Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Cloud Engineer
UK > England

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in England is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 8 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 189 296 324
Rank change year-on-year +107 +28 -55
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 708 240 211
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.53% 0.86% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.66% 0.94% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 181 126
10th Percentile £407 £402 £381
25th Percentile £455 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -13.04% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £642
90th Percentile £688 £668 £706
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +2.50% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 7 0
10th Percentile £22.69 £29.00 -
25th Percentile £23.20 £29.50 -
Median hourly rate £76.00 £45.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +68.89% - -
75th Percentile £79.13 £86.25 -
90th Percentile £81.25 £110.00 -
UK median hourly rate £76.00 £45.00 -
% change year-on-year +68.89% - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title 42,578 25,492 30,053
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 91.10% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,092 16,398 18,391
10th Percentile £325 £277 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,683 1,411 1,311
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.31 £21.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -6.70%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £67.63
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.50
% change year-on-year +65.84% -40.82% -4.49%

Cloud Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Cloud Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Cloud Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Cloud Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Cloud Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Cloud Engineer job vacancies in England

Cloud Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cloud Engineer in England over the 6 months to 8 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cloud Engineer in England

Cloud Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Cloud Engineer job vacancies in England.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Cloud Engineer job vacancies in England

Cloud Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cloud Engineer in England over the 6 months to 8 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Engineer in England

Cloud Engineer
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cloud Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 8 October 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
London +45 304 £525 +1.69% 757
North of England +34 150 £505 +1.00% 216
South East +21 133 £538 +7.50% 142
North West +22 87 £513 +17.14% 132
Midlands +11 82 £500 -6.10% 101
Yorkshire +1 52 £450 -14.29% 49
East Midlands +26 47 £500 +5.26% 41
West Midlands -23 34 £525 -2.78% 60
South West -27 16 £575 +4.55% 100
East of England -26 14 £475 +5.56% 68
North East -33 11 £525 +14.13% 35
Cloud Engineer
UK

Cloud Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 8 October 2026, Cloud Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the England region featuring Cloud Engineer in the job title.

1 353 (49.86%) Azure
2 267 (37.71%) Terraform
3 247 (34.89%) Infrastructure as Code
4 228 (32.20%) CI/CD
5 224 (31.64%) AWS
6 189 (26.69%) Security Cleared
7 176 (24.86%) DevOps
8 170 (24.01%) Kubernetes
9 163 (23.02%) Microsoft
10 162 (22.88%) Cloud Security
10 162 (22.88%) Python
11 159 (22.46%) PowerShell
12 155 (21.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 132 (18.64%) SC Cleared
14 129 (18.22%) GCP
15 124 (17.51%) Platform Engineering
16 112 (15.82%) Windows
17 110 (15.54%) Entra ID
18 91 (12.85%) Active Directory
19 88 (12.43%) Migration
20 84 (11.86%) AI
21 82 (11.58%) Google
22 81 (11.44%) Firewall
23 79 (11.16%) DNS
24 78 (11.02%) Observability
25 77 (10.88%) Agile
26 74 (10.45%) Linux
27 73 (10.31%) Bash
27 73 (10.31%) VMware
28 71 (10.03%) Docker

Cloud Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 15 (2.12%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (1.55%) Apache
3 10 (1.41%) SharePoint
4 7 (0.99%) Confluence
5 6 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.42%) IIS
6 3 (0.42%) nginx
6 3 (0.42%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.28%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.28%) CloudStack
8 1 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Aladdin
1 1 (0.14%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 353 (49.86%) Azure
2 224 (31.64%) AWS
3 129 (18.22%) GCP
4 110 (15.54%) Entra ID
5 70 (9.89%) GitHub
6 61 (8.62%) IaaS
7 51 (7.20%) Azure DevOps
8 50 (7.06%) Serverless
9 48 (6.78%) GitHub Actions
10 44 (6.21%) Microsoft 365
11 43 (6.07%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 41 (5.79%) PaaS
13 40 (5.65%) Azure Monitor
14 37 (5.23%) AWS CloudFormation
14 37 (5.23%) AWS Lambda
15 35 (4.94%) Azure AKS
16 33 (4.66%) Amazon EKS
17 30 (4.24%) OCI
18 28 (3.95%) SaaS
19 27 (3.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 81 (11.44%) Firewall
2 79 (11.16%) DNS
3 43 (6.07%) Network Security
4 33 (4.66%) VPN
5 20 (2.82%) DHCP
6 19 (2.68%) WAN
7 17 (2.40%) TCP/IP
8 13 (1.84%) Internet
9 8 (1.13%) SD-WAN
10 7 (0.99%) VSAN
11 6 (0.85%) NGFW
11 6 (0.85%) VLAN
12 5 (0.71%) BGP
12 5 (0.71%) Kerberos
13 4 (0.56%) LAN
13 4 (0.56%) Reverse Proxy
13 4 (0.56%) SSL
13 4 (0.56%) Wireless
14 3 (0.42%) IPv4
14 3 (0.42%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (3.95%) SQL Server
2 16 (2.26%) Amazon RDS
3 13 (1.84%) BigQuery
3 13 (1.84%) Data Lake
4 12 (1.69%) PostgreSQL
5 10 (1.41%) NoSQL
6 8 (1.13%) Oracle Exadata
7 6 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
7 6 (0.85%) DynamoDB
7 6 (0.85%) Oracle Database
8 5 (0.71%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (0.56%) MySQL
10 3 (0.42%) Flink
10 3 (0.42%) Looker
10 3 (0.42%) Metadata
10 3 (0.42%) Oracle Database 12c
11 2 (0.28%) Amazon QuickSight
11 2 (0.28%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.28%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 45 (6.36%) GitLab
2 36 (5.08%) Jenkins
3 27 (3.81%) Git
4 10 (1.41%) JIRA
5 7 (0.99%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.42%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.42%) Claude Code
6 3 (0.42%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.28%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.28%) Gatling
7 2 (0.28%) JMeter
7 2 (0.28%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.14%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.14%) eggPlant
8 1 (0.14%) Postman
8 1 (0.14%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.14%) Selenium
8 1 (0.14%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 86 (12.15%) Finance
2 71 (10.03%) Public Sector
2 71 (10.03%) Social Skills
3 33 (4.66%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (3.95%) Banking
5 11 (1.55%) Manufacturing
6 8 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (1.13%) Legal
7 7 (0.99%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (0.71%) Front Office
8 5 (0.71%) Law
8 5 (0.71%) Local Government
8 5 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (0.56%) Investment Banking
9 4 (0.56%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (0.42%) Digital Health
10 3 (0.42%) Digital Healthcare
10 3 (0.42%) Italian Language
10 3 (0.42%) Military
10 3 (0.42%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (37.71%) Terraform
2 21 (2.97%) REST
3 18 (2.54%) ARM Templates
4 14 (1.98%) Kafka
4 14 (1.98%) OAuth
5 12 (1.69%) OAuth2
6 11 (1.55%) Spring
6 11 (1.55%) Spring Boot
7 9 (1.27%) OpenID
7 9 (1.27%) YAML
8 7 (0.99%) React
9 6 (0.85%) FastAPI
9 6 (0.85%) Flask
10 5 (0.71%) .NET
10 5 (0.71%) AWS CDK
10 5 (0.71%) Azure Blueprints
11 4 (0.56%) Hugging Face
11 4 (0.56%) Keycloak
11 4 (0.56%) PyTorch
11 4 (0.56%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 110 (15.54%) Cloud Native
2 60 (8.47%) Security Posture
3 38 (5.37%) Hybrid Cloud
4 36 (5.08%) Enterprise Cloud
5 32 (4.52%) Cloud Security Posture
6 23 (3.25%) Data Centre
7 20 (2.82%) Management Information System
8 18 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
8 18 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (2.40%) Onboarding
10 16 (2.26%) Public Cloud
11 14 (1.98%) Private Cloud
12 13 (1.84%) Product Ownership
13 8 (1.13%) PKI
14 7 (0.99%) AI Agents
14 7 (0.99%) Linux Command Line
15 6 (0.85%) Distributed Architecture
16 5 (0.71%) CMDB
17 4 (0.56%) Greenfield Project
17 4 (0.56%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 112 (15.82%) Windows
2 74 (10.45%) Linux
3 58 (8.19%) Windows Server
4 30 (4.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (2.12%) Windows Server 2019
6 9 (1.27%) Ubuntu
7 7 (0.99%) VMS
8 3 (0.42%) CentOS
9 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.14%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 247 (34.89%) Infrastructure as Code
2 228 (32.20%) CI/CD
3 176 (24.86%) DevOps
4 162 (22.88%) Cloud Security
5 155 (21.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 124 (17.51%) Platform Engineering
7 88 (12.43%) Migration
8 84 (11.86%) AI
9 78 (11.02%) Observability
10 77 (10.88%) Agile
11 70 (9.89%) Containerisation
12 66 (9.32%) Cybersecurity
13 62 (8.76%) Technical Leadership
14 57 (8.05%) Infrastructure Automation
15 54 (7.63%) Deployment Automation
15 54 (7.63%) Software Engineering
16 53 (7.49%) Continuous Improvement
17 51 (7.20%) DevSecOps
18 47 (6.64%) Analytics
18 47 (6.64%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 162 (22.88%) Python
2 159 (22.46%) PowerShell
3 73 (10.31%) Bash
4 70 (9.89%) Bicep
5 68 (9.60%) SQL
6 34 (4.80%) Java
7 13 (1.84%) C#
8 10 (1.41%) Go
9 9 (1.27%) JavaScript
10 8 (1.13%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.56%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.42%) C
12 3 (0.42%) Kotlin
12 3 (0.42%) Scala
13 2 (0.28%) Groovy
13 2 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
14 1 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.14%) R
14 1 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 189 (26.69%) Security Cleared
2 132 (18.64%) SC Cleared
3 69 (9.75%) DV Cleared
4 46 (6.50%) Azure Certification
5 41 (5.79%) AWS Certification
6 37 (5.23%) Degree
7 21 (2.97%) Microsoft Certification
8 17 (2.40%) CISSP
9 10 (1.41%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (1.13%) MCSE
11 6 (0.85%) CISM
11 6 (0.85%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (0.85%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
13 4 (0.56%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (0.56%) CCNP
14 3 (0.42%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 3 (0.42%) CCIE
14 3 (0.42%) CEH
15 2 (0.28%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (1.55%) Data Quality
2 11 (1.55%) NIST
3 8 (1.13%) GDPR
4 7 (0.99%) QA
5 6 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (0.85%) NCSC
6 4 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (0.56%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.28%) SLA
8 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.14%) GRC
System Software
1 91 (12.85%) Active Directory
2 71 (10.03%) Docker
3 51 (7.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 42 (5.93%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (4.80%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (3.25%) VMware NSX
7 20 (2.82%) Virtual Desktop
8 18 (2.54%) vSphere
9 15 (2.12%) vCloud
10 11 (1.55%) Hyper-V
11 6 (0.85%) Squid
12 4 (0.56%) Firmware
12 4 (0.56%) NFS
13 3 (0.42%) Ceph
13 3 (0.42%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.42%) Postfix
14 2 (0.28%) IAG
14 2 (0.28%) KVM
14 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 170 (24.01%) Kubernetes
2 48 (6.78%) Ansible
3 30 (4.24%) vCenter Server
4 27 (3.81%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (3.81%) SCOM
5 23 (3.25%) Grafana
6 21 (2.97%) Prometheus
7 19 (2.68%) Progress Chef
8 14 (1.98%) Puppet
9 11 (1.55%) Istio
10 5 (0.71%) Packer
10 5 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.71%) VxRail
11 4 (0.56%) Suricata
12 3 (0.42%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.42%) Cilium
12 3 (0.42%) FortiGate
12 3 (0.42%) HAProxy
12 3 (0.42%) vRealize
13 2 (0.28%) SELinux
Vendors
1 163 (23.02%) Microsoft
2 82 (11.58%) Google
3 73 (10.31%) VMware
4 36 (5.08%) Oracle
5 28 (3.95%) Databricks
6 20 (2.82%) Red Hat
7 16 (2.26%) SolarWinds
8 14 (1.98%) Palo Alto
8 14 (1.98%) Zscaler
9 13 (1.84%) Broadcom
9 13 (1.84%) Splunk
10 12 (1.69%) Cisco
11 11 (1.55%) Dynatrace
12 10 (1.41%) OpenAI
12 10 (1.41%) ServiceNow
13 9 (1.27%) Salesforce
14 8 (1.13%) New Relic
15 7 (0.99%) CrowdStrike
16 5 (0.71%) CyberArk
17 4 (0.56%) Fortinet