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 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 194 297 319
Rank change year-on-year +103 +22 -45
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 702 232 215
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.51% 0.83% 0.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.64% 0.91% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 469 174 130
10th Percentile £413 £402 £400
25th Percentile £460 £448 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -13.04% +4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £645
90th Percentile £684 £673 £701
UK median daily rate £515 £500 £551
% change year-on-year +3.00% -9.26% +0.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 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 £80.19 £86.25 -
90th Percentile £81.25 £110.00 -
UK median hourly rate £76.50 £45.00 -
% change year-on-year +70.00% - -

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 42,886 25,528 30,220
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 91.21% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,349 16,462 18,545
10th Percentile £325 £279 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.11%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £730 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,627 1,402 1,358
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.80 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.31 £21.37
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -1.20%
75th Percentile £67.87 £52.50 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -3.37%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +50 302 £525 +1.69% 783
North of England +28 146 £511 +13.61% 242
South East +17 133 £538 +7.50% 139
North West +17 87 £513 +17.14% 151
Midlands +11 80 £500 -9.09% 127
Yorkshire +5 49 £460 -20.00% 59
East Midlands +24 46 £500 +5.26% 56
West Midlands -14 33 £525 -4.55% 71
East of England -15 16 £475 +5.56% 65
South West -25 16 £575 - 118
North East -37 10 £525 +14.13% 32
Cloud Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 354 (50.43%) Azure
2 268 (38.18%) Terraform
3 246 (35.04%) Infrastructure as Code
4 229 (32.62%) CI/CD
5 227 (32.34%) AWS
6 193 (27.49%) Security Cleared
7 176 (25.07%) DevOps
8 171 (24.36%) Kubernetes
9 167 (23.79%) Cloud Security
10 160 (22.79%) Python
11 158 (22.51%) Microsoft
11 158 (22.51%) PowerShell
12 153 (21.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 136 (19.37%) SC Cleared
14 128 (18.23%) GCP
15 121 (17.24%) Platform Engineering
16 114 (16.24%) Windows
17 104 (14.81%) Entra ID
18 88 (12.54%) Active Directory
19 87 (12.39%) Migration
20 86 (12.25%) AI
21 79 (11.25%) Google
22 78 (11.11%) Firewall
23 77 (10.97%) DNS
24 76 (10.83%) Observability
25 75 (10.68%) Agile
25 75 (10.68%) Linux
26 74 (10.54%) VMware
27 72 (10.26%) Bash
28 71 (10.11%) 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 (2.14%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (1.57%) Apache
3 9 (1.28%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.00%) Confluence
5 6 (0.85%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.43%) IIS
6 3 (0.43%) nginx
6 3 (0.43%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.43%) 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
1 354 (50.43%) Azure
2 227 (32.34%) AWS
3 128 (18.23%) GCP
4 104 (14.81%) Entra ID
5 70 (9.97%) GitHub
6 56 (7.98%) IaaS
7 51 (7.26%) Azure DevOps
8 50 (7.12%) Serverless
9 47 (6.70%) GitHub Actions
10 43 (6.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 41 (5.84%) Microsoft 365
12 39 (5.56%) Azure Monitor
13 38 (5.41%) PaaS
14 37 (5.27%) AWS CloudFormation
