Cloud Engineer Contract Job Trends

Cloud Engineer
UK

The median Cloud Engineer daily rate in the UK is £520, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 September 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 195 316 327
Rank change year-on-year +121 +11 -79
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 795 251 245
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.45% 0.77% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.57% 0.84% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 180 150
10th Percentile £413 £402 £400
25th Percentile £450 £447 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £570
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -12.28% +3.64%
75th Percentile £594 £575 £642
90th Percentile £677 £641 £701
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 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 - £110.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £68.00 - -

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 50,606 29,766 35,027
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.26% 91.04% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,920 18,783 21,484
10th Percentile £325 £276 £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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £733 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,907 1,587 1,616
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.79
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.30 £20.69
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -41.51% -3.37%
75th Percentile £67.70 £51.65 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £69.65 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.08 £43.97
% change year-on-year +69.49% -42.97% +0.50%

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 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 23 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 23 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 +119 696 £525 +5.00% 1,438
UK excluding London +111 438 £510 +2.00% 762
London +56 305 £525 +0.96% 725
Work from Home +30 201 £539 +7.80% 549
North of England +19 139 £513 +13.89% 228
South East +27 134 £538 +7.50% 141
North West +18 85 £519 +15.28% 146
Midlands +9 75 £500 -8.26% 97
Scotland +14 50 £437 -16.76% 103
Yorkshire -9 46 £455 -15.35% 52
East Midlands +12 42 £500 +5.26% 50
West Midlands -14 32 £525 -4.55% 47
East of England -15 18 £488 +13.04% 51
South West -27 17 £575 +4.55% 90
North East -35 8 £525 +14.13% 30
Wales -6 7 - - 20

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 378 (47.55%) Azure
2 312 (39.25%) Terraform
3 281 (35.35%) Infrastructure as Code
4 272 (34.21%) CI/CD
5 270 (33.96%) AWS
6 209 (26.29%) Security Cleared
7 208 (26.16%) DevOps
7 208 (26.16%) Kubernetes
8 196 (24.65%) Python
9 184 (23.14%) Microsoft
10 179 (22.52%) Cloud Security
11 166 (20.88%) PowerShell
12 161 (20.25%) GCP
13 160 (20.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
14 150 (18.87%) Platform Engineering
15 148 (18.62%) SC Cleared
16 120 (15.09%) Entra ID
17 119 (14.97%) Windows
18 105 (13.21%) Google
19 104 (13.08%) Active Directory
20 103 (12.96%) AI
21 96 (12.08%) Migration
22 93 (11.70%) Containerisation
23 91 (11.45%) Observability
24 89 (11.19%) Agile
25 85 (10.69%) GitHub
26 84 (10.57%) DNS
26 84 (10.57%) Firewall
27 83 (10.44%) Docker
28 81 (10.19%) Bash

