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

6 months to
31 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 261 288
Rank change year-on-year -33 +27 -72
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 370 279 351
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.83% 0.96% 0.79%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.53% 2.84% 2.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 200 237
10th Percentile £395 £450 £471
25th Percentile £500 £525 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £554 £613 £600
Median % change year-on-year -9.63% +2.08% -3.23%
75th Percentile £669 £695 £738
90th Percentile £700 £788 £830
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £593 £600
% change year-on-year -7.17% -1.25% +4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 3 2
10th Percentile - £48.40 £38.88
25th Percentile £71.25 £56.50 £42.06
Median hourly rate £72.50 £70.00 £48.25
Median % change year-on-year +3.57% +45.08% -34.80%
75th Percentile £73.75 £73.75 £53.56
90th Percentile - £76.00 £56.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £72.50 £38.50
% change year-on-year - +88.31% -50.64%

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 14,617 9,829 13,418
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.83% 33.81% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,187 6,301 8,593
10th Percentile £300 £296 £259
25th Percentile £410 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 688 377 889
10th Percentile £15.72 £16.95 £12.26
25th Percentile £19.33 £22.50 £15.39
Median hourly rate £42.60 £32.50 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.08% +18.18% +22.30%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.43 £83.20 £67.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £32.50 £25.50
% change year-on-year +39.88% +27.45% +15.91%

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 31 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 31 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 -46 305 £560 -8.57% 85
UK excluding London -20 190 £550 -7.17% 62
London -75 118 £600 -4.00% 28
Work from Home -3 93 £600 -2.44% 50
North of England -18 71 £525 -10.64% 21
South East -48 45 £552 -8.04% 21
Yorkshire -21 41 £525 -12.32% 6
Midlands -30 41 £600 +9.09% 7
North West -15 29 £363 -37.90% 6
South West -4 26 £650 +1.96% 6
East Midlands -14 25 £638 +59.38% 1
West Midlands -45 13 £525 -25.66% 6
Scotland -12 7 £425 -24.51% 4
East of England -36 5 £413 -40.00% 5
Wales -10 3 £214 -63.98%
North East -11 2 - - 9
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 (3.24%) Confluence
2 9 (2.43%) SAS
3 8 (2.16%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (1.62%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.81%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.54%) Apache
6 2 (0.54%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 2 (0.54%) Palantir Foundry
7 1 (0.27%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 4 (1.08%) Microsoft Project
1 4 (1.08%) Weka
2 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 68 (18.38%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.70%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.35%) SAP FI
4 4 (1.08%) SAP CO
4 4 (1.08%) SAP FI/CO
5 3 (0.81%) SAP ERP
6 2 (0.54%) SAP SD
7 1 (0.27%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 148 (40.00%) Azure
2 128 (34.59%) AWS
3 119 (32.16%) GCP
4 38 (10.27%) GitHub
5 26 (7.03%) Serverless
6 23 (6.22%) OCI
6 23 (6.22%) SuccessFactors
7 22 (5.95%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 20 (5.41%) PaaS
9 19 (5.14%) IaaS
10 15 (4.05%) Azure DevOps
10 15 (4.05%) SaaS
11 12 (3.24%) GitHub Actions
12 11 (2.97%) Cloud Computing
13 10 (2.70%) AWS KMS
14 9 (2.43%) AWS CloudFormation
14 9 (2.43%) Power Platform
15 8 (2.16%) Microsoft 365
16 7 (1.89%) dbt
17 6 (1.62%) Nutanix
Communications & Networking
1 39 (10.54%) Firewall
2 31 (8.38%) DNS
3 24 (6.49%) Network Security
4 21 (5.68%) VPN
5 16 (4.32%) WAN
6 15 (4.05%) TCP/IP
7 11 (2.97%) LAN
8 9 (2.43%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
8 9 (2.43%) Kerberos
9 8 (2.16%) SD-WAN
10 6 (1.62%) Internet
11 5 (1.35%) DHCP
11 5 (1.35%) Wireless
12 4 (1.08%) BGP
12 4 (1.08%) Multicast
