Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £524, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 February 2026.

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

 6 months to
20 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 246 311 263
Rank change year-on-year +65 -48 -14
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 449 229 393
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.10% 0.74% 0.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.20% 0.80% 0.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 312 155 274
10th Percentile £400 £380 £411
25th Percentile £450 £454 £478
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.77% - -
75th Percentile £613 £639 £634
90th Percentile £725 £691 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £530
% change year-on-year +5.00% -5.66% +0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £25.13 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £38.88 - £50.00
75th Percentile £67.81 - £76.94
90th Percentile £93.13 - £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 37,463 28,656 41,321
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.73% 92.90% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,513 17,815 27,174
10th Percentile £305 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,286 832 2,325
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.23 £13.15
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.41 £16.50
Median hourly rate £31.36 £33.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -5.70% -5.00% -10.26%
75th Percentile £63.69 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -6.25% -9.86% -0.84%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 20 February 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 +28 364 £525 -4.55% 130
UK excluding London +37 202 £525 +5.00% 108
London +10 187 £525 -4.55% 45
Work from Home +12 111 £500 -4.76% 61
North of England -13 70 £500 +11.11% 25
Yorkshire -25 43 £513 +24.24% 10
South East -4 41 £500 -16.67% 33
Midlands -30 40 £575 +21.05% 12
Scotland +26 35 £513 -2.38% 7
West Midlands -21 35 £670 +14.04% 9
North West -6 27 £500 +11.11% 13
South West -4 19 £544 -5.43% 20
East of England -22 10 £438 +37.58% 9
East Midlands -29 5 £575 +26.51% 3
Wales -2 1 £425 +41.67% 2

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

For the 6 months to 20 February 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.

1 214 (47.66%) AWS
2 199 (44.32%) CI/CD
3 194 (43.21%) Terraform
4 178 (39.64%) Infrastructure as Code
5 176 (39.20%) DevOps
6 175 (38.98%) Azure
7 132 (29.40%) Python
8 125 (27.84%) Security Cleared
9 123 (27.39%) Kubernetes
10 104 (23.16%) GCP
11 101 (22.49%) GitHub
12 88 (19.60%) SC Cleared
13 87 (19.38%) Containerisation
14 79 (17.59%) Agile
15 77 (17.15%) Cloud Security
15 77 (17.15%) Docker
15 77 (17.15%) Microsoft
16 70 (15.59%) Google
17 65 (14.48%) Serverless
18 62 (13.81%) GitHub Actions
19 60 (13.36%) Jenkins
20 57 (12.69%) Migration
21 54 (12.03%) Infrastructure Automation
22 51 (11.36%) Platform Engineering
22 51 (11.36%) PowerShell
23 49 (10.91%) GitLab
24 46 (10.24%) AWS CloudFormation
24 46 (10.24%) Microservices
25 45 (10.02%) Linux
25 45 (10.02%) 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 9 (2.00%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.11%) Apache
3 4 (0.89%) Confluence
3 4 (0.89%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.67%) nginx
5 2 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.22%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.22%) CMS
6 1 (0.22%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.22%) SAS
6 1 (0.22%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.22%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (0.45%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (0.89%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 214 (47.66%) AWS
2 175 (38.98%) Azure
3 104 (23.16%) GCP
4 101 (22.49%) GitHub
5 65 (14.48%) Serverless
6 62 (13.81%) GitHub Actions
7 46 (10.24%) AWS CloudFormation
8 40 (8.91%) Entra ID
9 36 (8.02%) PaaS
10 35 (7.80%) Azure DevOps
11 34 (7.57%) Amazon S3
12 32 (7.13%) Amazon EKS
13 29 (6.46%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 28 (6.24%) AWS Lambda
14 28 (6.24%) IaaS
15 27 (6.01%) Amazon ECS
16 24 (5.35%) Azure AKS
17 18 (4.01%) OCI
18 16 (3.56%) Azure Monitor
19 15 (3.34%) AWS CodePipeline
Communications & Networking
1 34 (7.57%) Firewall
2 21 (4.68%) Network Security
3 18 (4.01%) VPN
4 17 (3.79%) Cisco Firepower
4 17 (3.79%) Cisco IOS
4 17 (3.79%) Cisco ISE
4 17 (3.79%) Junos
5 14 (3.12%) DNS
6 5 (1.11%) NX-OS
7 4 (0.89%) DHCP
7 4 (0.89%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (0.67%) Reverse Proxy
8 3 (0.67%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.67%) WAN
9 2 (0.45%) BGP
9 2 (0.45%) IPsec
9 2 (0.45%) LAN
9 2 (0.45%) Unified Communications
9 2 (0.45%) VLAN
10 1 (0.22%) ICMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (6.01%) NoSQL
2 22 (4.90%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (2.45%) Amazon Athena
3 11 (2.45%) BigQuery
4 10 (2.23%) DynamoDB
5 9 (2.00%) Power BI
6 7 (1.56%) Amazon RDS
6 7 (1.56%) Elasticsearch
7 6 (1.34%) Data Lake
8 5 (1.11%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (0.89%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (0.89%) Big Data
9 4 (0.89%) Delta Lake
9 4 (0.89%) Oracle Database
10 3 (0.67%) Amazon Redshift
11 2 (0.45%) Metadata
11 2 (0.45%) Mixpanel
11 2 (0.45%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
11 2 (0.45%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 60 (13.36%) Jenkins
2 49 (10.91%) GitLab
3 32 (7.13%) Git
4 10 (2.23%) JIRA
4 10 (2.23%) Liquibase
5 3 (0.67%) MLflow
5 3 (0.67%) Postman
5 3 (0.67%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.45%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.45%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.45%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.45%) Spinnaker
7 1 (0.22%) Artifactory
7 1 (0.22%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.22%) RStudio
7 1 (0.22%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.22%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.22%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 78 (17.37%) Social Skills
2 70 (15.59%) Finance
3 40 (8.91%) Public Sector
4 33 (7.35%) Banking
5 26 (5.79%) Analytical Skills
6 15 (3.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (2.67%) Financial Institution
8 8 (1.78%) Retail
9 7 (1.56%) Aeronautics
10 6 (1.34%) Presentation Skills
10 6 (1.34%) Telecoms
11 5 (1.11%) Aviation
11 5 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (1.11%) Legal
12 4 (0.89%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (0.67%) Local Government
14 2 (0.45%) Billing
14 2 (0.45%) Investment Banking
14 2 (0.45%) Marketing
14 2 (0.45%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (9.80%) REST
2 26 (5.79%) Elastic Stack
3 25 (5.57%) Node.js
4 19 (4.23%) RESTful
5 13 (2.90%) Kafka
6 12 (2.67%) React
7 10 (2.23%) ARM Templates
7 10 (2.23%) OpenID
7 10 (2.23%) OpenTelemetry
8 9 (2.00%) LangChain
8 9 (2.00%) OpenAPI
8 9 (2.00%) Oracle Fusion
9 8 (1.78%) .NET
9 8 (1.78%) Lambda Expressions
9 8 (1.78%) SAML
9 8 (1.78%) SOAP
9 8 (1.78%) Spring
9 8 (1.78%) Spring Boot
10 7 (1.56%) OAuth
