Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £513, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 14 October 2026.

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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 199 291 324
Rank change year-on-year +92 +33 -83
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 818 292 240
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.48% 0.88% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.61% 0.97% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 527 218 142
10th Percentile £406 £400 £386
25th Percentile £450 £438 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £588 £575 £638
90th Percentile £678 £645 £711
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £500
% change year-on-year +2.00% - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 7 0
10th Percentile £22.69 £29.00 -
25th Percentile £23.20 £29.50 -
Median hourly rate £76.00 £45.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +68.89% - -
75th Percentile £81.25 £86.25 -
90th Percentile - £110.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.47 - -

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 50,840 30,143 34,861
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.99% 90.86% 93.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,838 19,043 21,029
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,127 1,648 1,435
10th Percentile £14.36 £13.75 £15.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £41.27
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -39.05% -8.30%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.08 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.18% -4.49%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 14 October 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 +94 718 £525 +5.00% 1,308
UK excluding London +92 450 £510 +2.00% 705
London +39 311 £525 +2.44% 639
Work from Home +33 223 £538 +7.60% 522
North of England +25 150 £510 +7.37% 180
South East +18 137 £538 +7.50% 133
North West +19 89 £513 +20.59% 105
Midlands +6 83 £500 -4.76% 90
Yorkshire -6 50 £450 -13.46% 43
East Midlands +21 48 £500 +5.26% 42
Scotland +3 47 £428 -18.57% 86
West Midlands -29 34 £525 - 48
East of England -21 14 £475 +10.14% 76
South West -25 14 £538 -2.27% 82
North East -35 11 £525 +14.13% 32
Wales -7 7 - - 26

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

For the 6 months to 14 October 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.

1 391 (47.80%) Azure
2 319 (39.00%) Terraform
3 292 (35.70%) Infrastructure as Code
4 275 (33.62%) CI/CD
5 265 (32.40%) AWS
6 212 (25.92%) DevOps
7 211 (25.79%) Kubernetes
8 200 (24.45%) Python
8 200 (24.45%) Security Cleared
9 197 (24.08%) Microsoft
10 179 (21.88%) PowerShell
11 178 (21.76%) Cloud Security
12 167 (20.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
13 162 (19.80%) GCP
14 153 (18.70%) Platform Engineering
15 141 (17.24%) SC Cleared
16 138 (16.87%) Entra ID
17 123 (15.04%) Windows
18 114 (13.94%) Active Directory
19 111 (13.57%) Google
20 105 (12.84%) Migration
21 104 (12.71%) AI
22 96 (11.74%) Observability
23 91 (11.12%) Containerisation
23 91 (11.12%) GitHub
24 90 (11.00%) Firewall
25 88 (10.76%) Agile
25 88 (10.76%) DNS
26 83 (10.15%) Bash
27 82 (10.02%) Linux

