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 4 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 126 142
Rank change year-on-year +9 +16 +40
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 116 43 35
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.78% 1.20% 0.80%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.88% 3.85% 2.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 76 24 23
10th Percentile £349 £363 £325
25th Percentile £431 £402 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +13.89% -10.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £631 £581 £529
90th Percentile £769 £717 £666
England median daily rate £550 £525 £575
% change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £63.80 - -
25th Percentile £64.25 - -
Median hourly rate £67.50 - -
75th Percentile £70.25 - -
90th Percentile £70.40 - -
England median hourly rate £76.00 £51.25 £85.00
% change year-on-year +48.29% -39.71% +12.58%

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 1,973 1,117 1,309
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 30.21% 31.24% 29.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,167 695 752
10th Percentile £280 £204 £240
25th Percentile £411 £350 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.69% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £610 £588 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £525 £525 £549
% change year-on-year - -4.30% -0.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 94 86
10th Percentile £12.84 £15.13 £13.25
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.95 £26.44
Median hourly rate £35.22 £33.05 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +6.57% -42.37% +4.27%
75th Percentile £70.50 £58.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.50 £70.16 £75.16
England median hourly rate £33.99 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +13.30% -47.69% +25.00%

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 4 October 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 4 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
Thames Valley -21 52 £530 +6.00% 105
Berkshire -17 35 £425 -15.00% 48
Hampshire -8 29 £600 +49.25% 51
Surrey -4 17 £460 - 40
Middlesex - 12 £600 -
Buckinghamshire -17 11 £550 -15.38% 26
West Sussex -16 7 £400 +17.65% 23
Oxfordshire - 6 £530 - 31
East Sussex - 1 £459 - 12
Sussex - 1 £600 - 16
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 (4.31%) OpenStack
2 3 (2.59%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.86%) CMS
3 1 (0.86%) Confluence
3 1 (0.86%) IIS
3 1 (0.86%) SAS
3 1 (0.86%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.86%) WebSphere
Applications
1 5 (4.31%) CPLEX
2 1 (0.86%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.86%) Cloudability
1 1 (0.86%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 80 (68.97%) Azure
2 73 (62.93%) AWS
3 30 (25.86%) GCP
4 19 (16.38%) GitHub
5 16 (13.79%) Azure DevOps
6 13 (11.21%) Azure Monitor
6 13 (11.21%) SaaS
7 11 (9.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 9 (7.76%) Azure Service Bus
8 9 (7.76%) Boomi
8 9 (7.76%) GitHub Actions
8 9 (7.76%) iPaaS
8 9 (7.76%) OpenShift
9 8 (6.90%) Datadog
9 8 (6.90%) Serverless
10 6 (5.17%) AWS Lambda
10 6 (5.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 5 (4.31%) Amazon ECS
11 5 (4.31%) Amazon S3
11 5 (4.31%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (7.76%) BGP
1 9 (7.76%) DNS
1 9 (7.76%) HTTP
1 9 (7.76%) LAN
1 9 (7.76%) MPLS
1 9 (7.76%) WAN
2 8 (6.90%) Firewall
3 7 (6.03%) TCP/IP
3 7 (6.03%) VPN
4 6 (5.17%) Network Security
4 6 (5.17%) Software-Defined Networking
5 4 (3.45%) BIG-IP
5 4 (3.45%) Cisco ASA
5 4 (3.45%) Cisco Firepower
5 4 (3.45%) Cisco Nexus
5 4 (3.45%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 4 (3.45%) IPsec
5 4 (3.45%) OSPF
5 4 (3.45%) SD-WAN
5 4 (3.45%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (11.21%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (9.48%) Relational Database
3 9 (7.76%) NoSQL
4 5 (4.31%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (4.31%) MongoDB
5 4 (3.45%) DynamoDB
6 3 (2.59%) Amazon RDS
6 3 (2.59%) Big Data
6 3 (2.59%) Data Lake
6 3 (2.59%) Metadata
7 2 (1.72%) Spark SQL
8 1 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.86%) Apache Iceberg
8 1 (0.86%) Azure SQL Database
8 1 (0.86%) BusinessObjects
8 1 (0.86%) Delta Lake
8 1 (0.86%) Parquet
8 1 (0.86%) Pentaho
8 1 (0.86%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 12 (10.34%) Git
2 9 (7.76%) Jenkins
3 7 (6.03%) GitLab
4 2 (1.72%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.86%) Artifactory
5 1 (0.86%) Cucumber
5 1 (0.86%) JIRA
5 1 (0.86%) JUnit
5 1 (0.86%) Mockito
5 1 (0.86%) SonarQube
General
1 58 (50.00%) Social Skills
2 26 (22.41%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (6.90%) Public Sector
4 6 (5.17%) Aerospace
4 6 (5.17%) Finance
5 5 (4.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 5 (4.31%) Telecoms
6 2 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (1.72%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (1.72%) Legal
