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 21 January 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 257 300 267
Rank change year-on-year +43 -33 -16
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 390 242 414
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.04% 0.77% 0.95%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.13% 0.83% 1.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 283 150 292
10th Percentile £400 £380 £425
25th Percentile £450 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £704 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +4.40% -6.98% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 4
10th Percentile £25.13 - -
25th Percentile £27.06 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 - £50.00
75th Percentile £81.88 - £76.94
90th Percentile £110.00 - £84.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £30.00

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 34,444 29,232 40,404
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.42% 92.85% 93.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,829 17,869 26,812
10th Percentile £300 £290 £275
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,030 877 1,934
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.50
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.72
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -18.75% +17.65%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £63.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £74.81
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £40.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -19.75% +36.13%

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 21 January 2026.

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 21 January 2026.

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 21 January 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 +22 317 £525 -4.55% 126
UK excluding London +22 180 £522 +4.40% 97
London +4 157 £525 -4.55% 54
Work from Home -1 91 £500 -4.76% 78
North of England -22 55 £500 +15.94% 17
South East +5 44 £500 -13.04% 38
Midlands -25 39 £575 +21.05% 6
Yorkshire -26 34 £513 +24.24% 7
West Midlands -16 33 £575 -11.54% 2
Scotland +27 29 £525 - 7
North West -25 21 £450 - 8
South West -5 15 £538 -6.52% 12
East of England -16 10 £438 +6.97% 12
East Midlands -30 6 £575 +27.78% 3
Wales -1 1 £425 +41.67% 3

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

For the 6 months to 21 January 2026, 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.

1 179 (45.90%) AWS
2 166 (42.56%) CI/CD
3 163 (41.79%) Terraform
4 158 (40.51%) DevOps
5 153 (39.23%) Azure
6 150 (38.46%) Infrastructure as Code
7 120 (30.77%) Security Cleared
8 118 (30.26%) Python
9 109 (27.95%) Kubernetes
10 93 (23.85%) GitHub
11 92 (23.59%) GCP
12 80 (20.51%) SC Cleared
13 76 (19.49%) Containerisation
14 70 (17.95%) Agile
15 68 (17.44%) Docker
16 67 (17.18%) Microsoft
17 61 (15.64%) Cloud Security
17 61 (15.64%) GitHub Actions
17 61 (15.64%) Google
18 57 (14.62%) Jenkins
19 56 (14.36%) Serverless
20 44 (11.28%) GitLab
21 43 (11.03%) AWS CloudFormation
21 43 (11.03%) Linux
22 41 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
23 40 (10.26%) Entra ID
23 40 (10.26%) Infrastructure Automation
23 40 (10.26%) Microservices
23 40 (10.26%) PowerShell
24 39 (10.00%) Migration

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 (1.54%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.28%) Apache
2 5 (1.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.51%) Confluence
4 2 (0.51%) nginx
5 1 (0.26%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.26%) CMS
5 1 (0.26%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.26%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.26%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (1.03%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 179 (45.90%) AWS
2 153 (39.23%) Azure
3 93 (23.85%) GitHub
4 92 (23.59%) GCP
5 61 (15.64%) GitHub Actions
6 56 (14.36%) Serverless
7 43 (11.03%) AWS CloudFormation
8 40 (10.26%) Entra ID
9 34 (8.72%) Azure DevOps
10 30 (7.69%) Amazon S3
11 28 (7.18%) Amazon EKS
11 28 (7.18%) PaaS
12 26 (6.67%) AWS Lambda
13 25 (6.41%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 24 (6.15%) IaaS
15 20 (5.13%) Amazon ECS
16 18 (4.62%) Azure Monitor
17 15 (3.85%) Azure AKS
17 15 (3.85%) Microsoft 365
18 13 (3.33%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 32 (8.21%) Firewall
2 21 (5.38%) Cisco Firepower
2 21 (5.38%) Cisco IOS
2 21 (5.38%) Cisco ISE
2 21 (5.38%) Junos
3 18 (4.62%) Network Security
4 13 (3.33%) VPN
5 9 (2.31%) DNS
6 5 (1.28%) NX-OS
6 5 (1.28%) WAN
7 3 (0.77%) DHCP
7 3 (0.77%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.51%) LAN
8 2 (0.51%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.51%) SAN
8 2 (0.51%) Unified Communications
8 2 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.26%) BGP
9 1 (0.26%) MPLS
9 1 (0.26%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (7.44%) NoSQL
2 25 (6.41%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.56%) BigQuery
4 9 (2.31%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (2.31%) Power BI
5 8 (2.05%) Amazon Athena
6 7 (1.79%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (1.54%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (1.54%) Data Lake
7 6 (1.54%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (1.54%) DynamoDB
8 5 (1.28%) Delta Lake
9 3 (0.77%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.77%) Big Data
9 3 (0.77%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.51%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.51%) OLTP
10 2 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.51%) SQL Server
10 2 (0.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 57 (14.62%) Jenkins
2 44 (11.28%) GitLab
3 30 (7.69%) Git
4 11 (2.82%) JIRA
5 10 (2.56%) Liquibase
6 3 (0.77%) MLflow
6 3 (0.77%) Postman
7 2 (0.51%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.51%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.51%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.26%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.26%) Gemini Tracker
8 1 (0.26%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.26%) Travis CI
8 1 (0.26%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 69 (17.69%) Social Skills
2 62 (15.90%) Finance
3 32 (8.21%) Banking
4 30 (7.69%) Public Sector
5 27 (6.92%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (4.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (2.82%) Financial Institution
8 7 (1.79%) Aeronautics
9 6 (1.54%) Local Government
9 6 (1.54%) Retail
10 5 (1.28%) Aviation
10 5 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
11 4 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.51%) Billing
12 2 (0.51%) Legal
12 2 (0.51%) Marketing
12 2 (0.51%) Military
13 1 (0.26%) Investment Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (10.00%) REST
2 24 (6.15%) Elastic Stack
3 20 (5.13%) Node.js
4 19 (4.87%) RESTful
5 15 (3.85%) Kafka
6 14 (3.59%) ARM Templates
7 10 (2.56%) React
8 9 (2.31%) OpenTelemetry
9 8 (2.05%) LangChain
9 8 (2.05%) OpenAPI
9 8 (2.05%) SAML
9 8 (2.05%) SOAP
10 7 (1.79%) .NET
10 7 (1.79%) AWS CDK
10 7 (1.79%) Lambda Expressions
10 7 (1.79%) OpenID
10 7 (1.79%) Spring
10 7 (1.79%) Spring Boot
11 6 (1.54%) FastAPI
11 6 (1.54%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 61 (15.64%) Cloud Native
2 35 (8.97%) Public Cloud
3 19 (4.87%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (2.31%) PKI
5 8 (2.05%) Data Centre
6 6 (1.54%) Cyber Threat
6 6 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
6 6 (1.54%) Product Ownership
7 5 (1.28%) Genomics
7 5 (1.28%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.28%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.03%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.03%) Cloud Security Posture
8 4 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.03%) Life Science
9 3 (0.77%) AI Agents
9 3 (0.77%) Distributed Computing
9 3 (0.77%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (0.77%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.77%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 43 (11.03%) Linux
2 30 (7.69%) Windows
3 22 (5.64%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.31%) Unix
5 4 (1.03%) VMS
6 1 (0.26%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (0.26%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 166 (42.56%) CI/CD
2 158 (40.51%) DevOps
3 150 (38.46%) Infrastructure as Code
4 76 (19.49%) Containerisation
5 70 (17.95%) Agile
6 61 (15.64%) Cloud Security
7 41 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
8 40 (10.26%) Infrastructure Automation
8 40 (10.26%) Microservices
9 39 (10.00%) Migration
10 38 (9.74%) Cybersecurity
11 35 (8.97%) Continuous Improvement
11 35 (8.97%) Platform Engineering
12 34 (8.72%) DevSecOps
12 34 (8.72%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 34 (8.72%) Observability
13 33 (8.46%) AI
14 32 (8.21%) Software Engineering
15 30 (7.69%) High Availability
16 27 (6.92%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 118 (30.26%) Python
2 40 (10.26%) PowerShell
3 36 (9.23%) SQL
4 26 (6.67%) Java
5 24 (6.15%) Bash
5 24 (6.15%) Go
6 20 (5.13%) Bicep
7 12 (3.08%) TypeScript
8 11 (2.82%) Shell Script
9 9 (2.31%) JavaScript
10 6 (1.54%) Perl
11 5 (1.28%) C#
12 4 (1.03%) BeanShell
13 3 (0.77%) Ruby
14 2 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.51%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.51%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.26%) C
15 1 (0.26%) Groovy
15 1 (0.26%) Korn
Qualifications
1 120 (30.77%) Security Cleared
2 80 (20.51%) SC Cleared
3 37 (9.49%) DV Cleared
4 36 (9.23%) Azure Certification
5 34 (8.72%) Degree
6 31 (7.95%) AWS Certification
7 19 (4.87%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (4.36%) Master's Degree
9 11 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (2.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 8 (2.05%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 8 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (2.05%) CISSP
12 7 (1.79%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (1.28%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (1.28%) CCSP
13 5 (1.28%) CISM
14 4 (1.03%) AWS Certified Developer
15 3 (0.77%) SANS
15 3 (0.77%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.08%) GDPR
2 11 (2.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (2.82%) NIST
3 10 (2.56%) NCSC
4 9 (2.31%) QA
5 5 (1.28%) GRC
5 5 (1.28%) PCI DSS
6 4 (1.03%) Data Quality
7 3 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.51%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.51%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.26%) FedRAMP
9 1 (0.26%) JSP 440
System Software
1 68 (17.44%) Docker
2 36 (9.23%) Active Directory
3 21 (5.38%) VMware NSX
4 13 (3.33%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (2.05%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (1.28%) VMware Infrastructure
7 4 (1.03%) Firmware
7 4 (1.03%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.26%) KVM
9 1 (0.26%) Squid
Systems Management
1 163 (41.79%) Terraform
2 109 (27.95%) Kubernetes
3 37 (9.49%) Ansible
4 30 (7.69%) Grafana
4 30 (7.69%) Prometheus
5 21 (5.38%) vCenter Server
6 14 (3.59%) Istio
7 13 (3.33%) Argo
8 7 (1.79%) Kibana
8 7 (1.79%) logstash
8 7 (1.79%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (1.28%) Microsoft Intune
10 3 (0.77%) Podman
10 3 (0.77%) Proxmox
11 2 (0.51%) Consul
11 2 (0.51%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.51%) Packer
11 2 (0.51%) Puppet
12 1 (0.26%) SCCM
12 1 (0.26%) vRealize
Vendors
1 67 (17.18%) Microsoft
2 61 (15.64%) Google
3 24 (6.15%) Cisco
4 22 (5.64%) Juniper
5 21 (5.38%) SolarWinds
5 21 (5.38%) Splunk
6 15 (3.85%) Databricks
7 14 (3.59%) Oracle
8 9 (2.31%) ServiceNow
9 8 (2.05%) Palo Alto
10 7 (1.79%) Dynatrace
10 7 (1.79%) VMware
11 6 (1.54%) Ping Identity
12 5 (1.28%) Broadcom
12 5 (1.28%) MuleSoft
13 4 (1.03%) Rapid7
13 4 (1.03%) Salesforce
14 3 (0.77%) Cloudera
14 3 (0.77%) Zscaler
15 2 (0.51%) Tenable