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 22 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 258 295
Rank change year-on-year +111 +37 -49
Contract jobs citing Platform Engineering 359 86 105
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.63% 0.67% 0.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.96% 0.74% 0.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 255 59 77
10th Percentile £374 £413 £418
25th Percentile £425 £463 £465
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £535 £543
Median % change year-on-year -6.54% -1.47% -5.57%
75th Percentile £565 £600 £650
90th Percentile £638 £658 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £552 £559
% change year-on-year -4.89% -1.21% -6.88%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 2 0
10th Percentile £59.75 £60.33 -
25th Percentile £66.50 £61.73 -
Median hourly rate £74.26 £68.14 -
Median % change year-on-year +8.98% - -
75th Percentile - £74.23 -
90th Percentile £82.40 £75.44 -
UK median hourly rate £74.26 £68.14 £60.00
% change year-on-year +8.98% +13.57% -29.41%

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 18,282 11,621 17,947
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 82.95% 90.52% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,135 7,335 10,957
10th Percentile £263 £243 £235
25th Percentile £400 £375 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.33% -2.50% -
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,914 725 1,925
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.00 £12.41
25th Percentile £18.14 £19.97 £15.17
Median hourly rate £28.50 £31.76 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.26% +0.83% -12.01%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.70
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.81 £71.01
UK median hourly rate £30.50 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -6.15% - -7.29%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 +24 146 £500 -9.09% 95
North West +28 76 £550 -0.45% 50
South East +6 74 £525 +5.00% 82
Yorkshire -11 68 £475 -13.64% 37
Midlands -27 44 £530 +6.00% 24
Scotland +28 41 £425 -19.05% 7
West Midlands -35 39 £540 +0.56% 18
South West -9 30 £550 -8.52% 31
East of England 0 26 £450 -35.71% 12
North East -10 5 £550 - 8
East Midlands -34 5 £525 +10.53% 6
Wales -4 2 £424 - 5
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 (5.01%) Confluence
2 16 (4.46%) Microsoft Exchange
3 10 (2.79%) Apache Spark
3 10 (2.79%) SharePoint
4 6 (1.67%) Apache
5 4 (1.11%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.84%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.56%) Apache Pulsar
7 2 (0.56%) nginx
7 2 (0.56%) SharePoint Server
7 2 (0.56%) Tuxedo
8 1 (0.28%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
8 1 (0.28%) CICS
8 1 (0.28%) IBM HTTP Server
8 1 (0.28%) IIS
8 1 (0.28%) Oracle HTTP Server
8 1 (0.28%) WebSphere
8 1 (0.28%) WebSphere Application Server
8 1 (0.28%) WebSphere Portal
Applications
1 3 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
1 1 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 135 (37.60%) Azure
2 117 (32.59%) AWS
3 68 (18.94%) GitHub
4 48 (13.37%) GCP
5 44 (12.26%) GitHub Actions
6 35 (9.75%) Azure DevOps
7 34 (9.47%) Entra ID
8 27 (7.52%) Serverless
9 26 (7.24%) OpenShift
10 23 (6.41%) Azure AKS
11 21 (5.85%) Amazon EKS
11 21 (5.85%) AWS CloudFormation
12 17 (4.74%) AWS Lambda
13 16 (4.46%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 14 (3.90%) Amazon S3
15 13 (3.62%) Amazon EC2
16 12 (3.34%) PaaS
16 12 (3.34%) SaaS
17 11 (3.06%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 11 (3.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 36 (10.03%) Firewall
2 26 (7.24%) DNS
3 12 (3.34%) Network Security
4 11 (3.06%) TCP/IP
5 10 (2.79%) WebEx
6 9 (2.51%) DHCP
7 7 (1.95%) BGP
7 7 (1.95%) VLAN
8 6 (1.67%) Software-Defined Networking
9 5 (1.39%) SAN
9 5 (1.39%) VPN
10 4 (1.11%) Fibre Channel
10 4 (1.11%) IPsec
10 4 (1.11%) MQTT
10 4 (1.11%) SD-WAN
11 3 (0.84%) Internet
11 3 (0.84%) SSL
11 3 (0.84%) VSAN
12 2 (0.56%) NAS
12 2 (0.56%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (6.69%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (2.79%) NoSQL
2 10 (2.79%) SQL Server
3 9 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (2.51%) DynamoDB
3 9 (2.51%) Metadata
3 9 (2.51%) Redis
4 8 (2.23%) Big Data
4 8 (2.23%) Hadoop
5 6 (1.67%) Amazon Redshift
5 6 (1.67%) Power BI
5 6 (1.67%) Relational Database
6 5 (1.39%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (1.11%) Data Lake
7 4 (1.11%) Neo4j
8 3 (0.84%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.84%) Tableau
9 2 (0.56%) Apache Hive
9 2 (0.56%) Impala
9 2 (0.56%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 52 (14.48%) Jenkins
2 45 (12.53%) GitLab
3 35 (9.75%) Git
4 33 (9.19%) JIRA
5 8 (2.23%) SonarQube
6 7 (1.95%) Bitbucket
6 7 (1.95%) Gatling
7 5 (1.39%) Artifactory
7 5 (1.39%) Maven
7 5 (1.39%) Sonatype Nexus
8 4 (1.11%) JMeter
8 4 (1.11%) LoadRunner
8 4 (1.11%) MSI
8 4 (1.11%) NeoLoad
8 4 (1.11%) Postman
9 2 (0.56%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.56%) Jaeger
9 2 (0.56%) JUnit
9 2 (0.56%) Mockito
9 2 (0.56%) Spinnaker
General
1 76 (21.17%) Social Skills
2 32 (8.91%) Public Sector
3 30 (8.36%) Finance
4 22 (6.13%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (5.01%) Banking
6 14 (3.90%) Legal
7 4 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (0.84%) Telecoms
9 2 (0.56%) Games
9 2 (0.56%) Law
10 1 (0.28%) Advertising
10 1 (0.28%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.28%) Electronics
10 1 (0.28%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.28%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.28%) Military
10 1 (0.28%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.28%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.28%) Retail
10 1 (0.28%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 184 (51.25%) Platform Engineer
2 61 (16.99%) Cloud Platform Engineer
3 44 (12.26%) Senior
4 35 (9.75%) DevOps Engineer
5 31 (8.64%) Azure Engineer
5 31 (8.64%) Cloud Engineer
6 27 (7.52%) Azure Platform Engineer
7 24 (6.69%) Data Engineer
8 23 (6.41%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 22 (6.13%) AWS Engineer
9 22 (6.13%) Lead
10 20 (5.57%) Architect
11 14 (3.90%) AWS Platform Engineer
12 13 (3.62%) DevSecOps Engineer
13 11 (3.06%) Software Engineer
14 10 (2.79%) DevOps Platform Engineer
14 10 (2.79%) VMware Engineer
15 9 (2.51%) GCP Engineer
15 9 (2.51%) Project Manager
16 8 (2.23%) Senior Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (4.46%) Kafka
2 12 (3.34%) REST
2 12 (3.34%) YAML
3 10 (2.79%) Elastic Stack
3 10 (2.79%) XMPP
4 9 (2.51%) Keycloak
4 9 (2.51%) OpenID
4 9 (2.51%) Playwright
5 8 (2.23%) ADO
5 8 (2.23%) OAuth
5 8 (2.23%) OAuth2
6 7 (1.95%) Middleware
6 7 (1.95%) Node.js
6 7 (1.95%) Oracle Fusion
6 7 (1.95%) React
7 6 (1.67%) .NET
7 6 (1.67%) AWS CDK
7 6 (1.67%) OpenTelemetry
8 5 (1.39%) ARM Templates
8 5 (1.39%) OpenAPI
Miscellaneous
1 34 (9.47%) Cloud Native
2 30 (8.36%) Product Ownership
3 17 (4.74%) PKI
4 16 (4.46%) Private Cloud
5 15 (4.18%) Onboarding
6 13 (3.62%) Data Centre
7 12 (3.34%) Distributed Systems
7 12 (3.34%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (2.51%) Public Cloud
9 8 (2.23%) NHS
9 8 (2.23%) Security Posture
10 7 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.39%) Fat Client
11 5 (1.39%) Operational Technology
11 5 (1.39%) Replication
11 5 (1.39%) Thin Client
11 5 (1.39%) Virtual Team
12 4 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
12 4 (1.11%) NVMe
13 3 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 84 (23.40%) Linux
2 62 (17.27%) Windows
3 26 (7.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 25 (6.96%) Windows Server
5 11 (3.06%) Unix
6 6 (1.67%) VMS
7 4 (1.11%) Windows 10
8 3 (0.84%) Amazon Linux
8 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2016
8 3 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
9 2 (0.56%) Solaris
