Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £522, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 December 2025.

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

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 276 315 247
Rank change year-on-year +39 -68 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 358 238 421
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 0.71% 0.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.06% 0.77% 1.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 265 145 299
10th Percentile £400 £380 £423
25th Percentile £450 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.09% - -
75th Percentile £599 £650 £638
90th Percentile £705 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +4.50% -7.07% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 2
10th Percentile £25.13 - £69.43
25th Percentile £28.03 - £72.31
Median hourly rate £30.00 - £79.25
75th Percentile £67.81 - £85.81
90th Percentile £110.00 - £88.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £88.50

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 33,780 30,959 40,080
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.21% 92.73% 93.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,373 19,013 26,849
10th Percentile £300 £300 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £500
% change year-on-year -2.06% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,964 958 1,543
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.50 £14.50
25th Percentile £18.24 £21.01 £19.25
Median hourly rate £26.00 £32.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.00% -27.78% +38.46%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.49 £73.75 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.76 £46.18
% change year-on-year -20.81% -31.23% +77.62%

Cloud Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Cloud Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Cloud Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

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

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

Cloud Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Cloud Engineer over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Cloud Engineer in the UK

Cloud Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

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

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

Cloud Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Cloud Engineer over the 6 months to 31 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Engineer in the UK

Cloud Engineer
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 Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 31 December 2025. 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 +25 296 £523 -5.00% 650
UK excluding London +43 173 £522 +4.50% 629
London +6 144 £524 -4.77% 97
Work from Home +1 84 £500 -1.96% 360
North of England -22 52 £506 +22.73% 139
South East +7 42 £500 -6.98% 148
Midlands -14 38 £575 +21.05% 114
West Midlands -9 32 £575 -11.54% 59
Yorkshire -25 31 £513 +24.24% 60
Scotland +33 27 £525 +5.00% 31
North West -11 21 £450 - 72
South West +6 16 £538 -6.52% 74
East of England -14 10 £438 -12.50% 88
East Midlands -16 6 £575 +27.78% 47
Wales -4 1 £425 +41.67% 20

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

For the 6 months to 31 December 2025, Cloud Engineer 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 Engineer in the job title.

1 160 (44.69%) AWS
2 152 (42.46%) DevOps
3 147 (41.06%) Azure
3 147 (41.06%) CI/CD
4 143 (39.94%) Terraform
5 136 (37.99%) Infrastructure as Code
6 113 (31.56%) Security Cleared
7 108 (30.17%) Python
8 100 (27.93%) Kubernetes
9 85 (23.74%) GCP
10 78 (21.79%) GitHub
11 73 (20.39%) SC Cleared
12 69 (19.27%) Agile
12 69 (19.27%) Containerisation
13 66 (18.44%) Microsoft
14 62 (17.32%) Docker
15 57 (15.92%) Cloud Security
16 55 (15.36%) Jenkins
17 54 (15.08%) Google
18 53 (14.80%) GitHub Actions
19 46 (12.85%) Serverless
20 44 (12.29%) GitLab
20 44 (12.29%) Linux
21 43 (12.01%) REST
22 40 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
23 39 (10.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
24 38 (10.61%) Ansible
24 38 (10.61%) PowerShell
25 37 (10.34%) Infrastructure Automation
25 37 (10.34%) Windows

Cloud Engineer 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 (1.68%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.40%) Apache
2 5 (1.40%) SharePoint
3 4 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
5 2 (0.56%) Confluence
5 2 (0.56%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.28%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.28%) CMS
6 1 (0.28%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.28%) nginx
6 1 (0.28%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 160 (44.69%) AWS
2 147 (41.06%) Azure
3 85 (23.74%) GCP
4 78 (21.79%) GitHub
5 53 (14.80%) GitHub Actions
6 46 (12.85%) Serverless
7 34 (9.50%) Entra ID
8 33 (9.22%) AWS CloudFormation
9 29 (8.10%) Azure DevOps
10 22 (6.15%) Amazon EKS
10 22 (6.15%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 21 (5.87%) Amazon S3
11 21 (5.87%) PaaS
12 19 (5.31%) Microsoft 365
13 18 (5.03%) AWS Lambda
13 18 (5.03%) IaaS
14 15 (4.19%) Azure Monitor
15 14 (3.91%) Azure AKS
16 13 (3.63%) Azure Sentinel
16 13 (3.63%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 30 (8.38%) Firewall
2 21 (5.87%) Cisco Firepower
2 21 (5.87%) Cisco IOS
2 21 (5.87%) Cisco ISE
2 21 (5.87%) Junos
3 17 (4.75%) VPN
4 16 (4.47%) Network Security
5 9 (2.51%) DNS
6 5 (1.40%) NX-OS
6 5 (1.40%) WAN
7 3 (0.84%) DHCP
7 3 (0.84%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.56%) LAN
8 2 (0.56%) SAN
8 2 (0.56%) Unified Communications
8 2 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.28%) IPsec
9 1 (0.28%) SMTP
9 1 (0.28%) Wireless
9 1 (0.28%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (8.66%) NoSQL
2 26 (7.26%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.79%) BigQuery
4 9 (2.51%) Power BI
5 7 (1.96%) Elasticsearch
6 6 (1.68%) Amazon RDS
6 6 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.40%) Amazon Athena
7 5 (1.40%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (1.40%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.12%) Delta Lake
8 4 (1.12%) DynamoDB
8 4 (1.12%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.84%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.84%) Big Data
9 3 (0.84%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.56%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.56%) Mixpanel
10 2 (0.56%) OLAP
10 2 (0.56%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 55 (15.36%) Jenkins
2 44 (12.29%) GitLab
3 26 (7.26%) Git
4 13 (3.63%) JIRA
4 13 (3.63%) Liquibase
5 3 (0.84%) MLflow
5 3 (0.84%) Postman
6 2 (0.56%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.56%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.56%) Spinnaker
7 1 (0.28%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.28%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.28%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 73 (20.39%) Social Skills
2 62 (17.32%) Finance
3 33 (9.22%) Banking
4 28 (7.82%) Public Sector
5 25 (6.98%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (5.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (3.07%) Financial Institution
8 7 (1.96%) Aeronautics
8 7 (1.96%) Local Government
8 7 (1.96%) Retail
9 6 (1.68%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.40%) Aviation
10 5 (1.40%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.12%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.56%) Billing
12 2 (0.56%) Marketing
13 1 (0.28%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.28%) Legal
13 1 (0.28%) Military
13 1 (0.28%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (12.01%) REST
2 26 (7.26%) Elastic Stack
3 21 (5.87%) RESTful
4 20 (5.59%) Node.js
5 11 (3.07%) ARM Templates
5 11 (3.07%) Kafka
6 10 (2.79%) React
7 9 (2.51%) SOAP
8 8 (2.23%) LangChain
8 8 (2.23%) OpenAPI
8 8 (2.23%) OpenTelemetry
8 8 (2.23%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (2.23%) SAML
9 7 (1.96%) AWS CDK
9 7 (1.96%) GraphQL
9 7 (1.96%) Lambda Expressions
9 7 (1.96%) OpenID
9 7 (1.96%) Spring
9 7 (1.96%) Spring Boot
10 6 (1.68%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 56 (15.64%) Cloud Native
2 35 (9.78%) Public Cloud
3 21 (5.87%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (2.51%) PKI
5 7 (1.96%) Data Centre
6 5 (1.40%) Genomics
6 5 (1.40%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.40%) Security Posture
