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

6 months to
29 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 18 13
Rank change year-on-year 0 -5 -5
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 296 109 174
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 9.50% 8.03% 9.04%
As % of the General category 18.69% 12.78% 15.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 207 68 124
10th Percentile £350 £246 £312
25th Percentile £418 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £453 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.54% -9.33% -7.41%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £541
90th Percentile £645 £613 £618
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 6 7
10th Percentile £17.09 - £13.03
25th Percentile £19.80 £14.70 £16.19
Median hourly rate £25.77 £15.57 £19.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.54% -18.07% +7.34%
75th Percentile £64.38 £17.99 £27.25
90th Percentile £75.90 £18.44 £35.00
England median hourly rate £22.64 £22.27 £21.73
% change year-on-year +1.64% +2.49% +8.65%

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 1,584 853 1,090
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 50.82% 62.81% 56.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,037 561 747
10th Percentile £300 £185 £263
25th Percentile £400 £363 £395
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £513
Median % change year-on-year - -7.32% +0.49%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £625
90th Percentile £675 £678 £750
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 49 111
10th Percentile £14.10 - £11.06
25th Percentile £17.09 £14.00 £13.90
Median hourly rate £25.12 £18.00 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +39.56% -8.12% +9.75%
75th Percentile £42.50 £28.18 £39.34
90th Percentile £67.84 £34.58 £56.25
England median hourly rate £30.15 £28.17 £30.00
% change year-on-year +7.05% -6.12% -11.53%