14 37 (5.27%) AWS Lambda
15 35 (4.99%) Azure AKS
16 32 (4.56%) Amazon EKS
17 30 (4.27%) OCI
18 28 (3.99%) SaaS
19 27 (3.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 78 (11.11%) Firewall
2 77 (10.97%) DNS
3 42 (5.98%) Network Security
4 32 (4.56%) VPN
5 20 (2.85%) DHCP
6 18 (2.56%) WAN
7 16 (2.28%) TCP/IP
8 12 (1.71%) Internet
9 7 (1.00%) SD-WAN
9 7 (1.00%) VSAN
10 6 (0.85%) NGFW
10 6 (0.85%) VLAN
11 5 (0.71%) Kerberos
12 4 (0.57%) BGP
12 4 (0.57%) LAN
12 4 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
12 4 (0.57%) SSL
12 4 (0.57%) Wireless
13 3 (0.43%) IPv4
13 3 (0.43%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (3.56%) SQL Server
2 16 (2.28%) Amazon RDS
3 13 (1.85%) Data Lake
4 12 (1.71%) BigQuery
4 12 (1.71%) PostgreSQL
5 9 (1.28%) NoSQL
6 8 (1.14%) Oracle Exadata
7 6 (0.85%) Amazon Athena
7 6 (0.85%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (0.85%) DynamoDB
8 5 (0.71%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.43%) Flink
9 3 (0.43%) Looker
9 3 (0.43%) MySQL
9 3 (0.43%) Oracle Database 12c
10 2 (0.28%) Amazon QuickSight
10 2 (0.28%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.28%) Big Data
10 2 (0.28%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.28%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 47 (6.70%) GitLab
2 35 (4.99%) Jenkins
3 28 (3.99%) Git
4 10 (1.42%) JIRA
5 7 (1.00%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.43%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.43%) Claude Code
6 3 (0.43%) 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%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.14%) LoadRunner
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 83 (11.82%) Finance
2 69 (9.83%) Public Sector
2 69 (9.83%) Social Skills
3 32 (4.56%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (3.70%) Banking
5 11 (1.57%) Manufacturing
6 8 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (1.14%) Legal
7 7 (1.00%) 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 (0.57%) Investment Banking
9 4 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (0.43%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.43%) Back Office
10 3 (0.43%) Italian Language
10 3 (0.43%) Military
10 3 (0.43%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 268 (38.18%) Terraform
2 20 (2.85%) REST
3 17 (2.42%) ARM Templates
4 14 (1.99%) Kafka
5 13 (1.85%) OAuth
6 12 (1.71%) OAuth2
7 10 (1.42%) Spring
7 10 (1.42%) Spring Boot
8 9 (1.28%) YAML
9 8 (1.14%) OpenID
10 7 (1.00%) React
11 6 (0.85%) FastAPI
11 6 (0.85%) Flask
12 5 (0.71%) AWS CDK
12 5 (0.71%) Azure Blueprints
12 5 (0.71%) Keycloak
13 4 (0.57%) .NET
13 4 (0.57%) Hugging Face
13 4 (0.57%) PyTorch
13 4 (0.57%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 111 (15.81%) Cloud Native
2 61 (8.69%) Security Posture
3 37 (5.27%) Hybrid Cloud
4 36 (5.13%) Enterprise Cloud
5 32 (4.56%) Cloud Security Posture
6 21 (2.99%) Management Information System
7 20 (2.85%) Data Centre
8 18 (2.56%) Distributed Systems
9 17 (2.42%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (2.42%) Onboarding
10 14 (1.99%) Private Cloud
11 13 (1.85%) Product Ownership
11 13 (1.85%) Public Cloud
12 8 (1.14%) AI Agents
12 8 (1.14%) PKI
13 7 (1.00%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (0.85%) Distributed Architecture
15 5 (0.71%) CMDB
16 4 (0.57%) Greenfield Project
16 4 (0.57%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 114 (16.24%) Windows
2 75 (10.68%) Linux
3 60 (8.55%) Windows Server
4 30 (4.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (2.14%) Windows Server 2019
6 9 (1.28%) Ubuntu
7 7 (1.00%) VMS
8 3 (0.43%) CentOS
