Public Cloud Contract Job Trends in the South East

Public Cloud
England > South East

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Cloud in contract job vacancies in the South East. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Cloud over the 6 months leading up to 2 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 164 103 186
Rank change year-on-year -61 +83 -9
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 21 66 21
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.48% 1.87% 0.42%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.61% 5.84% 1.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 14 51 18
10th Percentile - £505 £512
25th Percentile £400 £538 £531
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £620 £624
Median % change year-on-year -15.81% -0.64% +4.00%
75th Percentile £538 £714 £688
90th Percentile £760 £750 £722
England median daily rate £550 £600 £575
% change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%

All Generic Skills
South East

Public Cloud 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 1,303 1,131 1,543
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 29.69% 32.02% 31.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 876 655 965
10th Percentile £204 £250 £205
25th Percentile £363 £400 £340
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.49% +4.00% -3.61%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £600
90th Percentile £688 £688 £691
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -3.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 44 97
10th Percentile £12.50 £20.07 £19.28
25th Percentile £15.94 £25.93 £30.00
Median hourly rate £22.75 £35.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.00% -33.33% +40.00%
75th Percentile £68.18 £57.81 £63.29
90th Percentile £86.90 £69.98 £76.92
England median hourly rate £29.00 £36.25 £42.92
% change year-on-year -20.00% -15.53% +29.07%

Public Cloud
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

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

Public Cloud job vacancy trend in the South East

Public Cloud
Daily Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Public Cloud
Daily Rate Histogram in the South East

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Cloud in the South East over the 6 months to 2 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Cloud in the South East

Public Cloud
Hourly Rate Trend in the South East

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

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

Public Cloud
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 Public Cloud within the South East region over the 6 months to 2 January 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
Surrey -4 10 £400 -42.86% 9
Thames Valley -29 7 £522 -15.47% 3
Buckinghamshire -14 4 £522 -12.82% 2
Berkshire -12 3 £750 - 1
Hampshire -37 2 £525 -19.23% 1
West Sussex -9 1 £750 +54.64%
Public Cloud
England

Public Cloud
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 1 (4.76%) Apache Airflow
Business Applications
1 1 (4.76%) SAP ERP
1 1 (4.76%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 19 (90.48%) Azure
2 9 (42.86%) AWS
2 9 (42.86%) GCP
3 3 (14.29%) Entra ID
4 2 (9.52%) Azure DevOps
5 1 (4.76%) dbt
5 1 (4.76%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (23.81%) DNS
1 5 (23.81%) VPN
2 4 (19.05%) Firewall
2 4 (19.05%) LAN
2 4 (19.05%) WAN
3 3 (14.29%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (4.76%) BigQuery
General
1 4 (19.05%) Analytical Skills
2 3 (14.29%) Finance
3 1 (4.76%) Manufacturing
3 1 (4.76%) Public Sector
3 1 (4.76%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 13 (61.90%) Architect
2 5 (23.81%) Infrastructure Architect
3 4 (19.05%) Cloud Engineer
3 4 (19.05%) Security Architect
3 4 (19.05%) Technical Architect
4 2 (9.52%) Azure DevOps Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) Azure Engineer
4 2 (9.52%) DevOps Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) Change Manager
5 1 (4.76%) IT Architect
5 1 (4.76%) IT Security Architect
5 1 (4.76%) Machine Learning Engineer
5 1 (4.76%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (19.05%) Middleware
2 1 (4.76%) NumPy
2 1 (4.76%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 8 (38.10%) Cloud Native
2 3 (14.29%) Cloud Security Posture
2 3 (14.29%) Enterprise Software
2 3 (14.29%) Hybrid Cloud
2 3 (14.29%) Security Posture
3 1 (4.76%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 4 (19.05%) Linux
1 4 (19.05%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (33.33%) DevSecOps
2 5 (23.81%) Agile
3 4 (19.05%) API Management
3 4 (19.05%) CI/CD
3 4 (19.05%) Data Security
3 4 (19.05%) Digital Transformation Programme
3 4 (19.05%) Identity Access Management
3 4 (19.05%) Migration
3 4 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
3 4 (19.05%) Roadmaps
3 4 (19.05%) Security Architecture
3 4 (19.05%) SIEM
3 4 (19.05%) Threat Modelling
3 4 (19.05%) TOGAF
3 4 (19.05%) Vulnerability Management
4 3 (14.29%) Architectural Design
4 3 (14.29%) Architectural Patterns
4 3 (14.29%) Cloud Security
4 3 (14.29%) Strategic Roadmap
4 3 (14.29%) Zero Trust
Programming Languages
1 2 (9.52%) Python
2 1 (4.76%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 7 (33.33%) Security Cleared
2 6 (28.57%) SC Cleared
3 3 (14.29%) (ISC)2 CCSP
3 3 (14.29%) AWS Certification
3 3 (14.29%) Azure Certification
3 3 (14.29%) CCSP
3 3 (14.29%) Cisco Certification
3 3 (14.29%) CISSP
4 1 (4.76%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (19.05%) GDPR
1 4 (19.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (19.05%) NIST
1 4 (19.05%) PCI DSS
2 3 (14.29%) PSD2
3 1 (4.76%) GAMP
3 1 (4.76%) HIPAA
3 1 (4.76%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 1 (4.76%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 5 (23.81%) Hyper-V
1 5 (23.81%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (14.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (14.29%) Kubernetes
2 1 (4.76%) Ansible
2 1 (4.76%) Kubeflow
2 1 (4.76%) Terraform
Vendors
1 5 (23.81%) VMware
2 4 (19.05%) MuleSoft
3 1 (4.76%) Google
3 1 (4.76%) SAP