12 4 (1.08%) NetScaler
12 4 (1.08%) OSPF
13 3 (0.81%) MPLS
13 3 (0.81%) VSAN
13 3 (0.81%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (5.41%) NoSQL
2 16 (4.32%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (3.24%) Data Warehouse
4 11 (2.97%) Oracle Database
5 8 (2.16%) BigQuery
5 8 (2.16%) Power BI
6 4 (1.08%) Oracle Exadata
6 4 (1.08%) SQL Server
7 3 (0.81%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (0.81%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.81%) Delta Lake
7 3 (0.81%) MongoDB
7 3 (0.81%) Relational Database
8 2 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.54%) Redis
9 1 (0.27%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.27%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (0.27%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.27%) SAP Data Services
9 1 (0.27%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 53 (14.32%) Jenkins
2 41 (11.08%) GitLab
3 23 (6.22%) JIRA
4 14 (3.78%) Postman
5 13 (3.51%) Git
6 12 (3.24%) Liquibase
7 9 (2.43%) SoapUI
8 4 (1.08%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.54%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.54%) Mocha
10 1 (0.27%) Ant
10 1 (0.27%) JUnit
10 1 (0.27%) LSMW
10 1 (0.27%) Maven
10 1 (0.27%) MSI
10 1 (0.27%) PVCS
10 1 (0.27%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.27%) Snyk
General
1 109 (29.46%) Finance
2 88 (23.78%) Social Skills
3 62 (16.76%) Public Sector
4 42 (11.35%) Banking
5 23 (6.22%) Local Government
6 20 (5.41%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (4.86%) Financial Institution
8 11 (2.97%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.62%) Investment Banking
9 6 (1.62%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.35%) General Ledger
10 5 (1.35%) Law
11 4 (1.08%) German Language
11 4 (1.08%) Military
11 4 (1.08%) Police
12 3 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.54%) Digital Health
13 2 (0.54%) Documentation Skills
13 2 (0.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 2 (0.54%) Public Speaking
Job Titles
1 89 (24.05%) Architect
2 47 (12.70%) Senior
3 42 (11.35%) Cloud Engineer
4 37 (10.00%) Lead
5 35 (9.46%) GCP Engineer
6 28 (7.57%) Solutions Architect
7 24 (6.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 18 (4.86%) Technical Architect
9 17 (4.59%) Consultant
10 15 (4.05%) AWS Engineer
10 15 (4.05%) DevOps Engineer
11 14 (3.78%) Software Engineer
12 13 (3.51%) SAP Architect
13 12 (3.24%) Cloud Architect
13 12 (3.24%) Data Engineer
13 12 (3.24%) Infrastructure Architect
13 12 (3.24%) Senior Cloud Engineer
14 11 (2.97%) Developer
14 11 (2.97%) SAP Solutions Architect
15 10 (2.70%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 46 (12.43%) REST
2 23 (6.22%) Middleware
3 19 (5.14%) Elastic Stack
3 19 (5.14%) RESTful
4 16 (4.32%) OAuth
5 15 (4.05%) JSON
5 15 (4.05%) SOAP
6 14 (3.78%) JWT
7 13 (3.51%) Oracle Fusion
7 13 (3.51%) XML
7 13 (3.51%) XSLT
8 12 (3.24%) Web Services
9 9 (2.43%) Spring Boot
10 7 (1.89%) Kafka
10 7 (1.89%) NumPy
10 7 (1.89%) Pandas
11 5 (1.35%) React
12 4 (1.08%) Node.js
12 4 (1.08%) Spring
12 4 (1.08%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 47 (12.70%) Cloud Native
2 18 (4.86%) Distributed Systems
3 17 (4.59%) Private Cloud
4 16 (4.32%) Data Centre
5 13 (3.51%) Hybrid Cloud
6 10 (2.70%) PKI
7 9 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (2.16%) Product Ownership
9 7 (1.89%) Data Structures
10 6 (1.62%) Legacy Applications
10 6 (1.62%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.62%) Virtual Team
11 5 (1.35%) Cloud Security Posture
11 5 (1.35%) Grid Computing
12 4 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
13 3 (0.81%) Enterprise Software
13 3 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
13 3 (0.81%) NHS
13 3 (0.81%) Reinsurance
14 2 (0.54%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 65 (17.57%) Linux
2 30 (8.11%) Windows
3 11 (2.97%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 10 (2.70%) Windows Server
4 10 (2.70%) Windows Server 2019
5 8 (2.16%) Unix
6 6 (1.62%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (1.35%) VMS
8 4 (1.08%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.81%) Ubuntu
10 2 (0.54%) CentOS
11 1 (0.27%) AIX
11 1 (0.27%) Debian