6 2 (1.72%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (0.86%) German Language
7 1 (0.86%) Manufacturing
7 1 (0.86%) Military
7 1 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
7 1 (0.86%) Retail
Job Titles
1 32 (27.59%) Architect
2 16 (13.79%) Senior
3 15 (12.93%) Solutions Architect
4 13 (11.21%) Developer
5 11 (9.48%) Lead
6 10 (8.62%) Cloud Engineer
7 8 (6.90%) Network Architect
7 8 (6.90%) Service Owner
7 8 (6.90%) Software Engineer
7 8 (6.90%) Technical Leader
8 7 (6.03%) Azure Engineer
9 6 (5.17%) Python Developer
9 6 (5.17%) Technical Architect
10 5 (4.31%) DevOps Engineer
10 5 (4.31%) IP Architect
10 5 (4.31%) Platform Engineer
11 4 (3.45%) Data Engineer
11 4 (3.45%) Java Developer
11 4 (3.45%) Python Engineer
11 4 (3.45%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (30.17%) Terraform
2 19 (16.38%) REST
3 17 (14.66%) OAuth
4 15 (12.93%) Kafka
5 14 (12.07%) GraphQL
5 14 (12.07%) OpenAPI
5 14 (12.07%) RabbitMQ
5 14 (12.07%) RESTful
5 14 (12.07%) Swagger
6 12 (10.34%) JSON
6 12 (10.34%) JWT
7 11 (9.48%) SOAP
8 10 (8.62%) Django
8 10 (8.62%) Middleware
8 10 (8.62%) SAML
9 9 (7.76%) ActiveMQ
9 9 (7.76%) EDI
9 9 (7.76%) XML
10 7 (6.03%) OAuth2
10 7 (6.03%) React
Miscellaneous
1 19 (16.38%) Distributed Systems
2 12 (10.34%) Hybrid Cloud
2 12 (10.34%) Product Ownership
3 9 (7.76%) Data Structures
4 8 (6.90%) CMDB
4 8 (6.90%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (5.17%) Algorithms
6 5 (4.31%) Data Centre
6 5 (4.31%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (3.45%) Management Information System
7 4 (3.45%) Onboarding
7 4 (3.45%) Private Cloud
8 3 (2.59%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (2.59%) Virtual Team
9 2 (1.72%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (1.72%) Cyber Defence
9 2 (1.72%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (1.72%) Cyberattack
9 2 (1.72%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (1.72%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 13 (11.21%) Linux
1 13 (11.21%) Windows
2 4 (3.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 4 (3.45%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (49.14%) DevOps
2 48 (41.38%) CI/CD
3 47 (40.52%) Agile
4 42 (36.21%) Problem-Solving
5 39 (33.62%) Continuous Improvement
6 36 (31.03%) Containerisation
7 35 (30.17%) Infrastructure as Code
8 29 (25.00%) Roadmaps
9 28 (24.14%) Software Engineering
10 26 (22.41%) Microservices
11 25 (21.55%) Observability
12 24 (20.69%) Test Automation
13 23 (19.83%) AI
14 21 (18.10%) Enterprise Architecture
15 20 (17.24%) Stakeholder Management
15 20 (17.24%) Technical Leadership
16 18 (15.52%) Analytics
16 18 (15.52%) Decision-Making
16 18 (15.52%) Event-Driven
16 18 (15.52%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 50 (43.10%) Python
2 22 (18.97%) PowerShell
3 17 (14.66%) Bash
4 14 (12.07%) Java
4 14 (12.07%) SQL
5 7 (6.03%) JavaScript
6 6 (5.17%) Bicep
7 3 (2.59%) Kusto Query Language
8 2 (1.72%) Go
9 1 (0.86%) C#
9 1 (0.86%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 34 (29.31%) Security Cleared
2 25 (21.55%) SC Cleared
3 15 (12.93%) Degree
4 12 (10.34%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (9.48%) AWS Certification
6 10 (8.62%) Azure Certification
7 9 (7.76%) DV Cleared
8 8 (6.90%) Cisco Certification
8 8 (6.90%) ITIL Certification
8 8 (6.90%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 7 (6.03%) CCIE
9 7 (6.03%) Master's Degree
10 5 (4.31%) JNCIE
11 4 (3.45%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (3.45%) OSCP
12 3 (2.59%) CCNP
13 2 (1.72%) CISM
13 2 (1.72%) CISSP
13 2 (1.72%) GCIA
13 2 (1.72%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (18.10%) QA
2 5 (4.31%) Accessibility
2 5 (4.31%) NCSC
3 4 (3.45%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.72%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.72%) NIST
4 2 (1.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.86%) GDPR
5 1 (0.86%) GRC
5 1 (0.86%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 24 (20.69%) Docker
2 8 (6.90%) IAG
3 7 (6.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 6 (5.17%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.59%) Hyper-V
6 2 (1.72%) vSphere
7 1 (0.86%) Active Directory
7 1 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 43 (37.07%) Kubernetes
2 31 (26.72%) Ansible
3 8 (6.90%) Progress Chef
3 8 (6.90%) Puppet
4 5 (4.31%) Istio
5 3 (2.59%) Grafana
6 2 (1.72%) Argo
6 2 (1.72%) linkerd
6 2 (1.72%) Prometheus
6 2 (1.72%) vRealize
6 2 (1.72%) vRealize Orchestrator
7 1 (0.86%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 1 (0.86%) Packer
7 1 (0.86%) Podman
7 1 (0.86%) QRadar
7 1 (0.86%) Rancher
Vendors
1 32 (27.59%) Microsoft
2 14 (12.07%) Google
3 11 (9.48%) Dynatrace
4 10 (8.62%) IBM
4 10 (8.62%) Informatica
4 10 (8.62%) Oracle
4 10 (8.62%) VMware
5 9 (7.76%) MuleSoft
5 9 (7.76%) TIBCO
5 9 (7.76%) WSO2
6 8 (6.90%) Databricks
6 8 (6.90%) Nexthink
6 8 (6.90%) ServiceNow
7 5 (4.31%) Cisco
8 4 (3.45%) F5
8 4 (3.45%) Palo Alto
8 4 (3.45%) SolarWinds
9 3 (2.59%) Red Hat
9 3 (2.59%) SAP
10 1 (0.86%) CheckPoint