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 18 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 262 308
Rank change year-on-year +123 +46 -55
Contract jobs citing Platform Engineering 394 79 93
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.69% 0.62% 0.45%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.07% 0.68% 0.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 269 53 65
10th Percentile £363 £415 £418
25th Percentile £422 £479 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £537 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.89% -0.09% -6.52%
75th Percentile £550 £603 £650
90th Percentile £635 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £552 £575
% change year-on-year -4.89% -4.00% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 1 0
10th Percentile £59.75 - -
25th Percentile £66.50 £68.75 -
Median hourly rate £74.26 £72.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +2.43% - -
75th Percentile £77.13 £76.25 -
90th Percentile £81.20 - -
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £72.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +2.43% +20.83% -26.38%

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 19,060 11,562 17,667
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 81.73% 90.53% 84.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,590 7,318 10,680
10th Percentile £281 £238 £242
25th Percentile £400 £380 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £483 £500
Median % change year-on-year +0.41% -3.40% -
75th Percentile £582 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,989 791 2,002
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.66 £12.28
25th Percentile £18.59 £18.13 £15.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £28.75 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year +39.13% -15.96% -2.26%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.00 £59.33
90th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £30.00 £33.78
% change year-on-year +25.00% -11.18% -5.92%

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 18 April 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 18 April 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 18 April 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 +53 163 £488 -11.36% 94
Yorkshire +9 83 £475 -17.39% 25
South East +21 80 £525 +5.00% 59
North West +19 77 £525 -0.43% 57
Midlands -31 49 £525 -2.23% 36
Scotland +32 47 £449 -14.48% 18
West Midlands -33 40 £525 -3.40% 21
East of England -4 31 £463 -42.19% 19
South West -11 24 £531 -11.64% 26
East Midlands -30 9 £488 -2.50% 14
North East -6 8 £550 - 12
Wales -6 2 £424 - 9
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 18 (4.57%) Confluence
2 13 (3.30%) Microsoft Exchange
3 11 (2.79%) Apache Spark
4 10 (2.54%) SharePoint
5 6 (1.52%) Apache
6 5 (1.27%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.76%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.51%) Apache Pulsar
8 2 (0.51%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.51%) IBM HTTP Server
8 2 (0.51%) nginx
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 2 (0.51%) Tuxedo
8 2 (0.51%) WebSphere
8 2 (0.51%) WebSphere Application Server
8 2 (0.51%) WebSphere Portal
9 1 (0.25%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.25%) IIS
9 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 3 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 141 (35.79%) Azure
2 128 (32.49%) AWS
3 78 (19.80%) GitHub
4 58 (14.72%) GitHub Actions
5 52 (13.20%) GCP
6 42 (10.66%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (8.63%) Entra ID
8 32 (8.12%) OpenShift
9 28 (7.11%) Amazon EKS
10 27 (6.85%) Serverless
11 24 (6.09%) Azure AKS
12 19 (4.82%) AWS CloudFormation
13 18 (4.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 18 (4.57%) AWS Lambda
14 17 (4.31%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 16 (4.06%) Amazon EC2
15 16 (4.06%) Amazon S3
16 12 (3.05%) Power Platform
16 12 (3.05%) Snowflake
16 12 (3.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 34 (8.63%) Firewall
