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

6 months to
22 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 32 49
Rank change year-on-year +1 +17 -17
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 1,988 1,482 1,427
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.14% 5.52% 3.90%
As % of the Systems Management category 39.03% 37.83% 30.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,376 1,011 1,062
10th Percentile £400 £413 £425
25th Percentile £450 £500 £488
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 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 9 35
10th Percentile £48.75 £26.25 -
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.18 £46.18
Median hourly rate £58.75 £57.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.17% - -16.06%
75th Percentile £79.25 £68.18 £76.53
90th Percentile £101.25 £74.09 £77.80
UK median hourly rate £60.00 £57.50 £57.50
% change year-on-year +4.35% - -14.18%

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 5,093 3,918 4,721
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.73% 14.60% 12.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,540 2,536 3,440
10th Percentile £312 £313 £257
25th Percentile £413 £418 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £526 £536
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% -2.00% -8.72%
75th Percentile £600 £645 £650
90th Percentile £700 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -9.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 113 51 153
10th Percentile £18.87 £15.22 £14.35
25th Percentile £20.82 £21.02 £21.25
Median hourly rate £48.00 £26.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +81.13% -42.62% +13.81%
75th Percentile £62.25 £61.25 £63.75
90th Percentile £78.50 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £25.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +100.98% -44.78% +19.95%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 -4 948 £550 -8.33% 293
North of England +12 407 £487 -7.24% 205
Midlands +56 242 £530 -5.78% 126
West Midlands +47 222 £537 -6.61% 47
Yorkshire +6 188 £486 -15.48% 81
North West +14 174 £481 -5.08% 97
South East +1 173 £488 -11.36% 308
South West +1 129 £625 +4.17% 173
North East -2 48 £520 -0.95% 27
East of England +1 38 £575 +15.00% 102
East Midlands -5 20 £418 -16.50% 75
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 (3.92%) Confluence
2 73 (3.67%) SAS
3 41 (2.06%) Apache Spark
4 38 (1.91%) Apache
5 31 (1.56%) OpenStack
6 30 (1.51%) Apache Airflow
7 26 (1.31%) nginx
8 12 (0.60%) Jupyter
9 9 (0.45%) Camunda
10 8 (0.40%) Mule
10 8 (0.40%) SharePoint
11 7 (0.35%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.30%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.25%) Appian
13 5 (0.25%) Ethereum
13 5 (0.25%) Hyperledger
13 5 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
14 4 (0.20%) CMS
14 4 (0.20%) IIS
14 4 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
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 PowerPoint
2 3 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (0.15%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.050%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 12 (0.60%) 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 1,050 (52.82%) AWS
2 757 (38.08%) Azure
3 512 (25.75%) GCP
4 445 (22.38%) GitHub
5 262 (13.18%) GitHub Actions
5 262 (13.18%) OpenShift
6 221 (11.12%) Serverless
7 190 (9.56%) Azure DevOps
8 142 (7.14%) AWS CloudFormation
9 141 (7.09%) Azure AKS
10 135 (6.79%) Amazon EKS
11 126 (6.34%) AWS Lambda
12 124 (6.24%) Amazon S3
13 99 (4.98%) Amazon ECS
14 90 (4.53%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 88 (4.43%) Amazon EC2
16 82 (4.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 71 (3.57%) Datadog
18 57 (2.87%) Entra ID
19 54 (2.72%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 93 (4.68%) Firewall
2 55 (2.77%) DNS
3 39 (1.96%) Network Security
4 29 (1.46%) VPN
5 26 (1.31%) TCP/IP
6 19 (0.96%) SSL
7 18 (0.91%) HTTP
8 12 (0.60%) DHCP
9 10 (0.50%) Reverse Proxy
9 10 (0.50%) SAN
10 9 (0.45%) NAS
11 8 (0.40%) Fibre Channel
11 8 (0.40%) Kerberos
12 7 (0.35%) BGP
12 7 (0.35%) iSCSI
13 6 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
13 6 (0.30%) VLAN
14 5 (0.25%) HTTPS
14 5 (0.25%) VXLAN
15 4 (0.20%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 256 (12.88%) PostgreSQL
2 192 (9.66%) NoSQL
3 127 (6.39%) MongoDB
4 88 (4.43%) Relational Database
5 79 (3.97%) Apache Cassandra
6 76 (3.82%) Amazon RDS
7 69 (3.47%) Elasticsearch
8 61 (3.07%) SQL Server
9 57 (2.87%) Redis
10 47 (2.36%) MySQL
11 38 (1.91%) Pentaho
12 37 (1.86%) Power BI
13 36 (1.81%) Big Data
13 36 (1.81%) DynamoDB
14 33 (1.66%) BigQuery
15 28 (1.41%) Data Warehouse
16 26 (1.31%) Data Lake
17 22 (1.11%) Oracle Database
18 21 (1.06%) Tableau
19 19 (0.96%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 514 (25.86%) Jenkins
2 407 (20.47%) GitLab
3 381 (19.16%) Git
4 170 (8.55%) JIRA
5 78 (3.92%) JUnit
6 54 (2.72%) SonarQube
7 52 (2.62%) Gradle
7 52 (2.62%) Sonatype Nexus
8 51 (2.57%) Maven
9 47 (2.36%) Selenium
10 39 (1.96%) Artifactory
11 38 (1.91%) Cucumber
12 35 (1.76%) Bitbucket
13 32 (1.61%) Mockito
14 31 (1.56%) MLflow
15 30 (1.51%) CircleCI
16 27 (1.36%) Liquibase
17 26 (1.31%) Postman
18 21 (1.06%) Cypress.io
18 21 (1.06%) JMeter
General
1 541 (27.21%) Social Skills
2 332 (16.70%) Finance
3 247 (12.42%) Public Sector
4 200 (10.06%) Banking
5 152 (7.65%) Analytical Skills
6 46 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
7 41 (2.06%) Financial Institution
8 26 (1.31%) Investment Banking
9 25 (1.26%) Front Office
10 20 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
11 18 (0.91%) Telecoms
12 17 (0.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 17 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
13 16 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (0.55%) Military
14 11 (0.55%) Retail
15 9 (0.45%) Aerospace
15 9 (0.45%) Law
16 7 (0.35%) Games
17 6 (0.30%) Billing
Job Titles
1 459 (23.09%) Developer
2 314 (15.79%) Senior
3 299 (15.04%) DevOps Engineer
4 160 (8.05%) Architect
5 143 (7.19%) Java Developer
6 132 (6.64%) Software Engineer
7 106 (5.33%) AWS Engineer
8 105 (5.28%) Senior Developer
9 99 (4.98%) Site Reliability Engineer
10 93 (4.68%) Cloud Engineer
10 93 (4.68%) Lead
11 84 (4.23%) Platform Engineer
12 79 (3.97%) Python Developer
13 78 (3.92%) Full-Stack Developer
14 76 (3.82%) Data Engineer
15 73 (3.67%) AWS DevOps
15 73 (3.67%) Azure Engineer
15 73 (3.67%) Site Engineer
16 62 (3.12%) Java Engineer
17 59 (2.97%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 319 (16.05%) Kafka
2 265 (13.33%) Spring
3 243 (12.22%) Spring Boot
4 217 (10.92%) RESTful
5 212 (10.66%) REST
6 186 (9.36%) React
7 172 (8.65%) Node.js
8 142 (7.14%) Elastic Stack
9 115 (5.78%) AngularJS
10 91 (4.58%) .NET
11 84 (4.23%) gRPC
12 77 (3.87%) GraphQL
13 73 (3.67%) PyTorch
14 72 (3.62%) FastAPI
15 71 (3.57%) OpenTelemetry
16 66 (3.32%) HTML
17 60 (3.02%) TensorFlow
18 59 (2.97%) Playwright
19 57 (2.87%) YAML
20 56 (2.82%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 392 (19.72%) Cloud Native
2 168 (8.45%) Distributed Systems
3 73 (3.67%) Public Cloud
4 66 (3.32%) Hybrid Cloud
5 60 (3.02%) Onboarding
6 58 (2.92%) Product Ownership
7 40 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
8 39 (1.96%) Private Cloud
9 29 (1.46%) Management Information System
10 27 (1.36%) Legacy Systems
10 27 (1.36%) PKI
11 25 (1.26%) Data Protection Act
11 25 (1.26%) Replication
12 24 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
13 23 (1.16%) Security Posture
14 22 (1.11%) AI Agents
14 22 (1.11%) Algorithms
15 21 (1.06%) Virtual Team
16 20 (1.01%) Data Centre
17 18 (0.91%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 402 (20.22%) Linux
2 90 (4.53%) Windows
3 68 (3.42%) Unix
4 53 (2.67%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 37 (1.86%) VMS
6 24 (1.21%) Windows Server
7 22 (1.11%) Ubuntu
8 13 (0.65%) CentOS
9 5 (0.25%) Solaris
10 3 (0.15%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.10%) Android
11 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.10%) Windows Server 2019
11 2 (0.10%) zOS
12 1 (0.050%) Alpine Linux
12 1 (0.050%) Debian
12 1 (0.050%) MVS
12 1 (0.050%) Rocky
12 1 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,328 (66.80%) CI/CD
2 1,095 (55.08%) DevOps
3 883 (44.42%) Containerisation
4 659 (33.15%) Agile
5 590 (29.68%) Infrastructure as Code
6 555 (27.92%) Microservices
7 451 (22.69%) Problem-Solving
8 359 (18.06%) Software Engineering
9 338 (17.00%) Observability
10 299 (15.04%) Test Automation
11 224 (11.27%) AI
12 210 (10.56%) Migration
13 190 (9.56%) Analytics
13 190 (9.56%) Site Reliability Engineering
14 187 (9.41%) DevSecOps
15 181 (9.10%) Continuous Improvement
16 178 (8.95%) Full-Stack Development
17 169 (8.50%) Machine Learning
18 158 (7.95%) Data Pipeline
19 156 (7.85%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 869 (43.71%) Python
2 540 (27.16%) Java
3 372 (18.71%) SQL
4 270 (13.58%) Bash
5 222 (11.17%) Go
6 171 (8.60%) JavaScript
7 161 (8.10%) TypeScript
8 115 (5.78%) PowerShell
9 90 (4.53%) C#
10 61 (3.07%) Bicep
11 59 (2.97%) Shell Script
12 48 (2.41%) Ruby
13 35 (1.76%) C++
14 32 (1.61%) Scala
15 31 (1.56%) Kotlin
16 30 (1.51%) Rust
17 19 (0.96%) PHP
18 18 (0.91%) Groovy
19 17 (0.86%) Perl
20 12 (0.60%) C
Qualifications
1 693 (34.86%) Security Cleared
2 571 (28.72%) SC Cleared
3 157 (7.90%) Degree
4 116 (5.84%) Computer Science Degree
5 115 (5.78%) DV Cleared
6 90 (4.53%) Azure Certification
7 80 (4.02%) AWS Certification
8 52 (2.62%) Master's Degree
9 49 (2.46%) CISSP
10 37 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
11 31 (1.56%) CISM
12 29 (1.46%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 23 (1.16%) Microsoft Certification
14 20 (1.01%) Cisco Certification
15 14 (0.70%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 13 (0.65%) CCSP
16 13 (0.65%) TOGAF Certification
17 12 (0.60%) (ISC)2 CCSP
18 11 (0.55%) OCP
18 11 (0.55%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (5.18%) QA
2 64 (3.22%) Data Quality
3 62 (3.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 58 (2.92%) NIST
5 47 (2.36%) NCSC
6 40 (2.01%) GDPR
7 33 (1.66%) Accessibility
8 30 (1.51%) PCI DSS
9 19 (0.96%) PSD2
10 15 (0.75%) ISO 20022
11 13 (0.65%) SEPA
12 12 (0.60%) WCAG
13 11 (0.55%) SLA
14 10 (0.50%) NIST 800
15 8 (0.40%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
15 8 (0.40%) SOC 2
16 7 (0.35%) EU AI Act
17 6 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
17 6 (0.30%) JSP 440
System Software
1 1,283 (64.54%) Docker
2 59 (2.97%) VMware Infrastructure
3 43 (2.16%) Active Directory
4 33 (1.66%) Virtual Machines
4 33 (1.66%) vSphere
5 16 (0.80%) Slurm Workload Manager
5 16 (0.80%) VMware NSX
6 15 (0.75%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.45%) KVM
7 9 (0.45%) Lustre
8 7 (0.35%) NFS
9 6 (0.30%) GPFS
10 5 (0.25%) Squid
10 5 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
11 4 (0.20%) Snort
11 4 (0.20%) Virtual Servers
12 3 (0.15%) BitLocker
12 3 (0.15%) Ceph
12 3 (0.15%) Firmware
12 3 (0.15%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 743 (37.37%) Terraform
2 351 (17.66%) Ansible
3 323 (16.25%) Grafana
4 275 (13.83%) Prometheus
5 107 (5.38%) Argo
6 56 (2.82%) Puppet
7 55 (2.77%) Kibana
8 50 (2.52%) Istio
9 42 (2.11%) Progress Chef
10 26 (1.31%) Packer
11 24 (1.21%) Podman
12 23 (1.16%) Nessus
13 21 (1.06%) logstash
14 18 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
15 16 (0.80%) Rancher
16 15 (0.75%) Consul
17 14 (0.70%) vCenter Server
18 13 (0.65%) Docker Swarm
19 12 (0.60%) Control-M
19 12 (0.60%) IBM Guardium
Vendors
1 213 (10.71%) Microsoft
2 180 (9.05%) Splunk
3 174 (8.75%) Google
4 128 (6.44%) Oracle
5 123 (6.19%) Red Hat
6 87 (4.38%) VMware
7 50 (2.52%) Databricks
8 46 (2.31%) Dynatrace
9 45 (2.26%) OpenAI
10 38 (1.91%) Denodo
10 38 (1.91%) Talend
11 25 (1.26%) IBM
12 24 (1.21%) AppDynamics
13 18 (0.91%) Atlassian
14 17 (0.86%) Tenable
15 16 (0.80%) Cisco
16 15 (0.75%) Foundry
16 15 (0.75%) NVIDIA
17 12 (0.60%) CyberArk
17 12 (0.60%) Okta