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

6 months to
13 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 32 48
Rank change year-on-year 0 +16 -16
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 1,915 1,466 1,477
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.11% 5.51% 4.06%
As % of the Systems Management category 39.07% 37.99% 30.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,312 994 1,100
10th Percentile £400 £409 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £600 £575
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £700 £675
90th Percentile £700 £810 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 10 36
10th Percentile £48.75 £26.38 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.18 £46.18
Median hourly rate £58.75 £51.84 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -7.84% -14.45%
75th Percentile £79.25 £66.13 £76.53
90th Percentile £101.25 £74.04 £77.75
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £51.84 £56.25
% change year-on-year +15.74% -7.84% -12.79%

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 4,902 3,859 4,801
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.65% 14.52% 13.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,386 2,503 3,505
10th Percentile £313 £313 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.57% -2.78% -8.09%
75th Percentile £606 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £510 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.33% -6.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 51 144
10th Percentile £18.57 £15.22 £15.20
25th Percentile £21.29 £21.02 £21.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £26.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +98.11% -42.62% +21.53%
75th Percentile £63.32 £61.25 £66.44
90th Percentile £79.20 £77.50 £77.85
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £24.84 £46.18
% change year-on-year +111.35% -46.21% +31.94%

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 13 January 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 13 January 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 13 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 -6 909 £550 -8.33% 374
North of England +9 383 £487 -7.24% 212
Midlands +57 231 £525 -8.70% 142
West Midlands +52 210 £530 -12.54% 50
Yorkshire +7 177 £487 -16.39% 88
South East +10 175 £500 -6.98% 416
North West +23 166 £484 -3.30% 93
South West -6 119 £625 +4.17% 184
North East -3 41 £545 +3.81% 31
East of England -1 39 £550 +23.94% 144
East Midlands 0 21 £418 -16.50% 86
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 76 (3.97%) Confluence
2 70 (3.66%) SAS
3 37 (1.93%) Apache Spark
4 35 (1.83%) Apache
5 33 (1.72%) Apache Airflow
6 29 (1.51%) OpenStack
7 24 (1.25%) nginx
8 14 (0.73%) Jupyter
9 8 (0.42%) Mule
10 7 (0.37%) SharePoint
11 6 (0.31%) Tomcat
11 6 (0.31%) WebLogic
12 5 (0.26%) Camunda
12 5 (0.26%) Ethereum
12 5 (0.26%) Hyperledger
13 4 (0.21%) Appian
13 4 (0.21%) CMS
13 4 (0.21%) Drupal
13 4 (0.21%) IIS
13 4 (0.21%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 6 (0.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.26%) Chatbot
2 5 (0.26%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.26%) Weka
3 4 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.16%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 12 (0.63%) Maximo
2 2 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.052%) Actimize
3 1 (0.052%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.052%) Endur
3 1 (0.052%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 1,004 (52.43%) AWS
2 736 (38.43%) Azure
3 477 (24.91%) GCP
4 439 (22.92%) GitHub
5 267 (13.94%) GitHub Actions
6 249 (13.00%) OpenShift
7 218 (11.38%) Serverless
8 190 (9.92%) Azure DevOps
9 140 (7.31%) Azure AKS
10 135 (7.05%) Amazon EKS
11 126 (6.58%) Amazon S3
12 125 (6.53%) AWS CloudFormation
12 125 (6.53%) AWS Lambda
13 91 (4.75%) Amazon EC2
14 90 (4.70%) Amazon ECS
15 85 (4.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 79 (4.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 68 (3.55%) Datadog
18 52 (2.72%) Entra ID
19 51 (2.66%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 90 (4.70%) Firewall
2 57 (2.98%) DNS
3 34 (1.78%) Network Security
4 29 (1.51%) VPN
5 27 (1.41%) TCP/IP
6 19 (0.99%) SSL
7 15 (0.78%) HTTP
8 12 (0.63%) DHCP
9 9 (0.47%) SAN
10 8 (0.42%) Fibre Channel
10 8 (0.42%) NAS
11 7 (0.37%) BGP
11 7 (0.37%) iSCSI
12 6 (0.31%) Kerberos
12 6 (0.31%) Software-Defined Networking
12 6 (0.31%) VLAN
13 5 (0.26%) HTTPS
13 5 (0.26%) OpenLDAP
13 5 (0.26%) Reverse Proxy
13 5 (0.26%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 253 (13.21%) PostgreSQL
2 190 (9.92%) NoSQL
3 121 (6.32%) MongoDB
4 84 (4.39%) Relational Database
5 81 (4.23%) Apache Cassandra
6 75 (3.92%) Amazon RDS
7 66 (3.45%) Elasticsearch
8 57 (2.98%) Redis
8 57 (2.98%) SQL Server
9 47 (2.45%) MySQL
10 35 (1.83%) Pentaho
11 34 (1.78%) Power BI
12 33 (1.72%) Big Data
13 32 (1.67%) BigQuery
14 31 (1.62%) DynamoDB
15 28 (1.46%) Data Lake
16 26 (1.36%) Data Warehouse
17 22 (1.15%) Oracle Database
18 20 (1.04%) Amazon Aurora
19 19 (0.99%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 494 (25.80%) Jenkins
2 380 (19.84%) Git
2 380 (19.84%) GitLab
3 173 (9.03%) JIRA
4 74 (3.86%) JUnit
5 56 (2.92%) SonarQube
6 52 (2.72%) Gradle
7 51 (2.66%) Sonatype Nexus
8 48 (2.51%) Maven
9 47 (2.45%) Selenium
10 40 (2.09%) Artifactory
11 37 (1.93%) Cucumber
12 36 (1.88%) Bitbucket
12 36 (1.88%) CircleCI
13 31 (1.62%) Liquibase
13 31 (1.62%) MLflow
14 29 (1.51%) Mockito
15 26 (1.36%) Postman
16 21 (1.10%) JMeter
17 20 (1.04%) Cypress.io
General
1 510 (26.63%) Social Skills
2 316 (16.50%) Finance
3 225 (11.75%) Public Sector
4 198 (10.34%) Banking
5 147 (7.68%) Analytical Skills
6 40 (2.09%) Financial Institution
7 39 (2.04%) Documentation Skills
8 29 (1.51%) Investment Banking
9 25 (1.31%) Front Office
10 19 (0.99%) Telecoms
11 18 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 18 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
12 13 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (0.57%) Military
13 11 (0.57%) Retail
14 10 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.47%) Aerospace
15 9 (0.47%) Law
16 7 (0.37%) Billing
16 7 (0.37%) Games
Job Titles
1 438 (22.87%) Developer
2 312 (16.29%) Senior
3 282 (14.73%) DevOps Engineer
4 142 (7.42%) Architect
5 136 (7.10%) Software Engineer
6 135 (7.05%) Java Developer
7 108 (5.64%) Senior Developer
8 102 (5.33%) AWS Engineer
9 96 (5.01%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 91 (4.75%) Lead
11 90 (4.70%) Cloud Engineer
12 88 (4.60%) Platform Engineer
13 75 (3.92%) Python Developer
14 74 (3.86%) Azure Engineer
15 72 (3.76%) Data Engineer
15 72 (3.76%) Full-Stack Developer
16 69 (3.60%) Site Engineer
17 68 (3.55%) AWS DevOps
18 56 (2.92%) Java Engineer
19 53 (2.77%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 309 (16.14%) Kafka
2 234 (12.22%) Spring
3 220 (11.49%) Spring Boot
4 208 (10.86%) REST
5 203 (10.60%) RESTful
6 184 (9.61%) React
7 165 (8.62%) Node.js
8 136 (7.10%) Elastic Stack
9 114 (5.95%) AngularJS
10 94 (4.91%) .NET
11 89 (4.65%) gRPC
12 74 (3.86%) GraphQL
13 70 (3.66%) FastAPI
14 67 (3.50%) OpenTelemetry
15 66 (3.45%) PyTorch
16 64 (3.34%) HTML
17 58 (3.03%) YAML
18 57 (2.98%) Playwright
19 55 (2.87%) TensorFlow
20 52 (2.72%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 366 (19.11%) Cloud Native
2 163 (8.51%) Distributed Systems
3 71 (3.71%) Public Cloud
4 63 (3.29%) Hybrid Cloud
5 55 (2.87%) Product Ownership
6 53 (2.77%) Onboarding
7 39 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
7 39 (2.04%) Private Cloud
8 28 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
9 27 (1.41%) PKI
10 26 (1.36%) Management Information System
11 25 (1.31%) Algorithms
11 25 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
11 25 (1.31%) Replication
12 22 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
12 22 (1.15%) Security Posture
13 19 (0.99%) AI Agents
13 19 (0.99%) Data Structures
13 19 (0.99%) Virtual Team
14 18 (0.94%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 384 (20.05%) Linux
2 80 (4.18%) Windows
3 63 (3.29%) Unix
4 53 (2.77%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 38 (1.98%) VMS
6 22 (1.15%) Ubuntu
6 22 (1.15%) Windows Server
7 13 (0.68%) CentOS
8 5 (0.26%) Solaris
9 3 (0.16%) Android
9 3 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 3 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
10 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
10 2 (0.10%) zOS
11 1 (0.052%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.052%) Debian
11 1 (0.052%) MVS
11 1 (0.052%) Rocky
11 1 (0.052%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,266 (66.11%) CI/CD
2 1,057 (55.20%) DevOps
3 834 (43.55%) Containerisation
4 639 (33.37%) Agile
5 562 (29.35%) Infrastructure as Code
6 540 (28.20%) Microservices
7 437 (22.82%) Problem-Solving
8 360 (18.80%) Software Engineering
9 327 (17.08%) Observability
10 280 (14.62%) Test Automation
11 217 (11.33%) Migration
12 214 (11.17%) AI
13 184 (9.61%) Site Reliability Engineering
14 181 (9.45%) DevSecOps
15 178 (9.30%) Analytics
16 167 (8.72%) Continuous Improvement
17 165 (8.62%) Full-Stack Development
18 161 (8.41%) Machine Learning
19 154 (8.04%) Platform Engineering
20 150 (7.83%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 851 (44.44%) Python
2 509 (26.58%) Java
3 359 (18.75%) SQL
4 272 (14.20%) Bash
5 228 (11.91%) Go
6 169 (8.83%) JavaScript
7 162 (8.46%) TypeScript
8 114 (5.95%) PowerShell
9 98 (5.12%) C#
10 63 (3.29%) Bicep
11 55 (2.87%) Shell Script
12 45 (2.35%) Ruby
13 39 (2.04%) C++
14 33 (1.72%) Kotlin
15 30 (1.57%) Rust
16 27 (1.41%) Scala
17 23 (1.20%) PHP
18 20 (1.04%) Groovy
19 18 (0.94%) Perl
20 12 (0.63%) C
Qualifications
1 652 (34.05%) Security Cleared
2 539 (28.15%) SC Cleared
3 148 (7.73%) Degree
4 108 (5.64%) Computer Science Degree
5 106 (5.54%) DV Cleared
6 88 (4.60%) Azure Certification
7 75 (3.92%) AWS Certification
8 50 (2.61%) Master's Degree
9 44 (2.30%) CISSP
10 32 (1.67%) BPSS Clearance
11 30 (1.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 30 (1.57%) CISM
12 23 (1.20%) Microsoft Certification
13 17 (0.89%) Cisco Certification
14 14 (0.73%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
15 12 (0.63%) TOGAF Certification
16 11 (0.57%) CCSP
16 11 (0.57%) OCP
16 11 (0.57%) Oracle Certification
17 10 (0.52%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (5.69%) QA
2 59 (3.08%) Data Quality
3 56 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 54 (2.82%) NIST
5 39 (2.04%) NCSC
6 35 (1.83%) GDPR
7 32 (1.67%) Accessibility
8 24 (1.25%) PCI DSS
9 17 (0.89%) PSD2
10 13 (0.68%) ISO 20022
11 12 (0.63%) WCAG
12 11 (0.57%) SEPA
12 11 (0.57%) SLA
13 10 (0.52%) NIST 800
14 8 (0.42%) EU AI Act
14 8 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 6 (0.31%) HIPAA
15 6 (0.31%) JSP 440
16 5 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
17 4 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 1,227 (64.07%) Docker
2 57 (2.98%) VMware Infrastructure
3 47 (2.45%) Active Directory
4 33 (1.72%) vSphere
5 31 (1.62%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.84%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 16 (0.84%) VMware NSX
7 14 (0.73%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.47%) KVM
8 9 (0.47%) Lustre
9 7 (0.37%) NFS
10 6 (0.31%) GPFS
11 5 (0.26%) Squid
12 4 (0.21%) Snort
12 4 (0.21%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
13 3 (0.16%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.16%) Ceph
13 3 (0.16%) Firmware
13 3 (0.16%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 719 (37.55%) Terraform
2 339 (17.70%) Ansible
3 319 (16.66%) Grafana
4 272 (14.20%) Prometheus
5 108 (5.64%) Argo
6 53 (2.77%) Puppet
7 52 (2.72%) Kibana
8 49 (2.56%) Istio
9 39 (2.04%) Progress Chef
10 26 (1.36%) Podman
11 23 (1.20%) Packer
12 22 (1.15%) Nessus
13 18 (0.94%) logstash
14 15 (0.78%) Rancher
15 14 (0.73%) Single Sign-On
15 14 (0.73%) vCenter Server
16 13 (0.68%) Consul
17 12 (0.63%) Control-M
17 12 (0.63%) Docker Swarm
18 11 (0.57%) IBM Guardium
Vendors
1 208 (10.86%) Microsoft
2 171 (8.93%) Splunk
3 162 (8.46%) Google
4 124 (6.48%) Oracle
4 124 (6.48%) Red Hat
5 84 (4.39%) VMware
6 49 (2.56%) Databricks
7 47 (2.45%) Dynatrace
8 41 (2.14%) OpenAI
9 35 (1.83%) Denodo
9 35 (1.83%) Talend
10 26 (1.36%) IBM
11 25 (1.31%) AppDynamics
12 22 (1.15%) Atlassian
13 16 (0.84%) NVIDIA
13 16 (0.84%) Tenable
14 15 (0.78%) Cisco
15 13 (0.68%) Foundry
16 12 (0.63%) Palo Alto
16 12 (0.63%) ServiceNow