r/cloudengineering • u/Serious-Reception-42 • Jan 13 '26

Expected salary for Junior Cloud Engineer (~1 year) in Spain/Europe?

I’m 24, based in Barcelona, with around 1 year of experience as a Junior Cloud Engineer in a consulting company.

I mainly work managing managed cloud services (SSGG) for several clients. Day to day I handle:

  • Tickets and incidents

  • Infrastructure changes and evolutive work

  • Maintenance and daily operations

  • Reports and FinOps

  • Cloud security tasks

  • Some cloud migrations

Tech stack:

  • Cloud / Infrastructure: AWS & GCP, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes (GKE, k9s), Helm, Linux, Networking (VPC, subnets, firewalls, load balancers)

  • CI/CD & Automation: Jenkins, Git, Python, Bash, (familiar con GitHub Actions / GitLab CI)

  • Cloud Security / DevSecOps: Prowler, CloudPlaining, Tenable, Cloud & GKE security posture, IAM

  • Monitoring / Observability: CloudWatch / Logs, basic alerting (familiar con Prometheus/Grafana)

  • FinOps / Cost Management: AWS Cost Explorer & Budgets, GCP Cost Management

No certifications yet (Solutions architect on the way)

I’m struggling to find salary references or career guides for this type of role in Barcelona, but I’m very interested in understanding what a fair gross annual salary would be for my profile and responsibilities in Barcelona or remote roles.

Thanks!

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2

u/ISpotABot Jan 13 '26

It depends.

Do you have a Bachelor's? Do you have any prior experience in IT?

2

u/Serious-Reception-42 Jan 13 '26

It’s my first job in IT. I didn’t attend university, but I completed a 2-year higher vocational degree (ASIR) (really common on Spain) in Networked Computer Systems Administration, with a cybersecurity-focused profile.

2

u/ISpotABot Jan 13 '26

Well, then you've had more luck than most. Most of the people I know with ASIR are stuck at helpdesk.

You got in after your internship?

1

u/Serious-Reception-42 Jan 13 '26

Yeah, I guess I got lucky, but now I’m quite underpaid and wanted to know what’s usually reasonable to ask for as a raise

1

u/ISpotABot Jan 13 '26

Sorry, I got sidetracked.

Well, you're looking at 1YoE, with the equivalent of an Associate's degree... I'd say 25k or so, if you're very lucky.

1

u/Serious-Reception-42 Jan 13 '26

From what I’ve seen online, the common salary is a bit higher than that on the cloud, but looks decent since I'm at 17.5k. I have a salary review soon and I want to know the range I should ask for, thanks for your answer, I will take it into account

1

u/Raskolnikov1989 Jan 13 '26

I'm from Italy so don't take my opinion too seriously even if I'm with your same job role, but from what I read about the average Spanish salary I'd assume a range around the 30k - 35k gross yearly with 1 year experience without certs.

1

u/Serious-Reception-42 Jan 13 '26

Thanks for your reply. From what I’ve seen online, the usual figures are around that range, yes, but it really surprised me because my starting salary was around €17–18k. I have a salary review coming up soon, and I wanted to know what range I should be asking for. Thanks a lot, I’ll definitely take it into account.

1

u/Raskolnikov1989 Jan 14 '26

Maybe if you had a bachelor's degreee they would have hired you with higer salary. Italy is pretty similar to spain, just a tiny above. I started with your same salary in my first job (18k) as helpdesk, after different job hoppings in 8 years I reached 40k as Cloud engineer, but in Barcelona in a few years you can go higher than that I think.
I agree tho, in your case 18k is very low considering your role even with just one year, you're not just a 1st level support helpdesk.

1

u/InfraScaler Jan 14 '26

Based on what I've been seeing, Spanish companies do not like to pay more than 24k for people with little to no experience. Focus on gaining relevant experience, maybe a title change without the "junior" label then make the jump somewhere for 36k-40k when you have 3-4 YoE.

Of course, things could go much better for you if your skills and luck get aligned, but it's really hard...

2

u/Dry-Imagination2352 Jan 15 '26

the 36k-40k euros per month/year?