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 21 June 2026.

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

 6 months to
21 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 221 296 313
Rank change year-on-year +75 +17 -34
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 515 204 243
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.19% 0.82% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.29% 0.89% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 352 161 173
10th Percentile £406 £402 £400
25th Percentile £463 £447 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -1.79%
75th Percentile £625 £588 £625
90th Percentile £688 £638 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 1 3
10th Percentile £72.10 - -
25th Percentile £73.75 £42.50 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.50 £45.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.22% +50.00% -
75th Percentile £81.25 £47.50 £32.50
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £77.50 £45.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +72.22% +50.00% -

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 39,941 23,006 35,050
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.37% 92.25% 92.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,579 15,117 22,823
10th Percentile £325 £295 £290
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.95% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £634 £638
90th Percentile £735 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,815 1,035 2,710
10th Percentile £15.93 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.93 £18.13 £16.59
Median hourly rate £45.50 £29.00 £39.55
Median % change year-on-year +56.90% -26.68% -12.11%
75th Percentile £67.84 £58.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.38
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £27.45 £37.50
% change year-on-year +59.16% -26.80% -16.67%

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 21 June 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 21 June 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 21 June 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 +68 299 £540 +2.86% 45
North of England -30 70 £500 +11.11% 28
South East -30 66 £538 +7.50% 31
North West -24 32 £500 +24.38% 17
Yorkshire -27 31 £481 -3.75% 10
Midlands -41 31 £525 +7.69% 13
West Midlands -39 24 £525 - 9
East of England -8 22 £505 +60.32% 8
South West -21 15 £550 -2.22% 20
East Midlands -18 7 £438 -7.89% 4
North East -39 7 £525 +5.00% 1
Cloud Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 June 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.

1 258 (50.10%) Azure
2 247 (47.96%) Terraform
3 228 (44.27%) AWS
4 207 (40.19%) CI/CD
5 197 (38.25%) Infrastructure as Code
6 176 (34.17%) DevOps
7 133 (25.83%) Security Cleared
8 125 (24.27%) Python
9 112 (21.75%) Cloud Security
10 108 (20.97%) Kubernetes
11 106 (20.58%) Microsoft
12 105 (20.39%) GCP
13 104 (20.19%) SC Cleared
14 97 (18.83%) PowerShell
15 92 (17.86%) Platform Engineering
16 87 (16.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 83 (16.12%) GitHub
18 79 (15.34%) Migration
19 76 (14.76%) Google
20 71 (13.79%) Windows
21 68 (13.20%) Agile
22 65 (12.62%) Firewall
23 57 (11.07%) Containerisation
23 57 (11.07%) Serverless
24 56 (10.87%) AI
24 56 (10.87%) GitHub Actions
25 54 (10.49%) Docker
26 53 (10.29%) Bash
27 49 (9.51%) SQL
28 48 (9.32%) Entra ID

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 10 (1.94%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (1.17%) Confluence
3 5 (0.97%) Apache
3 5 (0.97%) nginx
4 3 (0.58%) IIS
4 3 (0.58%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.58%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.39%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.39%) CloudStack
6 1 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.19%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.19%) SAS
6 1 (0.19%) Traefik
Business Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 258 (50.10%) Azure
2 228 (44.27%) AWS
3 105 (20.39%) GCP
4 83 (16.12%) GitHub
5 57 (11.07%) Serverless
6 56 (10.87%) GitHub Actions
7 48 (9.32%) Entra ID
8 41 (7.96%) Azure DevOps
9 40 (7.77%) IaaS
10 39 (7.57%) PaaS
11 38 (7.38%) AWS CloudFormation
12 36 (6.99%) Amazon S3
12 36 (6.99%) Azure AKS
13 34 (6.60%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 33 (6.41%) AWS Lambda
15 31 (6.02%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 29 (5.63%) Amazon EC2
17 27 (5.24%) Amazon EKS
18 26 (5.05%) SaaS
19 25 (4.85%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 65 (12.62%) Firewall
2 47 (9.13%) DNS
3 27 (5.24%) Network Security
4 26 (5.05%) VPN
5 12 (2.33%) WAN
6 10 (1.94%) DHCP
7 9 (1.75%) TCP/IP
8 5 (0.97%) Reverse Proxy
8 5 (0.97%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.97%) SSL
9 4 (0.78%) Internet
9 4 (0.78%) Software-Defined Networking
9 4 (0.78%) VLAN
10 3 (0.58%) BGP
10 3 (0.58%) IPv4
10 3 (0.58%) SAN
10 3 (0.58%) SMTP
11 2 (0.39%) Kerberos
11 2 (0.39%) LAN
11 2 (0.39%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (3.11%) SQL Server
2 9 (1.75%) Amazon Athena
3 8 (1.55%) Amazon RDS
3 8 (1.55%) DynamoDB
4 7 (1.36%) PostgreSQL
5 6 (1.17%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (1.17%) BigQuery
6 5 (0.97%) Oracle Database
7 4 (0.78%) Amazon QuickSight
7 4 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.58%) Big Data
8 3 (0.58%) MySQL
8 3 (0.58%) Oracle Database 12c
9 2 (0.39%) Metadata
9 2 (0.39%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (0.19%) InfluxDB
10 1 (0.19%) Neo4j
10 1 (0.19%) NoSQL
10 1 (0.19%) Redis
Development Applications
1 38 (7.38%) Jenkins
2 37 (7.18%) GitLab
3 36 (6.99%) Git
4 11 (2.14%) JIRA
5 9 (1.75%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.58%) Selenium
6 3 (0.58%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.39%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.39%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.39%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.39%) Liquibase
7 2 (0.39%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.19%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.19%) Chocolatey
8 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.19%) Gatling
8 1 (0.19%) Postman
8 1 (0.19%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.19%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.19%) TestRail
General
1 62 (12.04%) Social Skills
2 55 (10.68%) Finance
3 41 (7.96%) Public Sector
4 24 (4.66%) Banking
5 19 (3.69%) Analytical Skills
6 10 (1.94%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (1.17%) Investment Banking
7 6 (1.17%) Legal
7 6 (1.17%) Telecoms
8 5 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
9 4 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (0.78%) Law
9 4 (0.78%) Marketing
9 4 (0.78%) Military
9 4 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (0.58%) Local Government
10 3 (0.58%) Retail
11 2 (0.39%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.39%) International Banking
11 2 (0.39%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (3.69%) REST
2 11 (2.14%) OAuth
2 11 (2.14%) OAuth2
3 10 (1.94%) Kafka
4 9 (1.75%) Spring
4 9 (1.75%) Spring Boot
5 8 (1.55%) Node.js
6 7 (1.36%) .NET
6 7 (1.36%) ARM Templates
6 7 (1.36%) OpenID
6 7 (1.36%) React
7 5 (0.97%) Model Context Protocol
7 5 (0.97%) Playwright
7 5 (0.97%) YAML
8 4 (0.78%) AWS CDK
8 4 (0.78%) Express.js
8 4 (0.78%) FastAPI
8 4 (0.78%) Flask
8 4 (0.78%) Jest
9 3 (0.58%) Plotly
Miscellaneous
1 98 (19.03%) Cloud Native
2 31 (6.02%) Hybrid Cloud
3 27 (5.24%) Public Cloud
4 24 (4.66%) Security Posture
5 19 (3.69%) Data Centre
6 14 (2.72%) Enterprise Cloud
7 11 (2.14%) Distributed Systems
7 11 (2.14%) Management Information System
7 11 (2.14%) Onboarding
8 10 (1.94%) Cloud Security Posture
8 10 (1.94%) Product Ownership
9 8 (1.55%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (1.36%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.17%) Cyber Threat
11 6 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.78%) AI Agents
12 4 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (0.78%) Private Cloud
12 4 (0.78%) Virtual Team
13 3 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 71 (13.79%) Windows
2 41 (7.96%) Linux
3 40 (7.77%) Windows Server
4 13 (2.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.97%) Ubuntu
5 5 (0.97%) Windows Server 2019
6 3 (0.58%) CentOS
7 2 (0.39%) VMS
7 2 (0.39%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 207 (40.19%) CI/CD
2 197 (38.25%) Infrastructure as Code
3 176 (34.17%) DevOps
4 112 (21.75%) Cloud Security
5 92 (17.86%) Platform Engineering
6 87 (16.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 79 (15.34%) Migration
8 68 (13.20%) Agile
9 57 (11.07%) Containerisation
10 56 (10.87%) AI
11 46 (8.93%) Problem-Solving
12 44 (8.54%) Infrastructure Automation
13 43 (8.35%) Continuous Improvement
13 43 (8.35%) Observability
14 42 (8.16%) Software Engineering
15 39 (7.57%) Cybersecurity
16 38 (7.38%) Technical Leadership
17 35 (6.80%) DevSecOps
18 30 (5.83%) Deployment Automation
19 29 (5.63%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 125 (24.27%) Python
2 97 (18.83%) PowerShell
3 53 (10.29%) Bash
4 49 (9.51%) SQL
5 40 (7.77%) Bicep
6 29 (5.63%) Java
7 15 (2.91%) C#
8 10 (1.94%) TypeScript
9 9 (1.75%) Go
9 9 (1.75%) JavaScript
10 5 (0.97%) Groovy
11 2 (0.39%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.39%) Ruby
12 1 (0.19%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.19%) C
12 1 (0.19%) Cypher
12 1 (0.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.19%) Perl
12 1 (0.19%) R
12 1 (0.19%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 133 (25.83%) Security Cleared
2 104 (20.19%) SC Cleared
3 47 (9.13%) Azure Certification
4 34 (6.60%) DV Cleared
5 29 (5.63%) AWS Certification
6 16 (3.11%) Degree
7 13 (2.52%) Microsoft Certification
8 12 (2.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 11 (2.14%) CISSP
10 9 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
11 7 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
11 7 (1.36%) Computer Science Degree
12 5 (0.97%) CCNP
12 5 (0.97%) TOGAF Certification
13 4 (0.78%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 4 (0.78%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 3 (0.58%) CCIE
14 3 (0.58%) CCSP
14 3 (0.58%) MCSE
15 2 (0.39%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.33%) NIST
2 10 (1.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (1.94%) NCSC
2 10 (1.94%) QA
3 7 (1.36%) GDPR
4 6 (1.17%) PCI DSS
5 4 (0.78%) Data Quality
6 2 (0.39%) SLA
7 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.19%) GRC
7 1 (0.19%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.19%) WCAG
System Software
1 54 (10.49%) Docker
2 40 (7.77%) Active Directory
3 20 (3.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (3.50%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (3.30%) Virtual Desktop
5 17 (3.30%) VMware ESXi
5 17 (3.30%) VMware NSX
6 14 (2.72%) vSphere
7 10 (1.94%) vCloud
8 9 (1.75%) Hyper-V
9 7 (1.36%) Squid
10 4 (0.78%) Firmware
11 3 (0.58%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.58%) Postfix
12 2 (0.39%) Ceph
12 2 (0.39%) KVM
12 2 (0.39%) NFS
Systems Management
1 247 (47.96%) Terraform
2 108 (20.97%) Kubernetes
3 39 (7.57%) Ansible
4 19 (3.69%) Grafana
5 18 (3.50%) Prometheus
6 14 (2.72%) Microsoft Intune
6 14 (2.72%) vCenter Server
7 13 (2.52%) Progress Chef
8 12 (2.33%) Puppet
8 12 (2.33%) SCOM
9 11 (2.14%) Single Sign-On
10 9 (1.75%) Istio
10 9 (1.75%) Packer
11 4 (0.78%) HAProxy
11 4 (0.78%) Salt
11 4 (0.78%) Suricata
12 3 (0.58%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.58%) vRealize
13 2 (0.39%) Cilium
13 2 (0.39%) SELinux
Vendors
1 106 (20.58%) Microsoft
2 76 (14.76%) Google
3 37 (7.18%) VMware
4 20 (3.88%) Oracle
5 14 (2.72%) Red Hat
5 14 (2.72%) Zscaler
6 13 (2.52%) Palo Alto
7 10 (1.94%) Salesforce
8 9 (1.75%) Cisco
9 7 (1.36%) CrowdStrike
9 7 (1.36%) Dynatrace
9 7 (1.36%) ServiceNow
10 6 (1.17%) Fortinet
10 6 (1.17%) Splunk
11 5 (0.97%) Citrix
11 5 (0.97%) OpenAI
11 5 (0.97%) Rapid7
12 4 (0.78%) Juniper
12 4 (0.78%) PagerDuty
12 4 (0.78%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
133 Cloud Engineer jobs in England