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 23 April 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 238 308 315
Rank change year-on-year +70 +7 -61
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 505 227 294
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.09% 0.77% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.18% 0.83% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 341 173 200
10th Percentile £400 £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 £676
UK excluding London median daily rate £520 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +1.99% -2.88% -3.45%
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 42,836 27,359 40,556
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.28% 92.64% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,486 17,911 26,489
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 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,746 1,013 2,627
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.44 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £16.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.67% -14.29% -22.22%
75th Percentile £65.60 £63.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £28.88 £37.18
% change year-on-year +52.38% -22.34% -12.52%

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 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 23 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 23 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 +56 420 £525 - 161
London +51 239 £525 - 61
UK excluding London +12 212 £520 +1.99% 120
Work from Home +5 122 £510 -0.49% 107
North of England -27 57 £513 +10.81% 39
South East -29 44 £510 -9.33% 29
Scotland +27 38 £482 -8.29% 8
Yorkshire -25 28 £481 +13.24% 14
Midlands -49 28 £673 +37.95% 15
North West -21 27 £525 +16.67% 19
East of England -9 23 £510 +3.55% 11
South West -13 23 £550 -4.35% 14
West Midlands -47 22 £680 +15.74% 14
East Midlands -34 6 £575 +21.05% 1
North East -24 2 £525 -12.50% 6
Wales -10 1 £425 +41.67%

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 222 (43.96%) Terraform
2 220 (43.56%) AWS
3 219 (43.37%) Azure
4 200 (39.60%) CI/CD
5 191 (37.82%) Infrastructure as Code
6 177 (35.05%) DevOps
7 144 (28.51%) Security Cleared
8 124 (24.55%) Kubernetes
9 123 (24.36%) SC Cleared
10 120 (23.76%) GCP
11 115 (22.77%) Python
12 106 (20.99%) GitHub
13 99 (19.60%) Cloud Security
14 89 (17.62%) Google
15 88 (17.43%) Microsoft
16 78 (15.45%) Agile
17 76 (15.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
18 75 (14.85%) Platform Engineering
19 74 (14.65%) PowerShell
20 69 (13.66%) Containerisation
21 67 (13.27%) GitHub Actions
22 65 (12.87%) Migration
23 61 (12.08%) Docker
24 54 (10.69%) Serverless
25 49 (9.70%) Continuous Improvement
26 47 (9.31%) Observability
27 46 (9.11%) Firewall
28 44 (8.71%) AI
28 44 (8.71%) AWS CloudFormation
28 44 (8.71%) DevSecOps

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 7 (1.39%) Microsoft Exchange
2 6 (1.19%) Confluence
3 5 (0.99%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.79%) Apache
5 3 (0.59%) nginx
6 2 (0.40%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.40%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.20%) SAS
7 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
1 220 (43.56%) AWS
2 219 (43.37%) Azure
3 120 (23.76%) GCP
4 106 (20.99%) GitHub
5 67 (13.27%) GitHub Actions
6 54 (10.69%) Serverless
7 44 (8.71%) AWS CloudFormation
8 43 (8.51%) Azure DevOps
9 39 (7.72%) Entra ID
10 38 (7.52%) Azure AKS
11 36 (7.13%) PaaS
12 35 (6.93%) Amazon S3
13 31 (6.14%) Amazon EKS
13 31 (6.14%) AWS Lambda
13 31 (6.14%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 30 (5.94%) IaaS
15 27 (5.35%) Amazon ECS
16 21 (4.16%) Virtual Private Cloud
17 20 (3.96%) Amazon EC2
17 20 (3.96%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (9.11%) Firewall
2 19 (3.76%) DNS
3 18 (3.56%) Network Security
4 17 (3.37%) VPN
5 7 (1.39%) Cisco Firepower
6 6 (1.19%) Cisco IOS
6 6 (1.19%) Cisco ISE
6 6 (1.19%) Junos
6 6 (1.19%) Reverse Proxy
7 5 (0.99%) NX-OS
8 4 (0.79%) DHCP
8 4 (0.79%) Software-Defined Networking
9 3 (0.59%) BGP
9 3 (0.59%) SMTP
10 2 (0.40%) DKIM
10 2 (0.40%) TCP/IP
10 2 (0.40%) Unified Communications
10 2 (0.40%) VLAN
11 1 (0.20%) SD-WAN
11 1 (0.20%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (2.97%) Amazon Athena
2 12 (2.38%) BigQuery
3 11 (2.18%) DynamoDB
4 8 (1.58%) Amazon RDS
5 7 (1.39%) Amazon Redshift
5 7 (1.39%) Power BI
5 7 (1.39%) SQL Server
6 6 (1.19%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (1.19%) Data Lake
6 6 (1.19%) NoSQL
6 6 (1.19%) PostgreSQL
7 5 (0.99%) Big Data
8 4 (0.79%) Amazon QuickSight
8 4 (0.79%) Data Warehouse
8 4 (0.79%) Elasticsearch
8 4 (0.79%) Oracle Database
9 3 (0.59%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (0.40%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.40%) Metadata
10 2 (0.40%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 43 (8.51%) Jenkins
2 36 (7.13%) GitLab
3 34 (6.73%) Git
4 7 (1.39%) JIRA
5 4 (0.79%) Artifactory
6 3 (0.59%) Liquibase
6 3 (0.59%) 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%) CircleCI
8 1 (0.20%) IntelliJ
8 1 (0.20%) JUnit
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 71 (14.06%) Social Skills
2 60 (11.88%) Finance
3 43 (8.51%) Public Sector
4 19 (3.76%) Analytical Skills
5 18 (3.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 17 (3.37%) Banking
7 10 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (1.78%) Retail
9 7 (1.39%) Aeronautics
10 6 (1.19%) Legal
10 6 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (0.99%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.79%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.79%) Investment Banking
12 4 (0.79%) Marketing
13 3 (0.59%) Military
14 2 (0.40%) Billing
14 2 (0.40%) Law
14 2 (0.40%) Local Government
14 2 (0.40%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (4.75%) REST
2 21 (4.16%) Node.js
3 13 (2.57%) Kafka
4 12 (2.38%) React
5 11 (2.18%) OpenTelemetry
6 10 (1.98%) .NET
7 9 (1.78%) ARM Templates
7 9 (1.78%) Elastic Stack
7 9 (1.78%) Spring
7 9 (1.78%) Spring Boot
8 8 (1.58%) OAuth
8 8 (1.58%) Oracle Fusion
8 8 (1.58%) Playwright
9 7 (1.39%) AngularJS
9 7 (1.39%) LangChain
9 7 (1.39%) OAuth2
9 7 (1.39%) OpenAPI
9 7 (1.39%) OpenID
9 7 (1.39%) SOAP
10 6 (1.19%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 87 (17.23%) Cloud Native
2 30 (5.94%) Public Cloud
3 17 (3.37%) Hybrid Cloud
4 14 (2.77%) Data Centre
5 10 (1.98%) Product Ownership
6 9 (1.78%) Security Posture
7 7 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
7 7 (1.39%) Onboarding
7 7 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.19%) Cyber Threat
8 6 (1.19%) Enterprise Cloud
8 6 (1.19%) PKI
9 5 (0.99%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (0.99%) Virtual Team
10 3 (0.59%) Cloud Security Posture
10 3 (0.59%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.59%) Management Information System
10 3 (0.59%) Replication
11 2 (0.40%) Clustering
Operating Systems
1 39 (7.72%) Windows
2 31 (6.14%) Linux
3 18 (3.56%) Windows Server
4 4 (0.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (0.79%) Unix
4 4 (0.79%) VMS
5 1 (0.20%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 200 (39.60%) CI/CD
2 191 (37.82%) Infrastructure as Code
3 177 (35.05%) DevOps
4 99 (19.60%) Cloud Security
5 78 (15.45%) Agile
6 76 (15.05%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 75 (14.85%) Platform Engineering
8 69 (13.66%) Containerisation
9 65 (12.87%) Migration
10 49 (9.70%) Continuous Improvement
11 47 (9.31%) Observability
12 44 (8.71%) AI
12 44 (8.71%) DevSecOps
13 43 (8.51%) Infrastructure Automation
14 39 (7.72%) Cybersecurity
14 39 (7.72%) Problem-Solving
15 37 (7.33%) Software Engineering
16 34 (6.73%) Mentoring
17 32 (6.34%) Microservices
18 27 (5.35%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 115 (22.77%) Python
2 74 (14.65%) PowerShell
3 44 (8.71%) SQL
4 33 (6.53%) Bash
5 27 (5.35%) Bicep
5 27 (5.35%) Java
6 17 (3.37%) C#
7 14 (2.77%) TypeScript
8 10 (1.98%) Go
9 8 (1.58%) JavaScript
10 4 (0.79%) BeanShell
10 4 (0.79%) Groovy
10 4 (0.79%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.40%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.40%) Ruby
12 1 (0.20%) C
12 1 (0.20%) Cypher
12 1 (0.20%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.20%) R
Qualifications
1 144 (28.51%) Security Cleared
2 123 (24.36%) SC Cleared
3 42 (8.32%) Azure Certification
4 30 (5.94%) AWS Certification
5 20 (3.96%) DV Cleared
6 17 (3.37%) Degree
7 16 (3.17%) Microsoft Certification
8 13 (2.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 13 (2.57%) CISSP
9 11 (2.18%) BPSS Clearance
10 10 (1.98%) Computer Science Degree
11 9 (1.78%) Cisco Certification
12 7 (1.39%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 7 (1.39%) CISM
13 6 (1.19%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 5 (0.99%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.79%) CCSP
15 4 (0.79%) Master's Degree
16 3 (0.59%) CCNP
16 3 (0.59%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (2.38%) GDPR
1 12 (2.38%) NCSC
2 11 (2.18%) NIST
3 10 (1.98%) QA
4 9 (1.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 6 (1.19%) Data Quality
5 6 (1.19%) PCI DSS
6 5 (0.99%) GRC
7 2 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
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%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 61 (12.08%) Docker
2 25 (4.95%) Active Directory
3 15 (2.97%) Virtual Desktop
4 13 (2.57%) Virtual Machines
4 13 (2.57%) VMware NSX
5 8 (1.58%) vSphere
6 7 (1.39%) VMware Infrastructure
7 6 (1.19%) Firmware
7 6 (1.19%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.20%) Squid
Systems Management
1 222 (43.96%) Terraform
2 124 (24.55%) Kubernetes
3 28 (5.54%) Prometheus
4 24 (4.75%) Ansible
5 23 (4.55%) Grafana
6 17 (3.37%) Istio
7 14 (2.77%) Microsoft Intune
8 13 (2.57%) Argo
9 11 (2.18%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (1.39%) Packer
10 7 (1.39%) vCenter Server
11 5 (0.99%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.99%) Puppet
12 4 (0.79%) Kibana
12 4 (0.79%) logstash
12 4 (0.79%) Salt
13 2 (0.40%) Cilium
13 2 (0.40%) Consul
14 1 (0.20%) HAProxy
14 1 (0.20%) Podman
Vendors
1 89 (17.62%) Google
2 88 (17.43%) Microsoft
3 18 (3.56%) Oracle
4 15 (2.97%) VMware
5 12 (2.38%) Cisco
5 12 (2.38%) Databricks
5 12 (2.38%) Dynatrace
6 10 (1.98%) ServiceNow
7 9 (1.78%) Splunk
8 7 (1.39%) Juniper
8 7 (1.39%) Salesforce
9 6 (1.19%) SolarWinds
10 5 (0.99%) Broadcom
10 5 (0.99%) Citrix
10 5 (0.99%) Fortinet
10 5 (0.99%) PeopleSoft
10 5 (0.99%) Ping Identity
10 5 (0.99%) Rapid7
11 4 (0.79%) Palo Alto
11 4 (0.79%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud