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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 294 269 280
Rank change year-on-year -25 +11 -60
Contract jobs citing Public Cloud 349 286 342
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.81% 0.98% 0.77%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.43% 2.90% 2.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 223 201 230
10th Percentile £389 £450 £467
25th Percentile £473 £525 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £608 £594
Median % change year-on-year -9.47% +2.32% -3.96%
75th Percentile £656 £694 £706
90th Percentile £700 £788 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £537 £593 £600
% change year-on-year -9.37% -1.25% +5.73%
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% -10.08%
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 14,355 9,854 13,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.18% 33.61% 30.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,016 6,248 8,623
10th Percentile £297 £287 £256
25th Percentile £406 £410 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £769
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 671 363 868
10th Percentile £15.50 £16.95 £12.50
25th Percentile £18.87 £22.25 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.32 £32.50 £27.75
Median % change year-on-year +11.75% +17.12% +23.33%
75th Percentile £68.38 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £84.00 £83.20 £67.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.94 £31.08 £26.00
% change year-on-year +34.94% +19.54% +16.80%

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 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 18 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 -55 289 £550 -9.47% 89
UK excluding London -20 176 £537 -9.37% 65
London -63 116 £600 -4.00% 31
Work from Home -17 82 £600 -2.44% 53
North of England -12 69 £525 -9.29% 21
Yorkshire -28 40 £525 -9.87% 6
Midlands -26 39 £575 +17.35% 9
South East -59 33 £522 -13.00% 21
North West -18 28 £363 -36.96% 6
South West -1 26 £588 -7.84% 7
East Midlands -18 23 £600 +35.14% 4
West Midlands -43 14 £525 -34.38% 5
Scotland -5 9 £521 -7.42% 4
East of England -25 6 £413 -31.25% 6
Wales -6 3 £214 -63.98%
North East - 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 (3.44%) Confluence
2 7 (2.01%) OpenStack
2 7 (2.01%) SAS
3 6 (1.72%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (0.86%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.57%) Apache
5 2 (0.57%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 2 (0.57%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 5 (1.43%) Weka
2 3 (0.86%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.29%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 61 (17.48%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (2.87%) Oracle ERP
3 5 (1.43%) SAP FI
4 4 (1.15%) SAP CO
4 4 (1.15%) SAP FI/CO
5 2 (0.57%) SAP ERP
5 2 (0.57%) SAP SD
6 1 (0.29%) Exchequer
Cloud Services
1 134 (38.40%) Azure
2 117 (33.52%) AWS
3 114 (32.66%) GCP
4 35 (10.03%) GitHub
5 27 (7.74%) Serverless
6 22 (6.30%) OCI
7 21 (6.02%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 21 (6.02%) SuccessFactors
8 18 (5.16%) IaaS
8 18 (5.16%) PaaS
9 14 (4.01%) Azure DevOps
10 13 (3.72%) SaaS
11 12 (3.44%) Cloud Computing
12 10 (2.87%) AWS KMS
12 10 (2.87%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (2.87%) Power Platform
13 8 (2.29%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
15 6 (1.72%) Nutanix
16 5 (1.43%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 36 (10.32%) Firewall
2 27 (7.74%) DNS
2 27 (7.74%) Network Security
3 23 (6.59%) VPN
4 18 (5.16%) WAN
5 16 (4.58%) TCP/IP
6 10 (2.87%) LAN
7 8 (2.29%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 8 (2.29%) SD-WAN
8 7 (2.01%) Internet
8 7 (2.01%) Kerberos
9 5 (1.43%) DHCP
9 5 (1.43%) Wireless
10 4 (1.15%) BGP
10 4 (1.15%) Multicast
10 4 (1.15%) NetScaler
10 4 (1.15%) OSPF
11 3 (0.86%) MPLS
11 3 (0.86%) VXLAN
12 2 (0.57%) IPv6
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (6.02%) NoSQL
