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

6 months to
16 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 32 49
Rank change year-on-year 0 +17 -17
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 1,976 1,488 1,448
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.21% 5.52% 4.01%
As % of the Systems Management category 39.25% 37.87% 30.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,369 1,013 1,078
10th Percentile £400 £413 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £493
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 37 10 36
10th Percentile £49.25 £26.38 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.18 £46.18
Median hourly rate £60.00 £51.84 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +15.74% -7.84% -16.04%
75th Percentile £79.00 £66.13 £76.53
90th Percentile £98.80 £74.04 £77.75
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £51.84 £56.25
% change year-on-year +15.74% -7.84% -14.45%

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 5,035 3,929 4,732
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.81% 14.58% 13.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,498 2,552 3,443
10th Percentile £310 £310 £263
25th Percentile £413 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.19% -2.33% -8.51%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £503 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.24% -0.94% -8.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 109 51 147
10th Percentile £18.57 £15.22 £14.55
25th Percentile £20.82 £21.02 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £26.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +98.11% -42.62% +19.95%
75th Percentile £63.32 £61.25 £65.63
90th Percentile £78.80 £77.50 £77.70
UK median hourly rate £53.25 £24.84 £46.18
% change year-on-year +114.37% -46.21% +24.07%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -3 944 £550 -8.33% 302
North of England +9 400 £487 -7.24% 190
Midlands +56 234 £530 -7.83% 114
West Midlands +41 214 £537 -6.61% 44
Yorkshire +6 184 £485 -16.20% 73
South East +9 175 £490 -8.84% 312
North West +18 172 £478 -4.50% 90
South West -2 125 £625 +4.17% 148
North East -3 47 £518 -1.43% 27
East of England +1 41 £563 +26.76% 98
East Midlands -9 20 £418 -16.50% 67
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 78 (3.95%) Confluence
2 72 (3.64%) SAS
3 40 (2.02%) Apache
3 40 (2.02%) Apache Spark
4 32 (1.62%) Apache Airflow
5 30 (1.52%) OpenStack
6 24 (1.21%) nginx
7 13 (0.66%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.40%) Mule
8 8 (0.40%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.30%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.25%) Camunda
11 5 (0.25%) Ethereum
11 5 (0.25%) Hyperledger
11 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
12 4 (0.20%) Appian
12 4 (0.20%) CMS
12 4 (0.20%) IIS
12 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 6 (0.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
2 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.25%) Weka
3 4 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.051%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 12 (0.61%) Maximo
2 2 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.051%) Actimize
3 1 (0.051%) Cloudability
3 1 (0.051%) Endur
3 1 (0.051%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 1,046 (52.94%) AWS
2 758 (38.36%) Azure
3 504 (25.51%) GCP
4 453 (22.93%) GitHub
5 274 (13.87%) GitHub Actions
6 253 (12.80%) OpenShift
7 224 (11.34%) Serverless
8 191 (9.67%) Azure DevOps
9 140 (7.09%) Azure AKS
10 139 (7.03%) AWS CloudFormation
11 137 (6.93%) Amazon EKS
12 130 (6.58%) AWS Lambda
13 129 (6.53%) Amazon S3
14 98 (4.96%) Amazon ECS
15 93 (4.71%) Amazon EC2
16 88 (4.45%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 86 (4.35%) Google Kubernetes Engine
18 70 (3.54%) Datadog
19 55 (2.78%) Entra ID
19 55 (2.78%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 92 (4.66%) Firewall
2 55 (2.78%) DNS
3 37 (1.87%) Network Security
4 29 (1.47%) VPN
5 25 (1.27%) TCP/IP
6 19 (0.96%) SSL
7 16 (0.81%) HTTP
8 12 (0.61%) DHCP
9 9 (0.46%) SAN