10 7 (1.56%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 78 (17.37%) Cloud Native
2 41 (9.13%) Public Cloud
3 22 (4.90%) Distributed Systems
4 13 (2.90%) Hybrid Cloud
5 12 (2.67%) Data Centre
6 9 (2.00%) PKI
6 9 (2.00%) Product Ownership
7 8 (1.78%) Security Posture
8 5 (1.11%) Cyber Threat
8 5 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.11%) Onboarding
9 4 (0.89%) Algorithms
9 4 (0.89%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.67%) AI Agents
10 3 (0.67%) Distributed Computing
10 3 (0.67%) Genomics
10 3 (0.67%) Legacy Systems
10 3 (0.67%) Life Science
10 3 (0.67%) Linux Command Line
10 3 (0.67%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 45 (10.02%) Linux
2 27 (6.01%) Windows
3 17 (3.79%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.78%) Unix
5 4 (0.89%) VMS
6 2 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.22%) Alpine Linux
7 1 (0.22%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.22%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 199 (44.32%) CI/CD
2 178 (39.64%) Infrastructure as Code
3 176 (39.20%) DevOps
4 87 (19.38%) Containerisation
5 79 (17.59%) Agile
6 77 (17.15%) Cloud Security
7 57 (12.69%) Migration
8 54 (12.03%) Infrastructure Automation
9 51 (11.36%) Platform Engineering
10 46 (10.24%) Microservices
11 45 (10.02%) Problem-Solving
12 44 (9.80%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 44 (9.80%) Observability
13 40 (8.91%) Cybersecurity
14 39 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
15 37 (8.24%) AI
16 36 (8.02%) DevSecOps
17 34 (7.57%) Software Engineering
18 31 (6.90%) Cost Optimisation
19 30 (6.68%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 132 (29.40%) Python
2 51 (11.36%) PowerShell
3 38 (8.46%) SQL
4 28 (6.24%) Java
5 25 (5.57%) Bash
6 22 (4.90%) Bicep
6 22 (4.90%) Go
7 16 (3.56%) TypeScript
8 10 (2.23%) JavaScript
9 9 (2.00%) Shell Script
10 6 (1.34%) C#
11 4 (0.89%) BeanShell
11 4 (0.89%) Perl
11 4 (0.89%) Ruby
12 2 (0.45%) Groovy
12 2 (0.45%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.45%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.22%) Cypher
13 1 (0.22%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.22%) R
Qualifications
1 125 (27.84%) Security Cleared
2 88 (19.60%) SC Cleared
3 43 (9.58%) Azure Certification
4 35 (7.80%) Degree
5 34 (7.57%) DV Cleared
6 33 (7.35%) AWS Certification
7 22 (4.90%) Computer Science Degree
8 18 (4.01%) Master's Degree
9 14 (3.12%) Microsoft Certification
10 12 (2.67%) CISSP
11 11 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (2.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 9 (2.00%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 8 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
15 7 (1.56%) CISM
16 6 (1.34%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 5 (1.11%) CCSP
17 5 (1.11%) TOGAF Certification
18 4 (0.89%) AWS Certified Developer
19 3 (0.67%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (3.34%) GDPR
2 11 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (2.45%) NIST
3 9 (2.00%) NCSC
4 8 (1.78%) QA
5 6 (1.34%) PCI DSS
6 5 (1.11%) Data Quality
6 5 (1.11%) GRC
7 3 (0.67%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.45%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.45%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.22%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.22%) FedRAMP
9 1 (0.22%) JSP 440
System Software
1 77 (17.15%) Docker
2 30 (6.68%) Active Directory
3 17 (3.79%) VMware NSX
4 13 (2.90%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (1.78%) Virtual Desktop
6 6 (1.34%) Hyper-V
7 5 (1.11%) Firmware
7 5 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
8 2 (0.45%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.22%) KVM
9 1 (0.22%) Squid
9 1 (0.22%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 194 (43.21%) Terraform
2 123 (27.39%) Kubernetes
3 39 (8.69%) Ansible
4 33 (7.35%) Grafana
4 33 (7.35%) Prometheus
5 17 (3.79%) Istio
5 17 (3.79%) vCenter Server
6 15 (3.34%) Argo
7 11 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (1.56%) Kibana
8 7 (1.56%) logstash
9 6 (1.34%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.89%) Podman
11 3 (0.67%) Progress Chef
11 3 (0.67%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.45%) Consul
12 2 (0.45%) Packer
12 2 (0.45%) Puppet
13 1 (0.22%) Salt
13 1 (0.22%) vRealize
Vendors
1 77 (17.15%) Microsoft
2 70 (15.59%) Google
3 22 (4.90%) Splunk
4 20 (4.45%) Oracle
5 19 (4.23%) Cisco
6 18 (4.01%) Juniper
7 17 (3.79%) SolarWinds
8 15 (3.34%) Databricks
9 11 (2.45%) ServiceNow
10 8 (1.78%) Dynatrace
11 7 (1.56%) Ping Identity
12 5 (1.11%) Broadcom
12 5 (1.11%) MuleSoft
12 5 (1.11%) Palo Alto
12 5 (1.11%) PeopleSoft
12 5 (1.11%) Rapid7
12 5 (1.11%) VMware
13 4 (0.89%) Citrix
13 4 (0.89%) Cloudera
13 4 (0.89%) Salesforce
142 Cloud Engineer jobs Nationwide