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

6 months to
24 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 17 20
Rank change year-on-year +7 +3 -8
Contract jobs citing Public Sector 444 174 135
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.40% 9.56% 7.15%
As % of the General category 23.43% 15.24% 12.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 336 121 84
10th Percentile £363 £275 £265
25th Percentile £425 £400 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.16% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £528 £566
90th Percentile £665 £588 £668
England median daily rate £525 £500 £523
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.31% -3.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 3 7
10th Percentile £17.91 £19.07 £17.50
25th Percentile £20.31 £20.36 £22.03
Median hourly rate £21.50 £23.00 £33.93
Median % change year-on-year -6.52% -32.21% +69.65%
75th Percentile £75.00 £23.54 £46.13
90th Percentile - £23.56 £64.35
England median hourly rate £21.35 £21.75 £23.99
% change year-on-year -1.84% -9.34% +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 1,895 1,142 1,084
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 52.93% 62.71% 57.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,152 725 676
10th Percentile £325 £220 £213
25th Percentile £410 £390 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £487 £510
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -4.51% -1.69%
75th Percentile £581 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £650 £731
England median daily rate £525 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +5.00% -6.98% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 163 85 54
10th Percentile £13.45 £14.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £17.48 £21.00 £15.25
Median hourly rate £25.00 £30.00 £23.82
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +25.94% +11.83%
75th Percentile £36.03 £40.46 £32.27
90th Percentile £59.55 £50.00 £53.50
England median hourly rate £30.66 £25.15 £38.85
% change year-on-year +21.89% -35.26% +41.27%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +9 224 £500 -3.24% 41
Birmingham -7 86 £525 +10.53% 120
Coventry +8 46 £425 -4.23% 11
Solihull -11 17 - -
Warwickshire -15 17 £450 -5.26% 16
Staffordshire +2 15 £850 +51.79% 6
Worcestershire +12 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 (8.11%) SAS
2 30 (6.76%) Confluence
3 17 (3.83%) Apache Airflow
4 15 (3.38%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.13%) Tuxedo
6 4 (0.90%) Apache
6 4 (0.90%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.23%) IIS
8 1 (0.23%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.23%) SAP Portal
Applications
1 9 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 19 (4.28%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.80%) ContrOCC
3 7 (1.58%) Oracle General Ledger
3 7 (1.58%) Oracle Payables
3 7 (1.58%) Oracle Receivables
4 6 (1.35%) SAP HR
4 6 (1.35%) SAP Payroll
4 6 (1.35%) SAP S/4HANA
5 5 (1.13%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 5 (1.13%) SAP HCM
6 4 (0.90%) SAP PSCD
7 3 (0.68%) SAP ERP
8 2 (0.45%) NetSuite
8 2 (0.45%) Oracle Payroll
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
9 1 (0.23%) Primavera
9 1 (0.23%) SAP BRIM
9 1 (0.23%) SAP IS-U
Cloud Services
1 96 (21.62%) AWS
2 95 (21.40%) Azure
3 42 (9.46%) Azure DevOps
4 41 (9.23%) Power Platform
5 37 (8.33%) Power Automate
6 33 (7.43%) Dynamics 365
7 19 (4.28%) PowerApps
8 18 (4.05%) Serverless
9 17 (3.83%) GitHub
10 16 (3.60%) Azure Functions
11 12 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
12 11 (2.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 11 (2.48%) PaaS
13 10 (2.25%) Amazon EC2
13 10 (2.25%) Amazon S3
13 10 (2.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 8 (1.80%) Amazon SQS
14 8 (1.80%) AWS KMS
14 8 (1.80%) GCP
14 8 (1.80%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.68%) LAN
1 3 (0.68%) WAN
2 2 (0.45%) VPN
3 1 (0.23%) Firewall
3 1 (0.23%) Internet
3 1 (0.23%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.23%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.08%) Data Warehouse
2 26 (5.86%) SQL Server
3 23 (5.18%) Pentaho
4 21 (4.73%) Oracle Database
5 20 (4.50%) Power BI
6 18 (4.05%) PostgreSQL
6 18 (4.05%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 17 (3.83%) Metadata
7 17 (3.83%) Relational Database
7 17 (3.83%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 14 (3.15%) Data Lake
9 11 (2.48%) NoSQL
10 10 (2.25%) MongoDB
11 9 (2.03%) Amazon RDS
12 8 (1.80%) Amazon Aurora
12 8 (1.80%) DynamoDB
12 8 (1.80%) Oracle Reports
13 7 (1.58%) Ingres
14 6 (1.35%) RDBMS
15 5 (1.13%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 46 (10.36%) Git
2 41 (9.23%) JIRA
3 32 (7.21%) Jenkins
4 27 (6.08%) GitLab
5 21 (4.73%) JUnit
6 18 (4.05%) Mockito
6 18 (4.05%) Selenium
6 18 (4.05%) SonarQube
7 17 (3.83%) Maven
8 15 (3.38%) Postman
9 12 (2.70%) Cucumber
9 12 (2.70%) WebDriver
10 11 (2.48%) Cypress.io
11 9 (2.03%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (1.35%) Bitbucket Server
12 6 (1.35%) DbUnit
12 6 (1.35%) JMeter
12 6 (1.35%) jMock
13 5 (1.13%) Oracle Forms
14 3 (0.68%) Visual Studio
General
1 156 (35.14%) Social Skills
2 71 (15.99%) Analytical Skills
3 62 (13.96%) Finance
4 44 (9.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 26 (5.86%) Local Government
6 25 (5.63%) Influencing Skills
7 17 (3.83%) Organisational Skills
8 12 (2.70%) Legal
9 10 (2.25%) Military
10 8 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
11 7 (1.58%) Police
12 6 (1.35%) Banking
12 6 (1.35%) Telecoms
13 5 (1.13%) General Ledger
14 2 (0.45%) Advertising
14 2 (0.45%) Documentation Skills
14 2 (0.45%) Law
14 2 (0.45%) Manufacturing
14 2 (0.45%) Retail
15 1 (0.23%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 90 (20.27%) Developer
2 71 (15.99%) Senior
3 61 (13.74%) Architect
4 52 (11.71%) Analyst
4 52 (11.71%) Lead
5 42 (9.46%) Data Engineer
6 38 (8.56%) Data Architect
7 29 (6.53%) Java Developer
8 25 (5.63%) Senior Developer
9 23 (5.18%) Business Analyst
10 19 (4.28%) Dynamics 365 Developer
11 15 (3.38%) Test Analyst
12 14 (3.15%) Senior Analyst
13 13 (2.93%) Senior Java Developer
14 11 (2.48%) Consultant
14 11 (2.48%) Designer
14 11 (2.48%) DevOps Engineer
14 11 (2.48%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
15 10 (2.25%) Senior Manager
15 10 (2.25%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.76%) SOAP
1 30 (6.76%) Spring
2 29 (6.53%) REST
3 27 (6.08%) Spring Boot
4 25 (5.63%) JSON
5 18 (4.05%) RESTful
6 17 (3.83%) ActiveMQ
6 17 (3.83%) JPA
7 16 (3.60%) AngularJS
7 16 (3.60%) Hibernate
7 16 (3.60%) Oracle Fusion
7 16 (3.60%) Web Services
8 15 (3.38%) Spring Cloud
8 15 (3.38%) XML
9 13 (2.93%) Gherkin
10 11 (2.48%) XSLT
11 10 (2.25%) Playwright
11 10 (2.25%) React
12 8 (1.80%) Spring Batch
12 8 (1.80%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 36 (8.11%) Cloud Native
2 32 (7.21%) Product Ownership
3 26 (5.86%) Management Information System
4 14 (3.15%) Legacy Systems
5 12 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.48%) Taxonomies
7 10 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.80%) Virtual Team
9 7 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
9 7 (1.58%) Data Structures
9 7 (1.58%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.35%) Data Fabric
10 6 (1.35%) Enterprise Cloud
10 6 (1.35%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.13%) Autonomous Agent
11 5 (1.13%) BYOD
12 3 (0.68%) Freedom of Information
12 3 (0.68%) Onboarding
13 2 (0.45%) AI Agents
13 2 (0.45%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 11 (2.48%) Linux
2 9 (2.03%) Unix
3 3 (0.68%) Windows
4 1 (0.23%) AIX
4 1 (0.23%) Android
4 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (53.60%) Agile
2 114 (25.68%) Continuous Improvement
2 114 (25.68%) DevOps
3 111 (25.00%) Stakeholder Management
4 105 (23.65%) CI/CD
5 92 (20.72%) Stakeholder Engagement
6 86 (19.37%) Analytics
7 83 (18.69%) Problem-Solving
8 78 (17.57%) Scrum
9 72 (16.22%) Migration
10 61 (13.74%) Decision-Making
11 60 (13.51%) Data Modelling
12 56 (12.61%) Data Integration
12 56 (12.61%) Technical Leadership
13 51 (11.49%) Digital Transformation Programme
14 50 (11.26%) AI
14 50 (11.26%) Test Automation
15 48 (10.81%) Microservices
16 42 (9.46%) Sprint Planning
17 41 (9.23%) SFIA
Programming Languages
1 72 (16.22%) SQL
2 57 (12.84%) Java
3 42 (9.46%) JavaScript
4 27 (6.08%) C#
5 19 (4.28%) Python
6 16 (3.60%) TypeScript
7 13 (2.93%) Scala
8 9 (2.03%) ABAP
8 9 (2.03%) PL/SQL
9 8 (1.80%) VB
9 8 (1.80%) VB6
10 5 (1.13%) C
11 4 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (0.90%) T-SQL
12 3 (0.68%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.68%) R
12 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.68%) VBA
13 2 (0.45%) Bash
13 2 (0.45%) ProC
Qualifications
1 204 (45.95%) Security Cleared
2 186 (41.89%) SC Cleared
3 90 (20.27%) BPSS Clearance
4 28 (6.31%) Microsoft Certification
5 20 (4.50%) Degree
6 16 (3.60%) ISTQB
7 6 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 6 (1.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 5 (1.13%) ACCA
8 5 (1.13%) CIMA
9 4 (0.90%) CCAB
9 4 (0.90%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (0.90%) SAS Certification
10 3 (0.68%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.68%) CCA
10 3 (0.68%) CISM
10 3 (0.68%) CISSP
10 3 (0.68%) DV Cleared
11 2 (0.45%) APMG
12 1 (0.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (11.26%) Accessibility
2 47 (10.59%) QA
3 34 (7.66%) Data Quality
4 27 (6.08%) WCAG
5 21 (4.73%) GDPR
6 9 (2.03%) SLA
7 6 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (1.13%) GRC
9 4 (0.90%) NCSC
10 3 (0.68%) PMO
11 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
11 2 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 2 (0.45%) NIST
12 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
12 1 (0.23%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 38 (8.56%) Docker
2 5 (1.13%) Postfix
3 3 (0.68%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.23%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 28 (6.31%) Kubernetes
2 20 (4.50%) Grafana
3 16 (3.60%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.90%) Ansible
5 1 (0.23%) Kibana
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (0.23%) SCCM
Vendors
1 67 (15.09%) Oracle
2 53 (11.94%) Microsoft
3 22 (4.95%) Talend
4 15 (3.38%) Denodo
5 12 (2.70%) SAP
6 9 (2.03%) Databricks
6 9 (2.03%) ServiceNow
7 8 (1.80%) Informatica
7 8 (1.80%) Jaspersoft
7 8 (1.80%) Liquidlogic
8 7 (1.58%) Atlassian
9 6 (1.35%) Dynatrace
9 6 (1.35%) Pega
10 5 (1.13%) Actian
10 5 (1.13%) Concur
11 4 (0.90%) Google
12 3 (0.68%) Blue Prism
13 2 (0.45%) OneLogin
13 2 (0.45%) Sparx
13 2 (0.45%) UiPath