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 26 September 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 196 303 323
Rank change year-on-year +107 +20 -53
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 694 223 215
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.49% 0.80% 0.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.62% 0.87% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 466 166 131
10th Percentile £413 £401 £400
25th Percentile £462 £448 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -13.04% +4.55%
75th Percentile £609 £575 £648
90th Percentile £688 £659 £700
UK median daily rate £518 £500 £575
% change year-on-year +3.50% -13.04% +4.55%
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 42,924 25,502 30,456
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.20% 91.27% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,454 16,440 18,762
10th Percentile £325 £278 £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 £734 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,577 1,399 1,408
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.46 £21.34
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.03 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -2.27%

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 26 September 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 26 September 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 26 September 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 +52 299 £525 +0.96% 740
North of England +27 140 £513 +13.89% 223
South East +22 136 £538 +7.50% 141
North West +22 85 £519 +18.57% 137
Midlands +16 77 £500 -8.26% 98
Yorkshire -4 47 £455 -15.35% 57
East Midlands +18 44 £500 +5.26% 49
West Midlands -19 32 £525 -4.55% 49
East of England -23 17 £475 +5.56% 64
South West -28 17 £575 - 100
North East -36 8 £525 +14.13% 29
Cloud Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 September 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.

1 352 (50.72%) Azure
2 267 (38.47%) Terraform
3 243 (35.01%) Infrastructure as Code
4 232 (33.43%) AWS
5 229 (33.00%) CI/CD
6 198 (28.53%) Security Cleared
7 176 (25.36%) DevOps
8 168 (24.21%) Cloud Security
8 168 (24.21%) Kubernetes
9 158 (22.77%) Microsoft
9 158 (22.77%) Python
10 152 (21.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 152 (21.90%) PowerShell
11 139 (20.03%) SC Cleared
12 123 (17.72%) GCP
13 122 (17.58%) Platform Engineering
14 110 (15.85%) Windows
15 97 (13.98%) Entra ID
16 86 (12.39%) AI
17 85 (12.25%) Migration
18 83 (11.96%) Active Directory
19 79 (11.38%) Agile
19 79 (11.38%) DNS
20 78 (11.24%) Firewall
21 77 (11.10%) Observability
22 75 (10.81%) Google
22 75 (10.81%) Linux
22 75 (10.81%) VMware
23 74 (10.66%) DV Cleared
24 73 (10.52%) Bash

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 14 (2.02%) Microsoft Exchange
2 11 (1.59%) Apache
3 8 (1.15%) SharePoint
4 7 (1.01%) Confluence
5 6 (0.86%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.43%) IIS
6 3 (0.43%) nginx
6 3 (0.43%) OpenStack
6 3 (0.43%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.29%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.29%) CloudStack
8 1 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 352 (50.72%) Azure
2 232 (33.43%) AWS
3 123 (17.72%) GCP
4 97 (13.98%) Entra ID
5 67 (9.65%) GitHub
6 52 (7.49%) IaaS
6 52 (7.49%) Serverless
7 51 (7.35%) Azure DevOps
8 46 (6.63%) GitHub Actions
9 39 (5.62%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 38 (5.48%) AWS CloudFormation
10 38 (5.48%) AWS Lambda
11 37 (5.33%) Azure Monitor
12 36 (5.19%) Microsoft 365
12 36 (5.19%) PaaS
13 34 (4.90%) Azure AKS
14 31 (4.47%) Amazon EKS
15 29 (4.18%) SaaS
16 28 (4.03%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 28 (4.03%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 79 (11.38%) DNS
