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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 317 241 287
Rank change year-on-year -76 +46 -75
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 290 320 342
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.78% 1.02% 0.79%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.29% 3.15% 2.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 181 211 222
10th Percentile £369 £450 £423
25th Percentile £437 £525 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £600 £582
Median % change year-on-year -11.67% +3.09% -3.00%
75th Percentile £675 £688 £700
90th Percentile £738 £788 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £581 £582
% change year-on-year -10.08% -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 12,652 10,154 13,316
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.22% 32.25% 30.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,985 6,004 8,722
10th Percentile £277 £263 £258
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £533 £540
Median % change year-on-year -6.23% -1.26% -3.23%
75th Percentile £625 £663 £656
90th Percentile £738 £775 £760
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 612 317 633
10th Percentile £14.26 £18.51 £14.54
25th Percentile £18.25 £23.60 £17.72
Median hourly rate £27.52 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.37% - +55.56%
75th Percentile £61.19 £65.00 £61.50
90th Percentile £74.97 £80.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.54 £32.50 £35.65
% change year-on-year -15.26% -8.84% +78.25%

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 19 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 19 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 -68 243 £525 -12.50% 111
UK excluding London -21 159 £522 -10.08% 84
London -67 94 £600 - 39
Work from Home -24 71 £559 -8.78% 34
North of England -3 70 £482 -9.78% 18
Yorkshire -7 48 £500 -3.29% 8
Midlands -14 32 £525 +7.14% 10
South East -50 24 £522 -15.81% 31
North West -19 21 £450 -16.28% 4
East Midlands -10 17 £416 -6.31% 8
Scotland +5 16 £543 -6.47% 2
South West +4 16 £650 +1.96% 13
West Midlands -23 14 £528 -34.06% 2
East of England -18 9 £413 -31.25% 7
Wales -5 3 £214 -64.40% 3
North East -12 2 - - 6

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 (2.07%) OpenStack
1 6 (2.07%) SAS
2 5 (1.72%) Confluence
3 3 (1.03%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.34%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.34%) SharePoint
Applications
1 6 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.72%) Weka
3 2 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.34%) Adobe Premiere
4 1 (0.34%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 43 (14.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (2.41%) SAP ERP
3 6 (2.07%) Oracle ERP
3 6 (2.07%) SAP FI
4 5 (1.72%) SAP CO
4 5 (1.72%) SAP FI/CO
5 1 (0.34%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 115 (39.66%) Azure
2 112 (38.62%) AWS
3 103 (35.52%) GCP
4 34 (11.72%) Serverless
5 25 (8.62%) GitHub
6 17 (5.86%) OCI
7 15 (5.17%) Azure DevOps
8 14 (4.83%) IaaS
9 13 (4.48%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 12 (4.14%) PaaS
11 11 (3.79%) SuccessFactors
12 10 (3.45%) Cloud Computing
13 9 (3.10%) AWS KMS
13 9 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
13 9 (3.10%) SaaS
14 7 (2.41%) Power Platform
15 6 (2.07%) Entra ID
16 5 (1.72%) Microsoft 365
16 5 (1.72%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 4 (1.38%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 29 (10.00%) Firewall
2 20 (6.90%) Network Security
3 18 (6.21%) VPN
4 14 (4.83%) WAN
5 13 (4.48%) DNS
6 12 (4.14%) TCP/IP
7 7 (2.41%) SD-WAN
8 6 (2.07%) Internet
8 6 (2.07%) Kerberos
9 4 (1.38%) LAN
10 3 (1.03%) Multicast
10 3 (1.03%) VXLAN
11 2 (0.69%) Cisco IOS
11 2 (0.69%) Cisco Nexus
11 2 (0.69%) DHCP
