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 21 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 31 34 45
Rank change year-on-year +3 +11 -12
Contract jobs citing Kubernetes 1,849 1,654 1,785
As % of all contract jobs in England 6.05% 5.33% 4.55%
As % of the Systems Management category 37.47% 37.29% 32.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,258 1,107 1,334
10th Percentile £400 £404 £425
25th Percentile £450 £490 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year -9.49% -2.50% -4.00%
75th Percentile £636 £688 £689
90th Percentile £700 £788 £775
UK median daily rate £530 £575 £585
% change year-on-year -7.83% -1.71% -6.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 13 56
10th Percentile £51.48 - -
25th Percentile £61.38 £46.18 £46.18
Median hourly rate £67.00 £60.00 £68.63
Median % change year-on-year +11.67% -12.58% +6.41%
75th Percentile £84.50 £74.00 £77.50
90th Percentile £118.45 £74.35 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £67.00 £60.00 £68.63
% change year-on-year +11.67% -12.58% +8.94%

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 4,935 4,435 5,568
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.16% 14.28% 14.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,314 2,850 4,038
10th Percentile £310 £315 £309
25th Percentile £413 £417 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -5.86%
75th Percentile £612 £638 £655
90th Percentile £695 £730 £745
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £548
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.11% -4.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 58 160
10th Percentile £18.87 £14.71 £17.75
25th Percentile £20.66 £23.80 £27.19
Median hourly rate £35.00 £36.83 £48.70
Median % change year-on-year -4.98% -24.37% +89.42%
75th Percentile £65.80 £64.00 £73.75
90th Percentile £79.88 £75.75 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £30.00 £51.25
% change year-on-year - -41.46% +99.34%

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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025.

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 21 November 2025. 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 -2 931 £550 -8.33% 917
North of England +10 333 £500 - 222
Midlands +64 205 £537 -6.61% 97
West Midlands +56 184 £540 -8.09% 68
South East +1 163 £475 -9.52% 292
Yorkshire -6 150 £500 - 33
North West +22 146 £475 -13.64% 169
South West -6 102 £626 +4.29% 125
East of England -1 45 £500 -4.76% 39
North East +2 38 £550 +25.00% 20
East Midlands +4 21 £423 -17.41% 28
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 83 (4.49%) Confluence
2 67 (3.62%) SAS
3 40 (2.16%) nginx
4 33 (1.78%) Apache Airflow
5 32 (1.73%) Apache Spark
6 28 (1.51%) Apache
7 26 (1.41%) OpenStack
8 10 (0.54%) Mule
9 8 (0.43%) WebSphere
10 7 (0.38%) JBoss
10 7 (0.38%) Tomcat
11 6 (0.32%) Jupyter
11 6 (0.32%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.32%) WebSphere Application Server
12 5 (0.27%) Camunda
12 5 (0.27%) Ethereum
12 5 (0.27%) Hyperledger
12 5 (0.27%) SharePoint
13 4 (0.22%) MQSeries
13 4 (0.22%) Traefik
Applications
1 6 (0.32%) Microsoft Excel
1 6 (0.32%) MS Visio
2 5 (0.27%) Chatbot
2 5 (0.27%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (0.27%) Weka
3 4 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (0.38%) Maximo
2 4 (0.22%) Endur
3 3 (0.16%) Payment Gateway
3 3 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.054%) Cloudability
4 1 (0.054%) Finacle
Cloud Services
1 1,020 (55.16%) AWS
2 666 (36.02%) Azure
3 451 (24.39%) GCP
4 396 (21.42%) GitHub
5 240 (12.98%) GitHub Actions
6 209 (11.30%) OpenShift
7 195 (10.55%) Serverless
8 160 (8.65%) Azure DevOps
9 141 (7.63%) AWS CloudFormation
10 136 (7.36%) Azure AKS
11 128 (6.92%) Amazon EKS
12 110 (5.95%) Amazon S3
13 104 (5.62%) AWS Lambda
14 87 (4.71%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 80 (4.33%) Amazon EC2
16 78 (4.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 71 (3.84%) Amazon ECS
17 71 (3.84%) SaaS
18 61 (3.30%) Entra ID
19 57 (3.08%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 79 (4.27%) Firewall
2 48 (2.60%) DNS
3 29 (1.57%) Network Security
4 25 (1.35%) VPN
5 20 (1.08%) TCP/IP
6 16 (0.87%) HTTP
6 16 (0.87%) SSL
7 10 (0.54%) BGP
8 8 (0.43%) DHCP
9 7 (0.38%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.32%) Ethernet VPN
10 6 (0.32%) Software-Defined Networking
10 6 (0.32%) VLAN
10 6 (0.32%) VXLAN
11 5 (0.27%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.27%) OpenLDAP
12 4 (0.22%) Calico
12 4 (0.22%) MQTT
12 4 (0.22%) SSH
13 3 (0.16%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 250 (13.52%) PostgreSQL
2 173 (9.36%) NoSQL
3 121 (6.54%) MongoDB
4 76 (4.11%) Relational Database
5 71 (3.84%) Apache Cassandra
6 67 (3.62%) Amazon RDS
7 56 (3.03%) Elasticsearch
8 53 (2.87%) Redis
9 40 (2.16%) MySQL
9 40 (2.16%) SQL Server
10 34 (1.84%) Big Data
10 34 (1.84%) Pentaho
11 31 (1.68%) Data Warehouse
12 28 (1.51%) DynamoDB
12 28 (1.51%) Oracle Database
13 27 (1.46%) Data Lake
14 24 (1.30%) Hadoop
15 22 (1.19%) BigQuery
16 21 (1.14%) Azure SQL Database
17 19 (1.03%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 492 (26.61%) Jenkins
2 378 (20.44%) Git
3 346 (18.71%) GitLab
4 190 (10.28%) JIRA
5 68 (3.68%) JUnit
6 65 (3.52%) SonarQube
7 55 (2.97%) Maven
7 55 (2.97%) Sonatype Nexus
8 54 (2.92%) Artifactory
9 44 (2.38%) Selenium
10 41 (2.22%) CircleCI
10 41 (2.22%) Gradle
11 40 (2.16%) Liquibase
12 39 (2.11%) Bitbucket
13 33 (1.78%) Cucumber
14 25 (1.35%) MLflow
14 25 (1.35%) Mockito
15 24 (1.30%) Postman
16 20 (1.08%) Cypress.io
16 20 (1.08%) JMeter
General
1 509 (27.53%) Social Skills
2 303 (16.39%) Finance
3 214 (11.57%) Public Sector
4 201 (10.87%) Banking
5 144 (7.79%) Analytical Skills
6 42 (2.27%) Financial Institution
7 39 (2.11%) Investment Banking
8 35 (1.89%) Documentation Skills
9 28 (1.51%) Telecoms
10 19 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
10 19 (1.03%) Retail
11 18 (0.97%) Front Office
12 17 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 14 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
14 11 (0.59%) Aerospace
14 11 (0.59%) Influencing Skills
15 9 (0.49%) Military
16 7 (0.38%) Law
17 6 (0.32%) Games
17 6 (0.32%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 427 (23.09%) Developer
2 288 (15.58%) Senior
3 284 (15.36%) DevOps Engineer
4 154 (8.33%) Architect
5 138 (7.46%) Java Developer
6 111 (6.00%) AWS Engineer
7 106 (5.73%) Software Engineer
8 103 (5.57%) Platform Engineer
9 98 (5.30%) Lead
10 92 (4.98%) Cloud Engineer
10 92 (4.98%) Senior Developer
11 82 (4.43%) AWS DevOps
12 77 (4.16%) Python Developer
13 72 (3.89%) Full-Stack Developer
14 71 (3.84%) Site Reliability Engineer
15 64 (3.46%) Data Engineer
16 60 (3.24%) AWS DevOps Engineer
17 54 (2.92%) Azure Engineer
18 53 (2.87%) Site Engineer
19 49 (2.65%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 295 (15.95%) Kafka
2 197 (10.65%) React
3 193 (10.44%) RESTful
4 192 (10.38%) Spring
5 185 (10.01%) REST
6 179 (9.68%) Node.js
7 164 (8.87%) Spring Boot
8 138 (7.46%) Elastic Stack
9 126 (6.81%) AngularJS
10 88 (4.76%) gRPC
11 87 (4.71%) .NET
12 70 (3.79%) GraphQL
13 69 (3.73%) FastAPI
13 69 (3.73%) HTML
14 63 (3.41%) YAML
15 60 (3.24%) Vue
16 55 (2.97%) CSS
16 55 (2.97%) PyTorch
17 52 (2.81%) RabbitMQ
18 51 (2.76%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 332 (17.96%) Cloud Native
2 177 (9.57%) Distributed Systems
3 71 (3.84%) Public Cloud
4 58 (3.14%) Product Ownership
5 57 (3.08%) Onboarding
6 47 (2.54%) Hybrid Cloud
7 39 (2.11%) Private Cloud
8 37 (2.00%) Algorithms
9 35 (1.89%) Enterprise Software
10 29 (1.57%) Legacy Systems
11 28 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
12 26 (1.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 25 (1.35%) Data Structures
14 24 (1.30%) Security Posture
15 23 (1.24%) PKI
15 23 (1.24%) Virtual Team
16 22 (1.19%) Replication
17 21 (1.14%) Hedge funds
18 20 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
19 18 (0.97%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 384 (20.77%) Linux
2 73 (3.95%) Windows
3 64 (3.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 60 (3.24%) Unix
5 20 (1.08%) Ubuntu
5 20 (1.08%) VMS
6 18 (0.97%) CentOS
7 17 (0.92%) Windows Server
8 7 (0.38%) Solaris
9 5 (0.27%) Android
9 5 (0.27%) Apple iOS
10 2 (0.11%) zOS
11 1 (0.054%) Alpine Linux
11 1 (0.054%) Mac OS
11 1 (0.054%) MVS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,228 (66.41%) CI/CD
2 994 (53.76%) DevOps
3 784 (42.40%) Containerisation
4 627 (33.91%) Agile
5 570 (30.83%) Infrastructure as Code
6 513 (27.74%) Microservices
7 435 (23.53%) Problem-Solving
8 330 (17.85%) Software Engineering
9 291 (15.74%) Observability
10 263 (14.22%) Test Automation
11 200 (10.82%) Migration
12 177 (9.57%) AI
13 164 (8.87%) Analytics
14 163 (8.82%) Scrum
15 161 (8.71%) Full-Stack Development
16 152 (8.22%) Platform Engineering
17 151 (8.17%) Continuous Improvement
17 151 (8.17%) Machine Learning
18 150 (8.11%) DevSecOps
19 139 (7.52%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 873 (47.21%) Python
2 504 (27.26%) Java
3 318 (17.20%) SQL
4 276 (14.93%) Bash
5 253 (13.68%) Go
6 187 (10.11%) JavaScript
7 181 (9.79%) TypeScript
8 116 (6.27%) C#
9 110 (5.95%) PowerShell
10 69 (3.73%) C++
11 55 (2.97%) Shell Script
12 54 (2.92%) Bicep
13 33 (1.78%) Ruby
14 29 (1.57%) Perl
15 28 (1.51%) Kotlin
16 27 (1.46%) Groovy
17 26 (1.41%) Rust
18 25 (1.35%) PHP
19 19 (1.03%) Scala
20 17 (0.92%) C
Qualifications
1 609 (32.94%) Security Cleared
2 508 (27.47%) SC Cleared
3 124 (6.71%) Degree
4 96 (5.19%) Computer Science Degree
5 95 (5.14%) DV Cleared
6 92 (4.98%) AWS Certification
7 71 (3.84%) Azure Certification
8 49 (2.65%) Master's Degree
9 39 (2.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 32 (1.73%) CISSP
11 26 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
12 25 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
13 18 (0.97%) Cisco Certification
14 17 (0.92%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 17 (0.92%) CISM
15 11 (0.59%) OCP
15 11 (0.59%) Oracle Certification
16 10 (0.54%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 10 (0.54%) CCSP
17 7 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (5.46%) QA
2 54 (2.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 53 (2.87%) Data Quality
4 48 (2.60%) NIST
5 40 (2.16%) GDPR
6 30 (1.62%) NCSC
7 24 (1.30%) Accessibility
8 17 (0.92%) PCI DSS
9 14 (0.76%) HIPAA
10 13 (0.70%) PSD2
11 12 (0.65%) EU AI Act
12 10 (0.54%) WCAG
13 8 (0.43%) ISO 20022
13 8 (0.43%) SEPA
14 7 (0.38%) Cyber Essentials
15 6 (0.32%) NIST 800
15 6 (0.32%) SOC 2
16 5 (0.27%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
16 5 (0.27%) JSP 440
16 5 (0.27%) SLA
System Software
1 1,185 (64.09%) Docker
2 56 (3.03%) Active Directory
3 49 (2.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 32 (1.73%) vSphere
5 24 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
6 14 (0.76%) VMware NSX
7 10 (0.54%) KVM
8 9 (0.49%) Hyper-V
9 7 (0.38%) Lustre
9 7 (0.38%) Slurm Workload Manager
10 6 (0.32%) GPFS
11 4 (0.22%) Snort
11 4 (0.22%) Squid
11 4 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
12 2 (0.11%) NDS
12 2 (0.11%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 2 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
13 1 (0.054%) QEMU
13 1 (0.054%) SRDF
13 1 (0.054%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 726 (39.26%) Terraform
2 316 (17.09%) Ansible
3 298 (16.12%) Grafana
4 270 (14.60%) Prometheus
5 104 (5.62%) Argo
6 51 (2.76%) Kibana
7 44 (2.38%) Packer
8 42 (2.27%) Progress Chef
9 41 (2.22%) Puppet
10 40 (2.16%) Istio
11 28 (1.51%) Consul
11 28 (1.51%) Single Sign-On
12 20 (1.08%) logstash
13 19 (1.03%) Nessus
14 16 (0.87%) Podman
15 13 (0.70%) Rancher
16 12 (0.65%) Control-M
16 12 (0.65%) ITRS Geneos
17 11 (0.59%) SCOM
17 11 (0.59%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 189 (10.22%) Microsoft
2 173 (9.36%) Splunk
3 146 (7.90%) Google
4 118 (6.38%) Oracle
4 118 (6.38%) Red Hat
5 65 (3.52%) VMware
6 46 (2.49%) Dynatrace
7 41 (2.22%) Databricks
8 34 (1.84%) Denodo
8 34 (1.84%) Talend
9 29 (1.57%) Atlassian
9 29 (1.57%) OpenAI
10 27 (1.46%) IBM
11 24 (1.30%) AppDynamics
12 16 (0.87%) Cisco
13 12 (0.65%) Palo Alto
13 12 (0.65%) Solace
13 12 (0.65%) Tenable
14 11 (0.59%) Confluent
15 10 (0.54%) Okta