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 21 May 2026.

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

6 months to
21 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 319 318 356
Rank change year-on-year -1 +38 -50
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Architect 342 215 227
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.71% 0.74% 0.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.77% 0.80% 0.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 241 157 158
10th Percentile £500 £450 £513
25th Percentile £550 £513 £575
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £620 £625 £675
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% -7.41% -
75th Percentile £750 £775 £775
90th Percentile £775 £838 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £613 £650
% change year-on-year -2.04% -5.77% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 0 0
10th Percentile £70.50 - -
25th Percentile £71.25 - -
Median hourly rate £72.50 - -
75th Percentile £73.75 - -
90th Percentile £74.50 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 - -

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 44,544 26,886 39,472
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.37% 92.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,258 17,494 25,719
10th Percentile £325 £293 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -3.23%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £489
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.86% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,901 1,057 2,674
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.83
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.13 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.99 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +52.50% -23.32% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.50 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £26.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +70.88% -34.16% -5.88%

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 21 May 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
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 21 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
England +20 285 £620 -0.80% 74
London +28 194 £630 -0.40% 34
Work from Home -40 102 £618 -5.00% 41
UK excluding London -59 97 £600 -2.04% 48
Midlands -36 27 £588 -2.33% 3
South East -40 18 £650 -7.14% 17
North of England -65 16 £525 +5.00% 11
West Midlands -44 15 £713 +18.16% 3
Scotland +7 13 £650 +4.00% 3
South West -35 13 £600 -10.45% 9
North West -31 12 £563 +25.00% 9
East Midlands -19 11 £545 -
East of England -19 10 £600 -11.11% 4
Yorkshire -56 3 £500 -9.09% 3
Wales -18 1 £500 +4.17% 3
North East - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 21 May 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.

1 197 (57.60%) AWS
2 118 (34.50%) Azure
3 95 (27.78%) Migration
4 87 (25.44%) Security Cleared
5 76 (22.22%) SC Cleared
6 73 (21.35%) CI/CD
6 73 (21.35%) DevOps
7 64 (18.71%) GCP
8 60 (17.54%) Terraform
9 59 (17.25%) Infrastructure as Code
10 52 (15.20%) Roadmaps
11 50 (14.62%) Microsoft
12 43 (12.57%) Cloud Security
12 43 (12.57%) Problem-Solving
12 43 (12.57%) Serverless
12 43 (12.57%) Stakeholder Management
13 41 (11.99%) Technical Leadership
14 40 (11.70%) Kubernetes
15 35 (10.23%) Integration Patterns
15 35 (10.23%) Microservices
16 34 (9.94%) Agile
16 34 (9.94%) Analytics
17 32 (9.36%) Containerisation
18 31 (9.06%) AWS CloudFormation
18 31 (9.06%) Google
19 30 (8.77%) Firewall
20 29 (8.48%) AWS Certification
20 29 (8.48%) VPN
21 28 (8.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
22 27 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement

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 4 (1.17%) Confluence
1 4 (1.17%) Palantir Foundry
2 2 (0.58%) nginx
2 2 (0.58%) SAS
2 2 (0.58%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.29%) Apache Spark
3 1 (0.29%) Appian
3 1 (0.29%) Camunda
3 1 (0.29%) Cloud Foundry
3 1 (0.29%) Mendix
Applications
1 1 (0.29%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (1.17%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.88%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.58%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.29%) Dynamics AX
Cloud Services
1 197 (57.60%) AWS
2 118 (34.50%) Azure
3 64 (18.71%) GCP
4 43 (12.57%) Serverless
5 31 (9.06%) AWS CloudFormation
6 28 (8.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 24 (7.02%) Amazon EKS
7 24 (7.02%) Entra ID
8 23 (6.73%) SaaS
9 18 (5.26%) GitHub
10 16 (4.68%) Amazon S3
11 15 (4.39%) GitHub Actions
12 14 (4.09%) Amazon GuardDuty
12 14 (4.09%) AWS Lambda
12 14 (4.09%) Route 53
13 12 (3.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 12 (3.51%) AWS KMS
14 11 (3.22%) AWS CloudTrail
14 11 (3.22%) AWS Control Tower
15 9 (2.63%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.77%) Firewall
2 29 (8.48%) VPN
3 19 (5.56%) Network Security
4 17 (4.97%) DNS
5 6 (1.75%) WAN
6 3 (0.88%) BGP
6 3 (0.88%) OSPF
6 3 (0.88%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.58%) DMZ
7 2 (0.58%) Internet
7 2 (0.58%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.58%) NGFW
7 2 (0.58%) OpenVPN
7 2 (0.58%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.29%) CTI
8 1 (0.29%) LAN
8 1 (0.29%) MPLS
8 1 (0.29%) PSTN
8 1 (0.29%) Reverse Proxy
8 1 (0.29%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (7.02%) Data Lake
2 11 (3.22%) BigQuery
3 8 (2.34%) NoSQL
4 7 (2.05%) Data Warehouse
5 6 (1.75%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.75%) DynamoDB
5 6 (1.75%) PostgreSQL
6 5 (1.46%) DocumentDB
7 4 (1.17%) Amazon Aurora
7 4 (1.17%) MySQL
7 4 (1.17%) Oracle Database
7 4 (1.17%) Redis
8 2 (0.58%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.58%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (0.29%) Metadata
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle ODI
9 1 (0.29%) Power BI
9 1 (0.29%) Relational Database
9 1 (0.29%) Semantic Layer
9 1 (0.29%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 12 (3.51%) Jenkins
2 9 (2.63%) GitLab
3 6 (1.75%) JIRA
4 5 (1.46%) Git
5 4 (1.17%) SonarQube
5 4 (1.17%) Terragrunt
6 2 (0.58%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.58%) IntelliJ
6 2 (0.58%) JUnit
6 2 (0.58%) MLflow
7 1 (0.29%) AppScan
7 1 (0.29%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.29%) Hudson
7 1 (0.29%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
General
1 69 (20.18%) Social Skills
2 61 (17.84%) Finance
3 33 (9.65%) Public Sector
4 29 (8.48%) Banking
5 21 (6.14%) Documentation Skills
6 19 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
7 17 (4.97%) Presentation Skills
8 12 (3.51%) Marketing
8 12 (3.51%) Retail
9 4 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.58%) Law
10 2 (0.58%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.29%) Aviation
11 1 (0.29%) Back Office
11 1 (0.29%) Billing
11 1 (0.29%) Investment Banking
11 1 (0.29%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (6.73%) Middleware
2 17 (4.97%) REST
3 11 (3.22%) Kafka
3 11 (3.22%) OAuth
3 11 (3.22%) OpenID
4 6 (1.75%) Oracle Fusion
4 6 (1.75%) Spring
4 6 (1.75%) Spring Boot
5 5 (1.46%) OAuth2
5 5 (1.46%) RESTful
5 5 (1.46%) SAML
6 4 (1.17%) Elastic Stack
6 4 (1.17%) gRPC
6 4 (1.17%) Hibernate
6 4 (1.17%) JPA
6 4 (1.17%) Node.js
6 4 (1.17%) OpenTelemetry
6 4 (1.17%) SailPoint
6 4 (1.17%) SOAP
6 4 (1.17%) Spring Cloud
Miscellaneous
1 73 (21.35%) Cloud Native
2 20 (5.85%) Data Centre
2 20 (5.85%) Management Information System
3 18 (5.26%) Onboarding
4 16 (4.68%) Distributed Systems
4 16 (4.68%) Public Cloud
5 15 (4.39%) Enterprise Cloud
6 14 (4.09%) Hybrid Cloud
7 8 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (2.05%) Private Cloud
8 7 (2.05%) Product Ownership
9 4 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
9 4 (1.17%) PKI
10 3 (0.88%) Data Structures
10 3 (0.88%) NHS
10 3 (0.88%) SCADA
10 3 (0.88%) Security Posture
10 3 (0.88%) Wiki
11 2 (0.58%) AI Agents
11 2 (0.58%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 10 (2.92%) Windows
2 3 (0.88%) Android
2 3 (0.88%) Apple iOS
2 3 (0.88%) Mac OS
3 2 (0.58%) Linux
3 2 (0.58%) Unix
4 1 (0.29%) AIX
4 1 (0.29%) Kali Linux
4 1 (0.29%) Solaris
4 1 (0.29%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (27.78%) Migration
2 73 (21.35%) CI/CD
2 73 (21.35%) DevOps
3 59 (17.25%) Infrastructure as Code
4 52 (15.20%) Roadmaps
5 43 (12.57%) Cloud Security
5 43 (12.57%) Problem-Solving
5 43 (12.57%) Stakeholder Management
6 41 (11.99%) Technical Leadership
7 35 (10.23%) Integration Patterns
7 35 (10.23%) Microservices
8 34 (9.94%) Agile
8 34 (9.94%) Analytics
9 32 (9.36%) Containerisation
10 27 (7.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 26 (7.60%) Architectural Design
12 25 (7.31%) Security Architecture
13 24 (7.02%) AI
13 24 (7.02%) Data Engineering
14 23 (6.73%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 15 (4.39%) Java
2 13 (3.80%) SQL
3 12 (3.51%) Bicep
4 11 (3.22%) Python
5 8 (2.34%) JavaScript
6 4 (1.17%) Apex Code
6 4 (1.17%) C#
7 3 (0.88%) Go
8 2 (0.58%) Bash
8 2 (0.58%) Korn
8 2 (0.58%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.29%) C
9 1 (0.29%) Lisp
9 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.29%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 87 (25.44%) Security Cleared
2 76 (22.22%) SC Cleared
3 29 (8.48%) AWS Certification
4 20 (5.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 13 (3.80%) Degree
6 12 (3.51%) Computer Science Degree
7 10 (2.92%) DV Cleared
8 9 (2.63%) Master's Degree
9 6 (1.75%) Azure Certification
9 6 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
10 5 (1.46%) Cisco Certification
10 5 (1.46%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (1.17%) CCNP
12 3 (0.88%) CISSP
13 2 (0.58%) MCSE
13 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 1 (0.29%) CCSP
14 1 (0.29%) CISM
14 1 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
14 1 (0.29%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 20 (5.85%) NIST
3 19 (5.56%) PCI DSS
4 13 (3.80%) NCSC
5 9 (2.63%) GDPR
6 6 (1.75%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (1.75%) QA
7 2 (0.58%) COBIT
7 2 (0.58%) Data Quality
7 2 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.58%) FedRAMP
7 2 (0.58%) GRC
7 2 (0.58%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.29%) ISO 20022
8 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
8 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.29%) PSD2
8 1 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.29%) SLA
8 1 (0.29%) SOC 2
System Software
1 20 (5.85%) Docker
2 14 (4.09%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.75%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (1.17%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.58%) Squid
5 2 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
6 1 (0.29%) Varnish
6 1 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.29%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 60 (17.54%) Terraform
2 40 (11.70%) Kubernetes
3 10 (2.92%) Ansible
4 4 (1.17%) Kibana
4 4 (1.17%) Progress Chef
4 4 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (0.88%) Karpenter
5 3 (0.88%) Puppet
6 2 (0.58%) Consul
6 2 (0.58%) FortiGate
6 2 (0.58%) Grafana
6 2 (0.58%) Istio
6 2 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
6 2 (0.58%) Prometheus
7 1 (0.29%) CloudForms
7 1 (0.29%) Nessus
7 1 (0.29%) QRadar
7 1 (0.29%) Suricata
Vendors
1 50 (14.62%) Microsoft
2 31 (9.06%) Google
3 25 (7.31%) Salesforce
4 16 (4.68%) Databricks
5 13 (3.80%) Oracle
6 11 (3.22%) SAP
7 9 (2.63%) CyberArk
7 9 (2.63%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
8 8 (2.34%) Citrix
8 8 (2.34%) Software AG
9 7 (2.05%) Splunk
9 7 (2.05%) VMware
10 6 (1.75%) Cisco
10 6 (1.75%) CloudEndure
11 5 (1.46%) IBM
12 4 (1.17%) Foundry
12 4 (1.17%) Palantir
12 4 (1.17%) ServiceNow
12 4 (1.17%) Virgin Media
13 3 (0.88%) MuleSoft