11 2 (0.69%) Ethernet VPN
11 2 (0.69%) IOS XR
11 2 (0.69%) Junos
11 2 (0.69%) NetScaler
11 2 (0.69%) NX-OS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (12.76%) NoSQL
2 16 (5.52%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (3.45%) MongoDB
4 8 (2.76%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.76%) Relational Database
4 8 (2.76%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.41%) Oracle Database
5 7 (2.41%) Power BI
6 4 (1.38%) BigQuery
6 4 (1.38%) Data Mining
7 3 (1.03%) Data Vault
7 3 (1.03%) Delta Lake
7 3 (1.03%) Oracle Exadata
8 2 (0.69%) Amazon Redshift
8 2 (0.69%) Apache Cassandra
8 2 (0.69%) MySQL
8 2 (0.69%) RDBMS
8 2 (0.69%) Redis
8 2 (0.69%) SAP HANA
9 1 (0.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 51 (17.59%) Jenkins
2 43 (14.83%) GitLab
3 24 (8.28%) Liquibase
4 20 (6.90%) JIRA
5 11 (3.79%) Postman
6 10 (3.45%) Git
7 4 (1.38%) SoapUI
7 4 (1.38%) TeamCity
8 2 (0.69%) JUnit
8 2 (0.69%) Mocha
8 2 (0.69%) Vite
9 1 (0.34%) Cucumber
General
1 105 (36.21%) Finance
2 89 (30.69%) Social Skills
3 49 (16.90%) Banking
4 45 (15.52%) Public Sector
5 24 (8.28%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (8.28%) Financial Institution
6 18 (6.21%) Local Government
7 10 (3.45%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 5 (1.72%) General Ledger
9 5 (1.72%) Law
9 5 (1.72%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.38%) Police
11 3 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (1.03%) German Language
11 3 (1.03%) Investment Banking
11 3 (1.03%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.69%) Digital Health
12 2 (0.69%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 58 (20.00%) Architect
2 43 (14.83%) Senior
3 35 (12.07%) Cloud Engineer
4 26 (8.97%) GCP Engineer
5 20 (6.90%) DevOps Engineer
6 19 (6.55%) Software Engineer
7 18 (6.21%) Analyst
8 17 (5.86%) Lead
9 16 (5.52%) Solutions Architect
10 15 (5.17%) AWS Engineer
10 15 (5.17%) Developer
11 14 (4.83%) Senior Software Engineer
12 13 (4.48%) Consultant
13 12 (4.14%) SAP Manager
14 11 (3.79%) Cloud Architect
15 10 (3.45%) Infrastructure Architect
16 9 (3.10%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 9 (3.10%) Java Developer
16 9 (3.10%) Senior Cloud Engineer
17 8 (2.76%) Senior DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (18.28%) REST
2 33 (11.38%) RESTful
3 30 (10.34%) Elastic Stack
4 12 (4.14%) JSON
4 12 (4.14%) OAuth
4 12 (4.14%) Spring Boot
5 11 (3.79%) JWT
5 11 (3.79%) SOAP
6 10 (3.45%) Middleware
6 10 (3.45%) Oracle Fusion
6 10 (3.45%) XML
6 10 (3.45%) XSLT
7 9 (3.10%) Kafka
7 9 (3.10%) Spring
7 9 (3.10%) Web Services
8 6 (2.07%) AngularJS
8 6 (2.07%) React
9 3 (1.03%) Node.js
9 3 (1.03%) Pandas
9 3 (1.03%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 50 (17.24%) Cloud Native
2 27 (9.31%) Distributed Systems
3 25 (8.62%) Data Centre
4 15 (5.17%) Hybrid Cloud
5 13 (4.48%) Private Cloud
6 10 (3.45%) Product Ownership
6 10 (3.45%) Security Posture
7 9 (3.10%) Cloud Security Posture
8 7 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (2.07%) Data Structures
9 6 (2.07%) Mainframe
10 5 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
10 5 (1.72%) Grid Computing
10 5 (1.72%) PKI
11 4 (1.38%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (1.38%) Distributed Applications
11 4 (1.38%) Legacy Applications
11 4 (1.38%) Replication
12 3 (1.03%) Reinsurance
13 2 (0.69%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 58 (20.00%) Linux
2 28 (9.66%) Windows
3 9 (3.10%) Windows Server
4 8 (2.76%) Unix
5 7 (2.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 6 (2.07%) VMS
7 5 (1.72%) Windows Server 2019
8 3 (1.03%) Windows Server 2016
9 2 (0.69%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.34%) CentOS
10 1 (0.34%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.34%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 112 (38.62%) DevOps
2 93 (32.07%) Agile
3 88 (30.34%) CI/CD
4 78 (26.90%) Infrastructure as Code
5 51 (17.59%) Migration
6 48 (16.55%) Containerisation
7 44 (15.17%) Microservices
8 40 (13.79%) Stakeholder Management
9 37 (12.76%) Cybersecurity
10 33 (11.38%) Software Engineering
11 32 (11.03%) Infrastructure Automation
11 32 (11.03%) Root Cause Analysis
12 31 (10.69%) Computer Science
12 31 (10.69%) Cost Optimisation
12 31 (10.69%) High Availability
12 31 (10.69%) Problem-Solving
13 27 (9.31%) Change Management
13 27 (9.31%) Cryptography
13 27 (9.31%) Data Security
14 26 (8.97%) Non-Functional Testing
Programming Languages
1 80 (27.59%) Python
2 34 (11.72%) Go
3 29 (10.00%) Java
4 23 (7.93%) SQL
5 7 (2.41%) Bash
6 6 (2.07%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.38%) PL/SQL
8 3 (1.03%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.69%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.69%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.34%) ABAP
10 1 (0.34%) Bicep
10 1 (0.34%) C++
10 1 (0.34%) Perl
10 1 (0.34%) Ruby
10 1 (0.34%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 64 (22.07%) Security Cleared
2 43 (14.83%) Degree
3 41 (14.14%) SC Cleared
4 30 (10.34%) Computer Science Degree
5 27 (9.31%) Master's Degree
6 16 (5.52%) AWS Certification
7 13 (4.48%) Azure Certification
8 12 (4.14%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (2.07%) Cisco Certification
9 6 (2.07%) ISTQB
10 5 (1.72%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 5 (1.72%) CCSP
10 5 (1.72%) CISSP
10 5 (1.72%) DV Cleared
11 4 (1.38%) AWS Certified Developer
11 4 (1.38%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 4 (1.38%) PMI Certification
12 3 (1.03%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (1.03%) SAP Certification
13 2 (0.69%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (2.76%) GDPR
3 7 (2.41%) SLA
4 6 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
4 6 (2.07%) NCSC
4 6 (2.07%) NIST
4 6 (2.07%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.72%) ISO/IEC 27005
5 5 (1.72%) PSD2
5 5 (1.72%) QA
6 4 (1.38%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.69%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.69%) WCAG
8 1 (0.34%) COBIT
8 1 (0.34%) GAMP
8 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.34%) ISO 15022
8 1 (0.34%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.34%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 57 (19.66%) Docker
2 15 (5.17%) Hyper-V
2 15 (5.17%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.07%) Active Directory
4 5 (1.72%) GPFS
4 5 (1.72%) Lustre
4 5 (1.72%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (1.38%) vSphere
6 3 (1.03%) Oracle RAC
7 2 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.69%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.34%) Ceph
8 1 (0.34%) KVM
8 1 (0.34%) QEMU
Systems Management
1 78 (26.90%) Terraform
2 75 (25.86%) Kubernetes
3 55 (18.97%) Ansible
4 33 (11.38%) Prometheus
5 32 (11.03%) Grafana
6 11 (3.79%) Istio
7 4 (1.38%) Data Guard
7 4 (1.38%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (1.03%) Kubeflow
8 3 (1.03%) Microsoft Intune
8 3 (1.03%) Puppet
8 3 (1.03%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.69%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.69%) SCCM
9 2 (0.69%) vMotion
10 1 (0.34%) Demisto
10 1 (0.34%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 1 (0.34%) Packer
10 1 (0.34%) Red Hat Satellite
10 1 (0.34%) Salt
Vendors
1 50 (17.24%) SAP
2 38 (13.10%) Google
3 33 (11.38%) Splunk
4 32 (11.03%) Oracle
5 25 (8.62%) Microsoft
6 24 (8.28%) VMware
7 10 (3.45%) Ariba
8 8 (2.76%) Cisco
8 8 (2.76%) ServiceNow
9 7 (2.41%) Palo Alto
10 5 (1.72%) Aruba
10 5 (1.72%) MuleSoft
11 4 (1.38%) Databricks
11 4 (1.38%) F5
12 3 (1.03%) Fortinet
12 3 (1.03%) Informatica
12 3 (1.03%) Mercator
12 3 (1.03%) Veeam
13 2 (0.69%) Dell
13 2 (0.69%) Ericsson