Cloud Architect Contract Job Trends

Cloud Architect
UK

The median Cloud Architect daily rate in the UK is £609, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 July 2026.

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

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 351 324 358
Rank change year-on-year -27 +34 -34
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Architect 350 233 247
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 0.72% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.71% 0.78% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 230 171 175
10th Percentile £475 £455 £500
25th Percentile £550 £513 £541
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £609 £613 £650
Median % change year-on-year -0.61% -5.77% -3.70%
75th Percentile £736 £738 £763
90th Percentile £768 £815 £808
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £600 £675
% change year-on-year - -11.11% +3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £23.20 - -
Median hourly rate £25.47 - -
75th Percentile £38.30 - -
90th Percentile £57.32 - -
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 48,955 29,836 39,186
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.53% 91.66% 93.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,608 19,006 25,297
10th Percentile £325 £285 £288
25th Percentile £420 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,284 1,415 2,570
10th Percentile £15.82 £13.75 £13.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £17.50
Median hourly rate £43.69 £25.30 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +72.69% -36.75% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.84 £55.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.72
% change year-on-year +78.93% -38.24% +4.34%

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 18 July 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 18 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Architect in the UK

Cloud Architect
Top 15 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 18 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
England -20 286 £603 -5.86% 59
London 0 191 £630 -1.56% 33
Work from Home -55 107 £618 +0.82% 31
UK excluding London -72 99 £600 - 29
South East -42 23 £608 +12.50% 12
Midlands -39 21 £670 +11.67% 8
North of England -73 18 £650 +18.18% 2
Scotland -2 13 £650 -
South West -40 13 £600 -6.43% 5
West Midlands -49 13 £725 +44.57% 4
East of England -11 12 £600 -11.11%
Yorkshire -39 9 £650 +18.18% 1
East Midlands -6 8 £538 - 4
North West -49 8 £600 +33.33% 1
North East - 1 - -

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

For the 6 months to 18 July 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.

1 184 (52.57%) AWS
2 133 (38.00%) Azure
3 106 (30.29%) Migration
4 96 (27.43%) Security Cleared
5 82 (23.43%) SC Cleared
6 66 (18.86%) CI/CD
7 63 (18.00%) DevOps
8 62 (17.71%) GCP
9 57 (16.29%) Infrastructure as Code
10 54 (15.43%) Microsoft
11 52 (14.86%) Terraform
12 48 (13.71%) Cloud Security
13 47 (13.43%) Technical Leadership
14 46 (13.14%) Stakeholder Management
15 45 (12.86%) Analytics
16 44 (12.57%) Roadmaps
17 41 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
18 40 (11.43%) Kubernetes
19 36 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
19 36 (10.29%) TOGAF
20 35 (10.00%) Firewall
20 35 (10.00%) SaaS
21 32 (9.14%) Containerisation
21 32 (9.14%) Serverless
22 31 (8.86%) Technical Architecture
22 31 (8.86%) VPN
23 30 (8.57%) AI
23 30 (8.57%) Security Architecture
24 29 (8.29%) Integration Patterns
25 28 (8.00%) Data Lake

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%) Confluence
2 3 (0.86%) SAS
3 2 (0.57%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.57%) nginx
3 2 (0.57%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.29%) Apache
4 1 (0.29%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.29%) Appian
4 1 (0.29%) Camunda
4 1 (0.29%) Cloud Foundry
4 1 (0.29%) Mendix
Applications
1 1 (0.29%) Chatbot
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
1 184 (52.57%) AWS
2 133 (38.00%) Azure
3 62 (17.71%) GCP
4 35 (10.00%) SaaS
5 32 (9.14%) Serverless
6 22 (6.29%) Entra ID
7 20 (5.71%) PaaS
8 17 (4.86%) AWS CloudFormation
9 15 (4.29%) OCI
10 14 (4.00%) IaaS
11 13 (3.71%) Amazon EKS
12 10 (2.86%) Microsoft 365
12 10 (2.86%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 9 (2.57%) Azure Sentinel
14 8 (2.29%) Amazon S3
14 8 (2.29%) Snowflake
15 7 (2.00%) Route 53
15 7 (2.00%) Salesforce Service Cloud
16 6 (1.71%) Amazon GuardDuty
16 6 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 35 (10.00%) Firewall
2 31 (8.86%) VPN
3 17 (4.86%) Network Security
4 8 (2.29%) DNS
5 4 (1.14%) WAN
6 3 (0.86%) BGP
6 3 (0.86%) OSPF
7 2 (0.57%) Intrusion Detection
7 2 (0.57%) NGFW
7 2 (0.57%) OpenVPN
7 2 (0.57%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.57%) TCP/IP
8 1 (0.29%) 5G
8 1 (0.29%) Anycast
8 1 (0.29%) Cisco ASA
8 1 (0.29%) DAB
8 1 (0.29%) DMVPN
8 1 (0.29%) IPsec
8 1 (0.29%) Radio Access Network
8 1 (0.29%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (8.00%) Data Lake
2 12 (3.43%) Oracle Database
3 11 (3.14%) BigQuery
4 8 (2.29%) Amazon RDS
5 6 (1.71%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (1.14%) Oracle Exadata
7 3 (0.86%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.57%) Delta Lake
8 2 (0.57%) Elasticsearch
8 2 (0.57%) SAP HANA
8 2 (0.57%) SQL Server
8 2 (0.57%) Tableau
9 1 (0.29%) Apache Cassandra
9 1 (0.29%) Cloudera CDH
9 1 (0.29%) HBase
9 1 (0.29%) Metadata
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle ODI
9 1 (0.29%) PostgreSQL
9 1 (0.29%) Power BI
9 1 (0.29%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 7 (2.00%) JIRA
2 5 (1.43%) Git
3 4 (1.14%) SonarQube
4 3 (0.86%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.57%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.57%) IntelliJ
5 2 (0.57%) JUnit
5 2 (0.57%) MLflow
5 2 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
6 1 (0.29%) AppScan
6 1 (0.29%) Burp Suite
6 1 (0.29%) Hudson
6 1 (0.29%) Metasploit
6 1 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
General
1 64 (18.29%) Social Skills
2 54 (15.43%) Finance
3 38 (10.86%) Public Sector
4 29 (8.29%) Documentation Skills
5 28 (8.00%) Banking
6 15 (4.29%) Retail
7 14 (4.00%) Analytical Skills
8 9 (2.57%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (2.00%) Influencing Skills
10 6 (1.71%) Marketing
11 5 (1.43%) 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 21 (6.00%) Middleware
2 14 (4.00%) REST
3 9 (2.57%) Oracle Fusion
4 7 (2.00%) Kafka
4 7 (2.00%) OAuth
5 6 (1.71%) Lightning Web Components
5 6 (1.71%) OpenID
6 5 (1.43%) ARM Templates
6 5 (1.43%) SOAP
7 4 (1.14%) AWS CDK
7 4 (1.14%) Node.js
7 4 (1.14%) SailPoint
7 4 (1.14%) SAML
8 3 (0.86%) .NET
9 2 (0.57%) .NET Framework
9 2 (0.57%) AngularJS
9 2 (0.57%) JWT
9 2 (0.57%) LDAP
9 2 (0.57%) Spring
9 2 (0.57%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 65 (18.57%) Cloud Native
2 26 (7.43%) Management Information System
3 24 (6.86%) Data Centre
4 23 (6.57%) Enterprise Cloud
5 19 (5.43%) Onboarding
6 15 (4.29%) Hybrid Cloud
7 14 (4.00%) Public Cloud
8 9 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
9 8 (2.29%) Distributed Systems
10 7 (2.00%) Product Ownership
10 7 (2.00%) Security Posture
11 6 (1.71%) Enterprise Software
12 5 (1.43%) Data Fabric
12 5 (1.43%) Private Cloud
13 3 (0.86%) AI Agents
13 3 (0.86%) NHS
13 3 (0.86%) SCADA
13 3 (0.86%) Wiki
