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 13 August 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 202 311 322
Rank change year-on-year +109 +11 -53
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 731 256 257
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.37% 0.78% 0.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.48% 0.85% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 473 189 167
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 £675 £644 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £520
% change year-on-year +2.00% -3.85% -2.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 6 1
10th Percentile £23.20 £29.00 -
25th Percentile £47.10 £29.25 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £37.50 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +105.33% +25.00% -
75th Percentile £81.25 £58.75 £32.50
90th Percentile £82.75 £86.25 -
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 49,387 30,089 36,178
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.56% 91.36% 92.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,655 19,063 23,293
10th Percentile £328 £281 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -1.87%
75th Percentile £625 £623 £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 3,474 1,522 2,032
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.60 £14.18
25th Percentile £20.75 £17.26 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.31 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.21% -41.51% +2.38%
75th Percentile £67.96 £53.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.11 £45.00
% change year-on-year +73.66% -44.20% +25.00%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +100 627 £525 +5.00% 758
UK excluding London +77 375 £510 +2.00% 330
London +51 307 £525 - 460
Work from Home +25 190 £540 +8.00% 254
South East +12 111 £538 +7.50% 53
North of England +3 102 £525 +16.67% 112
North West -5 60 £535 +22.34% 68
Midlands -7 60 £500 +5.26% 29
Scotland +37 58 £442 -11.60% 44
Yorkshire -12 35 £460 -8.00% 29
West Midlands -15 32 £525 +8.81% 17
East Midlands +2 27 £450 -5.26% 12
East of England 0 22 £505 +4.12% 29
South West -29 16 £563 +2.27% 49
Wales -6 7 - - 3
North East -41 7 £525 +10.53% 15

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

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 348 (47.61%) Azure
2 315 (43.09%) Terraform
3 270 (36.94%) AWS
4 259 (35.43%) CI/CD
5 255 (34.88%) Infrastructure as Code
6 211 (28.86%) DevOps
7 194 (26.54%) Python
8 182 (24.90%) Security Cleared
9 181 (24.76%) Kubernetes
10 170 (23.26%) Cloud Security
11 168 (22.98%) GCP
12 167 (22.85%) Microsoft
13 156 (21.34%) PowerShell
14 146 (19.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
15 139 (19.02%) SC Cleared
16 135 (18.47%) Platform Engineering
17 120 (16.42%) Google
18 114 (15.60%) Windows
19 95 (13.00%) Entra ID
20 93 (12.72%) GitHub
21 92 (12.59%) AI
22 87 (11.90%) Migration
23 86 (11.76%) Containerisation
24 85 (11.63%) Active Directory
24 85 (11.63%) Agile
25 84 (11.49%) Bash
26 80 (10.94%) Observability
27 79 (10.81%) Firewall
28 78 (10.67%) Docker
29 75 (10.26%) 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 13 (1.78%) Microsoft Exchange
2 9 (1.23%) Apache
3 6 (0.82%) Apache Airflow
3 6 (0.82%) Confluence
4 5 (0.68%) SharePoint
5 4 (0.55%) nginx
6 3 (0.41%) IIS
6 3 (0.41%) Tomcat
7 2 (0.27%) CloudStack
7 2 (0.27%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.14%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.14%) Traefik
Applications
1 1 (0.14%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.27%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 348 (47.61%) Azure
2 270 (36.94%) AWS
3 168 (22.98%) GCP
4 95 (13.00%) Entra ID
5 93 (12.72%) GitHub
6 60 (8.21%) GitHub Actions
7 55 (7.52%) Serverless
8 50 (6.84%) Azure DevOps
9 47 (6.43%) Azure AKS
10 45 (6.16%) AWS CloudFormation
11 43 (5.88%) IaaS
12 41 (5.61%) Google Kubernetes Engine
13 40 (5.47%) Amazon S3
14 39 (5.34%) AWS Lambda
15 37 (5.06%) Virtual Private Cloud
16 36 (4.92%) Amazon EC2
16 36 (4.92%) Azure Monitor
17 34 (4.65%) Amazon EKS
18 32 (4.38%) Microsoft 365
18 32 (4.38%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 79 (10.81%) Firewall
2 74 (10.12%) DNS
3 38 (5.20%) VPN
4 35 (4.79%) Network Security
5 18 (2.46%) DHCP
6 17 (2.33%) WAN
7 14 (1.92%) TCP/IP
8 12 (1.64%) Internet
9 6 (0.82%) SD-WAN
10 5 (0.68%) LAN
10 5 (0.68%) Reverse Proxy
10 5 (0.68%) SSL
10 5 (0.68%) VLAN
11 4 (0.55%) BGP
11 4 (0.55%) SAN
11 4 (0.55%) SMTP
11 4 (0.55%) VSAN
12 3 (0.41%) NGFW
12 3 (0.41%) OSPF
12 3 (0.41%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 26 (3.56%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.46%) Amazon RDS
3 15 (2.05%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (1.64%) BigQuery
5 9 (1.23%) Amazon Athena
6 8 (1.09%) Oracle Exadata
7 6 (0.82%) Azure SQL Database
7 6 (0.82%) DynamoDB
8 5 (0.68%) Data Lake
8 5 (0.68%) 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%) MongoDB
10 3 (0.41%) MySQL
10 3 (0.41%) Oracle Database 12c
11 2 (0.27%) Big Data
11 2 (0.27%) Elasticsearch
11 2 (0.27%) Redis
Development Applications
1 53 (7.25%) GitLab
2 49 (6.70%) Jenkins
3 39 (5.34%) Git
4 18 (2.46%) JIRA
5 9 (1.23%) Artifactory
6 6 (0.82%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.68%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.41%) 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%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.14%) Chocolatey
10 1 (0.14%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.14%) Spinnaker
10 1 (0.14%) TestRail
General
1 94 (12.86%) Finance
2 82 (11.22%) Social Skills
3 65 (8.89%) Public Sector
4 30 (4.10%) Analytical Skills
5 26 (3.56%) Banking
6 12 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (1.09%) Investment Banking
9 5 (0.68%) Law
9 5 (0.68%) Legal
9 5 (0.68%) Local Government
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
12 2 (0.27%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.27%) Billing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (3.15%) REST
2 13 (1.78%) ARM Templates
3 11 (1.50%) Node.js
3 11 (1.50%) OAuth
3 11 (1.50%) OAuth2
4 10 (1.37%) Spring
4 10 (1.37%) Spring Boot
5 8 (1.09%) AWS CDK
5 8 (1.09%) React
6 7 (0.96%) Kafka
7 6 (0.82%) .NET
7 6 (0.82%) FastAPI
7 6 (0.82%) Flask
7 6 (0.82%) Keycloak
7 6 (0.82%) Model Context Protocol
7 6 (0.82%) OpenID
7 6 (0.82%) YAML
8 4 (0.55%) Hugging Face
8 4 (0.55%) PySpark
8 4 (0.55%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 127 (17.37%) Cloud Native
2 53 (7.25%) Security Posture
3 41 (5.61%) Enterprise Cloud
4 34 (4.65%) Hybrid Cloud
5 28 (3.83%) Onboarding
6 25 (3.42%) Cloud Security Posture
7 22 (3.01%) Enterprise Software
8 20 (2.74%) Public Cloud
9 18 (2.46%) Data Centre
10 15 (2.05%) Management Information System
11 14 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
12 10 (1.37%) Linux Command Line
13 9 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
14 8 (1.09%) AI Agents
14 8 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
15 7 (0.96%) Legacy Systems
15 7 (0.96%) PKI
15 7 (0.96%) Product Ownership
16 5 (0.68%) Private Cloud
17 4 (0.55%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 114 (15.60%) Windows
2 75 (10.26%) Linux
3 55 (7.52%) Windows Server
4 31 (4.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 10 (1.37%) Windows Server 2019
6 8 (1.09%) Ubuntu
7 4 (0.55%) VMS
8 3 (0.41%) CentOS
9 2 (0.27%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 259 (35.43%) CI/CD
2 255 (34.88%) Infrastructure as Code
3 211 (28.86%) DevOps
4 170 (23.26%) Cloud Security
5 146 (19.97%) Infrastructure Engineering
6 135 (18.47%) Platform Engineering
7 92 (12.59%) AI
8 87 (11.90%) Migration
9 86 (11.76%) Containerisation
10 85 (11.63%) Agile
11 80 (10.94%) Observability
12 59 (8.07%) Software Engineering
13 56 (7.66%) Continuous Improvement
14 54 (7.39%) Infrastructure Automation
15 52 (7.11%) Problem-Solving
16 51 (6.98%) Technical Leadership
17 50 (6.84%) DevSecOps
18 46 (6.29%) Deployment Automation
19 45 (6.16%) Change Management
20 40 (5.47%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 194 (26.54%) Python
2 156 (21.34%) PowerShell
3 84 (11.49%) Bash
4 67 (9.17%) Bicep
5 60 (8.21%) SQL
6 37 (5.06%) Java
7 20 (2.74%) C#
8 15 (2.05%) Shell Script
9 13 (1.78%) JavaScript
10 11 (1.50%) Go
11 6 (0.82%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.55%) Groovy
13 3 (0.41%) C
13 3 (0.41%) Scala
14 2 (0.27%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.27%) 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
1 182 (24.90%) Security Cleared
2 139 (19.02%) SC Cleared
3 57 (7.80%) DV Cleared
4 47 (6.43%) AWS Certification
4 47 (6.43%) Azure Certification
5 28 (3.83%) Degree
6 16 (2.19%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 15 (2.05%) CISSP
7 15 (2.05%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (1.23%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
9 8 (1.09%) MCSE
10 7 (0.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.96%) CCNP
11 5 (0.68%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 4 (0.55%) CCIE
12 4 (0.55%) CISM
12 4 (0.55%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
13 3 (0.41%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
13 3 (0.41%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (1.78%) Data Quality
2 11 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 10 (1.37%) QA
4 9 (1.23%) NCSC
4 9 (1.23%) NIST
5 4 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
5 4 (0.55%) GDPR
6 3 (0.41%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (0.27%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.27%) SLA
8 1 (0.14%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.14%) GRC
8 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 85 (11.63%) Active Directory
2 78 (10.67%) Docker
3 37 (5.06%) VMware Infrastructure
4 32 (4.38%) Virtual Machines
5 25 (3.42%) VMware ESXi
6 22 (3.01%) VMware NSX
7 21 (2.87%) Virtual Desktop
8 18 (2.46%) vSphere
9 12 (1.64%) vCloud
10 10 (1.37%) Hyper-V
11 7 (0.96%) Squid
12 4 (0.55%) Firmware
13 3 (0.41%) Ceph
13 3 (0.41%) Dovecot
13 3 (0.41%) NFS
13 3 (0.41%) Postfix
14 2 (0.27%) KVM
14 2 (0.27%) Virtual Servers
15 1 (0.14%) BitLocker
Systems Management
1 315 (43.09%) Terraform
2 181 (24.76%) Kubernetes
3 52 (7.11%) Ansible
4 24 (3.28%) Microsoft Intune
5 23 (3.15%) Grafana
6 21 (2.87%) Prometheus
6 21 (2.87%) vCenter Server
7 20 (2.74%) Progress Chef
8 19 (2.60%) SCOM
9 18 (2.46%) Single Sign-On
10 15 (2.05%) Puppet
11 8 (1.09%) Istio
11 8 (1.09%) Packer
12 6 (0.82%) Argo
12 6 (0.82%) Cilium
13 5 (0.68%) VxRail
14 4 (0.55%) HAProxy
14 4 (0.55%) Suricata
15 3 (0.41%) Karpenter
15 3 (0.41%) vRealize
Vendors
1 167 (22.85%) Microsoft
2 120 (16.42%) Google
3 58 (7.93%) VMware
4 29 (3.97%) Oracle
5 18 (2.46%) Red Hat
6 17 (2.33%) Okta
6 17 (2.33%) Zscaler
7 13 (1.78%) Palo Alto
7 13 (1.78%) ServiceNow
7 13 (1.78%) Splunk
8 11 (1.50%) OpenAI
9 10 (1.37%) Cisco
10 9 (1.23%) CrowdStrike
10 9 (1.23%) Databricks
10 9 (1.23%) Dynatrace
10 9 (1.23%) Salesforce
11 8 (1.09%) BeyondTrust
11 8 (1.09%) Broadcom
11 8 (1.09%) New Relic
11 8 (1.09%) SolarWinds