Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £513, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 193 319 337
Rank change year-on-year +126 +18 -83
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 785 253 244
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.45% 0.77% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.57% 0.84% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 518 182 150
10th Percentile £413 £400 £400
25th Percentile £450 £447 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £551
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -9.17% +0.09%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £638
90th Percentile £675 £638 £701
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 7 0
10th Percentile - £29.00 -
25th Percentile £23.20 £29.50 -
Median hourly rate £77.00 £45.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +71.11% - -
75th Percentile £81.25 £86.25 -
90th Percentile £81.63 £110.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 - -

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 50,111 30,002 35,564
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 91.08% 92.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,702 18,956 21,934
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £621 £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 3,778 1,570 1,684
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.75 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.27 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -2.01%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +5.88%

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 16 September 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 16 September 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 16 September 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 +96 681 £525 +5.00% 1,470
UK excluding London +108 434 £510 +2.00% 762
London +44 300 £525 +2.44% 764
Work from Home +35 195 £540 +8.00% 537
North of England +22 135 £513 +13.89% 229
South East +20 131 £538 +7.50% 137
North West +20 82 £519 +16.90% 137
Midlands +15 72 £500 -7.41% 102
Scotland +19 56 £447 -18.73% 110
Yorkshire -10 45 £450 -16.28% 64
East Midlands +20 40 £488 +2.63% 38
West Midlands -25 31 £525 -4.55% 64
East of England -6 18 £475 -2.06% 50
South West -37 16 £575 +4.55% 85
North East -36 8 £525 +14.13% 28
Wales -5 7 - - 13

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

For the 6 months to 16 September 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.

1 370 (47.13%) Azure
2 309 (39.36%) Terraform
3 278 (35.41%) Infrastructure as Code
4 270 (34.39%) AWS
5 267 (34.01%) CI/CD
6 207 (26.37%) DevOps
6 207 (26.37%) Security Cleared
7 206 (26.24%) Kubernetes
8 194 (24.71%) Python
9 180 (22.93%) Microsoft
10 177 (22.55%) Cloud Security
11 164 (20.89%) GCP
12 161 (20.51%) PowerShell
13 158 (20.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 153 (19.49%) Platform Engineering
15 148 (18.85%) SC Cleared
16 119 (15.16%) Windows
17 115 (14.65%) Entra ID
18 108 (13.76%) Google
19 105 (13.38%) AI
20 104 (13.25%) Active Directory
21 92 (11.72%) Containerisation
22 91 (11.59%) Agile
22 91 (11.59%) Migration
23 88 (11.21%) Observability
24 86 (10.96%) GitHub
25 83 (10.57%) DNS
25 83 (10.57%) Firewall
26 82 (10.45%) Docker
26 82 (10.45%) Linux

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 14 (1.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (1.53%) Apache
3 8 (1.02%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (1.02%) SharePoint
4 6 (0.76%) Confluence
5 3 (0.38%) IIS
5 3 (0.38%) nginx
5 3 (0.38%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.25%) Apache Spark
6 2 (0.25%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.25%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 370 (47.13%) Azure
2 270 (34.39%) AWS
3 164 (20.89%) GCP
4 115 (14.65%) Entra ID
5 86 (10.96%) GitHub
6 55 (7.01%) Azure DevOps
6 55 (7.01%) GitHub Actions
6 55 (7.01%) Serverless
7 49 (6.24%) IaaS
8 46 (5.86%) AWS CloudFormation
9 41 (5.22%) AWS Lambda
9 41 (5.22%) Azure Monitor
10 39 (4.97%) Azure AKS
11 38 (4.84%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 36 (4.59%) PaaS
13 35 (4.46%) Amazon EKS
13 35 (4.46%) Microsoft 365
14 34 (4.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 33 (4.20%) Amazon EC2
16 32 (4.08%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 83 (10.57%) DNS
1 83 (10.57%) Firewall
2 42 (5.35%) Network Security
3 37 (4.71%) VPN
4 21 (2.68%) DHCP
5 17 (2.17%) WAN
6 16 (2.04%) TCP/IP
7 12 (1.53%) Internet
8 7 (0.89%) VLAN
9 6 (0.76%) NGFW
9 6 (0.76%) SD-WAN
9 6 (0.76%) VSAN
10 5 (0.64%) Kerberos
10 5 (0.64%) SSL
11 4 (0.51%) LAN
11 4 (0.51%) Wireless
12 3 (0.38%) BGP
12 3 (0.38%) IPv4
12 3 (0.38%) OSPF
12 3 (0.38%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (3.31%) SQL Server
2 20 (2.55%) Amazon RDS
3 17 (2.17%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (1.53%) BigQuery
5 10 (1.27%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.02%) Oracle Exadata
7 7 (0.89%) DynamoDB
8 6 (0.76%) Amazon Athena
8 6 (0.76%) NoSQL
9 5 (0.64%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.51%) Azure SQL Database
11 3 (0.38%) Big Data
11 3 (0.38%) Flink
11 3 (0.38%) Looker
11 3 (0.38%) Metadata
11 3 (0.38%) MongoDB
11 3 (0.38%) MySQL
11 3 (0.38%) Oracle Database 12c
12 2 (0.25%) Amazon QuickSight
12 2 (0.25%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 56 (7.13%) GitLab
2 47 (5.99%) Jenkins
3 39 (4.97%) Git
4 18 (2.29%) JIRA
5 8 (1.02%) Artifactory
6 7 (0.89%) Claude Code
7 6 (0.76%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.38%) Selenium
8 3 (0.38%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.25%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.25%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.25%) Gatling
9 2 (0.25%) JMeter
9 2 (0.25%) Octopus Deploy
9 2 (0.25%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.25%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.13%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.13%) eggPlant
10 1 (0.13%) Spinnaker
10 1 (0.13%) TestRail
General
1 98 (12.48%) Finance
2 80 (10.19%) Social Skills
3 76 (9.68%) Public Sector
4 33 (4.20%) Analytical Skills
5 25 (3.18%) Banking
6 9 (1.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 9 (1.15%) Manufacturing
7 7 (0.89%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (0.89%) Legal
8 6 (0.76%) Investment Banking
9 5 (0.64%) Law
9 5 (0.64%) Local Government
9 5 (0.64%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (0.51%) Front Office
10 4 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (0.38%) Italian Language
11 3 (0.38%) Marketing
11 3 (0.38%) Military
11 3 (0.38%) Police
11 3 (0.38%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 309 (39.36%) Terraform
2 25 (3.18%) REST
3 18 (2.29%) ARM Templates
4 14 (1.78%) Kafka
5 13 (1.66%) OAuth
6 12 (1.53%) OAuth2
7 11 (1.40%) Spring
7 11 (1.40%) Spring Boot
8 9 (1.15%) Node.js
9 8 (1.02%) AWS CDK
9 8 (1.02%) Keycloak
9 8 (1.02%) OpenID
10 7 (0.89%) .NET
10 7 (0.89%) React
10 7 (0.89%) YAML
11 6 (0.76%) FastAPI
11 6 (0.76%) Flask
12 5 (0.64%) Azure Blueprints
12 5 (0.64%) PySpark
13 4 (0.51%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 124 (15.80%) Cloud Native
2 60 (7.64%) Security Posture
3 48 (6.11%) Enterprise Cloud
4 37 (4.71%) Hybrid Cloud
5 31 (3.95%) Cloud Security Posture
5 31 (3.95%) Onboarding
6 26 (3.31%) Enterprise Software
7 21 (2.68%) Management Information System
8 20 (2.55%) Distributed Systems
9 19 (2.42%) Data Centre
10 16 (2.04%) Public Cloud
11 13 (1.66%) Product Ownership
12 12 (1.53%) Private Cloud
13 11 (1.40%) Linux Command Line
13 11 (1.40%) PKI
14 8 (1.02%) AI Agents
14 8 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
15 7 (0.89%) Legacy Systems
16 6 (0.76%) Distributed Architecture
17 5 (0.64%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 119 (15.16%) Windows
2 82 (10.45%) Linux
3 62 (7.90%) Windows Server
4 31 (3.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (1.78%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.02%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.51%) VMS
8 3 (0.38%) CentOS
9 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.13%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 278 (35.41%) Infrastructure as Code
2 267 (34.01%) CI/CD
3 207 (26.37%) DevOps
4 177 (22.55%) Cloud Security
5 158 (20.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 153 (19.49%) Platform Engineering
7 105 (13.38%) AI
8 92 (11.72%) Containerisation
9 91 (11.59%) Agile
9 91 (11.59%) Migration
10 88 (11.21%) Observability
11 66 (8.41%) Technical Leadership
12 61 (7.77%) Cybersecurity
13 60 (7.64%) Continuous Improvement
13 60 (7.64%) DevSecOps
14 59 (7.52%) Infrastructure Automation
14 59 (7.52%) Software Engineering
15 57 (7.26%) Problem-Solving
16 55 (7.01%) Deployment Automation
17 51 (6.50%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 194 (24.71%) Python
2 161 (20.51%) PowerShell
3 81 (10.32%) Bash
4 76 (9.68%) Bicep
5 62 (7.90%) SQL
6 39 (4.97%) Java
7 16 (2.04%) Shell Script
8 15 (1.91%) C#
9 11 (1.40%) JavaScript
10 9 (1.15%) Go
11 4 (0.51%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.38%) C
12 3 (0.38%) Groovy
12 3 (0.38%) Scala
13 2 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.13%) Apex Code
14 1 (0.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 1 (0.13%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.13%) R
14 1 (0.13%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 207 (26.37%) Security Cleared
2 148 (18.85%) SC Cleared
3 73 (9.30%) DV Cleared
4 46 (5.86%) Azure Certification
5 43 (5.48%) AWS Certification
6 35 (4.46%) Degree
7 24 (3.06%) Microsoft Certification
8 18 (2.29%) CISSP
9 12 (1.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 10 (1.27%) MCSE
11 8 (1.02%) BPSS Clearance
12 7 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
13 6 (0.76%) CISM
13 6 (0.76%) Computer Science Degree
14 5 (0.64%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 5 (0.64%) CCNP
14 5 (0.64%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
15 3 (0.38%) CCIE
15 3 (0.38%) CEH
15 3 (0.38%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 14 (1.78%) Data Quality
3 12 (1.53%) NIST
4 11 (1.40%) QA
5 10 (1.27%) NCSC
6 8 (1.02%) Cyber Essentials
7 6 (0.76%) GDPR
8 4 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 3 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.25%) SLA
11 1 (0.13%) Accessibility
11 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.13%) GRC
11 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 104 (13.25%) Active Directory
2 82 (10.45%) Docker
3 50 (6.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (4.20%) Virtual Machines
4 33 (4.20%) VMware ESXi
5 27 (3.44%) VMware NSX
6 21 (2.68%) Virtual Desktop
6 21 (2.68%) vSphere
7 15 (1.91%) vCloud
8 12 (1.53%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.89%) Squid
10 3 (0.38%) Ceph
10 3 (0.38%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.38%) Firmware
10 3 (0.38%) NFS
10 3 (0.38%) Postfix
11 2 (0.25%) KVM
11 2 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
12 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.13%) IAG
Systems Management
1 206 (26.24%) Kubernetes
2 52 (6.62%) Ansible
3 30 (3.82%) vCenter Server
4 27 (3.44%) Microsoft Intune
5 26 (3.31%) SCOM
6 23 (2.93%) Grafana
7 20 (2.55%) Prometheus
8 19 (2.42%) Progress Chef
9 16 (2.04%) Single Sign-On
10 14 (1.78%) Puppet
11 9 (1.15%) Istio
12 8 (1.02%) Cilium
13 6 (0.76%) Argo
13 6 (0.76%) Packer
14 5 (0.64%) VxRail
15 4 (0.51%) Suricata
16 3 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 3 (0.38%) FortiGate
16 3 (0.38%) HAProxy
16 3 (0.38%) vRealize
Vendors
1 180 (22.93%) Microsoft
2 108 (13.76%) Google
3 75 (9.55%) VMware
4 36 (4.59%) Oracle
5 24 (3.06%) Databricks
6 19 (2.42%) Red Hat
7 17 (2.17%) Okta
8 16 (2.04%) Zscaler
9 15 (1.91%) Palo Alto
10 13 (1.66%) SolarWinds
11 12 (1.53%) Broadcom
11 12 (1.53%) OpenAI
11 12 (1.53%) Splunk
12 11 (1.40%) ServiceNow
13 9 (1.15%) Cisco
13 9 (1.15%) CrowdStrike
13 9 (1.15%) Salesforce
14 8 (1.02%) BeyondTrust
14 8 (1.02%) Dynatrace
14 8 (1.02%) New Relic