9 2 (0.56%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.28%) CentOS
10 1 (0.28%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.28%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (45.40%) CI/CD
2 141 (39.28%) DevOps
3 130 (36.21%) Infrastructure as Code
4 69 (19.22%) Observability
5 68 (18.94%) Containerisation
6 65 (18.11%) Agile
7 59 (16.43%) Problem-Solving
8 56 (15.60%) Continuous Improvement
9 52 (14.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 47 (13.09%) Migration
11 41 (11.42%) Infrastructure Automation
12 40 (11.14%) Software Engineering
13 37 (10.31%) DevSecOps
14 34 (9.47%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 31 (8.64%) Roadmaps
16 29 (8.08%) Cloud Security
16 29 (8.08%) Test Automation
17 28 (7.80%) Analytics
17 28 (7.80%) Incident Response
18 27 (7.52%) Identity Access Management
Programming Languages
1 127 (35.38%) Python
2 67 (18.66%) Bash
3 59 (16.43%) PowerShell
4 28 (7.80%) Java
5 25 (6.96%) SQL
6 19 (5.29%) Bicep
7 14 (3.90%) Perl
8 8 (2.23%) TypeScript
9 7 (1.95%) C#
9 7 (1.95%) Scala
10 6 (1.67%) Go
10 6 (1.67%) JavaScript
11 4 (1.11%) Cypher
12 3 (0.84%) Groovy
12 3 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 2 (0.56%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.56%) C++
13 2 (0.56%) PHP
13 2 (0.56%) SOQL
14 1 (0.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 146 (40.67%) Security Cleared
2 115 (32.03%) SC Cleared
3 22 (6.13%) DV Cleared
4 13 (3.62%) Degree
5 11 (3.06%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.79%) CCNA
6 10 (2.79%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.51%) CCDP
7 9 (2.51%) CCNP
8 6 (1.67%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.39%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 4 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.84%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 3 (0.84%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.84%) CSPO
11 3 (0.84%) RHCE
11 3 (0.84%) SAFe Agilist
12 2 (0.56%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.56%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.01%) NCSC
2 13 (3.62%) Data Quality
3 11 (3.06%) GDPR
4 6 (1.67%) QA
5 5 (1.39%) NIST
5 5 (1.39%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.11%) NIST 800
7 3 (0.84%) GRC
8 2 (0.56%) WCAG
9 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.28%) COBIT
9 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.28%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.28%) ISO 8583
9 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 59 (16.43%) Docker
2 48 (13.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 40 (11.14%) Active Directory
4 14 (3.90%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (3.62%) vSphere
6 9 (2.51%) VMware NSX
7 4 (1.11%) Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
7 4 (1.11%) Hyper-V
7 4 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
8 3 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.28%) Firmware
9 1 (0.28%) GPFS
9 1 (0.28%) KVM
9 1 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 126 (35.10%) Terraform
2 115 (32.03%) Kubernetes
3 64 (17.83%) Ansible
4 42 (11.70%) Grafana
5 33 (9.19%) Prometheus
6 23 (6.41%) Istio
7 14 (3.90%) Argo
8 11 (3.06%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 11 (3.06%) Packer
9 8 (2.23%) Microsoft Intune
10 7 (1.95%) linkerd
10 7 (1.95%) vCenter Server
11 6 (1.67%) Puppet
12 5 (1.39%) SCCM
12 5 (1.39%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (1.11%) PowerCLI
13 4 (1.11%) Rancher
13 4 (1.11%) vMotion
13 4 (1.11%) vRealize
14 3 (0.84%) Kibana
Vendors
1 60 (16.71%) VMware
2 53 (14.76%) Microsoft
3 32 (8.91%) Red Hat
4 31 (8.64%) Splunk
5 24 (6.69%) Cisco
6 20 (5.57%) Dynatrace
7 18 (5.01%) Citrix
7 18 (5.01%) Google
8 17 (4.74%) Oracle
9 10 (2.79%) ServiceNow
10 9 (2.51%) F5
11 8 (2.23%) AppDynamics
11 8 (2.23%) Databricks
12 7 (1.95%) Veeam
13 5 (1.39%) PeopleSoft
14 4 (1.11%) BiZZdesign
14 4 (1.11%) Greenplum
14 4 (1.11%) IBM
14 4 (1.11%) Palo Alto
15 3 (0.84%) SolarWinds