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 15 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 200 281
Rank change year-on-year +97 +81 +3
Contract jobs citing Platform Engineering 675 180 89
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.40% 1.18% 0.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.97% 1.32% 0.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 394 125 63
10th Percentile £383 £401 £413
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -12.50%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £597
90th Percentile £681 £663 £685
UK median daily rate £550 £525 £575
% change year-on-year +4.76% -8.70% -6.12%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 0 0
10th Percentile £67.30 - -
25th Percentile £71.43 - -
Median hourly rate £85.00 - -
75th Percentile £100.00 - -
90th Percentile - - -
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 22,721 13,586 14,735
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 80.90% 89.18% 82.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,030 8,166 8,538
10th Percentile £300 £235 £247
25th Percentile £409 £368 £390
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 £660 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,648 1,412 1,226
10th Percentile £13.50 £14.00 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.09 £16.95 £18.00
Median hourly rate £40.08 £22.50 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.13% -47.67% +6.17%
75th Percentile £67.50 £42.25 £66.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +77 222 £500 +11.11% 331
Yorkshire +68 136 £500 -4.76% 87
Midlands +6 125 £460 -12.38% 108
South East +8 119 £575 +17.95% 251
Scotland +33 87 £450 -15.89% 141
West Midlands -24 87 £456 -12.31% 54
South West +16 86 £550 -8.33% 150
North West +9 74 £550 +37.16% 206
East Midlands +24 37 £488 -30.36% 54
East of England -8 31 £525 -10.26% 84
North East -27 14 £425 -5.56% 39
Wales - 8 £325 - 17
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 60
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 20 (2.96%) Confluence
2 12 (1.78%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.33%) Apache
4 8 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (1.19%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.44%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.44%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.30%) Apache Superset
6 2 (0.30%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
6 2 (0.30%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.15%) IBM HTTP Server
7 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
7 1 (0.15%) nginx
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle Coherence
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle HTTP Server
7 1 (0.15%) SAS
7 1 (0.15%) SharePoint Server
7 1 (0.15%) WebSphere
7 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
7 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) MS Visio
1 1 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 15 (2.22%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.59%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.59%) Sage X3
3 1 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 292 (43.26%) AWS
2 288 (42.67%) Azure
3 123 (18.22%) GCP
4 116 (17.19%) GitHub
5 83 (12.30%) GitHub Actions
6 82 (12.15%) Azure DevOps
7 62 (9.19%) Serverless
8 45 (6.67%) Power Platform
9 41 (6.07%) Amazon EKS
10 36 (5.33%) AWS Lambda
11 35 (5.19%) OpenShift
12 34 (5.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 29 (4.30%) Azure Monitor
13 29 (4.30%) Entra ID
14 28 (4.15%) Power Automate
15 27 (4.00%) PowerApps
16 26 (3.85%) Amazon S3
16 26 (3.85%) Azure AKS
17 24 (3.56%) Amazon EC2
17 24 (3.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 65 (9.63%) DNS
2 51 (7.56%) Firewall
3 37 (5.48%) TCP/IP
4 35 (5.19%) DHCP
5 24 (3.56%) VPN
6 23 (3.41%) VSAN
7 19 (2.81%) Network Security
8 12 (1.78%) HTTP
9 6 (0.89%) SNMP
10 5 (0.74%) SSH
11 3 (0.44%) HTTPS
11 3 (0.44%) NAS
11 3 (0.44%) SAN
11 3 (0.44%) Software-Defined Networking
11 3 (0.44%) SSL
11 3 (0.44%) WAN
12 2 (0.30%) Internet
12 2 (0.30%) Intrusion Detection
12 2 (0.30%) LAN
12 2 (0.30%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (5.48%) PostgreSQL
2 33 (4.89%) SQL Server
3 15 (2.22%) Data Warehouse
3 15 (2.22%) MySQL
3 15 (2.22%) Power BI
4 13 (1.93%) DynamoDB
5 11 (1.63%) Relational Database
6 9 (1.33%) Amazon Redshift
6 9 (1.33%) Big Data
7 8 (1.19%) Oracle Exadata
8 7 (1.04%) BigQuery
8 7 (1.04%) Data Lake
8 7 (1.04%) Neo4j
9 6 (0.89%) Ataccama
9 6 (0.89%) NoSQL
10 5 (0.74%) Azure SQL Database
10 5 (0.74%) Delta Lake
10 5 (0.74%) Metadata
10 5 (0.74%) Tableau
11 4 (0.59%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 86 (12.74%) Jenkins
2 71 (10.52%) Git
3 65 (9.63%) GitLab
4 37 (5.48%) JIRA
5 21 (3.11%) Bitbucket
6 8 (1.19%) Claude Code
6 8 (1.19%) Maven
6 8 (1.19%) SonarQube
7 7 (1.04%) Artifactory
7 7 (1.04%) Gatling
7 7 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (0.59%) MSBuild
8 4 (0.59%) Visual Studio
9 3 (0.44%) JUnit
9 3 (0.44%) Mockito
9 3 (0.44%) Selenium
10 2 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.15%) Gerrit
11 1 (0.15%) NeoLoad
11 1 (0.15%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 131 (19.41%) Social Skills
2 104 (15.41%) Finance
3 79 (11.70%) Public Sector
4 35 (5.19%) Banking
4 35 (5.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 29 (4.30%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (2.81%) Aerospace
7 15 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (2.22%) Telecoms
8 8 (1.19%) Billing
8 8 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
8 8 (1.19%) Military
9 7 (1.04%) Investment Banking
10 6 (0.89%) Retail
11 5 (0.74%) Law
11 5 (0.74%) Local Government
12 4 (0.59%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.59%) Health Technology
12 4 (0.59%) Police
12 4 (0.59%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 269 (39.85%) Platform Engineer
2 135 (20.00%) Senior
3 105 (15.56%) DevOps Engineer
4 97 (14.37%) Cloud Platform Engineer
5 78 (11.56%) Cloud Engineer
6 65 (9.63%) Senior Platform Engineer
7 62 (9.19%) Data Engineer
8 51 (7.56%) Azure Engineer
9 48 (7.11%) Developer
10 46 (6.81%) Architect
11 45 (6.67%) Lead
12 43 (6.37%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 41 (6.07%) AWS Engineer
14 32 (4.74%) DevOps Platform Engineer
15 31 (4.59%) Azure Platform Engineer
16 27 (4.00%) Principal Engineer
16 27 (4.00%) Senior Data Engineer
17 26 (3.85%) GCP Engineer
18 25 (3.70%) Site Reliability Engineer
19 24 (3.56%) AWS Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 317 (46.96%) Terraform
2 50 (7.41%) Kafka
3 29 (4.30%) JSON
4 25 (3.70%) ARM Templates
5 23 (3.41%) REST
6 17 (2.52%) .NET
6 17 (2.52%) AWS CDK
7 16 (2.37%) OAuth
7 16 (2.37%) OpenTelemetry
7 16 (2.37%) YAML
8 15 (2.22%) OAuth2
9 14 (2.07%) React
10 12 (1.78%) Node.js
10 12 (1.78%) OpenID
10 12 (1.78%) Spring Boot
11 11 (1.63%) SAML
12 10 (1.48%) XML
13 9 (1.33%) Spring
14 8 (1.19%) Playwright
14 8 (1.19%) XSLT
Miscellaneous
1 142 (21.04%) Cloud Native
2 61 (9.04%) Product Ownership
3 44 (6.52%) Distributed Systems
4 36 (5.33%) Hybrid Cloud
5 32 (4.74%) Onboarding
6 31 (4.59%) Data Protection Act
7 27 (4.00%) PKI
7 27 (4.00%) Private Cloud
8 25 (3.70%) Data Centre
9 21 (3.11%) Enterprise Cloud
10 20 (2.96%) Enterprise Software
11 16 (2.37%) Management Information System
12 14 (2.07%) Linux Command Line
12 14 (2.07%) Public Cloud
13 12 (1.78%) AI Agents
13 12 (1.78%) NHS
14 8 (1.19%) Taxonomies
14 8 (1.19%) Virtual Team
15 7 (1.04%) Low-Code
15 7 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 134 (19.85%) Linux
2 64 (9.48%) Windows
3 28 (4.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 25 (3.70%) Windows Server
5 15 (2.22%) Unix
6 9 (1.33%) VMS
7 6 (0.89%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.44%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.30%) CentOS
9 2 (0.30%) Data ONTAP
9 2 (0.30%) Debian
10 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.15%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.15%) Rocky
10 1 (0.15%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 377 (55.85%) CI/CD
2 350 (51.85%) DevOps
3 317 (46.96%) Infrastructure as Code
4 197 (29.19%) Observability
5 149 (22.07%) Agile
6 136 (20.15%) Containerisation
7 129 (19.11%) Continuous Improvement
8 123 (18.22%) Technical Leadership
9 118 (17.48%) DevSecOps
10 110 (16.30%) Site Reliability Engineering
11 106 (15.70%) AI
12 93 (13.78%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 81 (12.00%) Software Engineering
14 79 (11.70%) Problem-Solving
15 75 (11.11%) Migration
16 73 (10.81%) Stakeholder Management
17 69 (10.22%) Roadmaps
18 66 (9.78%) Cybersecurity
18 66 (9.78%) Infrastructure Automation
19 65 (9.63%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 247 (36.59%) Python
2 109 (16.15%) Bash
3 103 (15.26%) PowerShell
4 70 (10.37%) Java
5 46 (6.81%) Bicep
6 44 (6.52%) SQL
7 35 (5.19%) C#
8 24 (3.56%) JavaScript
9 20 (2.96%) Go
10 13 (1.93%) TypeScript
11 9 (1.33%) Scala
12 8 (1.19%) Groovy
12 8 (1.19%) Shell Script
13 5 (0.74%) Perl
14 4 (0.59%) Kusto Query Language
15 3 (0.44%) C++
16 2 (0.30%) PHP
16 2 (0.30%) VBScript
17 1 (0.15%) Ada
17 1 (0.15%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 203 (30.07%) Security Cleared
2 147 (21.78%) SC Cleared
3 58 (8.59%) DV Cleared
4 27 (4.00%) Azure Certification
5 26 (3.85%) AWS Certification
6 24 (3.56%) Degree
6 24 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
7 22 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
8 13 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
9 12 (1.78%) VCAP
10 11 (1.63%) SAFe Agilist
11 10 (1.48%) CISSP
12 9 (1.33%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (1.04%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 6 (0.89%) RHCE
15 5 (0.74%) PMI Certification
15 5 (0.74%) PMP
16 4 (0.59%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 4 (0.59%) Cisco Certification
16 4 (0.59%) CompTIA Security+
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (3.41%) Accessibility
2 22 (3.26%) QA
3 15 (2.22%) Data Quality
4 11 (1.63%) GDPR
4 11 (1.63%) NCSC
5 8 (1.19%) WCAG
6 7 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.04%) NIST
7 5 (0.74%) GRC
8 4 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.59%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.30%) GxP
10 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.30%) SLA
11 1 (0.15%) HL7
11 1 (0.15%) JSP 440
System Software
1 118 (17.48%) Docker
2 64 (9.48%) VMware Infrastructure
3 44 (6.52%) Active Directory
4 32 (4.74%) vSphere
5 22 (3.26%) Hyper-V
5 22 (3.26%) VMware NSX
6 16 (2.37%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (1.78%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.74%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.30%) EMC RecoverPoint
9 2 (0.30%) NFS
9 2 (0.30%) Squid
9 2 (0.30%) SRDF
10 1 (0.15%) Ceph
10 1 (0.15%) Firmware
10 1 (0.15%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.15%) zsh
Systems Management
1 269 (39.85%) Kubernetes
2 119 (17.63%) Ansible
3 38 (5.63%) Grafana
4 35 (5.19%) Prometheus
5 31 (4.59%) Argo
6 17 (2.52%) Istio
7 14 (2.07%) VxRail
8 11 (1.63%) Kustomize
9 9 (1.33%) vCenter Server
10 8 (1.19%) Microsoft Intune
10 8 (1.19%) Puppet
11 7 (1.04%) HAProxy
11 7 (1.04%) SCCM
12 6 (0.89%) Packer
13 5 (0.74%) Progress Chef
14 4 (0.59%) Podman
15 3 (0.44%) Check_MK
15 3 (0.44%) PowerCLI
16 2 (0.30%) EMC NetWorker
16 2 (0.30%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 110 (16.30%) Microsoft
2 71 (10.52%) VMware
3 59 (8.74%) Google
4 27 (4.00%) Red Hat
5 25 (3.70%) Splunk
6 22 (3.26%) Oracle
7 21 (3.11%) Databricks
8 17 (2.52%) Dynatrace
9 15 (2.22%) ServiceNow
10 14 (2.07%) CyberArk
11 9 (1.33%) Salesforce
12 7 (1.04%) CrowdStrike
13 6 (0.89%) ForgeRock
14 5 (0.74%) Cribl.io
14 5 (0.74%) NetApp
14 5 (0.74%) PagerDuty
15 4 (0.59%) OpenAI
15 4 (0.59%) Sage
15 4 (0.59%) SAP
15 4 (0.59%) Sonatype