10 8 (0.40%) Fibre Channel
10 8 (0.40%) NAS
10 8 (0.40%) Reverse Proxy
11 7 (0.35%) BGP
11 7 (0.35%) iSCSI
11 7 (0.35%) Kerberos
12 6 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
12 6 (0.30%) VLAN
13 5 (0.25%) HTTPS
13 5 (0.25%) OpenLDAP
13 5 (0.25%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 256 (12.96%) PostgreSQL
2 193 (9.77%) NoSQL
3 125 (6.33%) MongoDB
4 86 (4.35%) Relational Database
5 77 (3.90%) Apache Cassandra
6 74 (3.74%) Amazon RDS
7 65 (3.29%) Elasticsearch
8 61 (3.09%) SQL Server
9 57 (2.88%) Redis
10 48 (2.43%) MySQL
11 37 (1.87%) Pentaho
12 36 (1.82%) Power BI
13 35 (1.77%) Big Data
14 34 (1.72%) DynamoDB
15 33 (1.67%) BigQuery
16 28 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
17 27 (1.37%) Data Lake
18 22 (1.11%) Oracle Database
19 20 (1.01%) Tableau
20 19 (0.96%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 507 (25.66%) Jenkins
2 405 (20.50%) GitLab
3 386 (19.53%) Git
4 172 (8.70%) JIRA
5 77 (3.90%) JUnit
6 54 (2.73%) SonarQube
7 52 (2.63%) Gradle
7 52 (2.63%) Sonatype Nexus
8 51 (2.58%) Maven
9 47 (2.38%) Selenium
10 41 (2.07%) Artifactory
11 37 (1.87%) CircleCI
12 36 (1.82%) Cucumber
13 34 (1.72%) Bitbucket
14 32 (1.62%) Mockito
15 31 (1.57%) Liquibase
16 29 (1.47%) MLflow
17 25 (1.27%) Postman
18 21 (1.06%) JMeter
19 20 (1.01%) Cypress.io
General
1 523 (26.47%) Social Skills
2 327 (16.55%) Finance
3 240 (12.15%) Public Sector
4 203 (10.27%) Banking
5 151 (7.64%) Analytical Skills
6 41 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
6 41 (2.07%) Financial Institution
7 27 (1.37%) Investment Banking
8 24 (1.21%) Front Office
9 18 (0.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 18 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
9 18 (0.91%) Telecoms
10 15 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
11 13 (0.66%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (0.61%) Military
13 11 (0.56%) Retail
14 9 (0.46%) Aerospace
14 9 (0.46%) Law
15 7 (0.35%) Billing
15 7 (0.35%) Games
Job Titles
1 455 (23.03%) Developer
2 317 (16.04%) Senior
3 296 (14.98%) DevOps Engineer
4 149 (7.54%) Architect
5 145 (7.34%) Java Developer
6 135 (6.83%) Software Engineer
7 107 (5.41%) AWS Engineer
8 105 (5.31%) Senior Developer
9 98 (4.96%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 95 (4.81%) Cloud Engineer
10 95 (4.81%) Lead
11 88 (4.45%) Platform Engineer
12 79 (4.00%) Full-Stack Developer
13 76 (3.85%) Data Engineer
13 76 (3.85%) Python Developer
14 74 (3.74%) Azure Engineer
15 71 (3.59%) AWS DevOps
15 71 (3.59%) Site Engineer
16 61 (3.09%) Java Engineer
17 56 (2.83%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 313 (15.84%) Kafka
2 257 (13.01%) Spring
3 236 (11.94%) Spring Boot
4 213 (10.78%) RESTful
5 212 (10.73%) REST
6 184 (9.31%) React
7 173 (8.76%) Node.js
8 139 (7.03%) Elastic Stack
9 114 (5.77%) AngularJS
10 94 (4.76%) .NET
11 82 (4.15%) gRPC
12 75 (3.80%) GraphQL
13 70 (3.54%) FastAPI
14 69 (3.49%) HTML
15 68 (3.44%) OpenTelemetry
16 67 (3.39%) PyTorch
17 59 (2.99%) Playwright
18 58 (2.94%) YAML
19 55 (2.78%) TensorFlow
20 53 (2.68%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 386 (19.53%) Cloud Native
2 166 (8.40%) Distributed Systems
3 73 (3.69%) Public Cloud
4 65 (3.29%) Hybrid Cloud
5 58 (2.94%) Product Ownership
6 55 (2.78%) Onboarding
7 40 (2.02%) Enterprise Software
8 39 (1.97%) Private Cloud
9 28 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
10 27 (1.37%) Management Information System
10 27 (1.37%) PKI
11 25 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
11 25 (1.27%) Replication
12 24 (1.21%) Algorithms
13 23 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
14 22 (1.11%) Security Posture
15 21 (1.06%) Virtual Team
16 19 (0.96%) AI Agents
16 19 (0.96%) Data Centre
17 18 (0.91%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 394 (19.94%) Linux
2 85 (4.30%) Windows
3 66 (3.34%) Unix
4 52 (2.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 36 (1.82%) VMS
6 23 (1.16%) Windows Server
7 22 (1.11%) Ubuntu
8 13 (0.66%) CentOS
9 5 (0.25%) Solaris
10 3 (0.15%) Android
10 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.10%) zOS
