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 31 July 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 215 313 337
Rank change year-on-year +98 +24 -67
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 713 256 248
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.34% 0.78% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.45% 0.85% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 463 195 167
10th Percentile £400 £402 £386
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £618 £575 £625
90th Percentile £688 £645 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -5.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 4 1
10th Percentile £23.20 £33.75 -
25th Percentile £71.00 £39.38 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £53.75 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +43.26% +79.17% -
75th Percentile £81.25 £74.38 £32.50
90th Percentile £83.50 £95.75 -
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 49,168 30,000 36,945
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.47% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,645 19,092 23,906
10th Percentile £331 £284 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,387 1,467 2,179
10th Percentile £15.37 £13.72 £14.05
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.30 £19.05
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £67.86 £55.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -41.51% +8.72%

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 July 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 31 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Engineer in the UK

Cloud Engineer
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 Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 31 July 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 +87 605 £525 +5.00% 423
UK excluding London +97 361 £520 +4.00% 185
London +58 303 £525 +0.48% 254
Work from Home +18 184 £539 +7.80% 158
South East +6 105 £538 +2.38% 38
North of England -11 96 £525 +16.67% 63
Scotland +40 62 £442 -11.60% 9
Midlands -9 56 £525 +10.53% 22
North West -19 55 £535 +25.94% 39
Yorkshire -25 34 £463 -7.50% 17
West Midlands -35 30 £525 +8.81% 15
East Midlands +4 25 £450 -5.26% 7
East of England 0 22 £505 +26.25% 18
South West -33 16 £563 - 29
North East -43 7 £525 +7.69% 7
Wales -10 6 - - 4

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

For the 6 months to 31 July 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.

1 337 (47.27%) Azure
2 307 (43.06%) Terraform
3 277 (38.85%) AWS
4 259 (36.33%) CI/CD
5 255 (35.76%) Infrastructure as Code
6 211 (29.59%) DevOps
7 192 (26.93%) Python
8 176 (24.68%) Security Cleared
9 170 (23.84%) Kubernetes
10 162 (22.72%) GCP
11 160 (22.44%) Cloud Security
12 154 (21.60%) Microsoft
13 149 (20.90%) PowerShell
14 145 (20.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 134 (18.79%) Platform Engineering
16 133 (18.65%) SC Cleared
17 113 (15.85%) Google
18 112 (15.71%) Windows
19 91 (12.76%) GitHub
20 89 (12.48%) Agile
20 89 (12.48%) AI
21 88 (12.34%) Migration
22 85 (11.92%) Containerisation
22 85 (11.92%) Entra ID
23 82 (11.50%) Active Directory
24 78 (10.94%) Bash
25 77 (10.80%) Firewall
26 76 (10.66%) DNS
26 76 (10.66%) Docker
27 75 (10.52%) Observability