14 2 (0.57%) N-Tier
14 2 (0.57%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 15 (4.29%) Windows
2 6 (1.71%) Linux
2 6 (1.71%) Windows Server
3 5 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (0.86%) Unix
5 2 (0.57%) Android
5 2 (0.57%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.57%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.29%) AIX
6 1 (0.29%) Kali Linux
6 1 (0.29%) Solaris
6 1 (0.29%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 106 (30.29%) Migration
2 66 (18.86%) CI/CD
3 63 (18.00%) DevOps
4 57 (16.29%) Infrastructure as Code
5 48 (13.71%) Cloud Security
6 47 (13.43%) Technical Leadership
7 46 (13.14%) Stakeholder Management
8 45 (12.86%) Analytics
9 44 (12.57%) Roadmaps
10 41 (11.71%) Problem-Solving
11 36 (10.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 36 (10.29%) TOGAF
12 32 (9.14%) Containerisation
13 31 (8.86%) Technical Architecture
14 30 (8.57%) AI
14 30 (8.57%) Security Architecture
15 29 (8.29%) Integration Patterns
16 27 (7.71%) Agile
16 27 (7.71%) Identity Access Management
17 26 (7.43%) Architectural Patterns
Programming Languages
1 15 (4.29%) Bicep
2 11 (3.14%) Java
3 10 (2.86%) Python
4 9 (2.57%) SQL
5 6 (1.71%) Apex Code
6 5 (1.43%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.14%) C#
8 3 (0.86%) Bash
8 3 (0.86%) Go
8 3 (0.86%) PowerShell
9 1 (0.29%) C
9 1 (0.29%) Lisp
9 1 (0.29%) PL/SQL
9 1 (0.29%) ProC
9 1 (0.29%) Scala
9 1 (0.29%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 96 (27.43%) Security Cleared
2 82 (23.43%) SC Cleared
3 27 (7.71%) AWS Certification
4 15 (4.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
5 13 (3.71%) Azure Certification
6 11 (3.14%) Cisco Certification
6 11 (3.14%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (2.86%) CISSP
8 9 (2.57%) DV Cleared
9 7 (2.00%) (ISC)2 CCSP
9 7 (2.00%) CCSP
9 7 (2.00%) Degree
10 5 (1.43%) CISM
11 4 (1.14%) CCNP
12 3 (0.86%) Computer Science Degree
12 3 (0.86%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
12 3 (0.86%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.86%) TOGAF Certification
13 2 (0.57%) IBM Certification
13 2 (0.57%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (6.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 18 (5.14%) NIST
3 14 (4.00%) PCI DSS
4 12 (3.43%) GDPR
5 5 (1.43%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.14%) GRC
7 3 (0.86%) NCSC
8 2 (0.57%) COBIT
8 2 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.57%) QA
9 1 (0.29%) ISO 20022
9 1 (0.29%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.29%) PSD2
9 1 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.29%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (5.14%) Active Directory
2 12 (3.43%) Docker
3 4 (1.14%) VMware NSX
4 2 (0.57%) Squid
4 2 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.57%) VMware ESXi
4 2 (0.57%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.29%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 52 (14.86%) Terraform
2 40 (11.43%) Kubernetes
3 4 (1.14%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (0.86%) Ansible
4 3 (0.86%) Grafana
4 3 (0.86%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.57%) CASB
5 2 (0.57%) Consul
5 2 (0.57%) FortiGate
5 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (0.57%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.29%) CloudForms
6 1 (0.29%) Nessus
6 1 (0.29%) Puppet
6 1 (0.29%) QRadar
Vendors
1 54 (15.43%) Microsoft
2 28 (8.00%) Oracle
3 25 (7.14%) Google
4 19 (5.43%) Salesforce
5 18 (5.14%) Databricks
6 12 (3.43%) CyberArk
6 12 (3.43%) SAP
7 8 (2.29%) VMware
8 7 (2.00%) Foundry
8 7 (2.00%) IBM
8 7 (2.00%) Red Hat
9 6 (1.71%) Cisco
9 6 (1.71%) Palantir
9 6 (1.71%) Splunk
10 4 (1.14%) ServiceNow
11 3 (0.86%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
11 3 (0.86%) Virgin Media
12 2 (0.57%) Dynatrace
12 2 (0.57%) MuleSoft
12 2 (0.57%) Solace