9 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.14%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 246 (35.04%) Infrastructure as Code
2 229 (32.62%) CI/CD
3 176 (25.07%) DevOps
4 167 (23.79%) Cloud Security
5 153 (21.79%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 121 (17.24%) Platform Engineering
7 87 (12.39%) Migration
8 86 (12.25%) AI
9 76 (10.83%) Observability
10 75 (10.68%) Agile
11 70 (9.97%) Containerisation
12 64 (9.12%) Cybersecurity
13 62 (8.83%) Technical Leadership
14 54 (7.69%) Infrastructure Automation
15 52 (7.41%) Continuous Improvement
15 52 (7.41%) DevSecOps
15 52 (7.41%) Software Engineering
16 51 (7.26%) Deployment Automation
17 48 (6.84%) Change Management
18 46 (6.55%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 160 (22.79%) Python
2 158 (22.51%) PowerShell
3 72 (10.26%) Bash
4 68 (9.69%) Bicep
5 67 (9.54%) SQL
6 34 (4.84%) Java
7 13 (1.85%) C#
8 9 (1.28%) Go
8 9 (1.28%) JavaScript
9 8 (1.14%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.57%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.43%) C
11 3 (0.43%) Scala
12 2 (0.28%) Groovy
12 2 (0.28%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.14%) Perl
13 1 (0.14%) R
13 1 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 193 (27.49%) Security Cleared
2 136 (19.37%) SC Cleared
3 70 (9.97%) DV Cleared
4 44 (6.27%) Azure Certification
5 41 (5.84%) AWS Certification
6 35 (4.99%) Degree
7 21 (2.99%) Microsoft Certification
8 17 (2.42%) CISSP
9 10 (1.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (1.14%) 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 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (0.57%) CCNP
14 3 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 3 (0.43%) CCIE
14 3 (0.43%) CEH
15 2 (0.28%) GSEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (2.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 12 (1.71%) NIST
3 10 (1.42%) Data Quality
4 6 (0.85%) Cyber Essentials
4 6 (0.85%) GDPR
4 6 (0.85%) QA
5 5 (0.71%) NCSC
6 4 (0.57%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (0.57%) 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 88 (12.54%) Active Directory
2 71 (10.11%) Docker
3 50 (7.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 38 (5.41%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (4.84%) VMware ESXi
6 25 (3.56%) VMware NSX
7 21 (2.99%) Virtual Desktop
8 19 (2.71%) vSphere
9 15 (2.14%) vCloud
10 11 (1.57%) Hyper-V
11 6 (0.85%) Squid
12 4 (0.57%) Firmware
12 4 (0.57%) NFS
13 3 (0.43%) Ceph
13 3 (0.43%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.43%) Postfix
14 2 (0.28%) IAG
14 2 (0.28%) KVM
14 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 171 (24.36%) Kubernetes
2 48 (6.84%) Ansible
3 30 (4.27%) vCenter Server
4 27 (3.85%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (3.85%) SCOM
5 23 (3.28%) Grafana
6 21 (2.99%) Prometheus
7 19 (2.71%) Progress Chef
8 14 (1.99%) Puppet
9 11 (1.57%) Istio
10 6 (0.85%) Packer
10 6 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.71%) VxRail
12 4 (0.57%) Cilium
12 4 (0.57%) Suricata
13 3 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.43%) FortiGate
13 3 (0.43%) HAProxy
13 3 (0.43%) vRealize
14 2 (0.28%) SELinux
Vendors
1 158 (22.51%) Microsoft
2 79 (11.25%) Google
3 74 (10.54%) VMware
4 34 (4.84%) Oracle
5 27 (3.85%) Databricks
6 20 (2.85%) Red Hat
7 16 (2.28%) SolarWinds
8 15 (2.14%) Palo Alto
8 15 (2.14%) Zscaler
9 13 (1.85%) Broadcom
9 13 (1.85%) Splunk
10 12 (1.71%) Cisco
11 11 (1.57%) ServiceNow
12 10 (1.42%) Dynatrace
12 10 (1.42%) OpenAI
13 8 (1.14%) New Relic
13 8 (1.14%) Salesforce
14 7 (1.00%) CrowdStrike
15 5 (0.71%) CyberArk
15 5 (0.71%) Fortinet