Kubernetes Contract Job Trends in England

Kubernetes (k8s)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Kubernetes skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 30 59
Rank change year-on-year -2 +29 -28
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 2,141 1,509 1,313
As % of all contract jobs in England 5.88% 6.12% 3.45%
As % of the Systems Management category 39.82% 38.81% 28.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,459 1,050 951
10th Percentile £400 £406 £419
25th Percentile £450 £488 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £558
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +3.14% -10.80%
75th Percentile £630 £688 £670
90th Percentile £714 £813 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £550
% change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -11.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 6 25
10th Percentile £51.50 £25.88 £46.18
25th Percentile £52.50 £33.94 £46.25
Median hourly rate £60.00 £58.75 £67.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.13% -12.31% +4.69%
75th Percentile £75.88 £66.13 £76.53
90th Percentile £88.40 £71.31 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £62.00 £58.75 £67.00
% change year-on-year +5.53% -12.31% +4.69%

All Systems Management Skills
England

Kubernetes falls under the Systems Management category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring systems management skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for systems management skills 5,377 3,888 4,550
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.76% 15.78% 11.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,702 2,605 3,295
10th Percentile £313 £313 £250
25th Percentile £413 £425 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% -9.48%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £631
90th Percentile £700 £750 £713
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 41 142
10th Percentile £19.00 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.55 £21.05 £20.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £26.50 £34.67
Median % change year-on-year +107.55% -23.57% -33.49%
75th Percentile £67.50 £65.00 £59.69
90th Percentile £76.95 £85.25 £76.07
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £25.50 £37.50
% change year-on-year +115.69% -32.00% -28.07%

Kubernetes
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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

Kubernetes job vacancy trend in England

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Kubernetes in England over the 6 months to 12 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Kubernetes in England

Kubernetes
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Kubernetes

Kubernetes
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Kubernetes in England over the 6 months to 12 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Kubernetes in England

Kubernetes
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 Kubernetes within the England region over the 6 months to 12 March 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 -8 990 £550 -8.33% 317
North of England +8 449 £500 -7.19% 153
Midlands +43 278 £525 - 49
West Midlands +36 249 £525 - 31
Yorkshire +9 236 £484 -15.91% 62
South East -2 187 £485 -11.82% 155
North West +12 168 £531 +1.17% 74
South West +2 148 £570 -5.00% 84
North East 0 49 £515 - 17
East of England -17 34 £613 +23.74% 27
East Midlands -17 28 £447 -6.78% 18
Kubernetes
UK

