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 10 May 2026.

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

6 months to
10 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 224 311 327
Rank change year-on-year +87 +16 -67
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 525 228 282
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.10% 0.78% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.19% 0.84% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 347 178 192
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £462 £448 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £522 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% -5.02% -0.72%
75th Percentile £616 £600 £616
90th Percentile £690 £658 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £510 £510
% change year-on-year +1.99% -0.03% -7.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 3
10th Percentile £25.13 - -
25th Percentile £31.66 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £62.25 - £30.00
75th Percentile £75.25 - £32.50
90th Percentile £76.00 - -
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 44,077 27,186 39,942
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.24% 92.51% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,083 17,732 26,002
10th Percentile £319 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.65% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,853 1,054 2,673
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.38 £18.50 £16.25
Median hourly rate £44.50 £28.68 £36.65
Median % change year-on-year +55.19% -21.76% -18.56%
75th Percentile £67.25 £62.50 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.78 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +66.47% -31.25% -5.73%

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 10 May 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 10 May 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 10 May 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 +53 434 £525 +5.00% 177
London +67 254 £525 +5.00% 61
UK excluding London +14 211 £520 +1.99% 130
Work from Home +9 133 £510 +2.00% 79
North of England -25 55 £500 +2.56% 34
South East -41 47 £522 -5.09% 35
Scotland +27 40 £451 -14.19% 7
North West -20 29 £524 +30.29% 20
East of England -13 25 £500 +1.52% 8
Midlands -56 25 £675 +38.46% 21
Yorkshire -35 22 £481 +13.24% 11
West Midlands -44 21 £675 +14.89% 14
South West -22 20 £550 -4.35% 24
North East -22 4 £525 -8.70% 3
East Midlands -39 4 £418 -12.11% 7

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

For the 6 months to 10 May 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.

1 234 (44.57%) Terraform
2 233 (44.38%) Azure
3 225 (42.86%) AWS
4 218 (41.52%) CI/CD
5 205 (39.05%) Infrastructure as Code
6 184 (35.05%) DevOps
7 145 (27.62%) Security Cleared
8 124 (23.62%) Kubernetes
9 123 (23.43%) GCP
10 122 (23.24%) SC Cleared
11 121 (23.05%) Python
12 106 (20.19%) GitHub
13 105 (20.00%) Cloud Security
14 92 (17.52%) Microsoft
15 91 (17.33%) Google
16 83 (15.81%) PowerShell
17 82 (15.62%) Platform Engineering
18 76 (14.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 75 (14.29%) Migration
20 70 (13.33%) Agile
21 69 (13.14%) Containerisation
22 68 (12.95%) GitHub Actions
23 55 (10.48%) Docker
24 53 (10.10%) AI
24 53 (10.10%) Serverless
25 51 (9.71%) Firewall
26 47 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
26 47 (8.95%) Observability
27 45 (8.57%) Azure DevOps
27 45 (8.57%) Jenkins

