GCP Contract Job Trends in the North West

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring GCP skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 16 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 64 76
Rank change year-on-year +3 +12 +24
Contract jobs citing GCP 147 75 44
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 3.63% 3.35% 1.82%
As % of the Cloud Services category 11.62% 9.78% 5.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 51 26
10th Percentile £411 £358 £356
25th Percentile £447 £433 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £610 £623 £588
90th Percentile £670 £738 £669
England median daily rate £550 £548 £600
% change year-on-year +0.46% -8.75% -2.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 0
10th Percentile £52.57 - -
25th Percentile - - -
Median hourly rate £77.00 - -
75th Percentile - - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £72.61 £51.97 £55.00
% change year-on-year +39.71% -5.51% -15.38%

All Cloud Computing Skills
North West

GCP falls under the Cloud Services category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring cloud computing skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for cloud computing skills 1,265 767 734
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 31.26% 34.24% 30.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 803 584 455
10th Percentile £250 £307 £305
25th Percentile £401 £375 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -2.06%
75th Percentile £600 £538 £575
90th Percentile £688 £638 £650
England median daily rate £525 £503 £525
% change year-on-year +4.48% -4.29% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 29 16
10th Percentile £21.08 £12.82 £17.44
25th Percentile £29.96 £15.50 £21.05
Median hourly rate £60.00 £18.87 £33.50
Median % change year-on-year +217.97% -43.67% +1.52%
75th Percentile £76.00 £50.75 £60.94
90th Percentile £77.00 £68.09 £73.00
England median hourly rate £32.50 £25.15 £35.00
% change year-on-year +29.22% -28.14% +8.36%

GCP
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing GCP relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West.

GCP job vacancy trend in the North West

GCP
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing GCP.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing GCP

GCP
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing GCP in the North West over the 6 months to 16 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for GCP in the North West

GCP
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing GCP.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North West citing GCP

GCP
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North West

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing GCP in the North West over the 6 months to 16 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for GCP in the North West

GCP
Contract Job Locations in the North West

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing GCP within the North West region over the 6 months to 16 October 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
Manchester +5 120 £530 +0.47% 152
Cheshire +10 26 £500 +1.63% 11
Merseyside -16 1 £525 +13.51% 12
GCP
England

GCP
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North West 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 5 (3.40%) Apache
1 5 (3.40%) Apache Spark
2 2 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (1.36%) Confluence
2 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
2 2 (1.36%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.68%) nginx
Business Applications
1 2 (1.36%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (1.36%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.68%) Cloudability
2 1 (0.68%) SAP MM
Cloud Services
1 104 (70.75%) Azure
2 101 (68.71%) AWS
3 24 (16.33%) Google Kubernetes Engine
4 16 (10.88%) AWS CloudFormation
5 14 (9.52%) GitHub
5 14 (9.52%) Vertex AI
6 12 (8.16%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (7.48%) Serverless
8 10 (6.80%) AWS Lambda
9 9 (6.12%) Azure Sentinel
10 8 (5.44%) Amazon ECS
10 8 (5.44%) Amazon EKS
10 8 (5.44%) Azure AKS
10 8 (5.44%) Entra ID
10 8 (5.44%) GitHub Actions
11 7 (4.76%) Amazon SageMaker
11 7 (4.76%) Azure Machine Learning
11 7 (4.76%) Microsoft 365
12 6 (4.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 5 (3.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 20 (13.61%) Firewall
2 8 (5.44%) Network Security
3 5 (3.40%) BGP
3 5 (3.40%) OSPF
4 4 (2.72%) VLAN
4 4 (2.72%) VPN
5 3 (2.04%) NAS
5 3 (2.04%) SAN
5 3 (2.04%) WAN
5 3 (2.04%) Wireless
6 2 (1.36%) DNS
6 2 (1.36%) Ethernet VPN
6 2 (1.36%) Junos
6 2 (1.36%) SSL
7 1 (0.68%) DKIM
7 1 (0.68%) DNSSEC
7 1 (0.68%) IOS XR
7 1 (0.68%) Multicast
7 1 (0.68%) SD-WAN
7 1 (0.68%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (7.48%) BigQuery
2 7 (4.76%) Data Lake
3 5 (3.40%) Relational Database
4 4 (2.72%) MySQL
4 4 (2.72%) NoSQL
4 4 (2.72%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (2.04%) Metadata
5 3 (2.04%) Power BI
6 2 (1.36%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.36%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (1.36%) Looker
6 2 (1.36%) Neo4j
6 2 (1.36%) RDBMS
6 2 (1.36%) SAP BW
6 2 (1.36%) SAP HANA
6 2 (1.36%) SQL Server
7 1 (0.68%) Amazon RDS
7 1 (0.68%) DynamoDB
7 1 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.68%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 20 (13.61%) Git
2 19 (12.93%) Jenkins
3 8 (5.44%) Cucumber
4 6 (4.08%) JUnit
4 6 (4.08%) Selenium
4 6 (4.08%) SonarQube
5 5 (3.40%) JIRA
5 5 (3.40%) REST Assured
5 5 (3.40%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (2.72%) Postman
7 3 (2.04%) TestNG
8 2 (1.36%) Burp Suite
8 2 (1.36%) Claude Code
8 2 (1.36%) Gatling
8 2 (1.36%) GitLab
8 2 (1.36%) Gradle
8 2 (1.36%) LoadRunner
8 2 (1.36%) Maven
9 1 (0.68%) MLflow
General
1 39 (26.53%) Finance
2 30 (20.41%) Social Skills
3 17 (11.56%) Banking
4 11 (7.48%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (6.12%) Retail
6 7 (4.76%) Manufacturing
6 7 (4.76%) Public Sector
7 5 (3.40%) Games
8 3 (2.04%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.68%) Billing
10 1 (0.68%) Digital Health
10 1 (0.68%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 35 (23.81%) Cloud Engineer
2 32 (21.77%) Security Engineer
3 25 (17.01%) Architect
4 19 (12.93%) Cloud Security Engineer
5 12 (8.16%) Senior
6 10 (6.80%) Data Engineer
7 9 (6.12%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 9 (6.12%) DevOps Engineer
8 8 (5.44%) Analyst
9 7 (4.76%) Solutions Architect
10 6 (4.08%) GCP Engineer
10 6 (4.08%) Technical Analyst
10 6 (4.08%) Technical Architect
11 5 (3.40%) Developer
11 5 (3.40%) Systems Analyst
12 4 (2.72%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 4 (2.72%) Data Analytics Engineer
12 4 (2.72%) Java Engineer
12 4 (2.72%) Network Engineer
13 3 (2.04%) CRM Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (34.69%) Terraform
2 15 (10.20%) REST
3 13 (8.84%) Kafka
4 9 (6.12%) PySpark
4 9 (6.12%) Spring
4 9 (6.12%) Spring Boot
5 8 (5.44%) Node.js
5 8 (5.44%) React
6 6 (4.08%) GraphQL
7 5 (3.40%) Langfuse
8 4 (2.72%) ARM Templates
8 4 (2.72%) Azure Blueprints
8 4 (2.72%) LangChain
8 4 (2.72%) Playwright
8 4 (2.72%) RESTful
9 3 (2.04%) HTML
9 3 (2.04%) JSON
9 3 (2.04%) Model Context Protocol
9 3 (2.04%) PyTorch
9 3 (2.04%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 37 (25.17%) Cloud Native
2 19 (12.93%) Security Posture
3 14 (9.52%) AI Agents
4 11 (7.48%) Management Information System
5 9 (6.12%) Enterprise Cloud
6 7 (4.76%) Legacy Systems
6 7 (4.76%) Public Cloud
7 6 (4.08%) Cloud Security Posture
7 6 (4.08%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (3.40%) Animation
8 5 (3.40%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (3.40%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (3.40%) Onboarding
9 4 (2.72%) PKI
9 4 (2.72%) Product Ownership
10 3 (2.04%) Private Cloud
11 2 (1.36%) Data Centre
11 2 (1.36%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
11 2 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
11 2 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 29 (19.73%) Linux
2 28 (19.05%) Windows
3 17 (11.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (4.76%) Windows Server
5 2 (1.36%) Android
5 2 (1.36%) Unix
6 1 (0.68%) CentOS
6 1 (0.68%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 65 (44.22%) CI/CD
2 55 (37.41%) DevOps
3 45 (30.61%) Infrastructure as Code
4 44 (29.93%) Agile
5 38 (25.85%) AI
6 37 (25.17%) Cloud Security
7 27 (18.37%) Observability
8 24 (16.33%) Change Management
8 24 (16.33%) Microservices
9 23 (15.65%) Infrastructure Automation
9 23 (15.65%) Scrum
10 21 (14.29%) Analytics
10 21 (14.29%) Roadmaps
11 20 (13.61%) Machine Learning
11 20 (13.61%) SIEM
12 18 (12.24%) Technical Leadership
13 17 (11.56%) Cybersecurity
13 17 (11.56%) Problem-Solving
14 16 (10.88%) Stakeholder Management
14 16 (10.88%) Threat Modelling
Programming Languages
1 58 (39.46%) Python
2 33 (22.45%) Java
3 28 (19.05%) Bash
4 27 (18.37%) PowerShell
5 22 (14.97%) SQL
6 18 (12.24%) Bicep
7 6 (4.08%) JavaScript
8 2 (1.36%) Kotlin
8 2 (1.36%) Perl
8 2 (1.36%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.68%) ABAP
9 1 (0.68%) Google Apps Script
9 1 (0.68%) Groovy
9 1 (0.68%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.68%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 19 (12.93%) Degree
2 18 (12.24%) Azure Certification
2 18 (12.24%) CISSP
3 17 (11.56%) AWS Certification
4 16 (10.88%) Security Cleared
5 10 (6.80%) SC Cleared
6 7 (4.76%) Cisco Certification
7 4 (2.72%) CCNP
7 4 (2.72%) TOGAF Certification
8 3 (2.04%) BC Cleared
8 3 (2.04%) CISM
8 3 (2.04%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (1.36%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 2 (1.36%) CCNA
9 2 (1.36%) CEH
9 2 (1.36%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 2 (1.36%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 1 (0.68%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 1 (0.68%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.68%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (9.52%) Data Quality
2 9 (6.12%) QA
3 5 (3.40%) NIST
4 4 (2.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 4 (2.72%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.36%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.36%) COBIT
6 1 (0.68%) CDISC
6 1 (0.68%) GDPR
6 1 (0.68%) GRC
6 1 (0.68%) NCSC
System Software
1 35 (23.81%) Docker
2 15 (10.20%) Active Directory
3 4 (2.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (2.04%) Hyper-V
5 2 (1.36%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 55 (37.41%) Kubernetes
2 14 (9.52%) Progress Chef
3 11 (7.48%) Ansible
4 9 (6.12%) Istio
5 6 (4.08%) Prometheus
6 5 (3.40%) Grafana
7 3 (2.04%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (2.04%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (1.36%) Argo
9 1 (0.68%) Nagios
9 1 (0.68%) Network Intrusion Detection System
9 1 (0.68%) QRadar
Vendors
1 58 (39.46%) Google
2 24 (16.33%) Microsoft
3 16 (10.88%) Red Hat
4 9 (6.12%) Dynatrace
5 8 (5.44%) Databricks
6 7 (4.76%) OpenAI
6 7 (4.76%) Salesforce
7 6 (4.08%) Palo Alto
7 6 (4.08%) Perforce
8 5 (3.40%) ServiceNow
9 4 (2.72%) Arista
9 4 (2.72%) Aruba
9 4 (2.72%) Cisco
9 4 (2.72%) Fortinet
9 4 (2.72%) VMware
10 3 (2.04%) Juniper
10 3 (2.04%) SAP
11 2 (1.36%) CheckPoint
11 2 (1.36%) F5
11 2 (1.36%) Oracle