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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 22
Rank change year-on-year +7 +5 -9
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 445 177 135
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.42% 9.64% 7.09%
As % of the General category 23.51% 15.31% 12.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 337 123 85
10th Percentile £363 £276 £235
25th Percentile £425 £403 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £533 £565
90th Percentile £665 £593 £667
England median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 4 7
10th Percentile £17.91 £17.02 £17.50
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.79 £22.03
Median hourly rate £21.50 £20.72 £33.93
Median % change year-on-year +3.78% -38.94% +69.65%
75th Percentile £75.00 £23.52 £46.13
90th Percentile - £23.55 £64.35
England median hourly rate £21.35 £22.02 £23.99
% change year-on-year -3.02% -8.23% +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 1,893 1,156 1,100
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 52.85% 62.93% 57.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,152 730 687
10th Percentile £325 £220 £206
25th Percentile £410 £388 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £488 £510
Median % change year-on-year -1.31% -4.41% -0.49%
75th Percentile £582 £575 £625
90th Percentile £671 £650 £731
England median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 162 87 53
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.48 £19.50 £15.25
Median hourly rate £24.75 £29.00 £23.82
Median % change year-on-year -14.66% +21.75% +11.83%
75th Percentile £34.42 £40.25 £32.28
90th Percentile £53.75 £50.00 £54.00
England median hourly rate £30.00 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +19.28% -33.38% +32.46%

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 26 September 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 26 September 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 26 September 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 +10 229 £500 -3.57% 37
Birmingham -5 86 £525 +10.53% 116
Coventry +8 47 £425 -4.23% 12
Solihull -10 16 - - 1
Staffordshire +1 15 £850 +51.79% 6
Warwickshire -19 14 £450 -5.26% 16
Worcestershire +11 10 £450 -
Dudley - 5 £375 - 1
Herefordshire +2 1 - - 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 36 (8.09%) SAS
2 31 (6.97%) Confluence
3 17 (3.82%) Apache Airflow
4 15 (3.37%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.12%) Apache
5 5 (1.12%) Apache Spark
5 5 (1.12%) Tuxedo
6 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.22%) IIS
7 1 (0.22%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.22%) Oracle Coherence
7 1 (0.22%) SAP Portal
Applications
1 9 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 19 (4.27%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.80%) ContrOCC
3 7 (1.57%) Oracle General Ledger
3 7 (1.57%) Oracle Payables
3 7 (1.57%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (1.35%) SAP HR
4 6 (1.35%) SAP Payroll
4 6 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (1.12%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 5 (1.12%) SAP HCM
6 4 (0.90%) SAP PSCD
7 3 (0.67%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.45%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.45%) Oracle Payroll
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
9 1 (0.22%) Primavera
9 1 (0.22%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.22%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 98 (22.02%) AWS
2 97 (21.80%) Azure
3 43 (9.66%) Azure DevOps
4 41 (9.21%) Power Platform
5 37 (8.31%) Power Automate
6 33 (7.42%) Dynamics 365
7 19 (4.27%) PowerApps
8 18 (4.04%) GitHub
8 18 (4.04%) Serverless
9 16 (3.60%) Azure Functions
10 13 (2.92%) Azure Data Factory
11 11 (2.47%) PaaS
12 10 (2.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 10 (2.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 9 (2.02%) Amazon EC2
13 9 (2.02%) Amazon S3
14 8 (1.80%) GCP
14 8 (1.80%) GitHub Copilot
14 8 (1.80%) SaaS
15 7 (1.57%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.67%) LAN
1 3 (0.67%) WAN
2 2 (0.45%) VPN
3 1 (0.22%) Firewall
3 1 (0.22%) Internet
3 1 (0.22%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.22%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.07%) Data Warehouse
2 26 (5.84%) SQL Server
3 23 (5.17%) Pentaho
4 21 (4.72%) Oracle Database
5 20 (4.49%) Power BI
6 18 (4.04%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 17 (3.82%) Metadata
7 17 (3.82%) PostgreSQL
7 17 (3.82%) Relational Database
7 17 (3.82%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 15 (3.37%) Data Lake
9 11 (2.47%) NoSQL
10 10 (2.25%) MongoDB
11 8 (1.80%) Amazon RDS
11 8 (1.80%) Oracle Reports
12 7 (1.57%) Amazon Aurora
12 7 (1.57%) DynamoDB
12 7 (1.57%) Ingres
13 6 (1.35%) RDBMS
14 5 (1.12%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 47 (10.56%) Git
2 41 (9.21%) JIRA
3 31 (6.97%) Jenkins
4 29 (6.52%) GitLab
5 21 (4.72%) JUnit
6 19 (4.27%) Selenium
7 18 (4.04%) SonarQube
8 17 (3.82%) Mockito
9 16 (3.60%) Maven
10 14 (3.15%) Postman
11 13 (2.92%) Cucumber
12 12 (2.70%) WebDriver
13 11 (2.47%) Cypress.io
14 9 (2.02%) Team Foundation Server
15 5 (1.12%) Bitbucket Server
15 5 (1.12%) DbUnit
15 5 (1.12%) Gatling
15 5 (1.12%) JMeter
15 5 (1.12%) jMock
15 5 (1.12%) Oracle Forms
General
1 159 (35.73%) Social Skills
2 72 (16.18%) Analytical Skills
3 61 (13.71%) Finance
4 44 (9.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 25 (5.62%) Influencing Skills
5 25 (5.62%) Local Government
6 17 (3.82%) Organisational Skills
7 12 (2.70%) Legal
8 11 (2.47%) Military
9 8 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (1.35%) Banking
10 6 (1.35%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.12%) General Ledger
11 5 (1.12%) Police
12 2 (0.45%) Advertising
12 2 (0.45%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.45%) Law
12 2 (0.45%) Manufacturing
12 2 (0.45%) Retail
13 1 (0.22%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 90 (20.22%) Developer
2 70 (15.73%) Senior
3 61 (13.71%) Architect
4 53 (11.91%) Lead
5 52 (11.69%) Analyst
6 42 (9.44%) Data Engineer
7 38 (8.54%) Data Architect
8 29 (6.52%) Java Developer
9 24 (5.39%) Senior Developer
10 23 (5.17%) Business Analyst
11 19 (4.27%) Dynamics 365 Developer
12 15 (3.37%) Test Analyst
13 14 (3.15%) Senior Analyst
14 12 (2.70%) Senior Java Developer
15 11 (2.47%) Consultant
15 11 (2.47%) Designer
15 11 (2.47%) DevOps Engineer
15 11 (2.47%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
16 10 (2.25%) Senior Manager
16 10 (2.25%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (6.97%) Spring
2 30 (6.74%) SOAP
3 29 (6.52%) REST
4 27 (6.07%) Spring Boot
5 25 (5.62%) JSON
6 18 (4.04%) RESTful
7 16 (3.60%) ActiveMQ
7 16 (3.60%) AngularJS
7 16 (3.60%) JPA
7 16 (3.60%) Oracle Fusion
8 15 (3.37%) Hibernate
8 15 (3.37%) Web Services
8 15 (3.37%) XML
9 14 (3.15%) Gherkin
9 14 (3.15%) Spring Cloud
10 12 (2.70%) Playwright
11 11 (2.47%) React
11 11 (2.47%) XSLT
12 9 (2.02%) Terraform
13 7 (1.57%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 38 (8.54%) Cloud Native
2 33 (7.42%) Product Ownership
3 26 (5.84%) Management Information System
4 14 (3.15%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (2.92%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.47%) Taxonomies
7 9 (2.02%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.80%) Virtual Team
