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 1 April 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 246 298 304
Rank change year-on-year +52 +6 -52
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 483 233 328
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.08% 0.80% 0.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.17% 0.86% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 328 174 229
10th Percentile £400 £380 £400
25th Percentile £450 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £613 £618 £625
90th Percentile £702 £675 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 5
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £25.13 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.25 - £30.00
75th Percentile £39.56 - £72.50
90th Percentile £48.08 - £83.15
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 41,143 26,962 41,094
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.09% 92.84% 92.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,657 17,725 26,925
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.54%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,568 945 2,533
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.03 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.74 £20.94 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £32.90
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.20% -25.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.81 £71.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £32.90
% change year-on-year +25.94% -3.45% -21.68%

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 1 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 1 April 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 1 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 +31 393 £525 - 126
London +21 219 £525 - 47
UK excluding London +14 204 £525 +5.00% 95
Work from Home -10 116 £510 -0.49% 70
North of England -25 66 £506 +6.58% 33
Scotland +31 38 £513 -2.38% 5
Yorkshire -18 38 £500 +53.85% 13
South East -33 38 £522 -7.20% 29
Midlands -54 36 £575 +21.05% 8
West Midlands -36 31 £575 -2.13% 5
North West -26 28 £513 +13.89% 17
South West -9 21 £544 -5.43% 15
East of England -20 15 £505 +2.54% 5
East Midlands -37 5 £575 +23.13% 3
Wales -11 1 £425 +41.67% 1

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 220 (45.55%) Terraform
2 218 (45.13%) AWS
3 204 (42.24%) CI/CD
4 192 (39.75%) Infrastructure as Code
5 191 (39.54%) Azure
6 181 (37.47%) DevOps
7 129 (26.71%) GCP
8 127 (26.29%) Kubernetes
8 127 (26.29%) Python
8 127 (26.29%) Security Cleared
9 107 (22.15%) GitHub
10 97 (20.08%) SC Cleared
11 96 (19.88%) Google
12 93 (19.25%) Cloud Security
13 86 (17.81%) Agile
14 84 (17.39%) Microsoft
15 80 (16.56%) Containerisation
16 73 (15.11%) Platform Engineering
17 68 (14.08%) Docker
18 65 (13.46%) PowerShell
19 64 (13.25%) GitHub Actions
19 64 (13.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 64 (13.25%) Migration
20 63 (13.04%) Serverless
21 59 (12.22%) Jenkins
22 50 (10.35%) Infrastructure Automation
23 49 (10.14%) Continuous Improvement
24 47 (9.73%) Observability
25 45 (9.32%) GitLab
26 43 (8.90%) AWS CloudFormation

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 5 (1.04%) Apache
1 5 (1.04%) Apache Spark
1 5 (1.04%) Confluence
1 5 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
2 3 (0.62%) nginx
3 2 (0.41%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.21%) Apache Superset
4 1 (0.21%) CMS
4 1 (0.21%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.21%) SAS
4 1 (0.21%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (0.41%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.21%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 218 (45.13%) AWS
2 191 (39.54%) Azure
3 129 (26.71%) GCP
4 107 (22.15%) GitHub
5 64 (13.25%) GitHub Actions
6 63 (13.04%) Serverless
7 43 (8.90%) AWS CloudFormation
8 38 (7.87%) Azure DevOps
9 37 (7.66%) Entra ID
9 37 (7.66%) PaaS
10 33 (6.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 32 (6.63%) Amazon EKS
11 32 (6.63%) Amazon S3
12 31 (6.42%) IaaS
13 30 (6.21%) Azure AKS
14 28 (5.80%) AWS Lambda
15 26 (5.38%) Amazon ECS
16 21 (4.35%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (4.14%) SaaS
18 19 (3.93%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 43 (8.90%) Firewall
2 20 (4.14%) DNS
3 18 (3.73%) Network Security
4 17 (3.52%) VPN
5 10 (2.07%) Cisco Firepower
5 10 (2.07%) Cisco IOS
5 10 (2.07%) Cisco ISE
5 10 (2.07%) Junos
6 5 (1.04%) NX-OS
7 4 (0.83%) DHCP
7 4 (0.83%) Reverse Proxy
7 4 (0.83%) Software-Defined Networking
8 3 (0.62%) BGP
9 2 (0.41%) DKIM
9 2 (0.41%) TCP/IP
9 2 (0.41%) Unified Communications
9 2 (0.41%) VLAN
10 1 (0.21%) HTTP
10 1 (0.21%) SD-WAN
10 1 (0.21%) WireGuard
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (4.14%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (3.93%) NoSQL
3 12 (2.48%) Amazon Athena
4 11 (2.28%) BigQuery
5 10 (2.07%) DynamoDB
6 8 (1.66%) Amazon RDS
7 7 (1.45%) Power BI
8 6 (1.24%) Data Lake
9 5 (1.04%) Amazon Redshift
9 5 (1.04%) Azure SQL Database
9 5 (1.04%) Big Data
10 4 (0.83%) Data Warehouse
10 4 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
10 4 (0.83%) SQL Server
11 3 (0.62%) Oracle Database
11 3 (0.62%) Snowflake Schema
12 2 (0.41%) Amazon QuickSight
12 2 (0.41%) Delta Lake
12 2 (0.41%) Metadata
12 2 (0.41%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 59 (12.22%) Jenkins
2 45 (9.32%) GitLab
3 33 (6.83%) Git
4 7 (1.45%) JIRA
5 6 (1.24%) Liquibase
6 3 (0.62%) Postman
6 3 (0.62%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.41%) Artifactory
7 2 (0.41%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.41%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.41%) Selenium
7 2 (0.41%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.21%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.21%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.21%) JUnit
8 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.21%) RStudio
8 1 (0.21%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.21%) sqlmap
8 1 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 77 (15.94%) Social Skills
2 71 (14.70%) Finance
3 42 (8.70%) Public Sector
4 28 (5.80%) Banking
5 21 (4.35%) Analytical Skills
6 16 (3.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (2.28%) Financial Institution
8 9 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
9 8 (1.66%) Retail
10 7 (1.45%) Aeronautics
11 6 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
11 6 (1.24%) Telecoms
12 5 (1.04%) Legal
13 4 (0.83%) Investment Banking
14 3 (0.62%) Marketing
15 2 (0.41%) Billing
15 2 (0.41%) Local Government
15 2 (0.41%) Pharmaceutical
16 1 (0.21%) Front Office
16 1 (0.21%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (8.07%) REST
2 25 (5.18%) Node.js
3 20 (4.14%) Elastic Stack
4 16 (3.31%) RESTful
5 13 (2.69%) Kafka
6 12 (2.48%) React
7 11 (2.28%) OpenTelemetry
8 9 (1.86%) .NET
8 9 (1.86%) ARM Templates
8 9 (1.86%) OpenAPI
8 9 (1.86%) Oracle Fusion
8 9 (1.86%) Spring
8 9 (1.86%) Spring Boot
9 8 (1.66%) LangChain
9 8 (1.66%) OAuth
9 8 (1.66%) Playwright
9 8 (1.66%) SOAP
10 7 (1.45%) AngularJS
10 7 (1.45%) Lambda Expressions
10 7 (1.45%) NestJS
Miscellaneous
1 86 (17.81%) Cloud Native
2 43 (8.90%) Public Cloud
3 20 (4.14%) Distributed Systems
4 15 (3.11%) Hybrid Cloud
5 13 (2.69%) Data Centre
6 10 (2.07%) Product Ownership
7 9 (1.86%) PKI
8 8 (1.66%) Security Posture
9 7 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
9 7 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.24%) Cyber Threat
10 6 (1.24%) Onboarding
11 4 (0.83%) Enterprise Cloud
11 4 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (0.62%) Cloud Security Posture
12 3 (0.62%) Data Protection Act
12 3 (0.62%) Replication
12 3 (0.62%) Virtual Team
13 2 (0.41%) Analytical Mindset
13 2 (0.41%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 43 (8.90%) Linux
2 33 (6.83%) Windows
3 15 (3.11%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.66%) Unix
5 4 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.83%) VMS
