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 27 July 2026.

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

 6 months to
27 Jul 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 206 302 326
Rank change year-on-year +96 +24 -57
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 591 224 221
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.31% 0.81% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.42% 0.88% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 392 174 154
10th Percentile £400 £402 £390
25th Percentile £462 £440 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £625 £575 £625
90th Percentile £690 £646 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £550
% change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 4 1
10th Percentile £23.20 £33.75 -
25th Percentile £71.00 £39.38 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £53.75 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.26% +79.17% -
75th Percentile £81.25 £74.38 £32.50
90th Percentile - £95.75 -
UK median hourly rate £77.00 £53.75 £30.00
% change year-on-year +43.26% +79.17% -

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 41,654 25,335 31,942
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.78% 92.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,384 16,465 21,086
10th Percentile £325 £288 £300
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,020 1,281 2,007
10th Percentile £16.00 £13.75 £13.86
25th Percentile £22.20 £17.79 £19.22
Median hourly rate £45.25 £26.30 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.05% -38.84% -1.71%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.49 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £25.15 £42.03
% change year-on-year +70.97% -40.16% -2.26%

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 +68 301 £525 - 225
South East -6 99 £538 +2.38% 44
North of England -16 92 £525 +16.67% 67
Midlands -13 53 £525 +10.53% 29
North West -15 52 £533 +25.41% 41
Yorkshire -20 33 £475 -5.00% 21
West Midlands -28 28 £525 +5.00% 19
East Midlands +3 24 £450 -5.26% 10
East of England 0 22 £505 +26.25% 17
South West -32 16 £550 -2.22% 21
North East -40 7 £525 +7.69% 5
Cloud Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 27 July 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.

1 304 (51.44%) Azure
2 255 (43.15%) Terraform
3 233 (39.42%) AWS
4 213 (36.04%) CI/CD
5 207 (35.03%) Infrastructure as Code
6 179 (30.29%) DevOps
7 159 (26.90%) Security Cleared
8 141 (23.86%) Python
9 139 (23.52%) Cloud Security
10 133 (22.50%) PowerShell
11 125 (21.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
11 125 (21.15%) Kubernetes
11 125 (21.15%) Microsoft
12 122 (20.64%) GCP
12 122 (20.64%) SC Cleared
13 97 (16.41%) Platform Engineering
14 96 (16.24%) Windows
15 82 (13.87%) Google
16 80 (13.54%) Migration
17 78 (13.20%) Agile
18 69 (11.68%) Firewall
19 68 (11.51%) AI
19 68 (11.51%) DNS
19 68 (11.51%) GitHub
20 67 (11.34%) Bash
21 61 (10.32%) Docker
21 61 (10.32%) Entra ID
21 61 (10.32%) Linux
22 60 (10.15%) Containerisation
23 58 (9.81%) Active Directory

