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 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 351 381 341
Rank change year-on-year +30 -40 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Architect 371 179 233
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.68% 0.54% 0.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.73% 0.59% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 248 132 150
10th Percentile £450 £461 £490
25th Percentile £525 £513 £525
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £625 £650
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% -3.85% -3.70%
75th Percentile £688 £713 £763
90th Percentile £813 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £600 £640 £675
% change year-on-year -6.25% -5.19% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 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 50,598 30,120 35,393
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.17% 90.94% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,800 19,028 21,472
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £631 £623 £638
90th Percentile £734 £725 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,975 1,619 1,553
10th Percentile £14.45 £13.75 £14.88
25th Percentile £19.78 £17.30 £20.75
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.31 £74.97
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.87 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.97% -41.69% -1.88%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 +33 302 £600 -6.25% 594
UK excluding London +7 162 £600 -6.25% 248
London -17 158 £650 +1.56% 350
Work from Home -50 100 £600 -1.03% 212
North of England -37 46 £600 -14.29% 71
South East -34 39 £575 +5.50% 65
Yorkshire -10 27 £600 -10.95% 25
Midlands -28 27 £700 +67.66% 39
Scotland -8 23 £450 - 32
North West -38 17 £600 +33.33% 40
East Midlands 0 15 £563 +29.31% 17
South West -33 14 £665 +3.50% 22
West Midlands -29 12 £725 +81.25% 22
East of England -19 9 £600 -11.11% 12
Wales -17 5 £625 +30.21% 6
North East -42 2 - - 6

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

For the 6 months to 2 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.

1 161 (43.40%) AWS
2 159 (42.86%) Azure
3 94 (25.34%) Migration
4 83 (22.37%) GCP
4 83 (22.37%) Security Cleared
5 76 (20.49%) Infrastructure as Code
6 70 (18.87%) CI/CD
7 68 (18.33%) SC Cleared
7 68 (18.33%) Technical Leadership
8 65 (17.52%) DevOps
8 65 (17.52%) Microsoft
9 62 (16.71%) Roadmaps
9 62 (16.71%) Stakeholder Management
10 56 (15.09%) Kubernetes
11 53 (14.29%) Cloud Security
12 49 (13.21%) Terraform
13 43 (11.59%) Architectural Patterns
13 43 (11.59%) Google
14 42 (11.32%) Oracle
15 41 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 40 (10.78%) AI
16 40 (10.78%) SaaS
16 40 (10.78%) Security Architecture
17 37 (9.97%) Platform Engineering
18 33 (8.89%) TOGAF
19 30 (8.09%) Mentoring
19 30 (8.09%) Microservices
20 29 (7.82%) Enterprise Architecture
21 28 (7.55%) Architectural Design
21 28 (7.55%) Event-Driven

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 (1.62%) Palantir Foundry
2 3 (0.81%) Apache Spark
3 2 (0.54%) Apache
3 2 (0.54%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.54%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.27%) OpenStack
4 1 (0.27%) SAS
Business Applications
1 5 (1.35%) Payment Gateway
2 3 (0.81%) Cloudability
2 3 (0.81%) Oracle Retail
