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

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 327 241 281
Rank change year-on-year -86 +40 -71
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 266 336 358
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.72% 1.04% 0.83%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.09% 3.23% 2.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 167 213 235
10th Percentile £386 £439 £416
25th Percentile £449 £513 £509
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £688
90th Percentile £738 £788 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £524 £581 £582
% change year-on-year -9.82% -0.26% +1.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 3 3
10th Percentile - £46.00 £62.00
25th Percentile - £50.50 £68.00
Median hourly rate - £58.00 £78.00
Median % change year-on-year - -25.64% +48.57%
75th Percentile - £67.75 -
90th Percentile - £73.60 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £66.50 £78.00
% change year-on-year - -14.74% -

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 12,708 10,402 13,423
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.53% 32.10% 31.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,992 6,179 8,908
10th Percentile £281 £265 £263
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £626 £656 £663
90th Percentile £738 £775 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 619 324 529
10th Percentile £14.22 £18.06 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.23 £23.30 £19.99
Median hourly rate £27.50 £33.27 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.34% -16.83% +34.59%
75th Percentile £61.54 £64.81 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.75 £76.57
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -15.38% -26.97% +87.05%

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 4 January 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 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 Public Cloud within the UK over the 6 months to 4 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
England -97 217 £544 -9.38% 262
UK excluding London -48 145 £524 -9.82% 243
London -67 87 £600 - 41
North of England -11 67 £476 -7.93% 54
Work from Home -45 65 £575 -6.12% 173
Yorkshire -11 47 £515 -0.39% 28
Midlands -28 23 £530 +7.07% 44
South East -61 22 £522 -17.14% 60
Scotland +4 20 £475 -18.10% 11
North West -17 19 £450 -10.00% 21
West Midlands -32 15 £530 -18.46% 23
South West +1 12 £650 +1.96% 32
East of England -19 9 £413 -31.25% 36
East Midlands -18 8 £631 +42.12% 18
Wales -4 3 £214 -64.40% 6
North East -10 2 - - 5

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 6 (2.26%) OpenStack
1 6 (2.26%) SAS
2 5 (1.88%) Confluence
3 3 (1.13%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.38%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.38%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (2.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.88%) Weka
3 3 (1.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.38%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.38%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 33 (12.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (2.63%) SAP ERP
3 5 (1.88%) SAP FI
4 4 (1.50%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (1.50%) SAP CO
4 4 (1.50%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.38%) Cloudability
5 1 (0.38%) SAP GRC
5 1 (0.38%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 119 (44.74%) AWS
2 108 (40.60%) Azure
3 96 (36.09%) GCP
4 37 (13.91%) Serverless
5 23 (8.65%) GitHub
6 15 (5.64%) OCI
7 13 (4.89%) IaaS
8 12 (4.51%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (4.14%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (4.14%) PaaS
10 10 (3.76%) Cloud Computing
10 10 (3.76%) SaaS
10 10 (3.76%) SuccessFactors
11 9 (3.38%) AWS KMS
12 8 (3.01%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 6 (2.26%) Entra ID
13 6 (2.26%) Microsoft 365
13 6 (2.26%) Power Platform
14 5 (1.88%) GitHub Copilot
14 5 (1.88%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 30 (11.28%) Firewall
2 19 (7.14%) Network Security
3 17 (6.39%) VPN
4 15 (5.64%) WAN
5 12 (4.51%) DNS
6 11 (4.14%) TCP/IP
7 7 (2.63%) SD-WAN
8 6 (2.26%) Internet
8 6 (2.26%) Kerberos
9 4 (1.50%) LAN
10 3 (1.13%) DHCP
10 3 (1.13%) VXLAN
11 2 (0.75%) BGP
11 2 (0.75%) Broadband
11 2 (0.75%) Cisco IOS
11 2 (0.75%) DMZ
11 2 (0.75%) IPv6
11 2 (0.75%) Junos
11 2 (0.75%) OSPF
11 2 (0.75%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (15.79%) NoSQL
2 16 (6.02%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (4.14%) MongoDB
4 8 (3.01%) Data Warehouse
5 7 (2.63%) Oracle Database
5 7 (2.63%) Relational Database
6 6 (2.26%) Power BI
7 5 (1.88%) SQL Server
8 4 (1.50%) Data Mining
9 3 (1.13%) BigQuery
9 3 (1.13%) Oracle Exadata
10 2 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.75%) Apache Cassandra
10 2 (0.75%) MySQL
10 2 (0.75%) RDBMS
10 2 (0.75%) Redis
10 2 (0.75%) SAP HANA
11 1 (0.38%) Amazon Aurora
11 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 1 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 51 (19.17%) Jenkins
2 46 (17.29%) GitLab
3 29 (10.90%) Liquibase
4 16 (6.02%) JIRA
5 12 (4.51%) Git
6 9 (3.38%) Postman
7 4 (1.50%) TeamCity
8 3 (1.13%) SoapUI
8 3 (1.13%) Vite
9 2 (0.75%) JUnit
9 2 (0.75%) Mocha
10 1 (0.38%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.38%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.38%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.38%) PyCharm
10 1 (0.38%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 100 (37.59%) Finance
2 87 (32.71%) Social Skills
3 48 (18.05%) Banking
4 35 (13.16%) Public Sector
5 27 (10.15%) Analytical Skills
6 25 (9.40%) Financial Institution
7 11 (4.14%) Local Government
7 11 (4.14%) Presentation Skills
8 8 (3.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (3.01%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.88%) Law
9 5 (1.88%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.50%) Police
11 3 (1.13%) Billing
11 3 (1.13%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.13%) General Ledger
11 3 (1.13%) German Language
11 3 (1.13%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.75%) Investment Banking
12 2 (0.75%) Welsh Language
Job Titles
1 50 (18.80%) Architect
2 41 (15.41%) Senior
3 36 (13.53%) Cloud Engineer
4 23 (8.65%) Software Engineer
5 22 (8.27%) GCP Engineer
6 21 (7.89%) DevOps Engineer
7 17 (6.39%) Analyst
7 17 (6.39%) Senior Software Engineer
8 16 (6.02%) AWS Engineer
8 16 (6.02%) Developer
9 14 (5.26%) Solutions Architect
10 12 (4.51%) SAP Manager
11 11 (4.14%) Consultant
12 10 (3.76%) AWS Software Engineer
12 10 (3.76%) Java Developer
13 9 (3.38%) Lead
13 9 (3.38%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 8 (3.01%) Python Engineer
14 8 (3.01%) Senior Cloud Engineer
14 8 (3.01%) Senior DevOps
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (21.05%) REST
2 37 (13.91%) RESTful
3 34 (12.78%) Elastic Stack
4 13 (4.89%) Spring Boot
5 10 (3.76%) JSON
5 10 (3.76%) Spring
6 9 (3.38%) Kafka
6 9 (3.38%) OAuth
6 9 (3.38%) SOAP
7 8 (3.01%) JWT
7 8 (3.01%) Oracle Fusion
7 8 (3.01%) Web Services
7 8 (3.01%) XML
7 8 (3.01%) XSLT
8 7 (2.63%) Middleware
8 7 (2.63%) React
9 6 (2.26%) AngularJS
10 5 (1.88%) GraphQL
11 4 (1.50%) SAP Fiori
12 3 (1.13%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 52 (19.55%) Cloud Native
2 31 (11.65%) Distributed Systems
3 26 (9.77%) Data Centre
4 15 (5.64%) Hybrid Cloud
5 13 (4.89%) Private Cloud
6 10 (3.76%) Product Ownership
6 10 (3.76%) Security Posture
7 9 (3.38%) Cloud Security Posture
8 7 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (2.26%) Mainframe
10 5 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.88%) Grid Computing
10 5 (1.88%) PKI
10 5 (1.88%) Replication
11 4 (1.50%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.50%) Distributed Applications
11 4 (1.50%) Legacy Applications
12 2 (0.75%) Data Structures
12 2 (0.75%) Management Information System
12 2 (0.75%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 61 (22.93%) Linux
2 27 (10.15%) Windows
3 9 (3.38%) Windows Server
4 7 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 7 (2.63%) Unix
5 6 (2.26%) VMS
6 5 (1.88%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (1.13%) Windows Server 2016
8 2 (0.75%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.38%) CentOS
9 1 (0.38%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.38%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 109 (40.98%) DevOps
2 97 (36.47%) Agile
3 88 (33.08%) CI/CD
4 78 (29.32%) Infrastructure as Code
5 55 (20.68%) Containerisation
6 48 (18.05%) Microservices
7 46 (17.29%) Migration
8 39 (14.66%) Software Engineering
9 38 (14.29%) Cybersecurity
10 36 (13.53%) Cost Optimisation
11 35 (13.16%) Computer Science
12 33 (12.41%) High Availability
12 33 (12.41%) Root Cause Analysis
13 32 (12.03%) Infrastructure Automation
13 32 (12.03%) Problem-Solving
14 31 (11.65%) Cryptography
14 31 (11.65%) Stakeholder Management
15 30 (11.28%) Change Management
15 30 (11.28%) Continuous Delivery
15 30 (11.28%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 77 (28.95%) Python
2 42 (15.79%) Go
3 38 (14.29%) Java
4 18 (6.77%) SQL
5 6 (2.26%) Bash
5 6 (2.26%) PowerShell
6 4 (1.50%) PL/SQL
7 3 (1.13%) JavaScript
7 3 (1.13%) TypeScript
8 1 (0.38%) ABAP
8 1 (0.38%) Bicep
8 1 (0.38%) C#
8 1 (0.38%) C++
8 1 (0.38%) Perl
8 1 (0.38%) Ruby
8 1 (0.38%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.38%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 61 (22.93%) Security Cleared
2 48 (18.05%) Degree
3 39 (14.66%) SC Cleared
4 34 (12.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (11.65%) Master's Degree
6 21 (7.89%) AWS Certification
7 13 (4.89%) Azure Certification
8 8 (3.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 6 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (2.26%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.88%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 5 (1.88%) CCSP
10 5 (1.88%) CISSP
10 5 (1.88%) DV Cleared
10 5 (1.88%) ISTQB
11 4 (1.50%) AWS Certified Developer
11 4 (1.50%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 4 (1.50%) PMI Certification
12 3 (1.13%) SAP Certification
13 2 (0.75%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (3.01%) GDPR
3 6 (2.26%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
3 6 (2.26%) NCSC
3 6 (2.26%) NIST
3 6 (2.26%) PCI DSS
3 6 (2.26%) SLA
4 5 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27005
4 5 (1.88%) PSD2
4 5 (1.88%) QA
5 2 (0.75%) Accessibility
5 2 (0.75%) WCAG
6 1 (0.38%) COBIT
6 1 (0.38%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.38%) GAMP
6 1 (0.38%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.38%) ISO 15022
6 1 (0.38%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 61 (22.93%) Docker
2 14 (5.26%) VMware Infrastructure
3 13 (4.89%) Hyper-V
4 6 (2.26%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.88%) GPFS
5 5 (1.88%) Lustre
5 5 (1.88%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 5 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.88%) vSphere
6 3 (1.13%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (1.13%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
8 1 (0.38%) Ceph
8 1 (0.38%) IAG
8 1 (0.38%) KVM
8 1 (0.38%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 81 (30.45%) Kubernetes
2 79 (29.70%) Terraform
3 59 (22.18%) Ansible
4 36 (13.53%) Grafana
4 36 (13.53%) Prometheus
5 7 (2.63%) Istio
6 4 (1.50%) Data Guard
6 4 (1.50%) Oracle RMAN
7 3 (1.13%) Kubeflow
7 3 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (1.13%) vCenter Server
8 2 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.75%) Puppet
8 2 (0.75%) SCCM
8 2 (0.75%) vMotion
9 1 (0.38%) Consul
9 1 (0.38%) Demisto
9 1 (0.38%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.38%) Packer
9 1 (0.38%) Salt
Vendors
1 40 (15.04%) SAP
2 37 (13.91%) Splunk
3 32 (12.03%) Google
4 30 (11.28%) Microsoft
5 27 (10.15%) Oracle
6 23 (8.65%) VMware
7 11 (4.14%) Ariba
8 9 (3.38%) ServiceNow
9 8 (3.01%) Cisco
10 6 (2.26%) Palo Alto
11 5 (1.88%) Aruba
11 5 (1.88%) MuleSoft
12 3 (1.13%) F5
12 3 (1.13%) Fortinet
12 3 (1.13%) Mercator
12 3 (1.13%) Veeam
13 2 (0.75%) Arista
13 2 (0.75%) Brocade
13 2 (0.75%) Extreme Networks
13 2 (0.75%) Juniper