 1 (0.25%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.25%) IIS
8 1 (0.25%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.25%) Oracle Coherence
Applications
1 10 (2.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.02%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.51%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.25%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 9 (2.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (2.03%) ContrOCC
3 7 (1.78%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (1.52%) Oracle General Ledger
4 6 (1.52%) Oracle Payables
5 5 (1.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 4 (1.02%) SAP PSCD
7 3 (0.76%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle ERP
8 2 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
9 1 (0.25%) NEC Housing
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
9 1 (0.25%) Oracle Payroll
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%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 93 (23.60%) AWS
2 91 (23.10%) Azure
3 32 (8.12%) Azure DevOps
4 28 (7.11%) Power Platform
5 21 (5.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 20 (5.08%) Amazon EC2
6 20 (5.08%) Amazon S3
6 20 (5.08%) Dynamics 365
6 20 (5.08%) Power Automate
7 17 (4.31%) Amazon SQS
7 17 (4.31%) AWS KMS
7 17 (4.31%) GitHub
7 17 (4.31%) Route 53
8 14 (3.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 13 (3.30%) Azure Data Factory
10 10 (2.54%) PaaS
10 10 (2.54%) PowerApps
11 9 (2.28%) Serverless
12 8 (2.03%) GitHub Actions
12 8 (2.03%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.78%) Firewall
2 3 (0.76%) LAN
2 3 (0.76%) VPN
3 2 (0.51%) SSL
3 2 (0.51%) 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 25 (6.35%) Pentaho
2 24 (6.09%) Data Warehouse
3 23 (5.84%) PostgreSQL
4 19 (4.82%) Amazon RDS
4 19 (4.82%) Power BI
5 18 (4.57%) Oracle Database
5 18 (4.57%) SQL Server
6 17 (4.31%) Amazon Aurora
6 17 (4.31%) DynamoDB
6 17 (4.31%) Oracle Reports
7 16 (4.06%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 16 (4.06%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 11 (2.79%) Data Lake
9 10 (2.54%) Metadata
9 10 (2.54%) Relational Database
10 7 (1.78%) Ingres
10 7 (1.78%) NoSQL
11 6 (1.52%) RDBMS
11 6 (1.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 5 (1.27%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 39 (9.90%) JIRA
2 36 (9.14%) Git
2 36 (9.14%) Jenkins
3 22 (5.58%) JUnit
4 21 (5.33%) GitLab
5 20 (5.08%) Mockito
5 20 (5.08%) SonarQube
6 19 (4.82%) Maven
7 15 (3.81%) Selenium
8 13 (3.30%) DbUnit
8 13 (3.30%) jMock
9 12 (3.05%) Postman
10 11 (2.79%) Bitbucket Server
11 10 (2.54%) JMeter
11 10 (2.54%) WebDriver
12 9 (2.28%) Cucumber
12 9 (2.28%) Cypress.io
13 8 (2.03%) Team Foundation Server
14 5 (1.27%) Oracle Forms
15 3 (0.76%) Bitbucket
General
1 114 (28.93%) Social Skills
2 62 (15.74%) Finance
3 54 (13.71%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (9.14%) Local Government
5 30 (7.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 19 (4.82%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (3.05%) Legal
8 9 (2.28%) Presentation Skills
9 8 (2.03%) Military
10 5 (1.27%) Police
10 5 (1.27%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.02%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.02%) General Ledger
11 4 (1.02%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.51%) Banking
12 2 (0.51%) Retail
13 1 (0.25%) Advertising
13 1 (0.25%) Billing
13 1 (0.25%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 59 (14.97%) Senior
2 54 (13.71%) Developer
3 49 (12.44%) Architect
4 45 (11.42%) Analyst
5 43 (10.91%) Data Engineer
6 41 (10.41%) Lead
7 31 (7.87%) Java Developer
8 21 (5.33%) Business Analyst
9 19 (4.82%) Data Architect
10 13 (3.30%) Senior Developer
11 12 (3.05%) Senior Analyst
12 11 (2.79%) Accountant
12 11 (2.79%) Release Manager
12 11 (2.79%) Systems Accountant
12 11 (2.79%) Technical Architect
13 10 (2.54%) Designer
13 10 (2.54%) DevOps Engineer
13 10 (2.54%) HR Director
13 10 (2.54%) Test Analyst
14 9 (2.28%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (7.11%) Spring
2 27 (6.85%) Spring Boot
3 25 (6.35%) SOAP
4 23 (5.84%) REST
