Public Cloud Contract Job Trends

Public Cloud
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Public Cloud in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Public Cloud over the 6 months leading up to 16 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 379 345 264
Rank change year-on-year -34 -81 +3
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 343 231 336
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.69% 0.89%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.78% 1.93% 2.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 146 203
10th Percentile £419 £392 £414
25th Percentile £500 £450 £467
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £534 £560
Median % change year-on-year +12.46% -4.73% -2.61%
75th Percentile £688 £675 £663
90th Percentile £788 £775 £774
UK excluding London median daily rate £590 £525 £550
% change year-on-year +12.38% -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 2
10th Percentile - - £52.60
25th Percentile - £42.50 £53.50
Median hourly rate £57.00 £45.00 £56.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.67% -19.64% -28.21%
75th Percentile - £47.50 £57.50
90th Percentile - - £57.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £58.00
% change year-on-year - - -25.64%

All Generic Skills
UK

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 19,296 11,999 11,549
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.89% 36.07% 30.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,526 7,366 6,884
10th Percentile £320 £293 £280
25th Percentile £423 £408 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £528
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -2.37% -4.09%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £668
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,388 637 400
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.29 £16.84
25th Percentile £17.48 £18.50 £23.30
Median hourly rate £35.00 £27.33 £47.37
Median % change year-on-year +28.06% -42.31% +5.27%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.96 £72.50 £75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.99 £26.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +28.26% -49.52% +2.46%

Public Cloud
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Public Cloud job vacancy trend in the UK

Public Cloud
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Public Cloud
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Public Cloud over the 6 months to 16 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Public Cloud in the UK

Public Cloud
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Public Cloud
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 16 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
England -47 275 £600 +9.09% 46
UK excluding London -51 177 £590 +12.38% 30
London -56 105 £620 -1.98% 28
North of England -38 87 £588 +23.68% 7
Work from Home -54 78 £622 +15.83% 28
Yorkshire -27 52 £538 +8.48% 1
South East -37 31 £575 -16.36% 6
North West -29 29 £625 +38.89% 4
Midlands -48 25 £600 +13.21% 1
Scotland -45 16 £520 +4.00% 6
South West -29 12 £800 +33.33% 7
West Midlands -48 12 £675 +27.26% 1
East Midlands -6 10 £588 +16.11%
North East -30 10 £600 - 2
East of England -31 5 £538 -12.24% 2
Wales -13 1 - - 1
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 1

Public Cloud
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 7 (2.04%) IIS
2 6 (1.75%) Apache
3 5 (1.46%) OpenStack
4 4 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.87%) CloudStack
5 3 (0.87%) Confluence
5 3 (0.87%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.58%) nginx
6 2 (0.58%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.58%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 12 (3.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.04%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (2.04%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.58%) Adobe Creative Suite
4 2 (0.58%) Houdini
4 2 (0.58%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 53 (15.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (2.04%) SAP SD
3 5 (1.46%) SAP ERP
4 4 (1.17%) iTrent
5 3 (0.87%) Cloudability
5 3 (0.87%) SAP FI
6 2 (0.58%) SAP Business One
6 2 (0.58%) SAP CO
6 2 (0.58%) SAP FI-GL
6 2 (0.58%) SAP MM
7 1 (0.29%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle SCM
7 1 (0.29%) SAP FI/CO
7 1 (0.29%) SAP FI-AR
7 1 (0.29%) SAP LE
7 1 (0.29%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 159 (46.36%) AWS
2 145 (42.27%) Azure
3 95 (27.70%) GCP
4 27 (7.87%) GitHub
5 25 (7.29%) SaaS
6 20 (5.83%) OCI
7 17 (4.96%) IaaS
7 17 (4.96%) OpenShift
8 14 (4.08%) AWS CloudFormation
9 13 (3.79%) Amazon EKS
9 13 (3.79%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 12 (3.50%) Azure DevOps
11 11 (3.21%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (2.92%) Entra ID
12 10 (2.92%) SuccessFactors
13 9 (2.62%) PaaS
13 9 (2.62%) Serverless
13 9 (2.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 7 (2.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 7 (2.04%) AWS Direct Connect
Communications & Networking
1 41 (11.95%) Firewall
2 29 (8.45%) DNS
3 25 (7.29%) Network Security
4 18 (5.25%) TCP/IP
5 14 (4.08%) VSAN
6 12 (3.50%) VPN
7 11 (3.21%) BIG-IP
7 11 (3.21%) DHCP
8 10 (2.92%) BGP
9 9 (2.62%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
9 9 (2.62%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
9 9 (2.62%) WAN
10 7 (2.04%) SAN
11 6 (1.75%) LAN
11 6 (1.75%) NAS
12 5 (1.46%) Wi-Fi
13 4 (1.17%) HTTPS
13 4 (1.17%) SNMP
13 4 (1.17%) TACACS
13 4 (1.17%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (4.08%) Oracle Database
2 12 (3.50%) Oracle Exadata
2 12 (3.50%) RDBMS
2 12 (3.50%) Relational Database
3 9 (2.62%) MySQL
4 7 (2.04%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.46%) Amazon Redshift
5 5 (1.46%) BigQuery
5 5 (1.46%) Oracle Reports
5 5 (1.46%) SAP HANA
6 4 (1.17%) BusinessObjects
6 4 (1.17%) Metadata
6 4 (1.17%) Power Query
6 4 (1.17%) PowerPivot
7 3 (0.87%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (0.87%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.87%) NoSQL
7 3 (0.87%) PostgreSQL
8 2 (0.58%) Power BI
9 1 (0.29%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 42 (12.24%) Git
2 31 (9.04%) Jenkins
3 16 (4.66%) GitLab
4 10 (2.92%) JIRA
5 9 (2.62%) JUnit
6 7 (2.04%) SonarQube
6 7 (2.04%) Sonatype Nexus
7 5 (1.46%) Cucumber
8 4 (1.17%) Maven
9 3 (0.87%) Hudson
9 3 (0.87%) Postman
9 3 (0.87%) Selenium
10 1 (0.29%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.29%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.29%) Liquibase
General
1 108 (31.49%) Finance
2 79 (23.03%) Social Skills
3 38 (11.08%) Public Sector
4 23 (6.71%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (6.41%) Banking
6 11 (3.21%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (2.92%) Billing
8 9 (2.62%) Military
9 7 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.75%) General Ledger
11 5 (1.46%) Legal
11 5 (1.46%) Local Government
11 5 (1.46%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.17%) Automotive
12 4 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (1.17%) Retail
12 4 (1.17%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.87%) Police
Job Titles
1 91 (26.53%) Architect
2 62 (18.08%) Senior
3 39 (11.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 34 (9.91%) Solutions Architect
5 29 (8.45%) Lead
6 25 (7.29%) Consultant
6 25 (7.29%) DevOps Engineer
7 23 (6.71%) Technical Architect
8 21 (6.12%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 19 (5.54%) Developer
10 18 (5.25%) Cloud Architect
10 18 (5.25%) Cloud Engineer
11 15 (4.37%) Security Architect
12 14 (4.08%) Analyst
12 14 (4.08%) Network Engineer
12 14 (4.08%) Platform Engineer
13 13 (3.79%) SAP Consultant
14 12 (3.50%) Azure Engineer
14 12 (3.50%) Python Developer
15 11 (3.21%) Senior Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 89 (25.95%) Terraform
2 21 (6.12%) Kafka
3 17 (4.96%) Spring Boot
4 13 (3.79%) Spring
5 12 (3.50%) Oracle GoldenGate
6 10 (2.92%) REST
6 10 (2.92%) SAP Fiori
7 7 (2.04%) Web Services
8 6 (1.75%) .NET
8 6 (1.75%) Elastic Stack
8 6 (1.75%) JSON
8 6 (1.75%) Pandas
8 6 (1.75%) React
9 5 (1.46%) Middleware
9 5 (1.46%) OAuth
9 5 (1.46%) OpenID
10 4 (1.17%) AngularJS
10 4 (1.17%) JPA
10 4 (1.17%) SOAP
10 4 (1.17%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 61 (17.78%) Cloud Native
2 48 (13.99%) Data Centre
3 38 (11.08%) Hybrid Cloud
4 27 (7.87%) Private Cloud
5 15 (4.37%) PKI
6 11 (3.21%) Management Information System
7 10 (2.92%) AI Agents
7 10 (2.92%) Data Structures
7 10 (2.92%) Onboarding
8 8 (2.33%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (2.33%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (2.33%) Security Posture
8 8 (2.33%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (2.04%) Enterprise Cloud
9 7 (2.04%) Legacy Applications
10 6 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
10 6 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (1.46%) Mobile Payment
11 5 (1.46%) Smartcard
Operating Systems
1 64 (18.66%) Linux
2 35 (10.20%) Windows
3 13 (3.79%) Windows Server
4 12 (3.50%) AIX
5 10 (2.92%) Unix
6 9 (2.62%) Ubuntu
7 4 (1.17%) VMS
8 3 (0.87%) Debian
8 3 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.58%) CentOS
10 1 (0.29%) Android
10 1 (0.29%) macOS
10 1 (0.29%) Rocky
10 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 110 (32.07%) CI/CD
2 100 (29.15%) Infrastructure as Code
3 91 (26.53%) Migration
4 84 (24.49%) DevOps
5 76 (22.16%) Agile
6 63 (18.37%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 58 (16.91%) Stakeholder Management
8 42 (12.24%) Cloud Security
9 41 (11.95%) Microservices
10 38 (11.08%) Problem-Solving
11 35 (10.20%) Architectural Patterns
11 35 (10.20%) Observability
12 34 (9.91%) Data Migration
12 34 (9.91%) Event-Driven
13 33 (9.62%) Infrastructure Automation
14 32 (9.33%) Containerisation
14 32 (9.33%) Security Architecture
15 30 (8.75%) Roadmaps
15 30 (8.75%) Technical Leadership
16 27 (7.87%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 90 (26.24%) Python
2 33 (9.62%) Java
3 29 (8.45%) PowerShell
4 28 (8.16%) Bash
5 11 (3.21%) SQL
6 10 (2.92%) Go
7 9 (2.62%) ActionScript
7 9 (2.62%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.33%) Bicep
9 6 (1.75%) Groovy
9 6 (1.75%) Shell Script
10 4 (1.17%) ABAP
10 4 (1.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.17%) Ruby
11 2 (0.58%) Perl
12 1 (0.29%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.29%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 87 (25.36%) Security Cleared
2 71 (20.70%) SC Cleared
3 27 (7.87%) Cisco Certification
4 24 (7.00%) AWS Certification
5 18 (5.25%) DV Cleared
6 17 (4.96%) CISSP
7 15 (4.37%) Degree
8 12 (3.50%) VCAP
9 11 (3.21%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 10 (2.92%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 10 (2.92%) Azure Certification
10 10 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (2.92%) CISM
10 10 (2.92%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 9 (2.62%) CCNP
12 8 (2.33%) CCSP
12 8 (2.33%) CREST Certified
13 6 (1.75%) CISA
14 5 (1.46%) CCIE
14 5 (1.46%) IISP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (3.50%) NIST
3 10 (2.92%) GDPR
4 8 (2.33%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.33%) NCSC
5 6 (1.75%) PCI DSS
6 5 (1.46%) GRC
6 5 (1.46%) ISO 20022
6 5 (1.46%) ISO 31000
6 5 (1.46%) ISO 9001
6 5 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 27005
7 4 (1.17%) ISO 15022
8 3 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.87%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.87%) Government Security Classifications
8 3 (0.87%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 2 (0.58%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
10 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.29%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 29 (8.45%) VMware Infrastructure
2 23 (6.71%) Docker
3 18 (5.25%) VMware NSX
4 15 (4.37%) Active Directory
5 13 (3.79%) Oracle RAC
6 12 (3.50%) vSphere
7 10 (2.92%) VMware ESXi
8 9 (2.62%) Virtual Machines
9 5 (1.46%) ISA Server
10 3 (0.87%) Postfix
11 2 (0.58%) Dovecot
11 2 (0.58%) Hyper-V
11 2 (0.58%) Virtual Desktop
12 1 (0.29%) NFS
12 1 (0.29%) Sendmail
12 1 (0.29%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 70 (20.41%) Kubernetes
2 50 (14.58%) Ansible
3 20 (5.83%) Grafana
4 18 (5.25%) Prometheus
5 13 (3.79%) Data Guard
5 13 (3.79%) Oracle RMAN
6 11 (3.21%) vCenter Server
7 7 (2.04%) Istio
7 7 (2.04%) Packer
8 6 (1.75%) CASB
9 5 (1.46%) VxRail
10 4 (1.17%) systemd
11 3 (0.87%) Check_MK
11 3 (0.87%) HAProxy
11 3 (0.87%) Puppet
12 2 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 2 (0.58%) Argo
12 2 (0.58%) Progress Chef
13 1 (0.29%) Cilium
13 1 (0.29%) Podman
Vendors
1 69 (20.12%) Microsoft
1 69 (20.12%) SAP
2 56 (16.33%) Google
3 41 (11.95%) Oracle
4 34 (9.91%) VMware
5 26 (7.58%) Cisco
6 20 (5.83%) F5
7 14 (4.08%) Splunk
8 11 (3.21%) Juniper
9 9 (2.62%) Fortinet
10 8 (2.33%) Ariba
10 8 (2.33%) CyberArk
11 7 (2.04%) Dynatrace
11 7 (2.04%) Red Hat
11 7 (2.04%) ServiceNow
12 6 (1.75%) IBM
13 5 (1.46%) Centrify
13 5 (1.46%) Commvault
13 5 (1.46%) Qualys
13 5 (1.46%) Tripwire