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 20 April 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 233 306 317
Rank change year-on-year +73 +11 -52
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 498 230 292
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.08% 0.78% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.17% 0.84% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 336 177 198
10th Percentile £396 £400 £400
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £522 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £613 £619 £625
90th Percentile £690 £675 £683
UK excluding London median daily rate £522 £500 £523
% change year-on-year +4.40% -4.31% -0.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 3
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £25.13 - £27.50
Median hourly rate £25.25 - £30.00
75th Percentile £39.56 - £32.50
90th Percentile £48.08 - -
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 42,677 27,265 40,508
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 92.61% 92.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,446 17,875 26,447
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £748
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,718 997 2,615
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.50 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £19.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £41.94 £30.45 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +37.73% -13.00% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.60 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.65 £75.35 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.00 £29.53 £36.50
% change year-on-year +45.64% -19.11% -14.12%

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 20 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 20 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Cloud Engineer in the UK

Cloud Engineer
Top 16 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 20 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 +37 413 £525 - 161
London +50 235 £525 - 68
UK excluding London +11 208 £522 +4.40% 103
Work from Home +3 120 £505 -3.81% 101
North of England -29 56 £513 +13.89% 39
South East -30 43 £510 -7.27% 26
Scotland +22 37 £513 -2.38% 6
Midlands -56 28 £673 +37.95% 9
North West -30 27 £525 +16.67% 21
Yorkshire -32 27 £481 +48.08% 12
South West -9 24 £550 -4.35% 15
West Midlands -50 22 £680 +15.74% 8
East of England -17 21 £510 +3.55% 8
East Midlands -31 6 £575 +21.05% 1
North East -22 2 £525 -12.50% 6
Wales -9 1 £425 +41.67%

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

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 218 (43.78%) Terraform
2 217 (43.57%) AWS
3 213 (42.77%) Azure
4 201 (40.36%) CI/CD
5 187 (37.55%) Infrastructure as Code
6 177 (35.54%) DevOps
7 141 (28.31%) Security Cleared
8 123 (24.70%) GCP
9 122 (24.50%) Kubernetes
10 118 (23.69%) SC Cleared
11 115 (23.09%) Python
12 105 (21.08%) GitHub
13 99 (19.88%) Cloud Security
14 92 (18.47%) Google
15 86 (17.27%) Microsoft
16 78 (15.66%) Agile
17 75 (15.06%) Platform Engineering
18 72 (14.46%) Infrastructure Engineering
19 70 (14.06%) Containerisation
20 69 (13.86%) PowerShell
21 66 (13.25%) Migration
22 64 (12.85%) GitHub Actions
23 60 (12.05%) Docker
24 54 (10.84%) Serverless
25 48 (9.64%) Continuous Improvement
26 47 (9.44%) Observability
27 45 (9.04%) Firewall
27 45 (9.04%) Jenkins
28 43 (8.63%) AI
28 43 (8.63%) 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 6 (1.20%) Confluence
1 6 (1.20%) Microsoft Exchange
2 5 (1.00%) Apache Spark
3 4 (0.80%) Apache
4 3 (0.60%) nginx
5 2 (0.40%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.20%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.20%) CMS
6 1 (0.20%) Headless CMS
6 1 (0.20%) SAS
6 1 (0.20%) Traefik
Applications
1 2 (0.40%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.20%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 217 (43.57%) AWS
2 213 (42.77%) Azure
3 123 (24.70%) GCP
4 105 (21.08%) GitHub
5 64 (12.85%) GitHub Actions