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 (1.33%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (0.95%) Apache Spark
2 5 (0.95%) Confluence
3 4 (0.76%) Apache
4 2 (0.38%) nginx
5 1 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.19%) SAS
5 1 (0.19%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.19%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (0.38%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.19%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 233 (44.38%) Azure
2 225 (42.86%) AWS
3 123 (23.43%) GCP
4 106 (20.19%) GitHub
5 68 (12.95%) GitHub Actions
6 53 (10.10%) Serverless
7 45 (8.57%) Azure DevOps
8 43 (8.19%) Entra ID
9 40 (7.62%) PaaS
10 39 (7.43%) AWS CloudFormation
11 37 (7.05%) Azure AKS
12 35 (6.67%) Amazon S3
13 34 (6.48%) IaaS
14 33 (6.29%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 32 (6.10%) Amazon EKS
16 30 (5.71%) AWS Lambda
17 27 (5.14%) Amazon ECS
18 22 (4.19%) Amazon EC2
18 22 (4.19%) OCI
18 22 (4.19%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 51 (9.71%) Firewall
2 25 (4.76%) DNS
3 21 (4.00%) Network Security
4 20 (3.81%) VPN
5 6 (1.14%) Reverse Proxy
6 5 (0.95%) DHCP
7 4 (0.76%) Software-Defined Networking
7 4 (0.76%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.57%) BGP
8 3 (0.57%) Cisco Firepower
8 3 (0.57%) SD-WAN
8 3 (0.57%) SMTP
8 3 (0.57%) WAN
9 2 (0.38%) Cisco IOS
9 2 (0.38%) DKIM
9 2 (0.38%) Kerberos
9 2 (0.38%) NGFW
9 2 (0.38%) NX-OS
9 2 (0.38%) SSL
9 2 (0.38%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.86%) Amazon Athena
2 12 (2.29%) BigQuery
3 11 (2.10%) DynamoDB
4 8 (1.52%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.33%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (1.33%) SQL Server
6 6 (1.14%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.14%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.95%) Data Lake
7 5 (0.95%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.76%) Amazon QuickSight
8 4 (0.76%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.76%) Power BI
9 3 (0.57%) Big Data
9 3 (0.57%) Metadata
9 3 (0.57%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.38%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.38%) Mixpanel
10 2 (0.38%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 45 (8.57%) Jenkins
2 39 (7.43%) Git
2 39 (7.43%) GitLab
3 8 (1.52%) JIRA
4 7 (1.33%) Artifactory
5 3 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
6 2 (0.38%) Liquibase
6 2 (0.38%) Postman
6 2 (0.38%) Robot Framework
6 2 (0.38%) Selenium
6 2 (0.38%) Spinnaker
7 1 (0.19%) Burp Suite
7 1 (0.19%) Chocolatey
7 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
7 1 (0.19%) Cypress.io
7 1 (0.19%) Metasploit
7 1 (0.19%) RStudio
7 1 (0.19%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.19%) sqlmap
7 1 (0.19%) Travis CI
General
1 71 (13.52%) Social Skills
2 59 (11.24%) Finance
3 44 (8.38%) Public Sector
4 20 (3.81%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (3.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 17 (3.24%) Banking
7 11 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (1.71%) Retail
9 6 (1.14%) Legal
9 6 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (0.95%) Aeronautics
10 5 (0.95%) Telecoms
11 4 (0.76%) Investment Banking
11 4 (0.76%) Marketing
11 4 (0.76%) Military
12 3 (0.57%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.57%) Police
13 2 (0.38%) Billing
13 2 (0.38%) Law
13 2 (0.38%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (4.00%) REST
2 19 (3.62%) Node.js
3 13 (2.48%) Kafka
3 13 (2.48%) React
4 12 (2.29%) Spring
5 11 (2.10%) OAuth
5 11 (2.10%) OpenTelemetry
5 11 (2.10%) Spring Boot
6 10 (1.90%) .NET
6 10 (1.90%) OAuth2
7 9 (1.71%) OpenID
8 8 (1.52%) Oracle Fusion
9 7 (1.33%) ARM Templates
9 7 (1.33%) Playwright
10 6 (1.14%) AngularJS
10 6 (1.14%) LangChain
10 6 (1.14%) Web Services
11 5 (0.95%) OpenAPI
11 5 (0.95%) PySpark
11 5 (0.95%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 90 (17.14%) Cloud Native
2 30 (5.71%) Public Cloud
3 21 (4.00%) Hybrid Cloud
4 17 (3.24%) Data Centre
5 12 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.10%) Onboarding
7 10 (1.90%) Product Ownership
7 10 (1.90%) Security Posture
8 9 (1.71%) Enterprise Cloud
9 7 (1.33%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.14%) Cyber Threat
10 6 (1.14%) Data Protection Act
10 6 (1.14%) Distributed Systems
11 5 (0.95%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.76%) Legacy Systems
12 4 (0.76%) Management Information System
12 4 (0.76%) PKI
13 3 (0.57%) Cloud Security Posture
13 3 (0.57%) CMDB
13 3 (0.57%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 42 (8.00%) Windows
2 27 (5.14%) Linux
3 21 (4.00%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (0.38%) Unix
5 2 (0.38%) VMS
6 1 (0.19%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 218 (41.52%) CI/CD
2 205 (39.05%) Infrastructure as Code
3 184 (35.05%) DevOps
4 105 (20.00%) Cloud Security
5 82 (15.62%) Platform Engineering
6 76 (14.48%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 75 (14.29%) Migration
8 70 (13.33%) Agile
9 69 (13.14%) Containerisation
10 53 (10.10%) AI
11 47 (8.95%) Continuous Improvement
11 47 (8.95%) Observability
12 44 (8.38%) Problem-Solving
13 42 (8.00%) DevSecOps
14 41 (7.81%) Cybersecurity
15 39 (7.43%) Infrastructure Automation
15 39 (7.43%) Software Engineering
16 34 (6.48%) Mentoring
17 30 (5.71%) Microservices
18 27 (5.14%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 121 (23.05%) Python
2 83 (15.81%) PowerShell
3 44 (8.38%) SQL
4 41 (7.81%) Bash
5 32 (6.10%) Bicep
6 27 (5.14%) Java
7 17 (3.24%) C#
8 11 (2.10%) TypeScript
9 9 (1.71%) Go
9 9 (1.71%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.76%) Groovy
11 3 (0.57%) BeanShell
12 2 (0.38%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.38%) Ruby
12 2 (0.38%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.19%) Cypher
13 1 (0.19%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 145 (27.62%) Security Cleared
2 122 (23.24%) SC Cleared
3 40 (7.62%) Azure Certification
4 25 (4.76%) AWS Certification
5 18 (3.43%) DV Cleared
6 15 (2.86%) Degree
7 14 (2.67%) Microsoft Certification
8 13 (2.48%) CISSP
9 12 (2.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 12 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (1.90%) Cisco Certification
11 8 (1.52%) Computer Science Degree
12 7 (1.33%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 6 (1.14%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 6 (1.14%) CISM
14 5 (0.95%) CCSP
14 5 (0.95%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.76%) MCSE
16 3 (0.57%) CCNP
16 3 (0.57%) OSCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.29%) GDPR
1 12 (2.29%) NIST
2 11 (2.10%) NCSC
3 10 (1.90%) QA
4 9 (1.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 7 (1.33%) PCI DSS
6 6 (1.14%) Data Quality
7 5 (0.95%) GRC
8 2 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.38%) SLA
8 2 (0.38%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.19%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.19%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.19%) WCAG
System Software
1 55 (10.48%) Docker
2 30 (5.71%) Active Directory
3 17 (3.24%) Virtual Desktop
4 14 (2.67%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (2.29%) VMware NSX
6 10 (1.90%) VMware Infrastructure
7 9 (1.71%) vSphere
8 7 (1.33%) Hyper-V
9 4 (0.76%) Firmware
9 4 (0.76%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.57%) Squid
10 3 (0.57%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 234 (44.57%) Terraform
2 124 (23.62%) Kubernetes
3 24 (4.57%) Grafana
3 24 (4.57%) Prometheus
4 20 (3.81%) Ansible
5 17 (3.24%) Istio
6 15 (2.86%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (2.67%) Argo
7 14 (2.67%) Single Sign-On
8 6 (1.14%) Packer
8 6 (1.14%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.95%) Progress Chef
9 5 (0.95%) Puppet
10 4 (0.76%) Cilium
10 4 (0.76%) Salt
11 3 (0.57%) SCOM
12 2 (0.38%) Suricata
13 1 (0.19%) Consul
13 1 (0.19%) Podman
13 1 (0.19%) SCCM
Vendors
1 92 (17.52%) Microsoft
2 91 (17.33%) Google
3 23 (4.38%) Oracle
4 21 (4.00%) VMware
5 12 (2.29%) Dynatrace
6 10 (1.90%) Databricks
7 9 (1.71%) ServiceNow
8 8 (1.52%) Cisco
9 7 (1.33%) Palo Alto
9 7 (1.33%) Salesforce
9 7 (1.33%) Zscaler
10 6 (1.14%) Splunk
11 5 (0.95%) Citrix
11 5 (0.95%) Fortinet
11 5 (0.95%) PeopleSoft
11 5 (0.95%) Rapid7
12 4 (0.76%) Okta
12 4 (0.76%) Ping Identity
12 4 (0.76%) Red Hat
12 4 (0.76%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud