Cloud Native Contract Job Trends in the South East

Cloud Native
England > South East

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Cloud Native in contract job vacancies in the South East. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cloud Native over the 6 months leading up to 7 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 129 129 151
Rank change year-on-year 0 +22 +40
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 111 40 38
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.66% 1.15% 0.77%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.55% 3.60% 2.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 27 22
10th Percentile £350 £352 £378
25th Percentile £430 £401 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £450 £498
Median % change year-on-year +11.67% -9.55% -20.40%
75th Percentile £625 £588 £583
90th Percentile £757 £714 £675
England median daily rate £550 £514 £600
% change year-on-year +7.06% -14.38% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 0
10th Percentile £64.88 - -
25th Percentile £66.25 - -
Median hourly rate £67.50 - -
75th Percentile £68.75 - -
90th Percentile £69.63 - -
England median hourly rate £75.25 £51.25 £85.00
% change year-on-year +46.83% -39.71% +8.97%

All Generic Skills
South East

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 the South East.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 1,999 1,111 1,445
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.84% 31.81% 29.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,246 684 856
10th Percentile £281 £206 £213
25th Percentile £412 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £513
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £610 £600 £638
90th Percentile £700 £672 £715
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 99 145
10th Percentile £16.25 £15.13 £11.99
25th Percentile £25.75 £16.95 £20.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.05 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +66.41% -42.37% +11.90%
75th Percentile £84.00 £59.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £81.10 £75.16
England median hourly rate £43.56 £32.05 £47.50
% change year-on-year +35.91% -32.53% +14.46%

Cloud Native
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Cloud Native relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Cloud Native job vacancy trend in the South East

Cloud Native
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Cloud Native.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Cloud Native

Cloud Native
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cloud Native in the South East over the 6 months to 7 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cloud Native in the South East

Cloud Native
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Cloud Native.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing Cloud Native

Cloud Native
Contract Job Locations in the South East

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 South East region over the 6 months to 7 August 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
Thames Valley -22 55 £530 +6.00% 42
Berkshire -27 32 £413 -15.38% 26
Hampshire -17 25 £588 +37.91% 21
Surrey -9 15 £468 +10.00% 12
Buckinghamshire -21 15 £550 -15.38% 5
Oxfordshire - 8 £530 - 11
Middlesex - 7 - -
West Sussex -18 6 £400 +17.65% 5
East Sussex - 4 £459 - 2
Sussex - 1 £600 -
Cloud Native
England

Cloud Native
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 (4.50%) OpenStack
2 3 (2.70%) Confluence
3 2 (1.80%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.90%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.90%) CMS
4 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.90%) SAS
Applications
1 6 (5.41%) CPLEX
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.90%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.90%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.90%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 73 (65.77%) Azure
2 67 (60.36%) AWS
3 26 (23.42%) GCP
4 15 (13.51%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (12.61%) GitHub
6 10 (9.01%) Azure Monitor
7 9 (8.11%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (7.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 8 (7.21%) SaaS
9 6 (5.41%) Amazon S3
9 6 (5.41%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (5.41%) Azure AKS
9 6 (5.41%) Datadog
9 6 (5.41%) Serverless
9 6 (5.41%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (4.50%) Amazon ECS
10 5 (4.50%) Azure Service Bus
10 5 (4.50%) Boomi
10 5 (4.50%) Entra ID
10 5 (4.50%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (9.01%) DNS
1 10 (9.01%) Firewall
2 9 (8.11%) BGP
2 9 (8.11%) LAN
2 9 (8.11%) MPLS
2 9 (8.11%) VPN
2 9 (8.11%) WAN
3 8 (7.21%) Network Security
4 6 (5.41%) TCP/IP
5 5 (4.50%) HTTP
6 4 (3.60%) BIG-IP
6 4 (3.60%) Cisco ASA
6 4 (3.60%) Cisco Firepower
6 4 (3.60%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (3.60%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 4 (3.60%) IPsec
6 4 (3.60%) OSPF
6 4 (3.60%) SD-WAN
6 4 (3.60%) VLAN
7 3 (2.70%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (12.61%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (10.81%) Relational Database
3 10 (9.01%) NoSQL
4 6 (5.41%) MongoDB
5 5 (4.50%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (3.60%) DynamoDB
7 3 (2.70%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (2.70%) Metadata
8 2 (1.80%) Big Data
8 2 (1.80%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.80%) Spark SQL
9 1 (0.90%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.90%) BusinessObjects
9 1 (0.90%) GIS
9 1 (0.90%) MySQL
9 1 (0.90%) Parquet
9 1 (0.90%) Power BI
9 1 (0.90%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 11 (9.91%) Git
2 6 (5.41%) Jenkins
3 4 (3.60%) JIRA
4 2 (1.80%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.80%) GitLab
4 2 (1.80%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.90%) JUnit
5 1 (0.90%) Mockito
General
1 56 (50.45%) Social Skills
2 23 (20.72%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (8.11%) Finance
4 7 (6.31%) Public Sector
5 5 (4.50%) Aerospace
5 5 (4.50%) Telecoms
6 3 (2.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (2.70%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.80%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.80%) Legal
8 1 (0.90%) Automotive
8 1 (0.90%) Aviation
8 1 (0.90%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 30 (27.03%) Architect
2 18 (16.22%) Senior
3 17 (15.32%) Developer
4 12 (10.81%) Cloud Engineer
4 12 (10.81%) Solutions Architect
5 10 (9.01%) Java Engineer
5 10 (9.01%) Lead
6 9 (8.11%) DevOps Engineer
7 8 (7.21%) Azure Engineer
7 8 (7.21%) Network Architect
8 7 (6.31%) Python Developer
8 7 (6.31%) Software Engineer
8 7 (6.31%) Technical Leader
9 6 (5.41%) Technical Architect
10 5 (4.50%) IP Architect
10 5 (4.50%) Service Owner
11 4 (3.60%) Java Developer
11 4 (3.60%) Senior Software Engineer
12 3 (2.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 3 (2.70%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (18.02%) REST
2 14 (12.61%) GraphQL
2 14 (12.61%) OAuth
2 14 (12.61%) RESTful
3 13 (11.71%) Kafka
4 12 (10.81%) RabbitMQ
5 11 (9.91%) OpenAPI
5 11 (9.91%) Swagger
6 9 (8.11%) Django
6 9 (8.11%) JSON
6 9 (8.11%) JWT
7 8 (7.21%) SAML
7 8 (7.21%) SOAP
8 6 (5.41%) .NET
8 6 (5.41%) AngularJS
8 6 (5.41%) Flask
8 6 (5.41%) NumPy
8 6 (5.41%) Pandas
8 6 (5.41%) pytest
8 6 (5.41%) React
Miscellaneous
1 21 (18.92%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (9.91%) Hybrid Cloud
2 11 (9.91%) Product Ownership
3 9 (8.11%) Data Structures
4 8 (7.21%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (5.41%) Algorithms
5 6 (5.41%) Virtual Team
6 5 (4.50%) CMDB
7 4 (3.60%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (3.60%) Onboarding
7 4 (3.60%) Private Cloud
7 4 (3.60%) Security Posture
8 3 (2.70%) Data Centre
8 3 (2.70%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (2.70%) Management Information System
8 3 (2.70%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.80%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (1.80%) Cyberattack
9 2 (1.80%) Mobile App
9 2 (1.80%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 12 (10.81%) Linux
1 12 (10.81%) Windows
2 5 (4.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (1.80%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.90%) Android
4 1 (0.90%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (51.35%) DevOps
2 46 (41.44%) CI/CD
3 43 (38.74%) Agile
4 40 (36.04%) Problem-Solving
5 32 (28.83%) Continuous Improvement
6 31 (27.93%) Infrastructure as Code
7 29 (26.13%) Microservices
8 27 (24.32%) Containerisation
8 27 (24.32%) Roadmaps
8 27 (24.32%) Software Engineering
9 22 (19.82%) Test Automation
10 19 (17.12%) Enterprise Architecture
11 18 (16.22%) Analytics
11 18 (16.22%) Stakeholder Management
12 17 (15.32%) AI
12 17 (15.32%) Observability
13 15 (13.51%) Event-Driven
14 14 (12.61%) Architectural Patterns
14 14 (12.61%) Cloud Security
15 13 (11.71%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 40 (36.04%) Python
2 21 (18.92%) Java
3 18 (16.22%) PowerShell
4 15 (13.51%) Bash
5 13 (11.71%) SQL
6 7 (6.31%) Bicep
7 6 (5.41%) JavaScript
8 3 (2.70%) Go
9 2 (1.80%) C#
9 2 (1.80%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.90%) Google Apps Script
10 1 (0.90%) Korn
10 1 (0.90%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.90%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.90%) Swift
10 1 (0.90%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.90%) VBA
Qualifications
1 27 (24.32%) Security Cleared
2 22 (19.82%) SC Cleared
3 11 (9.91%) Degree
4 9 (8.11%) AWS Certification
4 9 (8.11%) Azure Certification
5 8 (7.21%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (6.31%) CCIE
6 7 (6.31%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (5.41%) DV Cleared
8 5 (4.50%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (4.50%) JNCIE
8 5 (4.50%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 3 (2.70%) CCNP
9 3 (2.70%) Master's Degree
9 3 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (1.80%) CISSP
10 2 (1.80%) GCIA
10 2 (1.80%) GCIH
10 2 (1.80%) OSCP
10 2 (1.80%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (15.32%) QA
2 5 (4.50%) NCSC
3 3 (2.70%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.70%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.70%) GDPR
4 2 (1.80%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.90%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.90%) GRC
5 1 (0.90%) NIST
5 1 (0.90%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 24 (21.62%) Docker
2 6 (5.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (4.50%) IAG
4 4 (3.60%) Hyper-V
4 4 (3.60%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.70%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.90%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 1 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 34 (30.63%) Kubernetes
2 33 (29.73%) Terraform
3 28 (25.23%) Ansible
4 8 (7.21%) Progress Chef
4 8 (7.21%) Puppet
5 2 (1.80%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.80%) Grafana
5 2 (1.80%) Istio
6 1 (0.90%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.90%) QRadar
6 1 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 31 (27.93%) Microsoft
2 11 (9.91%) Google
3 9 (8.11%) Dynatrace
3 9 (8.11%) VMware
4 6 (5.41%) Informatica
4 6 (5.41%) Oracle
4 6 (5.41%) ServiceNow
5 5 (4.50%) Cisco
5 5 (4.50%) Databricks
5 5 (4.50%) IBM
5 5 (4.50%) MuleSoft
5 5 (4.50%) Nexthink
5 5 (4.50%) TIBCO
5 5 (4.50%) WSO2
6 4 (3.60%) F5
6 4 (3.60%) Palo Alto
6 4 (3.60%) SolarWinds
7 3 (2.70%) Red Hat
7 3 (2.70%) SAP
8 1 (0.90%) CheckPoint