5 22 (5.58%) Oracle Fusion
6 20 (5.08%) ActiveMQ
6 20 (5.08%) AngularJS
7 19 (4.82%) Hibernate
7 19 (4.82%) JPA
8 18 (4.57%) Spring Cloud
8 18 (4.57%) Web Services
9 17 (4.31%) Spring Batch
9 17 (4.31%) Spring Integration
10 15 (3.81%) RESTful
11 13 (3.30%) JSON
11 13 (3.30%) PowerMock
12 12 (3.05%) Node.js
13 11 (2.79%) Bootstrap
13 11 (2.79%) Gherkin
14 7 (1.78%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 30 (7.61%) Product Ownership
2 22 (5.58%) Cloud Native
3 18 (4.57%) Management Information System
4 17 (4.31%) Data Structures
5 16 (4.06%) Distributed Systems
6 13 (3.30%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
9 6 (1.52%) Enterprise Cloud
9 6 (1.52%) Low-Code
9 6 (1.52%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.27%) BYOD
10 5 (1.27%) NHS
11 3 (0.76%) Autonomous Agent
11 3 (0.76%) Freedom of Information
11 3 (0.76%) Taxonomies
11 3 (0.76%) Virtual Team
12 2 (0.51%) Hybrid Cloud
12 2 (0.51%) Private Cloud
12 2 (0.51%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 18 (4.57%) Linux
2 8 (2.03%) Unix
3 5 (1.27%) Windows
4 2 (0.51%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 197 (50.00%) Agile
2 100 (25.38%) DevOps
3 86 (21.83%) Stakeholder Management
4 85 (21.57%) CI/CD
5 80 (20.30%) Continuous Improvement
6 68 (17.26%) Analytics
6 68 (17.26%) Scrum
7 66 (16.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 65 (16.50%) Migration
9 54 (13.71%) Decision-Making
10 52 (13.20%) Data Modelling
10 52 (13.20%) Problem-Solving
11 49 (12.44%) Data Integration
12 44 (11.17%) ETL
13 37 (9.39%) Microservices
13 37 (9.39%) Technical Leadership
14 35 (8.88%) Data Pipeline
14 35 (8.88%) Test Automation
15 33 (8.38%) AI
15 33 (8.38%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 82 (20.81%) SQL
2 51 (12.94%) Java
3 25 (6.35%) Python
4 17 (4.31%) JavaScript
5 16 (4.06%) C#
6 13 (3.30%) PL/SQL
7 7 (1.78%) VB
7 7 (1.78%) VB6
8 6 (1.52%) Bash
9 5 (1.27%) C
9 5 (1.27%) Scala
10 4 (1.02%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.02%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.76%) ABAP
11 3 (0.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.76%) R
12 2 (0.51%) Bicep
12 2 (0.51%) PowerShell
12 2 (0.51%) ProC
12 2 (0.51%) VBA
Qualifications
1 195 (49.49%) Security Cleared
2 158 (40.10%) SC Cleared
3 46 (11.68%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (5.33%) Degree
5 15 (3.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 11 (2.79%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.52%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.27%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.02%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.02%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (1.02%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.76%) ACCA
10 3 (0.76%) CCA
10 3 (0.76%) CCAB
10 3 (0.76%) CIMA
10 3 (0.76%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.76%) CISM
10 3 (0.76%) CISSP
11 2 (0.51%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (8.88%) Data Quality
2 33 (8.38%) QA
3 31 (7.87%) Accessibility
4 14 (3.55%) GDPR
5 13 (3.30%) WCAG
6 9 (2.28%) SLA
7 7 (1.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.27%) PMO
9 3 (0.76%) GRC
9 3 (0.76%) NCSC
10 2 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.51%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.51%) NIST
10 2 (0.51%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.25%) COBIT
11 1 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 43 (10.91%) Docker
2 11 (2.79%) Postfix
3 4 (1.02%) 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 28 (7.11%) Kubernetes
2 23 (5.84%) Grafana
3 12 (3.05%) Prometheus
4 9 (2.28%) Terraform
5 4 (1.02%) Ansible
6 2 (0.51%) 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 74 (18.78%) Oracle
2 42 (10.66%) Microsoft
3 25 (6.35%) Talend
4 17 (4.31%) Jaspersoft
5 16 (4.06%) Atlassian
6 15 (3.81%) Informatica
7 14 (3.55%) Denodo
8 12 (3.05%) Databricks
9 10 (2.54%) SAP
10 8 (2.03%) Liquidlogic
11 7 (1.78%) Dynatrace
12 6 (1.52%) ServiceNow
13 5 (1.27%) Actian
13 5 (1.27%) Cloudera
13 5 (1.27%) Pega
14 3 (0.76%) Google
14 3 (0.76%) OneLogin
14 3 (0.76%) Salesforce
14 3 (0.76%) Sparx
15 2 (0.51%) Alteryx