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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 130 148
Rank change year-on-year +2 +18 +44
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 106 33 48
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.62% 0.96% 0.88%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.38% 3.02% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 67 22 27
10th Percentile £349 £363 £457
25th Percentile £406 £401 £479
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £445 £500
Median % change year-on-year +13.48% -11.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £638 £566 £535
90th Percentile £769 £623 £673
England median daily rate £550 £512 £600
% change year-on-year +7.37% -14.63% -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 £77.00 £51.25 £85.00
% change year-on-year +50.24% -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 1,970 1,092 1,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 30.04% 31.84% 28.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,264 666 936
10th Percentile £270 £204 £213
25th Percentile £408 £358 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £501
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -0.20% +0.20%
75th Percentile £600 £593 £625
90th Percentile £700 £658 £699
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 175 100 155
10th Percentile £17.50 £15.13 £11.99
25th Percentile £27.94 £16.95 £19.06
Median hourly rate £60.00 £33.47 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +79.28% -41.64% +14.70%
75th Percentile £85.40 £60.56 £61.30
90th Percentile £88.00 £85.50 £75.16
England median hourly rate £43.96 £32.89 £40.00
% change year-on-year +33.66% -17.78% +10.73%

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 20 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 20 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 -15 53 £530 +6.00% 29
Berkshire -18 33 £413 -13.16% 11
Hampshire -20 25 £500 +17.37% 13
Buckinghamshire -21 14 £560 -13.85% 14
Surrey -11 11 £505 +18.82% 6
West Sussex -17 6 £400 +17.65% 1
Middlesex - 6 - -
Oxfordshire - 6 £530 - 4
East Sussex - 4 £459 - 1
Home Counties - 2 - -
Sussex - 1 £600 - 1
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 (6.60%) OpenStack
2 3 (2.83%) Apache Spark
2 3 (2.83%) Confluence
3 2 (1.89%) Apache Pulsar
4 1 (0.94%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.94%) CMS
4 1 (0.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.94%) SAS
Applications
1 7 (6.60%) CPLEX
2 1 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.94%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.94%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.94%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.94%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.94%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 70 (66.04%) Azure
2 63 (59.43%) AWS
3 23 (21.70%) GCP
4 17 (16.04%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (12.26%) GitHub
6 10 (9.43%) Azure Monitor
7 9 (8.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 9 (8.49%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (7.55%) AWS CloudFormation
8 8 (7.55%) Azure AKS
8 8 (7.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 7 (6.60%) Amazon S3
9 7 (6.60%) SaaS
9 7 (6.60%) Serverless
10 6 (5.66%) Amazon EKS
10 6 (5.66%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (4.72%) Amazon ECS
11 5 (4.72%) Azure Key Vault
11 5 (4.72%) Datadog
11 5 (4.72%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 11 (10.38%) BGP
1 11 (10.38%) LAN
1 11 (10.38%) MPLS
1 11 (10.38%) WAN
2 10 (9.43%) Firewall
3 8 (7.55%) DNS
3 8 (7.55%) Network Security
4 7 (6.60%) VPN
5 4 (3.77%) BIG-IP
5 4 (3.77%) Cisco ASA
5 4 (3.77%) Cisco Firepower
5 4 (3.77%) Cisco Nexus
5 4 (3.77%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 4 (3.77%) IPsec
5 4 (3.77%) OSPF
5 4 (3.77%) SD-WAN
5 4 (3.77%) TCP/IP
5 4 (3.77%) VLAN
6 2 (1.89%) ICMP
6 2 (1.89%) NGFW
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (14.15%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (11.32%) NoSQL
3 10 (9.43%) Relational Database
4 7 (6.60%) MongoDB
5 5 (4.72%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (4.72%) DynamoDB
6 3 (2.83%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (2.83%) Big Data
7 2 (1.89%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.89%) Metadata
7 2 (1.89%) Spark SQL
8 1 (0.94%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.94%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.94%) Apache Iceberg
8 1 (0.94%) BusinessObjects
8 1 (0.94%) GIS
8 1 (0.94%) MySQL
8 1 (0.94%) Parquet
8 1 (0.94%) Power BI
8 1 (0.94%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 12 (11.32%) Git
2 6 (5.66%) Jenkins
3 4 (3.77%) JIRA
4 2 (1.89%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.89%) GitLab
4 2 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.94%) JUnit
5 1 (0.94%) MLflow
5 1 (0.94%) Mockito
5 1 (0.94%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.94%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 50 (47.17%) Social Skills
2 22 (20.75%) Analytical Skills
3 12 (11.32%) Finance
4 9 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 5 (4.72%) Telecoms
6 3 (2.83%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.89%) Aerospace