2 16 (4.58%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.87%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (2.58%) Oracle Database
4 9 (2.58%) Power BI
5 6 (1.72%) BigQuery
6 4 (1.15%) Oracle Exadata
6 4 (1.15%) Relational Database
6 4 (1.15%) SQL Server
7 3 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (0.86%) Data Vault
7 3 (0.86%) Delta Lake
7 3 (0.86%) MongoDB
8 2 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.57%) Redis
9 1 (0.29%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.29%) Data Mining
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (0.29%) RDBMS
9 1 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 52 (14.90%) Jenkins
2 42 (12.03%) GitLab
3 24 (6.88%) JIRA
4 14 (4.01%) Postman
5 13 (3.72%) Liquibase
6 11 (3.15%) Git
7 9 (2.58%) SoapUI
8 4 (1.15%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.57%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.57%) Mocha
10 1 (0.29%) Ant
10 1 (0.29%) JUnit
10 1 (0.29%) Maven
10 1 (0.29%) MSI
10 1 (0.29%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.29%) Snyk
General
1 106 (30.37%) Finance
2 92 (26.36%) Social Skills
3 59 (16.91%) Public Sector
4 45 (12.89%) Banking
5 22 (6.30%) Local Government
6 19 (5.44%) Analytical Skills
7 18 (5.16%) Financial Institution
8 10 (2.87%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.72%) Investment Banking
9 6 (1.72%) Manufacturing
10 5 (1.43%) General Ledger
10 5 (1.43%) Law
11 4 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.15%) German Language
11 4 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.15%) Military
11 4 (1.15%) Police
11 4 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.57%) Public Speaking
12 2 (0.57%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 82 (23.50%) Architect
2 45 (12.89%) Senior
3 40 (11.46%) Cloud Engineer
4 35 (10.03%) GCP Engineer
5 33 (9.46%) Lead
6 26 (7.45%) Solutions Architect
7 20 (5.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
8 18 (5.16%) DevOps Engineer
9 16 (4.58%) Consultant
10 15 (4.30%) AWS Engineer
11 14 (4.01%) Software Engineer
12 13 (3.72%) Senior Cloud Engineer
12 13 (3.72%) Technical Architect
13 12 (3.44%) Analyst
13 12 (3.44%) Data Engineer
13 12 (3.44%) SAP Architect
14 11 (3.15%) Cloud Architect
14 11 (3.15%) Developer
14 11 (3.15%) Infrastructure Architect
14 11 (3.15%) SAP Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (13.47%) REST
2 22 (6.30%) Middleware
3 20 (5.73%) Elastic Stack
4 19 (5.44%) RESTful
5 16 (4.58%) JSON
5 16 (4.58%) OAuth
6 15 (4.30%) SOAP
7 14 (4.01%) JWT
8 13 (3.72%) Oracle Fusion
8 13 (3.72%) XML
8 13 (3.72%) XSLT
9 12 (3.44%) Web Services
10 9 (2.58%) Spring Boot
11 7 (2.01%) Kafka
12 5 (1.43%) NumPy
12 5 (1.43%) Pandas
12 5 (1.43%) React
13 4 (1.15%) PyTorch
13 4 (1.15%) Spring
13 4 (1.15%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 45 (12.89%) Cloud Native
2 20 (5.73%) Data Centre
3 19 (5.44%) Distributed Systems
4 17 (4.87%) Private Cloud
5 12 (3.44%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (2.58%) Product Ownership
7 7 (2.01%) PKI
8 6 (1.72%) Grid Computing
8 6 (1.72%) Legacy Applications
8 6 (1.72%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.72%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.43%) Cloud Security Posture
9 5 (1.43%) Data Structures
10 4 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.15%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.86%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (0.86%) Greenfield Project
11 3 (0.86%) NHS
11 3 (0.86%) Reinsurance
12 2 (0.57%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 60 (17.19%) Linux
2 27 (7.74%) Windows
3 9 (2.58%) Unix
3 9 (2.58%) Windows Server
4 8 (2.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 8 (2.29%) Windows Server 2019
5 4 (1.15%) VMS
5 4 (1.15%) Windows Server 2012
5 4 (1.15%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (0.86%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.57%) CentOS
8 1 (0.29%) AIX
8 1 (0.29%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (36.39%) DevOps
