Cloud Native Contract Job Trends

Cloud Native
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Cloud Native in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Cloud Native over the 6 months leading up to 19 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 83 243 265
Rank change year-on-year +160 +22 -17
Contract jobs citing Cloud Native 1,081 348 396
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.94% 1.02% 0.90%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 8.38% 3.19% 2.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 736 225 242
10th Percentile £400 £425 £451
25th Percentile £450 £481 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £600
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% - -7.69%
75th Percentile £638 £688 £688
90th Percentile £744 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £523 £600
% change year-on-year -4.31% -12.92% -4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 4 8
10th Percentile £51.13 £61.93 £35.20
25th Percentile £61.06 £71.94 £43.80
Median hourly rate £76.50 £85.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +85.27% -
75th Percentile £93.13 £92.50 £63.00
90th Percentile £98.35 - £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £90.00 £85.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year +5.88% +85.27% -

All Generic Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 12,897 10,908 13,970
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 35.02% 31.91% 31.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,055 6,528 9,313
10th Percentile £275 £269 £263
25th Percentile £406 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.05% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £656 £668
90th Percentile £738 £775 £770
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 648 339 495
10th Percentile £13.80 £17.45 £16.50
25th Percentile £18.03 £22.86 £20.50
Median hourly rate £27.21 £33.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.55% -22.35% +21.43%
75th Percentile £59.31 £64.63 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £78.47 £77.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -15.38% -28.11% +52.12%

Cloud Native
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Cloud Native relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Cloud Native job vacancy trend in the UK

Cloud Native
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cloud Native.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cloud Native

Cloud Native
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cloud Native over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cloud Native in the UK

Cloud Native
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cloud Native.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Cloud Native

Cloud Native
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cloud Native over the 6 months to 19 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Native in the UK

Cloud Native
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 19 December 2025. 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
England +179 927 £531 -11.56% 1,014
London +151 533 £560 -6.71% 213
UK excluding London +128 410 £500 -4.31% 914
Work from Home +113 321 £539 -10.25% 517
North of England +53 155 £500 - 213
Yorkshire +28 89 £500 - 84
South East +16 72 £500 -3.85% 223
Midlands +19 69 £525 -15.08% 175
North West +13 60 £484 -0.82% 115
Scotland +30 54 £475 -1.55% 52
West Midlands +13 52 £532 -19.58% 95
South West +27 45 £575 +12.20% 105
East of England +2 31 £550 -4.35% 130
East Midlands -2 17 £447 -22.26% 71
North East -1 6 £600 +9.09% 14
Wales +2 2 £469 -12.38% 22

Cloud Native
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 40 (3.70%) Apache Spark
2 36 (3.33%) Apache Airflow
3 34 (3.15%) Confluence
4 20 (1.85%) Apache
5 16 (1.48%) nginx
6 10 (0.93%) OpenStack
6 10 (0.93%) SAS
7 8 (0.74%) Anypoint
7 8 (0.74%) Mule
8 7 (0.65%) CMS
9 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.37%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.28%) Jupyter
11 3 (0.28%) Tomcat
11 3 (0.28%) WebLogic
12 2 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 2 (0.19%) GeoServer
12 2 (0.19%) Oracle HTTP Server
12 2 (0.19%) SharePoint
12 2 (0.19%) WebSphere
Applications
1 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.46%) Chatbot
3 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.093%) Notion
5 1 (0.093%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (0.74%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.46%) Maximo
2 5 (0.46%) Oracle Retail
3 4 (0.37%) Fidessa
3 4 (0.37%) thinkFolio
4 1 (0.093%) Finacle
4 1 (0.093%) Remedy ITSM
Cloud Services
1 592 (54.76%) AWS
2 482 (44.59%) Azure
3 284 (26.27%) GCP
4 240 (22.20%) Serverless
5 206 (19.06%) GitHub
6 128 (11.84%) GitHub Actions
7 125 (11.56%) Azure DevOps
8 117 (10.82%) Amazon S3
9 108 (9.99%) AWS Lambda
10 80 (7.40%) Azure AKS
11 79 (7.31%) AWS CloudFormation
12 73 (6.75%) SaaS
13 65 (6.01%) Amazon ECS
14 62 (5.74%) Amazon EKS
15 59 (5.46%) OpenShift
16 53 (4.90%) PaaS
17 49 (4.53%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 49 (4.53%) Amazon EC2
18 48 (4.44%) Azure Functions
19 40 (3.70%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.16%) Firewall
2 26 (2.41%) Network Security
3 16 (1.48%) WAN
4 15 (1.39%) VPN
5 14 (1.30%) DNS
6 10 (0.93%) SD-WAN
7 9 (0.83%) BGP
7 9 (0.83%) MPLS
7 9 (0.83%) NX-OS
8 7 (0.65%) AMQP
8 7 (0.65%) DSL
8 7 (0.65%) HTTP
9 6 (0.56%) LAN
10 4 (0.37%) Broadband
10 4 (0.37%) Software-Defined Networking
10 4 (0.37%) VSAN
11 3 (0.28%) 5G
11 3 (0.28%) Internet
11 3 (0.28%) NaaS
11 3 (0.28%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (9.71%) PostgreSQL
2 80 (7.40%) NoSQL
3 42 (3.89%) BigQuery
4 41 (3.79%) MongoDB
5 39 (3.61%) Relational Database
6 37 (3.42%) Amazon RDS
7 36 (3.33%) SQL Server
8 35 (3.24%) DynamoDB
9 33 (3.05%) Data Warehouse
10 32 (2.96%) MySQL
11 29 (2.68%) Data Lake
12 25 (2.31%) Power BI
13 23 (2.13%) Amazon Athena
13 23 (2.13%) Amazon Aurora
13 23 (2.13%) Metadata
14 22 (2.04%) Amazon Redshift
15 21 (1.94%) Redis
16 19 (1.76%) Elasticsearch
17 17 (1.57%) Azure SQL Database
17 17 (1.57%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 188 (17.39%) Jenkins
2 132 (12.21%) Git
3 130 (12.03%) GitLab
4 60 (5.55%) JIRA
5 46 (4.26%) Liquibase
6 21 (1.94%) SonarQube
7 20 (1.85%) CircleCI
8 14 (1.30%) JUnit
8 14 (1.30%) MLflow
9 13 (1.20%) Cypress.io
9 13 (1.20%) Mockito
9 13 (1.20%) Selenium
10 12 (1.11%) Gradle
10 12 (1.11%) Maven
10 12 (1.11%) Snyk
11 9 (0.83%) JMeter
12 8 (0.74%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (0.65%) Gatling
14 5 (0.46%) Postman
14 5 (0.46%) SonarLint
General
1 311 (28.77%) Social Skills
2 211 (19.52%) Finance
3 128 (11.84%) Public Sector
4 119 (11.01%) Banking
5 60 (5.55%) Analytical Skills
6 32 (2.96%) Financial Institution
7 24 (2.22%) Telecoms
8 22 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
9 21 (1.94%) Investment Banking
10 19 (1.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 17 (1.57%) Front Office
11 17 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
12 16 (1.48%) Retail
13 11 (1.02%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (1.02%) Legal
13 11 (1.02%) Publishing
14 10 (0.93%) Marketing
15 9 (0.83%) Billing
16 7 (0.65%) Aviation
16 7 (0.65%) Military
Job Titles
1 254 (23.50%) Architect
2 203 (18.78%) Developer
3 177 (16.37%) Senior
4 93 (8.60%) Lead
5 81 (7.49%) DevOps Engineer
6 75 (6.94%) Software Engineer
7 69 (6.38%) Solutions Architect
8 60 (5.55%) AWS Engineer
9 55 (5.09%) Cloud Engineer
10 54 (5.00%) Data Engineer
11 48 (4.44%) Java Developer
12 47 (4.35%) Senior Developer
13 33 (3.05%) Consultant
14 31 (2.87%) Azure Engineer
14 31 (2.87%) Backend Developer
14 31 (2.87%) GCP Engineer
15 30 (2.78%) Full-Stack Developer
15 30 (2.78%) Platform Engineer
15 30 (2.78%) Security Architect
16 29 (2.68%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 142 (13.14%) REST
2 132 (12.21%) RESTful
3 128 (11.84%) Node.js
4 99 (9.16%) .NET
5 89 (8.23%) Kafka
6 86 (7.96%) React
6 86 (7.96%) Spring
7 81 (7.49%) Spring Boot
8 60 (5.55%) GraphQL
9 57 (5.27%) AngularJS
10 51 (4.72%) Elastic Stack
11 48 (4.44%) OAuth
12 43 (3.98%) Playwright
13 35 (3.24%) .NET Core
14 31 (2.87%) FastAPI
14 31 (2.87%) OAuth2
14 31 (2.87%) Vitest
14 31 (2.87%) YAML
15 28 (2.59%) OpenTelemetry
15 28 (2.59%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 121 (11.19%) Distributed Systems
2 58 (5.37%) Product Ownership
3 54 (5.00%) Hybrid Cloud
4 51 (4.72%) Public Cloud
5 34 (3.15%) Legacy Systems
6 33 (3.05%) Data Centre
7 30 (2.78%) Onboarding
8 26 (2.41%) Security Posture
9 22 (2.04%) Algorithms
9 22 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
10 18 (1.67%) AI Agents
10 18 (1.67%) Enterprise Software
10 18 (1.67%) Fixed Income
10 18 (1.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 18 (1.67%) Virtual Team
11 14 (1.30%) Derivative
11 14 (1.30%) Genomics
12 13 (1.20%) Life Science
13 11 (1.02%) Cloud Security Posture
13 11 (1.02%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 117 (10.82%) Linux
2 20 (1.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 17 (1.57%) Unix
4 15 (1.39%) Windows
5 9 (0.83%) Windows Server
6 6 (0.56%) VMS
7 3 (0.28%) CentOS
7 3 (0.28%) Solaris
7 3 (0.28%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.19%) Android
8 2 (0.19%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.093%) AIX
9 1 (0.093%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.093%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 654 (60.50%) CI/CD
2 583 (53.93%) DevOps
3 402 (37.19%) Agile
4 381 (35.25%) Infrastructure as Code
5 321 (29.69%) Containerisation
6 308 (28.49%) Microservices
7 220 (20.35%) Problem-Solving
8 212 (19.61%) Software Engineering
9 198 (18.32%) AI
10 167 (15.45%) Test Automation
11 149 (13.78%) Machine Learning
12 146 (13.51%) Observability
13 135 (12.49%) Migration
14 124 (11.47%) Roadmaps
15 122 (11.29%) Mentoring
16 120 (11.10%) Event-Driven
17 115 (10.64%) Data Pipeline
18 101 (9.34%) High Availability
18 101 (9.34%) Stakeholder Management
19 99 (9.16%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 389 (35.99%) Python
2 205 (18.96%) Java
3 199 (18.41%) SQL
4 104 (9.62%) TypeScript
5 84 (7.77%) Go
6 73 (6.75%) C#
7 70 (6.48%) JavaScript
8 61 (5.64%) Bash
9 48 (4.44%) Bicep
10 43 (3.98%) PowerShell
11 15 (1.39%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.93%) Ruby
13 9 (0.83%) Scala
14 7 (0.65%) DataWeave
14 7 (0.65%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.56%) Kotlin
15 6 (0.56%) Perl
15 6 (0.56%) VBA
16 5 (0.46%) C
16 5 (0.46%) R
Qualifications
1 208 (19.24%) Security Cleared
2 172 (15.91%) SC Cleared
3 110 (10.18%) Degree
4 68 (6.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 61 (5.64%) AWS Certification
6 51 (4.72%) Master's Degree
7 50 (4.63%) Azure Certification
8 28 (2.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 28 (2.59%) CISSP
9 24 (2.22%) Cisco Certification
10 23 (2.13%) TOGAF Certification
11 19 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
12 17 (1.57%) DV Cleared
13 15 (1.39%) CISM
13 15 (1.39%) PhD
14 14 (1.30%) MCP
15 13 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
16 12 (1.11%) CCIE
17 10 (0.93%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 10 (0.93%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (5.74%) NIST
2 61 (5.64%) QA
3 57 (5.27%) GDPR
4 52 (4.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 29 (2.68%) Data Quality
6 20 (1.85%) PCI DSS
7 19 (1.76%) EU AI Act
8 16 (1.48%) PSD2
9 11 (1.02%) ISO 20022
10 10 (0.93%) SEPA
11 8 (0.74%) HIPAA
12 7 (0.65%) Accessibility
12 7 (0.65%) NCSC
13 5 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
13 5 (0.46%) MiFID
14 4 (0.37%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.28%) GRC
15 3 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 3 (0.28%) SLA
15 3 (0.28%) Solvency II
System Software
1 374 (34.60%) Docker
2 29 (2.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 25 (2.31%) Active Directory
4 16 (1.48%) VMware NSX
5 14 (1.30%) vSphere
6 9 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
7 4 (0.37%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.28%) Oracle RAC
9 2 (0.19%) KVM
10 1 (0.093%) Firmware
10 1 (0.093%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 430 (39.78%) Kubernetes
2 378 (34.97%) Terraform
3 120 (11.10%) Grafana
4 114 (10.55%) Ansible
5 111 (10.27%) Prometheus
6 46 (4.26%) Argo
7 20 (1.85%) Kibana
8 15 (1.39%) Puppet
9 13 (1.20%) Istio
10 12 (1.11%) logstash
11 10 (0.93%) ITRS Geneos
11 10 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (0.83%) FortiGate
12 9 (0.83%) Kustomize
13 7 (0.65%) Kubeflow
13 7 (0.65%) Microsoft Intune
14 6 (0.56%) SCCM
15 5 (0.46%) Data Guard
15 5 (0.46%) NetBackup
15 5 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 196 (18.13%) Microsoft
2 104 (9.62%) Google
3 64 (5.92%) Databricks
4 58 (5.37%) Splunk
5 48 (4.44%) Oracle
6 40 (3.70%) Red Hat
7 37 (3.42%) VMware
8 27 (2.50%) Cisco
9 23 (2.13%) MuleSoft
10 17 (1.57%) Salesforce
11 16 (1.48%) OpenAI
12 13 (1.20%) Foundry
13 12 (1.11%) Dynatrace
14 11 (1.02%) CyberArk
14 11 (1.02%) Solace
15 10 (0.93%) F5
15 10 (0.93%) ServiceNow
16 9 (0.83%) Broadcom
16 9 (0.83%) Greenplum
16 9 (0.83%) IBM