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 (1.76%) Microsoft Exchange
2 12 (1.51%) Apache
3 8 (1.01%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (1.01%) SharePoint
4 7 (0.88%) Confluence
5 3 (0.38%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.38%) IIS
5 3 (0.38%) nginx
5 3 (0.38%) OpenStack
5 3 (0.38%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.25%) CloudStack
7 1 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.13%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 378 (47.55%) Azure
2 270 (33.96%) AWS
3 161 (20.25%) GCP
4 120 (15.09%) Entra ID
5 85 (10.69%) GitHub
6 56 (7.04%) Azure DevOps
7 55 (6.92%) Serverless
8 54 (6.79%) GitHub Actions
9 52 (6.54%) IaaS
10 47 (5.91%) AWS CloudFormation
11 41 (5.16%) AWS Lambda
11 41 (5.16%) Azure Monitor
12 40 (5.03%) Azure AKS
13 39 (4.91%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 38 (4.78%) Microsoft 365
15 37 (4.65%) PaaS
16 35 (4.40%) Amazon EKS
17 34 (4.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 32 (4.03%) Amazon EC2
18 32 (4.03%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 84 (10.57%) DNS
1 84 (10.57%) Firewall
2 42 (5.28%) Network Security
3 37 (4.65%) VPN
4 21 (2.64%) DHCP
5 18 (2.26%) WAN
6 16 (2.01%) TCP/IP
7 12 (1.51%) Internet
8 8 (1.01%) VSAN
9 7 (0.88%) SD-WAN
9 7 (0.88%) VLAN
10 6 (0.75%) NGFW
11 5 (0.63%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.63%) SSL
12 4 (0.50%) BGP
12 4 (0.50%) LAN
12 4 (0.50%) Wireless
13 3 (0.38%) IPv4
13 3 (0.38%) OSPF
13 3 (0.38%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (3.27%) SQL Server
2 21 (2.64%) Amazon RDS
3 17 (2.14%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (1.64%) BigQuery
5 11 (1.38%) Data Lake
6 8 (1.01%) Oracle Exadata
7 7 (0.88%) DynamoDB
7 7 (0.88%) NoSQL
8 6 (0.75%) Amazon Athena
9 5 (0.63%) Oracle Database
10 4 (0.50%) Azure SQL Database
10 4 (0.50%) 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%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 55 (6.92%) GitLab
2 45 (5.66%) Jenkins
3 39 (4.91%) Git
4 18 (2.26%) JIRA
5 8 (1.01%) Artifactory
6 7 (0.88%) Claude Code
7 6 (0.75%) 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%) eggPlant
10 1 (0.13%) IntelliJ
10 1 (0.13%) JUnit
10 1 (0.13%) LoadRunner
General
1 97 (12.20%) Finance
2 83 (10.44%) Social Skills
3 74 (9.31%) Public Sector
4 32 (4.03%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (3.27%) Banking
6 10 (1.26%) Manufacturing
7 9 (1.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
9 7 (0.88%) Legal
10 6 (0.75%) Investment Banking
11 5 (0.63%) Law
11 5 (0.63%) Local Government
11 5 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
12 4 (0.50%) Front Office
12 4 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (0.38%) Italian Language
13 3 (0.38%) Marketing
13 3 (0.38%) Military
13 3 (0.38%) Police
13 3 (0.38%) Retail
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 312 (39.25%) Terraform
2 25 (3.14%) REST
3 19 (2.39%) ARM Templates
4 14 (1.76%) Kafka
5 13 (1.64%) OAuth
6 12 (1.51%) OAuth2
7 11 (1.38%) Spring
7 11 (1.38%) Spring Boot
8 9 (1.13%) Node.js
9 8 (1.01%) .NET
9 8 (1.01%) AWS CDK
9 8 (1.01%) Keycloak
9 8 (1.01%) OpenID
10 7 (0.88%) React
10 7 (0.88%) YAML
11 6 (0.75%) FastAPI
11 6 (0.75%) Flask
12 5 (0.63%) Azure Blueprints
13 4 (0.50%) PySpark
13 4 (0.50%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 126 (15.85%) Cloud Native
2 61 (7.67%) Security Posture
3 46 (5.79%) Enterprise Cloud
4 38 (4.78%) Hybrid Cloud
5 32 (4.03%) Cloud Security Posture
6 31 (3.90%) Onboarding
7 26 (3.27%) Enterprise Software
8 21 (2.64%) Data Centre
8 21 (2.64%) Management Information System
9 20 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
10 16 (2.01%) Public Cloud
11 14 (1.76%) Private Cloud
12 13 (1.64%) Product Ownership
13 11 (1.38%) Linux Command Line
14 10 (1.26%) PKI
15 8 (1.01%) AI Agents
15 8 (1.01%) Data Protection Act
16 7 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
17 6 (0.75%) Distributed Architecture
18 5 (0.63%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 119 (14.97%) Windows
2 81 (10.19%) Linux
3 60 (7.55%) Windows Server
4 31 (3.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 15 (1.89%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.01%) Ubuntu
7 5 (0.63%) VMS
8 3 (0.38%) CentOS
9 2 (0.25%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.13%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 281 (35.35%) Infrastructure as Code
2 272 (34.21%) CI/CD
3 208 (26.16%) DevOps
4 179 (22.52%) Cloud Security
5 160 (20.13%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 150 (18.87%) Platform Engineering
7 103 (12.96%) AI
8 96 (12.08%) Migration
9 93 (11.70%) Containerisation
10 91 (11.45%) Observability
11 89 (11.19%) Agile
12 67 (8.43%) Technical Leadership
13 61 (7.67%) DevSecOps
14 60 (7.55%) Continuous Improvement
14 60 (7.55%) Cybersecurity
14 60 (7.55%) Software Engineering
15 58 (7.30%) Infrastructure Automation
16 56 (7.04%) Deployment Automation
17 53 (6.67%) Problem-Solving
17 53 (6.67%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 196 (24.65%) Python
2 166 (20.88%) PowerShell
3 81 (10.19%) Bash
4 78 (9.81%) Bicep
5 64 (8.05%) SQL
6 39 (4.91%) Java
7 16 (2.01%) Shell Script
8 15 (1.89%) C#
9 11 (1.38%) JavaScript
10 10 (1.26%) Go
11 4 (0.50%) 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%) Perl
14 1 (0.13%) R
Qualifications
1 209 (26.29%) Security Cleared
2 148 (18.62%) SC Cleared
3 74 (9.31%) DV Cleared
4 47 (5.91%) Azure Certification
5 43 (5.41%) AWS Certification
6 35 (4.40%) Degree
7 22 (2.77%) Microsoft Certification
8 18 (2.26%) CISSP
9 12 (1.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 8 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
10 8 (1.01%) MCSE
11 7 (0.88%) Cisco Certification
12 6 (0.75%) CISM
12 6 (0.75%) Computer Science Degree
12 6 (0.75%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 5 (0.63%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 5 (0.63%) CCNP
14 3 (0.38%) CCIE
14 3 (0.38%) CEH
14 3 (0.38%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (1.89%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 14 (1.76%) Data Quality
3 11 (1.38%) NIST
4 10 (1.26%) QA
5 9 (1.13%) NCSC
6 6 (0.75%) Cyber Essentials
6 6 (0.75%) GDPR
7 4 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 3 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.25%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.25%) SLA
10 1 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.13%) GRC
System Software
1 104 (13.08%) Active Directory
2 83 (10.44%) Docker
3 51 (6.42%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (4.53%) Virtual Machines
5 34 (4.28%) VMware ESXi
6 28 (3.52%) VMware NSX
7 23 (2.89%) Virtual Desktop
8 20 (2.52%) vSphere
9 15 (1.89%) vCloud
10 11 (1.38%) Hyper-V
11 7 (0.88%) Squid
12 4 (0.50%) Firmware
12 4 (0.50%) NFS
13 3 (0.38%) Ceph
13 3 (0.38%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.38%) Postfix
14 2 (0.25%) KVM
14 2 (0.25%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.13%) BitLocker
15 1 (0.13%) IAG
Systems Management
1 208 (26.16%) Kubernetes
2 53 (6.67%) Ansible
3 30 (3.77%) vCenter Server
4 27 (3.40%) Microsoft Intune
4 27 (3.40%) SCOM
5 23 (2.89%) Grafana
6 20 (2.52%) Prometheus
7 19 (2.39%) Progress Chef
8 16 (2.01%) Single Sign-On
9 14 (1.76%) Puppet
10 9 (1.13%) Istio
11 8 (1.01%) Cilium
12 6 (0.75%) Argo
12 6 (0.75%) Packer
13 5 (0.63%) VxRail
14 4 (0.50%) Suricata
15 3 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 3 (0.38%) FortiGate
15 3 (0.38%) HAProxy
15 3 (0.38%) vRealize
Vendors
1 184 (23.14%) Microsoft
2 105 (13.21%) Google
3 76 (9.56%) VMware
4 36 (4.53%) Oracle
5 26 (3.27%) Databricks
6 20 (2.52%) Red Hat
7 17 (2.14%) Okta
8 16 (2.01%) Zscaler
9 15 (1.89%) Palo Alto
10 14 (1.76%) SolarWinds
11 13 (1.64%) Broadcom
12 12 (1.51%) OpenAI
12 12 (1.51%) Splunk
13 11 (1.38%) ServiceNow
14 10 (1.26%) Cisco
15 9 (1.13%) CrowdStrike
15 9 (1.13%) Salesforce
16 8 (1.01%) BeyondTrust
16 8 (1.01%) Dynatrace
16 8 (1.01%) New Relic