If you want an solution independent of the Mesh UV’s you could try to go for a world/object based gradient. I recently needed similar on a candle/cylinder like object to fake the subsurface scattering of candle light. I’m not saying this is the best approach and it for sure can be optimised improved. But this will give you a gradient like you want independent of Mesh uv’s. You can adjust position of gradient, feathering etc with the scalar parameters. There are more ways to approach this than the one provided in the image. Thought the node set up below does exactly what you want.
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