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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 370 351 251
Rank change year-on-year -19 -100 +2
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 342 211 365
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.63% 0.64% 0.95%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.85% 1.80% 3.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 231 133 224
10th Percentile £450 £366 £418
25th Percentile £513 £438 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £530 £574
Median % change year-on-year +13.21% -7.63% -4.38%
75th Percentile £688 £688 £688
90th Percentile £788 £773 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £500 £563
% change year-on-year +20.00% -11.11% -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - £39.80
25th Percentile - £42.50 £44.38
Median hourly rate - £45.00 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year - -16.67% -30.77%
75th Percentile - £47.50 £57.00
90th Percentile - - £57.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £48.25
% change year-on-year - - -38.14%

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 18,473 11,749 11,752
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.95% 35.66% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,074 7,189 7,185
10th Percentile £322 £298 £294
25th Percentile £425 £406 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £540
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -4.63% -1.82%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £749 £750 £807
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,189 585 474
10th Percentile £14.05 £15.13 £14.43
25th Percentile £18.00 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £38.25 £30.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.50% -40.00% +11.11%
75th Percentile £67.89 £55.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +33.33% -47.69% +18.58%

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 +11 279 £600 +1.27% 476
UK excluding London -34 195 £600 +20.00% 275
Work from Home -19 95 £610 +16.19% 179
London -52 91 £650 +0.46% 287
North of England -23 84 £563 +25.00% 57
Yorkshire -9 53 £550 +22.22% 21
South East -30 43 £590 -14.18% 53
Midlands -37 26 £613 +14.06% 28
North West -40 26 £625 +35.14% 32
South West -21 18 £675 +3.85% 36
Scotland -39 16 £530 +6.00% 60
East Midlands -13 12 £613 +21.05% 12
West Midlands -40 11 £625 +2.00% 16
North East -38 9 £602 - 4
East of England -28 7 £475 -42.42% 11
Wales -15 1 - - 2
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 28

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 8 (2.34%) Apache
2 5 (1.46%) IIS
2 5 (1.46%) OpenStack
3 3 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.88%) CloudStack
3 3 (0.88%) Confluence
3 3 (0.88%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.58%) nginx
4 2 (0.58%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.58%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.29%) SAS
5 1 (0.29%) WebLogic
Applications
1 11 (3.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.34%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (2.05%) MS Visio
4 4 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.58%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.58%) Houdini
5 2 (0.58%) NUKE
5 2 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.29%) Weka
Business Applications
1 64 (18.71%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (2.05%) SAP SD
3 6 (1.75%) SAP Business One
4 5 (1.46%) SAP ERP
5 4 (1.17%) iTrent
6 3 (0.88%) SAP FI
7 2 (0.58%) SAP CO
7 2 (0.58%) SAP FI-GL
8 1 (0.29%) Oracle SCM
8 1 (0.29%) SAP FI/CO
8 1 (0.29%) SAP FI-AR
8 1 (0.29%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.29%) SAP MM
8 1 (0.29%) SAP PS
Cloud Services
1 142 (41.52%) Azure
2 138 (40.35%) AWS
3 69 (20.18%) GCP
4 26 (7.60%) GitHub
5 21 (6.14%) SaaS
6 20 (5.85%) IaaS
7 19 (5.56%) OCI
8 15 (4.39%) OpenShift
9 14 (4.09%) GitHub Actions
10 13 (3.80%) Entra ID
10 13 (3.80%) PaaS
10 13 (3.80%) SuccessFactors
11 12 (3.51%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (3.22%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 9 (2.63%) Amazon EKS
14 8 (2.34%) Serverless
15 7 (2.05%) Azure Sentinel
16 6 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
17 5 (1.46%) AWS CloudFormation
17 5 (1.46%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 35 (10.23%) Firewall
2 29 (8.48%) DNS
3 18 (5.26%) Network Security
4 17 (4.97%) TCP/IP
5 14 (4.09%) VSAN
6 11 (3.22%) DHCP
7 9 (2.63%) LAN
7 9 (2.63%) WAN
8 8 (2.34%) BIG-IP
8 8 (2.34%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 8 (2.34%) VPN
9 7 (2.05%) BGP
9 7 (2.05%) SAN
10 6 (1.75%) F5 BIG-IP GTM
10 6 (1.75%) NAS
11 5 (1.46%) Wi-Fi
12 4 (1.17%) HTTPS
12 4 (1.17%) SNMP
12 4 (1.17%) TACACS
12 4 (1.17%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (4.39%) Oracle Database
2 13 (3.80%) RDBMS
2 13 (3.80%) Relational Database
3 12 (3.51%) Oracle Exadata
4 8 (2.34%) MySQL
5 4 (1.17%) BusinessObjects
5 4 (1.17%) SQL Server
6 3 (0.88%) BigQuery
6 3 (0.88%) Data Warehouse
6 3 (0.88%) Oracle Reports
7 2 (0.58%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.58%) PostgreSQL
7 2 (0.58%) Power BI
7 2 (0.58%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.29%) Amazon RDS
8 1 (0.29%) Big Data
8 1 (0.29%) DynamoDB
8 1 (0.29%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.29%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.29%) SAP Data Services
Development Applications
1 40 (11.70%) Git
2 25 (7.31%) Jenkins
3 15 (4.39%) GitLab
4 10 (2.92%) JIRA
5 6 (1.75%) JUnit
5 6 (1.75%) SonarQube
5 6 (1.75%) Sonatype Nexus
6 4 (1.17%) Hudson
7 3 (0.88%) Cucumber
7 3 (0.88%) Maven
7 3 (0.88%) Postman
7 3 (0.88%) Selenium
8 1 (0.29%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.29%) LSMW
8 1 (0.29%) PVCS
General
1 96 (28.07%) Finance
2 60 (17.54%) Social Skills
3 33 (9.65%) Public Sector
4 23 (6.73%) Banking
5 18 (5.26%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (2.63%) General Ledger
7 7 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.05%) Influencing Skills
7 7 (2.05%) Military
7 7 (2.05%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (1.75%) Billing
8 6 (1.75%) Local Government
9 5 (1.46%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.17%) Automotive
10 4 (1.17%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (0.88%) Legal
11 3 (0.88%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.88%) Police
11 3 (0.88%) Retail
Job Titles
1 89 (26.02%) Architect
2 57 (16.67%) Senior
3 39 (11.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
3 39 (11.40%) Lead
4 33 (9.65%) Solutions Architect
5 24 (7.02%) Technical Architect
6 23 (6.73%) DevOps Engineer
7 21 (6.14%) Consultant
7 21 (6.14%) Developer
8 19 (5.56%) Senior Infrastructure Engineer
9 16 (4.68%) Cloud Architect
9 16 (4.68%) Cloud Engineer
10 15 (4.39%) Azure Specialist
10 15 (4.39%) Python Developer
10 15 (4.39%) SAP Consultant
11 13 (3.80%) Azure Engineer
12 12 (3.51%) Analyst
12 12 (3.51%) Network Engineer
13 11 (3.22%) Platform Engineer
14 10 (2.92%) Security Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 83 (24.27%) Terraform
2 17 (4.97%) Kafka
3 15 (4.39%) Spring Boot
4 12 (3.51%) Oracle GoldenGate
5 11 (3.22%) Spring
6 8 (2.34%) SAP Fiori
7 6 (1.75%) .NET
7 6 (1.75%) Middleware
8 5 (1.46%) Elastic Stack
8 5 (1.46%) NumPy
8 5 (1.46%) OAuth
8 5 (1.46%) OpenID
8 5 (1.46%) Pandas
8 5 (1.46%) React
8 5 (1.46%) REST
8 5 (1.46%) Web Services
9 4 (1.17%) 802.1X
9 4 (1.17%) JSON
9 4 (1.17%) NETCONF
9 4 (1.17%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 52 (15.20%) Cloud Native
2 41 (11.99%) Data Centre
3 37 (10.82%) Hybrid Cloud
4 29 (8.48%) Private Cloud
5 16 (4.68%) PKI
6 11 (3.22%) Legacy Systems
7 10 (2.92%) Management Information System
7 10 (2.92%) Onboarding
8 7 (2.05%) AI Agents
8 7 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (2.05%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.75%) Data Structures
9 6 (1.75%) Legacy Applications
9 6 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.46%) Enterprise Cloud
10 5 (1.46%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (1.17%) Analytical Mindset
11 4 (1.17%) Robotics
12 3 (0.88%) Distributed Systems
12 3 (0.88%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 64 (18.71%) Linux
2 33 (9.65%) Windows
