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 25 January 2026.

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

6 months to
25 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 258 307 257
Rank change year-on-year +49 -50 -3
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 396 241 418
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.05% 0.76% 0.94%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.14% 0.82% 1.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 282 153 295
10th Percentile £400 £380 £413
25th Percentile £450 £450 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £638
90th Percentile £705 £698 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £500 £535
% change year-on-year +4.40% -6.54% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 4
10th Percentile £25.13 - -
25th Percentile £26.09 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £30.00 - £50.00
75th Percentile £48.06 - £76.94
90th Percentile £81.88 - £84.93
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 34,647 29,282 41,206
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.85% 93.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,895 17,892 27,296
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £480 £498
% change year-on-year -0.42% -3.62% -0.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,062 868 2,070
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.92 £13.40
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.24 £17.54
Median hourly rate £28.50 £32.50 £37.88
Median % change year-on-year -12.31% -14.19% +11.40%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.13 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.21 £31.08 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.45% -22.30% +35.59%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +26 323 £525 -4.55% 154
UK excluding London +25 181 £522 +4.40% 135
London +10 160 £525 -4.55% 50
Work from Home +7 94 £500 -4.76% 74
North of England -26 57 £500 +15.94% 25
South East +9 44 £500 -13.04% 47
Midlands -24 39 £575 +21.05% 13
Yorkshire -21 35 £513 +24.24% 9
West Midlands -24 33 £575 -11.54% 5
Scotland +29 28 £525 - 8
North West -18 22 £444 -1.39% 13
South West -7 15 £538 -6.52% 19
East of England -13 10 £438 +6.97% 17
East Midlands -27 6 £575 +27.78% 8
Wales -4 1 £425 +41.67% 5

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

For the 6 months to 25 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.

1 178 (44.95%) AWS
2 167 (42.17%) CI/CD
3 166 (41.92%) Terraform
4 157 (39.65%) DevOps
5 156 (39.39%) Azure
6 151 (38.13%) Infrastructure as Code
7 123 (31.06%) Security Cleared
8 116 (29.29%) Python
9 108 (27.27%) Kubernetes
10 95 (23.99%) GitHub
11 92 (23.23%) GCP
12 83 (20.96%) SC Cleared
13 77 (19.44%) Containerisation
14 72 (18.18%) Microsoft
15 69 (17.42%) Agile
16 68 (17.17%) Docker
17 63 (15.91%) Google
18 62 (15.66%) Cloud Security
19 60 (15.15%) GitHub Actions
20 55 (13.89%) Serverless
21 52 (13.13%) Jenkins
22 44 (11.11%) GitLab
23 43 (10.86%) AWS CloudFormation
24 42 (10.61%) Linux
24 42 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
25 41 (10.35%) Entra ID
25 41 (10.35%) Infrastructure Automation
26 40 (10.10%) Cybersecurity
26 40 (10.10%) Microservices
26 40 (10.10%) Migration

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 (1.52%) Apache Spark
2 5 (1.26%) Apache
2 5 (1.26%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (0.51%) Confluence
3 2 (0.51%) nginx
4 1 (0.25%) Apache Superset
4 1 (0.25%) CMS
4 1 (0.25%) Headless CMS
4 1 (0.25%) SAS
4 1 (0.25%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.25%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.51%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (1.01%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 178 (44.95%) AWS
2 156 (39.39%) Azure
3 95 (23.99%) GitHub
4 92 (23.23%) GCP
5 60 (15.15%) GitHub Actions
6 55 (13.89%) Serverless
7 43 (10.86%) AWS CloudFormation
8 41 (10.35%) Entra ID
9 34 (8.59%) Azure DevOps
10 30 (7.58%) PaaS
11 29 (7.32%) Amazon S3
12 28 (7.07%) Amazon EKS
13 25 (6.31%) AWS Lambda
13 25 (6.31%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 25 (6.31%) IaaS
14 22 (5.56%) Amazon ECS
15 19 (4.80%) Azure Monitor
16 16 (4.04%) Microsoft 365
17 15 (3.79%) Azure AKS
18 13 (3.28%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 33 (8.33%) Firewall
2 21 (5.30%) Cisco Firepower
2 21 (5.30%) Cisco IOS
2 21 (5.30%) Cisco ISE
2 21 (5.30%) Junos
3 19 (4.80%) Network Security
4 14 (3.54%) VPN
5 9 (2.27%) DNS
6 5 (1.26%) NX-OS
6 5 (1.26%) WAN
7 3 (0.76%) DHCP
7 3 (0.76%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.51%) LAN
8 2 (0.51%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.51%) SAN
8 2 (0.51%) Unified Communications
8 2 (0.51%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.25%) Software-Defined Networking
9 1 (0.25%) WireGuard
9 1 (0.25%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 29 (7.32%) NoSQL
2 24 (6.06%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.53%) BigQuery
4 9 (2.27%) Amazon Athena
4 9 (2.27%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (2.27%) Power BI
5 7 (1.77%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.77%) Elasticsearch
6 6 (1.52%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.52%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.52%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (1.01%) Delta Lake
8 3 (0.76%) Amazon Aurora
8 3 (0.76%) Big Data
8 3 (0.76%) Oracle Database
9 2 (0.51%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (0.51%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
9 2 (0.51%) Mixpanel
9 2 (0.51%) OLTP
9 2 (0.51%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 52 (13.13%) Jenkins
2 44 (11.11%) GitLab
3 31 (7.83%) Git
4 10 (2.53%) JIRA
5 9 (2.27%) Liquibase
6 3 (0.76%) MLflow
6 3 (0.76%) Postman
7 2 (0.51%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.51%) CircleCI
7 2 (0.51%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.51%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.25%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.25%) Gemini Tracker
8 1 (0.25%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.25%) Travis CI
8 1 (0.25%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 71 (17.93%) Social Skills
2 59 (14.90%) Finance
3 32 (8.08%) Public Sector
4 31 (7.83%) Banking
5 28 (7.07%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (4.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (2.78%) Financial Institution
8 7 (1.77%) Aeronautics
8 7 (1.77%) Retail
9 6 (1.52%) Local Government
9 6 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
10 5 (1.26%) Aviation
10 5 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.26%) Telecoms
11 4 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.76%) Legal
13 2 (0.51%) Billing
13 2 (0.51%) Investment Banking
13 2 (0.51%) Marketing
13 2 (0.51%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (9.85%) REST
2 24 (6.06%) Elastic Stack
3 20 (5.05%) Node.js
4 19 (4.80%) RESTful
5 14 (3.54%) ARM Templates
5 14 (3.54%) Kafka
6 10 (2.53%) React
7 9 (2.27%) OpenTelemetry
8 8 (2.02%) .NET
8 8 (2.02%) LangChain
8 8 (2.02%) OpenAPI
8 8 (2.02%) SAML
8 8 (2.02%) SOAP
9 7 (1.77%) AWS CDK
9 7 (1.77%) Lambda Expressions
9 7 (1.77%) OpenID
9 7 (1.77%) Oracle Fusion
10 6 (1.52%) FastAPI
10 6 (1.52%) pytest
10 6 (1.52%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 61 (15.40%) Cloud Native
2 36 (9.09%) Public Cloud
3 19 (4.80%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (2.27%) Data Centre
4 9 (2.27%) Hybrid Cloud
4 9 (2.27%) PKI
5 7 (1.77%) Product Ownership
6 6 (1.52%) Cyber Threat
7 5 (1.26%) Genomics
7 5 (1.26%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.26%) Security Posture
8 4 (1.01%) Algorithms
8 4 (1.01%) Cloud Security Posture
8 4 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.01%) Life Science
9 3 (0.76%) AI Agents
9 3 (0.76%) Distributed Computing
9 3 (0.76%) Linux Command Line
9 3 (0.76%) Onboarding
9 3 (0.76%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 42 (10.61%) Linux
2 29 (7.32%) Windows
3 22 (5.56%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.27%) Unix
5 4 (1.01%) VMS
6 1 (0.25%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 167 (42.17%) CI/CD
2 157 (39.65%) DevOps
3 151 (38.13%) Infrastructure as Code
4 77 (19.44%) Containerisation
5 69 (17.42%) Agile
6 62 (15.66%) Cloud Security
7 42 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
8 41 (10.35%) Infrastructure Automation
9 40 (10.10%) Cybersecurity
9 40 (10.10%) Microservices
9 40 (10.10%) Migration
10 37 (9.34%) Continuous Improvement
11 36 (9.09%) Infrastructure Engineering
12 35 (8.84%) DevSecOps
13 34 (8.59%) AI
13 34 (8.59%) Observability
13 34 (8.59%) Platform Engineering
14 30 (7.58%) High Availability
14 30 (7.58%) Software Engineering
15 28 (7.07%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 116 (29.29%) Python
2 40 (10.10%) PowerShell
3 38 (9.60%) SQL
4 25 (6.31%) Java
5 22 (5.56%) Bash
5 22 (5.56%) Go
6 20 (5.05%) Bicep
7 12 (3.03%) TypeScript
8 10 (2.53%) Shell Script
9 9 (2.27%) JavaScript
10 5 (1.26%) C#
10 5 (1.26%) Perl
11 4 (1.01%) BeanShell
12 3 (0.76%) Ruby
13 2 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.51%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.51%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.25%) C
14 1 (0.25%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 123 (31.06%) Security Cleared
2 83 (20.96%) SC Cleared
3 37 (9.34%) DV Cleared
4 36 (9.09%) Azure Certification
5 34 (8.59%) Degree
6 31 (7.83%) AWS Certification
7 19 (4.80%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (4.29%) Master's Degree
9 11 (2.78%) Microsoft Certification
10 9 (2.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 8 (2.02%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 8 (2.02%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (2.02%) CISSP
12 7 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (1.26%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 5 (1.26%) CCSP
13 5 (1.26%) CISM
14 4 (1.01%) AWS Certified Developer
15 3 (0.76%) OSCP
15 3 (0.76%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (3.28%) GDPR
2 12 (3.03%) NIST
3 11 (2.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 10 (2.53%) NCSC
5 9 (2.27%) QA
6 6 (1.52%) PCI DSS
7 5 (1.26%) GRC
8 4 (1.01%) Data Quality
9 3 (0.76%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.51%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.51%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.25%) FedRAMP
11 1 (0.25%) JSP 440
System Software
1 68 (17.17%) Docker
2 37 (9.34%) Active Directory
3 21 (5.30%) VMware NSX
4 14 (3.54%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (2.02%) Virtual Desktop
6 5 (1.26%) Hyper-V
6 5 (1.26%) VMware Infrastructure
7 4 (1.01%) Firmware
8 2 (0.51%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.25%) KVM
9 1 (0.25%) Squid
9 1 (0.25%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 166 (41.92%) Terraform
2 108 (27.27%) Kubernetes
3 36 (9.09%) Ansible
4 30 (7.58%) Grafana
4 30 (7.58%) Prometheus
5 21 (5.30%) vCenter Server
6 14 (3.54%) Istio
7 13 (3.28%) Argo
8 8 (2.02%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (1.77%) Kibana
9 7 (1.77%) logstash
10 5 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
11 3 (0.76%) Podman
11 3 (0.76%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.51%) Consul
12 2 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.51%) Packer
13 1 (0.25%) Puppet
13 1 (0.25%) Salt
13 1 (0.25%) SCCM
Vendors
1 72 (18.18%) Microsoft
2 63 (15.91%) Google
3 24 (6.06%) Cisco
4 22 (5.56%) Juniper
5 21 (5.30%) SolarWinds
5 21 (5.30%) Splunk
6 15 (3.79%) Databricks
6 15 (3.79%) Oracle
7 9 (2.27%) ServiceNow
8 8 (2.02%) Palo Alto
9 7 (1.77%) Dynatrace
9 7 (1.77%) VMware
10 6 (1.52%) Ping Identity
11 5 (1.26%) Broadcom
11 5 (1.26%) MuleSoft
11 5 (1.26%) Rapid7
12 4 (1.01%) Cloudera
12 4 (1.01%) Salesforce
13 3 (0.76%) PeopleSoft
13 3 (0.76%) Zscaler