Cloud Native Contract Job Trends in England

Cloud Native
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Cloud Native in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cloud Native over the 6 months leading up to 1 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 252 300
Rank change year-on-year +168 +48 -39
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 993 247 281
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.02% 0.93% 0.74%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 8.73% 2.83% 2.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 687 160 175
10th Percentile £400 £425 £446
25th Percentile £450 £499 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% - -7.69%
75th Percentile £647 £680 £675
90th Percentile £750 £775 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -12.50% - -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 2 4
10th Percentile £35.00 £57.98 £38.20
25th Percentile £51.25 £62.06 £50.93
Median hourly rate £68.00 £70.25 £68.00
Median % change year-on-year -3.20% +3.31% -
75th Percentile £95.00 £79.56 £78.00
90th Percentile £97.00 £84.33 -
UK median hourly rate £68.00 £70.25 £68.00
% change year-on-year -3.20% +3.31% -

All Generic Skills
England

Cloud Native falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 11,376 8,720 11,899
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.58% 32.91% 31.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,274 5,250 7,899
10th Percentile £275 £268 £253
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £631 £675 £663
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 552 247 713
10th Percentile £15.26 £18.51 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £24.18 £17.46
Median hourly rate £31.18 £37.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.85% +7.14% +55.66%
75th Percentile £63.75 £66.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £74.97 £83.20 £72.40
UK median hourly rate £29.00 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.14% - +55.66%

Cloud Native
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Cloud Native relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Cloud Native job vacancy trend in England

Cloud Native
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cloud Native.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cloud Native

Cloud Native
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cloud Native in England over the 6 months to 1 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cloud Native in England

Cloud Native
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cloud Native.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Cloud Native

Cloud Native
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cloud Native in England over the 6 months to 1 February 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Native in England

Cloud Native
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cloud Native within the England region over the 6 months to 1 February 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
London +145 578 £559 -6.88% 217
North of England +54 161 £500 -4.76% 91
Midlands +24 86 £519 -4.46% 24
South East +34 84 £450 -21.74% 103
Yorkshire +16 82 £500 - 29
North West +27 73 £490 -14.83% 55
West Midlands +18 63 £536 +5.83% 15
South West +8 40 £625 +11.11% 41
East of England 0 31 £550 -15.38% 11
East Midlands -2 23 £431 -25.00% 9
North East -10 6 £573 +4.09% 8
Cloud Native
UK

Cloud Native
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 44 (4.43%) Apache Spark
2 32 (3.22%) Confluence
3 28 (2.82%) Apache Airflow
4 21 (2.11%) Apache
5 12 (1.21%) nginx
6 10 (1.01%) OpenStack
7 8 (0.81%) SAS
8 5 (0.50%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.40%) CMS
9 4 (0.40%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.30%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.20%) Appian
11 2 (0.20%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.20%) Oracle Coherence
11 2 (0.20%) Oracle HTTP Server
11 2 (0.20%) WebLogic
12 1 (0.10%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.10%) Camunda
Applications
1 6 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.50%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.30%) LaTeX
3 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.10%) Notion
Business Applications
1 6 (0.60%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.20%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.10%) Fidessa
4 1 (0.10%) Finacle
4 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.10%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 568 (57.20%) AWS
2 459 (46.22%) Azure
3 267 (26.89%) GCP
4 220 (22.16%) Serverless
5 194 (19.54%) GitHub
6 124 (12.49%) Amazon S3
7 117 (11.78%) GitHub Actions
8 113 (11.38%) AWS Lambda
9 107 (10.78%) Azure DevOps
10 86 (8.66%) AWS CloudFormation
11 71 (7.15%) Azure AKS
12 65 (6.55%) Amazon ECS
13 61 (6.14%) OpenShift
14 57 (5.74%) Amazon EKS
15 52 (5.24%) SaaS
16 49 (4.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 46 (4.63%) Amazon EC2
18 45 (4.53%) PaaS
19 41 (4.13%) Azure Functions
20 39 (3.93%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.73%) Firewall
2 27 (2.72%) Network Security
3 23 (2.32%) DNS
3 23 (2.32%) VPN
4 17 (1.71%) WAN
5 10 (1.01%) BGP
5 10 (1.01%) MPLS
6 9 (0.91%) SD-WAN
7 8 (0.81%) LAN
8 5 (0.50%) NX-OS
8 5 (0.50%) Reverse Proxy
9 4 (0.40%) HTTP
10 3 (0.30%) Broadband
10 3 (0.30%) NaaS
10 3 (0.30%) SSL
10 3 (0.30%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.30%) VSAN
11 2 (0.20%) 5G
11 2 (0.20%) NetScaler
11 2 (0.20%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (9.57%) PostgreSQL
2 69 (6.95%) NoSQL
3 42 (4.23%) Amazon RDS
4 40 (4.03%) DynamoDB
5 39 (3.93%) Data Lake
6 33 (3.32%) Power BI
6 33 (3.32%) Relational Database
7 32 (3.22%) BigQuery
8 31 (3.12%) MongoDB
9 29 (2.92%) SQL Server
10 28 (2.82%) Metadata
11 27 (2.72%) Amazon Athena
11 27 (2.72%) Redis
12 24 (2.42%) MySQL
13 22 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
14 19 (1.91%) Amazon Redshift
15 17 (1.71%) Amazon Aurora
15 17 (1.71%) Big Data
16 15 (1.51%) Elasticsearch
16 15 (1.51%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 185 (18.63%) Jenkins
2 119 (11.98%) Git
3 118 (11.88%) GitLab
4 68 (6.85%) JIRA
5 29 (2.92%) Liquibase
6 15 (1.51%) SonarQube
7 13 (1.31%) JUnit
8 12 (1.21%) Gradle
9 11 (1.11%) JMeter
9 11 (1.11%) Maven
9 11 (1.11%) MLflow
10 9 (0.91%) CircleCI
10 9 (0.91%) Gatling
10 9 (0.91%) Selenium
11 8 (0.81%) Cypress.io
11 8 (0.81%) Postman
12 7 (0.70%) Mocha
12 7 (0.70%) Mockito
13 6 (0.60%) Cucumber
14 5 (0.50%) Bitbucket
General
1 280 (28.20%) Social Skills
2 198 (19.94%) Finance
3 125 (12.59%) Public Sector
4 94 (9.47%) Banking
5 55 (5.54%) Analytical Skills
6 33 (3.32%) Documentation Skills
7 23 (2.32%) Financial Institution
8 21 (2.11%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 15 (1.51%) Pharmaceutical
10 15 (1.51%) Retail
11 14 (1.41%) Front Office
12 12 (1.21%) Investment Banking
12 12 (1.21%) Telecoms
13 9 (0.91%) Billing
14 7 (0.70%) Aviation
14 7 (0.70%) Legal
14 7 (0.70%) Marketing
15 6 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.60%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 239 (24.07%) Architect
2 176 (17.72%) Developer
3 152 (15.31%) Senior
4 82 (8.26%) Lead
5 77 (7.75%) Software Engineer
6 70 (7.05%) Data Engineer
7 63 (6.34%) Solutions Architect
8 62 (6.24%) AWS Engineer
8 62 (6.24%) DevOps Engineer
9 56 (5.64%) Cloud Engineer
10 40 (4.03%) Senior Developer
11 38 (3.83%) Azure Engineer
11 38 (3.83%) Cloud Architect
12 35 (3.52%) Full-Stack Developer
13 32 (3.22%) Java Developer
14 30 (3.02%) Backend Developer
15 27 (2.72%) Consultant
16 26 (2.62%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 26 (2.62%) Site Reliability Engineer
17 25 (2.52%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 126 (12.69%) REST
2 123 (12.39%) Node.js
3 106 (10.67%) RESTful
4 93 (9.37%) Kafka
5 87 (8.76%) .NET
5 87 (8.76%) Spring
6 86 (8.66%) React
7 81 (8.16%) Spring Boot
8 60 (6.04%) GraphQL
9 52 (5.24%) AngularJS
10 45 (4.53%) Playwright
11 37 (3.73%) Elastic Stack
12 34 (3.42%) OAuth
13 32 (3.22%) OpenID
14 31 (3.12%) Vitest
15 29 (2.92%) FastAPI
15 29 (2.92%) OpenTelemetry
16 28 (2.82%) YAML
17 27 (2.72%) Middleware
18 26 (2.62%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 93 (9.37%) Distributed Systems
2 44 (4.43%) Product Ownership
3 43 (4.33%) Public Cloud
4 40 (4.03%) Onboarding
5 38 (3.83%) Hybrid Cloud
6 27 (2.72%) Legacy Systems
7 26 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
8 22 (2.22%) Algorithms
8 22 (2.22%) Security Posture
9 20 (2.01%) Virtual Team
10 18 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (1.71%) AI Agents
12 14 (1.41%) NHS
13 13 (1.31%) Data Centre
13 13 (1.31%) Fixed Income
13 13 (1.31%) Genomics
13 13 (1.31%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 12 (1.21%) Equities
14 12 (1.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 12 (1.21%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 92 (9.26%) Linux
2 15 (1.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 14 (1.41%) Unix
4 10 (1.01%) Windows
5 8 (0.81%) VMS
6 7 (0.70%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.30%) Android
8 2 (0.20%) Apple iOS
8 2 (0.20%) CentOS
8 2 (0.20%) Solaris
8 2 (0.20%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 610 (61.43%) CI/CD
2 534 (53.78%) DevOps
3 373 (37.56%) Agile
4 327 (32.93%) Infrastructure as Code
5 304 (30.61%) Containerisation
6 270 (27.19%) Microservices
7 198 (19.94%) Software Engineering
8 191 (19.23%) Problem-Solving
9 188 (18.93%) AI
10 167 (16.82%) Test Automation
11 141 (14.20%) Machine Learning
12 137 (13.80%) Observability
13 134 (13.49%) Migration
14 118 (11.88%) Data Pipeline
15 116 (11.68%) Analytics
16 115 (11.58%) Roadmaps
17 113 (11.38%) Mentoring
18 109 (10.98%) Stakeholder Management
19 105 (10.57%) Full-Stack Development
20 103 (10.37%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 375 (37.76%) Python
2 212 (21.35%) SQL
3 189 (19.03%) Java
4 106 (10.67%) TypeScript
5 63 (6.34%) C#
6 62 (6.24%) JavaScript
7 58 (5.84%) Go
8 54 (5.44%) Bash
9 39 (3.93%) PowerShell
10 37 (3.73%) Bicep
11 14 (1.41%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.21%) Scala
13 10 (1.01%) Ruby
14 8 (0.81%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.60%) R
15 6 (0.60%) VBA
16 5 (0.50%) Korn
17 3 (0.30%) C
17 3 (0.30%) MATLAB
17 3 (0.30%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 210 (21.15%) Security Cleared
2 181 (18.23%) SC Cleared
3 99 (9.97%) Degree
4 57 (5.74%) Computer Science Degree
5 50 (5.04%) AWS Certification
6 48 (4.83%) Azure Certification
7 44 (4.43%) Master's Degree
8 30 (3.02%) TOGAF Certification
9 24 (2.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 23 (2.32%) BPSS Clearance
11 20 (2.01%) DV Cleared
12 19 (1.91%) CISSP
13 18 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
14 14 (1.41%) CISM
14 14 (1.41%) PhD
15 13 (1.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 12 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
17 11 (1.11%) CCIE
18 7 (0.70%) JNCIE
18 7 (0.70%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (5.74%) NIST
2 56 (5.64%) QA
3 52 (5.24%) GDPR
4 46 (4.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 40 (4.03%) Data Quality
6 19 (1.91%) NCSC
7 18 (1.81%) EU AI Act
8 17 (1.71%) PCI DSS
9 14 (1.41%) ISO 20022
9 14 (1.41%) PSD2
10 13 (1.31%) SEPA
11 8 (0.81%) SOC 2
12 7 (0.70%) Cyber Essentials
13 6 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 6 (0.60%) HIPAA
14 5 (0.50%) Accessibility
14 5 (0.50%) SLA
15 4 (0.40%) GRC
16 3 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
16 3 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 335 (33.74%) Docker
2 33 (3.32%) VMware Infrastructure
3 20 (2.01%) Active Directory
4 14 (1.41%) vSphere
5 13 (1.31%) VMware NSX
6 11 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.81%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.20%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 1 (0.10%) Snort
9 1 (0.10%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 394 (39.68%) Kubernetes
2 305 (30.72%) Terraform
3 93 (9.37%) Grafana
4 87 (8.76%) Prometheus
5 79 (7.96%) Ansible
6 42 (4.23%) Argo
7 16 (1.61%) Istio
7 16 (1.61%) Kibana
8 14 (1.41%) Puppet
9 9 (0.91%) Kustomize
10 8 (0.81%) logstash
11 7 (0.70%) FortiGate
11 7 (0.70%) Microsoft Intune
11 7 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.60%) ITRS Geneos
13 5 (0.50%) Packer
13 5 (0.50%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.40%) AirWatch
14 4 (0.40%) CSIRT
14 4 (0.40%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 169 (17.02%) Microsoft
2 93 (9.37%) Google
3 88 (8.86%) Databricks
4 62 (6.24%) Splunk
5 42 (4.23%) VMware
6 39 (3.93%) Red Hat
7 36 (3.63%) Oracle
8 27 (2.72%) CyberArk
9 23 (2.32%) Cisco
10 17 (1.71%) Salesforce
11 16 (1.61%) MuleSoft
12 15 (1.51%) Foundry
13 14 (1.41%) Dynatrace
13 14 (1.41%) ServiceNow
14 11 (1.11%) SAP
15 10 (1.01%) OpenAI
16 9 (0.91%) AppDynamics
16 9 (0.91%) Centrify
16 9 (0.91%) Solace
17 8 (0.81%) F5