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 10 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 117 149
Rank change year-on-year -8 +32 +44
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 110 41 37
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 1.65% 1.16% 0.75%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 5.50% 3.65% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 27 21
10th Percentile £350 £352 £375
25th Percentile £430 £401 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £450 £495
Median % change year-on-year +11.67% -9.09% -20.80%
75th Percentile £625 £588 £533
90th Percentile £757 £714 £672
England median daily rate £550 £513 £600
% change year-on-year +7.32% -14.58% -7.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 0
10th Percentile £64.60 - -
25th Percentile £66.25 - -
Median hourly rate £67.50 - -
75th Percentile £68.75 - -
90th Percentile £69.80 - -
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 2,000 1,124 1,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.93% 31.83% 29.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,246 690 850
10th Percentile £281 £209 £213
25th Percentile £412 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% - -
75th Percentile £610 £600 £636
90th Percentile £700 £666 £701
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 197 101 145
10th Percentile £16.15 £15.13 £11.99
25th Percentile £25.00 £16.95 £20.75
Median hourly rate £55.00 £33.05 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +66.41% -42.37% +14.70%
75th Percentile £84.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £80.00 £75.16
England median hourly rate £43.50 £31.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +38.10% -33.68% +17.02%

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 10 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 10 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 -24 55 £530 +6.00% 42
Berkshire -30 32 £413 -15.38% 23
Hampshire -16 25 £588 +37.91% 23
Buckinghamshire -23 15 £550 -15.38% 8
Surrey -15 14 £468 +10.00% 15
Oxfordshire - 8 £530 - 11
Middlesex - 7 - -
West Sussex -18 6 £400 +17.65% 6
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 (4.55%) OpenStack
2 3 (2.73%) Confluence
3 2 (1.82%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.91%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.91%) CMS
4 1 (0.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.91%) SAS
Applications
1 6 (5.45%) CPLEX
2 1 (0.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.91%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.91%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.91%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.91%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 73 (66.36%) Azure
2 67 (60.91%) AWS
3 26 (23.64%) GCP
4 15 (13.64%) Azure DevOps
5 14 (12.73%) GitHub
6 10 (9.09%) Azure Monitor
7 9 (8.18%) GitHub Actions
8 8 (7.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 8 (7.27%) SaaS
9 6 (5.45%) Amazon S3
9 6 (5.45%) AWS CloudFormation
9 6 (5.45%) Azure AKS
9 6 (5.45%) Datadog
9 6 (5.45%) Serverless
9 6 (5.45%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 5 (4.55%) Amazon ECS
10 5 (4.55%) Azure Service Bus
10 5 (4.55%) Boomi
10 5 (4.55%) Entra ID
10 5 (4.55%) iPaaS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (9.09%) DNS
1 10 (9.09%) Firewall
2 9 (8.18%) BGP
2 9 (8.18%) LAN
2 9 (8.18%) MPLS
2 9 (8.18%) VPN
2 9 (8.18%) WAN
3 8 (7.27%) Network Security
4 6 (5.45%) TCP/IP
5 5 (4.55%) HTTP
6 4 (3.64%) BIG-IP
6 4 (3.64%) Cisco ASA
6 4 (3.64%) Cisco Firepower
6 4 (3.64%) Cisco Nexus
6 4 (3.64%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
6 4 (3.64%) IPsec
6 4 (3.64%) OSPF
6 4 (3.64%) SD-WAN
6 4 (3.64%) VLAN
7 3 (2.73%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (12.73%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (10.91%) Relational Database
3 10 (9.09%) NoSQL
4 6 (5.45%) MongoDB
5 5 (4.55%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (3.64%) DynamoDB
7 3 (2.73%) Amazon RDS
7 3 (2.73%) Metadata
8 2 (1.82%) Big Data
8 2 (1.82%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.82%) Spark SQL
9 1 (0.91%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
9 1 (0.91%) Apache Iceberg
9 1 (0.91%) Azure SQL Database
9 1 (0.91%) BusinessObjects
9 1 (0.91%) GIS
9 1 (0.91%) Parquet
9 1 (0.91%) Pentaho
9 1 (0.91%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 11 (10.00%) Git
2 6 (5.45%) Jenkins
3 4 (3.64%) JIRA
4 2 (1.82%) Cucumber
4 2 (1.82%) GitLab
4 2 (1.82%) Sonatype Nexus
5 1 (0.91%) JUnit
5 1 (0.91%) Mockito
General
1 56 (50.91%) Social Skills
2 23 (20.91%) Analytical Skills
3 9 (8.18%) Finance
4 7 (6.36%) Public Sector
5 5 (4.55%) Aerospace
5 5 (4.55%) Telecoms
6 3 (2.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (2.73%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.82%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.82%) Financial Institution
7 2 (1.82%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.82%) Legal
8 1 (0.91%) Automotive
8 1 (0.91%) Aviation
8 1 (0.91%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 30 (27.27%) Architect
2 18 (16.36%) Senior
3 17 (15.45%) Developer
4 12 (10.91%) Cloud Engineer
4 12 (10.91%) Solutions Architect
5 10 (9.09%) Lead
6 9 (8.18%) Java Engineer
7 8 (7.27%) Azure Engineer
7 8 (7.27%) DevOps Engineer
7 8 (7.27%) Network Architect
8 7 (6.36%) Python Developer
8 7 (6.36%) Software Engineer
8 7 (6.36%) Technical Leader
9 6 (5.45%) Technical Architect
10 5 (4.55%) IP Architect
10 5 (4.55%) Service Owner
11 4 (3.64%) Java Developer
11 4 (3.64%) Senior Software Engineer
12 3 (2.73%) Security Architect
12 3 (2.73%) Senior Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (18.18%) REST
2 14 (12.73%) GraphQL
2 14 (12.73%) OAuth
2 14 (12.73%) RESTful
3 13 (11.82%) Kafka
4 12 (10.91%) RabbitMQ
5 11 (10.00%) OpenAPI
5 11 (10.00%) Swagger
6 9 (8.18%) Django
6 9 (8.18%) JSON
6 9 (8.18%) JWT
7 8 (7.27%) SAML
7 8 (7.27%) SOAP
8 6 (5.45%) .NET
8 6 (5.45%) AngularJS
8 6 (5.45%) Flask
8 6 (5.45%) NumPy
8 6 (5.45%) OAuth2
8 6 (5.45%) Pandas
8 6 (5.45%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 21 (19.09%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (10.00%) Hybrid Cloud
2 11 (10.00%) Product Ownership
3 9 (8.18%) Data Structures
4 8 (7.27%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (5.45%) Algorithms
5 6 (5.45%) Virtual Team
6 5 (4.55%) CMDB
7 4 (3.64%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (3.64%) Onboarding
7 4 (3.64%) Private Cloud
7 4 (3.64%) Security Posture
8 3 (2.73%) Data Centre
8 3 (2.73%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
8 3 (2.73%) Management Information System
8 3 (2.73%) Public Cloud
9 2 (1.82%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (1.82%) Cyberattack
9 2 (1.82%) Mobile App
9 2 (1.82%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 12 (10.91%) Linux
1 12 (10.91%) Windows
2 5 (4.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (1.82%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.91%) Android
4 1 (0.91%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (50.91%) DevOps
2 46 (41.82%) CI/CD
3 42 (38.18%) Agile
4 40 (36.36%) Problem-Solving
5 32 (29.09%) Continuous Improvement
6 31 (28.18%) Infrastructure as Code
7 29 (26.36%) Microservices
8 27 (24.55%) Containerisation
8 27 (24.55%) Roadmaps
9 26 (23.64%) Software Engineering
10 22 (20.00%) Test Automation
11 19 (17.27%) Enterprise Architecture
12 18 (16.36%) Analytics
12 18 (16.36%) Stakeholder Management
13 17 (15.45%) AI
13 17 (15.45%) Observability
14 15 (13.64%) Event-Driven
15 14 (12.73%) Architectural Patterns
15 14 (12.73%) Cloud Security
16 13 (11.82%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 40 (36.36%) Python
2 20 (18.18%) Java
3 18 (16.36%) PowerShell
4 15 (13.64%) Bash
5 13 (11.82%) SQL
6 7 (6.36%) Bicep
7 6 (5.45%) JavaScript
8 3 (2.73%) Go
9 2 (1.82%) C#
9 2 (1.82%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.91%) Google Apps Script
10 1 (0.91%) Korn
10 1 (0.91%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.91%) Objective-C
10 1 (0.91%) Swift
10 1 (0.91%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.91%) VBA
Qualifications
1 27 (24.55%) Security Cleared
2 22 (20.00%) SC Cleared
3 11 (10.00%) Degree
4 9 (8.18%) AWS Certification
4 9 (8.18%) Azure Certification
5 8 (7.27%) Cisco Certification
6 7 (6.36%) CCIE
6 7 (6.36%) Computer Science Degree
7 6 (5.45%) DV Cleared
8 5 (4.55%) ITIL Certification
8 5 (4.55%) JNCIE
8 5 (4.55%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 3 (2.73%) CCNP
9 3 (2.73%) Master's Degree
9 3 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (1.82%) CISM
10 2 (1.82%) CISSP
10 2 (1.82%) GCIA
10 2 (1.82%) OSCP
10 2 (1.82%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (15.45%) QA
2 5 (4.55%) NCSC
3 3 (2.73%) Accessibility
3 3 (2.73%) Data Quality
3 3 (2.73%) GDPR
4 2 (1.82%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (1.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 2 (1.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials
5 1 (0.91%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
5 1 (0.91%) GRC
5 1 (0.91%) NIST
5 1 (0.91%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 24 (21.82%) Docker
2 6 (5.45%) VMware Infrastructure
3 5 (4.55%) IAG
4 4 (3.64%) Hyper-V
4 4 (3.64%) VMware NSX
5 3 (2.73%) Active Directory
6 1 (0.91%) Citrix Hypervisor
6 1 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 34 (30.91%) Kubernetes
2 33 (30.00%) Terraform
3 28 (25.45%) Ansible
4 8 (7.27%) Progress Chef
4 8 (7.27%) Puppet
5 2 (1.82%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 2 (1.82%) Grafana
5 2 (1.82%) Istio
6 1 (0.91%) Prometheus
6 1 (0.91%) QRadar
6 1 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 31 (28.18%) Microsoft
2 11 (10.00%) Google
3 9 (8.18%) Dynatrace
3 9 (8.18%) VMware
4 6 (5.45%) Informatica
4 6 (5.45%) Oracle
4 6 (5.45%) ServiceNow
5 5 (4.55%) Cisco
5 5 (4.55%) Databricks
5 5 (4.55%) IBM
5 5 (4.55%) MuleSoft
5 5 (4.55%) Nexthink
5 5 (4.55%) TIBCO
5 5 (4.55%) WSO2
6 4 (3.64%) F5
6 4 (3.64%) Palo Alto
6 4 (3.64%) SolarWinds
7 3 (2.73%) Red Hat
7 3 (2.73%) SAP
8 1 (0.91%) CheckPoint