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 26 April 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 232 316 315
Rank change year-on-year +84 -1 -61
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 507 226 294
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.08% 0.77% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.18% 0.83% 0.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 340 173 201
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £453 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £613 £619 £625
90th Percentile £690 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +1.99% -2.88% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £25.13 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.25 - £30.00
75th Percentile £39.56 - £32.50
90th Percentile £48.08 - -
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 43,137 27,188 40,489
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.59% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,662 17,796 26,412
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £407 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £517 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.13% -1.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,772 1,030 2,642
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.48 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.85 £29.24 £35.68
Median % change year-on-year +46.55% -18.05% -20.71%
75th Percentile £65.67 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.52 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +56.52% -23.33% -11.76%

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 26 April 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 26 April 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 26 April 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 +58 422 £525 - 157
London +39 241 £525 - 48
UK excluding London +31 211 £520 +1.99% 126
Work from Home +12 121 £505 -1.46% 89
North of England -31 57 £513 +10.81% 39
South East -41 44 £510 -9.33% 31
Scotland +31 37 £451 -14.19% 7
North West -19 27 £525 +16.67% 20
Yorkshire -34 27 £481 +13.24% 13
Midlands -46 27 £671 +37.69% 18
South West -12 23 £550 -4.35% 19
East of England -16 23 £510 +3.55% 9
West Midlands -45 21 £680 +15.74% 15
East Midlands -38 6 £575 +21.05% 3
North East -22 3 £525 -12.50% 6
Wales -9 1 £425 +41.67%

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

For the 6 months to 26 April 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.

1 222 (43.79%) Terraform
2 221 (43.59%) Azure
3 219 (43.20%) AWS
4 201 (39.64%) CI/CD
5 193 (38.07%) Infrastructure as Code
6 178 (35.11%) DevOps
7 143 (28.21%) Security Cleared
8 124 (24.46%) Kubernetes
9 122 (24.06%) SC Cleared
10 120 (23.67%) GCP
11 117 (23.08%) Python
12 108 (21.30%) GitHub
13 100 (19.72%) Cloud Security
14 90 (17.75%) Google
15 89 (17.55%) Microsoft
16 77 (15.19%) Agile
17 76 (14.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 75 (14.79%) Platform Engineering
18 75 (14.79%) PowerShell
19 68 (13.41%) Containerisation
20 67 (13.21%) GitHub Actions
21 66 (13.02%) Migration
22 60 (11.83%) Docker
23 53 (10.45%) Serverless
24 49 (9.66%) Continuous Improvement
25 47 (9.27%) Firewall
25 47 (9.27%) Observability
26 45 (8.88%) AI
27 44 (8.68%) AWS CloudFormation
27 44 (8.68%) Azure DevOps

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 (1.38%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (1.18%) Confluence
3 5 (0.99%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.79%) Apache
5 3 (0.59%) nginx
6 2 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.39%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.20%) SAS
7 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (0.39%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.20%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 221 (43.59%) Azure
2 219 (43.20%) AWS
3 120 (23.67%) GCP
4 108 (21.30%) GitHub
5 67 (13.21%) GitHub Actions
6 53 (10.45%) Serverless
7 44 (8.68%) AWS CloudFormation
7 44 (8.68%) Azure DevOps
8 39 (7.69%) Entra ID
9 38 (7.50%) Azure AKS
10 37 (7.30%) PaaS
11 35 (6.90%) Amazon S3
12 31 (6.11%) Amazon EKS
12 31 (6.11%) AWS Lambda
12 31 (6.11%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 31 (6.11%) IaaS
13 27 (5.33%) Amazon ECS
14 21 (4.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 20 (3.94%) Amazon EC2
15 20 (3.94%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (9.27%) Firewall
2 19 (3.75%) DNS
3 18 (3.55%) Network Security
3 18 (3.55%) VPN
4 7 (1.38%) Cisco Firepower
5 6 (1.18%) Cisco IOS
5 6 (1.18%) Cisco ISE
5 6 (1.18%) Junos
5 6 (1.18%) Reverse Proxy
6 5 (0.99%) NX-OS
7 4 (0.79%) DHCP
7 4 (0.79%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (0.59%) BGP
8 3 (0.59%) SMTP
9 2 (0.39%) DKIM
9 2 (0.39%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.39%) Unified Communications
9 2 (0.39%) VLAN
10 1 (0.20%) SD-WAN
10 1 (0.20%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.96%) Amazon Athena
2 12 (2.37%) BigQuery
3 11 (2.17%) DynamoDB
4 8 (1.58%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (1.38%) SQL Server
6 6 (1.18%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.18%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.18%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (1.18%) Power BI
7 5 (0.99%) NoSQL
8 4 (0.79%) Amazon QuickSight
8 4 (0.79%) Big Data
8 4 (0.79%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.79%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.59%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.39%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.39%) OLAP
10 2 (0.39%) OLTP
10 2 (0.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 43 (8.48%) Jenkins
2 35 (6.90%) GitLab
3 34 (6.71%) Git
4 7 (1.38%) JIRA
5 4 (0.79%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.59%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.39%) Liquibase
7 2 (0.39%) Postman
7 2 (0.39%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.39%) Selenium
7 2 (0.39%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.20%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.20%) Chocolatey
8 1 (0.20%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.20%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.20%) RStudio
8 1 (0.20%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.20%) sqlmap
8 1 (0.20%) Travis CI
General
1 70 (13.81%) Social Skills
2 59 (11.64%) Finance
3 42 (8.28%) Public Sector
4 19 (3.75%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (3.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 16 (3.16%) Banking
7 10 (1.97%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (1.78%) Retail
9 7 (1.38%) Aeronautics
10 6 (1.18%) Legal
10 6 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (0.99%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.79%) Investment Banking
12 4 (0.79%) Marketing
13 3 (0.59%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.59%) Military
14 2 (0.39%) Billing
14 2 (0.39%) Law
14 2 (0.39%) Local Government
14 2 (0.39%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (4.54%) REST
2 21 (4.14%) Node.js
3 13 (2.56%) Kafka
4 12 (2.37%) React
5 11 (2.17%) OpenTelemetry
6 10 (1.97%) .NET
7 9 (1.78%) ARM Templates
7 9 (1.78%) Spring
7 9 (1.78%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.58%) OAuth
8 8 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (1.58%) Playwright
9 7 (1.38%) AngularJS
9 7 (1.38%) LangChain
9 7 (1.38%) OAuth2
9 7 (1.38%) OpenAPI
9 7 (1.38%) OpenID
9 7 (1.38%) SOAP
10 6 (1.18%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (1.18%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 86 (16.96%) Cloud Native
2 29 (5.72%) Public Cloud
3 18 (3.55%) Hybrid Cloud
4 15 (2.96%) Data Centre
5 10 (1.97%) Product Ownership
6 9 (1.78%) Security Posture
7 7 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.38%) Onboarding
7 7 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.18%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.18%) Enterprise Cloud
8 6 (1.18%) PKI
9 5 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (0.99%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.79%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.59%) Cloud Security Posture
11 3 (0.59%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.59%) Replication
12 2 (0.39%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 40 (7.89%) Windows
2 30 (5.92%) Linux
3 19 (3.75%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.79%) Unix
4 4 (0.79%) VMS
5 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (39.64%) CI/CD
2 193 (38.07%) Infrastructure as Code
3 178 (35.11%) DevOps
4 100 (19.72%) Cloud Security
5 77 (15.19%) Agile
6 76 (14.99%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 75 (14.79%) Platform Engineering
8 68 (13.41%) Containerisation
9 66 (13.02%) Migration
10 49 (9.66%) Continuous Improvement
11 47 (9.27%) Observability
12 45 (8.88%) AI
13 43 (8.48%) DevSecOps
14 41 (8.09%) Infrastructure Automation
15 39 (7.69%) Problem-Solving
16 38 (7.50%) Cybersecurity
17 36 (7.10%) Software Engineering
18 34 (6.71%) Mentoring
19 31 (6.11%) Microservices
20 27 (5.33%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 117 (23.08%) Python
2 75 (14.79%) PowerShell
3 43 (8.48%) SQL
4 34 (6.71%) Bash
5 28 (5.52%) Bicep
6 27 (5.33%) Java
7 17 (3.35%) C#
8 14 (2.76%) TypeScript
9 9 (1.78%) Go
9 9 (1.78%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.79%) BeanShell
10 4 (0.79%) Groovy
10 4 (0.79%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.39%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.39%) Ruby
12 1 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.20%) Cypher
12 1 (0.20%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.20%) R
Qualifications
1 143 (28.21%) Security Cleared
2 122 (24.06%) SC Cleared
3 43 (8.48%) Azure Certification
4 29 (5.72%) AWS Certification
5 20 (3.94%) DV Cleared
6 16 (3.16%) Degree
6 16 (3.16%) Microsoft Certification
7 13 (2.56%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 13 (2.56%) CISSP
8 11 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (1.78%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (1.38%) CISM
11 6 (1.18%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 6 (1.18%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 5 (0.99%) TOGAF Certification
13 4 (0.79%) CCSP
14 3 (0.59%) CCNP
14 3 (0.59%) MCSE
14 3 (0.59%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.37%) GDPR
2 11 (2.17%) NCSC
2 11 (2.17%) NIST
3 10 (1.97%) QA
4 9 (1.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.18%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.18%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.99%) GRC
7 2 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.39%) SLA
7 2 (0.39%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.20%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 60 (11.83%) Docker
2 25 (4.93%) Active Directory
3 15 (2.96%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (2.56%) Virtual Machines
4 13 (2.56%) VMware NSX
5 8 (1.58%) vSphere
6 7 (1.38%) VMware Infrastructure
7 6 (1.18%) Firmware
7 6 (1.18%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.20%) Squid
Systems Management
1 222 (43.79%) Terraform
2 124 (24.46%) Kubernetes
3 27 (5.33%) Prometheus
4 22 (4.34%) Ansible
4 22 (4.34%) Grafana
5 17 (3.35%) Istio
6 14 (2.76%) Microsoft Intune
7 13 (2.56%) Argo
8 11 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.38%) Packer
9 7 (1.38%) vCenter Server
10 5 (0.99%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.99%) Puppet
11 4 (0.79%) Salt
12 2 (0.39%) Cilium
12 2 (0.39%) Consul
12 2 (0.39%) Kibana
12 2 (0.39%) logstash
13 1 (0.20%) PaperCut
13 1 (0.20%) Podman
Vendors
1 90 (17.75%) Google
2 89 (17.55%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.75%) Oracle
4 16 (3.16%) VMware
5 12 (2.37%) Cisco
5 12 (2.37%) Databricks
5 12 (2.37%) Dynatrace
6 10 (1.97%) ServiceNow
7 8 (1.58%) Splunk
8 7 (1.38%) Juniper
8 7 (1.38%) Salesforce
9 6 (1.18%) SolarWinds
10 5 (0.99%) Broadcom
10 5 (0.99%) Citrix
10 5 (0.99%) Fortinet
10 5 (0.99%) PeopleSoft
10 5 (0.99%) Ping Identity
10 5 (0.99%) Rapid7
11 4 (0.79%) Palo Alto
11 4 (0.79%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud