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 1 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 152 254 308
Rank change year-on-year +102 +54 -62
Contract jobs citing Platform Engineering 401 93 91
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.61% 0.72% 0.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 0.79% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 264 58 62
10th Percentile £363 £401 £415
25th Percentile £413 £468 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £533 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.45% +1.43% -10.64%
75th Percentile £565 £602 £648
90th Percentile £650 £666 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -6.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 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 £75.70 £76.25 -
90th Percentile £80.00 - -
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £72.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year +2.43% +19.83% -22.44%

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 20,334 11,778 17,332
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.47% 90.57% 83.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,138 7,353 10,291
10th Percentile £300 £235 £250
25th Percentile £402 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £513 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,160 858 2,132
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.13 £12.42
25th Percentile £18.98 £16.95 £15.39
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%
75th Percentile £67.84 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £27.97 £36.50
% change year-on-year +51.98% -23.38% -0.11%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 +53 165 £475 -9.95% 109
Yorkshire +16 90 £481 -11.49% 39
North West +13 72 £449 -8.00% 62
South East -15 67 £525 +9.83% 80
Scotland +34 57 £450 -14.38% 12
Midlands -21 46 £488 -9.22% 43
West Midlands -31 35 £498 -7.36% 34
East of England -1 34 £475 -40.63% 29
South West -10 28 £531 -11.46% 45
East Midlands -19 11 £488 -2.50% 9
Wales -6 6 £374 - 4
North East -23 5 £453 -17.73% 8
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 22 (5.49%) Confluence
2 9 (2.24%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (1.00%) Apache
4 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 4 (1.00%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.50%) Apache Pulsar
5 2 (0.50%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
5 2 (0.50%) IBM HTTP Server
5 2 (0.50%) nginx
5 2 (0.50%) Oracle HTTP Server
5 2 (0.50%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.50%) Tuxedo
5 2 (0.50%) WebLogic
5 2 (0.50%) WebSphere
5 2 (0.50%) WebSphere Application Server
5 2 (0.50%) WebSphere Portal
6 1 (0.25%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.25%) IIS
6 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 3 (0.75%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 144 (35.91%) Azure
2 139 (34.66%) AWS
3 78 (19.45%) GitHub
4 62 (15.46%) GitHub Actions
5 61 (15.21%) GCP
6 40 (9.98%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (8.48%) Amazon EKS
8 32 (7.98%) OpenShift
8 32 (7.98%) Serverless
9 27 (6.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 25 (6.23%) Entra ID
11 24 (5.99%) Amazon S3
12 23 (5.74%) Amazon EC2
12 23 (5.74%) AWS Lambda
12 23 (5.74%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 22 (5.49%) Azure AKS
14 20 (4.99%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 19 (4.74%) AWS CloudFormation
16 18 (4.49%) Power Platform
17 17 (4.24%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 21 (5.24%) Firewall
2 17 (4.24%) DNS
2 17 (4.24%) Network Security
3 13 (3.24%) VPN
4 8 (2.00%) SAN
5 7 (1.75%) TCP/IP
6 6 (1.50%) SNMP
6 6 (1.50%) VSAN
7 5 (1.25%) DHCP
7 5 (1.25%) NAS
8 4 (1.00%) Fibre Channel
8 4 (1.00%) IPsec
8 4 (1.00%) MQTT
8 4 (1.00%) SD-WAN
8 4 (1.00%) SSL
9 3 (0.75%) HTTP
9 3 (0.75%) Internet
9 3 (0.75%) WebEx
