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 21 August 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 202 311 330
Rank change year-on-year +109 +19 -59
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 746 257 253
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.39% 0.78% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.51% 0.86% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 485 190 165
10th Percentile £400 £400 £386
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -9.09% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £625
90th Percentile £686 £638 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £515
% change year-on-year +2.00% -2.91% -3.74%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 6 0
10th Percentile £23.20 £29.00 -
25th Percentile £47.10 £29.25 -
Median hourly rate £77.00 £37.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +105.33% - -
75th Percentile £81.25 £58.75 -
90th Percentile £82.75 £86.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £72.00 - -

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 49,522 29,914 36,178
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.46% 91.26% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,686 18,901 23,122
10th Percentile £325 £280 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.69%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,509 1,556 1,977
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.53 £17.30 £19.59
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.84 £53.99 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +14.67%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +91 641 £525 +5.00% 106
UK excluding London +99 393 £510 +2.00% 95
London +55 304 £525 - 24
Work from Home +18 187 £540 +8.00% 49
South East +13 115 £538 +7.50% 28
North of England 0 113 £519 +15.28% 33
North West +4 68 £533 +21.83% 16
Midlands +3 64 £500 - 15
Scotland +29 58 £442 -11.60% 2
Yorkshire -10 38 £474 -5.12% 12
West Midlands -22 32 £525 -2.78% 10
East Midlands +5 31 £450 -5.26% 5
East of England +6 22 £505 +4.12% 2
South West -40 15 £600 +9.09% 14
Wales -10 7 - - 2
North East -35 7 £525 +10.53% 5

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

For the 6 months to 21 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.

1 355 (47.59%) Azure
2 313 (41.96%) Terraform
3 266 (35.66%) AWS
4 261 (34.99%) Infrastructure as Code
5 260 (34.85%) CI/CD
6 209 (28.02%) DevOps
7 191 (25.60%) Python
8 190 (25.47%) Kubernetes
9 189 (25.34%) Security Cleared
10 173 (23.19%) Cloud Security
11 172 (23.06%) Microsoft
12 165 (22.12%) GCP
13 161 (21.58%) PowerShell
14 154 (20.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 142 (19.03%) SC Cleared
16 141 (18.90%) Platform Engineering
17 116 (15.55%) Google
18 115 (15.42%) Windows
19 100 (13.40%) Entra ID
20 95 (12.73%) AI
21 92 (12.33%) GitHub
22 89 (11.93%) Active Directory
23 86 (11.53%) Containerisation
24 84 (11.26%) Agile
24 84 (11.26%) Bash
24 84 (11.26%) Migration
25 82 (10.99%) Firewall
26 80 (10.72%) Observability
27 76 (10.19%) DNS
28 75 (10.05%) 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 13 (1.74%) Microsoft Exchange
2 10 (1.34%) Apache
3 7 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.80%) Confluence
5 5 (0.67%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.40%) IIS
6 3 (0.40%) nginx
6 3 (0.40%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.27%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.27%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.27%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 355 (47.59%) Azure
2 266 (35.66%) AWS
3 165 (22.12%) GCP
4 100 (13.40%) Entra ID
5 92 (12.33%) GitHub
6 58 (7.77%) GitHub Actions
7 56 (7.51%) Azure DevOps
8 55 (7.37%) Serverless
9 47 (6.30%) Azure AKS
10 46 (6.17%) AWS CloudFormation
11 44 (5.90%) IaaS
12 41 (5.50%) AWS Lambda
13 40 (5.36%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 38 (5.09%) Azure Monitor
15 37 (4.96%) Amazon S3
16 36 (4.83%) Amazon EC2
17 35 (4.69%) Amazon EKS
18 34 (4.56%) Microsoft 365
19 33 (4.42%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 32 (4.29%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 82 (10.99%) Firewall
2 76 (10.19%) DNS
3 38 (5.09%) Network Security
3 38 (5.09%) VPN
4 17 (2.28%) DHCP
4 17 (2.28%) WAN
5 14 (1.88%) TCP/IP
6 12 (1.61%) Internet
7 6 (0.80%) SD-WAN
7 6 (0.80%) VLAN
8 5 (0.67%) LAN
8 5 (0.67%) SSL
9 4 (0.54%) BGP
9 4 (0.54%) Reverse Proxy
9 4 (0.54%) SAN
9 4 (0.54%) SMTP
9 4 (0.54%) VSAN
10 3 (0.40%) IPv4
10 3 (0.40%) NGFW
10 3 (0.40%) tcpdump
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (3.75%) SQL Server
2 19 (2.55%) Amazon RDS
3 16 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (1.47%) BigQuery
5 8 (1.07%) Amazon Athena
5 8 (1.07%) Oracle Exadata
6 7 (0.94%) Data Lake
7 6 (0.80%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (0.80%) DynamoDB
8 5 (0.67%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.54%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.40%) Amazon QuickSight
10 3 (0.40%) Flink
10 3 (0.40%) Looker
10 3 (0.40%) Metadata
10 3 (0.40%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.40%) MySQL
10 3 (0.40%) Oracle Database 12c
11 2 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.27%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 53 (7.10%) GitLab
2 47 (6.30%) Jenkins
3 37 (4.96%) Git
4 18 (2.41%) JIRA
5 9 (1.21%) Artifactory
6 6 (0.80%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.67%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.40%) Selenium
9 2 (0.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.27%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.27%) Gatling
9 2 (0.27%) JMeter
9 2 (0.27%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.27%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.27%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.27%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.13%) Chocolatey
10 1 (0.13%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.13%) Spinnaker
10 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 94 (12.60%) Finance
2 82 (10.99%) Social Skills
3 68 (9.12%) Public Sector
4 30 (4.02%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (3.62%) Banking
6 12 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.07%) Investment Banking
9 5 (0.67%) Law
9 5 (0.67%) Local Government
9 5 (0.67%) Manufacturing
10 4 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (0.40%) Digital Health
11 3 (0.40%) Front Office
11 3 (0.40%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.40%) Legal
11 3 (0.40%) Military
11 3 (0.40%) Police
11 3 (0.40%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.40%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 313 (41.96%) Terraform
2 23 (3.08%) REST
3 14 (1.88%) ARM Templates
4 11 (1.47%) Kafka
4 11 (1.47%) Spring
4 11 (1.47%) Spring Boot
5 10 (1.34%) Node.js
5 10 (1.34%) OAuth
5 10 (1.34%) OAuth2
6 8 (1.07%) AWS CDK
6 8 (1.07%) React
6 8 (1.07%) YAML
7 7 (0.94%) .NET
8 6 (0.80%) FastAPI
8 6 (0.80%) Flask
8 6 (0.80%) Keycloak
9 5 (0.67%) Model Context Protocol
9 5 (0.67%) OpenID
10 4 (0.54%) Hugging Face
10 4 (0.54%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 124 (16.62%) Cloud Native
2 56 (7.51%) Security Posture
3 42 (5.63%) Enterprise Cloud
4 34 (4.56%) Hybrid Cloud
5 30 (4.02%) Onboarding
6 28 (3.75%) Cloud Security Posture
7 23 (3.08%) Enterprise Software
8 19 (2.55%) Distributed Systems
9 17 (2.28%) Data Centre
9 17 (2.28%) Management Information System
10 16 (2.14%) Public Cloud
11 11 (1.47%) Product Ownership
12 10 (1.34%) Linux Command Line
12 10 (1.34%) Private Cloud
13 8 (1.07%) AI Agents
13 8 (1.07%) Data Protection Act
13 8 (1.07%) PKI
14 7 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
14 7 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
15 4 (0.54%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 115 (15.42%) Windows
2 75 (10.05%) Linux
3 56 (7.51%) Windows Server
4 31 (4.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (1.34%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.07%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.54%) VMS
8 3 (0.40%) CentOS
9 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 261 (34.99%) Infrastructure as Code
2 260 (34.85%) CI/CD
3 209 (28.02%) DevOps
4 173 (23.19%) Cloud Security
5 154 (20.64%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 141 (18.90%) Platform Engineering
7 95 (12.73%) AI
8 86 (11.53%) Containerisation
9 84 (11.26%) Agile
9 84 (11.26%) Migration
10 80 (10.72%) Observability
11 58 (7.77%) Continuous Improvement
11 58 (7.77%) Software Engineering
12 56 (7.51%) Technical Leadership
13 53 (7.10%) DevSecOps
14 52 (6.97%) Infrastructure Automation
15 51 (6.84%) Problem-Solving
16 49 (6.57%) Cybersecurity
16 49 (6.57%) Deployment Automation
17 47 (6.30%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 191 (25.60%) Python
2 161 (21.58%) PowerShell
3 84 (11.26%) Bash
4 68 (9.12%) Bicep
5 62 (8.31%) SQL
6 37 (4.96%) Java
7 20 (2.68%) C#
8 16 (2.14%) Shell Script
9 12 (1.61%) JavaScript
10 9 (1.21%) Go
11 5 (0.67%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.54%) Groovy
13 3 (0.40%) C
13 3 (0.40%) Scala
14 2 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
15 1 (0.13%) Apex Code
15 1 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 1 (0.13%) Perl
15 1 (0.13%) R
15 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 189 (25.34%) Security Cleared
2 142 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 61 (8.18%) DV Cleared
4 48 (6.43%) AWS Certification
5 46 (6.17%) Azure Certification
6 30 (4.02%) Degree
7 17 (2.28%) Microsoft Certification
8 16 (2.14%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 16 (2.14%) CISSP
9 9 (1.21%) Cisco Certification
10 8 (1.07%) MCSE
11 7 (0.94%) CCNP
11 7 (0.94%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.80%) BPSS Clearance
13 5 (0.67%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 5 (0.67%) CISM
14 4 (0.54%) CCIE
14 4 (0.54%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 3 (0.40%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
15 3 (0.40%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (1.88%) Data Quality
1 14 (1.88%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 11 (1.47%) NIST
3 10 (1.34%) QA
4 9 (1.21%) NCSC
5 6 (0.80%) Cyber Essentials
6 5 (0.67%) GDPR
7 3 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 3 (0.40%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.40%) SLA
8 2 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.27%) PCI DSS
9 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
9 1 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.13%) GRC
9 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 89 (11.93%) Active Directory
2 75 (10.05%) Docker
3 41 (5.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 32 (4.29%) Virtual Machines
5 26 (3.49%) VMware ESXi
6 23 (3.08%) VMware NSX
7 20 (2.68%) Virtual Desktop
8 18 (2.41%) vSphere
9 13 (1.74%) vCloud
10 10 (1.34%) Hyper-V
11 7 (0.94%) Squid
12 4 (0.54%) Firmware
13 3 (0.40%) Ceph
13 3 (0.40%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.40%) NFS
13 3 (0.40%) Postfix
14 2 (0.27%) KVM
14 2 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 190 (25.47%) Kubernetes
2 50 (6.70%) Ansible
3 23 (3.08%) Microsoft Intune
4 22 (2.95%) Grafana
4 22 (2.95%) vCenter Server
5 20 (2.68%) Progress Chef
5 20 (2.68%) Prometheus
5 20 (2.68%) SCOM
6 17 (2.28%) Single Sign-On
7 15 (2.01%) Puppet
8 9 (1.21%) Istio
9 8 (1.07%) Packer
10 6 (0.80%) Argo
10 6 (0.80%) Cilium
11 5 (0.67%) VxRail
12 4 (0.54%) Suricata
13 3 (0.40%) HAProxy
13 3 (0.40%) Karpenter
13 3 (0.40%) Salt
13 3 (0.40%) vRealize
Vendors
1 172 (23.06%) Microsoft
2 116 (15.55%) Google
3 63 (8.45%) VMware
4 31 (4.16%) Oracle
5 18 (2.41%) Red Hat
6 17 (2.28%) Okta
6 17 (2.28%) Zscaler
7 15 (2.01%) Databricks
8 13 (1.74%) Palo Alto
8 13 (1.74%) ServiceNow
9 12 (1.61%) OpenAI
9 12 (1.61%) Splunk
10 10 (1.34%) Cisco
11 9 (1.21%) CrowdStrike
11 9 (1.21%) Dynatrace
12 8 (1.07%) BeyondTrust
12 8 (1.07%) Broadcom
12 8 (1.07%) New Relic
12 8 (1.07%) Salesforce
12 8 (1.07%) SolarWinds