Platform Engineering Contract Job Trends in the North West

Platform Engineering
England > North West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North West requiring Platform Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 104 110
Rank change year-on-year -13 +6 +12
Contract jobs citing Platform Engineering 66 28 10
As % of all contract jobs in the North West 1.66% 1.27% 0.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.00% 1.44% 0.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 22 3
10th Percentile £409 £313 £367
25th Percentile £451 £342 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £448 £500
Median % change year-on-year +22.91% -10.50% -14.89%
75th Percentile £663 £537 £600
90th Percentile £745 £634 £645
England median daily rate £550 £525 £600
% change year-on-year +4.76% -12.50% -1.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £59.39
Median hourly rate - - £63.79
75th Percentile - - £68.18
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £77.50 - £59.39
% change year-on-year - - -23.86%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North West

Platform Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the North West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 3,293 1,949 2,029
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North West 82.80% 88.63% 83.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,857 1,288 1,108
10th Percentile £300 £258 £294
25th Percentile £403 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £450 £475
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £575
90th Percentile £675 £682 £656
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 365 143 111
10th Percentile £14.34 £13.91 £16.50
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.30 £29.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +88.90% -37.64% +18.60%
75th Percentile £72.75 £47.12 £62.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.25 £71.50
England median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -4.49%

Platform Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the North West

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

Platform Engineering job vacancy trend in the North West

Platform Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Platform Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the North West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Platform Engineering in the North West over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Platform Engineering in the North West

Platform Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the North West

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

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

Platform Engineering
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 Platform Engineering within the North West region over the 6 months to 10 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 -10 56 £575 +34.92% 148
Cheshire 0 6 £402 -9.66% 12
Lancashire -20 3 £519 -2.05% 7
Platform Engineering
England

Platform Engineering
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 2 (3.03%) SharePoint
2 1 (1.52%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (1.52%) Microsoft Exchange
2 1 (1.52%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 1 (1.52%) MS Visio
Cloud Services
1 25 (37.88%) AWS
2 24 (36.36%) Azure
3 9 (13.64%) GitHub
4 8 (12.12%) Azure DevOps
5 7 (10.61%) GitHub Actions
6 6 (9.09%) AtomSphere
6 6 (9.09%) AWS CloudFormation
6 6 (9.09%) Boomi
6 6 (9.09%) dbt
7 5 (7.58%) Amazon EKS
7 5 (7.58%) Azure AKS
8 4 (6.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 4 (6.06%) Serverless
9 3 (4.55%) Amazon ECS
9 3 (4.55%) Amazon SQS
9 3 (4.55%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (3.03%) Azure ExpressRoute
10 2 (3.03%) IaaS
10 2 (3.03%) Microsoft 365
10 2 (3.03%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.03%) DNS
1 2 (3.03%) HTTP
1 2 (3.03%) VPN
2 1 (1.52%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (9.09%) Ataccama
2 5 (7.58%) DynamoDB
3 3 (4.55%) MySQL
3 3 (4.55%) NoSQL
3 3 (4.55%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (1.52%) Metadata
4 1 (1.52%) MongoDB
4 1 (1.52%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 8 (12.12%) Jenkins
2 6 (9.09%) Git
3 5 (7.58%) GitLab
4 3 (4.55%) JUnit
4 3 (4.55%) Mockito
5 1 (1.52%) JIRA
General
1 12 (18.18%) Social Skills
2 6 (9.09%) Finance
3 4 (6.06%) Banking
4 3 (4.55%) Public Sector
5 2 (3.03%) Analytical Skills
5 2 (3.03%) Health Technology
6 1 (1.52%) Aerospace
6 1 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (30.30%) DevOps Engineer
2 18 (27.27%) Platform Engineer
3 10 (15.15%) Senior
4 9 (13.64%) AWS Engineer
5 8 (12.12%) Cloud Platform Engineer
6 7 (10.61%) Azure Engineer
7 6 (9.09%) Azure DevOps Engineer
8 5 (7.58%) Cloud Engineer
8 5 (7.58%) Java Engineer
8 5 (7.58%) Lead
8 5 (7.58%) Software Engineer
9 4 (6.06%) Developer
9 4 (6.06%) Kubernetes Engineer
9 4 (6.06%) Lead DevOps
9 4 (6.06%) Lead DevOps Engineer
9 4 (6.06%) Security Engineer
9 4 (6.06%) Senior DevOps
9 4 (6.06%) Senior DevOps Engineer
9 4 (6.06%) Senior Platform Engineer
10 3 (4.55%) AWS Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (33.33%) Terraform
2 7 (10.61%) Kafka
3 6 (9.09%) Spring Boot
4 5 (7.58%) RESTful
4 5 (7.58%) Spring
5 3 (4.55%) REST
5 3 (4.55%) Spring MVC
5 3 (4.55%) Spring Security
6 2 (3.03%) React
7 1 (1.52%) .NET
7 1 (1.52%) JSON
7 1 (1.52%) OAuth
7 1 (1.52%) OAuth2
7 1 (1.52%) OpenID
7 1 (1.52%) SailPoint
7 1 (1.52%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (21.21%) Cloud Native
2 6 (9.09%) Enterprise Software
3 5 (7.58%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (7.58%) Low-Code
4 2 (3.03%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (3.03%) Enterprise Cloud
4 2 (3.03%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.52%) Algorithms
5 1 (1.52%) Data Structures
5 1 (1.52%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (1.52%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.52%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 3 (4.55%) VMS
1 3 (4.55%) Windows
2 2 (3.03%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (53.03%) DevOps
2 34 (51.52%) CI/CD
3 27 (40.91%) Infrastructure as Code
4 19 (28.79%) Observability
5 14 (21.21%) Cloud Security
6 13 (19.70%) Containerisation
7 10 (15.15%) Continuous Improvement
7 10 (15.15%) Migration
8 9 (13.64%) Test Automation
9 8 (12.12%) DevSecOps
9 8 (12.12%) Event-Driven
9 8 (12.12%) Infrastructure Automation
9 8 (12.12%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 8 (12.12%) Technical Leadership
10 7 (10.61%) Agile
10 7 (10.61%) Cost Optimisation
10 7 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
10 7 (10.61%) Software Engineering
11 6 (9.09%) Configuration Management
11 6 (9.09%) ITIL
Programming Languages
1 15 (22.73%) Python
2 14 (21.21%) Java
3 7 (10.61%) Bicep
4 6 (9.09%) Bash
5 5 (7.58%) SQL
6 4 (6.06%) PowerShell
7 2 (3.03%) TypeScript
8 1 (1.52%) C#
8 1 (1.52%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 14 (21.21%) Security Cleared
2 13 (19.70%) SC Cleared
3 6 (9.09%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (4.55%) Azure Certification
5 2 (3.03%) Degree
5 2 (3.03%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (1.52%) AWS Certification
6 1 (1.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 1 (1.52%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
6 1 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (1.52%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (15.15%) QA
System Software
1 12 (18.18%) Docker
2 1 (1.52%) Squid
2 1 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 20 (30.30%) Kubernetes
2 5 (7.58%) Ansible
3 2 (3.03%) Argo
4 1 (1.52%) Grafana
4 1 (1.52%) Packer
4 1 (1.52%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 10 (15.15%) Microsoft
2 5 (7.58%) Salesforce
3 3 (4.55%) BeyondTrust
3 3 (4.55%) CyberArk
4 2 (3.03%) ServiceNow
4 2 (3.03%) Tenable
5 1 (1.52%) Cisco
5 1 (1.52%) DocuSign
5 1 (1.52%) Fortinet
5 1 (1.52%) Google
5 1 (1.52%) Hitachi
5 1 (1.52%) New Relic
5 1 (1.52%) Okta
5 1 (1.52%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.52%) Ping Identity
5 1 (1.52%) Red Hat
5 1 (1.52%) Splunk
5 1 (1.52%) Tanium
5 1 (1.52%) Trend Micro