11 1 (0.27%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 131 (35.41%) DevOps
2 100 (27.03%) CI/CD
3 91 (24.59%) Infrastructure as Code
4 88 (23.78%) Agile
5 75 (20.27%) Migration
6 54 (14.59%) Stakeholder Management
7 50 (13.51%) Containerisation
8 45 (12.16%) Microservices
9 42 (11.35%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 39 (10.54%) Analytics
11 32 (8.65%) Cybersecurity
12 30 (8.11%) Infrastructure Automation
13 28 (7.57%) Project Delivery
13 28 (7.57%) User Acceptance Testing
14 26 (7.03%) Cloud Security
14 26 (7.03%) ERP
15 25 (6.76%) Problem-Solving
15 25 (6.76%) Root Cause Analysis
15 25 (6.76%) Software Engineering
15 25 (6.76%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 90 (24.32%) Python
2 22 (5.95%) SQL
3 21 (5.68%) Go
4 17 (4.59%) Java
5 15 (4.05%) PowerShell
6 10 (2.70%) Bash
7 6 (1.62%) JavaScript
7 6 (1.62%) TypeScript
8 4 (1.08%) Bicep
8 4 (1.08%) PL/SQL
8 4 (1.08%) Shell Script
9 2 (0.54%) Ruby
10 1 (0.27%) ABAP
10 1 (0.27%) C#
10 1 (0.27%) C++
10 1 (0.27%) Kotlin
10 1 (0.27%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 94 (25.41%) Security Cleared
2 70 (18.92%) SC Cleared
3 28 (7.57%) Degree
4 18 (4.86%) Computer Science Degree
4 18 (4.86%) Master's Degree
5 14 (3.78%) Cisco Certification
5 14 (3.78%) DV Cleared
6 13 (3.51%) AWS Certification
7 10 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (2.16%) CISSP
8 8 (2.16%) SAP Certification
9 7 (1.89%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 7 (1.89%) ISTQB
10 6 (1.62%) Azure Certification
10 6 (1.62%) CCNP
10 6 (1.62%) CISM
11 5 (1.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (1.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
11 5 (1.35%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 4 (1.08%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.59%) NCSC
2 14 (3.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (3.24%) QA
4 11 (2.97%) NIST
5 10 (2.70%) GDPR
6 6 (1.62%) SLA
7 5 (1.35%) Cyber Essentials
7 5 (1.35%) Data Quality
7 5 (1.35%) GRC
7 5 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 5 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27005
8 2 (0.54%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.54%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.54%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.54%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.54%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.54%) PSD2
8 2 (0.54%) WCAG
9 1 (0.27%) COBIT
9 1 (0.27%) RMADS
System Software
1 43 (11.62%) Docker
2 20 (5.41%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.59%) Hyper-V
4 12 (3.24%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.35%) VMware NSX
6 4 (1.08%) GPFS
6 4 (1.08%) Lustre
6 4 (1.08%) Oracle RAC
6 4 (1.08%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 4 (1.08%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (1.08%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (1.08%) vSphere
7 2 (0.54%) NFS
7 2 (0.54%) Postfix
7 2 (0.54%) Varnish
8 1 (0.27%) Firmware
8 1 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
8 1 (0.27%) QEMU
8 1 (0.27%) Sendmail
8 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 86 (23.24%) Terraform
2 80 (21.62%) Kubernetes
3 54 (14.59%) Ansible
4 24 (6.49%) Prometheus
5 22 (5.95%) Grafana
6 19 (5.14%) Istio
7 9 (2.43%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (1.89%) Kubeflow
9 6 (1.62%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (1.35%) Data Guard
10 5 (1.35%) Oracle RMAN
11 4 (1.08%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (1.08%) SCCM
12 2 (0.54%) Argo
12 2 (0.54%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.54%) Puppet
12 2 (0.54%) Red Hat Satellite
13 1 (0.27%) FortiGate
13 1 (0.27%) Nessus
13 1 (0.27%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 75 (20.27%) SAP
2 58 (15.68%) Google
3 40 (10.81%) Oracle
4 33 (8.92%) VMware
5 30 (8.11%) Microsoft
6 23 (6.22%) Splunk
7 17 (4.59%) Ariba
8 15 (4.05%) F5
9 12 (3.24%) Cisco
10 11 (2.97%) Palo Alto
11 10 (2.70%) MuleSoft
11 10 (2.70%) Red Hat
11 10 (2.70%) ServiceNow
12 6 (1.62%) Aruba
13 5 (1.35%) Databricks
13 5 (1.35%) Fortinet
14 4 (1.08%) Juniper
14 4 (1.08%) Veeam
15 3 (0.81%) Citrix
15 3 (0.81%) Informatica