7 2 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.89%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.89%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.89%) Legal
8 1 (0.94%) Automotive
8 1 (0.94%) Aviation
8 1 (0.94%) Banking
Job Titles
1 25 (23.58%) Architect
2 19 (17.92%) Developer
3 16 (15.09%) Senior
4 12 (11.32%) Cloud Engineer
5 11 (10.38%) Java Engineer
6 10 (9.43%) DevOps Engineer
7 9 (8.49%) Lead
7 9 (8.49%) Network Architect
8 8 (7.55%) Python Developer
9 7 (6.60%) Azure Engineer
9 7 (6.60%) Technical Architect
10 6 (5.66%) IP Architect
10 6 (5.66%) Technical Leader
11 5 (4.72%) Software Engineer
11 5 (4.72%) Solutions Architect
12 4 (3.77%) Java Developer
12 4 (3.77%) Senior Developer
12 4 (3.77%) Service Owner
13 3 (2.83%) Azure Developer
13 3 (2.83%) Azure DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (16.98%) REST
2 14 (13.21%) RESTful
3 13 (12.26%) Kafka
4 11 (10.38%) OAuth
5 10 (9.43%) GraphQL
6 9 (8.49%) Django
6 9 (8.49%) RabbitMQ
7 8 (7.55%) OpenAPI
7 8 (7.55%) Swagger
8 7 (6.60%) FastAPI
8 7 (6.60%) Flask
8 7 (6.60%) NETCONF
8 7 (6.60%) NumPy
8 7 (6.60%) OAuth2
8 7 (6.60%) Pandas
8 7 (6.60%) pytest
8 7 (6.60%) YANG
9 6 (5.66%) .NET
9 6 (5.66%) React
10 5 (4.72%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 18 (16.98%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (10.38%) Hybrid Cloud
3 10 (9.43%) Data Structures
3 10 (9.43%) Product Ownership
4 9 (8.49%) Enterprise Software
5 7 (6.60%) Algorithms
6 6 (5.66%) Virtual Team
7 5 (4.72%) Private Cloud
8 4 (3.77%) CMDB
8 4 (3.77%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (3.77%) Onboarding
8 4 (3.77%) Public Cloud
8 4 (3.77%) Security Posture
9 3 (2.83%) Data Centre
9 3 (2.83%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 2 (1.89%) Cyber Defence
10 2 (1.89%) Cyber Threat
10 2 (1.89%) Cyberattack
10 2 (1.89%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (1.89%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 11 (10.38%) Windows
2 9 (8.49%) Linux
3 4 (3.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.94%) Android
4 1 (0.94%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 60 (56.60%) DevOps
2 49 (46.23%) CI/CD
3 39 (36.79%) Agile
4 35 (33.02%) Problem-Solving
5 32 (30.19%) Infrastructure as Code
6 31 (29.25%) Microservices
7 30 (28.30%) Containerisation
8 29 (27.36%) Continuous Improvement
9 28 (26.42%) Roadmaps
10 26 (24.53%) Software Engineering
11 21 (19.81%) Test Automation
12 18 (16.98%) AI
12 18 (16.98%) Analytics
12 18 (16.98%) Enterprise Architecture
13 17 (16.04%) Observability
14 16 (15.09%) Cloud Security
15 14 (13.21%) Architectural Patterns
15 14 (13.21%) TOGAF
16 13 (12.26%) Migration
16 13 (12.26%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 39 (36.79%) Python
2 20 (18.87%) Java
3 16 (15.09%) PowerShell
4 13 (12.26%) Bash
4 13 (12.26%) SQL
5 7 (6.60%) Bicep
6 5 (4.72%) JavaScript
7 3 (2.83%) Go
8 2 (1.89%) C#
8 2 (1.89%) Kusto Query Language
9 1 (0.94%) Google Apps Script
9 1 (0.94%) Korn
9 1 (0.94%) Kotlin
9 1 (0.94%) Objective-C
9 1 (0.94%) Swift
9 1 (0.94%) TypeScript
9 1 (0.94%) VBA
Qualifications
1 25 (23.58%) Security Cleared
2 18 (16.98%) SC Cleared
3 11 (10.38%) Cisco Certification
4 10 (9.43%) Degree
5 9 (8.49%) AWS Certification
5 9 (8.49%) CCIE
6 7 (6.60%) Azure Certification
6 7 (6.60%) JNCIE
7 6 (5.66%) DV Cleared
8 5 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (3.77%) CCNP
9 4 (3.77%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (3.77%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (2.83%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (1.89%) CISM
11 2 (1.89%) CISSP
11 2 (1.89%) GCFA
11 2 (1.89%) GCIA
11 2 (1.89%) GCIH
11 2 (1.89%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (14.15%) QA
2 6 (5.66%) NCSC
3 3 (2.83%) GDPR
3 3 (2.83%) PCI DSS
4 2 (1.89%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.89%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.89%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.89%) NIST
4 2 (1.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.94%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.94%) GRC
5 1 (0.94%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.94%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 25 (23.58%) Docker
2 4 (3.77%) IAG
2 4 (3.77%) VMware Infrastructure
2 4 (3.77%) VMware NSX
3 3 (2.83%) Active Directory
4 2 (1.89%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.94%) Citrix Hypervisor
5 1 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 34 (32.08%) Kubernetes
1 34 (32.08%) Terraform
2 26 (24.53%) Ansible
3 7 (6.60%) Progress Chef
3 7 (6.60%) Puppet
4 4 (3.77%) Grafana
5 3 (2.83%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.89%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 2 (1.89%) Istio
6 2 (1.89%) linkerd
7 1 (0.94%) Kubeflow
7 1 (0.94%) QRadar
7 1 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 31 (29.25%) Microsoft
2 8 (7.55%) Dynatrace
2 8 (7.55%) VMware
3 6 (5.66%) Google
4 5 (4.72%) Cisco
4 5 (4.72%) ServiceNow
5 4 (3.77%) Databricks
5 4 (3.77%) F5
5 4 (3.77%) Nexthink
5 4 (3.77%) Palo Alto
5 4 (3.77%) SolarWinds
6 3 (2.83%) SAP
6 3 (2.83%) Splunk
7 2 (1.89%) Informatica
7 2 (1.89%) Oracle
8 1 (0.94%) CheckPoint
8 1 (0.94%) Citrix
8 1 (0.94%) Dell
8 1 (0.94%) IBM
8 1 (0.94%) Red Hat