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 30 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 14 17
Rank change year-on-year +3 +3 -6
Contract jobs citing DevOps 3,799 2,794 3,269
As % of all contract jobs in England 11.50% 10.51% 8.67%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 13.09% 11.75% 9.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,665 1,920 2,399
10th Percentile £375 £400 £413
25th Percentile £438 £477 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £569
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +1.05% -5.17%
75th Percentile £620 £675 £675
90th Percentile £725 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £560 £555
% change year-on-year -7.14% +0.90% -7.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 20 101
10th Percentile - £38.23 £46.18
25th Percentile £45.46 £53.73 £56.65
Median hourly rate £48.75 £67.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.78% +3.85% -0.92%
75th Percentile £80.88 £80.75 £71.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £81.43 £81.25
UK median hourly rate £53.75 £67.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -20.37% +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 29,013 23,773 32,984
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.84% 89.46% 87.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,550 14,553 22,087
10th Percentile £305 £310 £300
25th Percentile £410 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £644 £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 1,795 760 1,867
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.62 £13.61
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £17.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.31 £36.34
Median % change year-on-year -26.69% -5.59% +3.81%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
% change year-on-year -22.62% -9.61% +10.63%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 -2 1,905 £540 -10.00% 477
North of England +5 682 £500 -2.44% 310
South East +2 404 £525 -8.70% 437
Midlands +24 397 £515 +3.00% 140
Yorkshire 0 347 £500 -0.74% 110
West Midlands +23 320 £525 +3.75% 79
North West +6 289 £468 -9.05% 163
South West +6 241 £525 -12.50% 154
East of England +19 110 £575 +11.65% 111
East Midlands +15 77 £425 -12.82% 58
North East -5 49 £475 -15.93% 38
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
1 239 (6.29%) Confluence
2 81 (2.13%) Apache
3 78 (2.05%) SharePoint
4 76 (2.00%) Apache Spark
4 76 (2.00%) SAS
5 59 (1.55%) Apache Airflow
6 38 (1.00%) OpenStack
7 35 (0.92%) nginx
8 34 (0.89%) CMS
9 22 (0.58%) IIS
10 19 (0.50%) JBoss
10 19 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
11 11 (0.29%) CICS
11 11 (0.29%) WebLogic
12 10 (0.26%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 10 (0.26%) HCL Notes
12 10 (0.26%) Mendix
12 10 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
12 10 (0.26%) WebSphere
13 9 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 92 (2.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 62 (1.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 32 (0.84%) Microsoft Project
4 29 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
5 18 (0.47%) MS Visio
6 12 (0.32%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.21%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 8 (0.21%) Weka
8 3 (0.079%) Trello
9 1 (0.026%) Adobe XD
9 1 (0.026%) Revit
Business Applications
1 61 (1.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 15 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
3 11 (0.29%) Endur
4 10 (0.26%) Aladdin
4 10 (0.26%) VisionPLUS
5 9 (0.24%) Maximo
5 9 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
6 8 (0.21%) NEC Housing
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 (0.079%) Oracle Assets
9 3 (0.079%) Oracle General Ledger
9 3 (0.079%) Oracle Payables
9 3 (0.079%) Oracle Receivables
9 3 (0.079%) SAP FI
9 3 (0.079%) SAP FI/CO
9 3 (0.079%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 1,922 (50.59%) Azure
2 1,334 (35.11%) AWS
3 1,030 (27.11%) Azure DevOps
4 700 (18.43%) GitHub
5 564 (14.85%) GCP
6 425 (11.19%) Serverless
7 380 (10.00%) GitHub Actions
8 307 (8.08%) Power Platform
9 209 (5.50%) Amazon S3
10 206 (5.42%) AWS CloudFormation
10 206 (5.42%) AWS Lambda
11 182 (4.79%) Azure Data Factory
