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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 191 153 127
Rank change year-on-year -38 -26 +53
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 36 11 54
As % of all contract jobs in the South East 0.55% 0.31% 1.22%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.83% 0.98% 4.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 8 40
10th Percentile £419 £574 £460
25th Percentile £450 £661 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £688 £586
Median % change year-on-year -16.36% +17.27% -8.61%
75th Percentile £600 £714 £741
90th Percentile £634 £775 £771
England median daily rate £600 £588 £560
% change year-on-year +2.13% +4.91% -6.67%

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 1,967 1,124 1,324
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South East 30.00% 31.57% 29.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,170 704 761
10th Percentile £294 £204 £237
25th Percentile £411 £350 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £490 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.14% -2.00% -
75th Percentile £610 £591 £608
90th Percentile £700 £675 £688
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 94 88
10th Percentile £12.84 £15.13 £13.25
25th Percentile £16.25 £16.95 £26.81
Median hourly rate £35.22 £33.05 £57.35
Median % change year-on-year +6.57% -42.37% +4.27%
75th Percentile £70.33 £58.00 £75.00
90th Percentile £92.50 £70.16 £75.16
England median hourly rate £35.00 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +16.67% -47.69% +24.59%

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 October 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 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 -24 19 £595 -6.67% 22
Buckinghamshire -10 15 £595 +13.33% 5
Surrey -11 10 £494 -17.71% 6
Berkshire -18 4 £463 -38.33% 14
Hampshire -34 4 £425 -38.18% 5
Middlesex - 2 - -
Home Counties - 1 £600 -
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 6 (16.67%) IIS
2 2 (5.56%) Apache
2 2 (5.56%) nginx
2 2 (5.56%) OpenStack
2 2 (5.56%) SharePoint
2 2 (5.56%) Tomcat
Applications
1 6 (16.67%) Microsoft Excel
1 6 (16.67%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (5.56%) Adobe Creative Suite
2 2 (5.56%) Houdini
2 2 (5.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (5.56%) MS Visio
2 2 (5.56%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 7 (19.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (11.11%) SAP Business One
Cloud Services
1 21 (58.33%) Azure
2 15 (41.67%) AWS
3 6 (16.67%) GCP
4 3 (8.33%) OpenShift
5 2 (5.56%) Cloudflare
6 1 (2.78%) Azure AKS
6 1 (2.78%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (2.78%) Azure Key Vault
6 1 (2.78%) Entra ID
6 1 (2.78%) GitHub
6 1 (2.78%) IaaS
6 1 (2.78%) PaaS
6 1 (2.78%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 7 (19.44%) VSAN
2 6 (16.67%) Firewall
3 5 (13.89%) DNS
3 5 (13.89%) TCP/IP
4 4 (11.11%) LAN
4 4 (11.11%) VPN
4 4 (11.11%) WAN
5 3 (8.33%) BGP
5 3 (8.33%) SSL
6 2 (5.56%) BIG-IP
6 2 (5.56%) Broadband
6 2 (5.56%) DHCP
6 2 (5.56%) HTTP
6 2 (5.56%) MPLS
6 2 (5.56%) SNMP
6 2 (5.56%) TACACS
6 2 (5.56%) Wi-Fi
7 1 (2.78%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (2.78%) NAS
7 1 (2.78%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.56%) MySQL
1 2 (5.56%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.78%) SAP HANA
General
1 6 (16.67%) Finance
1 6 (16.67%) Social Skills
2 5 (13.89%) General Ledger
3 3 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
3 3 (8.33%) Public Sector
3 3 (8.33%) Telecoms
4 1 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (2.78%) Legal
Job Titles
1 10 (27.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 9 (25.00%) Architect
3 6 (16.67%) VMware Engineer
4 5 (13.89%) Cloud Engineer
4 5 (13.89%) Security Engineer
4 5 (13.89%) Senior
4 5 (13.89%) VMware Infrastructure Engineer
5 4 (11.11%) Accountant
5 4 (11.11%) Analyst
5 4 (11.11%) Azure Engineer
5 4 (11.11%) Cybersecurity Analyst
5 4 (11.11%) Cybersecurity Architect
5 4 (11.11%) Cybersecurity Engineer
5 4 (11.11%) Financial Accountant
5 4 (11.11%) Network Architect
5 4 (11.11%) Security Analyst
5 4 (11.11%) Security Architect
6 3 (8.33%) Operations Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Security Operations Analyst
6 3 (8.33%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (16.67%) Terraform
2 2 (5.56%) LAMP
2 2 (5.56%) LEMP Stack
2 2 (5.56%) NETCONF
2 2 (5.56%) OpenConfig
2 2 (5.56%) RESTCONF
2 2 (5.56%) Unreal Engine
2 2 (5.56%) YAML
2 2 (5.56%) YANG
3 1 (2.78%) REST
3 1 (2.78%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 10 (27.78%) Data Centre
2 6 (16.67%) Hybrid Cloud
2 6 (16.67%) Management Information System
3 5 (13.89%) Onboarding
4 4 (11.11%) Embedded Systems
4 4 (11.11%) Mobile Payment
4 4 (11.11%) PKI
4 4 (11.11%) Private Cloud
4 4 (11.11%) Smartcard
5 2 (5.56%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (5.56%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 2 (5.56%) Motion Graphics
5 2 (5.56%) Social Media
6 1 (2.78%) Algorithms
6 1 (2.78%) Cloud Native
6 1 (2.78%) Data Protection Act
6 1 (2.78%) IoT
6 1 (2.78%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (2.78%) Operational Technology
6 1 (2.78%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 13 (36.11%) Linux
2 12 (33.33%) Windows
3 6 (16.67%) Windows Server
4 3 (8.33%) Debian
5 2 (5.56%) CentOS
5 2 (5.56%) Ubuntu
6 1 (2.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (2.78%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (2.78%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 11 (30.56%) Infrastructure Engineering
2 10 (27.78%) Migration
3 8 (22.22%) Cloud Security
4 7 (19.44%) Project Delivery
4 7 (19.44%) TOGAF
5 6 (16.67%) Cybersecurity
5 6 (16.67%) ERP
5 6 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
5 6 (16.67%) Knowledge Transfer
5 6 (16.67%) Security Architecture
5 6 (16.67%) User Acceptance Testing
5 6 (16.67%) Validation
6 5 (13.89%) CI/CD
6 5 (13.89%) Computer Science
6 5 (13.89%) Data Protection
6 5 (13.89%) DevSecOps
6 5 (13.89%) Information Security
7 4 (11.11%) Data Analysis
7 4 (11.11%) Mathematics
7 4 (11.11%) Security Management
Programming Languages
1 5 (13.89%) Python
2 4 (11.11%) Bicep
3 3 (8.33%) PowerShell
4 2 (5.56%) Bash
Qualifications
1 18 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 15 (41.67%) SC Cleared
3 9 (25.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
4 8 (22.22%) Cisco Certification
4 8 (22.22%) Degree
5 7 (19.44%) VCAP
6 6 (16.67%) DV Cleared
7 5 (13.89%) ACCA
7 5 (13.89%) CIMA
8 4 (11.11%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 4 (11.11%) CCSP
8 4 (11.11%) CISA
8 4 (11.11%) CISM
8 4 (11.11%) CISSP
8 4 (11.11%) CLAS
8 4 (11.11%) CREST Certified
8 4 (11.11%) IISP
9 2 (5.56%) CCIE
9 2 (5.56%) CCNP
9 2 (5.56%) JNCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (11.11%) GDPR
1 4 (11.11%) GRC
1 4 (11.11%) ISO 31000
1 4 (11.11%) ISO 9001
1 4 (11.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 4 (11.11%) ISO/IEC 27005
1 4 (11.11%) NIST
1 4 (11.11%) PCI DSS
2 3 (8.33%) NCSC
3 1 (2.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 10 (27.78%) VMware NSX
2 9 (25.00%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (22.22%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (11.11%) ISA Server
5 3 (8.33%) Active Directory
6 2 (5.56%) Dovecot
6 2 (5.56%) Postfix
6 2 (5.56%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 7 (19.44%) vCenter Server
2 4 (11.11%) Ansible
2 4 (11.11%) CASB
3 3 (8.33%) Kubernetes
4 2 (5.56%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 2 (5.56%) HAProxy
5 1 (2.78%) Grafana
5 1 (2.78%) Prometheus
5 1 (2.78%) Rancher
Vendors
1 18 (50.00%) Microsoft
2 15 (41.67%) VMware
3 8 (22.22%) Cisco
3 8 (22.22%) F5
4 7 (19.44%) SAP
5 5 (13.89%) Google
6 4 (11.11%) Broadcom
6 4 (11.11%) Centrify
6 4 (11.11%) Citrix
6 4 (11.11%) CrowdStrike
6 4 (11.11%) Juniper
6 4 (11.11%) Qualys
6 4 (11.11%) Red Hat
6 4 (11.11%) Splunk
6 4 (11.11%) Tripwire
7 3 (8.33%) Fortinet
7 3 (8.33%) Foundry
8 2 (5.56%) Adobe
9 1 (2.78%) Palo Alto