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 7 March 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 250 279 264
Rank change year-on-year +29 -15 -6
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 381 207 314
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.05% 0.81% 0.82%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.14% 0.87% 0.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 271 149 232
10th Percentile £406 £380 £400
25th Percentile £468 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £625
90th Percentile £725 £695 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £537 £550
% change year-on-year -2.23% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £51.25 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £52.50 - £30.00
75th Percentile £53.75 - £46.94
90th Percentile - - £72.93
UK median hourly rate £25.25 - £30.00
% change year-on-year - - -58.90%

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 33,508 23,892 35,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.02% 92.95% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,182 15,386 23,744
10th Percentile £306 £300 £270
25th Percentile £412 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £748
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,169 770 2,257
10th Percentile £15.25 £16.21 £13.05
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.63 £16.25
Median hourly rate £35.71 £36.00 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year -0.81% +9.44% -20.73%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.22 £71.87
UK median hourly rate £34.50 £35.00 £33.00
% change year-on-year -1.44% +6.06% -18.67%

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 7 March 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
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 7 March 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 +22 203 £525 -4.55% 44
North of England -13 70 £513 +2.60% 32
Yorkshire -21 41 £513 +127.78% 13
Midlands -43 40 £575 +21.05% 11
South East -15 39 £522 -13.00% 24
West Midlands -29 35 £670 +14.04% 6
North West -15 29 £513 +13.89% 16
South West -13 20 £550 -4.35% 20
East of England -17 13 £450 +41.51% 8
East Midlands -34 5 £575 +25.27% 5
Cloud Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 7 March 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.

1 180 (47.24%) Terraform
2 175 (45.93%) AWS
3 171 (44.88%) CI/CD
4 164 (43.04%) DevOps
5 159 (41.73%) Infrastructure as Code
6 158 (41.47%) Azure
7 112 (29.40%) Kubernetes
7 112 (29.40%) Security Cleared
8 108 (28.35%) Python
9 89 (23.36%) GCP
10 88 (23.10%) GitHub
11 80 (21.00%) SC Cleared
12 77 (20.21%) Agile
13 75 (19.69%) Cloud Security
14 74 (19.42%) Microsoft
15 73 (19.16%) Docker
16 72 (18.90%) Containerisation
17 68 (17.85%) Google
18 60 (15.75%) Serverless
19 59 (15.49%) PowerShell
20 53 (13.91%) GitHub Actions
20 53 (13.91%) Migration
21 52 (13.65%) Jenkins
22 45 (11.81%) Azure Certification
22 45 (11.81%) GitLab
23 44 (11.55%) Microservices
24 43 (11.29%) Linux
25 42 (11.02%) REST
25 42 (11.02%) SQL
26 41 (10.76%) Infrastructure Automation

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 5 (1.31%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (1.05%) Apache
2 4 (1.05%) Apache Spark
3 3 (0.79%) Confluence
3 3 (0.79%) nginx
4 1 (0.26%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.26%) Apache Superset
4 1 (0.26%) CMS
4 1 (0.26%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.26%) SAS
4 1 (0.26%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.26%) Traefik
Business Applications
1 4 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.26%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 175 (45.93%) AWS
2 158 (41.47%) Azure
3 89 (23.36%) GCP
4 88 (23.10%) GitHub
5 60 (15.75%) Serverless
6 53 (13.91%) GitHub Actions
7 37 (9.71%) AWS CloudFormation
7 37 (9.71%) Entra ID
8 34 (8.92%) PaaS
