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

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 46 88 101
Rank change year-on-year +42 +13 -7
Contract jobs citing GCP 121 36 37
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 4.44% 1.73% 1.31%
As % of the Cloud Services category 13.14% 5.16% 3.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 90 26 30
10th Percentile £348 £356 £100
25th Percentile £430 £381 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £575 £525
Median % change year-on-year -12.61% +9.52% -16.00%
75th Percentile £586 £638 £588
90th Percentile £688 £700 £639
England median daily rate £529 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -11.76% - -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £59.75 £72.50 -
Median hourly rate £64.50 £75.00 -
Median % change year-on-year -14.00% - -
75th Percentile £69.25 £77.50 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £52.25 £41.50 £57.75
% change year-on-year +25.90% -28.14% -9.77%

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 921 698 960
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 33.77% 33.51% 34.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 653 491 710
10th Percentile £214 £230 £268
25th Percentile £358 £381 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £487
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -2.46% -2.60%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £550
90th Percentile £625 £650 £650
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 10 60
10th Percentile £15.50 £17.44 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.94 £21.05 £16.06
Median hourly rate £45.46 £24.18 £20.25
Median % change year-on-year +88.01% +19.41% -42.14%
75th Percentile £75.13 £30.22 £44.36
90th Percentile £81.00 £78.50 £71.93
England median hourly rate £37.00 £27.50 £22.30
% change year-on-year +34.55% +23.32% -10.80%

