Cloud Architect Contract Job Trends

Cloud Architect
UK

The median Cloud Architect daily rate in the UK is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026.

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

 6 months to
14 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 367 386 322
Rank change year-on-year +19 -64 +64
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Architect 366 173 243
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.52% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.72% 0.57% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 240 129 152
10th Percentile £452 £458 £454
25th Percentile £530 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £640
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -2.34% -5.19%
75th Percentile £700 £713 £750
90th Percentile £779 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £633 £650
% change year-on-year -5.14% -2.69% -3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £22.69 - -
Median hourly rate £25.47 - -
75th Percentile £27.73 - -
90th Percentile - - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.47 - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 the UK with a recognized job title 50,840 30,143 34,861
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 90.86% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,838 19,043 21,029
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,127 1,648 1,435
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.75 £15.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.08 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.18% -4.49%

Cloud Architect
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Cloud Architect' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Cloud Architect job vacancy trend in the UK

Cloud Architect
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Cloud Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Cloud Architect job vacancies in the UK

Cloud Architect
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cloud Architect over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Cloud Architect in the UK

Cloud Architect
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Cloud Architect job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Cloud Architect job vacancies in the UK

Cloud Architect
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cloud Architect over the 6 months to 14 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Architect in the UK

Cloud Architect
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Cloud Architect within the UK over the 6 months to 14 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
England +31 300 £600 -6.25% 521
UK excluding London +8 164 £600 -5.14% 223
London -34 155 £650 +2.77% 299
Work from Home -43 95 £615 +2.50% 176
North of England -36 46 £600 -15.64% 71
South East -32 40 £575 +5.50% 61
Midlands -23 30 £615 +47.31% 34
Yorkshire -10 27 £600 -10.95% 26
Scotland -3 23 £450 - 26
East Midlands +1 19 £563 +29.31% 12
North West -38 17 £600 +2.13% 38
South West -31 15 £750 +16.73% 10
West Midlands -36 11 £675 +68.75% 22
East of England -25 6 £650 -3.70% 13
Wales -15 5 £625 +30.21% 4
North East -41 2 - - 7

Cloud Architect Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 14 October 2026, Cloud Architect 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 featuring Cloud Architect in the job title.

1 159 (43.44%) AWS
2 156 (42.62%) Azure
3 93 (25.41%) Migration
4 84 (22.95%) Security Cleared
5 82 (22.40%) GCP
6 77 (21.04%) Infrastructure as Code
7 69 (18.85%) SC Cleared
8 68 (18.58%) CI/CD
9 67 (18.31%) DevOps
10 66 (18.03%) Technical Leadership
11 64 (17.49%) Stakeholder Management
12 63 (17.21%) Roadmaps
13 62 (16.94%) Microsoft
14 56 (15.30%) Cloud Security
14 56 (15.30%) Kubernetes
15 54 (14.75%) Terraform
16 43 (11.75%) Google
16 43 (11.75%) Oracle
17 42 (11.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 41 (11.20%) Security Architecture
19 40 (10.93%) Architectural Patterns
20 38 (10.38%) SaaS
21 37 (10.11%) AI
21 37 (10.11%) Platform Engineering
22 32 (8.74%) Microservices
22 32 (8.74%) TOGAF
23 29 (7.92%) Mentoring
24 28 (7.65%) Technical Architecture
25 27 (7.38%) Architectural Design
25 27 (7.38%) Enterprise Architecture

Cloud Architect Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 6 (1.64%) Palantir Foundry
2 3 (0.82%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.55%) Apache
3 2 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.27%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.27%) SAS
4 1 (0.27%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 5 (1.37%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.82%) Cloudability
2 3 (0.82%) Oracle Retail
3 2 (0.55%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.55%) Oracle Receivables
3 2 (0.55%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle Financials
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle General Ledger
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.27%) Oracle SCM
4 1 (0.27%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 159 (43.44%) AWS
2 156 (42.62%) Azure
3 82 (22.40%) GCP
4 38 (10.38%) SaaS
5 26 (7.10%) OCI
6 24 (6.56%) Serverless
7 23 (6.28%) PaaS
8 18 (4.92%) Entra ID
9 14 (3.83%) GitHub
10 13 (3.55%) IaaS
11 12 (3.28%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (3.01%) AWS CloudFormation
12 11 (3.01%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (2.73%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 9 (2.46%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (2.19%) Azure AKS
16 7 (1.91%) Amazon EKS
16 7 (1.91%) AWS Lambda
17 6 (1.64%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
17 6 (1.64%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 23 (6.28%) Firewall
2 18 (4.92%) VPN
3 13 (3.55%) Network Security
4 7 (1.91%) DNS
5 2 (0.55%) Internet
5 2 (0.55%) NGFW
6 1 (0.27%) 5G
6 1 (0.27%) BGP
6 1 (0.27%) Cisco Firepower
6 1 (0.27%) CTI
6 1 (0.27%) DAB
6 1 (0.27%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.27%) PCoIP
6 1 (0.27%) PSTN
6 1 (0.27%) Radio Access Network
6 1 (0.27%) Remote Desktop
6 1 (0.27%) RTP
6 1 (0.27%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.27%) Software-Defined Networking
6 1 (0.27%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (3.83%) Data Lake
1 14 (3.83%) Oracle Database
2 9 (2.46%) Amazon RDS
3 6 (1.64%) BigQuery
4 4 (1.09%) Oracle Exadata
5 3 (0.82%) DynamoDB
6 2 (0.55%) Delta Lake
6 2 (0.55%) MongoDB
6 2 (0.55%) MySQL
6 2 (0.55%) NoSQL
6 2 (0.55%) Power BI
6 2 (0.55%) Tableau
7 1 (0.27%) Amazon Redshift
7 1 (0.27%) Apache Cassandra
7 1 (0.27%) Cloudera CDH
7 1 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
7 1 (0.27%) Flink
7 1 (0.27%) Oracle ODI
7 1 (0.27%) SAP HANA
7 1 (0.27%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 10 (2.73%) Jenkins
2 5 (1.37%) Git
2 5 (1.37%) JIRA
3 3 (0.82%) Claude Code
3 3 (0.82%) GitLab
4 2 (0.55%) MLflow
4 2 (0.55%) Oracle Forms
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle APEX
General
1 57 (15.57%) Social Skills
2 50 (13.66%) Finance
3 39 (10.66%) Public Sector
4 22 (6.01%) Banking
5 16 (4.37%) Retail
6 15 (4.10%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (3.28%) Analytical Skills
8 9 (2.46%) Influencing Skills
9 8 (2.19%) Billing
10 6 (1.64%) Legal
11 4 (1.09%) Marketing
12 3 (0.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 2 (0.55%) Military
14 1 (0.27%) Aviation
14 1 (0.27%) Back Office
14 1 (0.27%) Manufacturing
14 1 (0.27%) Organisational Skills
14 1 (0.27%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.27%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (14.75%) Terraform
2 20 (5.46%) Kafka
3 19 (5.19%) REST
4 17 (4.64%) Middleware
5 14 (3.83%) Oracle Fusion
6 11 (3.01%) OAuth
7 9 (2.46%) Lightning Web Components
8 8 (2.19%) SOAP
9 7 (1.91%) JWT
10 5 (1.37%) ARM Templates
10 5 (1.37%) Spring
10 5 (1.37%) Spring Boot
11 4 (1.09%) Node.js
11 4 (1.09%) Pulumi
12 3 (0.82%) OAuth2
12 3 (0.82%) SailPoint
13 2 (0.55%) Keycloak
13 2 (0.55%) OpenID
13 2 (0.55%) SAML
14 1 (0.27%) Apache NiFi
Miscellaneous
1 77 (21.04%) Cloud Native
2 28 (7.65%) Enterprise Cloud
3 25 (6.83%) Private Cloud
4 24 (6.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 19 (5.19%) Onboarding
6 18 (4.92%) Management Information System
7 17 (4.64%) Public Cloud
8 15 (4.10%) Data Centre
8 15 (4.10%) Distributed Systems
9 11 (3.01%) Product Ownership
10 9 (2.46%) Legacy Systems
11 8 (2.19%) Security Posture
12 7 (1.91%) AI Agents
12 7 (1.91%) Legacy Applications
13 6 (1.64%) Data Fabric
14 4 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
15 3 (0.82%) CMDB
15 3 (0.82%) Data Protection Act
15 3 (0.82%) NHS
15 3 (0.82%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 14 (3.83%) Windows
2 8 (2.19%) Unix
3 7 (1.91%) Linux
3 7 (1.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 7 (1.91%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (25.41%) Migration
2 77 (21.04%) Infrastructure as Code
3 68 (18.58%) CI/CD
4 67 (18.31%) DevOps
5 66 (18.03%) Technical Leadership
6 64 (17.49%) Stakeholder Management
7 63 (17.21%) Roadmaps
8 56 (15.30%) Cloud Security
9 42 (11.48%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 41 (11.20%) Security Architecture
11 40 (10.93%) Architectural Patterns
12 37 (10.11%) AI
12 37 (10.11%) Platform Engineering
13 32 (8.74%) Microservices
13 32 (8.74%) TOGAF
14 29 (7.92%) Mentoring
15 28 (7.65%) Technical Architecture
16 27 (7.38%) Architectural Design
16 27 (7.38%) Enterprise Architecture
16 27 (7.38%) Event-Driven
Programming Languages
1 14 (3.83%) Bicep
2 13 (3.55%) Java
3 11 (3.01%) Python
4 9 (2.46%) Apex Code
5 6 (1.64%) JavaScript
6 5 (1.37%) Bash
6 5 (1.37%) SQL
7 4 (1.09%) PowerShell
7 4 (1.09%) TypeScript
8 3 (0.82%) C
8 3 (0.82%) C#
9 2 (0.55%) Go
9 2 (0.55%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.27%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.27%) ProC
10 1 (0.27%) Scala
Qualifications
1 84 (22.95%) Security Cleared
2 69 (18.85%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.74%) AWS Certification
4 13 (3.55%) CISSP
5 12 (3.28%) Azure Certification
6 11 (3.01%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 11 (3.01%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.46%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 9 (2.46%) CCSP
8 7 (1.91%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.37%) CISM
9 5 (1.37%) Degree
9 5 (1.37%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.09%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.82%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
11 3 (0.82%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.55%) CCNP
12 2 (0.55%) GIAC
12 2 (0.55%) IBM Certification
12 2 (0.55%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (4.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 15 (4.10%) NIST
3 13 (3.55%) PCI DSS
4 10 (2.73%) GDPR
5 4 (1.09%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.09%) GRC
5 4 (1.09%) NCSC
6 1 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.27%) NIST 800
System Software
1 13 (3.55%) Active Directory
2 11 (3.01%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (1.64%) Docker
4 4 (1.09%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.55%) vSphere
5 2 (0.55%) zsh
6 1 (0.27%) vCloud
6 1 (0.27%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 56 (15.30%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.19%) Ansible
3 5 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (1.09%) Grafana
4 4 (1.09%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.82%) Progress Chef
5 3 (0.82%) Puppet
6 2 (0.55%) CASB
7 1 (0.27%) CloudForms
7 1 (0.27%) QRadar
7 1 (0.27%) Salt
7 1 (0.27%) SCOM
7 1 (0.27%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 62 (16.94%) Microsoft
2 43 (11.75%) Google
2 43 (11.75%) Oracle
3 23 (6.28%) Salesforce
4 19 (5.19%) VMware
5 15 (4.10%) Databricks
6 10 (2.73%) Cisco
7 9 (2.46%) CyberArk
8 7 (1.91%) Foundry
9 6 (1.64%) Palantir
9 6 (1.64%) SAP
10 4 (1.09%) Red Hat
10 4 (1.09%) ServiceNow
11 3 (0.82%) Dynatrace
11 3 (0.82%) MuleSoft
11 3 (0.82%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
11 3 (0.82%) SaltStack
11 3 (0.82%) Splunk
12 2 (0.55%) IBM
12 2 (0.55%) Palo Alto
610 Cloud Architect jobs Nationwide