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 2 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 124 161
Rank change year-on-year +7 +37 +32
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 99 30 46
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.57% 0.94% 0.81%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.26% 2.93% 2.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 62 18 28
10th Percentile £349 £354 £439
25th Percentile £413 £402 £474
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £445 £498
Median % change year-on-year +12.36% -10.55% -20.40%
75th Percentile £622 £500 £528
90th Percentile £769 £599 £673
England median daily rate £550 £500 £600
% change year-on-year +10.00% -16.67% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £66.25 - -
Median hourly rate £67.50 - -
75th Percentile £68.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £76.50 £51.25 -
% change year-on-year +49.27% - -

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 1,882 1,025 1,632
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.79% 32.26% 28.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,207 626 957
10th Percentile £281 £208 £212
25th Percentile £406 £350 £365
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% - -
75th Percentile £600 £598 £623
90th Percentile £700 £658 £689
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 167 99 175
10th Percentile £17.50 £15.13 £11.79
25th Percentile £27.07 £16.95 £17.64
Median hourly rate £60.00 £33.89 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.07% -38.39% +4.76%
75th Percentile £85.40 £61.12 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.50 £75.16
England median hourly rate £43.96 £33.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year +33.21% -9.59% +53.43%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 -17 48 £530 +11.58% 37
Berkshire -21 30 £425 -10.53% 29
Hampshire -14 21 £492 +15.38% 18
Surrey -8 16 £425 - 7
Buckinghamshire - 14 £560 - 6
West Sussex -18 4 £500 +47.06% 3
East Sussex - 4 £459 -
Middlesex - 4 - - 2
Oxfordshire - 4 £665 - 2
Home Counties - 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 7 (7.07%) OpenStack
2 3 (3.03%) Confluence
3 2 (2.02%) Apache Pulsar
4 1 (1.01%) Apache Spark
4 1 (1.01%) Appian
4 1 (1.01%) ArcGIS
4 1 (1.01%) CMS
4 1 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (1.01%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (7.07%) CPLEX
2 1 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.01%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.01%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (1.01%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (1.01%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 65 (65.66%) Azure
2 56 (56.57%) AWS
3 21 (21.21%) GCP
4 19 (19.19%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (14.14%) GitHub
6 11 (11.11%) Serverless
7 8 (8.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 8 (8.08%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 7 (7.07%) Amazon S3
8 7 (7.07%) AWS CloudFormation
8 7 (7.07%) Azure Monitor
8 7 (7.07%) GitHub Actions
9 6 (6.06%) Amazon EKS
9 6 (6.06%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (6.06%) Azure AKS
9 6 (6.06%) Azure API Management
9 6 (6.06%) SaaS
10 5 (5.05%) Amazon ECS
10 5 (5.05%) Azure Functions
10 5 (5.05%) Azure Storage
Communications & Networking
1 11 (11.11%) BGP
1 11 (11.11%) LAN
1 11 (11.11%) MPLS
1 11 (11.11%) WAN
2 10 (10.10%) Firewall
2 10 (10.10%) VPN
3 9 (9.09%) DNS
4 4 (4.04%) BIG-IP
4 4 (4.04%) Cisco ASA
4 4 (4.04%) Cisco Firepower
4 4 (4.04%) Cisco Nexus
4 4 (4.04%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
4 4 (4.04%) IPsec
4 4 (4.04%) Network Security
4 4 (4.04%) OSPF
4 4 (4.04%) SD-WAN
4 4 (4.04%) TCP/IP
4 4 (4.04%) VLAN
5 2 (2.02%) ICMP
5 2 (2.02%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (14.14%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (12.12%) NoSQL
3 7 (7.07%) MongoDB
3 7 (7.07%) Relational Database
4 5 (5.05%) Azure SQL Database
4 5 (5.05%) DynamoDB
5 3 (3.03%) Amazon RDS
6 2 (2.02%) Data Lake
6 2 (2.02%) Data Warehouse
6 2 (2.02%) Metadata
7 1 (1.01%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (1.01%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (1.01%) Big Data
7 1 (1.01%) BusinessObjects
7 1 (1.01%) GIS
7 1 (1.01%) MySQL
7 1 (1.01%) Parquet
7 1 (1.01%) Pentaho
7 1 (1.01%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 9 (9.09%) Git
2 6 (6.06%) Jenkins
3 4 (4.04%) JIRA
4 2 (2.02%) Cucumber
4 2 (2.02%) GitLab
4 2 (2.02%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (1.01%) JUnit
5 1 (1.01%) MLflow
5 1 (1.01%) Mockito
5 1 (1.01%) SonarQube
5 1 (1.01%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 39 (39.39%) Social Skills
2 18 (18.18%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (12.12%) Finance
4 8 (8.08%) Public Sector
5 5 (5.05%) Telecoms
6 3 (3.03%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (2.02%) Aerospace
7 2 (2.02%) Financial Institution