3 2 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.54%) Oracle Receivables
3 2 (0.54%) 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
1 161 (43.40%) AWS
2 159 (42.86%) Azure
3 83 (22.37%) GCP
4 40 (10.78%) SaaS
5 26 (7.01%) OCI
6 23 (6.20%) PaaS
7 21 (5.66%) Serverless
8 19 (5.12%) Entra ID
9 16 (4.31%) GitHub
10 13 (3.50%) IaaS
11 12 (3.23%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (2.96%) AWS CloudFormation
12 11 (2.96%) Azure Sentinel
13 10 (2.70%) Salesforce Service Cloud
14 9 (2.43%) Azure AKS
14 9 (2.43%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (2.16%) Amazon EKS
15 8 (2.16%) Snowflake
16 7 (1.89%) Microsoft 365
17 6 (1.62%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 24 (6.47%) Firewall
2 17 (4.58%) VPN
3 12 (3.23%) Network Security
4 5 (1.35%) DNS
5 2 (0.54%) Internet
5 2 (0.54%) WAN
6 1 (0.27%) 5G
6 1 (0.27%) BGP
6 1 (0.27%) CTI
6 1 (0.27%) DAB
6 1 (0.27%) Intrusion Detection
6 1 (0.27%) NGFW
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%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (4.31%) Data Lake
2 14 (3.77%) Oracle Database
3 8 (2.16%) BigQuery
4 6 (1.62%) Amazon RDS
5 4 (1.08%) Oracle Exadata
6 3 (0.81%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.54%) Delta Lake
7 2 (0.54%) MongoDB
7 2 (0.54%) MySQL
7 2 (0.54%) Power BI
7 2 (0.54%) Tableau
8 1 (0.27%) Amazon Redshift
8 1 (0.27%) Big Data
8 1 (0.27%) Cloudera CDH
8 1 (0.27%) Data Warehouse
8 1 (0.27%) Flink
8 1 (0.27%) HBase
8 1 (0.27%) Oracle ODI
8 1 (0.27%) SAP HANA
8 1 (0.27%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 7 (1.89%) Git
1 7 (1.89%) Jenkins
2 5 (1.35%) JIRA
3 3 (0.81%) Claude Code
3 3 (0.81%) GitLab
4 2 (0.54%) IntelliJ
4 2 (0.54%) JUnit
4 2 (0.54%) MLflow
4 2 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
4 2 (0.54%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.27%) Hudson
5 1 (0.27%) Oracle APEX
General
1 61 (16.44%) Social Skills
2 57 (15.36%) Finance
3 38 (10.24%) Public Sector
4 27 (7.28%) Banking
5 19 (5.12%) Retail
6 18 (4.85%) Documentation Skills
7 14 (3.77%) Analytical Skills
8 9 (2.43%) Influencing Skills
9 7 (1.89%) Billing
10 6 (1.62%) Legal
11 4 (1.08%) Marketing
12 3 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
12 3 (0.81%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.54%) Military
14 1 (0.27%) Aviation
14 1 (0.27%) Back Office
14 1 (0.27%) Manufacturing
14 1 (0.27%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (13.21%) Terraform
2 19 (5.12%) Kafka
2 19 (5.12%) REST
3 18 (4.85%) Middleware
4 14 (3.77%) Oracle Fusion
5 11 (2.96%) OAuth
6 10 (2.70%) Lightning Web Components
7 8 (2.16%) SOAP
8 7 (1.89%) JWT
9 5 (1.35%) ARM Templates
10 4 (1.08%) Node.js
10 4 (1.08%) Pulumi
10 4 (1.08%) SailPoint
10 4 (1.08%) Spring
10 4 (1.08%) Spring Boot
11 3 (0.81%) OAuth2
12 2 (0.54%) .NET Core
12 2 (0.54%) .NET Framework
12 2 (0.54%) Keycloak
12 2 (0.54%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 79 (21.29%) Cloud Native
2 31 (8.36%) Enterprise Cloud
3 27 (7.28%) Hybrid Cloud
4 26 (7.01%) Private Cloud
5 22 (5.93%) Onboarding
6 18 (4.85%) Management Information System
7 17 (4.58%) Public Cloud
8 16 (4.31%) Distributed Systems
9 15 (4.04%) Data Centre
10 11 (2.96%) Product Ownership
11 9 (2.43%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (2.43%) Security Posture
12 7 (1.89%) AI Agents
12 7 (1.89%) Legacy Applications
13 6 (1.62%) Data Fabric
14 5 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
