Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 June 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 216 308 326
Rank change year-on-year +92 +18 -56
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 594 234 279
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.19% 0.80% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.29% 0.86% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 397 180 190
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £462 £445 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £621 £575 £625
90th Percentile £688 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +4.00% -1.96% -7.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 1 3
10th Percentile £35.58 - -
25th Percentile £71.00 £42.50 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £45.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.11% +50.00% -41.18%
75th Percentile £81.25 £47.50 £32.50
90th Percentile £85.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 - £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 46,065 27,116 40,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,032 17,461 26,079
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.55% -4.76% -2.60%
75th Percentile £621 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,078 1,132 2,932
10th Percentile £15.13 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £43.00 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.23% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -5.88%

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 11 June 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 11 June 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 11 June 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 +72 498 £525 +5.00% 127
London +60 295 £544 +8.75% 47
UK excluding London +25 233 £520 +4.00% 95
Work from Home +1 149 £540 +8.00% 73
North of England -38 66 £505 +9.19% 24
South East -27 59 £538 +7.50% 36
Scotland +17 44 £451 -14.19% 2
North West -25 33 £500 +20.92% 18
Midlands -50 28 £525 +5.00% 8
Yorkshire -29 26 £481 -3.75% 6
West Midlands -42 23 £525 - 7
East of England -8 22 £505 +2.54% 4
South West -14 15 £550 -2.22% 22
North East -30 7 £525 +5.00%
East Midlands -29 5 £413 -13.16% 1

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

For the 6 months to 11 June 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.

1 276 (46.46%) Azure
2 272 (45.79%) Terraform
3 263 (44.28%) AWS
4 243 (40.91%) CI/CD
5 226 (38.05%) Infrastructure as Code
6 201 (33.84%) DevOps
7 146 (24.58%) Python
7 146 (24.58%) Security Cleared
8 140 (23.57%) Kubernetes
9 133 (22.39%) GCP
10 124 (20.88%) Cloud Security
11 117 (19.70%) SC Cleared
12 109 (18.35%) Platform Engineering
13 108 (18.18%) Microsoft
14 107 (18.01%) GitHub
15 97 (16.33%) Google
16 96 (16.16%) PowerShell
17 94 (15.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 86 (14.48%) Migration
19 74 (12.46%) Containerisation
20 72 (12.12%) GitHub Actions
20 72 (12.12%) Windows
21 69 (11.62%) AI
22 67 (11.28%) Agile
23 64 (10.77%) Firewall
24 63 (10.61%) Docker
25 61 (10.27%) Serverless
26 59 (9.93%) Observability
27 57 (9.60%) Bash
28 56 (9.43%) Problem-Solving

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 7 (1.18%) Apache
1 7 (1.18%) Confluence
1 7 (1.18%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (0.84%) nginx
3 4 (0.67%) Apache Spark
4 3 (0.51%) IIS
4 3 (0.51%) SharePoint
4 3 (0.51%) Tomcat
5 2 (0.34%) CloudStack
6 1 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.17%) Apache Pulsar
6 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.17%) SAS
6 1 (0.17%) Traefik
Business Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 276 (46.46%) Azure
2 263 (44.28%) AWS
3 133 (22.39%) GCP
4 107 (18.01%) GitHub
5 72 (12.12%) GitHub Actions
6 61 (10.27%) Serverless
7 50 (8.42%) Entra ID
8 47 (7.91%) Azure DevOps
9 44 (7.41%) AWS CloudFormation
10 41 (6.90%) Azure AKS
11 39 (6.57%) Amazon S3
11 39 (6.57%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 39 (6.57%) IaaS
11 39 (6.57%) PaaS
12 36 (6.06%) AWS Lambda
13 35 (5.89%) Amazon EKS
14 31 (5.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 30 (5.05%) Amazon ECS
16 28 (4.71%) Amazon EC2
17 23 (3.87%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 64 (10.77%) Firewall
2 46 (7.74%) DNS
3 28 (4.71%) Network Security
3 28 (4.71%) VPN
4 9 (1.52%) DHCP
5 8 (1.35%) TCP/IP
5 8 (1.35%) WAN
6 5 (0.84%) Reverse Proxy
6 5 (0.84%) SSL
7 4 (0.67%) SD-WAN
7 4 (0.67%) Software-Defined Networking
7 4 (0.67%) VLAN
8 3 (0.51%) BGP
8 3 (0.51%) Internet
8 3 (0.51%) SMTP
9 2 (0.34%) IPv4
9 2 (0.34%) Kerberos
9 2 (0.34%) NGFW
9 2 (0.34%) SAN
9 2 (0.34%) Unified Communications
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.53%) SQL Server
2 14 (2.36%) Amazon Athena
3 13 (2.19%) DynamoDB
4 12 (2.02%) BigQuery
5 10 (1.68%) Amazon RDS
6 8 (1.35%) PostgreSQL
7 6 (1.01%) Amazon Redshift
7 6 (1.01%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (0.84%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.67%) Amazon QuickSight
9 4 (0.67%) Data Lake
10 3 (0.51%) Big Data
10 3 (0.51%) Metadata
10 3 (0.51%) MySQL
10 3 (0.51%) Oracle Database 12c
10 3 (0.51%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.34%) Delta Lake
11 2 (0.34%) Power BI
11 2 (0.34%) Redis
11 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 51 (8.59%) GitLab
1 51 (8.59%) Jenkins
2 40 (6.73%) Git
3 13 (2.19%) JIRA
4 10 (1.68%) Artifactory
5 3 (0.51%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.51%) Selenium
5 3 (0.51%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.34%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.34%) Claude Code
6 2 (0.34%) Cypress.io
6 2 (0.34%) Liquibase
6 2 (0.34%) Postman
6 2 (0.34%) Robot Framework
7 1 (0.17%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.17%) Gatling
7 1 (0.17%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.17%) sqlmap
7 1 (0.17%) TestRail
7 1 (0.17%) Travis CI
General
1 78 (13.13%) Social Skills
2 63 (10.61%) Finance
3 45 (7.58%) Public Sector
4 23 (3.87%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (3.87%) Banking
5 13 (2.19%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (1.52%) Retail
8 7 (1.18%) Investment Banking
9 6 (1.01%) Legal
9 6 (1.01%) Telecoms
10 5 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.67%) Law
11 4 (0.67%) Local Government
11 4 (0.67%) Marketing
11 4 (0.67%) Military
12 3 (0.51%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.51%) Police
13 2 (0.34%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (3.54%) REST
2 14 (2.36%) Node.js
2 14 (2.36%) React
2 14 (2.36%) Spring
2 14 (2.36%) Spring Boot
3 12 (2.02%) Kafka
3 12 (2.02%) OAuth
3 12 (2.02%) OAuth2
4 9 (1.52%) .NET
4 9 (1.52%) OpenTelemetry
5 7 (1.18%) ARM Templates
5 7 (1.18%) OpenID
6 6 (1.01%) AngularJS
6 6 (1.01%) LangChain
6 6 (1.01%) Model Context Protocol
6 6 (1.01%) Oracle Fusion
7 5 (0.84%) AWS CDK
7 5 (0.84%) Playwright
7 5 (0.84%) PySpark
7 5 (0.84%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 115 (19.36%) Cloud Native
2 29 (4.88%) Hybrid Cloud
2 29 (4.88%) Public Cloud
3 24 (4.04%) Data Centre
4 21 (3.54%) Security Posture
5 17 (2.86%) Enterprise Cloud
6 15 (2.53%) Onboarding
7 13 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
7 13 (2.19%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (1.85%) Product Ownership
9 10 (1.68%) Management Information System
10 9 (1.52%) Cloud Security Posture
11 8 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
12 6 (1.01%) Cyber Threat
13 5 (0.84%) Legacy Systems
13 5 (0.84%) Private Cloud
14 4 (0.67%) AI Agents
14 4 (0.67%) Virtual Team
15 3 (0.51%) Distributed Architecture
Operating Systems
1 72 (12.12%) Windows
2 39 (6.57%) Linux
2 39 (6.57%) Windows Server
3 11 (1.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (0.84%) Ubuntu
5 3 (0.51%) CentOS
5 3 (0.51%) Windows Server 2019
6 2 (0.34%) VMS
6 2 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
7 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (40.91%) CI/CD
2 226 (38.05%) Infrastructure as Code
3 201 (33.84%) DevOps
4 124 (20.88%) Cloud Security
5 109 (18.35%) Platform Engineering
6 94 (15.82%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 86 (14.48%) Migration
8 74 (12.46%) Containerisation
9 69 (11.62%) AI
10 67 (11.28%) Agile
11 59 (9.93%) Observability
12 56 (9.43%) Problem-Solving
13 52 (8.75%) Software Engineering
14 50 (8.42%) Continuous Improvement
14 50 (8.42%) Infrastructure Automation
15 45 (7.58%) Technical Leadership
16 43 (7.24%) Cybersecurity
17 41 (6.90%) DevSecOps
18 33 (5.56%) Deployment Automation
18 33 (5.56%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 146 (24.58%) Python
2 96 (16.16%) PowerShell
3 57 (9.60%) Bash
4 48 (8.08%) SQL
5 39 (6.57%) Bicep
6 33 (5.56%) Java
7 16 (2.69%) C#
8 11 (1.85%) Go
8 11 (1.85%) JavaScript
9 10 (1.68%) TypeScript
10 5 (0.84%) Groovy
11 2 (0.34%) Ruby
12 1 (0.17%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.17%) Cypher
12 1 (0.17%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.17%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.17%) Perl
12 1 (0.17%) R
12 1 (0.17%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 146 (24.58%) Security Cleared
2 117 (19.70%) SC Cleared
3 44 (7.41%) Azure Certification
4 36 (6.06%) AWS Certification
5 30 (5.05%) DV Cleared
6 19 (3.20%) Degree
7 16 (2.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 14 (2.36%) Microsoft Certification
9 13 (2.19%) CISSP
10 12 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
11 9 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
12 8 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
13 7 (1.18%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 6 (1.01%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 5 (0.84%) TOGAF Certification
16 4 (0.67%) CCSP
16 4 (0.67%) MCSE
17 3 (0.51%) CCNP
17 3 (0.51%) CISM
17 3 (0.51%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.36%) NIST
2 11 (1.85%) GDPR
2 11 (1.85%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (1.85%) NCSC
3 10 (1.68%) QA
4 6 (1.01%) PCI DSS
5 5 (0.84%) Data Quality
6 3 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.34%) SLA
7 2 (0.34%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.17%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.17%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.17%) GRC
8 1 (0.17%) WCAG
System Software
1 63 (10.61%) Docker
2 44 (7.41%) Active Directory
3 20 (3.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.86%) Virtual Desktop
4 17 (2.86%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (2.86%) VMware NSX
5 16 (2.69%) VMware ESXi
6 14 (2.36%) vSphere
7 10 (1.68%) Hyper-V
8 9 (1.52%) vCloud
9 7 (1.18%) Squid
10 3 (0.51%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.51%) Firmware
10 3 (0.51%) Postfix
11 2 (0.34%) Ceph
11 2 (0.34%) KVM
11 2 (0.34%) NFS
Systems Management
1 272 (45.79%) Terraform
2 140 (23.57%) Kubernetes
3 37 (6.23%) Ansible
4 24 (4.04%) Grafana
5 21 (3.54%) Prometheus
6 19 (3.20%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (2.53%) Microsoft Intune
8 14 (2.36%) Argo
8 14 (2.36%) Istio
8 14 (2.36%) Progress Chef
9 13 (2.19%) vCenter Server
10 11 (1.85%) Puppet
10 11 (1.85%) SCOM
11 7 (1.18%) Packer
12 6 (1.01%) Cilium
13 4 (0.67%) HAProxy
13 4 (0.67%) Salt
13 4 (0.67%) Suricata
14 3 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 2 (0.34%) vRealize
Vendors
1 108 (18.18%) Microsoft
2 97 (16.33%) Google
3 36 (6.06%) VMware
4 23 (3.87%) Oracle
5 15 (2.53%) Palo Alto
5 15 (2.53%) Zscaler
6 12 (2.02%) Red Hat
7 9 (1.52%) Cisco
8 8 (1.35%) Dynatrace
8 8 (1.35%) Salesforce
9 7 (1.18%) Databricks
9 7 (1.18%) Okta
9 7 (1.18%) ServiceNow
9 7 (1.18%) Splunk
10 6 (1.01%) OpenAI
11 5 (0.84%) Citrix
11 5 (0.84%) Fortinet
11 5 (0.84%) Rapid7
12 4 (0.67%) Juniper
12 4 (0.67%) PeopleSoft