Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 7 August 2026.

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

6 months to
7 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 210 309 332
Rank change year-on-year +99 +23 -61
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 725 260 252
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.36% 0.79% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.47% 0.87% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 470 195 167
10th Percentile £400 £400 £386
25th Percentile £451 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £615 £575 £625
90th Percentile £688 £661 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.85% -5.45%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 5 1
10th Percentile £23.20 £29.40 -
25th Percentile £47.10 £30.00 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £45.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.11% +50.00% -
75th Percentile £81.25 £62.50 £32.50
90th Percentile £82.75 £91.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.00 - £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 49,463 30,049 36,264
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.60% 91.45% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,748 19,085 23,408
10th Percentile £329 £283 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.02%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £727 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,453 1,494 2,053
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.62 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £42.25 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.99% -41.51% -
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.10 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.95
% change year-on-year +68.99% -42.78% +15.89%

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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 +88 620 £525 +5.00% 744
UK excluding London +89 369 £520 +4.00% 313
London +61 308 £525 - 453
Work from Home +20 186 £538 +7.55% 270
South East +5 108 £538 +2.38% 54
North of England -13 96 £525 +16.67% 107
Midlands -9 61 £513 +7.89% 36
Scotland +37 60 £437 -12.60% 32
North West -7 56 £538 +22.86% 62
Yorkshire -14 33 £475 -5.00% 31
West Midlands -33 33 £525 +8.81% 21
East Midlands +4 27 £450 -5.26% 15
East of England -2 22 £505 +26.25% 25
South West -24 17 £550 - 45
Wales -3 7 - - 3
North East -41 7 £525 +10.53% 14

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

For the 6 months to 7 August 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.

1 345 (47.59%) Azure
2 314 (43.31%) Terraform
3 274 (37.79%) AWS
4 259 (35.72%) CI/CD
5 257 (35.45%) Infrastructure as Code
6 209 (28.83%) DevOps
7 192 (26.48%) Python
8 179 (24.69%) Security Cleared
9 175 (24.14%) Kubernetes
10 165 (22.76%) GCP
11 164 (22.62%) Cloud Security
12 162 (22.34%) Microsoft
13 154 (21.24%) PowerShell
14 145 (20.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 136 (18.76%) SC Cleared
16 133 (18.34%) Platform Engineering
17 116 (16.00%) Google
18 113 (15.59%) Windows
19 92 (12.69%) GitHub
20 91 (12.55%) AI
21 89 (12.28%) Entra ID
22 88 (12.14%) Containerisation
22 88 (12.14%) Migration
23 85 (11.72%) Agile
24 83 (11.45%) Active Directory
25 79 (10.90%) Bash
26 78 (10.76%) Firewall
27 77 (10.62%) Observability
28 76 (10.48%) DNS
29 75 (10.34%) Docker

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 12 (1.66%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.38%) Apache
3 7 (0.97%) Confluence
4 6 (0.83%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (0.69%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.55%) nginx
7 3 (0.41%) Apache Spark
7 3 (0.41%) IIS
7 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.28%) CloudStack
8 2 (0.28%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
9 1 (0.14%) Traefik
Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.28%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 345 (47.59%) Azure
2 274 (37.79%) AWS
3 165 (22.76%) GCP
4 92 (12.69%) GitHub
5 89 (12.28%) Entra ID
6 60 (8.28%) Serverless
7 58 (8.00%) GitHub Actions
8 49 (6.76%) Azure DevOps
9 46 (6.34%) Azure AKS
10 45 (6.21%) AWS CloudFormation
11 43 (5.93%) IaaS
12 41 (5.66%) Amazon S3
12 41 (5.66%) AWS Lambda
13 38 (5.24%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 37 (5.10%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 36 (4.97%) Amazon EC2
16 34 (4.69%) Azure Monitor
17 33 (4.55%) Amazon EKS
18 32 (4.41%) PaaS
19 31 (4.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 78 (10.76%) Firewall
2 76 (10.48%) DNS
3 40 (5.52%) VPN
4 31 (4.28%) Network Security
5 17 (2.34%) DHCP
6 16 (2.21%) WAN
7 15 (2.07%) TCP/IP
8 12 (1.66%) Internet
9 6 (0.83%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.83%) VLAN
10 5 (0.69%) BGP
10 5 (0.69%) Reverse Proxy
10 5 (0.69%) SSL
11 4 (0.55%) LAN
11 4 (0.55%) SAN
11 4 (0.55%) VSAN
12 3 (0.41%) Kerberos
12 3 (0.41%) NGFW
12 3 (0.41%) SMTP
12 3 (0.41%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (3.59%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.34%) Amazon RDS
3 13 (1.79%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (1.52%) Amazon Athena
4 11 (1.52%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.10%) DynamoDB
6 7 (0.97%) Oracle Exadata
7 6 (0.83%) Azure SQL Database
8 5 (0.69%) Data Lake
8 5 (0.69%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.55%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.41%) Amazon QuickSight
10 3 (0.41%) Flink
10 3 (0.41%) Looker
10 3 (0.41%) MySQL
10 3 (0.41%) Oracle Database 12c
11 2 (0.28%) Big Data
11 2 (0.28%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.28%) Redis
11 2 (0.28%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 52 (7.17%) GitLab
2 50 (6.90%) Jenkins
3 38 (5.24%) Git
4 19 (2.62%) JIRA
5 9 (1.24%) Artifactory
6 6 (0.83%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.69%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.41%) Selenium
8 3 (0.41%) Team Foundation Server
9 2 (0.28%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.28%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.28%) Liquibase
9 2 (0.28%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.28%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.28%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.14%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.14%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.14%) Gatling
10 1 (0.14%) sqlmap
10 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 92 (12.69%) Finance
2 79 (10.90%) Social Skills
3 64 (8.83%) Public Sector
4 28 (3.86%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (3.59%) Banking
6 12 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (1.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (1.10%) Investment Banking
9 5 (0.69%) Law
9 5 (0.69%) Local Government
10 4 (0.55%) Legal
10 4 (0.55%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.41%) Front Office
11 3 (0.41%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.41%) Military
11 3 (0.41%) Police
11 3 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.41%) Retail
11 3 (0.41%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.28%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (3.59%) REST
2 13 (1.79%) ARM Templates
2 13 (1.79%) Node.js
2 13 (1.79%) OAuth
2 13 (1.79%) OAuth2
3 10 (1.38%) Spring
3 10 (1.38%) Spring Boot
4 8 (1.10%) AWS CDK
4 8 (1.10%) React
5 7 (0.97%) Model Context Protocol
5 7 (0.97%) OpenID
6 6 (0.83%) .NET
6 6 (0.83%) FastAPI
6 6 (0.83%) Flask
6 6 (0.83%) Kafka
6 6 (0.83%) YAML
7 5 (0.69%) PyTorch
7 5 (0.69%) TensorFlow
8 4 (0.55%) Lambda Expressions
8 4 (0.55%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 130 (17.93%) Cloud Native
2 48 (6.62%) Security Posture
3 39 (5.38%) Enterprise Cloud
4 34 (4.69%) Hybrid Cloud
5 27 (3.72%) Onboarding
6 23 (3.17%) Public Cloud
7 22 (3.03%) Enterprise Software
8 20 (2.76%) Cloud Security Posture
9 19 (2.62%) Data Centre
10 15 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
10 15 (2.07%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.38%) Linux Command Line
12 9 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.24%) Self-Motivation
13 8 (1.10%) AI Agents
13 8 (1.10%) Product Ownership
14 7 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
14 7 (0.97%) PKI
15 5 (0.69%) Private Cloud
16 4 (0.55%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 113 (15.59%) Windows
2 72 (9.93%) Linux
3 53 (7.31%) Windows Server
4 29 (4.00%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (1.38%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.10%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.41%) CentOS
7 3 (0.41%) VMS
8 2 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.14%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 259 (35.72%) CI/CD
2 257 (35.45%) Infrastructure as Code
3 209 (28.83%) DevOps
4 164 (22.62%) Cloud Security
5 145 (20.00%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 133 (18.34%) Platform Engineering
7 91 (12.55%) AI
8 88 (12.14%) Containerisation
8 88 (12.14%) Migration
9 85 (11.72%) Agile
10 77 (10.62%) Observability
11 60 (8.28%) Software Engineering
12 55 (7.59%) Infrastructure Automation
13 53 (7.31%) Continuous Improvement
14 52 (7.17%) Problem-Solving
14 52 (7.17%) Technical Leadership
15 46 (6.34%) DevSecOps
16 45 (6.21%) Deployment Automation
17 44 (6.07%) Change Management
18 40 (5.52%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 192 (26.48%) Python
2 154 (21.24%) PowerShell
3 79 (10.90%) Bash
4 65 (8.97%) Bicep
5 61 (8.41%) SQL
6 37 (5.10%) Java
7 20 (2.76%) C#
8 14 (1.93%) Shell Script
9 13 (1.79%) JavaScript
10 10 (1.38%) Go
11 7 (0.97%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.55%) Groovy
13 3 (0.41%) C
13 3 (0.41%) Scala
14 2 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.28%) Ruby
15 1 (0.14%) Apex Code
15 1 (0.14%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.14%) Perl
15 1 (0.14%) R
Qualifications
1 179 (24.69%) Security Cleared
2 136 (18.76%) SC Cleared
3 57 (7.86%) DV Cleared
4 48 (6.62%) AWS Certification
4 48 (6.62%) Azure Certification
5 28 (3.86%) Degree
6 17 (2.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
6 17 (2.34%) CISSP
7 16 (2.21%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (1.52%) Cisco Certification
9 9 (1.24%) Computer Science Degree
10 7 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.97%) CCNP
10 7 (0.97%) MCSE
11 6 (0.83%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 6 (0.83%) CISM
12 4 (0.55%) (ISC)2 CCSP
12 4 (0.55%) CCIE
12 4 (0.55%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (0.41%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (1.79%) Data Quality
2 12 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (1.38%) NIST
3 10 (1.38%) QA
4 9 (1.24%) NCSC
5 5 (0.69%) GDPR
6 4 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
7 3 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.28%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.28%) SLA
9 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
9 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.14%) GRC
9 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 83 (11.45%) Active Directory
2 75 (10.34%) Docker
3 36 (4.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 32 (4.41%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (3.45%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (3.03%) VMware NSX
7 19 (2.62%) Virtual Desktop
8 18 (2.48%) vSphere
9 12 (1.66%) vCloud
10 11 (1.52%) Hyper-V
11 7 (0.97%) Squid
12 5 (0.69%) Firmware
13 3 (0.41%) Ceph
13 3 (0.41%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.41%) NFS
13 3 (0.41%) Postfix
14 2 (0.28%) KVM
14 2 (0.28%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 314 (43.31%) Terraform
2 175 (24.14%) Kubernetes
3 53 (7.31%) Ansible
4 23 (3.17%) Grafana
5 22 (3.03%) Microsoft Intune
5 22 (3.03%) Prometheus
6 21 (2.90%) vCenter Server
7 20 (2.76%) Progress Chef
8 19 (2.62%) SCOM
8 19 (2.62%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (2.21%) Puppet
10 8 (1.10%) Argo
10 8 (1.10%) Istio
10 8 (1.10%) Packer
11 6 (0.83%) Cilium
12 5 (0.69%) VxRail
13 4 (0.55%) HAProxy
13 4 (0.55%) Suricata
14 3 (0.41%) Salt
14 3 (0.41%) vRealize
Vendors
1 162 (22.34%) Microsoft
2 116 (16.00%) Google
3 57 (7.86%) VMware
4 27 (3.72%) Oracle
5 17 (2.34%) Red Hat
5 17 (2.34%) Zscaler
6 16 (2.21%) Okta
7 14 (1.93%) ServiceNow
8 13 (1.79%) Palo Alto
9 12 (1.66%) Splunk
10 11 (1.52%) OpenAI
11 10 (1.38%) Cisco
12 9 (1.24%) CrowdStrike
12 9 (1.24%) Salesforce
13 8 (1.10%) BeyondTrust
13 8 (1.10%) Broadcom
13 8 (1.10%) Databricks
13 8 (1.10%) Dynatrace
13 8 (1.10%) SolarWinds
14 7 (0.97%) New Relic