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 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 70 103
Rank change year-on-year +22 +33 -4
Contract jobs citing GCP 132 53 35
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.17% 2.75% 1.27%
As % of the Cloud Services category 13.11% 8.19% 3.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 99 34 26
10th Percentile £400 £454 £100
25th Percentile £450 £487 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £506
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% +13.58% -15.63%
75th Percentile £625 £688 £588
90th Percentile £689 £729 £713
England median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 0
10th Percentile £60.43 £68.00 -
25th Percentile £61.44 £68.75 -
Median hourly rate £66.75 £72.50 -
Median % change year-on-year -7.93% - -
75th Percentile £70.94 £76.25 -
90th Percentile £71.28 £77.00 -
England median hourly rate £59.75 £53.00 £51.75
% change year-on-year +12.74% +2.42% -26.26%

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 1,007 647 891
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 31.81% 33.56% 32.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 698 500 651
10th Percentile £234 £237 £300
25th Percentile £375 £393 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £475 £489
Median % change year-on-year -2.37% -2.86% -2.20%
75th Percentile £575 £570 £566
90th Percentile £650 £646 £638
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 12 66
10th Percentile £22.23 - £13.00
25th Percentile £25.38 £26.88 -
Median hourly rate £63.50 £34.80 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year +82.50% +116.66% -56.94%
75th Percentile £77.50 £73.44 £21.13
90th Percentile £95.00 £77.38 £43.75
England median hourly rate £45.00 £26.50 £20.77
% change year-on-year +69.81% +27.59% -24.47%

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 April 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
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 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
Manchester +17 74 £552 -7.77% 43
Cheshire +18 49 £563 +16.58% 6
Lancashire -9 6 £425 -19.81% 9
Cumbria - 2 £525 -
Merseyside -21 1 - - 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 (3.79%) SAS
2 4 (3.03%) OpenStack
3 3 (2.27%) Apache
4 2 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (1.52%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.76%) Confluence
Applications
1 4 (3.03%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (2.27%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 104 (78.79%) Azure
2 102 (77.27%) AWS
3 14 (10.61%) GitHub
4 13 (9.85%) Google Kubernetes Engine
5 9 (6.82%) Apigee
5 9 (6.82%) AWS CloudFormation
5 9 (6.82%) Power Platform
6 8 (6.06%) Entra ID
6 8 (6.06%) GitHub Actions
7 7 (5.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 6 (4.55%) Azure DevOps
9 5 (3.79%) Akamai
9 5 (3.79%) Google Analytics
9 5 (3.79%) Google Tag Manager
9 5 (3.79%) Microsoft 365
10 4 (3.03%) Azure AKS
10 4 (3.03%) OpenShift
11 3 (2.27%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (2.27%) Cloud Functions
11 3 (2.27%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 16 (12.12%) Firewall
2 8 (6.06%) HTTP
3 7 (5.30%) DNS
4 5 (3.79%) VPN
5 4 (3.03%) HTTPS
5 4 (3.03%) TCP/IP
6 3 (2.27%) Internet
6 3 (2.27%) Network Security
7 2 (1.52%) BGP
7 2 (1.52%) DKIM
7 2 (1.52%) DMARC
7 2 (1.52%) OSPF
7 2 (1.52%) Wireshark
8 1 (0.76%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.76%) Cisco Firepower
8 1 (0.76%) SSL
8 1 (0.76%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (9.85%) BigQuery
2 8 (6.06%) Data Warehouse
3 7 (5.30%) Looker
3 7 (5.30%) Power BI
4 5 (3.79%) NoSQL
5 3 (2.27%) Snowflake Schema
5 3 (2.27%) Tableau
6 2 (1.52%) Amazon Redshift
6 2 (1.52%) MongoDB
6 2 (1.52%) MySQL
7 1 (0.76%) Cloud Spanner
7 1 (0.76%) Data Lake
7 1 (0.76%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 15 (11.36%) Jenkins
2 11 (8.33%) GitLab
3 8 (6.06%) Git
3 8 (6.06%) Postman
4 6 (4.55%) Selenium
5 3 (2.27%) JIRA
5 3 (2.27%) JMeter
6 2 (1.52%) Cypress.io
6 2 (1.52%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.76%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.76%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.76%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.76%) REST Assured
7 1 (0.76%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.76%) Snyk
7 1 (0.76%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.76%) Spinnaker
General
1 37 (28.03%) Social Skills
2 32 (24.24%) Finance
3 21 (15.91%) Banking
4 18 (13.64%) Public Sector
5 16 (12.12%) Analytical Skills
6 3 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.52%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.52%) Military
7 2 (1.52%) Retail
8 1 (0.76%) Advertising
8 1 (0.76%) Automotive
8 1 (0.76%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.76%) Electronics
8 1 (0.76%) Games
8 1 (0.76%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.76%) Marketing
8 1 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.76%) Publishing
8 1 (0.76%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 37 (28.03%) Architect
2 21 (15.91%) Senior
3 13 (9.85%) Solutions Architect
4 12 (9.09%) Security Engineer
5 11 (8.33%) GCP Engineer
5 11 (8.33%) Platform Engineer
6 10 (7.58%) Analyst
7 8 (6.06%) Cloud Engineer
8 7 (5.30%) Developer
8 7 (5.30%) DevOps Engineer
8 7 (5.30%) Security Architect
9 5 (3.79%) Applications Architect
9 5 (3.79%) Cloud Architect
9 5 (3.79%) Data Engineer
9 5 (3.79%) Data Scientist
9 5 (3.79%) Governance Manager
9 5 (3.79%) Java Developer
9 5 (3.79%) Lead
10 4 (3.03%) Apigee Developer
10 4 (3.03%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (11.36%) OAuth
2 14 (10.61%) Spring
2 14 (10.61%) Spring Boot
3 10 (7.58%) Kafka
3 10 (7.58%) REST
4 9 (6.82%) RESTful
5 8 (6.06%) JWT
5 8 (6.06%) OAuth2
6 6 (4.55%) OpenID
6 6 (4.55%) React
7 5 (3.79%) JSON
7 5 (3.79%) XGBoost
8 4 (3.03%) Hibernate
8 4 (3.03%) JAX-RS
8 4 (3.03%) RabbitMQ
8 4 (3.03%) XML
9 3 (2.27%) Node.js
9 3 (2.27%) SAML
10 2 (1.52%) .NET
10 2 (1.52%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 14 (10.61%) Cloud Native
2 10 (7.58%) Distributed Systems
3 6 (4.55%) Private Cloud
4 5 (3.79%) Credit Risk
4 5 (3.79%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
4 5 (3.79%) e-Learning
4 5 (3.79%) Product Ownership
4 5 (3.79%) Security Posture
5 4 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (3.03%) Virtual Team
6 3 (2.27%) Management Information System
6 3 (2.27%) PKI
6 3 (2.27%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.52%) Cloud Security Posture
7 2 (1.52%) Clustering
7 2 (1.52%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.52%) Freedom of Information
7 2 (1.52%) Mobile Banking
7 2 (1.52%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.52%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 9 (6.82%) Linux
1 9 (6.82%) Windows
2 4 (3.03%) Mac OS
2 4 (3.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (2.27%) Windows 10
4 1 (0.76%) Android
4 1 (0.76%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 58 (43.94%) CI/CD
2 47 (35.61%) DevOps
3 32 (24.24%) Agile
4 31 (23.48%) Analytics
5 30 (22.73%) Containerisation
6 29 (21.97%) Infrastructure as Code
7 27 (20.45%) Microservices
8 23 (17.42%) Observability
9 22 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
10 21 (15.91%) Continuous Improvement
11 18 (13.64%) DevSecOps
12 17 (12.88%) Incident Response
13 16 (12.12%) Cloud Security
13 16 (12.12%) Event-Driven
14 14 (10.61%) Data Modelling
14 14 (10.61%) Roadmaps
14 14 (10.61%) Site Reliability Engineering
14 14 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
15 13 (9.85%) SIEM
15 13 (9.85%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 51 (38.64%) Python
2 31 (23.48%) Java
3 18 (13.64%) Bash
4 13 (9.85%) PowerShell
5 9 (6.82%) SQL
6 8 (6.06%) Go
6 8 (6.06%) JavaScript
7 5 (3.79%) R
7 5 (3.79%) TypeScript
8 4 (3.03%) Bicep
9 2 (1.52%) C#
10 1 (0.76%) C
10 1 (0.76%) C++
10 1 (0.76%) PHP
10 1 (0.76%) Scala
Qualifications
1 19 (14.39%) Security Cleared
2 15 (11.36%) Azure Certification
3 12 (9.09%) AWS Certification
4 10 (7.58%) CISSP
5 9 (6.82%) Degree
6 8 (6.06%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (6.06%) SC Cleared
7 6 (4.55%) Cisco Certification
8 5 (3.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (3.79%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (3.03%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 4 (3.03%) CISM
9 4 (3.03%) IBM Certification
10 3 (2.27%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 3 (2.27%) GIAC
11 2 (1.52%) CCNP
11 2 (1.52%) DV Cleared
12 1 (0.76%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.76%) PMP
12 1 (0.76%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (9.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (8.33%) Data Quality
3 10 (7.58%) NIST
4 7 (5.30%) GDPR
4 7 (5.30%) ISO 20022
4 7 (5.30%) QA
5 6 (4.55%) Accessibility
6 3 (2.27%) PCI DSS
7 2 (1.52%) PSD2
8 1 (0.76%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.76%) PERC
8 1 (0.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.76%) SEPA
8 1 (0.76%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.76%) WCAG
System Software
1 37 (28.03%) Docker
2 7 (5.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (4.55%) Active Directory
4 4 (3.03%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 49 (37.12%) Kubernetes
2 32 (24.24%) Terraform
3 10 (7.58%) Prometheus
4 9 (6.82%) Grafana
5 6 (4.55%) Istio
6 5 (3.79%) Ansible
6 5 (3.79%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (3.03%) Argo
7 4 (3.03%) Progress Chef
8 3 (2.27%) Fluentd
8 3 (2.27%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (2.27%) SCCM
9 2 (1.52%) linkerd
10 1 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 43 (32.58%) Google
2 16 (12.12%) Microsoft
3 13 (9.85%) Splunk
4 8 (6.06%) VMware
5 5 (3.79%) Palo Alto
5 5 (3.79%) Pega
6 4 (3.03%) Confluent
6 4 (3.03%) F5
6 4 (3.03%) IBM
6 4 (3.03%) Red Hat
7 3 (2.27%) Citrix
7 3 (2.27%) Cribl.io
7 3 (2.27%) MuleSoft
7 3 (2.27%) PagerDuty
8 2 (1.52%) CyberArk
8 2 (1.52%) Dynatrace
8 2 (1.52%) Okta
9 1 (0.76%) Checkmarx
9 1 (0.76%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.76%) Veracode