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 25 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 149 246 302
Rank change year-on-year +97 +56 -69
Contract jobs citing Platform Engineering 395 88 85
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.60% 0.69% 0.42%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 0.76% 0.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 257 54 58
10th Percentile £363 £413 £414
25th Percentile £413 £500 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £536 £525
Median % change year-on-year -9.05% +2.10% -10.64%
75th Percentile £560 £602 £650
90th Percentile £638 £663 £729
UK median daily rate £520 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -5.45% -4.35% -6.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £66.50 £68.75 -
Median hourly rate £74.26 £72.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +2.43% - -
75th Percentile - £76.25 -
90th Percentile £80.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £72.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year +2.43% +19.83% -25.77%

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 20,033 11,576 17,131
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.13% 90.68% 83.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,013 7,256 10,217
10th Percentile £300 £231 £250
25th Percentile £401 £375 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £498 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +4.74% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £678 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,105 819 2,100
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.20 £12.38
25th Percentile £18.87 £17.30 £15.36
Median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £38.00
Median % change year-on-year +73.72% -33.82% +8.57%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.13 £27.59 £36.05
% change year-on-year +52.71% -23.47% -0.22%

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 25 May 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 25 May 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 25 May 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 +40 156 £475 -10.38% 78
Yorkshire +11 85 £475 -12.64% 24
South East -8 71 £525 +9.83% 62
North West +12 68 £447 -15.26% 48
Scotland +39 59 £450 -12.20% 10
Midlands -29 46 £488 -9.22% 35
East of England -1 34 £475 -40.63% 16
West Midlands -39 34 £495 -8.92% 27
South West -14 27 £538 -10.42% 31
East Midlands -15 12 £488 -2.50% 8
North East -22 5 £453 -17.73% 6
Wales -7 4 £374 - 3
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 24 (6.08%) Confluence
2 9 (2.28%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.27%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.01%) Apache
4 4 (1.01%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.01%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.51%) Apache Pulsar
5 2 (0.51%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
5 2 (0.51%) IBM HTTP Server
5 2 (0.51%) nginx
5 2 (0.51%) Oracle HTTP Server
5 2 (0.51%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.51%) Tuxedo
5 2 (0.51%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.51%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.51%) WebSphere Application Server
5 2 (0.51%) WebSphere Portal
6 1 (0.25%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.25%) IIS
6 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 3 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 143 (36.20%) Azure
2 137 (34.68%) AWS
3 77 (19.49%) GitHub
4 61 (15.44%) GitHub Actions
5 59 (14.94%) GCP
6 39 (9.87%) Azure DevOps
7 35 (8.86%) Serverless
8 34 (8.61%) Amazon EKS
9 32 (8.10%) OpenShift
10 26 (6.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 26 (6.58%) Entra ID
11 23 (5.82%) Amazon S3
11 23 (5.82%) AWS Lambda
11 23 (5.82%) Azure AKS
11 23 (5.82%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 22 (5.57%) Amazon EC2
13 19 (4.81%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 18 (4.56%) AWS CloudFormation
15 16 (4.05%) Amazon ECS
15 16 (4.05%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 21 (5.32%) Firewall
2 17 (4.30%) DNS
2 17 (4.30%) Network Security
3 13 (3.29%) VPN
4 7 (1.77%) SAN
4 7 (1.77%) TCP/IP
5 6 (1.52%) SNMP
6 5 (1.27%) DHCP
6 5 (1.27%) VSAN
7 4 (1.01%) Fibre Channel
7 4 (1.01%) IPsec
7 4 (1.01%) MQTT
7 4 (1.01%) NAS
7 4 (1.01%) SD-WAN
7 4 (1.01%) SSL
8 3 (0.76%) HTTP
8 3 (0.76%) Internet
8 3 (0.76%) WebEx
9 2 (0.51%) NetScaler
10 1 (0.25%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (8.35%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (4.56%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.54%) Relational Database
4 13 (3.29%) Power BI
5 10 (2.53%) DynamoDB
6 9 (2.28%) MySQL
6 9 (2.28%) NoSQL
7 8 (2.03%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (2.03%) Metadata
7 8 (2.03%) Neo4j
7 8 (2.03%) Redis
7 8 (2.03%) Tableau
8 6 (1.52%) Big Data
9 5 (1.27%) Ataccama
9 5 (1.27%) Hadoop
10 4 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
11 3 (0.76%) Amazon Athena
11 3 (0.76%) Amazon RDS
11 3 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 2 (0.51%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 69 (17.47%) Jenkins
2 51 (12.91%) GitLab
3 49 (12.41%) JIRA
4 39 (9.87%) Git
5 14 (3.54%) Bitbucket
6 10 (2.53%) Gatling
7 7 (1.77%) Artifactory
8 5 (1.27%) Maven
8 5 (1.27%) SonarQube
8 5 (1.27%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (1.01%) JMeter
9 4 (1.01%) LoadRunner
9 4 (1.01%) NeoLoad
9 4 (1.01%) Postman
10 3 (0.76%) Jaeger
11 2 (0.51%) Introscope
11 2 (0.51%) MSI
11 2 (0.51%) Terragrunt
11 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.25%) Spinnaker
General
1 75 (18.99%) Social Skills
2 48 (12.15%) Finance
3 40 (10.13%) Public Sector
4 25 (6.33%) Banking
5 10 (2.53%) Analytical Skills
6 6 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (1.27%) Legal
8 4 (1.01%) Health Technology
9 3 (0.76%) Financial Institution
9 3 (0.76%) Investment Banking
9 3 (0.76%) Law
9 3 (0.76%) Military
9 3 (0.76%) Retail
10 2 (0.51%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.25%) Advertising
11 1 (0.25%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.25%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.25%) Electronics
11 1 (0.25%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 162 (41.01%) Platform Engineer
2 67 (16.96%) DevOps Engineer
3 64 (16.20%) Senior
4 62 (15.70%) Cloud Platform Engineer
5 38 (9.62%) Cloud Engineer
6 36 (9.11%) Azure Engineer
7 31 (7.85%) Lead
8 29 (7.34%) Architect
8 29 (7.34%) Azure Platform Engineer
9 25 (6.33%) DevOps Platform Engineer
10 22 (5.57%) Data Engineer
11 19 (4.81%) Senior DevOps
11 19 (4.81%) Senior DevOps Engineer
11 19 (4.81%) Senior Platform Engineer
12 17 (4.30%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 17 (4.30%) Site Reliability Engineer
13 16 (4.05%) AWS Engineer
13 16 (4.05%) GCP Engineer
14 15 (3.80%) Software Engineer
15 13 (3.29%) Scrum Master
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (5.06%) Kafka
2 15 (3.80%) REST
3 12 (3.04%) OpenTelemetry
4 11 (2.78%) AWS CDK
4 11 (2.78%) OAuth
4 11 (2.78%) Playwright
5 10 (2.53%) ADO
5 10 (2.53%) OAuth2
6 9 (2.28%) Node.js
7 8 (2.03%) Keycloak
7 8 (2.03%) LDAP
7 8 (2.03%) OpenID
8 7 (1.77%) .NET
8 7 (1.77%) React
8 7 (1.77%) Spring Boot
8 7 (1.77%) YAML
9 6 (1.52%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (1.52%) Spring
10 5 (1.27%) ARM Templates
10 5 (1.27%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 70 (17.72%) Cloud Native
2 27 (6.84%) Product Ownership
3 18 (4.56%) Private Cloud
4 17 (4.30%) Distributed Systems
5 14 (3.54%) Data Centre
5 14 (3.54%) Onboarding
6 11 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
7 10 (2.53%) Public Cloud
8 9 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.77%) PKI
9 7 (1.77%) Security Posture
10 6 (1.52%) NHS
10 6 (1.52%) Replication
11 5 (1.27%) Management Information System
11 5 (1.27%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
11 5 (1.27%) Virtual Team
12 4 (1.01%) Enterprise Cloud
12 4 (1.01%) NVMe
13 3 (0.76%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 69 (17.47%) Linux
2 37 (9.37%) Windows
3 20 (5.06%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 17 (4.30%) Unix
5 10 (2.53%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.27%) VMS