12 167 (4.40%) Azure AKS
13 164 (4.32%) Entra ID
14 161 (4.24%) OpenShift
15 150 (3.95%) Dynamics 365
16 144 (3.79%) SaaS
17 142 (3.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 140 (3.69%) Amazon EKS
19 139 (3.66%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 193 (5.08%) Firewall
2 110 (2.90%) DNS
3 84 (2.21%) Network Security
4 83 (2.18%) VPN
5 58 (1.53%) TCP/IP
6 47 (1.24%) SSL
7 33 (0.87%) HTTP
8 28 (0.74%) HTTPS
9 23 (0.61%) WAN
10 18 (0.47%) DHCP
11 17 (0.45%) BGP
12 16 (0.42%) Kerberos
12 16 (0.42%) MPLS
12 16 (0.42%) SD-WAN
12 16 (0.42%) SSH
13 15 (0.39%) FTP
13 15 (0.39%) SMTP
14 13 (0.34%) LAN
15 10 (0.26%) Internet
16 9 (0.24%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 209 (5.50%) PostgreSQL
2 202 (5.32%) Power BI
3 147 (3.87%) SQL Server
4 143 (3.76%) NoSQL
5 111 (2.92%) Amazon RDS
6 108 (2.84%) Data Lake
7 97 (2.55%) Relational Database
8 88 (2.32%) MongoDB
9 85 (2.24%) Data Warehouse
10 78 (2.05%) Oracle Database
11 73 (1.92%) Azure SQL Database
12 66 (1.74%) Elasticsearch
13 55 (1.45%) DynamoDB
14 51 (1.34%) Redis
14 51 (1.34%) Tableau
15 48 (1.26%) MySQL
16 45 (1.18%) Metadata
17 44 (1.16%) Delta Lake
18 39 (1.03%) Pentaho
19 37 (0.97%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 680 (17.90%) Jenkins
2 539 (14.19%) Git
3 535 (14.08%) JIRA
4 485 (12.77%) GitLab
5 109 (2.87%) Selenium
6 83 (2.18%) JUnit
6 83 (2.18%) Postman
7 68 (1.79%) SonarQube
8 63 (1.66%) Sonatype Nexus
9 56 (1.47%) Bitbucket
10 48 (1.26%) Cypress.io
11 47 (1.24%) Artifactory
12 46 (1.21%) Cucumber
13 44 (1.16%) Maven
14 43 (1.13%) Gradle
15 36 (0.95%) Oracle APEX
15 36 (0.95%) REST Assured
16 33 (0.87%) CircleCI
17 32 (0.84%) Liquibase
18 31 (0.82%) JMeter
General
1 1,193 (31.40%) Social Skills
2 702 (18.48%) Finance
3 452 (11.90%) Public Sector
4 321 (8.45%) Analytical Skills
5 316 (8.32%) Banking
6 144 (3.79%) Documentation Skills
7 74 (1.95%) Influencing Skills
8 65 (1.71%) Financial Institution
9 59 (1.55%) Marketing
10 58 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.21%) Front Office
11 46 (1.21%) Retail
12 44 (1.16%) Investment Banking
13 43 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
14 42 (1.11%) Telecoms
15 33 (0.87%) Military
16 28 (0.74%) Pharmaceutical
17 26 (0.68%) Law
18 25 (0.66%) Organisational Skills
19 23 (0.61%) Legal
Job Titles
1 709 (18.66%) DevOps Engineer
2 639 (16.82%) Developer
3 512 (13.48%) Senior
4 366 (9.63%) Architect
5 288 (7.58%) Lead
6 226 (5.95%) Azure Engineer
7 207 (5.45%) AWS Engineer
8 201 (5.29%) Analyst
8 201 (5.29%) Data Engineer
9 158 (4.16%) AWS DevOps
10 145 (3.82%) Software Engineer
11 144 (3.79%) Cloud Engineer
12 137 (3.61%) AWS DevOps Engineer
13 132 (3.47%) Platform Engineer
14 126 (3.32%) Senior Developer
15 116 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
16 115 (3.03%) Business Analyst
17 101 (2.66%) Senior DevOps
18 99 (2.61%) Azure DevOps Engineer
19 95 (2.50%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 439 (11.56%) REST
2 303 (7.98%) .NET
3 247 (6.50%) React
4 240 (6.32%) Node.js
5 219 (5.76%) Kafka
6 207 (5.45%) RESTful
7 196 (5.16%) Spring
8 179 (4.71%) Spring Boot
9 164 (4.32%) JSON
10 125 (3.29%) XML
10 125 (3.29%) YAML
11 123 (3.24%) AngularJS
11 123 (3.24%) OAuth
12 120 (3.16%) Elastic Stack
13 116 (3.05%) HTML
13 116 (3.05%) SOAP
14 101 (2.66%) Playwright
15 94 (2.47%) Middleware
16 90 (2.37%) CSS
17 89 (2.34%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 538 (14.16%) Cloud Native
2 207 (5.45%) Product Ownership
3 137 (3.61%) Distributed Systems
4 103 (2.71%) Onboarding
5 102 (2.68%) Public Cloud
6 76 (2.00%) Legacy Systems
7 68 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 66 (1.74%) Enterprise Software
9 50 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
10 49 (1.29%) Management Information System
11 48 (1.26%) Replication
11 48 (1.26%) Virtual Team
12 45 (1.18%) Private Cloud
12 45 (1.18%) Security Posture
13 41 (1.08%) Mobile App
14 40 (1.05%) Data Centre
15 34 (0.89%) NHS
15 34 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
16 33 (0.87%) AI Agents
17 29 (0.76%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 430 (11.32%) Linux
2 221 (5.82%) Windows
3 82 (2.16%) Unix
4 50 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 50 (1.32%) Windows Server
5 49 (1.29%) VMS
6 30 (0.79%) Ubuntu
7 23 (0.61%) Android
8 21 (0.55%) Apple iOS
9 19 (0.50%) Windows 10
10 17 (0.45%) CentOS
11 12 (0.32%) Amazon Linux
12 9 (0.24%) Solaris
13 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2019
14 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 4 (0.11%) zOS
16 3 (0.079%) Windows Server 2012
17 2 (0.053%) Debian
18 1 (0.026%) Embedded Linux
18 1 (0.026%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,165 (56.99%) CI/CD
2 1,497 (39.41%) Agile
3 965 (25.40%) Infrastructure as Code
4 752 (19.79%) Problem-Solving
5 724 (19.06%) Containerisation
6 588 (15.48%) Test Automation
7 555 (14.61%) Microservices
8 453 (11.92%) Analytics
9 447 (11.77%) Continuous Improvement
10 445 (11.71%) Migration
11 417 (10.98%) Scrum
12 388 (10.21%) Observability
13 380 (10.00%) AI
14 363 (9.56%) Stakeholder Management
15 346 (9.11%) Software Engineering
16 304 (8.00%) Mentoring
17 297 (7.82%) Data Modelling
18 268 (7.05%) Business Intelligence
19 263 (6.92%) Data Pipeline
20 261 (6.87%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 1,150 (30.27%) Python
2 773 (20.35%) SQL
3 498 (13.11%) Java
4 360 (9.48%) JavaScript
5 350 (9.21%) C#
6 327 (8.61%) PowerShell
7 301 (7.92%) Bash
8 262 (6.90%) TypeScript
9 126 (3.32%) Bicep
9 126 (3.32%) Go
10 73 (1.92%) PL/SQL
11 54 (1.42%) Scala
12 50 (1.32%) Shell Script
13 49 (1.29%) Groovy
14 42 (1.11%) T-SQL
15 39 (1.03%) Ruby
16 38 (1.00%) C++
17 26 (0.68%) Perl
18 21 (0.55%) PHP
18 21 (0.55%) Rust
Qualifications
1 1,200 (31.59%) Security Cleared
2 991 (26.09%) SC Cleared
3 340 (8.95%) Degree
4 180 (4.74%) Computer Science Degree
5 176 (4.63%) Azure Certification
6 130 (3.42%) DV Cleared
7 116 (3.05%) AWS Certification
8 79 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
8 79 (2.08%) Master's Degree
9 68 (1.79%) CISSP
10 57 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
11 54 (1.42%) CISM
12 37 (0.97%) ISTQB
13 36 (0.95%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 32 (0.84%) PMI Certification
15 29 (0.76%) Cisco Certification
16 25 (0.66%) PMP
17 24 (0.63%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
18 22 (0.58%) IIBA
19 18 (0.47%) CBAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 318 (8.37%) QA
2 155 (4.08%) GDPR
3 139 (3.66%) Data Quality
4 125 (3.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 115 (3.03%) NIST
6 93 (2.45%) Accessibility
7 67 (1.76%) NCSC
8 31 (0.82%) PCI DSS
9 28 (0.74%) WCAG
10 25 (0.66%) HIPAA
10 25 (0.66%) SLA
11 24 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 19 (0.50%) PMO
12 19 (0.50%) PSD2
13 17 (0.45%) ISO 20022
13 17 (0.45%) SOC 2
14 15 (0.39%) SEPA
15 10 (0.26%) NIST 800
16 8 (0.21%) HL7
17 7 (0.18%) MiFID
System Software
1 960 (25.27%) Docker
2 163 (4.29%) Active Directory
3 65 (1.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 61 (1.61%) Virtual Machines
5 31 (0.82%) vSphere
6 17 (0.45%) VMware NSX
7 16 (0.42%) Virtual Desktop
8 15 (0.39%) DFS Replication
8 15 (0.39%) Squid
9 11 (0.29%) Lustre
9 11 (0.29%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 9 (0.24%) GPFS
10 9 (0.24%) Hyper-V
11 8 (0.21%) Dovecot
11 8 (0.21%) Postfix
11 8 (0.21%) Tivoli Directory Server
12 7 (0.18%) Firmware
12 7 (0.18%) NFS
12 7 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
12 7 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 1,149 (30.24%) Terraform
2 1,103 (29.03%) Kubernetes
3 476 (12.53%) Ansible
4 266 (7.00%) Grafana
5 243 (6.40%) Prometheus
6 77 (2.03%) Argo
7 72 (1.90%) Puppet
8 55 (1.45%) Single Sign-On
9 37 (0.97%) Istio
10 36 (0.95%) Kibana
10 36 (0.95%) Progress Chef
11 31 (0.82%) Packer
12 21 (0.55%) Podman
13 16 (0.42%) Rancher
14 15 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 15 (0.39%) Consul
14 15 (0.39%) Proxmox
14 15 (0.39%) SCCM
15 14 (0.37%) logstash
15 14 (0.37%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 665 (17.50%) Microsoft
2 290 (7.63%) Oracle
3 218 (5.74%) Google
4 215 (5.66%) Databricks
5 207 (5.45%) Splunk
6 138 (3.63%) ServiceNow
7 124 (3.26%) Red Hat
8 110 (2.90%) VMware
9 95 (2.50%) Salesforce
10 91 (2.40%) SAP
11 64 (1.68%) OpenAI
12 60 (1.58%) Dynatrace
13 55 (1.45%) CyberArk
14 48 (1.26%) F5
15 42 (1.11%) Talend
16 41 (1.08%) IBM
16 41 (1.08%) Palo Alto
17 40 (1.05%) Atlassian
18 38 (1.00%) Denodo
19 31 (0.82%) MuleSoft