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 13 (2.20%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (1.18%) Apache
2 7 (1.18%) Confluence
3 5 (0.85%) SharePoint
4 4 (0.68%) nginx
5 3 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.51%) IIS
5 3 (0.51%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.34%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.34%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.34%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.17%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.17%) Traefik
Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.34%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 304 (51.44%) Azure
2 233 (39.42%) AWS
3 122 (20.64%) GCP
4 68 (11.51%) GitHub
5 61 (10.32%) Entra ID
6 57 (9.64%) Serverless
7 45 (7.61%) GitHub Actions
8 42 (7.11%) Azure DevOps
9 40 (6.77%) Azure AKS
9 40 (6.77%) IaaS
10 36 (6.09%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 35 (5.92%) AWS Lambda
12 33 (5.58%) Amazon S3
13 32 (5.41%) AWS CloudFormation
13 32 (5.41%) PaaS
14 31 (5.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 29 (4.91%) Amazon EC2
16 27 (4.57%) Azure Monitor
17 25 (4.23%) Amazon ECS
17 25 (4.23%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 69 (11.68%) Firewall
2 68 (11.51%) DNS
3 34 (5.75%) VPN
4 28 (4.74%) Network Security
5 16 (2.71%) WAN
6 15 (2.54%) DHCP
7 13 (2.20%) TCP/IP
8 8 (1.35%) Internet
9 6 (1.02%) SD-WAN
9 6 (1.02%) VLAN
10 5 (0.85%) Reverse Proxy
10 5 (0.85%) SSL
11 4 (0.68%) BGP
11 4 (0.68%) LAN
11 4 (0.68%) SAN
12 3 (0.51%) IPv4
12 3 (0.51%) OSPF
12 3 (0.51%) SMTP
12 3 (0.51%) Software-Defined Networking
12 3 (0.51%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.72%) SQL Server
2 12 (2.03%) Amazon RDS
3 11 (1.86%) PostgreSQL
4 9 (1.52%) Amazon Athena
4 9 (1.52%) BigQuery
5 7 (1.18%) DynamoDB
6 6 (1.02%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.85%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.68%) Data Lake
9 3 (0.51%) Amazon QuickSight
9 3 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.51%) Big Data
9 3 (0.51%) MySQL
9 3 (0.51%) Oracle Database 12c
9 3 (0.51%) Oracle Exadata
10 2 (0.34%) Flink
10 2 (0.34%) Looker
10 2 (0.34%) Relational Database
11 1 (0.17%) Elasticsearch
11 1 (0.17%) InfluxDB
Development Applications
1 41 (6.94%) GitLab
2 35 (5.92%) Jenkins
3 28 (4.74%) Git
4 12 (2.03%) JIRA
5 8 (1.35%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.51%) Selenium
6 3 (0.51%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.34%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.34%) Claude Code
7 2 (0.34%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.34%) Liquibase
7 2 (0.34%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.17%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.17%) Chocolatey
8 1 (0.17%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.17%) Gatling
8 1 (0.17%) REST Assured
8 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.17%) sqlmap
8 1 (0.17%) TestRail
General
1 75 (12.69%) Finance
2 63 (10.66%) Social Skills
3 52 (8.80%) Public Sector
4 23 (3.89%) Banking
5 21 (3.55%) Analytical Skills
6 9 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
7 6 (1.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (1.02%) Investment Banking
8 5 (0.85%) Law
9 4 (0.68%) Legal
9 4 (0.68%) Local Government
9 4 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (0.51%) Front Office
10 3 (0.51%) Military
10 3 (0.51%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.34%) Back Office
11 2 (0.34%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.34%) International Banking
11 2 (0.34%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.34%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.89%) REST
2 12 (2.03%) OAuth
2 12 (2.03%) OAuth2
3 10 (1.69%) ARM Templates
3 10 (1.69%) Spring
3 10 (1.69%) Spring Boot
4 7 (1.18%) Node.js
4 7 (1.18%) OpenID
4 7 (1.18%) React
5 6 (1.02%) FastAPI
5 6 (1.02%) Flask
5 6 (1.02%) Kafka
5 6 (1.02%) YAML
6 5 (0.85%) Model Context Protocol
6 5 (0.85%) Playwright
7 4 (0.68%) AWS CDK
7 4 (0.68%) Hugging Face
7 4 (0.68%) Jest
7 4 (0.68%) PyTorch
7 4 (0.68%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 106 (17.94%) Cloud Native
2 39 (6.60%) Security Posture
3 33 (5.58%) Hybrid Cloud
4 23 (3.89%) Enterprise Cloud
4 23 (3.89%) Public Cloud
5 16 (2.71%) Cloud Security Posture
5 16 (2.71%) Data Centre
6 14 (2.37%) Management Information System
6 14 (2.37%) Onboarding
7 13 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
8 11 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
9 9 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.35%) Product Ownership
11 7 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
12 6 (1.02%) AI Agents
12 6 (1.02%) Linux Command Line
13 5 (0.85%) Private Cloud
14 4 (0.68%) Virtual Team
15 3 (0.51%) Distributed Architecture
15 3 (0.51%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 96 (16.24%) Windows
2 61 (10.32%) Linux
3 49 (8.29%) Windows Server
4 27 (4.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 9 (1.52%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.35%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.51%) CentOS
8 2 (0.34%) VMS
8 2 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (36.04%) CI/CD
2 207 (35.03%) Infrastructure as Code
3 179 (30.29%) DevOps
4 139 (23.52%) Cloud Security
5 125 (21.15%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 97 (16.41%) Platform Engineering
7 80 (13.54%) Migration
8 78 (13.20%) Agile
9 68 (11.51%) AI
10 60 (10.15%) Containerisation
11 55 (9.31%) Observability
12 50 (8.46%) Software Engineering
13 47 (7.95%) Infrastructure Automation
14 46 (7.78%) Technical Leadership
15 43 (7.28%) Problem-Solving
16 42 (7.11%) Continuous Improvement
17 39 (6.60%) Change Management
18 38 (6.43%) DevSecOps
19 34 (5.75%) Cybersecurity
19 34 (5.75%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 141 (23.86%) Python
2 133 (22.50%) PowerShell
3 67 (11.34%) Bash
4 58 (9.81%) SQL
5 55 (9.31%) Bicep
6 32 (5.41%) Java
7 16 (2.71%) C#
8 10 (1.69%) JavaScript
9 9 (1.52%) Go
9 9 (1.52%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.85%) Groovy
11 4 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.34%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.34%) Ruby
12 2 (0.34%) Scala
13 1 (0.17%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.17%) Cypher
13 1 (0.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.17%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.17%) R
Qualifications
1 159 (26.90%) Security Cleared
2 122 (20.64%) SC Cleared
3 52 (8.80%) DV Cleared
4 45 (7.61%) Azure Certification
5 40 (6.77%) AWS Certification
6 23 (3.89%) Degree
7 13 (2.20%) CISSP
7 13 (2.20%) Microsoft Certification
8 12 (2.03%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 9 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
10 7 (1.18%) Computer Science Degree
11 6 (1.02%) CCNP
12 4 (0.68%) CCIE
12 4 (0.68%) CISM
12 4 (0.68%) MCSE
13 3 (0.51%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 3 (0.51%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 3 (0.51%) BPSS Clearance
13 3 (0.51%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
14 2 (0.34%) CCIE Security
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (1.69%) Data Quality
1 10 (1.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 10 (1.69%) QA
2 8 (1.35%) NIST
3 7 (1.18%) NCSC
4 3 (0.51%) GDPR
5 2 (0.34%) Cyber Essentials
5 2 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
5 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
5 2 (0.34%) SLA
6 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.17%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 1 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
6 1 (0.17%) GRC
6 1 (0.17%) SOC 2
6 1 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 61 (10.32%) Docker
2 58 (9.81%) Active Directory
3 32 (5.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (4.57%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (4.06%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (3.38%) VMware NSX
7 16 (2.71%) vSphere
8 15 (2.54%) Virtual Desktop
9 12 (2.03%) vCloud
10 11 (1.86%) Hyper-V
11 7 (1.18%) Squid
12 4 (0.68%) Firmware
13 3 (0.51%) Ceph
13 3 (0.51%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.51%) NFS
13 3 (0.51%) Postfix
14 2 (0.34%) KVM
14 2 (0.34%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 255 (43.15%) Terraform
2 125 (21.15%) Kubernetes
3 45 (7.61%) Ansible
4 20 (3.38%) vCenter Server
5 19 (3.21%) Grafana
5 19 (3.21%) Progress Chef
5 19 (3.21%) Prometheus
6 18 (3.05%) Microsoft Intune
6 18 (3.05%) SCOM
7 15 (2.54%) Puppet
8 11 (1.86%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (1.35%) Istio
9 8 (1.35%) Packer
10 4 (0.68%) HAProxy
10 4 (0.68%) Suricata
10 4 (0.68%) VxRail
11 3 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.51%) Salt
11 3 (0.51%) vRealize
12 2 (0.34%) FortiGate
Vendors
1 125 (21.15%) Microsoft
2 82 (13.87%) Google
3 52 (8.80%) VMware
4 23 (3.89%) Oracle
5 17 (2.88%) Red Hat
6 15 (2.54%) Zscaler
7 12 (2.03%) ServiceNow
8 11 (1.86%) Palo Alto
9 9 (1.52%) Cisco
9 9 (1.52%) Dynatrace
9 9 (1.52%) Salesforce
9 9 (1.52%) Splunk
10 7 (1.18%) Broadcom
10 7 (1.18%) CrowdStrike
10 7 (1.18%) OpenAI
10 7 (1.18%) SolarWinds
11 6 (1.02%) Databricks
11 6 (1.02%) Fortinet
12 4 (0.68%) Citrix
12 4 (0.68%) New Relic
400 Cloud Engineer jobs in England