Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £523, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 July 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 211 296 330
Rank change year-on-year +85 +34 -60
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 652 262 279
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.25% 0.82% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.35% 0.90% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 422 195 192
10th Percentile £393 £401 £386
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.50% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £613 £575 £625
90th Percentile £688 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +2.00% -1.96% -7.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 3 3
10th Percentile £71.00 £32.50 -
25th Percentile £73.75 £36.25 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £45.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.11% +50.00% -
75th Percentile £81.25 £55.00 £32.50
90th Percentile £84.63 £59.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.50 - £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 48,135 29,273 40,238
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.45% 91.98% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,133 18,680 25,890
10th Percentile £325 £287 £285
25th Percentile £417 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,254 1,329 2,797
10th Percentile £15.75 £13.75 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.14 £17.44 £16.65
Median hourly rate £42.59 £26.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.03% -29.47% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.25 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.25 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +76.94% -37.13% +1.14%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +81 547 £525 +5.00% 203
London +48 298 £525 - 61
UK excluding London +31 290 £510 +2.00% 181
Work from Home +1 170 £538 +7.60% 124
North of England -19 81 £500 +11.11% 46
South East -23 74 £538 +7.50% 45
Scotland +20 52 £449 -14.48% 20
Midlands -27 45 £513 +7.89% 31
North West -19 40 £475 +14.87% 28
Yorkshire -18 34 £475 -2.56% 13
West Midlands -40 26 £525 - 15
East of England -10 22 £505 +60.32% 11
East Midlands -6 18 £450 -5.26% 16
South West -26 15 £550 -2.22% 20
North East -40 7 £525 +5.00% 5
Wales -15 3 - - 8

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

For the 6 months to 7 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.

1 298 (45.71%) Azure
2 291 (44.63%) Terraform
3 280 (42.94%) AWS
4 252 (38.65%) CI/CD
5 236 (36.20%) Infrastructure as Code
6 206 (31.60%) DevOps
7 168 (25.77%) Python
8 163 (25.00%) Security Cleared
9 147 (22.55%) GCP
10 145 (22.24%) Kubernetes
11 141 (21.63%) Cloud Security
12 128 (19.63%) SC Cleared
13 127 (19.48%) Microsoft
14 124 (19.02%) Platform Engineering
15 118 (18.10%) PowerShell
16 113 (17.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 103 (15.80%) Google
18 100 (15.34%) GitHub
19 92 (14.11%) Windows
20 91 (13.96%) Migration
21 82 (12.58%) AI
21 82 (12.58%) Containerisation
22 78 (11.96%) Agile
23 70 (10.74%) Docker
24 69 (10.58%) Firewall
25 65 (9.97%) Active Directory
25 65 (9.97%) Entra ID
26 64 (9.82%) Observability
27 63 (9.66%) DNS
27 63 (9.66%) Serverless

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 (1.84%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (1.07%) Confluence
3 6 (0.92%) Apache
4 5 (0.77%) nginx
5 4 (0.61%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.46%) Apache Spark
6 3 (0.46%) IIS
6 3 (0.46%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.31%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.31%) CloudStack
8 1 (0.15%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.15%) SAS
8 1 (0.15%) Traefik
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 298 (45.71%) Azure
2 280 (42.94%) AWS
3 147 (22.55%) GCP
4 100 (15.34%) GitHub
5 65 (9.97%) Entra ID
6 63 (9.66%) Serverless
7 62 (9.51%) GitHub Actions
8 47 (7.21%) Azure AKS
9 46 (7.06%) Amazon S3
10 45 (6.90%) AWS CloudFormation
11 41 (6.29%) Azure DevOps
12 40 (6.13%) AWS Lambda
12 40 (6.13%) IaaS
12 40 (6.13%) PaaS
13 36 (5.52%) Amazon EC2
13 36 (5.52%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 35 (5.37%) Amazon ECS
15 34 (5.21%) Amazon EKS
15 34 (5.21%) Google Kubernetes Engine
16 30 (4.60%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 69 (10.58%) Firewall
2 63 (9.66%) DNS
3 36 (5.52%) VPN
4 27 (4.14%) Network Security
5 15 (2.30%) WAN
6 13 (1.99%) DHCP
6 13 (1.99%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.92%) Reverse Proxy
7 6 (0.92%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.77%) BGP
8 5 (0.77%) Internet
8 5 (0.77%) SSL
8 5 (0.77%) VLAN
9 4 (0.61%) LAN
9 4 (0.61%) Software-Defined Networking
10 3 (0.46%) IPv4
10 3 (0.46%) OSPF
10 3 (0.46%) SAN
10 3 (0.46%) SMTP
11 2 (0.31%) HTTPS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.37%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.61%) Amazon RDS
3 14 (2.15%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (1.99%) Amazon Athena
4 13 (1.99%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.07%) BigQuery
6 6 (0.92%) Amazon Redshift
6 6 (0.92%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (0.77%) Data Lake
7 5 (0.77%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.61%) Amazon QuickSight
9 3 (0.46%) Big Data
9 3 (0.46%) Metadata
9 3 (0.46%) MySQL
9 3 (0.46%) Oracle Database 12c
9 3 (0.46%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.31%) Redis
11 1 (0.15%) Data Warehouse
11 1 (0.15%) Neo4j
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 52 (7.98%) Jenkins
2 45 (6.90%) GitLab
3 43 (6.60%) Git
4 17 (2.61%) JIRA
5 10 (1.53%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.77%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.46%) Claude Code
7 3 (0.46%) Selenium
7 3 (0.46%) Team Foundation Server
8 2 (0.31%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.31%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.31%) Liquibase
8 2 (0.31%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
9 1 (0.15%) Chocolatey
9 1 (0.15%) CircleCI
9 1 (0.15%) Gatling
9 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.15%) sqlmap
9 1 (0.15%) TestRail
General
1 78 (11.96%) Social Skills
2 76 (11.66%) Finance
3 59 (9.05%) Public Sector
4 25 (3.83%) Banking
5 21 (3.22%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (1.38%) Investment Banking
8 6 (0.92%) Legal
9 5 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (0.77%) Retail
10 4 (0.61%) Law
10 4 (0.61%) Military
11 3 (0.46%) Corporate Banking
11 3 (0.46%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.46%) Local Government
11 3 (0.46%) Police
11 3 (0.46%) Retail Banking
12 2 (0.31%) International Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (3.83%) REST
2 14 (2.15%) Node.js
3 13 (1.99%) OAuth
3 13 (1.99%) OAuth2
4 10 (1.53%) ARM Templates
5 9 (1.38%) .NET
5 9 (1.38%) Kafka
5 9 (1.38%) React
5 9 (1.38%) Spring
5 9 (1.38%) Spring Boot
6 7 (1.07%) AWS CDK
6 7 (1.07%) Model Context Protocol
6 7 (1.07%) OpenID
7 6 (0.92%) YAML
8 5 (0.77%) Playwright
9 4 (0.61%) FastAPI
9 4 (0.61%) Jest
9 4 (0.61%) OpenTelemetry
9 4 (0.61%) PySpark
9 4 (0.61%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 119 (18.25%) Cloud Native
2 35 (5.37%) Hybrid Cloud
3 29 (4.45%) Security Posture
4 26 (3.99%) Public Cloud
5 22 (3.37%) Data Centre
5 22 (3.37%) Enterprise Cloud
6 21 (3.22%) Onboarding
7 15 (2.30%) Distributed Systems
7 15 (2.30%) Enterprise Software
8 14 (2.15%) Cloud Security Posture
9 13 (1.99%) Management Information System
10 9 (1.38%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
12 7 (1.07%) Linux Command Line
12 7 (1.07%) Product Ownership
13 6 (0.92%) Legacy Systems
14 5 (0.77%) Private Cloud
15 4 (0.61%) Cyber Threat
15 4 (0.61%) PKI
15 4 (0.61%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 92 (14.11%) Windows
2 55 (8.44%) Linux
3 51 (7.82%) Windows Server
4 21 (3.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.23%) Ubuntu
6 7 (1.07%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.46%) CentOS
7 3 (0.46%) VMS
8 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (38.65%) CI/CD
2 236 (36.20%) Infrastructure as Code
3 206 (31.60%) DevOps
4 141 (21.63%) Cloud Security
5 124 (19.02%) Platform Engineering
6 113 (17.33%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 91 (13.96%) Migration
8 82 (12.58%) AI
8 82 (12.58%) Containerisation
9 78 (11.96%) Agile
10 64 (9.82%) Observability
11 52 (7.98%) Problem-Solving
11 52 (7.98%) Technical Leadership
12 50 (7.67%) Infrastructure Automation
12 50 (7.67%) Software Engineering
13 47 (7.21%) Continuous Improvement
14 39 (5.98%) Cybersecurity
14 39 (5.98%) DevSecOps
15 38 (5.83%) Mentoring
16 36 (5.52%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 168 (25.77%) Python
2 118 (18.10%) PowerShell
3 62 (9.51%) Bash
4 54 (8.28%) SQL
5 47 (7.21%) Bicep
6 33 (5.06%) Java
7 16 (2.45%) C#
8 12 (1.84%) JavaScript
9 10 (1.53%) Go
9 10 (1.53%) TypeScript
10 6 (0.92%) Groovy
11 5 (0.77%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.31%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.31%) R
12 2 (0.31%) Ruby
13 1 (0.15%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.15%) Cypher
13 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.15%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.15%) Perl
Qualifications
1 163 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 128 (19.63%) SC Cleared
3 43 (6.60%) Azure Certification
4 42 (6.44%) DV Cleared
5 37 (5.67%) AWS Certification
6 21 (3.22%) Degree
7 17 (2.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 14 (2.15%) CISSP
8 14 (2.15%) Microsoft Certification
9 12 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
10 9 (1.38%) Computer Science Degree
11 8 (1.23%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 7 (1.07%) CCNP
13 6 (0.92%) BPSS Clearance
13 6 (0.92%) MCSE
14 5 (0.77%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 4 (0.61%) CCIE
15 4 (0.61%) CCSP
16 3 (0.46%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
16 3 (0.46%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.15%) NIST
2 10 (1.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 9 (1.38%) GDPR
4 8 (1.23%) QA
5 7 (1.07%) NCSC
6 6 (0.92%) Data Quality
6 6 (0.92%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.31%) SLA
9 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.15%) GRC
9 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 70 (10.74%) Docker
2 65 (9.97%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 25 (3.83%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (3.22%) VMware ESXi
6 20 (3.07%) VMware NSX
7 15 (2.30%) Virtual Desktop
7 15 (2.30%) vSphere
8 12 (1.84%) vCloud
9 11 (1.69%) Hyper-V
10 7 (1.07%) Squid
11 4 (0.61%) Firmware
12 3 (0.46%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.46%) NFS
12 3 (0.46%) Postfix
13 2 (0.31%) Ceph
13 2 (0.31%) KVM
Systems Management
1 291 (44.63%) Terraform
2 145 (22.24%) Kubernetes
3 47 (7.21%) Ansible
4 25 (3.83%) Grafana
5 24 (3.68%) Prometheus
6 22 (3.37%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (2.76%) vCenter Server
8 16 (2.45%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (2.45%) SCOM
9 14 (2.15%) Progress Chef
10 13 (1.99%) Puppet
11 9 (1.38%) Istio
11 9 (1.38%) Packer
12 7 (1.07%) Argo
13 6 (0.92%) Cilium
14 4 (0.61%) HAProxy
14 4 (0.61%) Salt
14 4 (0.61%) Suricata
15 3 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 3 (0.46%) vRealize
Vendors
1 127 (19.48%) Microsoft
2 103 (15.80%) Google
3 47 (7.21%) VMware
4 26 (3.99%) Oracle
5 17 (2.61%) Zscaler
6 15 (2.30%) Red Hat
7 13 (1.99%) Palo Alto
7 13 (1.99%) ServiceNow
8 11 (1.69%) Okta
9 10 (1.53%) Cisco
10 9 (1.38%) Dynatrace
10 9 (1.38%) Salesforce
11 8 (1.23%) CrowdStrike
12 7 (1.07%) Databricks
12 7 (1.07%) Fortinet
12 7 (1.07%) OpenAI
12 7 (1.07%) Splunk
13 5 (0.77%) Citrix
13 5 (0.77%) Rapid7
13 5 (0.77%) SolarWinds