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

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 248 287
Rank change year-on-year +165 +39 -29
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 1,086 257 288
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.08% 1.00% 0.77%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 9.05% 3.00% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 759 167 179
10th Percentile £400 £406 £460
25th Percentile £450 £475 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year -7.83% -4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £660 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -12.50% - -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 2 2
10th Percentile £35.00 £57.98 £32.55
25th Percentile £59.31 £62.06 £36.79
Median hourly rate £72.00 £70.25 £43.86
Median % change year-on-year +2.49% +60.17% -
75th Percentile £95.00 £79.56 £50.93
90th Percentile £95.75 £84.33 £55.17
UK median hourly rate £68.00 £70.25 £43.86
% change year-on-year -3.20% +60.17% -

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 12,000 8,557 11,592
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.03% 33.45% 30.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,645 5,295 7,582
10th Percentile £284 £275 £256
25th Percentile £408 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £543 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.53% -1.27% -4.43%
75th Percentile £625 £668 £656
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 584 258 751
10th Percentile £15.50 £18.19 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.82 £24.18 £16.40
Median hourly rate £32.50 £37.00 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.16% +17.46% +40.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.56 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.10 £83.26 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.50 £33.54 £30.16
% change year-on-year -9.06% +11.21% +34.09%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +135 629 £550 -8.33% 204
North of England +61 183 £500 -9.09% 77
Yorkshire +21 94 £500 - 22
South East +21 90 £450 -24.05% 103
Midlands +20 90 £525 +5.00% 24
North West +26 83 £531 -15.00% 50
West Midlands +6 64 £608 +20.16% 16
South West +11 43 £600 - 43
East of England +4 39 £550 -10.16% 15
East Midlands -7 26 £438 -4.68% 8
North East -10 6 £573 +4.09% 5
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 49 (4.51%) Apache Spark
2 42 (3.87%) Confluence
3 27 (2.49%) Apache Airflow
4 26 (2.39%) Apache
5 8 (0.74%) nginx
6 7 (0.64%) SharePoint
7 6 (0.55%) OpenStack
8 4 (0.37%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.37%) SAS
8 4 (0.37%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.18%) Apache Pulsar
9 2 (0.18%) Appian
9 2 (0.18%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.18%) CMS
9 2 (0.18%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle Coherence
9 2 (0.18%) Oracle HTTP Server
9 2 (0.18%) WebLogic
10 1 (0.092%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.092%) Camunda
Applications
1 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
2 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.28%) LaTeX
3 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.092%) CPLEX
4 1 (0.092%) Maya
4 1 (0.092%) Notion
Business Applications
1 4 (0.37%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.18%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.18%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.092%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.092%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.092%) Exchequer
3 1 (0.092%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.092%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 605 (55.71%) AWS
2 497 (45.76%) Azure
3 276 (25.41%) GCP
4 212 (19.52%) Serverless
5 200 (18.42%) GitHub
6 127 (11.69%) Amazon S3
7 118 (10.87%) GitHub Actions
8 112 (10.31%) Azure DevOps
9 101 (9.30%) AWS Lambda
10 97 (8.93%) AWS CloudFormation
11 76 (7.00%) Azure AKS
12 72 (6.63%) OpenShift
13 60 (5.52%) Amazon ECS
14 59 (5.43%) Amazon EKS
15 51 (4.70%) SaaS
16 50 (4.60%) Power Platform
17 48 (4.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 44 (4.05%) PaaS
19 42 (3.87%) Google Kubernetes Engine
20 41 (3.78%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 53 (4.88%) Firewall
2 38 (3.50%) DNS
3 28 (2.58%) Network Security
4 26 (2.39%) VPN
5 12 (1.10%) WAN
6 7 (0.64%) 5G
6 7 (0.64%) BGP
6 7 (0.64%) MPLS
6 7 (0.64%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.55%) 4G
8 5 (0.46%) LAN
8 5 (0.46%) NX-OS
8 5 (0.46%) Reverse Proxy
9 4 (0.37%) HTTP
9 4 (0.37%) Intrusion Detection
10 3 (0.28%) Broadband
10 3 (0.28%) NaaS
10 3 (0.28%) OSPF
10 3 (0.28%) SAN
10 3 (0.28%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 100 (9.21%) PostgreSQL
2 70 (6.45%) NoSQL
3 43 (3.96%) Data Lake
4 39 (3.59%) Amazon RDS
5 38 (3.50%) Power BI
6 35 (3.22%) DynamoDB
7 33 (3.04%) Metadata
8 32 (2.95%) Amazon Athena
8 32 (2.95%) BigQuery
9 31 (2.85%) SQL Server
10 30 (2.76%) MongoDB
11 26 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
12 24 (2.21%) Redis
13 23 (2.12%) Relational Database
14 20 (1.84%) Amazon Redshift
15 18 (1.66%) Big Data
15 18 (1.66%) Mixpanel
16 17 (1.57%) MySQL
17 15 (1.38%) OLAP
17 15 (1.38%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 201 (18.51%) Jenkins
2 127 (11.69%) GitLab
3 114 (10.50%) Git
4 71 (6.54%) JIRA
5 31 (2.85%) Liquibase
6 19 (1.75%) MLflow
7 16 (1.47%) JUnit
8 10 (0.92%) JMeter
9 8 (0.74%) Gatling
9 8 (0.74%) Postman
9 8 (0.74%) Selenium
10 7 (0.64%) Cucumber
10 7 (0.64%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.64%) Mocha
10 7 (0.64%) Mockito
10 7 (0.64%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.55%) Gradle
12 5 (0.46%) Bitbucket
12 5 (0.46%) CircleCI
12 5 (0.46%) Maven
General
1 289 (26.61%) Social Skills
2 218 (20.07%) Finance
3 135 (12.43%) Public Sector
4 92 (8.47%) Banking
5 55 (5.06%) Analytical Skills
6 34 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (2.30%) Financial Institution
8 24 (2.21%) Influencing Skills
9 21 (1.93%) Retail
10 18 (1.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 14 (1.29%) Investment Banking
11 14 (1.29%) Telecoms
12 12 (1.10%) Pharmaceutical
13 11 (1.01%) Front Office
14 9 (0.83%) Aviation
15 8 (0.74%) Billing
16 7 (0.64%) Legal
17 6 (0.55%) Marketing
18 5 (0.46%) Military
18 5 (0.46%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 258 (23.76%) Architect
2 166 (15.29%) Developer
3 164 (15.10%) Senior
4 111 (10.22%) Lead
5 86 (7.92%) Software Engineer
6 83 (7.64%) Data Engineer
7 75 (6.91%) DevOps Engineer
8 73 (6.72%) Solutions Architect
9 71 (6.54%) Cloud Engineer
10 61 (5.62%) AWS Engineer
11 41 (3.78%) Cloud Architect
12 40 (3.68%) Azure Engineer
13 38 (3.50%) Full-Stack Developer
14 37 (3.41%) Senior Developer
15 34 (3.13%) Security Engineer
16 32 (2.95%) Backend Developer
17 31 (2.85%) GCP Engineer
18 29 (2.67%) Java Developer
18 29 (2.67%) Java Engineer
18 29 (2.67%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 124 (11.42%) REST
2 120 (11.05%) Node.js
3 111 (10.22%) Kafka
4 95 (8.75%) RESTful
5 94 (8.66%) React
6 92 (8.47%) Spring
7 90 (8.29%) .NET
8 77 (7.09%) Spring Boot
9 59 (5.43%) GraphQL
10 54 (4.97%) AngularJS
11 49 (4.51%) Playwright
12 40 (3.68%) OpenTelemetry
13 37 (3.41%) Elastic Stack
14 36 (3.31%) PyTorch
15 35 (3.22%) OpenID
16 34 (3.13%) OAuth
17 30 (2.76%) FastAPI
18 29 (2.67%) Vitest
19 28 (2.58%) LangChain
19 28 (2.58%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 104 (9.58%) Distributed Systems
2 47 (4.33%) Product Ownership
3 42 (3.87%) Onboarding
3 42 (3.87%) Public Cloud
4 41 (3.78%) Hybrid Cloud
5 40 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
6 36 (3.31%) Security Posture
7 29 (2.67%) Enterprise Software
8 23 (2.12%) Algorithms
8 23 (2.12%) Virtual Team
9 17 (1.57%) AI Agents
10 16 (1.47%) Management Information System
11 15 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (1.20%) Distributed Computing
12 13 (1.20%) Fixed Income
12 13 (1.20%) NHS
13 12 (1.10%) Cloud Security Posture
13 12 (1.10%) Data Centre
13 12 (1.10%) Genomics
14 11 (1.01%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 110 (10.13%) Linux
2 23 (2.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 20 (1.84%) Windows
4 18 (1.66%) Unix
5 9 (0.83%) VMS
6 5 (0.46%) Windows Server
7 4 (0.37%) Solaris
8 3 (0.28%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.18%) CentOS
9 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
9 2 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
10 1 (0.092%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 662 (60.96%) CI/CD
2 577 (53.13%) DevOps
3 388 (35.73%) Agile
4 364 (33.52%) Infrastructure as Code
5 314 (28.91%) Containerisation
6 279 (25.69%) Microservices
7 226 (20.81%) AI
8 217 (19.98%) Software Engineering
9 193 (17.77%) Problem-Solving
10 175 (16.11%) Test Automation
11 171 (15.75%) Observability
12 162 (14.92%) Machine Learning
13 151 (13.90%) Migration
14 137 (12.62%) Analytics
15 136 (12.52%) Roadmaps
16 129 (11.88%) Data Pipeline
17 119 (10.96%) Event-Driven
18 117 (10.77%) Mentoring
19 114 (10.50%) Data Engineering
20 111 (10.22%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 421 (38.77%) Python
2 227 (20.90%) SQL
3 199 (18.32%) Java
4 114 (10.50%) TypeScript
5 72 (6.63%) Go
6 69 (6.35%) Bash
7 65 (5.99%) C#
8 63 (5.80%) JavaScript
9 43 (3.96%) PowerShell
10 41 (3.78%) Bicep
11 15 (1.38%) Shell Script
12 11 (1.01%) Ruby
12 11 (1.01%) Scala
13 8 (0.74%) Kotlin
13 8 (0.74%) R
14 5 (0.46%) Korn
14 5 (0.46%) Kusto Query Language
15 4 (0.37%) PL/SQL
15 4 (0.37%) VBA
16 3 (0.28%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 229 (21.09%) Security Cleared
2 197 (18.14%) SC Cleared
3 106 (9.76%) Degree
4 62 (5.71%) Computer Science Degree
5 61 (5.62%) AWS Certification
6 55 (5.06%) Azure Certification
7 44 (4.05%) Master's Degree
8 34 (3.13%) TOGAF Certification
9 31 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
10 28 (2.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 25 (2.30%) CISSP
11 25 (2.30%) DV Cleared
12 16 (1.47%) Cisco Certification
13 14 (1.29%) CISM
13 14 (1.29%) PhD
14 13 (1.20%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 12 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
16 8 (0.74%) CCIE
17 7 (0.64%) RHCE
18 6 (0.55%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (5.71%) GDPR
2 59 (5.43%) NIST
3 57 (5.25%) QA
4 51 (4.70%) Data Quality
5 47 (4.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (2.03%) PCI DSS
7 18 (1.66%) EU AI Act
7 18 (1.66%) NCSC
8 10 (0.92%) ISO 20022
9 9 (0.83%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.83%) PSD2
10 8 (0.74%) Accessibility
10 8 (0.74%) SEPA
10 8 (0.74%) SOC 2
11 7 (0.64%) Cyber Essentials
12 6 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
13 5 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 5 (0.46%) GRC
13 5 (0.46%) SLA
14 4 (0.37%) Solvency II
System Software
1 332 (30.57%) Docker
2 36 (3.31%) VMware Infrastructure
3 22 (2.03%) vSphere
4 21 (1.93%) VMware NSX
5 20 (1.84%) Active Directory
6 14 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (0.74%) Hyper-V
8 4 (0.37%) Snort
9 2 (0.18%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 1 (0.092%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.092%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 428 (39.41%) Kubernetes
2 349 (32.14%) Terraform
3 107 (9.85%) Grafana
4 94 (8.66%) Prometheus
5 84 (7.73%) Ansible
6 50 (4.60%) Argo
7 17 (1.57%) Istio
8 14 (1.29%) Kibana
9 12 (1.10%) Puppet
9 12 (1.10%) vCenter Server
10 11 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
11 9 (0.83%) Kustomize
11 9 (0.83%) Progress Chef
12 7 (0.64%) CSIRT
12 7 (0.64%) FortiGate
13 6 (0.55%) logstash
13 6 (0.55%) Microsoft Intune
14 5 (0.46%) Packer
15 4 (0.37%) Consul
15 4 (0.37%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 181 (16.67%) Microsoft
2 108 (9.94%) Google
3 101 (9.30%) Databricks
4 74 (6.81%) Splunk
5 53 (4.88%) Red Hat
6 50 (4.60%) VMware
7 29 (2.67%) Oracle
8 28 (2.58%) CyberArk
9 21 (1.93%) Cisco
10 18 (1.66%) Dynatrace
10 18 (1.66%) ServiceNow
11 17 (1.57%) Salesforce
12 15 (1.38%) Foundry
13 14 (1.29%) MuleSoft
14 13 (1.20%) OpenAI
15 12 (1.10%) Pure Storage
15 12 (1.10%) SAP
16 9 (0.83%) AppDynamics
16 9 (0.83%) Centrify
16 9 (0.83%) IBM