2 26 (6.60%) DNS
3 14 (3.55%) Network Security
4 12 (3.05%) TCP/IP
5 11 (2.79%) DHCP
6 10 (2.54%) VPN
6 10 (2.54%) WebEx
7 7 (1.78%) BGP
7 7 (1.78%) VLAN
8 6 (1.52%) SAN
8 6 (1.52%) Software-Defined Networking
8 6 (1.52%) VSAN
9 5 (1.27%) SSL
10 4 (1.02%) Fibre Channel
10 4 (1.02%) IPsec
10 4 (1.02%) MQTT
10 4 (1.02%) SD-WAN
11 3 (0.76%) Internet
11 3 (0.76%) NAS
12 2 (0.51%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (7.87%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (4.06%) SQL Server
3 11 (2.79%) Power BI
3 11 (2.79%) Relational Database
4 10 (2.54%) Data Warehouse
4 10 (2.54%) Redis
5 9 (2.28%) Big Data
5 9 (2.28%) DynamoDB
5 9 (2.28%) Metadata
5 9 (2.28%) NoSQL
6 8 (2.03%) Hadoop
7 6 (1.52%) Tableau
8 5 (1.27%) Amazon RDS
8 5 (1.27%) Amazon Redshift
9 4 (1.02%) MySQL
9 4 (1.02%) Neo4j
10 3 (0.76%) Amazon Athena
10 3 (0.76%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 2 (0.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 59 (14.97%) Jenkins
2 48 (12.18%) GitLab
3 39 (9.90%) JIRA
4 37 (9.39%) Git
5 10 (2.54%) Gatling
6 8 (2.03%) Bitbucket
7 7 (1.78%) Artifactory
7 7 (1.78%) Maven
8 5 (1.27%) SonarQube
8 5 (1.27%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (1.02%) JMeter
9 4 (1.02%) LoadRunner
9 4 (1.02%) MSI
9 4 (1.02%) NeoLoad
9 4 (1.02%) Postman
10 3 (0.76%) Spinnaker
11 2 (0.51%) Introscope
11 2 (0.51%) Jaeger
11 2 (0.51%) Terragrunt
11 2 (0.51%) Visual Studio
General
1 76 (19.29%) Social Skills
2 36 (9.14%) Finance
3 35 (8.88%) Public Sector
4 23 (5.84%) Analytical Skills
5 19 (4.82%) Banking
6 14 (3.55%) Legal
7 4 (1.02%) Telecoms
8 3 (0.76%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (0.76%) Health Technology
9 2 (0.51%) Financial Institution
9 2 (0.51%) Law
9 2 (0.51%) Military
10 1 (0.25%) Advertising
10 1 (0.25%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.25%) Electronics
10 1 (0.25%) Influencing Skills
10 1 (0.25%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.25%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.25%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.25%) Retail
Job Titles
1 191 (48.48%) Platform Engineer
2 64 (16.24%) Cloud Platform Engineer
3 63 (15.99%) Senior
4 52 (13.20%) DevOps Engineer
5 35 (8.88%) Cloud Engineer
6 34 (8.63%) Azure Engineer
7 28 (7.11%) Azure Platform Engineer
8 25 (6.35%) Architect
8 25 (6.35%) Data Engineer
8 25 (6.35%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 23 (5.84%) Lead
10 19 (4.82%) AWS Engineer
11 17 (4.31%) DevOps Platform Engineer
12 16 (4.06%) Senior Platform Engineer
13 14 (3.55%) GCP Engineer
13 14 (3.55%) Senior DevOps
13 14 (3.55%) Senior DevOps Engineer
13 14 (3.55%) Software Engineer
14 11 (2.79%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 11 (2.79%) VMware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (4.57%) Kafka
2 15 (3.81%) REST
3 12 (3.05%) Playwright
4 10 (2.54%) Keycloak
4 10 (2.54%) OAuth
4 10 (2.54%) OAuth2
4 10 (2.54%) OpenID
4 10 (2.54%) XMPP
5 8 (2.03%) ADO
5 8 (2.03%) Elastic Stack
5 8 (2.03%) Node.js
5 8 (2.03%) React
5 8 (2.03%) Spring
5 8 (2.03%) Spring Boot
5 8 (2.03%) YAML
6 7 (1.78%) AWS CDK
6 7 (1.78%) OpenTelemetry
7 6 (1.52%) .NET
7 6 (1.52%) LDAP
7 6 (1.52%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 52 (13.20%) Cloud Native
2 34 (8.63%) Product Ownership
3 21 (5.33%) Private Cloud
4 16 (4.06%) PKI
5 14 (3.55%) Data Centre
5 14 (3.55%) Distributed Systems
6 12 (3.05%) Onboarding
7 11 (2.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 10 (2.54%) Public Cloud
9 8 (2.03%) NHS
9 8 (2.03%) Security Posture
10 7 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
11 6 (1.52%) Replication
12 5 (1.27%) Fat Client
12 5 (1.27%) Operational Technology
12 5 (1.27%) Thin Client
12 5 (1.27%) Virtual Team
13 4 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
13 4 (1.02%) NVMe
14 3 (0.76%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 87 (22.08%) Linux
2 58 (14.72%) Windows
3 30 (7.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 25 (6.35%) Windows Server