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 February 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 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
Manchester +25 75 £518 -9.91% 43
Cheshire +2 39 £500 +40.45% 7
Lancashire - 5 £425 - 15
Merseyside -14 2 - - 6
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 7 (5.79%) SAS
2 4 (3.31%) OpenStack
3 2 (1.65%) Apache
4 1 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.83%) Confluence
4 1 (0.83%) IIS
Applications
1 8 (6.61%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (4.13%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 93 (76.86%) Azure
2 86 (71.07%) AWS
3 14 (11.57%) GitHub
4 13 (10.74%) Power Platform
5 12 (9.92%) AWS CloudFormation
6 9 (7.44%) Google Tag Manager
7 8 (6.61%) Google Analytics
8 7 (5.79%) Datadog
8 7 (5.79%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (4.96%) Apigee
9 6 (4.96%) OpenShift
10 5 (4.13%) Entra ID
11 4 (3.31%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 4 (3.31%) Microsoft 365
11 4 (3.31%) Pulumi
12 3 (2.48%) Cloud Functions
13 2 (1.65%) Azure DevOps
13 2 (1.65%) Cloud Computing
13 2 (1.65%) Dataform
14 1 (0.83%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 10 (8.26%) Firewall
2 4 (3.31%) HTTP
2 4 (3.31%) HTTPS
2 4 (3.31%) VPN
3 3 (2.48%) Internet
4 2 (1.65%) VoIP
4 2 (1.65%) Wireshark
5 1 (0.83%) DNS
5 1 (0.83%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.83%) VLAN
5 1 (0.83%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (14.88%) BigQuery
2 12 (9.92%) Data Warehouse
2 12 (9.92%) Looker
2 12 (9.92%) Power BI
3 4 (3.31%) Tableau
4 3 (2.48%) Metadata
4 3 (2.48%) NoSQL
4 3 (2.48%) Relational Database
5 2 (1.65%) MongoDB
5 2 (1.65%) MySQL
5 2 (1.65%) Snowflake Schema
6 1 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (0.83%) Cloud Spanner
6 1 (0.83%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.83%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 16 (13.22%) Jenkins
2 14 (11.57%) GitLab
3 7 (5.79%) Git
3 7 (5.79%) Postman
4 4 (3.31%) Selenium
5 3 (2.48%) CircleCI
5 3 (2.48%) JMeter
6 2 (1.65%) Fiddler
7 1 (0.83%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.83%) Browser DevTools
7 1 (0.83%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.83%) JIRA
7 1 (0.83%) Snyk
7 1 (0.83%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.83%) Spinnaker
General
1 45 (37.19%) Social Skills
2 30 (24.79%) Finance
3 23 (19.01%) Banking
4 20 (16.53%) Public Sector
5 18 (14.88%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (3.31%) Games
7 3 (2.48%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (2.48%) Marketing
7 3 (2.48%) Retail
8 2 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.65%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.83%) Advertising
9 1 (0.83%) Automotive
9 1 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.83%) Electronics
9 1 (0.83%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.83%) Military
9 1 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.83%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 36 (29.75%) Architect
2 13 (10.74%) Analyst
2 13 (10.74%) Platform Engineer
2 13 (10.74%) Senior
3 11 (9.09%) Solutions Architect
4 9 (7.44%) Data Scientist
5 7 (5.79%) GCP Engineer
6 6 (4.96%) Developer
6 6 (4.96%) Performance Analyst
7 5 (4.13%) Cloud Architect
7 5 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
7 5 (4.13%) Governance Manager
7 5 (4.13%) Security Engineer
8 4 (3.31%) Apigee Developer
8 4 (3.31%) Applications Architect
8 4 (3.31%) Data Analyst
8 4 (3.31%) Data Architect
8 4 (3.31%) GCP Architect
8 4 (3.31%) Java Developer
8 4 (3.31%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (12.40%) Spring
1 15 (12.40%) Spring Boot
2 11 (9.09%) Kafka
3 8 (6.61%) RESTful
4 7 (5.79%) REST
5 6 (4.96%) Elastic Stack
5 6 (4.96%) React
5 6 (4.96%) XGBoost
6 5 (4.13%) JSON
6 5 (4.13%) JWT
6 5 (4.13%) OAuth
7 4 (3.31%) Hibernate
7 4 (3.31%) JAX-RS
7 4 (3.31%) OAuth2
7 4 (3.31%) RabbitMQ
7 4 (3.31%) XML
8 3 (2.48%) Middleware
9 2 (1.65%) HTML
9 2 (1.65%) Node.js
10 1 (0.83%) Laravel
Miscellaneous
1 10 (8.26%) Distributed Systems
2 7 (5.79%) Credit Risk
3 6 (4.96%) Cloud Native
3 6 (4.96%) Private Cloud
4 5 (4.13%) e-Learning
4 5 (4.13%) Product Ownership
5 4 (3.31%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (3.31%) Virtual Team
6 3 (2.48%) Clustering
6 3 (2.48%) Distributed Computing
6 3 (2.48%) NHS
6 3 (2.48%) Public Cloud
7 2 (1.65%) Cloud Security Posture
7 2 (1.65%) Mobile Banking
7 2 (1.65%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.65%) Replication
7 2 (1.65%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.83%) Data Structures
8 1 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.61%) Linux
2 5 (4.13%) Windows
3 4 (3.31%) Mac OS
4 3 (2.48%) Windows 10
5 1 (0.83%) Android
5 1 (0.83%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 43 (35.54%) CI/CD
2 38 (31.40%) DevOps
3 34 (28.10%) Analytics
4 32 (26.45%) Agile
5 30 (24.79%) Containerisation
6 25 (20.66%) Infrastructure as Code
7 24 (19.83%) Observability
8 23 (19.01%) Microservices
9 19 (15.70%) Problem-Solving
10 18 (14.88%) Data Science
11 17 (14.05%) Data Modelling
11 17 (14.05%) Incident Response
11 17 (14.05%) Machine Learning
12 16 (13.22%) Data Analysis
13 15 (12.40%) Continuous Improvement
13 15 (12.40%) User Experience
14 14 (11.57%) Validation
15 13 (10.74%) Business Intelligence
15 13 (10.74%) Decision-Making
15 13 (10.74%) IT Strategy
Programming Languages
1 45 (37.19%) Python
2 25 (20.66%) Java
3 14 (11.57%) Bash
4 11 (9.09%) SQL
5 9 (7.44%) JavaScript
6 8 (6.61%) Go
7 7 (5.79%) PowerShell
7 7 (5.79%) R
8 6 (4.96%) TypeScript
9 3 (2.48%) C#
10 1 (0.83%) Bicep
10 1 (0.83%) C
10 1 (0.83%) C++
10 1 (0.83%) LookML
10 1 (0.83%) PHP
Qualifications
1 16 (13.22%) Security Cleared
2 9 (7.44%) Azure Certification
3 8 (6.61%) Computer Science Degree
3 8 (6.61%) Degree
3 8 (6.61%) SC Cleared
4 7 (5.79%) AWS Certification
5 6 (4.96%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (4.96%) CISM
5 6 (4.96%) CISSP
6 5 (4.13%) ITIL Certification
7 4 (3.31%) IBM Certification
8 2 (1.65%) DV Cleared
8 2 (1.65%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.83%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 1 (0.83%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.83%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.83%) PMP
9 1 (0.83%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (14.05%) Data Quality
2 11 (9.09%) QA
3 10 (8.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 9 (7.44%) Accessibility
5 8 (6.61%) ISO 20022
6 7 (5.79%) NIST
7 6 (4.96%) GDPR
8 5 (4.13%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.83%) GRC
9 1 (0.83%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.83%) PERC
9 1 (0.83%) PSD2
9 1 (0.83%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.83%) WCAG
System Software
1 30 (24.79%) Docker
2 8 (6.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (4.13%) vSphere
4 4 (3.31%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 39 (32.23%) Kubernetes
2 29 (23.97%) Terraform
3 9 (7.44%) Grafana
3 9 (7.44%) Prometheus
4 8 (6.61%) Ansible
5 5 (4.13%) Fluentd
6 4 (3.31%) SCCM
7 3 (2.48%) Istio
7 3 (2.48%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 43 (35.54%) Google
2 19 (15.70%) Microsoft
3 11 (9.09%) Splunk
4 9 (7.44%) VMware
5 7 (5.79%) Pega
6 5 (4.13%) Cribl.io
6 5 (4.13%) IBM
7 4 (3.31%) Citrix
7 4 (3.31%) Confluent
7 4 (3.31%) F5
7 4 (3.31%) Palo Alto
8 3 (2.48%) PagerDuty
9 1 (0.83%) Checkmarx
9 1 (0.83%) CyberArk
9 1 (0.83%) Dynatrace
9 1 (0.83%) Facebook
9 1 (0.83%) Okta
9 1 (0.83%) OpenAI
9 1 (0.83%) SnapLogic
9 1 (0.83%) Veracode