6 1 (0.21%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (0.21%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.21%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 204 (42.24%) CI/CD
2 192 (39.75%) Infrastructure as Code
3 181 (37.47%) DevOps
4 93 (19.25%) Cloud Security
5 86 (17.81%) Agile
6 80 (16.56%) Containerisation
7 73 (15.11%) Platform Engineering
8 64 (13.25%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 64 (13.25%) Migration
9 50 (10.35%) Infrastructure Automation
10 49 (10.14%) Continuous Improvement
11 47 (9.73%) Observability
12 42 (8.70%) Microservices
13 40 (8.28%) DevSecOps
14 39 (8.07%) Cybersecurity
15 38 (7.87%) Problem-Solving
16 37 (7.66%) AI
16 37 (7.66%) Software Engineering
17 30 (6.21%) Cost Optimisation
17 30 (6.21%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 127 (26.29%) Python
2 65 (13.46%) PowerShell
3 40 (8.28%) SQL
4 33 (6.83%) Bash
5 29 (6.00%) Java
6 25 (5.18%) Bicep
7 21 (4.35%) Go
8 17 (3.52%) TypeScript
9 11 (2.28%) C#
10 8 (1.66%) JavaScript
11 6 (1.24%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.83%) BeanShell
12 4 (0.83%) Groovy
13 2 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.41%) Perl
13 2 (0.41%) Ruby
14 1 (0.21%) C
14 1 (0.21%) Cypher
14 1 (0.21%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.21%) R
Qualifications
1 127 (26.29%) Security Cleared
2 97 (20.08%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.70%) Azure Certification
4 31 (6.42%) Degree
5 30 (6.21%) AWS Certification
6 27 (5.59%) DV Cleared
7 21 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
8 16 (3.31%) Microsoft Certification
9 15 (3.11%) Master's Degree
10 13 (2.69%) CISSP
11 12 (2.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 10 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
12 10 (2.07%) Cisco Certification
13 7 (1.45%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 7 (1.45%) CISM
14 6 (1.24%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 5 (1.04%) CCSP
15 5 (1.04%) TOGAF Certification
16 3 (0.62%) AWS Certified Developer
16 3 (0.62%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.90%) GDPR
2 13 (2.69%) NCSC
3 11 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 11 (2.28%) NIST
4 8 (1.66%) QA
5 6 (1.24%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.24%) PCI DSS
6 5 (1.04%) GRC
7 4 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.62%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.41%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.41%) SLA
10 1 (0.21%) Accessibility
10 1 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.21%) FedRAMP
10 1 (0.21%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.21%) WCAG
System Software
1 68 (14.08%) Docker
2 27 (5.59%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.69%) Virtual Desktop
3 13 (2.69%) VMware NSX
4 11 (2.28%) Virtual Machines
5 7 (1.45%) Hyper-V
6 6 (1.24%) Firmware
6 6 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
7 3 (0.62%) vSphere
8 1 (0.21%) Squid
Systems Management
1 220 (45.55%) Terraform
2 127 (26.29%) Kubernetes
3 34 (7.04%) Ansible
4 33 (6.83%) Prometheus
5 32 (6.63%) Grafana
6 19 (3.93%) Istio
7 15 (3.11%) Argo
8 11 (2.28%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (2.28%) Single Sign-On
8 11 (2.28%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.04%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.83%) Kibana
10 4 (0.83%) logstash
10 4 (0.83%) Packer
11 3 (0.62%) Podman
11 3 (0.62%) Puppet
12 2 (0.41%) Consul
12 2 (0.41%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.41%) Salt
12 2 (0.41%) SCCM
Vendors
1 96 (19.88%) Google
2 84 (17.39%) Microsoft
3 19 (3.93%) Splunk
4 18 (3.73%) Oracle
5 15 (3.11%) Cisco
6 11 (2.28%) Databricks
6 11 (2.28%) Juniper
6 11 (2.28%) ServiceNow
7 10 (2.07%) Dynatrace
7 10 (2.07%) SolarWinds
8 9 (1.86%) VMware
9 7 (1.45%) Ping Identity
10 6 (1.24%) Salesforce
11 5 (1.04%) Broadcom
11 5 (1.04%) Citrix
11 5 (1.04%) MuleSoft
11 5 (1.04%) PeopleSoft
11 5 (1.04%) Rapid7
12 4 (0.83%) Red Hat
12 4 (0.83%) Zscaler