Kubernetes
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
1 104 (4.86%) Confluence
2 67 (3.13%) SAS
3 60 (2.80%) Apache Spark
4 40 (1.87%) Apache
5 34 (1.59%) nginx
6 30 (1.40%) OpenStack
7 27 (1.26%) Apache Airflow
8 18 (0.84%) Jupyter
9 11 (0.51%) Camunda
10 8 (0.37%) Appian
10 8 (0.37%) WebLogic
11 7 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
12 6 (0.28%) SharePoint
13 5 (0.23%) Ethereum
13 5 (0.23%) Hyperledger
14 4 (0.19%) CMS
14 4 (0.19%) Drupal
15 3 (0.14%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 3 (0.14%) IIS
16 2 (0.093%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 7 (0.33%) Chatbot
2 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.23%) Weka
3 3 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
3 3 (0.14%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.093%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.047%) CPLEX
5 1 (0.047%) Maya
5 1 (0.047%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 8 (0.37%) Maximo
2 2 (0.093%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.047%) Actimize
3 1 (0.047%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.047%) Endur
3 1 (0.047%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.047%) SAP Hybris
3 1 (0.047%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.047%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 1,114 (52.03%) AWS
2 850 (39.70%) Azure
3 521 (24.33%) GCP
4 498 (23.26%) GitHub
5 312 (14.57%) OpenShift
6 281 (13.12%) GitHub Actions
7 229 (10.70%) Serverless
8 198 (9.25%) Azure DevOps
9 166 (7.75%) Amazon EKS
10 154 (7.19%) Azure AKS
11 145 (6.77%) AWS CloudFormation
12 141 (6.59%) Amazon S3
13 133 (6.21%) AWS Lambda
14 105 (4.90%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 104 (4.86%) Amazon EC2
16 88 (4.11%) Amazon ECS
17 72 (3.36%) Virtual Private Cloud
18 71 (3.32%) Datadog
19 61 (2.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 55 (2.57%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 107 (5.00%) Firewall
2 80 (3.74%) DNS
3 48 (2.24%) Network Security
4 40 (1.87%) VPN
5 39 (1.82%) TCP/IP
6 19 (0.89%) SAN
7 18 (0.84%) HTTP
8 17 (0.79%) DHCP
9 15 (0.70%) Reverse Proxy
9 15 (0.70%) SSL
10 11 (0.51%) NAS
11 10 (0.47%) OpenVPN
12 8 (0.37%) Kerberos
13 7 (0.33%) BGP
13 7 (0.33%) Fibre Channel
13 7 (0.33%) iSCSI
14 5 (0.23%) 4G
14 5 (0.23%) InfiniBand
14 5 (0.23%) Software-Defined Networking
14 5 (0.23%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 272 (12.70%) PostgreSQL
2 196 (9.15%) NoSQL
3 133 (6.21%) MongoDB
4 98 (4.58%) Relational Database
5 84 (3.92%) Apache Cassandra
6 79 (3.69%) SQL Server
7 70 (3.27%) Elasticsearch
8 68 (3.18%) Amazon RDS
9 49 (2.29%) Redis
10 43 (2.01%) Big Data
11 39 (1.82%) Power BI
12 35 (1.63%) MySQL
13 33 (1.54%) BigQuery
14 31 (1.45%) Data Warehouse
14 31 (1.45%) Pentaho
15 30 (1.40%) DynamoDB
16 29 (1.35%) Data Lake
17 24 (1.12%) Oracle Database
18 21 (0.98%) Hadoop
19 19 (0.89%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 533 (24.89%) Jenkins
2 410 (19.15%) GitLab
3 393 (18.36%) Git
4 193 (9.01%) JIRA
5 101 (4.72%) JUnit
6 65 (3.04%) Selenium
7 57 (2.66%) Cucumber
8 50 (2.34%) SonarQube
9 42 (1.96%) MLflow
10 40 (1.87%) Artifactory
10 40 (1.87%) Bitbucket
10 40 (1.87%) JMeter
11 39 (1.82%) Gradle
12 34 (1.59%) Maven
12 34 (1.59%) Sonatype Nexus
13 33 (1.54%) Mockito
14 26 (1.21%) Postman
15 23 (1.07%) Gatling
16 22 (1.03%) CircleCI
17 16 (0.75%) Liquibase
General