9 32 (8.40%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 31 (8.14%) Azure DevOps
11 30 (7.87%) Amazon S3
12 27 (7.09%) IaaS
13 26 (6.82%) Azure AKS
14 25 (6.56%) Amazon EKS
15 24 (6.30%) AWS Lambda
16 23 (6.04%) Amazon ECS
17 18 (4.72%) Azure Monitor
18 17 (4.46%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 16 (4.20%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 35 (9.19%) Firewall
2 18 (4.72%) Network Security
3 14 (3.67%) VPN
4 13 (3.41%) Cisco Firepower
4 13 (3.41%) Cisco IOS
4 13 (3.41%) Cisco ISE
4 13 (3.41%) Junos
5 9 (2.36%) DNS
6 5 (1.31%) NX-OS
7 4 (1.05%) Reverse Proxy
7 4 (1.05%) Software-Defined Networking
8 2 (0.52%) LAN
9 1 (0.26%) DHCP
9 1 (0.26%) HTTP
9 1 (0.26%) SMTP
9 1 (0.26%) TCP/IP
9 1 (0.26%) WAN
9 1 (0.26%) WireGuard
9 1 (0.26%) Wireless
9 1 (0.26%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (6.56%) NoSQL
2 20 (5.25%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.62%) BigQuery
4 8 (2.10%) Amazon Athena
4 8 (2.10%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.84%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.84%) Power BI
6 4 (1.05%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (1.05%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.05%) SQL Server
7 3 (0.79%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (0.79%) Data Lake
7 3 (0.79%) Oracle Database
7 3 (0.79%) Snowflake Schema
8 2 (0.52%) Amazon QuickSight
8 2 (0.52%) Mixpanel
8 2 (0.52%) OLAP
8 2 (0.52%) OLTP
8 2 (0.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (0.26%) SAS Enterprise Guide
Development Applications
1 52 (13.65%) Jenkins
2 45 (11.81%) GitLab
3 27 (7.09%) Git
4 9 (2.36%) Liquibase
5 8 (2.10%) JIRA
6 3 (0.79%) Postman
6 3 (0.79%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.52%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.52%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.52%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.52%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.26%) Chocolatey
General
1 66 (17.32%) Social Skills
2 64 (16.80%) Finance
3 32 (8.40%) Banking
4 29 (7.61%) Public Sector
5 23 (6.04%) Analytical Skills
6 13 (3.41%) Financial Institution
7 8 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (1.84%) Aeronautics
8 7 (1.84%) Retail
9 6 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.57%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.31%) Aviation
11 4 (1.05%) Legal
11 4 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (0.79%) Investment Banking
12 3 (0.79%) Local Government
13 2 (0.52%) Marketing
14 1 (0.26%) Billing
14 1 (0.26%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (11.02%) REST
2 24 (6.30%) Node.js
3 19 (4.99%) Elastic Stack
3 19 (4.99%) RESTful
4 12 (3.15%) Kafka
5 11 (2.89%) OpenID
5 11 (2.89%) React
6 10 (2.62%) OpenTelemetry
7 9 (2.36%) OpenAPI
7 9 (2.36%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (2.10%) ARM Templates
8 8 (2.10%) SAML
8 8 (2.10%) SOAP
8 8 (2.10%) Spring
9 7 (1.84%) AngularJS
9 7 (1.84%) Lambda Expressions
9 7 (1.84%) NestJS
9 7 (1.84%) OAuth
9 7 (1.84%) Playwright
9 7 (1.84%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 75 (19.69%) Cloud Native
2 40 (10.50%) Public Cloud
3 21 (5.51%) Distributed Systems
4 15 (3.94%) Hybrid Cloud
5 10 (2.62%) Data Centre
6 9 (2.36%) Security Posture
7 8 (2.10%) PKI
7 8 (2.10%) Product Ownership
8 6 (1.57%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.57%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (1.05%) Cloud Security Posture
9 4 (1.05%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.05%) Onboarding
10 3 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (0.79%) Genomics
10 3 (0.79%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.79%) Life Science
10 3 (0.79%) Replication
11 2 (0.52%) Linux Command Line
11 2 (0.52%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 43 (11.29%) Linux
2 26 (6.82%) Windows
3 12 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 8 (2.10%) Unix
5 4 (1.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.05%) VMS
6 1 (0.26%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (0.26%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.26%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 171 (44.88%) CI/CD
2 164 (43.04%) DevOps
3 159 (41.73%) Infrastructure as Code
4 77 (20.21%) Agile
5 75 (19.69%) Cloud Security
6 72 (18.90%) Containerisation
7 53 (13.91%) Migration
8 44 (11.55%) Microservices
9 41 (10.76%) Infrastructure Automation
10 40 (10.50%) Platform Engineering
11 39 (10.24%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 38 (9.97%) Cybersecurity
13 37 (9.71%) Continuous Improvement
14 35 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
15 34 (8.92%) DevSecOps
15 34 (8.92%) Observability
16 31 (8.14%) AI
16 31 (8.14%) Software Engineering
17 25 (6.56%) Cost Optimisation
17 25 (6.56%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 108 (28.35%) Python
2 59 (15.49%) PowerShell
3 42 (11.02%) SQL
4 27 (7.09%) Java
5 25 (6.56%) Bash
6 20 (5.25%) Bicep
7 19 (4.99%) Go
8 15 (3.94%) TypeScript
9 11 (2.89%) C#
10 8 (2.10%) JavaScript
11 6 (1.57%) Shell Script
12 4 (1.05%) BeanShell
12 4 (1.05%) Ruby
13 2 (0.52%) Groovy
13 2 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.52%) Perl
14 1 (0.26%) C
14 1 (0.26%) Cypher
14 1 (0.26%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 112 (29.40%) Security Cleared
2 80 (21.00%) SC Cleared
3 45 (11.81%) Azure Certification
4 31 (8.14%) Degree
5 27 (7.09%) DV Cleared
6 26 (6.82%) AWS Certification
7 22 (5.77%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (4.46%) Master's Degree
9 13 (3.41%) Microsoft Certification
10 12 (3.15%) CISSP
11 9 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
11 9 (2.36%) Cisco Certification
12 8 (2.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 7 (1.84%) CISM
14 6 (1.57%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 5 (1.31%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 5 (1.31%) CCSP
15 5 (1.31%) TOGAF Certification
16 4 (1.05%) AWS Certified Developer
17 3 (0.79%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.15%) GDPR
2 10 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (2.62%) NIST
3 9 (2.36%) NCSC
4 6 (1.57%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.31%) GRC
5 5 (1.31%) QA
6 4 (1.05%) Data Quality
7 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.26%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.26%) SLA
7 1 (0.26%) SOC 2
System Software
1 73 (19.16%) Docker
2 23 (6.04%) Active Directory
3 13 (3.41%) VMware NSX
4 11 (2.89%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (2.10%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (1.31%) Firmware
7 4 (1.05%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.52%) Virtual Servers
8 2 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
9 1 (0.26%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 180 (47.24%) Terraform
2 112 (29.40%) Kubernetes
3 36 (9.45%) Ansible
4 29 (7.61%) Prometheus
5 27 (7.09%) Grafana
6 17 (4.46%) Istio
7 13 (3.41%) vCenter Server
8 10 (2.62%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (2.10%) Argo
9 8 (2.10%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (1.05%) Packer
10 4 (1.05%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.79%) Podman
11 3 (0.79%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.52%) Consul
12 2 (0.52%) Puppet
12 2 (0.52%) Salt
13 1 (0.26%) Docker Swarm
13 1 (0.26%) HAProxy
13 1 (0.26%) PaperCut
Vendors
1 74 (19.42%) Microsoft
2 68 (17.85%) Google
3 22 (5.77%) Splunk
4 17 (4.46%) Oracle
5 16 (4.20%) Cisco
6 13 (3.41%) Juniper
6 13 (3.41%) SolarWinds
7 10 (2.62%) Databricks
7 10 (2.62%) ServiceNow
8 7 (1.84%) Ping Identity
9 6 (1.57%) Dynatrace
10 5 (1.31%) Broadcom
10 5 (1.31%) MuleSoft
10 5 (1.31%) PeopleSoft
10 5 (1.31%) Rapid7
11 4 (1.05%) Citrix
11 4 (1.05%) Red Hat
11 4 (1.05%) Salesforce
11 4 (1.05%) Zscaler
12 3 (0.79%) Palo Alto