5 15 (3.81%) Unix
6 6 (1.52%) VMS
7 3 (0.76%) Amazon Linux
7 3 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.51%) Oracle Linux
8 2 (0.51%) Solaris
8 2 (0.51%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8 2 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.25%) CentOS
9 1 (0.25%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.25%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 185 (46.95%) CI/CD
2 160 (40.61%) DevOps
3 142 (36.04%) Infrastructure as Code
4 77 (19.54%) Observability
5 75 (19.04%) Agile
6 69 (17.51%) Containerisation
7 60 (15.23%) Continuous Improvement
7 60 (15.23%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 56 (14.21%) Migration
8 56 (14.21%) Problem-Solving
9 50 (12.69%) Software Engineering
10 42 (10.66%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 38 (9.64%) Roadmaps
12 37 (9.39%) Infrastructure Automation
13 35 (8.88%) DevSecOps
13 35 (8.88%) GitOps
14 30 (7.61%) Technical Leadership
15 29 (7.36%) Identity Access Management
15 29 (7.36%) Test Automation
16 28 (7.11%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 139 (35.28%) Python
2 66 (16.75%) Bash
3 64 (16.24%) PowerShell
4 41 (10.41%) Java
5 28 (7.11%) SQL
6 21 (5.33%) Bicep
7 15 (3.81%) Perl
8 10 (2.54%) Scala
9 8 (2.03%) C#
9 8 (2.03%) JavaScript
9 8 (2.03%) TypeScript
10 6 (1.52%) Go
11 4 (1.02%) Cypher
11 4 (1.02%) Groovy
11 4 (1.02%) Shell Script
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
1 151 (38.32%) Security Cleared
2 121 (30.71%) SC Cleared
3 18 (4.57%) DV Cleared
4 15 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (3.55%) Degree
6 10 (2.54%) CCNA
6 10 (2.54%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.28%) CCDP
7 9 (2.28%) CCNP
8 8 (2.03%) Azure Certification
9 6 (1.52%) AWS Certification
9 6 (1.52%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 4 (1.02%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 4 (1.02%) Computer Science Degree
10 4 (1.02%) RHCE
10 4 (1.02%) SAFe Agilist
11 3 (0.76%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.76%) CSPO
11 3 (0.76%) NCDA
12 2 (0.51%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (3.55%) Data Quality
1 14 (3.55%) NCSC
2 10 (2.54%) QA
3 9 (2.28%) GDPR
4 4 (1.02%) NIST
4 4 (1.02%) NIST 800
4 4 (1.02%) PCI DSS
5 3 (0.76%) GRC
6 2 (0.51%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.51%) WCAG
7 1 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.25%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 56 (14.21%) Docker
2 46 (11.68%) VMware Infrastructure
3 37 (9.39%) Active Directory
4 15 (3.81%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (3.05%) vSphere
6 9 (2.28%) VMware NSX
7 7 (1.78%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (1.27%) Hyper-V
9 4 (1.02%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
10 3 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
11 2 (0.51%) Firmware
12 1 (0.25%) Ceph
12 1 (0.25%) EMC RecoverPoint
12 1 (0.25%) GPFS
12 1 (0.25%) KVM
12 1 (0.25%) NFS
12 1 (0.25%) Squid
12 1 (0.25%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 139 (35.28%) Terraform
2 130 (32.99%) Kubernetes
3 73 (18.53%) Ansible
4 41 (10.41%) Grafana
5 34 (8.63%) Prometheus
6 26 (6.60%) Istio
7 23 (5.84%) Argo
8 10 (2.54%) Packer
9 9 (2.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 8 (2.03%) Microsoft Intune
11 7 (1.78%) linkerd
12 6 (1.52%) HAProxy
12 6 (1.52%) PowerCLI
12 6 (1.52%) Puppet
12 6 (1.52%) vCenter Server
13 5 (1.27%) Rancher
13 5 (1.27%) Single Sign-On
14 4 (1.02%) SCCM
14 4 (1.02%) vMotion
14 4 (1.02%) vRealize
Vendors
1 59 (14.97%) VMware
2 55 (13.96%) Microsoft
3 35 (8.88%) Red Hat
4 31 (7.87%) Splunk
5 23 (5.84%) Google
6 21 (5.33%) Cisco
7 19 (4.82%) Citrix
8 18 (4.57%) Dynatrace
9 17 (4.31%) Oracle
10 16 (4.06%) ServiceNow
11 8 (2.03%) AppDynamics
12 7 (1.78%) Databricks
13 5 (1.27%) PeopleSoft
13 5 (1.27%) Veeam
14 4 (1.02%) BiZZdesign
14 4 (1.02%) Brocade
14 4 (1.02%) Dell
14 4 (1.02%) IBM
14 4 (1.02%) NetApp
15 3 (0.76%) Pure Storage