1 562 (26.25%) Social Skills
2 363 (16.95%) Finance
3 269 (12.56%) Public Sector
4 187 (8.73%) Banking
5 170 (7.94%) Analytical Skills
6 58 (2.71%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (1.63%) Financial Institution
8 28 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
9 24 (1.12%) Front Office
10 22 (1.03%) Telecoms
11 21 (0.98%) Investment Banking
12 19 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
13 16 (0.75%) Retail
14 15 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 14 (0.65%) Military
16 12 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
17 9 (0.42%) Aerospace
18 8 (0.37%) Pharmaceutical
19 7 (0.33%) Legal
20 5 (0.23%) Billing
Job Titles
1 469 (21.91%) Developer
2 330 (15.41%) Senior
3 292 (13.64%) DevOps Engineer
4 203 (9.48%) Architect
5 143 (6.68%) Java Developer
6 132 (6.17%) Software Engineer
7 118 (5.51%) Lead
8 108 (5.04%) Cloud Engineer
9 105 (4.90%) AWS Engineer
9 105 (4.90%) Senior Developer
10 99 (4.62%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 97 (4.53%) Data Engineer
12 95 (4.44%) Platform Engineer
13 87 (4.06%) Python Developer
14 80 (3.74%) Java Engineer
15 78 (3.64%) Azure Engineer
16 76 (3.55%) AWS DevOps
17 73 (3.41%) Full-Stack Developer
17 73 (3.41%) Site Engineer
18 68 (3.18%) GCP Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 348 (16.25%) Kafka
2 306 (14.29%) Spring
3 257 (12.00%) Spring Boot
4 226 (10.56%) REST
5 199 (9.29%) RESTful
6 182 (8.50%) React
7 164 (7.66%) Node.js
8 127 (5.93%) Elastic Stack
9 125 (5.84%) OpenTelemetry
10 119 (5.56%) AngularJS
11 104 (4.86%) .NET
12 85 (3.97%) gRPC
13 80 (3.74%) FastAPI
13 80 (3.74%) PyTorch
14 70 (3.27%) OAuth
15 64 (2.99%) GraphQL
15 64 (2.99%) HTML
16 62 (2.90%) TensorFlow
17 56 (2.62%) Playwright
17 56 (2.62%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 419 (19.57%) Cloud Native
2 177 (8.27%) Distributed Systems
3 90 (4.20%) Hybrid Cloud
4 71 (3.32%) Public Cloud
5 63 (2.94%) Product Ownership
6 59 (2.76%) Onboarding
7 38 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
7 38 (1.77%) Private Cloud
8 37 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
9 34 (1.59%) Data Centre
9 34 (1.59%) Management Information System
10 33 (1.54%) Enterprise Software
11 31 (1.45%) PKI
12 29 (1.35%) AI Agents
13 28 (1.31%) Security Posture
14 25 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
14 25 (1.17%) Virtual Team
15 23 (1.07%) Algorithms
16 20 (0.93%) NHS
17 18 (0.84%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 420 (19.62%) Linux
2 120 (5.60%) Windows
3 63 (2.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 62 (2.90%) Unix
5 43 (2.01%) VMS
6 27 (1.26%) Windows Server
7 22 (1.03%) Ubuntu
8 9 (0.42%) CentOS
9 5 (0.23%) Apple iOS
9 5 (0.23%) CoreOS
9 5 (0.23%) Data ONTAP
9 5 (0.23%) Windows Server 2003
10 4 (0.19%) Android
10 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.14%) Rocky
12 2 (0.093%) Debian
13 1 (0.047%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.047%) Solaris
13 1 (0.047%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,406 (65.67%) CI/CD
2 1,136 (53.06%) DevOps
3 931 (43.48%) Containerisation
4 698 (32.60%) Agile
5 617 (28.82%) Infrastructure as Code
6 571 (26.67%) Microservices
7 461 (21.53%) Problem-Solving
8 432 (20.18%) Observability
9 362 (16.91%) Software Engineering
10 328 (15.32%) Test Automation
11 261 (12.19%) AI
12 231 (10.79%) Continuous Improvement
13 226 (10.56%) Migration