6 54 (10.84%) Serverless
7 43 (8.63%) AWS CloudFormation
7 43 (8.63%) Azure DevOps
8 38 (7.63%) Entra ID
9 36 (7.23%) PaaS
10 35 (7.03%) Amazon S3
10 35 (7.03%) Azure AKS
11 34 (6.83%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 31 (6.22%) Amazon EKS
12 31 (6.22%) AWS Lambda
13 30 (6.02%) IaaS
14 27 (5.42%) Amazon ECS
15 21 (4.22%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 20 (4.02%) SaaS
17 19 (3.82%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 45 (9.04%) Firewall
2 19 (3.82%) DNS
3 18 (3.61%) Network Security
4 17 (3.41%) VPN
5 8 (1.61%) Cisco Firepower
6 7 (1.41%) Cisco IOS
6 7 (1.41%) Cisco ISE
6 7 (1.41%) Junos
7 6 (1.20%) Reverse Proxy
8 5 (1.00%) NX-OS
9 4 (0.80%) DHCP
9 4 (0.80%) Software-Defined Networking
10 3 (0.60%) BGP
11 2 (0.40%) DKIM
11 2 (0.40%) SMTP
11 2 (0.40%) TCP/IP
11 2 (0.40%) Unified Communications
11 2 (0.40%) VLAN
12 1 (0.20%) SD-WAN
12 1 (0.20%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.01%) Amazon Athena
2 12 (2.41%) BigQuery
3 11 (2.21%) DynamoDB
4 8 (1.61%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.41%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (1.41%) Power BI
6 6 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.20%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.20%) NoSQL
6 6 (1.20%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (1.00%) Big Data
8 4 (0.80%) Amazon QuickSight
8 4 (0.80%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.80%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (0.80%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.80%) SQL Server
9 3 (0.60%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.40%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.40%) Metadata
10 2 (0.40%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 45 (9.04%) Jenkins
2 36 (7.23%) GitLab
3 34 (6.83%) Git
4 7 (1.41%) JIRA
5 4 (0.80%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.60%) Liquibase
6 3 (0.60%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.40%) Postman
7 2 (0.40%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.40%) Selenium
7 2 (0.40%) Spinnaker
8 1 (0.20%) Burp Suite
8 1 (0.20%) Chocolatey
8 1 (0.20%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.20%) Cypress.io
8 1 (0.20%) Metasploit
8 1 (0.20%) RStudio
8 1 (0.20%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.20%) sqlmap
8 1 (0.20%) Travis CI
General
1 69 (13.86%) Social Skills
2 58 (11.65%) Finance
3 43 (8.63%) Public Sector
4 19 (3.82%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (3.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 17 (3.41%) Banking
7 9 (1.81%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (1.81%) Retail
8 7 (1.41%) Aeronautics
9 6 (1.20%) Legal
9 6 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (1.20%) Telecoms
10 4 (0.80%) Financial Institution
10 4 (0.80%) Investment Banking
10 4 (0.80%) Marketing
11 3 (0.60%) Military
12 2 (0.40%) Billing
12 2 (0.40%) Law
12 2 (0.40%) Local Government
12 2 (0.40%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (4.82%) REST
2 22 (4.42%) Node.js
3 13 (2.61%) Kafka
3 13 (2.61%) React
4 11 (2.21%) OpenTelemetry
5 10 (2.01%) .NET
6 9 (1.81%) ARM Templates
6 9 (1.81%) Elastic Stack
6 9 (1.81%) Spring
6 9 (1.81%) Spring Boot
7 8 (1.61%) Oracle Fusion
7 8 (1.61%) Playwright
8 7 (1.41%) AngularJS
8 7 (1.41%) LangChain
8 7 (1.41%) OAuth
8 7 (1.41%) OpenAPI
8 7 (1.41%) SOAP
9 6 (1.20%) OAuth2
9 6 (1.20%) OpenID
9 6 (1.20%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 89 (17.87%) Cloud Native
2 32 (6.43%) Public Cloud
3 17 (3.41%) Hybrid Cloud
4 14 (2.81%) Data Centre
5 10 (2.01%) Product Ownership
6 9 (1.81%) Security Posture
7 7 (1.41%) Onboarding
7 7 (1.41%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.20%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (1.20%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (1.20%) PKI
9 5 (1.00%) Enterprise Cloud
9 5 (1.00%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.60%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.60%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.60%) Replication
11 2 (0.40%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 35 (7.03%) Windows
2 30 (6.02%) Linux
3 16 (3.21%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.80%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.80%) Unix
4 4 (0.80%) VMS
5 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (40.36%) CI/CD
2 187 (37.55%) Infrastructure as Code
3 177 (35.54%) DevOps
4 99 (19.88%) Cloud Security
5 78 (15.66%) Agile
6 75 (15.06%) Platform Engineering
7 72 (14.46%) Infrastructure Engineering
8 70 (14.06%) Containerisation
9 66 (13.25%) Migration
10 48 (9.64%) Continuous Improvement
11 47 (9.44%) Observability
12 43 (8.63%) AI
12 43 (8.63%) DevSecOps
13 42 (8.43%) Infrastructure Automation
14 39 (7.83%) Problem-Solving
15 38 (7.63%) Cybersecurity
15 38 (7.63%) Software Engineering
16 34 (6.83%) Microservices
17 33 (6.63%) Mentoring
18 26 (5.22%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 115 (23.09%) Python
2 69 (13.86%) PowerShell
3 42 (8.43%) SQL
4 33 (6.63%) Bash
5 28 (5.62%) Java
6 26 (5.22%) Bicep
7 15 (3.01%) TypeScript
8 14 (2.81%) C#
9 10 (2.01%) Go
10 9 (1.81%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.80%) BeanShell
11 4 (0.80%) Groovy
11 4 (0.80%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.40%) Ruby
13 1 (0.20%) C
13 1 (0.20%) Cypher
13 1 (0.20%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.20%) R
Qualifications
1 141 (28.31%) Security Cleared
2 118 (23.69%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.43%) Azure Certification
4 30 (6.02%) AWS Certification
5 22 (4.42%) DV Cleared
6 17 (3.41%) Degree
7 15 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
8 13 (2.61%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 13 (2.61%) CISSP
9 11 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (2.01%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.81%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (1.41%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 7 (1.41%) CISM
13 6 (1.20%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (1.00%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.80%) CCSP
15 4 (0.80%) Master's Degree
16 3 (0.60%) CCNP
16 3 (0.60%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (2.61%) GDPR
2 12 (2.41%) NCSC
2 12 (2.41%) NIST
3 10 (2.01%) QA
4 9 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.20%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.20%) PCI DSS
6 5 (1.00%) GRC
7 2 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.40%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.40%) SLA
7 2 (0.40%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.20%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.20%) FedRAMP
8 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 60 (12.05%) Docker
2 25 (5.02%) Active Directory
3 15 (3.01%) Virtual Desktop
4 14 (2.81%) VMware NSX
5 11 (2.21%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
6 7 (1.41%) vSphere
7 6 (1.20%) Firmware
7 6 (1.20%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.20%) Squid
Systems Management
1 218 (43.78%) Terraform
2 122 (24.50%) Kubernetes
3 28 (5.62%) Prometheus
4 23 (4.62%) Ansible
4 23 (4.62%) Grafana
5 19 (3.82%) Istio
6 13 (2.61%) Argo
7 12 (2.41%) Microsoft Intune
8 11 (2.21%) Single Sign-On
9 8 (1.61%) vCenter Server
10 7 (1.41%) Packer
11 5 (1.00%) Progress Chef
11 5 (1.00%) Puppet
12 4 (0.80%) Kibana
12 4 (0.80%) logstash
12 4 (0.80%) Salt
13 2 (0.40%) Cilium
13 2 (0.40%) Consul
14 1 (0.20%) PaperCut
14 1 (0.20%) Podman
Vendors
1 92 (18.47%) Google
2 86 (17.27%) Microsoft
3 18 (3.61%) Oracle
4 13 (2.61%) Cisco
4 13 (2.61%) VMware
5 12 (2.41%) Dynatrace
6 11 (2.21%) Databricks
7 10 (2.01%) ServiceNow
8 9 (1.81%) Splunk
9 8 (1.61%) Juniper
10 7 (1.41%) Salesforce
10 7 (1.41%) SolarWinds
11 5 (1.00%) Broadcom
11 5 (1.00%) Citrix
11 5 (1.00%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.00%) PeopleSoft
11 5 (1.00%) Ping Identity
11 5 (1.00%) Rapid7
12 4 (0.80%) Palo Alto
12 4 (0.80%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud