Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £524, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 January 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 268 302 251
Rank change year-on-year +34 -51 -10
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 367 229 419
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.00% 0.73% 0.98%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.10% 0.79% 1.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 270 140 296
10th Percentile £402 £380 £425
25th Percentile £454 £444 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £524 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £600 £641 £638
90th Percentile £705 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £500 £538
% change year-on-year +4.50% -7.07% +2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 0 3
10th Percentile £25.13 - £35.50
25th Percentile £27.06 - £47.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 - £70.00
75th Percentile £81.88 - £81.38
90th Percentile £110.00 - £86.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £59.25

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 33,423 29,063 39,970
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.34% 92.68% 93.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,125 17,795 26,676
10th Percentile £300 £289 £280
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £500
% change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,961 876 1,672
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.49 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.03 £18.93
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +26.87%
75th Percentile £60.00 £61.69 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £76.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.62 £45.00
% change year-on-year -17.85% -31.97% +64.38%

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 13 January 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 13 January 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 13 January 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 +11 301 £525 - 136
UK excluding London +49 177 £522 +4.50% 106
London -17 145 £525 -4.55% 57
Work from Home +3 83 £491 -3.80% 82
North of England -29 53 £500 +21.21% 17
South East +13 45 £500 -13.04% 46
Midlands -23 39 £575 +21.05% 11
West Midlands -13 33 £575 -11.54% 7
Yorkshire -20 32 £513 +24.24% 4
Scotland +27 27 £525 +5.00% 5
North West -17 21 £450 - 13
South West -11 15 £538 -6.52% 14
East of England -13 10 £438 -12.50% 8
East Midlands -19 6 £575 +27.78% 3
Wales -4 1 £425 +41.67% 4

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

For the 6 months to 13 January 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.

1 162 (44.14%) AWS
2 155 (42.23%) DevOps
3 154 (41.96%) CI/CD
4 152 (41.42%) Terraform
5 150 (40.87%) Azure
6 143 (38.96%) Infrastructure as Code
7 113 (30.79%) Security Cleared
8 112 (30.52%) Python
9 105 (28.61%) Kubernetes
10 89 (24.25%) GCP
11 84 (22.89%) GitHub
12 74 (20.16%) SC Cleared
13 71 (19.35%) Containerisation
14 69 (18.80%) Agile
15 62 (16.89%) Docker
16 61 (16.62%) Microsoft
17 59 (16.08%) GitHub Actions
18 58 (15.80%) Jenkins
19 55 (14.99%) Cloud Security
19 55 (14.99%) Google
20 51 (13.90%) Serverless
21 45 (12.26%) GitLab
22 43 (11.72%) Linux
23 41 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
23 41 (11.17%) REST
24 40 (10.90%) Infrastructure Automation
25 39 (10.63%) PowerShell
26 38 (10.35%) Ansible
27 36 (9.81%) Azure Certification
27 36 (9.81%) DV Cleared

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 (1.63%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.36%) Apache
2 5 (1.36%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (0.54%) Confluence
4 2 (0.54%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.27%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.27%) CMS
5 1 (0.27%) Headless CMS
5 1 (0.27%) nginx
5 1 (0.27%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.54%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 162 (44.14%) AWS
2 150 (40.87%) Azure
3 89 (24.25%) GCP
4 84 (22.89%) GitHub
5 59 (16.08%) GitHub Actions
6 51 (13.90%) Serverless
7 36 (9.81%) Entra ID
8 34 (9.26%) AWS CloudFormation
9 32 (8.72%) Azure DevOps
10 25 (6.81%) Amazon EKS
11 24 (6.54%) Amazon S3
11 24 (6.54%) PaaS
12 23 (6.27%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 21 (5.72%) AWS Lambda
13 21 (5.72%) IaaS
14 17 (4.63%) Azure Monitor
15 15 (4.09%) Azure AKS
16 14 (3.81%) Microsoft 365
17 13 (3.54%) Azure Sentinel
17 13 (3.54%) Cloud Run
Communications & Networking
1 31 (8.45%) Firewall
2 21 (5.72%) Cisco Firepower
2 21 (5.72%) Cisco IOS
2 21 (5.72%) Cisco ISE
2 21 (5.72%) Junos
3 18 (4.90%) Network Security
4 14 (3.81%) VPN
5 9 (2.45%) DNS
6 5 (1.36%) NX-OS
6 5 (1.36%) WAN
7 3 (0.82%) DHCP
7 3 (0.82%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.54%) LAN
8 2 (0.54%) SAN
8 2 (0.54%) Unified Communications
8 2 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.27%) MPLS
9 1 (0.27%) SSL
9 1 (0.27%) WireGuard
9 1 (0.27%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (8.45%) NoSQL
2 26 (7.08%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.72%) BigQuery
4 9 (2.45%) Power BI
5 7 (1.91%) Elasticsearch
6 6 (1.63%) Amazon RDS
6 6 (1.63%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.63%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.36%) Amazon Athena
7 5 (1.36%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.09%) Delta Lake
8 4 (1.09%) DynamoDB
9 3 (0.82%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.82%) Big Data
9 3 (0.82%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.54%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.54%) Mixpanel
10 2 (0.54%) OLTP
10 2 (0.54%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.54%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 58 (15.80%) Jenkins
2 45 (12.26%) GitLab
3 26 (7.08%) Git
4 13 (3.54%) Liquibase
5 11 (3.00%) JIRA
6 3 (0.82%) MLflow
6 3 (0.82%) Postman
7 2 (0.54%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.54%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.54%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.54%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.27%) Gemini Tracker
8 1 (0.27%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.27%) Travis CI
8 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 71 (19.35%) Social Skills
2 62 (16.89%) Finance
3 33 (8.99%) Banking
4 26 (7.08%) Public Sector
5 25 (6.81%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (5.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (3.00%) Financial Institution
8 7 (1.91%) Aeronautics
8 7 (1.91%) Retail
9 6 (1.63%) Local Government
10 5 (1.36%) Aviation
10 5 (1.36%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.36%) Telecoms
11 3 (0.82%) Documentation Skills
12 2 (0.54%) Billing
12 2 (0.54%) Marketing
13 1 (0.27%) Investment Banking
13 1 (0.27%) Legal
13 1 (0.27%) Military
13 1 (0.27%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (11.17%) REST
2 26 (7.08%) Elastic Stack
3 21 (5.72%) RESTful
4 20 (5.45%) Node.js
5 14 (3.81%) Kafka
6 13 (3.54%) ARM Templates
7 10 (2.72%) React
8 9 (2.45%) OpenTelemetry
9 8 (2.18%) LangChain
9 8 (2.18%) OpenAPI
9 8 (2.18%) Oracle Fusion
9 8 (2.18%) SAML
9 8 (2.18%) SOAP
10 7 (1.91%) AWS CDK
10 7 (1.91%) Lambda Expressions
10 7 (1.91%) OpenID
10 7 (1.91%) Spring
10 7 (1.91%) Spring Boot
11 6 (1.63%) GraphQL
11 6 (1.63%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 59 (16.08%) Cloud Native
2 35 (9.54%) Public Cloud
3 21 (5.72%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (2.45%) PKI
5 7 (1.91%) Data Centre
6 5 (1.36%) Genomics
6 5 (1.36%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.36%) Product Ownership
6 5 (1.36%) Security Posture
7 4 (1.09%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.09%) Cloud Security Posture
7 4 (1.09%) Data Protection Act
7 4 (1.09%) Life Science
8 3 (0.82%) AI Agents
8 3 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
8 3 (0.82%) Distributed Computing
8 3 (0.82%) Replication
9 2 (0.54%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (0.54%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 43 (11.72%) Linux
2 30 (8.17%) Windows
3 21 (5.72%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.45%) Unix
5 4 (1.09%) VMS
6 1 (0.27%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (42.23%) DevOps
2 154 (41.96%) CI/CD
3 143 (38.96%) Infrastructure as Code
4 71 (19.35%) Containerisation
5 69 (18.80%) Agile
6 55 (14.99%) Cloud Security
7 41 (11.17%) Problem-Solving
8 40 (10.90%) Infrastructure Automation
9 36 (9.81%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 35 (9.54%) Microservices
11 34 (9.26%) Migration
11 34 (9.26%) Observability
12 33 (8.99%) Platform Engineering
12 33 (8.99%) Software Engineering
13 31 (8.45%) Continuous Improvement
13 31 (8.45%) DevSecOps
13 31 (8.45%) High Availability
14 30 (8.17%) Cybersecurity
15 29 (7.90%) AI
15 29 (7.90%) Cost Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 112 (30.52%) Python
2 39 (10.63%) PowerShell
3 36 (9.81%) SQL
4 28 (7.63%) Go
5 27 (7.36%) Java
6 23 (6.27%) Bash
7 19 (5.18%) Bicep
8 11 (3.00%) Shell Script
8 11 (3.00%) TypeScript
9 9 (2.45%) JavaScript
10 7 (1.91%) Perl
11 5 (1.36%) C#
12 4 (1.09%) BeanShell
13 3 (0.82%) Ruby
14 2 (0.54%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.54%) PL/SQL
14 2 (0.54%) T-SQL
15 1 (0.27%) C
15 1 (0.27%) Groovy
15 1 (0.27%) Korn
Qualifications
1 113 (30.79%) Security Cleared
2 74 (20.16%) SC Cleared
3 36 (9.81%) Azure Certification
3 36 (9.81%) DV Cleared
4 34 (9.26%) Degree
5 32 (8.72%) AWS Certification
6 19 (5.18%) Computer Science Degree
7 17 (4.63%) Master's Degree
8 11 (3.00%) Microsoft Certification
9 10 (2.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
11 7 (1.91%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 6 (1.63%) CISSP
13 5 (1.36%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (1.36%) CISM
14 4 (1.09%) AWS Certified Developer
15 3 (0.82%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 3 (0.82%) CCSP
15 3 (0.82%) TOGAF Certification
16 2 (0.54%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (2.72%) NCSC
3 9 (2.45%) QA
4 8 (2.18%) NIST
5 7 (1.91%) GDPR
6 5 (1.36%) GRC
7 4 (1.09%) Data Quality
8 3 (0.82%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.54%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.54%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.54%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.27%) FedRAMP
10 1 (0.27%) JSP 440
System Software
1 62 (16.89%) Docker
2 35 (9.54%) Active Directory
3 21 (5.72%) VMware NSX
4 9 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.36%) Virtual Desktop
5 5 (1.36%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.09%) Firmware
6 4 (1.09%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.54%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.27%) KVM
8 1 (0.27%) Squid
Systems Management
1 152 (41.42%) Terraform
2 105 (28.61%) Kubernetes
3 38 (10.35%) Ansible
4 32 (8.72%) Grafana
5 31 (8.45%) Prometheus
6 21 (5.72%) vCenter Server
7 13 (3.54%) Argo
8 12 (3.27%) Istio
9 7 (1.91%) Kibana
9 7 (1.91%) logstash
10 5 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (1.36%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.82%) Podman
11 3 (0.82%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.54%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.54%) Puppet
13 1 (0.27%) Consul
13 1 (0.27%) Packer
13 1 (0.27%) SCCM
13 1 (0.27%) vRealize
Vendors
1 61 (16.62%) Microsoft
2 55 (14.99%) Google
3 24 (6.54%) Cisco
4 23 (6.27%) Splunk
5 22 (5.99%) Juniper
6 21 (5.72%) SolarWinds
7 16 (4.36%) Oracle
8 14 (3.81%) Databricks
9 9 (2.45%) ServiceNow
10 8 (2.18%) Palo Alto
11 7 (1.91%) Dynatrace
11 7 (1.91%) VMware
12 5 (1.36%) Broadcom
12 5 (1.36%) MuleSoft
12 5 (1.36%) Ping Identity
13 3 (0.82%) Cloudera
13 3 (0.82%) Salesforce
13 3 (0.82%) Zscaler
14 2 (0.54%) CheckPoint
14 2 (0.54%) Genesys