7 2 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.02%) Legal
7 2 (2.02%) Marketing
8 1 (1.01%) Automotive
8 1 (1.01%) Aviation
8 1 (1.01%) Banking
8 1 (1.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 25 (25.25%) Architect
2 18 (18.18%) Developer
3 15 (15.15%) Senior
4 11 (11.11%) Java Engineer
5 10 (10.10%) Azure Engineer
5 10 (10.10%) DevOps Engineer
6 9 (9.09%) Cloud Engineer
6 9 (9.09%) Network Architect
7 8 (8.08%) Lead
7 8 (8.08%) Python Developer
8 7 (7.07%) Technical Architect
9 6 (6.06%) IP Architect
10 5 (5.05%) Infrastructure Architect
10 5 (5.05%) Software Engineer
10 5 (5.05%) Technical Leader
11 4 (4.04%) Azure Software Engineer
11 4 (4.04%) Java Developer
11 4 (4.04%) Senior Developer
11 4 (4.04%) Solutions Architect
12 3 (3.03%) Azure Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (19.19%) REST
2 13 (13.13%) RESTful
3 12 (12.12%) Kafka
4 9 (9.09%) .NET
4 9 (9.09%) GraphQL
4 9 (9.09%) OAuth
5 8 (8.08%) ARM Templates
5 8 (8.08%) Django
5 8 (8.08%) RabbitMQ
6 7 (7.07%) FastAPI
6 7 (7.07%) Flask
6 7 (7.07%) NETCONF
6 7 (7.07%) NumPy
6 7 (7.07%) OpenAPI
6 7 (7.07%) Pandas
6 7 (7.07%) pytest
6 7 (7.07%) Swagger
6 7 (7.07%) YANG
7 6 (6.06%) OAuth2
8 5 (5.05%) React
Miscellaneous
1 16 (16.16%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (11.11%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (10.10%) Data Structures
4 9 (9.09%) Product Ownership
5 7 (7.07%) Algorithms
5 7 (7.07%) Public Cloud
6 6 (6.06%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (6.06%) Virtual Team
7 5 (5.05%) Private Cloud
8 4 (4.04%) Data Protection Act
9 3 (3.03%) CMDB
9 3 (3.03%) Data Centre
9 3 (3.03%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
9 3 (3.03%) Onboarding
9 3 (3.03%) Security Posture
10 2 (2.02%) Mobile App
11 1 (1.01%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (1.01%) Cyber Threat
11 1 (1.01%) Cyberattack
11 1 (1.01%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 7 (7.07%) Windows
2 6 (6.06%) Linux
3 1 (1.01%) Android
3 1 (1.01%) Apple iOS
3 1 (1.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (56.57%) DevOps
2 45 (45.45%) CI/CD
3 32 (32.32%) Agile
3 32 (32.32%) Microservices
4 30 (30.30%) Problem-Solving
5 27 (27.27%) Roadmaps
6 26 (26.26%) Software Engineering
7 25 (25.25%) Containerisation
7 25 (25.25%) Infrastructure as Code
8 20 (20.20%) Continuous Improvement
9 17 (17.17%) Enterprise Architecture
10 16 (16.16%) AI
11 15 (15.15%) Analytics
11 15 (15.15%) Observability
11 15 (15.15%) Test Automation
12 14 (14.14%) Architectural Patterns
12 14 (14.14%) TOGAF
13 13 (13.13%) Cloud Security
14 12 (12.12%) Stakeholder Management
14 12 (12.12%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 36 (36.36%) Python
2 20 (20.20%) Java
3 15 (15.15%) SQL
4 10 (10.10%) PowerShell
5 8 (8.08%) JavaScript
6 7 (7.07%) Bash
6 7 (7.07%) Bicep
7 6 (6.06%) C#
8 1 (1.01%) Go
8 1 (1.01%) Google Apps Script
8 1 (1.01%) Korn
8 1 (1.01%) Kotlin
8 1 (1.01%) Kusto Query Language
8 1 (1.01%) Objective-C
8 1 (1.01%) Swift
8 1 (1.01%) TypeScript
8 1 (1.01%) VBA
Qualifications
1 22 (22.22%) Security Cleared
2 15 (15.15%) SC Cleared
3 11 (11.11%) Cisco Certification
4 9 (9.09%) CCIE
4 9 (9.09%) Degree
5 7 (7.07%) JNCIE
6 6 (6.06%) AWS Certification
6 6 (6.06%) Azure Certification
6 6 (6.06%) DV Cleared
7 4 (4.04%) CCNP
7 4 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
8 3 (3.03%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (3.03%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (3.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 2 (2.02%) CISM
9 2 (2.02%) CISSP
10 1 (1.01%) GCFA
10 1 (1.01%) GCIA
10 1 (1.01%) GCIH
10 1 (1.01%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (11.11%) QA
2 6 (6.06%) NCSC
3 2 (2.02%) GDPR
3 2 (2.02%) PCI DSS
3 2 (2.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 1 (1.01%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.01%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (1.01%) ISO 20022
4 1 (1.01%) ISO 8583
4 1 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (1.01%) NIST
System Software
1 21 (21.21%) Docker
2 6 (6.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (5.05%) Hyper-V
4 4 (4.04%) VMware NSX
5 3 (3.03%) Active Directory
5 3 (3.03%) IAG
6 1 (1.01%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 28 (28.28%) Terraform
2 26 (26.26%) Kubernetes
3 22 (22.22%) Ansible
4 4 (4.04%) Grafana
4 4 (4.04%) Progress Chef
4 4 (4.04%) Puppet
5 3 (3.03%) Prometheus
6 2 (2.02%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (2.02%) Istio
6 2 (2.02%) linkerd
7 1 (1.01%) Kubeflow
7 1 (1.01%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 29 (29.29%) Microsoft
2 10 (10.10%) VMware
3 7 (7.07%) Dynatrace
4 6 (6.06%) Databricks
5 5 (5.05%) Cisco
5 5 (5.05%) Google
6 4 (4.04%) F5
6 4 (4.04%) Palo Alto
6 4 (4.04%) ServiceNow
6 4 (4.04%) SolarWinds
7 3 (3.03%) Nexthink
7 3 (3.03%) SAP
8 2 (2.02%) Splunk
9 1 (1.01%) Ariba
9 1 (1.01%) Dell
9 1 (1.01%) Fortinet
9 1 (1.01%) Foundry
9 1 (1.01%) Informatica
9 1 (1.01%) Oracle
9 1 (1.01%) Red Hat