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 18 May 2026.

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

 6 months to
18 May 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 231 297 313
Rank change year-on-year +66 +16 -32
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 429 194 233
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.05% 0.79% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.13% 0.86% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 291 161 163
10th Percentile £413 £400 £400
25th Percentile £467 £447 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £600 £617
90th Percentile £694 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 3
10th Percentile £57.18 - -
25th Percentile £66.06 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £74.00 - £30.00
75th Percentile £76.00 - £32.50
90th Percentile - - -
UK median hourly rate £62.25 - £30.00
% change year-on-year - - -68.42%

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 37,836 22,609 33,815
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.34% 92.39% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,491 15,046 22,418
10th Percentile £319 £296 £284
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.01% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £644
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -2.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,612 915 2,440
10th Percentile £15.72 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.79 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.59 £30.00 £36.92
Median % change year-on-year +51.95% -18.73% -17.54%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £28.15 £36.50
% change year-on-year +52.75% -22.88% -18.89%

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 18 May 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 18 May 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 18 May 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 +56 255 £525 +5.00% 70
North of England -40 56 £500 - 31
South East -36 49 £522 -5.09% 44
North West -20 29 £524 +30.29% 17
East of England -12 23 £510 +3.55% 6
Yorkshire -38 22 £481 +13.24% 9
South West -10 19 £550 -4.35% 32
Midlands -58 19 £675 +35.00% 19
West Midlands -47 16 £675 +14.89% 10
North East -24 5 £525 -4.55% 5
East Midlands -32 3 - - 9
Cloud Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 18 May 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.

1 205 (47.79%) Azure
2 200 (46.62%) Terraform
3 178 (41.49%) CI/CD
4 177 (41.26%) AWS
5 164 (38.23%) Infrastructure as Code
6 162 (37.76%) DevOps
7 123 (28.67%) Security Cleared
8 99 (23.08%) SC Cleared
9 94 (21.91%) GCP
9 94 (21.91%) Kubernetes
10 92 (21.45%) Python
11 89 (20.75%) Cloud Security
12 80 (18.65%) Microsoft
13 78 (18.18%) GitHub
14 73 (17.02%) PowerShell
15 72 (16.78%) Google
16 69 (16.08%) Migration
17 61 (14.22%) Agile
18 58 (13.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 57 (13.29%) Platform Engineering
20 49 (11.42%) Containerisation
20 49 (11.42%) Docker
20 49 (11.42%) GitHub Actions
21 48 (11.19%) Firewall
22 43 (10.02%) AI
22 43 (10.02%) Serverless
23 42 (9.79%) SQL
24 39 (9.09%) DevSecOps
25 38 (8.86%) Azure Certification
25 38 (8.86%) 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 7 (1.63%) Microsoft Exchange
2 4 (0.93%) Apache Spark
2 4 (0.93%) Confluence
3 3 (0.70%) Apache
4 2 (0.47%) nginx
5 1 (0.23%) CloudStack
5 1 (0.23%) SAS
5 1 (0.23%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.23%) Traefik
Business Applications
1 1 (0.23%) Aladdin
1 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 205 (47.79%) Azure
2 177 (41.26%) AWS
3 94 (21.91%) GCP
4 78 (18.18%) GitHub
5 49 (11.42%) GitHub Actions
6 43 (10.02%) Serverless
7 36 (8.39%) Azure DevOps
8 34 (7.93%) Entra ID
8 34 (7.93%) PaaS
9 33 (7.69%) IaaS
10 32 (7.46%) AWS CloudFormation
11 31 (7.23%) Azure AKS
11 31 (7.23%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 30 (6.99%) Amazon S3
13 23 (5.36%) Amazon EC2
13 23 (5.36%) AWS Lambda
13 23 (5.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 22 (5.13%) Amazon EKS
15 19 (4.43%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (4.43%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 48 (11.19%) Firewall
2 24 (5.59%) DNS
3 22 (5.13%) Network Security
4 17 (3.96%) VPN
5 6 (1.40%) Reverse Proxy
6 5 (1.17%) TCP/IP
6 5 (1.17%) WAN
7 4 (0.93%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (0.70%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.70%) SMTP
8 3 (0.70%) VLAN
9 2 (0.47%) BGP
9 2 (0.47%) Cisco Firepower
9 2 (0.47%) DHCP
9 2 (0.47%) DKIM
9 2 (0.47%) Kerberos
9 2 (0.47%) NGFW
9 2 (0.47%) SSL
10 1 (0.23%) ICMP
10 1 (0.23%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (2.80%) BigQuery
2 11 (2.56%) Amazon Athena
3 8 (1.86%) SQL Server
4 7 (1.63%) DynamoDB
5 6 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
5 6 (1.40%) Oracle Database
6 5 (1.17%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (0.93%) Amazon QuickSight
7 4 (0.93%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (0.93%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.70%) Big Data
8 3 (0.70%) Data Warehouse
8 3 (0.70%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.70%) Oracle Database 12c
8 3 (0.70%) Snowflake Schema
9 2 (0.47%) Data Lake
9 2 (0.47%) Mixpanel
9 2 (0.47%) OLTP
9 2 (0.47%) Power BI
9 2 (0.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 36 (8.39%) Git
2 35 (8.16%) GitLab
2 35 (8.16%) Jenkins
3 9 (2.10%) Artifactory
4 6 (1.40%) JIRA
5 3 (0.70%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.47%) Liquibase
6 2 (0.47%) Postman
6 2 (0.47%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.47%) Selenium
6 2 (0.47%) Spinnaker
7 1 (0.23%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.23%) Chocolatey
7 1 (0.23%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.23%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.23%) IntelliJ
7 1 (0.23%) JUnit
7 1 (0.23%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.23%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.23%) sqlmap
General
1 49 (11.42%) Social Skills
2 42 (9.79%) Finance
3 36 (8.39%) Public Sector
4 16 (3.73%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (3.26%) Banking
6 9 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (1.86%) Retail
8 5 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 5 (1.17%) Legal
8 5 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
8 5 (1.17%) Telecoms
9 4 (0.93%) Marketing
9 4 (0.93%) Military
10 3 (0.70%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.47%) Aeronautics
11 2 (0.47%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.47%) Law
11 2 (0.47%) Local Government
11 2 (0.47%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (3.73%) REST
2 15 (3.50%) Node.js
3 12 (2.80%) Spring
3 12 (2.80%) Spring Boot
4 11 (2.56%) React
5 10 (2.33%) Kafka
6 9 (2.10%) OAuth
6 9 (2.10%) OpenTelemetry
7 8 (1.86%) OAuth2
7 8 (1.86%) OpenID
7 8 (1.86%) Oracle Fusion
8 7 (1.63%) .NET
9 6 (1.40%) AngularJS
9 6 (1.40%) ARM Templates
9 6 (1.40%) LangChain
10 5 (1.17%) OpenAPI
10 5 (1.17%) Playwright
11 4 (0.93%) Jest
11 4 (0.93%) Lambda Expressions
11 4 (0.93%) Model Context Protocol
Miscellaneous
1 76 (17.72%) Cloud Native
2 29 (6.76%) Public Cloud
3 23 (5.36%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (3.50%) Data Centre
5 9 (2.10%) Security Posture
6 8 (1.86%) Enterprise Cloud
6 8 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.86%) Product Ownership
7 7 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.40%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.40%) Onboarding
9 4 (0.93%) Legacy Systems
9 4 (0.93%) Management Information System
9 4 (0.93%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.70%) Replication
11 2 (0.47%) CMDB
11 2 (0.47%) Data Protection Act
11 2 (0.47%) Distributed Systems
11 2 (0.47%) PKI
11 2 (0.47%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 38 (8.86%) Windows
2 26 (6.06%) Linux
3 21 (4.90%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.47%) Unix
5 2 (0.47%) VMS
6 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.23%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 178 (41.49%) CI/CD
2 164 (38.23%) Infrastructure as Code
3 162 (37.76%) DevOps
4 89 (20.75%) Cloud Security
5 69 (16.08%) Migration
6 61 (14.22%) Agile
7 58 (13.52%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 57 (13.29%) Platform Engineering
9 49 (11.42%) Containerisation
10 43 (10.02%) AI
11 39 (9.09%) DevSecOps
12 36 (8.39%) Problem-Solving
13 35 (8.16%) Continuous Improvement
13 35 (8.16%) Software Engineering
14 34 (7.93%) Cybersecurity
14 34 (7.93%) Observability
15 29 (6.76%) Infrastructure Automation
16 26 (6.06%) Mentoring
17 22 (5.13%) Microservices
17 22 (5.13%) Site Reliability Engineering
Programming Languages
1 92 (21.45%) Python
2 73 (17.02%) PowerShell
3 42 (9.79%) SQL
4 38 (8.86%) Bash
5 32 (7.46%) Bicep
6 22 (5.13%) Java
7 16 (3.73%) C#
8 8 (1.86%) TypeScript
9 7 (1.63%) Go
10 6 (1.40%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.93%) Groovy
12 2 (0.47%) BeanShell
12 2 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.47%) Ruby
12 2 (0.47%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.23%) Cypher
13 1 (0.23%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 123 (28.67%) Security Cleared
2 99 (23.08%) SC Cleared
3 38 (8.86%) Azure Certification
4 19 (4.43%) DV Cleared
5 13 (3.03%) Degree
6 12 (2.80%) AWS Certification
6 12 (2.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (2.10%) CISSP
9 8 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 7 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
11 5 (1.17%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 5 (1.17%) CISM
11 5 (1.17%) TOGAF Certification
12 3 (0.70%) CCNP
12 3 (0.70%) CCSP
13 2 (0.47%) Citrix Certification
13 2 (0.47%) MCSE
13 2 (0.47%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (2.33%) QA
2 9 (2.10%) GDPR
2 9 (2.10%) NCSC
2 9 (2.10%) NIST
3 8 (1.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 6 (1.40%) PCI DSS
5 5 (1.17%) Data Quality
6 4 (0.93%) GRC
7 2 (0.47%) SLA
7 2 (0.47%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.23%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.23%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 49 (11.42%) Docker
2 23 (5.36%) Active Directory
3 16 (3.73%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (3.03%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (2.80%) VMware NSX
6 9 (2.10%) VMware Infrastructure
7 8 (1.86%) vSphere
8 6 (1.40%) Squid
8 6 (1.40%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (1.17%) Hyper-V
9 5 (1.17%) vCloud
10 3 (0.70%) Firmware
11 1 (0.23%) Ceph
11 1 (0.23%) KVM
11 1 (0.23%) NFS
Systems Management
1 200 (46.62%) Terraform
2 94 (21.91%) Kubernetes
3 19 (4.43%) Ansible
4 17 (3.96%) Grafana
5 16 (3.73%) Istio
6 15 (3.50%) Prometheus
7 14 (3.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (1.63%) Argo
8 7 (1.63%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (1.63%) vCenter Server
9 6 (1.40%) Packer
10 5 (1.17%) SCOM
11 4 (0.93%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.93%) Puppet
11 4 (0.93%) Salt
11 4 (0.93%) Suricata
12 2 (0.47%) Cilium
13 1 (0.23%) Consul
13 1 (0.23%) HAProxy
13 1 (0.23%) SELinux
Vendors
1 80 (18.65%) Microsoft
2 72 (16.78%) Google
3 22 (5.13%) Oracle
4 20 (4.66%) VMware
5 9 (2.10%) Palo Alto
6 8 (1.86%) Dynatrace
6 8 (1.86%) Zscaler
7 7 (1.63%) Databricks
7 7 (1.63%) Salesforce
7 7 (1.63%) ServiceNow
8 6 (1.40%) Cisco
9 5 (1.17%) Citrix
9 5 (1.17%) Fortinet
9 5 (1.17%) PeopleSoft
9 5 (1.17%) Splunk
10 4 (0.93%) Rapid7
10 4 (0.93%) Red Hat
10 4 (0.93%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
11 3 (0.70%) EMC
11 3 (0.70%) Tenable
188 Cloud Engineer jobs in England