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 29 April 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 29 April 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 29 April 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 +2 85 £525 +4.90% 40
Shropshire -6 76 £450 -0.81% 13
Warwickshire +15 44 £550 +29.41% 4
Coventry -10 23 £500 +25.00% 1
Solihull -7 18 £402 -4.29%
Staffordshire +10 12 £400 -30.25% 9
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 20 (6.76%) Confluence
2 18 (6.08%) SAS
3 14 (4.73%) SharePoint
4 6 (2.03%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (1.69%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.68%) Anypoint
7 1 (0.34%) Apache
7 1 (0.34%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.34%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 5 (1.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.68%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.68%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.34%) Adobe XD
3 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
3 1 (0.34%) Sketch
3 1 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.01%) NEC Housing
1 3 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.68%) Maximo
2 2 (0.68%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.68%) SAP HR
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 PSCD
3 1 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 59 (19.93%) AWS
2 48 (16.22%) Azure
3 16 (5.41%) Amazon CloudWatch
3 16 (5.41%) Amazon S3
4 15 (5.07%) Amazon EC2
5 14 (4.73%) Amazon SQS
5 14 (4.73%) AWS KMS
5 14 (4.73%) Route 53
6 11 (3.72%) Power Platform
7 8 (2.70%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (2.03%) PaaS
9 5 (1.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 5 (1.69%) Entra ID
9 5 (1.69%) GitHub
9 5 (1.69%) Microsoft 365
9 5 (1.69%) SaaS
10 3 (1.01%) GCP
10 3 (1.01%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (1.01%) OCI
10 3 (1.01%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.36%) Firewall
2 5 (1.69%) VPN
3 3 (1.01%) LAN
3 3 (1.01%) SSL
4 2 (0.68%) HTTPS
4 2 (0.68%) Network Security
4 2 (0.68%) WAN
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%) SMTP
5 1 (0.34%) VLAN
5 1 (0.34%) VSAN
5 1 (0.34%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (6.42%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (5.74%) Pentaho
3 16 (5.41%) Amazon RDS
4 14 (4.73%) Amazon Aurora
4 14 (4.73%) DynamoDB
4 14 (4.73%) Oracle Reports
5 10 (3.38%) Power BI
6 9 (3.04%) Oracle Database
7 8 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (1.69%) Electronic Patient Records
8 5 (1.69%) MongoDB
8 5 (1.69%) NoSQL
8 5 (1.69%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 5 (1.69%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 4 (1.35%) Metadata
9 4 (1.35%) Relational Database
9 4 (1.35%) SQL Server
10 3 (1.01%) Tableau
11 2 (0.68%) BusinessObjects
11 2 (0.68%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 27 (9.12%) Git
1 27 (9.12%) JIRA
2 22 (7.43%) Jenkins
3 16 (5.41%) JUnit
4 15 (5.07%) Maven
4 15 (5.07%) Mockito
5 14 (4.73%) SonarQube
6 11 (3.72%) DbUnit
6 11 (3.72%) jMock
7 9 (3.04%) Bitbucket Server
7 9 (3.04%) JMeter
8 6 (2.03%) GitLab
9 3 (1.01%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (1.01%) Postman
10 2 (0.68%) ERwin
10 2 (0.68%) LoadRunner
10 2 (0.68%) Selenium
11 1 (0.34%) MSI
11 1 (0.34%) MSTest
11 1 (0.34%) Toad
General
1 74 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 33 (11.15%) Analytical Skills
2 33 (11.15%) Finance
3 23 (7.77%) Local Government
4 17 (5.74%) Legal
5 15 (5.07%) Police
6 6 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
6 6 (2.03%) Military
6 6 (2.03%) Organisational Skills
7 5 (1.69%) Law
7 5 (1.69%) Presentation Skills
8 4 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 4 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.01%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.68%) Banking
11 1 (0.34%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.34%) Automotive
11 1 (0.34%) Publishing
11 1 (0.34%) Retail
11 1 (0.34%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 39 (13.18%) Developer
2 32 (10.81%) Architect
2 32 (10.81%) Senior
3 28 (9.46%) Analyst
3 28 (9.46%) Data Engineer
4 24 (8.11%) Java Developer
5 19 (6.42%) Lead
6 13 (4.39%) Accountant
6 13 (4.39%) Systems Accountant
7 12 (4.05%) Consultant
8 11 (3.72%) Designer
8 11 (3.72%) Release Manager
8 11 (3.72%) Senior Accountant
8 11 (3.72%) Senior Developer
8 11 (3.72%) Senior Systems Accountant
9 10 (3.38%) Business Analyst
9 10 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
10 8 (2.70%) DBA
10 8 (2.70%) Performance Engineer
10 8 (2.70%) Service Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.11%) Spring Boot
2 23 (7.77%) REST
2 23 (7.77%) Spring
3 20 (6.76%) AngularJS
4 18 (6.08%) SOAP
5 15 (5.07%) Hibernate
5 15 (5.07%) JPA
6 14 (4.73%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (4.73%) RESTful
6 14 (4.73%) Spring Batch
6 14 (4.73%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (4.73%) Spring Integration
6 14 (4.73%) Web Services
7 11 (3.72%) Oracle Fusion
7 11 (3.72%) PowerMock
8 10 (3.38%) Node.js
9 9 (3.04%) Bootstrap
10 5 (1.69%) .NET
10 5 (1.69%) HTML
10 5 (1.69%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 19 (6.42%) Management Information System
2 18 (6.08%) Product Ownership
3 15 (5.07%) Data Structures
4 11 (3.72%) Distributed Systems
5 9 (3.04%) NHS
6 8 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.03%) Cloud Native
7 6 (2.03%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.69%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.35%) Driving Licence
10 3 (1.01%) Hybrid Cloud
11 2 (0.68%) BYOD
11 2 (0.68%) Enterprise Software
11 2 (0.68%) Linux Command Line
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%) Replication
11 2 (0.68%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.42%) Linux
2 7 (2.36%) Windows
3 6 (2.03%) Unix
4 3 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.68%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (31.42%) Agile
2 51 (17.23%) DevOps
3 45 (15.20%) Stakeholder Management
4 44 (14.86%) Migration
5 43 (14.53%) CI/CD
6 42 (14.19%) Continuous Improvement
7 33 (11.15%) Scrum
8 31 (10.47%) Data Modelling
8 31 (10.47%) Decision-Making
9 30 (10.14%) Analytics
9 30 (10.14%) Data Integration
10 29 (9.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 28 (9.46%) Records Management
12 27 (9.12%) Problem-Solving
13 26 (8.78%) Change Management
13 26 (8.78%) ETL
14 24 (8.11%) Containerisation
15 23 (7.77%) Data Pipeline
15 23 (7.77%) Microservices
15 23 (7.77%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 76 (25.68%) SQL
2 36 (12.16%) Java
3 17 (5.74%) Python
4 10 (3.38%) PL/SQL
5 6 (2.03%) Bash
5 6 (2.03%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.01%) C#
6 3 (1.01%) PowerShell
6 3 (1.01%) Shell Script
7 2 (0.68%) Bicep
7 2 (0.68%) Perl
7 2 (0.68%) Scala
8 1 (0.34%) ABAP
8 1 (0.34%) Kotlin
8 1 (0.34%) R
8 1 (0.34%) Search Processing Language
8 1 (0.34%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 139 (46.96%) Security Cleared
2 88 (29.73%) SC Cleared
3 11 (3.72%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (3.04%) Degree
5 5 (1.69%) AWS Certification
5 5 (1.69%) Azure Certification
6 4 (1.35%) DV Cleared
7 3 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
7 3 (1.01%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (0.68%) CCNP
8 2 (0.68%) ISTQB
8 2 (0.68%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 1 (0.34%) CCNA
9 1 (0.34%) CIPFA
9 1 (0.34%) CISM
9 1 (0.34%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.34%) OCP
9 1 (0.34%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.09%) Data Quality
2 12 (4.05%) QA
3 11 (3.72%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.69%) WCAG
5 4 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.01%) GDPR
6 3 (1.01%) 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 29 (9.80%) Docker
2 10 (3.38%) Postfix
3 6 (2.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.69%) Active Directory
5 2 (0.68%) vSphere
6 1 (0.34%) etcd
6 1 (0.34%) Hyper-V
6 1 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 21 (7.09%) Kubernetes
2 15 (5.07%) Grafana
3 6 (2.03%) Prometheus
4 5 (1.69%) Terraform
5 2 (0.68%) Ansible
5 2 (0.68%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.68%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.68%) Kibana
5 2 (0.68%) vRealize
5 2 (0.68%) VxRail
6 1 (0.34%) CASB
6 1 (0.34%) Fluentd
6 1 (0.34%) logstash
6 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Intune
6 1 (0.34%) SCCM
6 1 (0.34%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 47 (15.88%) Oracle
2 19 (6.42%) Talend
3 18 (6.08%) Microsoft
4 14 (4.73%) Jaspersoft
5 13 (4.39%) Atlassian
6 12 (4.05%) Informatica
7 11 (3.72%) SAP
8 10 (3.38%) Denodo
9 7 (2.36%) Dynatrace
10 6 (2.03%) ServiceNow
10 6 (2.03%) VMware
11 5 (1.69%) Databricks
11 5 (1.69%) Pega
11 5 (1.69%) Salesforce
12 4 (1.35%) Cisco
12 4 (1.35%) Cloudera
12 4 (1.35%) IBM
12 4 (1.35%) MuleSoft
13 3 (1.01%) Dell
13 3 (1.01%) Splunk