Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £516, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 December 2025.

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

6 months to
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 275 317 248
Rank change year-on-year +42 -69 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 360 235 435
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.97% 0.70% 1.00%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.07% 0.75% 1.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 268 141 308
10th Percentile £400 £380 £421
25th Percentile £434 £426 £484
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.14% - -
75th Percentile £588 £650 £638
90th Percentile £702 £700 £700
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £500 £535
% change year-on-year +4.50% -6.64% +1.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 0 2
10th Percentile £27.84 - £69.43
25th Percentile £29.00 - £72.31
Median hourly rate £41.25 - £79.25
75th Percentile £74.38 - £85.81
90th Percentile £110.00 - £88.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £88.50

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 33,704 31,327 40,582
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.07% 92.78% 93.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,320 19,249 27,284
10th Percentile £293 £300 £285
25th Percentile £404 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £640
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,988 974 1,449
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.56 £15.16
25th Percentile £18.19 £21.05 £19.25
Median hourly rate £25.33 £33.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.23% -26.67% +48.76%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £73.32 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -22.62% -29.16% +83.52%

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 23 December 2025.

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 23 December 2025.

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 23 December 2025. 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 +37 298 £522 -5.09% 148
UK excluding London +41 172 £522 +4.50% 120
London +18 149 £513 -10.87% 63
Work from Home +2 80 £500 -1.96% 77
North of England -20 50 £513 +24.24% 28
South East +9 40 £500 -6.98% 42
Midlands -18 39 £575 +21.05% 11
West Midlands -7 32 £575 -11.54% 10
Scotland +30 29 £513 +2.50% 5
Yorkshire -22 29 £520 +26.06% 8
North West -19 21 £450 - 17
South West +6 16 £538 -6.52% 19
East of England -18 10 £438 -12.50% 5
East Midlands -18 7 £513 +13.89% 1
Wales -2 1 £425 +41.67% 4

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

For the 6 months to 23 December 2025, 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.

1 166 (46.11%) AWS
2 155 (43.06%) DevOps
3 148 (41.11%) CI/CD
4 147 (40.83%) Azure
4 147 (40.83%) Terraform
5 135 (37.50%) Infrastructure as Code
6 112 (31.11%) Security Cleared
7 111 (30.83%) Python
8 99 (27.50%) Kubernetes
9 90 (25.00%) GCP
10 74 (20.56%) SC Cleared
11 73 (20.28%) GitHub
12 70 (19.44%) Agile
13 69 (19.17%) Containerisation
14 67 (18.61%) Microsoft
15 66 (18.33%) Docker
16 59 (16.39%) Cloud Security
17 55 (15.28%) Jenkins
18 54 (15.00%) Google
19 48 (13.33%) GitHub Actions
20 45 (12.50%) Linux
21 44 (12.22%) Serverless
22 43 (11.94%) GitLab
22 43 (11.94%) REST
23 42 (11.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
24 40 (11.11%) PowerShell
25 39 (10.83%) Ansible
25 39 (10.83%) Problem-Solving
26 38 (10.56%) Windows
27 37 (10.28%) Active Directory

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 8 (2.22%) SharePoint
2 6 (1.67%) Apache Spark
3 5 (1.39%) Apache
4 4 (1.11%) Confluence
5 3 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.56%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.28%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.28%) CMS
7 1 (0.28%) Headless CMS
7 1 (0.28%) nginx
7 1 (0.28%) WebLogic
Applications
1 2 (0.56%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (1.11%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 166 (46.11%) AWS
2 147 (40.83%) Azure
3 90 (25.00%) GCP
4 73 (20.28%) GitHub
5 48 (13.33%) GitHub Actions
6 44 (12.22%) Serverless
7 32 (8.89%) AWS CloudFormation
8 31 (8.61%) Entra ID
9 25 (6.94%) Azure DevOps
9 25 (6.94%) Google Kubernetes Engine
10 24 (6.67%) Amazon EKS
11 21 (5.83%) PaaS
12 20 (5.56%) Amazon S3
12 20 (5.56%) Microsoft 365
13 19 (5.28%) IaaS
14 17 (4.72%) AWS Lambda
15 14 (3.89%) Azure Monitor
16 13 (3.61%) Azure AKS
16 13 (3.61%) Cloud Run
17 12 (3.33%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 31 (8.61%) Firewall
2 21 (5.83%) Cisco Firepower
2 21 (5.83%) Cisco IOS
2 21 (5.83%) Cisco ISE
2 21 (5.83%) Junos
2 21 (5.83%) VPN
3 13 (3.61%) DNS
4 12 (3.33%) Network Security
5 6 (1.67%) WAN
6 5 (1.39%) NX-OS
7 4 (1.11%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.83%) DHCP
9 2 (0.56%) BGP
9 2 (0.56%) LAN
9 2 (0.56%) MPLS
9 2 (0.56%) SAN
9 2 (0.56%) SD-WAN
9 2 (0.56%) Wi-Fi
10 1 (0.28%) IPsec
10 1 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (8.61%) NoSQL
2 28 (7.78%) PostgreSQL
3 10 (2.78%) BigQuery
4 9 (2.50%) Power BI
5 7 (1.94%) Elasticsearch
6 6 (1.67%) Amazon RDS
6 6 (1.67%) Data Warehouse
7 5 (1.39%) Amazon Athena
7 5 (1.39%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (1.39%) Data Lake
8 4 (1.11%) Delta Lake
8 4 (1.11%) DynamoDB
8 4 (1.11%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.83%) Amazon Aurora
9 3 (0.83%) Big Data
9 3 (0.83%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.56%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 2 (0.56%) Mixpanel
10 2 (0.56%) OLAP
10 2 (0.56%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 55 (15.28%) Jenkins
2 43 (11.94%) GitLab
3 26 (7.22%) Git
4 15 (4.17%) JIRA
4 15 (4.17%) Liquibase
5 3 (0.83%) MLflow
5 3 (0.83%) Postman
6 2 (0.56%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.56%) CircleCI
6 2 (0.56%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.56%) Spinnaker
7 1 (0.28%) Gemini Tracker
7 1 (0.28%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.28%) Travis CI
7 1 (0.28%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 74 (20.56%) Social Skills
2 64 (17.78%) Finance
3 31 (8.61%) Banking
4 26 (7.22%) Public Sector
5 25 (6.94%) Analytical Skills
6 19 (5.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (3.06%) Financial Institution
8 7 (1.94%) Aeronautics
8 7 (1.94%) Local Government
8 7 (1.94%) Retail
9 6 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
10 5 (1.39%) Aviation
10 5 (1.39%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (0.56%) Billing
11 2 (0.56%) Law
11 2 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.28%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.28%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.28%) Legal
12 1 (0.28%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (11.94%) REST
2 26 (7.22%) Elastic Stack
3 21 (5.83%) RESTful
4 20 (5.56%) Node.js
5 12 (3.33%) ARM Templates
5 12 (3.33%) Kafka
6 10 (2.78%) React
7 9 (2.50%) SOAP
8 8 (2.22%) LangChain
8 8 (2.22%) OpenAPI
8 8 (2.22%) OpenTelemetry
8 8 (2.22%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (2.22%) SAML
9 7 (1.94%) AWS CDK
9 7 (1.94%) GraphQL
9 7 (1.94%) Lambda Expressions
9 7 (1.94%) OpenID
9 7 (1.94%) Spring
9 7 (1.94%) Spring Boot
10 6 (1.67%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 57 (15.83%) Cloud Native
2 36 (10.00%) Public Cloud
3 21 (5.83%) Distributed Systems
4 9 (2.50%) Data Centre
4 9 (2.50%) PKI
5 6 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
6 5 (1.39%) Genomics
6 5 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (1.39%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.39%) Security Posture
7 4 (1.11%) Algorithms
7 4 (1.11%) Cloud Security Posture
7 4 (1.11%) Life Science
8 3 (0.83%) AI Agents
8 3 (0.83%) Distributed Computing
8 3 (0.83%) Replication
9 2 (0.56%) Greenfield Project
9 2 (0.56%) Linux Command Line
9 2 (0.56%) Management Information System
9 2 (0.56%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 45 (12.50%) Linux
2 38 (10.56%) Windows
3 23 (6.39%) Windows Server
4 9 (2.50%) Unix
5 3 (0.83%) VMS
6 1 (0.28%) Alpine Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.28%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (43.06%) DevOps
2 148 (41.11%) CI/CD
3 135 (37.50%) Infrastructure as Code
4 70 (19.44%) Agile
5 69 (19.17%) Containerisation
6 59 (16.39%) Cloud Security
7 42 (11.67%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 39 (10.83%) Problem-Solving
9 36 (10.00%) Infrastructure Automation
9 36 (10.00%) Migration
10 35 (9.72%) Microservices
11 34 (9.44%) Observability
11 34 (9.44%) Software Engineering
12 30 (8.33%) AI
13 29 (8.06%) Cost Optimisation
13 29 (8.06%) Cybersecurity
14 27 (7.50%) DevSecOps
15 26 (7.22%) High Availability
16 25 (6.94%) Platform Engineering
17 24 (6.67%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 111 (30.83%) Python
2 40 (11.11%) PowerShell
3 36 (10.00%) SQL
4 33 (9.17%) Go
5 30 (8.33%) Java
6 25 (6.94%) Bash
7 16 (4.44%) Bicep
8 11 (3.06%) Shell Script
8 11 (3.06%) TypeScript
9 9 (2.50%) JavaScript
9 9 (2.50%) Perl
10 7 (1.94%) C#
11 4 (1.11%) BeanShell
12 3 (0.83%) Ruby
13 2 (0.56%) Kusto Query Language
13 2 (0.56%) PL/SQL
13 2 (0.56%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.56%) VB
14 1 (0.28%) Apex Code
14 1 (0.28%) Korn
Qualifications
1 112 (31.11%) Security Cleared
2 74 (20.56%) SC Cleared
3 36 (10.00%) DV Cleared
4 34 (9.44%) Degree
5 32 (8.89%) AWS Certification
6 30 (8.33%) Azure Certification
7 19 (5.28%) Computer Science Degree
8 17 (4.72%) Master's Degree
9 11 (3.06%) Microsoft Certification
10 10 (2.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 7 (1.94%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 6 (1.67%) CISSP
13 5 (1.39%) Cisco Certification
13 5 (1.39%) CISM
14 4 (1.11%) AWS Certified Developer
14 4 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
15 3 (0.83%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 3 (0.83%) CCSP
15 3 (0.83%) DBS Check
16 2 (0.56%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (3.06%) NIST
3 8 (2.22%) QA
4 7 (1.94%) GDPR
5 5 (1.39%) GRC
5 5 (1.39%) NCSC
6 4 (1.11%) Data Quality
6 4 (1.11%) PCI DSS
7 3 (0.83%) Cyber Essentials
8 2 (0.56%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.56%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.28%) FedRAMP
9 1 (0.28%) JSP 440
System Software
1 66 (18.33%) Docker
2 37 (10.28%) Active Directory
3 21 (5.83%) VMware NSX
4 7 (1.94%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (1.67%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (1.11%) Firmware
6 4 (1.11%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.56%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.56%) Virtual Servers
8 1 (0.28%) KVM
8 1 (0.28%) Squid
Systems Management
1 147 (40.83%) Terraform
2 99 (27.50%) Kubernetes
3 39 (10.83%) Ansible
4 33 (9.17%) Grafana
5 31 (8.61%) Prometheus
6 21 (5.83%) vCenter Server
7 14 (3.89%) Argo
8 12 (3.33%) Istio
9 7 (1.94%) Kibana
9 7 (1.94%) logstash
9 7 (1.94%) Microsoft Intune
10 5 (1.39%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.83%) Podman
11 3 (0.83%) Proxmox
12 2 (0.56%) FortiGate
12 2 (0.56%) Packer
12 2 (0.56%) Puppet
12 2 (0.56%) QRadar
13 1 (0.28%) SCCM
13 1 (0.28%) vRealize
Vendors
1 67 (18.61%) Microsoft
2 54 (15.00%) Google
3 25 (6.94%) Cisco
4 23 (6.39%) Splunk
5 22 (6.11%) Juniper
6 21 (5.83%) SolarWinds
7 16 (4.44%) Oracle
8 14 (3.89%) Databricks
9 10 (2.78%) ServiceNow
10 8 (2.22%) Palo Alto
10 8 (2.22%) VMware
11 7 (1.94%) Dynatrace
12 6 (1.67%) MuleSoft
13 5 (1.39%) Broadcom
13 5 (1.39%) Ping Identity
13 5 (1.39%) Zscaler
14 3 (0.83%) Atlassian
14 3 (0.83%) Cloudera
14 3 (0.83%) SAP
15 2 (0.56%) Genesys