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 25 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 301 266 285
Rank change year-on-year -35 +19 -71
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 361 278 347
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.82% 0.96% 0.78%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.49% 2.82% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 234 199 235
10th Percentile £395 £449 £474
25th Percentile £486 £525 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £552 £610 £600
Median % change year-on-year -9.55% +1.67% -2.64%
75th Percentile £667 £691 £744
90th Percentile £700 £788 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £546 £596 £600
% change year-on-year -8.39% -0.63% +6.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 1
10th Percentile - £48.40 -
25th Percentile £71.25 £56.50 -
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £58.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% +20.69% -14.07%
75th Percentile £73.75 £73.75 -
90th Percentile - £76.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £72.50 -

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 14,521 9,852 13,419
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.08% 33.88% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,149 6,283 8,580
10th Percentile £300 £288 £255
25th Percentile £409 £409 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.95% -0.05% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 676 369 878
10th Percentile £15.61 £16.95 £12.45
25th Percentile £18.89 £22.22 £15.39
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +23.08% +18.18% +22.22%
75th Percentile £68.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.20 £83.20 £67.65
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £31.76 £25.50
% change year-on-year +41.69% +24.55% +15.07%

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 25 March 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 25 March 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 -56 301 £554 -9.63% 86
UK excluding London -26 187 £546 -8.39% 63
London -82 116 £600 -4.00% 29
Work from Home -5 86 £605 -1.63% 48
North of England -18 71 £525 -9.29% 18
Midlands -32 42 £600 +9.09% 7
Yorkshire -27 41 £525 -9.87% 5
South East -49 41 £525 -12.50% 24
North West -18 29 £363 -36.96% 6
South West +2 26 £625 -1.96% 7
East Midlands -10 25 £638 +59.38% 1
West Midlands -41 14 £525 -25.66% 6
Scotland -6 7 £425 -24.51% 4
East of England -35 6 £413 -31.25% 6
Wales -9 3 £214 -63.98%
North East - 2 - - 7
Northern Ireland - 1 £385 -

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 12 (3.32%) Confluence
2 9 (2.49%) SAS
3 7 (1.94%) OpenStack
4 6 (1.66%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.83%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.55%) Apache
6 2 (0.55%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.55%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (1.39%) Weka
2 4 (1.11%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
4 1 (0.28%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 66 (18.28%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.77%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.39%) SAP FI
4 4 (1.11%) SAP CO
4 4 (1.11%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.83%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.55%) SAP SD
7 1 (0.28%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 142 (39.34%) Azure
2 124 (34.35%) AWS
3 116 (32.13%) GCP
4 36 (9.97%) GitHub
5 27 (7.48%) Serverless
6 22 (6.09%) OCI
7 21 (5.82%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 21 (5.82%) SuccessFactors
8 17 (4.71%) PaaS
9 16 (4.43%) IaaS
10 15 (4.16%) Azure DevOps
11 12 (3.32%) Cloud Computing
11 12 (3.32%) SaaS
12 11 (3.05%) GitHub Actions
13 10 (2.77%) AWS KMS
14 9 (2.49%) AWS CloudFormation
14 9 (2.49%) Power Platform
15 8 (2.22%) Microsoft 365
16 6 (1.66%) Nutanix
17 5 (1.39%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 37 (10.25%) Firewall
2 29 (8.03%) DNS
3 25 (6.93%) Network Security
4 22 (6.09%) VPN
5 17 (4.71%) WAN
6 16 (4.43%) TCP/IP
7 11 (3.05%) LAN
8 9 (2.49%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 9 (2.49%) Kerberos
9 8 (2.22%) SD-WAN
10 6 (1.66%) Internet
11 5 (1.39%) DHCP
11 5 (1.39%) Wireless
12 4 (1.11%) BGP
12 4 (1.11%) Multicast
12 4 (1.11%) NetScaler
12 4 (1.11%) OSPF
13 3 (0.83%) MPLS
13 3 (0.83%) VSAN
13 3 (0.83%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (5.82%) NoSQL
2 16 (4.43%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (3.32%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (3.05%) Oracle Database
5 8 (2.22%) Power BI
6 6 (1.66%) BigQuery
7 4 (1.11%) Oracle Exadata
7 4 (1.11%) SQL Server
8 3 (0.83%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.83%) Data Vault
8 3 (0.83%) Delta Lake
8 3 (0.83%) MongoDB
8 3 (0.83%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.55%) Elasticsearch
9 2 (0.55%) Redis
10 1 (0.28%) Apache Cassandra
10 1 (0.28%) Oracle Database 12c
10 1 (0.28%) RDBMS
10 1 (0.28%) SAP Data Services
10 1 (0.28%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 53 (14.68%) Jenkins
2 43 (11.91%) GitLab
3 23 (6.37%) JIRA
4 14 (3.88%) Postman
5 13 (3.60%) Liquibase
6 12 (3.32%) Git
7 9 (2.49%) SoapUI
8 4 (1.11%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.55%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.55%) Mocha
10 1 (0.28%) Ant
10 1 (0.28%) JUnit
10 1 (0.28%) LSMW
10 1 (0.28%) Maven
10 1 (0.28%) MSI
10 1 (0.28%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.28%) Snyk
General
1 107 (29.64%) Finance
2 90 (24.93%) Social Skills
3 61 (16.90%) Public Sector
4 42 (11.63%) Banking
5 23 (6.37%) Local Government
6 20 (5.54%) Analytical Skills
7 19 (5.26%) Financial Institution
8 10 (2.77%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.66%) Investment Banking
9 6 (1.66%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.39%) General Ledger
10 5 (1.39%) Law
11 4 (1.11%) German Language
11 4 (1.11%) Military
11 4 (1.11%) Police
12 3 (0.83%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.55%) Digital Health
13 2 (0.55%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 87 (24.10%) Architect
2 47 (13.02%) Senior
3 40 (11.08%) Cloud Engineer
4 35 (9.70%) GCP Engineer
4 35 (9.70%) Lead
5 27 (7.48%) Solutions Architect
6 22 (6.09%) Infrastructure Engineer
7 18 (4.99%) Consultant
7 18 (4.99%) DevOps Engineer
8 17 (4.71%) Technical Architect
9 15 (4.16%) AWS Engineer
9 15 (4.16%) Software Engineer
10 13 (3.60%) Senior Cloud Engineer
11 12 (3.32%) Cloud Architect
11 12 (3.32%) Data Engineer
11 12 (3.32%) Infrastructure Architect
11 12 (3.32%) SAP Architect
12 11 (3.05%) SAP Solutions Architect
13 10 (2.77%) Platform Engineer
13 10 (2.77%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (13.02%) REST
2 23 (6.37%) Middleware
3 20 (5.54%) Elastic Stack
3 20 (5.54%) RESTful
4 16 (4.43%) OAuth
5 15 (4.16%) JSON
5 15 (4.16%) SOAP
6 14 (3.88%) JWT
7 13 (3.60%) Oracle Fusion
7 13 (3.60%) XML
7 13 (3.60%) XSLT
8 12 (3.32%) Web Services
9 9 (2.49%) Spring Boot
10 7 (1.94%) Kafka
11 5 (1.39%) NumPy
11 5 (1.39%) Pandas
11 5 (1.39%) React
12 4 (1.11%) Node.js
12 4 (1.11%) Spring
12 4 (1.11%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 47 (13.02%) Cloud Native
2 19 (5.26%) Distributed Systems
3 18 (4.99%) Private Cloud
4 16 (4.43%) Data Centre
5 13 (3.60%) Hybrid Cloud
6 10 (2.77%) PKI
7 8 (2.22%) Product Ownership
8 7 (1.94%) Data Structures
8 7 (1.94%) Legacy Systems
9 6 (1.66%) Grid Computing
9 6 (1.66%) Legacy Applications
9 6 (1.66%) Security Posture
9 6 (1.66%) Virtual Team
10 5 (1.39%) Cloud Security Posture
11 4 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (0.83%) Greenfield Project
12 3 (0.83%) NHS
12 3 (0.83%) Reinsurance
13 2 (0.55%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 66 (18.28%) Linux
2 30 (8.31%) Windows
3 10 (2.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 10 (2.77%) Windows Server
3 10 (2.77%) Windows Server 2019
4 8 (2.22%) Unix
5 6 (1.66%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (1.11%) VMS
6 4 (1.11%) Windows Server 2012
7 3 (0.83%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.55%) CentOS
9 1 (0.28%) AIX
9 1 (0.28%) Debian
9 1 (0.28%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (36.01%) DevOps
2 97 (26.87%) CI/CD
3 89 (24.65%) Infrastructure as Code
4 88 (24.38%) Agile
5 75 (20.78%) Migration
6 55 (15.24%) Stakeholder Management
7 52 (14.40%) Containerisation
8 45 (12.47%) Microservices
9 39 (10.80%) Analytics
10 38 (10.53%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 33 (9.14%) Cybersecurity
12 31 (8.59%) Infrastructure Automation
13 28 (7.76%) Project Delivery
13 28 (7.76%) User Acceptance Testing
14 26 (7.20%) Root Cause Analysis
14 26 (7.20%) Software Engineering
15 25 (6.93%) ERP
16 24 (6.65%) Continuous Improvement
16 24 (6.65%) Problem-Solving
16 24 (6.65%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 87 (24.10%) Python
2 24 (6.65%) SQL
3 22 (6.09%) Go
4 19 (5.26%) Java
5 14 (3.88%) PowerShell
6 11 (3.05%) Bash
7 7 (1.94%) JavaScript
8 6 (1.66%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.11%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.83%) Ruby
10 3 (0.83%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.55%) C++
12 1 (0.28%) ABAP
12 1 (0.28%) Bicep
12 1 (0.28%) C#
12 1 (0.28%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.28%) Perl
12 1 (0.28%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 91 (25.21%) Security Cleared
2 67 (18.56%) SC Cleared
3 30 (8.31%) Degree
4 19 (5.26%) Computer Science Degree
4 19 (5.26%) Master's Degree
5 14 (3.88%) Cisco Certification
6 13 (3.60%) AWS Certification
7 12 (3.32%) DV Cleared
8 10 (2.77%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (2.22%) CISSP
9 8 (2.22%) SAP Certification
10 7 (1.94%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 7 (1.94%) ISTQB
11 6 (1.66%) Azure Certification
11 6 (1.66%) CCNP
11 6 (1.66%) CISM
12 5 (1.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (1.39%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
12 5 (1.39%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
13 4 (1.11%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (4.16%) NCSC
2 14 (3.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.32%) QA
4 11 (3.05%) NIST
5 10 (2.77%) GDPR
6 6 (1.66%) SLA
7 5 (1.39%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.39%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.39%) GRC
7 5 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 5 (1.39%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 2 (0.55%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.55%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.55%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.55%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.55%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.55%) PSD2
8 2 (0.55%) WCAG
9 1 (0.28%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.28%) COBIT
System Software
1 46 (12.74%) Docker
2 20 (5.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.71%) Hyper-V
4 12 (3.32%) Active Directory
5 6 (1.66%) VMware NSX
6 5 (1.39%) GPFS
6 5 (1.39%) Lustre
6 5 (1.39%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 5 (1.39%) vSphere
7 4 (1.11%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (1.11%) Virtual Desktop
7 4 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.55%) NFS
8 2 (0.55%) Postfix
8 2 (0.55%) Varnish
9 1 (0.28%) Ceph
9 1 (0.28%) KVM
9 1 (0.28%) QEMU
9 1 (0.28%) Sendmail
9 1 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 84 (23.27%) Terraform
2 82 (22.71%) Kubernetes
3 57 (15.79%) Ansible
4 25 (6.93%) Prometheus
5 23 (6.37%) Grafana
6 18 (4.99%) Istio
7 9 (2.49%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.66%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (1.39%) Data Guard
9 5 (1.39%) Kubeflow
9 5 (1.39%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.11%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (1.11%) SCCM
11 3 (0.83%) Puppet
12 2 (0.55%) Argo
12 2 (0.55%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.28%) Consul
13 1 (0.28%) Demisto
13 1 (0.28%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 73 (20.22%) SAP
2 55 (15.24%) Google
3 39 (10.80%) Oracle
4 34 (9.42%) VMware
5 27 (7.48%) Microsoft
6 24 (6.65%) Splunk
7 16 (4.43%) Ariba
8 15 (4.16%) F5
9 12 (3.32%) Cisco
10 11 (3.05%) Palo Alto
11 10 (2.77%) MuleSoft
11 10 (2.77%) ServiceNow
12 9 (2.49%) Red Hat
13 6 (1.66%) Aruba
14 5 (1.39%) Databricks
14 5 (1.39%) Fortinet
15 4 (1.11%) Juniper
15 4 (1.11%) Veeam
16 3 (0.83%) Citrix
16 3 (0.83%) Informatica