10 2 (0.50%) NetScaler
11 1 (0.25%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (7.23%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (4.74%) SQL Server
3 14 (3.49%) Relational Database
4 13 (3.24%) Power BI
5 10 (2.49%) DynamoDB
6 9 (2.24%) MySQL
6 9 (2.24%) NoSQL
7 8 (2.00%) Metadata
7 8 (2.00%) Neo4j
7 8 (2.00%) Tableau
8 7 (1.75%) Data Warehouse
9 6 (1.50%) Ataccama
9 6 (1.50%) Big Data
9 6 (1.50%) Redis
10 5 (1.25%) Hadoop
11 4 (1.00%) Amazon RDS
12 3 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
12 3 (0.75%) Amazon Redshift
12 3 (0.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 2 (0.50%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 70 (17.46%) Jenkins
2 51 (12.72%) GitLab
3 47 (11.72%) JIRA
4 36 (8.98%) Git
5 13 (3.24%) Bitbucket
6 10 (2.49%) Gatling
7 6 (1.50%) Artifactory
8 5 (1.25%) Maven
9 4 (1.00%) JMeter
9 4 (1.00%) LoadRunner
9 4 (1.00%) NeoLoad
9 4 (1.00%) Postman
9 4 (1.00%) Sonatype Nexus
10 3 (0.75%) Jaeger
10 3 (0.75%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.50%) Introscope
11 2 (0.50%) MSI
11 2 (0.50%) Terragrunt
11 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio
12 1 (0.25%) Spinnaker
General
1 76 (18.95%) Social Skills
2 52 (12.97%) Finance
3 39 (9.73%) Public Sector
4 25 (6.23%) Banking
5 10 (2.49%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.25%) Influencing Skills
7 5 (1.25%) Legal
8 4 (1.00%) Health Technology
9 3 (0.75%) Financial Institution
9 3 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.75%) Law
9 3 (0.75%) Military
9 3 (0.75%) Retail
10 2 (0.50%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.50%) Investment Banking
10 2 (0.50%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.25%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.25%) Electronics
11 1 (0.25%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 163 (40.65%) Platform Engineer
2 67 (16.71%) DevOps Engineer
3 66 (16.46%) Cloud Platform Engineer
4 64 (15.96%) Senior
5 39 (9.73%) Cloud Engineer
6 37 (9.23%) Azure Engineer
7 33 (8.23%) Lead
8 30 (7.48%) Azure Platform Engineer
9 28 (6.98%) Architect
10 24 (5.99%) DevOps Platform Engineer
11 22 (5.49%) Data Engineer
12 18 (4.49%) AWS Engineer
12 18 (4.49%) Senior DevOps
12 18 (4.49%) Senior DevOps Engineer
12 18 (4.49%) Senior Platform Engineer
13 17 (4.24%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 16 (3.99%) GCP Engineer
14 16 (3.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 16 (3.99%) Software Engineer
15 14 (3.49%) Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (4.49%) Kafka
2 15 (3.74%) REST
3 12 (2.99%) OpenTelemetry
3 12 (2.99%) Playwright
4 11 (2.74%) AWS CDK
5 10 (2.49%) OAuth
6 9 (2.24%) ADO
6 9 (2.24%) LDAP
6 9 (2.24%) Node.js
6 9 (2.24%) OAuth2
7 8 (2.00%) OpenID
8 7 (1.75%) .NET
8 7 (1.75%) React
8 7 (1.75%) YAML
9 6 (1.50%) Keycloak
9 6 (1.50%) Spring Boot
10 5 (1.25%) ARM Templates
10 5 (1.25%) Middleware
10 5 (1.25%) SailPoint
10 5 (1.25%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 68 (16.96%) Cloud Native
2 30 (7.48%) Product Ownership
3 18 (4.49%) Private Cloud
4 14 (3.49%) Data Centre
4 14 (3.49%) Distributed Systems
4 14 (3.49%) Onboarding
5 10 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
5 10 (2.49%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (2.24%) Public Cloud
7 8 (2.00%) Replication
8 7 (1.75%) NHS
8 7 (1.75%) Security Posture
9 5 (1.25%) Enterprise Cloud
9 5 (1.25%) Management Information System
9 5 (1.25%) Operational Technology
9 5 (1.25%) PKI
9 5 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.25%) Virtual Team
10 4 (1.00%) NVMe
11 3 (0.75%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 65 (16.21%) Linux
2 36 (8.98%) Windows
3 20 (4.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 16 (3.99%) Unix
5 9 (2.24%) Windows Server
6 5 (1.25%) VMS
7 3 (0.75%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.50%) CentOS
8 2 (0.50%) Data ONTAP
8 2 (0.50%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.50%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.50%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
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
1 217 (54.11%) CI/CD
2 193 (48.13%) DevOps
3 152 (37.91%) Infrastructure as Code
4 89 (22.19%) Observability
5 81 (20.20%) Agile
6 65 (16.21%) Containerisation
7 63 (15.71%) Continuous Improvement
8 60 (14.96%) Migration
8 60 (14.96%) Site Reliability Engineering
9 54 (13.47%) Software Engineering
10 51 (12.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 43 (10.72%) Test Automation
12 40 (9.98%) Problem-Solving
12 40 (9.98%) Technical Leadership
13 39 (9.73%) DevSecOps
14 38 (9.48%) Roadmaps
15 36 (8.98%) Infrastructure Automation
16 33 (8.23%) Cloud Security
16 33 (8.23%) GitOps
17 32 (7.98%) Root Cause Analysis
Programming Languages
1 139 (34.66%) Python
2 49 (12.22%) Bash
2 49 (12.22%) Java
3 46 (11.47%) PowerShell
4 26 (6.48%) SQL
5 21 (5.24%) Bicep
6 11 (2.74%) Scala
7 10 (2.49%) Go
8 8 (2.00%) TypeScript
9 5 (1.25%) C#
9 5 (1.25%) Groovy
9 5 (1.25%) JavaScript
9 5 (1.25%) Perl
10 4 (1.00%) Cypher
10 4 (1.00%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.75%) PHP
12 2 (0.50%) C++
12 2 (0.50%) Jython
13 1 (0.25%) C
13 1 (0.25%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 119 (29.68%) Security Cleared
2 100 (24.94%) SC Cleared
3 14 (3.49%) BPSS Clearance
4 12 (2.99%) DV Cleared
5 10 (2.49%) Degree
5 10 (2.49%) SAFe Agilist
6 8 (2.00%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 7 (1.75%) Azure Certification
8 6 (1.50%) RHCE
9 5 (1.25%) AWS Certification
10 4 (1.00%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (1.00%) NCDA
10 4 (1.00%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (0.50%) CCNA
11 2 (0.50%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.50%) NCIE
11 2 (0.50%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.50%) PMP
11 2 (0.50%) VCP6
12 1 (0.25%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (3.99%) QA
2 13 (3.24%) NCSC
3 12 (2.99%) Data Quality
4 8 (2.00%) GDPR
5 5 (1.25%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.00%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.00%) GRC
6 4 (1.00%) NIST
6 4 (1.00%) NIST 800
7 2 (0.50%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.50%) GxP
8 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.25%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 50 (12.47%) Docker
2 32 (7.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 17 (4.24%) Active Directory
4 15 (3.74%) Virtual Machines
5 14 (3.49%) vSphere
6 10 (2.49%) VMware NSX
7 7 (1.75%) VMware ESXi
8 4 (1.00%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
9 2 (0.50%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (0.50%) Firmware
9 2 (0.50%) Hyper-V
9 2 (0.50%) NFS
9 2 (0.50%) Squid
9 2 (0.50%) SRDF
9 2 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.25%) Ceph
10 1 (0.25%) KVM
10 1 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 147 (36.66%) Terraform
2 129 (32.17%) Kubernetes
3 66 (16.46%) Ansible
4 35 (8.73%) Grafana
5 33 (8.23%) Prometheus
6 24 (5.99%) Argo
7 21 (5.24%) Istio
8 6 (1.50%) HAProxy
8 6 (1.50%) Microsoft Intune
8 6 (1.50%) PowerCLI
9 5 (1.25%) Kustomize
9 5 (1.25%) linkerd
9 5 (1.25%) Packer
9 5 (1.25%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.25%) vRealize
10 4 (1.00%) Puppet
10 4 (1.00%) Rancher
10 4 (1.00%) vMotion
11 3 (0.75%) NetBackup
11 3 (0.75%) SCCM
Vendors
1 43 (10.72%) Microsoft
2 38 (9.48%) VMware
3 24 (5.99%) Google
4 21 (5.24%) Oracle
4 21 (5.24%) Red Hat
5 15 (3.74%) ServiceNow
6 14 (3.49%) Splunk
7 10 (2.49%) Cisco
8 9 (2.24%) Dynatrace
9 7 (1.75%) Citrix
10 6 (1.50%) Databricks
11 5 (1.25%) BiZZdesign
11 5 (1.25%) Brocade
11 5 (1.25%) NetApp
11 5 (1.25%) PeopleSoft
12 4 (1.00%) Cribl.io
12 4 (1.00%) Dell
12 4 (1.00%) F5
12 4 (1.00%) Pure Storage
12 4 (1.00%) Veeam