Cloud Architect Contract Job Trends

Cloud Architect
UK

The median Cloud Architect daily rate in the UK is £620, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 August 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 354 372 346
Rank change year-on-year +18 -26 -13
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Architect 350 195 227
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.59% 0.58%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 0.65% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 139 160
10th Percentile £500 £496 £500
25th Percentile £550 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £715 £736 £763
90th Percentile £793 £778 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £640 £700
% change year-on-year -6.25% -8.57% +3.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £23.20 - -
Median hourly rate £25.47 - -
75th Percentile £27.73 - -
90th Percentile £40.41 - -
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 49,431 30,083 36,174
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.55% 91.36% 92.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,700 19,069 23,306
10th Percentile £328 £282 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £729 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,475 1,511 2,026
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.08 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% +2.87%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £45.00
% change year-on-year +69.49% -44.28% +28.57%

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 11 August 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 11 August 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 11 August 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 +7 283 £623 -2.92% 370
London -10 180 £650 +0.78% 242
Work from Home -38 110 £620 +2.82% 130
UK excluding London -34 108 £600 -6.25% 135
South East -53 29 £575 +6.48% 41
Midlands -36 22 £700 +16.67% 17
North of England -61 19 £625 -16.67% 28
South West -34 14 £600 -6.61% 27
East Midlands +1 12 £538 - 4
East of England -12 11 £600 -11.11% 10
Scotland -6 10 £650 - 5
West Midlands -47 10 £725 +44.57% 13
North West -31 9 £600 -20.00% 17
Yorkshire -39 9 £650 -12.31% 11
Wales -16 4 £663 +38.02% 4
North East - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 11 August 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.

1 181 (51.71%) AWS
2 136 (38.86%) Azure
3 101 (28.86%) Migration
4 99 (28.29%) Security Cleared
5 79 (22.57%) SC Cleared
6 69 (19.71%) GCP
7 67 (19.14%) DevOps
8 61 (17.43%) CI/CD
9 59 (16.86%) Infrastructure as Code
10 52 (14.86%) Microsoft
11 50 (14.29%) Technical Leadership
12 48 (13.71%) Cloud Security
13 44 (12.57%) Analytics
13 44 (12.57%) Terraform
14 43 (12.29%) Stakeholder Management
15 42 (12.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 41 (11.71%) Kubernetes
16 41 (11.71%) Roadmaps
17 40 (11.43%) TOGAF
18 36 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
18 36 (10.29%) SaaS
19 32 (9.14%) Security Architecture
20 31 (8.86%) Firewall
20 31 (8.86%) Oracle
20 31 (8.86%) Technical Architecture
21 30 (8.57%) AI
21 30 (8.57%) Google
22 29 (8.29%) Containerisation
22 29 (8.29%) Data Lake
23 28 (8.00%) Integration Patterns

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 (1.71%) Palantir Foundry
2 3 (0.86%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.57%) Apache
3 2 (0.57%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.57%) SAS
3 2 (0.57%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.29%) Appian
4 1 (0.29%) Camunda
4 1 (0.29%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.29%) Confluence
4 1 (0.29%) Mendix
Business Applications
1 5 (1.43%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (0.57%) Oracle Retail
2 2 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
3 1 (0.29%) Oracle SCM
3 1 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 181 (51.71%) AWS
2 136 (38.86%) Azure
3 69 (19.71%) GCP
4 36 (10.29%) SaaS
5 25 (7.14%) PaaS
5 25 (7.14%) Serverless
6 17 (4.86%) Entra ID
6 17 (4.86%) OCI
7 15 (4.29%) IaaS
8 12 (3.43%) AWS CloudFormation
9 9 (2.57%) Snowflake
10 8 (2.29%) GitHub
11 7 (2.00%) Amazon EKS
11 7 (2.00%) Azure Sentinel
11 7 (2.00%) Microsoft 365
11 7 (2.00%) Salesforce Service Cloud
12 6 (1.71%) Azure AKS
12 6 (1.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 6 (1.71%) Salesforce Commerce Cloud
13 5 (1.43%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 31 (8.86%) Firewall
2 26 (7.43%) VPN
3 12 (3.43%) Network Security
4 2 (0.57%) DNS
4 2 (0.57%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.29%) 5G
5 1 (0.29%) CTI
5 1 (0.29%) DAB
5 1 (0.29%) Internet
5 1 (0.29%) NGFW
5 1 (0.29%) PSTN
5 1 (0.29%) Radio Access Network
5 1 (0.29%) RTP
5 1 (0.29%) VSAN
5 1 (0.29%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (8.29%) Data Lake
2 13 (3.71%) Oracle Database
3 9 (2.57%) BigQuery
4 6 (1.71%) Amazon RDS
5 5 (1.43%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.14%) NoSQL
6 4 (1.14%) Oracle Exadata
7 2 (0.57%) Delta Lake
7 2 (0.57%) MySQL
7 2 (0.57%) SQL Server
7 2 (0.57%) Tableau
8 1 (0.29%) Apache Cassandra
8 1 (0.29%) Big Data
8 1 (0.29%) Cloudera CDH
8 1 (0.29%) Flink
8 1 (0.29%) HBase
8 1 (0.29%) Metadata
8 1 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.29%) Power BI
8 1 (0.29%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 7 (2.00%) Git
2 4 (1.14%) JIRA
3 3 (0.86%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.57%) Claude Code
4 2 (0.57%) IntelliJ
4 2 (0.57%) JUnit
4 2 (0.57%) MLflow
4 2 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
4 2 (0.57%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.29%) Hudson
5 1 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
General
1 54 (15.43%) Social Skills
2 52 (14.86%) Finance
3 41 (11.71%) Public Sector
4 25 (7.14%) Banking
5 23 (6.57%) Documentation Skills
6 14 (4.00%) Retail
7 11 (3.14%) Analytical Skills
8 7 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
9 6 (1.71%) Marketing
10 5 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.14%) Legal
12 3 (0.86%) Billing
12 3 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.86%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.29%) Aviation
13 1 (0.29%) Back Office
13 1 (0.29%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.29%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.29%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.57%) Middleware
2 13 (3.71%) REST
3 9 (2.57%) Oracle Fusion
4 8 (2.29%) Kafka
5 7 (2.00%) Lightning Web Components
6 5 (1.43%) OAuth
7 4 (1.14%) Node.js
7 4 (1.14%) SailPoint
7 4 (1.14%) SOAP
8 3 (0.86%) .NET
8 3 (0.86%) ARM Templates
9 2 (0.57%) .NET Core
9 2 (0.57%) .NET Framework
9 2 (0.57%) AngularJS
9 2 (0.57%) JWT
9 2 (0.57%) OpenID
9 2 (0.57%) React
9 2 (0.57%) SAML
9 2 (0.57%) Spring
9 2 (0.57%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 65 (18.57%) Cloud Native
2 28 (8.00%) Management Information System
3 22 (6.29%) Data Centre
3 22 (6.29%) Enterprise Cloud
4 17 (4.86%) Hybrid Cloud
5 16 (4.57%) Onboarding
6 15 (4.29%) Public Cloud
7 8 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (2.29%) Security Posture
8 6 (1.71%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.43%) Data Fabric
9 5 (1.43%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.14%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.86%) AI Agents
11 3 (0.86%) Greenfield Project
11 3 (0.86%) NHS
11 3 (0.86%) PKI
11 3 (0.86%) Wiki
12 2 (0.57%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 12 (3.43%) Windows
2 7 (2.00%) Windows Server
3 5 (1.43%) Linux
3 5 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 2 (0.57%) Unix
5 1 (0.29%) AIX
5 1 (0.29%) Solaris
5 1 (0.29%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (28.86%) Migration
2 67 (19.14%) DevOps
3 61 (17.43%) CI/CD
4 59 (16.86%) Infrastructure as Code
5 50 (14.29%) Technical Leadership
6 48 (13.71%) Cloud Security
7 44 (12.57%) Analytics
8 43 (12.29%) Stakeholder Management
9 42 (12.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 41 (11.71%) Roadmaps
11 40 (11.43%) TOGAF
12 36 (10.29%) Problem-Solving
13 32 (9.14%) Security Architecture
14 31 (8.86%) Technical Architecture
15 30 (8.57%) AI
16 29 (8.29%) Containerisation
17 28 (8.00%) Integration Patterns
18 24 (6.86%) Architectural Patterns
18 24 (6.86%) Enterprise Architecture
18 24 (6.86%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 12 (3.43%) Java
2 11 (3.14%) Bicep
3 9 (2.57%) Python
4 7 (2.00%) Apex Code
4 7 (2.00%) JavaScript
4 7 (2.00%) SQL
5 5 (1.43%) Bash
6 4 (1.14%) C#
6 4 (1.14%) PowerShell
7 2 (0.57%) Shell Script
8 1 (0.29%) C
8 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.29%) ProC
8 1 (0.29%) Scala
8 1 (0.29%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 99 (28.29%) Security Cleared
2 79 (22.57%) SC Cleared
3 24 (6.86%) AWS Certification
4 14 (4.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 13 (3.71%) Azure Certification
6 11 (3.14%) DV Cleared
6 11 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (2.57%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.57%) CISSP
8 6 (1.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
8 6 (1.71%) CCSP
8 6 (1.71%) Degree
9 5 (1.43%) CISM
10 3 (0.86%) CCNP
10 3 (0.86%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 3 (0.86%) TOGAF Certification
11 2 (0.57%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.57%) IBM Certification
11 2 (0.57%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (5.14%) NIST
3 12 (3.43%) PCI DSS
4 11 (3.14%) GDPR
5 4 (1.14%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.14%) GRC
5 4 (1.14%) NCSC
6 2 (0.57%) QA
7 1 (0.29%) COBIT
7 1 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.29%) ISO 20022
7 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
7 1 (0.29%) PSD2
7 1 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 16 (4.57%) Active Directory
2 9 (2.57%) Docker
3 5 (1.43%) VMware NSX
4 3 (0.86%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.57%) zsh
6 1 (0.29%) Varnish
6 1 (0.29%) vCloud
6 1 (0.29%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 44 (12.57%) Terraform
2 41 (11.71%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.57%) Ansible
3 2 (0.57%) CASB
3 2 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
4 1 (0.29%) CloudForms
4 1 (0.29%) Grafana
4 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.29%) Progress Chef
4 1 (0.29%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.29%) Puppet
4 1 (0.29%) QRadar
4 1 (0.29%) SCOM
4 1 (0.29%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 52 (14.86%) Microsoft
2 31 (8.86%) Oracle
3 30 (8.57%) Google
4 20 (5.71%) Salesforce
5 18 (5.14%) Databricks
6 11 (3.14%) CyberArk
7 10 (2.86%) VMware
8 9 (2.57%) SAP
9 7 (2.00%) Foundry
9 7 (2.00%) IBM
10 6 (1.71%) Palantir
11 5 (1.43%) Cisco
11 5 (1.43%) Red Hat
11 5 (1.43%) Splunk
12 4 (1.14%) ServiceNow
13 3 (0.86%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
14 2 (0.57%) Checkmarx
14 2 (0.57%) MuleSoft
14 2 (0.57%) Zscaler
15 1 (0.29%) Okta