2 78 (11.24%) Firewall
3 40 (5.76%) Network Security
4 31 (4.47%) VPN
5 20 (2.88%) DHCP
6 18 (2.59%) WAN
7 16 (2.31%) TCP/IP
8 12 (1.73%) Internet
9 7 (1.01%) SD-WAN
9 7 (1.01%) VSAN
10 6 (0.86%) NGFW
10 6 (0.86%) VLAN
11 5 (0.72%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.72%) SSL
12 4 (0.58%) BGP
12 4 (0.58%) LAN
12 4 (0.58%) Wireless
13 3 (0.43%) IPv4
13 3 (0.43%) OSPF
13 3 (0.43%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (3.31%) SQL Server
2 16 (2.31%) Amazon RDS
3 12 (1.73%) BigQuery
3 12 (1.73%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (1.59%) Data Lake
5 8 (1.15%) Oracle Exadata
6 7 (1.01%) NoSQL
7 6 (0.86%) Amazon Athena
7 6 (0.86%) DynamoDB
8 5 (0.72%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
10 3 (0.43%) Flink
10 3 (0.43%) Looker
10 3 (0.43%) MySQL
10 3 (0.43%) Oracle Database 12c
11 2 (0.29%) Amazon QuickSight
11 2 (0.29%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.29%) Big Data
11 2 (0.29%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (0.29%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 47 (6.77%) GitLab
2 32 (4.61%) Jenkins
3 26 (3.75%) Git
4 11 (1.59%) JIRA
5 7 (1.01%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.43%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.43%) Claude Code
6 3 (0.43%) Terragrunt
7 2 (0.29%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.29%) Gatling
7 2 (0.29%) JMeter
7 2 (0.29%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.14%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 1 (0.14%) eggPlant
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 (11.96%) Finance
2 70 (10.09%) Public Sector
3 69 (9.94%) Social Skills
4 31 (4.47%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (3.31%) Banking
6 10 (1.44%) Manufacturing
7 8 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (1.15%) Legal
8 7 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (0.72%) Law
9 5 (0.72%) Local Government
9 5 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (0.58%) Front Office
10 4 (0.58%) Investment Banking
10 4 (0.58%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.43%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.43%) Back Office
11 3 (0.43%) Digital Health
11 3 (0.43%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.43%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (38.47%) Terraform
2 20 (2.88%) REST
3 17 (2.45%) ARM Templates
4 14 (2.02%) Kafka
5 13 (1.87%) OAuth
6 12 (1.73%) OAuth2
7 10 (1.44%) Spring
7 10 (1.44%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.15%) OpenID
9 7 (1.01%) React
9 7 (1.01%) YAML
10 6 (0.86%) FastAPI
10 6 (0.86%) Flask
11 5 (0.72%) AWS CDK
11 5 (0.72%) Azure Blueprints
11 5 (0.72%) Keycloak
12 4 (0.58%) .NET
12 4 (0.58%) Hugging Face
12 4 (0.58%) PyTorch
12 4 (0.58%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 109 (15.71%) Cloud Native
2 61 (8.79%) Security Posture
3 37 (5.33%) Hybrid Cloud
4 36 (5.19%) Enterprise Cloud
5 32 (4.61%) Cloud Security Posture
6 21 (3.03%) Management Information System
7 18 (2.59%) Data Centre
7 18 (2.59%) Distributed Systems
8 17 (2.45%) Enterprise Software
8 17 (2.45%) Onboarding
9 15 (2.16%) Public Cloud
10 14 (2.02%) Private Cloud
11 13 (1.87%) Product Ownership
12 8 (1.15%) AI Agents
12 8 (1.15%) PKI
13 7 (1.01%) Legacy Systems
13 7 (1.01%) Linux Command Line
14 6 (0.86%) Distributed Architecture
15 5 (0.72%) CMDB
16 4 (0.58%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 110 (15.85%) Windows
2 75 (10.81%) Linux
3 58 (8.36%) Windows Server
4 29 (4.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (2.16%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.15%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.72%) VMS
8 3 (0.43%) CentOS
9 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.14%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.14%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (35.01%) Infrastructure as Code
2 229 (33.00%) CI/CD
3 176 (25.36%) DevOps
4 168 (24.21%) Cloud Security
5 152 (21.90%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 122 (17.58%) Platform Engineering
7 86 (12.39%) AI
8 85 (12.25%) Migration
9 79 (11.38%) Agile
10 77 (11.10%) Observability
11 70 (10.09%) Containerisation
12 62 (8.93%) Technical Leadership
13 60 (8.65%) Cybersecurity
14 57 (8.21%) DevSecOps
15 54 (7.78%) Continuous Improvement
16 53 (7.64%) Software Engineering
17 52 (7.49%) Infrastructure Automation
18 49 (7.06%) Deployment Automation
19 48 (6.92%) Change Management
20 46 (6.63%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 158 (22.77%) Python
2 152 (21.90%) PowerShell
3 73 (10.52%) Bash
4 72 (10.37%) Bicep
5 62 (8.93%) SQL
6 35 (5.04%) Java
7 13 (1.87%) C#
8 9 (1.30%) Go
8 9 (1.30%) JavaScript
9 8 (1.15%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.58%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.43%) C
11 3 (0.43%) Groovy
11 3 (0.43%) Scala
12 2 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.14%) Perl
13 1 (0.14%) R
13 1 (0.14%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 198 (28.53%) Security Cleared
2 139 (20.03%) SC Cleared
3 74 (10.66%) DV Cleared
4 45 (6.48%) Azure Certification
5 41 (5.91%) AWS Certification
6 34 (4.90%) Degree
7 21 (3.03%) Microsoft Certification
8 17 (2.45%) CISSP
9 10 (1.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (1.15%) MCSE
11 6 (0.86%) CISM
11 6 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (0.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 5 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
13 4 (0.58%) BPSS Clearance
13 4 (0.58%) CCNP
14 3 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 3 (0.43%) CCIE
14 3 (0.43%) CEH
15 2 (0.29%) CCIE Security
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (1.44%) Data Quality
2 10 (1.44%) NIST
3 9 (1.30%) NCSC
4 8 (1.15%) QA
5 6 (0.86%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (0.86%) GDPR
6 4 (0.58%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 2 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.29%) SLA
8 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.14%) GRC
System Software
1 83 (11.96%) Active Directory
2 72 (10.37%) Docker
3 50 (7.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 35 (5.04%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (4.90%) VMware ESXi
6 26 (3.75%) VMware NSX
7 22 (3.17%) Virtual Desktop
8 20 (2.88%) vSphere
9 15 (2.16%) vCloud
10 11 (1.59%) Hyper-V
11 7 (1.01%) Squid
12 4 (0.58%) Firmware
12 4 (0.58%) NFS
13 3 (0.43%) Ceph
13 3 (0.43%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.43%) Postfix
14 2 (0.29%) IAG
14 2 (0.29%) KVM
14 2 (0.29%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 168 (24.21%) Kubernetes
2 48 (6.92%) Ansible
3 30 (4.32%) vCenter Server
4 27 (3.89%) SCOM
5 26 (3.75%) Microsoft Intune
6 22 (3.17%) Grafana
7 20 (2.88%) Prometheus
8 19 (2.74%) Progress Chef
9 14 (2.02%) Puppet
10 9 (1.30%) Istio
11 6 (0.86%) Packer
11 6 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.72%) VxRail
13 4 (0.58%) Cilium
13 4 (0.58%) Suricata
14 3 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.43%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.43%) HAProxy
14 3 (0.43%) vRealize
15 2 (0.29%) SELinux
Vendors
1 158 (22.77%) Microsoft
2 75 (10.81%) Google
2 75 (10.81%) VMware
3 33 (4.76%) Oracle
4 25 (3.60%) Databricks
5 20 (2.88%) Red Hat
6 15 (2.16%) Zscaler
7 14 (2.02%) SolarWinds
8 13 (1.87%) Broadcom
8 13 (1.87%) Palo Alto
9 11 (1.59%) Splunk
10 10 (1.44%) Cisco
10 10 (1.44%) OpenAI
11 9 (1.30%) ServiceNow
12 8 (1.15%) Dynatrace
12 8 (1.15%) New Relic
13 7 (1.01%) CrowdStrike
13 7 (1.01%) Salesforce
14 5 (0.72%) CyberArk
14 5 (0.72%) Fortinet