14 218 (10.18%) Analytics
15 211 (9.86%) Site Reliability Engineering
16 194 (9.06%) Machine Learning
17 189 (8.83%) DevSecOps
17 189 (8.83%) Platform Engineering
18 188 (8.78%) Data Pipeline
19 182 (8.50%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 911 (42.55%) Python
2 546 (25.50%) Java
3 410 (19.15%) SQL
4 270 (12.61%) Bash
5 204 (9.53%) Go
6 167 (7.80%) JavaScript
7 156 (7.29%) TypeScript
8 131 (6.12%) PowerShell
9 91 (4.25%) C#
10 63 (2.94%) Bicep
11 57 (2.66%) Shell Script
12 50 (2.34%) Ruby
13 32 (1.49%) Kotlin
14 31 (1.45%) Scala
15 26 (1.21%) C++
15 26 (1.21%) Rust
16 18 (0.84%) Groovy
17 16 (0.75%) PHP
18 15 (0.70%) Perl
19 12 (0.56%) C
Qualifications
1 749 (34.98%) Security Cleared
2 612 (28.58%) SC Cleared
3 166 (7.75%) Degree
4 124 (5.79%) DV Cleared
5 117 (5.46%) Computer Science Degree
6 107 (5.00%) Azure Certification
7 93 (4.34%) AWS Certification
8 53 (2.48%) CISSP
9 51 (2.38%) Master's Degree
10 46 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
11 31 (1.45%) CISM
12 30 (1.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 24 (1.12%) Cisco Certification
13 24 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
14 21 (0.98%) TOGAF Certification
15 18 (0.84%) OCP
15 18 (0.84%) Oracle Certification
16 17 (0.79%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
17 14 (0.65%) CCSP
18 13 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (5.32%) QA
2 72 (3.36%) Data Quality
3 65 (3.04%) NIST
4 62 (2.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 56 (2.62%) GDPR
6 46 (2.15%) Accessibility
6 46 (2.15%) NCSC
7 35 (1.63%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.84%) WCAG
9 16 (0.75%) ISO 20022
10 15 (0.70%) PSD2
11 12 (0.56%) HIPAA
12 11 (0.51%) NIST 800
12 11 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
13 10 (0.47%) SEPA
14 9 (0.42%) SLA
15 8 (0.37%) GRC
16 7 (0.33%) JSP 440
16 7 (0.33%) SOC 2
17 6 (0.28%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 1,303 (60.86%) Docker
2 70 (3.27%) VMware Infrastructure
3 54 (2.52%) vSphere
4 49 (2.29%) Virtual Machines
5 39 (1.82%) Active Directory
6 28 (1.31%) VMware NSX
7 23 (1.07%) Slurm Workload Manager
8 15 (0.70%) Hyper-V
9 11 (0.51%) NFS
9 11 (0.51%) Squid
10 9 (0.42%) Lustre
11 8 (0.37%) VMware ESXi
12 7 (0.33%) GPFS
12 7 (0.33%) Virtual Desktop
13 6 (0.28%) KVM
13 6 (0.28%) Snort
14 5 (0.23%) BitLocker
14 5 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
15 4 (0.19%) etcd
15 4 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 792 (36.99%) Terraform
2 368 (17.19%) Grafana
3 352 (16.44%) Ansible
4 335 (15.65%) Prometheus
5 123 (5.74%) Argo
6 56 (2.62%) Istio
7 46 (2.15%) Puppet
8 45 (2.10%) Kibana
9 38 (1.77%) Progress Chef
10 35 (1.63%) Nessus
11 29 (1.35%) Packer
11 29 (1.35%) vCenter Server
12 27 (1.26%) Podman
13 25 (1.17%) Single Sign-On
14 24 (1.12%) Control-M
14 24 (1.12%) IBM Guardium
15 23 (1.07%) Consul
16 21 (0.98%) Rancher
17 16 (0.75%) logstash
18 14 (0.65%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 233 (10.88%) Microsoft
2 186 (8.69%) Splunk
3 166 (7.75%) Google
4 152 (7.10%) Red Hat
5 113 (5.28%) Oracle
6 105 (4.90%) VMware
7 63 (2.94%) Databricks
8 55 (2.57%) Dynatrace
9 50 (2.34%) OpenAI
10 32 (1.49%) Tenable
11 31 (1.45%) Denodo
11 31 (1.45%) Talend
12 25 (1.17%) Pure Storage
13 24 (1.12%) Atlassian
14 20 (0.93%) AppDynamics
14 20 (0.93%) IBM
15 18 (0.84%) CyberArk
15 18 (0.84%) Foundry
16 16 (0.75%) NetApp
16 16 (0.75%) ServiceNow