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 8 April 2026.

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

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 245 306 300
Rank change year-on-year +61 -6 -47
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 484 231 319
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.06% 0.79% 0.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.15% 0.85% 0.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 327 174 220
10th Percentile £400 £386 £400
25th Percentile £450 £431 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £613 £623 £621
90th Percentile £691 £675 £689
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +4.40% -3.85% -0.95%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 4
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £25.13 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.25 - £30.00
75th Percentile £39.56 - £42.50
90th Percentile £48.08 - £60.50
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 42,201 27,101 40,725
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 92.74% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,267 17,830 26,650
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% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,670 965 2,551
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.00 £20.26 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £31.76 £34.21
Median % change year-on-year +25.94% -7.16% -23.98%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.68 £30.62 £35.00
% change year-on-year +36.14% -12.53% -17.38%

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 8 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 8 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 8 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 +35 397 £525 - 126
London +23 223 £525 - 47
UK excluding London +7 204 £522 +4.40% 95
Work from Home +5 117 £510 -2.86% 70
North of England -24 60 £500 +5.26% 33
South East -22 40 £522 -7.20% 29
Scotland +27 37 £513 -2.38% 5
Yorkshire -22 32 £491 +50.96% 13
Midlands -47 31 £670 +41.05% 8
North West -16 28 £513 +13.89% 17
West Midlands -48 25 £673 +14.47% 5
South West -15 22 £550 -4.35% 15
East of England -19 19 £510 +3.55% 5
East Midlands -31 6 £575 +21.05% 3
Wales -11 1 £425 +41.67% 1

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

For the 6 months to 8 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.

1 219 (45.25%) Terraform
2 214 (44.21%) AWS
3 201 (41.53%) Azure
3 201 (41.53%) CI/CD
4 190 (39.26%) Infrastructure as Code
5 176 (36.36%) DevOps
6 131 (27.07%) Security Cleared
7 123 (25.41%) GCP
8 122 (25.21%) Kubernetes
9 119 (24.59%) Python
10 105 (21.69%) GitHub
11 104 (21.49%) SC Cleared
12 99 (20.45%) Cloud Security
13 93 (19.21%) Google
14 87 (17.98%) Microsoft
15 82 (16.94%) Agile
16 74 (15.29%) Platform Engineering
17 73 (15.08%) Containerisation
18 69 (14.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 69 (14.26%) PowerShell
19 64 (13.22%) Migration
20 63 (13.02%) Docker
20 63 (13.02%) GitHub Actions
21 58 (11.98%) Serverless
22 53 (10.95%) Jenkins
23 50 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
24 48 (9.92%) Observability
25 46 (9.50%) Infrastructure Automation
26 44 (9.09%) AWS CloudFormation
26 44 (9.09%) Firewall

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 6 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (1.03%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.03%) Confluence
3 4 (0.83%) Apache
4 3 (0.62%) nginx
5 2 (0.41%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.21%) CMS
6 1 (0.21%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.21%) SAS
6 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
1 214 (44.21%) AWS
2 201 (41.53%) Azure
3 123 (25.41%) GCP
4 105 (21.69%) GitHub
5 63 (13.02%) GitHub Actions
6 58 (11.98%) Serverless
7 44 (9.09%) AWS CloudFormation
8 40 (8.26%) Azure DevOps
9 37 (7.64%) PaaS
10 36 (7.44%) Entra ID
11 34 (7.02%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 32 (6.61%) Amazon S3
12 32 (6.61%) Azure AKS
13 31 (6.40%) Amazon EKS
13 31 (6.40%) IaaS
14 28 (5.79%) AWS Lambda
15 26 (5.37%) Amazon ECS
16 20 (4.13%) SaaS
17 19 (3.93%) Microsoft 365
17 19 (3.93%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 44 (9.09%) Firewall
2 20 (4.13%) DNS
3 18 (3.72%) Network Security
4 16 (3.31%) VPN
5 9 (1.86%) Cisco Firepower
6 8 (1.65%) Cisco IOS
6 8 (1.65%) Cisco ISE
6 8 (1.65%) Junos
7 5 (1.03%) NX-OS
8 4 (0.83%) DHCP
8 4 (0.83%) Reverse Proxy
8 4 (0.83%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (0.62%) BGP
10 2 (0.41%) DKIM
10 2 (0.41%) SMTP
10 2 (0.41%) TCP/IP
10 2 (0.41%) Unified Communications
10 2 (0.41%) VLAN
11 1 (0.21%) LAN
11 1 (0.21%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (2.48%) Amazon Athena
2 12 (2.48%) NoSQL
3 10 (2.07%) BigQuery
3 10 (2.07%) DynamoDB
4 8 (1.65%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.45%) Power BI
6 6 (1.24%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.24%) Data Lake
7 5 (1.03%) Amazon Redshift
7 5 (1.03%) Big Data
8 4 (0.83%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.83%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (0.83%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.62%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.62%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.41%) Amazon QuickSight
10 2 (0.41%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.41%) Metadata
10 2 (0.41%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 53 (10.95%) Jenkins
2 40 (8.26%) GitLab
3 32 (6.61%) Git
4 6 (1.24%) JIRA
5 4 (0.83%) Liquibase
6 3 (0.62%) CircleCI
6 3 (0.62%) Postman
6 3 (0.62%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.41%) Artifactory
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%) Chocolatey
8 1 (0.21%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.21%) JUnit
8 1 (0.21%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.21%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.21%) sqlmap
8 1 (0.21%) Travis CI
General
1 73 (15.08%) Social Skills
2 66 (13.64%) Finance
3 42 (8.68%) Public Sector
4 21 (4.34%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (4.34%) Banking
5 17 (3.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
6 8 (1.65%) Retail
7 7 (1.45%) Aeronautics
8 6 (1.24%) Financial Institution
8 6 (1.24%) Legal
8 6 (1.24%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (1.24%) Telecoms
9 4 (0.83%) Investment Banking
10 3 (0.62%) Marketing
11 2 (0.41%) Billing
11 2 (0.41%) Local Government
11 2 (0.41%) Pharmaceutical
12 1 (0.21%) Corporate Banking
12 1 (0.21%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (6.82%) REST
2 24 (4.96%) Node.js
3 15 (3.10%) Elastic Stack
4 13 (2.69%) Kafka
5 11 (2.27%) OpenTelemetry
5 11 (2.27%) RESTful
6 10 (2.07%) React
7 9 (1.86%) .NET
7 9 (1.86%) ARM Templates
7 9 (1.86%) Oracle Fusion
7 9 (1.86%) Spring
7 9 (1.86%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.65%) OAuth
8 8 (1.65%) Playwright
8 8 (1.65%) SOAP
9 7 (1.45%) AngularJS
9 7 (1.45%) LangChain
9 7 (1.45%) NestJS
9 7 (1.45%) OpenAPI
9 7 (1.45%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 86 (17.77%) Cloud Native
2 39 (8.06%) Public Cloud
3 16 (3.31%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (2.69%) Data Centre
4 13 (2.69%) Distributed Systems
5 10 (2.07%) Product Ownership
6 9 (1.86%) PKI
6 9 (1.86%) Security Posture
7 7 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.24%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.24%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.24%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.03%) Enterprise Cloud
9 5 (1.03%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.83%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (0.62%) Cloud Security Posture
11 3 (0.62%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.62%) Replication
12 2 (0.41%) Clustering
12 2 (0.41%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 37 (7.64%) Linux
2 34 (7.02%) Windows
3 16 (3.31%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.03%) Unix
5 4 (0.83%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.83%) VMS
6 1 (0.21%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (41.53%) CI/CD
2 190 (39.26%) Infrastructure as Code
3 176 (36.36%) DevOps
4 99 (20.45%) Cloud Security
5 82 (16.94%) Agile
6 74 (15.29%) Platform Engineering
7 73 (15.08%) Containerisation
8 69 (14.26%) Infrastructure Engineering
9 64 (13.22%) Migration
10 50 (10.33%) Continuous Improvement
11 48 (9.92%) Observability
12 46 (9.50%) Infrastructure Automation
13 42 (8.68%) DevSecOps
14 40 (8.26%) AI
14 40 (8.26%) Problem-Solving
15 38 (7.85%) Microservices
16 36 (7.44%) Cybersecurity
16 36 (7.44%) Software Engineering
17 31 (6.40%) Mentoring
18 26 (5.37%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 119 (24.59%) Python
2 69 (14.26%) PowerShell
3 39 (8.06%) SQL
4 33 (6.82%) Bash
5 28 (5.79%) Java
6 25 (5.17%) Bicep
7 16 (3.31%) TypeScript
8 15 (3.10%) Go
9 12 (2.48%) C#
10 6 (1.24%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.83%) BeanShell
11 4 (0.83%) Groovy
11 4 (0.83%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.41%) Perl
12 2 (0.41%) Ruby
13 1 (0.21%) C
13 1 (0.21%) Cypher
13 1 (0.21%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.21%) R
Qualifications
1 131 (27.07%) Security Cleared
2 104 (21.49%) SC Cleared
3 41 (8.47%) Azure Certification
4 29 (5.99%) AWS Certification
5 25 (5.17%) DV Cleared
6 24 (4.96%) Degree
7 16 (3.31%) Microsoft Certification
8 15 (3.10%) Computer Science Degree
9 13 (2.69%) CISSP
10 12 (2.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 10 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (1.86%) Cisco Certification
12 9 (1.86%) Master's Degree
13 7 (1.45%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 7 (1.45%) CISM
14 6 (1.24%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 5 (1.03%) TOGAF Certification
16 4 (0.83%) CCSP
17 3 (0.62%) CCNP
17 3 (0.62%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (2.69%) GDPR
2 12 (2.48%) NCSC
2 12 (2.48%) NIST
3 10 (2.07%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 8 (1.65%) QA
5 6 (1.24%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.24%) PCI DSS
6 5 (1.03%) 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%) WCAG
System Software
1 63 (13.02%) Docker
2 25 (5.17%) Active Directory
3 14 (2.89%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (2.69%) VMware NSX
5 11 (2.27%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.45%) Hyper-V
7 6 (1.24%) Firmware
7 6 (1.24%) VMware Infrastructure
8 5 (1.03%) vSphere
9 1 (0.21%) Squid
Systems Management
1 219 (45.25%) Terraform
2 122 (25.21%) Kubernetes
3 29 (5.99%) Ansible
3 29 (5.99%) Prometheus
4 28 (5.79%) Grafana
5 19 (3.93%) Istio
6 14 (2.89%) Argo
7 12 (2.48%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (2.27%) Single Sign-On
9 9 (1.86%) vCenter Server
10 5 (1.03%) Packer
10 5 (1.03%) Progress Chef
11 4 (0.83%) Kibana
11 4 (0.83%) logstash
12 3 (0.62%) Podman
12 3 (0.62%) Puppet
13 2 (0.41%) Consul
13 2 (0.41%) Proxmox
13 2 (0.41%) Salt
13 2 (0.41%) SCCM
Vendors
1 93 (19.21%) Google
2 87 (17.98%) Microsoft
3 18 (3.72%) Oracle
4 14 (2.89%) Cisco
4 14 (2.89%) Splunk
5 11 (2.27%) Databricks
5 11 (2.27%) ServiceNow
5 11 (2.27%) VMware
6 10 (2.07%) Dynatrace
7 9 (1.86%) Juniper
8 8 (1.65%) SolarWinds
9 7 (1.45%) Ping Identity
10 6 (1.24%) Salesforce
11 5 (1.03%) Broadcom
11 5 (1.03%) Citrix
11 5 (1.03%) PeopleSoft
11 5 (1.03%) Rapid7
11 5 (1.03%) Zscaler
12 4 (0.83%) Palo Alto
12 4 (0.83%) Red Hat