7 4 (1.12%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.12%) Cloud Security Posture
7 4 (1.12%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.12%) Life Science
7 4 (1.12%) Product Ownership
8 3 (0.84%) AI Agents
8 3 (0.84%) Distributed Computing
8 3 (0.84%) Replication
9 2 (0.56%) Cyber Threat
9 2 (0.56%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (0.56%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 44 (12.29%) Linux
2 37 (10.34%) Windows
3 22 (6.15%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.51%) Unix
5 3 (0.84%) VMS
6 1 (0.28%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (42.46%) DevOps
2 147 (41.06%) CI/CD
3 136 (37.99%) Infrastructure as Code
4 69 (19.27%) Agile
4 69 (19.27%) Containerisation
5 57 (15.92%) Cloud Security
6 40 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
7 39 (10.89%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 37 (10.34%) Infrastructure Automation
9 35 (9.78%) Microservices
10 34 (9.50%) Migration
11 33 (9.22%) Observability
11 33 (9.22%) Software Engineering
12 30 (8.38%) AI
13 29 (8.10%) Cost Optimisation
13 29 (8.10%) Cybersecurity
14 28 (7.82%) Continuous Improvement
14 28 (7.82%) DevSecOps
15 27 (7.54%) High Availability
15 27 (7.54%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 108 (30.17%) Python
2 38 (10.61%) PowerShell
3 35 (9.78%) SQL
4 29 (8.10%) Go
5 28 (7.82%) Java
6 22 (6.15%) Bash
7 16 (4.47%) Bicep
8 11 (3.07%) Shell Script
8 11 (3.07%) TypeScript
9 9 (2.51%) JavaScript
10 7 (1.96%) C#
10 7 (1.96%) Perl
11 4 (1.12%) BeanShell
12 3 (0.84%) Ruby
13 2 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.56%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.56%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.56%) VB
14 1 (0.28%) C
14 1 (0.28%) Korn
Qualifications
1 113 (31.56%) Security Cleared
2 73 (20.39%) SC Cleared
3 36 (10.06%) DV Cleared
4 34 (9.50%) Degree
5 33 (9.22%) Azure Certification
6 32 (8.94%) AWS Certification
7 19 (5.31%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (4.75%) Master's Degree
9 12 (3.35%) Microsoft Certification
10 10 (2.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 7 (1.96%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 7 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (1.68%) CISSP
13 5 (1.40%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (1.40%) CISM
14 4 (1.12%) AWS Certified Developer
15 3 (0.84%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 3 (0.84%) CCSP
15 3 (0.84%) DBS Check
16 2 (0.56%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (2.79%) NIST
3 9 (2.51%) QA
4 7 (1.96%) GDPR
4 7 (1.96%) NCSC
5 5 (1.40%) GRC
6 4 (1.12%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.12%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.84%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.56%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.56%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.28%) FedRAMP
9 1 (0.28%) JSP 440
System Software
1 62 (17.32%) Docker
2 36 (10.06%) Active Directory
3 21 (5.87%) VMware NSX
4 8 (2.23%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.12%) Firmware
6 4 (1.12%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.84%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.28%) KVM
9 1 (0.28%) Squid
Systems Management
1 143 (39.94%) Terraform
2 100 (27.93%) Kubernetes
3 38 (10.61%) Ansible
4 31 (8.66%) Grafana
5 30 (8.38%) Prometheus
6 21 (5.87%) vCenter Server
7 13 (3.63%) Argo
8 12 (3.35%) Istio
9 7 (1.96%) Kibana
9 7 (1.96%) logstash
10 6 (1.68%) Microsoft Intune
11 5 (1.40%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.84%) Podman
12 3 (0.84%) Proxmox
13 2 (0.56%) FortiGate
13 2 (0.56%) Puppet
13 2 (0.56%) QRadar
14 1 (0.28%) Consul
14 1 (0.28%) SCCM
14 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 66 (18.44%) Microsoft
2 54 (15.08%) Google
3 24 (6.70%) Cisco
4 23 (6.42%) Splunk
5 22 (6.15%) Juniper
6 21 (5.87%) SolarWinds
7 16 (4.47%) Oracle
8 14 (3.91%) Databricks
9 10 (2.79%) ServiceNow
10 8 (2.23%) VMware
11 7 (1.96%) Dynatrace
11 7 (1.96%) Palo Alto
12 6 (1.68%) MuleSoft
13 5 (1.40%) Broadcom
13 5 (1.40%) Ping Identity
13 5 (1.40%) Zscaler
14 4 (1.12%) Salesforce
15 3 (0.84%) Cloudera
15 3 (0.84%) SAP
16 2 (0.56%) CheckPoint