9 7 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
9 7 (1.57%) Data Structures
9 7 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.35%) Data Fabric
10 6 (1.35%) Enterprise Cloud
10 6 (1.35%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.12%) Autonomous Agent
11 5 (1.12%) BYOD
12 4 (0.90%) Onboarding
13 3 (0.67%) Freedom of Information
14 2 (0.45%) Distributed Architecture
14 2 (0.45%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.25%) Linux
2 9 (2.02%) Unix
3 3 (0.67%) Windows
4 1 (0.22%) AIX
4 1 (0.22%) Android
4 1 (0.22%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 241 (54.16%) Agile
2 115 (25.84%) DevOps
3 114 (25.62%) Continuous Improvement
4 111 (24.94%) Stakeholder Management
5 108 (24.27%) CI/CD
6 93 (20.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 86 (19.33%) Analytics
8 84 (18.88%) Problem-Solving
9 78 (17.53%) Scrum
10 72 (16.18%) Migration
11 61 (13.71%) Decision-Making
12 60 (13.48%) Data Modelling
13 56 (12.58%) Data Integration
13 56 (12.58%) Technical Leadership
14 52 (11.69%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 52 (11.69%) Test Automation
15 50 (11.24%) AI
15 50 (11.24%) Microservices
16 42 (9.44%) Sprint Planning
17 41 (9.21%) SFIA
Programming Languages
1 72 (16.18%) SQL
2 60 (13.48%) Java
3 43 (9.66%) JavaScript
4 27 (6.07%) C#
5 20 (4.49%) Python
6 17 (3.82%) TypeScript
7 13 (2.92%) Scala
8 9 (2.02%) ABAP
8 9 (2.02%) PL/SQL
9 8 (1.80%) VB
9 8 (1.80%) VB6
10 5 (1.12%) C
11 4 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (0.90%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.67%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.67%) R
12 3 (0.67%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.67%) VBA
13 2 (0.45%) Bash
13 2 (0.45%) ProC
Qualifications
1 204 (45.84%) Security Cleared
2 185 (41.57%) SC Cleared
3 95 (21.35%) BPSS Clearance
4 28 (6.29%) Microsoft Certification
5 20 (4.49%) Degree
6 15 (3.37%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.35%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.12%) ACCA
8 5 (1.12%) CIMA
8 5 (1.12%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 4 (0.90%) CCAB
9 4 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.90%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.67%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.67%) CCA
10 3 (0.67%) CISM
10 3 (0.67%) CISSP
10 3 (0.67%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.45%) APMG
12 1 (0.22%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (11.69%) Accessibility
2 48 (10.79%) QA
3 34 (7.64%) Data Quality
4 28 (6.29%) WCAG
5 21 (4.72%) GDPR
6 9 (2.02%) SLA
7 6 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.12%) GRC
9 4 (0.90%) NCSC
10 3 (0.67%) PMO
11 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.45%) NIST
12 1 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.22%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 39 (8.76%) Docker
2 4 (0.90%) Active Directory
2 4 (0.90%) Postfix
3 1 (0.22%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 31 (6.97%) Kubernetes
2 19 (4.27%) Grafana
3 15 (3.37%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.90%) Ansible
5 1 (0.22%) Kibana
5 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.22%) SCCM
Vendors
1 67 (15.06%) Oracle
2 53 (11.91%) Microsoft
3 22 (4.94%) Talend
4 15 (3.37%) Denodo
5 13 (2.92%) SAP
6 10 (2.25%) Databricks
7 9 (2.02%) ServiceNow
8 8 (1.80%) Informatica
8 8 (1.80%) Liquidlogic
9 7 (1.57%) Jaspersoft
10 6 (1.35%) Atlassian
10 6 (1.35%) Dynatrace
10 6 (1.35%) Pega
11 5 (1.12%) Actian
11 5 (1.12%) Concur
12 4 (0.90%) Google
13 3 (0.67%) Blue Prism
14 2 (0.45%) OneLogin
14 2 (0.45%) Sparx
14 2 (0.45%) UiPath