Platform Engineering Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Platform Engineering
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Platform Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 6 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
6 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 195 277
Rank change year-on-year +91 +82 +2
Contract jobs citing Platform Engineering 682 189 87
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.42% 1.21% 0.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.99% 1.36% 0.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 405 134 59
10th Percentile £384 £404 £411
25th Percentile £425 £459 £464
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -11.58%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £580
90th Percentile £700 £696 £685
UK median daily rate £550 £525 £575
% change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 0 0
10th Percentile £70.65 - -
25th Percentile £72.56 - -
Median hourly rate £84.25 - -
75th Percentile £99.71 - -
90th Percentile £100.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £77.50 - £55.00
% change year-on-year - - -29.49%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Platform Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 22,824 13,927 14,507
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 80.94% 89.17% 83.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,701 8,372 8,186
10th Percentile £300 £225 £240
25th Percentile £409 £367 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £669 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,856 1,519 1,079
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.13 £14.84
25th Percentile £16.71 £17.14 £18.15
Median hourly rate £38.72 £22.32 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.52% -47.49% -
75th Percentile £66.00 £40.36 £66.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £66.10 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £38.50 £25.15 £41.08
% change year-on-year +53.08% -38.77% -3.91%

Platform Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Platform Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Platform Engineering job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Platform Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Platform Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Platform Engineering

Platform Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Platform Engineering in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Platform Engineering in the UK excluding London

Platform Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Platform Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Platform Engineering

Platform Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Platform Engineering in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 6 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Platform Engineering in the UK excluding London

Platform Engineering
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Platform Engineering within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 6 October 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
North of England +62 215 £513 +7.89% 321
Yorkshire +62 131 £512 -2.52% 96
South East +16 128 £575 +21.05% 301
Midlands +11 124 £453 -12.04% 116
South West +25 88 £550 -8.33% 153
West Midlands -14 87 £450 -11.33% 66
Scotland +24 84 £425 -19.05% 167
North West -2 70 £550 +23.60% 181
East Midlands +27 36 £456 -34.82% 50
East of England -1 35 £525 -4.55% 95
North East -24 16 £425 -5.56% 45
Wales - 10 £325 - 44
Northern Ireland - 3 £600 - 33
Channel Islands - 1 - -
Platform Engineering
UK

Platform Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 14 (2.05%) SharePoint
2 13 (1.91%) Confluence
3 8 (1.17%) Apache
4 6 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.73%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
6 3 (0.44%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.29%) Apache Superset
7 2 (0.29%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.15%) nginx
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle Coherence
8 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (2.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.59%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.59%) Sage X3
3 2 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 297 (43.55%) Azure
2 287 (42.08%) AWS
3 124 (18.18%) GCP
4 105 (15.40%) GitHub
5 87 (12.76%) Azure DevOps
6 73 (10.70%) GitHub Actions
7 58 (8.50%) Serverless
8 43 (6.30%) Power Platform
9 37 (5.43%) OpenShift
10 35 (5.13%) Amazon EKS
11 34 (4.99%) Entra ID
12 32 (4.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 32 (4.69%) AWS Lambda
12 32 (4.69%) Azure Monitor
13 29 (4.25%) PowerApps
14 28 (4.11%) Power Automate
15 25 (3.67%) Azure AKS
16 24 (3.52%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 21 (3.08%) Amazon ECS
17 21 (3.08%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 67 (9.82%) DNS
2 51 (7.48%) Firewall
3 36 (5.28%) DHCP
3 36 (5.28%) TCP/IP
4 25 (3.67%) VPN
5 22 (3.23%) VSAN
6 19 (2.79%) Network Security
7 12 (1.76%) HTTP
8 5 (0.73%) SNMP
8 5 (0.73%) SSH
9 3 (0.44%) HTTPS
9 3 (0.44%) NAS
9 3 (0.44%) SAN
9 3 (0.44%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (0.44%) WAN
10 2 (0.29%) Internet
10 2 (0.29%) Intrusion Detection
10 2 (0.29%) LAN
10 2 (0.29%) Multicast
10 2 (0.29%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (4.40%) PostgreSQL
2 28 (4.11%) SQL Server
3 14 (2.05%) MySQL
4 13 (1.91%) Data Warehouse
5 12 (1.76%) DynamoDB
6 11 (1.61%) Power BI
7 9 (1.32%) Data Lake
8 8 (1.17%) Amazon Redshift
8 8 (1.17%) Big Data
8 8 (1.17%) BigQuery
8 8 (1.17%) Oracle Exadata
8 8 (1.17%) Relational Database
9 7 (1.03%) Neo4j
10 6 (0.88%) Ataccama
10 6 (0.88%) Metadata
10 6 (0.88%) NoSQL
11 5 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
11 5 (0.73%) Delta Lake
12 4 (0.59%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.59%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 77 (11.29%) Jenkins
2 66 (9.68%) GitLab
3 63 (9.24%) Git
4 26 (3.81%) JIRA
5 16 (2.35%) Bitbucket
6 8 (1.17%) Claude Code
7 6 (0.88%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.73%) Maven
9 4 (0.59%) Artifactory
9 4 (0.59%) Gatling
9 4 (0.59%) MSBuild
9 4 (0.59%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (0.59%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.44%) JUnit
10 3 (0.44%) Mockito
10 3 (0.44%) Selenium
11 2 (0.29%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.15%) Gerrit
12 1 (0.15%) NeoLoad
12 1 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 132 (19.35%) Social Skills
2 103 (15.10%) Finance
3 80 (11.73%) Public Sector
4 37 (5.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 34 (4.99%) Banking
6 29 (4.25%) Analytical Skills
7 24 (3.52%) Aerospace
8 16 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 15 (2.20%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.32%) Billing
10 9 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.32%) Investment Banking
10 9 (1.32%) Military
11 6 (0.88%) Retail
12 5 (0.73%) Law
12 5 (0.73%) Local Government
13 4 (0.59%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.59%) Health Technology
13 4 (0.59%) Manufacturing
13 4 (0.59%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 256 (37.54%) Platform Engineer
2 135 (19.79%) Senior
3 108 (15.84%) DevOps Engineer
4 92 (13.49%) Cloud Platform Engineer
5 72 (10.56%) Cloud Engineer
6 61 (8.94%) Senior Platform Engineer
7 59 (8.65%) Data Engineer
8 54 (7.92%) Azure Engineer
9 52 (7.62%) Lead
10 48 (7.04%) Architect
11 47 (6.89%) Developer
12 43 (6.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 42 (6.16%) AWS Engineer
14 33 (4.84%) DevOps Platform Engineer
15 31 (4.55%) Azure Platform Engineer
16 26 (3.81%) Principal Engineer
16 26 (3.81%) Senior Data Engineer
17 25 (3.67%) AWS Platform Engineer
18 24 (3.52%) GCP Engineer
19 23 (3.37%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 318 (46.63%) Terraform
2 50 (7.33%) Kafka
3 29 (4.25%) JSON
4 26 (3.81%) ARM Templates
5 24 (3.52%) REST
6 18 (2.64%) .NET
6 18 (2.64%) YAML
7 16 (2.35%) OAuth
7 16 (2.35%) OpenTelemetry
8 15 (2.20%) OAuth2
8 15 (2.20%) React
9 14 (2.05%) AWS CDK
10 12 (1.76%) OpenID
11 11 (1.61%) Node.js
11 11 (1.61%) SAML
11 11 (1.61%) Spring Boot
12 10 (1.47%) XML
13 8 (1.17%) RESTful
13 8 (1.17%) Spring
13 8 (1.17%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 152 (22.29%) Cloud Native
2 59 (8.65%) Product Ownership
3 48 (7.04%) Distributed Systems
4 39 (5.72%) Onboarding
5 38 (5.57%) Hybrid Cloud
6 35 (5.13%) Data Protection Act
7 31 (4.55%) Private Cloud
8 29 (4.25%) PKI
9 28 (4.11%) Data Centre
10 20 (2.93%) Enterprise Software
11 19 (2.79%) Enterprise Cloud
12 18 (2.64%) Management Information System
13 16 (2.35%) Public Cloud
14 14 (2.05%) AI Agents
14 14 (2.05%) Linux Command Line
15 13 (1.91%) NHS
16 8 (1.17%) Low-Code
16 8 (1.17%) Taxonomies
16 8 (1.17%) Virtual Team
17 7 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 126 (18.48%) Linux
2 67 (9.82%) Windows
3 29 (4.25%) Windows Server
4 23 (3.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (1.61%) Unix
6 10 (1.47%) VMS
7 6 (0.88%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.44%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.29%) CentOS
9 2 (0.29%) Data ONTAP
9 2 (0.29%) Debian
10 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.15%) Rocky
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 382 (56.01%) CI/CD
2 364 (53.37%) DevOps
3 324 (47.51%) Infrastructure as Code
4 199 (29.18%) Observability
5 144 (21.11%) Agile
6 138 (20.23%) Containerisation
7 137 (20.09%) Technical Leadership
8 130 (19.06%) Continuous Improvement
9 118 (17.30%) DevSecOps
10 111 (16.28%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 110 (16.13%) AI
12 97 (14.22%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 87 (12.76%) Software Engineering
13 87 (12.76%) Stakeholder Management
14 86 (12.61%) Problem-Solving
15 80 (11.73%) Migration
16 72 (10.56%) Roadmaps
17 71 (10.41%) Cybersecurity
18 70 (10.26%) Infrastructure Automation
19 69 (10.12%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 247 (36.22%) Python
2 105 (15.40%) PowerShell
3 103 (15.10%) Bash
4 65 (9.53%) Java
5 47 (6.89%) Bicep
6 42 (6.16%) SQL
7 39 (5.72%) C#
8 25 (3.67%) JavaScript
9 22 (3.23%) Go
10 14 (2.05%) TypeScript
11 7 (1.03%) Groovy
11 7 (1.03%) Shell Script
12 6 (0.88%) Scala
13 4 (0.59%) C++
13 4 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
13 4 (0.59%) Perl
14 2 (0.29%) PHP
14 2 (0.29%) VBScript
15 1 (0.15%) Lua
15 1 (0.15%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 205 (30.06%) Security Cleared
2 148 (21.70%) SC Cleared
3 64 (9.38%) DV Cleared
4 31 (4.55%) Azure Certification
5 29 (4.25%) AWS Certification
6 28 (4.11%) Degree
7 24 (3.52%) Microsoft Certification
8 23 (3.37%) BPSS Clearance
9 12 (1.76%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (1.76%) VCAP
10 10 (1.47%) CISSP
11 8 (1.17%) SAFe Agilist
12 7 (1.03%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 7 (1.03%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 6 (0.88%) RHCE
14 5 (0.73%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.73%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.73%) PMP
15 4 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 4 (0.59%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (3.67%) QA
2 23 (3.37%) Accessibility
3 15 (2.20%) Data Quality
4 12 (1.76%) GDPR
4 12 (1.76%) NCSC
5 8 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.17%) NIST
5 8 (1.17%) WCAG
6 6 (0.88%) GRC
7 5 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.29%) GxP
10 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.29%) SLA
11 1 (0.15%) HL7
11 1 (0.15%) JSP 440
System Software
1 117 (17.16%) Docker
2 69 (10.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 49 (7.18%) Active Directory
4 39 (5.72%) vSphere
5 22 (3.23%) Hyper-V
6 21 (3.08%) VMware NSX
7 13 (1.91%) Virtual Machines
7 13 (1.91%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.73%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.29%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (0.29%) Firmware
9 2 (0.29%) NFS
9 2 (0.29%) SRDF
10 1 (0.15%) Squid
10 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.15%) zsh
Systems Management
1 276 (40.47%) Kubernetes
2 112 (16.42%) Ansible
3 40 (5.87%) Grafana
4 35 (5.13%) Prometheus
5 31 (4.55%) Argo
6 14 (2.05%) VxRail
7 12 (1.76%) Istio
8 11 (1.61%) Kustomize
9 10 (1.47%) vCenter Server
10 9 (1.32%) Microsoft Intune
11 7 (1.03%) SCCM
12 6 (0.88%) Packer
13 5 (0.73%) Puppet
14 4 (0.59%) HAProxy
14 4 (0.59%) Podman
14 4 (0.59%) Rancher
15 3 (0.44%) Check_MK
15 3 (0.44%) linkerd
15 3 (0.44%) Progress Chef
16 2 (0.29%) EMC NetWorker
Vendors
1 123 (18.04%) Microsoft
2 78 (11.44%) VMware
3 61 (8.94%) Google
4 30 (4.40%) Red Hat
5 27 (3.96%) Splunk
6 22 (3.23%) Databricks
7 19 (2.79%) Oracle
8 16 (2.35%) Dynatrace
9 14 (2.05%) CyberArk
10 13 (1.91%) ServiceNow
11 11 (1.61%) Salesforce
12 7 (1.03%) CrowdStrike
13 6 (0.88%) ForgeRock
14 5 (0.73%) Cribl.io
14 5 (0.73%) Foundry
14 5 (0.73%) NetApp
14 5 (0.73%) OpenAI
14 5 (0.73%) SAP
15 4 (0.59%) Cisco
15 4 (0.59%) PagerDuty