15 3 (0.81%) CMDB
15 3 (0.81%) Data Protection Act
15 3 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
15 3 (0.81%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 13 (3.50%) Windows
2 7 (1.89%) Linux
2 7 (1.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 7 (1.89%) Windows Server
3 6 (1.62%) Unix
4 1 (0.27%) AIX
4 1 (0.27%) Solaris
4 1 (0.27%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 94 (25.34%) Migration
2 76 (20.49%) Infrastructure as Code
3 70 (18.87%) CI/CD
4 68 (18.33%) Technical Leadership
5 65 (17.52%) DevOps
6 62 (16.71%) Roadmaps
6 62 (16.71%) Stakeholder Management
7 53 (14.29%) Cloud Security
8 43 (11.59%) Architectural Patterns
9 41 (11.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 40 (10.78%) AI
10 40 (10.78%) Security Architecture
11 37 (9.97%) Platform Engineering
12 33 (8.89%) TOGAF
13 30 (8.09%) Mentoring
13 30 (8.09%) Microservices
14 29 (7.82%) Enterprise Architecture
15 28 (7.55%) Architectural Design
15 28 (7.55%) Event-Driven
16 27 (7.28%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 14 (3.77%) Bicep
2 13 (3.50%) Java
3 11 (2.96%) Python
4 10 (2.70%) Apex Code
5 6 (1.62%) JavaScript
6 5 (1.35%) Bash
6 5 (1.35%) SQL
7 4 (1.08%) C#
7 4 (1.08%) PowerShell
8 3 (0.81%) C
9 2 (0.54%) Go
9 2 (0.54%) Shell Script
10 1 (0.27%) PL/SQL
10 1 (0.27%) ProC
10 1 (0.27%) Scala
10 1 (0.27%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 83 (22.37%) Security Cleared
2 68 (18.33%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.66%) AWS Certification
4 12 (3.23%) Azure Certification
4 12 (3.23%) CISSP
5 11 (2.96%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 10 (2.70%) Cisco Certification
7 9 (2.43%) (ISC)2 CCSP
7 9 (2.43%) CCSP
8 7 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.35%) CISM
9 5 (1.35%) Degree
9 5 (1.35%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.08%) BPSS Clearance
11 3 (0.81%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
11 3 (0.81%) TOGAF Certification
12 2 (0.54%) GIAC
12 2 (0.54%) IBM Certification
12 2 (0.54%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.27%) CCNP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 16 (4.31%) NIST
3 12 (3.23%) PCI DSS
4 10 (2.70%) GDPR
5 4 (1.08%) Data Quality
5 4 (1.08%) GRC
6 3 (0.81%) NCSC
7 2 (0.54%) QA
8 1 (0.27%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.27%) NIST 800
System Software
1 15 (4.04%) Active Directory
2 11 (2.96%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.89%) Docker
4 4 (1.08%) VMware NSX
5 2 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.54%) vSphere
5 2 (0.54%) zsh
6 1 (0.27%) vCloud
6 1 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 56 (15.09%) Kubernetes
2 8 (2.16%) Ansible
3 5 (1.35%) Single Sign-On
4 4 (1.08%) Grafana
4 4 (1.08%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.81%) Progress Chef
5 3 (0.81%) Puppet
6 2 (0.54%) 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 65 (17.52%) Microsoft
2 43 (11.59%) Google
3 42 (11.32%) Oracle
4 24 (6.47%) Salesforce
5 19 (5.12%) VMware
6 18 (4.85%) Databricks
7 10 (2.70%) CyberArk
8 9 (2.43%) Cisco
9 8 (2.16%) SAP
10 7 (1.89%) Foundry
11 6 (1.62%) Palantir
12 5 (1.35%) ServiceNow
13 4 (1.08%) Red Hat
13 4 (1.08%) Splunk
14 3 (0.81%) Dynatrace
14 3 (0.81%) MuleSoft
14 3 (0.81%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
14 3 (0.81%) SaltStack
15 2 (0.54%) Checkmarx
15 2 (0.54%) IBM