7 3 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.51%) CentOS
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.51%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.51%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.25%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.25%) Debian
9 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.25%) Solaris
9 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 211 (53.42%) CI/CD
2 186 (47.09%) DevOps
3 150 (37.97%) Infrastructure as Code
4 84 (21.27%) Agile
4 84 (21.27%) Observability
5 65 (16.46%) Containerisation
6 60 (15.19%) Continuous Improvement
7 58 (14.68%) Migration
8 57 (14.43%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 52 (13.16%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 49 (12.41%) Software Engineering
11 41 (10.38%) Problem-Solving
11 41 (10.38%) Test Automation
12 40 (10.13%) DevSecOps
13 37 (9.37%) Roadmaps
14 36 (9.11%) Technical Leadership
15 35 (8.86%) GitOps
16 33 (8.35%) Infrastructure Automation
17 32 (8.10%) Root Cause Analysis
18 31 (7.85%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 139 (35.19%) Python
2 51 (12.91%) Java
3 49 (12.41%) Bash
4 45 (11.39%) PowerShell
5 26 (6.58%) SQL
6 21 (5.32%) Bicep
7 11 (2.78%) Scala
8 10 (2.53%) Go
9 8 (2.03%) TypeScript
10 5 (1.27%) Groovy
10 5 (1.27%) Perl
10 5 (1.27%) Shell Script
11 4 (1.01%) C#
11 4 (1.01%) Cypher
11 4 (1.01%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.51%) C++
12 2 (0.51%) Jython
12 2 (0.51%) PHP
13 1 (0.25%) C
13 1 (0.25%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 119 (30.13%) Security Cleared
2 96 (24.30%) SC Cleared
3 14 (3.54%) DV Cleared
4 12 (3.04%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (2.78%) Degree
6 10 (2.53%) SAFe Agilist
7 8 (2.03%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 6 (1.52%) Azure Certification
8 6 (1.52%) RHCE
9 5 (1.27%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
10 3 (0.76%) NCDA
10 3 (0.76%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (0.51%) CCNA
11 2 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.51%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.51%) PMP
11 2 (0.51%) VCP6
12 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.25%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.05%) QA
2 13 (3.29%) NCSC
3 12 (3.04%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.03%) GDPR
5 5 (1.27%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.01%) GRC
6 4 (1.01%) NIST
6 4 (1.01%) NIST 800
7 3 (0.76%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.25%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 52 (13.16%) Docker
2 34 (8.61%) VMware Infrastructure
3 18 (4.56%) Active Directory
4 15 (3.80%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (3.29%) vSphere
6 10 (2.53%) VMware NSX
7 6 (1.52%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (1.01%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 2 (0.51%) Firmware
9 2 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.25%) Ceph
10 1 (0.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
10 1 (0.25%) Hyper-V
10 1 (0.25%) KVM
10 1 (0.25%) NFS
10 1 (0.25%) Squid
10 1 (0.25%) SRDF
10 1 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 145 (36.71%) Terraform
2 128 (32.41%) Kubernetes
3 72 (18.23%) Ansible
4 37 (9.37%) Grafana
5 34 (8.61%) Prometheus
6 25 (6.33%) Argo
7 24 (6.08%) Istio
8 6 (1.52%) HAProxy
8 6 (1.52%) linkerd
8 6 (1.52%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (1.52%) PowerCLI
8 6 (1.52%) Puppet
9 5 (1.27%) Kustomize
9 5 (1.27%) Packer
9 5 (1.27%) Rancher
9 5 (1.27%) vRealize
10 4 (1.01%) vCenter Server
10 4 (1.01%) vMotion
11 3 (0.76%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.76%) SCCM
Vendors
1 41 (10.38%) Microsoft
2 40 (10.13%) VMware
3 24 (6.08%) Google
4 21 (5.32%) Oracle
4 21 (5.32%) Red Hat
5 16 (4.05%) ServiceNow
5 16 (4.05%) Splunk
6 9 (2.28%) Cisco
6 9 (2.28%) Dynatrace
7 7 (1.77%) Citrix
8 6 (1.52%) Databricks
9 5 (1.27%) BiZZdesign
9 5 (1.27%) PeopleSoft
10 4 (1.01%) Brocade
10 4 (1.01%) Cribl.io
10 4 (1.01%) F5
10 4 (1.01%) NetApp
11 3 (0.76%) BeyondTrust
11 3 (0.76%) Greenplum
11 3 (0.76%) Pure Storage