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 12 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.40%) Apache
3 7 (0.98%) Confluence
4 6 (0.84%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.70%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.56%) nginx
7 3 (0.42%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.42%) IIS
7 3 (0.42%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.28%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.28%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
9 1 (0.14%) Traefik
Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.28%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 337 (47.27%) Azure
2 277 (38.85%) AWS
3 162 (22.72%) GCP
4 91 (12.76%) GitHub
5 85 (11.92%) Entra ID
6 63 (8.84%) Serverless
7 57 (7.99%) GitHub Actions
8 48 (6.73%) Azure AKS
8 48 (6.73%) Azure DevOps
9 44 (6.17%) AWS CloudFormation
10 43 (6.03%) IaaS
11 42 (5.89%) Amazon S3
12 41 (5.75%) AWS Lambda
13 37 (5.19%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 36 (5.05%) Amazon EC2
14 36 (5.05%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 33 (4.63%) PaaS
16 32 (4.49%) Amazon EKS
17 31 (4.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 31 (4.35%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 77 (10.80%) Firewall
2 76 (10.66%) DNS
3 40 (5.61%) VPN
4 30 (4.21%) Network Security
5 17 (2.38%) DHCP
6 16 (2.24%) WAN
7 15 (2.10%) TCP/IP
8 10 (1.40%) Internet
9 6 (0.84%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.84%) VLAN
10 5 (0.70%) BGP
10 5 (0.70%) Reverse Proxy
10 5 (0.70%) SSL
11 4 (0.56%) LAN
11 4 (0.56%) SAN
11 4 (0.56%) VSAN
12 3 (0.42%) IPv4
12 3 (0.42%) OSPF
12 3 (0.42%) SMTP
12 3 (0.42%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (3.51%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.38%) Amazon RDS
3 13 (1.82%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (1.54%) Amazon Athena
4 11 (1.54%) BigQuery
5 9 (1.26%) DynamoDB
6 6 (0.84%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.70%) Data Lake
7 5 (0.70%) Oracle Database
7 5 (0.70%) Oracle Exadata
8 4 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (0.42%) Amazon QuickSight
9 3 (0.42%) Flink
9 3 (0.42%) Looker
9 3 (0.42%) MySQL
9 3 (0.42%) Oracle Database 12c
10 2 (0.28%) Big Data
10 2 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.28%) Redis
10 2 (0.28%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 51 (7.15%) Jenkins
2 50 (7.01%) GitLab
3 37 (5.19%) Git
4 19 (2.66%) JIRA
5 9 (1.26%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.70%) Bitbucket
6 5 (0.70%) Claude Code
7 3 (0.42%) Selenium
7 3 (0.42%) Team Foundation Server
8 2 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.28%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.28%) Liquibase
8 2 (0.28%) Octopus Deploy
8 2 (0.28%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.28%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.14%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.14%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.14%) Gatling
9 1 (0.14%) sqlmap
9 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 93 (13.04%) Finance
2 78 (10.94%) Social Skills
3 64 (8.98%) Public Sector
4 26 (3.65%) Analytical Skills
4 26 (3.65%) Banking
5 11 (1.54%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (1.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (1.12%) Investment Banking
7 5 (0.70%) Law
7 5 (0.70%) Local Government
7 5 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
8 4 (0.56%) Legal
9 3 (0.42%) Front Office
9 3 (0.42%) Military
9 3 (0.42%) Police
9 3 (0.42%) Retail
9 3 (0.42%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.28%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.28%) Back Office
10 2 (0.28%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (3.93%) REST
2 14 (1.96%) Node.js
3 13 (1.82%) OAuth
3 13 (1.82%) OAuth2
4 12 (1.68%) ARM Templates
5 10 (1.40%) Spring
5 10 (1.40%) Spring Boot
6 8 (1.12%) Model Context Protocol
6 8 (1.12%) React
7 7 (0.98%) AWS CDK
7 7 (0.98%) OpenID
8 6 (0.84%) .NET
8 6 (0.84%) FastAPI
8 6 (0.84%) Flask
8 6 (0.84%) Kafka
8 6 (0.84%) YAML
9 5 (0.70%) Playwright
9 5 (0.70%) PyTorch
9 5 (0.70%) TensorFlow
10 4 (0.56%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 127 (17.81%) Cloud Native
2 42 (5.89%) Security Posture
3 36 (5.05%) Enterprise Cloud
4 33 (4.63%) Hybrid Cloud
5 27 (3.79%) Onboarding
6 23 (3.23%) Public Cloud
7 21 (2.95%) Data Centre
8 20 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
9 18 (2.52%) Cloud Security Posture
10 16 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
11 15 (2.10%) Management Information System
12 9 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.26%) Linux Command Line
12 9 (1.26%) Product Ownership
12 9 (1.26%) Self-Motivation
13 7 (0.98%) AI Agents
13 7 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
14 6 (0.84%) PKI
15 5 (0.70%) Private Cloud
16 4 (0.56%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 112 (15.71%) Windows
2 71 (9.96%) Linux
3 53 (7.43%) Windows Server
4 29 (4.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (1.40%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.12%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.42%) CentOS
7 3 (0.42%) VMS
8 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 259 (36.33%) CI/CD
2 255 (35.76%) Infrastructure as Code
3 211 (29.59%) DevOps
4 160 (22.44%) Cloud Security
5 145 (20.34%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 134 (18.79%) Platform Engineering
7 89 (12.48%) Agile
7 89 (12.48%) AI
8 88 (12.34%) Migration
9 85 (11.92%) Containerisation
10 75 (10.52%) Observability
11 60 (8.42%) Software Engineering
12 57 (7.99%) Infrastructure Automation
13 55 (7.71%) Technical Leadership
14 53 (7.43%) Problem-Solving
15 51 (7.15%) Continuous Improvement
16 45 (6.31%) DevSecOps
17 42 (5.89%) Change Management
18 41 (5.75%) Deployment Automation
18 41 (5.75%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 192 (26.93%) Python
2 149 (20.90%) PowerShell
3 78 (10.94%) Bash
4 62 (8.70%) Bicep
5 61 (8.56%) SQL
6 37 (5.19%) Java
7 19 (2.66%) C#
8 13 (1.82%) JavaScript
9 12 (1.68%) Shell Script
10 10 (1.40%) Go
11 9 (1.26%) TypeScript
12 5 (0.70%) Groovy
13 3 (0.42%) Scala
14 2 (0.28%) C
14 2 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.28%) Ruby
15 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
15 1 (0.14%) Cypher
15 1 (0.14%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.14%) Perl
Qualifications
1 176 (24.68%) Security Cleared
2 133 (18.65%) SC Cleared
3 56 (7.85%) DV Cleared
4 48 (6.73%) AWS Certification
4 48 (6.73%) Azure Certification
5 28 (3.93%) Degree
6 17 (2.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 16 (2.24%) CISSP
8 15 (2.10%) Microsoft Certification
9 11 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
10 9 (1.26%) Computer Science Degree
11 7 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
11 7 (0.98%) CCNP
12 6 (0.84%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 6 (0.84%) MCSE
13 5 (0.70%) CISM
14 4 (0.56%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 4 (0.56%) CCIE
14 4 (0.56%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 3 (0.42%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (1.96%) Data Quality
2 12 (1.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (1.40%) NIST
3 10 (1.40%) QA
4 9 (1.26%) NCSC
5 4 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.56%) GDPR
6 3 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.28%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.28%) SLA
8 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.14%) GRC
8 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 82 (11.50%) Active Directory
2 76 (10.66%) Docker
3 36 (5.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (4.21%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (3.51%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (3.09%) VMware NSX
7 18 (2.52%) vSphere
8 16 (2.24%) Virtual Desktop
9 12 (1.68%) vCloud
10 11 (1.54%) Hyper-V
11 7 (0.98%) Squid
12 5 (0.70%) Firmware
13 3 (0.42%) Ceph
13 3 (0.42%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.42%) NFS
13 3 (0.42%) Postfix
14 2 (0.28%) KVM
14 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 307 (43.06%) Terraform
2 170 (23.84%) Kubernetes
3 53 (7.43%) Ansible
4 23 (3.23%) Grafana
5 22 (3.09%) Prometheus
6 21 (2.95%) vCenter Server
7 20 (2.81%) Progress Chef
7 20 (2.81%) Single Sign-On
8 19 (2.66%) SCOM
9 18 (2.52%) Microsoft Intune
10 16 (2.24%) Puppet
11 8 (1.12%) Istio
11 8 (1.12%) Packer
12 7 (0.98%) Argo
13 6 (0.84%) Cilium
14 5 (0.70%) VxRail
15 4 (0.56%) HAProxy
15 4 (0.56%) Suricata
16 3 (0.42%) Salt
16 3 (0.42%) vRealize
Vendors
1 154 (21.60%) Microsoft
2 113 (15.85%) Google
3 57 (7.99%) VMware
4 28 (3.93%) Oracle
5 17 (2.38%) Red Hat
5 17 (2.38%) Zscaler
6 16 (2.24%) Okta
7 14 (1.96%) ServiceNow
8 13 (1.82%) Palo Alto
9 12 (1.68%) Splunk
10 10 (1.40%) Cisco
11 9 (1.26%) CrowdStrike
11 9 (1.26%) Dynatrace
11 9 (1.26%) OpenAI
11 9 (1.26%) Salesforce
12 8 (1.12%) BeyondTrust
12 8 (1.12%) Broadcom
12 8 (1.12%) Databricks
12 8 (1.12%) SolarWinds
13 7 (0.98%) New Relic