Cloud Engineering Lead Azure, Terraform, AKS Insurance Contract 6 months initially Birmingham (3 days per week in the office) £850 per day inside IR35 My client is a leading Specialist Insurer and they are seeking an experienced and versatile Cloud Engineering Lead to step into a pivotal role for paternity leave cover. This is a high-impact position responsible for leading my client's cloud strategy, driving modernisation efforts, and ensuring the secure, scalable, and cost-effective operation of their Azure-based infrastructure. You’ll be joining a forward-thinking, engineering-led environment where cloud is central to everything they do. This is your chance to shape delivery standards, mentor a talented team, and work across the business to ensure our cloud platforms are robust, secure, and future-ready. What You’ll Be Doing • Lead Cloud Strategy & Execution: Own and evolve our cloud adoption and modernisation roadmap. • Architect Scalable Infrastructure: Design and implement secure, multi-region Azure environments using Terraform. • Champion DevOps & GitOps: Enforce CI/CD best practices, GitHub Actions pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code standards. Your Experience We’re looking for someone who’s hands-on, strategic, and deeply technical. You should be comfortable switching between architecture discussions and debugging Terraform or AKS issues. Must-Have Skills: • Deep expertise in Azure cloud services and architecture • Strong Terraform skills (modular, reusable, production-grade code) • Experience with GitHub Actions and CI/CD pipelines • Familiarity with AKS, Azure Container Apps, and Docker • Strong understanding of cloud security (RBAC, PIM, Key Vault, Defender, Policies) • Experience with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and KQL • Proven leadership and mentoring experience in engineering teams • Ability to troubleshoot complex infrastructure and networking issues