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 3 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 32 55
Rank change year-on-year +1 +23 -23
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 2,017 1,451 1,410
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.10% 5.57% 3.68%
As % of the Systems Management category 39.26% 37.82% 29.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,386 996 1,051
10th Percentile £400 £415 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £481
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 £713 £810 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £575 £570
% change year-on-year -8.70% +0.88% -8.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 7 31
10th Percentile £48.75 £26.00 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £36.34 £46.18
Median hourly rate £58.75 £57.50 £58.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.17% -0.86% -7.20%
75th Percentile £79.25 £64.09 £77.02
90th Percentile £101.25 £70.68 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £58.00
% change year-on-year +4.35% -0.86% -7.20%

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 5,138 3,837 4,776
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.54% 14.72% 12.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,567 2,479 3,496
10th Percentile £313 £315 £252
25th Percentile £413 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -10.26%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £700 £741 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 47 156
10th Percentile £17.67 £14.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.82 £20.49 £20.00
Median hourly rate £48.00 £26.50 £44.97
Median % change year-on-year +81.13% -41.07% -2.47%
75th Percentile £63.32 £61.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.50 £75.66 £77.02
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £25.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +100.98% -44.78% +11.18%

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 3 February 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 3 February 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 3 February 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 -4 954 £550 -8.68% 320
North of England +13 416 £487 -7.24% 136
Midlands +61 254 £525 - 44
West Midlands +54 230 £536 +2.00% 31
Yorkshire +12 195 £482 -17.25% 45
North West +15 181 £492 -5.29% 77
South East -4 170 £483 -12.27% 164
South West +8 136 £613 +2.08% 88
North East -5 44 £530 +0.95% 14
East of England -1 37 £613 +11.36% 22
East Midlands -6 24 £438 -12.50% 13
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 77 (3.82%) Confluence
2 74 (3.67%) SAS
3 44 (2.18%) Apache Spark
4 36 (1.78%) Apache
5 31 (1.54%) Apache Airflow
5 31 (1.54%) nginx
5 31 (1.54%) OpenStack
6 14 (0.69%) Jupyter
7 11 (0.55%) Camunda
8 9 (0.45%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.35%) Appian
10 6 (0.30%) WebLogic
11 5 (0.25%) Drupal
11 5 (0.25%) Ethereum
11 5 (0.25%) Hyperledger
11 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
12 4 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 4 (0.20%) IIS
12 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.15%) Traefik
Applications
1 5 (0.25%) Chatbot
1 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Office
1 5 (0.25%) Weka
2 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.099%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.099%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.050%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 8 (0.40%) Maximo
2 1 (0.050%) Actimize
2 1 (0.050%) Endur
2 1 (0.050%) Finacle
2 1 (0.050%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 1,044 (51.76%) AWS
2 757 (37.53%) Azure
3 495 (24.54%) GCP
4 448 (22.21%) GitHub
5 282 (13.98%) OpenShift
6 258 (12.79%) GitHub Actions
7 228 (11.30%) Serverless
8 186 (9.22%) Azure DevOps
9 146 (7.24%) Amazon EKS
10 143 (7.09%) Azure AKS
11 141 (6.99%) AWS CloudFormation
12 136 (6.74%) AWS Lambda
13 133 (6.59%) Amazon S3
14 98 (4.86%) Amazon ECS
15 97 (4.81%) Amazon EC2
16 92 (4.56%) Google Kubernetes Engine
17 78 (3.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 67 (3.32%) Datadog
19 53 (2.63%) IaaS
19 53 (2.63%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 97 (4.81%) Firewall
2 64 (3.17%) DNS
3 40 (1.98%) Network Security
4 36 (1.78%) VPN
5 34 (1.69%) TCP/IP
6 19 (0.94%) SSL
7 18 (0.89%) HTTP
8 14 (0.69%) DHCP
9 13 (0.64%) SAN
10 11 (0.55%) NAS
10 11 (0.55%) Reverse Proxy
11 8 (0.40%) Kerberos
12 7 (0.35%) Fibre Channel
13 6 (0.30%) BGP
13 6 (0.30%) iSCSI
13 6 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
13 6 (0.30%) VLAN
14 5 (0.25%) HTTPS
14 5 (0.25%) InfiniBand
14 5 (0.25%) OpenVPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 251 (12.44%) PostgreSQL
2 188 (9.32%) NoSQL
3 124 (6.15%) MongoDB
4 91 (4.51%) Relational Database
5 80 (3.97%) Apache Cassandra
6 77 (3.82%) Elasticsearch
7 75 (3.72%) Amazon RDS
8 61 (3.02%) SQL Server
9 55 (2.73%) Redis
10 48 (2.38%) MySQL
11 40 (1.98%) Big Data
12 38 (1.88%) Pentaho
13 37 (1.83%) Power BI
14 36 (1.78%) BigQuery
14 36 (1.78%) DynamoDB
15 29 (1.44%) Data Warehouse
16 28 (1.39%) Oracle Database
17 26 (1.29%) Data Lake
18 21 (1.04%) Tableau
19 19 (0.94%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 519 (25.73%) Jenkins
2 411 (20.38%) GitLab
3 376 (18.64%) Git
4 169 (8.38%) JIRA
5 77 (3.82%) JUnit
6 55 (2.73%) SonarQube
7 49 (2.43%) Gradle
8 46 (2.28%) Maven
8 46 (2.28%) Selenium
9 44 (2.18%) Sonatype Nexus
10 38 (1.88%) Bitbucket
11 37 (1.83%) Artifactory
12 35 (1.74%) Cucumber
12 35 (1.74%) MLflow
13 33 (1.64%) Mockito
14 30 (1.49%) Postman
15 27 (1.34%) CircleCI
16 24 (1.19%) JMeter
17 22 (1.09%) Liquibase
18 16 (0.79%) Cypress.io
General
1 545 (27.02%) Social Skills
2 339 (16.81%) Finance
3 253 (12.54%) Public Sector
4 193 (9.57%) Banking
5 154 (7.64%) Analytical Skills
6 56 (2.78%) Documentation Skills
7 39 (1.93%) Financial Institution
8 25 (1.24%) Front Office
9 24 (1.19%) Influencing Skills
9 24 (1.19%) Investment Banking
10 17 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
10 17 (0.84%) Telecoms
11 16 (0.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 12 (0.59%) Pharmaceutical
12 12 (0.59%) Retail
13 11 (0.55%) Military
14 9 (0.45%) Law
15 8 (0.40%) Aerospace
16 7 (0.35%) Games
17 6 (0.30%) Billing
Job Titles
1 456 (22.61%) Developer
2 311 (15.42%) Senior
3 298 (14.77%) DevOps Engineer
4 169 (8.38%) Architect
5 139 (6.89%) Java Developer
6 132 (6.54%) Software Engineer
7 108 (5.35%) AWS Engineer
8 107 (5.30%) Senior Developer
9 98 (4.86%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 95 (4.71%) Lead
11 94 (4.66%) Cloud Engineer
12 89 (4.41%) Platform Engineer
13 80 (3.97%) Python Developer
14 79 (3.92%) Data Engineer
14 79 (3.92%) Full-Stack Developer
15 73 (3.62%) AWS DevOps
15 73 (3.62%) Site Engineer
16 72 (3.57%) Azure Engineer
17 67 (3.32%) Java Engineer
18 61 (3.02%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 320 (15.87%) Kafka
2 266 (13.19%) Spring
3 249 (12.35%) Spring Boot
4 216 (10.71%) REST
4 216 (10.71%) RESTful
5 185 (9.17%) React
6 171 (8.48%) Node.js
7 140 (6.94%) Elastic Stack
8 113 (5.60%) AngularJS
9 94 (4.66%) .NET
10 85 (4.21%) OpenTelemetry
11 84 (4.16%) gRPC
12 80 (3.97%) PyTorch
13 75 (3.72%) FastAPI
13 75 (3.72%) GraphQL
14 65 (3.22%) HTML
15 64 (3.17%) OAuth
15 64 (3.17%) TensorFlow
16 57 (2.83%) Playwright
17 55 (2.73%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 398 (19.73%) Cloud Native
2 167 (8.28%) Distributed Systems
3 70 (3.47%) Public Cloud
4 67 (3.32%) Hybrid Cloud
5 63 (3.12%) Product Ownership
6 62 (3.07%) Onboarding
7 40 (1.98%) Private Cloud
8 36 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
9 29 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (1.44%) Management Information System
10 28 (1.39%) Data Protection Act
11 26 (1.29%) PKI
12 24 (1.19%) AI Agents
12 24 (1.19%) Algorithms
12 24 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
13 22 (1.09%) Replication
13 22 (1.09%) Virtual Team
14 20 (0.99%) Security Posture
15 19 (0.94%) NHS
16 18 (0.89%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 409 (20.28%) Linux
2 98 (4.86%) Windows
3 69 (3.42%) Unix
4 54 (2.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 37 (1.83%) VMS
6 25 (1.24%) Windows Server
7 23 (1.14%) Ubuntu
8 13 (0.64%) CentOS
9 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.15%) Solaris
10 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.099%) Android
11 2 (0.099%) Rocky
12 1 (0.050%) Alpine Linux
12 1 (0.050%) Debian
12 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,337 (66.29%) CI/CD
2 1,117 (55.38%) DevOps
3 901 (44.67%) Containerisation
4 661 (32.77%) Agile
5 594 (29.45%) Infrastructure as Code
6 548 (27.17%) Microservices
7 457 (22.66%) Problem-Solving
8 364 (18.05%) Observability
9 353 (17.50%) Software Engineering
10 301 (14.92%) Test Automation
11 231 (11.45%) AI
12 218 (10.81%) Migration
13 201 (9.97%) Analytics
14 191 (9.47%) Site Reliability Engineering
15 187 (9.27%) DevSecOps
16 186 (9.22%) Continuous Improvement
17 184 (9.12%) Full-Stack Development
18 174 (8.63%) Machine Learning
19 170 (8.43%) Platform Engineering
20 166 (8.23%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 872 (43.23%) Python
2 527 (26.13%) Java
3 377 (18.69%) SQL
4 262 (12.99%) Bash
5 212 (10.51%) Go
6 165 (8.18%) JavaScript
6 165 (8.18%) TypeScript
7 117 (5.80%) PowerShell
8 89 (4.41%) C#
9 62 (3.07%) Bicep
10 60 (2.97%) Shell Script
11 50 (2.48%) Ruby
12 33 (1.64%) C++
13 31 (1.54%) Scala
14 30 (1.49%) Kotlin
14 30 (1.49%) Rust
15 21 (1.04%) PHP
16 17 (0.84%) Groovy
17 13 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
18 12 (0.59%) Perl
Qualifications
1 708 (35.10%) Security Cleared
2 576 (28.56%) SC Cleared
3 153 (7.59%) Degree
4 118 (5.85%) DV Cleared
5 115 (5.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 91 (4.51%) Azure Certification
7 80 (3.97%) AWS Certification
8 54 (2.68%) Master's Degree
9 47 (2.33%) CISSP
10 39 (1.93%) BPSS Clearance
11 31 (1.54%) CISM
12 30 (1.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 24 (1.19%) Microsoft Certification
14 17 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
15 16 (0.79%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 14 (0.69%) TOGAF Certification
17 11 (0.55%) OCP
17 11 (0.55%) Oracle Certification
18 9 (0.45%) CCSP
18 9 (0.45%) RHCE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (4.81%) QA
2 65 (3.22%) Data Quality
2 65 (3.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 63 (3.12%) NIST
4 52 (2.58%) NCSC
5 41 (2.03%) GDPR
6 35 (1.74%) Accessibility
7 29 (1.44%) PCI DSS
8 18 (0.89%) PSD2
9 17 (0.84%) ISO 20022
10 15 (0.74%) SEPA
11 13 (0.64%) WCAG
12 11 (0.55%) SLA
13 10 (0.50%) NIST 800
14 9 (0.45%) SOC 2
15 8 (0.40%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 7 (0.35%) EU AI Act
17 6 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
17 6 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 1,292 (64.06%) Docker
2 62 (3.07%) VMware Infrastructure
3 42 (2.08%) Active Directory
4 41 (2.03%) Virtual Machines
4 41 (2.03%) vSphere
5 20 (0.99%) VMware NSX
6 18 (0.89%) Slurm Workload Manager
7 13 (0.64%) Hyper-V
8 10 (0.50%) Squid
9 9 (0.45%) Lustre
10 7 (0.35%) GPFS
10 7 (0.35%) KVM
11 6 (0.30%) NFS
12 5 (0.25%) Snort
12 5 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
13 4 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
13 4 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
14 3 (0.15%) BitLocker
14 3 (0.15%) Ceph
14 3 (0.15%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 767 (38.03%) Terraform
2 347 (17.20%) Ansible
3 338 (16.76%) Grafana
4 292 (14.48%) Prometheus
5 110 (5.45%) Argo
6 56 (2.78%) Kibana
7 49 (2.43%) Istio
7 49 (2.43%) Puppet
8 39 (1.93%) Progress Chef
9 28 (1.39%) Nessus
10 25 (1.24%) Single Sign-On
11 24 (1.19%) Packer
11 24 (1.19%) Podman
12 23 (1.14%) logstash
13 20 (0.99%) Consul
14 18 (0.89%) vCenter Server
15 17 (0.84%) Rancher
16 16 (0.79%) Control-M
16 16 (0.79%) IBM Guardium
17 14 (0.69%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 215 (10.66%) Microsoft
2 185 (9.17%) Splunk
3 169 (8.38%) Google
4 135 (6.69%) Oracle
5 132 (6.54%) Red Hat
6 93 (4.61%) VMware
7 53 (2.63%) Databricks
8 48 (2.38%) OpenAI
9 47 (2.33%) Dynatrace
10 38 (1.88%) Denodo
10 38 (1.88%) Talend
11 23 (1.14%) AppDynamics
12 21 (1.04%) Atlassian
12 21 (1.04%) IBM
13 20 (0.99%) Tenable
14 17 (0.84%) CyberArk
15 16 (0.79%) Pure Storage
16 15 (0.74%) Foundry
17 14 (0.69%) Cisco
17 14 (0.69%) NVIDIA