12 1 (0.051%) Alpine Linux
12 1 (0.051%) Debian
12 1 (0.051%) MVS
12 1 (0.051%) Rocky
12 1 (0.051%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,318 (66.70%) CI/CD
2 1,095 (55.41%) DevOps
3 869 (43.98%) Containerisation
4 654 (33.10%) Agile
5 585 (29.61%) Infrastructure as Code
6 554 (28.04%) Microservices
7 448 (22.67%) Problem-Solving
8 360 (18.22%) Software Engineering
9 335 (16.95%) Observability
10 289 (14.63%) Test Automation
11 221 (11.18%) Migration
12 220 (11.13%) AI
13 191 (9.67%) DevSecOps
14 187 (9.46%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 184 (9.31%) Analytics
16 178 (9.01%) Continuous Improvement
17 176 (8.91%) Full-Stack Development
18 163 (8.25%) Machine Learning
19 160 (8.10%) Platform Engineering
20 155 (7.84%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 869 (43.98%) Python
2 541 (27.38%) Java
3 367 (18.57%) SQL
4 274 (13.87%) Bash
5 230 (11.64%) Go
6 173 (8.76%) JavaScript
7 162 (8.20%) TypeScript
8 115 (5.82%) PowerShell
9 94 (4.76%) C#
10 63 (3.19%) Bicep
11 55 (2.78%) Shell Script
12 48 (2.43%) Ruby
13 39 (1.97%) C++
14 33 (1.67%) Kotlin
15 31 (1.57%) Rust
16 29 (1.47%) Scala
17 21 (1.06%) PHP
18 18 (0.91%) Groovy
19 17 (0.86%) Perl
20 12 (0.61%) C
Qualifications
1 687 (34.77%) Security Cleared
2 567 (28.69%) SC Cleared
3 154 (7.79%) Degree
4 112 (5.67%) Computer Science Degree
5 111 (5.62%) DV Cleared
6 88 (4.45%) Azure Certification
7 77 (3.90%) AWS Certification
8 51 (2.58%) Master's Degree
9 46 (2.33%) CISSP
10 37 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
11 30 (1.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 30 (1.52%) CISM
12 23 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
13 19 (0.96%) Cisco Certification
14 13 (0.66%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 13 (0.66%) CCSP
14 13 (0.66%) TOGAF Certification
15 12 (0.61%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 11 (0.56%) OCP
16 11 (0.56%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (5.77%) QA
2 62 (3.14%) Data Quality
3 59 (2.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 57 (2.88%) NIST
5 41 (2.07%) NCSC
6 39 (1.97%) GDPR
7 34 (1.72%) Accessibility
8 28 (1.42%) PCI DSS
9 19 (0.96%) PSD2
10 15 (0.76%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.66%) SEPA
12 12 (0.61%) WCAG
13 11 (0.56%) SLA
14 10 (0.51%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 7 (0.35%) EU AI Act
16 7 (0.35%) HIPAA
17 6 (0.30%) JSP 440
17 6 (0.30%) SOC 2
18 5 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
System Software
1 1,266 (64.07%) Docker
2 58 (2.94%) VMware Infrastructure
3 47 (2.38%) Active Directory
4 33 (1.67%) vSphere
5 32 (1.62%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.81%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 16 (0.81%) VMware NSX
7 15 (0.76%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.46%) KVM
8 9 (0.46%) Lustre
9 7 (0.35%) NFS
10 6 (0.30%) GPFS
11 5 (0.25%) Squid
12 4 (0.20%) Snort
12 4 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 4 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
13 3 (0.15%) BitLocker
13 3 (0.15%) Ceph
13 3 (0.15%) Firmware
13 3 (0.15%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 742 (37.55%) Terraform
2 349 (17.66%) Ansible
3 320 (16.19%) Grafana
4 278 (14.07%) Prometheus
5 108 (5.47%) Argo
6 54 (2.73%) Puppet
7 53 (2.68%) Kibana
8 50 (2.53%) Istio
9 40 (2.02%) Progress Chef
10 26 (1.32%) Podman
11 24 (1.21%) Packer
12 22 (1.11%) Nessus
13 19 (0.96%) logstash
14 16 (0.81%) Rancher
14 16 (0.81%) Single Sign-On
15 14 (0.71%) vCenter Server
16 13 (0.66%) Consul
17 12 (0.61%) Docker Swarm
18 11 (0.56%) IBM Guardium
18 11 (0.56%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 213 (10.78%) Microsoft
2 174 (8.81%) Google
3 173 (8.76%) Splunk
4 125 (6.33%) Oracle
5 124 (6.28%) Red Hat
6 86 (4.35%) VMware
7 49 (2.48%) Databricks
8 47 (2.38%) Dynatrace
9 43 (2.18%) OpenAI
10 37 (1.87%) Denodo
10 37 (1.87%) Talend
11 26 (1.32%) IBM
12 24 (1.21%) AppDynamics
13 23 (1.16%) Atlassian
14 16 (0.81%) Tenable
15 15 (0.76%) Cisco
15 15 (0.76%) Foundry
15 15 (0.76%) NVIDIA
16 13 (0.66%) ServiceNow
17 12 (0.61%) Palo Alto