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 17 (2.08%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (1.47%) Apache
3 10 (1.22%) SharePoint
4 8 (0.98%) Apache Airflow
5 7 (0.86%) Confluence
6 5 (0.61%) nginx
7 3 (0.37%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.37%) IIS
7 3 (0.37%) OpenStack
7 3 (0.37%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.24%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.24%) Traefik
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
1 1 (0.12%) iTrent
Cloud Services
1 391 (47.80%) Azure
2 265 (32.40%) AWS
3 162 (19.80%) GCP
4 138 (16.87%) Entra ID
5 91 (11.12%) GitHub
6 63 (7.70%) IaaS
7 60 (7.33%) GitHub Actions
8 58 (7.09%) Azure DevOps
9 50 (6.11%) Microsoft 365
9 50 (6.11%) Serverless
10 48 (5.87%) AWS CloudFormation
11 47 (5.75%) Azure Monitor
12 42 (5.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 42 (5.13%) PaaS
13 40 (4.89%) Azure AKS
14 38 (4.65%) Amazon EKS
15 37 (4.52%) AWS Lambda
16 34 (4.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 31 (3.79%) OCI
18 29 (3.55%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 90 (11.00%) Firewall
2 88 (10.76%) DNS
3 46 (5.62%) Network Security
4 42 (5.13%) VPN
5 21 (2.57%) DHCP
6 20 (2.44%) WAN
7 18 (2.20%) TCP/IP
8 15 (1.83%) Internet
9 9 (1.10%) SD-WAN
9 9 (1.10%) VSAN
10 7 (0.86%) NGFW
10 7 (0.86%) VLAN
11 6 (0.73%) BGP
12 5 (0.61%) Kerberos
13 4 (0.49%) LAN
13 4 (0.49%) Reverse Proxy
13 4 (0.49%) SAN
13 4 (0.49%) SSL
13 4 (0.49%) Wireless
14 3 (0.37%) Cisco ISE
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (3.79%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.57%) Amazon RDS
3 18 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
4 14 (1.71%) Data Lake
5 12 (1.47%) BigQuery
6 10 (1.22%) NoSQL
7 9 (1.10%) DynamoDB
8 8 (0.98%) Oracle Exadata
9 6 (0.73%) Azure SQL Database
9 6 (0.73%) Oracle Database
10 5 (0.61%) MongoDB
11 4 (0.49%) Amazon Athena
11 4 (0.49%) Metadata
11 4 (0.49%) MySQL
11 4 (0.49%) Redis
12 3 (0.37%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.37%) Elasticsearch
12 3 (0.37%) Flink
12 3 (0.37%) Looker
12 3 (0.37%) Oracle Database 12c
Development Applications
1 51 (6.23%) Jenkins
2 50 (6.11%) GitLab
3 37 (4.52%) Git
4 17 (2.08%) JIRA
5 8 (0.98%) Claude Code
6 6 (0.73%) Artifactory
6 6 (0.73%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.49%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.24%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.24%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.24%) Gatling
8 2 (0.24%) JMeter
8 2 (0.24%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.12%) eggPlant
9 1 (0.12%) LoadRunner
9 1 (0.12%) Selenium
9 1 (0.12%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.12%) Spinnaker
9 1 (0.12%) TestRail
General
1 104 (12.71%) Finance
2 87 (10.64%) Social Skills
3 77 (9.41%) Public Sector
4 36 (4.40%) Banking
5 35 (4.28%) Analytical Skills
6 11 (1.34%) Manufacturing
7 9 (1.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (0.98%) Legal
9 6 (0.73%) Front Office
9 6 (0.73%) Investment Banking
10 5 (0.61%) Local Government
10 5 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.37%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.37%) Aviation
11 3 (0.37%) Digital Health
11 3 (0.37%) Digital Healthcare
11 3 (0.37%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.37%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 319 (39.00%) Terraform
2 27 (3.30%) REST
3 20 (2.44%) ARM Templates
4 16 (1.96%) Kafka
4 16 (1.96%) OAuth
5 14 (1.71%) OAuth2
6 12 (1.47%) OpenID
7 11 (1.34%) Spring
7 11 (1.34%) Spring Boot
8 9 (1.10%) AWS CDK
8 9 (1.10%) Node.js
8 9 (1.10%) YAML
9 8 (0.98%) .NET
9 8 (0.98%) React
10 6 (0.73%) FastAPI
10 6 (0.73%) Flask
10 6 (0.73%) Keycloak
10 6 (0.73%) OpenTelemetry
11 5 (0.61%) Azure Blueprints
12 4 (0.49%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 128 (15.65%) Cloud Native
2 61 (7.46%) Security Posture
3 47 (5.75%) Enterprise Cloud
4 42 (5.13%) Hybrid Cloud
5 32 (3.91%) Cloud Security Posture
6 31 (3.79%) Onboarding
7 28 (3.42%) Data Centre
8 26 (3.18%) Enterprise Software
9 21 (2.57%) Distributed Systems
10 20 (2.44%) Management Information System
11 18 (2.20%) Public Cloud
12 14 (1.71%) Private Cloud
13 13 (1.59%) Product Ownership
14 12 (1.47%) Linux Command Line
15 10 (1.22%) PKI
16 9 (1.10%) AI Agents
17 8 (0.98%) Data Protection Act
18 6 (0.73%) Distributed Architecture
18 6 (0.73%) Replication
19 5 (0.61%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 123 (15.04%) Windows
2 82 (10.02%) Linux
3 61 (7.46%) Windows Server
4 32 (3.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (1.83%) Windows Server 2019
6 9 (1.10%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.98%) VMS
8 3 (0.37%) CentOS
9 2 (0.24%) Data ONTAP
9 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.12%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 292 (35.70%) Infrastructure as Code
2 275 (33.62%) CI/CD
3 212 (25.92%) DevOps
4 178 (21.76%) Cloud Security
5 167 (20.42%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 153 (18.70%) Platform Engineering
7 105 (12.84%) Migration
8 104 (12.71%) AI
9 96 (11.74%) Observability
10 91 (11.12%) Containerisation
11 88 (10.76%) Agile
12 69 (8.44%) Infrastructure Automation
13 65 (7.95%) Cybersecurity
13 65 (7.95%) Technical Leadership
14 62 (7.58%) Deployment Automation
14 62 (7.58%) RBAC
14 62 (7.58%) Software Engineering
15 57 (6.97%) Continuous Improvement
16 56 (6.85%) Problem-Solving
17 55 (6.72%) DevSecOps
Programming Languages
1 200 (24.45%) Python
2 179 (21.88%) PowerShell
3 83 (10.15%) Bash
4 80 (9.78%) Bicep
5 71 (8.68%) SQL
6 37 (4.52%) Java
7 17 (2.08%) Shell Script
8 14 (1.71%) C#
9 11 (1.34%) Go
9 11 (1.34%) JavaScript
10 6 (0.73%) Kotlin
11 4 (0.49%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.37%) C
12 3 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
12 3 (0.37%) Scala
13 2 (0.24%) Groovy
14 1 (0.12%) Apex Code
14 1 (0.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.12%) R
14 1 (0.12%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 200 (24.45%) Security Cleared
2 141 (17.24%) SC Cleared
3 69 (8.44%) DV Cleared
4 48 (5.87%) Azure Certification
5 45 (5.50%) AWS Certification
6 39 (4.77%) Degree
7 23 (2.81%) Microsoft Certification
8 18 (2.20%) CISSP
9 13 (1.59%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (0.98%) BPSS Clearance
10 8 (0.98%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (0.98%) MCSE
11 7 (0.86%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
12 6 (0.73%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 6 (0.73%) CCNP
12 6 (0.73%) CISM
12 6 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
13 3 (0.37%) CCIE
13 3 (0.37%) CEH
13 3 (0.37%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (2.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 14 (1.71%) Data Quality
3 13 (1.59%) NIST
4 8 (0.98%) GDPR
5 6 (0.73%) Cyber Essentials
5 6 (0.73%) NCSC
5 6 (0.73%) QA
6 4 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
6 4 (0.49%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.24%) SLA
9 1 (0.12%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.12%) GRC
System Software
1 114 (13.94%) Active Directory
2 81 (9.90%) Docker
3 53 (6.48%) VMware Infrastructure
4 47 (5.75%) Virtual Machines
5 35 (4.28%) VMware ESXi
6 25 (3.06%) VMware NSX
7 21 (2.57%) Virtual Desktop
8 20 (2.44%) vSphere
9 15 (1.83%) vCloud
10 11 (1.34%) Hyper-V
11 6 (0.73%) Squid
12 5 (0.61%) Firmware
13 4 (0.49%) NFS
14 3 (0.37%) Ceph
14 3 (0.37%) Dovecot
14 3 (0.37%) Postfix
15 2 (0.24%) IAG
15 2 (0.24%) KVM
15 2 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
16 1 (0.12%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 211 (25.79%) Kubernetes
2 52 (6.36%) Ansible
3 31 (3.79%) vCenter Server
4 28 (3.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 27 (3.30%) Grafana
5 27 (3.30%) SCOM
6 21 (2.57%) Prometheus
7 19 (2.32%) Progress Chef
8 15 (1.83%) Single Sign-On
9 12 (1.47%) Puppet
10 11 (1.34%) Istio
11 7 (0.86%) Argo
11 7 (0.86%) Cilium
12 5 (0.61%) HAProxy
12 5 (0.61%) VxRail
13 4 (0.49%) Packer
13 4 (0.49%) Suricata
14 3 (0.37%) FortiGate
14 3 (0.37%) Karpenter
14 3 (0.37%) vRealize
Vendors
1 197 (24.08%) Microsoft
2 111 (13.57%) Google
3 75 (9.17%) VMware
4 38 (4.65%) Oracle
5 31 (3.79%) Databricks
6 20 (2.44%) Red Hat
7 19 (2.32%) Okta
8 17 (2.08%) Palo Alto
9 16 (1.96%) SolarWinds
10 15 (1.83%) Zscaler
11 14 (1.71%) Splunk
12 13 (1.59%) Broadcom
12 13 (1.59%) Cisco
12 13 (1.59%) OpenAI
13 12 (1.47%) ServiceNow
14 9 (1.10%) CrowdStrike
14 9 (1.10%) Dynatrace
14 9 (1.10%) New Relic
14 9 (1.10%) Salesforce
15 8 (0.98%) BeyondTrust