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 11 July 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 212 312 327
Rank change year-on-year +100 +15 -51
Contract jobs requiring a Cloud Engineer 668 259 278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 0.80% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.37% 0.87% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 433 191 193
10th Percentile £394 £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 £615 £575 £625
90th Percentile £688 £650 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £510 £500 £510
% change year-on-year +2.00% -1.96% -7.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 3 3
10th Percentile £32.76 £32.50 -
25th Percentile £73.75 £36.25 £27.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £45.00 £30.00
Median % change year-on-year +71.11% +50.00% -
75th Percentile £81.25 £55.00 £32.50
90th Percentile £84.25 £59.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £76.00 - £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 48,916 29,817 39,992
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.49% 91.88% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,647 19,017 25,745
10th Percentile £325 £288 £288
25th Percentile £418 £401 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.50% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,278 1,379 2,732
10th Percentile £15.92 £13.75 £13.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £17.31 £16.86
Median hourly rate £43.25 £26.50 £39.53
Median % change year-on-year +63.21% -32.95% -8.08%
75th Percentile £67.50 £56.25 £62.97
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +1.07%

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 11 July 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 11 July 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 11 July 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 +85 558 £525 +5.00% 172
UK excluding London +45 303 £510 +2.00% 138
London +64 302 £540 +2.86% 59
Work from Home 0 174 £540 +8.00% 86
North of England -21 82 £500 +11.11% 38
South East -17 77 £538 +7.50% 44
Scotland +33 58 £442 -15.81% 10
Midlands -26 47 £513 +7.89% 22
North West -28 40 £475 +14.87% 22
Yorkshire -19 35 £475 -2.56% 12
West Midlands -44 27 £525 - 11
East of England -7 22 £505 +60.32% 8
East Midlands -10 19 £450 -5.26% 11
South West -26 16 £550 -2.22% 11
North East -33 7 £525 +5.00% 4
Wales -12 3 - - 6

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

For the 6 months to 11 July 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.

1 308 (46.11%) Azure
2 299 (44.76%) Terraform
3 287 (42.96%) AWS
4 260 (38.92%) CI/CD
5 243 (36.38%) Infrastructure as Code
6 215 (32.19%) DevOps
7 177 (26.50%) Python
8 166 (24.85%) Security Cleared
9 154 (23.05%) Kubernetes
10 149 (22.31%) GCP
11 145 (21.71%) Cloud Security
12 137 (20.51%) Microsoft
13 132 (19.76%) Platform Engineering
14 130 (19.46%) SC Cleared
15 125 (18.71%) PowerShell
16 120 (17.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
17 106 (15.87%) Google
18 102 (15.27%) GitHub
19 96 (14.37%) Windows
20 94 (14.07%) Migration
21 87 (13.02%) Containerisation
22 84 (12.57%) AI
23 79 (11.83%) Agile
24 72 (10.78%) Docker
25 71 (10.63%) Firewall
26 69 (10.33%) Active Directory
27 68 (10.18%) Entra ID
27 68 (10.18%) Observability
28 66 (9.88%) Bash
28 66 (9.88%) DNS

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 12 (1.80%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (1.05%) Apache
2 7 (1.05%) Confluence
3 5 (0.75%) nginx
4 4 (0.60%) Apache Spark
4 4 (0.60%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
5 3 (0.45%) IIS
5 3 (0.45%) Tomcat
6 2 (0.30%) CloudStack
6 2 (0.30%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.15%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.15%) SAS
7 1 (0.15%) Traefik
Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 2 (0.30%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 308 (46.11%) Azure
2 287 (42.96%) AWS
3 149 (22.31%) GCP
4 102 (15.27%) GitHub
5 68 (10.18%) Entra ID
6 65 (9.73%) Serverless
7 61 (9.13%) GitHub Actions
8 48 (7.19%) Azure AKS
9 47 (7.04%) Amazon S3
10 46 (6.89%) AWS CloudFormation
11 43 (6.44%) Azure DevOps
12 42 (6.29%) IaaS
13 41 (6.14%) AWS Lambda
13 41 (6.14%) PaaS
14 37 (5.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 36 (5.39%) Amazon EC2
15 36 (5.39%) Amazon ECS
16 34 (5.09%) Amazon EKS
16 34 (5.09%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 29 (4.34%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 71 (10.63%) Firewall
2 66 (9.88%) DNS
3 37 (5.54%) VPN
4 27 (4.04%) Network Security
5 15 (2.25%) DHCP
5 15 (2.25%) WAN
6 14 (2.10%) TCP/IP
7 6 (0.90%) Reverse Proxy
7 6 (0.90%) SD-WAN
8 5 (0.75%) BGP
8 5 (0.75%) Internet
8 5 (0.75%) SSL
8 5 (0.75%) VLAN
9 4 (0.60%) LAN
9 4 (0.60%) SAN
9 4 (0.60%) Software-Defined Networking
10 3 (0.45%) IPv4
10 3 (0.45%) OSPF
10 3 (0.45%) SMTP
10 3 (0.45%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (3.29%) SQL Server
2 18 (2.69%) Amazon RDS
3 14 (2.10%) Amazon Athena
3 14 (2.10%) PostgreSQL
4 13 (1.95%) DynamoDB
5 7 (1.05%) BigQuery
6 6 (0.90%) Amazon Redshift
6 6 (0.90%) Azure SQL Database
6 6 (0.90%) Data Lake
7 5 (0.75%) Oracle Database
8 4 (0.60%) Amazon QuickSight
9 3 (0.45%) Big Data
9 3 (0.45%) Metadata
9 3 (0.45%) MySQL
9 3 (0.45%) Oracle Database 12c
9 3 (0.45%) Relational Database
10 2 (0.30%) Delta Lake
10 2 (0.30%) Elasticsearch
10 2 (0.30%) Oracle Exadata
10 2 (0.30%) Redis
Development Applications
1 53 (7.93%) Jenkins
2 46 (6.89%) GitLab
3 44 (6.59%) Git
4 17 (2.54%) JIRA
5 10 (1.50%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.75%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.60%) Claude Code
8 3 (0.45%) Selenium
8 3 (0.45%) Team Foundation Server
9 2 (0.30%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.30%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.30%) Liquibase
9 2 (0.30%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.30%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.15%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.15%) CircleCI
10 1 (0.15%) Gatling
10 1 (0.15%) RStudio
10 1 (0.15%) sqlmap
10 1 (0.15%) TestRail
General
1 80 (11.98%) Finance
2 79 (11.83%) Social Skills
3 59 (8.83%) Public Sector
4 26 (3.89%) Banking
5 23 (3.44%) Analytical Skills
6 12 (1.80%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 9 (1.35%) Investment Banking
8 6 (0.90%) Legal
9 5 (0.75%) Law
9 5 (0.75%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (0.75%) Retail
10 4 (0.60%) Military
11 3 (0.45%) Corporate Banking
11 3 (0.45%) Financial Institution
11 3 (0.45%) Local Government
11 3 (0.45%) Police
11 3 (0.45%) Retail Banking
11 3 (0.45%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (3.89%) REST
2 14 (2.10%) Node.js
3 13 (1.95%) OAuth
3 13 (1.95%) OAuth2
4 10 (1.50%) ARM Templates
5 9 (1.35%) .NET
5 9 (1.35%) Kafka
5 9 (1.35%) React
5 9 (1.35%) Spring
5 9 (1.35%) Spring Boot
6 7 (1.05%) AWS CDK
6 7 (1.05%) Model Context Protocol
6 7 (1.05%) OpenID
7 6 (0.90%) YAML
8 5 (0.75%) Playwright
8 5 (0.75%) PySpark
9 4 (0.60%) FastAPI
9 4 (0.60%) Jest
9 4 (0.60%) PyTorch
9 4 (0.60%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 123 (18.41%) Cloud Native
2 37 (5.54%) Hybrid Cloud
3 30 (4.49%) Security Posture
4 26 (3.89%) Public Cloud
5 24 (3.59%) Data Centre
5 24 (3.59%) Enterprise Cloud
6 23 (3.44%) Onboarding
7 17 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
8 15 (2.25%) Cloud Security Posture
8 15 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
9 13 (1.95%) Management Information System
10 9 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
10 9 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
11 8 (1.20%) Product Ownership
12 7 (1.05%) Legacy Systems
13 5 (0.75%) PKI
13 5 (0.75%) Private Cloud
14 4 (0.60%) Cyber Threat
14 4 (0.60%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 96 (14.37%) Windows
2 59 (8.83%) Linux
3 51 (7.63%) Windows Server
4 22 (3.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.20%) Ubuntu
6 7 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
7 3 (0.45%) CentOS
7 3 (0.45%) VMS
8 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (38.92%) CI/CD
2 243 (36.38%) Infrastructure as Code
3 215 (32.19%) DevOps
4 145 (21.71%) Cloud Security
5 132 (19.76%) Platform Engineering
6 120 (17.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
7 94 (14.07%) Migration
8 87 (13.02%) Containerisation
9 84 (12.57%) AI
10 79 (11.83%) Agile
11 68 (10.18%) Observability
12 55 (8.23%) Problem-Solving
13 53 (7.93%) Infrastructure Automation
13 53 (7.93%) Technical Leadership
14 51 (7.63%) Software Engineering
15 50 (7.49%) Continuous Improvement
16 42 (6.29%) DevSecOps
17 41 (6.14%) Cybersecurity
18 39 (5.84%) Mentoring
19 38 (5.69%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 177 (26.50%) Python
2 125 (18.71%) PowerShell
3 66 (9.88%) Bash
4 57 (8.53%) SQL
5 49 (7.34%) Bicep
6 33 (4.94%) Java
7 16 (2.40%) C#
8 12 (1.80%) JavaScript
9 10 (1.50%) Go
9 10 (1.50%) TypeScript
10 7 (1.05%) Shell Script
11 6 (0.90%) Groovy
12 2 (0.30%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.30%) R
12 2 (0.30%) Ruby
13 1 (0.15%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.15%) Cypher
13 1 (0.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 1 (0.15%) Kotlin
13 1 (0.15%) Perl
Qualifications
1 166 (24.85%) Security Cleared
2 130 (19.46%) SC Cleared
3 45 (6.74%) DV Cleared
4 44 (6.59%) Azure Certification
5 39 (5.84%) AWS Certification
6 21 (3.14%) Degree
7 17 (2.54%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 15 (2.25%) CISSP
9 14 (2.10%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
11 9 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
12 8 (1.20%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 7 (1.05%) BPSS Clearance
13 7 (1.05%) CCNP
14 6 (0.90%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 6 (0.90%) MCSE
15 4 (0.60%) CCIE
15 4 (0.60%) CCSP
16 3 (0.45%) Master's Degree
16 3 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (2.10%) NIST
2 10 (1.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 10 (1.50%) QA
3 9 (1.35%) Data Quality
3 9 (1.35%) GDPR
4 8 (1.20%) NCSC
5 6 (0.90%) PCI DSS
6 4 (0.60%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.30%) SLA
8 1 (0.15%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 1 (0.15%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.15%) GRC
8 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 72 (10.78%) Docker
2 69 (10.33%) Active Directory
3 29 (4.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 27 (4.04%) Virtual Machines
5 22 (3.29%) VMware ESXi
6 21 (3.14%) VMware NSX
7 16 (2.40%) vSphere
8 15 (2.25%) Virtual Desktop
9 12 (1.80%) Hyper-V
9 12 (1.80%) vCloud
10 7 (1.05%) Squid
11 4 (0.60%) Firmware
12 3 (0.45%) Ceph
12 3 (0.45%) Dovecot
12 3 (0.45%) NFS
12 3 (0.45%) Postfix
13 2 (0.30%) KVM
Systems Management
1 299 (44.76%) Terraform
2 154 (23.05%) Kubernetes
3 48 (7.19%) Ansible
4 26 (3.89%) Grafana
5 25 (3.74%) Prometheus
6 22 (3.29%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (2.69%) vCenter Server
8 16 (2.40%) Microsoft Intune
8 16 (2.40%) SCOM
9 14 (2.10%) Progress Chef
10 13 (1.95%) Puppet
11 9 (1.35%) Istio
11 9 (1.35%) Packer
12 7 (1.05%) Argo
13 6 (0.90%) Cilium
14 4 (0.60%) HAProxy
14 4 (0.60%) Salt
14 4 (0.60%) Suricata
14 4 (0.60%) VxRail
15 3 (0.45%) vRealize
Vendors
1 137 (20.51%) Microsoft
2 106 (15.87%) Google
3 49 (7.34%) VMware
4 27 (4.04%) Oracle
5 17 (2.54%) Zscaler
6 15 (2.25%) Red Hat
7 13 (1.95%) Palo Alto
7 13 (1.95%) ServiceNow
8 12 (1.80%) Okta
9 10 (1.50%) Cisco
10 9 (1.35%) Databricks
10 9 (1.35%) Dynatrace
10 9 (1.35%) Salesforce
11 8 (1.20%) CrowdStrike
12 7 (1.05%) Fortinet
12 7 (1.05%) OpenAI
12 7 (1.05%) Splunk
13 5 (0.75%) Citrix
13 5 (0.75%) Rapid7
13 5 (0.75%) SolarWinds