DevOps Contract Job Trends in England

DevOps
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring DevOps skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 26 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 14 17
Rank change year-on-year +3 +3 -6
Contract jobs citing DevOps 3,730 2,785 3,252
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.56% 10.53% 8.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.16% 11.78% 9.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,630 1,914 2,387
10th Percentile £375 £400 £413
25th Percentile £435 £477 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £619 £675 £675
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £560 £561
% change year-on-year -7.14% -0.11% -6.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 22 99
10th Percentile £44.87 £38.78 £46.18
25th Percentile £45.46 £48.70 £56.65
Median hourly rate £47.50 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -29.63% +3.85% -0.92%
75th Percentile £76.88 £80.56 £70.00
90th Percentile £93.88 £80.75 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £48.75 £67.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -27.78% +3.85% -0.92%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

DevOps falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 28,352 23,648 32,972
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.85% 89.40% 87.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,131 14,458 22,099
10th Percentile £305 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £625 £645 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,777 764 1,811
10th Percentile £15.05 £15.62 £14.00
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £17.13
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.06 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year -26.15% -6.70% +7.35%
75th Percentile £58.75 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £36.02
% change year-on-year -22.62% -9.78% +12.89%

DevOps
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing DevOps relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

DevOps job vacancy trend in England

DevOps
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DevOps.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DevOps

DevOps
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DevOps in England over the 6 months to 26 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for DevOps in England

DevOps
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DevOps.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing DevOps

DevOps
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DevOps in England over the 6 months to 26 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for DevOps in England

DevOps
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DevOps within the England region over the 6 months to 26 January 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
London -1 1,884 £537 -10.54% 488
North of England +3 662 £500 -1.96% 421
Midlands +25 388 £519 +3.70% 217
South East +2 388 £525 -10.26% 598
Yorkshire +1 335 £500 - 162
West Midlands +25 315 £525 +2.54% 99
North West +6 280 £463 -8.78% 199
South West +7 239 £525 -12.50% 241
East of England +18 108 £570 +10.68% 240
East Midlands +15 73 £425 -10.53% 114
North East -6 48 £475 -15.93% 61
DevOps
UK

DevOps
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 232 (6.22%) Confluence
2 79 (2.12%) Apache
2 79 (2.12%) SharePoint
3 76 (2.04%) SAS
4 71 (1.90%) Apache Spark
5 58 (1.55%) Apache Airflow
6 36 (0.97%) OpenStack
7 35 (0.94%) nginx
8 33 (0.88%) CMS
9 22 (0.59%) IIS
10 19 (0.51%) JBoss
10 19 (0.51%) Microsoft Exchange
11 12 (0.32%) CICS
12 11 (0.29%) WebLogic
13 10 (0.27%) HCL Notes
13 10 (0.27%) Mendix
13 10 (0.27%) WebSphere
14 9 (0.24%) iPlanet
14 9 (0.24%) Sitecore CMS
14 9 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 85 (2.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 57 (1.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 32 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 28 (0.75%) Microsoft Office
5 18 (0.48%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.32%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 8 (0.21%) Weka
8 3 (0.080%) Trello
9 1 (0.027%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.027%) Revit
Business Applications
1 58 (1.55%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.29%) Endur
3 11 (0.29%) VisionPLUS
4 10 (0.27%) Aladdin
5 9 (0.24%) Maximo
6 8 (0.21%) NEC Housing
6 8 (0.21%) Oracle ERP
7 5 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
7 5 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 4 (0.11%) Oracle EBS
8 4 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
8 4 (0.11%) SAP ERP
9 3 (0.080%) Oracle Assets
9 3 (0.080%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.080%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.080%) SAP CO
9 3 (0.080%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.080%) SAP FI/CO
9 3 (0.080%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,875 (50.27%) Azure
2 1,303 (34.93%) AWS
3 1,009 (27.05%) Azure DevOps
4 681 (18.26%) GitHub
5 562 (15.07%) GCP
6 416 (11.15%) Serverless
7 380 (10.19%) GitHub Actions
8 303 (8.12%) Power Platform
9 205 (5.50%) Amazon S3
10 201 (5.39%) AWS CloudFormation
11 200 (5.36%) AWS Lambda
12 180 (4.83%) Azure Data Factory
13 164 (4.40%) Azure AKS
14 159 (4.26%) Entra ID
15 158 (4.24%) OpenShift
16 148 (3.97%) Dynamics 365
17 141 (3.78%) SaaS
18 140 (3.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 134 (3.59%) Azure Monitor
20 132 (3.54%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 194 (5.20%) Firewall
2 110 (2.95%) DNS
3 82 (2.20%) VPN
4 78 (2.09%) Network Security
5 60 (1.61%) TCP/IP
6 46 (1.23%) SSL
7 33 (0.88%) HTTP
8 28 (0.75%) HTTPS
9 23 (0.62%) WAN
10 18 (0.48%) DHCP
11 17 (0.46%) BGP
12 16 (0.43%) MPLS
12 16 (0.43%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.43%) SSH
13 15 (0.40%) FTP
13 15 (0.40%) Kerberos
13 15 (0.40%) SMTP
14 13 (0.35%) LAN
15 10 (0.27%) Internet
16 9 (0.24%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 205 (5.50%) PostgreSQL
2 201 (5.39%) Power BI
3 143 (3.83%) NoSQL
4 141 (3.78%) SQL Server
5 107 (2.87%) Amazon RDS
6 104 (2.79%) Data Lake
7 87 (2.33%) Relational Database
8 84 (2.25%) Data Warehouse
9 82 (2.20%) MongoDB
10 75 (2.01%) Oracle Database
11 71 (1.90%) Azure SQL Database
12 62 (1.66%) Elasticsearch
13 51 (1.37%) DynamoDB
13 51 (1.37%) Tableau
14 49 (1.31%) Redis
15 48 (1.29%) MySQL
16 43 (1.15%) Metadata
17 42 (1.13%) Delta Lake
18 39 (1.05%) Pentaho
19 35 (0.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 671 (17.99%) Jenkins
2 527 (14.13%) JIRA
3 526 (14.10%) Git
4 480 (12.87%) GitLab
5 108 (2.90%) Selenium
6 82 (2.20%) JUnit
7 81 (2.17%) Postman
8 69 (1.85%) SonarQube
9 62 (1.66%) Sonatype Nexus
10 57 (1.53%) Bitbucket
11 51 (1.37%) Cypress.io
12 47 (1.26%) Artifactory
12 47 (1.26%) Cucumber
13 43 (1.15%) Gradle
14 41 (1.10%) Maven
15 36 (0.97%) Liquibase
15 36 (0.97%) Oracle APEX
16 34 (0.91%) CircleCI
17 33 (0.88%) JMeter
18 32 (0.86%) REST Assured
General
1 1,168 (31.31%) Social Skills
2 684 (18.34%) Finance
3 436 (11.69%) Public Sector
4 321 (8.61%) Banking
5 312 (8.36%) Analytical Skills
6 138 (3.70%) Documentation Skills
7 74 (1.98%) Influencing Skills
8 65 (1.74%) Financial Institution
9 58 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 54 (1.45%) Marketing
11 45 (1.21%) Front Office
11 45 (1.21%) Retail
12 44 (1.18%) Investment Banking
13 43 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
13 43 (1.15%) Telecoms
14 32 (0.86%) Military
15 29 (0.78%) Pharmaceutical
16 25 (0.67%) Law
17 23 (0.62%) Legal
17 23 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 704 (18.87%) DevOps Engineer
2 629 (16.86%) Developer
3 501 (13.43%) Senior
4 354 (9.49%) Architect
5 284 (7.61%) Lead
6 217 (5.82%) Azure Engineer
7 202 (5.42%) AWS Engineer
8 196 (5.25%) Data Engineer
9 190 (5.09%) Analyst
10 155 (4.16%) AWS DevOps
11 144 (3.86%) Software Engineer
12 140 (3.75%) Cloud Engineer
13 134 (3.59%) AWS DevOps Engineer
14 130 (3.49%) Platform Engineer
15 122 (3.27%) Senior Developer
16 112 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
17 109 (2.92%) Business Analyst
18 102 (2.73%) Senior DevOps
19 98 (2.63%) Consultant
20 95 (2.55%) Azure DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 426 (11.42%) REST
2 297 (7.96%) .NET
3 236 (6.33%) React
4 231 (6.19%) Node.js
5 210 (5.63%) Kafka
6 206 (5.52%) RESTful
7 182 (4.88%) Spring
8 162 (4.34%) JSON
8 162 (4.34%) Spring Boot
9 124 (3.32%) XML
10 122 (3.27%) AngularJS
11 121 (3.24%) OAuth
11 121 (3.24%) YAML
12 119 (3.19%) Elastic Stack
13 114 (3.06%) SOAP
14 113 (3.03%) HTML
15 97 (2.60%) Playwright
16 91 (2.44%) Middleware
17 87 (2.33%) CSS
18 83 (2.23%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 531 (14.24%) Cloud Native
2 196 (5.25%) Product Ownership
3 137 (3.67%) Distributed Systems
4 102 (2.73%) Onboarding
5 101 (2.71%) Public Cloud
6 73 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
7 69 (1.85%) Hybrid Cloud
8 64 (1.72%) Enterprise Software
9 49 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
10 48 (1.29%) Management Information System
10 48 (1.29%) Replication
11 47 (1.26%) Virtual Team
12 45 (1.21%) Private Cloud
13 43 (1.15%) Mobile App
14 42 (1.13%) Data Centre
14 42 (1.13%) Security Posture
15 35 (0.94%) AI Agents
15 35 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
16 33 (0.88%) NHS
17 29 (0.78%) CMDB
Operating Systems
1 426 (11.42%) Linux
2 219 (5.87%) Windows
3 82 (2.20%) Unix
4 51 (1.37%) Windows Server
5 50 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 49 (1.31%) VMS
7 30 (0.80%) Ubuntu
8 25 (0.67%) Android
9 22 (0.59%) Apple iOS
10 19 (0.51%) Windows 10
11 17 (0.46%) CentOS
12 12 (0.32%) Amazon Linux
13 10 (0.27%) Solaris
14 7 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
15 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
16 5 (0.13%) zOS
17 3 (0.080%) Windows Server 2012
18 2 (0.054%) Debian
19 1 (0.027%) Embedded Linux
19 1 (0.027%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,120 (56.84%) CI/CD
2 1,491 (39.97%) Agile
3 947 (25.39%) Infrastructure as Code
4 735 (19.71%) Problem-Solving
5 708 (18.98%) Containerisation
6 581 (15.58%) Test Automation
7 541 (14.50%) Microservices
8 440 (11.80%) Analytics
8 440 (11.80%) Continuous Improvement
9 430 (11.53%) Migration
10 414 (11.10%) Scrum
11 377 (10.11%) Observability
12 371 (9.95%) AI
13 346 (9.28%) Stakeholder Management
14 343 (9.20%) Software Engineering
15 294 (7.88%) Mentoring
16 290 (7.77%) Data Modelling
17 265 (7.10%) Business Intelligence
18 259 (6.94%) Data Pipeline
18 259 (6.94%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,143 (30.64%) Python
2 761 (20.40%) SQL
3 488 (13.08%) Java
4 362 (9.71%) JavaScript
5 339 (9.09%) C#
6 318 (8.53%) PowerShell
7 299 (8.02%) Bash
8 261 (7.00%) TypeScript
9 128 (3.43%) Go
10 126 (3.38%) Bicep
11 74 (1.98%) PL/SQL
12 52 (1.39%) Scala
12 52 (1.39%) Shell Script
13 48 (1.29%) Groovy
14 40 (1.07%) T-SQL
15 39 (1.05%) Ruby
16 38 (1.02%) C++
17 28 (0.75%) Perl
18 20 (0.54%) Rust
19 19 (0.51%) PHP
Qualifications
1 1,170 (31.37%) Security Cleared
2 969 (25.98%) SC Cleared
3 335 (8.98%) Degree
4 179 (4.80%) Computer Science Degree
5 171 (4.58%) Azure Certification
6 130 (3.49%) DV Cleared
7 113 (3.03%) AWS Certification
8 79 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
9 76 (2.04%) Master's Degree
10 66 (1.77%) CISSP
11 54 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
12 52 (1.39%) CISM
13 38 (1.02%) ISTQB
14 35 (0.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 32 (0.86%) PMI Certification
16 27 (0.72%) Cisco Certification
17 25 (0.67%) PMP
18 23 (0.62%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
19 22 (0.59%) IIBA
20 18 (0.48%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 325 (8.71%) QA
2 148 (3.97%) GDPR
3 133 (3.57%) Data Quality
4 124 (3.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 111 (2.98%) NIST
6 88 (2.36%) Accessibility
7 65 (1.74%) NCSC
8 31 (0.83%) PCI DSS
9 28 (0.75%) WCAG
10 25 (0.67%) HIPAA
10 25 (0.67%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 24 (0.64%) SLA
12 18 (0.48%) PMO
13 17 (0.46%) PSD2
14 16 (0.43%) SOC 2
15 15 (0.40%) ISO 20022
16 13 (0.35%) SEPA
17 10 (0.27%) NIST 800
18 8 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
18 8 (0.21%) HL7
System Software
1 947 (25.39%) Docker
2 159 (4.26%) Active Directory
3 64 (1.72%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.64%) Virtual Machines
5 29 (0.78%) vSphere
6 15 (0.40%) DFS Replication
6 15 (0.40%) Squid
6 15 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
6 15 (0.40%) VMware NSX
7 11 (0.29%) Lustre
7 11 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 9 (0.24%) GPFS
8 9 (0.24%) Hyper-V
9 8 (0.21%) Dovecot
9 8 (0.21%) NFS
9 8 (0.21%) Postfix
9 8 (0.21%) Tivoli Directory Server
9 8 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 7 (0.19%) Firmware
10 7 (0.19%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 1,128 (30.24%) Terraform
2 1,089 (29.20%) Kubernetes
3 469 (12.57%) Ansible
4 264 (7.08%) Grafana
5 243 (6.51%) Prometheus
6 74 (1.98%) Puppet
7 72 (1.93%) Argo
8 51 (1.37%) Single Sign-On
9 38 (1.02%) Istio
10 37 (0.99%) Progress Chef
11 36 (0.97%) Kibana
12 31 (0.83%) Packer
13 21 (0.56%) Podman
14 16 (0.43%) Rancher
15 15 (0.40%) Consul
15 15 (0.40%) Proxmox
15 15 (0.40%) SCCM
16 14 (0.38%) NetBackup
17 13 (0.35%) logstash
17 13 (0.35%) Nessus
Vendors
1 655 (17.56%) Microsoft
2 283 (7.59%) Oracle
3 222 (5.95%) Google
4 206 (5.52%) Databricks
5 204 (5.47%) Splunk
6 137 (3.67%) ServiceNow
7 123 (3.30%) Red Hat
8 104 (2.79%) VMware
9 96 (2.57%) Salesforce
10 91 (2.44%) SAP
11 62 (1.66%) Dynatrace
12 57 (1.53%) OpenAI
13 53 (1.42%) CyberArk
14 49 (1.31%) F5
15 42 (1.13%) Talend
16 41 (1.10%) IBM
16 41 (1.10%) Palo Alto
17 40 (1.07%) Atlassian
18 38 (1.02%) Denodo
19 31 (0.83%) MuleSoft