3 12 (3.51%) AIX
4 11 (3.22%) Unix
5 9 (2.63%) Ubuntu
5 9 (2.63%) Windows Server
6 4 (1.17%) Debian
6 4 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.17%) VMS
7 2 (0.58%) CentOS
7 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.29%) Android
8 1 (0.29%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (27.78%) Migration
2 93 (27.19%) Infrastructure as Code
3 90 (26.32%) CI/CD
4 75 (21.93%) DevOps
5 63 (18.42%) Agile
6 61 (17.84%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 49 (14.33%) Stakeholder Management
8 43 (12.57%) Data Migration
9 41 (11.99%) Microservices
10 31 (9.06%) ERP
11 30 (8.77%) Architectural Patterns
11 30 (8.77%) Cloud Security
11 30 (8.77%) Problem-Solving
11 30 (8.77%) Roadmaps
12 29 (8.48%) Containerisation
13 28 (8.19%) Infrastructure Automation
13 28 (8.19%) Observability
14 27 (7.89%) Event-Driven
15 26 (7.60%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 26 (7.60%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 78 (22.81%) Python
2 31 (9.06%) Java
3 26 (7.60%) PowerShell
4 25 (7.31%) Bash
5 11 (3.22%) Bicep
5 11 (3.22%) SQL
6 10 (2.92%) JavaScript
7 8 (2.34%) Shell Script
8 6 (1.75%) ActionScript
9 5 (1.46%) Groovy
10 4 (1.17%) Ruby
11 3 (0.88%) ABAP
11 3 (0.88%) Go
11 3 (0.88%) Perl
12 2 (0.58%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.29%) C#
13 1 (0.29%) C++
13 1 (0.29%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 91 (26.61%) Security Cleared
2 75 (21.93%) SC Cleared
3 27 (7.89%) DV Cleared
4 26 (7.60%) Cisco Certification
5 14 (4.09%) AWS Certification
5 14 (4.09%) Degree
6 12 (3.51%) CCNP
7 11 (3.22%) VCAP
7 11 (3.22%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 10 (2.92%) Azure Certification
8 10 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (2.92%) CISSP
9 7 (2.05%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 7 (2.05%) ACCA
9 7 (2.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 7 (2.05%) CIMA
10 6 (1.75%) CCSP
10 6 (1.75%) CISM
11 5 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (1.17%) CCIE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.51%) NIST
2 11 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (2.92%) NCSC
4 7 (2.05%) Data Quality
4 7 (2.05%) GDPR
5 5 (1.46%) ISO 20022
6 4 (1.17%) ISO 15022
6 4 (1.17%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.88%) Government Security Classifications
7 3 (0.88%) GRC
7 3 (0.88%) HMG Security Policy Framework
7 3 (0.88%) ISO 31000
7 3 (0.88%) ISO 9001
7 3 (0.88%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 2 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.29%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.29%) PMO
9 1 (0.29%) QA
System Software
1 28 (8.19%) VMware Infrastructure
2 20 (5.85%) Docker
2 20 (5.85%) VMware NSX
3 14 (4.09%) Active Directory
4 13 (3.80%) Oracle RAC
5 12 (3.51%) vSphere
6 11 (3.22%) VMware ESXi
7 9 (2.63%) Virtual Machines
8 5 (1.46%) Postfix
9 3 (0.88%) ISA Server
9 3 (0.88%) NFS
9 3 (0.88%) Sendmail
9 3 (0.88%) Varnish
10 2 (0.58%) Dovecot
10 2 (0.58%) Hyper-V
11 1 (0.29%) GPFS
11 1 (0.29%) Lustre
11 1 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 1 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 58 (16.96%) Kubernetes
2 50 (14.62%) Ansible
3 14 (4.09%) Grafana
4 13 (3.80%) Data Guard
4 13 (3.80%) Oracle RMAN
4 13 (3.80%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.92%) vCenter Server
6 8 (2.34%) Istio
7 7 (2.05%) Packer
8 5 (1.46%) HAProxy
8 5 (1.46%) VxRail
9 4 (1.17%) CASB
9 4 (1.17%) systemd
10 3 (0.88%) Check_MK
10 3 (0.88%) Kubeflow
11 2 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 2 (0.58%) Argo
11 2 (0.58%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.58%) Puppet
12 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 75 (21.93%) SAP
2 66 (19.30%) Microsoft
3 44 (12.87%) Oracle
4 39 (11.40%) Google
5 38 (11.11%) VMware
6 20 (5.85%) Cisco
7 17 (4.97%) F5
8 11 (3.22%) Juniper
8 11 (3.22%) Splunk
9 10 (2.92%) Ariba
10 8 (2.34%) CyberArk
11 7 (2.05%) Fortinet
12 6 (1.75%) Dynatrace
12 6 (1.75%) Red Hat
12 6 (1.75%) ServiceNow
13 5 (1.46%) Concur
13 5 (1.46%) IBM
14 4 (1.17%) Broadcom
14 4 (1.17%) Citrix
14 4 (1.17%) Commvault