2 91 (26.07%) CI/CD
3 84 (24.07%) Agile
3 84 (24.07%) Infrastructure as Code
4 69 (19.77%) Migration
5 55 (15.76%) Stakeholder Management
6 48 (13.75%) Containerisation
7 42 (12.03%) Microservices
8 40 (11.46%) Analytics
9 36 (10.32%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 33 (9.46%) Cybersecurity
11 29 (8.31%) Infrastructure Automation
12 26 (7.45%) Problem-Solving
12 26 (7.45%) Root Cause Analysis
13 25 (7.16%) Cloud Security
13 25 (7.16%) Continuous Improvement
13 25 (7.16%) Project Delivery
13 25 (7.16%) Software Engineering
13 25 (7.16%) User Acceptance Testing
14 24 (6.88%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 85 (24.36%) Python
2 24 (6.88%) SQL
3 23 (6.59%) Go
4 18 (5.16%) Java
5 12 (3.44%) PowerShell
6 10 (2.87%) Bash
7 6 (1.72%) JavaScript
8 5 (1.43%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.15%) PL/SQL
10 3 (0.86%) Ruby
10 3 (0.86%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.57%) Bicep
11 2 (0.57%) C++
12 1 (0.29%) ABAP
12 1 (0.29%) Perl
12 1 (0.29%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 86 (24.64%) Security Cleared
2 62 (17.77%) SC Cleared
3 31 (8.88%) Degree
4 19 (5.44%) Computer Science Degree
4 19 (5.44%) Master's Degree
5 14 (4.01%) AWS Certification
6 13 (3.72%) Cisco Certification
7 10 (2.87%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (2.29%) Azure Certification
8 8 (2.29%) CISSP
8 8 (2.29%) DV Cleared
8 8 (2.29%) SAP Certification
9 7 (2.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 7 (2.01%) ISTQB
10 6 (1.72%) CISM
11 5 (1.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (1.43%) CCNP
11 5 (1.43%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
11 5 (1.43%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
12 4 (1.15%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (4.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (3.44%) NCSC
2 12 (3.44%) QA
3 10 (2.87%) GDPR
4 8 (2.29%) NIST
5 7 (2.01%) SLA
6 5 (1.43%) GRC
6 5 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 5 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27005
7 3 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.86%) Data Quality
8 2 (0.57%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.57%) Government Security Classifications
8 2 (0.57%) ISO 15022
8 2 (0.57%) ISO 20022
8 2 (0.57%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.57%) PSD2
8 2 (0.57%) WCAG
9 1 (0.29%) COBIT
9 1 (0.29%) RMADS
System Software
1 44 (12.61%) Docker
2 17 (4.87%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (4.58%) Hyper-V
4 13 (3.72%) Active Directory
5 6 (1.72%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (1.72%) vSphere
6 5 (1.43%) GPFS
6 5 (1.43%) Lustre
6 5 (1.43%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 4 (1.15%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (1.15%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.86%) VMware NSX
9 2 (0.57%) NFS
9 2 (0.57%) Postfix
9 2 (0.57%) Varnish
10 1 (0.29%) Firmware
10 1 (0.29%) KVM
10 1 (0.29%) Microsoft App-V
10 1 (0.29%) QEMU
10 1 (0.29%) Sendmail
Systems Management
1 81 (23.21%) Terraform
2 80 (22.92%) Kubernetes
3 54 (15.47%) Ansible
4 24 (6.88%) Prometheus
5 22 (6.30%) Grafana
6 18 (5.16%) Istio
7 9 (2.58%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.72%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (1.43%) Data Guard
9 5 (1.43%) Kubeflow
9 5 (1.43%) Oracle RMAN
10 4 (1.15%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 4 (1.15%) SCCM
11 3 (0.86%) Puppet
12 2 (0.57%) Argo
12 2 (0.57%) HAProxy
12 2 (0.57%) Red Hat Satellite
12 2 (0.57%) vCenter Server
12 2 (0.57%) vMotion
13 1 (0.29%) Consul
Vendors
1 68 (19.48%) SAP
2 54 (15.47%) Google
3 37 (10.60%) Oracle
4 30 (8.60%) VMware
5 24 (6.88%) Splunk
6 22 (6.30%) Microsoft
7 14 (4.01%) Ariba
7 14 (4.01%) F5
8 11 (3.15%) ServiceNow
9 10 (2.87%) Cisco
10 9 (2.58%) MuleSoft
10 9 (2.58%) Palo Alto
11 7 (2.01%) Red Hat
12 6 (1.72%) Aruba
13 5 (1.43%) Databricks
13 5 (1.43%) Fortinet
14 4 (1.15%) Juniper
14 4 (1.15%) Veeam
15 3 (0.86%) IBM
15 3 (0.86%) Informatica